Keyword augmentation is a fundamental problem for sponsored search modeling and business. Machine generated keywords can be recommended to advertisers for better campaign discoverability as well as used as features for sourcing and ranking models. Generating highquality keywords is difficult, especially for cold campaigns with limited or even no historical logs; and the industry trend of including multiple products in a single ad campaign is making the problem more challenging. In this paper, we propose a keyword augmentation method based on generative seq2seq model and triebased search mechanism, which is able to generate high-quality keywords for any products or product lists. We conduct human annotations, offline analysis, and online experiments to evaluate the performance of our method against benchmarks in terms of augmented keyword quality as well as lifted ad exposure. The experiment results demonstrate that our method is able to generate more valid keywords which can serve as an efficient addition to advertiser selected keywords.


" For a generation or more there have been few books that brought together in accessible form the raw materials of Canadian history. In many minds the impression has taken root that those materials are uninteresting. Broadview's two-volume anthology of documents in Canadian history, A Few Acres of Snow and A Country Nourished on Self-Doubt, demonstrates the contrary: that these raw materials provide extraordinarily engaging and informative insights into the richness of Canadian history. This new edition of the second volume of the collection presents many new documentary sources on post-Confederation Canadian history, combined with the most compelling passages from the first edition. Each chapter offers a group of source materials on particular themes or events, beginning with consideration of Canada's place in the British Empire and its relations with the United States in works such as Goldwin Smith's 1891 ""Canada and the Canadian Question"" and ending with significant contemporary debates such as those surrounding multiculturalism and environmentalism. Documents offer the reader insight into what it was like to be present at the trial of Louis Riel or to experience the impact on Canada of the Great War or the Great Depression. Articles deal with residential schools; the Front de Liberation du Quebec and the Quebec independence movement; the Royal Commission on the Status of Women; free trade and peacekeeping. Writings by Nellie McClung, Grey Owl, Rene Levesque and David Suzuki, and reproductions of works by the Group of Seven are numbered amongst the many contributions. As in Volume I, included are document groupings that take into account the history of Canada's various regions; social, cultural, political and intellectual history; and the experiences of women, Native peoples, immigrants and the working class. New to this edition are ""Discussion Points"" found in each chapter immediately after the introduction. These points help readers focus upon some of the central historical debates surrounding the topics. In order to promote further research and analysis, the new edition also features ""Further Readings"" at the end of each chapter. These wide-ranging bibliographies provide a quick reference for books and essays on each subject area.Thomas Thorner is a member of the Department of History at Kwantlen University College. This is his fourth book. Thor Frohn-Nielsen, who assisted on this project, also works in the History Department at Kwantlen.Special Combination Price: Please note that a special discount price is available when this book is ordered shrinkwrapped together with A Few Acres of Snow: Documents in Pre-Confederation Canadian History. "


Understanding species' abilities to cope with changing climate is a key prerequisite for predicting the future fates of species and ecosystems. Despite considerable research on species responses to changing climate, we still lack understanding of the role of specific climatic factors, and their interactions, for species responses. We also lack understanding of the relative importance of plasticity vs. adaptation in determining the observed responses. As a model, we use a dominant clonal grass, Festuca rubra, originating from a natural climatic grid of 12 localities in western Norway that allows factorial combinations of temperature (mean growing season temperatures ranging from 6·5 to 10·5 °C) and precipitation (annual precipitation ranging from 600 to 2700 mm). We grew clones from all populations in four growth chambers representing the four climatic extremes in the climate grid (warm/cold × wet/dry). Genetic differentiation and direction and magnitude of plastic responses vary systematically among populations throughout the climatic grid. Growth‐related plant traits are highly plastic and their degree of plasticity depends on their origin. In contrast, the traits reflecting species' foraging strategy are not plastic but vary with the climate of origin. Levels of plasticity of growth‐related traits and genetically differentiated foraging traits thus might constrain local populations' ability to cope with novel climates. Synthesis. Shifts in temperature and precipitation, at the scale and direction expected for the region in the next century, are likely to dramatically affect plant performance. This study illustrates how the interplay between genetic differentiation and plasticity in response to both temperature and precipitation will affect the specific responses of species to climate change. Such complex responses will affect how climate‐change impacts scale up to the community and ecosystem levels. Future studies thus need to specifically consider regionally relevant climate‐change projections, and also explore the role of genetic differentiation and plasticity and how this varies within local floras. Our study also demonstrates that even widespread species with seemingly broad climatic niches may strongly differ in their population performance and plasticity. Climate‐change studies should therefore not be limited to rare and restricted species.


Background/aims To present detailed phenotypic and molecular findings in four patients from four families with atypical, mild, recessive RPE65-related retinal dystrophy and discuss potential implications for gene replacement therapy. Methods Four patients from four families with early onset retinal dystrophy underwent clinical examination, retinal imaging and electrophysiological testing. Bidirectional Sanger sequencing of all exons and intron–exon boundaries of RPE65 was performed. Results All patients presented with nyctalopia in early childhood but demonstrated a mild phenotype with good visual acuity until at least 19 years of age. All had generalised retinal dysfunction on electroretinography. Central macular thickness on optical coherence tomography was preserved in those patients with good visual acuity. One patient had extensive white dots throughout the retina reminiscent of fundus albipunctatus with electrophysiological evidence of partial recovery of rod function after prolonged dark adaptation. Sanger sequencing identified RPE65 mutations in all patients including three missense variants likely to represent hypomorphic alleles. Conclusions Hypomorphic mutations of RPE65 are associated with mild disease in childhood with preservation of good visual acuity into adulthood; they may in rare cases be associated with a flecked retina appearance similar to fundus albipunctatus. The presence of normal visual acuity in patients with hypomorphic mutations in RPE65 suggests that efficiency of transduction may not be the limiting factor in improving visual acuity in trials of gene replacement therapy. Rather, it suggests that for optimal recovery of visual acuity gene replacement therapy may need to be given much earlier in childhood.


In recent years, serious restrictions on diesel emission levels, combined with price instability and a significant increase in imports, has forced researchers to look for alternatives to this fossil fuel. Biodiesel is widely accepted as an alternative because it can be used in diesel engines without any substantial modifications and produced by sustainable resources. However, there are serious gaps in available knowledge regarding the effects of biodiesel blends on engine fuel injection systems and the engine combustion process. Therefore, this research focuses on the investigation into such effects through a vibration analysis of fuel injection systems in order to achieve nonintrusive quantitative diagnosis and hence condition monitoring of CI engines.

Having identified the specifics of technique gaps by a comprehensive literature study, this research firstly, investigates the dynamics of the fuel injection system with a CI engine running on biodiesel blends as fuels. This is achieved by numerical modelling analysis and experimental studies, which paves ways for using vibration response of fuel injection to diagnose the dynamic behaviour of different fuel properties. Then it investigates the of the change dynamic behaviour of fuel injection on engine combustion process. Finally, it explores the diagnostics of engine valve train clearance faults with an engine running with biodiesel and biodiesel blends based on engine fuel injection vibration responses.

A mathematical model has been developed and used to simulate the behaviour of the fuel injection system, including the fuel delivery and injector needle valve motions. It has concluded that the high pressure dynamic forces within the injection system will be affected by fuel properties such as fuel density, viscosity and bulk modules. The simulation results demonstrated; (i) that, the injector pressure is higher than that of the fuel injection pump, whose amplitudes are about 10% higher for biodiesels compared with petro-diesel; (ii) the levels of the pressure forces applied to the delivery valve and injector needle valve are also higher for biodiesel blends and (iii) nearly 1° (cam shaft) advance in the times of fuel injection rates and valve impacts with biodiesel and biodiesel blends. These predictions are confirmed by experimental results obtained by injection line pressures and pump vibrations and in-cylinder pressures.

Diesel engines are particularly prone to the engine combustion process primarily due to a fault in the fuel injection system and an abnormal clearance valve train conditions. The high-signal to noise ratio pump vibrations obtained from the pump body can be easily used for detecting and diagnosing faults from fuel injections. In the meantime, the research has also established that the pump vibration signals can be also used to recognise valve train diagnostics with medium effort of signal processing. It has found that the vibration levels become higher, due to the faults as a consequence of additional fuel supply to compromise the loss of overall power caused by poor combustion performance on the cylinder with an increased valve clearance. Moreover, B20 and B40 exhibit the similar changes with that of petro-diesel in the proposed high frequency envelop amplitudes (HFEA) whereas B100 shows less increased values. However, the pressure measurements are not very clear in representing these small changes in valve clearances for both the exhaust and inlet valves.

Compared with head vibration signals, which also can indicate the faults by a reduced level of vibration due to an effect combined reduced valve movement stroke with gas flow dampening, the pump vibration signals uniformly show the injection events and allow combustion uniformity between different cylinders to be diagnosed using a single transducer, whereas it may produce less accurate diagnosis by the head vibrations because of the close overlap of combustion and valve impact responses which needs complicated methods to be separated.


This paper, a chapter in the Cato Institute's forthcoming Supreme Court Review, offers one of the first looks at the impact of Justices Roberts and Alito on the Supreme Court. It also evaluates the extent to which Justice Kennedy has emerged - and has not emerged - as a swing justice following Justice O'Connor's departure. Reviewing the aggregate statistics from OT 05, it shows how, in some respects, Chief Justice Roberts has emerged as both the Court's uniter and its swing vote. After reviewing historical trends, the chapter then turns to the coming year's docket and evaluates the forthcoming cases in terms of the shifting voting dynamics. A critical question for the coming term will be whether Justice Kennedy hews to views and votes in dissenting opinions like Sternberg and Grutter or, whether in reliance on stare decisis or some other principle, he tacks more toward the center.


