This article presents a case study of a scientist–practitioner research network established by the National Cancer Institute's State and Community Tobacco Control Research Initiative. While prior programs have focused on collaboration among scientists, a goal here was to encourage collaborations with non-university, practice-based partners. Two stages of analyses examine growth in the network and collaboration outcomes over a 2-year timeframe. First, visual and descriptive analyses were used to assess the network's structure and characteristics. Second, regression modeling was used to assess the relationship between investigator characteristics on active collaboration with non-university partners in research and coauthorship. Network analysis revealed an increasing number of connections, low and decreasing density, increasing centralization and select individuals with high degree and betweenness centralities. Investigator seniority and experience did not predict the active partner connections. Rather, scientists' betweenness centrality, or the extent to which they acted as bridges across the network, was the key predictor of collaboration. This finding suggests a novel way for dissemination-focused research programs to identify super-connector investigators to foster practitioner linkages.


We propose and implement a Privacy-preserving Federated Learning (PPFL) framework for mobile systems to limit privacy leakages in federated learning. Leveraging the widespread presence of Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs) in high-end and mobile devices, we utilize TEEs on clients for local training, and on servers for secure aggregation, so that model/gradient updates are hidden from adversaries. Challenged by the limited memory size of current TEEs, we leverage greedy layer-wise training to train each model's layer inside the trusted area until its convergence. The performance evaluation of our implementation shows that PPFL can significantly improve privacy while incurring small system overheads at the client-side. In particular, PPFL can successfully defend the trained model against data reconstruction, property inference, and membership inference attacks. Furthermore, it can achieve comparable model utility with fewer communication rounds (0.54×) and a similar amount of network traffic (1.002×) compared to the standard federated learning of a complete model. This is achieved while only introducing up to ~15% CPU time, ~18% memory usage, and ~21% energy consumption overhead in PPFL's client-side.


While tourism research has already considered the specific travel behaviors and preferences of people from different cultures (e.g., Hispanics, Chinese, etc.), there has not been as much emphasis placed on understanding how the travel behaviors of people may change when they migrate to another country. Despite the growth of migrant populations in many countries throughout the world, studies have tended to look at the behavior of travelers from a particular country (e.g., all Australians) without considering how acculturation experienced by migrants (e.g., Koreans who immigrate to Australia) may alter their travel behaviors. This study focuses on the travel behavior and lifestyles of Korean immigrants in Australia and examines the influence of acculturation on their travel lifestyle. A survey of Korean immigrants in Australia was conducted to explore the relationship between the degree of acculturation experienced by respondents and their travel lifestyle preferences, specifically related to their attitudes and opinions towards travel as well as their travel interests. Cluster analysis identified four distinct groups of Korean immigrants, based on their travel lifestyles, referred to as "Korean socializers & sports seekers," "relaxation seekers," "cultural & entertainment seekers," and "FIT travel enthusiasts." Results suggest that respondents who were more acculturated significantly differed in their travel lifestyle from those who were less acculturated. The study conclusions suggest ways that tourism marketers can better understand ethnic minorities and develop suitable products and services to meet the needs of these markets.


Yaroslav V. Sokolov (11.01.1938-21.07.2010) was a leading Russian accounting theorist at the end of XX – beginning of XXI centuries. The central idea of his scientific school was an understanding of the accounting role for the existence of economical society. Principal directions of his scientific interests were accounting history and theory. During all his life, he published more than 700 scientific works, many of which were translated and reprinted abroad. This scientist organized modern accounting and auditing professional society in Russia. Yaroslav Sokolov was the first President of the Institute of Professional Accountants. More than 10 years he was a head of the famous statistics, accounting and audit department of the Saint-Petersburg State University. Among his main ideas were informational layer of fact of economic life theory, informational accounting paradoxes, accounting "coordinate system", money value in the space and time, determination of boundaries of accounting methodology possibilities. He reconstructed Russian accounting history, made many names of practically lost brilliant Russian accountants alive. Sokolov was a supporter of philosophical understanding of accounting theory and practice, examination of accounting methodology in connection with legal, economical, social and general philosophical principles of modern science.


Transcription regulation underlies basic processes essential to life, including differentiation and development, cell-to-cell communication, and response to environmental stimuli. How the cell achieves a precise gene expression system to maintain cellular identity while allowing for plasticity remains an important biological question. As the interface between DNA and DNA-binding factors, chromatin exerts substantial influence on transcriptional regulation through its fundamental unit, the nucleosome. The following thesis addresses the questions of how nucleosomes influence transcriptional regulation, how RNA Polymerase II (Pol II) affects nucleosome stability and dynamics, and how Pol II overcomes the nucleosomal barrier. Using the heat shock response as a model for transcriptional regulation, we found that nucleosomes of activated genes increased in turnover, while those of repressed genes exhibited decreased turnover, suggesting that the act of transcription causes nucleosome turnover. This causality challenges the role of histone modifications in regulating gene expression, as modifications must be re-established after each turnover event. Furthermore, we discovered that the transcription-driven nucleosome turnover is partly mediated by the torsional stress on the DNA generated during Pol II translocation. Nucleosomes were destabilized as Pol II generates positive torsion ahead, and stabilized by the negative torsion behind, providing a mechanism for efficient Pol II progression while maintaining chromatin structure and organization.


The species overlap between European and North American cladoceran faunas has been questioned from the very beginning of faunistic studies on Nearctic zooplankton and still remains unsettled. However, more recently, genetic techniques seem to overcome the limits of morphology as the basis for taxonomy. We analyzed 8–11 allozyme loci to assess the genetic differentiation between intercontinental counterparts of four daphniids: Daphnia curvirostris, Daphnia obtusa, Daphnia pulex, and Daphnia pulicaria. Despite their morphological likeness, all equivalents showed a large amount of genetic divergence between continents due to complete allelic substitutions and major gene frequency shifts. From an evolutionary perspective, this study shows that as in other organisms, geographic isolation seems to be sufficient to minimize gene flow to levels at which the origin of new daphniid species can be considered. From a practical point of view, a revision of Holarctic daphniid taxonomy should be considered.


The only commercially operating magnetically levitated (maglev) transport system in the world is the link between Birmingham International Airport and the National Exhibition Centre. Comparative financial analysis for this route showed that the construction costs for both wheeled and maglev systems were similar and that the cost of the guideway accounted for over 70% of the total. In part this was because the guideway was elevated; a likely requirement for any future urban system. A substantial reduction in installation costs for a system of this nature can only be achieved by the use of cheap, lightweight and flexible guideways.

The British Rail Research maglev vehicle was designed for use on a rigid guideway and it was known that excessive flexibility would make the suspension control system unstable. The aim of the study was to develop a maglev suspension control strategy that was insensitive to guideway flexibility.

Vibration measurements were carried out on the Birmingham guideway to establish its modal properties. It was found to be sufficiently rigid to allow the existing controller to work without problems .Measurements were also made on the guideway of a Swiss cablecar transit system. This was felt to represent the extremes of both lightness and flexibility and established the range of guideway dynamics that were likely to be encountered.

For the initial experimental work, a section of the British Rail maglev test track was modified to incorporate three sections of flexible track. A personal computer was installed on board the vehicle and software was written to aid frequency response testing and dynamic system modelling. Tests were carried out to establish the dynamic parameters of the new sections of guideway.

The existing rigid guideway controller separated magnet control from suspension control. Guideway flexibility destroys this separation and induces additional feedback terms that degrade system stability.

Theoretical studies of an improved controller took advantage of the fact that that the suspension magnets act directly onto the guideway and affect the position of both vehicle and guideway. As the guideway is lightly damped it is only flexible over a narrow bandwidth and the new suspension controller is able to use vehicle inertia to react forces that control the guideway at its natural frequency. Theory suggested that this would restore the separation of magnet and suspension control even with a flexible guideway.

For a variety of reasons, experimental implementation of the new controller proved to be difficult. Suspension performance on the flexible portions of the guideway was never adequately demonstrated. The work did however enable a very accurate theoretical model of the system to be developed. This model contrasted with earlier predictions because, on rigid guideways, it predicted substantially smaller phase margins than the earlier models had suggested. It showed that the new controller had only modest benefits relative to the original rigid guideway suspension controller.

This led to the development of an improved controller, a "lumped" controller where magnet and suspension control are not separated. Modelling for a single degree of freedom vehicle on a single mode guideway showed that large improvements in suspension performance could be made.
Further modelling of a three degree of freedom vehicle and a five mode three degree of freedom flexible guideway used parameters that represent the production vehicles at Birmingham. This work defined limits for guideway flexibility and vehicle dynamic performance and showed that maglev guideways for production scale vehicles, with the "lumped" controller, can be very flexible indeed.

The major aim of the project was achieved. A suspension controller was developed that will allow a maglev vehicle to work on a guideway that is far lighter, more flexible and far cheaper than the guideway required for a conventional wheeled vehicle.


