The integration of optical and wireless systems is considered to be one of the most promising solutions for increasing the existing capacity and mobility as well as decreasing the costs in next-generation optical access networks. In this paper, several key enabling technologies for hybrid optical-wireless access networks are described, including optical millimeter-wave (mm-wave) generation, upconversion, and transmission in a downlink direction, and full-duplex operation based on wavelength reuse by using a centralized light source in an uplink direction. By employing these enabling technologies, we design and experimentally demonstrate an optical-wireless testbed that is simultaneously delivering wired and wireless services in the integrated optical-wireless and wavelength-division-multiplexing passive-optical-network access networks. The actual applications consisting of 270-Mb/s uncompressed standard-definition TV signal and 2.5-Gb/s data channels for downstream are successfully transmitted over a 25-km fiber and a 10.2-m indoor wireless link with less than a 1.5-dB power penalty. The results show that this integrated system is a practical solution to deliver superbroadband information services to both stationary and mobile users.


Although allergen extracts show some disadvantages, they are widely used both for in vivo diagnosis and for allergen immunotherapy. One way to overcome allergen extracts' limitations is to use recombinant allergens. Selection of an appropriate expression system is dependent on the characteristics and intended application of the recombinant protein. The prokaryotic expression system is suitable for allergens that do not require post-translational modifications; however, there are allergens that need to be expressed in eukaryotic cells in order to acquire their biological activity. The use of these recombinant proteins ensures an increased specificity and sensitivity of the diagnosis and safer and more effective immunotherapy.


BACKGROUND/AIM
We evaluated the anti-tumor activity and safety of cisplatin with irinotecan (IP) induction chemotherapy followed by chemoradiotherapy with etoposide/cisplatin (EP).

PATIENTS AND METHODS
Induction chemotherapy consisted of irinotecan i.v. and cisplatin i.v. and was administered on day 1 and day 8 of each cycle. Patients underwent two cycles of chemotherapy with a 3-week interval. In the absence of progressive disease, 66 Gy radiation was administered concurrently with etoposide on days 1 to 5 and 29 to 33, as well as with cisplatin on day 1, 8, 29, and 36.

RESULTS
Twenty patients were enrolled between July 2007 and December 2009. This study was closed prematurely due to lack of efficacy in induction chemotherapy. The overall response rate was 45% [95% confidence interval (CI), 25 to 65%], which did not meet the upper limit for first stage rejection of the treatment. The rates of 3-year progression-free survival and overall survival were 17.1% (95% CI, 0 to 36.8%) and 25% (95% CI, 0.2 to 49.8%), respectively. The primary toxicities included neutropenia, diarrhea and fatigue.

CONCLUSION
This study failed to demonstrate a benefit for induction chemotherapy which was characterized by suboptimal antitumor activity and was poorly tolerated, with excess treatment-related toxicity.


Design and implement video game sound from beginning to end with this hands-on course in game audio. Music and sound effects speak to players on a deep level, and this book will show you how to design and implement powerful, interactive sound that measurably improves gameplay. If you are a sound designer or composer and want to do more than just create audio elements and hand them over to someone else for insertion into the game, this book is for you. You'll understand the game development process and implement vital audio experiences-not just create music loops or one-off sound effects. The Game Audio Tutorial isn't just a book-you also get a powerful website (www.thegameaudiotutorial.com)


Abstract Developing countries in the technological transition period seek fast economic growth and give environmental issues lower priority. This is one of the causes of environmental degradation in coastal zones. The Patos Lagoon Estuary, located along the southern coast of Brazil, has accumulated environmental liabilities over the last 30 years due to socioeconomic activities in the city of Rio Grande. These liabilities are particularly conspicuous in the shallow estuarine embayments, which are considered vital habitats due to their high productivity and significance as nurseries (shelter and feeding) for the local biota. Since the 1970s, these habitats have suffered various stressors from uncontrolled urban and industrial expansion, which are responsible for landfills at the estuary shores and the enrichment of the water with nutrients and metals from the disposal of effluents. In the medium to long term, these problems tend to be aggravated by existing projects and policies of industrial and port expansion. One of the most productive environments in this estuary is Mangueira Bay, an oval semi-enclosed bay located south of the city with an area of 23 km2 and a depth mostly below 1.5 m. This embayment is currently a focus of land/water use conflicts involving several social actors, including fishermen, socially excluded people, high-class housing users, public institutions, industries and the general population. In this context, finding a solution that is appropriate and compatible with all social demands on the environmental goods and services provided by the estuary is a difficult task. The process must begin with a technical diagnosis that is extensive and detailed enough to include social, economic and environmental issues. This paper describes the use conflicts of Mangueira Bay and suggests guidelines for a collective management plan.


