Despite the key role of premetamorphic amphibians in experimental ecology, the factors affecting their abundance has received relatively little attention in natural settings. We applied a model selection approach with AIC (Akaike's Information Criterion) to predict the abundance of embryos and larvae of crested and marbled newts (Triturus cristatus and T. marmoratus) at 32 breeding sites in western France, based on 15 variables describing the aquatic habitat, and 10 variables describing the terrestrial habitat within a 100 m radius around the pond. The best model for embryos included the variables shade and floating vegetation (highest embryo abundance in intermediate ponds), and pond size (negative correlation). Larval abundance was best explained by shade (negative correlation), and the interaction between phosphate and nitrate. Pond variables were not fully comparable to terrestrial parameters, but produced better predictive models for both embryos and larvae. Due to the high explanatory value of ecological parameters the results suggest that in a metapopulation context, deterministic population processes driven by pond succession may be more important than stochastic extinctions and recolonizations of otherwise suitable habitat patches.


Aim To estimate the effects of full-glacial atmospheric CO2 concentrations and climate upon leaf area index (LAI), using both global vegetation models and palaeoecological data. Prior simulations indicate lowered LAIs at the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), but this is the first attempt to corroborate predictions against observations. Location Eastern North America and eastern Beringia. Methods Using a dense surface pollen data set and remotely sensed LAIs from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument, we evaluate the ability of analogue-based techniques to reconstruct modern LAIs from pollen data. We then apply analogue techniques to LGM pollen records, calculate the ratio of LGM to modern LAIs (RLAI) and compare reconstructed RLAIs to RLAIs simulated by BIOME4. Sensitivity experiments with BIOME4 distinguish the effects of CO2 and climate on glacial LAIs. Results Modern LAIs are skilfully predicted (r2 = 0.83). Data and BIOME4 indicate that LAIs at the LGM were up to 12% lower than modern values in eastern North America and 60–94% lower in Beringia. In eastern North America, LGM climates partially counteracted CO2-driven decreases in LAI, while in Beringia both contributed to lowered LAIs. Main conclusions In both regions climate is the primary driver of LGM LAIs. The decline in eastern North America LAIs is smaller than previously reported, so regional vegetation feedbacks to LGM climate may have been less significant than previously supposed. CO2 exerts both physiological and community effects upon LAI, by regulating resource availability for leaf production and by influencing the competitive balance among species and hence the composition and structure of plant communities. Pollen-based reconstructions using analogue methods do not incorporate the physiological effect and so are upper estimates of full-glacial LAIs. BIOME4 sensitivity experiments indicate that the community and physiological effects together caused 10% to 20% decrease in LAIs at the LGM, so simulated RLAIs that are 80–100% of reconstructed RLAIs are regarded as consistent with data.


We propose two-sources randomness extractors over finite fields and on elliptic curves that can extract from two sources of information without consideration of other assumptions that the starting algorithmic assumptions with a competitive level of security. These functions have several applications. We propose here a description of a version of a Diffie-Hellman key exchange protocol and key extraction.


Although Reynolds showed the transition to turbulence in pipe flow 100 years ago, instability theories based on deterministic continuum mechanics and numerical simulations based on the deterministic Navier-Stokes equation cannot indicate the transition point in closed pipe flow. Our previous computations (Naitoh, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010) in a straight and closed pipe using the random number generator have showed the transition in space without applying any stability theories and turbulence models, which suggests the possibility of a stochastic Navier-Stokes equation. The most important point of our approach is a theoretical and philosophical method proposed for determining the stochasticity level, which is deeply related to boundary condition. In this paper, computational analyses performed for the stochastic Navier-Stokes equation with grid systems having high and low resolutions quantitatively reveal the mysterious relation between inlet disturbance and the transition point to turbulence for pipe flows, while consideringsurface roughness of solid walls. Independence of the transition point on grid size implies that stochasticity is dominant rather than numerical discretization. Moreover, a laminarization phenomenon in a straight pipe, including puffs and slugs, are also captured. Finally, we will also show shocktube experiments, which qualitatively clarify the influence of inlet-outlet disturbances on the transition points.


We present a measurement of the inclusive top quark pair production cross section in \ppbar collisions at (\sqrt{s}=1.96) TeV utilizing data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of \lumi\ collected with the D0 detector at the Fermilab Tevatron Collider. We consider final states containing one high-$p_{T}$ isolated electron or muon and at least two jets, and we perform three analyses: one exploiting specific kinematic features of \ttbar events, the second using $b$-jet identification, and the third using both techniques to separate \ttbar\ signal from background. In the third case, we determine simultaneously the $t\bar{t}$ cross section and the ratio of the production rates of $W$+heavy flavor jets and $W$+light flavor jets, which reduces the impact of the systematic uncertainties related to the background estimation. Assuming a top quark mass of 172.5 GeV, we obtain $\sigma_{t\bar{t}} = 7.78^{+0.77}_{-0.64} $ pb. This result agrees with predictions of the standard model.


Studies have found out that indoor air quality affects human especially children and the elderly more compared to ambient atmospheric air. This study aims to investigate indoor air pollutants concentration in selected vernacular schools with different surrounding human activities in Kuala Terengganu, the administrative and commercial center of Terengganu state. Failure to identify and establish indoor air pollution status can increase the chance of long-term and short-term health problems for these young students and staff; reduction in productivity of teachers; and degrade the youngsters learning environment and comfort. Indoor air quality (IAQ) parameters in three primary schools were conducted during the monsoon season of November 2008 for the purposes of assessing ventilation rates, levels of particulate matter (PM 10 ) and air quality differences between schools. In each classroom, carbon monoxide (CO), CO 2 , air velocity, relative humidity and temperature were performed during school hours, and a complete walkthrough survey was completed. Results show a statistically significant difference for the five IAQ parameters between the three schools at the 95.0% confidence level. We conclude our findings by confirming the important influence of surrounding human activities on indoor concentrations of pollutants in selected vernacular schools in Kuala Terengganu.


The purpose of this research is to identify the underlying cause of the atypical temperature oscillation of groundwater temperature within the Ashland-1 nesting well site. Groundwater in this area experiences temperature peaks within the 50-ft screened well, while temperature data from the 15-ft screened well experiences a lesser range of temperature fluctuation. The first phase of the project involves gathering data from these nesting wells can comparing that data to surface water temperature data taken from a USGS gauging station. The second phase was to associate these temperature oscillations with possible geological factors that could be driving this temperature fluctuation. The final phase involves reviewing the thermal data gathered to form a correlation between groundwater inputs by the thermal data gathered.. By identifying that the use of groundwater thermal data as a mean of determining groundwater inputs we will have created an additional means of assessing groundwater inputs.


SUMMARY The conclusions, where pertinent, of the 10 papers on the treatment of non-specific urethritis which have appeared in the British Journal of Venereal Diseases between 1971 and now are reviewed. Recent studies purport to argue, but in fact assume, that tetracycline treatment for non-specific urethritis is both effective and desirable; current practice agrees with this assumption. To prove effectiveness, studies over much longer follow-up periods would be necessary. These studies should compare results not only of different methods and doses of tetracycline, of different regimens, and of different types of the drug; they should also compare results over a prolonged period with placebos and with other drugs, for instance those outside the antibiotic range and with no suspected side effects. Only then would it be reasonable to hold a firm view on the desirability or the effectiveness of the treatment. With patience and properly conducted experiments results may emerge to justify some view. At the moment the data are ill-assembled although voluminous and fail to support conclusions that have any clarity or force; moreover they are so haphazard that they cannot be compared with one another. Some venereologists are sceptical about treatment, some advocate the administration of one single dose, others say the four-or five-day regimen is preferable, and so on up to those who maintain that the 21-day regimen is the best. The coexistence of such mutually incompatible, firmly-held views may well suggest that the whole system of investigation put together to validate such views is quite inappropriate. That would be a radical thesis, and perhaps none the worse for that. What is not a radical thesis, however, is that at present the whole system of data and argument is in disarray.


ABSTRACT This study identify and reflect on barriers to inclusion that children with autism can meet in kindergarten. We use a single case study with participant- and video observation to map inclusion for a single 5-year-old boy with autism, in a mainstream kindergarten in Norway. Analysis identified three modes of inclusion; distance-keeping, maintaining proximity and interacting. The mapping procedure demonstrated that barriers to inclusion continue to operate. The extent of the child's participation seemed to relate to what he was doing and who he was with; overall, limited social inclusion amongst peers being achieved. Results indicated that predictable frameworks and teacher support increased participation. We discuss how participation for children with autism can be promoted. Our study points toward the need to extend current adaptations and support to children with autism within the educational settings, to enable a more inclusive practice.


The characterization of the exact response of commercially available, piezoelectric and thin film, acoustic emission transducers is of fundamental importance for the nondestructive evaluation of in-service engineering components. An experimental procedure is developed that uses a laser interferometer to make localized, absolute measurements, with very high fidelity without acoustically loading the specimen. The heterodyne interferometer is operated by splitting a single frequency laser light into two components using an acousto-optic modulator. An important feature of the system is that a linear FM discriminator is used to demodulate the carrier; as a result, the interferometer behaves as a doppler shift detector. An ultrasonic transducer is used to create a repeatable source function on an elastic half-space. The interferometer's response is verified with analytical results, and used to characterize the response of commercially available transducers.


