Semi-supervised learning (SSL) algorithms have had great success in recent years in limited labeled data regimes. However, the current state-of-the-art SSL algorithms are computationally expensive and entail significant compute time and energy requirements. This can prove to be a huge limitation for many smaller companies and academic groups. Our main insight is that training on a subset of unlabeled data instead of entire unlabeled data enables the current SSL algorithms to converge faster, significantly reducing computational costs. In this work, we propose RETRIEVE, a coreset selection framework for efficient and robust semi-supervised learning. RETRIEVE selects the coreset by solving a mixed discrete-continuous bi-level optimization problem such that the selected coreset minimizes the labeled set loss. We use a one-step gradient approximation and show that the discrete optimization problem is approximately submodular, enabling simple greedy algorithms to obtain the coreset. We empirically demonstrate on several real-world datasets that existing SSL algorithms like VAT, Mean-Teacher, FixMatch, when used with RETRIEVE, achieve a) faster training times, b) better performance when unlabeled data consists of Out-of-Distribution (OOD) data and imbalance. More specifically, we show that with minimal accuracy degradation, RETRIEVE achieves a speedup of around $3\times$ in the traditional SSL setting and achieves a speedup of $5\times$ compared to state-of-the-art (SOTA) robust SSL algorithms in the case of imbalance and OOD data. RETRIEVE is available as a part of the CORDS toolkit: https://github.com/decile-team/cords.


During the last several decades, the nature of childhood has changed. There is not much nature in it anymore. Numerous studies in environmental education, environmental psychology, and conservation psychology show that the time children spend outdoors encourages healthy physical development, enriches creativity and imagination, and enhances classroom performance. Additional research shows that people's outdoor experiences as children, and adults can lead to more positive attitudes and behavior towards the environment, along with more environmental knowledge with which to guide public policy decisions. The overall purpose of this study was to examine the effect of middle childhood (age 6-11) outdoor experiences on an individual's current knowledge of the environment. This correlational study evaluated the following potential relationships: 1) The effect of "outdoorsiness" (defined as a fondness or enjoyment of the outdoors and related activities) on an individual's environmental knowledge; 2) The effect of gender on an individual's level of outdoorsiness; 3) The effect of setting (urban, suburban, rural, farm) on an individual's level of outdoorsiness and environmental knowledge; 4) The effect of formal [science] education on an individual's level of outdoorsiness and environmental knowledge; and 5) The effect of informal, free-choice learning on an individual's level of outdoorsiness and environmental knowledge. Outdoorsiness was measured using the Natural Experience Scale (NES), which was developed through a series of pilot surveys and field-tested in this research study. Participants included 382 undergraduate students at the University of Kansas with no preference or bias given to declared or undeclared majors. The information from this survey was used to analyze the question of whether outdoor experiences as children are related in some way to an adult's environmental knowledge after accounting for other factors of knowledge acquisition such as formal education, media, and free-choice learning. Though a statistically significant positive correlation was found between an individual's NES and their level of environmental knowledge as an adult, the relationship was weak (r= .112). One-on-one interviews also were conducted with 15 individuals selected from a random sample of the 382 participants. A post-survey focus group comprised of experts from the fields of environmental science and environmental education was also conducted to discuss results from the quantitative portion of the study and provide face validity to the questionnaire.


This report discusses the status and the accomplishments of the environmental protection program at Argonne National Laboratory for calendar year 2007. The status of Argonne environmental protection activities with respect to compliance with the various laws and regulations is discussed, along with the progress of environmental corrective actions and restoration projects. To evaluate the effects of Argonne operations on the environment, samples of environmental media collected on the site, at the site boundary, and off the Argonne site were analyzed and compared with applicable guidelines and standards. A variety of radionuclides were measured in air, surface water, on-site groundwater, and bottom sediment samples. In addition, chemical constituents in surface water, groundwater, and Argonne effluent water were analyzed. External penetrating radiation doses were measured, and the potential for radiation exposure to off-site population groups was estimated. Results are interpreted in terms of the origin of the radioactive and chemical substances (i.e., natural, fallout, Argonne, and other) and are compared with applicable environmental quality standards. A U.S. Department of Energy dose calculation methodology, based on International Commission on Radiological Protection recommendations and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's CAP-88 Version 3 (Clean Air Act Assessment Package-1988) computer code, was used in preparing thismore » report.« less


The 2012-phenomenon is based on the idea that something important was expected to occur on December 21, 2012, a date associated with the ancient Maya Long Count calendar. Even though the date has passed, the overall phenomenon is unlikely to disappear because the dominant themes of the end of the world and/or a transformation of consciousness can be found in other 'alternative' histories. These non-academic histories are ultimately apocalyptic in nature. The 2012-phenomenon is also an example of an 'incorporeal hyperobject', i.e. an object widely distributed and repeated. It is not anchored in a specific time-space unit but it is manifested in many different corporeal objects. The 2012-phenomenon is different from the academic Mayanist incorporeal hyperobject because each of them uses different distinctions of what exists or not. These different objects cannot communicate directly in different media ecologies since different distinctions have formed each one. Hence, there can never be a sincere understanding of each camp. Only by perturbing another object can information be translated into meaning. The blog is such a medium that can affect incorporeal hyperobjects. This article discusses the way one blog has interacted with the 2012-phenomenon.


PURPOSE
Despite advances towards potential clinically viable therapies there has been only limited success in improving functional recovery following traumatic brain injury (TBI). In rats, exposure to an enriched environment (EE) improves learning and fosters motor skill development. Induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC) have been shown to survive transplantation and influence the recovery process. The current study evaluated EE and iPSC as a polytherapy for remediating cognitive deficits following medial frontal cortex (mFC) controlled cortical impact (CCI) injury.

METHODS
Sixty adult male rats received a midline mFC CCI or sham injury and were randomly placed in either EE or standard environment (SE). Seven days post-injury rats received bilateral transplantation of iPSCs or media. Behavioral measures were conducted throughout the remainder of the study. Following behavioral analysis, brains were extracted and prepared for histological analysis.

RESULTS
Open-field data revealed that combined therapy resulted in typical Sham/EE activity rearing patterns by the conclusion of the study. On the Vermicelli Handling task, rats with EE/iPSC polytherapy performed better than media-treated rats. Furthermore, rats treated with polytherapy performed equivalently to Sham/EE rats on the Morris water maze. Proficiency on the Rotarod was consistently better in EE when compared to SE counterparts. Confocal microscopy confirmed that iPSCs survived and migrated away from the transplantation site.

CONCLUSIONS
Overall, EE or iPSC therapy improved cognition and motor performance, however, full cognitive restoration was seen only with the EE/iPSC treatment. These data suggest that EE/iPSC therapy should be explored as a potential, clinically relevant, treatment for TBI.


The interaction of atomic hydrogen with the majority (101) surface of anatase TiO(2) is studied using density functional theory calculations both with a standard semi-local functional and with the inclusion of on-site Coulomb repulsion terms. We investigate the energetics of different adsorption configurations at surface and subsurface sites and different coverages, from low to one monolayer, as well as diffusion pathways among the different sites and recombinative H(2) desorption barriers. While H(2) desorption is the energetically most favorable process, the diffusion of H into the subsurface is found to be at least equally favorable kinetically. It is further shown that subsurface oxygen vacancies on reduced anatase are favorable adsorption sites for hydrogen atoms.


When there is debonding at a bone-implant interface, the difference in stiffness between the implant and the bone can result in micromotion, allowing existing gaps to open further or new gaps to be created during physiological loading. It has been suggested that periprosthetic fluid flow and high pressure may play an important role in osteolysis development in the proximity of these gaps. It has also been suggested that the periprosthetic flow may facilitate migration of wear polyethylene particles to the periprosthetic bone, which can also cause osteolysis. To explain these phenomena, the concepts of 'effective joint space' and 'pumping stem' have been cited in many studies. However, there is no clear understanding of the factors causing, or contributing to these mechanisms. It is likely that capsular pressure, gap dimensions and micromotion of the gap during cyclic loading of an implant as well as factors such as biological osteolysis threshold, the rate of wear generation and the degree of particle clogging in the periprosthetic tissue, play defining roles in periprosthetic flow, particle migration and osteolysis generation. In order to obtain a better understanding of the above mechanisms and factors, steady state and transient 2D computational fluid dynamic models of the lateral side of a stem-femur system including the joint capsule, a gap in communication with the capsule and the surrounding bone were studied. First, fluid velocities and pressures in the periprosthetic tissue were investigated. Then, particles were introduced to the continuum fluid at the gap entrance as a discrete phase and their migration to the bone was analysed. Lastly, the models were further refined by introducing algorithms and factors developed to simulate particle clogging and permeability variation caused by the fibrous tissue generation in osteolytic lesion and particle clogging in the periprosthetic tissue throughout postoperative periods. Simulations without particles showed that high capsular pressure may be the main driving force for high fluid pressure and flow in the bone surrounding the gap, while micromotion of only very long and narrow gaps can cause significant pressure and flow in the bone. At low capsular pressure, micromotion induced large flows in the gap region; however, the flow in the bone tissue was almost unaffected. The results also revealed the existence of high velocity spikes in the bone region at the bottom of the gap. These velocity spikes can exert excessive fluid shear stress on the bone cells and disturb the local biological balance of the surrounding interstitial fluid which can result in osteolysis development. High capsular pressure was observed to be the main cause of these velocity spikes whereas, at low capsular pressure, gapmicromotion of only very long and narrow gaps generated significant velocity spikes in the bone at the bottom of the gaps. Simulations with particles also showed that capsular pressure is the main driving force for particle migration to periprosthetic tissue. In contrast to common belief, the models showed that implant micromotion pumped out, rather than sucked in the particles to the interfacial gaps, except in long gaps in which, even at low pressure, particles that made it to the bottom region migrate to the bone tissue as a result of micromotion. Particles entered the periprosthetic tissue along the entire length of the gap with higher concentration at proximal and distal regions. However, particles mainly accumulated with an increasing concentration at the bottom of the gap because of the presence of the fluid spikes in this region. Therefore, focal osteolysis is more likely to develop in the gap bottom region, whereas linear osteolysis, which requires less particle concentration, is more likely to develop along the entire gap length. It was also shown that risk of osteolysis development was higher for shorter gaps since they experience higher particle concentration. In addition, the models showed that for osteolysis to develop, a constant supply of particles, as well as an access route to the endosteal bone must be available. When a particle clogging model was included, it was shown that the depth of particle penetration into the surrounding tissue reduced, leading to increased particle concentrations. Particle clogging and accumulation initially occurred at distal and proximal gap regions in the stem proximity. However, as time elapsed, this accumulation extended along the entire interface. The rate of particle accumulation was a function of particle wear generation. Accumulation of particles at the interface caused changes in the tissue permeability and periprosthetic flows. Partial clogging and particle accumulation in the gap bottom region caused increases in fluid spikes in that region. Once this region was completely clogged, the magnitude of fluid spikes reduced. In addition, there was a complementary relationship between particle concentration and the reduction of permeability; regions with lower permeability tended to experience higher particle accumulation. Models developed to simulate fibrous tissue generation in osteolytic lesions, presented this tissue by regions with increased permeability. It was showed that, as time elapses, particle concentrations become higher than the osteolytic threshold which leads to increased periprosthetic tissue permeability. In general, for lower osteolysis thresholds, regions with increased permeability progresses faster at the bottom of the gap. This results in increased permeability having a linear pattern along the interface and a focal pattern at the bottom of an interfacial gap. Higher osteolysis thresholds, generally, result in only a linear pattern of increased permeability along the gap except for the cases with high wear generation rates in which a focal pattern at the bottom of the gap can still be seen.