Externships have become an increasingly important component of legal education, as law schools seek to increase experiential learning opportunities for students to gain practice skills prior to entering the profession. As externship courses grow and become an integral part of the law school curriculum, externship teachers should implement best practices for assessing their students' learning, including setting learning outcomes for their courses, selecting assessment tools, gathering and analyzing assessment data, and using assessment data to make course adjustments that will improve student learning. This Article provides a primer on the process of course-level assessment and then explains how to apply that process in the specific context of externship courses. It analyzes a variety of learning goals for externships, explores how the typical components of externship courses can be used as assessment tools, and offers sample rubrics that externship teachers may use to evaluate student performance. It also discusses obstacles that law teachers may encounter when implementing assessment measures, and it offers suggestions for overcoming those barriers. The Article concludes by proposing a suggested methodology for grading externships, should teachers wish to incorporate letter grades as part of an assessment regimen.


As Deep Learning (DL) models have been increasingly used in latency-sensitive applications, there has been a growing interest in improving their response time. An important venue for such improvement is to profile the execution of these models and characterize their performance to identify possible optimization opportunities. However, the current profiling tools lack the highly desired abilities to characterize ideal performance, identify sources of inefficiency, and quantify the benefits of potential optimizations. Such deficiencies have led to slow characterization/optimization cycles that cannot keep up with the fast pace at which new DL models are introduced.We propose Benanza, a sustainable and extensible benchmarking and analysis design that speeds up the characterization/optimization cycle of DL models on GPUs. Benanza consists of four major components: a model processor that parses models into an internal representation, a configurable benchmark generator that automatically generates micro-benchmarks given a set of models, a database of benchmark results, and an analyzer that computes the "lower-bound" latency of DL models using the benchmark data and informs optimizations of model execution. The "lower-bound" latency metric estimates the ideal model execution on a GPU system and serves as the basis for identifying optimization opportunities in frameworks or system libraries. We used Benanza to evaluate 30 ONNX models in MXNet, ONNX Runtime, and PyTorch on 7 GPUs ranging from Kepler to the latest Turing, and identified optimizations in parallel layer execution, cuDNN convolution algorithm selection, framework inefficiency, layer fusion, and using Tensor Cores.


Description Hypericum perforatum L. (St. John's wort) is a five-petalled, yellow-flowered perennial weed common to the western United States, Europe, and Asia. Close examination of the flowers reveals small black dots that, when rubbed between the fingers, produce a red stain. This red pigment contains the constituent hypericin. Held up to light, the leaves of the plant display a number of bright, translucent dots. This perforated look led to the species name perforatum. The plant is currently cultivated in Europe, North and South America, Australia, and China. The aerial parts of the plant are harvested during the flowering season and used in modern, standardized extracts. Dioscorides, the foremost physician of ancient Greece, as well as Pliny and Hippocrates, recommended the herb for a host of ailments including sciatica and poisonous bites. The name St. John's wort has its origin in Christian folk tradition. St. John's wort has a long history of use in traditional European herbal medicine. It was, and continues to be, used as a topical treatment for wounds and burns. It has also been used as a folk remedy for kidney, stomach, and lung ailments, and was first noted as a remedy for melancholy and madness by Culpeper in 1652.


Extending current theories, this paper merges binarized western and Indigenous ideologies into a fused "one world" view by addressing how two knowledge systems—namely wisdom-based knowledge (WBK) and information-based knowledge (IBK) articulate together. I suggest that current educational systems worldwide are based on IBK, which is replacing and/or annexing the WBK of Indigenous societies. I argue that if WBK is the first imprint on children, then WBK will form their ideological foundation. Noting that those of us who have higher education are recognized by the dominant society and within our own societies as authorities, I suggest that those of us with higher degrees need to change our positions from "information providers and brokers" to "warriors of the truth" (Alfred, 2004, p. 95) against the hegemony of dominant cultures.