Notwithstanding the potential public health impact of the polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), estimates regarding its prevalence are limited and unclear. Between July 1998 and October 1999, 400 unselected consecutive premenopausal women (18-45 yr of age) seeking a preemployment physical at the University of Alabama at Birmingham were studied (223 Black, 166 White, and 11 of other races). Evaluation included a history and physical examination, a modified Ferriman-Gallwey hirsutism score, and serum screening for hyperandrogenemia, hyperprolactinemia, and 21-hydroxylase-deficient nonclassical adrenal hyperplasia. PCOS was diagnosed by the presence of the following: 1) oligoovulation, 2) hyperandrogenemia and/or hirsutism (modified Ferriman-Gallwey score > or = 6), and 3) the exclusion of related disorders. Confirmed PCOS was established in those individuals whose evaluation was complete and indicative of PCOS, and possible PCOS was established when the hormonal evaluation was not complete or was unavailable, but the clinical phenotype was otherwise suggestive of the disorder. The individual probability of PCOS in women with possible PCOS was assigned a weight based on the findings in similar subjects whose evaluation was complete, and the total number of PCOS cases arising from these individuals was calculated (i.e. individual probability of PCOS x total number of subjects in the group). The cumulative prevalence of PCOS in our population was 6.6% (26.5 of 400), including 15 subjects among the 347 women completing their evaluation and a calculated prevalence of 11.5 subjects among the remainder. The prevalence rates of PCOS for Black and White women were 8.0 and 4.8%, respectively, not significantly different. These data from a large representative unselected population support the concept that PCOS is the most common endocrine abnormality of reproductive-aged women in the United States.


In a multicenter case‐control study of renal cell carcinoma (RCC) conducted in central and eastern Europe, we reported a strong inverse association with high vegetable intake and RCC risk. The odds ratio (OR) for high compared to the lowest tertile of vegetable intake was OR = 0.67; (95% confidence interval (CI): 0.53–0.83; p‐trend < 0.001). We hypothesized that variation in key folate metabolism genes may modify this association. Common variation in 5 folate metabolism genes (CBS: Ex9+33C > T (rs234706), Ex13 +41C > T (rs1801181), Ex18 −391 G > A (rs12613); MTHFR: A222V Ex5+79C > T (rs1801133), Ex8−62A > C (rs1801131); MTR: Ex26 20A > G (rs1805087), MTRR: Ex5+136 T > C (rs161870), and TYMS:IVS2−405 C > T (rs502396), Ex8+157 C > T (rs699517), Ex8+227 A > G (rs2790)) were analyzed among 1,097 RCC cases and 1,555 controls genotyped in this study. Having at least 1 variant T allele of MTHFR A222V was associated with higher RCC risk compared to those with 2 common (CC) alleles (OR = 1.44; 95% CI: 1.17–1.77; p = 0.001). After stratification by tertile of vegetable intake, the higher risk associated with the variant genotype was only observed in the low and medium tertiles (p‐trend = 0.001), but not among those in the highest tertile (p‐interaction = 0.22). The association remained robust after calculation of the false discovery rate (FDR = 0.05). Of the 3 TYMS SNPs examined, only the TYMS IVS2 −405 C (rs502396) variant was associated with a significantly lower risk compared to the common genotype (OR = 0.73; 95% CI: 0.57–0.93). Vegetable intake modified the association between all 3 TYMS SNPs and RCC risk (p‐interaction < 0.04 for all). In summary, these findings suggest that common variation in MTHFR and TYMS genes may be associated with RCC risk, particularly when vegetable intake is low. © 2007 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.


More than 15 years ago, many countries in sub-Saharan Africa embarked on a program of budgetary reform, an important element of which was a medium-term budget framework (MTBF). This working paper focuses on the performance of these frameworks in six countries–– Kenya, Namibia, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia. It assesses the effectiveness of MTBFs in achieving improved fiscal discipline, resource allocation, and certainty of funding, as well as wider economic and social criteria such as poverty reduction and more efficient public investment. In most countries, early successes were not sustained, and budgetary outcomes did not improve, partly for technical reasons, such as poor data and inadequate forecasting methodologies, but also because the reforms were largely supply driven. The paper argues that the development of MTBFs typically falls into four distinct phases. To make the transition from one phase to the next, developing countries should focus on building their capability in macrofiscal forecasting and analysis, and in improving the credibility of the annual budget process.


This paper presents the transient power optimization of an organic Rankine cycle waste heat recovery (ORC-WHR) system operating on a heavy-duty diesel (HDD). The optimization process is carried on an experimentally validated, physics-based, high fidelity ORC-WHR model, which consists of parallel tail pipe and EGR evaporators, a high pressure working fluid pump, a turbine expander, etc. Three different ORC-WHR mixed vapor temperature (MVT) operational strategies are evaluated to optimize the ORC system net power: (i) constant MVT; (ii) constant superheat temperature; (iii) fuzzy logic superheat temperature based on waste power level. Transient engine conditions are considered in the optimization. Optimization results reveal that adaptation of the vapor temperature setpoint based on evaporation pressure strategy (ii) provides 1.1% mean net power (MNP) improvement relative to a fixed setpoint strategy (i). The highest net power is produced by setpoint strategy (iii), which exhibited a 2.1% improvement compared strategy (i), revealing importance of utilizing engine conditions during reference trajectory generation. These results serve as the benchmark for the ORC system net power optimal control. CITATION: Xu, B., Yebi, A., Onori, S., Filipi, Z. et al., "Transient Power Optimization of an Organic Rankine Cycle Waste Heat Recovery System for Heavy-Duty Diesel Engine Applications," SAE Int. J. Alt. Power. 6(1):2017, doi:10.4271/2017-01-0133. Published 03/28/2017 Copyright © 2017 SAE International doi:10.4271/2017-01-0133 saealtpow.saejournals.org 25 Downloaded from SAE International by Brought to you by Stanford University, Friday, August 31, 2018


The objective of this paper is to investigate the actual situation in the shift towards the implementation of Sustainable Development Policies in Europe. The aim is to highlight the key role of the European Union in bringing about sustainable development within Europe and also on the wider global stage. It will show how the European Commission performs its commitment in reaching a sustainable regulation by issuing some documents and declarations. The paper frames the EU action into an international framework of strategies, agreements and policies on SD and, at the same time, provides an overview on experiences of SD strategy implementations at the national level, according to the commission pressing on MS to produce their own SD strategy and implement it. Indicators systems, issues of interest and fields of actions are compared: the analysis of these elements aims to highlight common scenarios of SD strategies that reveal the trends towards a more sustainable growth in the European Union.


Czech art history after the Second World War was pursued in a state dominated by Soviet power and as such it presents a prominent example of the coexisting synergy and conflict between the Vienna School and Marxism. Research into this relationship may provide valuable insight into the character of Czech art historical tradition. I will attempt to show the role played by Marxist, Marxist-Leninist and Stalinist thinking in Czech art history against the background legacy of the Vienna School of art history.1 The introduction of Marxism into Czech art history has to come to terms with this legacy, as before the Second World War the Czech art historical milieu was a self-proclaimed devoted and faithful follower of the Vienna School. The shape of Czech Marxism in art history, however, differs quite significantly from that which one might expect from the vantage point of the Western world. Frederick Antal, who personifies the contact between the two approaches, was unambiguously rejected, and authors such as Meyer Schapiro and T. J. Clark remained virtually unknown. Czech Marxist art history displayed pronounced disinterest in the social history of art and instead, solely concentrated on the problem of realism. The most interesting period was the 1960s, when the Viennese tradition was re-evaluated during the search for 'humanist Marxism', or Revisionism. Reframed, it was fundamentally strengthened as a methodology and considered the only truly scientific one. The only scholarly analysis devoted to Czech Marxist art history and published before the end of the 1980s was by Rostislav Svacha.2 It is based on good quality research but is written from a position inside Marxism and not surprisingly, Svacha's study thus lacks a critical distance from its topic.3Two methodological restrictions deserve a preliminary mention. Firstly, I will proceed within the framework of the history of discourse, while devoting only marginal attention to the history of institutions, art historical topics and biographical research. This restriction is dictated by the fact that general inquiry into the historiography of four decades of Czech history under the rule of the Communist Party (1948-1989) has only gained momentum in the past few years. Until now, there existed just a few historical studies explaining the processes of continuity and discontinuity between the strong left-wing cultural and political Czech tradition of the inter-war period, post-war years and the period of Socialism (after 1960), and Marxist Revisionism of the 1960s.4 Twenty years of disinterest can be easily recognized as an act of negative memory, of forgetting; the type identified as 'monological forgetting' by Aleida Assman. More than twenty years after the political revolution of the Velvet Revolution of 1989, the predominance of moral judgement has receded only slowly in Czech society and this has affected both membership of the Communist Party (the legal order contains a law from 1991 which declared the CP a 'criminal and despicable organization'), and also the reception and application of Marxism in scholarly research. As a result important creative personalities of the second half of the 20th century - in our case art historians - may have, at times, been members of the ruling Communist Party and information about them would have to be mined from personal archive files. Their membership may have had a decisive impact on their public activities and on the challenges they had to face in their careers. Besides, one definition of Marxism considers it to be a theoretical component of Communist activism and in fact its employment was deemed self evident for any CP member. As a result, it is often hard to decide whether published texts merely represent outer signs of loyalty to the political regime, 'just a camouflage' (as they are often summarily designated in retrospect), or whether they are the result of serious thinking and intellectual work. The question of honesty in Communist engagement, or rather its lack, is primarily considered in actual Czech discourse - paired with retrospective moral judgment. …


This report examines policy issues the Davis-Bacon Act has sparked through the years and which remain a part of the Davis-Bacon debate of the 1990s. These include such questions as: wage rate determination procedures, reporting requirements under the Copeland Act, an appropriate threshold for activation of the statute, interagency relationships with respect to Davis-Bacon enforcement and compliance activity, administrative or judicial appeals procedures, the use of "helpers" and other low-skilled workers on covered projects, and the right of a President to suspend the statute as well as the conditions under which such a suspension may occur. That the fundamental premise of the Act remains in contention after 60 years may be, itself, part of the public policy debate.


