One of the key problems in dental biomechanics is the prediction of tooth mobility under functional loads. Understanding tooth displacement due to load is becoming more important as new solutions in dental restorations, prosthodontics and orthodontic treatments become increasingly more advanced. The mechanical characterization of the alveolar bone, the tooth and the periodontal ligament surrounding the root of the tooth, is necessary to predict tooth mobility. The common assumption is that the periodontal ligament acts as the major element in the stress distribution to the supporting tissues. Obtaining parameters that describe periodontal ligament mechanical behaviour is a challenging problem. Isolating the tissue for testing, the small size of the specimen, and the necessity to maintain, as much as possible, the ligament in vitro under normal physiological conditions, are all factors that contribute to the complexity of the problem. The aim of this thesis is twofold and can be subdivided into two primary objectives. The first objective is to describe its morphology, anatomy, histology and structure of the components in order to determine its geometric parameters at different length scales. The second objective is to determine its mechanical properties by identifying key parameters through shear and uniaxial tension-compression tests. Four studies are performed to describe the morphology, anatomy and histology of the periodontal ligament. First, macroscopic and microscopic measurements of the tooth, bone, and the periodontal ligament are obtained. Second, a bovine first molar system is reconstructed in three dimensions from microcomputerized tomography scans. Third, the morphology of the ligament is observed during deformation using optical microscopy. Fourth, the histology of bovine periodontium tissue is investigated. In order to characterise the mechanical behaviour of the bovine periodontal ligament, custom- designed machines and gripping devices are constructed to subject speciallyprepared tissue specimens to shear and uniaxial tension-compression experiments. Shear experiments are performed on 2 millimetre thick transverse sections, and specimens of toothligament- bone of approximately 8x5x2 millimetres for uniaxial experiments. All specimens are obtained from first molar sites of freshly slaughtered bovines. In both shear and uniaxial testing, the specimens are subjected non-destructively to preconditioning, stress-relaxation, constant strain rate, and sinusoidal loading profiles before testing to rupture. The experiments reported in this thesis elucidate geometrical and mechanical characteristics of the periodontal ligament. Concerning its geometry, a variation in collagen fibre orientation is observed in transverse sections, moreover the symmetry of the shear tests in the apicocoronal direction suggests the periodontal ligament is vertically isotropic. Uniaxial specimens, however, may be considered to be transverse isotropic. Concerning its mechanical behaviour, the periodontal ligament is nonlinear viscoelastic in that it exhibits stiffening, nonlinear elasticity, and nonlinear pseudo-plastic viscosity. The interaction between various constituents of the periodontal ligament (collagen fibres, blood vessels, interstitial fluid etc...) during deformation contribute to the observed stress-strain response of this tissue. A nonlinear viscoelastic model presented in the literature, the Power Law, adequately simulates the nonlinear behaviour of the periodontal ligament using finite element analysis.


Our perception of the world is strongly influenced by our expectations, and a question of key importance is how the visual system develops and updates its expectations through interaction with the environment. We used a visual search task to investigate how expectations of different timescales (from the last few trials to hours to long-term statistics of natural scenes) interact to alter perception. We presented human observers with low-contrast white dots at 12 possible locations equally spaced on a circle, and we asked them to simultaneously identify the presence and location of the dots while manipulating their expectations by presenting stimuli at some locations more frequently than others. Our findings suggest that there are strong acuity differences between absolute target locations (e.g., horizontal vs. vertical) and preexisting long-term biases influencing observers' detection and localization performance, respectively. On top of these, subjects quickly learned about the stimulus distribution, which improved their detection performance but caused increased false alarms at the most frequently presented stimulus locations. Recent exposure to a stimulus resulted in significantly improved detection performance and significantly more false alarms but only at locations at which it was more probable that a stimulus would be presented. Our results can be modeled and understood within a Bayesian framework in terms of a near-optimal integration of sensory evidence with rapidly learned statistical priors, which are skewed toward the very recent history of trials and may help understanding the time scale of developing expectations at the neural level.


This paper explores the use of autobiography as a tool for teaching and learning in continuing education. In a recent continuing education course on adult learning and development, students took on the project of writing five chapters of their life story. Subsequent interviews with the writers explored the process and effects of writing. The findings suggest that when adult learners undertake autobiographical writing in the context of adult education, they embark on a process of self-exploration and meaning making that, in turn, can promote the development of an enlarged view of themselves and the world around them. Based upon these findings, a proposition is made for the transformative power of putting pen to paper.


Radiotherapy (RT) is part of standard cancer treatment. Innovations in treatment planning and increased precision in dose delivery have significantly improved the therapeutic gain of radiotherapy but are reaching their limits due to biologic constraints. Thus, a better understanding of the complex local and systemic responses to RT and of the biological mechanisms causing treatment success or failure is required if we aim to define novel targets for biological therapy optimization. Moreover, optimal treatment schedules and prognostic biomarkers have to be defined for assigning patients to the best treatment option. The complexity of the tumor environment and of the radiation response requires extensive in vivo experiments for the validation of such treatments. So far in vivo investigations have mostly been performed in time- and cost-intensive murine models. Here we propose the implementation of the chick chorioallantoic membrane (CAM) model as a fast, cost-efficient model for semi high-throughput preclinical in vivo screening of the modulation of the radiation effects by molecularly targeted drugs. This review provides a comprehensive overview on the application spectrum, advantages and limitations of the CAM assay and summarizes current knowledge of its applicability for cancer research with special focus on research in radiation biology and experimental radiation oncology.


Statutory offences that require proof of dishonesty have been enacted in England and Wales since 1968, and similarly, in other jurisdictions (notably, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada). Although dishonesty has been described as an "ordinary concept", "characterised by recognition rather than by definition", the concept has proved to be problematic - conceptually and in practice – not least as to whether or not dishonesty is to be judged objectively or subjectively, or involves a hybrid approach (in part objective and in part subjective). For thirty-five years, the approach in England and Wales appeared to be settled following the decision of the Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) in R v Ghosh. However, the UK Supreme Court held in Ivey v Genting Casinos (UK) Ltd - albeit obiter - that when dishonesty is in question the fact-finding tribunal must ascertain (subjectively) the actual state of the individual's knowledge or belief as to the facts, and thereafter, determine whether his conduct was honest or dishonest by applying (objectively) the standards of "ordinary decent people". There is no requirement (as stated in Ghosh) that the defendant must appreciate that what he has done is, by those standards, dishonest. This paper considers the history and issues relating to the concept of dishonesty, and it examines the six reasons given by the Supreme Court in Ivey for departing from the decision in Ghosh.


The fine structures (FS) of solar type IV radio bursts are of principal interest for flare plasma diagnostics in the low corona. In this paper we give an observational (Part I) and theoretical (Paper II) treatment of broad band radio pulsations (BBP) and zebra patterns (ZP) in a well observed flaring sigmoidal loop system of AR 7792 on 25 October 1994. We present comprehensive meter-decimeter radio spectral (Astrophysical Institute Potsdam, AIP) and meter wave heliographic (Nancay Radio Heliograph of Paris-Meudon Observatory, NRH) observations. Spectral and spatial properties of FS elements (one pulsation pulse, one single zebra stripe) as well as a statistical analysis for the whole fine structure event are presented. The source sites are compared with soft X-ray images of the flare, and with force-free extrapolated coronal magnetic fields. Both FS sources occur in a common diverging loop structure with a turning height of about 70 Mm. The BBP source is shown to appear (if seen along the loop axis) nearer to the injection site of the electrons than the ZP source. BBP do show high frequency drift ( ≈ –250 MHz s -1 ). At a given frequency, the projected source speed is $1.1\times 10^5$ km s -1 . For ZP, we find a good correlation between the inclination of a single zebra stripe to the heliographic observing frequency level in the dynamic spectrogram, and the speed of the simultaneously observed projected source motion at this frequency. The direction of the source motion at a given frequency is on average found to be perpendicular between BBP and ZP sources. During a time interval of 90 s the BBP source consists in its lower part (higher observing frequencies) of a widely spaced double source. Despite a source distance of 360 Mm both subsources are highly correlated and thus probably simultaneously driven. We come to the conclusion that both fine structures are emitted during repeated electron beam injection into an asymmetric magnetic trap configuration between a footpoint in the leading spot of AR 7792 and a trailing more dispersed footpoint. In Paper II we will show that the specifications derived from the data allow for selecting one out of several competing fine structure models which explains the simultaneous formation of BBP and ZP in the same loop structure.


With the semiclassical ensemble model, we systematically investigate the correlated electron dynamics in strong-field nonsequential double ionization (NSDI) by the counter-rotating circularly polarized two-color (CPTC) laser pulses. Our results show that the angular distributions of the electrons in NSDI sensitively depend on the intensity ratio of the CPTC laser fields. At the small ratio, the electron pairs emit with a relative angle of about 120°, and this angle shifts to 40° as the ratio increases and finally it exhibits a wide range distribution as the intensity ratio further increases. Back analysis of the NSDI trajectories shows that this behavior results from the relative-intensity-dependence of the release time of the electron pairs in the CPTC laser fields. The release times of the electron pairs are directly mapped to the angular distribution. Our results indicate that the emission times of the correlated electrons in NSDI can be controlled with the CPTC laser fields.