We investigate two systems of fully proportional representation suggested by Chamberlin & Courant and Monroe. Both systems assign a representative to each voter so that the "sum of misrepresentations" is minimized. The winner determination problem for both systems is known to be NP-hard, hence this work aims at investigating whether there are variants of the proposed rules and/or specific electorates for which these problems can be solved efficiently. As a variation of these rules, instead of minimizing the sum of misrepresentations, we considered minimizing the maximal misrepresentation introducing effectively two new rules. In the general case these "minimax" versions of classical rules appeared to be still NP-hard.

We investigated the parameterized complexity of winner determination of the two classical and two new rules with respect to several parameters. Here we have a mixture of positive and negative results: e.g., we proved fixed-parameter tractability for the parameter the number of candidates but fixed-parameter intractability for the number of winners.

For single-peaked electorates our results are overwhelmingly positive: we provide polynomial-time algorithms for most of the considered problems. The only rule that remains NP-hard for single-peaked electorates is the classical Monroe rule.


Accurate forecasting of zero coupon bond yields for a continuum of maturities is paramount to bond portfolio management and derivative security pricing. Yet a universal model for yield curve forecasting has been elusive, and prior attempts often resulted in a trade-off between goodness of fit and consistency with economic theory. To address this, herein we propose a novel formulation which connects the dynamic factor model (DFM) framework with concepts from functional data analysis: a DFM with functional factor loading curves. This results in a model capable of forecasting functional time series. Further, in the yield curve context we show that the model retains economic interpretation. Model estimation is achieved through an expectation-maximization algorithm, where the time series parameters and factor loading curves are simultaneously estimated in a single step. Efficient computing is implemented and a data-driven smoothing parameter is nicely incorporated. We show that our model performs very well on forecasting actual yield data compared with existing approaches, especially in regard to profit-based assessment for an innovative trading exercise. We further illustrate the viability of our model to applications outside of yield forecasting.


We evaluated the function of the inner retina in patients with congenital stationary night blindness of the complete (CSNB1) and the incomplete type (CSNB2) by recording multifocal oscillatory potentials (mf-OPs). The VERIS system was used to record mf-OPs from 61 areas of the central retina from 5 CSNB1 patients (4 with NYX gene mutation), 6 CSNB2 patients (2 with CACNA1F mutation) and 11 control subjects. For each subject group, the first- and second-order kernel responses for one eye were analysed and the amplitudes and implicit times of their major components compared to 5 concentric rings centred on the fovea. In CSNB1 patients, the mf-OP peak amplitudes of the first-order kernel responses showed a significant reduction of the first peak without significant reduction of the second, whereas in CSNB2 both peak amplitudes were barely discernable from noise for all eccentricities. In the second-order kernel, the third peak was reduced in CSNB1 patients, and again not discernable from noise in CSNB2 patients. The difference in amplitude between the control and CSNB1 groups was significant for the late components of the first- and the second-order kernel. Implicit times were not significantly altered. The difference in mf-OP amplitude between CSNB1 and CSNB2 patients reflects the different molecular mechanisms underlying the two types of disease, which differentially affect the postreceptoral pathways of cone signal processing. The well-preserved peak 2 amplitudes of first-order mf-OPs and peak 3 amplitudes of second-order mf-OPs in CSNB1 patients point to a major impact of OFF-pathway components on these responses which are not present in CSNB2 patients. In conclusion, our results show that CSNB1 and CSNB2 are two different types of disease, not only on a genetic but also on a pathophysiological level.


This chapter examines second language (L2) peer oral language interaction between two learners engaged in a partner reading activity. The data come from an English language arts class for newcomers in an all-immigrant high school in the U.S. Students arrive in this beginner-level, English language arts class with widely disparate experiences with formal schooling and print literacy, as well as with varied first languages and oral English language skills. The year-long class focuses on developmental English language and literacy skills, and the students and teacher absorb and accommodate newcomer students each month. The data presented in this chapter highlight the peer work between two asymmetrically-paired, female adolescent students: an Amharic newcomer with prior schooling in Ethiopia and beginning-level oral English skills, and a Somali speaker with stronger English language skills but very low print literacy and no formal schooling before arriving to the U.S. Through an analysis of their interactions in one paired reading session, we describe how these two students use their language and literacy skills to complete a reading task and in doing so, we consider the complexities of how asymmetrically paired students engage in everyday classroom tasks and the learning opportunities therein.