Atrophic non-unions are a major clinical problem. Mineral coated microparticles (MCM) are electrolyte-coated hydroxyapatite particles that have been shown in vitro to bind growth factors electrostatically and enable a tuneable sustained release. Herein, we studied whether MCM can be used in vivo to apply Bone Morphogenetic Protein-2 (BMP-2) to improve bone repair of atrophic non-unions. For this purpose, atrophic non-unions were induced in femurs of CD-1 mice (n = 48). Animals either received BMP-2-coated MCM (MCM + BMP; n = 16), uncoated MCM (MCM; n = 16) or no MCM (NONE; n = 16). Bone healing was evaluated 2 and 10 weeks postoperatively by micro-computed tomographic (µCT), biomechanical, histomorphometric and immunohistochemical analyses. µCT revealed more bone volume with more highly mineralised bone in MCM + BMP femurs. Femurs of MCM + BMP animals showed a significantly higher bending stiffness compared to other groups. Histomorphometry further demonstrated that the callus of MCM + BMP femurs was larger and contained more bone and less fibrous tissue. After 10 weeks, 7 of 8 MCM + BMP femurs presented with complete osseous bridging, whereas NONE femurs exhibited a non-union rate of 100 %. Of interest, immunohistochemistry could not detect macrophages within the callus, indicating a good biocompatibility of MCM. In conclusion, the local application of BMP-2-coated MCM improved bone healing in a challenging murine non-union model and, thus, should be of clinical interest in the treatment of non-unions.


This thesis will argue that the contemporary educational system of Cyprus denies
young people opportunities to participate in the creation of their culture, which can
provide the nest for the exploration and understanding of their individual and
collective lives. Culture, in schools, is treated not as a dynamic process in which the
young people can play the main role but instead as a static field of knowledge that
should be studied and learnt. This approach, however, contradicts the same principles
that were the foundations of the ancient culture that the young Greeks have inherited
from the past whose performative and participatory nature ascribed to it a proactive
and democratic public life that guaranteed everyone the right to speak and act. This
thesis argues that the Greek young people of contemporary Cyprus should be entitled
to participation in recreating and reconstructing the meanings and values of those
stories that have inherited from the past and that bind them together as one people in
ways that help them make sense of their contemporary private and public roles. The
thesis argues that the myths of the past should be reinterpreted and repositioned again
in the present to respond to the immediate social context of the young people in a
participatory and democratic way so as to enable a progress of this culture and a
connection between the past, the present and the future. The thesis shows that culture
is under continuous reconstruction taking on the example of fifth century BC Athens
where theatre and public life fed one another and developed to respond to the current
socio-historical context of the time. Throughout, the thesis shows in what ways
theatre can provide the means for the investigation of the inherent meanings in the
myths of the past and also its significance in playing the role of the social agent that
can enable transformation and progress.
The thesis consists of an introduction, eight chapters and a conclusion. In the
Introduction I identify the problem that exists in the contemporary educational system
of Cyprus concerning the way that the field of culture is approached and present the
conceptual framework that provides the foundation for proposing a new Theatre of
Myth. Chapter one provides a critical reflection on and analysis of the oral culture of
Homer to the democratic fifth century BC Athens and the birth of tragedy. Chapter
two studies, both from the ideal and the material aspect, the social role of the
Athenian tragic theatre and its polis during the fifth century. Chapter three seeks to
base the arguments made in the thesis of the educational and political role of the fifth
century theatre through a critical analysis of its form and content. Chapter four
identifies and supports the principles of the proposed Theatre of Myth, drawing from
the twentieth century developments in Modem Drama whilst chapter five shows how
the Drama-in-Education tradition attempts to bridge the practices in the Modem
Drama paradigm to come closer to the proposed theatre model. Chapter six provides
the methodology followed for a pilot case study that attempts to transfer the Theatre
of Myth into practice, which is the preoccupation of chapter seven. Chapter eight
discusses and analyses the findings of the case study to inform the theoretical lines of
the model of the Theatre of Myth. Some conclusions are discussed concerning the
potential and the limitations of the Theatre of Myth in the end of the thesis.


Mechanical products are always expected to perform better, last longer, be more environmentally friendly and preferably cost less. Rolling and sliding contacts are found in many mechanical products, and friction and wear in the contacts have a direct impact on the products' ability to meet these demands. Friction directly influences efficiency; low friction is often wanted to minimize power loss and fuel consumption. Wear generally shortens the lifetime, leading to more frequent service stops and increased costs. Increased demands on the products also means increased demands on the contacts in the products; contacts must work with higher loads and less friction, and they must last longer. The combination of increased demands and the high levels of sophistication of many products puts the spotlight on the contacts, and it becomes perhaps more important than ever to be able to predict and optimize their tribological performance. Simulation of systems with rolling and sliding contacts is a useful tool to understand the contact conditions and to help optimize their performance. This thesis is focused on friction and wear of boundary-lubricated, non-conformal rolling and sliding contacts. It presents a 3D brush model for transient friction in rolling and sliding contacts that can handle rough surfaces, varying surface velocities and varying normal load. Friction is simulated in interference mesh gears, cam mechanisms, a system with a roller between two planes and a system with a contact between two discs. Friction is also studied experimentally in interference mesh gears and in the contact between two discs. A wear model based on a generalized form of Archard's wear law and the single-point observation method is used to simulate wear in the contact between the rocker arm pad and valve bridge in a cam mechanism of a diesel engine. The results show that the friction model can be used to simulate friction in both motion- controlled and force-controlled systems. The model can be used for both detailed contact studies and studies of the overall behaviour of systems with rolling and sliding contacts. Simulations and experiments show that the efficiency in interference mesh gears decreases significantly depending on the combination of mesh force pressing the gears together and the load on the output shaft. It is also seen that the torque loss varies heavily during a gear mesh depending on the position of the gear teeth and the number of contact points. The results from the simulations are consistent with the experimental results. The simulations of the cam-roller contact show that the creep in the contact is low except at high cam speeds when there is a period with high creep when the contact is close to the tip of the camshaft. The simulations of the rocker arm pad and valve bridge show that the contact radii of the wear pad and the position of the centre of the wear pad radii have a strong influence on the amount of wear. The simulations also show that the change of surface shapes due to wear can worsen contact conditions with high normal pressures. The simulations and experiments of force-controlled systems show that contacts can have a strong influence on a system's behaviour. The contact acts as a spring damper system and can cause oscillations of the system. Simulations show that the oscillations could, at least in part, be explained by the surface roughness. Simulations also show that the creep in the contact is influenced by the contact stiffness and that the contact stiffness is lower for rough surfaces than for smooth. The experiments also show that the creep is higher for a lubricated contact than a dry contact.


Most people indicate disclosure of private information as a concern but keep revealing personal information in actual behavior. This inconsistency is called "privacy paradox". Previous literature has proposed a few interpretations of this paradoxical behavior from the rational perspective- privacy calculus. However, individuals are not purely rational decision-makers. They might be bounded by psychological limitations which are often unconscious. Drawing on the dual-process model, this study suggests that the occurrence of contradictory behavior can be explained by the decision-making process people adopted in their actual behavior different from they adopted in their self-report. In many cases, people tend to state their choices after the rational information process even when their behavior indicates they are following their intuition. An electroencephalographic experiment is conducted to capture direct responses when an individual makes privacy-related decisions, further demonstrate that individual's privacy decision-making process is not totally rational.


Much has been made of the great promises of the information age and the information highway as a powerful new form of communication that will change our lives for the better. Self-proclaimed visionaries such as Bill Gates and Nicholas Negroponte envision a new golden age in which humanity is globally connected, with information at everyone's fingertips, with intelligent electronic agents liberating us from the mundane tasks of our daily lives—automatically paying our bills and retrieving electronic newspapers, making our coffee, and so forth.This article can also be found at the Monthly Review website, where most recent articles are published in full.Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.


Abstract
 Twenty-nine moss taxa are recorded, for the first time, from Khashm El-Aish plateau in Omayed Protected Area (OPA), Mediterranean coast, Egypt. Sixteen of them represent new records to the western Mediterranean coast (Mm) and six [Aloina brevirostris (Hook, et Grev.) Kindb., Entosthodon cf. commutatus Durieu et Mont., Didymodon cordatus Jur., Tortella flavovirens (Bruch.) Broth., Tortula cuneifolia (Dicks.) Turner, T. muralis Hedw. var. aestiva (Hedw.) Brid.] to Egypt bringing their totals to 63 and 170 taxa, respectively. OPA represents 0.07% of Egypt's area but sustains over 17% of its moss flora. The most common taxa are species of Tortella. The most frequent genera are Tortella, Didymodon and Bryum. The largest genera are Didymodon, Bryum and Tortula. The Pottiaceae represent ca. 76% of the flora and comprise over 70% of taxa recorded with sporophytes. Similarity of the bryoflora of OPA is mainly with Sinai and Isthmic Desert in Egypt.


BACKGROUND:Blockade of the saphenous nerve is often used for surgeries below the knee. Depending on the approach, success rates vary widely ranging from 33% to 88%. In this prospective volunteer study, we compared 2 ultrasound-guided techniques, the modified vastus medialis and perifemoral saphenous nerve block with a below the knee field block. METHODS:Twenty volunteer adults, in a single-blinded, crossover, prospective trial underwent 3 different saphenous nerve blocks. The primary end point of block success was loss of sensation in the distal two-thirds distribution of the saphenous nerve. Secondary variables included time to perform the block, time to sensory loss, pain during block, and motor weakness. RESULTS:Compared with the below the knee field block success rate (30%), both the modified vastus medialis and perifemoral techniques had significantly higher success rates (80%, difference 50% with confidence interval [CI], 23%–77%, P = 0.009, and 100%, difference 70% with CI, 41%–91%, P < 0.001, respectively). However, the difference when comparing the perifemoral ultrasound technique against the modified vastus medialis ultrasound technique did not show significance (difference 20% with CI, −7% to 49%, P = 0.125). Also, no statistical differences were found with the other variables measured, except the perifemoral technique showed faster block performance times than below the knee field block (P = 0.007). CONCLUSION:In our prospective study, we have demonstrated that ultrasound-guided above the knee saphenous nerve blocks have higher success rates than a below the knee field block and are easily performed in a short amount of time.