Years ago, I was working at Second Story Books in Bethesda, Maryland when a collection of Easton Press books came into the store. You might be familiar with Easton Press. They produce fine, limited editions of the world's greatest works of literature by the world's greatest authors for the collectible market. In my opinion, these books are the epitome of the faux collectible: books for collectors clueless about what collecting is all about. When they buy Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations for $200 for their newly designed library, they are merely flashing their rolls for their friends. The real big pimping in collecting is in accumulating intellectual capital and getting access to information. In 2003, Easton Press published Dale Carniege's How to Win Friends and Influence People. Great author? Great literature? Doubtful, but for the true collector Carneige's book is strangely on target. Quite simply, great collectors seek to win friends and influence people. Building a valuable library is not about creating a room of one's own. I liken that to hoarding. Sitting like Smaug the dragon next to your pristine copy of Tolkien's The Hobbit under glass in your cave. That is all well and good, but is lonely and adds little value to your collection in the long run. The first book I ever bought for my William Burroughs collection was The Dead Star (1969), published as an accordion-style pamphlet by Jan Herman's Nova Broadcast Press in 1969. At the time, I knew nothing about the book at all, except that it had Burroughs's signature (a nice, tight signature rather than a later scrawl), and it was affordable at $60. Many collectors would be satisfied with that simple act of possession and the opportunity at a bargain, but that is only where the process of book collecting starts, as well as book collecting's real value. Once I obtained the book, I starting obtain information about it. Who is Jan Herman? What else did Nova Broadcast Press publish? What is The Dead Star as a publication, and how is it representative of Burroughs's work? Or of the book as a form, generally? This leads to contacting Herman, obtaining all the publications of the Nova Broadcast Press, tracing The Dead Star back to Jeff Nuttall's My Own Mag, buying all the issues of My Own Mag, researching Jeff Nuttall, and getting in contact with the Nuttall estate. Herman (who happens to be a great guy and fun to hang out with) introduces you to Carl Weissner (who also happens to be a great guy and fun to hang out with). They love telling stories about Burroughs and sharing their insights on Burroughs's work. You start collecting the works of Herman and Weissner? Ad infinitum. Like Borges's Library of Babel, the process of accumulation is endless. Soon you not only have Burroughs's The Dead Star, but you have a whole network of people and publications associated with The Dead Star and its larger universe, which in the paranoia of collecting is a black hole that encompasses Everything. From Burroughs to Book Art to Borges. You no longer have a simple collection; you have an archive and a community. Now it is time to influence people. This is where the Internet and self-publication come in. Sharing the archive is crucial to further building the archive. Thus, RealityStudio.org is on one level merely extensions of my book collection. At their core, they are a virtual bookshelf that displays and annotates my collection, and allows others to do the same to their and my collections. Think Jerome McGann and his project on Rossetti or other interactive databases dedicated to authors such as Shakespeare. Thus, scanning and writing about the archive is not a loss of possession, value, or energy. Quite the opposite. It is a gift that, like all gifts, is designed to encourage something in return. This return can come in many forms: Friendships with other collectors or booksellers. Offers of more books relating to Burroughs. Personal recollection and anecdotes. More images. Even more important is the fact that people take information away from the archive for their own archives or their own research. Webs, networks, and chains form and take the shape of The Composite City in Burroughs's Interzone. The archive becomes not merely a grouping of Burroughs's publications, but a community dedicated to all things Burroughsian.


Understanding human language often necessitates understanding entities and their place in a taxonomy of knowledge -- their types. Previous methods to learn entity types rely on training classifiers on datasets with coarse, noisy, and incomplete labels. We introduce a method to instill fine-grained type knowledge in language models with text-to-text pre-training on type-centric questions leveraging knowledge base documents and knowledge graphs. We create the WikiWiki dataset: entities and passages from 10M Wikipedia articles linked to the Wikidata knowledge graph with 41K types. Models trained on WikiWiki achieve state-of-the-art performance in zero-shot dialog state tracking benchmarks, accurately infer entity types in Wikipedia articles, and can discover new types deemed useful by human judges.


Polycrystalline boron nitride cutting tools are widely used for hard-part steel turning due to their high wear
resistance and long durability, however the issue of adhesion of workpiece to the cutting tool significantly affects
the cutting tool lifetime. Using a nanosecond fibre laser surface texturing of a polycrystalline boron nitride single
point cutting tool is proposed to improve its wear properties and extend tool life in turning of continuous AISI
L2 hardened steel components. The textures, with topographical features' depths and pitch ranging from tens
of nanometers to tens of micrometers, were first milled using a fibre laser (1064-nm wavelength) at different
fluences, feed speeds and pulse durations, and finally characterised using a combination of optical microscopy
and an Alicona 3D high resolution optical microscopy. The effect of different textures on the wear properties
was investigated in turning tests under dry conditions and compared to a benchmark cutting tool made of the
same material. The tests were stopped every 6 passes and the wear analysed. The online monitoring and postprocessing of the cutting forces and the microscopical characterisation of the tested cutting tools allowed the
evaluation of the effects of texture design on the wear progression. For textures depths in the order of 1.7 μm
and post process roughness in the order of tens of nanometers, a reduction of cutting force and a decreased
flank wear were achieved in dry turning.


We describe a general stochastic processes-based approach to modeling user-contributory web sites, where users create, rate and share content. These models describe aggregate measures of activity and how they arise from simple models of individual users. This approach provides a tractable method to understand user activity on the web site and how this activity depends on web site design choices, especially the choice of what information about other users' behaviors is shown to each user. We illustrate this modeling approach in the context of user-created content on the news rating site Digg.


Rural economies in developing countries are often characterised by high levels of
inequality, particularly so in their distribution of land. This can lead to the
establishment of patron-client relationships between peasants and their landlords
with far-reaching social, political, and economic implications for both parties.
This thesis investigates whether, and how, clientelist networks change, when
connecting isolated villages become connected to the outside economy. It does so
from three different perspectives. Firstly, it highlights the ability of resource rich
landlords to interlink different markets in the rural economy in an effort to
maximise surplus extraction. Yet, when peasants are provided credible exit
options, the change in relative bargaining powers alters the character of such
interlinkages in favour of the peasants. Secondly, it explores how clientelism
enables landlords to use peasant votes as bargaining chips with politicians to
appropriate public resources for their own private benefit. Yet, when peasants are
given outside options, the landlord has to provide them with public goods in order
to maintain his economic and social standing in the village. Lastly, it analyses
peasants' difficulty in engaging in community driven projects when residing under
a strong patron. Yet, when landlords have to compete with markets outside the
village, they no longer have the incentive or ability to block peasant collective
action for self provision. In all three areas, it is argued that the patrons' ability to
control peasant activities stems from the interaction of inequality with isolation,
which provides them with monopoly/monopsony powers. Hence while policy
solutions to exploitative forms of clientelism have typically focused on land
redistribution, I argue that similar results are attainable by increasing peasants'
outside options. In order to test the validity of this hypothesis I make use of a
natural experiment found in the construction of a motorway in rural Punjab,
Pakistan. The research design compares connected villages dominated by large
landlords to isolated ones and uses villages with relatively egalitarian distribution
of land as a control group. Making use of field interviews and quantitative survey
data the thesis finds that connectivity results in converging outcomes between
connected villages dominated by large landlords and those with more egalitarian
distribution of land. The results suggest that connecting villages previously
isolated from the outside economy can go a long way to help the rural poor.


Textures (i.e., smooth space non-uniform distributions of the order parameter) in biaxial nematics turned out to be much more difficult and interesting than expected. Scanning the literature we find only a very few publications on this topic. Thus, the immediate motivation of the present paper is to develop a systematic procedure to study, classify and visualize possible textures in biaxial nematics. Based on the elastic energy of a biaxial nematic (written in the most simple form that involves the least number of phenomenological parameters) we derive and solve numerically the Lagrange equations of the first kind. It allows one to visualize the solutions and offers a deep insight into their geometrical and topological features. Performing Fourier analysis we find some particular textures possessing two or more characteristic space periods (we term such solutions quasiperiodic ones because the periods are not necessarily commensurate). The problem is not only of intellectual interest but also of relevance to optical characteristics of the liquid-crystalline textures.


Abstract In 2001, artists Broomberg and Chanarin documented a day in the Iraq war. The result was a visual yet non-descript narrative, achieved with light and presence; a physical documentation of their journey titled The Day Nobody Died. In 1968 photojournalist Eddie Adams captured Saigon Execution in Vietnam, also a war-time image but with the lens of reportage. The former is a rendition of their experience, not bound by the constraints and facets of aestheticising fact. The latter was presented as news and was the receiver of outrage and scrutiny as such. This article explores how representations of humanitarian crises and wartime are complicit in their perpetuation, and how art demonstrates an attempt at representing such events as futile. We seek to establish a link between what is viewed and what is reported; what is seen and what remains outside the picture; an attempt to unravel what the difference is between viewing and witnessing.


Soils which collapse (undergo large consolidation) when unusual amounts of water are added to them exist in many places around the world. Contrary to the ideas of many observers these collapsing soils derive from many different soil forming processes. Although surface collapse of 15 ft has occurred, the usual amount is considerably less. These soils are of open structure and exist in nature at less than 100% saturation. The major soil materials are silt, sand, or gravel or any of their combinations. Water in tension is the general binding material. A small amount of clay is present in many cases. Other binding agents sometimes contribute. The amount and rate of collapse is a function of grain shape, grain size, existing moisture content, kinds and amounts of clay present, void ratio, adsorbed ions, etc. Maximum collapse occurs at optimum clay content (10% in one case) and moisture content (between 13% and 39%). Most of the collapse can occur before the soil reaches 100% saturation. Estimates of the magnitude of possible collapse derived from routine tests generally are compared to field results.


