BACKGROUND Students with learning disabilities are the largest group of students with disabilities on most college campuses, but efforts to develop guidelines and standards regarding the accessibility of education-based information technology have been focused primarily on persons with sensory impairments (Bryant & Seay, 1998). Relatively little research has been done to determine the nature and extent of barriers that students with learning disabilities may face in accessing education-based information technology. Without more detailed information about such barriers, it is difficult to know how to best meet the needs of students with learning disabilities in educational settings, where effective use of information technology is essential. Increasingly, students with learning disabilities are using assistive technology to help them in accessing information technology (Bryant & Bryant, 1999). There may be a variety of reasons, however, that make it difficult for students with learning disabilities to obtain and use assistive technology, and the presence of assistive technology in and of itself does not guarantee that these students will have access to information technology. The primary goal of this research project was to identify barriers encountered by students with learning disabilities when attempting to access education-based information technology. A secondary goal was to examine the impact of an intervention, which combined training in the use of assistive technology with training in self-advocacy skills, on these students' ability to effectively access information technology and compensate for any barriers experienced. An additional purpose was to disseminate findings through conference presentations and journal articles in order to increase awareness of barriers among those who are responsible for designing and using websites in educational settings. SELECTION OF PARTICIPANTS Participants were selected from a network of state colleges and universities served by the Regents Center for Learning Disorders (RCLD) at Georgia State University. This is one of three Centers funded by the Board of Regents to provide psychological assessment services to students enrolled in the state university system, as well as consultation to university staff on appropriate accommodations and services for students with disabilities that impact learning. The disability services providers at the 14 institutions served by the RCLD were contacted and asked to provide information about this project to students with learning disabilities who were registered with their offices. The disability service providers were given an explanation of the study to share with interested students, who then completed applications, which were submitted to us for review. Students indicated on their application the nature of their learning disability, and whether they had any concomitant disabilities, such as ADHD or psychological disorder. Fifteen participants were selected in order to create a diverse pool based on age, sex, ethnicity, class standing (e.g., freshman), type of learning disability, and whether they attended a two-year or four-year institution. One student dropped out after the first workshop. Fourteen students completed the study and received $1000 for their consistent participation over the 12-week period. STUDY DESIGN Over the course of the study, the students participated in the following assessments and interventions: Pre- and Post-Tests The pre- and post-tests were administered on-line during weeks 2 and 12 of the project. The tests given were the Technology and Internet Assessment (TIA) which is "designed to determine strengths and weaknesses related to a basic understanding of computer, Internet, and information technology skills," (TIA User's Manual) and the Learning and Study Strategies Inventory (LASSI) whose purpose is to assess "students' awareness about and use of learning and study strategies related to skill, will and self-regulation components of strategic learning" (LASSI User's Manual). …


This article draws on the idea of the elusive obvious as a useful way of examining how creative arts practitioners can make sense of their practice through expressive writing. Defining the elusive obvious as that ethereal aspect of creative arts practice that is often palpable to the practitioner but equally hard to pin down within the creative process, the article argues that expressive writing enables the creative practitioner to engage with their practice in insightful ways that integrate theoretical insights and help to reveal the elusive obvious, which in turn gives life to what is being explored. It examines ways in which expressive writing could be used to facilitate practitioners' experience of their creative practice and facilitate a better appreciation of the interconnectedness of practice (doing) and theory (critical reflection and analysis) in the creative arts. The article draws on discussions on practice as research to highlight the distinction between 'writing out' and 'writing up'; where 'writing out' calls attention to the idea of 'searching' within the creative process, while 'writing up' is firmly located in the recording and documentation phase of that practice. It argues that it is within this process of 'writing out' - of searching - that the elusive obvious can be revealed. The article also illustrates how reflective practice/writing can be understood through drama. It examines how reflective practice/writing can often lead to 'eureka' moments when, by personalizing their practice within the creative working environment, practitioners suddenly discover the elusive obvious. Through the ideas explored in this article, we invite a consideration of how expressive writing can act as a vehicle through which meaning could be found. This article argues, therefore, that expressive writing is not an end in itself, but is exploratory and transient in nature, and a rich terrain for the elusive obvious to be revealed.


The efficiency of the rotifer Brachionus calyciflorus Pallas as a nutritional source for rearing larvae was studied in a coldwater cyprinid, the gudgeon Gobio gobio (L.), and in a percid, the perch Perca fluviatilis L., through their composition in fatty acids. Rotifer intake affected the fatty acid profiles of the larvae significantly, with an especially remarkable presence of the linoleic family. In gudgeon fed with rotifers, the polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) reached 10.98% of the dry weight of the sample. This rate was highly influenced by the presence of the acids C18:2n-6 and C22:6n-3 which represented 66% of the total PUFA. In perch fed exclusively with rotifers, the PUFA represented 7.27% of the dry weight. In both cases, the ratio n-3/n–6 decreased by 75% and 73% after 10 days of feeding with B. calyciflorus. This variation was probably due to the exogenous supply in acids of the linoleic family through the rotifers and to the fact that these two species of fish seem to favour the mobilization of the n-3 PUFA such as C22:6n-3 for growth and survival. Moreover, with the utilization of rotifers. the reactions of elongation and desaturation from the C18:2n-6 and C18:1n-9 seemed to be much more important in the larvae. Lastly, the transition from a diet based on rotifers to one made up exclusively of frozen Artemia nauplii led to a significant reduction of fatty acids in fish. It reached 60.2% and 26.5% of the total fatty acids in the gudgeon and perch, respectively, and was observed especially at the level of the PUFA. On the other hand, a slight increase of the ratio n-3/n-6 was pointed out in the perch fed a mixed diet (co-feeding with rotifers and dry food), a phenomenon probably due to the reduction of C18:2n-6 in the larvae.


The doctrine of Middle Knowledge presupposes that conditionals of freedom (statements of the form 'If A were circumstances C, he would perform X') can be true. Such conditions are, where true, not true in virtue of the truth of any categorical proposition. Nor can their truth be modelled in terms of comparative similarity of possible worlds, because the structure of possible worlds is a necessary one, whereas the connection between antecedent and consequent of a conditional of freedom is a contingent one. Lewis and Stalmaker are committed to 'conditional fatalism', the view that things only would go a certain way if they would have to go that way. Although commitment to conditional fatalism does not itself import a commitment to fatalism, it is hard to find a separate motivation for it.


While the importance of services sector in creating value added and employment has been recognized, the role of services as providers of major inputs to production sector are often forgotten and overlooked. This paper stresses the importance of services sector in supporting economic activities in general; the role that has become increasingly more critical in the wake of global production network. It argues that development of the services sector is crucial to supporting an economy's participation in networks of production and in promoting industrial upgrading. Within that context, this paper provides insight on the direction of services development in ASEAN countries and those countries can benefit by supporting greater services integration across the region.


Over the last decade, Think-aloud Protocols (TAPs) have been used extensively in process-oriented Translation Studies (TS). The serious questions regarding the experimental validity of this research methodology when applied to translation have nonetheless often remained unspoken. This paper surveys the breakthroughs as well as the limits of the growing body of literature dealing with TAPs in TS, points at the necessity to take issues of experimental, theoretical and environmental validity more seriously, and offers suggestions for improvements. The claim is that the risks involved in the adoption of a lax experimental methodology in TAP studies, often underestimated in the past, may invalidate not only the results obtained in the single projects, but, crucially, the method as a whole.


We propose a probabilistic graphical model for discriminative substrate characterization, to support geological and biological habitat mapping in aquatic environments. The model, called a fully connected conditional random field (CRF), is demonstrated using multispectral and monospectral acoustic backscatter from heterogeneous seafloors in Patricia Bay, British Columbia, and Bedford Basin, Nova Scotia. Unlike previously proposed discriminative machine learning algorithms, the CRF model considers both the relative backscatter magnitudes of different substrates and their relative proximities. The model therefore combines the statistical flexibility of a machine learning algorithm with an inherently spatial treatment of the substrate. The CRF model predicts substrates such that nearby locations with similar backscattering characteristics are likely to be in the same substrate class. The degree of proximity and allowable backscatter similarity are controlled by parameters that are learned from the data. CRF model results were evaluated against a popular generative model known as a Gaussian Mixture model that doesn't include spatial dependencies, only covariance between substrate backscattering response over different frequencies. Both models are used in conjunction with sparse bed observations/samples in a supervised classification. A detailed accuracy assessment, including a leave-one-out cross-validation analysis, was performed using both models. Using multispectral backscatter, the GMM model trained on 50% of the bed observations resulted in a 75% and 89% average accuracies in Patricia Bay and Bedford Basin, respectively. The same metrics for the CRF model were 78% and 95%. Further, the CRF model resulted in a 91% mean cross-validation accuracy across four substrate classes at Patricia Bay, and a 99.5% mean accuracy across three substrate classes at Bedford Basin, which suggest that the CRF model generalizes extremely well to new data. This analysis also showed that the CRF model was much less sensitive to the specific number and locations of bed observations than the generative model, owing to its ability to incorporate spatial autocorrelation in substrates. The CRF approach therefore may prove to be a powerful `spatially aware' alternative to other discriminative classifiers.


The novel coronavirus otherwise known as Covid-19 has opened the world to new abnormal "realities" that are posing serious business-related challenges to both national and global economies. This study examines the various realities--in the form of variables--associated with the Covid-19 pandemic and determines the influence of these realities on the behavior of micro, small and medium scale businesses. The data was collected using interview and structured questionnaire. The questionnaire was administered to 1883 respondents across five states in Nigeria using convenient sampling. Twenty-four variables were identified and Exploratory Factor Analysis was used to examine these variables reducing the number to sixteen influencing variables. Multiple Regression was used to determine the contributions of these variables to the behavior of micro, small, and medium scale businesses. The study findings indicate that eleven of these variables were statistically significant and eight significantly influence the behavior of these businesses.