General filter architecture using co- and counterpropagation signals are studied. A specific configuration based on a Sagnac loop within a ring resonator is analyzed. Novel tuning, apart from conventional tuning, is achieved by changing the coupling ratio of a coupler through the adjustment of the equivalent loop length. Full equations describing the filter behavior in passive and active configurations, and simple closed-form formulas to compute the tuning, tolerance, and full-width at half-maximum are reported. The performance of these devices is discussed for their application as selective or channel-dropping ultra-narrow-band filters. The effect of losses and their dispersion properties are also discussed. These devices can be conveniently implemented, using silicon- or InP-integrated optic technology, for they have high free spectral ranges.


In order to determine if the characteristics of the Vaccinium nectars are responsible for the visits of pollinators (bumblebees, honeybees, hoverflies) (table I), the secretions of V myrtillus, V vitis-idaea and V uliginosum have been analysed for quantity, total sugar concentration and relative ratios of sugars. The quantities of extracted nectar differed among dates, flower ages and species (fig 1), as did total sugar concentration (mean: 18.79% for V myrtillus and 16.40% for V uliginosum) (table II). Great differences are shown between species in chromatographic analysis of their relative sugar ratios. V myrtillus nectar showed sucrose dominance (93.33%), V vitis-idaea had a more balanced nectar composition (28.52% sucrose, 53.24% fructose and 18.30% glucose), and V uliginosum nectar was sucrose poor (0.33% sucrose, 62.98% fructose and 35.93% glucose) (table III). An attempt was made to establish relations between these patterns of variation and foraging behaviour of insects. Actually pollinators are quite similar and it is doubtful that nectar characteristics alone determine visits. Further experiments are required.


It is likely that the demand for multiprocessor system-on-chip (MPSoC) with low power consumption and high reliability in the presence of soft errors will continue to increase. However, low power and reliable MPSoC design is challenging due to conflicting trade-off between power minimisation and reliability objectives. This thesis is concerned with the development and validation of techniques to facilitate effective design of low power and reliable MPSoCs. Special emphasis is placed upon system-level design techniques for MPSoCs with voltage scaling enabled processors highlighting the trade-offs between performance, power consumption and reliability. An important aspect in the system-level design is to validate reliability in the presence of soft errors through simulation technique. The first part of the thesis addresses the development of a SystemC fault injection simulator based on a novel fault injection technique. Using MPEG-2 decoder and other examples, it is shown that the simulator benefits from minimum design intrusion and high fault representation. The simulator is used throughout the thesis to facilitate the study of reliability of MPSoC. On-chip communication architecture plays a vital role in determining the performance and reliability of MPSoCs. The second part of the thesis focuses on comparative study between two types of on-chip communication architectures: network-on-chip (NoC) and advanced microprocessor bus architecture (AMBA). The comparisons are carried out using real application traffic based on MPEG-2 video decoder demonstrating the trade-off between performance and reliability. The third part of the thesis concentrates on low power and reliable system-level design techniques. Two new techniques are presented, which are capable of generating optimised designs in terms of low power consumption and reliability. The first technique demonstrates a power minimisation technique through appropriate voltage scaling of the MPSoC cores, such that real-time constraints are met and reliability is maintained at acceptable-level. The second technique deals with joint optimisation of power minimisation and reliability improvement for time-constrained MPSoCs. Extensive experiments are conducted for these two new techniques using different applications, including MPEG-2 video decoder. It is shown that the proposed techniques give significant power reduction and reliability improvement compared to existing techniques.


The identification of entities that play an important role in a system is one of the fundamental analyses being performed in network studies. This topic is mainly related to centrality indices, which quantify node centrality with respect to several properties in the represented network. The nodes identified in such an analysis are called central nodes. Although centrality indices are very useful for these analyses, there exist several challenges regarding which one fits best
for a network. In addition, if the usage of only one index for determining central
nodes leads to under- or overestimation of the importance of nodes and is
insufficient for finding important nodes, then the question is how multiple indices
can be used in conjunction in such an evaluation. Thus, in this thesis an approach is proposed that includes multiple indices of nodes, each indicating
an aspect of importance, in the respective evaluation and where all the aspects of a node's centrality are analyzed in an explorative manner. To achieve this
aim, the proposed idea uses fuzzy operators, including a parameter for generating different types of aggregations over multiple indices. In addition, several preprocessing methods for normalization of those values are proposed and discussed. We investigate whether the choice of different decisions regarding the
aggregation of the values changes the ranking of the nodes or not. It is revealed that (1) there are nodes that remain stable among the top-ranking nodes, which
makes them the most central nodes, and there are nodes that remain stable
among the bottom-ranking nodes, which makes them the least central nodes; and (2) there are nodes that show high sensitivity to the choice of normalization
methods and/or aggregations. We explain both cases and the reasons why the nodes' rankings are stable or sensitive to the corresponding choices in various networks, such as social networks, communication networks, and air transportation networks.


The recent Olympic games not only highlighted international sport, but also showcased psychology at work (or at play). Olympic competitors from around the world discussed mental training and cited experiences with sport psychologists. Less visibly, but no less important, sport psychology is reaching diverse sport and exercise participants around the world. We can see sport psychology with youth sports or health-related exercise programs in France, Korea, Brazil or New Zealand. Although the prominence of sport psychology in the Olympics is relatively recent, sport psychology was an international event when it emerged as a discipline in the 1960s, and the early roots of sport psychology over 100 years ago stretch around the world.


Many applications involve formulations or mixtures where large numbers of components are possible to choose from, but a final composition with only a few components is sought. Finding suitable binary or ternary mixtures from all the permissible components often relies on simplex-lattice sampling in traditional design of experiments (DoE), which requires performing a large number of experiments even for just tens of permissible components. The effect rises very rapidly with increasing numbers of components and can readily become impractical. This paper proposes constructing a single model for a mixture containing all permissible components from just a modest number of experiments. Yet the model is capable of satisfactorily predicting the performance for full as well as all possible binary and ternary component mixtures. To achieve this goal, we utilize biased random sampling combined with high dimensional model representation (HDMR) to replace DoE simplex-lattice design. Compared with DoE, the required number of experiments is significantly reduced, especially when the number of permissible components is large. This study is illustrated with a solubility model for solvent mixture screening.


I. INTRODUCTION "Tell me what kind of food you eat, and I will tell you what kind of man you are. ' In 2003, the United States, joined by Canada and Argentina (the Complaining Parties), brought a claim to the World Trade Organization (WTO) that the European Communities' (EC) strict regulation of genetically modified (GM) foods violated trade obligations.2 In 2006, the WTO dispute settlement body agreed with the Complaining Parties that the EC had not adequately justified its restrictions on genetically modified foods.1 However, unlike many international matters before the WTO,4 decisions about food and food choice cannot easily be resolved, and it is likely that this dispute will not end with this decision.5 Food has complex social and cultural meanings integral to the way legal decisions about food are made and enforced. After all, we are what we eat. This Comment contends that the decision in EC Biotech fails to account for the cultural significance of food and, therefore, will not resolve the controversy over GM food regulation. It identifies cultural factors that will make it difficult for the EC to comply with the WTO ruling. The Comment then proposes mandatory labeling as an alternative solution advancing free market principles while respecting cultural considerations. Part II provides an overview of GM foods, including potential risks and benefits. Part III lays out the respective United States and European Union regulation of GM foods, outlining the historical development of GM foods and the attitudes underlying the differences in regulation. Part IV discusses the EC Biotech decision. In particular, it looks at the Panel finding that the EC violated the WTO Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures (SPS Agreement)6 and at the EC's claim that it should be allowed to impose stricter measures on the regulation of GM foods. Part V evaluates the adequacy of the WTO's response to European arguments for stricter regulation of GM foods and considers the likelihood that the decision will resolve the dispute between the United States and the European Union. The section assesses the Report in light of the underlying cultural aspects of European regulation, and it contends that the WTO fails to adequately account for cultural values and therefore will have difficulty implementing the decision. The Comment concludes by defending labeling as an alternative resolution-one that better accounts for cultural values while encouraging United States' access to the European Market. II. INTRODUCTION TO GENETICALLY MODIFIED FOODS A. Genetically Modified Foods In order to understand the controversy, it is important to know how GM foods are created and why Europeans might be wary of them. Genetically modified foods are derived from organisms whose DNA has been altered through the insertion of genes from one organism into a second organism in order to suppress, encourage, or otherwise alter particular genetic traits in the second organism.7 One example of a genetic modification is the creation of an herbicide-resistant cotton plant-a gene increasing herbicide resistance is isolated in one plant, removed, replicated, and then reinserted into the DNA of the target plant. The process often uses bacteria to carry the selected DNA and antibiotic marker genes to identify altered cells. Genes can be transferred between plants, animals, or microorganisms-both plants and animals have been genetically modified." GM food comes primarily from four crops that dominate GM agriculture: soybeans, maize (corn), cotton, and canola.10 Within commercial GM crops, the predominant modification is herbicide resistance, followed by insect resistance." Other modifications include viral and fungal resistance, improved ability to resist environmental stresses, acceleration of growth time, and reduction in the maturation time of trees.12 The above traits affect plant growth, or "input," characteristics. …


This paper covers the development of computer simulation models of the Vapor Compression Distillation (VCD) process, the Super Critical Water Oxidation (SCWO) process, and two versions of a Vapor Phase Catalytic Ammonia Reduction (VPCAR) process. These process level models have combined into two Integrated Water Reclamation Systems (IWRS). Results from these integrated models, in conjunction with other data sources, have been used to develop a preliminary comparison of the two systems. Also discussed in this paper is the development of a Vapor Phase Catalytic Ammonia Reduction teststand and the development of a new urine analog for use with the teststand and computer models.