Teams of small Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) are being largely proposed to be used in different areas for both military and civilian applications. Their integration in wider sensor networks is also being considered in order to provide a better cost-benefit ration. However, coordination among UAV teams is not a trivial problem in an ad hoc network. This paper presents a decentralized coordination strategy to orient the actions of a team of UAVs, which take part in a wider sensor network, relying on ad hoc network communication. The proposed sensors network inclused static sensors that issue alarms indicating the presence of possible targets that must be handled by one of the UAVs and possibly relay messages among them. Preliminary results of the proposed approach are presented and are contrasted with results provided by a centralized solution for the problem.


The tomato sector in Ghana has failed to reach its potential, in terms of attaining yields comparable to other countries, in terms of the ability to sustain processing plants, and in terms of improving the livelihoods of those households involved in tomato production and the tomato commodity chain. Despite government interventions that include the establishment of a number of tomato processing factories, tomatoes of the right quality and quantity for commercial agroprocessing are not being grown. Many farmers still prefer to plant local varieties, typically with a high water content, many seeds, poor color, and low brix. Land husbandry practices are often suboptimal. Average yields remain low, typically under ten tons per hectare. Because of production seasonality, high perishability, poor market access, and competition from imports, some farmers are unable to sell their tomatoes, which are left to rot in their fields. Yet other farmers in Ghana have achieved higher tomato yields, production is profitable, and many farmers in Ghana continue to choose to grow tomatoes over other crops.


ABSTRACT Laterally extensive, striated boulder pavements crop out within glaciomarine diamicts of the early Pleistocene Yakataga Formation on Middleton Island, Alaska. Boulder pavements consist of planes of one clast thickness, with faceted upper surfaces showing consistently oriented striation directions, cropping out over several kilometers along strike. Clasts do not have the preferred long-axis alignment nor the characteristic "bullet shape" of boulders transported at a glacier base and deposited by lodgement processes. In most cases, pavements identify the planar-bounding surfaces of thick (up to 100 m), tabular units of fossiliferous, muddy diamict deposited by the settling of fine-grained sands and muds from suspension, together with ice-rafted debris, in water depths between 20 and 250 m. Diamict facies both underlying and overlying the pavements contain abundant unabraded macro-and microfossils and show no evidence of deformation by subglacial shear processes. Pavements appear to have originated as boulder lag surfaces produced by wave and tidal-current winnowing of diamict on relatively shallow bank areas during episodes of relative sea-level lowering. Lags were subsequently overridden and abraded by a grounding ice shelf. The glacially abraded pavements are thought to record the repeated expansion of a partially floating ice shelf to the edge of the Gulf of Alaska continental shelf during the early Pleistocene. Recognition of boulder pavements formed in this manner may help establish the former presence of ice shelves whose depositional record remains enigmatic.


Phenotypic drug discovery requires billions of cells for high-throughput screening (HTS) campaigns. Because up to several million different small molecules will be tested in a single HTS campaign, even small variability within the cell populations for screening could easily invalidate an entire campaign. Neurodegenerative assays are particularly challenging because neurons are post-mitotic and cannot be expanded for implementation in HTS. Therefore, HTS for neuroprotective compounds requires a cell type that is robustly expandable and able to differentiate into all of the neuronal subtypes involved in disease pathogenesis. Here, we report the derivation and propagation using only small molecules of human neural progenitor cells (small molecule neural precursor cells; smNPCs). smNPCs are robust, exhibit immortal expansion, and do not require cumbersome manual culture and selection steps. We demonstrate that smNPCs have the potential to clonally and efficiently differentiate into neural tube lineages, including motor neurons (MNs) and midbrain dopaminergic neurons (mDANs) as well as neural crest lineages, including peripheral neurons and mesenchymal cells. These properties are so far only matched by pluripotent stem cells. Finally, to demonstrate the usefulness of smNPCs we show that mDANs differentiated from smNPCs with LRRK2 G2019S are more susceptible to apoptosis in the presence of oxidative stress compared to wild-type. Therefore, smNPCs are a powerful biological tool with properties that are optimal for large-scale disease modeling, phenotypic screening, and studies of early human development.


ABSTRACT Bats are known to be a natural reservoir for a lot of disease pathogens and can spread several diseases. All 11 genera of fruit bat found in West Africa are found in Ghana, and human–bat interactions are common. However, there is a dearth of knowledge about the socio-cultural factors that shape these interactions. This paper explores the socio-cultural factors that bring humans into contact with bats. Data were obtained through focus group discussions and in-depth interviews. The findings indicate that gender, religious affiliation, and belief systems influence the interaction between humans and bats. We conclude that the hunting and consumption patterns of bats have farreaching consequences for the transmission of bat-borne zoonotic diseases. Educational campaigns, therefore, should be intensified and, in particular, target groups that are most at risk of contracting bat-borne zoonotic diseases.


Abstract. Spatio-temporal crop phenological information helps in understanding trends in food supply, planning of seed/fertilizer inputs, etc. in a region. Rice is one of the major food sources for many regions of the world especially in monsoon Asia and accounts for more than 11 % of the global cropland. Accurate, on-time and early information on spatial distribution of rice would be useful for stakeholders (cultivators, fertilizer/pesticide manufacturers and agriculture extension agencies) to effectively plan supply of inputs, market activities. Also, government agencies can plan and formulate policies regarding food security. Conventional methods involves manual surveying for developing spatio-temporal crop datasets while remote sensing satellite observations provide cost effective alternatives with better spatial extent and temporal frequency. Remote sensing is one of the effective technologies to map the areal extent of the crops using optical as well as microwave/Synthetic Aperture RADAR (SAR) sensors. Cloud cover is the major problem faced in using the optical datasets during monsoon (June to Sept. locally called Kharif season). Hence, Sentinel-1 C-band (center frequency: 5.405 GHz) RADAR sensor launched by European Space Agency (ESA) which has an Interferometric Wide-swath mode (IW) with dual polarization (VV and VH) has been used for rice area mapping. Limited studies have attempted to establish operational early season rice area mapping to facilitate local governance, agri-input management and crop growers. The key contribution of this work is towards operational near real time and early season rice area mapping using multi-temporal SAR data on GEE platform. The study has been carried out in four districts viz., Guntur, Krishna, East Godavari andWest Godavari from Andhra Pradesh (AP), India during the period of Kharif 2017. The study region is also called as coastal AP where rice transplanting during the Kharif season is carried out during mid Jun. till Aug. and harvesting during Oct. to mid Dec. months. The training data for various classes viz, Rice, NonRice-Agriculture, Waterbodies, Settlements, Forest and Aquaculture have been obtained from GEE, Global Land Cover (GLC) layers developed by ESA and field observations. We have evaluated the performance of Random Forest (RF) classifier by varying the number of trees and incrementally adding the SAR images for model training. Initially the model has been trained considering two images available from mid June 2017. Further, various models have been trained by adding one consecutive image till end of August 2017 and classification performance has been evaluated on validation dataset. The classified output has been further masked with agriculture non-agriculture layer derived from global land-cover layer obtained from ESA. Analysis shows that incremental addition of temporal observations improves the performance of the classifier. The overall classification accuracy ranges between 78.11 to 87.00 %. We have found that RF classifier with 30 trees trained on six images available from mid June till end August performed better with classification accuracy of 87.00 %. However, accuracy assessment performed using independent stratified random sampling approach showed the classification accuracy of 84.45 %. An attempt is being made to follow the proposed approach for current (i.e. 2018) season and provide incremental rice area estimates in near real-time.


This paper introduces a design framework for mixed reality urban exploration (MRUE), based on a concrete implementation in a historical city. The framework integrates different modalities, such as virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), and haptics-audio interfaces, as well as advanced features such as personalized recommendations, social exploration, and itinerary management. It permits to address a number of concerns regarding information overload, safety, and quality of the experience, which are not sufficiently tackled in traditional non-integrated approaches. This study presents an integrated mobile platform built on top of this framework and reflects on the lessons learned.


We study the effect of a huge sports sentiment shock, unrelated to economic conditions or government actions, on stock market outcomes. After Brazil's 7-1 humiliating defeat to Germany in the 2014 World Cup, which is likely to be one of the largest sports sentiment shocks ever, the stock market went up. We provide evidence of two opposing effects on stock prices. One is the usual negative effect due to the investor sentiment channel documented in the literature. This effect was, however, overwhelmed by the arguably rational response of investors to voters' sentiment. In particular, the 7-1 defeat was perceived by stock market participants as a political shock affecting the upcoming close presidential election. To decompose these two effects, we devise an empirical strategy that allows us to compute the component of daily returns associated with political news.