A thymic epithelial neoplasm characterized by the presence of neoplastic large, polygonal epithelial cells with large vesicular nuclei and prominent nucleoli. The neoplastic cells are arranged around perivascular spaces and along septa. Immature T-lymphocytes are also present. It may be associated with myasthenia gravis, pure red cell aplasia, and hypogammaglobulinemia. It is a tumor of moderate malignancy. The majority of cases occur in the anterior mediastinum as Masaoka stage I, stage II, or stage III tumors. Metastatic, stage IV tumors occur less frequently.


One area of Computing applications which poses significant challenge of performance scalability on Chip Multiprocessors(CMP's) are Irregular applications. Such applications have very little computation and unpredictable memory access patterns making them memory-bound in contrast to compute-bound applications. Since the gap between processor and memory performance continues to exist, difficulty to hide and decrease this gap is one of the important factors which results in poor performance of these applications on CMP's.
The goal of this thesis is to overcome many such challenges posed during performance acceleration of an irregular graph algorithm called Triad Census. We accelerated the Triad Census algorithm on two significantly different Chip Multiprocessors: Dual-socket Intel Xeon Multicore (8 hardware threads per socket) and 240-processor core NVIDIA Tesla C1060 GPGPU(128 hardware threads per core).
The experimental results obtained on Intel Multicore Xeon system shows performance speedups (w.r.t baseline sequential) of maximum 56x , average 33x and minimum 8.3x for real world graph data sets. On NVIDIA Tesla C1060 GPGPU, we were able to match almost equally the Multicore results - 58.4x maximum, 32.8x average and 4.2x minimum speedups w.r.t baseline sequential. In terms of raw performance, for the graph data set called Patents network, our results on Intel Xeon Multicore(16 hw threads) were 1.27x times faster than previous results on Cray XMT(16 hw threads) while results achieved on GPGPU were comparatively slower(0.72x). To the best of our knowledge, this algorithm has only been accelerated on supercomputer class computer named Cray XMT and no work exists that demonstrates performance evaluation and comparison of this algorithm on relatively lower-cost Multicore and GPGPU based platforms.


Rudolf Laban is a theorist and practitioner of movement. He laid down a system for analyzing - and annotating - the way the human being moves in space. He ascribed values to these movements, releasing the expressive power contained within each one of them. This is a basic "how-to" manual on the Laban system of movement. It offers a simplified version of his system which can be used by relative beginners upwards. We are introduced to the "Kinesphere" - which simply means the personal space surrounding each one us extending as far as we can reach. It discusses the "Dimensional Cross" - which is a way of describing movement in three dimensions: high/low, forwards/backwards and side to side. It also covers "Pathways", "Trace Forms", "Levels" and "Zones". Each new term is accompanied by very specific illustrated exercises, designed to strengthen and deepen our understanding. When we have grasped - and practised - the basic vocabulary, we move on to its expressive possibilities in drama and dance.


This edition provides newly edited texts of both the 1604 (A-Text) and 1616 (B-Text) versions of the play, each with detailed explanatory annotations. "Sources and Contexts" includes a generous selection from Marlowe's main source, The Damnable Life and Deserved Death of Dr. John Faustus, along with contemporary writings on magic and religion (including texts by Agrippa, Calvin, and Perkins) that establish the play's intellectual background. This volume also reprints early documents relating to the writing and publication of the play and to its first performances, along with contemporary comments on Marlowe's scandalous reputation. Twenty-five carefully chosen interpretations-written from the eighteenth century to the present-allow students to enrich their critical understanding of the play. These diverse critical essays include classic analyses by Charles Lamb, William Hazlitt, and A. C. Swinburne, among others, and recent criticism from, among others, Michael Neill, Katharine Eisaman Maus, Alison Findlay, Stephen Orgel, and David Bevington. A Chronology and Selected Bibliography are also included.


Polyamide reverse osmosis membrane used successfully for water desalination is made from the interfacial reaction of meta-phenylenediamine (MPD) with trimesoyl chloride. One problem with the membrane is that its performance is deteriorated upon prolonged exposure to chlorine often used for disinfecting feed water. ATR-FTIR and XPS analysis show chlorine reacts with the amide hydrogen and is attached to the polyamide membrane. A chlorine resistant membrane has been made using a non-MPD amine and appears to be five times as chlorine-resistant as the MPD-based membrane. ATR-FTIR and XPS analysis also show the chlorine-resistant membrane picks up chlorine much less than the MPD-based membrane upon exposure to chlorine. Monochloramine does not appear to affect adversely polyamide membranes.


There can be no doubt that communication form a golden thread throughout all other management functions and contexts in the modern organisation. Although this has, in fact, been the case for many decades, it is only during the last two decades that a growing awareness of this has developed in most organisations. In this context it seems fair to ask what is being done in the field of communication training from a management training perspective. This paper discusses the development and importance of communication as a management function, and presents an overview of traditional approaches to and recent developments in management or communication training.


This thesis deals withmodeling and control of an electric drive equipped with a permanentmagnet assisted synchronous reluctance (PMSynRel) machine for a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle application.In the first part of the thesis, a special use of the PMSynRel machine in consideration, known as an integrated charger concept, is investigated. The integrated charger feature allows using the PMSynRel machine as a part of the vehicle's on-board charging system when charging the battery from the grid. A finite-element based analysis is performed providing important insights into the machine operation during the charging process. Dynamic models are developed that facilitate the controller development and the estimation of the efficiency during charging.In the second part of the thesis, position sensorless control of the PMSynRel drive when applied in an automotive application is considered and analyzed thoroughly. First, a fundamental-excitation based rotor-position estimation technique is investigated. The study shows that the impact of current dynamics on the resulting torque dynamics has to be considered in some very demanding applications. Second, focus is put on signalinjection based sensorless control methods. Impacts of nonlinearities, such as magnetic saturation, cross-saturation and inductance spatial harmonics, on sensorless control performance are investigated and methods to improve the sensorless control quality are summarized and presented. An approach to determine the feasible region for operating sensorless at low-speeds without directly measuring the differential inductances is proposed. For the PMSynRel drive in consideration, the achievable maximum torque is limited when operating sensorless following the maximum-torque-per-ampere (MTPA) current reference trajectory at low-speeds. An optimization approach is therefore proposed which extends the output torque when operating sensorless while still maintaining a relatively high efficiency. To initialize the sensorless control correctly from standstill, the impact of the saturated magnetic bridges in the rotor is also investigated.Finally, torsional drive-train oscillations and active damping schemes are considered. An off-vehicle setup for implementing and evaluating different active damping schemes is proposed. Of particular interest for sensorless operation in automotive applications, the impact of slow speed estimation on the possibility to achieve good active damping control is investigated and a design approach that allows the implementation of an active damping scheme using estimated speed is suggested.


The MARIAN online public access catalog system at Virginia Tech has been developed to apply advanced information retrieval methods and object-oriented technology to the needs of library patrons. We give a description of our data model, design, processing, data representations, and retrieval operation. By identifying objects of interest during the indexing process, storing them according to our "information graph" model, and applying weighting schemes that seem appropriate for this large collection of small text records, we hope to better serve user needs. Since every text word is important in this domain, we employ opportunistic matching algorithms and a mix of data structures to support searching, that will give good performance for a large campus community, even though MARIAN runs on a distributed collection of small workstations. An initial small experiment indicates that our new ad hoc weighting scheme is more effective than a more standard approach.


The tort of interference with contractual relations has many puzzling features that conflict with fundamental principles of contract and tort law. This Article considers how gender influenced the structure of the tort and gave rise to many of these anomalies. Lumley v. Gye, the English case that first established interference with contractual relations, arose from a specifically gendered dispute: two men fighting over a woman. This type of male—male—female configuration creates an erotic triangle, a common archetype in Western culture. The causes of action that served as the legal precedents for interference with contractual relations – enticement, seduction, and criminal conversation – are previous instances where the law regulated gendered triangular conflicts. Enticement prohibited a rival male from taking another man's servant, seduction prohibited a rival male from taking another man's daughter, and criminal conversation prohibited a rival male from taking another man's wife. In Lumley v. Gye, the court expanded these precedents and created a cause of action that allowed Lumley to bring an action against his male rival for essentially "taking" his contracted female employee. The gendered basis for the tort explains its most problematic aspects, including why it imposes obligations on non-contractual parties, ignores the role of the breaching promisor in causing the wrong, and treats her as the property of the original promisee. In order to remedy these problematic features, the tort should be restructured as one of mixed joint liability. Further, damages should be limited to those available in contract.


Over 700,000 prisoners were released into their communities in 2008, at least 50,000 of those from federal custody. Once an obscure cause, nearly everyone agrees that prisoner reentry – the process by which former prisoners return to their community as free citizens – is of national importance. Absent adequate attention to transitional services, ex-offenders are often homeless, unemployed, and suffer from untreated substance abuse addictions. Accordingly, President Obama and his two predecessors have devoted considerable attention to the issue. Congress passed the Second Chance in 2007, amending two federal statutes, sections 3624(c) and 3621(b) and giving inmates a longer time in halfway houses to transition from incarceration to law-abiding citizens and requiring individualized inmate assessments prior to placement. Nevertheless, the Bureau of Prisons is ignoring both mandates, by categorically limiting the inmates' time in halfway houses, trends that some courts have found violates the agency's statutory authority. By presuming that six months is a satisfactory length of time to spend in a halfway house, the Bureau of Prisons fails to comply with its statutory authority and thus violates Chevron and hard look review. Federal inmates that have sought to challenge the Bureau of Prisons' policy have been thwarted by two judicial doctrines, exhaustion and mootness. Courts are refusing to hear inmates' challenges because the inmates have failed to exhaust their remedies under the Bureau's three-tiered process prior to seeking judicial relief or because the petition is moot. Inmates have invoked exceptions to both that have had mixed success. Given official statements, legal action is inevitable. Because legal action is a certainty, the time lost awaiting an administrative decision diminishes the amount of time that an inmate would be able to spend in a halfway house. The Bureau of Prisons needs to amend its policy and not categorically place inmates in halfway houses for six months.