This study of the flow of online discussions examined how previous messages affected the current message along five dimensions: (1) evaluations (agreement, disagreement, or unresponsive actions); (2) knowledge content (contribution, repetition, or null content); (3) social cues (positive, negative, or none); (4) personal information (number of visits); and (5) elicitation (eliciting response or not). Using dynamic multilevel analysis (DMA) and a structural equation model (SEM), this study analyzed 131 messages of 47 participants across seven topics in the mathematics forum of a university Bulletin Board System (BBS) Website. Results showed that a disagreement or contribution in the previous message yielded more disagreements and social cue displays in the current message. Unlike face-to-face discussions, online discussion messages that disagreed with a previous message elicited more responses. Together, these results suggest that teachers can use and manage online discussions to promote critical thinking, facilitate discussion of controversial topics, and reduce status effects.


The largest transition in the select waveform of successive approximation technique is eliminated to reduce power dissipation in liquid crystal displays. Power dissipation in the driver circuit is analyzed for gray scale images by considering three select sequences. They are compared and a new select sequence is proposed to achieve low power dissipation. An additional pulse is introduced in the select waveform to reduce peak amplitude of select and data waveforms to achieve a low supply voltage for the driver circuit.


Abstract. Procedural memory allows animals to solve previously encountered tasks over weeks, months, or years efficiently. Although thoroughly documented in vertebrate clades such as mammals and birds, studies of procedural memory in squamate reptiles are lacking. Filling the gap in knowledge regarding procedural memory in squamates is important to understanding the degree to which procedural memory is unique to birds and mammals, as it is related to their unique cognitive abilities. We tested for memory of a problem-solving task in two species of monitor lizard (Varanus spp.) and a beaded lizard (Heloderma sp.) after a 20-mo hiatus in exposure, representing approximately 25% of their ages at the time of testing. All the monitor lizards had lower initial latencies to solve the task upon re-exposure posthiatus than they had as naïve individuals during the prehiatus trials and reached minimum latencies in fewer trials than when previously tested. Our results indicate procedural memory of puzzle-solving behaviors on the time scales of years. Our results add to an emerging literature suggesting that squamate and other nonavian reptiles share a number of cognitive traits with birds and mammals, suggesting that such traits are far more widespread across taxa than previously recognized. We also discuss a framework for studying cognition in squamates that would allow tests of cognition across a great diversity of body forms and ecologies.


Familiar portfolio concepts can explain why pooling of investor capital enables investors to achieve higher expected returns without additional risk exposure. The risk of the pooled investment must be a particular weighted average of the participating investors' preferred risks. Unveiling of the source of expected return improvements provides a clearer picture of what pooling can achieve. A variety of formulas to allocate the realized return from pooling among participating investors should help portfolio managers design effective allocation methods.


A bacterial-derived E3 ubiquitin ligase targets the human host protein glomulin, resulting in excess activation of the inflammasome and cell lysis. Inflammasomes are protein signaling complexes in the myeloid immune cells of host organisms that respond to pathogenic signals to elicit production of proinflammatory cytokines and programmed cell death of the host cell, which can limit the spread of infection. However, host cell lysis can also promote dissemination of microbial pathogens and thereby contribute to infection. Inflammasome composition is variable but typically includes the protease caspase 1, the adaptor protein ASC, and receptors that bind to damage- or pathogen-associated molecular patterns, such as NLRP3 and NRL4C, which are members of the nucleotide-binding oligomerization domain (NOD)-like receptor family. Suzuki et al. found that the infectious bacteria Shigella flexneri delivers an E3 ubiquitin ligase (IpaH7.8) into the host cell cytoplasm that promotes inflammasome activation and cell lysis. Deletion of the gene encoding IpaH7.8 (ΔipaH7.8) reduced the ability of Shigella to induce caspase 1 activation, cytokine production, and cell death of cultured primary and immortalized macrophages. These effects were reversed by reconstituting ΔipaH7.8 Shigella with IpaH7.8, but not with a Cys-Ala mutant form of IpaH7.8 that lacked E3 ubiquitin ligase activity. Pharmacological or genetic inhibition of caspase 1, but not caspase 3, reduced the ability of Shigella to induce macrophage cell death. Moreover, macrophages from Nlrc4-knockout mice or those with knockdown of NLRC4 or NLRP3 produced fewer cytokines in response to Shigella infection. Expression of IpaH7.8, but not the Cys-Ala mutant IpaH7.8, stimulated cytokine production in cultured human embryonic kidney 293T cells heterologously expressing the inflammasome components. IpaH7.8 interacted with glomulin, a protein that inhibits Cullin ring type E3 ligases. Macrophages infected with Shigella with intact IpaH7.8 showed increased glomulin turnover. IpaH7.8 promoted degradation of glomulin in 293T cells and the ubiquitylation of glomulin in vitro. Glomulin colocalized with inflammasome components in macrophages stimulated with lipopolysaccharide (LPS) and ATP. Overexpression of glomulin reduced cytokine production and macrophage cell death in response to LPS and ATP stimulation or Shigella infection. In 293T cells with heterologous expression of inflammasome components, knockdown of glomulin stimulated cytokine production in the absence of infection. In mice, intranasal inoculation with Shigella, or ΔipaH7.8 Shigella reconstituted with IpaH7.8, produced more inflammation and a larger bacterial load in the lung compared with ΔipaH7.8 Shigella or ΔipaH7.8 Shigella expressing the Cys-Ala IpaH7.8 mutant. Mice with heterozygous knockout of the gene encoding glomulin (Glmn +/- mice) produced a stronger inflammatory response and had higher bacterial loads in the lung than mice with intact glomulin (Glmn +/+ mice). Cultured macrophages from Glmn+/- mice showed increased cytotoxicity and cytokine production compared to those from Glmn+/+ mice when stimulated with LPS and ATP or infected with Shigella. Thus, Shigella inject an E3 ubiquitin ligase into host macrophages to degrade a negative regulator of inflammasome activation leading to host cell lysis and increased infection. S. Suzuki, H. Mimuro, M. Kim, M. Ogawa, H. Ashida, T. Toyotome, L. Franchi, M. Suzuki, T. Sanada, T. Suzuki, H. Tsutsui, G. Núñez, C. Sasakawa, Shigella IpaH7.8 E3 ubiquitin ligase targets glomulin and activates inflammasomes to demolish macrophages. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 111, E4254–E4263 (2014). [Abstract] [Full Text]


In this paper, we describe a component-based software architecture for the Internet of Things in which proxies for Things and services that we call "accessors" interact with one another under a concurrent, time-stamped, discrete-event (DE) semantics. These proxies are analogous to web pages, which proxy a cloud-based service such as a bank, but instead of being designed to interface those services with humans, accessors are designed to interface services and Things with other services and Things. A deterministic DE semantics is combined with a widely used pattern for handling network interactions that we call asynchronous atomic callbacks (AACs). AAC enables many concurrent pending requests to be active at once without blocking and without the treacherous concurrency pitfalls of threads. In effect, our architecture combines AAC with actors where the actor model has been endowed with a temporal semantics. We show how this architecture can leverage the previously reported secure swarm toolkit (SST) to achieve stateof- the-art authentication, authorization, and encryption of interactions across networks.


Infectious bursal disease (IBD) is an important immunosuppressive viral disease of chicken caused by IBD virus (IBDV). There are several strains of IBDV, and vaccination may not protect the chicken against all strains. Therefore as for control and prevention effort, it is important to know which strain is present in the field. In this study, four IBDV isolated from Malaysia had been characterized in detail. The isolates were B00/73, B00/81, 94230, and 94268. Based on their pathogenicity and sequence characteristics, these isolates were identified as very virulent strain of IBDV (vvIBDV). Further analyses of the genetic sequences of 131 IBDV isolates had provided new insights into the genomic properties of IBDV. These include its bias in base usage, the avoidance of CpG and TpA dinucleotides, the unique dinucleotide pattern of vvIBDV, and its acquisition of VP5 gene using overprinting strategy. Meanwhile, a better approach in studying the molecular evolution of IBDV was introduced and termed as "holistic approach of phylogenetic analysis". The approach widens the perspective of phylogenetic analysis and reduces error in phylogenetic inferences. Using this approach, IBDV isolated from Malaysia were shown to share a common origin with other foreign vvIBDV isolates. In addition, the vvIBDV isolated from village chicken (94268 isolate) was found to be evolutionary closely related to the isolates that affected the commercial chickens; indicating infection by vvIBDV is not limited within the farm boundary. This study also inquired into the cellular response of head-associated lymphoid tissues (HALT) following intraocular infection of vvIBDV. The two major lymphoid tissues of HALT are Harderian gland and conjunctiva-associated lymphoid tissue; in which together, both are indispensable for the local immunity in the paraocular region. HALT was impaired by vvIBDV infection at day 3-4 post-inoculation, but swiftly recovered at day 10. The destruction of HALT, though transient, may interfere with the vaccination programme for other respiratory diseases and give chance to opportunistic infection to the ocular and respiratory tract of chicken.