PURPOSE
To investigate the biological functions of miR-204 in human trabecular meshwork (HTM) cells.

METHODS
Changes in gene expression induced by miR-204 in HTM cells were evaluated by gene array analysis using arrays and confirmed by quantitative-PCR (Q-PCR). Direct targeting of miR-204 to 12 potential novel targets was confirmed using a luciferase system, and five of them were verified by Western blot analysis. Effects of miR-204 on apoptosis, cell viability, and accumulation of carbonylated proteins were evaluated in HTM cells treated with H(2)O(2). Induction of endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress markers by tunicamycin was analyzed by Q-PCR, and expression of IL-8 and IL-11 was analyzed by ELISA.

RESULTS
MiR-204 decreased the expression of multiple genes in HTM cells. Twelve genes (AP1S2, Bcl2l2, BIRC2, EDEM1, EZR, FZD1, M6PR, RAB22A, RAB40B, SERP1, TCF12, and TCF4) were validated as direct targets of miR-204. Downregulation of expressions at protein levels of Bcl2l2, BIRC2, EZR, M6PR, and SERP1 were confirmed by Western blot analysis. HTM cells transfected with miR-204 showed increased levels of apoptosis, decreased viability, increased accumulation of oxidized proteins after H(2)O(2) treatment, decreased induction of ER stress response markers, and reduced expression of inflammatory mediators IL-8 and IL-11.

CONCLUSIONS
MiR-204 potentially plays an important role in the regulation of multiple functions in HTM cells including apoptosis, accumulation of damaged proteins, ER stress response, and expression of inflammatory mediators.


Assumption There may be external circumstances or events that must occur for the project to be successful (or that should happen to increase your chances of success). If you believe that the probability of the event occurring is acceptable, you could list it as an assumption. An assumption has a probability between 0 and 100%. That is, it is not impossible that the event will occur (0%) and it is not a fact (100%). It is somewhere in between. Assumptions are important because they set the context in which the entire remainder of the project is defined. If an assumption doesn't come through, the estimate and the rest of the project definition may no longer be valid.


Network coding is a relatively recent development in the realm of maximizing information transfer in communications and computer networks. Traditional networks operate by simply storing and forwarding data along. Network coding, however, allows intermediate network nodes to combine data using arithmetic operations. In many instances, this can lead to more efficient use of network resources. Since there is a significant throughput input in some networks, some studies have been done on what kinds of networks will benefit from coding. A coding advantage is defined as a situation where a network coded graph has a lower cost to send given information per unit time session than the same un-coded graph. It has been proven that for two simple single-sender-single-receiver communication sessions that a graph must have one of two special graph-theoretic structures called the butterfly and grail in order to yield a coding advantage. We decided to focus our efforts on a different traffic scenario: a multicast session with a single sender and multiple receivers. Through our research we proved that a multicast-version of the butterfly network structure is needed within a single session multicast with two sinks and one source in order to gain a coding advantage. We also performed a simulation-based study in order to study the structures of multicast sessions with a larger number of receivers. The study involved the random generation of networks using several graph generation techniques. We also considered a variety of different edge-weighting constraints. Given a particular graph with set edge weights, the coding advantage problem was modeled as a linear program and run through the simulator to determine if a coding advantage was gained. Based on visual inspection of these results, it appears that variations of the multicast butterfly are ultimately the dominant structure allowing for a coding advantage. We also found that many types of random networks only very rarely resulted in a coding advantage. Only the graphs generated using the rectangular grid method showed a coding advantage, with a coding advantage percentage of 0.005% for 4 sinks in a 30 node network, with the coding advantage percentage going up as the number of sinks within the network increased.


Background: Pakistan is the 6th most populous country of the world while contraceptive prevalence rate is only 30%. This study was conducted to investigate the knowledge, attitude and practices of contraception in women of reproductive age.
 Material & Methods: This descriptive cross-sectional survey was carried out from January to June 2011, at Gynae/Obs Unit, Women & Children Hospital, Kohat. A convenient sample of 900 was selected from reproductive age group (15-49 years), attending the outdoor. Data was collected on a questionnaire. Likert 3 point and 5 point scale was used about the knowledge and attitude of contraceptive respectively. SPSS version 16 and Statistic 9 were used to analyze the data.
 Results: The mean age of respondents was 30.76±7.641 years. The mean age at marriage was 18.19±2.982 years, literacy rate 37.8%, 95.2% women were house wives and 56.2% respondents had heard of some method. While enquiring their own attitude, 589(65.4%) gave positive response regarding the use of contraceptives and 734(81.6%) declared family planning as prohibited in the religion. Use of contraceptive was (30.8%). However, it was more common in grand multipara p 35 years old ladies p Conclusion: Frequency of contraceptive use is comparatively low in our set-up despite high level of awareness. Desire for larger family, pressure from husband, religious concerns and fear of side effects are the main factors responsible.


Xylans are one of the most common hemicellulose polysaccharides and natural polymers in plants. The utilization of xylan as a polymer has great potential for functional materials in different applications. In this chapter, different processes for the extraction of xylans from biomass are evaluated, due to their influence on the final properties of the extracted polymers such as molar mass and purity. Pressured hot water extraction (PHWE), a very common but versatile method for extracting xylans from hard wood, is described in detail. Cold caustic extraction (CCE) of xylans from bleached hard wood pulps is discussed as an alternative route for obtaining extremely pure xylan polymers. Derivatisation of the extracted xylans by incorporation of functional groups such as ethers and esters to the xylan backbone is a toolbox that allows the incorporation of a huge range of tailor-made new features for the polymer. Fibre engineering with sorption of xylans and xylan derivatives through self-assembly gives the perfect opportunity for incorporation of brand new functionalities to fibre-based products, which results in improved performance and helps to broaden the application areas for these materials.


A typical mechatronic problem (modeling, identification, and design) entails finding the best system topology as well as the associated parameter values. The solution requires concurrent and integrated methodologies and tools based on the latest theories. The experience on natural evolution of an engineering system indicates that the system topology evolves at a much slower rate than the parametric values. This paper proposes a two-loop evolutionary tool, using a hybrid of genetic algorithm (GA) and genetic programming (GP) for design optimization of a mechatronic system. Specifically, GP is used for topology optimization, while GA is responsible for finding the elite solution within each topology proposed by GP. A memory feature is incorporated with the GP process to avoid the generation of repeated topologies, a common drawback of GP topology exploration. The synergic integration of GA with GP, along with the memory feature, provides a powerful search ability, which has been integrated with bond graphs (BG) for mechatronic model exploration. The software developed using this approach provides a unified tool for concurrent, integrated, and autonomous topological realization of a mechatronic problem. It finds the best solution (topology and parameters) starting from an abstract statement of the problem. It is able to carry out the process of system configuration realization, which is normally performed by human experts. The performance of the software tool is validated by applying it to mechatronic design problems.


Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) have the potential to increase road-network capacities, reduce congestion and pollution, create shorter and more predictable journey times and significantly improve road-user safety. However, these technologies will also have the ability to track a citizen's every move, extracting information about their daily lives. It has been argued that privacy invasions caused by ITS will have a damaging effect on society, creating a 'Big Brother' or panopticon state. For these fears to be fulfilled, it needs to be the case that citizens are not only concerned about the privacy impacts of ITS, but that the ITS will actually cause citizens to change their travel behaviour. This paper explores the privacy decisionmaking process individuals will use to determine whether the implementation of future ITS will cause them to change their travel behaviour. The results of a Europe-wide survey have shown that when faced with a decision about whether to disclose personal information or not, future ITS users will be more influenced by irrational factors than rational ones. In addition, users will be more influenced by their perceptions of the risks associated with disclosing personal information (data sensitivity, trust in the data holder and trust in the transfer method) than the reward on offer.


Abstract. Vegetation and moisture are two key factors of soil genesis and development. An evaluation of the relationship between satellite-observed normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) data as a proxy for vegetation greenness and water availability (rainfall and soil moisture) can greatly improve our understanding of how vegetation greenness responds to water availability fluctuations. Using Sen and Pearson's correlation methods, we analyzed the spatiotemporal variation of vegetation greenness for both the entire year and the growing season (GS, 4–10) in northern China from 1982 to 2006. Although vegetation greenness and soil moisture during the study period changed significantly for the entire study area, there was no change in rainfall. Linear correlation analysis between NDVI and rainfall revealed higher correlations using data for all seasons. Higher correlations for NDVI and soil moisture were obtained using growing season data. This study highlights how strongly vegetation greenness responds to water availability dynamics, especially in the growing season period.


The increasing complexity of Power MOSFET technology and the inclusion, on the same chip, of more and more intelligence together with the power switch, requires an accurate simulation of DC and AC characteristics of the power device to obtain a good correlation between simulation results and experimental data. A robust design has to take the worst cases into consideration as well as the typical conditions. Also the simulation has to make provision for the spread of device characteristics due to manufacturing tolerances. This paper describes a new approach to parameter extraction for a sub-circuit model of Power MOSFETs to be used in the SPICE circuit simulator which uses a powerful analytical simulator developed by SGSTHOMSON Microelectronics. This simulator, whose models have been built considering physical structure and layout parameters, allows the optimisation of the most important device characteristics and also takes into account the possible parameter spread due to the process. For this reason the program output can give not only the average values of required parameters but also their statistical distribution.