Statistical process control (SPC) descibes a widely-used set of approaches used to detect shifts in processes in, for example, manufacturing. Among these are "control charts". Control charts and other SPC techniques have been in use since at least the'50s, and, because they are comparatively unsophisticated, are often used by management or operations personnel without formal statistical training. These personnel will often have experience with the popular spreadsheet program Excel, but may have less training on a mainstream statistical package. Base Excel does not provide the ability to draw control charts directly, although add-ins for that purpose are available for purchase. We present a free add-in for Excel that draws the most common sorts of control charts. It follows the development of the textbook of Montgomery (2005), so it may be well-suited for instructional purposes.


The article describes the application of a GIS-based accessibility measurement technique suited to assessing the impact of both transport and spatial development strategies on the location-specific affordability of job access for poor households. The access envelope methodology extends existing accessibility measures by: explicitly accounting for public transport service patterns; including transport costs as a dimension of accessibility; and deriving a single intuitive measure of access reflecting the potential income earnable by a person living in a certain location, after paying for transport. Several case studies from the City of Tshwane are presented, illustrating its use for assessing spatial integration and transport initiatives. The cases demonstrate how Tshwane's emerging Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system selectively enhances accessibility to jobs, although its marginal accessibility benefit is reduced by the part-duplication of existing rail lines to core employment areas. While the BRT improves the net earning potential of low-income workers in certain areas, its ultimate benefits will significantly depend on its achievement of network effects – especially via the reduction of first/last-kilometer trip costs – and its ability to leverage higher density development within walking distance of the route.  Accordingly, results obtained with the access-envelopes method carry significant implications for current transport planning in the main metro cities.


Background: Depression is most frequent among physical illness. Diffuse Idiopathic Skeletal Hyperostosis is a condition in which several ligaments and entheses become ossified.
Objectives: Assessment of depression and the severity of depression among patients with diffuse idiopathic skeletal hyperostosis, and detection of risk factors.
Methods: patients with diffusive idiopathic skeletal hyperostosis, both genders who have consulted during the study period and given their consent were assessed through sociodemographic and clinical data collection, and PHQ-9 questionnaire for depressive disorders evaluation.
Results: The study investigates 43 patients with diffuse idiopathic skeletal hyperostosis. Prevalence of depression was 62%. Almost 88.88% of them were moderate to severe depression. Depression significantly associated with age, gender, occupation, life events, and duration of illness.
Conclusion: depression is high in patients with diffuse idiopathic skeletal hyperostosis. Age, gender, occupation, life events, and duration of illness consider as the significant risk factors.


Implant is an object or material inserted or grafted into the body for experimental, diagnostic, therapeutic or prosthetic purposes. However, there is a total uncertainty and ambiguity about the fate of these precious metal implants after the death of a person. They are either disposed off, buried, stored or sent to landfills, which is not only a financial loss but it is also detrimental to the environment in the long run. To avoid such problems, the idea of implant recycling has come as a boon. In addition, the idea of using the income obtained from this process for charity makes this program as a cause with noble purpose. The practical possibility of this humanitarian program requires a teamwork involving Government, crematory authorities, family members, dentists, authorities of recycling company etc. Though the implant recycling is already in practice in few developed countries, its establishment in developing countries requires a lot of support and encouragement from all the concerned parties. Despite its versatile good will, the procedure has not yet recieved sufficient attention in the scientific literature. Aim of this article is to highlight the necessity of implant recycling, its influence on health field, society and our precious environment along with the description of each participant's suggestive role and pros and cons of the process are in brief.


A fully integrated system based on optical frequency generation is described. Pumped by the outputs of a single-frequency Nd:YAG laser, the system generates continuously tunable single-frequency radiation over the range of 0.6–18 μm. The system comprises several conversion stages that are coupled to one another by means of computer-controlled actuators, permitting automated tuning and single-frequency scanning ranges (without mode hops) of >100 cm−1.


Konishi and Bonni determined that activity-deprivation--but not growth factor withdrawal--stimulated Cdc2 (cyclin-dependent kinase 2) expression and Cdc2-dependent neuronal apoptosis. Apoptosis is crucial to normal brain development and contributes to several neurodegenerative diseases. Although cell-cycle proteins have been implicated in apoptosis in postmitotic neurons, neither the mechanisms whereby these proteins are reactivated, nor the mechanisms through which they elicit apoptosis are clearly understood. Konishi and Bonni used Western analysis on cultured rat cerebellar granule cells--in which apoptosis is suppressed by neuronal activity (mimicked by depolarizing conditions) or exposure to growth factors--to show that withdrawal from depolarizing conditions stimulated Cdc2 expression and phosphorylation of the target protein BAD (Bcl-2-associated death promoter). Activity deprivation and growth factor withdrawal both lead to caspase-3 cleavage; the latter, however, did not stimulate Cdc2 expression or BAD phosphorylation. Moreover, the Cdc2 inhibitor roscovitine suppressed apoptosis in response to activity deprivation, but not growth factor withdrawal. Mutational analysis of a cdc2-reporter gene implicated an E2F-binding element in activity-deprivation apoptosis, and electrophoretic mobility-shift assays implicated the E2F1 transcription factor. E2F1 overexpression stimulated cdc2 promoter-dependent transcription and expression of endogenous Cdc2 and also elicited apoptosis. Chromatin immunoprecipitation analysis, as well as expression of an E2F1 dominant negative, substantiated the role of this pathway in activity-dependent apotosis. Activity deprivation did not, however, stimulate DNA synthesis (seen in mitotic cells following activation of the E2F-Cdc2 pathway). These data thus define a novel Cdc2-dependent pathway for activity-dependent apoptosis and draw a distinction between the mechanisms underlying activity-dependent and growth factor-dependent apoptosis. Y. Konishi, A. Bonni, The E2F-Cdc2 cell-cycle pathway specifically mediates activity deprivation-induced apoptosis of postmitotic neurons. J. Neurosci. 23 1649-1658 (2003). [Abstract] [Full Text]


The incidence of global obesity and Type 2 diabetes has increased and is predicted to rise to 30% of the global population. Diet and lifestyle factors are incapable to resolve the increased incidence for obesity and diabetes in various populations of the world. Developing countries have come to the forefront because of the higher diabetic epidemic. The urbanization may possibly provide an explanation for the global diabetic epidemic. In Western countries the metabolic syndrome and non alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) have reached 30 % of the population and now at present NAFLD afflicts 20% of developing populations. Western diets and sedentary lifestyles cause metabolic disorders in developing countries which may increase neurodegenerative diseases by the disrupted metabolism of xenobiotics in urban populations. In developing countries access to high calorie diets in urban areas down regulate liver nuclear receptors that are responsible for glucose, lipid and toxicological sensing and interrupt the metabolism of xenobiotics that become toxic to various tissues such as the pancreas, heart, kidney, brain and liver. Xenobiotics in urban areas induce epigenetic changes that involve chromatin remodelling by alterations in transcriptional regulators with modification of histones. Dysfunction of nuclear receptors such as the calorie sensitive sirtuin 1 (Sirt 1) gene involves abnormal nutrient metabolism with insulin resistance, NAFLD, energy balance and circadian rhythm disorders. In obesity and diabetes insulin resistance has been connected to poor xenobiotic metabolism with the toxic affects of increased xenobiotic transport to the brain associated with neurodegeneration. Dietary interventions to increase xenobiotic metabolism are likely to reduce oxidative stress and neuroendocrine disease in developing countries. Prevention programs are an important goal of international health organizations and in developing countries the plans to adapt a healthy diet, active lifestyle and reduced exposure to xenobiotics are important to manage the global epidemic for obesity and diabetes.


Protective overlayers for light absorbers in photoelectrochemical water-splitting devices have gained considerable attention in recent years. They stabilize light absorbers which would normally be prone to chemical side reactions leading to degradation of the absorber. Atomic layer deposition (ALD) enables conformal and reproducible ultrathin protective layer growth even on highly structured substrates. One of the most widely investigated protective layers is amorphous TiO2, deposited by ALD at a relatively low temperature (120-150 °C). We have deposited protective layers from tetrakis(dimethylamido)titanium(IV) at two different temperatures and investigated their chemical composition as well as optical and electrochemical properties. Our main findings reveal a change in the flat band potential with thickness, reaching a stable value of about -50 to -100 mV versus reversible hydrogen electrode for films >30 nm, with doping densities of ∼1020 cm3. Practical thicknesses to achieve pinhole-free films are evaluated and discussed.


The archaeological remains in the Gulf area are astounding, and still relatively unexplored. Michael Rice has produced the first up-to-date book, which encompasses all the recent work in the area. He shows that the Gulf has been a major channel of commerce for millenia, and that its ancient culture was rich and complex, to be counted with its great contempororaries in Sumer, Egypt and south-west Persia.