In October 1997 we observed a herd of approximately 35 killer whales (Orcinus orca) attack a pod of nine sperm whales (Pbyseter macrocephalus) 130 km off the coast of central California. During the four hours we watched, adult female killer whales, including some with calves, attacked in waves of four to five animals in what was apparently a "wound and withdraw" strategy. Adult male killer whales stood by until the very end when one charged in and quickly killed a seriously wounded sperm whale that had been separated from the group. The sperm whales appeared largely helpless: their main defensive behavior was the formation of a rosette ("marguerite"-heads together, tails out). When the killer whales were successful in pulling an individual out of the rosette, one or two sperm whales exposed themselves to increased attack by leaving the rosette, flanking the isolated individual, and leading it back into the formation. Despite these efforts, one sperm whale was killed and eaten and the rest were seriously, perhaps mortally, wounded. We also present details of two other encounters between sperm whales and killer whales that we observed. Although sperm whales, because of various behavioral and morphological adaptations, were previously thought to be immune to predation, our observations clearly establish their vulnerability to killer whales, We suggest that killer whale predation has potentially been an important, and underrated, selective factor in the evolution of sperm whale ecology, influencing perhaps the development of their complex social behavior and at-sea distribution patterns.


Abstract The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (3rd ed., rev.) (DSM-III-R) diagnosis of conduct disorder assumes that all children who engage in three or more criterion antisocial behaviors for 6 months or more suffer from a mental disorder. It resists all contextual information about a child's developmental history, capacities, strengths and circumstances, and assumes that the antisocial behavior necessarily stems from an underlying disorder. In this review, we use Mark Twain's narrative of the lives of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn as a point of departure for questioning the reasonableness of this assumption, and for examining normal as well as pathological pathways to antisocial behavior. We begin by reviewing the status of earlier controversies about the mental disorder concept in the service of documenting the impressive progress of the field in conceptualizing disorder. Next, we examine Wakefield's (1992a, 1992b) recently introduced "harmful dysfunction" concept of mental disorder and employ its criteria to evaluate the hypothesis that chronic antisocial behavior in childhood as defined by DSM-III-R is caused by an underlying mental disorder. We also examine some of the difficulties in discriminating between disorder- and nondisorder-based antisocial behavior, and consider issues that warrant attention in future theoretical and empirical work. Finally, we explore the pragmatic rather than scientific basis for DSM-III-R's mental disorder claim and argue that regardless of its status as a mental disorder, this most troubling and harmful behavior syndrome of childhood deserves the intensive interest, concern, and resources of the scientific and public health communities.


ABSTRACT The single-item predictive validity of the Short-Term Assessment of Risk and Treatability (START) has not been thoroughly investigated, although this has great clinical relevance for the selection of treatment targets. Furthermore, it remains unclear whether the characteristic START additions of scoring strengths next to vulnerabilities and selecting key items, add incremental predictive validity. Finally, predictive validity has primarily been studied in inpatient settings and included mainly patients with a psychotic disorder. We analysed data from a mixed diagnostic sample of 195 forensic psychiatric outpatients with a 3-month and 170 patients with a 6-month follow-up period, using logistic regression analysis. The occurrence of violent or criminal behaviour was established based on the case manager's recordings in the patient's file. Only 5 of the 20 START items were found to have predictive validity: Impulse Control, Attitudes, Material Resources, Rule Adherence and Conduct. The last three were the only items for which incremental predictive validity was found with respect to scoring it as a strength and a vulnerability. Selection of key items did not add to the predictive validity. While possibly having therapeutic significance, the scoring of strength next to vulnerability and the selection of key items, may not be beneficial for risk assessment.


IZA DP No. 14754 SEPTEMBER 2021 Medicaid Expansion and the Mental Health of Spousal Caregivers* Health insurance expansions can exert wellbeing effects on individuals who provide informal care to their loved ones, reducing their experience of depression. This study exploits evidence from the Affordable Care Act's (ACA) Medicaid expansion to examine the effects on the mental wellbeing of informal caregivers. Drawing on an event study and a Difference-in-Differences (DID) design we investigate the policy impact of ACA Medicaid expansion using longitudinal evidence (from the Health and Retirement Study, HRS) for 2010 to 2018 for low-income individuals aged 64 or below. We find that ACA's Medicaid expansion reduced depressive symptoms among caregivers, and specifically we estimate that exposure to ACA Medicaid expansion gives rise to a 0.38 points (equivalent to 4-5%) reduction in the CESD score (a negative scale in which the lowest scale indicates the best mental wellbeing). We also find that ACA Medicaid causes a spillover effect at the household level, improving the well-being of the spouse care recipient. Our results are robust to various specifications, and we identify several potential driving mechanisms for the findings: reductions in out-of-pocket expenses and labor supply and, as expected, increased Medicaid uptake. The evidence from falsification tests confirms that the estimated effects are purely due to ACA's Medicaid expansion and no other phenomena. JEL Classification: I18


This paper presents simulations of high-pressure triaxial shear tests on a crushable sand. The discrete element method is used, featuring a large number of particles and avoiding the use of agglomerates. The triaxial model features a flexible membrane, therefore allowing realistic deformation, and a simple breakage mechanism is implemented using the octahedral shear stress induced in the particles. The simulations show that particle crushing is essential to replicate the realistic behaviour of sand (in particular the volumetric contraction) in high-pressure shear tests. The general effects of crushing during shear are explored, including its effects on critical states, and the influence of particle strength and confining pressure on the degree of crushing are discussed.


Abstract. Z/I Imaging introduced with the DMC II 140, 230 and 250 digital aerial cameras with a very large format CCD for the panchromatic channel. The CCDs have with 140 / 230 / 250 mega pixel a size not available in photogrammetry before. CCDs in general have a very high relative accuracy, but the overall geometry has to be checked as well as the influence of not flat CCDs. A CCD with a size of 96mm × 82mm must have a flatness or knowledge of flatness in the range of 1μm if the camera accuracy in the range of 1.3μm shall not be influenced. The DMC II cameras have been evaluated with three different flying heights leading to 5cm, 9cm and 15cm or 20cm GSD, crossing flight lines and 60% side lap. The optimal test conditions guaranteed the precise determination of the object coordinates as well as the systematic image errors. All three camera types show only very small systematic image errors, ranging in the root mean square between 0.12μm up to 0.3μm with extreme values not exceeding 1.6μm. The remaining systematic image errors, determined by analysis of the image residuals and not covered by the additional parameters, are negligible. A standard deviation of the object point heights below the GSD, determined at independent check points, even in blocks with just 20% side lap and 60% end lap is standard. Corresponding to the excellent image geometry the object point coordinates are only slightly influenced by the self calibration. For all DMCII types the handling of image models for data acquisition must not be supported by an improvement of the image coordinates by the determined systematic image errors. Such an improvement up to now is not standard for photogrammetric software packages. The advantage of a single monolithic CCD is obvious. An edge analysis of pan-sharpened DMC II 250 images resulted in factors for the effective resolution below 1.0. The result below 1.0 is only possible by contrast enhancement, but this requires with low image noise, demonstrating the very good radiometric image quality.


The influence of philosophy on architectural theory contributes to the formulation of architectural theory in the history of architecture. This relationship created the oscillation of architectural theory between rationalism and romanticism reflecting the woven tendency of philosophy such as enlightenment and counter- enlightenment movement. This dissertation research focuses on architectural language theory which maintains a tight relationship with the philosophy of language. Postmodern architecture during the period of the 1970s through 1980s is examined to determine meanings of architecture, and the language theory of architecture. It followed the philosophy of language originated from Ferdinand de Saussure who influenced theorists, and explicitly sign theorists influenced by Charles Sanders Peirce. This theoretical underpinning of language theory is questionable because of an inappropriate application of the sign theory of Charles Sanders Peirce in terms of principal interpretation of language structure, dyadic and triadic type of language. This research re-interprets the meaning of architecture during postmodern period along with Peirce's semeiotic theory, and American Pragmatism that Peirce originally invented. The collection of evidence from architectural history and the influence from philosophy provides a conceptual sketch that the oscillation of theoretical tendency is the source of architectural creation. This creative process is analyzable based on Peirce's sign theory and his logic. The research applies current Peircean scholars' development including 'Peircean Algebraic Logic' by Robert W. Burch to develop a conceptual model to frame Peircean interpretation. The multiple-case study (four architects with eight architectures) demonstrates the effectiveness of the conceptual model to facilitate a Peircean interpretation of postmodern scenographic architecture and contextual postmodern architecture. The results of this interpretation draws the limitation of some type of scenographic architecture that uses a proxy referential method, while Pragmatism provides the contents to Postmodernism's needs that is parallel to architectural theory.


This paper presents a new approach for design concept selection by using an integrated Fuzzy Analytical Hierarchy Process (FAHP) and an Interval-valued intuitionistic fuzzy modified TOP-SIS (IVIF-modified TOPSIS) model. The integrated model which uses the improved score func-tion and a weighted normalized Euclidean distance method for the calculation of the separation measures of alternatives from the positive and negative intuitionistic ideal solutions provides a new approach for the computation of intuitionistic fuzzy ideal solutions. The results of the two approaches are integrated using a reflection defuzzification integration formula. To ensure the feasibility and the rationality of the integrated model, the method is successfully applied for evaluating and selecting some design related problems including a real-life case study for the selection of the best concept design for a new printed-circuit-board (PCB) and for a hypothetical example. The model which provides a novel alternative, has been compared with similar com-putational methods in the literature.


PURPOSE
We undertook this study to determine the accuracy of MR cisternography and plain high-resolution CT as a noninvasive alternative to CT cisternography in the diagnosis of CSF fistula in patients with clinically suspected CSF rhinorrhea.