In this paper, a task-dependent energetic analysis of robotic manipulators is presented. The proposed approach includes a novel performance index, which relates the energy consumption of a robotic manipulator to its inertia ellipsoid. To validate the method, the dynamic and electro-mechanic models of a three degrees-of-freedom (3-DOF) SCARA robot are implemented and the influence of the location of a predefined point-to-point task (such as a pick-and-place operation) within the robot workspace is considered. The task-dependent analysis provides energy consumption maps that are compared with the prediction of the theoretical formulation based on the proposed trajectory energy index (TEI), which can be used to optimally locate the task to obtain minimal energy consumption without having to compute it through extensive dynamic simulations. Results show the effectiveness of the method and the good agreement between the TEI and the effective energy consumption within the whole workspace of the robot for several trajectories.


In a unique study of parent-infant interactions at home, Rhian Jones analyses early reading with picture books and stories. Drawing upon psychology, linguistics and anthropology she provides a wide ranging and highly original account of the conversational 'rules' of reading dialogues, semantic knowledge and picture book reading, the ontogenesis of narrative and the construction and expression of the infant unconscious. This provides an absorbing and valuable account to all academics and practitioners concerned with language acquisition, literacy and early childhood development.


Crowding induced the production of mictic (male‐producing) females in Brachionus calyciflorus from two North American strains and an Australian strain. The specificity of this response to crowding was tested by culturing single individuals of a North American clone in three treatment conditions: a small volume (high density), a large volume (low density), and a large volume with a high density of an Australian clone. The results were consistent and clear in six experiments using different combinations of clones. Crowding low‐density individuals of the North American strains with the Australian strain failed to induce them to produce mictic females. The mictic‐female response in this treatment was similar to that in the low‐density treatment, and both of these responses were significantly lower than that in the high‐density treatment. Since the mictic‐female response to crowding in Brachionus is mediated by a chemical produced by the rotifers themselves, the chemical inducers produced by the Australian and North American strains must be different. Taxonomically specific responses to crowding should increase fitness by assuring that sexual reproduction in the heterogonic life cycle coincides with a high population density of individuals able to mate with one another and, thus, when the production of fertilized resting eggs can be maximized. This would be especially important in plankton communities with diverse rotifer assemblages and multiple congeneric species. Otherwise, a low‐density population of a species could be induced to initiate bisexual reproduction by populations of other species, curtailing its potential for population growth via female parthenogenesis and limiting its production of resting eggs in the future.


The Asia–Pacific Expert Committee on Hepatitis B Management recently reviewed the impact of hepatitis B in the region and assessed the differences and similarities observed in the practical management of the disease in individual Asia–Pacific countries. Hepatitis B is a major health concern in the Asia–Pacific region, and of all chronically infected carriers worldwide, approximately 75% are found in Asia. The disease poses a considerable burden on healthcare systems, and is likely to remain a cause of substantial morbidity and mortality for several decades. Disease prevention activities, including screening and vaccination programs, have been implemented successfully in some Asia–Pacific countries and similar measures are being established in other parts of the region. The management of hepatitis B in the Asia–Pacific varies throughout the region, with each country confronting different issues related to treatment options, disease monitoring and duration of therapy. The influence of cost, availability of diagnostic equipment, and patient awareness and compliance are of additional concern. Although guidelines such as those developed by the Asian Pacific Association for the Study of the Liver have been created to address problems encountered in the management of hepatitis B, many physicians in the region still find it difficult to make satisfactory management decisions because of the treatment choices available. This article examines the different approaches to hepatitis B management in a number of Asia–Pacific countries, and highlights the difficulties that can arise when adhering to treatment guidelines and disease prevention solutions that have proved to be successful in the region.


Abstract Use of coronary CT angiography for screening of coronary artery disease is being advocated for the general population. Meanwhile, CT is increasingly used in preoperative planning for transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR). Although aortic stenosis (AS) severity can be evaluated by measurement of incidentally found aortic valve calcification on CT, it has not been validated by pathologic specimens and can be confounded by calcification of adjacent structures as well as motion artefact. Micro-computed tomography (microCT) provides ultra-high resolution imaging of small structures to yield excellent estimation of tissue calcification. In this study, excised aortic valves from patients with confirmed AS were used to determine if the amount of calcium on microCT correlated with severity of aortic stenosis. Thirty-five aortic valves excised during surgical valve replacement underwent micro-CT imaging with resolution of 76μm in the axial direction. Amount of calcium was determined by absolute and proportional values of calcium volume. Correlation of calcium volume and preoperative mean aortic valve gradient (MAVG), peak transaortic velocity (Vmax), and aortic valve area (AVA) on echocardiography was evaluated. For the patients who had a preoperative CT scan with acceptable image quality, the amount of valvular calcification was also measured by a well-experienced radiologist using modified Agatston algorithm. Mean amount of calcium across all valves was 603.2±398.5mm3, while mean ratio of calcium volume to total valve volume was 0.36±0.16. Mean aortic valve gradient correlated positively with both calcium volume and ratio (r=0.72, p<0.001). Vmax also positively correlated with calcium volume and ratio (r=0.69 and 0.76 respectively, p<0.001). A logarithmic curvilinear model was best fit to the correlation. Calcium volume of 480mm3 showed sensitivity and specificity of 0.76 and 0.83, respectively for severe AS diagnosis, while calcium ratio of 0.37 yielded sensitivity and specificity of 0.82 and 0.94, respectively. Calcium volume and its proportion to total valve volume were found to be good predictive parameters for severe AS when estimated radiologically. Calcium volume quantification may be a complimentary measure for AS severity evaluation in situations where aortic valve calcification is found incidentally on CT as well as in preoperative assessment of aortic valves for TAVR.


Six isolates of Fusarium solani f. sp. glycines that cause soybean sudden death syndrome were examined for chlamydospore formation, production, and nuclear status. Chlamydospores formed from macroconidia either terminally, laterally by outward protrusion, or intercalarily. They also formed from germinated macroconidia and hyphae. Occasionally, a single macroconidium produced more than one chlamydospore. The percentage of chlamydospores produced differed significantly (P < 0.0001) by incubation temperature and varied among fungal isolates. More chlamydospores formed at 30 C followed by 25 C, 20 C and 4 C. Nuclear stained chlamydospores usually were uninucleate but occasionally multinucleate. Nuclei migrated from macroconidia into chlamydospores through germ tubes.


The study was carried out through the clinical examination on the skins of sheep and goats to identify the quality and processed in the tanneries. Parasitic skin diseases caused by ectoparasites such as mange mites, lice, and ticks are among these threats resulting in a serious economic loss to the tanning industry and the country as a whole. Out of 38066 sheep and 9889 goats examined in Sulaimani slaughterhouse in spring season 2017, shows statistically significant P<0.05 between sheep and goats prevalence; 9.35% and 7.43% respectively with one or more ectoparasites. Three different of ectoparasites were infested in both sheep and goats namely; hard tick, lice and mite. Five species of hard tick (Ixodidae) were identified in sheep and goats as follows; Boophilus spp 3.68% and 14.16%, Rhipicephalus sanguineous 12.47% and 28.63%, Rhipicephalus turanicus 7.50% and 15.96%, Hyalomma a. anatolicum 11.90% and 31.30%, Hyalomma marginatum 9.26% and 9.95%) respectively. Two species of lice were identified in sheep namely, Damalinia ovis 17.74% and Linognathus stenopsis 13.63%, and D. caprae 10.97% and L. stenopsis 6.22% on goats. Highly infested were identified with mite on sheep include Psarcoptic scabiei 13.83% and Psoroptic ovies 9.98%, while only one species founded in this study in goats namely, Psarcoptic scabiei 22.79%. The overall number of skins refused to tanning industry 164 (4.61%) in sheep and 116 (15.78%) in goat. The difference in the prevalence of skin disease infestation between refused skin in both sheep and goats were statistically significant in ruminants (P<0.05). This paper deals with major skin defects in occurrence by ectoparasites sheep and goats in Sulaimani province.


This article presents an historical and conceptual overview on different approaches to logical abstraction. Two main trends concerning abstraction in the history of logic are highlighted, starting from the logical notions of concept and function. This analysis strictly relates to the philosophical discussion on the nature of abstract objects. I develop this issue further with respect to the procedure of abstraction involved by (typed) λ-systems, focusing on the crucial change about meaning and predicability. In particular, the analysis of the nature of logical types in the context of Constructive Type Theory allows elucidation of the role of the previously introduced notions. Finally, the connection to the analysis of abstraction in computer science is drawn, and the methodological contribution provided by the notion of information is considered, showing its conceptual and technical relevance. Future research shall focus on the notion of information in distributed systems, analysing the paradigm of information hiding in dependent type theories.


The liver is affected by many types of diseases, including metabolic disorders and acute liver failure. Orthotopic liver transplantation (OLT) is currently the only effective treatment for life-threatening liver diseases but transplantation of allogeneic hepatocytes has now become an alternative as it is less invasive than OLT and can be performed repeatedly. However, this approach is hampered by the shortage of organ donors, and the problems related to the isolation of high quality adult hepatocytes, their cryopreservation and their absence of proliferation in culture. Liver is also a key organ to assess the pharmacokinetics and toxicology of xenobiotics and for drug discovery, but appropriate cell culture systems are lacking. All these problems have highlighted the need to explore other sources of cells such as stem cells that could be isolated, expanded to yield sufficiently large populations and then induced to differentiate into functional hepatocytes. The presence of a niche of "facultative" progenitor and stem cells in the normal liver has recently been confirmed but they display no telomerase activity. The recent discovery that human induced pluripotent stem cells can be generated from somatic cells has renewed hopes for regenerative medicine and in vitro disease modelling, as these cells are easily accessible. We review here the present progresses, limits and challenges for the generation of functional hepatocytes from human pluripotent stem cells in view of their potential use in regenerative medicine and drug discovery.