Following laws and provisions passed on the national and international level, the most relevant goal of future traffic and vehicular interfaces is to increase road safety. To alleviate the cognitive load associated with the interaction with the variety of emerging information and assistance systems in the car, subliminal stimulation is assumed to be a promising technique. To assess the potential of subliminal cues that could be used as their interaction means in future vehicles, we have organized a workshop within the frame of the automotive user interfaces conference (AutoUI 2011) to discuss this topic in a group of experts. This paper summarizes the findings from that workshop and should give researchers a starting point for their own activities in the field by indicating sort of grand research challenges and most critical issues. In particular, the goal of this summary article is to make this challenging research field more 'tangible' for researchers working in a range of disciplines, such as engineering, neuroscience, computer science, and psychophysiology. While currently discussed in the automotive domain only, the principles, research questions, and findings could immediately (and easily) be transferred to and adopted in other research fields. Interaction based on subliminal techniques can have an impact on society at large, making significant contributions toward a more natural, convenient, and even relaxing future style of interaction with any complex systems.


Across the country and in urban areas in particular, many students change schools during the academic year. While much research documents the impact of changing schools on the academic achievement of mobile students themselves, less research explores whether new arrivals have negative spillovers on stable classmates. The lack of research on impacts of mid-year entry is problematic, as poor, minority, and low-achieving students are disproportionately exposed to mid-year entry. In this study, we use a rigorous causal identification strategy and rich longitudinal data on fourth- through eighth-grade students in the New York City (NYC) public schools to estimate the impact of exposure to mid-year entry on the achievement of stable students. We analyze heterogeneous effects of mid-year entrants by origin (arriving from other NYC public schools, from other U.S. school systems, or from other countries), determine the extent to which mid-year entrants' characteristics mediate the impact of mid-year entry, and explore the moderating influence of stable students' characteristics. We find small negative effects of mid-year entry on both math and English language arts test scores in the short run. These impacts are not driven by mid-year entrant characteristics and are somewhat larger for Asian students and those who do not qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. Finally, results suggest mid-year entry continues to negatively influence the math performance of stable students beyond the year of exposure. We discuss the relevance of results and conclude with recommendations for future research.


International financial institutions and transnational corporations exert increasing influence on the human rights of populations worldwide. Simultaneously, growing global power imbalances make it increasingly difficult for weaker States to assert full control over policies that are central to their ability to fulfill their human rights obligations. While international human rights norms, and particularly economic, social and cultural (ESC) rights, may have an important role to play in addressing this power imbalance, the existing human rights legal framework is ill-equipped to deal with economic globalization and the human rights impact of powerful global actors. This Paper proposes a way in which these actors may be held accountable for their impacts under existing international human rights law. It first discusses accountability gaps in international law that undermine effective implementation of ESC rights, particularly those relating to non-state and foreign actors. It then critiques two existing arguments on how to read extraterritorial obligations into the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and proposes an alternative method that differentiates between the types of extraterritorial rights obligations that a State may incur. It concludes by suggesting specific ways that international financial institutions and transnational corporations can be held indirectly accountable for the ESC rights violations to which they contribute.


According to climate scientists, averting the worst consequences of climate change requires that the increase in global temperature should be limited to 2[degrees]C (or 3.6[degrees]F). To achieve that objective, global emissions of green house gases (GHGs)--the main human cause of global warming--must be reduced to 50 percent of 1990 levels by 2050. The key to successful climate change abatement at those scales lies in leveraging the collective actions of developed and developing countries. Cumulatively, developed countries have been responsible for most human emissions of GHGs. That picture will be quite different in the future as emissions from the developing world take over the top mantle. Given this dynamic, there is a general agreement internationally that developed countries will lead emissions reductions efforts and that developing countries will follow with "nationally appropriate mitigation actions." Turning that agreement into environmentally beneficial action requires close international coordination between the developed and developing countries in allocating the responsibility for the necessary reductions and following up with credible actions. However, the instruments employed so far to promote the necessary collective action have proved to be insufficient, unscalable, and questionable in terms of environmental benefit and economic efficiency. Currently, the most important and visible link between developed and developing countries' efforts on climate change is the Clean Development Mechanism (COM). The CDM uses market mechanisms--the "carbon markets"--to direct funding from developed countries to those projects in developing countries that lead to reductions in emissions of warming gases. In reality, the experience with the CDM has been mixed at best since its inception in 2006. While the CDM has successfully channeled funding to many worthy projects that reduce emissions of warming gasses, it has also spawned myriad projects with little environmental benefits. Overall, the CDM has led to a significant overpayment by developed countries for largely dubious emissions reductions in developing countries. As the world enters a new phase of large-scale climate change abatement efforts, it is imperative to motivate and persuade developing countries to take action on climate change, while providing the additional funds where necessary. It is increasingly clear that the CDM is not an effective instrument for engaging developing countries in climate change efforts. When climate change negotiators from around the world get together in Copenhagen in December 2009, one of the key discussion items will be the future of the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). Those negotiations will aim to design a new framework that retains CDM's positive traits while addressing CDM's fundamental limitations. Research at the Program on Energy and Sustainable Development (PESD) at Stanford University and other institutions across the globe show the need to reduce reliance on CDM-like mechanisms that promote perverse incentives while introducing new mechanisms that incentivize long-term changes in the emissions trajectories of the developing countries. PESD researchers have proposed a new framework, called the Climate Accession Deals (CADs), for incentivizing developing countries to take environmentally beneficial actions. The fundamental idea of the CAD framework is to find synergies between climate change benefits and the core interests--economic growth and energy security--of developing countries. Working to exploit those synergies, CADs include bi- or multi-1 ateral deals between developed and developing countries for effective action to mitigate climate change. CDM as an Emissions Offset Mechanism Within the Kyoto Protocol--the existing international climate change regime that is set to take a new shape after 2012--developed countries can emit more than their GHG emissions caps if they can offset those extra emissions by achieving emissions reductions in developing countries. …


Abstract. Combined measurements of the H218O and HDO isotopic ratios in precipitation, leading to second-order parameter D-excess, have provided additional constraints on past climates compared to the H218O isotopic ratio alone. More recently, measurements of H217O have led to another second-order parameter: 17O-excess. Recent studies suggest that 17O-excess in polar ice may provide information on evaporative conditions at the moisture source. However, the processes controlling the spatio-temporal distribution of 17O-excess are still far from being fully understood. We use the isotopic general circulation model (GCM) LMDZ to better understand what controls d-excess and 17O-excess in precipitation at present-day (PD) and during the last glacial maximum (LGM). The simulation of D-excess and 17O-excess is evaluated against measurements in meteoric water, water vapor and polar ice cores. A set of sensitivity tests and diagnostics are used to quantify the relative effects of evaporative conditions (sea surface temperature and relative humidity), Rayleigh distillation, mixing between vapors from different origins, precipitation re-evaporation and supersaturation during condensation at low temperature. In LMDZ, simulations suggest that in the tropics convective processes and rain re-evaporation are important controls on precipitation D-excess and 17O-excess. In higher latitudes, the effect of distillation, mixing between vapors from different origins and supersaturation are the most important controls. For example, the lower d-excess and 17O-excess at LGM simulated at LGM are mainly due to the supersaturation effect. The effect of supersaturation is however very sensitive to a parameter whose tuning would require more measurements and laboratory experiments. Evaporative conditions had previously been suggested to be key controlling factors of d-excess and 17O-excess, but LMDZ underestimates their role. More generally, some shortcomings in the simulation of 17O-excess by LMDZ suggest that general circulation models are not yet the perfect tool to quantify with confidence all processes controlling 17O-excess.


Societal expectations are influenced by advances in technology. Although it is nor a complete description, the major technological eras can be summarized into four groups: nomad independence; agrarian economy; industrial revolution; and information explosion. In a developed society, all these exist simultaneously. Later advancements are simply added options. With each change, it is apparent that the choices are greatly augmented. Nevertheless, not everyone will access the opportunities of the new paradigm because of ties to and dependence on the previous period. The author discusses the following aspects of the new paradigm for engineering: business life cycle and its extension; theory of technology; theory of economics; theory of information; limits on technology; shift of costs; people placement; and the future for technologists, education, and organisations.


The aviation industry is increasing leading to a harmful environmental impact. APU is liable for 20% of airport ground-based emissions, 50% of aircraft maintenance costs and more than 5% of the daily fuel consumption [1]. Aware of this growing problem and its consequences, research should be conducted targeting new, non-polluting energy sources capable of meeting or even exceeding the aircraft's electrical needs. With this in mind, the main goal of this article was to analyze the feasibility of implementing a HT-PEMFC system as a more sustainable alternative for the gas turbine APU in  an Airbus A320. The fuel used was methane which requires a fuel processor to convert it into hydrogen before entering the fuel cell. The maximum output work of this methane-supplied system is estimated at 250 kW. Therefore, a fuel processor and a fuel cell mathematical models were required. The two models along with the thermodynamic analysis were performed in MATLAB. The aims of this project were to evaluate fuel processing of methane and its conversion into electric energy through a fuel cell; to perform the thermodynamic analysis of HT-PEMFC APU based on the first and second laws of thermodynamics; and estimate the total weight, emissions and fuel consumption of the HT- PEMFC APU. The results of this research were  very encouraging, as it shows that the breakeven weight of the HT-PEMFC, for a mass increment of 854 kg, was compensated by a fuel efficiency of ∼2.7 times the conventional APU.
Keywords: APU, HT-PEMFC, Fuel cell


Electrode dimension effects on the electro-optic properties of a polymer-stabilized blue-phase liquid crystal (PS-BPLC) are investigated experimentally. By reducing the width and gap of the in-plane-switching (IPS) electrodes, the operating voltage of the PS-BPLC is decreased significantly while keeping over 80% transmittance. This unexpected high transmittance results from fringing field migration into the electrode region, which in turn activates more BPLC material and enlarges the aperture ratio. Further reducing electrode dimension to 2 m would cause some undesirable effects, such as increased response time and hysteresis due to electrostriction effect and phase transition, and ultimately damage the polymer networks.