An intrinsic component of evaluating the success of a dialogue programme is the concept of transfer. This refers to the means by which the effects of dialogue extend beyond the immediate participants to their wider social groups and go on to influence broader societal and policy change. In this paper I am interested in exploring, from a psychological perspective, why positive dialogue effects at an individual level (i.e., the micro level) sometimes fail to motivate future positive behaviour in the local social milieu (i.e., the meso level). This failure of dialogue effects to permeate beyond the immediate group can mean that transfer is limited, thus raising questions about the effectiveness of dialogue interventions. Drawing on psychological research that looks at mechanisms of indirect contact (whereby positive effects of contact with an out-group member spread beyond the immediate setting) I propose that a factor which might hinder the process of transfer is a cognitive bias called vicarious moral licensing. I propose that by understanding the psychological mechanisms that stymie the transfer of individual attitudinal change in to group behavioural outcomes, one can better address the crucial question of how to maximise the degree of transfer following from dialogue


K6015, a South Korean firm seeking to commercialize its magnet technology in the US market, entered a technology commercialization training program structured as a competition. Through this program, K6015 (and others in the program) used several genres to progressively interest different sets of stakeholders. To understand how K6015 applied these genres, we analyze this case study in terms of interessement, a concept from actor-network theory, and standing sets of transformations, a related concept from workplace writing studies in which enacting a set of genres entails a controlled, progressive transformation of arguments. We examine the entire competition process, using K6015 and three other competitors to illustrate this process and to examine rhetorical transformations responding to different criteria. In enacting these standing sets of transformations, K6015 and other competitors transformed their innovations into commercialized technologies–and transformed themselves from innovators into entrepreneurs. Finally, we discuss implications for understanding entrepreneurship rhetorically.


Answer Set Programming (ASP) has recently been employed to specify and run dynamic programming (DP) algorithms on tree decompositions, a central approach in the field of parameterized complexity, which aims at solving hard problems efficiently for instances of certain structure. This ASP-based method followed the standard DP approach where tables are computed in a bottom-up fashion, yielding good results for several counting or enumeration problems. However, for optimization problems this approach lacks the possibility to report solutions before the optimum is found, and for search problems it often computes a lot of unnecessary rows. In this paper, we present a novel ASP-based system allowing for "lazy" DP, which utilizes recent multi-shot ASP technology. Preliminary experimental results show that this approach not only yields better performance for search problems, but also outperforms some state-of-the-art ASP encodings for optimization problems in terms of anytime computation, i.e., measuring the quality of the best solution after a certain timeout.


A new experimental procedure for determining the (second-order) coherence time of a light beam is described that is based on a combination of conventional interferometry with an intensity-correlation technique. It permits measurements of coherence times that are several orders of magnitude shorter than the resolving times of the detectors, which ordinarily limit correlation measurements. The validity of the method is demonstrated by an experiment in which the transverse fluorescent light from a dye laser is measured.


The oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) plays an important role at the cathode of fuel cells in practical applications. Herein, a titanium dioxide/graphene supported hemin (TiO2/Gr/Hem) composite material with a flower-like superstructure was successfully prepared through a two-step solvothermal reaction. By a further heat-treatment at 300–900 °C, the electrocatalytic activity of the as-obtained catalysts was examined, and it was found that the pyrolysis at 700 °C gave rise to the best catalytic activity for the ORR in alkaline media. This heat-treatment temperature was found to be crucial in determining the activity and stability of catalysts, due to the enhanced structural defects, active sites, geometrical complexity, and larger fraction of the pyridinic nitrogen and pyrrolic nitrogen groups. The titanium dioxide/graphene (TiO2/Gr) and graphene/hemin (Gr/Hem) were also studied and compared, and it was revealed that the catalytic activity of TiO2/Gr/Hem catalysts for ORR can be further enhanced. In addition, the chemically bonded element iron in the heat-treated TiO2/Gr/Hem catalysts showed an inhibition effect for ORR and Ti–C–N materials garnered high catalytic activity compared with Ti–C–N–Fe materials in alkaline media. The higher methanol tolerance and durability of the TiO2/Gr/Hem composite materials during ORR were also confirmed. These results reflected the critical influences of the pyrolysis temperature and the chemically bonded element dopants to be the key factor for ORR.


David Baltimore studied viruses and the immune system in the US during the twentieth century. In 1975, Baltimore was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discovering reverse transcriptase, the enzyme used to transfer information from RNA to DNA. The discovery of reverse transcriptase contradicted the central dogma of biology at the time, which stated that the transfer of information was unidirectional from DNA, RNA, to protein. Baltimore's research on reverse transcriptase led to the discovery of retroviruses, which accelerated the development of treatments for human immunodeficiency virus or HIV and cancer vaccines. Baltimore also influenced public policy and opinion on genetic engineering. In 1975, he helped organize the Asilomar Conference in Pacific Grove, California, which discussed the regulation [2] of recombinant DNA or the DNA created using multiple sources of genetic material. Baltimore's research demonstrated how retroviruses replicate and infect cells, and his influence on the Asilomar Conference on Recombinant DNA has guided discussions about regulating biotechnology.


Abstract This paper constitutes the first monographical study of the rich brachiopod faunas from the Early Ordovician Suri and Molles Formations of the central Famatina Range, which form a nearly continuous, more than 2,000 m thick succession of fossiliferous clastic and volcaniclastic rocks. Conodonts from the brachiopod-rich levels of the upper third of the Suri Formation and Los Molles Formation indicate the upper part of the Oepikodus evae Biozone (mid-Arenig). The systematic study of brachiopod faunas reveals the presence of 22 species belonging to 19 genera, three of which are new. The new genera recognized are the orthid Suriorthis, the hesperonomiid Mollesella, and the rectostrophiid Trigonostrophia. The following 12 new species and subspecies are described and illustrated: the clitambonitoidean Tritoechia mollesensis; the skenidioideans Crossiskenidium? stelzneri and Skenidioides kayseri; the orthoideans Paralenorthis suriensis, Paralenorthis riojanus brevis, Panderina? ambigua, Productorthis angulensis, Hesperonomiella arcuata, and Monorthis transversa; the plectorthoideans Ffynnonia famatinensis and Desmorthis? bifurcata; and the porambonitoidean Rugostrophia protoandina. Associated forms are Tritoechia sp., Pinatotoechia acantha Benedetto, 2001b; Protoskenidioides cf. revelata Williams, 1974; Hesperonomia orientalis Benedetto, 1998a; Paralenorthis riojanus (Levy and Nullo, 1973), Famatinorthis turneri (Levy and Nullo, 1973); and Camerella sp. Brachiopods from the Famatina Range display strong affinities with Welsh and Central Newfoundland, Maine and New Brunswick volcanic assemblages forming with them a statistically well defined Celtic cluster. Faunal evidence suggests that the Famatina volcanic belt continues northward into the western Puna belt.


Selected Growth and Interaction Characteristics of Seafloor Faults in the Central Mississippi Canyon Offshore Continental Shelf (OCS) Area, Northern Gulf of Mexico. (May 2006) Scott Ashley Wegner, B.S., Texas A&M University Chair of Advisory Committee: Dr. Christopher Mathewson The characteristics of some shallow faults in the Gulf of Mexico interpreted to be active are poorly understood. A better understanding of these faults will increase our understanding of formerly and presently active geologic processes in the Gulf. Specifically, the characteristics of growth, interaction, and linkage of faults are of interest. Most of the Gulf has seen continuous clastic sediment deposition since the end of continental rifting in the middle Mesozoic. The Gulf is a tectonically quiescent basin, with the only major structural processes being salt diapirism and subsidence. Numerous styles of faulting have been observed in the Gulf, with each style being related to a specific type of deformation. Numerous authors have concluded that fault growth processes generally involve tipline propagation and linkage of faults. Evidence of these processes has been observed in seismic data sets. This investigation uses a HR 3-D seismic data set to characterize growth, interaction, and linkage of a fault set in the northern Gulf of Mexico. This work shows that linked and interacting faults are present in the study area. These conclusions were reached using measurements of throw on horizons offset by several faults and interpreting the throw data using a model of fault growth and interaction based on separate processes of growth by tipline propagation and growth by linkage of smaller faults. The ratio of these parameters for a fault population can be described by a power law relationship. For the fault set considered here, the power law was found to be valid.


The importance of localized phase in signal representation is investigated. The convergence rate of the POCS algorithm (Projection Onto Convex Sets) used for image reconstruction from spectral phase is deened and analyzed, and the characteristics of images optimally represented by phase-only information are presented. It is concluded that images of geometric form are most eeciently represented by their spectral phase whereas images of symmetric form have the poorest convergence characteristics. The transition between the two extremes is shown to be continuous. The results provide a new approach and analysis of the recently reported advantages of the localized phase representation over the global approach, and suggest possible compression schemes.


Consumers are increasingly demanding that the goods and services they consume be produced in a way that meets their social expectations. By extension, they are exhibiting greater willingness to pay more at the cash register for products made in good working conditions, and they are willing to punish companies that do not satisfy these expectations. Driving these "citizen-consumers" is what this Article terms the "consumer imaginary," which is defined as the narratives that consumers tell themselves about the people that make their things-people whom consumers will likely never meet, and whose lived experiences are distant from their own. Policymakers have attempted to extraterritorially improve working conditions in the global supply chain through public law in at least two ways: (1) incorporating labor standards into trade law and free trade agreements, and (2) corporate transparency laws. Using these two examples as case studies, this Article argues that both of these tools could be better tailored to beneficially exploit the consumer imaginary and mobilize citizen-consumers to compel lead firms to improve labor and human rights in their supply chains.


We experimentally demonstrated ultra-fast phase-transparent wavelength conversion using cascaded sum- and difference-frequency generation (cSFG-DFG) in linear-chirped periodically poled lithium niobate (PPLN). Error-free wavelength conversion of a 160-Gb/s return-to-zero differential phase-shift keying (RZ-DPSK) signal was successfully achieved. Thanks to the enhanced conversion bandwidth in the PPLN with linear-chirped periods, no optical equalizer was required to compensate the spectrum distortion after conversion, unlike a previous demonstration of 160-Gb/s RZ on-off keying (OOK) using fixed-period PPLN.