Objective. The purpose of the study was to determine the prevalence of femoroacetabular impingement syndrome (FAIS) in white adults 20 to 49 years of age. Methods. Participants were white men and women aged 20–49 years, recruited through random digit dialing from the population of Metro Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Participants filled out a self-administered questionnaire and underwent a physical examination and radiographs of both hips. FAIS was defined as a combination of hip symptoms, physical signs of impingement, and radiological findings of cam or pincer morphology as recommended by the Warwick Agreement. All analyses were weighted to reflect the population from which the sample was drawn. Results. Data were obtained for 500 participants. In the study population, 48.9% were males and the age distribution was 32.2%, 31.4%, and 36.4% in the groups 20–29, 30–39, and 40–49 years, respectively. The physical signs of impingement correlated significantly with symptoms, but there was no significant association between either symptoms or physical examination with radiographic findings. FAIS on either side was found in 3.0% (95% CI 1.5–4.5) of the population. Conclusion. In this study, FAIS was present in 3% of whites aged 20–49 years. Further research is needed to develop consistent criteria for assessing hip symptoms, physical signs, and hip joint morphology, and to better understand the relationships between them.


Due to the excellent outcomes of renal transplantation, there is an increasing number of people surviving with, or receiving a transplant, at an older age. While the transplant centre usually manages the immunosuppression and renal problems, these individuals also require primary care. This article will review the common health issues that primary care physicians encounter routinely among these patients. Common problems include managing cardiovascular risk factors, screening for malignancy, vaccinations, treatment of uncomplicated infections, and bone disease. Important drug interactions will be reviewed. Communication between the primary care physician and the transplant centre will also improve care of these patients.


If dangerous and irreversible climatic events are to be avoided, global average temperature should not increase by more than 2°C above pre-industrial levels. In order to achieve such a global target, a mitigation pathway has to limit global emissions to about 50 percent below 1990 levels by 2050. We want to investigate in this paper the radical change of the energy system that would be needed for entering the pathway for halving emission levels by applying a global analytical tool. A comprehensive data base with a global coverage including socio-economic data as well as data on energy and emissions has been set up. By dividing the world into six countries and regions which account for two thirds of global emissions and a region for the rest of the world we investigate in an analytical framework the key drivers and parameters of the energy system which refer to population dynamics, economic activity, energy and carbon intensity. Based on assumptions about the diffusion and convergence of these key parameters we derive implications for long-term emission reduction targets.


Earthquakes produce some of the most violent loading situations that a structure can be subjected to and if a structure fails under these loads then inevitably human life is put at risk. One of the most common methods by which a structure fails under seismic loading is at the connection of structural elements. The research presented in this paper compares the performance of mathematical models of watertowers under seismic conditions. One type of model is assembled withconcrete panels that are connected by means of a novel interlocked mechanism. The performance of this modelwas tested against the performance of a conventional monolith watertower. Two variables were appliedsimultaneously when testing each model: earthquakes with different magnitudes and different mass of the elevated water tanks. The results of this experimental study demonstrated that across all tested seismic conditions, increasing the mass of the water tanks resulted in greater deformation of the watertowers. This was most pronounced for the monolith watertower model. With increasing mass of the water tanks across all seismic conditions, those watertowers composted of interlocked panels withstood increasing loading stresses more effectively than the monolith watertower.