In South Asia, rice is the topmost, followed by wheat and maize in terms of area, production and yield. While rice and wheat are grown for grain, maize may be grown for grain, green cobs or fodder for animals. Three cereals are cultivated either as a mono crop in irrigated areas or a mixed crop in dryland, mostly in fixed sequences. Maize is cultivated in homesteads in both monsoon and winter seasons on the hills of Nepal and Pakistan and in eastern India. Rice-wheat (R-W) is the predominant cropping system (CS) with 12.6 m ha in the sub-tropical areas of the Indo-Gangetic Plains (IGP); double (R-R) or triple (R-R-R) rice crops with 9.5 and 0.34 m ha, respectively, are common in tropical irrigated or favourable rainfed lowlands of eastern IGP with distinct dry and wet seasons. The intensively cultivated irrigated rice–wheat system is fundamental to employment, income, and livelihoods for hundreds of millions of rural and urban poor of South Asia. However, yield stagnation/decline together with large yield gap; water and labor scarcity; and soil, water, and air pollution are the emerging threats to the sustainability of rice-wheat systems. Therefore, the design and implementation of alternative production systems with increased resource use efficiency, profitability and productivity, and reduced adverse environmental impact, are urgently required. One of the strategies to address emerging problems, specifically shortages of water and labor, is to grow rice and wheat in direct-seeding without tillage utilizing integrated crop and resource management (ICRM) strategies. Integrated crop and resource management for enhancing productivity and resource use Two types of trials were conducted to evaluate and refine various technological options. Well-planned on-station research trials were conducted at selected research farms where detailed measurements were made. From on-station trials, successful technologies were introduced to farmers' fields for further evaluation and eventually wider dissemination. Numerous trials were conducted to evaluate various technologies in rice and wheat at various sites of four IGP countries which includes optimal (1) land preparation, (2) water management, (3) crop establishment (time and method of seeding/transplanting, age, number of seedlings, and plant density in the case of rice and seeding rate and depth in the case of upland crops such as wheat), and (4) nutrient, pest, and weed management. We measured the following four groups of performance indicators in both on-station and on-farm trials: (1) crop productivity, (2) pattern of resource (labor, water, agro-chemicals) use, (3) partial budgeting (various costs and profit), and (4) global-warming potential (GWP). The on-station trials followed proper experimental design and replications; hence, adequate statistical analyses were done. But, for on-farm trials, for which proper experimental designs are often not possible, data were analyzed using SAS mixed model procedure, in which treatment was used as a fixed effect and farmer as a random effect. On-station technology performance The productivity of the RW system has been stagnant in recent years because of (1) contrasting tillage requirements for rice and wheat, (2) delayed wheat sowing, (3) poor maintenance of soil structure, and (4) poor management of irrigation water, agro-chemicals, including fertilizer, and crop residues. 146 On-farm technology performance Farmers can effectively reduce their yield gaps and enhance farm income by adopting ICRM in rice. ICRM in rice, which also included crop need-based N management with the help of an LCC for transplanted rice (CT-TPR-LCC), increased grain yield by 0.24 to 0.75 t ha –1 and net income by $41 to $49 ha –1 nd reduced fertilizer cost because of efficient N use. Likewise, ICRM in zero-till drill-seeded wheat (ZT-DSW-ICRM) increased mean grain yield by 1.06 t ha . So far, crop management has largely been developed and promoted in a conventional rice system (CT-TPR). However there is an urgent need for a full package of crop management together with conservation tillage for both rice and wheat. Crop residue is another missing link that should be factored in ICRM. The adoption of a full package of ICRM is essential to maximize system productivity (reduce yield gap) and profit, and save resources. Reduced-till and zero-till drill-seeded wheat either on flat (RT-DSW/ZT-DSW/RT-DSW-PTOS) or raised beds (Bed-DSW) was productive and profitable, with a yield advantage of 0.14 to 0.46 t ha –1 and net income from $76 to $200 ha . Therefore, minimumor zero-tillage is becoming increasingly popular among farmers in parts of the IGP. Reduced or zero-tillage facilitates timely wheat planting. Reducedor zero-till wheat is established by tractor-operated drill seeding with or without crop residues in combine-harvested rice fields. Retaining crop residues as mulch would reduce the perceived need to burn rice residues in the northwest IGP and likely enhance the scope of organic matter accumulation in the soil, and move the system toward conservation agriculture. Conclusions A number of ICRM modules which encompass following practices were developed and promoted (1) enhance resourceor input-use efficiency; (2) provide immediate, identifiable, and demonstrable economic benefits such as reductions in production costs, and savings in water, fuel, and labor requirements; and (3) ensure timely crop establishment and uniform crop stands, resulting in higher crop yields. Indirect benefits include (1) effective control of Phalaris minor, a major weed in wheat by zero-tillage; (2) replacement of residue burning by retention of crop residues, resulting in some improvement in certain soil quality parameters, including short-time accumulation of carbon in surface soil; (3) a reduction in methane emissions from nonpuddled and nonflooded rice fields; (4) buildup of soil fertility over the long term, leading to sustainability of intensive rice-wheat cultivation; and (5) the generation of rural employment by training and empowering local farm machine manufacturers, custom-hire service providers, retailers and traders, and seed producers. Although ICRM with tillage and crop establishment options has been more successful in wheat, the next frontier will be to make similar headway in rice. In short, integrating new RCTs into the portfolio of farmers' current technologies using the framework of ICRM (good agronomy) will continue to be a key to improving productivity and production (thereby reducing yield gap) and eventually attaining national food security.


Today, organizations are witnessing a destructive phenomenon called enterprise silence. The refusal of employees to provide their ideas and about organizational issues, ultimately leads to organizational degration and recession. This research intends to identify the factors that affect silence in organizations in order to come up with the best solutions to resolve this problem. This is an applied research which is performed by using field method through distributing 81 questionnaire at the Office of Welfare, Co-operation and Social Services of Tehran Municipality - Iran.  The reliability of the questionnaire was evaluated 0.78 using Cronbach's alpha coefficient. Data were analyzed using SPSS software and Kolmogorov-Smirnov, Wilcoxon and Spearman correlation tests. The results reviled that at the significant level of 0.05, there is a meaningful difference among the organizational silence dimensions and defensive silence with the hypothesized mean. There is no significant difference in submissive and kindred silence. Respectively, there is a correlation with values of 0.634 and 0.356 between managerial and individual factors with defensive silence. Management, organizational and social factors have been effective in silent subjugation and there is solidarity between the social, organizational and individual factors in altruistic silence. Findings show that there is a considerable defensive silence in the population under investigation and management factors have the greatest impact on its occurrence in the organization.


Palm oil, soy oil, sunflower oil, corn oil, castor oil, and rapeseed oil were analyzed with Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) and FT-Raman spectroscopy. The quality of different oils was evaluated and statistically classified by principal component analysis (PCA) and a partial least squares (PLS) regression model. First, a calibration set of spectra was selected from one sampling batch. The qualitative variations in spectra are discussed with a prediction of oil composition (saturated, mono- and polyunsaturated fatty acids) from mid-infrared analysis and iodine value from FT-Raman analysis, based on ratioing the intensity of bands at given wavenumbers. A more robust and convincing oil classification is obtained from two-parameter statistical models. The statistical analysis of FT-Raman spectra favorably distinguishes according to the iodine value, while the mid-infrared spectra are most sensitive to hydroxyl moieties. Second, the models are validated with a set of spectra from another sampling batch, including the same oil types as-received and after different aging times together with a hydrogenated castor oil and high-oleic sunflower oil. There is very good agreement between the model predictions and the Raman measurements, but the statistical significance is lower for mid-infrared spectra. In the future, this calibration model will be used to check vegetable oil qualities before using them in polymerization processes.


