Abstract Lateral (sideways) cutting forces were measured for 6 different tooth geometries when cutting green spruce and pine heartwood. The teeth were intended for use on circular saw blades for the rip sawing of logs. The 6 tooth geometries were designated straight, pointed, bevelled, rounded, trapezoidal and hollowed out. Cutting speed was 15 m/s, feed per tooth was 0.3 mm and the cutting directions were 90°–90° (rip sawing) and 90°–0° (milling), with two different variants of growth ring angles for each direction. The tools were tested in sharp conditions, in dull conditions and in a dull condition with a corner broken off. All lateral forces were small when cutting with sharp teeth, except for the rounded and bevelled teeth. Lateral forces increased with wear, except for a period of initial wear where the lateral forces were reduced. High wear resulted in greater lateral forces, most probably due to unsymmetrical wear. Growth ring direction did not generally affect lateral forces. The teeth with acute corners, which were the straight and hollowed out tooth, were most sensitive to a broken off corner. The lateral forces in the cases of wood cutting at 90°–90° increased less with wear compared to the 90°–0° cases.


DESCRIPTION: Modern social psychology has devoted a significant share of its resources to the study of human prejudice. Most research to date has focused on those groups that exhibit prejudice. However, a number of recent studies have begun to investigate prejudice from the perspective of its targets. These studies have shown prejudice to be a powerful stressor that places unique and costly demands on its targets. They have also identified a number of strategies that targets of prejudice use to cope with their predicaments. These findings hold real promise for scholars of early Christianity, for not only were early Christians frequently the targets of religious prejudice they were to become its perpetrators soon enough! but much of what they wrote sought either directly or indirectly to address this problem. In this study, Paul A. Holloway applies the findings of social psychology to the early Christian pseudepigraphon known as 1 Peter. He argues that 1 Peter marks one of the earliest attempts by a Christian author to craft a more or less comprehensive response to anti-Christian prejudice and its outcomes. Unlike later Apologists, however, who also wrote in response to antiChristian prejudice, the author of 1 Peter does not seek to influence directly the thoughts and actions of those hostile to Christianity, but writes instead for his beleaguered coreligionists, consoling them in their suffering and advising them on how to cope with popular prejudice and the persecution it engendered.


This study describes lipid composition and antioxidants of Baltic cod Gadus morhua L. during the reproductive cycle, and investigates whether they reflect its dominant prey and whether levels of fatty acids important for reproductive performance were low. Reasons for a shift in peak spawning time of Baltic cod from spring/early summer to midsummer since the early 1990s remain unresolved and may partly be diet related. This study demonstrated that a substan- tial amount of lipid was invested in cod ovarian development, and that lipid composition varied substantially with the reproductive cycle. Selective retention of the essential fatty acids docosa- hexaenoic acid (DHA) and arachidonic acid (ARA) in ovaries during maturation was evident, but despite mobilization from the liver, ARA levels were low in ovaries during late maturation and spawning. Astaxanthin and α-tocopherol accumulated in cod ovaries and decreased in late matur- ing and spawning fish, most likely due to their antioxidant protection activity. The fatty acid com- position of cod liver reflected its clupeid prey. The ratio of 18:1n-9 to DHA was almost twice as high in sprat as in herring and indicated the ratio of sprat and herring in cod diet, while the level of 16:1n-7 and astaxanthin indicated the presence of the isopod Saduria entomon in cod diet. It is likely that food web alterations in the Baltic ecosystem related to environmental and hydrographic changes caused a decrease in ARA availability. Low ARA content coincides with cod ovarian development in the central Baltic Sea, and may be associated with the delay in spawning and affect egg and larval survival; however, this needs further verification in experimental studies.


The objective of this study was to find out the prediction model for copal production (Y) by the use of prediction variables. The variables were diameter (X1), bark thicknesses (X2), stand density (X3), slope (X4), and direction of the slope (X5). The study was conducted at Senduro Forest District, Probolinggo Forest Management Unit of Perum Perhutani, Unit II East Java. Data was collected from 80 sample trees of Agathis loranthifolia Salibs which were tapped on August 2006. The result of the study showed that there were several regression prediction models for copal production: doubled linear, multiplicative, exponential and quadratic regression models. Multiplicative regression model with the highest R2-adj value was then chosen as the best prediction model for copal production. Thereby, production estimation model of copal production of Agathis loranthifolia Salis. was LogY = 0.397 + 1.54 LogX1 + 0.496 LogX2 - 0.528 LogX3 + 0.201 LogX4 ; or Y = 2.4945X11.54X20.496X3-0.528X40.201; R-Sq =84.7%, R-Sq(Adj) = 83.7%. Keywords: multiplicative regression model, copal, diameter, bark thickness, stand density, slope


This paper concerns some design issues and tradeoffs of communication systems equipped with multiple transmit and receive antennas. The general space-time coding/modulation structure by Tarokh et al. (1999) is considered. Several design issues are investigated for this structure. The layered space-time architecture by Foschini (1996) is revisited as a special case of the general structure. It is also used to demonstrate the design and complexity tradeoffs of the system. Through intuitive and analytical explanations, as well as simulations, the design considerations for these space-time transmission structures and their contributions to the performance are shown.


Received: Revised: Accepted: Published online: June 11, 2016 August 27, 2016 September 11, 2016 November 17, 2016 Sheeppox and goatpox is a contagious viral disease of sheep and goats characterized by fever, generalized papules or nodules in skin and mucosal surface. DNA virus belonging to the genus capripoxvirus. The disease with high mortality and morbidity causes significant economic losses in small ruminants. In this study, 20 tissues from 8 sheep which were considered having natural sheeppox based on the macroscopic and histopathologic evaluation were further investigated by immunohistochemical (iNOS, SP-A, HSP-70), and Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) method. Papules, typically pox lesions, noticeable on the skin surfaces were examined macroscopically. Immunohistochemically; iNOS and SP-A were most intensely stained whereas HSP-70 was low stained. PCR method was used for the detection of A29L gene of capripoxvirus. Positive samples obtained from sheep were used for molecular characterization. A phylogenetic analysis was performed using sequence of the partial A29L gene and by comparing with reference sheeppox viruses isolates obtained from Gene Bank. The results of the sequence analysis were similar among themselves, they were found different (99-100% identity) from the other sheeppox viruses around the world. This study provides firstly phylogenetic analysis of sheeppoxviruses from Van province in Turkey. ©2016 PVJ. All rights reserved


The retail sector accounts for more than 3% of the total electricity consumption in the UK
and approximately 1% of total UK CO2 emissions. The overarching aim of this project was
to understand the energy consumption of the Tesco estate (the market leader), identify best
practice, and find ways to identify opportunities for energy reduction.
The literature review of this work covered the topic of energy consumption in the retail
sector, and reviewed benchmarks for this type of buildings from the UK, Europe and the US.
Related data analysis techniques used in the industry or presented in the literature were also
reviewed. This revealed that there are many different analysis and forecasting techniques available,
and that they fall into two different categories: techniques that require past energy consumption
data in order to calculate the future consumption, such as statistical regression, and
techniques that are able to estimate the energy consumption of buildings, based on the specific
building's characteristics, such as thermal simulation models. These are usually used for new
buildings, but they could also be used in benchmarking exercises, in order to achieve best practice
guides. Gaps in the industry knowledge were identified, and it was suggested that better
analytical tools would enable the industry to create more accurate energy budgets for the year
ahead leading to better operating margins.
Benchmarks for the organisation's buildings were calculated. Retail buildings in the Tesco
estate were found to have electrical intensity values between 230 kWh/m2
and 2000 kWh/m2
per year. Still the average electrical intensity of these buildings in 2010-11 was found to be
less than the calculated UK average of the 2006-07 period. The effect of weather on gas and
electricity consumption was investigated, and was found to be significant (p<0.001). There
was an effect related to the day-of-the-week, but this was found to be more related to the sales
volume on those days. Sales volume was a proxy that was used to represent the number of
customers walking through the stores. The built date of the building was also considered to be an
interesting factor, as the building regulations changed significantly throughout the years and the
sponsor did not usually carry out any fabric work when refurbishing the stores. User behaviour
was also identified as an important factor that needed to be investigated further, relating to both
how the staff perceives and manages the energy consumption in their work environment, as well as how the customers use the refrigeration equipment.
Following a statistical analysis, significant factors were determined and used to create multiple
linear regression models for electricity and gas demands in hypermarkets. Significant factors
included the sales floor area of the store, the stock composition, and a factor representing
the thermo-physical characteristics of the envelope. Two of the key findings are the statistical
significance of operational usage factors, represented by volume of sales, on annual electricity
demand and the absence of any statistically significant operational or weather related factors
on annual gas demand. The results suggest that by knowing as little as four characteristics of
a food retail store (size of sales area, sales volume, product mix, year of construction) one can
confidently calculate its annual electricity demands (R2=0.75, p<0.001). Similarly by knowing
the size of the sales area, product mix, ceiling height and number of floors, one can calculate
the annual gas demands (R2=0.5, p<0.001). Using the models created, along with the actual
energy consumption of stores, stores that are not as energy efficient as expected can be isolated
and investigated further in order to understand the reason for poor energy performance.
Refrigeration data from 10 stores were investigated, including data such as the electricity
consumption of the pack, outside air temperature, discharge and suction pressure, as well as
percentage of refrigerant gas in the receiver. Data mining methods (regression and Fourier
transforms) were employed to remove known operational patterns (e.g. defrost cycles) and seasonal
variations. Events that have had an effect on the electricity consumption of the system
were highlighted and faults that had been identified by the existing methodology were filtered
out. The resulting dataset was then analysed further to understand the events that increase the
electricity demand of the systems in order to create an automatic identification method. The
cases analysed demonstrated that the method presented could form part of a more advanced
automatic fault detection solution; potential faults were difficult to identify in the original electricity
dataset. However, treating the data with the method designed as part of this work has
made it simpler to identify potential faults, and isolate probable causes. It was also shown that
by monitoring the suction pressure of the packs, alongside the compressor run-times, one could
identify further opportunities for electricity consumption reduction.