METHODS
Forty-five consecutive patients with clinically suspected CSF rhinorrhea were examined prospectively for CSF fistula with MR cisternography and plain high-resolution CT. Twenty-one patients also underwent CT cisternography. The MR imaging technique included 3-mm thin-section T1-weighted coronal sequences and fast spin-echo T2-weighted coronal, axial, and sagittal sequences in the supine position. The plain high-resolution CT study included 3-mm and sometimes 1- to 1.5-mm thin coronal sections in the prone position. Similar sequences were used after injecting nonionic contrast material intrathecally via lumbar puncture for the CT cisternographic study. The plain high-resolution CT and MR cisternographic studies were compared with results of CT cisternography; surgical findings were used as the standard of reference.

RESULTS
Plain high-resolution CT successfully depicted the presence or absence of CSF fistula in 42 of 45 patients, whereas MR cisternography was correct in 40 patients. MR cisternography or plain high-resolution CT correctly showed the site(s) of CSF fistula leakage in 36 of the 38 cases proved surgically. The combined techniques also correctly indicated the absence of CSF leakage in seven cases, six of which were confirmed at CT cisternography. Both MR cisternography and high-resolution CT failed to definitively locate the CSF fistula in two patients. High-resolution CT was accurate in 93% of patients, whereas MR cisternography was accurate in 89% of patients. The combination of high-resolution CT and MR cisternography was accurate in 96% of patients.

CONCLUSION
In the presence of clinically diagnosed CSF leakage, the combination of MR cisternography and plain high-resolution CT is highly accurate in locating the site and extent of CSF fistula and should be considered a viable noninvasive alternative to CT cisternography.


Progressive fibrosis of the interstitium is the dominant final pathway in renal destruction in native and transplanted kidneys. Over time, the continuum of molecular events following immunological and nonimmunological insults lead to interstitial fibrosis and tubular atrophy and culminate in kidney failure. We hypothesize that these insults trigger changes in DNA methylation (DNAm) patterns, which in turn could exacerbate injury and slow down the regeneration processes, leading to fibrosis development and graft dysfunction. Herein, we analyzed biopsy samples from kidney allografts collected 24 months posttransplantation and used an integrative multi‐omics approach to understand the underlying molecular mechanisms. The role of DNAm and microRNAs on the graft gene expression was evaluated. Enrichment analyses of differentially methylated CpG sites were performed using GenomeRunner. CpGs were strongly enriched in regions that were variably methylated among tissues, implying high tissue specificity in their regulatory impact. Corresponding to this methylation pattern, gene expression data were related to immune response (activated state) and nephrogenesis (inhibited state). Preimplantation biopsies showed similar DNAm patterns to normal allograft biopsies at 2 years posttransplantation. Our findings demonstrate for the first time a relationship among epigenetic modifications and development of interstitial fibrosis, graft function, and inter‐individual variation on long‐term outcomes.


The controlled synthesis of multifarious nanostructures is valuable for understanding the properties associated with the surface structure and for exploring potential applications. Herein, various morphological Co3O4 precursors were synthesized hydrothermally for fabricating mesoporous Co3O4 nanostructures. Importantly, the morphology, size, and crystalline phase of precursors were independently tuned by controlling the components in solution (e.g. anions, cations, and hydrolysis agents). The microstructure of Co3O4 precursors has obviously changed from porous hexagons to nanoneedles by changing the anions in solution. After calcination, as-prepared precursors were converted into mesoporous Co3O4 nanostructures, and their morphology and size were well preserved. The effect of experimental conditions on the growth of Co3O4 precursors was explored, and the corresponding growth mechanism was proposed. Moreover, the electrochemical properties of Co3O4 with different morphologies were tested. The results showed that the 3D hierarchical flower-like Co3O4 assembled by hexagonal nanosheets exhibited higher specific capacitance (327.3 F g−1 at 0.5 A g−1) with excellent retention (96.07% at 5 A g−1) after 10 000 cycles. It is believed that this anion-assisted synthetic approach can be extended to the preparation of other transition metal oxides.


Antimetabolite Methotrexate (MTX) is commonly used in childhood oncology. As a dihydrofolate reductase inhibitor it exerts its action through the reduction of cellular folate, thus its intensive use is associated with damage to soft tissues, bone marrow, and bone. In the clinic, MTX is administered with folinic acid (FA) supplementation to alleviate some of this soft tissue damage. However, whether and how FA alleviates damage to the bone and bone marrow requires further investigation. As the Wnt/β‐catenin signalling pathway is critical for commitment and differentiation of mesenchymal stem cells down the osteogenic or adipogenic lineage, its deregulation has been found associated with increased marrow adiposity following MTX treatment. In order to elucidate whether FA supplementation prevents MTX‐induced bone marrow adiposity by regulating Wnt/β‐catenin signalling, young rats were given saline or 0.75 mg/kg MTX once daily for 5 days, receiving saline or 0.75 mg/kg FA 6 h after MTX. FA rescue alleviated the MTX‐induced bone marrow adiposity, as well as inducing up‐regulation of Wnt10b mRNA and β‐catenin protein expression in the bone. Furthermore, FA blocked up‐regulation of the secreted Wnt antagonist sFRP‐1 mRNA expression. Moreover, secreted sFRP‐1 protein in the bone marrow and its expression by osteoblasts and adipocytes was found increased following MTX treatment. This potentially indicates that sFRP‐1 is a major regulator of defective Wnt/β‐catenin signalling following MTX treatment. This study provides evidence that folate depletion caused by MTX chemotherapy results in increased bone marrow adiposity, and that FA rescue alleviates these defects by up‐regulating Wnt/β‐catenin signalling in the bone. J. Cell. Physiol. 230: 648–656, 2015. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc., A Wiley Company


Abstract. In the present work, the role played by vegetation parameters, necessary to the hydrological distributed modeling, is investigated focusing on the correct use of remote sensing products for the evaluation of hydrological losses in the soil water balance. The research was carried out over a medium-sized river basin in Southern Italy, where the vegetation status is characterised through a data-set of multi-temporal NDVI images. The model adopted uses one layer of vegetation whose status is defined by the Leaf Area Index (LAI), which is often obtained from NDVI images. The inherent problem is that the vegetation heterogeneity – including soil disturbances – has a large influence on the spectral bands and so the relation between LAI and NDVI is not unambiguous. We present a rationale for the basin scale calibration of a non-linear NDVI-LAI regression, based on the comparison between NDVI values and literature LAI estimations of the vegetation cover in recognized landscape elements of the study catchment. Adopting a process-based model (DREAM) with a distributed parameterisation, the influence of different NDVI-LAI regression models on main features of water balance predictions is investigated. The results show a significant sensitivity of the hydrological losses and soil water regime to the alternative LAI estimations. These crucially affects the model performances especially in low-flows simulation and in the identification of the intermittent regime.


We are interested in data-driven approaches to Natural Language Generation, but semantic representations for human text are difficult and expensive to construct. By considering a methods implementation as weak semantics for the English terms extracted from the method's name we can collect massive datasets, akin to have words and sensor dataaligned at a scale never seen before. We applied our learned model to name scrambling, a common technique used to protect intellectual property and increase the effort necessary to reverse engineer Java binary code: replacing all the method and class names by a random identifier. Using 5.6M bytecode-compiled Java methods obtained from the Debianarchive, we trained a Random Forest model to predict the first term in the method name. As features, we use primarily the opcodes of the bytecodes (that is, bytecodes without any parameters). Our results indicate that we can distinguish the 15 most popular terms from the others at 78% recall, helping a programmer performing reverse engineering to reduce half of the methods in a program they should further investigate. We also performed some preliminary experiments using neural machine translation.


This exploratory study was designed to describe the Internet search behaviors of deaf adolescents using Internet search engines to complete fact-based search tasks. Because of the limited English reading skills of deaf students, and the complexity of Internet search results, effective Internet searching can be a challenging task. The study examined such Internet search behaviors of high school deaf students as query formation, query modification, Web site identification, and Web site selection. Supervisors from four regional day school programs for the deaf from throughout Texas allowed students to participate in the study. The study, consisting of two fact-based search tasks, occurred in the individual computer networks of each of the regional day school programs for the deaf. As students conducted two search tasks they completed a task analysis of the Web sites selected, and the reasons for their selections. Once all of the searches were completed, the researcher determined if there were any commonalities in the search behaviors of the research participants. The research also identified the processes used by deaf students to compensate for limited English reading abilities while navigating Internet search engines results that were typically written well above the average reading level of deaf students. Once students completed the search tasks, each of the task analyses were evaluated to ascertain if there were any commonalities among student behaviors while online completing the search tasks. The results demonstrated deaf high school students were unable to initiate, conduct, analyze, or validate effective Internet searches in response to fact-based search tasks.


When I walked the thousand-year-old route of the Camino de Santiago in northern Spain in September and October 2014, I expected to discuss questions of health with fellow travelers. I assumed that an ancient pilgrimage would be full of walkers pondering health issues and would provide an ethnographer's panacea for "getting in." I was wrong. I was surrounded by walkers from all parts of Europe, but they were pondering the meaning of work, capitalism, and their lives. I found I was seeing a profound crisis of capitalism and individuals struggling with alienated labor as discussed by Karl Marx.… [W]hat I saw on the Camino de Santiago was certainly not a revolutionary movement. Envisioning satisfying work, however, helps change the shared conception of what work is. Raul Zibechi argued that as we struggle both individually or collectively, we engage in an emancipatory process that, as the Zapatista's Subcomandante Marcos notes, "builds, includes, brings together and remembers whereas the system, separates, splits and fragments."… Awareness of alienated labor and struggle against crisis, whether individual or collective, does seem to create imaginative space for change even if it does not necessarily reflect what has been thought of as revolutionary struggle.Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.