Abstract Recent supply shocks in the Gulf of Mexico—including hurricanes, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, and the seasonal appearance of a large dead zone of low oxygen water (hypoxia)—have raised concerns about the economic viability of the U.S. shrimp fishery. The ability of U.S. shrimpers to mediate supply shocks through increased prices hinges on the degree of market integration, both among shrimp of different sizes classes and between U.S. wild caught shrimp and imported farmed shrimp. We use detailed data on shrimp prices by size class and import prices to conduct a co-integration analysis of market integration in the shrimp industry. We find significant evidence of market integration, suggesting that the law of one price holds for this industry. Hence, in the face of a supply shocks, prices do not rise; instead, imports of foreign farmed fish increase. JEL Classification Code: Q22


The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) is witnessing the greatest degree of political transformation and regime change in a generation—the Arab Awakening. The causes of these revolutions are rooted in corruption, a lack of economic opportunity, and most fundamentally, authoritarianism. What is striking is that constitutional transitions of various forms have accompanied regime change in every case—in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and Yemen. New constitutional beginnings are demanded not only as a necessary means to break from a discredited past; they are viewed, perhaps unrealistically, as being necessary for achieving progress in economic and social reform. Indeed, equating constitutional reform with progress has become so commonplace that two non-transitioning states, Morocco and Jordan, have enacted a set of comprehensive constitutional amendments to preempt popular uprisings. Conversely, it is feared that erring in constitutional design will condemn the region to repeat the mistakes of the past, and may open the door to the establishment of Islamic states that may be authoritarian under a new guise, and which could have little respect for human rights, religious minorities or the rule of law. Debates over constitutional design are now at the very heart of political life.


Over the past decade computers and smartphones connected to the internet have become widespread, that is why they are now an inseparable element of all ages people's life, especially young people who do not remember the times when such devices were not used. It is commonly used saying that present-day youth "were born with a smartphone in their hands." In the Network young people lead their social life, search for information on various topics and also watch social networking sites, where so-called influencers i.e. network celebrities run their thematic profiles. Content posted by influencers is not always valuable and it happens that they cross the law line and push the boundaries of good taste. An example can be currently popular "patostreams" i.e. live broadcasts, during which behaviors considered as social deviations are presented such as domestic violence, alcohol libations or vulgar discussions. The goal of influencers is to arouse interest in their profile in social media which translates into the number of followers and in turn is supposed to contribute followers' decisions (e.g. shopping) and opinions on the topics presented. Young people, who have no experience and critical overview and their maturity is just developing, often spend many hours a week in the virtual space watching influencer messages. The article will attempt to answer the questions on how young people approach the content presented by influencers, whether influencers shape followers opinions and decisions in various aspects of life and whether they are authorities to be imitated and trusted.
 Keywords: influencer, celebrity, influence, internet, youth


We present a heuristic search algorithm for solving first-order Markov Decision Processes (FOMDPs). Our approach combines first-order state abstraction that avoids evaluating states individually, and heuristic search that avoids evaluating all states. Firstly, in contrast to existing systems, which start with propositionalizing the FOMDP and then perform state abstraction on its propositionalized version we apply state abstraction directly on the FOMDP avoiding propositionalization. This kind of abstraction is referred to as first-order state abstraction. Secondly, guided by an admissible heuristic, the search is restricted to those states that are reachable from the initial state. We demonstrate the usefulness of the above techniques for solving FOMDPs with a system, referred to as FluCaP (formerly, FCPlanner), that entered the probabilistic track of the 2004 International Planning Competition (IPC'2004) and demonstrated an advantage over other planners on the problems represented in first-order terms.


Why has the issue of birthright citizenship gained such prominence in recent years among immigration restrictionists? Conventional wisdom holds that opposition to birthright citizenship is a new phenomenon spurred on by two factors: unprecedented levels of unauthorized immigration and the rise of the welfare state. Yet challenges to the legitimacy of birthright citizenship have in fact arisen at various points since the passage of the Fourteenth Amendment. Examining earlier debates about birthright citizenship, including the largely overlooked history of citizenship restrictionism in the 1920s, I argue that current restrictionist efforts fall into a familiar pattern in which fears about the integrity of America's borders, articulated in the language of crisis and invasion, find an outlet in efforts to police the borders of citizenship. Across different historical eras, arguments against birthright citizenship have consistently emphasized the notion that the Citizenship Clause undermines the immigration policies of the day, from Chinese exclusion in the 1890s to racial restrictions on naturalization in the 1920s to securing the U.S.-Mexico border today. I argue that defenders of birthright citizenship would do well to engage critically with the tensions that current opponents of birthright citizenship identify, rather than shying away from them. To the extent that there are tensions between the closed borders of immigration law and the open borders of birthright citizenship, such tensions have been greatly exacerbated by changes in immigration law and policy over the past several decades that, while ostensibly aimed at reducing unauthorized immigration, have had the effect of greatly increasing the number of mixed-status families. These tensions should be resolved, I argue, not by altering the Fourteenth Amendment but instead by addressing the unintended consequences of restrictive immigration laws and heightened border enforcement.


Gender and the Poetics of Excess: Moments of Brocade by Karen Jackson Ford The argument posed in this analysis is that the poetic excesses of several major female poets, excesses that have been typically regarded as flaws in their work, are strategies for escaping the inhibiting and sometimes inimical conventions too often imposed on women writers. The forms of excess vary with each poet, but by conceiving of poetic excess in relation to literary decorum, this study establishes a shared motivation for such a strategy. Literary decorum is one instrument a culture employs to constrain its writers. Perhaps it is the most effective because it is the least definable. The excesses discussed here, like the criteria of decorum against which they are perceived, cannot be itemized as an immutable set of traits. Though decorum and excess shift over time and in different cultures, their relationship to one another remains strikingly stable. Thus, nineteenth-century standards for women's writing and late twentieth-century standards bear almost no relation. Emily Dickinson's do not anticipate Gertrude Stein's or Sylvia Plath's or Jayne Cortez's or Ntozake Shange's. Yet the charges of indecorousness leveled at these women poets repeat a fixed set of abstract grievances. Dickinson, Stein, Plath, Cortez, and Shange all engage in a poetics of excess as a means of rejecting the limitations and conventions of "female writing" that the larger culture imposes on them. In resisting conventions for feminine writing, these poets developed radical new poetries, yet their work was typically criticized or dismissed as excessive. Thus, Dickinson's form is classified as hysterical and her figures tortured. Stein's works are called repetitive and nonsensical. Plath's tone is accused of being at once virulent and confessional, Cortez's poems violent and vulgar, Shange's work vengeful and self-righteous. The publishing history of these poets demonstrates both the opposition to such an aesthetic and the necessity for it. Karen Jackson Ford is a professor in the English department at the University of Oregon.


Justification

Until 1998, several million sheep and goats were exported every year to Saudi Arabia from ports in Somalia, during a four-month period correlating with the Haj activities in Mecca. Pastoral populations in Ethiopia's southeastern lowlands depend heavily on livestock exports to Somalia for their livelihoods, most of which are re-exported to Saudi Arabia and other Gulf States. The trade has proceeded for many years, until an outbreak of Rift Valley fever (RVF) in the region of the Horn of Africa prompted a ban by Saudi Arabian authorities on February 10, 1998. RVF is a viral insect-borne disease of livestock and human beings. As a list A disease among the OIE classification of contagious diseases, RVF is a major stake for the establishment of non-tariff barriers. Countries importing livestock products generally impose a ban to exporters with a risk of carrying the RVF agent to prevent from animal disease spread and infections in humans.

Exports resumed after six months but two years later, Gulf countries, following an unprecedented outbreak of RVF in Saudi Arabia and Yemen that killed over 100 people, imposed a new ban on imports of livestock from the Horn of Africa. Although some of the importers in the Arabian Peninsula partially lifted the ban in 2001, the ban is still in place.
What are the implications of the ban for the Ethiopian economy? Previous reports and studies on this matter agree that the ban had a devastating effect on Ethiopian's Somali Region. However, there are no studies that quantify the economic cost of the ban or that evaluate alternatives to develop an animal health program that would allow a regular export flow between the Somali region and the Gulf countries. This study is a first attempt in that direction.

Objectives
The main objectives of the study are the following:
1) To measure the costs of the ban for the Somali region of Ethiopia
2) To evaluate how the costs of the ban are distributed among different economic agents: households, pastoralists and other producers, transporters, and traders
3) To evaluate possible investment strategies for actions the government might pursue (prevention, containment, zonal restrictions or other interventions) to regain access to the Gulf market and reduce the probability of any future bans

Methodology and data
A regional Social Accounting Matrix that captures the main economic relationships of the Somali region of Ethiopia is developed using information from reports and studies conducted in the region; information from the Regional Office of Population of the Somali Regional State (SNRS); the Central Statistical Authority of Ethiopia (CSA) and data from a survey conducted in Somali as part of this study. The SAM is linked to the CGE model developed by Logfren, Harris and Robinson (2001) which includes household consumption of non-marketed commodities, transaction costs for commodities that enter the market, and separation between producing activities and commodities that permits any activity to produce multiple commodities and any commodity to be produced by multiple activities.
A reduction of live animal exports from the region is simulated in two stages, where in the first stage we assume that factors of production are fixed for each activity in order to capture the short-run effects of the ban. In the second stage we complete the total reduction of livestock exports equivalent to the application of a 16-month ban, allowing for factor mobility.

Finally, the study evaluates the advantage of a program of animal certification using cost-benefit analysis. The expected benefits of the treatment are the avoided costs of future bans imposed on Somali exports because of disease outbreaks (estimated using the CGE simulations). The costs are those generated by the implementation of the certification program. We use a Poisson distribution and a Monte Carlo approach to simulate the occurrence of outbreaks over 20 years and to obtain a distribution of future income (avoided costs) resulting from our treatment.