Tolerance and Intolerance in the European Reformation. Edited by Ole Peter Grell and Bob Scribner. (New York: Cambridge University Press. 1996. Pp. x, 294.) Accepted theories about the growth of tolerance through the Renaissance and Reformation are corrected in this collection of essays by noted Reformation scholars. From Britain through Scandinavia and Eastern Europe to Italy and Spain, these scholars examine the attitudes of Protestant churches toward other forms of Protestantism and, in several instances, toward Catholicism. The overall impression is not surprising to anyone familiar with the disputes that turned Europe into a bloody battlefield during the late sixteenth century and into the seventeenth century. Ole Peter Grell (p. 5) illustrates the sort of change that occurred in Luther himself: early on, Luther argued that religion was a matter of conscience and individual responsibility; the use of force was unjust. But almost immediately he called in secular powers to deal with blasphemy and sedition and so began the persecution of the Anabaptists that continued relentlessly through the century. It soon became manifest that churches backed by political power became intolerant and did not hesitate to engage secular power to punish offenders against true religion; minority churches, on the other hand, argued for tolerance. But before one can discuss tolerance, one must know what the word meant in the sixteenth century. It meant "bearing with" someone or something that one finds unpleasant, as in "I found the food barely tolerable, but I shall tolerate it if I must. "Today's notion of tolerance as acknowledging the right of all to religious liberty was far from the minds of sixteenth-century churchfolk. Bob Scribner argues effectively that both early Lutheran and Erasmian notions of tolerance "were all overridden in the course of the early Reformation" (p. 34). Scribner then outlines nine different types of tolerance in the sixteenth century, while Diarmaid MacCulloch's discussion is based on four attitudes of a dominant church toward minority groups: "concord by coercion, concord by discussion, tolerance and religious freedom" (p. 200). "Religious freedom" seems to have been found nowhere, at least in the sense that we understand it today. The essays in this volume lead one to conclude that the first and third possibilities occurred most frequently with an edge given to "concord by coercion. The leading chapter, by Heiko Oberman, probes "the profile of pre-Lockean rationality in sixteenth-century Europe" by examining three test cases: of a woman accused of being a witch, of Jews and Marranos, and of religious dissent. From these cases, Oberman concludes that before the Reformation, at the beginning of the century essential legal institutions and ideological convictions were already in place" so that during the sixteenth century "old resources were mobilized and new solutions advanced, which mark the turn to that rationality which John Locke would proclaim as the foundation of a 'modern' tolerant society" (p. 31). Philip Benedict's essay provides a fine sense of how France came to terms with two faiths through practical necessity and political expediency. …


Common Themes Both plants and animals need to be able to distinguish between their own tissues and the cells and tissues of an invading pathogen. Across kingdoms there exists a range of pattern recognition systems that have become integral to the evolution of innate immune responses. Ronald and Beutler (p. 1061) synthesize recent intellectual progress to bring insights into shared features of animal immunology and plant pathology. The last common ancestor of plants and animals may have lived 1 billion years ago. Plants and animals have occasionally exchanged genes but, for the most part, have countered selective pressures independently. Microbes (bacteria, eukaryotes, and viruses) were omnipresent threats, influencing the direction of multicellular evolution. Receptors that detect molecular signatures of infectious organisms mediate awareness of nonself and are integral to host defense in plants and animals alike. The discoveries leading to elucidation of these receptors and their ligands followed a similar logical and methodological pathway in both plant and animal research.


Classical planning has been notably successful in synthesizing finite plans to achieve states where propositional goals hold. In the last few years, classical planning has also been extended to incorporate temporally extended goals, expressed in temporal logics such as LTL, to impose restrictions on the state sequences generated by finite plans. In this work, we take the next step and consider the computation of infinite plans for achieving arbitrary LTL goals. We show that infinite plans can also be obtained efficiently by calling a classical planner once over a classical planning encoding that represents and extends the composition of the planning domain and the Buchi automaton representing the goal. This compilation scheme has been implemented and a number of experiments are reported.


The present work shows that stimulation of peripheral blood lymphocytes with autologous or allogeneic B-cell lines leads to a strong induction of cytotoxic effector cells with spontaneous killer (SK) cell specificity, apart from the specific response directed against the particular stimulating cell. To demonstrate this we have determined a relative target cell specificity in the SK system, defined by the short- term 51Cr release assay, and established a relative specificity index (RSI). Using this approach we have been able to show that killer cells induced during a 5-day cocultivation period with B-cell lines have a similar PSI to that of unstimulated SK cells. In addition, we have shown that such killer cells can be induced from several different lymphocyte subpopulations and that they, in contrast to SK cells, do not express Fc receptors. The implications of these findings in relation to the nature, mechanism, and biological significance of the SK cell system is discussed.


Hailed by Horace and Quintilian as the greatest of Greek lyric poets, Pindar has always enjoyed a privileged position in the so-called classical tradition of the West. Given the intense difficulty of the poetry, however, Pindaric interpretation has forever grappled with the perplexing dilemma that one of the most influential poets of antiquity should prove to be so dark. In discussing both poets and scholars from a broad historical span, with special emphasis on the German legacy of genius, "Soliciting Darkness" investigates how Pindar's obscurity has been perceived and confronted, extorted and exploited. As such, this study addresses a variety of pressing issues, including the recovery and appropriation of classical texts, problems of translation, representations of lyric authenticity and the possibility or impossibility of a continuous literary tradition. The poetics of obscurity that emerges here suggests that taking Pindar to be an incomprehensible poet may not simply be the result of an insufficient or false reading, but rather may serve as a wholly adequate judgement.


The mode of inheritance and allelic relationships of genes for resistance to whitebacked planthopper, Sogatella furcifera (Hbrvath), in 15 resistant cultivars of rice, Oryza sativa L., were studied. One-leaf stage seedlings were artificially infested with second- and third-instar whitebacked planthopper nymphs. Reactions of the seedlings were recorded when the susceptible check, 'Taichung Native 1', (TN1) was completely killed. The reactions of F 1 , F 2 , and F 3 progenies from the crosses of test cultivars with TN1 revealed that single dominant genes confer resistance in 'Boegi Boera', 'DD4', PI 184675-6, 'Siam Garden', 'Rening', 'N'Diang Marie', 'Manggar', 'Oha', 'Gokhue Saier', 'Tjempo Tolo', and 'Nemai'. Two independent dominant genes govern resistance in 'ARC5752', 'Chaia Anaser', 'Katuyhar Dhan', and 'Dhera Dun Basmati'. Tests for allelism revealed that the single dominant genes in Boegi Boera, DD4, PI 184675-6, Siam Garden, Rening, Oha, Gokhue Saier, Tjempo Tolo, and Nemai, and one of the two independent dominant genes in ARC5752, Chaia Anaser, Katuyhar Dhan, and Dhera Dun Basmati are allelic to Wbph 1, and that the second gene in ARC5752 is allelic to Wbph 2. The second gene in Chaia Anaser, Katuyhar Dhan, and Dhera Dun Basmati was allelic to Wbph 3. The single dominant genes of N'Diang Marie and Manggar segregated independently of Wbph 1, Wbph 2, and Wbph 3. The dominant gene of N'Diang Marie was designated an Wbph 5. The allelic relationships of the dominant gene from Manggar to Wbph 5 are not known.


This paper unites the treatment effect literature and the latent variable literature. The economic questions answered by the commonly used treatment effect parameters are considered. We demonstrate how the marginal treatment effect parameter can be used in a latent variable framework to generate the average treatment effect, the effect of treatment on the treated and the local average treatment effect, thereby establishing a new relationship among these parameters. The method of local instrumental variables directly estimates the marginal treatment effect parameters, and thus can be used to estimate all of the conventional treatment effect parameters when the index condition holds and the parameters are identified. When they are not, the method of local instrumental variables can be used to produce bounds on the parameters with the width of the bounds depending on the width of the support for the index generating the choice of the observed potential outcome.


Abstract Modification of natural areas by human activities mostly has a negative impact on wildlife by increasing the geographical and ecological overlap between people and animals. This can result in escalating levels of competition and conflict between humans and wildlife, for example over crops. However, data on specific crops and crop parts that are unattractive to wildlife yet important for human livelihoods are surprisingly scarce, especially considering their potential application to reducing crop damage by wildlife. Here we examine the co-utilization of a nationally important and spatially abundant cash crop, cashew Anacardium occidentalis, by people and chimpanzees Pan troglodytes verus inhabiting a forested–agricultural matrix in Cantanhez National Park in Guinea-Bissau. In this Park people predominantly harvest the marketable cashew nut and discard the unprofitable fruit whereas chimpanzees only consume the fruit. Local farmers generally perceive a benefit of raiding by chimpanzees as they reportedly pile the nuts, making harvesting easier. By ensuring that conflict levels over crops, especially those with high economic importance, remain low, the costs of living in proximity to wildlife can potentially be reduced. Despite high levels of deforestation associated with cashew farming, these findings point to the importance of cashew as a low-conflict crop in this area.