The dielectric diagnostic methods ofpolarisation/depolarisation currents and recovery voltage,which are time domain methods, and capacitance and tandmeasurements at different frequencies, which is a frequencydomain method, have been studied here. In the first part of thethesis, these measurement methods are analysed and evaluated.Three different types of insulation systems are included in theevaluation, oil/paper ("high" loss), resin-rich mica tape("medium" loss) and cross-linked polyethylene, XLPE, ("low"loss). These three systems have different dielectric responsein both shape and magnitude. Conclusions are made regardingchoice of measurement method depending on the dielectricresponse of the insulation material. Examples are also given ofhow to estimate conductivity and the dielectric responsefunction in the time domain from measurements with a finitecharging period.Furthermore, relations between time domain and frequencydomain and the possibilities of Fourier transforming data fromone domain to the other are discussed. Fourier transforming isdone with a spline approximation technique, the Hamonapproximation and by fitting base functions that have analyticFourier transforms to measured data. These techniques arereviewed with special attention to the problem of estimatingdata outside the measurement window.The second part of the thesis includes studies of the changeof dielectric properties during the manufacturing stage of acomposite insulation used in high voltage rotating machines.The insulation consists of a resin-rich mica tape with wovenglass or polyester film (PET) as carrier material. The aim wasto improve the quality of the composite insulation byoptimising the heat and pressure cycle used in theproduction.A test cell has been designed and built to be able toprocess simple parallel plate samples under conditions similarto the factory process. With a maximum heating rate of 9°C/min and a maximum cooling rate of 20° C/min arbitrarytemperature paths could be programmed. All samples wereprocessed under static pressure in the MPa range.The chemical reaction during curing of the resin-rich micatape was studied with differential scanning calorimetry (DSC).A simple reaction rate model was fit to the DSC measurementsmaking it possible to calculate the degree of curing during anarbitrary temperature path.The change of dielectric response with time during curingunder different temperature paths and at a constant pressurewas monitored. Both laboratory experiments and factorymeasurements have been made and based on these measurements asimple network model is proposed to explain the measureddielectric response in terms of material structure and degreeof curing.Keywords: Dielectric response, diagnostic methods, Hamon,Fourier transform, rotating-machine, insulation, resin-rich,mica tape, curing, process, monitoring, differential scanningcalorimetry (DSC), network model.


As part of a wider project investigating the biomechanics of the rugby scrum within rugby union, the focus of the present study was to design, realise and test an unobtrusive measurement system for assessing the kinematics and kinetics of rugby forwards while scrummaging on the pitch in realistic environmental conditions. Currently the study investigates one forward pack (eight players) scrummaging against an instrumented scrum machine, a training aid used widely throughout rugby. The measurement system integrates three different subsystems for: (1) measuring forces exerted by players; (2) capturing players' movements; and, (3) triggering/synchronising all the sensors involved in (1) and (2). Applied three-dimensional forces were measured by strain gauge circuits attached to each pusher arm of the machine and then summed to produce the components of overall force. Multiple camera views allowed the recording and subsequent analysis of player movements, in the primary transverse (50 Hz and 200 Hz) and sagittal (50 Hz) planes of motion. A control system executed pre-recorded audio commands to players with consistent timings, sent trigger pulses to acquisition devices and collected analogue data at 500 Hz. The overall system has been applied successfully in the field to record data from rugby union forward packs across a range of playing levels and initial results confirm that the measurement system will be useful for its desired purpose to compare the biomechanics of different scrum engagement techniques.


Despite a growing interest in species distribution modelling, relatively little attention has been paid to spatial autocorrelation and non‐stationarity. Both spatial autocorrelation (the tendency for adjacent locations to be more similar than distant ones) and non‐stationarity (the variation in modelled relationships over space) are likely to be common properties of ecological systems. This paper focuses on non‐stationarity and uses two local techniques, geographically weighted regression (GWR) and varying coefficient modelling (VCM), to assess its impact on model predictions. We extend two published studies, one on the presence–absence of calandra larks in Spain and the other on bird species richness in Britain, to compare GWR and VCM with the more usual global generalized linear modelling (GLM) and generalized additive modelling (GAM). For the calandra lark data, GWR and VCM produced better‐fitting models than GLM or GAM. VCM in particular gave significantly reduced spatial autocorrelation in the model residuals. GWR showed that individual predictors became stationary at different spatial scales, indicating that distributions are influenced by ecological processes operating over multiple scales. VCM was able to predict occurrence accurately on independent data from the same geographical area as the training data but not beyond, whereas the GAM produced good results on all areas. Individual predictions from the local methods often differed substantially from the global models. For the species richness data, VCM and GWR produced far better predictions than ordinary regression. Our analyses suggest that modellers interpolating data to produce maps for practical actions (e.g. conservation) should consider local methods, whereas they should not be used for extrapolation to new areas. We argue that local methods are complementary to global methods, revealing details of habitat associations and data properties which global methods average out and miss.