Results
The 16-month ban results in a total loss of value added of $195 million or almost the total value added produced by the region in a normal year.

Evaluating the effects of the ban at the microeconomic level we find that in the short-run, the ban causes a sharp reduction of livestock prices directly affecting poor pastoralists and sedentary farmer households. Middle and better-off households deal successfully with the negative effects of the ban by substituting away non-basic imported goods, now more expensive as a consequence of the deterioration of the region's terms of trade, for staple goods (grain and milk).

In the medium-run, producers react reallocating resources between activities, reducing supply of livestock and transport services and further increasing supply of milk and grain. This results in partial recovery of livestock and transport prices and in a reduction of grain and milk prices, negatively impacting sedentary farmers and agro-pastoralists that were less affected by the ban in the short-run.

From the benefit-cost analysis of a certification program for the region, we conclude that the implementation of an animal health program in the Somali region is feasible and would benefit producers.

Different alternatives (export tax, sales tax and increased transaction costs) to charge producers for the equivalent amount of the cost of the program are analyzed to evaluate how increased costs resulting from the program affect competitiveness, welfare and income of Somali producers. Increasing taxes on livestock sales offers the best prospect as the way to implement the health certification plan in the Somali region. This option has the less negative impact on exports, and welfare; it also has the higher benefit for the poor given that it implies a transfer from middle and better-off producers to poor producers. The sales tax policy would benefit pastoralists and traders and will affect sedentary farmers and agro-pastoralists negatively although the total amount of the expected losses is small.


Background: Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) have become a major public health challenge worldwide in the past few decades. The impact is felt in all sectors in South Africa, as in other parts of sub-Saharan Africa. Several health-related approaches have been adopted to facilitate an understanding of and reduction in the risk factors associated with HIV and AIDS. Following the demonstration of underperformance by the new voluntary counselling and testing (VCT) guidelines in South Africa, otherwise referred to as HIV counselling and testing (HCT), in providing practical suggestions on ways to optimally engage clients to ensure that testing for HIV is being performed, an evaluation to ascertain other patient-influencing factors on healthcare worker-initiated HCT was needed. Thus, the aim of this study was to describe patients' perceptions of the benefits of and barriers to HCT, and their willingness to test. Method: One hundred and seventy-two patients referred for HCT were randomly selected over a three-month period. Data were collected by a research assistant using the modified standardised World Health Organization/ Health Global Access Project (HGAP) questionnaire. Results: The majority of the participants demonstrated a good perception of the benefits of and barriers to HCT, and most reported good self-efficacy with regard to protecting themselves against HIV infection and preventing the acquisition thereof. However, only 74% were confident enough to test for HIV, while 28% reported being reluctant to notify their partners of their status if they tested positive, and 38% reported fear of healthcare workers showing discrimination as a barrier to HCT. Conclusion: Despite excellent perceptions of the HCT programme, a significant association between participants' perceptions of HCT and their willingness to test for HIV was not reported (p > 0.05).


In the current work, we investigate the feasibility of using past experience to predict which documents will be accessed by users. Document access may be viewed as a surrogate measure of relevance, in which case the discussion here regards a method to improve retrieval effectiveness. But our main concern here is with users' access patterns per se. The prediction of future document accesses based on the past, is applied to two different IR services, (a) browsing and (b) keyword search. A straightforward method using conditional probabilities shows promise in both cases, while very different access patterns are observed for users of the two different IR services. These results have potential technical uses in improving document retrieval, and also shed light on the very significant differences between users of different IR-related services.


It is well recognized in the literature that the performance of the hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) transmission can be improved by adapting the transmission parameters through exploiting extra information from the receiver over the feedback channel. This introduces new degrees of freedom for a more flexible per-link optimized transmission. This paper proposes a framework considering the practical aspects of such feedback design and analyzes better resource utilization by retransmission techniques in the 5th generation mobile networks (5G) technology. We propose to generate a decoder state information (DSI) feedback at the receiver side and to enable using this information at the encoder side where retransmission parameters will be set to meet an optimal target block error rate. The savings in retransmission resources can then be utilized for transmission of other packets. The systemlevel simulation results show the attractive enhancement of ~8% average throughput gain by using only one extra feedback bit per HARQ process compared to conventional HARQ approach.


In recent years, linguistics has become increasingly more willing to allow some type of representation of 'meaning' in the study of language. However, most approaches deal with sentence or utterance meaning and thereby ignore the meaning of linguistic form. Yet no description of linguistic semantics can be complete without a comprehensive account between meaning and form. This study returns to the problem of form and meaning by presenting a detailed account of certain forms in Spanish which have traditionally been called grammatical forms, or grammatical categories, and associated with grammatical meaning. It is suggested that not all linguistic forms represent the same kind of 'meaning', and that a subset of grammatical forms constitute a highly organized system that parallels phonology and syntax in its capacity to explain variation at the level of discourse. The book opens with an introductory chapter, which is followed by five chapters on the analysis of the Spanish verbal system. In Chapter 7 problems of the noun phrase (the meaning of determiners and grammatical number) are discussed. Chapter 8 offers an explanation of the meaning of the direct object a, and in Chapter 9 a crosslinguistic study of the semantics of Spanish and English is presented. A summary of findings is given in Chapter 10, along with a further consideration of the goals and procedures of semantic analysis.


Background The reduction in the amount of food available for European avian scavengers as a consequence of restrictive public health policies is a concern for managers and conservationists. Since 2002, the application of several sanitary regulations has limited the availability of feeding resources provided by domestic carcasses, but theoretical studies assessing whether the availability of food resources provided by wild ungulates are enough to cover energetic requirements are lacking. Methodology/Findings We assessed food provided by a wild ungulate population in two areas of NE Spain inhabited by three vulture species and developed a P System computational model to assess the effects of the carrion resources provided on their population dynamics. We compared the real population trend with to a hypothetical scenario in which only food provided by wild ungulates was available. Simulation testing of the model suggests that wild ungulates constitute an important food resource in the Pyrenees and the vulture population inhabiting this area could grow if only the food provided by wild ungulates would be available. On the contrary, in the Pre-Pyrenees there is insufficient food to cover the energy requirements of avian scavenger guilds, declining sharply if biomass from domestic animals would not be available. Conclusions/Significance Our results suggest that public health legislation can modify scavenger population trends if a large number of domestic ungulate carcasses disappear from the mountains. In this case, food provided by wild ungulates could be not enough and supplementary feeding could be necessary if other alternative food resources are not available (i.e. the reintroduction of wild ungulates), preferably in European Mediterranean scenarios sharing similar and socio-economic conditions where there are low densities of wild ungulates. Managers should anticipate the conservation actions required by assessing food availability and the possible scenarios in order to make the most suitable decisions.


markdownabstractPediatric acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) is a heterogeneous disease, caused by the malignant transformation of either T-cell (~15% of the cases) or B-cell progenitors (~85% of the cases). To further improve the survival of children with ALL, new targeted treatment strategies are warranted. Therefore, it is essential to gain insight in the pathobiology of childhood ALL.

The scope of this thesis is on pediatric B-cell precursor ALL (BCP-ALL). We studied:
1) the occurrence of tyrosine kinase fusion genes (i.e. ABL and JAK class) and JAK2 mutations in pediatric BCP-ALL cases;
2) the efficacy of JAK inhibitors in JAK2 aberrant (translocations and point mutations) leukemic cells;
3) the potential of STAP1 as therapeutic target for DUX4-rearranged ALL cases;
4) the association between copy number aberrations in B-cell development genes (e.g. IKZF1, PAX5), long‑term prognosis, and cellular drug resistance;
5) the supportive properties and gene expression profiles of mesenchymal stromal cells derived from pediatric BCP-ALL patients and healthy pediatric donors.

Our results show efficacy of new precision medicines, i.e. JAK inhibitors, but we also identified important limitations that should be overcome. Moreover, we show that the genetic context matters and that the effect of anti-cancer drugs should be studied in the proper genetic context. Lastly, we show that mesenchymal stromal cells are not actively involved in BCP-ALL leukemogenesis. Instead leukemic cells actively modulate signaling pathways in MSCs to support BCP-ALL cell survival. Targeting this interaction between BCP‑ALL cells and MSCs might be an attractive alternative treatment strategy.


Abstract. Enhancements were observed in backscattered radar power during an ionospheric heating experiment from two distinct altitude regions in the auroral E region above Tromso. For the experiment the EISCAT Tromso heater was operated with O mode and X mode alternated at 4.04 MHz, close to the 3rd electron gyroharmonic. Ion-line data recorded with the EISCAT UHF radar reveal different temporal evolutions as well as different ion-line characteristics for the enhancements from the two altitude regions. The upper layer is dominated by a strong central feature, whereas the lower layer has three peaks corresponding to the central feature and the two ion lines. The altitude region of the two closely spaced (altitude separation ~ 5 km) but distinct enhancements is close to the critical altitude for the heater wave.


We analyze the impact of the length of incomplete contracts on investment and surplus sharing. In the bilateral relationship explored, the seller controls the input and the buyer invests. With two‐part tariffs, the length of the contract is irrelevant: the surplus is maximal and goes to the seller. In linear contracts, the seller prefers the shortest contract and the buyer the longest one. Further, the commitment period concentrates the incentives, whereas afterwards there is rent extraction. The socially efficient contract is as short as possible; yet, long contracts can be promoted because of the surplus they allocate to the buyer.