The Richardson—Mandelbrot (R—M) fractal equation for lines (profiles and perimeters), and the Hack—Mandelbrot (H—M) fractal equation for perimeters and areas (lakes and islands) are examined closely in terms of the original derivations and assumptions. Of concern is the implicit assumption that theoretical results obtained for special geometrical figures also apply automatically to natural irregular curves. Discrepancies are found in the dimensionality of the equations, predictions of an infinite line length in the fractal plot, and lack of provisions to obtain a "true" line length. The fractal dimension D is not defined in physical terms. A serious limitation to the H—M expression is the requirement of constant island shape. The lack of commonality between the two fractal equations is most disturbing. Inconsistencies also arise between the theoretical predictions and the experimental findings. We observe nonlinear fractal plots and variable values of D, conflicting results for islands and lakes, and different results from vertical and horizontal sections. Solutions to some of these problems are proposed. The dimensionality shortcomings in the R—M and H—M equations are corrected, a linearization treatment is outlined for the reversed sigmoidal curves of materials fractal plots, an alternative equation is proposed that eliminates the restriction on island shapes, and suggestions are made to combine the two fractal equations of R—M and H—M into one.


The production of semiconductors is an extremely complex process involving the deposit of several layers on silicon wafers, patterning the layers through photolithography and adding dopants to alter the conductivity. The process generates gaseous, liquid and solid waste streams consisting of many diverse and toxic components including toxic organics, variable pH, fluoride and arsenic. This paper presents the results of a study which investigated the manufacturing processes of semiconductors, including: generated pollutants, applicable regulations in the USA, waste minimization practices, and waste treatment and disposal alternatives. As part of this investigation, a case study was conducted on the waste generation and management of a semiconductor facility located in the USA.


The regeneration of cells and cell sheets mediated by thermoresponsive substrates represents an important and ever growing area in tissue engineering. This review seeks to track the development of this field from inception to the present day by highlighting the most significant breakthroughs as well as focusing on important physical and chemical characterization of substrates produced for this specific purpose. Furthermore, a critical evaluation encompassing the advantages and disadvantages of different techniques used for producing such surfaces will be included as well as suggestions for possible future directions.


In this chapter, we argue that organizational evil (OE) is, at the same time, a fundamentally nonsensical idea and a concern of real importance for those studying or leading organizations. Nonsensical, we believe, because the senses in which the expression "organizational evil" is typically used — to describe a property or characteristic of organizations generally or a form of conduct perpetrated by particular organizations — do not correspond in any meaningful way to actual social or natural phenomena. Genuinely important, however, because the use of the language is subjectively meaningful, and therefore consequential and actionable for a wide range of actors in (and concerned with) organizations. The chapter is organized into three major sections. First, we make the case that, because organizations and evil are both quintessentially social facts (see Searle, 1995) with no existence independent of their social context, the common ways of speaking about organizational evil as a thing in-and-of-itself (i.e., existing independently of the volition and actions of individuals) are largely nonsensical. Yet organizational evil understood as a contextually contingent, functional social construct is, in fact, a socially meaningful concept. Next, we explore how that understanding helps us to make sense of the very real ways in which scholars, managers, and laypeople respond to acts and actors that seem so egregiously bad as to be morally incomprehensible. Developing a typology of expressive as well as instrumental reactions to perceived evil acts and actors associated with organizations allows us to categorize some familiar historical cases and to see how certain types of reactions can have either destructive or constructive consequences. Finally, we conclude by noting paradoxically that so-called organizational evil, if properly understood, may (if also properly managed or accommodated) be functionally beneficial, serving to promote constructive moral vigilance and correction among an organization's members and other stakeholders. We offer as both tentative prescription and research hypothesis the central claim that the ordinary practical ethical reasoning employed by nonsociopaths in their daily life provides a firm underlying basis for the prevention, detection, and correction of actions that would be regarded as organizational evil. This can fruitfully be nurtured by organizations' leaders, with any tradeoffs of individual ethical empowerment against efficiency and obedience adapted to the circumstances of specific organizations and tasks. Moreover, because ethical reasoning is a learned skill, it can also be further developed in specific organizational environments and task contexts and for specific members of organizations, in appropriate degrees.


Abstract. There is an emerging need for regional applications of sea ice projections to provide more accuracy and greater detail to scientists, national, state and local planners, and other stakeholders. The present study offers a prototype for a comprehensive, interdisciplinary study to bridge observational data, climate model simulations, and user needs. The study's first component is an observationally based evaluation of Arctic sea ice trends during 1980–2008, with an emphasis on seasonal and regional differences relative to the overall pan-Arctic trend. Regional sea ice loss has varied, with a significantly larger decline of winter maximum (January–March) extent in the Atlantic region than in other sectors. A lead–lag regression analysis of Atlantic sea ice extent and ocean temperatures indicates that reduced sea ice extent is associated with increased Atlantic Ocean temperatures. Correlations between the two variables are greater when ocean temperatures lag rather than lead sea ice. The performance of 13 global climate models is evaluated using three metrics to compare sea ice simulations with the observed record. We rank models over the pan-Arctic domain and regional quadrants and synthesize model performance across several different studies. The best performing models project reduced ice cover across key access routes in the Arctic through 2100, with a lengthening of seasons for marine operations by 1–3 months. This assessment suggests that the Northwest and Northeast Passages hold potential for enhanced marine access to the Arctic in the future, including shipping and resource development opportunities.


The purpose of this study is to investigate the ―time perspective‖ (TP) in the Arab culture in particular, how Arab people look at their commitments in life in terms of time relation such as appointment, deadline and punctuality. We adopted Zimbardo Time Perspective Inventory (ZTPI) as a questionnaire survey that was directed to a sample of 122 individuals from 5 different Arab countries namely: Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan and Sudan. These countries were chosen to ensure representation of high, middle and low income countries. The research instrument consists of 56 different items that measure the five time perspective dimensions: Past-Negative (PN), Past-Positive (PP), Present-Hedonistic (PH), Present-Fatalistic (PF) and Future (F) (Zimbardo and Boyd, 1999). The overall reliability of the questionnaire is 0.868 and the reliability levels for the five main dimensions of TP were found to be satisfactory as measured by Cronbach Alpha. The findings reveal that Arab people are respecting many social norms and the Present-Hedonistic (PH) with a mean of 48.6 scored the highest value among the five dimensions of TP followed by the Future (F) dimension with a mean value of 43.9. However, the Present Fatalistic (PF) with a mean of 30.0 scored the lowest value. Hence, we concluded that Arab people participated in this study are mainly oriented by the present-hedonistic and future and are not really oriented by fatalistic issues. In addition, the results indicate that there are significant differences among the five dimensions of TP and no balance in TP is recognized as a main prerequisite for psychological health, happiness, satisfaction in life, selfesteem and general wellbeing. The significance of this study lies in the fact that this is the first study of its kind that applied the ZTPI model in the Arab World. This study recommends that future research should address the use of a wider pool of participants and include some control variables such as age, education, and geographic location. Further attention should also be given to get insights from the psychology literature to determine the proper way of changing the time perspective.


Technologies have advanced rapidly in the field of digital signal processing due to advances made in high speed, low cost digital integrated chips. These technologies have further stimulated ever increasing use of signal representation in digital form for purposes of transmission, measurement, control and storage. Design of digital filters especially adaptive or semi adaptive is the necessity of the hour for SAR applications. The aim of this research work is to design and evaluate the performance of 380-400 KHz Bartlett, Blackman and Chebyshev digital semi adaptive filters. XILINX and MATLAB software are used for designing of these filters. As part of practical research work these designs were translated using FPGA hardware SPARTAN-3E kit. Blackman and Chebyshev filters designed using software and hardware were tested by a sinusoidal test signal of 381 KHz along with noise and the filtered output signals are presented. These designs were optimized, analyzed, compared and evaluated keeping the sampling frequency at 5 MHz for 64 orders..


This study investigated the prospect of rainwater harvesting as a low cost alternative potable water supply option along the coastal region of Bangladesh, which is considered as one of the most vulnerable countries in the world due to climate change and resulting sea level rise. Because of increasing salinity intrusion, potable water scarcity become severe at the south-western coastal region of the country. The study area for this investigation was Patkelghata in Satkhira district of Bangladesh located in the same zone. The Satkhira district averages nearly 1,710 mm rainfall per year. Based on rural housing pattern of the region, a rainwater harvesting system is proposed, which consists of roof catchment, gutters, down pipes, first flush devices, filter chamber and storage tank. The minimum catchment area was assumed to be 6 m2 and storage tank of 2000 liter capacity. Data was collected on the present state of freshwater supply, sources and quality, average rainfall in the region, dry spell period, family size, water use nature, rain water quality and material to be used for storage, etc. Rainwater quality was also tested and the parameters were found to be within Bangladesh's standard limit. After a detail calculation, an approximate cost was assumed to be $171 for building and operation of the whole system. A questionnaire survey was also conducted on views and opinion of local people to understand the problems, prospects and the popularity of rainwater harvesting in Bangladesh.


The performance of an inductor is often significantly compromised by the combined effects of series resistance and distributed capacitance. For a given inductance value and coil configuration, it is always possible to vary the absolute size and/or turns count so as to reduce one residual parameter at the expense of an increase in the other. The ratio M = L/RC2is unaffected by these transformations and is proposed as a figure of merit characterizing the particular coil design. Measurements of M for sample coils of a number of commonly used types are given; they provide lower limits to the performance attainable with available magnetic materials.