Abstract Infectious salmon anaemia (ISA) virus (ISAV) has been causing disease in New Brunswick since 1996. As a control measure, all fish in an outbreak cage are killed. The objective of this study was to compare ISAV prevalence in cages experiencing an outbreak with healthy cages from the same farm, neighbouring farms and distant farms. Atlantic salmon from five different groups were tested using an RT-PCR test. Groups included moribund fish from a cage experiencing an outbreak (A), healthy fish from an outbreak cage (B), healthy fish from a negative cage from a farm experiencing an outbreak in a different cage (C), healthy fish from a negative farm near an outbreak farm (D), and healthy fish sampled at a negative farm located in an area with only negative farms (E). Apparent prevalences (standard error) for the different groups (A-E) were 0.94 (+/-0.026), 0.41 (+/-0.062), 0.29 (+/-0.040), 0.08 (+/-0.037) and 0.08 (+/-0.037), respectively. All groups were significantly different (P < 0.002) from each other except for groups B and C and groups D and E. Because the prevalence of the virus was significantly higher in the outbreak cage (B) compared with other sites, early harvest of outbreak cages will remove one source of virus. However, ISA negative cages (C) that remain on the positive farm may potentially act as a viral reservoir.


Objective To examine the association between gestational age at birth and hospital admission costs from birth to 8 years of age. Design Population-based, record linkage, cohort study in England. Setting National Health Service (NHS) hospitals in England, UK. Participants 1 018 136 live, singleton births in NHS hospitals in England between 1 January 2005 and 31 December 2006. Main outcome measures Hospital admission costs from birth to age 8 years, estimated by gestational age at birth (<28, 28–29, 30–31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41 and 42 weeks). Results Both birth admission and subsequent admission hospital costs decreased with increasing gestational age at birth. Differences in hospital admission costs between gestational age groups diminished with increasing age, particularly after the first 2 years following birth. Children born extremely preterm (<28 weeks) and very preterm (28–31 weeks) still had higher average hospital admission costs (£699 (95% CI £419 to £919) for <28 weeks; £434 (95% CI £305 to £563) for 28–31 weeks) during the eighth year of life compared with children born at 40 weeks (£109, 95% CI £104 to £114). Children born extremely preterm had the highest 8-year cumulative hospital admission costs per child (£80 559 (95% CI £79 238 to £82 019)), a large proportion of which was incurred during the first year after birth (£71 997 (95% CI £70 866 to £73 097)). Conclusions The association between gestational age at birth and hospital admission costs persists into mid-childhood. The study results provide a useful costing resource for future economic evaluations focusing on preventive and treatment strategies for babies born preterm.


Over the last decade, we observed a steadily increasing amount of RDF datasets made available on the web of data. The decentralized nature of the web, however, makes it hard to identify all these datasets. Even more so, when downloadable data distributions are discovered, only insufficient metadata is available to describe the datasets properly, thus posing barriers on its usefulness and reuse. In this paper, we describe an attempt to exhaustively identify the whole linked open data cloud by harvesting metadata from multiple sources, providing insights about duplicated data and the general quality of the available metadata. This was only possible by using a probabilistic data structure called Bloom filter. Finally, we published a dump file containing metadata which can further be used to enrich existent datasets.


About the book:

Information is everywhere, and defines everything in today's society. Moreover, information is a key concept in a wide range of academic disciplines, from quantum physics to public policy. However, these disciplines all interpret the concept in quite different ways. This book looks at information in several different academic disciplines - cybernetics, ICT, communications theory, semiotics, information systems, library science, linguistics, quantum physics and public policy.

Perspectives on Information brings clarity and coherence to different perspectives through promoting information as a unifying concept across the disciplinary spectrum. Though conceived as a contribution to the ongoing conversation between academic disciplines into the nature of information, the deliberately accessible style of this text (reflecting the authors' backgrounds at The Open University) will be make it valuable for anyone who needs to know something more about information. Given the ubiquity of information in the 21st century, that means everyone.


We show that the solution to an arbitrary c-number stochastic differential equation (SDE) can be represented as a diagram series. Both the diagram rules and the properties of the graphical elements reflect causality properties of the SDE and this series is therefore called a causal diagram series. We also discuss the converse problem, i.e. how to construct an SDE of which a formal solution is a given causal diagram series. This then allows for a nonperturbative summation of the diagram series by solving this SDE, numerically or analytically.


An enduring issue in immersion education focuses on the appropriate use of the L1 in the one-way or two-way immersion classroom. In this article we discuss several key constructs (mediation, languaging, the cognition/emotion relationship, zone of proximal development) that are central to a Vygotskian sociocultural theory of mind perspective on second language learning and teaching. Each discussion of a theoretical construct is followed by a review of one or more key research studies from one-way or two-way immersion contexts whose findings we highlight or re-interpret in light of Vygotsky's insights. The theory and research yield three important guiding principles with the goal of helping educators to make decisions about their language use choices in the immersion classroom.


Abstract Passive gamma spectroscopy has been successfully used for nuclear warhead inspection systems based on the template-matching approach. The most prominent example of such a system is Sandia's Trusted Radiation Identification System (TRIS), which is based on an earlier system used at Pantex since 1994 to confirm the identities of containerized plutonium pits. Remarkably, TRIS uses only 16 energy bins, i.e., 16 numbers, to accomplish this task. Additional experiments have shown that such a template-matching method could be performed in a way that does not reveal classified information. To be used in a real inspection setting, however, inspectors must gain confidence that the system hardware and software work as designed and display genuine measurements through a process known as authentication. It also requires establishing and maintaining confidence in the template, i.e., that the data characterizing the treaty accountable item is genuine and has not been altered. In the case of TRIS, the template data are stored electronically and signed as a whole, such that no information about the template can ever be shared with inspectors as a confidence-building measure. Here, we propose an inspection protocol that uses a different approach: Information is stored in the form of punched cards that encode the secret template. Public masks can be used to reveal selected features of the template, e.g., total counts in particular energy bins, while keeping others secret, constraining certain physical properties of the treaty accountable item and providing increasing levels of transparency. We illustrate our approach using Princeton's Information Barrier Experimental II based on a vintage 6502 processor.


The aim of this research study was to evaluate and compared psychometrics characteristics of achievement based on classical test theory (CTT) and item response theory (IRT) especially based on one (1PL), two (2PL), and three (3PL) parameters models. The data for the research consist of Senior High School students' responses to the Mathematics National Exit Examination Academic Year 2003/2004 in Yogyakarta. The subjects were 7000 (3500 male and 3500 female students). The test has 40 multiple choice test items and is criterion referenced. By comparing the indices from CTT and IRT, the overall conclusion from this evaluation is that 2PL model is preferable to use when evaluating the test.


Three approaches, Eddy Correlation (EC), Turbulent Kinetic Energy (TKE), and Inertial Dissipation (ID) methods, were compared to evaluate their potential for estimation of friction velocity in a Scottish sea loch. As an independent assessment parameter, we used simultaneous O2 recordings of the diffusive boundary layer (DBL) that were compared with theoretical distribution as derived from the respective friction velocity estimates. Friction velocities were calculated based on the three approaches using continuously measured turbulent properties, and values estimated by the TKE method were significantly higher than values of the two other approaches. Time series of calculated friction velocity were subsequently employed as input parameters for nonsteady calculations of the O2 distribution within the DBL. The friction velocity is a controlling factor for the eddy diffusivity distribution immediately above the sediment surface and for the DBL thickness, and friction velocity values of the TKE method derived significantly higher theoretical O2 concentration while the EC and the ID approach provided results that were not significantly different. Overall differences from measured O2 concentration in the DBL were 0.2% for the EC method, 9.8% for the TKE method, and 0.7% for the ID method. The results reveal that the EC method appear to be the best approach for estimating friction velocities though not significantly different from the ID method, whereas the TKE method was unreliable at the ~70 m deep, relatively calm study site. This information is important for future research in similar sounds, fjords, and sea‐lochs.


In contrast with training algorithms such as Baum-Welch, which produce solutions that are a local optimum of the objective function, this thesis describes the attempt to develop a training algorithm which delivers the global optimum Discrete ICdden Markov Model for a given training sequence. A total of four different methods of attack upon the problem are presented. First, after building the necessary analytical tools, the thesis presents a direct, calculus-based assault featuring Matrix Derivatives. Next, the dual analytic approach known as Geometric Programming is examined and then adapted to the task. After that, a hill-climbing formula is developed and applied. These first three methods reveal a number of interesting and useful insights into the problem. However, it is the fourth method which produces an algorithm that is then used for direct comparison vAth the Baum-Welch algorithm: examples of global optima are collected, examined for common features and patterns, and then a rule is induced. The resulting rule is implemented in *C' and tested against a battery of Baum-Welch based programs. In the limited range of tests carried out to date, the models produced by the new algorithm yield optima which have not been surpassed by (and are typically much better than) the Baum-Welch models. However, far more analysis and testing is required and in its current form the algorithm is not fast enough for realistic application.


Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is a chronic, relapsing functional disorder of the gastrointestinal tract characterized by abdominal pain, bloating, and changes in bowel habits lacking a known structural or anatomic explanation. According to the Rome IV criteria, IBS consists of a set of altered bowel habits over a period of time and includes abdominal pain and discomfort. The pathogenesis of IBS is not completely understood, although it has been noted that various mechanisms are involved determining the onset of symptoms. The risk factors include antibiotics, enteric infection, food intolerance, altered pain perception, altered brain-gut interaction, dysbiosis, increased intestinal permeability, visceral hypersensitivity, and increased activation of the gut mucosal immune system. There has been interest regarding the possible role of food in IBS. Diet is crucial for managing IBS; it plays an important role both in the genesis and in the improvement of symptoms. The aim of the study was to summarize the evidence from the literature, which explains those causes tending to promoting IBS symptoms, such as food content short-chain carbohydrates and the presence of food allergy or food intolerance.


The mathematical treatment of polymer modification systems, described by population balances containing convolution is discussed. The two-dimensional case (molecular weight vs. number of branch points) was considered by utilizing approximations of distributions, expanding them in terms of Gaussian basis functions. Three branching reactions were addressed: chain backbone to chain end point coupling; three-functional coupling of chain ends; and crosslinking. The results were compared to those of Monte Carlo (MC) simulations. Good agreement was observed, although the quality of a distribution as generated by the numerical approach is much better in view of the strong scatter in the MC data.


Interaction of a platelet protein and a red cell protein enables platelets to attack malarial parasites inside red cells. Activated platelets bound to malaria parasite–infected red blood cells were once thought to contribute to pathogenesis, but recently the platelets have been found to have a protective effect. McMorran et al. (see the Perspective by Engwerda and Good) extended this discovery to show that platelet activation releases intracellular granules containing a chemokine, PF4, which is internalized by Plasmodium falciparum–infected red cells. Subsequently, mature parasites within the cells die. The Duffy blood-group factor on red blood cells is known to act as a nonspecific receptor for chemokines, such as PF4, as well as a receptor for cell invasion by other species of malaria parasite. When the Duffy antigen was blocked by antibody treatment, platelets and PF4 were less able to kill the P. falciparum parasites within. B. J. McMorran, L. Wieczorski, K. E. Drysdale, J.-A. Chan, H. M. Huang, C. Smith, C. Mitiku, J. G. Beeson, G. Burgio, S. J. Foote, Platelet factor 4 and Duffy antigen required for platelet killing of Plasmodium falciparum. Science 338, 1348–1351 (2012). [Abstract] [Full Text] C. R. Engwerda, M. F. Good, Platelets kill the parasite within. Science 338, 1304–1305 (2012). [Abstract] [Full Text]


Drawing on the theory of strategic action fields, this article explores a collective–conflictual perspective on value co-creation. Following recent developments and calls for research with a holistic outlook, we review streams of research that discuss both collective and discordant elements in social relations and subsequently relate this to value co-creation. We outline a conceptual framework for value co-creation, focusing on collective action that includes various actors, interactions, practices, and outcomes. This article pioneers the underdeveloped collective–conflictual perspective on value co-creation. Our framework enables empirical research in value co-creation that accounts for multiple actors nested in fields of collective action.


Background Cannabis varies considerably in levels of its two major constituent cannabinoids – (delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and cannabidiol (CBD). Recently, we found evidence that those who smoked cannabis containing detectable levels of CBD had fewer psychotic-like symptoms than those whose cannabis had no CBD. The present study aimed, first, to replicate those findings and, second, to determine whether protective effects of CBD may extend to other harms of cannabis, such as memory impairment and reduced psychological well-being. Method A total of 120 current cannabis smokers, 66 daily users and 54 recreational users were classified into groups according to whether analysis of their hair revealed the presence or absence of CBD and high versus low levels of THC. All were assessed on measures of psychosis-like symptoms, memory (prose recall; source memory) and depression/anxiety. Results Lower psychosis-like symptoms were found in those whose hair had CBD compared with those without. However, this was seen only in recreational users, who had higher levels of THC in their hair. Higher THC levels in hair were associated with increased depression and anxiety. Prose recall and source memory were poorer in daily users with high THC levels in hair while recognition memory was better in individuals with CBD present in hair. Conclusions CBD attenuates the psychotic-like effects of cannabis over time in recreational users. Higher THC negatively impacts on memory and psychological well-being. These findings raise concerns for the harms stemming from use of varieties such as 'skunk' (sensimillia), which lack any CBD but currently dominate the supply of cannabis in many countries.


Two major approaches generally characterize the political left's debate concerning same-sex marriage – marriage equality, viewing the right of access to marriage as an important civil right, and what I will call "marriage skepticism," viewing the effort to obtain marriage rights as troubling limited and assimilationist. But a third outlook exists: the underexamined position that simultaneously supports same-sex marriage and critiques marriage. Existing scholarly efforts have not articulated this third position in a way that synthesizes the ideas of marriage equality and marriage skepticism. In this Article, I set forth an approach for what I call "skeptical marriage equality," exploring how we can be skeptical of marriage as a legal category and of its privileged place in law and society, but also favor marriage equality for same-sex couples. Exploring the feasibility and possibilities of this hybrid position is critical to a nuanced approach to same-sex marriage. Without this position, the law affecting family will continue to perpetuate a marriage-based system of legal and public support to the exclusion of other family models. How can we harmonize the powerful and compelling critique of marriage advanced by feminist and gay rights scholars with support of same-sex marriage? This Article argues that rather than being entirely exclusive of one another, as is often assumed to be the case, marriage equality and marriage skepticism share more than is commonly recognized. We might actually view marriage skepticism's interest in pluralism and family function as paving the way for the movement for marriage equality. Conversely, marriage equality may help achieve some of the goals of marriage skepticism. Same-sex marriage may not only make marriage internally less hierarchical, as feminists have argued, but may also, and even more importantly, assist in unsettling the hierarchical relationship between marriage and other intimacy forms to support a more pluralistic vision for state recognition of family connection. The pursuit of same-sex marriage facilitates the pluralistic goals of the marriage critique by drawing attention to the gender-hierarchical and sexuality norm-enforcing construction of traditional marriage. Marriage equality may also promise to lead to greater pluralism as advocated by marriage skepticism, by constituting marriage in a way that redefines it away from sex-difference and toward core values that are at stake in marriage, such as commitment and caregiving. A fundamental shift in the socially-privileged status of marriage may pave the way toward more functional understandings of family and intimacy overall.


Abstract. Field measurements, collected at several low energy, microtidal beaches in south-western Australia were used to study the cross-shore transport and sediment resuspension over different sand ripple types. The measurements included simultaneous records of the water surface elevation, cross-shore current velocity, and suspended sediment concentration, as well as free diver measurements of the ripple dimensions. The observed ripples were classified according to their geometry and sediment suspension patterns into six categories: flat bed, post-vortex ripples, two-dimensional (2-D) ripples, two/three-dimensional (2-D/3-D) ripples, three-dimensional (3-D) ripples, and cross ripples. Flat bed conditions were observed under the highest flow mobility numbers. Post-vortex ripples were observed under slightly lower mobility numbers. The other ripple types occurred under low mobility numbers, with no significant difference in the mobility number among them. Two-dimensional ripples were observed more than the other ripple types in the presence of coarse grains. The suspended sediment concentration at ∼0.05 m above the bed was greater over steep ripples. The net cross-shore suspended sediment flux close to the seabed (at ∼0.05 m) in the swell frequency band varied over the different ripples types: onshore over a flat bed, offshore over post-vortex ripples, onshore over 2-D and 2-D/3-D ripples, and offshore over 3-D ripples. The suspended sediment flux direction over the cross ripples varied between onshore and offshore.


Polymer diffusion and matrix morphology are investigated in polymer nanocomposites (PNCs). Using elastic recoil detection, tracer diffusion coefficients (D) of dPS and dPMMA are measured in PNCs containing polystyrene (PS) with phenyl-capped (Ph) silica, and poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) with hydroxylterminated (OH) silica nanoparticles (NPs), respectively. As NP volume fraction increases or NP size decreases, polymer diffusion slows down. Moreover, D plotted relative to diffusion in a pure PS matrix (i.e., D/D0) falls on a master curve when plotted against the interparticle distance of NPs relative to the tracer radius of gyration, ID/2Rg. This slowing down with increasing confinement is consistent with an entropic barrier model which captures conformational entropy loss as macromolecules squeeze through a bottleneck (i.e., array of NPs). To investigate polymer-NP interactions, tracer diffusion of dPMMA is investigated in PMMA:OH-NP. Because of the attraction between dPMMA segments and OH groups on the NPs, tracer diffusion is slower than in the dPS system which involve weak interactions with the phenyl grafted NPs. Third, tracer diffusion is investigated in a bicontinuous structure. By adding NPs that segregate and jam at the interface during phase separation, a novel processing method was developed to prepare discrete or bicontinuous structures of PMMA:poly(styrene-ran-acrylonitrile) (SAN) films. A jamming map of the morphology summarizes the NP concentration and film thickness to produce either morphology. Diffusion of dPMMA in this bicontinuous structure is slower than in PMMA, a result attributed to the tortuosity of the continuous PMMA matrix phase. In summary, macromolecular diffusion has been investigated in PNCs as a function of tracer molecular weight and matrix properties including NP volume fraction, NP size, and NP interactions with tracer molecule. Understanding how to disperse NPs at high loadings is crucial for fabricating polymeric devices including membranes for fuel cells and organic solar cells. These diffusion studies are also practically important for selecting processing conditions to prepare hybrid materials. Finally, the bicontinuous morphology is attractive for applications requiring high interfacial area such as organic solar cells, membranes, catalysis, and fuel cells. Degree Type Dissertation Degree Name Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Graduate Group Materials Science & Engineering First Advisor Russell J. Composto