Professionals and professional firms provide a range of taxation-related services, from advising clients on their tax obligations to designing and implementing tax-reduction strategies. Provided that tax professionals respect the letter of the law, are all such tax services morally permissible? We answer this question in the negative by distinguishing between institutional integrity and institutional corruption in fiscal arrangements; tax services that promote a situation of fiscal institutional corruption are impermissible, given that they severely inhibit the ability of taxation institutions to collect revenue efficiently and equitably. The professional facilitation of abusive tax avoidance — explicit tax reduction that is contrary to the spirit or intent of the law — is a particularly prominent aspect of fiscal institutional corruption. We illustrate the role of professionals in designing, promoting and implementing abusive tax avoidance strategies through several case studies, including the Wyly offshore network and the KPMG tax shelter scandal. In addition, we claim that tax professionals have specific responsibilities to help remedy institutional corruption associated with abusive tax avoidance. To argue this thesis, we present general principles for assigning remedial responsibilities to particular agents. We then apply those principles to determine what three major groups of tax professionals — accountants, lawyers, and financial experts — ought to do about abusive tax avoidance.


Neglect, abuse, and negative life events (NLEs) can be traumatic, distressing, and debilitating. Our understanding of these kinds of trauma in the general community is limited, as most of the extant research relies on clinical samples, uses constrained sets of outcomes, and lacks agreement on appropriate measures. This thesis presents research designed to overcome some of these limitations. Two new measures of abuse and NLEs were developed, allowing separate measurement of the frequency and severity of trauma across different life stages. The measures, and the SCL-90-R were administered in a random community survey (220 females, 168 males), with a 62% response rate. The abuse scale revealed three discrete factors: psychological abuse, sexual abuse, and physical abuse. Derived subscales produced from two of these factors were all internally reliable, as was the total abuse scale. The Psychological Abuse Scale produced three subscales: Emotional Neglect, Belittlement, and Judgmental. The Physical Abuse Scale produced two subscales: Subjugation and Physical Violence. The Sexual Abuse Scale was not differentiable any further. When the scales and subscales were tested using structural equation modeling, all models performed well, with minimal amounts of unexplained variance. All scales and subscales contributed to a reliable and valid higher-order model of maltreatment.

Prevalence rates of abuse, especially psychological abuse, were high for both males and females. Males reported higher lifetime histories of psychological abuse than did females. Importantly, the genders showed different symptom patterns and cumulative effects among the types and subtypes of abuse. Psychological abuse was the most severe form of abuse, followed by physical abuse. The most common symptoms following maltreatment were paranoid ideation, interpersonal sensitivity, hostility, somatisation, and psychoticism. Sexual abuse was the least reported form of abuse, with only weak associations with symptom measures, though females showed more severe effects than did males.

 The frequency with which NLEs are experienced was moderately associated with various symptoms, was more dysfunctional for males, and the associated distress increased in intensity through the life stages for males only. Including NLEs into a higher-order structural equation model of trauma significantly increased the model"s adequacy. The severity of the experience of NLEs predicted psychological dysfunction, particularly for males, and more strongly when experienced during adulthood than in other life stages. For females, psychological abuse was the strongest predictor of dysfunction, particularly Emotional Neglect when experienced during adulthood, and Physical Violence and Subjugation during childhood.

The two measures developed in this thesis add important tools to allow further non-clinical research on the experience of abuse and NLEs. They could also be useful clinically as assessment-guided therapy tools. This thesis demonstrates the value of using a community sample, rather than a clinical sample, as it allowed estimates of community prevalence rates, and was able to include more males than would present in clinical samples. Future research needs to further investigate the interplay between the severity and frequency of the experience of abuse and NLEs (possible now with the new tools developed here which measure frequency and severity separately). It is also important that future research, on how males and females experience abuse and NLEs, makes comparisons within each gender rather than between the genders.


The water masses of the Arctic Ocean shelf regions are significantly influenced by river water and sea-ice processes. Since river water is highly depleted in ∂18O relative to marine waters as well as to sea-ice, the ∂18O composition and salinity of a water sample can be used to separate the different freshwater water sources. In this paper the distributions of river water, sea-ice melt water or sea-ice formation are discussed for the Kara, Laptev and Beaufort shelves based on ∂18O and salinity data. Depending on the average depth the observed fields of salinity and ∂18O values are different for each region. But comparing the overall ∂18O and salinity correlations reveals a remarkable similarity for these three Arctic shelf regions as similar local bottom-water masses are formed by sea-ice processes. Remnants of these seaice derived bottom water masses are found on all shelves during summer at a salinity of about 30. Investigations at the shelf break of the Kara Sea and Laptev Sea show that river water as well as brine waters are exported to the Arctic Ocean halocline. This export shows inter-annual variability in correlation with wind forcing during summer.


The emergence of functional novelties during protein evolution has puzzled scientists for many years. Most proposed models focus on repeated duplication‐divergence cycles, but the entanglement of selection pressures acting on the control of transcriptional and enzymatic activity, for example, by metabolites, has not been addressed so far. In this issue of EMBO Reports, Noda‐Garcia et al describe two glutamate dehydrogenase paralogs from Bacillus subtilis with very similar sequences and under two distinct modes of activity control. The functional divergence of these two enzymes during evolution is driven by an interlinked combination of differences between their enzymatic properties and their transcriptional regulation. This article thus illuminates another level of complexity in molecular evolution that may help understand the hitherto unexplained co‐existence of paralogous genes that at first sight appear to be functionally redundant.


A UNEP-sponsored project, implemented by CIFOR focused on the West African humid forests of Ghana and Nigeria. Liberia, Sierra Leone and Cameroon also were included in the study. The general objective of the project was to integrate all available information on humid forest formations in this region in order to promote initiatives to foster the adoption of sustainable forest management principles. The report is organised into nine chapters. The first chapter gives an account of the forestry situation in West and Central Africa, with emphasis on vegetation distribution and factors affecting forest management. Chapters 2 and 3 highlight past and present silvicultural and forest management practices and also consider management control systems. The relevance of biodiversity and the role of non-timber forest products are explored in Chapter 4. Inter-generational issues, socio-economic factors influencing sustainable forest management, and the relevance of policies and legislation are addressed in Chapters 5, 6 and 7. Chapter 8 outlines strategies and incentives which might be adopted to promote sustainable forest management. The report concludes with suggestions for research which could be undertaken to fill gaps in knowledge which became apparent in the course of this project. The project contributes to a larger joint project currently being undertaken by CIFOR and the Government of France for the Francophone countries of Cote d'Ivoire, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Congo and Gabon.


Moving a global consulting organisation from an attitude based on individuals' "knowledge is power" to the advocated principles of knowledge sharing is a challenge that requires facilitation. This paper studies a real global consulting organisation that recognised that important firm resources like processes, technology and capital were not enough in order to drive the required attitudinal change. Details are presented about the lessons learned from a couple of unsuccessful past knowledge management programs and from a successful implementation of a knowledge enablement program involving agents as facilitators of attitudinal change. Some of the lessons learned were that (i) action research components were of help harvesting knowledge assets from tacit knowledge, (ii) perceived value moderates the motivation of associates to participate in the knowledge enablement program, and (iii) knowledge practice owners should perform their agentic task as consultants. A topic for discussion is if the prior knowledge of knowledge practice owners on a given knowledge domain is a requirement to facilitate an attitudinal change.


The yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisae, isolated from fermented food was used in this
study. Batch fermentation studies of S. cerevisae in a 2 L stirred tank fermenter were
undertaken to generate kinetic growth data for the design of continuous and fed-batch
fermentation. The variables studied in batch fermentation include the use of different
concentrations of carbon and nitrogen sources and the effect of agitation speed (ranging
from 200 to 1200 rpm), on the performance of each fermentation. The fermenter
equipped with the multifermenter control system (MFCS) was used in exponential fedbatch
fermentation to control the feeding rate of the glucose to the culture according to
the proposed algorithm.
In batch fermentation, final cell concentration obtained increased proportionally with
initial glucose concentration up to 120 g/L, which gave a constant cell yield of 0.13 g
celllg glucose. However, the specific growth rate (p) reduced with increase in glucose concentration. The amount of ethanol accumulated in the culture also increased
proportionally with increasing glucose concentration. In term of overall productivity, the
highest (0.35 g/L.h) was obtained in fermentation using 80-120 g/L glucose. Different
growth characteristics of yeast were also observed at different agitation speeds.The final
cell concentration increased from 29.76 g/L at agitation speed of 200 rpm to 41.90 g/L at
1000 rpm. However, a slight decrease in cell viability was observed with increasing
agitation speed. The fermentation with controlled DOT throughout the fermentation (via
agitation speed) did not improve the fermentation performance. For example, maximum
cell concentration obtained in fermentation where DOT was controlled at 40% saturation
was only 20.38 g/L.
From this study, it can be suggested that the optimal medium composition and culture
condition for batch cultivation of Baker's yeast are as follows; glucose (100 g/L); yeast
extract (25.0 g/L); peptone (11.80 g/L); agitation speed (1000 rpm); air flow rate (1
vvm); DOT not controlled; and pH controlled at 5.5. In this fermentation run, the final
cell concentration obtained was 41.90 g/L which gave the cell yield and overall
productivity of 0.24 g/g and 2.41 g/L.h, respectively. Although higher overall
productivity was obtained in continuous culture (5.53 g/L.h) operated at a dilution rate
of 0.3 h-', the concentration of cell (18.43 g/L) in outflow was very much lower than in
batch culture. In addition, the cell yield obtained in continuous culture 0.21 g/g was
slightly lower than those obtained in batch fermentation.
The models based on Monod and Luedeking-Piret equations were found suitable to
describe the growth of S. cerevisiae, glucose consumption and ethanol production in batch and continuous fermentation processes. Kinetic parameters such as b,,, Ks and
Yds were estimated and used to verify the experimental data.
High cell density cultivation was achieved in exponential fed-batch fermentation with
the feed rate of the substrate increased according to the exponential growth of the yeast
at specific growth rate (0.1 to 0.4 h-') below the maximum. The highest cell
concentration (89.97 glL) was obtained at specific growth rate of 0.1 h", which was
associated with very small quantity of ethanol accumulated and residual sugar was not
detected in the culture during the fermentation. The cell yield (0.72 g celllg glucose) and
overall productivity (3.8 g1L.h) obtained in fed-batch fermentation was significantly
higher than those obtained in batch fermentation. The sugar limitation that was
maintained during exponential fed-batch fermentation was successfully utilized to
enhanced biomass yield and substrate cultivation hence.