Specimens of a nickel-bonded titanium carbide cermet were given the following surface treatments: (1) grinding, (2) lapping, (3) blast cleaning, (4) acid roughening, (5) oxidizing, and (6) oxidizing and refinishing. Room-temperature modulus-of-rupture and impact strength varied with the different surface treatments. Considerable strength losses resulted from the following treatments: (1) oxidation at 1600 F for 100 hours, (2) acid roughening, and (3) severe grinding with 60-grit silicon carbide abrasive. The strength loss after oxidation was partially recovered by grit blasting or diamond grinding.


The Transport Restructuring Project seeks to complete the transformation of the consolidated state railways, into economically viable entities, and, establish regulatory competence for multiple operator market. The project would result in a move towards the core railway network whose size, management, operation and regulation, are commensurate with the market demands for freight, and passenger transport, and will facilitate Romania's accession to the European Union (EU). This environmental assessment reviews the country's environmental legal and regulatory framework, identifies potential environmental adversity due to construction works, and its impact on soil erosion, land degradation, groundwater pollution, and air pollution as a whole, within the seven bypass areas, and, provides mitigation measures as follows. To improve the groundwater quality levels, prior its drainage into the outlet, settlers and grease separators have been developed for installation at each bypass. To further protect groundwater, and soil quality, septic tanks were designed to collect wastewaters, and undergo a treatment process. Groundwater quality monitoring is to be carried out by a network of observation boreholes, while the physical and chemical analyses should be performed once a semester, through exploitation would capture boreholes for supervision, near the industrial platforms. Emission levels resulting from road transport, are insignificant at the country emissions' level, which based on the tests on air samples taken at the different areas (for which NH3, NO2, SO2, and total dust suspensions were determined, except NH3), all the maximum admissible limits have not been exceeded. Concerning heavy metals, lead has recorded high levels, while pollutant concentrations of lead and oil petroleum products from the by-pass route produced normal soil values. However, in the road area, the soil quality affects: lower local fertility, erosion in combination with landslides, contamination due to weeds, and, industrial pollution on limited areas. Livestock crossings, and traffic (including agricultural machinery) regulations shall be designed and enforced, including adequate access roads. Specific engineering designs shall address flood protection adjacent to bypass areas, to include as well the riverbed enlargement. Monitoring criteria will be on the basis of site investigations, and laboratory analyses.


As new techno-literacy practices become embedded in society, they impact on ever younger age groups. The technological environment that children and young people now inhabit directly involves literacy, both in the broadest sense and in the more specific area of lettered representation. This has profound implications for how we conceive of the use of literacy in educational environments and how we plan for literacy curricula. My work focuses on children and young people's on-screen experience and particularly the productive aspect of writing-with-new-technology. I suggest that writers are involved in the production of new kinds of texts, and that these provide opportunities for different kinds of identity performance. Over the last six years I have looked at different ways of theorising changes in written communication and the relationship between these changes and curriculum design and practice. I have documented a change of emphasis in educational responses to digital literacy, a move from concerns about whether to use new technology to how to use it in literacy, and suggest that there is a need for more work that shows how digital writing can be embedded in classroom practice in ways that provide authentic contexts for learning and communication. Because digital writing involves new kinds of skills and new kinds of social practices it cannot simply be grafted on to existing instructional practices and curricular objectives, so through my classroom-based studies I have illustrated some of the possibilities and the issues that are raised by incorporating these practices. I argue that there is a need to re-evaluate the ways in which writing is taught and develop our understanding of what constitutes writing development in digital environments. This will involve more exploration of what experiences, resources and guidance are most helpful in the early stages of literacy in order to build an understanding of the appropriate balance between experimentation, skill instruction and critical engagement with new writing tools and processes.


CCS Policy Briefings are drawn from the published reports and other material produced by the Centre. They aim to highlight specific recommendations and outcomes from the larger reports and present them in a concise, easily consumable format.


The classical inversion of forward scattered light to obtain the size distribution of spherical particles is considered. Using the diffraction approximation, the measurement points are selected so as to reduce the influence of the particle refractive index and to make the Chahine inversion scheme usable with a good convergence rate. The algorithm efficiency, in the presence of refractive-index errors and of experimental noise, is studied. An interesting behavior of the Chahine inversion scheme, in the presence of very large experimental errors, is outlined.


In criminal investigations, telecommunication wiretaps have become a common technique used by law enforcement. While phone-based wiretapping is well documented and the procedure for their execution are well known, the same cannot be said for Internet taps. Lawfully intercepted network traffic often contains a lot of encrypted traffic making it increasingly difficult to find useful information inside the traffic captured. The advent of Internet-of-Things further complicates the process for non-technical investigators. The current level of complexity of intercepted network traffic is close to a point where data cannot be analysed without supervision of a digital investigator with advanced network knowledge. Current investigations focus on analysing all traffic in a chronological manner and are predominately conducted on the data contents of the intercepted traffic. This approach often becomes overly arduous when the amount of data to be analysed becomes very large. In this paper, we propose a novel approach to analyse large amounts of intercepted network traffic based on network metadata. Our approach significantly reduces the duration of the analysis and also produces an insight view of analysing results for the non-technical investigator. We also test our approach with a large sample of network traffic data.


A police trooper inspects a car during a routine traffic stop and finds a vast cache of weapons, complete with automatic rifles, thousands of rounds of ammunition, and black ski masks-a veritable bank robber's kit. Should the men in the car be charged? If so, with what? A son neglects to care for his elderly mother, whose emaciated form is discovered shortly before she dies a painful death. Is the son's neglect punishable, and if so how? A career con man writes one bad check too many and is sentenced to life in prison-for a check in the amount of $129.75. Is this just? A thief steals a backpack, only to find it contains a terrorist bomb. He alerts the police and saves lives, transforming himself from petty criminal to national hero. These are just a few of the many provocative cases that Paul Robinson presents and unravels in Would You Convict? Judging crimes and meting out punishment has long been an informal national pasttime. High-profile crimes or particularly brutal ones invariably prompt endless debate, in newspapers, on television, in coffee shops, and on front porches. Our very nature inclines us to be armchair judges, freely waving our metaphorical gavels and opining as to the innocence or guilt-and suitable punishment-of alleged criminals. Confronting this impulse, Paul Robinson here presents a series of unusual episodes that not only challenged the law, but that defy a facile or knee-jerk verdict. Narrating the facts in compelling, but detached detail, Robinson invites readers to sentence the transgressor (or not), before revealing the final outcome of the case. The cases described in Would You Convict? engage, shock, even repel. Without a doubt, they will challenge you and your belief system. And the way in which juries and judges have resolved them will almost certainly surprise you.


The vast majority of states impose visa restrictions on travelers from some foreign countries. Such restrictions are likely to deter foreign visitors from affected countries. They will therefore reduce the flow of tourists, businesspeople, and other travelers and thereby damage a country's tourism industry, reduce its trade, and affect its scientific, cultural, and other exchanges with foreign countries. This study estimates the damaging effect exerted by visa restrictions on bilateral travel in a country dyad data set covering the period from 1995 to 2005. It finds that, depending on the exact model specification chosen, visa restrictions reduce such travel by on average between 52 and 63 percent but with substantial regional variation. Given this large detrimental effect of visa restrictions on bilateral travel, the article discusses the determinants of why states impose such restrictions.


The chromosomal translocation t(8;21) often found in acute myeloid leukemia generates an oncogenic fusion protein AML1-ETO. This chimeric oncoprotein disrupts wild-type AML1 function and dysregulates genes important for normal myelopoiesis. Monoclonal antibodies that can capture and detect the AML1-ETO fusion protein would help with early diagnosis and treatment prognosis of acute myeloid leukemia. We report the development of murine monoclonal antibodies (MAbs) that specifically bind epitopes encoded by either AML1 or ETO. Since alignment to the human ETO protein indicated almost 100% homology to the mouse ortholog, a strategy was needed to instruct humoral immunity in mice to focus and respond to self-epitopes. Our strategy to develop capture/detector reagents involved producing MAbs that would bind to epitopes within the non-fused myelopic protein (i.e., either AML1 or ETO). This included a process to select antibodies for their ability to also recognize the translocated chromosomal AML1-ETO fusion protein and to identify complementary capture/detector antibody pairs. Construction of a peptide hapten-carrier complex and use of a rapid immunization protocol resulted in IgM-IgG ETO specific MAbs. These MAbs bound specifically to a recombinant form of AML1-ETO fusion protein expressed in HEK and to an endogenous AML1-ETO form of the fusion protein expressed in Kasumi-1. We report the development of murine hybridoma MAbs derived from immunizations with a peptide "self-epitope." Our findings provide a potential strategy to instruct humoral immunity in mice to focus and respond to self-epitopes. This strategy has been validated with the oncogenic fusion protein AML1-ETO involved in acute myeloid leukemia.


In previous work, we have argued that a sophisticated cognitive system with a complex body must possess configurable models of itself (or at least its body) and the world, along with the necessary infrastructure to use the modelled interactions between these two components to select relatively advantageous actions. These models may be used to generate representations of the future (imagination) and the past (episodic memory). In this paper we will explore some problems surrounding the representation of the present arising from the use of such models in the artificial cognitive system under development within the ECCEROBOT project. There are two aspects to consider: the representation of the state of the robot's body within the self model, and the representation of the state of the external world within the world model. In both natural and robotic systems, the processing of the sensory data carrying state information takes a considerable time, and so any estimates of the present states of both the agent and the world would have to be obtained by using predictive models. However, it appears that there is no need for any such representations to be generated in the course of selecting a course of action using self and world models, since representations are only of the future or the past. This may call into question the utility and timing of the apparent perception of the present in humans.