Barium disilicide (BaSi2), composed of abundant and inexpensive elements, is a potential absorber material for thin-film solar cells. In this study, density-functional theory calculations show that BaSi2 belongs to a Zintl phase with a mixed character of covalent units of tetrahedral Si4 with an ionic nature described by (2Ba2+)(Si4)4−. The molecular orbital diagram is elucidated based on the electronic structures, suggesting that the charge transfer transition from Si p to Ba d greatly enhances optical absorption. A large photoabsorption coefficient is confirmed using advanced excited state calculations that include excitonic effects. The ionization potential of BaSi2 is smaller than that of silicon or germanium, suggesting that the band edge positions are suitable for p-type conductivity and type II heterojunctions for BaSi2/Si or BaSi2/Ge. The chemical potential window for the stable growth of a stoichiometric BaSi2 film is very narrow, and the stability of native defects is investigated under realistic growth conditions. Si vacancy, Ba substituted for Si antisite, and Si interstitial defects are predominant but do not cause the generation of a significant number of carriers. The calculated Fermi level is pinned in the middle of the band gap for the entire silicon chemical potential range and a wide growth temperature range, indicating the feasibility of bipolar doping, which is advantageous for fabricating p–n junctions.


Existing network management architectures suffer from a set of architectural and integration problems. Policy-based management was targeted to solve most of these problems, but its promises have not yet been fully realized. This paper presents a new approach to building network management solutions that is based on a new version of the DEN information model, called DEN-ng. DEN-ng is being designed to solve these problems by providing facilities to translate the business rules and procedures of an organization to the policies that configure and control its networks. Accordingly, the case is made for policy to become more than "just" a means for executing a change in a configuration file. Rather, it should be used to tie together configuration changes with how the changes should be done using a workflow system. This holistically binds business rules to the construction and deployment of configuration changes and their management.


Jost Hochuli has been working since 1959 as a freelance graphic designer. Although book design forms only a small part of his activity, he has become well known particularly through this work. If several of his commercial artwork pieces and typefaces cut in wood and linoleum are pictured in this volume, this is mainly for the reason that two seemingly irreconcilable design positions should be documented. These have come to an ultimate synthesis in this book. One reflects a traditional, middle-axis design position oriented towards a written archetype, the other a modern position that is derived from the so-called Swiss typography and thus ultimately from the Bauhaus. The three thematic blocks Commercial Graphic Design, Typefaces Cut in Wood and Linoleum and Books are accompanied by theoretical texts from Robin Kinross, Hans Peter Willberg and Jost Hochuli, while generously documented by numerous examples from Hochuli's work.


Developing a reconfigurable transceiver to support multiple protocols seamlessly and efficiently is an extremely tough task. Wireless standards such as wireless local area network (IEEE 802.11a/g) and WiMAX (IEEE 802.16e) incorporate block interleaving technique to overcome the occurrence of burst errors during transmission. Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) implementation of floor and modulus (MOD) functions to perform the two step permutation for attaining the new index is quite complex. In this study, the authors propose a low complexity and area efficient reconfigurable architecture for multimode interleaver address generator to support multiple wireless standards. In addition, a novel MOD_row and MOD_column circuit are proposed to compute MOD function for row and column counter values, respectively. The proposed address generation circuitry supports BPSK, QPSK, 16-QAM and 64-QAM modulation schemes under all possible code rates. The reconfigurable address generator for various block size and modulation scheme are implemented on Xilinx Spartan XC3S400 FPGA and the functionalities are verified through simulation. The synthesis results of the proposed design shows a reduction of 60% in resource utilisation and an improvement of 46% in operating frequency over the existing approaches.


Carcinoma of the collecting ducts of Bellini and renal medullary carcinoma are rare aggressive neoplasms of putative distal nephron origin. First described in 1949, case reports and review articles constitute a major source of information on collecting duct carcinoma, whereas Davis and colleagues and the pediatric tumor registry have contributed the seminal works on renal medullary carcinoma. Here we present a detailed study of collecting duct carcinoma (n=39) and renal medullary carcinoma (n=13), characterizing these rare neoplasms and analyzing their interrelationship. Both collecting duct carcinoma and renal medullary carcinoma exhibited significant similarities, such as predilection for the right kidney, tumor mass with an epicenter in the renal medulla, and a mean size of 7 cm. Overall, both tumors exhibited a poorly differentiated adenocarcinoma histology with desmoplastic stromal response (100%), inflammatory infiltrate (100%), frequent perinephric extension (collecting duct carcinoma: 97%; renal medullary carcinoma: 83%), lymphovascular invasion (100%), intraluminal mucin (collecting duct carcinoma: 42%; renal medullary carcinoma: 73%), high nuclear grade (97%), overlapping immunoreactivity for Ulex europaeus agglutinin 1 (collecting duct carcinoma: 75%; renal medullary carcinoma:55%), CK7 (collecting duct carcinoma: 44%; renal medullary carcinoma: 71%), and high–molecular weight cytokeratin (collecting duct carcinoma: 26%; renal medullary carcinoma: 29%), and nonimmunoreactivity for Ksp-cadherin. Histologically, collecting duct carcinoma frequently had tubular, tubulopapillary, or irregular glandular architecture, whereas renal medullary carcinoma commonly demonstrated islands of anastomosing tubules and cords forming irregular microcystic spaces. Multiple metastases to the lymph nodes, lung, bone, and liver were observed in both categories at presentation (collecting duct carcinoma: 17%; renal medullary carcinoma: 36%). Only patients with organ-confined small tumors were disease free beyond the median survival time. Differential clinical features between collecting duct carcinoma and renal medullary carcinoma included proclivity for younger male individuals of African ancestry with hemoglobin abnormalities and a shorter median survival of 17 weeks (vs. 44 wk for collecting duct carcinoma) for renal medullary carcinoma. The markedly overlapping clinical features, histology, immunophenotype, metastasis patterns, and uniformly aggressive outcome in collecting duct and renal medullary carcinomas suggest that renal medullary carcinoma is a distinctive clinicopathologic subtype within the entity of collecting duct carcinoma. The extremely poor prognosis and ongoing clinical trials with specific therapeutic protocols argue for their accurate distinction from other renal cell carcinoma subtypes.


Towards the End of 2015 Google released TensorFlow 1.0, which started out as just another numerical library, but has grown to become a de-facto standard in AI technologies. TensorFlow received a lot of hype as part of its initial release, in no small part because it was released by Google. Despite the hype, there have been complaints on usability as well. Especially, for example, the fact that debugging was only possible after construction of a static execution graph. In addition to that, neural networks needed to be expressed as a set of linear algebra operations which was considered as too low level by many practitioners. PyTorch and Keras addressed many of the flaws in TensorFlow and gained a lot of ground. TensorFlow 2.0 successfully addresses these complaints and promises to become the go-to framework for many AI problems. This paper introduces the most prominent changes in TensorFlow 2.0 targeted towards ease of use followed by introducing TensorFlow Extended Pipelines and KubeFlow in order to illustrate the latest TensorFlow and Kubernetes ecosystem movements towards simplification for large scale Enterprise AI adoption


Electronic books (ebooks) provide the opportunity to go beyond the limitations of a physical page. These opportunities are particularly important for computing education, where dynamic information is a key characteristic of our domain. An electronic book can provide opportunities to program or conduct analyses that are impossible on the physical page, integrating instructional information with creative exploration. However, just because ebooks provide these opportunities does not mean that we know how students will actually use ebooks in the context of a class. Miller and Ranum have produced an electronic book for teaching introductory computing in Python. We explored how students used the dynamic and novel features of the book, and correlated that use with performance on learning measures. We found that students made extensive use of the traditional programming environment in the book, but that the lesserused visualization tool was better correlated with student performance. In addition, we found that although students reported high levels of satisfaction with the book, they appeared to use it much like a traditional textbook, making less use of many of the interactive features of the book than we expected.


Transborder flow of digitized goods and services has become a major feature in the debate over Internet regulation. Some commentators have argued that the architecture of the Internet changes everything; others have replied that it changes nothing. This updated article addresses federalism issues raised by on-line interjurisdictional competition, arguing that despite the suggestions of the "unexceptionalist" school of commentary, Internet regulation remains anything but "business as usual." Analysis of interstate competition in law as a product is appropriate in determining the proper scope of state regulation of on-line activity. Two lines of constitutional cases define the parameters of proper interstate regulatory competition: those dealing with personal jurisdiction, and those dealing with the dormant commerce clause. Inherent in the Supreme Court's Due Process holdings is the principle that interstate diversity in law products is desireable and central to a federal system. The minimum contacts test of International Shoe and subsequent cases preserves the individual's right to vote with his feet in selecting among the law products offered by the several states. Competition for law as a product can only be maintained if states are prevented from externalizing the costs of their local regulations. The Supreme Court holdings regarding the dormant commerce clause indicate that this constitutional doctrine serves to prevent states from exporting their law products to other jurisdictions by attempting to control wholly extraterritorial activity. Although the Internet may in some cases facilitate externalization of state regulatory costs, centralized regulation by the federal government, rather than overreaching by the states, is the proper solution to such externalities.