We study the cross-section correlations of net, total, and disaggregated capital flows for the major source and recipient European Union countries. We seek evidence of changes in these correlations since the introduction of the euro to understand whether the European Union can be considered a unique entity with regard to its international capital flows. We make use of Ng's (2006) "uniform spacing" methodology to rank cross-section correlations and to shed light on potential common factors driving international capital flows. We find that a common factor structure is suitable for equity flows disaggregated by sign but not for net and total flows. We only find mixed evidence that correlations between types of flows have changed since the introduction of the euro.


Abstract: Starting from an analysis of two pending cases before the ECJ ( Laval and Viking case), the paper focuses on the issue of the scope and significance the EU intends to accord to collective actions within the dynamics of European integration. In the first part of the paper the author deals with the principles governing the internal market of services in order to asses whether and how the performance of collective actions might fall within the scope of Article 49 TEC. In the second part, the different solutions arising as to collective actions violating prima facie article 49 will lead to an investigation on the possibility to accommodate the exercise of the right to strike with the constraints posed by the internal market principles. In the final part of this essay the author deals with the issue of the legitimacy of the right to take collective action from a "procedural" perspective, considering the increasing influence of the deliberative theories on the debate about European governance.


When A.J.P. Taylor's The Origins of the Second World War appeared in 1961 it made a profound impact. The book became a classic and a central point of reference in all discussion on the Second World War. The second edition of this distinguished collection, written by leading experts in the field, is designed to bring the state of the argument up to date. The issues discussed include: * the legacy of the Treaty of Versailles * Hitlers foreign policy * Appeasement * AJP Taylor and the Russians * the treatment of the crises leading up to war including the Anschluss, Danzig, Abysinnian crises and the Spanish Civil War. This second edition will ensure that The Origins of the Second World War will remain a high priority student and scholarly reading lists.


'Children be curious. Nothing is worse (I know it) than when curiosity stops. Nothing is more repressive than the repression of curiosity. Curiosity beget love. It weds us to the world. It's part of our perverse, madcap love for this impossible planet we inhabit. People die when curiosity goes. People have to find out, people have to know. Swift 1992


In this thesis, we look at whether a factor-based implementation of the Markowitz (1952) framework beats the market. Different sets of factors are used in the framework, to see whether this choice affects the results. We find the optimal portfolio by using past data to invest in the future. This is implemented, with annual rebalancing, on US stock data from 1964 to 2016. Portfolios are formed on daily, weekly and monthly data to see whether the frequency of the return measurement gives different results. Our framework begins by running factor regressions on each stock. These coefficients are used in combination with the expected returns and the covariance matrix of the factors to calculate the expected returns and covariance matrix of the stocks. Performance is evaluated by looking at the mean one/four-year ex-post Sharpeand appraisal ratios, as well as the crash-risk of our portfolios. Based upon the mean one-year Sharpe ratios, our factor-based portfolios formed on daily data all significantly beat the market, while there is no such significance for the portfolios formed on weekly or monthly data. However, all of our factor-based portfolios have a statistically significant one/four-year appraisal ratio when using the market as our benchmark. We also find that there does not seem to be a higher crash-risk for our portfolios than the market. Our portfolios, when formed on the same measurement frequency, perform remarkably similar. This shows that our framework is an approximation of the standard Markowitz (1952) theory, rather than a factor-based investment strategy. The only thing not accounted for in our framework is the stock covariance explained by the residuals left in the regressions. We also find that this is a more stable implementation of the Markowitz theory, avoiding non-positive definite covariance matrices.


Most cognitive psychology texts are organized around empirical findings on standard substantive topics such as perception, memory, vision, and language. This book is the first to introduce the study of cognition in terms of the major conceptual themes that underlie virtually all the substantive topics. Taking a dialectical approach, the chapters contrast alternative approaches to the underlying themes (e.g., domain-generality vs. domain-specificity), then show how a synthesis of the two approaches provides the best understanding. The book is organized into six sections: general issues in cognition, representation and process in cognition, methodology in cognition, kinds of cognition, group and individual differences in cognition, and a conclusion. Contributors: Rhianon Allen, Axel Buchner, Patricia A. Carpenter, Stephen J. Ceci, Michael Cole, Eduardus DeBruyn, Randall W. Engle, Peter A. Frensch, Elena L. Grigorenko, Earl Hunt, P.N. Johnson-Laird, Marcel Adam Just, Michael Kahana, John F. Kihlstrom, Geoffrey Loftus, Valerie S. Makin, Timothy P. McNamara, Thomas O. Nelson, Raymond S. Nickerson, Natalie Oransky, Elizabeth A. Phelps, Dennis R. Proffitt, Arthur S. Reber, Paul J. Reber, Daniel N. Robinson, Tina B. Rosenblum, Brian H. Ross, Steven Sloman, Robert J. Sternberg.


Currently in operational numerical weather prediction (NWP) the density of high-resolution observations, such as Doppler radar radial winds (DRWs), is severely reduced in part to avoid violating the assumption of uncorrelated observation errors. To improve the quantity of observations used and the impact that they have on the forecast requires an accurate specification of the observation uncertainties. Observation uncertainties can be estimated using a simple diagnostic that utilizes the statistical averages of observation-minus-background and observation-minus-analysis residuals. We are the first to use a modified form of the diagnostic to estimate spatial correlations for observations used in an operational ensemble data assimilation system. The uncertainties for DRW superobservations assimilated into the Deutscher Wetterdienst convection-permitting NWP model are estimated and compared to previous uncertainty estimates for DRWs. The new results show that most diagnosed standard deviations are smaller than those used in the assimilation, hence, it may be feasible to assimilate DRWs using reduced error standard deviations. However, some of the estimated standard deviations are considerably larger than those used in the assimilation; these large errors highlight areas where the observation processing system may be improved. The error correlation length scales are larger than the observation separation distance and influenced by both the superobbing procedure and observation operator. This is supported by comparing these results to our previous study using Met Office data. Our results suggest that DRW error correlations may be reduced by improving the superobbing procedure and observation operator; however, any remaining correlations should be accounted for in the assimilation.


India's foreign policy has had an anomalous quality since the time Jawaharlal Nehru resolutely attempted to steer clear of Cold War alliances. This continues to be so given India's unique situation of establishing "strategic relations†with both Israel and Iran, as part of its Greater Middle East policy. A study of this paradox assumes significance for various reasons. One, it offers a glimpse into the way India is reordering its foreign policy in the post Cold War, as part of its clamour for Great Power status, thus presenting a westward complement to its familiar 'Look East policy' which seeks to engage regions beyond South Asia. It also provides a view of the complexities involved in endorsing the American agenda in a geopolitical neighbourhood, transformed by the September 11 attacks, and yet, one that affects India's security because of its energy reserves and Islamist ferment. To this end, this study analyses India's foreign policy toward the Middle East and Central Asia since the late 1990s, with a specific focus on its relations with Israel, Iran and Iraq that reviews the way it reconciles immediate security needs with competing realities of economic interdependence and political sensitivities. The paper also evaluates the challenges India faces in strengthening links with Afghanistan and Central Asia.[CSH OP NO 7]


AIM
To explore health-care professionals' documentation of patient wellbeing in the first five months after open heart surgery.

BACKGROUND
Open heart surgery (coronary artery bypass grafting or heart valve replacement) is an intervention aimed at relief of symptoms and increased wellbeing. It is a complex procedure with deep experiences encompassing physiological, psychological and social aspects. Health-care professionals' documentation of expressions of decreased wellbeing related to open heart surgery is an important basis for decisions and for the understanding of patients' overall health situation.

METHOD
Eighty medical records were examined by means of qualitative and quantitative methods in order to explore documentation of patient wellbeing at four points in time. The analysis was performed by content analysis and descriptive statistics.

RESULTS
Documentation of physical wellbeing was dominant on all occasions, while psychological wellbeing was moderately well documented and social aspects of wellbeing were rarely documented.

CONCLUSION
The medical records did not adequately reflect the complexity of undergoing open heart surgery. Hence the holistic approach was not confirmed in health-care professionals' documentation.

IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING MANAGEMENT
Managers need to support and work for a patient-centred approach in cardiac care, resulting in patient documentation that reflects patient wellbeing as a whole.


Treemaps, a visualization method for large hierarchical data spaces, are used to augment the capabilities of the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) for decision-making. Two direct manipulation tools, presented metaphorically as a "pump" and a "hook," were developed and applied to the treemap to support AHP sensitivity analysis. Users can change the importance of criteria dynamically on the two-dimensional treemap and immediately see the impact on the outcome of the decision. This fluid process dramatically speeds up exploration and provides a better understanding of the relative impact of the component criteria. A usability study with six subjects using a prototype AHP application showed that treemap representation was acceptable from a visualization and data operation standpoint.