Several Ordovician outliers along or near the northern Ottawa-Bonnechere graben are bounded by Precambrian rocks of the Canadian Shield; however, they are remnants of a once expansive Late Ordovician phase of the St. Lawrence Platform extending into the craton interior. Integrating litho-, bio-, and chemostratigraphic evidence, four outliers (Deux Rivieres, Brent Crater, Cedar Lake, and Manitou Islands) preserve Turinian strata, whereas Owen Quarry outlier preserves lower Chatfieldian strata. Each outlier documents a unique depositional succession but commonly records shallow-water depositional environments during net transgression. Limestone diagenesis occurs in the surface marine, shallow-burial, and deep-burial zones. Dolomite shows basement-related, stratabound, and fault/fracture-related spatial distributions. Combining petrological and isotopic (C, O, Sr) evidence, early-stage dolomitization may be related to Mg derived from marine or meteoric waters whereas late-stage dolomitization, including hydrothermal saddle dolomite, likely involves brines that migrated along Paleozoic-Precambrian boundary, then refocused along vertical faults and fractures.


Purpose — the purpose of this article is to extend discussion towards the need and importance of joint degree programs in modern universities, introducing the perspective of the employers toward this question. Design/methodology/approach — the research was conducted to analyze the demand of joint degree programs from the perspective of employers, identify weak and strong aspects, opinion and demand for graduates of such programs. To achieve this purpose, a combination of theoretical and empirical methods was chosen: document analysis (previous studies, statistics) was conducted and an online qualitative survey was organized. Findings — The analysis of articles, studies and statistics points out the challenges and threats faced by universities nowadays, forcing higher education institutions to find new ways to raise the quality of studies and raise the interest of employers to choose graduates from MRU, as well as the satisfaction of employers with their choice of employees. Theoretical analysis pointed out these challenges and requirements for the modern employee, summarised the challenges in preparation of IT field specialists. The conducted research results showed that the diploma of joint degree programs would not be treated as an advantage of possible employee from the perspective of employers in case some important aspects will not be taken into consideration by program creators. On the other hand, undeniably there are strong sides, such as knowledge in the fields of foreign language, international experience, innovativeness and creativeness of employees that would be treated as an advantage in the process of selection for positions of any technical support related positions. Research limitations/implications — employers, whose business activities are closely related to information technology, have been invited as experts. In addition, these experts have a good understanding of the specifics of joint degree programs. The received answers can be analyzed as qualitative research results, results can be only achieved by performing an overview of experts'opinions. Practical implications — evaluation of respondents' choices shows that more than half of employers that surveyed the joint degree program do not see an advantage. However, their indication of the shortcomings is related more to physical circumstances and developments, while highlighting the advantages associated with the program content and trained student competencies. In addition, a majority of respondents confirm that the labour market is in need of students who graduated from the joint programs. The opinion survey carried out must be taken in formulating education policy and university policy. Originality/Value — though joint degree and double degree is kind of new trend in high education, the social implications and importance have not yet been widely investigated, the strong and weak sides were not validated by scientific research methods. This article extends to students opinion research with new data giving insights to employers opinions on the same question and even looks for the points were those opinions are the same and on which aspects it implements EU and Bologna process goals. Research type: research paper and viewpoint.


In this thesis I scrutinized a specific region of the X chromosome of Drosophila melanogaster for evidence of positive directional selection. In addition, I analyzed the structure of six Southeast (SE) Asian populations of this species. In the first chapter, I analyzed a region that showed no polymorphism in a previous scan of the X chromosome in a European D. melanogaster population. This region, which I named the wapl region, is located on the distal part of the X chromosome, in cytological division 2C10 - 2E1. I observed a 60.5 - kb stretch of DNA encompassing the genes ph-d, ph-p, CG3835, bcn92, Pgd, wapl and Cyp4d1 that almost completely lacks variation in the European sample. Loci flanking this region show a skewed frequency spectrum at segregating sites, strong haplotype structure, and high levels of linkage disequilibrium. Neutrality tests revealed that these patterns of variation are unlikely under the neutral equilibrium model or simple bottleneck scenarios. In contrast, newly developed likelihood ratio tests suggest that strong positive selection has acted recently on the region under investigation, resulting in a selective sweep. Evidence is presented that this sweep may have originated in an ancestral population in Africa.