Objectives: This study examined the relationship between physical activity and self-rated health in older adults at both the neighborhood level and the resident level. Methods: A multilevel design was used that involved neighborhoods as the primary sampling unit and residents nested within each neighborhood. Residents (N = 582, mean age = 73.99 years, SD = 6.26) from 56 neighborhoods in Portland, Oregon, were surveyed on neighborhood physical activity and health status. Results: Multilevel path analysis showed a positive relationship between physical activity and health status at the neighborhood level. In addition, perceptions of neighborhood social cohesion, proximity to physical activity facilities, safety for walking, and importance of physical activity involvement, were positively related to high levels of physical activity. At the resident level, education and walking efficacy were positively associated with physical activity. Conclusions: The results provide evidence that neighborhood-level physica...


Purpose Pax3cre-mediated deletion of fibroblast growth factor receptor 2 (Fgfr2) broadly in renal and urinary tract mesenchyme led to ureteric bud (UB) induction defects and vesicoureteral reflux (VUR), although the mechanisms were unclear. Here, we investigated whether Fgfr2 acts specifically in peri-Wolffian duct stroma (ST) to regulate UB induction and development of VUR and the mechanisms of Fgfr2 activity. Methods We conditionally deleted Fgfr2 in ST (Fgfr2ST−/−) using Tbx18cre mice. To look for ureteric bud induction defects in young embryos, we assessed length and apoptosis of common nephric ducts (CNDs). We performed 3D reconstructions and histological analyses of urinary tracts of embryos and postnatal mice and cystograms in postnatal mice to test for VUR. We performed in situ hybridization and real-time PCR in young embryos to determine mechanisms underlying UB induction defects. Results We confirmed that Fgfr2 is expressed in ST and that Fgfr2 was efficiently deleted in this tissue in Fgfr2ST−/− mice at embryonic day (E) 10.5. E11.5 Fgfr2ST−/− mice had randomized UB induction sites with approximately 1/3 arising too high and 1/3 too low from the Wolffian duct; however, apoptosis was unaltered in E12.5 mutant CNDs. While ureters were histologically normal, E15.5 Fgfr2ST−/− mice exhibit improper ureteral insertion sites into the bladder, consistent with the ureteric induction defects. While ureter and bladder histology appeared normal, postnatal day (P) 1 mutants had high rates of VUR versus controls (75% versus 3%, p = 0.001) and occasionally other defects including renal hypoplasia and duplex systems. P1 mutant mice also had improper ureteral bladder insertion sites and shortened intravesicular tunnel lengths that correlated with VUR. E10.5 Fgfr2ST−/− mice had decreases in Bmp4 mRNA in stromal tissues, suggesting a mechanism underlying the ureteric induction and VUR phenotypes. Conclusion Mutations in FGFR2 could possibly cause VUR in humans.


We report single-transverse-mode laser oscillation from waveguides inscribed in a commercially available Nd-doped silicate glass substrate using an ultrafast fiber laser operating at 1064 nm. When pumped at 808 nm, laser action was observed at 1062 nm, with a slope efficiency of 15.0% and a maximum output power of 7.5 mW. Analysis of the laser performance implied a waveguide loss of 0.17 ± 0.06 dB · cm-1.


We consider the query recommendation problem in closed loop interactive learning settings like online information gathering and exploratory analytics. The problem can be naturally modelled using the Multi-Armed Bandits (MAB) framework with countably many arms. The standard MAB algorithms for countably many arms begin with selecting a random set of candidate arms and then applying standard MAB algorithms, e.g., UCB, on this candidate set downstream. We show that such a selection strategy often results in higher cumulative regret and to this end, we propose a selection strategy based on the maximum utility of the arms. We show that in tasks like online information gathering, where sequential query recommendations are employed, the sequences of queries are correlated and the number of potentially optimal queries can be reduced to a manageable size by selecting queries with maximum utility with respect to the currently executing query. Our experimental results using a recent real online literature discovery service log file demonstrate that the proposed arm selection strategy improves the cumulative regret substantially with respect to the state-of-the-art baseline algorithms. % and commonly used random selection strategy for a variety of contextual multi-armed bandit algorithms. Our data model and source code are available at ~\url{https://anonymous.4open.science/r/0e5ad6b7-ac02-4577-9212-c9d505d3dbdb/}.


Recent increases in global temperatures have affected the phenology and survival of many species of plants and animals. We investigated a case study of the effects of potential climate change on a thermally sensitive species, the loggerhead sea turtle, at a breeding location at the northerly extent of the range of regular nesting in the United States. In addition to the physical limits imposed by temperature on this ectothermic species, sea turtle primary sex ratio is determined by the temperature experienced by eggs during the middle third of incubation. We recorded sand temperatures and used historical air temperatures (ATs) at Bald Head Island, NC, to examine past and predict future sex ratios under scenarios of warming. There were no significant temporal trends in primary sex ratio evident in recent years and estimated mean annual sex ratio was 58% female. Similarly, there were no temporal trends in phenology but earlier nesting and longer nesting seasons were correlated with warmer sea surface temperature. We modelled the effects of incremental increases in mean AT of up to 7.5°C, the maximum predicted increase under modelled scenarios, which would lead to 100% female hatchling production and lethally high incubation temperatures, causing reduction in hatchling production. Populations of turtles in more southern parts of the United States are currently highly female biased and are likely to become ultra‐biased with as little as 1°C of warming and experience extreme levels of mortality if warming exceeds 3°C. The lack of a demonstrable increase in AT in North Carolina in recent decades coupled with primary sex ratios that are not highly biased means that the male offspring from North Carolina could play an increasingly important role in the future viability of the loggerhead turtle in the Western Atlantic.


1. Analysis of sodium loss from Mytilus cerebro-visceral connectives indicated a slow efflux component attributable to movement across the cellular membranes. This component was significantly slowed at 4 °C, or by treatment with DNP, ouabain or K-free media; this implies that a conventional Na/K exchange pump contributes to cellular efflux.

2. Dose-response curves for the effects of ouabain on cellular Na efflux gave preliminary indications of a significant increase in the sodium pump frequency in connectives from mussels adapted to 25% salinity relative to those from 100% salinity.

3. Assays of ATPase activity in the connectives showed a 63% increment in the Na/K-activated enzyme in 25%-adapted tissues, with no significant change in the magnesium-activated enzyme. The Na/K-ATPase also exhibited a marked shift in its optimal sodium requirement, from 100 mm at 100% salinity to 50 mm at 25% salinity; these figures are close to the respective values of [Na+] i determined for the axons under such conditions.

4. [3H]ouabain binding studies confirmed that there was an increment in active sodium pumping sites (in this case of 76%) in dilute-adapted nerves. Pump frequencies were in the range of 1000-4000 sites/μm2, in agreement with previous studies of invertebrate nerve membranes.

5. The significance of extra pumping capacity for sodium (and potassium) ions in the dilute adapted tissues is considered in relation to the electrophysiological functioning, volume regulation and solute balance of the nerves of an osmoconformer.


Significance Fluctuating environmental conditions are thought to be important for the maintenance of species diversity, and yet our understanding of the relative contribution of different fluctuation-dependent coexistence mechanisms (the temporal storage effect and relative nonlinearity of competition) in real systems is limited. Using experiments and simulations, we show that both mechanisms consistently affect coexistence and that, contrary to long-held assumptions, the effect of relative nonlinearity can be larger in magnitude. These results may be general in that the simultaneous emergence of both mechanisms rests on two factors common to nearly all ecological systems, from the human gut to the soil microbiome: variable environmental conditions and saturating population growth rates. Understanding the origins and maintenance of biodiversity remains one of biology's grand challenges. From theory and observational evidence, we know that variability in environmental conditions through time is likely critical to the coexistence of competing species. Nevertheless, experimental tests of fluctuation-driven coexistence are rare and have typically focused on just one of two potential mechanisms, the temporal storage effect, to the neglect of the theoretically equally plausible mechanism known as relative nonlinearity of competition. We combined experiments and simulations in a system of nectar yeasts to quantify the relative contribution of the two mechanisms to coexistence. Resource competition models parameterized from single-species assays predicted the outcomes of mixed-culture competition experiments with 83% accuracy. Model simulations revealed that both mechanisms have measurable effects on coexistence and that relative nonlinearity can be equal or greater in magnitude to the temporal storage effect. In addition, we show that their effect on coexistence can be both antagonistic and complementary. These results falsify the common assumption that relative nonlinearity is of negligible importance, and in doing so reveal the importance of testing coexistence mechanisms in combination.


Summary:

This submission contains a tomographic dataset of a small wooden block.

The data is made available as part of [Bossema et al., 2021].

Apparatus:

The dataset is acquired using the custom-built and highly flexible CT scanner, FleX-ray Laboratory, developed by TESCAN-XRE, located at CWI in Amsterdam. This apparatus consists of a cone-beam microfocus X-ray point source that projects polychromatic X-rays onto a 1944-by-1536 pixels, 14-bit, flat detector panel. Full details can be found in [Coban 2020].

Sample Information:

The sample is small wooden block of conifer wood (10x12x3cm).

Experimental Plan:

The data in this submission was collected to compare CT reconstructions to reconstructions obtained using a line trajectory (LT) scanning method (see Zenodo dataset 10.5281/zenodo.4541555) (see Figure 5 in [Bossema et al, 2021]).

The dataset consists of a CT dataset containing 2915 projections.

All raw data (i.e. no corrections) is made available in .tif format.

List of Contents:

The content of the submission is given below.