Osmotin, a natural plant protein found in tomato, potato, pepper, and tobacco, is a homolog of human adiponectin. It exerts multiple biological activities through adiponectin receptors in a variety of mammalian cells. The therapeutic properties of osmotin have recently been shown in the pathogenesis of atherosclerosis by in vitro and in vivo experiments. Osmotin suppresses the adhesion of monocytes to endothelial cells by downregulating inflammatory cytokines and adhesion molecules in both cells. It suppresses oxidized low-density lipoprotein-induced foam cell formation by downregulating cluster of differentiation 36 and acyl-coenzyme A:cholesterol acyltransferase 1 as well as upregulating ATP-binding cassette transporter A1 in monocyte-derived macrophages. In vascular smooth muscle cells, osmotin suppresses the migration, proliferation, and production of collagen 1, fibronectin, and matrix metalloproteinase 2 by decreasing the phosphorylation of extracellular signal-regulated protein kinase 1/2 and nuclear factor-κB as well as increasing AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) expression. Treatment with osmotin suppresses abdominal fat accumulation in C57BL/6 mice and prevents the development of aortic atherosclerotic lesions, improving vascular inflammation and plaque instability in apolipoprotein E-deficient (Apoe) mice. Osmotin protects against obesityand diabetes-induced nonalcoholic fatty liver disease in leptin-deficient obese (ob/ob) and leptin receptor-deficient diabetic (db/db) mice. These effects are attributed to the stimulatory actions of osmotin on peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor-α and AMPK. Moreover, osmotin lowers serum levels of total cholesterol and triglyceride in non-diabetic and diabetic rats. These findings suggest that osmotin contributes to improving the extracellular risk factors for atherosclerosis and vascular intracellular and molecular responses. Therefore, the novel phytochemical osmotin may serve as a novel therapeutic target for atherosclerosis and related diseases. Received: First Decision: Revised: Accepted: Published: x Science Editor: Copy Editor: Production Editor: Jing Yu


Decades of research in distributed computing have led to a variety of perspectives on what it means for a concurrent algorithm to be efficient, depending on model assumptions, progress guarantees, and complexity metrics. It is therefore natural to ask whether one could compose algorithms that perform efficiently under different conditions, so that the composition preserves the performance of the original components when their conditions are met.
 In this paper, we evaluate the cost of composing shared-memory algorithms. First, we formally define the notion of safely composable algorithms and we show that every sequential type has a safely composable implementation, as long as enough state is transferred between modules. Since such generic implementations are inherently expensive, we present a more general light-weight specification that allows the designer to transfer very little state between modules, by taking advantage of the semantics of the implemented object. Using this framework, we implement a composed long-lived test-and-set object, with the property that each of its modules is asymptotically optimal with respect to the progress condition it ensures, while the entire implementation only uses objects with consensus number at most two. Thus, we show that the overhead of composition can be negligible in the case of some important shared-memory abstractions.


We consider the problem of distributed collaboration among multiple agents in an ad hoc setting. We have analyzed this problem within a multiagent task execution scenario, in which every task requires collaboration among multiple agents to get completed. Tasks are also ad hoc in the sense that they appear dynamically and require different sets of expertise or capabilities from agents for completion. We model collaboration within this framework as a decision-making problem in which agents have to determine what capabilities to learn and from which agents to learn them so that they can form teams that have the capabilities required to perform the current tasks satisfactorily. Our proposed technique refers to principles from human learning theory to enable an agent to strategically select appropriate capabilities to learn from other agents. We also use two openness parameters to model the dynamic nature of tasks and agents in the environment. Experimental results within the Repast agent simulator show that by using the appropriate learning strategy, the overall utility of the agents improves considerably. The performance of the agents and their utilities are also dependent on the repetitiveness of tasks and reencounter with agents within the environment. Our results also show that the agents that are able to learn more capabilities from another expert agent outperform the agents who learn only one capability at a time from many agents, and agents who use an intelligent utility maximizing strategy to choose which capabilities to learn outperform the agents who randomly make the learning decision.


Malawi has successfully leveraged multiple delivery platforms to scale-up and sustain the implementation of preventive chemotherapy (PCT) for the control of morbidity caused by soil-transmitted helminths (STH). Sentinel monitoring demonstrates this strategy has been successful in reducing STH infection in school-age children, although our understanding of the contemporary epidemiological profile of STH across the broader community remains limited. As part of a multi-site trial evaluating the feasibility of interrupting STH transmission across three countries, this survey aimed to describe the baseline demographics and the prevalence, intensity and associated risk factors of STH infection in Mangochi district, southern Malawi. Between October-December 2017, a household census was conducted across the catchment area of seven primary healthcare facilities, enumerating 131,074 individuals across 124 villages. A cross-sectional survey was then conducted between March-May 2018 in the enumerated area as a baseline for a cluster randomised trial. An age-stratified random sample of 6,102 individuals were assessed for helminthiasis by Kato-Katz and completed a detailed risk-factor questionnaire. The age-cluster weighted prevalence of any STH infection was 7.8% (95% C.I. 7.0%-8.6%) comprised predominantly of hookworm species and of entirely low-intensity infections. The presence and intensity of infection was significantly higher in men and in adults. Infection was negatively associated with risk factors that included increasing levels of relative household wealth, higher education levels of any adult household member, current school attendance, or recent deworming. In this setting of relatively high coverage of sanitation facilities, there was no association between hookworm and reported access to sanitation, handwashing facilities, or water facilities. These results describe a setting that has reduced the prevalence of STH to a very low level and confirms many previously recognised risk-factors for infection. Expanding the delivery of anthelmintics to groups where STH infection persist could enable Malawi to move past the objective of elimination of morbidity, and towards the elimination of STH.


Pronoun resolution has long been central to psycholinguistics, but research has mostly focused on personal pronouns ("he"/"she"). However, much of linguistic reference is to events and objects, in English often using demonstrative pronouns, like "that", and the non-personal pronoun "it", respectively. Very little is known about potential form-specific preferences of non-personal and demonstrative pronouns and the cognitive mechanisms involved in reference using demonstratives. We present a novel analysis arguing that the bare demonstrative "that" serves a different function by bundling, and making linguistically accessible, complex conceptual structures, while the non-personal pronoun "it" has a form-specific preference to refer to noun phrases mentioned in the previous discourse. In two English self-paced reading studies, each replicated once with slight variations, we show that readers are reading the demonstrative slower throughout, independently of frequency or complexity of the referent, as a reflection of differences in processing demonstratives vs. pronouns. These findings contribute to two distinct but connected research areas: First, they are compatible with an emergent experimental literature showing that pronominal reference to events is preferably done with demonstratives. Second, our model of demonstratives as conceptual bundlers provides a unified framework for future research on demonstratives as operators on the interface between language and broader cognition.


Even though the extant literature investigates how and why academics use social media, much less is known about academics' temporal patterns of social media use. This mixed methods study provides a first-of-its-kind investigation into temporal social media use. In particular, we study how academics' use of Twitter varies over time and examine the reasons why academics temporarily disengage and return to the social media platform. We employ data mining methods to identify a sample of academics on Twitter (n = 3,996) and retrieve the tweets they posted (n = 9,025,127). We analyze quantitative data using descriptive and inferential statistics, and qualitative data using the constant comparative approach. Results show that Twitter use is predominantly connected to traditional work hours and is well-integrated into academics' professional endeavors, suggesting that professional use of Twitter has become "ordinary." Though scholars rarely announce their departure from or return to Twitter, approximately half of this study's participants took some kind of a break from Twitter. Although users returned to Twitter for both professional and personal reasons, conferences and workshops were found to be significant events stimulating the return of academic users.


The University of Basra Medical College introduced a course on medical ethics for undergraduate students in 1994. We explored the opinions of 54 graduates and 52 final-year medical students about the benefits they perceive they gained from the course and its relevance to their training or practice. About 31% of students and 34% of graduates thought the course was practically and theoretically useful. Over 80% of graduates and students thought the course was either very relevant or relevant to some extent to the practice of medicine. When asked to recall the important ethical issues taught in the course, 52% of graduates and 44% of students listed patient-doctor relationship. Confidentiality, physician liability and ethical issues concerning recent medical innovations were listed by few respondents. Only 6% of both graduates and students were able to list the four principles of medical ethics as described by Raanan. The self-learning component of the course should be developed to strengthen ethical reasoning and judgment in decision-making.


PURPOSE/OBJECTIVES
To evaluate the impact of the implementation of a standardized order set on the time interval in initiation of antibiotic therapy for adult patients with cancer and febrile neutropenia.

DESIGN
Practice change.

SETTING
The oncology unit of an urban hospital in the south-eastern United States.

SAMPLE
Adult patients with cancer and febrile neutropenia admitted six months prior to (n = 30) or during the three months following (n = 23) implementation of the order set.

METHODS
Literature regarding febrile neutropenia, use of order sets, and change process was reviewed. In addition, a retrospective and concurrent chart review was conducted for adult patients admitted with febrile neutropenia. Time intervals were analyzed using SPSS® software, version 18.

MAIN RESEARCH VARIABLES
Initial antibiotic times, order-set use, and length of stay.

FINDINGS
An overall reduction in time intervals for initiation of antibiotic therapy was observed for presentation (t = 2.25; degrees of freedom [df] = 37; p = 0.031) and order (t = 2.67; df = 40.17; p = 0.012) to antibiotic administration, with an order-set usage of 31% in the inpatient unit and 71% in the emergency department.

CONCLUSIONS
Findings in the presence of low order-set usage suggest that staff education and placement of the order-set antibiotics in unit-based medication dispensing machines helped reduce time intervals for initial antibiotic therapy.

IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING
The use of an evidence-based approach to nursing care is essential to achieving the best outcomes for patients with febrile neutropenia. Incorporation of current evidence into an order set to guide clinical practice and comprehensive nurse, pharmacy, and physician education are needed for the successful implementation of evidence-based practice changes.