A computable general equilibrium model was used to analyze trade liberalization impacts on sustainability. On the basis of multilateral trade negotiations in Doha Round, partial trade liberalization (PTL) and deep trade liberalization (DTL) scenarios were designed to assess their impacts on economic, social and environmental dimensions of sustainability using selected indicators. In a short time period DTL scenario showed high sustainability performance for developed and developing regions. In a longer time period gradual trade liberalization (PTL) appeared to be more beneficial in terms of sustainability performance for developing and least developed regions. Under both PTL and DTL scenarios, the least developed countries would be worse off than more developed regions, suggesting that special treatments and time frame may need to be considered in future negotiation talks


VAMP4 is a molecular rheostat that adjusts neurotransmitter release to both the activity and degradative status of neurons. Synaptic vesicle (SV) release probability (Pr), determines the steady state and plastic control of neurotransmitter release. However, how diversity in SV composition arises and regulates the Pr of individual SVs is not understood. We found that modulation of the copy number of the noncanonical vesicular SNARE (soluble N-ethylmaleimide–sensitive factor attachment protein receptor), vesicle-associated membrane protein 4 (VAMP4), on SVs is key for regulating Pr. Mechanistically, this is underpinned by its reduced ability to form an efficient SNARE complex with canonical plasma membrane SNAREs. VAMP4 has unusually high synaptic turnover and is selectively sorted to endolysosomes during activity-dependent bulk endocytosis. Disruption of endolysosomal trafficking and function markedly increased the abundance of VAMP4 in the SV pool and inhibited SV fusion. Together, our results unravel a new mechanism for generating SV heterogeneity and control of Pr through coupling of SV recycling to a major clearing system that regulates protein homeostasis.


The Kleine Nete is one of several catchments in Belgium that is used as a source of fresh water, and contains a number of ecological important areas, which are frequently flooded. The average slope of the catchment is very small resulting in low flow velocity. The distributed hydrological models, WetSpa, WetSpass and MODFLOW, are used for simulating the hydrological behaviour of the catchment. Peak discharges are simulated with a Nash-Sutcliffe efficiency of 84% and 81% respectively for calibration and verification periods. Antecedent soil moisture conditions play a major role in the production of peak discharges during the winter periods, which are characterized by low intensity rainfall but of long duration. Peak discharges in the summer are mostly limited to high intensity rainfall regardless of the antecedent soil moisture conditions. In general, runoff generated in the summer is low compared to the winter due to a combination of several factors like dry soil, high evapotranspiration, and high interception and depression storage losses. Recharge to the aquifer, estimated by WetSpass and WetSpa models, accounts for 36% of the annual precipitation and occurs predominantly during the winter. The discharge areas occupy about 10% of the catchment and the average discharge flux is 314 mm y. A small percentage of inflow to the aquifer comes from canals and lakes. The sandy nature of the aquifer allows distinct groundwater head fluctuations between summer and winter, which implies that changes in climatic conditions that alter precipitation and potential evapotranspiration, could easily affect the groundwater balance and interaction with surface water. Recent increase in flood frequency in the catchment is partly attributed to land-use changes. The CLUE-S model is used to derive future annual land-use changes in the catchment. Four land-use scenarios based on the SRES emission are considered. Comparison of the model calculated suitability and the current state of the land-use type shows satisfactory agreement, while all future land-use scenarios depict a large increase of urbanization and decrease a of agricultural land-use types. Winter and summer river discharge, peak discharges and flood frequencies increase, while the groundwater shows a decline in head throughout the seasons. Under extreme scenarios the annual flood frequency in 2020 increased by 85%. The effect on groundwater on the overall catchment is very small; however, the local groundwater head decline could reach up to 1.15 m. Like the land-use changes, part of the change in water balance in the catchment is attributed to climate change. Analysis of long term weather records indicates that annual mean temperatures increased by about 1°C since the 1950s and are expected to rise by about 3.3°C by the end of the 21 century. The Seasonal Kendall trend test shows a significant annual increase in precipitation, PET and temperature at 5 and 10% levels. The current trends indicate 13 mm increase per decade in PET, while the precipitation increase ranges from 19 to 53 mm per decade. A sensitivity study of climate change on the hydrology of the catchment is modelled using wet (greenhouse), cold or NATCC (North Atlantic Thermohaline Circulation Change) and dry climate scenarios. Low, central and high estimates of temperature changes are adopted for the wet scenarios. Seasonal and annual water balance components including groundwater recharge are simulated using the WetSpass model, while annual groundwater heads and discharge are simulated with a steady-state MODFLOW groundwater model. WetSpass results for the wet scenarios show that winters will be more wet and summers more dry compared to the present situation. MODFLOW results for the wet high scenario show that groundwater levels will increase by as much as 1 m, which could affect the distribution and characteristics of the wetlands. Results obtained for cold scenarios depict drier winters and wetter summers relative to the present. The dry scenarios predict dry conditions for the whole year, with no recharge in the summer. Average annual groundwater levels drop by half a meter, with maximum 1.5 m in the eastern part of the Campine Plateau, which could endanger aquatic ecosystems. Transient simulations, which encompass both the greenhouse and dry scenarios are conducted in order to assess the future hydrology of the catchment. Future precipitation predicted by downscaling from the A2 emission of the HadCM3's GCM show similar but more mild monthly changes as present, ranging from 50% increase in March to 25% decrease in August. This leads to a 13% increase and 6% decrease in river discharge respectively for March and August. However, the groundwater head does not depict high fluctuation between summer and winter as observed for the river discharge, owing to the aquifer storage characteristics. The groundwater head increased by about 25 cm in the winter, while in the summer it remained at the same level as the present condition. The overall effects of climate change are expected to result in more floods in the winter, and the 'wetness' and 'dryness' is likely to have more effect on the diversity and distribution of aquatic plants and animals.


Abstract Major depressive disorder (MDD) is associated with working memory (WM) impairments. These deficits often persist following remission and are associated with rumination, a recognized risk factor for depression relapse. The efficacy of WM-targeted cognitive remediation as a potential relapse prevention tool has not been investigated. The present pilot study aimed to investigate the feasibility, acceptability, and cognitive benefits of a WM-targeted cognitive remediation program in remitted depression. Twenty-eight MDD participants in remission were recruited. The intervention consisted of twenty-five 30–40-minute training sessions, coupled with weekly coaching, administered over a 5-week period. Before and after the intervention, a battery of objective neuropsychological tests and self-report measures was administered. Key outcomes were WM, inhibition and rumination. Acceptability of the intervention was observed, with 83% showing high motivation, along with WM gains for all completers (n = 18, 64% of recruited participants). The cognitive remediation selectively improved targeted WM functions, as measured by objective tests. This did not translate into self-reported improvements in everyday WM or inhibition. However, all but one completer achieved at least one personal goal related to WM and 44% achieved two or, the maximum possible, three such goals. For remitters whose WM was significantly enhanced after the intervention, the cognitive remediation also decreased dysphoric-mood related rumination. The successful pilot testing of the WM-targeted intervention supports the conduct of a fully powered randomized controlled trial as a relapse prevention approach in remitted MDD.


This thesis describes near real time processing of NOAA AVHRR satellite
raw data which includes automatic geocoding approach followed by cloud masking
techniques and sea surface temperature extraction algorithm implemented over
South China Sea.
For geocoding of the images an orbital model has been used followed by
Earth location determination algorithms. Different models have been implemented
based on radiative transfer equations for extracting sea surface temperature fro m
satellite data, namely single channel, split-window, spatiotemporal split-window
technique and multichannel sea surface temperature. There are five cloud masking
techn iques namely gross cloud check, spatial coherence method, dynamic visible
and near infrared method, ratio of near infrared reflectance to visible reflectance and
channel difference method have been implemented.
The accuracy of the geocoding is within 2-10 km. Sea surface temperature
from satellite data has been compared with ground truth data and standard deviation for sea surface temperature is within 0.1 - 0.75 degree Celsius. The cloud masking
techniques are capable to produce non contaminated pixels in the imagery.
All the works have been carried out by customization of EASI/PACE
environment of PCI software and the developed techniques are fully automatic in
nature. These developments can be used for fish forecasting and monitoring of oil
spill over Malaysian sea water.


Grazing of lactating cows is a decreasing practice in Europe despite numerous potential benefi ts. In parts of Europe, farmers are required to graze all dairy cows for at least six hours per day during summer, but little is known about the effect on the performance of high-yielding animals. A study was undertaken to investigate the effects of the following treatments on high-yielding Holstein cow performance: continuous housing (C; control) with a total mixed ration (TMR), a six-hour grazing period directly after morning milking with TMR offered ad libitum when housed (EG; early grazing), a six-hour grazing period following morning milking with 75% of ad-libitum TMR when housed (RT; restricted TMR), or TMR access for one hour following morning milking, followed by a six-hour grazing period (DG; delayed grazing) then housed with TMR offered ad libitum. Total dry matter intake (DMI) was similar in C, EG and DG but lower in RT (26.9, 26.0, 26.7 and 23.8 kg DM/cow/d; P <0.001; SED 0.524). Milk yield was also lowest in RT, with mean values of 45.7, 44.2, 44.9 and 41.7 kg/cow/d in C, EG, DG and RT respectively (P =0.001; SED 0.993). High-yielding cows can be grazed for a six-hour period during the day with little impact on milk production provided TMR is unrestricted when housed.