 CT_flat: 2915 projections

Each data folder contains:

 dark-field (or closed-shutter) image, di000000.tif,
 flat-field (or open-shutter) image before acquisition, io000000.tif, and after acquisition, io000001.tif,
 raw (unprocessed or uncorrected) projections, scan_*.tif,
 scan settings.txt, a text file with scanner metadata in more human readable format, and
 script_executed.txt, the text file containing the list of commands the apparatus has executed.

Additional Links:

These datasets are produced by the Computational Imaging group at Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica (CI-CWI). For any relevant Python/MATLAB scripts for the FleX-ray datasets, we refer the reader to our group's GitHub page.

Contact Details:

For more information or guidance in using these datasets, please get in touch with

 bossema [at] cwi.nl

Acknowledgments:

The authors would like to acknowledge the funding from the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO), project numbers 341-60-001, 639.073.506 and 628.007.033 and Netherlands Institute for Conservation, Art and Science (NICAS).


Currently, there is an enormous amount of energy available from salinity gradients, which could be used for clean hydrogen production. Through the use of a favorable oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) cathode, the projected electrical energy generated by a single pass ammonium bicarbonate reverse electrodialysis (RED) system approached 78 W h m(-3). However, if RED is operated with the less favorable (higher overpotential) hydrogen evolution electrode and hydrogen gas is harvested, the energy recovered increases by as much ~1.5× to 118 W h m(-3). Indirect hydrogen production through coupling an RED stack with an external electrolysis system was only projected to achieve 35 W h m(-3) or ~1/3 of that produced through direct hydrogen generation.


This groundbreaking book of literary detective work alters our understanding of T. S. Eliot's poetic masterpiece, The Waste Land. Lawrence Rainey not only resolves longstanding mysteries surrounding the composition of the poem but also overturns traditional interpretations of the poem that have prevailed for more than eighty years. He shines new light on Eliot's greatest achievement and on the poem's place in the modern canon. Far from the austere and sober monument to neoclassicism that admirers have praised, The Waste Land turns out to be something quite different: something grim and wild, unruly and intractable, violent and shocking and radically indeterminate, yet also deeply compassionate. Rainey looks at how Eliot went about writing the poem and at the sequence in which he composed the parts. Arriving at new insights into the poet's intentions, Rainey unsettles tradition-bound views of the poem and shows us that The Waste Land is even stranger and more startling than we knew.


2 Abstract: In the proposed paper the major issue is the target tracking in wireless sensor networks and to obtain exact position of the target as to be measured so that we can expect improvement in the tracking resolution. so there is need of finding accurately sensor and targets trajectory path as to be studied with special care and captured at regular basis. We also studied correlation properties and sensitivity in mobile sensors from the system parameters and maintained good resolution for tracking of mobile sensors at different speeds. Our simulation results gave satisfactory system parameters like sensor density, sensor and target mobility compared static sensor network environment.


UAV Ad hoc Networks (UAANETs) is a subset of the well-known mobile ad hoc network (MANET) paradigm. It refers to the deployment of a swarm of small Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) and Ground Control Stations (GCS). These UAVs collaborate in order to relay data (command and control traffic and remotely sensed data) between each other and to the Ground Control Station (GCS). Compared to other types of ad hoc networks, UAANETs have some unique features and bring several major challenges to the research community. One of these is the design of UAANET routing protocol. It must establish an efficient route between UAVs and adjust in real time to the rapidly changing topology. It must also be secured to protect the integrity of the network against malicious attackers. Security of routing protocols has been widely investigated in wired networks and MANETs, but as far as we are aware, there is no previous research paper dealing with the security features of UAANET routing protocols. This paper focuses on characteristics of UAANETs and provides a review of the literature on associated routing protocols. We also highlight the analysis of the security features of these protocols. Security requirements, potential threats and countermeasures are all described.


The BAGBY FUGITIVE SLAVE CASE, heard in Cleveland's federal court in January of 1861, resulted in the return of one of the last fugitive slaves to the South before the Civil War.William S. Goshorn of Wheeling, Virginia (now West Virginia) purchased Sara Lucy Bagby (ca. 1833-14 July 1906) in Richmond in 1852. Bagby escaped from her master in October of 1860 and sought refuge in Cleveland. She secured employment as a domestic servant in the households of ALBERT G. RIDDLE, a Republican congressman, and L.A. Benton, a local jeweler. Tracing her to the city, Goshorn had Bagby arrested by U.S. marshals on January 19, 1861. Before her scheduled hearing on January 21, Bagby's counsel, RUFUS SPALDING secured a habeas corpus hearing for his client. Probate Judge Daniel R. Tilden could find no reason to release her but ruled that she could not be held in the local jail. Granting Spalding a two-day recess to interview witnesses in Wheeling, U.S. Commissioner Bushnell White ordered a room fitted out for Bagby on federal property in the post office building. When the hearing resumed on January 23, White restored Bagby to Goshorn given her own admission that she was Goshorn's slave and Spalding's failure to uncover any favorable evidence.It was widely believed at the time that the Bagby case was a test of the North's disposition to obey the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. Both Tilden and White had cautioned that the city, as well as the alleged fugitive, was on trial. With four southern states already having seceded, even the Radical Republican CLEVELAND LEADER counseled submission to the law for the sake of preserving the Union. The city was not entirely compliant: several skirmishes were reported during the passage of the prisoner from the local to the federal court. Precautions were taken to foil a rumored rescue attempt on the train returning Bagby to Wheeling. Although the abolition press severely criticized Cleveland, Bagby's re-enslavement proved to be short-lived. She was freed when Union forces occupied Wheeling in June 1861 and arrested Goshorn. Bagby later moved to Pittsburgh and married a Union soldier, F. George Johnson. Local abolitionists held a Grand Jubilee upon Bagby's return to Cleveland on May 6, 1863. She lived her last years in Cleveland and is buried in WOODLAND CEMETERY. See also ABOLITIONISM, AFRICAN AMERICANS.


The last decades of the 19th century and the first of the 20th century unquestionably represented a time in which studies in ancient history and archaeology flourished in the whole Europe. All the same, those years marked the epoch of nationalism. Apropos this, the situation was hot in Julian Venetia, Istria and Dalmatia, where under the Austrian Empire the Italian irredentists and Slave nationalists faced because of their claims to the same territories. At that time, historical reasons were often provided as justification to the claims: in this context, the contribution aims at giving some examples of the misuse of ancient geography – and specifically about the eastern border of Italy in the Roman time – from the Italian side both in the specialized literature and in the pamphlets or press.


The history of songs, to which a person has listened, is a very personal piece of information. It is a rich data set that comes as a byproduct of the use of digital music players and can be obtained without interfering with the user. In this paper, we present three visualizations for this data set and a mechanism for generating new playlists from the user's own listening history, based on a navigation metaphor. First, temporal proximity is interpreted as a simple similarity measure to lay out the entire history on a two-dimensional plane. Closed listening sessions are then used to make chronological relations visible. The generated playlists mimic the user's previous listening behavior, and the visualizations make the automatic choices understandable, as they share visual properties with the history. In this sense, our visualizations provide a visual vocabulary for listening behaviors and bring scrutability to automatic playlist generation.


This paper examines the effects of the Victorian Factory and Shops Act, the first minimum wage law in Australia. The Act differed from modern minimum wage laws in that it established Special Boards, which set trade-specific minimum wage schedules. We use trade-level data on average wages, employment, and other outcomes to examine the effects of changes in minimum wages. Although the minimum wages were binding, we find that the effects on employment and other outcomes were modest. We speculate that this was partly because the Special Boards, which were comprised mostly of employers and union officials, followed labour market conditions when setting wages for their trades.


Introduction
To report on SBRT as a bridge to OLT for patients with HCC and Child-Pugh ≥8 cirrhosis.

Methods
Retrospective review of 15 patients, treated from 2010-2017. Three patients excluded secondary to delisting from prohibitive substance. Twelve patients (17 lesions) included for final analysis. Hepatic SPECT functional treatment planning utilized.

Results
The median age of 60 years with a median CP 9 and MELD 14. The median SBRT dose was 40 Gy in 5 fractions, and median tumor size was 2.3cm (1.2-5.3cm). Median follow-up and survival was 40-months and 46-months, respectively. One patient succumbed to renal/hepatic failure before OLT. Radiographic response was 80%. pCR at explant was 46%. No grade ≥ 3 acute toxicities. Median time to progression of CP ≥ 2 was 9.7-months and MELD progression was not met before OLT.

Conclusion
SBRT with functional treatment planning can be used safely as a bridge to OLT in select patients with CP ≥8 cirrhosis.


In this work, the electrochemical oxidation and subsequent determination of uric acid was investigated using boron-doped diamond electrodes with various B/C ratios (0–2000 ppm). The cyclic voltammetric study showed one irreversible oxidation peak at +(1.1–1.25) V (vs. Ag/AgCl/3 M KCl) in the presence of Britton–Robinson buffer (pH 2.25) depending on the boron content. Employing differential pulse voltammetry using the 2000 ppm boron-doped diamond electrode the acquired analytical parameters were as follows: a limit of detection of 7.7 μM, a limit of quantification of 26 μM and intra-day repeatability (relative standard deviation of 2.9% for n = 15). After performing an interference study, the method was applied to the determination of uric acid in biological samples (human urine). The uric acid concentrations determined in the urine samples were compared with the reference values stated in the literature. The proposed methodology using boron-doped diamond electrodes could find applications in uric acid sensing within clinical, pharmaceutical and environmental analysis.