On March 19, 1918, the government of Canada announced a new, nationwide agricultural policy called the Greater Production Campaign . Established to increase food production across the country for the good of the war effort, a Greater Production Campaign was also implemented by the Department of Indian Affairs on the prairie reserves. Promoted as being of great benefit to the reserve residents, the Campaign featured three distinct operating components: a program to increase agricultural production by reserve residents; a government farm program ; and leasing of reserve land to non-Aboriginal farmers and ranchers. In reality, the initiative provided few benefits to the First Nations people of the prairies . In implementing the Campaign, the department made several amendments to the Indian Act that provided extremely coercive powers to W.M. Graham, Commissioner for the department's Campaign operations . Graham utilized these powers to create a cumbersome and mismanaged agricultural empire, parts of which were still functional as late as 1932 . In doing so, Graham was able to achieve personal renown and profits for the department operations at the expense of the reserve residents upon whose land these farms and grazing preserves were located . The few dollars of revenue received by the prairie reserves did not compensate for the impediment the Campaign operations caused to the reserve farming initiatives . In resistance, a number of reserves launched successful challenges to the department's Campaign . The


A hypothesis that a metal-induced immune disorder may be involved in the pathogenesis of some forms of Alzheimer's disease (AD) is presented. The classical complement pathway is activated in AD and T cells and reactive microglia appear in the brain. Studies of metal induced autoimmunity and the use of compounds containing aluminium as vaccine adjuvants suggest that metals can activate complement and can be taken up by antigen presenting cells. The consequent immune response could contribute to neuronal damage, beta-amyloid deposition and cell death. The strengths and weaknesses of this hypothesis are discussed and tests of some aspects are proposed.


When present in the subsurface, salt bodies impact the complexity of wave-equation-based seismic imaging techniques, such as least-squares reverse time migration and full-waveform inversion (FWI). Typically, the Born approximation used in every iteration of least-squares-based inversions is incapable of handling the sharp, high-contrast boundaries of salt bodies. We have developed a variance-based method for reconstruction of velocity models to resolve the imaging and inversion issues caused by salt bodies. Our main idea lies in retrieving useful information from independent updates corresponding to FWI at different frequencies. After several FWI iterations, we compare the model updates by considering the variance distribution between them to identify locations most prone to cycle skipping. We interpolate velocities from the surrounding environment into these high-variance areas. This approach allows the model to gradually improve from identifying easily resolvable areas and extrapolating the model updates from those to the areas that are difficult to resolve at early FWI iterations. In numerical tests, our method demonstrates the ability to obtain convergent FWI results at higher frequencies.


This special issue focuses on digitally-enabled co-production in archaeology, by bringing together papers that were presented at the session Communication as Collaboration: Digital Methods, Experiences and Values, organised at the 21st Annual Meeting of the European Association of Archaeologists (University of Glasgow, 2015). The session was part of the Communicating Archaeology thematic cluster, which was partly inspired by the first published volume dedicated specifically to the topic of digital public engagement in archaeology (Bonacchi 2012). In that session and in this collection, we have been exploring communication as the collaborative construction of materials and interpretations rather than the dissemination of content at given stages of the archaeological research process (Bonacchi and Moshenska 2015). We have aimed at building an initial critical mass of literature reflecting on participatory engagement with archaeology, its values, limitations and applicability by different social actors in a range of places and spaces, geo-political, social and cultural situations. By hosting case studies that were spontaneously offered in response to an invited call for papers, the issue allows the examination of the presence, or absence, meanings and outcomes of digital co-production in archaeology at an international level.


New technologies are constantly being developed and their success depends highly on finding applications that uses them. A couple of the latest additions to this category are mobile positioning via the GSM-net and mobile Internet. They are both predicted to play an important role in the future. The problem of developing applications for these technologies are many but the most important ones are the limited performance on the current PDA?s. These limitations force the applications to be extremely cheap both on the usage of memory and the use of processor capacity. This affects which kind of applications that are possible to implement on the PDA?s. This report offers a description of a project that aimed at developing applications using mobile Internet and mobile positioning. We focus on the development of the parts that include user involvement and describe our way of dealing with a design process that aims at designing for a nonexistent context. But this report also provides an attempt at identifying what is important when designing applications for a future context. We argue the importance of both practical attempts like the Mapster project and ethnographical studies of situations in the present similar to the future context where the applications are to work.


The author makes an attempt is his essay to apply the way of thinking and the methods of strategic planning in regional planning. His starting point is that the development of the regional system is formed by the common system of exogenous and endogenous factors, all of which define different pictures of the future as development possibilities. Strategic planning, which promotes a creative thinking looking into the future, is built on flexible systems, at the same time it requires the use of active methods. With its change-oriented view, striving for a lasting success, it is suitable for being a new tool of the development of the regional system. The essay compares traditional regional planning and a few factors of the strategic view planning, at the same time it draws attention to the limits of the use of this latter method. It talks about the problems of duration and it emphasises the need for thinking not in political cycles but in development periods in regional planning. On examining the exogenous and endogenous factors applied in strategic planning he raises the fears that it is problematic to put the strategies of the actors of the regional unit into a system. Also, it is difficult to find what elements of the environment really affect the regional system and where the spatial borders of that can be drawn. The uncertainty of the information concerning the future is analysed in the essay as are the weaknesses of the methods of cognition. The author talks about the factors hindering the innovationorinted view, i.e. strong external dependence, the character of the connection among the elements of the system and the lack of regional identity. He analyses in details the role of actions in strategic planning, since this is where he sees a solution for the lasting contradiction of regional development and regional planning. Finally he mentions the limits of social participation as well as the institutionalised systems of the assertion of different interests, but he is unable to solve this serious planning anomaly. In the following part of the essay we get instructions for the creation of a strategic view regional plan. The author starts the analysis of the problem by setting up a hypothetical picture of the future, then he goes on to offer aspects for the examination of exogenous and endogenous factors. In the analysis of the environment he evaluates international trends, gives an overview of the clients, the consumers of the regional system, also, he talks about the issues of studying the competitors. From the endogenous factors he mentions the endogenous resources of the regional system, the present strategies and the management and tools of regional development. The author briefly introduces the process of strategy building, emphasising the possibilities offered by the analysis of the scenarios. The final phase of planning is the definition of the elements of the accepted strategy, the objectives, priorities and programmes, also, the launch of the organisation of the future itself, an outline of the tasks of regional management. The statements of the essay can be summarised by saying that the strategic view regional planning can give us a new approach of regional development and it can contribute to its tools as well as to the sphere of action of regional policy, not to mention the renewal of the operation possibilities of regional management. In other words, it can initiate a new way of thinking and action by the actors of the regional system.


The thesis purpose is to be implementing a system where a sweeping signal generator connected to a scalar network analyzer (SNA). The SNA is a less complicated that the VNA and normally much cheaper. Between these two instruments only the cable fro synchronization between then needed. The synchronization signal is simply low frequency saw tooth signal not so sensitive for disturbance as RF signal. Therefore a very simple cable can be used.


Although knowledge-based MT systems have the potential to achieve high translation accuracy, each successful application system requires a large amount of hand-coded knowledge (lexicons, grammars, mapping rules, etc.). Systems like KBMT-89 and its descendants have demonstrated how knowledge-based translation can produce good results in technical domains with tractable domain semantics. Nevertheless, the cost of developing large-scale applications with tens of thousands of domain concepts precludes a purely hand-crafted approach. The current challenge for the "next generation" of knowledge-based MT systems is to utilize on-line textual resources and corpus analysis software in order to automate the most laborious aspects of the knowledge acquisition process. This partial automation can in turn maximize the productivity of human knowledge engineers and help to make large-scale applications of knowledge-based MT an economic reality. In this paper we discuss the corpus-based knowledge acquisition methodology used in KANT, a knowledge-based translation system for multi-lingual document production. This methodology can be generalized beyond the KANT interlingua approach for use with any system that requires similar kinds of knowledge.


While less than 1% of reported accidents are associated with slope stability problems, slope failures were responsible for about 15% of all U.S. surface mine fatalities between 1995 and 2001. Small rockfalls, which may involve hand-sized rocks weighing only a few kilograms, can cause fatal injuries to workers away from the protection of large machinery. Massive highwall failures containing a million cubic meters of material or more can be fatal even for heavy equipment operators. As part of an ongoing study at the Spokane Research Laboratory of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, several remote-sensing technol ogies are being evaluated as tools to monitor slopes for hazards and to assess slope stability. Field tests of a hyperspectral imager were conducted to assess its value for improving geologic maps of poten tially unstable alteration zones on mine slopes. An interferometric radar device capable of detecting very small displacements on slopes awaits final assembly and field testing. Computerized moni toring methods using images from digital and video cameras are being assessed for application to mine slope surveillance. These and other techniques will eventually provide new tools to augment current methods for monitoring ground control hazards in mines.


We define a particular class of topological field theories associated to open strings and prove the resulting D-branes and open strings form the bounded derived category of coherent sheaves. This derivation is a variant of some ideas proposed recently by Douglas. We then argue that any 0-brane on any Calabi-Yau threefold must become unstable along some path in the Kahler moduli space. As a byproduct of this analysis we see how the derived category can be invariant under a birational transformation between Calabi-Yaus.