Abstract Studies of institutional translation have traditionally focused on European Union (EU) institutions and legislative genres. In order to develop a more comprehensive characterization of translation at international organizations beyond EU supranational law, this study compares a full mapping of multilingual text production at EU institutions to that of two representative intergovernmental organizations (IGOs), the United Nations (UN) and the World Trade Organization (WTO), over three years (2005, 2010, and 2015) in three common official languages (English, French, and Spanish). The corpus-driven quantitative analysis and categorization of all texts from a legal-functional perspective corroborate the interconnection of a wide range of textual genres that perform, support, or derive from central law-making, monitoring, and adjudicative functions, or fulfill other administrative purposes. The findings also highlight interinstitutional variation that reflects the features of each legal order, in particular the prominence of hard law-making at the EU (with a high proportion of drafts and input documents) as opposed to larger translation volumes in monitoring procedures at the UN and the WTO. This mapping is considered instrumental to further analyze legal and other specialized translation practices in international institutional settings, and ultimately to inform translator training and translation quality management.


Both the United States and France have seen a burgeoning of memorialization of slavery and abolition in recent years, and France has even passed a memorial law declaring slavery a crime against humanity. This Essay compares law, racial politics, and the memory of slavery in two nations trying to come to terms with their slave pasts. Despite important differences in their histories and civil rights regimes, I argue that in both France and the U.S., movements that oppose race-conscious law portray slavery as part of the deep past, and a generalized past detached from race, whereas those seeking some form of recognition or reparation emphasize that slavery is "not even past." In both countries, the originary revolutionary moment – in France, associated with the Declaration of the Rights of Man, and in the U.S. with the 1787 Constitution – is invoked to create a sense of the timeless continuity of the principle of colorblindness, with slavery (and race-conscious legal remedies today) temporary deviations.


Iris Murdoch once observed: 'philosophy is often a matter of finding occasions on which to say the obvious'. What was obvious to Murdoch, and to all those who read her work, is that Good transcends everything - even God. Throughout her distinguished and prolific writing career, she explored questions of Good and Bad, myth and morality. The framework for Murdoch's questions - and her own conclusions - can be found here.


PURPOSE
We report the case of an acute type B dissection with high-risk features treated with multilayer stent.

CASE REPORT
A 50-year-old female patient presented to the emergency department with an acute type B aortic dissection. Conservative medical treatment did control blood pressure but did not alleviate her dissection symptoms. She was treated endovascularly with multilayer stents extensively covering the whole dissected area. HThe aortic arch side branches, visceral arteries and renal arteries remained patent after treatment. The recovery was uneventful, and she was discharged the day after the intervention. At 6- and 12-month follow-up, the patient remained asymptomatic, the true lumen volume increased and all side branches remained patent.

CONCLUSION
We present a case of the use of a multilayer stent for acute type B aortic dissection. This technique allows to treat the whole dissection with low risk of paraplegia or side branch occlusion. Long-term results of ongoing clinical studies should confirm the place of the multilayer stent as a treatment option for type B aortic dissection.


The goal of this master thesis has been to evaluate methods for redistribution of data on search engine clusters. For all of the methods the redistribution is done when the cluster changes size. Redistribution methods that are specifically designed for search engines are not common, so the methods compared in this thesis are based on other distributed settings. This is from among other things distributed database systems, distributed files and continuous media systems. The evaluation of the methods consists of two parts, a theoretical analysis and an implementation and testing of the methods. In the theoretical analysis the methods are compared by deduction of expressions of performance. In the practical approach the algorithms are implemented on a simplified search engine cluster of 6 computers. The methods have been evaluated using three criteria. The first criteria of evaluation are how well the methods distribute documents across the cluster. In the theoretical analysis this also includes worst case scenarios. The practical evaluation compares the distribution at the end of the tests. The second criterion of evaluation is efficiency of document access. The theoretical approach focuses on the number of operations required while the practical approach calculates indexing throughput. The last area of focus examined is the document volume transported during redistribution. For the final part of the comparison of the methods, some relevant scenarios are introduced. These scenarios focus on dynamic data sets with high frequency of updates, often new documents and much searching. Using the scenarios and results from the method testing, we found some methods that performed be better than others. It is worth noting that the conclusions are for a given the type of workload from the scenarios and the setting for the test. Given other situations, other methods might be more suitable. When concluding our results we found, for the give scenarios, the best distribution method was the distributed version of linear hashing (LH*). The results from the method using hashing/range-partitioning also showed to be the least suitable as a consequence of high transport volume.


Technical Blogging is the first book to specifically teach programmers, technical people, and technically-oriented entrepreneurs how to become successful bloggers. There is no magic to successful blogging; with this book you'll learn the techniques to attract and keep a large audience of loyal, regular readers and leverage this popularity to achieve your goals. Become more influential and earn extra money by blogging. Whether you want to create a popular technical blog from scratch or take your blog to the next level, this book shows you how. Technical blogging expert Antonio Cangiano shares his extensive expertise with you, sparing no details and laying out a complete step by step road map to help you plan, create, market, monetize, and grow your own popular blog. Antonio will guide you through all the choices you have to make in setting up a successful blog, teach you the key things you need to know to write blog posts that get read, and give you the tools to produce content regularly You'll learn how to promote your blog, understand traffic statistics, and build a community. And once you've built it, you'll learn how to benefit from it: advance your career, make money from your blog, use it to promote your products or company, and take advantage of your blog to the fullest. And when your blog takes off, Antonio will show you how to avoid the pitfalls of success.Technical Blogging is the only guide you'll need to create and maintain a successful technical blog.


Fintech veteran and venture capitalist, Arunkumar Krishnakumar, cuts through the hype to bring us a first-hand look into how quantum computing and Blockchain together could redefine industries and life as we know it.

Key Features

Take a practical perspective on quantum computing and Blockchain technologies and their impacts on key industries
Gain insights from experts who are applying quantum computing or Blockchain in their fields
See where quantum computing and Blockchain are heading, and where the two may intersect

Book Description
Are quantum computing and Blockchain on a collision course or will they be the most important trends of this decade to disrupt industries and life as we know it?
Fintech veteran and venture capitalist Arunkumar Krishnakumar cuts through the hype to bring us a first-hand look into how quantum computing and Blockchain together are redefining industries, including fintech, healthcare, and research. Through a series of interviews with domain experts, he also explores these technologies' potential to transform national and global governance and policies – from how elections are conducted and how smart cities can be designed and optimized for the environment, to what cyberwarfare enabled by quantum cryptography might look like. In doing so, he also highlights challenges that these technologies have to overcome to go mainstream.
Quantum Computing and Blockchain in Business explores the potential changes that quantum computing and Blockchain might bring about in the real world. After expanding on the key concepts and techniques, such as applied cryptography, qubits, and digital annealing, that underpin quantum computing and Blockchain, the book dives into how major industries will be impacted by these technologies. Lastly, we consider how the two technologies may come together in a complimentary way.
What you will learn

Understand the fundamentals of quantum computing and Blockchain
Gain insights from the experts who are using quantum computing and Blockchain
Discover the implications of these technologies for governance and healthcare
Learn how Blockchain and quantum computing may influence logistics and finance
Understand how these technologies are impacting research in areas such as chemistry
Find out how these technologies may help the environment and influence smart city development
Understand the implications for cybersecurity as these technologies evolve

Who this book is for
This book is for tech enthusiasts – developers, architects, managers, consultants, and venture capitalists – working in or interested in the latest developments in quantum computing and blockchain. While the book introduces key ideas, terms, and techniques used in these technologies, the main goal of this book is to prime readers for the practical adoption and applications of these technologies across varies industries and walks of life.


Purpose This study was conducted to evaluate the impact of supraclavicular lymph node radiotherapy (SCNRT) on N1 breast cancer patients receiving post-lumpectomy whole-breast irradiation (WBI) and anthracycline plus taxane-based (AT) chemotherapy. Materials and Methods We performed a case-control analysis to compare the outcomes of WBI and WBI plus SCNRT (WBI+SCNRT). Among 1,147 patients with N1 breast cancer who received post-lumpectomy radiotherapy and AT-based chemotherapy in 12 hospitals, 542 were selected after propensity score matching. Patterns of failure, disease-free survival (DFS), distant metastasis-free survival (DMFS), and treatment-related toxicity were compared between groups. Results A total of 41 patients (7.6%) were found to have recurrence. Supraclavicular lymph node (SCN) failure was detected in three patients, two in WBI and one in WBI+SCNRT. All SCN failures were found simultaneously with distant metastasis. There was no significant difference in patterns of failure or survival between groups. The 5-year DFS and DMFS for patients with WBI and WBI+SCNRT were 94.4% versus 92.6% (p=0.50) and 95.1% versus 94.5% (p=0.99), respectively. The rates of lymphedema and radiation pneumonitis were significantly higher in the WBI+SCNRT than in the WBI. Conclusion We did not find a benefit of SCNRT for N1 breast cancer patients receiving AT-based chemotherapy.