The present study investigated the effect of water-soluble 4-sulphonato-calx[n]arenes, cyclodextrins, and combinations of these macromolecules on the aqueous solubility of a poorly water-soluble drug, niclosamide. Complexation between the macromolecules and niclosamide was confirmed by thermal analysis and phase solubility studies in a pH 7.0 McIlvaine buffer kept at 30°C. Results show that the increase in solubility ranked as follows: 4-sulphonato-calix [6]arene+hydroxypropyl-β-cyclodextrin (HP-β-CD)> 4-sulphonato-calix[6]arene+β-cyclodextrin > 4-sulphonato-calix[6]arene +γ-cyclodextrin=HP-β-CD>4-sulphonato-calix[6]arene >4-sulphonato-calix[8]arene=4-sulphonato-calix[4]arene>β-cyclodextrin. Type B phase solubility profiles were observed, indicating a decrease in solubility at concentrations > 0.004 to 0.005 mol/L of the 4-sulphonato-calix[n]arenes or combinations of 4-sulphonato-calix[6]arene and the cyclodextrins. However, below this concentration, the greatest increase in the aqueous solubility niclosamide was observed when 4-sulphonato-calix[6]arene and HP-β-CD were combined. This increase in solubility was additive.


Following the vote for Brexit, the UK is facing a formidable challenge: designing a new trade policy to address its new strategic interests. Considering the different and frequently opposing interests, this task is far from straightforward.

Many Brexit supporters have argued for a need to redefine the role of the UK in international politics, with trade at the centre. From the use of international development assistance to the negotiation of trade agreements, trade is regarded as the basis on which to pursue national interests as well as retain global leadership. Unfortunately, little attention has focused on how a new UK trade policy could contribute to development.

The potential to define a new trade strategy, agree new trade agreements and use new aid and trade tools constitutes a major opportunity for the UK to continue championing the cause of trade and development. It is also an opportunity for the UK to make trade policy work more effectively and efficiently in delivering development opportunities. At the same time, there are significant concerns over whether the UK is willing and able to assume such a role. The challenge of defining a new trade policy is considerable, and one for which the UK Government is ill-prepared. Given the magnitude of the tasks and the number of negotiations that the UK will face in the next few years, there is a major risk that developing countries will be overlooked.

This collection of essays offers a number of perspectives on how a new UK trade policy towards developing countries and regions could be designed and implemented, in both the short and longer term. It also conveys the concerns, opportunities and expectations from a group of leading trade specialists from academia, international organisations and think tanks in the UK and elsewhere.


Even though the human genome sequences are remarkably similar, there is room for genetic variability that makes every human unique. The most common form of sequence variation in the genome is an exchange of a single nucleotide. The effect of sequence variations on the phenotype can be considered to be a continuum, from common polymorphisms with none or relatively mild effects, to severe and dramatic effects for mutations. Dementia is a devastating disorder, which severely affects cognitive functions and eventually leads to death. Dementia is, not always but most of the time, caused by neurodegeneration, as in the case of Alzheimer disease (AD) and Frontotemporal dementia (FTD). The genetics in dementia is complex. The majority of cases are caused by a combination of variations in many genes, polymorphisms, in addition to an increased vulnerability due to exposure to harmful environmental factors during the life course. The effects of these variations are studied in populations, where both genetic and environmental factors can be assessed. In a few percent of dementia cases, the disease is caused by mutations in single genes. By identifying mutations in the affected families, important features about the disease etiology can be revealed. In this thesis, variations in four genes were studied. Study I focuses on the impact of the widely confirmed genetic risk factor for dementia, APOE, on mortality in a prospective community-based study, The Kungsholmen Project. The risk for mortality was increased for ε4 carriers, and decreased for ε2 carriers. The increased mortality was mainly explained by dementia. In addition, a gender specific effect was observed. In Study II, a G35fsX19 mutation was identified in the GRN gene, causing FTD in a Swedish family. Members in this family developed dementia with behavioral disturbances and progressive aphasia with an age at onset around 55 years. At autopsy, neurodegeneration and immunoreactivity for TDP-43 was observed. The G35fsX19 mutation resulted in a frameshift and was predicted to create a premature stop codon. Functional analyses of mRNA showed about 50% less expression of GRN. The mutated mRNA was not detected by cDNA sequencing, suggesting it was degraded by nonsense mediated mRNA decay. In Study III, an I143T mutation was identified in PSEN1 in a Swedish family with early onset AD. The onset age was around 36 years. The mutation carriers were severely affected by cognitive deficits, in addition to neurological symptoms such as myoclonia. Neuropathologically, they were severely affected by Alzheimer pathology. Since one of the pathological hallmarks of AD, the amyloid plaques, consists of the Aβ peptide, the distribution of Aβ species in the postmortem brain of mutation carriers was investigated. Aβ42 was abundantly present both in plaques and vessels while Aβ40 was mainly present in vessels. Interestingly, we found Aβ43, which has rarely been studied in AD, to be present in all investigated brain regions, emphasizing a role for Aβ43 in the disease etiology. In Study IV, the FTO gene, which has been known for its involvement in body weight, was shown to influence the risk for dementia and AD for the first time, in persons 75+ years derived from the Kungsholmen project. The AA-genotype of the FTO rs9939609 polymorphism increased the risk about 50% compared to TT-carriers. This effect could not be explained by vascular risk factors measured at baseline, such as diabetes, high BMI, CVD or physical activity. Interaction between FTO and APOE was found, and together the two risk alleles increased the dementia risk almost three times. This finding supports a role for metabolic dysregulation in the dementia etiology. To conclude, four genomic sequence variations were investigated for their impact on neurodegenerative diseases and mortality. Two mutations were identified, in GRN and PSEN1 in two families suffering from FTD and AD, respectively. The APOE gene was found to increase mortality whereas FTO, the obesity-associated gene, was for the first time shown to increase the risk of dementia and AD in the old Kungsholmen population.


Introductory and capstone experiences in the undergraduate psychology program are crucial ways to engage students in their major and psychology department, impart realistic expectations, and prepare them for life beyond college. Providing the right orientation and capstone courses in psychology education is increasingly a concern of instructors, department chairs, program directors, and deans, and both types of courses have become important sources for gathering pre- and post-coursework assessment data for degree learning outcomes. The strategies presented here have been designed to help educators examine issues around teaching the introductory or careers course and developing a psychology-specific orientation program. The authors also provide concrete suggestions for building capstone experiences designed to fit the needs of a department, its pedagogical philosophy, or the educational agenda of the college or university. Undergraduate psychology curriculum designers and instructors can benefit from learning innovative and effective strategies for introducing the major to first-year students and, at graduation, for bringing closure, reinforcing the overall departmental learning outcomes, and helping students apply their disciplinary knowledge in capstone experiences and post-graduate life. In this collection of articles, psychology instructors involved in the improvement of teaching and learning review the research and share their own successes and challenges in the classroom. Discussions include effective practices for helping students become acclimated to and engaged in the psychology major, application of developmental knowledge and learning communities to course design, and use of quality benchmarks to improve introductory and capstone courses. Other chapters describe innovations in the design of stand-alone courses and offer concrete advice on counseling psychology graduates about how to use what they have learned beyond their higher education experiences.


Abstract. Until recently secondary organic carbon aerosol (SOA) mass concentrations have been systematically underestimated by three-dimensional atmospheric-chemistry-aerosol models. With a newly proposed concept of aging of organic vapours, more realistic model results for organic carbon aerosol mass concentrations can be achieved. Applying a mixed thermodynamic-kinetic approach for SOA formation shifted the aerosol size distribution towards particles in the cloud condensation nuclei size range, thereby emphasising the importance of SOA formation schemes for modelling realistic cloud and precipitation formation. The additional importance of hetero-molecular nucleation between H2SO4 and organic vapours remains to be evaluated in three-dimensional atmospheric-chemistry-aerosol models. Here a case study is presented focusing on Puy-de-Dome, France in June 2010. The measurements indicate a considerable increase in SOA mass concentration during the measurement campaign, which could be reproduced by modelling using a simplified thermodynamic-kinetic approach for SOA formation and increased biogenic volatile organic compound (VOC) precursor emissions. Comparison with a thermodynamic SOA formation approach shows a huge improvement in modelled SOA mass concentration with the thermodynamic-kinetic approach for SOA formation. SOA mass concentration increases by a factor of up to 6 accompanied by a slight improvement of modelled particle size distribution. Even though nucleation events at Puy-de-Dome were rare during the chosen period of investigation, a weak event in the boundary layer could be reproduced by the model in a sensitivity study when nucleation of low-volatile secondary organic vapour is included. Differences in the model results with and without nucleation of organic vapour are visible in the lower free troposphere over several days. Taking into account the nucleation of organic vapour leads to an increase in accumulation mode particles due to coagulation and condensational growth of nucleation and Aitken mode particles.