Bankruptcy is the legal process by which the debts of firms, individuals, and occasionally governments in financial distress are resolved. Bankruptcy law always includes three components. First, it provides a collective framework for simultaneously resolving all debts of the bankrupt entity, regardless of when they are due. Second, it provides rules for determining how the assets and earnings used to repay are divided among creditors. Third, bankruptcy law specifies punishments intended to discourage debtors from defaulting on their debts and filing for bankruptcy. This review discusses and evaluates bankruptcy law by examining whether and when the law encourages debtors and creditors to behave in economically efficient ways. It also considers how bankruptcy law might be changed to improve economic efficiency. The review shows that there are multiple economic objectives of bankruptcy law, because the law affects has very diverse effects. Some of these objectives differ for individuals versus corporations in bankruptcy.


Two major applications of lambda calculi in computer science are functional programming languages and mechanized reasoning systems (or, proof assistants). According to the Curry–Howard correspondence, it is possible, in principle, to design a unified language based on a typed lambda calculus for both logical reasoning and programming. However, the different requirements of programming languages and reasoning systems make it difficult to design such a unified language useful for both purposes. Programming languages usually extend lambda calculi with programming-friendly features (e.g., recursive datatypes, general recursion) for supporting the flexibility to model various computations, while sacrificing logical consistency. Logical reasoning systems usually extend lambda calculi with logic-friendly features (e.g., induction principles, dependent types) for paradoxfree inference over fine-grained properties, while being more restrictive in modeling computations. In this dissertation, we design and implement a language called Nax that balances between the benefits of both. Nax accepts all recursive datatypes, thus, allowing the same flexibility of defining recursive datatypes as functional languages. Nax supports a number of Mendler-style recursion schemes that can express various kinds of recursive computations and also grantee termination. Nax supports termindexed types to support specifications of fine-grained properties. In addition, Nax supports a conservative extension of Hindley–Milner type inference. The theoretical contributions of this dissertation include theories for Mendlerstyle recursion schemes and term-indexed types, which we developed to establish strong normalization and logical consistency of Nax.


Abstract In recent years there has been greater examination and discussion of teaching and learning in archaeology, and exploration of how best to reconcile the sometimes competing requirements of students, industry, teachers and university administrators. A key response by the academy in Australia has been the emergence of graduate level programmes. Drawing on the experiences of staff, students and industry partners of the Flinders University Archaeology and Cultural Heritage Management graduate programmes, we reflect on the opportunities such programmes afford to effect positive change in the training of graduates, the challenges they pose and the contrast they offer to the standard and long accepted Honours degree. We demonstrate that carefully crafted graduate level teaching programmes, with strong involvement of industry stakeholders, offer practical solutions to the issue of providing students with a well-rounded degree, whilst also meeting the particular needs of the cultural heritage sector to produce work-ready graduates.


During the NapoleonicWars the Channel between England and France
remained a major site for smuggling. Both the British and French
governments faced this problem. From the French perspective,
banned English textiles flooded continental markets; from the British perspective,
smugglers evaded duties on continental goods landed on local shores and illegally
shipped people and goods out of Britain to France and the Netherlands. While
the smuggling of English textiles into Napoleonic-controlled Europe has become
part of the history of the Continental Blockade, very little has been written on
the contraband flows into and out of Britain and on the English smugglers who
were the principal agents in a trans-Channel smuggling community.1 This article
aims to address this neglect, throwing new light on the nature of the Channel
and its coastal communities and offering further insights into the contested historical
questions of identity, patriotism, and Anglo-French relations during the
Napoleonic Wars. At the same time that the British state and its people were at
war with Napoleonic France and its satellite states, English subjects along the
Channel shore continued to trade illegally with the enemy, with the Channel
proving a permeable border rather than an impenetrable defensive barrier.
In general, English smuggling during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries
remains an underdeveloped field of historical inquiry.


This is not the first occasion on which the advantages and
profits of Angora goat farming have been brought under the
notice of the Royal Society of Tasmania, but as fifteen years
have elapsed since the late Mr. John Swan read a paper on
the subject, and the Honorary Secretary, Dr. Agnew, laid
upon the table a letter with covering correspondence from
the British Consul at Angora, giving particulars of the
industry as conducted in Asia Minor, I may be excused for
re-opening the question.
Enquiries I have made to ascertain particulars of the
Angora goats still remaining in Tasmania have not been
successful. There is some reason for suspecting that attempts
previously made here, and perhaps in the other colonies, to
establish the industry have not been so successful as otherwise
might have been the case, owing to the goats having been
kept on open grass country. This is clearly a mistake. Rough, mountainous and scrubby ground is far more suitable, and it
is with a view to encourage the occupation of such districts and
so assist to a small extent in developing the natural resources
of the colony that I venture to recommend the farming of
Angora goats as an industry quite worth a patient and
careful trial.


The current study aims to determine whether a valid and reliable instrument could be developed and validated to measure levels of anxiety experienced by postgraduate students during the information seeking process. It also attempts to determine the prevalence and correlates of the information seeking anxiety among postgraduate students at a research intensive university in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Results of the study indicated that the newly developed scale, the Information Seeking Anxiety Scale (ISAS), had satisfactory face, content, and construct validity as well as internal reliability. The Information Seeking Anxiety Scale (ISAS) contains thirty-eight (38) 5-point Likert-format items that measures seven (7) facets of information seeking anxiety construct. The first factor of the Information Seeking Anxiety Scale, barriers associated with libraries, consisted of ten (10) statements which explained 24.423% of the total variance. The second factor, barriers associated with information resources, contained seven (7) statements that were accounted for 7.315% of the total variance. The third dimension of the scale contained three (3) statements and accounted for 5.150% of the variance. This factor was labelled barriers associated with computers, the Internet and electronic resources. The fourth factor, technological barriers, represented 4.181% of the variance and included six (6) statements. Factor five, Affective barriers, comprised five (5) statements and accounted only for 3.430% of the variance.
Three (3) statements were loaded on the sixth factor, barriers associated with topic identification, which explained 2.865% of the total variance. Finally, the seventh factor comprised four (4) items and explained only 2.787% of the variance. Results of the study revealed that postgraduate students at a research-intensive university in Malaysia had mean score of 88.31 for overall information seeking anxiety. This indicated that while information seeking anxiety is present, overall levels are not severe. They had the greatest levels of information seeking anxiety as it pertained to the "barriers associated with libraries" with a mean score of 23.261. Conversely, they reported to have experienced the least levels of information seeking anxiety as it pertained to "barriers associated with
computers, the Internet and electronic resources" dimension with a mean score of 7.146.
Gender, level of study, major, age and frequency of library use were found to be antecedents of the information seeking construct using a series of independent sample ttests,
one-way analysis of variance and Pearson product moment correlation coefficient tests. Conversely, nationality, information literacy skills instruction received and frequency of the Internet use had no statistically significant effect on various dimensions of the information seeking anxiety construct.


Nash equilibrium (NE) is a central concept in game theory. Here we prove formally a published theorem on existence of an NE in two proof assistants, Coq and Isabelle: starting from a game with finitely many outcomes, one may derive a game by rewriting each of these outcomes with either of two basic outcomes, namely that Player 1 wins or that Player 2 wins. If all ways of deriving such a win/lose game lead to a game where one player has a winning strategy, the original game also has a Nash equilibrium. This article makes three other contributions: first, while the original proof invoked linear extension of strict partial orders, here we avoid it by generalizing the relevant definition. Second, we notice that the theorem also implies the existence of a secure equilibrium, a stronger version of NE that was introduced for model checking. Third, we also notice that the constructive proof of the theorem computes secure equilibria for non-zero-sum priority games (generalizing parity games) in quasi-polynomial time.


Recently many western societies, including New Zealand, have seen a distinct change in public attitudes towards law and order. Support for more punitive forms of punishment have seen governments adopt tougher penal and judicial policies. Scholarly attempts to define and understand this phenomenon have resulted in creation of 'penal populism'. Penal populism operates as a discourse that defines the arguments made for tougher sentences, harsher prison conditions, and greater rights for victims' of crime as well as conceptualizing the intricate social conditions from which these changes are born. This research is concerned with the discursive positions used to construct penal populist discourse; the ideas which argue for punitive reform. The aim of this research is to delineate and understand the discursive resources deployed by penal populist organizations as they seek support from the public. This research examines the penal populist discourse produced by the Sensible Sentencing Trust as a case study. The SST is New Zealand's preeminent organization dedicated to punitive reform. As a penal populist organization, the SST operate within a complex penal populist social movement; a global collectivity, where various groups and actors are bound by a punitive narrative. Frame analysis, a qualitative research method, will be used to identify penal populist discursive positions and understand their function as a resource used to elicit support from the public. The three fundamental processes of diagnostic, prognostic, and motivational framing will be identified to understand how the SST frames their discourse to produce a meaningful punitive message that resonates with the public. This research suggests that the SST gain and retain support for their cause by adapting fundamental conservative concepts with their penal populist discursive positions. The SST act as a signifying agent, interpreting the political philosophy of compassionate conservatism and aligning conservative principles. This act of re-contextualizing conservative concepts to suit the


This work comprises a linguistic survey of the Ancient North Arabian (ANA)
epigraphic material from Taymāʾ, conventionally known as Taymanitic
(Macdonald 2000: 28-9). A grammatical sketch, based on the linguistic
features in the Taymanitic corpus is presented, followed by a discussion of
the linguistic features of Taymanitic that are relevant to its linguistic classification.
Two appendices follow: a compilation of all previously published
inscriptions with grammatical content, and a glossary


: Th is article examines the development of competing forms of fi scal citizenship in Oregon tax-related ballot initiative campaigns between 1970 and 2010. Antitax advocates constructed a "taxpayer identity politics" that positioned a privatized "taxpayer" against representatives of the state, recipients of public services, and public sector unions. In response, a progressive coalition produced an alternative citizen—the "Oregonian," a socially responsible taxpayer/citizen who supports and defends public services and values a "common good." "Incipient commoning" emerges as support for "the common good" through discourse about community and belonging that is more and other than, though in relation to, the state. Attention to how "publics" conceive of themselves suggests that concepts like the "the commons" already circulate in the imaginaries and vocabularies of advocates resisting neoliberal policies.