ObjectiveThe authors sought to determine the optimal surgical management of pheochromocytomas that develop in patients with multiple endocrine neoplasia (MEN) type 2 syndromes. Summary Background dataThe performance of empirical bilateral adrenalectomy in patients with MEN 2A or MEN 2B, whether or not they have bilateral pheochromocytomas, is controversial. MethodsThe results of unilateral or bilateral adrenalectomy were studied in 58 patients (49 with MEN 2A and 9 with MEN 2B). Recurrence of disease was evaluated by measuring 24-hour urinary excretion rates of catecholamines and metabolites and by computed tomography (CT) scanning. ResultsThe mean postoperative follow-up was 9.40 years. There was no operative mortality and malignant or extra-adrenal pheochromocytomas were not present. Twenty-three patients with a unilateral pheochromocytoma and a macroscopically normal contralateral gland underwent unilateral adrenalectomy. A pheochromocytoma developed in the remaining gland a mean of 11.87 years after the primary adrenalectomy in 12 (52%) patients. Conversely, 11 (48%) patients did not develop a pheochromocytoma during a mean interval of 5.18 years. In the interval after unlateral adrenalectomy, no patient experienced hypertensive crises or other complications related to an undiagnosed pheochromocytoma. Ten (23%) of 43 patients having both adrenal glands removed (either at a single operation or sequentially) experienced at least one episode of acute adrenal insufficiency or Addisonian crisis, including one patient who died during a bout of influenza. ConclusionsBased on these data, the treatment of choice for patients with MEN 2A or MEN 2B and a unilateral pheochromocytoma is resection of only the involved gland. Substantial morbidity and significant mortality are associated with the Addisonian state after bilateral adrenalectomy.


We study the synchronous stochastic dynamics of the random field and random bond Ising chain. For this model the generating functional analysis method of De Dominicis leads to a formalism with transfer operators, similar to transfer matrices in equilibrium studies, but with dynamical paths of spins and (conjugate) fields as arguments, as opposed to replicated spins. In the thermodynamic limit the macroscopic dynamics is captured by the dominant eigenspace of the transfer operator, leading to a relatively simple and transparent set of equations that are easy to solve numerically. Our results are supported excellently by numerical simulations.


Eulogised and ostracised, James Butler Hickok was alternately labelled courageous, affable, and self-confident; cowardly, cold-blooded, and drunken; a fine specimen of manhood; an overdressed dandy with perfumed hair; an unequaled marksman; and a poor shot. Born in Illinois in 1837, he was shot dead in Deadwood only 39 years later. By then both famous and infamous, he was widely known as "Wild Bill". Excavating the reality behind the myth, this text delves into the exploits and ego that defined Hickok, and shows how the man was overtaken by his own legend. Rosa exposes a controversial and charismatic man - army and Indian scout, wagon master, courier, frontiersman, gunfighter, lawman, prospector, addicted gambler, and actor - who was elevated from regional fame to national notoriety by inadvertently being in the right place at the right time. Aggrandized in an 1867 "Harper's New Monthly Magazine" article, Hickok reluctantly embraced his exaggerated role in a far-fetched story that has inspired writers, folklorists and movie moguls. Dime novelists sensationalised him. Biographers praised and criticised. Gary Cooper portrayed him sensitively, Douglas Kennedy villainously, and Charles Bronson laconically. Howard Keel played him romantically (albeit historically incorrectly) against Doris Day's Calamity Jane. Culminating four decades of research on Wild West legends, this work aims to provide an accurate account of the larger-than-life character whose reported accomplishments - both real and imaginary - in Kansas, Missouri, and the surrounding territory frequently brought him unwanted publicity. Setting the record straight, Rosa exposes some of the deliberate lies that vested Hickok with a "man-killer" reputation he didn't deserve. The book shows that the number of men he killed is probably a lot closer to ten than to the more than 100 he is often credited with. Establishing the role an overzealous press and fortune-seeking dime novelists played in immortalising Wild Bill, Rosa reveals how myths were initiated and perpetuated to glorify the 19th-century frontier. He also illuminates why imaginative accounts of unorthodox heroes continue to skew our understanding of this era of American history.


During recent years, right ventricular (RV) structure and function have been found to be an important determinant of outcome in different cardiovascular and also pulmonary diseases. Currently, echocardiography and cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) imaging are the two imaging modalities most commonly used to visualize the RV. Most structural abnormalities of the RV can be reliably described by echocardiography but due its complex geometrical shape, echocardiographic assessment of RV function is more challenging. Newer promising echocardiographic techniques are emerging but lack of validation and limited normal reference data influence their routine clinical application. Cardiac magnetic resonance is generally considered the clinical reference technique due to its unlimited imaging planes, superior image resolution, and three-dimensional volumetric rendering. The accuracy and reliability of CMR measurements make it the ideal tool for serial examinations of RV function. Multidetector computed tomography (MDCT) plays an important role in the diagnosis of pulmonary emboli but can also be used for assessing RV ischaemic disease or as an alternative for CMR if contra-indicated. Radionuclide techniques have become more obsolete in the current era. The different imaging modalities should be considered complimentary and each plays a role for different indications.


The Indian River Lagoon on the Atlantic coast of Florida, USA, and the east coast of Puerto Rico provide contrasting environments in which the endangered West Indian Manatee Trichechus manatus experiences different thermal regimes and seagrass communities. We compare Manatee feeding behaviour in these two regions, examine the ecological effects of Manatee grazing on a seagrass community in the Indian River Lagoon, describe the utility of aerial surveys, radio tracking, and seagrass mapping to study Manatee feeding patterns, and develop hypotheses on sirenian feeding strategies in temperate and tropical seagrass communities. In both the Indian River Lagoon and Puerto Rico, Manatees were typically observed grazing in water depths = 2.0 m and more frequently on the most abundant seagrasses present in the community: Halodule wrightii in the Indian River Lagoon and Thalassia testudinum in eastern Puerto Rico. Where both H. wrightii and Syringodium filiforme were consumed in the Indian River Lagoon, Manatees tended to remove more S. filiforme than H. wrightii rhizome + root biomass. Even though 80 to 95% of the short-shoot biomass and 50 to 67% of the rhizome + root biomass were removed, grazed patches of H. wrightii and S. filiforme recovered significantly between February and August. H. wrightii may be both more resistant and resilient than S. filiforme to the impacts of Manatee grazing. Despite the significantly greater abundance of T. testudinum in Puerto Rico, Manatees exhibited selective feeding by returning to specific sites with abundant H. wrightii. They also appeared to feed selectively on T. testudinum shoots associated with clumps of the calcareous alga Halimeda opuntia. We hypothesize that Florida Manatees are less specialized seagrass grazers than Manatees in tropical regions like Puerto Rico. Continued research on Manatee grazing ecology in temperate to tropical seagrass communities will enable better protection and management of these vital and unique marine resources.


This article introduces Dynamic Systems Theory (DST) as a framework for the investigation of translation competence development. After a presentation of the basic concepts and assumptions underlying this theory, results from the longitudinal study TransComp will be discussed against the background of DST. TransComp is a three-year product- and process-oriented longitudinal study of the development of translation competence in 12 students of translation, whose translation products and processes were compared with those of 10 professional translators. The article outlines both the difficulties involved in the application of DST to the investigation of translation competence development and the added value that it promises for our understanding of developmental processes in translators, including the ways they can be fostered in translation training.


Exploring America's material culture, "Common Places" reveals the history, culture, and social and class relationships that are the backdrop of the everyday structures and environments of ordinary people. Examining America's houses and cityscapes, its rural outbuildings and landscapes from perspectives including cultural geography, decorative arts, architectural history, and folklore, these articles reflect the variety and vibrancy of the growing field of vernacular architecture.In essays that focus on buildings and spaces unique to the U.S. landscape, Clay Lancaster, Edward T. Price, John Michael Vlach, and Warren E. Roberts reconstruct the social and cultural contexts of the modern bungalow, the small-town courthouse square, the shotgun house of the South, and the log buildings of the Midwest. Surveying the buildings of America's settlement, scholars including Henry Glassie, Norman Morrison Isham, Edward A. Chappell, and Theodore H. M. Prudon trace European ethnic influences in the folk structures of Delaware and the houses of Rhode Island, in Virginia's Renish homes, and in the Dutch barn widely repeated in rural America.Ethnic, regional, and class differences have flavored the nation's vernacular architecture. Fraser D. Neiman reveals overt changes in houses and outbuildings indicative of the growing social separation and increasingly rigid relations between seventeenth-century Virginia planters and their servants. Fred B. Kniffen and Fred W. Peterson show how, following the westward expansion of the nineteenth century, the structures of the eastern elite were repeated and often rejected by frontier builders. Moving into the twentieth century, James Borchert tracks the transformation of the alley from an urban home for Washington's blacks in the first half of the century to its new status in the gentrified neighborhoods of the last decade, while Barbara Rubin's discussion of the evolution of the commercial strip counterpoints the goals of city planners and more spontaneous forms of urban expression.The illustrations that accompany each article present the artifacts of America's material past. Photographs of individual buildings, historic maps of the nation's agricultural expanse, and descriptions of the household furnishings of the Victorian middle class, the urban immigrant population, and the rural farmer's homestead complete the volume, rooting vernacular architecture to the American people, their lives, and their everyday creations.