The construction of a renewed habitability of the contemporary Alpine space requires a profound critical revision of the ways of looking and of the cultures concerning the theme of re-use of the built heritage. Over the last few decades, a sort of crystallization of imaginaries, operational practices and development ideas has emerged around the two terms of re-use and heritage and their ways of interaction, which today is likely to be an obstacle to the construction of new development scenarios for the Alpine region. Trying to imagine new values and meanings of the concepts of reuse and heritage, however, requires the questioning of those patrimonialization cultures that have served as the ultimate framework for the project of the Alpine space. The essay reconstructs those design processes that, starting from a renewed productive vision of the mountain, attempt today to overcome a hypostatized vision of the conventional cultural landscape produced by the patrimonialist paradigm, to embrace a transformative attitude of the heritage based on the materic character of the basic elements of the Alpine space. In particular we want to underline how the contemporary design culture in the Alps is directed to the development of synthetic languages aimed at capturing the stratified and diachronic dimension of the built landscape through metasemic cognitive and interpretative practices. It is an attitude that, against a background of the change in perspective brought about by climate change and environmental issues, allows the maximization of the opportunities and physical resources recovered in the place, perfectly in line with the aptitude for the continuous re-use of the Alpine civilizations of the past, which focuses on the awareness of participating in a constructive process of transformation of the long lasting Alpine territory.


This publication is the result of the conference "Language, diversity and integration in the Enlarged EU: challenges and opportunities" sponsored by The Ministry of Education and Science of The Republic of Lithuania


In this paper, based on a sequential Monte Carlo method, a computa- tionally efficient algorithm is presented for estimating the residual phase noise, blindly, generated at the output the phase tracking loop employed in OFDM systems. The basic idea is to treat the transmitted symbols as "missing data" and draw samples sequentially of them based on the observed signal samples up to time t. This way, the Bayesian esti- mates of the phase noise is obtained through these samples, sequentially drawn,together with their importance weights. The proposed receiver structure is seen to be ideally suited for high-speed parallel implemen- tation using VLSI technology.


This paper provides an historical exploration of local governance in Yemen across the past sixty years. It highlights the presence of a strong tradition of local self-rule, self-help, and participation "from below" as well as the presence of a rival, official, political culture upheld by central elites that celebrates centralization and the strong state. Shifts in the predominance of one or the other tendency have coincided with shifts in the political economy of the Yemeni state(s). When it favored the local, central rulers were compelled to give space to local initiatives and Yemen experienced moments of political participation and local development.


This paper considers infinite horizon optimal feedback control of nonlinear models with discounted cost. The paper includes two extentions of existing results about optimal feedback control. First, it is proven that for real analytic state-space models, a time-invariant real analytic feedback solution exists, even when the cost function includes a discount factor, provided certain regularity conditions. Second, the result is generalized to nonlinear DAE models. The feedback solution is valid in a neighborhood of the origin. In both cases, explicit formulas for the series expansions of the cost function and control law are given.


What is happening to the Schengen borders? Is Schengen in 'crisis'? This paper examines the state of play in the Schengen system in light of the developments during 2015. It critically examines the assertion that Schengen is 'in crisis' and seeks to set the record straight on what has been happening to the intra-Schengen border-free and common external borders system. The paper argues that Schengen is here to stay and that reports about the reintroduction of internal border checks are exaggerated as they are in full compliance with the EU rule of law model laid down in the Schengen Borders Code and subject to scrutiny by the European Commission. It also examines the legal challenges inherent to police checks within the internal border areas as having an equivalent effect to border checks as well as the newly adopted proposal for a European Border and Coast Guard system. The analysis shows that the most far-reaching challenge to the current and future configurations of EU border policies relates to ensuring that they are in full compliance with fundamental human rights obligations to refugees, effective accountability and independent monitoring of the implementation of EU legal standards. This should be accompanied by a transparent and informed discussion on which 'Schengen' and which 'common European Border and Coast Guard Agency' we exactly want within current democratic rule of law and fundamental rights remits.


Profiling of melanoma patients treated with checkpoint blockade reveals TCR clonality and copy number loss as correlates of therapeutic response. Checking on checkpoint inhibitors Immune checkpoint blockade has greatly improved the success of treatment in melanoma and other tumor types, but it is expensive and does not work for all patients. To optimize the likelihood of therapeutic success and reduce the risks and expense of unnecessary treatment, it would be helpful to find biomarkers that can predict treatment response. Roh et al. studied patients treated with sequential checkpoint inhibitors targeting CTLA-4 and then PD-1. In these patients, the authors discovered that a more clonal T cell population specifically correlates with response to PD-1 blockade, but not CTLA-4, which may help identify the best candidates for this treatment. In addition, increased frequency of gene copy number loss was correlated with decreased responsiveness to either therapy. Immune checkpoint blockade produces clinical benefit in many patients. However, better biomarkers of response are still needed, and mechanisms of resistance remain incompletely understood. To address this, we recently studied a cohort of melanoma patients treated with sequential checkpoint blockade against cytotoxic T lymphocyte antigen–4 (CTLA-4) followed by programmed death receptor–1 (PD-1) and identified immune markers of response and resistance. Building on these studies, we performed deep molecular profiling including T cell receptor sequencing and whole-exome sequencing within the same cohort and demonstrated that a more clonal T cell repertoire was predictive of response to PD-1 but not CTLA-4 blockade. Analysis of CNAs identified a higher burden of copy number loss in nonresponders to CTLA-4 and PD-1 blockade and found that it was associated with decreased expression of genes in immune-related pathways. The effect of mutational load and burden of copy number loss on response was nonredundant, suggesting the potential utility of a combinatorial biomarker to optimize patient care with checkpoint blockade therapy.


It is anticipated that many of the future forest mapping applications will be based on three-dimensional (3D) point clouds. A comparison study was conducted to verify the explanatory power and information contents of several 3D remote sensing data sources on the retrieval of above ground biomass (AGB), stem volume (VOL), basal area (G), basal-area weighted mean diameter (Dg) and Lorey's mean height (Hg) at the plot level, utilizing the following data: synthetic aperture radar (SAR) Interferometry, SAR radargrammetry, satellite-imagery having stereo viewing capability, airborne laser scanning (ALS) with various densities (0.8–6 pulses/m2) and aerial stereo imagery. Laser scanning is generally known as the primary source providing a 3D point cloud. However, photogrammetric, radargrammetric and interferometric techniques can be used to produce 3D point clouds from space- and air-borne stereo images. Such an image-based point cloud could be utilized in a similar manner as ALS providing that accurate digital terrain model is available. In this study, the performance of these data sources for providing point cloud data was evaluated with 91 sample plots that were established in Evo, southern Finland within a boreal forest zone and surveyed in 2014 for this comparison. The prediction models were built using random forests technique with features derived from each data sources as independent variables and field measurements of forest attributes as response variable. The relative root mean square errors (RMSEs) varied in the ranges of 4.6% (0.97 m)–13.4% (2.83 m) for Hg, 11.7% (3.0 cm)–20.6% (5.3 cm) for Dg, 14.8% (4.0 m2/ha)–25.8% (6.9 m2/ha) for G, 15.9% (43.0 m3/ha)–31.2% (84.2 m3/ha) for VOL and 14.3% (19.2 Mg/ha)–27.5% (37.0 Mg/ha) for AGB, respectively, depending on the data used. Results indicate that ALS data achieved the most accurate estimates for all forest inventory attributes. For image-based 3D data, high-altitude aerial images and WorldView-2 satellite optical image gave similar results for Hg and Dg, which were only slightly worse than those of ALS data. As expected, spaceborne SAR data produced the worst estimates. WorldView-2 satellite data performed well, achieving accuracy comparable to the one with ALS data for G, VOL and AGB estimation. SAR interferometry data seems to contain more information for forest inventory than SAR radargrammetry and reach a better accuracy (relative RMSE decreased from 13.4% to 9.5% for Hg, 20.6% to 19.2% for Dg, 25.8% to 20.9% for G, 31.2% to 22.0% for VOL and 27.5% to 20.7% for AGB, respectively). However, the availability of interferometry data is limited. The results confirmed the high potential of all 3D remote sensing data sources for forest inventory purposes. However, the assumption of using other than ALS data is that there exist a high quality digital terrain model, in our case it was derived from ALS.


Data deduplication is a technique for eliminating duplicate copies of data, and has been widely used in cloud storage to reduce storage space and upload bandwidth. However, there is only one copy for each file stored in cloud even if such a file is owned by a huge number of users. As a result, deduplication system improves storage utilization while reducing reliability. Furthermore, the challenge of privacy for sensitive data also arises when they are outsourced by users to cloud. Aiming to address the above security challenges, this paper makes the first attempt to formalize the notion of distributed reliable deduplication system. We propose new distributed deduplication systems with higher reliability in which the data chunks are distributed across multiple cloud servers. The security requirements of data confidentiality and tag consistency are also achieved by introducing a deterministic secret sharing scheme in distributed storage systems, instead of using convergent encryption as in previous deduplication systems. Security analysis demonstrates that our deduplication systems are secure in terms of the definitions specified in the proposed security model. As a proof of concept, we implement the proposed systems and demonstrate that the incurred overhead is very limited in realistic environments.


Recent studies find that cash remains a dominant payment choice for small-value transactions despite the prevalence of alternative means of payment such as debit and credit cards. For policy makers an important question is whether consumers truly prefer using cash or merchants restrict card usage. Using the Bank of Canada's 2009 Method of Payment Survey, we estimate a generalized multinomial logit model of payment choices to extract individual heterogeneity (demand-side factors) while controlling for merchants' acceptance of cards (supply-side factors). Based on a counterfactual exercise where we assume universal card acceptance among merchants, we find that some consumers would decrease their cash usage but the magnitude of this decrease is small. Our results imply that the use of cash in small-value transactions is driven mainly by consumers' preferences.