The brainchild of former Blur frontman, Damon Albarn and animator, Jamie Hewlett, Gorillaz are the self-proclaimed world's "first virtual hip-hop group", consisting of four animated characters who serve as a front for the bands's chief protagonists as well as an extended network of collaborating musicians, DJs and producers. Since their debut release and first public performance in March 2001, they have evolved from arguably little more than a novelty experiment, to something of a popular music phenomenon, reconfiguring the role of moving image within the genre and challenging our perceptions of what constitutes a pop group. Upon closer examination, however, their success, particularly as a live act, can be seen as something of a mystery. The absence of visible, in-the-flesh musicians on-stage in favour of screen animations and guest performers during their live peformances, the associated familiarity of Albarn's voice and the simple fact that the band's conceptual ideas concerning multimedia exploration seem to predate the technological advances required to realise them, are all factors that might appear to condemn Gorillaz to failure as a performing outfit. Do they represent one of the most successful marriages of music and moving image in the concert environment to date, or do their performances offer little more than a string of guest stars with visual decoration?By viewing the development of the band's live shows in the context of established conventions within video and popular music performance, and exploring their existence as a collaborative force, this paper aims to shed light on the practice of one of pop's most unique acts.


Fixed dose Combination (FDC) was mainly presented to simplify complex medical regimens and potentially improve adherence. Therefore, it was advocated in several chronic diseases guidelines in hospitals and health authorities. However, the data on comparison of FDC with their Single Pill Combination (SPC) to improve patient's medication compliance is limited. Objective: To highlight the implications of FDC medicines compared to SPCs in a tertiary hospital in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Method: This is a single-center observational retrospective cohort study conducted in a tertiary hospital in the UAE. This study was performed from patient perspective by using a survey on a target of 200 chronic patients using multiple-choice simple questions. The questionnaire was in Arabic—the mother tongue language of the UAE. The inclusion criteria were adult patients over 18 years, able to read and write Arabic, and willing to fill in the questionnaire, has at least one chronic condition and using at least one combination medicine for a minimum of 3 months. Economic impact was also measured based on the pricing lists of the combinations versus single doses, presuming the same clinical effect. Results: Only 67 patients were included in this study, of them 58% males and 42% females. Age groups between 20 and 49 years old showed the highest acceptance of FDC with a percentage of 78%. On the other hand, 70-81 years old were the lowest age group to accept the FDC with a percentage of 27%. Additionally, it was found that 55% of the men aged from 20 to 49 years old had more prevalence of accepting FDC than women from the same age group with 25.9%. Nevertheless, 63% of the included patients were taking five or more medications and were exposed to at least one poly-pharmacy episode and the risk of non-compliance to the medication regimen is reduced. Conclusions: This study is additional evidence that the use of FDCs is encouraging. FDC provides us with a strong armamentarium in chronic disease management. Although there are some advantages and disadvantages of using FDC, it should be considered in patients with chronic conditions for improving medication compliance which
can translate into better clinical outcomes.


To reduce the impact of the high current on the power grid from the start process of the large induction motor and eliminate the negative influences of traditional reduced voltage start on the electronic and mechanical equipments and enhance the ability of the energy saving of the system. We studied and improved the intelligent soft start of such motors, this paper presents the design of intelligent soft starting controller in viewpoint of energy saving for power electronic systems. The proposed controller was compared through experimental studies under identical conditions with the thyristor soft starting controller (conventional controller). The performance comparison is made on the aspects of power quality and energy saving advantages. It is found that the proposed controller has superior operating and performance characteristics as compared to the conventional one.


Infrared emission spectra from metal samples with oxide surface layers are shown to be very advantageously studied using the spectrum-ratioing facility of a recording infrared interferometer. The emission from a given sample is ratioed against that from a black-body emitter at the same temperature so as to give emittance as a function of wavenumber directly. This method has very useful application to irregularly shaped metal emitters. In the absence of selective reflection there is a direct correspondence between emission and absorption spectra for thin layers of an emitting substance. However, the presence of selective reflection leads to reduced emission and to considerable differences in the appearance of "absorption" and emission spectra in regions of strong absorption. Emission spectra obtained from copper plates heated, above 150°C, for different periods in air are shown clearly to indicate the presence of cuprous, Cu(I), and cupric, Cu(II), oxides in the surface layer.


Statistical observations of the epoch of reionization using the 21 cm line of neutral hydrogen have the potential to revolutionize our understanding of structure formation and the first luminous objects. However, these observations are complicated by a host of strong foreground sources. Several foreground-removal techniques have been proposed in the literature, and it has been assumed that these would be used in combination to reveal the epoch of reionization (EOR) signal. By studying the characteristic subtraction errors of the proposed foreground-removal techniques, we identify an additional subtraction stage that can further reduce the EOR foreground contamination, and study the interactions between the foreground-removal algorithms. This enables us to outline a comprehensive foreground-removal strategy that incorporates all previously proposed subtraction techniques. Using this foreground-removal framework and the characteristic subtraction errors, we discuss the complementarity of different foreground-removal techniques and the implications for array design and the analysis of EOR data.


Quantitative genetic models have indicated that sexual selection may lead to speciation in isolated populations or to exaggeration of differences in male traits along a cline. We argue that where female mate preference and opposing natural selection against conspicuous males have produced a stable equilibrium in male trait genotype, a reversed female mate preference may invade the population, initially assisted by reduced male mortality. The consequent linkage disequilibrium may lead to rapid sympatric speciation. Assuming a four-locus quantitative male trait and single-locus female preference rule and overlapping generations, we present a simulation model which indicates that reversal of female mate preference in a single individual can lead rapidly to full reproductive isolation in a small population. Speciation may be produced by the proposed mechanism in allopatry, parapatry or full sympatry. We suggest that differences in mating system and its genetic bases may account for some of the differences in speciation rates among lineages.


Hindpaw injection of formalin produces acute (Phase 1) and persistent (Phase 2) nociceptive behaviors. This model has provided critical evidence supporting a contribution of central sensitization (hyperexcitability of spinal neurons) to the expression of persistent pain. Here, we evaluated the contribution of ongoing peripheral nerve inputs to Phase 2 pain responses. In addition to pain behavior (flinching), we measured formalin-evoked increases in arterial pressure and heart rate; these cardiovascular responses were also biphasic in nature. The arterial pressure response correlated highly with behavior, and was dependent on formalin concentration (0.625–5.0%), indicating that it was largely driven by noxious input. Lightly anesthetized (0.7% halothane) rats exhibited robust increases in blood pressure in the absence of pain behavior, indicating cardiovascular responses did not reflect somatomotor-cardiovascular coupling. Animals obtained from Charles River exhibited slightly larger Phase 2 flinching and heart rate responses compared to those obtained from Bantin and Kingman, suggesting cardiovascular-related pain responses can vary with the source of animal. We next evaluated the contribution of ongoing peripheral nerve activity to the expression of the Phase 2 pressor, tachycardia, and flinch responses. After Phase 1 subsided, but before Phase 2 began, we locally anesthetized the ipsilateral or contralateral (control) hindpaw with a hydrophilic lidocaine derivative, QX-314 (2%). Intraplantar QX-314 blocked Phase 2 pressor, tachycardia and behavioral responses only when injected into the paw that received formalin (2.5% or 10.0%). We conclude that persistent ongoing activity in peripheral afferent fibers during Phase 2 is required for the persistent pain evoked by formalin.


There is ample evidence that native speakers anticipate upcoming information at various levels during sentence comprehension. In contrast, some studies on late second-language (L2) learners support the view that L2 learners do not anticipate information during processing, or at least, not to the same extent as native speakers do. In the current paper, I propose that native and L2 speakers are underlyingly the same as far as sentence processing mechanisms are concerned, and that potential differences in anticipatory behavior can be accounted for by the same factors that drive individual differences in native speakers; in particular, differences in frequency biases, competing information, the accuracy and consistency of the lexical representation, and task-induced effects. Suggestions for future research are provided.


Fe3O4 thin film prepared by pulsed laser deposition on Si (100) substrate has been investigated by transmission electron microscopy from plane and cross-sectional views. The thin film, which shows a spinel structure as characterized by selected-area diffraction, is about 180 nm thick with granular growth of particle size about 50 nm. High resolution electron microscopy observations indicate reduced thickness of the native SiO2 layer between the thin film and Si due to rastering of the substrate surface by an unfocused laser beam before the deposition. By using a 220 diffraction spot in two beam condition near the 〈001〉 axis of a single Fe3O4 grain, antiphase boundaries (APBs) inside the grains could be clearly resolved. The existence of APBs in the thin film is consistent with the magnetic experiments including an open hysteresis loop and unsaturated magnetization in relatively high magnetic fields. This study suggests that APBs are not unique to Fe3O4 films grown on MgO substrates.