Abstract. The paper deals with the comparison of the time series drawn from different climate databases. We compared the observed data with the modeled data of monthly and seasonal temperature means and precipitation totals. Reliable and longest available time series of such data represent the basic starting point of dendroclimatic analyses. We evaluated the differences in the growth response of spruce derived using different databases of the considered climatic variables. The stem cores used to derive the cross-correlation function were taken from Haras locality situated in the boreal zone of the Swedish part of Lapland. We compared the observed records from the nearest weather stations situated 18, 40, 70 and 110 km away from the locality with the interpolated data from four modeled temperature databases and four modeled precipitation databases generated by KNMI Climate Explorer. The spatial resolution of the modeled databases was 0.5°  ×  0.5° of latitude and longitude or 1°  ×  1° respectively. The evaluation revealed that in all modeled databases systematic errors of different magnitudes occurred. We also found that the radial increments of spruce correlated more tightly with the temperature than with the precipitation in the area of interest. Hence, in the conditions of the boreal zone, temperature could be a more important factor with regard to tree-ring formation. Because of higher spatial variability seen in precipitation data when compared to temperature data, we conclude that the nearest weather station is the most suitable for dendroclimatic analysis leaning on precipitation. Drawing on these results we recommend that the modeled precipitation and temperature databases examined in our study are used for dendroclimatic analyses within areas featuring a sparse network of weather stations.


Vertebrate fauna was studied over 10 years following revegetation of a Eucalyptus tereticornis ecosystem on former agricultural land. We compared four vegetation types: remnant forest, plantings of a mix of native tree species on cleared land, natural regeneration of partially cleared land after livestock removal, and cleared pasture land with scattered paddock trees managed for livestock production. Pasture differed significantly from remnant in both bird and nonbird fauna. Although 10 years of ecosystem restoration is relatively short term in the restoration process, in this time bird assemblages in plantings and natural regeneration had diverged significantly from pasture, but still differed significantly from remnant. After 10 years, 70 and 66% of the total vertebrate species found in remnant had been recorded in plantings and natural regeneration, respectively. Although the fauna assemblages within plantings and natural regeneration were tracking toward those of remnant, significant differences in fauna between plantings and natural regeneration indicated community development along different restoration pathways. Because natural regeneration contained more mature trees (dbh > 30 cm), native shrub species, and coarse woody debris than plantings from the beginning of the study, these features possibly encouraged different fauna to the revegetation areas from the outset. The ability of plantings and natural regeneration to transition to the remnant state will be governed by a number of factors that were significant in the analyses, including shrub cover, herbaceous biomass, tree hollows, time since fire, and landscape condition. Both active and passive restoration produced significant change from the cleared state in the short term.


In this paper, we study polar quotients and Łojasiewicz exponents of plane curve singularities, which are not necessarily reduced. We first show that, for complex plane curve singularities, the set of polar quotients is a topological invariant. We next prove that the Łojasiewicz gradient exponent can be computed in terms of the polar quotients, and so it is also a topological invariant. For real plane curve singularities, we also give a formula computing the Łojasiewicz gradient exponent via real polar branches. As an application, we give effective estimates of the Łojasiewicz exponents in the gradient and classical inequalities of polynomials in two (real or complex) variables.


Author(s): Less, Brennan; Walker, Iain | Abstract: Elevated indoor humidity levels in homes represent a risk to occupant thermal comfort and health, as well as building durability. The improved thermal properties of high performance homes lead to less cooling system run time and associated moisture removal. High performance homes often have elevated indoor humidity, as a result. Current technologies for addressing this high humidity include dehumidifiers, energy recovery ventilators and enhanced cooling strategies. A strategy that has not been assessed to-date is the smart control of ventilation systems to better manage indoor moisture and reduce humidity loads. Such smart controls time-shift ventilation to reduce the duration and number of hours of high indoor humidity, while providing annual pollutant exposure equivalent to a continuously operated fan sized to ASHRAE Standard 62.2-2013. The REGCAP simulation tool was used to assess 13 smart ventilation control strategies. Elevated indoor humidity was mostly problematic only in smaller homes with higher moisture gains. The best controls were able to achieve significant reductions in indoor humidity without excessive energy penalties (e.g., 16% of annual hours reduced below 60% RH in a small Miami home, using 277 kWh annually). They also maintained equivalent air quality to a continuous 62.2-2013 fan. In the cases with highest indoor humidity, smart ventilation controls did not eliminate the need for supplemental dehumidification, with 20 to 25% of annual hours remaining g60% RH.


The seasonality and characteristics of rainfall in the UK are altering under a changing climate. Summer rainfall is generally decreasing whereas winter rainfall is increasing, particularly in northern and western areas (Maraun et al., 2008) and recent research suggests these rainfall increases are amplified in upland areas (Burt and Ferranti, 2010). Conditional analysis has been used to investigate these rainfall patterns in Cumbria, an upland area in northwest England. Cumbria was selected as an example of a topographically diverse mid-latitude region that has a predominately maritime and westerly-defined climate. Moreover it has a dense network of more than 400 rain gauges that have operated for periods between 1900 and present day. Cumbria has experienced unprecedented flooding in the past decade and understanding the spatial and temporal changes in this and other upland regions is important for water resource and ecosystem management. The conditional analysis method examines the spatial and temporal variations in rainfall under different synoptic conditions and in different geographic sub-regions (Ferranti et al., 2009). A daily synoptic typing scheme, the Lamb Weather Catalogue, was applied to classify rainfall into different weather types, for example: south-westerly, westerly, easterly or cyclonic. Topographic descriptors developed using GIS were used to classify rain gauges into 6 directionally-dependant geographic sub-regions: coastal, windward-lowland, windward-upland, leeward-upland, leeward-lowland, secondary upland. Combining these classification methods enabled seasonal rainfall climatologies to be produced for specific weather types and sub-regions. Winter rainfall climatologies were constructed for all 6 sub-regions for 3 weather types - south-westerly (SW), westerly (W), and cyclonic (C); these weather types contribute more than 50% of total winter rainfall. The frequency of wet-days (>0.3mm), the total winter rainfall and the average wet day rainfall amount were analysed for each rainfall sub-region and weather type from 1961-2007 (Ferranti et al., 2010). The conditional analysis showed total rainfall under SW and W weather types to be increasing, with the greatest increases observed in the upland sub-regions. The increase in total SW rainfall is driven by a greater occurrence of SW rain days, and there has been little change to the average wet-day rainfall amount. The increase in total W rainfall is driven in part by an increase in the frequency of wet-days, but more significantly by an increase in the average wet-day rainfall amount. In contrast, total rainfall under C weather types has decreased. Further analysis will investigate how spring, summer and autumn rainfall climatologies have changed for the different weather types and sub-regions. Conditional analysis that combines GIS and synoptic climatology provides greater insights into the processes underlying readily available meteorological data. Dissecting Cumbrian rainfall data under different synoptic and geographic conditions showed the observed changes in winter rainfall are not uniform for the different weather types, nor for the different geographic sub-regions. These intricate details are often lost during coarser resolution analysis, and conditional analysis will provide a detailed synopsis of Cumbrian rainfall processes against which Regional Climate Model (RCM) performance can be tested. Conventionally RCMs try to simulate composite rainfall over many different weather types and sub-regions and by undertaking conditional validation the model performance for individual processes can be tested. This will help to target improvements in model performance, and ultimately lead to better simulation of rainfall in areas of complex topography.


Abstract. Reliable predictions of the impact of natural hazards turning into a disaster is important for better targeting humanitarian response as well as for triggering early action. Open data and machine learning can be used to predict loss and damage to the houses and livelihoods of affected people. This research focuses on agricultural loss, more specifically rice loss in the Philippines due to typhoons. Regression and binary classification algorithms are trained using feature selection methods to find the most important explanatory features. Both geographical data from every province, and typhoon specific features of 11 historical typhoons are used as input. The percentage of lost rice area is considered as the output, with an average value of 7.1%. As for the regression task, the support vector regressor performed best with a Mean Absolute Error of 6.83 percentage points. For the classification model, thresholds of 20%, 30% and 40% are tested in order to find the best performing model. These thresholds represent different levels of lost rice fields for triggering anticipatory action towards farmers. The binary classifiers are trained to increase its ability to rightly predict the positive samples. In all three cases, the support vector classifier performed the best with a recall score of 88%, 75% and 81.82%, respectively. However, the precision score for each of these models was low: 17.05%, 14.46% and 10.84%, respectively. For both the support vector regressor and classifier, of all 14 available input features, only wind speed was selected as explanatory feature. Yet, for the other algorithms that were trained in this study, other sets of features were selected depending also on the hyperparameter settings. This variation in selected feature sets as well as the imprecise predictions were consequences of the small dataset that was used for this study. It is therefore important that data for more typhoons as well as data on other explanatory variables are gathered in order to make more robust and accurate predictions. Also, if loss data becomes available on municipality-level, rather than province-level, the models will become more accurate and valuable for operationalization.


Section 303(d) of the Clean Water Act requires states to identify waters that are impaired by pollution, even after application of pollution controls. For those waters, states must establish a total maximum daily load (TMDL) of pollutants to ensure that water quality standards can be attained. Implementation of this provision has been dormant until recently, when states and EPA were prodded by numerous lawsuits. The TMDL issue has become controversial, in part because of requirements and costs now facing states to implement a 25-year-old provision of the law. Congressional activity to reauthorize the Act, a possibility in the 2nd Session of the 105th Congress, could include TMDL issues, but the direction for any such action is unclear at this time.