The first chapter examines the influence of geography on Tibet's social and economic life; it also analyses the country's social structure and political institutions. The second traces the course of Anglo-Tibetan relations in the 18th and 19th centuries and examines such external influences on it as the ties between Lhasa and Peking, and Britain's relations with China and Russia. The third chapter examines the aims of Curzon's Tibetan policy, and the factors that determined the Horae Government's attitude to the problem. The fourth chapter analyses Morley's Himalayan policy and the resurgence of Chinese power in Tibet. In the fifth, Hardinge, as Viceroy, is compelled by force of circumstances to initiate a set of positive responses to China's persistent attempts to extend her influence in the Himalayan borderlands. Hardinge's efforts led to the Simla Conference and the drawing-up of the McMahon Line along part of the Indo-Tibetan border. The final chapter shows the continuing inability of the British Government to frame a cohesive Tibetan policy. As in the past, Tibet's pleas for help were disregarded in the interests of pressing British diplomatic needs elsewhere. The British failure was one of political leadership, for the Home Government's advisers were generally expressing themselves in favour of a firmer attitude towards China on Tibet, and recommending greater military and political help to Lhasa in its efforts to thwart China's predatory designs.


A face strikes us immediately as sad, and so, too, do a mourner, a willow tree, a house on a prairie, and a group of onlookers. The spontaneous emergence of affective and other qualities of people, things, places, and events falls under the heading of physiognomy, a phenomenon discussed since at least Aristotle, and a key feature of evolutionary theory, psychology, and perception as well as professional practice ("profiling") and popular talk. However, physiognomy is a controversial topic because of a suspect history, and is often renamed as non-verbal communication. The Expressiveness of Perceptual Experience: Physiognomy Reconsidered examines this venerable, attractive, and contentious topic within the unique perspective of research-oriented psychology. Included are the processes involved, primarily perceptual; origins, mainly evolutionary; and social-cultural factors as supplements. Discussed within a holistic-experiential (phenomenological)-aesthetic framework are physiognomy's ties to the arts as well as emotions, synesthesia, learning, development, and personality. Empirical investigations are summarized, including the author's.


A written communication on age determination was received from N. J. Snelling, and J. W. Stewart. A considerable number of age determinations are now available from Peru. Most are by the K: Ar method on biotites and hornblendes Interpretation of the data is made difficult by the fact that granitic rocks have been emplaced at different times throughout the Phanerozoic, and extensive resetting of the K: Ar clocks in the older rocks may have occurred. The following are some of the main points which have emerged from our investigation and from the unpublished work of Dr. J. Evernden of the University of California at Berkelsy. 1. Two samples have yielded Precambrian ages (circa 660 m.y.). The analysed biotites are from gneisses within the Coastal Batholith—Arequipa Batholith intrusive belt south of latitude 15°S. 2. Five Palaeozoic ages ranging from 447 to 251 m.y. are known. They occur in the Coastal and Eastern Cordillera. Stratigraphic control is sufficient in one case to confirm an intrusion in Late Ordovician or Early Silurian and in another case Late Permian. 3. Triassic and Jurassic ages are known from the Coastal Cordillera, the Western Cordillera, and the Eastern Cordillera. The main period of intrusion appears to have occurred during the Late Triassic or Early Jurassic. 4. The Coastal Batholith yields a whole spectrum of ages from circa 100 to 10 m.y. Fewer ages are available from the Arequipa Batholith and they show a more limited range from 3


The sensitivity of magnetic resonance (MR) to diffusion has long been exploited as a method for investigating molecular motions in complex systems. The recognition that MR can be made sensitive to the details of anisotropic diffusion in structured materials led to the formulation of the problem as a tensor (DTI) rather than a scalar. New directions exploiting MR diffusion imaging techniques can yield essential new information previously not accessible with other imaging modalities as potential cancer biomarkers. We investigated the feasibility of applying DTI for in-vivo fiber tractography of the prostate. We carried out retrospective study of men with biopsy proven prostate cancer. All patients had undergone prostate MRI with an endorectal coil on a 1.5 T MRI scanner. Diffusion weighted images were acquired with a single shot echo-planar acquisition, with six diffusion sensitizing directions. Preliminary fiber track data was generated as in Fig. 1 using Diffusion Toolkit and displayed with TrackVis (trackvis.org). This data was then used to identify multiple hand drawn regions of interest (ROI) over areas of pathologically proven tumor, the central gland and the normal peripheral zone of the gland. For quantitative analysis, we introduced a track density parameter, which is the number of tracks in a given ROI divided by its volume, as a normalized measure of the tracks passing through the ROI. The values were statistically analyzed and correlated with the staging. One of the key goals of the study is to apply this method to analyze post radiation treatment cases where other modalities fail to yield contrast necessary to distinguish cancerous tissue from necrosis. The main challenge of fiber tractography, however, is the existence of multiple-fiber orientations within an imaging voxel which renders the diffusion tensor model inadequate. The practical limitations imposed by the requirement for a wide spectral sampling of the diffusion spectrum in q-space, can be met if these impulse diffusion gradients are replaced with chirped oscillatory gradients. In this abstract, asymmetrical chirped diffusion sensitizing gradients are shown to yield an efficient sampling of q space in a manner that asymptotically approaches the spectral coverage afforded by delta function diffusion sensitizing gradients. The asymmetrical nature of the gradients is an extension of the method recently proposed by Laun et al.[1] that allows the diffusion experiment to preserve the phase information and hence reconstruct the exact shape of the underlying structural restrictions -see Fig. 2. The challenge is the consequent reduction in diffusion sensitivity as one probes higher frequency dynamics. This problem is addressed by restricting the gradient power to a spectral bandwidth corresponding to the diffusion spectral range of the underlying restrictive geometry. Simultaneous imaging of diffusion at microscopic resolution and at temporally resolvable diffusion time-scales thus becomes possible in-vivo. Fig. 2: Inverse imaging of a triangular restriction using asymmetrical diffusion encoding gradients [1] F. B. Laun, T. A. Kuder, W. Semmler and B. Stieltjes, Phys. Rev. Lett. 107, 048012 (2011).


Background: Several lines of laboratory evidence support a role of persistent activation of Akt pathway in oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) progression. Loss of phosphatase PTEN is one of the proposed mechanisms of Akt activation. We sought to determine the prognostic significance of Akt activation in a cohort of patients with OSCC as well as the association between phosphorylated (activated) Akt and PTEN levels. Methods: Using a novel system of in situ quantitative protein expression analysis (AQUA), we studied the protein expression levels of phosphorylated Akt (p-Akt) and PTEN on a tissue microarray. The array included 79 OSCCs with a mean follow-up of 36 months. Results: Patients with tumors expressing low tumor p-Akt levels had lower 5-year local recurrence rates (5% versus 38%). Additionally, these patients had improved 5-year overall survival rates (45% versus 27%). This survival effect was likely due to disease recurrence, as there was no difference in death without recurrence between low- and high-expressing groups. In adjusted analysis, tumor p-Akt expression was a strong predictor of local recurrence. A significant inverse relationship was found between nuclear p-Akt and nuclear PTEN: Tumors with high nuclear p-Akt had low nuclear PTEN and vice versa. Conclusions: Akt activation in OSCC is associated with adverse patient outcome, indicating that Akt is a promising molecular target in OSCC. PTEN loss may be one of the mechanisms of Akt activation in OSCC. (Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2007;16(3):553–8)


The eighteenth-century Enlightenment in Western Europe was a time in which everyday life was still dominated by religion. Religion was the context in which life was lived from cradle to grave, scientific innovations were judged against its truth and it claimed allegiance from all levels of society. It was also a powerful political force, and the church dominated education. Religion impinged on people's lives whether they wished it or not. So investigation of religious thought in the Enlightenment goes to the very heart of what the Enlightenment was. The aim of this new text book is to situate Enlightenment ideas in context, to show the concerns which gave rise to them and to point out their consequences - which were far-reaching and tied to practical concerns. After two chapters which give a historical account of the period the focus turns to the main figures -Descartes, Pascal, Rousseau and Kant - along with considerations of the rise of deism and the shift from scepticism to atheism. There is also an account of the impact that science began to have on religion. Today the Enlightenment is seen not only in positive terms, as the emergence of humanity from darkness and an important step forward, but also negatively, as bearing the seeds of many of the ills of the modern world. In particular, theologians dissatisfied with the liberal theology which followed the Enlightenment have argued that true Christian theology must side-step, or go back on, Enlightenment thought. The argument is likely to go on for some time, but at least this book will help it to continue with a greater degree of understanding than has often been shown so far. James Byrne is Senior Lecturer in Theology and Religious Studies at St Mary's University College, Strawberry Hill.


Connectivity patterns in biological brains exhibit many repeating motifs. This repetition mirrors inherent geometric regularities in the physical world. For example, stimuli that excite adjacent locations on the retina map to neurons that are similarly adjacent in the visual cortex. That way, neural connectivity can exploit geometric locality in the outside world by employing local connections in the brain. If such regularities could be discovered by methods that evolve artificial neural networks (ANNs), then they could be similarly exploited to solve problems that would otherwise require optimizing too many dimensions to solve. This paper introduces such a method, called Hypercube-based Neuroevolution of Augmenting Topologies (HyperNEAT), which evolves a novel generative encoding called connective Compositional Pattern Producing Networks (connective CPPNs) to discover geometric regularities in the task domain. Connective CPPNs encode connectivity patterns as concepts that are independent of the number of inputs or outputs, allowing functional large-scale neural networks to be evolved. In this paper, this approach is tested in a simple visual task for which it effectively discovers the correct underlying regularity, allowing the solution to both generalize and scale without loss of function to an ANN of over eight million connections.