Social media are providing the humus for the sharing of knowledge and experiences and the growth of community activities (e.g., debating about different topics). The analysis of the user-generated content in this area usually relies on Sentiment Analysis. Word embeddings and Deep Learning have attracted extensive attention in various sentiment detection tasks. In parallel, the literature exposed the drawbacks of traditional approaches when content belonging to specific contexts is processed with general techniques. Thus, ad-hoc solutions are needed to improve the effectiveness of such systems. In this paper, we focus on user-generated content coming from the e-learning context to demonstrate how distributional semantic approaches trained on smaller context-specific textual resources are more effective with respect to approaches trained on bigger general-purpose ones. To this end, we build context-trained embeddings from online course reviews using state-of-the-art generators. Then, those embeddings are integrated in a deep neural network we designed to solve a polarity detection task on reviews in the e-learning context, modeled as a regression. By applying our approach on embeddings trained using background corpora from different contexts, we show that the performance is better when the background context is aligned with the regression context.


This final report of the contract reviews the work already reported in detail in the eleven supplementary reports cited at the end of this report. This work includes literature reviews, laboratory investigations, observations of site practices and simulated full-scale trials. Many of the problems associated with the grouting of the ducts in post-tensioned prestressed concrete stem from the generally unsatisfactory conditions and practices employed on site. Tests on full size duct assemblies have shown that even under nearly ideal conditions, voids can be left within a grouted duct when current techniques are employed. A number of practical problems have been identified. The precautions necessary to reduce the likelihood of voids being formed within the duct have been discussed and suggestions made that should eliminate the most obvious of the practical faults. Further full-scale tests are advocated to investigate the flow of well formulated and tested grouts along curved cable ducts that carry stressed cables. The methods of injecting grout and the techniques of duct venting also need further study. One important suggestion that merits consideration relates to the permissible bleeding from acceptable grouts. The current limit of 4% would seem to be unnecessarily high. A small number of grout tests have been identified as being of practical potential for site use. It is advocated that these be evaluated in a future programme on practical grouting procedures, including tests on different formulations of grout. (TRRL)


Abstract The Galactic centre – as the closest galactic nucleus – holds both intrinsic interest and possibly represents a useful analogue to starburst nuclei which we can observe with orders of magnitude finer detail than these external systems. The environmental conditions in the GC – here taken to mean the inner 200 pc in diameter of the Milky Way – are extreme with respect to those typically encountered in the Galactic disk. The energy densities of the various GC ISM components are typically ~two orders of magnitude larger than those found locally and the star-formation rate density ~three orders of magnitude larger. Unusually within the Galaxy, the Galactic centre exhibits hard-spectrum, diffuse TeV (=1012 eV) gamma-ray emission spatially coincident with the region's molecular gas. Recently the nuclei of local starburst galaxies NGC 253 and M82 have also been detected in gamma-rays of such energies. We have embarked on an extended campaign of modelling the broadband (radio continuum to TeV gamma-ray), non- thermal signals received from the inner 200 pc of the Galaxy. On the basis of this modelling we find that star-formation and associated supernova activity is the ultimate driver of the region's non-thermal activity. This activity drives a large-scale wind of hot plasma and cosmic rays out of the GC. The wind advects the locally-accelerated cosmic rays quickly, before they can lose much energy in situ or penetrate into the densest molecular gas cores where star-formation occurs. The cosmic rays can, however, heat/ionize the lower density/warm H2 phase enveloping the cores. On very large scales (~10 kpc) the non-thermal signature of the escaping GC cosmic rays has probably been detected recently as the spectacular 'Fermi bubbles' and corresponding 'YWMAP haze'.


In the course of research, a series of complexes with general the formula S4-nSnLn (n=1,2,3) have been synthesized by the reaction of di- and triorganotin chlorides with the sodium salts of various acids in dry toluene. The di-n-butyl and di-n-octyl derivatives were synthesized by treating the corresponding organotin oxides in 1:2 molar ratios, whereas the triphenyl and tricyclohexyl derivatives were prepared by reacting the corresponding hydroxides with the ligand acid in 1:1 molar ratios in dry toluene, using a Dean and Stark apparatus for the concomitant removal of water.

The bonding behavior of donor groups and structural assignments of the synthesized compounds were studied using different analytical techniques such as FT-IR, multinuclear (1H, 13C, 119Sn) NMR, mass spectrometry and X-ray single crystal analysis. It is concluded that diorganotin dicarboxylates are hexa-coordinated as solids, based on skew-trapezoidal geometry and there exists an equilibrium between hexa- and penta-coordinated states in non-coordinating solvents. Triorganotin(IV) carboxylates behave as penta-coordinate linear polymers in the solid state with a trans-R3SnO2 geometry for tin, and tetra-coordinated monomers in solution.

Biological activity tests of the synthesized di- and triorganotin(IV) carboxylates were made against various medically important bacteria and fungi by agar well diffusion and agar tube dilution methods, respectively. Most of the compounds were found to be biologically active having a varying degree of activity against different bacteria. Their activity is lower than the reference drugs.

The microbial toxicity studies demonstrated that triorganotin(IV) carboxylates are more fungicidal than diorganotin(IV) derivatives under identical conditions. This is due to the fact that an increase of R groups on the tin(IV) atom enhances the biological activity of organotin(IV) carboxylates.

These compounds were also evaluated for their cytotoxicity, using the Brine-shrimp lethality bioassay method. With the exception of a few species, all compounds were found to be toxic.

The antitumor activity of the synthesized compounds were also determined by using the "antitumor potato disc assay method�. Some of the compounds were found to have excellent antitumor activities, causing complete inhibition of tumor cells. Whereas other compounds have mild antitumour activities.


This study, drawing extensively upon manuscript sources, provides the first comprehensive account of how Rome's humanist community coped with the 1527 sack of the city, an event traditionally viewed as signaling the transition from the Renaissance to the Catholic Reformation.


Background Childhood obesity is a complex public health challenge that requires innovative, sustainable solutions. Positive deviance, inspired by the science of complexity, is an approach that examines what allows certain individuals to succeed despite being predicted to fail. This study is aimed at identifying and defining positive deviants for early childhood obesity. Methods This case-control study used medical record data to identify Latino children aged 2–5 and classify them using their longitudinal weight change. Parents of children with trajectories toward a healthy weight from an obese weight (cases) and parents of children with stable obese weight trajectories over time (controls) were recruited. Mixed-methods analyses were used including a semistructured interview and quantitative surveys evaluating diet, physical activity, sleep, feeding practices, and self-efficacy. Qualitative description was applied to the qualitative data; quantitative data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and logistic regression modeling. Results Of eligible Latino children identified from the overall data set (n=1,621), 257 (16%) had trajectories toward a healthy weight, and among these, 21 positively deviant cases completed the study with 23 matched controls. Positive deviant families were characterized by lower education, higher self-efficacy, and a more Mexican cultural orientation. Findings suggest that effective engagement of other caregivers and creating healthy food environments were important determinants of healthy weight outcomes. Conclusions Positive deviants (cases) were distinct from controls in several parenting strategies such as creating healthy food environments and engaging caregivers. They had higher self-efficacy despite lower education. There were fewer differences in diet and physical activity than expected.


Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs), a major component of the Affordable Care Act, seek to provide patients with better quality health care at a lower cost and have been praised for their ability to help repair our country's broken health care system. Despite their potential benefits, however, ACOs also raise significant antitrust concerns—concerns that may pit consumer surplus and total surplus against one another. In an attempt to address these concerns, the Department of Justice and Fair Trade Commission announced that they will use market share screens and rule of reason treatment to evaluate ACOs participating in the Medicare Shared Savings Program. The use of market share screens and rule of reason treatment allows the antitrust agencies to avoid prioritizing either consumer surplus or total surplus in the first instance but leaves open two critical questions: What will the rule of reason treatment afforded to ACOs look like? And how will the antitrust agencies ultimately determine whether ACOs benefit or harm consumers? In order to address these questions, this Note proposes that the antitrust agencies use the "big data" collected under the Affordable Care Act to conduct a structured rule of reason review of ACOs that takes into account both the consumer surplus and total surplus through a burden-shifting framework.


The ability of teachers to learn and develop at work is important for the quality of their performance and their well-being. However, research has been ambiguous about what factors can improve it. Two reasons for this ambiguity are discussed in this paper: The links between workplace learning and professional education have often not been included in research studies, and teaching may have special characteristics that make workplace learning difficult. The paper examines new empirical connections between teachers' learning activities at work and the outcome of teacher education, using longitudinal Norwegian survey data. The results show that an active and independent study strategy increases the likelihood of consulting professionals outside work and finding information in books and journals. Furthermore, the introduction of individual characterristics substantially improves the work place impact models, and should be adopted in future research. Finally, it is discussed whether the methodological framework in existing research on teachers' work place learning is consistent with the theoretical point of departure, or whether greater consistency should be sought.