Description: Digital or 'virtual' currencies pose significant challenges for government, financial and legal institutions because of their non-physical nature and their relative anonymity to physical currency. These attributes make this form of exchange extremely volatile and, at the same time, attractive to criminals. Many countries around the world have, therefore issued warnings against the use of digital currencies and have enacted laws to regulate and in some cases, restrict their use among members under their respective jurisdictions. Digital Currency: An International Legal and Regulatory Compliance Guide serves as a primer for both general and specialized readers, as well as business law and e-commerce teachers and students, to recognize and understand the extensive network of laws and regulations already in place around the world which have a profound impact on the creation, distribution and use of digital currency and blockchain technology. The book is also a compliance guide assisting legal practitioners in the fields of business, law, and technology to develop, implement, manage, and maintain strategies, policies, practices, and procedures to ensure that their activities involving digital currency and blockchain technology comply with a complex set of legal requirements in several jurisdictions. The book addresses both the complex set of existing laws that have a profound impact on digital currencies and blockchain technology, and the emerging new legal requirements directed specifically towards digital currency. Readers will understand the broad implications of laws and regulations on digital currency and blockchain development and its use, and will also be equipped with the knowledge to incorporate these effectively into their professional and personal endeavors. This entails maximizing the value of digital currency and blockchain technology while also minimizing their risk of adverse legal consequences. Additionally, policymakers seeking to enforce current legislation or wishing to draft appropriate new regulations in the digital currency and blockchain economy will also benefit from the information provided in this book.


Introduction Very preterm birth rates (<32 weeks) have been shown to rise with increasing socioeconomic deprivation but less is known about the impact of socioeconomic deprivation on birth at late and moderate preterm gestations (LMPT; 32–36 weeks). Methods A geographical population-based birth cohort study of 938 LMPT and 939 term-born (≥37 weeks) singleton babies. Socio-demographic, economic, lifestyle and stress factors were collected in a maternal interview after birth. Maternal education level was explored as a risk factor for late and moderate preterm birth, using multivariable Binomial regression analyses. Further models assessed whether demographic, lifestyle and economic factors explained any of this variation. Results The odds of delivering a LMPT infant increased with decreasing levels of education (OR 1.60 (1.23 to 2.09) for degree level education compared to no qualifications P = 0.002). This changed little after adjusting for maternal age and ethnicity. Three key economic and lifestyle risk factors explained this variation with education levels: access to a car (OR 1.30 (1.03 to 1.66); smoking during pregnancy (OR 1.28 (1.01 to 1.63) and low levels of fruit and vegetable consumption (OR 1.26 (0.99 to 1.62)) Conclusions Mothers with low levels of education were at greatest risk of delivering LMPT. Lifestyle behaviours (smoking during pregnancy and poor diet) and access to a car which may limit access to health care services appeared to explain this differential. These findings highlight that socioeconomic risk factors continue to impact on prematurity up until 36 weeks gestation.


Background: Dealing with the risk and the risk management, will improve the quality of health planning and policy making in safe delivery. This study is aimed to express the views of experts on risk and risk management in the safe delivery in Iran.
Methods: The current study was part of a qualitative research conducted by content analysis method in 2013 and purposive sampling, performing 24 in-depth interviews based on semi-structured questions and analyzed using thematic content analysis. The participants in this research included midwives, obstetricians and managers.
Results: In the present study, experts considered both the social and medical approaches of risk. Midwives had more attention to social and community-based approaches, while professionals and managers had more attention to medical approach of risk.
Conclusions: The best solution is paying attention to both approaches. Doctors and midwives should have the skills and flexibility required to use two approaches at the same time and always attention to the environmental and personal background of women and their families. In this way, the low-risk mothers will get more benefits during delivery and the high-risk mothers will use special care.


Stator winding insulation is the part of the hydrogenerator experiencing the highest number and the most damaging failures. Partial discharge (PD) measurement, both offline and online, are commonly used for condition assessment and monitoring of electrical machines. The main concern of using very low frequency (VLF) methods is the changed electrical field distributions compared to that at power frequency. Hence, PD measurements performed at VLF should be carefully assessed and compared to PD measurements at power frequencies. In this work, offline PD measurement at VLF are presented and compared to power frequency online measurements of a 50-year-old hydrogenerator in Norway, using statistical analysis of phase resolved PD recordings. It is found that both offline VLF and online assessment can identify unnormal PD activity in a specific phase, although the phase resolved PD patterns are not similar for VLF offline and online assessment.


ABSTRACT By a measure of religious affiliation used by Gallup polls for nearly a century, the denomination with the largest following in the United States has always turned out to be "None," ahead of Catholic, Methodist, Baptist, or any other faith. The existence of such a large flock without religious affiliation might be expected for a country with a Constitution guaranteeing freedom of and from religion. The secular portion of the American electorate has always been big enough to wield, potentially at least, political clout. Its partisan attachments have consistently favored the Democratic over the Republican side. What is limiting the electoral clout of the "Nones" today is that nearly half of them profess no partisan affiliation. They are Independents in matters of both church and state.


The composition of the New Zealand workforce has changed considerably over the past two decades. Qualification levels have risen, labour force participation has trended upwards for women, immigrants have increasingly been sourced from Asia, and the large baby-boom cohort has contributed to an ageing of the workforce. The question is whether such compositional changes have affected the quality of labour. Our estimates show a large rise in labour quality since 1988 as a result of increasing qualification levels, particularly at university degree level. With age as a proxy for work experience, an ageing of the workforce also contributed to rising labour quality. The annual rise in labour quality averaged 0.6% from 1988 to 2005, which was comparable to the experience of Australia, the United States and the euro area. Although labour quality rose in every year of our sample period, the rise was not constant over time. The increase was much stronger in the first half of the period (1988 to 1997) than in the second half (1997 to 2005). By drawing a large number of lower-skilled people into work, the strength of recent employment growth may have dampened growth in labour quality. Accounting for changes in labour quality has implications for labour productivity. Almost half of labour productivity growth of 1.4% per annum since 1988 can be attributed to the rise in labour quality. Labour productivity measured as output per quality-adjusted working hour rose by 0.8% per annum on average from 1988 to 2005, with annual growth of 0.5% in the first half of the period and 1.1% in the second half.


Summary The main objective of this work is to develop and evaluate the performance of a new PK technique, which can avert all types of port attacks and meets all network security requirements. The new technique utilizes three wellknown concepts, these are: port-knocking (PK), steganography, and mutual authentication, therefore, it is referred to as the hybrid port-knocking (HPK) technique. It can be used for host authentication to make local services invisible from port scanning, provide an extra layer of security that attackers must penetrate before accessing or breaking anything important, act as a stopgap security measure for services with known un-patched vulnerabilities, and provide a wrapper for a legacy or proprietary services with insufficient integrated security. The performance of the proposed technique was evaluated by measuring the average authentication time, which also compared with the average authentication time for a number of currently used port authentication techniques.


The existing and further scientific studies about the nature, development and evaluation of mathematical efficacy will direct mathematics teaching. Scientific proofs will provide making improvements, making effective decisions, updating curriculums in mathematics teaching. At this point, it can be stated that national and international scientific meetings have an effective role. International Classroom Teaching Education Symposium (USOS) held in Turkey in the field of elementary teaching education is an important scientific event where the studies conducted about the field are shared with scientists, undergraduates and graduates, and teachers. In this research, it is aimed to evaluate the papers towards mathematics teaching presented within the scope of USOS and published in proceeding book in last five years via descriptive content analysis. Thus, it is considered that contributive information can be presented to the researchers by providing a holistic viewpoint to mathematics teaching in primary school. As a consequence of the research, it has been determined that the number of studies conducted about mathematics teaching has increased in last five years. In terms of publishing language, the studies are in Turkish. The studies were generally conducted by academics and two authors. All of the researches related to mathematics education were conducted by Turkish researchers although USOS is an international scientific event. In terms of research field, it has been seen that the number of the studies done in the field of geometry and examining mathematics and geometry together is quite few. Mostly the studies related to problems and numbers were focused in terms of mathematics subject. In terms of study group/sample, the researches were conducted with elementary students, pre-service elementary teachers and elementary teachers. In terms of research model/pattern, survey and case studies were preferred by a majority. Besides, it has been recognized that the information of research model/pattern was not stated in a majority of researches. As a data collection tool; test, interview form, scale, open-ended question and questionnaire were mostly used. Again in some studies, the information about data collection tool was not given. As data analysis technique, content analysis and predictive statistical techniques were most commonly used. In a majority of the studies, the information about data analysis technique was not given.


Ankaferd Blood Stopper (ABS), a unique traditional herbal mixture, has been used topically to stop bleeding for centuries in Anatolia. ABS is a standardized mixture of the plants Thymus vulgaris, Glycyrrhiza glabra, Vitis vinifera, Alpinia officinarum, and Urtica dioica. Through its effects on the endothelium, blood cells, angiogenesis, cellular proliferation, vascular dynamics, and cell mediators, ABS is now becoming an official alternative hemostatic medicine for intractable bleedings that are resistant to conventional anti-hemorrhagic measurements in Turkey. Furthermore, ABS seems to have a considerable therapeutic benefit, because of its anti-infective, anti-neoplastic, and wound healing properties, to restore and maintain tissue homeostasis in a variety of diseases.