A number of recent studies have explored how and when presidents use signing statements to shape the interpretation and implementation of statutes (e.g., Bradley and Posner 2006; Cooper 2005; Kelley 2007a; Kelley and Marshall 2008; Pfiffner 2007). Some emphasize the historical bases for the practice of attaching commentary to bills in the form of a signing statement (Cooper 2005; Kelley 2007a), while others work across administrations to describe presidential practices (Bradley and Posner 2006). Only recently have scholars sought to statistically estimate the impact of factors that drive those statements on the likelihood that a president signs a statement to accompany legislation that he signs. For instance, Kelley and Marshall (2008) show that presidents are more likely to sign statements when there is gridlock and also in the case of major legislation; Kelley and Marshall (n.d.) describe how presidents link veto threats and the use of the signing statement. Those papers, though, consider both types of signing statements: rhetorical (when the president lauds the Congress and others for their work on the legislation) and constitutional (when the president offers his view about how the legislation should be interpreted and implemented). Political scientists often focus on the signing statement as part of the president's toolkit for shaping policy implementation. Likewise, the legal conversation about signing statements has come to emphasize their role in the president's arsenal of tools for bending policy closer to his own preferences. Walter Dellinger, then assistant attorney general, argued in a 1993 memorandum to Bernard N. Nussbaum (counsel to the president), that one "generally uncontroversial" purpose of signing statements was "to guide and direct Executive officials in interpreting or administering a statute." (1) For Magill, signing statements can be an effective "ex ante" method of presidential control since "The President could offer a wide variety of views in such statements, including his view of the substantive meaning of ambiguous statutory provisions, his view of how the statute should be implemented and enforced, or as Presidents in fact have frequently done, his view that certain provisions are or may be unconstitutional" (2007, 31). In her view, one of the most effective ways to use signing statements has been to "identify the priorities that should animate enforcement of the statute and those that should not" (2007, 50). Yet, since the 1980s legal scholars have also debated the legitimacy of the president's use of statements to express his views about the meaning of statutes (e.g., Bradley and Posner 2006; Cross 1988; Garber and Wimmer 1987). For instance, Garber and Wimmer (1987) argue that courts should not refer to signing statements when deciding what Congress intended in a piece of legislation--that doing so would violate the constitutional separation of powers. In contrast, Cross (1988) argues that courts will find (at times) that signing statements are useful as significant sources of material for statutory interpretation, just as are the views of agencies. For political science studies like Kelley and Marshall (2008), the president's motives include influencing judges and bureaucrats, along with voicing their concerns about the constitutionality of statutes. This article starts with the idea that presidential signing statements are both directives and defenses--useful now or in the future for presidents, their staff and appointees, bureaucrats, and judges--that help determine how a statute is implemented and interpreted. My focus is on the detail and complexity of the directive the president constructs rather than on whether the president signs a statement for a given piece of legislation. Presidents decide the shape and content of the directive, just like they use rhetoric for pushing their current or future policy goals (e.g., Campbell and Jamieson 1990; Tulis 1987). …


We present a novel neural network for processing sequences. The ByteNet is a one-dimensional convolutional neural network that is composed of two parts, one to encode the source sequence and the other to decode the target sequence. The two network parts are connected by stacking the decoder on top of the encoder and preserving the temporal resolution of the sequences. To address the differing lengths of the source and the target, we introduce an efficient mechanism by which the decoder is dynamically unfolded over the representation of the encoder. The ByteNet uses dilation in the convolutional layers to increase its receptive field. The resulting network has two core properties: it runs in time that is linear in the length of the sequences and it sidesteps the need for excessive memorization. The ByteNet decoder attains state-of-the-art performance on character-level language modelling and outperforms the previous best results obtained with recurrent networks. The ByteNet also achieves state-of-the-art performance on character-to-character machine translation on the English-to-German WMT translation task, surpassing comparable neural translation models that are based on recurrent networks with attentional pooling and run in quadratic time. We find that the latent alignment structure contained in the representations reflects the expected alignment between the tokens.


Abstract A geometric analysis of fenestrate bryozoan lophophore shape and arrangement is conducted by creating a theoretical morphospace of apertural positioning within the colonial meshwork. Working from the assumption that fenestrate bryozoans needed to form a continuous filtering surface with contact between adjacent lophophores, we show that within the morphospace three regions exist for optimum close-packing of lophophores with circular projections; all other close-packing configurations in the morphospace require the existence of noncircular lophophores. Examination of the actual distribution of 251 fenestrate colonies within the morphospace reveals that the morphospace regions occupied by fenestellids and polyporids are displaced and have little overlap, but that they are very similar in size and shape, and that the colonies scale similarly. With increasing size, fenestrate meshworks expand laterally faster than the branches widen and the proximodistal spacing of the apertures increases, apparently because the larger zooids require disproportionately more room for their lophophores. Two of the optimum close-packing regions of the morphospace are occupied by fenestrates. The positioning of the fenestellid region within the morphospace suggests that these biserial bryozoans followed a proximodistal-row placement of the lophophores, and that the lophophores were generally equitentacular, with circular projections. The positioning of the polyporid region within the morphospace suggests that these polyserial bryozoans followed a diagonal-row placement of the lophophores, and that the lophophores were heteromorphic, with medial lophophores on the branch being more equitentacular whereas the laterally placed lophophores were obliquely truncate. The third optimum close-packing region in the morphospace, corresponding to a hypothetical lateral-row placement of the lophophores within the colony, is unoccupied. We suggest that hypothetical fenestrate morphologies in the vacant region of morphospace have branches that would be too narrow to support normally shaped zooids, and that the lateral-row placement of the lophophores would have required the branches of the colony to have been perfectly aligned throughout growth.


The Clostridium acetobutylicum glutamine synthetase (GS) DNA region is characterized by a downstream promoter, P3, oriented toward the glnA gene, which controls the transcription of an RNA complementary to the start of the glnA mRNA. Expression of the predicted 43-base antisense RNA was demonstrated in C. acetobutylicum and Escherichia coli cells containing the cloned glnA DNA. Antisense RNA transcription from P3 was not regulated by nitrogen in E. coli cells, but the expression of antisense RNA was associated with decreased levels of GS activity. In C. acetobutylicum, GS activity and the transcription of glnA mRNA and antisense RNA were regulated by nitrogen. GS activity and glnA mRNA were repressed in cells grown in nitrogen-rich medium. Repression ratios for GS activity varied from 1.6 to 9.0, depending on the sampling time. The relative number of glnA transcripts was approximately 25% lower in cells grown for 72 h in nitrogen-rich medium than in cells grown in nitrogen-limiting medium. This finding contrasted with the expression of antisense RNA, which was repressed in nitrogen-limiting medium but induced in nitrogen-rich medium. The relative number of antisense RNA transcripts was increased approximately sixfold in cells grown in nitrogen-rich medium. There was a 1.6-fold excess of antisense RNA over glnA mRNA under conditions that repressed GS activity. Under conditions that induced GS activity, glnA mRNA transcripts exceeded antisense RNA transcripts by fivefold.


The aim of this thesis is to investigate the physicochemical parameters which can influence drug loading within liposomes and to characterise the effect such formulations have on drug uptake and transport across in vitro epithelial barrier models. Liposomes composed of phosphatidylcholine (PC) or distearoyl phosphatidylcholine (DSPC) and cholesterol (0, 4, 8, 16 µM) were prepared and optimised in terms of drug loading using the hand-shaking method (Bangham et al., 1965). Subsequently, liposomes composed of 16 µM PC or DSPC and cholesterol (4 µM) were used to monitor hydroxybenzoate release and transport from Iiposomes. The MIT (3[4,5-Dimethylthiazol-2-yl]-2,5-diphenyl tetrazolium bromide) and crystal violet assays were employed to determine toxicity of the Iiposome. formulations towards the Caco-2 cell line, employed to model the epithelial barrier in vitro. Uptake and transport of mannitol, propranolol, glutamine and digoxin was measured in the presence and absence of Iiposome formulations to establish changes in absorption resulting from the presence of lipid formulations. Incorporation of the four hydroxybenzoates was shown to be influenced by a number of factors, including liposome composition and drug conformation. Methyl hydroxybenzo.ate (MP) was incorporated into the bilayer most effectively with percentage incorporation of 68% compared to 45% for butyl hydroxybenzoate (BP), despite its increased Iipophilicity. This was attributed to the decreased packing ability of BP within the hydrocarbon core of the lipid bilayer compared to MP. Release studies also suggested that the smaller MP was more strongly incorporated within the lipid bilayer with only 8% of the incorporated solute being released after 48-hours compared to 17% in the case of BP. Model transport studies were seen to reflect drug release profiles from the liposome bilayers with significantly (p < 0.01) higher amounts of BP partitioning from the liposome compared to MP, Caco-2 cell viability was maintained above 86% in the presence of all Iiposome formulations tested indicating the liposome formulations are non-toxic towards Caco-2 cells. Paracellular (apical-to-basolateral) transport of mannitol was significantly increased in the presence of DSPC, PC / DSPC:Cholesterol (16:4 µM; 1000 µg). Glutamine uptake and transport via the carrier-mediated route was Significantly (p < 0.01) increased in the presence of PC I DSPC:Cholesterol (16:0; 16:4 µM). Digoxin apical-to-basolateral transport was significantly increased (p < 0,01) in the presence of PC / DSPC:Cholesterol (16:0; 16:4 µM); thus reducing digoxin efflux via P-glycoprotein. In contrast, PC:ChoJesterol (16:0; 16:4 µM) significantly (p < 0.01) decreased propranolol uptake via the passive transcellular route. Bi-directional transport of propranolol was significantly (p < 0,01) decreased in the presence of PC/DSPC:Cholesterol (16:0; 16:4 µM). The structure of a solute is an important determinant for the incorporation and release of a solute from liposome formulations. PC, DSPC and cholesterol liposome formulations are nontoxic towards Caco-2 cell monolayers and improved uptake and transport of mannitol, glutamine. and digoxin across Caco-2 cell monolayers; thus providing a potential alternative delivery vehicle.