During the early Cretaceous, successive tectonic phases and several sea level falls resulted in the emersion of the main part of western Europe and the development of thick "lateritic" weathering. This long period of continental evolution ended with the Upper Cretaceous transgressions. During this period, the exposed lands displayed a mosaic of diverse morphologies and weathered landscapes.

Bauxites are the most spectacular paleoweathering features, known for long in southern France. Recently, new residual outcrops have been identified, trapped in the karstic depressions of the Grands Causses. Other bauxitic formations, containing gibbsite, have also been recognised, occurring with the Clay-with-Jurassic-cherts in the southeastern border of the Paris Basin. These bauxitic formations overlay Jurassic limestone and are buried beneath Upper Cretaceous marine deposits. The recognition of bauxites up north into the southern Paris Basin significantly widens the extension of the Lower Cretaceous bauxitic paleolandscapes.

On the Hercynian basements thick kaolinitic weathering mantles occur. They have been classically ascribed to the Tertiary. The first datings of these in situ paleosoils, by means of paleomagnetism and/or radiogenic isotopes, record especially early Cretaceous ages. This is the case for the "Siderolithic" formations on the edges of the French Massif Central, but also for the kaolinitic profiles in the Belgian Ardennes. In the Flanders, the Brabant basement is deeply kaolinised beneath the Upper Cretaceous cover. These paleosoils show polygenetic evolutions. The relief of these basement paleolandscapes may have been significant. There where probably high scarps (often of tectonic origin) reaching 200 m in elevation or beyond, as well as wide surfaces with inselbergs, as in the present day landscapes of tropical Africa and South America.

On the Jurassic limestone platforms occur diverse kaolinitic and ferruginous weathering products. Around the Paris Basin they show various facies, ranging from kaolinitic saprolites to ferricretes. Due to the lack of sedimentary cover, the age of these ferruginous and kaolinitic weathering products has been debated for long, most often allocated to the Siderolithic sensu lato (Eocene-Oligocene). Recent datings by paleomagnetism have enabled to date them (Borne de Fer in eastern Paris Basin) back also to the early Cretaceous (130 ± 10 Ma). These wide limestone plateaus show karstified paleolandforms, such as vast closed and flat depressions broken by conical buttes, but also deep sinkholes in the higher areas of the plateaus and piedmonts. The depth of the karst hollows may be indicative of the range of relative paleoelevations. Dissolution holes display seldom contemporaneous karst fillings, thus implying that the karstland had not a thick weathering cover or that this cover had been stripped off before or by the late Cretaceous transgression. Nevertheless, some areas, especially above chert-bearing Jurassic limestone or marl, show weathering products trapped in the karst features or as a thick weathering mantle.

In the Paris Basin, the Wealden gutter looked like a wide floodplain in which fluvio-deltaic sands and clays were deposited and on which paleosoils developed during times of non-deposition. The edges of the gutter were shaped as piedmonts linked up with the upstream basement areas. The rivers flowing down to the plain deposited lobes of coarse fluvial sands and conglomerates. The intensity of the weathering, the thickness of the profiles and their maturation are directly dependent on the duration of the emersion and the topographic location relative to the gutter. Near the axis of the gutter, where emersion was of limited duration, the paleoweathering features are restricted to rubefaction and argillization of the Lower Cretaceous marine formations. On the other hand, on the borders of the basin and on the Hercynian basement, where emersion was of longer duration, the weathering profiles are thicker and more intensively developed.

The inventory of the Lower Cretaceous paleoweathering features shows the complexity of the continental history of this period. Moreover, the preserved weathering products are only a part of this long lasting period, all the aspects relative to erosion phases are still more difficult to prove and to quantify. In this domain, apatite fission tracks thermochronology (AFTT) can be helpful to estimate the order of magnitude of denudation. Residual testimonies and subsequent transgressions may enable to estimate relative elevations, but in return, we presently have no reliable tool to estimate absolute paleoelevations. In the work presented here, the inventory enabled to draw a continental paleogeographic map showing the nature of the weathering mantles and the paleolandscape features, just as paleoenvironments and paleobathymetry presently appear on marine paleogeographic maps. For the future, the challenge is to make progress in dating the paleoweathering profiles and especially in the resolution of these datings, in order to correlate precisely the continental records with the different events which trigger them (eustatism, climate, regional and global geodynamics). The final goal will be to build up a stratigraphic scale of the "continental geodynamic and climatic events" in parallel with "sequential stratigraphy" in the marine realm.


The Cambridge University Herbarium has a rich history of over 300 years of plant collection, inventory, production of taxonomic literature, and teaching of botany. The herbarium of some 1.1 million dried, pressed plant specimens includes collections made by some of the great British botanists including Charles Darwin, Alfred Russel Wallace, Nathaniel Wallich, and Richard Spruce. Over its history, the Herbarium has experienced various stages of evolution, expansion, changing research focuses, and threats, and over the last 100 years was particularly important in European and British taxonomy and floristics. Currently the collections are relatively poorly known and have virtually no visibility outside the physical building in which they are housed. The historic specimens represent a treasure trove of unstudied material and are especially rich in nomenclatural type specimens. This paper aims to provide an overview of the history of the collection, and to raise awareness of its existence. Now with a new Curator, in an era of collections digitisation and interdisciplinary research, the potential to open this Herbarium up via collaborative research, teaching, and engagement is huge.


In two papers, Meyer and Wise (1983a,b) present an ingenious method for estimating the effect of minimum wage rates on wages and employment using data based only on the observed cross-sectional distribution of wages. They, and others who have used this method, have generally found that the minimum wage causes substantial losses in employment. In this paper we evaluate the robustness of this technique. We argue that the estimates, at least for the UK, are very sensitive to the functional form assumed for the distribution of wages and to the assumption made about how far up the wage distribution the minimum wage has spillover effects.


Natural flow regimes in deep unsaturated zones of arid interfluvial environments are rarely in hydraulic equilibrium with near‐surface boundary conditions imposed by present‐day plant–soil–atmosphere dynamics. Nevertheless, assessments of water resources and contaminant transport require realistic estimates of gas, water, and solute fluxes under past, present, and projected conditions. Multimillennial transients that are captured in current hydraulic, chemical, and isotopic profiles can be interpreted to constrain alternative scenarios of paleohydrologic evolution following climatic and vegetational shifts from pluvial to arid conditions. However, interpreting profile data with numerical models presents formidable challenges in that boundary conditions must be prescribed throughout the entire Holocene, when we have at most a few decades of actual records. Models of profile development at the Amargosa Desert Research Site include substantial uncertainties from imperfectly known initial and boundary conditions when simulating flow and solute transport over millennial timescales. We show how multiple types of profile data, including matric potentials and porewater concentrations of Cl−, δD, δ18O, can be used in multiphase heat, flow, and transport models to expose and reduce uncertainty in paleohydrologic reconstructions. Results indicate that a dramatic shift in the near‐surface water balance occurred approximately 16000 yr ago, but that transitions in precipitation, temperature, and vegetation were not necessarily synchronous. The timing of the hydraulic transition imparts the largest uncertainty to model‐predicted contemporary fluxes. In contrast, the uncertainties associated with initial (late Pleistocene) conditions and boundary conditions during the Holocene impart only small uncertainties to model‐predicted contemporaneous fluxes.


This paper presents an approach to differentially constrained robot motion planning and efficient re-planning. Satisfaction of differential constraints is guaranteed by the search space which consists of motions that satisfy the constraints by construction. Any systematic replanning algorithm, e.g. D*, can be utilized to search the state lattice to find a motion plan that satisfies the differential constraints, and to repair it efficiently in the event of a change in the environment. Further efficiency is obtained by varying the fidelity of representation of the planning problem. High fidelity is utilized where it matters most, while it is lowered in the areas that do not affect the quality of the plan significantly. The paper presents a method of modifying the fidelity between replans, thereby enabling dynamic flexibility of the search space, while maintaining its compatibility with replanning algorithms. The approach is especially suited for mobile robotics applications in unknown challenging environments. We successfully applied the motion planner on a real robot: the planner featured 10Hz average replan rate on minimal computing hardware, while satisfying the car-like differential constraints.


Emerging applications, such as fuel cell, fuel processor, heat exchanger, microreactors, etc., require joining of thin metallic plates in confined places with small dimensions and minimal damage to the surrounding areas. In this study, the feasibility and modeling of pressure welding (solid state bonding) process are investigated, specifically for bonding of thin sheet metals. The effects of material type (e.g., copper, nickel, and stainless steel) and initial plate thickness (51-254 μm) as well as process conditions (e.g., welding pressure and temperature, 25-300°C) on the minimum welding pressure and the final bond strength are experimentally studied. A pressure welding apparatus was developed for testing of different materials and process conditions. Based on the experimental results, the effects of material and process conditions on the final bond quality are characterized. At room temperature, copper and nickel blanks were successfully bonded, while stainless steel blanks could only be joined at elevated temperature levels (150°C and 300°C). The material type (i.e., strength) and thickness were shown to have significant impact on the welding pressure; in that more pressure is required to bond the blanks with higher strength or thinner. To reduce the required welding pressure, the process can be carried out at elevated temperature levels. In this study, the bond strength of the welded blanks was characterized with uniaxial testing. The tensile test results showed that the bond strength could be increased by increasing the welding pressure or temperature. However, the increase in bond strength by increasing the welding pressure was shown to have an optimal point, after which the bond strength would decrease with further increase in pressure. This critical pressure value was found to be dependent on the material and process conditions. In addition, bond formation mechanisms for different materials were studied through microscopic analyses. The microscopy images of the weld spots showed that for a successful bonding to take place, the contaminant layers at the surfaces must be removed or broken to allow the virgin metal underneath to be extruded through. The metallic bonds only form at these locations where both surfaces are free of contaminant layers. Finally, a model for bond strength prediction in pressure welding was developed and validated. This model includes the sheet thickness parameter, which is shown to be a critical factor in bonding thin sheet metals with the sheet thickness in the range of a few hundred micrometers.