A series of blast tests is described in which blast impulse is measured by an impulse plug technique for spherical explosive charges. In this approach the reflected blast impulse delivered to a hardened bullet-shaped steel plug is determined from a measurement of the plug terminal momentum. Plug velocity is measured by a high-speed, high-resolution video camera operating at 20,000 fps. Spherical C4 charges are studied for varying charge weight and charge-to-plug standoff distance. Tested standoffs include the demanding near-field blast zone within which pressure measurement by transducer is extremely difficult or impossible. Results are compared with previous studies made using transducer and impulse plug methods for both C4 and Pentolite charges. The present data for half-pound C4 charges are in good agreement with much earlier impulse plug data for spherical Pentolite in the near-field region, however, differences of up to 26% are noted with more recent transducer measurements for C4 just beyond the near-field zone. Test results are also compared with hydro-code simulations of the plug response.


In 2016 The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) showed that agricultural production is now twice as dependent on pollinators than five decades ago, but pollinator decline accelerates globally, in particular in agricultural lands. Farmers cannot protect, what they do not see or recognise or value. Knowledgeable farmers are crucial for pollinator protection. In 2016 the knowledge of 110 male and female smallholder farmers (0.4 – 2.5 ha) in the Rabat-Salé-Kenitra region (Morocco) has been assessed by a standardised questionnaire. On average, farmers know only 1.4 pollinator species except honeybees. 23 out of 110 farmers had collaborated with beekeepers, but not for improved pollination of their crops. They had invited the beekeepers to bring hives, because according to local arrangements a farmer providing flowers gets a share of the honey as in kind payment. Despite availability in their agricultural lands no farmer is able to recognise nests of pollinators or predators. Though all farmers produced at least one pollinator dependent crop, only 19 % were aware that they need pollinators in their fields. They did not know for which crops pollination is essential, for which crop pollination has great, modest or little impact, they were e.g. much more concerned about pollination of tomato than of apple. As apple flowers in early spring, pollination by honeybees is often hampered by rain or cold days without sun. Farmers lacking knowledge might take wrong decisions in case of crop failure. All farmers enlarged fields reducing valuable pollinator habitats in field edges since the year 2000. Also the farmers increased the use of insecticides and fungicides on average by 54 % since 2000. There is very little literature on farmers' knowledge on pollinators, but according to the samples the knowledge in Morocco is comparatively low. There was nearly no difference between literate and illiterate farmers. Therefore, obligatory lessons on pollinators is recommended for primary and secondary schools. Involvement of mass media would be useful.


This research paper sought to examine the regulatory framework in place to check interest rates charged by financial institutions on their borrowers. The paper looked into the laws in place to ensure regulation and the effectiveness or lack thereof of these laws. Also looked at is the reason for the shortcomings in the regulatory framework provided by the Banking Act, Chapter 488 of the Laws of Kenya and The Central Bank of Kenya Act, Chapter 486 of the Laws of Kenya, and the possible solutions to these shortcomings. This research found that regulation is a necessary measure if consumers are to be protected from arbitrary variation of interest rates. The study also found that there exist laws and regulations, albeit weak ones, in Kenya to ensure regulation; the problem, however, is that these laws and regulations are either too lax to keep banks in check or are ignored altogether.


Auditory imagery is more than just mental "replaying" of tunes in one's head. I will review several studies that capture characteristics of complex and active imagery tasks, using both behavioral and neuroscience approaches. I use behavioral methods to capture people's ability to make emotion judgments about both heard and imagined music in real time. My neuroimaging studies look at the neural correlates of encoding an imagined melody, anticipating an upcoming tune, and also imagining tunes backwards. Several studies show voxel-by-voxel correlates of neural activity with self-report of imagery vividness. These studies speak to the ways in which musical imagery allows us not just to remember music, but also how we use those memories to judge temporally changing aspects of the musical experience.


Synapse elimination is a hallmark of neural circuit maturation during development. Many synapses are eliminated after an initial phase of synapse formation. However, little is known about the molecular machinery that executes synaptic elimination or why certain synapses are selectively eliminated while other synapses persist and grow. Ding et al. (see the Perspective by Miller) examined synapse elimination in the nematode worm and found that a ubiquitin E3 ligase complex plays a key role. The activity of the ubiquitin-proteasome system was tightly regulated by a synaptic adhesion molecule, which protected certain synapses from selective elimination. M. Ding, D. Chao, G. Wang, K. Shen, Spatial regulation of an E3 ubiquitin ligase directs selective synapse elimination. Science 317, 947-951 (2007). [Abstract] [Full Text] D. M. Miller, Synapses here and not everywhere. Science 317, 907-908 (2007). [Summary] [Full Text]


ABSTRACT In this paper, a new algorithm is presented for determination of the crack growth path in hot mix asphalt (HMA) materials. In a newly developed fracture simulator, the pavement structure is modeled with a viscoelastic boundary element method, which provides an attractive alternative to finite element-based methods for modeling crack initiation and growth. According to the HMA fracture mechanics, a fundamental energy-based threshold is used to determine crack growth and the direction of crack growth, and viscoelastic mixture properties are used to determine the rate of crack growth. To determine where a crack propagates, a grid in the critical zone is defined to cover a range of possible crack growth directions and locate the direction of the maximum dissipated creep strain energy (DCSE). The crack will propagate in the direction of the maximum DCSE when the DCSE in this direction reaches the damage threshold. The fracture simulator is shown to predict top-down crack growth patterns in hot mix asphalt pavements observed in the field.


The thermal degradation of double clad optical fiber coatings is known to be the prime limiting factor for the operation of high power CW fiber lasers. In this paper, we conduct a study of thermal effects in high power CW fiber lasers. A particular focus is put on heating at the splice points and in the doped fiber due to the quantum defect in 100-W class CW fiber lasers. A theoretical model and experimental measurements taken with a high resolution IR camera on 125 to 400 μm diameter fibers are presented. Thermal contact resistance between the fiber and its heat sink are considered in the conduction heat transfer model and measured for different geometries. Proper designs for cooling apparatus are proposed and optimization of the active fiber is discussed. Some predictions for power scaling and temperature management of fiber lasers to kW power level are also described.


The frequency of mutant T cells (FMC) in blood lymphocytes from patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) was measured by growing cells in the presence and in the absence of 6-thioguanine. Patients with SLE had a spectrum of FMC ranging from normal to about 100 times normal. This high FMC among cells from SLE patients appears to reflect excessive in vivo activation and proliferation during the course of the disease. This represents the first demonstration of such a T cell abnormality in SLE; it supports the hypothesis that SLE T cells demonstrate increased in vivo division and/or survival.


Capturing of relevant patterns in company's financial data and the implications on the reporting are important for various financial statement users to identify the triggers of the significant deficiencies and material weaknesses. The objective of this study is to construct a company-specific risk score for the companies' internal weaknesses, as well as to uncover the conditional relations between the independent predictors of firms' material weaknesses. To do so, Tree Augmented Naive Bayes (TAN) and Logistic Regression (LR) algorithms are employed to analyze the data obtained from COMPUSTAT (Research Insight) for one year before the Material Weakness in Internal Control (MWIC) disclosure on several operating and financial ratios such as total asset turnover, profitability, capital intensity, size, current ratio, and operating performance. The proposed TAN method provides novel information on the interactions among the predictors and the conditional probability of MWIC for a given set of relevant firm characteristics.


BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES
Quantitative assessment of choriocapillaris circulation has proven difficult. Although the fluorescent vesicle system provides a means of quantifying the retinal circulation, the attempts at imaging fluorescent liposomes in the choroidal microcirculation have been largely unsuccessful. The authors introduce a new tool, fluorescent microsphere imaging, and examine its utility for evaluating the hemodynamics of the retina and choroidal microcirculation. The usefulness of fluorescent microsphere imaging is demonstrated through the examination of the retinal and choroidal circulations of three rhesus monkeys.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
Fluorescent microsphere imaging uses polystyrene latex microspheres that incorporate one or more dyes. These microspheres are injected intravenously into an animal and are excited in the eye through the resident lasers of a scanning laser ophthalmoscope. The excited particles are detected by the ophthalmoscope, and its output is then digitized directly or recorded on a videocassette recorder for subsequent image analysis. Multiple-dye microspheres use the principle of resonance energy transfer for the activation of the final dye in a non-radiative cascade. These microspheres enable the investigator to tailor the excitation and emission spectra of the particles for the investigation of different ocular tissues.

RESULTS
Using 488/515 microspheres (excitation and emission peaks at 488 nm and 515 nm, respectively), the authors captured images of particles circulating in the perimacular retinal circulation. Shifting excitation and emission spectra toward the red and infrared enabled the imaging of blood flow in progressively deeper tissue. Using 633/825 microspheres, the authors recorded and tracked particles in the microcirculation of the choroid.

CONCLUSION
The authors' findings suggest that fluorescent microsphere imaging provides images useful for studying the retinal circulation and for evaluating previously inaccessible choroidal hemodynamics.


By the advances in location-aware applications over the Internet, the need for information such as the geographical position of routers and hosts and also the Euclidian distance of nodes is more important than ever. These kinds of information can also provide a valuable insight for network administrators, analysts, and many others. In this paper, we propose an algorithm, called GPE, to estimate the geographical position of nodes across the Internet. In the proposed approach, Internet topology is modeled by a weighted graph. Each node of the graph may have a corresponding estimation of its position. Weight of each edge, in this graph, indicates the estimated length of corresponding link in Internet topology. GPE gets this modeling graph, and tries to improve the estimations gradually. This is carefully done by estimating the position of each node based on its neighbors' positions iteratively. The results show that GPE can improve the initial estimation at least 52% on average.