A multidisciplinary integrated approach for the study of heterogeneous rock masses is presented herein with the aim of providing a characterization of one of the widest flysch formations of northeastern Sicily. The Capo d'Orlando Flysch is indeed affected by a geotechnical heterogeneity arising from the alternation of sandstone banks and siltstone layers occurring in different proportions and showing peculiar features. This is the main responsible of the uneven mechanical strength offered by these different lithological compartments and deserves an in-depth study. To this purpose, an integrated sedimentological-geomechanical study is the focus of this research, which was initially carried out through rock mass surveys aimed at recognizing the different facies associations and their distribution along selected outcrops. Sedimentological logs were followed by rock mass geomechanical surveys for the assessment of the quality of the rock and its discontinuities. All these elements concurred in the definition of the Geological Strength Index, which is preparatory for the estimation of the main mechanical properties of the rock mass through the Hoek and Brown failure criterion. Results show that the lithological compartments occurring within flysch rock masses strongly condition their mechanical attitude. In fact, sandstone portions behave as massive/fractured rock mass characterized by specific geomechanical properties, which are lowered by the presence of siltstone layers. For this reason, the definition of the facies associations (F.A.) affecting the rock mass, along with their geomechanical characterization, is a useful integrated activity to avoid overestimating or underestimating the mechanical attitude of flysch rock masses, especially when engineering geological works have to be designed.


Simple, deterministic screening‐level assessments that are highly conservative by design facilitate a rapid initial screening to determine whether a pesticide active ingredient has the potential to adversely affect threatened or endangered species. If a worst‐case estimate of pesticide exposure is below a very conservative effects metric (e.g., the no observed effects concentration of the most sensitive tested surrogate species) then the potential risks are considered de minimis and unlikely to jeopardize the existence of a threatened or endangered species. Thus by design, such compounded layers of conservatism are intended to minimize potential Type II errors (failure to reject a false null hypothesis of de minimus risk), but correspondingly increase Type I errors (falsely reject a null hypothesis of de minimus risk). Because of the conservatism inherent in screening‐level risk assessments, higher‐tier scientific information and analyses that provide additional environmental realism can be applied in cases where a potential risk has been identified. This information includes community‐level effects data, environmental fate and exposure data, monitoring data, geospatial location and proximity data, species biology data, and probabilistic exposure and population models. Given that the definition of "risk" includes likelihood and magnitude of effect, higher‐tier risk assessments should use probabilistic techniques that more accurately and realistically characterize risk. Moreover, where possible and appropriate, risk assessments should focus on effects at the population and community levels of organization rather than the more traditional focus on the organism level. This document provides a review of some types of higher‐tier data and assessment refinements available to more accurately and realistically evaluate potential risks of pesticide use to threatened and endangered species. Integr Environ Assess Manag 2015;11:102–117. © 2014 SETAC


Research background: Cocoa remains the Nigeria's highest foreign exchange earner among all agricultural commodities, Contributed 12.5-14% of the national GDP. Currently, Nigeria is the fourth largest cocoa producing country in the world, produced approximately 328,652 tons annually. Occupational risk is a major factor reducing productivity of farm workers as it impairs physical capacity and increase vulnerability to ill health, diseases and injuries. Risk of agrochemical exposure has been attributed to work demand and unhealthy work environment. Purpose of the article: This study aimed to estimate life quality for agrochemical exposure risks of cocoa farm workers in Ondo state Nigeria. The study specifically estimates the amount an individual willingness to pay by respondents for occupational risk reduction. Methods: Multistage sampling technique that guaranteed cocoa farmers who could provide desired information on the basis of the objectives of the study was adopted for the study. Random selection of 180 cocoa farm workers from the study area. Descriptive statistics (frequency, mean and percentage) and Discrete Choice Experiment (DCE) approach that dovetailed into choice modelling and conditional logistic regression were the analytical tools used. Findings & Value added: the result revealed that 74% of the cocoa farm workers are on active age and mainly male with the mean age of 46 years. Most of the workers are illiterate that cannot read instructions on the agrochemical container. Average workers are willing to pay 830 Nigerian naira for personal protective equipment, 92 Nigerian naira for 15% wage discount as financial benefit of workplace injuries and 1024 Nigerian naira for training of workers in pesticide usage. The study concluded that better health conditions and appropriate use of personal protective equipment minimize the occupational risk. It was therefore recommended that educational programmes that will enhance farmer's knowledge, skills and attitude to use safe methods (appropriate use of protective equipment) in pesticide usage should be adequately planned. Appropriate use of personal protective equipment to reduce exposure to agrochemicals and the risks involved in the misuse and abuse of agrochemicals should be adopted.


Abortion incidence is an important demographic and public health indicator yet the quality of data on abortion can be problematic even in countries where the procedure is legal. Using data from government statistics nationally-representative surveys and other data collection systems we present the most recent available estimates of induced abortion incidence in 60 countries and territories where abortion is broadly legal. Data are relatively complete (i.e. are deemed to fall within 20% of the true number) for 30 of these countries. We analyze trends from 1996 to 2003 and find that dramatic declines in incidence occurred in Eastern Europe and Central Asia but these countries still have some of the highest rates in the world. The abortion rate in the United States declined modestly but remains higher than in many Western European countries. Rates are variable in developing countries where the procedure is legal. Possible explanations for trends are discussed. (full text)


Summaries This article looks at community fisheries management in the Peruvian varzea , the resource‐rich floodplain of the Amazon river. This dynamic and heterogeneous world gives rise to a wide range of uncertainties and ambiguities that challenge the long‐term viability of community management efforts. The authors focus on the unpredictable nature of the hydrologic regime, which not only governs the annual cycle of fisheries production and availability but also determines the timing and intensity of productive activities such as agriculture, extraction of forest products and hunting. To survive, both the community members and their fisheries management systems have to adapt to the dynamics of the aquatic world in which they live. Flexible institutions are key to the viability of management systems which must bend with the chaotic rhythms of both social life and the surrounding natural world.


Background Acute coronary syndrome (ACS) remains one of the leading causes of death in the UK. One of the recent advances in treatment in the treatment of ACS is ticagrelor, a potent P2Y12 inhibitor, that has become the recommended anti-platelet by the ESC for the treatment of ACS due to its mortality benefit over clopidogrel. The increased anti-platelet inhibition however, also results in significantly increased non-CABG related bleeding. With the ageing population there is a rising proportion of elderly patient (>75) presenting with ACS. The elderly patients generally have greater co-morbidities, higher risk of recurrent ischaemia and also higher risk of bleeding but there is a distinct lack of evidence for this cohort of patients. In the landmark PLATO study for example, only 15% of patients were over the age of 75. It is unclear currently whether ticagrelor is beneficial in these elderly patients. Methods A retrospective cohort study was performed in patients aged 75 and over who were admitted to the Royal Berkshire Hospital (RBH) between 2013 and 2015 with acute coronary syndrome. Patients were discharged either on clopidogrel (147 patients) or ticagrelor (154 patients) according to the local trust protocol at the time. Clinical characteristics and 12 month clinical outcomes (all-cause mortality, cardiovascular deaths, bleeding, angina, STEMI, NSTEMI, dyspnoea and ischaemic stroke) were analysed. Crusade score was used to calculate the bleeding risk. Results The age and baseline clinical characteristics are similar between the two groups. Both had moderate bleeding risk with mean Crusade score of 36.9 for the clopidogrel group and 37 for the ticagrelor group. There was no significant difference in all-cause mortality (8% vs 10%, p=0.55), cardiovascular mortality (2.7% vs 1.9%, p=0.72), ischaemic stroke (0.6% vs 1.9%, p=0.62), admissions with non-cardiac chest pain (5.2% vs 6.1%, p=0.8), angina (6.1% vs 5.2%, p=0.8) or STEMI (2% vs 1.3%, p=0.67) between patients discharged on clopidogrel or ticagrelor. Patients on clopidogrel however had significant increased re-admissions with NSTEMI compared to ticagrelor (7.5% vs 1.9%, p=0.028). No increase in either major (8.4 vs 8.1%, p=1) or minor bleeding (20% vs 17%, p=1) was observed in the ticagrelor compared to the clopidogrel group using TIMI-bleeding criteria. Only 1 patient reported significant dyspnoea in the ticagrelor group. Conclusions Elderly patients discharged on ticagrelor had reduced re-admissions with NSTEMI without an increase in either major or minor bleeding compared to patients discharged on clopidogrel.


The aim of the study was to assess the effect of two contrasting grazing systems, strip-grazing and kurzrasen, at a high stocking rate on herbage intake and milk production and quality on a peat meadow. Additionally, we assessed the effect of the level of crude protein (CP) fed in concentrate on milk production and N use efficiency. Even at the relatively high stocking rates, cows still achieved substantial fresh grass intake (on average >6 kg dry matter cow−1 day−1) from both systems. Despite the lower level of gross grass production under kurzrasen management, the difference in milk production between kurzrasen and strip-grazing was small and non-significant. Feeding concentrate with a lower CP level, had no negative impact on milk yield, provided that the CP content of the total ration remained above ~150 g kg−1 DM and milk urea content was above ~18 mg 100 g−1 milk. Reducing the CP content in the concentrate significantly increased the N use efficiency, and both were strongly related to the milk urea content. Therefore, optimising the use of milk urea as a management tool on dairy farms, also during the grazing season, could reduce N losses to the environment, while maintaining productivity.


Measurements on near-term quantum processors are inevitably subject to hardware imperfections that lead to readout errors. Mitigation of such unavoidable errors is crucial to better explore and extend the power of near-term quantum hardware. In this work, we propose a method to mitigate measurement errors in computing quantum expectation values using the truncated Neumann series. The essential idea is to cancel the errors by combining various noisy expectation values generated by sequential measurements determined by terms in the truncated series. We numerically test this method and find that the computation accuracy is substantially improved. Our method possesses several advantages: it does not assume any noise structure, it does not require the calibration procedure to learn the noise matrix a prior, and most importantly, the incurred error mitigation overhead is independent of system size, as long as the noise resistance of the measurement device is moderate. All these advantages empower our method as a practical measurement error mitigation method for near-term quantum devices.