Background: A preterm birth, usually accompanied by the need for neonatal intensive care (NICU) and
subsequent parents-infant separation, can disrupt infants' early development, parental
psychological well-being and parent-infant bonding. Recent research indicates that the early
environment and experiences play a critical role in infant development and parenting
processes. Kangaroo Care (KC) procedure has been introduced in high technology settings to
supplement incubator care and to reduce the initial parents-infant separation through skin-toskin
contact. Research has demonstrated its medical benefits but only partially documented
its psychological effects on infants' long-term development and parenting outcomes, and
controversial data has emerged in the UK.
Aim: The aim is to evaluate the psychological and behavioural impact of KC in high technology
NICU during the first year of life. The domains investigated are: 1) parental psychological
stress; 2) parents-preterm infant relationships; 3) mother-infant dyadic interaction; 4)
proximal environment and 5) preterm infants cognitive, motor, socio-emotional and
behavioural development.
Method: 56 mother-preterm infant dyads in KC were compared to a control group of 34 in traditional
care. Within this sample, a study was conducted with 28 fathers whose partner experienced
KC contact with their infant and 16 fathers who were part of the Control group. Data was collected at 6 stages: before the initiation of KC procedure, after discharge from hospital, and
at 3, 6, 9 and 12 months.
Results: KC mothers have less parental stress, better attachment and interaction with their preterm
infant across the research times and they provide a better home environment at 3 months than
the Control group. Moreover, KC infants are more responsive during interaction, present
better development in terms of motor and adaptive behaviors skills at 6 months, and better
communication skills at 12 months than the TC group. Conversely, KC does not directly
influence fathers' psychological stress and the formation of father-infant relationships.
Conclusions: The KC procedure promotes maternal psychological well-being and mother-infant dyadic
relationships with a consequent positive influence on mother-child attachment and infant
development.


The Swatch Bharat Abhiyan has announced the important goal of eliminating open defecation in India. One key part of the Government's guidelines to achieve this goal is a latrine use and open defecation surveillance survey. In the 69th round of the NSS, the National Sample Survey Office took the laudable step of separately asking about latrine ownership and latrine use. This permitted measurement of open defecation among people living in households that do and do not own latrines. Motivated by these developments, we ask how a large-scale sampling survey should best ask about latrine use and open defecation, in order to usefully track progress towards the Prime Minister's goal of elimination of open defecation. We compare results of eight studies of new data from rural India, all released in approximately the past year. Because these studies used slightly different survey questions, differences in results across survey designs can suggest principles for the design of new surveys. In particular, surveys which asked a balanced question about open defecation or latrine use, individually, for each person in the household were able to document more open defecation than survey questions that grouped household members by demographic categories. This difference is statistically significant (meaning very unlikely to be due to chance alone) and is not because of differences in overall open defecation rates across study sites. Therefore, we recommend that any large-scale open defecation surveillance survey ask a balanced question about latrine use or open defecation, individually, for each household member. This could be done effectively and inexpensively by incorporating these questions in to a high-quality existing sample survey with a household roster.


Catholic identity is considered to be the single most important issue facing Catholic higher education in the United States. Scholars (Burtchaell, 1998; Gallin, 1999; Gleason, 1995; Heft, 2003; Marsden, 1994; O'Brien, 1994) have suggested that sustaining Catholic identity and preventing secularization depends on the integration of the Catholic intellectual tradition with the sponsoring religious congregation. The Catholic identity often has been discussed in terms of the decreasing presence of various signs and symbols of Catholicity. Additionally, the number of Catholics among the student body, the number of required theology courses, and the role of the curriculum and faculty, have been employed as measures of Catholic identity. This qualitative study utilized virtual research methodology to explore the De La Salle Christian Brothers' personal experiences of Catholic identity in higher education in the United States as the sponsoring congregation on their campuses. The researcher interviewed 20 Brothers from four institutions of higher education regarding their definitions of Catholic identity, their experiences of Catholic identity from an historical and current-day perspective, as well as their visions of Catholic identity in higher education in the future. The study's findings revealed that the Brothers experienced themselves as the animators of Catholic identity at the institutions of higher education where they were assigned; that there is a need and desire for education and formation programs in the Catholic and Lasallian traditions; that, where Catholic identity is strong, the rituals and practices of the Catholic faith are also a vital part of the religious life of the campus; that presidential leadership is critical to the Catholic identity of the institution; and, that aspects of the operations of the institution reflect a connection to Catholicism, including the Catholic composition of the student body and faculty in terms of religious affiliation, the integration of the curriculum within the Catholic intellectual tradition, and programs that support the Catholic faith tradition. This study provided research on Catholic identity from the personal voices of the sponsoring religious congregation of institutions of higher education in the United States. With decreasing vocations in religious life and, therefore, less religious present in colleges and universities, an important segment of higher education, the voices of the sponsoring religious congregation, may be lost forever.


Every nominee to the United States Supreme Court possesses the potential to change history. It is therefore instructive, from both a historical perspective and a political perspective, to examine the nominees who reached the United States Senate, only to be voted down by the Senators. In some cases, the rejections seem understandable on the basis of merit (or lack thereof); in other situations, these rejections appear to be little more than a partisan attack. In every situation, however, the story of the rejected jurist and the context of his rejection by the Senate offers a compelling window into this era of American history, as well as a set of lessons that remain applicable to Supreme Court nominations today. From John Rutledge to Robert Bork, this article provides the stories of these Court nominees whom the Senate rejected, concluding with several revealing patterns and trends that today's leaders would be wise not to ignore.


This paper explores the benefits that can be achieved for stereoscopic visualization when using occlusion culling strategies. The virtual environments analysed in this paper are complex mechanical sets that are not densely occluded. Those which are built up by dense geometric sets like aerospace engines composed of thousands of components and millions of polygons. The algorithm uses occlusion queries and succeeds in improving the frame rate of the stereoscopic visualization with an effective scheduling of the queries. Different coherences, including stereo coherence, are used to achieve this effective scheduling. An aggressive approach has been also validated for inclusion in the proposal. The occlusion culling algorithm can be easily implemented and provides a significant boost in performances.


One challenge for runtime systems like the Java™ platform that depend on garbage collection is the ability to scale performance with the number of allocating threads. As the number of such threads grows, allocation of memory in the heap becomes a point of contention. To relieve this contention, many collectors allow threads to preallocate blocks of memory from the shared heap. These per-thread local-allocation buffers (LABs) allow threads to allocate most objects without any need for further synchronization. As the number of threads exceeds the number of processors, however, the cost of committing memory to local-allocation buffers becomes a challenge and sophisticated LAB-sizing policies must be employed.

To reduce this complexity, we implement support for local-allocation buffers associated with processors instead of threads using multiprocess restartable critical sections (MP-RCSs). MP-RCSs allow threads to manipulate processor-local data safely. To support processor-specific transactions in dynamically generated code, we have developed a novel mechanism for implementing these critical sections that is efficient, allows preemption-notification at known points in a given critical section, and does not require explicit registration of the critical sections. Finally, we analyze the performance of per-processor LABs and show that, for highly threaded applications, this approach performs better than per-thread LABs, and allows for simpler LAB-sizing policies.


The aim of this research is twofold. First, to identify the role of personal resources on burnout and work engagement in nursing staff and second to evaluate whether these last two concepts are or not, opposite faces of the same construct. Personal resources are understood as individuals' aspects that make people more confident to control their environment successfully. This study used a cross-sectional approach with a sample composed of 219 Colombian nursing personnel all of them were women. In line with our predictions, personal resources were positively related to employees' work engagement (rxy = .40) and negatively to burnout (rxy = -.51), as well as engagement and burnout showed to be different constructs that are inversely related (rxy = -.95). The greater inverse correlation between personal resources and burnout seems to indicate that personal resources could be an important protective factor for nursing staff. Since personal resources can be developed, these findings have important implications for the human resource management in the health care settings. Due to the complexity of health work environment, further research needs to find more evidence to understand the role of personal resources in these environments.


Problems with corruption have long been recognized as key constraints to the development of sustainable infrastructure services. The objective of this Toolkit is to propose a framework and tools geared to understanding, exploring and acting on corruption in the delivery of services. The scope of the work covers infrastructure services in urban and rural areas of developed and developing countries.

A number of Toolkits on corruption have been published in recent years; however, to date, these have not been focused on the infrastructure sector or the impacts of corruption on the poor. This Toolkit is intended to fill that gap. The Toolkit is cross-sectoral in its approach, making it of relevance to those working on water supply, sanitation, drainage, roads and paving, transport, solid waste management, street lighting and housing sectors.

This Toolkit brings together, in a systematic way, a variety of individual tools, which support the process of combating corruption in infrastructure services. The tools themselves are synthesized from real world experience; derived from a review of literature, desk-based case surveys and country case studies. These are not academic concepts, but genuinely operational tools.

This Toolkit avoids taking a blueprint or top-down approach, but rather takes the perspective of operators, regulators and service users, especially the poor. By taking these tools, and relating them systematically to various aspects of combating corruption, this Toolkit should fulfil the urgent need expressed by policy makers, professional staff, regulators and consumers.