Enhanced understanding of soil disturbance effects on weed seedling recruitment will help guide improved management approaches. Field experiments were conducted at 16 site-years at 10 research farms across Europe and North America to (i) quantify superficial soil disturbance (SSD) effects on Chenopodium album emergence and (ii) clarify adaptive emergence behaviour in frequently disturbed environments. Each site-year contained factorial combinations of two seed populations (local and common, with the common population studied at all site-years) and six SSD timings [0, 50, 100, 150, 200 day-degrees (d°C, base temperature 3°C) after first emergence from undisturbed soil]. Analytical units in this study were emergence flushes. Flush magnitudes (maximum weekly emergence per count flush) and flush frequencies (flushes year−1) were compared between disturbed and undisturbed seedbanks. One year after burial, SSD promoted seedling emergence relative to undisturbed seedbanks by increasing flush magnitude rather than increasing flush frequency. Two years after burial, SSD promoted emergence through increased flush magnitude and flush frequency. The promotional effects of SSD on emergence were strongest within 500 d°C following SSD; however, low levels of SSD-induced emergence were detected as late as 3000 d°C following SSD. Accordingly, stale seedbed practices that eliminate weed seedlings should occur within 500 d°C of disturbance, because few seedlings emerge after this time. However, implementation of stale seedbed practices will probably cause slight increases in weed population densities throughout the year. Compared with the common population, local populations exhibited reduced variance in total emergence measured within sites and across SSD treatments, suggesting that C. album adaptation to local pedo-climatic conditions involves increased consistency in SSD-induced emergence.


This dissertation empirically examines refunding decisions employed by issuers of taxexempt bonds. Callable bonds contain embedded call options by virtue of provisions in bond indentures that permit the issuing firm to buy back the bond at a predetermined strike price. Such an embedded American call option has two components to its value, the intrinsic value and the time value. The issuer can realize at least as much as the intrinsic value by exercising immediately, when the option is in-the-money. Usually it is optimal for the holder of an in-the money American option to wait rather than exercise immediately, because the option has time value. It is rational for the holder to exercise the option when the total value of the option is no more than the intrinsic value. Option pricing theory can be used to identify two sub-optimal refunding strategies: those that refund too early, and those that refund too late. In such cases the holder incurs losses. I analyze the refunding decisions for two different samples of tax-exempt bonds issued between 1986 and 1993: the first consists of 2,620 bonds that are called, and the second contains 23,976 bonds that are never called. The generalized Vasicek (1977) model in the Heath, Jarrow, and Morton (1992) framework is used to construct binomial trees for interest rates, bond prices, and call option prices. The option pricing lattice is then used to compute the loss in value from sub-optimal refunding strategies, refunding efficiency, and months from optimal time for bonds in these two samples. Results suggest that sub-optimal refunding decisions cause losses to the issuers, which are present across bond and issuer characteristics. For the pooled sample of 26,596 bonds, the loss in value from sub-optimal refunding decisions totaled $7.2 billion, amounting to a loss of about 1.75% of total principal amount. Results indicate that issuers either wait too long to refund or never refund and cannot realize the present value saving of switching a high coupon bond with a low coupon bond, over a longer period of time. These results critically depend on the assumptions of underlying term structure model and are sensitive to model calibrated parameter values.


One of the key elements of figurational sociology is the emphasis on understanding complex networks of interdependencies in which people are involved. The focal point of this paper is the process of initial teacher training (ITT) and the relationships of which student teachers are part during their ITT course. The paper does not look at what student teachers ought to think; rather, it is an exploration of why student teachers may think the way they do. The paper uses data which were collected as part of a larger project funded by a Teacher Training Agency small research grant. Results suggest that student teachers value aspects of their course differently. In particular, student teachers value university practical sessions and school-based experiences over university-based theory sessions, which are considered irrelevant to the actual practice of teaching. Despite attempts by university tutors to engage student teachers in academic discourses about the nature of physical education (PE), student teachers' perceptions of PE did not change during their course. Further, student teachers perceived conflict between the university-based theoretical elements and the school-based elements of the course.


This chapter, in an edited collection of essays by British and French scholars, draws on primary and secondary sources in order to address the question of how and why, as the supply of tourist destinations expanded, people chose to visit particular spa towns. The methodology is based on an analysis of the types of information available to potential customers. It argues that an understanding of the development of British and French spas in the nineteenth century is dependent on positioning them within a wider international context. The essay identifies and analyses the emergence of new trends contributing to the growth and decline of particular spa towns, the setting up of overlapping networks of spas with their concomitant networks of physicians and the factors influencing the travel patterns of the British elite classes. This chapter is a development from earlier essays focusing on the role of the press in the formation of cultural identities, tourist culture and place-image. The chapter was the outcome of an Anglo-French conference at the Universite de Bretagne Occidentale, May 2005, which focused on British and French spas in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. This is the first historical study linking the media with the commercial development of the spa towns and health tourism in this way. The theme of the importance of press publicity has been subsequently developed in a forthcoming chapter on factors making for the growth of urban tourism in the nineteenth century, 'The Attractions of Place' (Campus 2008). Attendance at the conference was funded by Northumbria. A consequence of this essay was participation as an invited speaker in an international workshop organised by the Centre for the History of Medicine at the University of Warwick, 2007, 'Kill or Cure: Water and Health in the Nineteenth Century'.


This study investigates the impact of the social context on the rate and direction of innovation. We propose that social liberal environments increase the rate of innovation of incumbent inventors by lowering the cost of social interactions. We examine the impact of two social liberalization policies (legalization of same-sex civil unions and medical marijuana) and one anti-liberalization policy (passage of abortion restrictions) on patenting. We find that inventors residing in regions that implement social liberal policies are more likely to form new collaborations and increase patenting. Patents filed after social liberal policies are more likely to become breakthrough innovations and be built upon novel technological recombinations. Social liberalization policies increase the rate of entrance into inventorship but do not attract top inventors from other regions.


Degenerating neurons of Parkinson's disease (PD) patient brains exhibit granules of phosphorylated extracellular signal-regulated protein kinase 1/2 (ERK1/2) that localize to autophagocytosed mitochondria. Here we show that 6-hydroxydopamine (6-OHDA) elicits activity-related localization of ERK1/2 in mitochondria of SH-SY5Y cells, and these events coincide with induction of autophagy and precede mitochondrial degradation. Transient transfection of wild-type (WT) ERK2 or constitutively active MAPK/ERK Kinase 2 (MEK2-CA) was sufficient to induce mitophagy to a degree comparable with that elicited by 6-OHDA, while constitutively active ERK2 (ERK2-CA) had a greater effect. We developed green fluorescent protein (GFP) fusion constructs of WT, CA, and kinase-deficient (KD) ERK2 to study the role of ERK2 localization in regulating mitophagy and cell death. Under basal conditions, cells transfected with GFP-ERK2-WT or GFP-ERK2-CA, but not GFP-ERK2-KD, displayed discrete cytoplasmic ERK2 granules of which a significant fraction colocalized with mitochondria and markers of autophagolysosomal maturation. The colocalizing GFP-ERK2/mitochondria granules are further increased by 6-OHDA and undergo autophagic degradation, as bafilomycin-A, an inhibitor of autolysosomal degradation, robustly increased their detection. Interestingly, increasing ERK2-WT or ERK2-CA expression was sufficient to promote comparable levels of macroautophagy as assessed by analysis of the autophagy marker microtubule-associated protein 1 light chain 3 (LC3). In contrast, the level of mitophagy was more tightly correlated with ERK activity levels, potentially explained by the greater localization of ERK2-CA to mitochondria compared to ERK2-WT. These data indicate that mitochondrial localization of ERK2 activity is sufficient to recapitulate the effects of 6-OHDA on mitophagy and autophagic cell death.


The practitioner lawyer of the past had little need to reflect on process. The doctrinal research methodology developed intuitively within the common law — a research method at the core of practice. There was no need to justify or classify it within a broader research framework. Modern academic lawyers are facing a different situation. At a time when competition for limited research funds is becoming more intense, and in which interdisciplinary work is highly valued and non-lawyers are involved in the assessment of grant applications, lawyer-applicants who engage in doctrinal research need to be able to explain their methodology more clearly. Doctrinal scholars need to be more open and articulate about their methods. These methods may be different in different contexts. This paper examines the doctrinal method used in legal research and its place in recent research dialogue. Some commentators are of the view that the doctrinal method is simply scholarship rather than a separate research methodology. Richard Posner even suggests that law is 'not a field with a distinct methodology, but an amalgam of applied logic, rhetoric, economics and familiarity with a specialized vocabulary and a particular body of texts, practices, and institutions ...'.1 Therefore, academic lawyers are beginning to realise that the doctrinal research methodology needs clarification for those outside the legal profession and that a discussion about the standing and place of doctrinal research compared to other methodologies is required.


In the United States and a few European countries, inventory behavior is mainly the outcome of demand shocks: a standard buffer-stock model best characterizes these economies. But most European countries are described by a modified buffer-stock model where supply shocks dominate. In contrast to the United States, inventories boost growth with a one-year lag in Europe. Moreover, inventories provide limited information to improve growth forecasts particularly when a modified buffer-stock model characterizes inventory behavior.