An electromagnetic (EM) sensor, capable of detecting the formation of ferromagnetic ferrite from paramagnetic austenite below the Curie temperature, has been developed and assessed. In this article, results obtained using an a.c. EM sensor for a medium (0.45 wt pct)—carbon steel slow cooled through its transformation-temperature range are presented. It was found that the EM sensor can successfully detect the formation of ferrite below the Curie temperature, but that the transimpedance values can be significantly affected by the formation of a decarburized ferrite ring around the samples. It was also found that the transimpedance value is monotonically (nonlinearly) related to the ferrite volume fraction and depends on the morphology/distribution of the ferromagnetic phase and, hence, is influenced by the prior-austenite grain size. Results from finite-element (FE) simulations designed to enable prediction of the transimpedance from the microstructure are also presented, showing that two-dimensional (2-D) FE simulations can be successfully used to model the experimental trends observed. The combination of modeling and measurement has shown that EM sensors can be used to indirectly monitor the ferrite transformation (below the Curie temperature), thus providing a measure of ferrite volume fraction and also a means of identifying the ferrite distribution in the microstructure.


Two-point Correlation Function (TPCF) is widely used in astronomy to characterize the distribution of matter/energy in the Universe, and help derive the physics that can trace back to the creation of the universe. However, it is prohibitively slow for current sized datasets, and would continue to be a critical bottleneck with the trend of increasing dataset sizes to billions of particles and more, which makes TPCF a compelling benchmark application for future exa-scale architectures. State-of-the-art TPCF implementations do not map well to the underlying SIMD hardware, and also suffer from load-imbalance for large core counts. In this paper, we present a novel SIMD-friendly histogram update algorithm that exploits the spatial locality of histogram updates to achieve near-linear SIMD scaling. We also present a load-balancing scheme that combines domain-specific initial static division of work and dynamic task migration across nodes to effectively balance computation across nodes. Using Zin supercomputer at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (25,600 cores of Intel® Xeon® E5-2670, each with 256-bit SIMD), we achieve 90% parallel efficiency and 96% SIMD efficiency, and perform TPCF computation on a 1.7 billion particle dataset in 5.3 hours (at least 35× faster than previous approaches). In terms of cost per performance (measured in flops/$), we achieve at least an order-of-magnitude (11.1x) higher flops/$ as compared to the best known results [1]. Consequently, we now have line-of-sight to achieving the processing power for correlation computation to process billion+ particles telescopic data.


1. The input from the wastewater treatment works (WwTW) that discharge directly into Windermere at Ambleside and Tower Wood contribute a large amount of the total phosphorus load to the lake. In 1992 this load was reduced by establishment of tertiary treatment at each works. This elicited a rapid improvement in water quality but this started to deteriorate subsequently. This report analyses the output phosphorus loads from the two WwTW to establish to what extent the deterioration might be caused by any increases from the WwTW.
2. Data were available from 1978 with, on average, weekly sampling or better from the two WwTW. Before 1987 there were infrequent measurements of P-load. Since 1995 there have been one or two load measurements per week from each plant.
3. The average seasonal pattern of flow is relatively even, but higher values in winter suggest input from non-domestic sources. There are large seasonal changes in the concentration of phosphorus leaving the WwTWs, with highest concentrations in summer, possibly as a result of higher tourist numbers and slightly lower flow. The load of phosphorus also varies seasonally: monthly load is highest in summer.
4. In 1991 the average concentration of phosphorus leaving the WwTW was 3.2 and 3.8 mg L-1 at Ambleside and Windermere Tower Wood respectively. There was a step-reduction in the concentration of phosphorus leaving the two WwTW in 1992 and no evidence for a return to the higher values of pre 1992, apart from transiently higher values at Ambleside in 1999 and 2000 (around 2.5 mg L-1). Between 1993 and 2007 the annual average concentration of phosphorus leaving the WwTWs was 1.48 mg L-1 and 1.26 mg L-1 for Ambleside and Windermere Tower Wood respectively.
5. Annual phosphorus load has fallen by about 50% in 1993-2007 compared to 1978-1991 at both WwTWs. At Ambleside it has fallen from 2.2 to 1.09 Mg y-1 and at Windermere Tower Wood it has fallen from 5.85 to 2.82 Mg y-1. Loads from storm overflows are not included in these estimates since no data appear to exist.
6. It is difficult to estimate catchment loads of phosphorus, nevertheless the data suggest that the WwTW contribute about 37% of the total phosphorus and 66% of the soluble reactive phosphorus load to the lake. The percentages for the North Basin are slightly lower, and the percentages for the South Basin are slightly higher, than this average. The WwTW are still the largest source of available phosphorus to the lake.
7. Any more recent deterioration in water quality in the two basins of Windermere are unlikely to be cause by increased phosphorus loads from the two WwTWs.


Children living in poverty experience excess relapse and death from newly diagnosed acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). The influence of household poverty and neighborhood social determinants on outcomes from CAR T-cell therapy for relapsed/refractory (r/r) leukemia is poorly described. We identified patients with r/r CD19+ ALL/lymphoblastic lymphoma treated on CD19-directed CAR T-cell clinical trials or with commercial tisagenlecleucel from 2012 to 2020. Socioeconomic status (SES) was proxied at the household-level, with poverty-exposure defined as Medicaid-only insurance. Low neighborhood opportunity was defined by the Childhood Opportunity Index. Among 206 patients aged 1-29, 35.9% were household-poverty exposed, and 24.9% had low neighborhood opportunity. Patients unexposed to household-poverty or low-opportunity neighborhoods were more likely to receive CAR T-cell therapy with high disease burden (>25%)-a disease characteristic associated with inferior outcomes-as compared to less advantaged patients (38% vs 30%; 37% vs 26%). Complete remission (CR) rate was 93% with no significant differences by household-poverty (P = 0.334) or neighborhood opportunity (P = 0.504). In multivariate analysis, patients from low-opportunity neighborhoods experienced increased hazard of relapse as compared to others (P = 0.006, adjusted HR 2.3, 95% CI 1.3-4.1). There was no difference in hazard of death (P = 0.545, adjusted HR 1.2, 95% CI 0.6-2.4). Among children who successfully receive CAR T-cell therapy, CR and OS is equitable regardless of proxied SES and neighborhood opportunity. Children from more advantaged households and neighborhoods receive CAR T-cell therapy with higher disease burden. Investigation of multicenter outcomes and access disparities outside of clinical-trial settings is warranted. Clinical trials: NCT01626495; NCT02435849 ; NCT02374333; NCT02228096; NCT02906371.


The volume of data acquired in production systems continues to expand. Emerging imaging technologies, such as machine vision systems (MVSs) and 3D surface scanners, diversify the types of data being collected, further pushing data collection beyond discrete dimensional data. These large and diverse datasets increase the challenge of extracting useful information. Unfortunately, industry still relies heavily on traditional quality methods that are limited to fault detection, which fails to consider important diagnostic information needed for process recovery. Modern measurement technologies should spur the transformation of statistical process control (SPC) to provide practitioners with additional diagnostic information. This dissertation focuses on how MVSs and 3D laser scanners can be further utilized to meet that goal. More specifically, this work: 1) reviews image-based control charts while highlighting their advantages and disadvantages; 2) integrates spatiotemporal methods with digital image processing to detect process faults and estimate their location, size, and time of occurrence; and 3) shows how point cloud data (3D laser scans) can be used to detect and locate unknown faults in complex geometries. Overall, the research goal is to create new quality control tools that utilize high density data available in manufacturing environments to generate knowledge that supports decision-making beyond just indicating the existence of a process issue. This allows industrial practitioners to have a rapid process recovery once a process issue has been detected, and consequently reduce the associated downtime.


In this paper we will show theoretically that a refractive index grating exhibits a retro-self-focusing effect and an accompanying pinholing effect under the Gaussian intensity distribution of an incident optical field. Those effects result from an effective wave number change of the medium due to the intense optical field.