We analyze participation in international environmental agreements in a dynamic game in which countries pollute and invest in green technologies. If complete contracts are feasible, participants eliminate the holdup problem associated with their investments; however, most countries prefer to free ride rather than participate. If investments are noncontractible, countries face a holdup problem every time they negotiate; but the free-rider problem can be mitigated and significant participation is feasible. Participation becomes attractive because only large coalitions commit to long-term agreements that circumvent the holdup problem. Under well-specified conditions even the first-best outcome is possible when the contract is incomplete.


Previous studies have shown that the use of bis(tri-n-hexylsilyl oxide) silicon phthalocyanine ((3HS)2-SiPc) as a solid ternary electroactive additive in poly(3-hexylthiophene):phenyl-C61-butyric acid methyl ester P3HT:PC61BM bulk heterojunction organic photovoltaic (BHJ OPV) devices resulted in an increased performance. It has been hypothesized that the increase in efficiency is partially due to the unique and odd combination of high solubility and strong driving force of crystallization previously observed for (3HS)2-SiPc. In this follow-up study, two chemical variants of (3HS)2-SiPc, namely bis(tri-n-butylsilyl oxide) ((3BS)2-SiPc) and bis(tri-n-isopropylsilyl oxide) ((3TS)2-SiPc) were synthesized to determine how small changes in the chemical structure would affect the properties of the material and its performance within BHJ OPV devices. We observed that the use of either (3XS)2-SiPc compound results in a further ∼10% increase in JSC compared to the use of (3HS)2-SiPc. We also did a preliminary assessment of the use of three (3XS)2-SiPcs as replacements for PC61BM in straight binary P3HT-based BHJ OPV devices. Despite achieving only ∼1% PCE efficiencies, observations including a ≈50% increase in VOC over a P3HT:PC61BM baseline and a decent fill factor indicate to us that (3XS)2-SiPcs do have potential as non-fullerene acceptors and advantageous alternatives due to their low embedded energy and therefore their inherent sustainability. X-ray diffraction of ternary and binary BHJ devices demonstrates that both (3BS)2-SiPc and (3TS)2-SiPc experienced similar increase in crystallite density (d-spacing) relative to (3HS)2-SiPc which we surmise plays a role in the improved device efficiency. Like (3HS)2-SiPc, for these two new additives, we also observed a high tendency of crystallization. The results from this study suggest that solubility and driving force to crystallize are important factors in determining the extent to which an additive will migrate to the donor/acceptor interface and thus affect its performance as a ternary additive in BHJ OPV devices. Based on the three (3XS)2-SiPcs used in this study, the smaller tri-n-alkylsilyl oxide molecular fragments seem to work better. Therefore, moving forward, we will continue to consider smaller molecular fragments that still enable solubility and processability of (3XS)2-SiPcs.


Deep-water sandstones of the Early Cretaceous Britannia reservoir are rich in 'muddy' material, with the development of unusual 'slurry-flow' deposits (sensu Lowe & Guy 2000), including banded facies. The banding comprises couplets of pale sandstone containing microporous detrital chlorite and other clays, retaining substantial porosity, and dark sandstone in which biotite (now altered to chlorite) has promoted quartz pressure solution that has largely destroyed porosity. The main source of the abundant chlorite and biotite is the Jurassic Forties Igneous Province, underlying and surrounding the Britannia Field. Altered alkali basalts and other lithologies here are known to be rich in both minerals. Grain-size distributions have been examined using image analysis. The banded facies are generally finer grained than the high-density turbidite and unbanded slurry-flow sandstones, and may be a distal equivalent. Dark bands in some cases contain no more fine clays than associated light bands, indicating that Lowe & Guy's model for dark-band formation, invoking a cohesive sublayer, is incomplete. Gelation of chlorite-rich clays within each banded couplet is proposed as an alternative mechanism. These microporous pore-filling chlorites have restricted the precipitation of quartz overgrowths and other non-porous cements, although their presence inhibits permeability.


Currently, with the rapid developments communication technologies, large number of trustworthy online systems and facilities has been introduced. The cybersecurity is quiet on the rise threat from unauthorized; such security threats can be detected by an intrusion detection system. Thus, enhancing the intrusion detection system is main object of numbers of research and developers for monitoring the network security. Addressing challenges of big data in intrusion detection is one issue faced the researchers and developers due to dimensionality reduction in network data. In this paper, hybrid model is proposed to handle the dimensionality reduction in intrusion detection system. The genetic algorithm was applied as preprocessing steps for selecting most significant features from entire big network dataset. The genetic algorithm was applied to generate subset of relevant features from network data set for handling dimensionality reduction. The Support Vector Machine (SVM) algorithm was processed the relevant features for detecting intrusion. The NSL-KDD standard data was considered to test the performance of the hybrid model. Standard evaluation metrics were employed to presents the results of hybrid model. It is concluded that the empirical results of hybrid outperformed the performance of existing systems.


SUPPOSE A CONSUMER buys a product--a car. While driving, he crashes into a tree and spends weeks in the hospital recovering from his injuries. He misses weeks of work without pay. He soon hears news reports and sees lawyers' advertisements claiming the particular make and model car he owns might have a defect of some sort. The car manufacturer, upon investigation of his accident, believes that the car isn't defective and that negligent driving caused the crash. The consumer decides to sue the car manufacturer and the local dealership to recover his damages, including his medical bills, lost wages, pain and suffering and mental anguish. What claims can the consumer pursue under state law for harm caused by the allegedly defective car? In product liability eases, plaintiffs routinely file expansive complaints that include common law negligence, strict liability, warranty, fraud and misrepresentation claims, as well as claims permitted by various state statutes such as consumer fraud statutes or the state's version of the Uniform Commercial Code ("UCC"). Sometimes, these causes of action overlap or conflict in terms of evidence permitted and proof standards required. Sometimes, the legal claims asserted don't really even seem to fit the situation involved or the harm supposedly incurred. Defendants want certainty as to what claims legitimately can be pursued. Uncertainty causes parties to needlessly waste time and money fighting about the proof required or permitted, the defenses available, and the appropriate jury instructions. And ultimately, uncertainty about liability exposure can discourage businesses, such as product manufacturers and sellers, from locating or remaining in the state. To provide more certainty about potential exposure under product liability law, some states have enacted product liability statutes that clearly set forth the claims permitted and proof required when alleging damages caused by a defective product. Quite often, the proof requirements mandated by state product liability statutes are more stringent than or conflict with those required by common law of other statutory schemes. Quite often, the defenses are different or more complete. But do such statutes actually achieve the desired stability? The answer to that question seems to depend on whether the courts enforce the statute as the exclusive means of recovery for harm caused by a product. If instead plaintiffs are allowed to plead around the statute, the stabilizing effect likely will not materialize. Mississippi presents an interesting case study of this issue. In 1993, the Mississippi Legislature enacted the Mississippi Product Liability Act (MPLA or the Act) (1) to stabilize product liability law in Mississippi. But after having been in effect for nearly twenty years, the stabilizing effect has never really materialized. Although the Mississippi Legislature intended the Act to be the standard for product liability actions in the state, many courts have interpreted the Act as simply one option for recovery available to plaintiffs. This failure to effectuate the Act's legislative intent has diminished its effectiveness and has even added to the confusion about what a plaintiff can claim and must prove, and what defenses are available in a product liability lawsuit. I. The MPLA The MPLA, in its current form, allows a plaintiff to sue a product manufacturer or seller for damages caused by a product if the product has a defect that renders the product unreasonably dangerous and that dangerous condition proximately causes personal injury to the claimant. (2) The Act excepts from its seemingly broad, comprehensive scope only commercial damage to the product itself. (3) The Act provides only four specific types of defects upon which liability can be premised: 1) failure to meet manufacturing specifications; 2) inadequate warnings; 3) defective design; and 4) breach of an express warranty upon which the user justifiably relied. …


The appearance of adverse drug reactions is a common reason for hospitalization in Western countries. Research on underlying biological mechanisms for interindividual variability in drug response aims to better identify patients with exceptional genetic traits, disease conditions or risk of drug-drug interactions and thereby help to prevent adverse drug reactions. Active transport mechanisms are involved in the absorption and disposition of several therapeutic agents. The main objective of this thesis was to investigate factors potentially affecting transport proteins and thus contributing to variability in drug absorption and disposition. Studies of physiological, genetic, environmental, and pathological factors were included. The main focus was the two ATP-binding cassette (ABC) transporters: P-glycoprotein 170 (Pgp) and Breast Cancer Resistance Protein (BCRP). Quantification of transport protein mRNAs along the human intestine indicated that eight of the nine investigated drug transporters were expressed in a region-dependent manner. Effects of drug-drug interactions may therefore vary depending on the site of absorption. The genetic aspect was illustrated by identification of sequence variation in the gene encoding BCRP, the most highly expressed ABC transporter along the human intestine. Drug-drug interactions are important environmental causes of interindividual variability. An evaluation of the effects of Pgp-mediated drug-drug interactions showed that patients receiving Pgp inhibitors had elevated serum concentrations of the Pgp substrate digoxin and that digoxin concentrations were positively correlated with the number of co-administered Pgp inhibitors. The final topic in this thesis was that of drug-disease interactions. BCRP and Pgp were down-regulated during active inflammation in patients with ulcerative colitis. This may contribute to altered concentrations of drug in the intestinal mucosa during periods of inflammation and possibly to changes in drug absorption. To summarize, results of this thesis emphasize the complex background to the interindividual variability of drug transport proteins, where physiological, genetic, environmental and pathological factors all can contribute.