Transcript:
Literature Review
Language use is one factor that can influence the persuasiveness of a message or credibility of a speaker. One area of language that has been previously studied is powerless speech and its impact on persuasion and credibility. ! Powerless speech is the use of items such as hedges (kind of, sort of), intensifiers (so, very, really), and hesitations (uh, um). It is believed that messages that do not include the use of these powerless forms of language are more powerful. ! Erickson, Lind, Johnson, and O'Barr (1978) presented the idea of how powerful and powerless speech may affect the attractiveness and credibility of a witness or lawyer. When participants evaluated testimony from court transcripts, researchers concluded that the style affected a receiver's perceptions of how credible and attractive the speaker was and whether or not they agreed with the information communicated. ! Other research suggests that women who speak tentatively influence men but not women. However, one problem the research found is that if a women spoke tentatively, they were perceived as less competent and knowledgeable than one that spoke assertively. However, this was not the same for men (Carli, 1990).! Both men and women who use a low number of hedges are perceived as being highly more credible than speakers use a high number (Wright & Hosman, 1983). The researchers also found that witnesses who used fewer hedges seemed more certain and, therefore, were liked more than those that used low levels of powerful speech. ! Hosman and Siltaned (1994) found that the absence of any component of powerless speech created the idea that a speaker has more control of self and control over others. Where as intensifiers increase control of the self and others while tag questions greatly lower the perceived levels of control.! Question and Hypothesis Central Questions Are male and female attorneys on television shows portrayed using different frequencies of powerless language? Are women more likely than men shown to use powerless speech patterns?! Hypothesis The TV series, Conviction, will show female characters engaging in powerless speech patterns more than male characters.! Purpose The objective was to look at how frequently powerless language is used in a media depiction of courtroom activities of male and female attorneys. To study powerless language, the use of hedges, hesitation, intensifiers, tag question, and qualifiers used by both male and female attorneys were examined. ! A content analysis of the show, Conviction, was done to observe the patterns of characters in the television series. ! independent variable: sex of attorney (female and male)! dependent variable: speech patterns used! Methods Data Set The show Conviction, about attorneys who work for a large district attorney's office, was used for the study. The show only aired in 2006 and consisted of 13 episodes involving criminal cases. The show has seven main characters (four male and three female) that are attorneys in the office.! Materials and Procedure A content analysis of a television show with attorneys was conducted to determine the frequency with which attorneys used powerless language. Every episode was watched and scenes in the courtroom were reviewed twice to enable the researcher to identify all forms of powerless language utilized. When a character used powerless language it was identified and then coded.! Coding The powerless language identified in this study were defined as a result of previous research that examined the use of powerful and powerless speech (Erickson, B., Lind, E. A., Johnson, B. C., O'Barr, W. M., 1978). Five different types of powerless speech that were identified:! hedges: kind of, sort of! intensifiers: so, very! hesitations: uh, um! qualifiers: I think, I feel! tag questions: is that correct?, would you agree?! Analysis Pearson's chi-square test was used to test for differences.! Results The results of the content analysis are in the table below.! The hypothesis was not supported. Male attorneys were observed using powerless speech more frequently, especially hesitations and intensifiers. However, there was not a significant statistical difference between the frequency that males and females used powerless speech forms when a Pearson's chi-square was calculated. ! The following significant statistical differences were found as a result of individual post hoc's:! - female and male characters' use intensifiers and tag questions: ����2 (1, N = 25) = 3.994, p < .05! - main female and male characters' use of hesitations and tag questions : ����2 (1, N = 25) = 7.769, p < .05! Discussion Carli (1990) found that women typically use more forms of powerless speech. However in the examination of Conviction, different results were found that present the idea that male attorneys engage in the use of powerless speech more often than the female attorneys. These results may have been found for two primary reasons. First, one of the main male characters played the role of an attorney had just starting at the district attorney's office as an assistant attorney. This character may have used for hesitations to portray his character as being nervous or less experienced. Second, certain types of powerless speech may not be seen as "powerless" in a courtroom context. ! Implications���� Results indicate that women actually use fewer forms of powerless speech, which is not consistent with studies about real world language use. This could cause a negative effect for female attorneys. Language Expectancy Theory explains, if speakers violates expectations, it could hurt their credibility or persuasiveness (Burgoon, 1990). Therefore, the portrayal of powerless speech used in the media could create a false expectation that women use powerless speech less often. Then when female attorneys use more in reality, it could hurt their credibility as an attorney or in everyday situations because there is a violation of a language expectancy.! Limitations���� For the study it was only possible to have one coder for the television show. There is only one season of the show. It is not possible to determine if the characters in the show engage in the use of the language patterns because the writers of the show added the words into the script or the characters added some of the powerless speech forms in able to better develop the character.! Future Research���� Future research should examine television programs that have more episodes with court scenes or use actual court transcripts to compare the media to reality. Other research could also be done to compare the witnesses' use of powerless language to the attorneys' use of powerless language. Future research may also evaluate the credibility of the attorneys and compare the ratings to the amount of powerless language used. This research will be useful for a profession whose task it is to deliver messages and arguments credibly and persuasively. It is vital to examine this type of language in the courtroom because attorneys are taught to use some of the forms to be more powerful advocates. ! Literature Cited Burgoon, M., (1990). Language and social influence. Handbook of Language and Social Psychology, 51-72.! Carli, L. L., (1990). Gender, language, and influence. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 58(5) 941-951.! Erickson, B., Lind, E. A., Johnson, B. C., O'Bare, W. M., (1978). Speech style and impression formation in a court setting: The effects of "powerful" and "powerless" speech. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 14(3), 266-279.! Hosman, L. A. & Siltaned, S. A., (1994). The attributional and evaluative consequences of powerful and powerless speech styles: An examination of the 'control over others' and 'control of self' explanations. Language & Communication, 14(3), 287-298.! Wright, J. W. II, & Hosman, L. A., (1983). Language style and sex bias in the courtroom: The Effects of male and female use of hedges and intensifiers on impression information. The Southern Speech Communication Journal, 48, 137-152.! Hedges Intensifiers Hesitations Qualifiers Tag Questions Row Totals Males 0 9 (81.9%) 8 (100%) 0 2 (33.3%) 19 Females 0 2 (18.2%) 0 (0%) 0 4 (66.7%) 6 Column Totals 0 11 (100%) 8 (100%) 0 6 (100%) 25


In the light of the EU Energy and Climate framework, exporting solar electricity from South to Central and Northern Europe can contribute to various EU strategic objectives. However, as of today, some challenges prevent its materialization. To address some of these obstacles and as part of the Smart Specialization Platform on Energy activities, this policy report provides answers to two key questions: (i) what is the value proposition of solar electricity exports in Europe? (ii) How can these projects be feasible?


In Malaysia, about 120,000 ha of highly weathered Oxisols and Ultisols
come off either from rubber or oil palm annually under the replanting
programme. Annual crops such as groundnut and maize are often used as cover
crops, which can replace non-food legume cover crops, during the first four years
under the replanting programme. The acidic nature associated with high
aluminum concentration and low native nitrogen status often pose severe
constraints to the growth and productivity of annual food crops on these
Ultisols. An approach which involved the adoption of advanced legume technology
and liming was hypothesized to reduce these two soil-related constraints
affecting annual food crop production on Ultisols.


On 16 April 2014, the Supreme Court of Appeal handed down judgment in the matter of S v Litako 2014 2 SACR 431 (SCA) ("Litako"). The judgment reconsiders the landmark decision of the same court, S v Ndhlovu 2002 2 SACR 325 (SCA) ("Ndhlovu") in which the court held that an informal admission made by one accused could be admitted against a co-accused even if the accused in court denies making the statement and the statement itself is therefore considered to be hearsay. The court in Ndhlovu applied section 3 of the Law of Evidence Amendment Act 45 of 1988 and found that the hearsay extra curial admission could be admitted in the interests of justice. In Litako the court found that section 3 did not overrule an existing common law rule, which is that the extra curial statement of an accused (whether an informal admission or a confession) cannot be tendered against a co-accused. This is because section 3 does not expressly overrule this common law rule. Rather, the provision itself requests that its application be subject to the common law. The judgment is important for various reasons. Firstly, it is generally in keeping with the existing rule on the cautionary treatment of accomplice evidence. Secondly, the judgment highlights the current confusion in the relationship between statute and common law with regards to informal admissions and confessions. Thirdly, the court employs methods of statutory interpretation to re-examine the principle from Ndhlovu and finds that the court in that case did not apply its mind correctly in disregarding the common law rule. The court undertook a teleological approach to interpretation by infusing the meaning of the words with the spirit, purport and objects of the Bill of Rights and found that the statute had not overruled the common law rule.


How educated and culturally savvy young people are transforming traditionally low-status manual labor jobs into elite taste-making occupations

 In today's new economy in which "good" jobs are typically knowledge or technology based many well-educated and culturally savvy young men are instead choosing to pursue traditionally low-status manual labor occupations as careers. Masters of Craft looks at the renaissance of four such trades: bartending, distilling, barbering, and butchering.

 In this in-depth and engaging book, Richard Ocejo takes you into the lives and workplaces of these people to examine how they are transforming these once-undesirable jobs into "cool" and highly specialized upscale occupational niches?and in the process complicating our notions about upward and downward mobility through work. He shows how they find meaning in these jobs by enacting a set of ?cultural repertoires, which include technical skills based on a renewed sense of craft and craftsmanship and an ability to understand and communicate that knowledge to others, resulting in a new form of elite taste-making. Ocejo describes the paths people take to these jobs, how they learn their chosen trades, how they imbue their work practices with craftsmanship, and how they teach a sense of taste to their consumers.

 Focusing on cocktail bartenders, craft distillers, upscale men's barbers, and whole-animal butcher shop workers in Manhattan, Brooklyn, and upstate New York, Masters of Craft provides new insights into the stratification of taste, gentrification, and the evolving labor market in today's postindustrial city.


The work of this thesis focuses primarily on the quasi-optical analysis of optical systems in
the Terahertz region of the spectrum. This included the development of novel simulation
techniques based on the principles of mode matching and gaussian beam mode analysis,
which are uniquely suited to the simulation of electrically large optical systems at millimeter
wavelengths. Additionally, several commercial software packages were used and
experimental measurements conducted for the purpose of both validating the newly developed
simulation techniques, as well as simulating / measuring specific elements beyond
the scope of the in-house software.
The main drivers behind this work were a Technology Research Programme of the European
Space Agency, the optical payload design of the future proposed Space Infrared-Telescope
for Cosmology and Astrophysics mission and work on the Atacama Large Millimeter Array.
Once the simulation tools were developed and proven an analysis of these optical
systems was conducted. In the case of the Atacama Large Millimeter Array this involved
the analysis of the proposed system, whilst for the other projects of the European Space
Agency, although an initial optical system was proposed, much work was also required in
maturing the design as well as conducting a standard analysis. This was carried out in conjunction
with the other groups of the Technology Research Programme, which included
the Terahertz optics group of NUI-Maynooth, the Space Research Organisation of the
Netherlands, Rutherford Appleton Laboratory Space, and work groups of the universities
of Cambridge and Cardiff.
The work of this thesis also considered the technical feasibility and design of a future space
mission for the purpose of characterising Earth-type exoplanets up to 30 pc distant. This
involved the establishment of the science goals and the associated technical requirements,
as well as a detailed optical design of the proposed spectropolarimetric payload.