In the second chapter, I revisited the center of the wapl region analyzed in chapter 1. I concentrated on the African D. melanogaster sample, as the valley of reduced variation found in the previous study was much narrower in the African sample than in the European one, which should help to pinpoint the target of selection. About 80% of the valley of reduced nucleotide variation was sequenced. This valley is located between the genes ph-d and Pgd. I therefore termed this part the ph-d - Pgd region. The new results confirm previous conclusions about selection having shaped nucleotide variability in this part of the D. melanogaster genome. Moreover, by sequencing the center of the selective sweep I was able to establish the haplotype structure in that region and to infer the historical context of the sweep. Most likely a positively selected substitution occurred at ph-p and was fixed before the out-of-Africa expansion of D. melanogaster, possibly >30,000 years ago. This substitution might be associated with the specialization of ph-p in gene regulation. In addition, the results obtained from the European sample indicate that sequence variation was not affected by demography alone. In fact, it was found that selection affected nucleotide diversity in the ph-d - Pgd region of the European sample as well. Since heterozygosity across the whole wapl region is substantially reduced, I propose that an additional selective sweep occurred at a different site in the European population. This is supported by an analysis regarding the time since the fixation of the (first) beneficial mutation at ph-p, which points toward a substitution in D. melanogaster before the colonization of Europe.

In chapter 3, I obtained sequence data from six SE Asian samples for ten putatively neutrally evolving X-linked loci. Population genetic parameters were estimated and compared to those previously obtained from the European and the African sample. I observe substantially lower levels of nucleotide diversity in SE Asia than in either Africa or Europe. In particular, samples taken from more peripheral populations (e.g. Manila and Cebu, located on the Philippines) show a paucity of haplotypes. Common summary statistics indicate that genetic drift had a significant impact on these populations, which also led to considerable population substructure. One sample, i.e. Kuala Lumpur, however, shows rather high levels of heterozygosity among all SE Asian samples and is on average least differentiated from these. This indicates that the Kuala Lumpur population is ancestral to the other SE Asian populations, which is supported by a high amount of shared polymorphic sites. Finally, I revisited the wapl region, as analyzed in the first chapter, and find evidence that the selective sweep is older in Kuala Lumpur than in Europe.


The article is built on four propositions. First, there is a latent potential within the German polity for the mobilisation of what remains a significant level of popular unease about aspects of the ongoing process of European integration. Second, at present this potential is unfulfilled and, as a result, Euroscepticism remains the 'dark matter' of German politics. Third, the absence of a clearly stated Eurosceptical agenda is not due to the inherent 'enlightenment' of the German political class about the European project, but rather is the result of systemic disincentives shaping the preferences of rational acting politicians. Finally, these systemic disincentives are to be found within the formal institutions of the German polity. The key ideas here are of 'hard' versus 'soft' Eurosceptical narratives, sustained versus heresthetic agendas, and 'polis constraining' versus 'polis shaping' strategies for their promotion. Political agents' choice of strategy depends on the nature of the institutional setting within which they are operating. The institutional configuration of the Federal Republic provides poor returns for party-based Euroscepticism. The mobilisation of popular unease about aspects of European integration remains an unattractive option for rational acting political agents.


Discerning the prevalence of e-government systems implementation internationally and an insufficiency in research on this contemporary phenomenon, this research adopted a case study methodology in analyzing the implementation of the E-File System in a Singaporean government agency. The analysis was conducted by leveraging the resource-based view and the enactment concept as the theoretical guide. This yielded a process model of resource enactment in the implementation of the e-government system and provided answers to the research question of 'How are capabilities developed in the implementation of e-government systems?' and the associated question of 'What are the capabilities involved in e-government systems implementation?'. The concept of resource enactment is advanced through the analysis. In conclusion, theoretical and practical implications as well as suggestions for future research are offered.


This thesis was originally motivated by a curiosity about how historicity and culture forms understanding in activities in a work situation. I wanted to gather and structure some thoughts about what happens when scientific, formally educated, knowledge, which dominates in a traditional desk learning situation, is facing knowledge which is learned through practice in real work situations with complex technology. These contradictions, I believe, must be something we all experience every day, more or less consciously. A study could perhaps be done at any kind of activity or work. I chose a dialysis department and the work of dialysis nurses as an example. This turned out to be a good choice, since these two perspectives of understanding becomes quite clear in a setting with new technology, which, together with routines and treatment, is developing and changing constantly. Patients, nurses, doctors, patient wards, dialysis machines, water cleansing system, and so forth create a complex system. It is not possible to analyse this system, or even create anything meaningful for it, unless bringing in a perspective of time and culture, into the discussion. Historicity explains and forms work practice at the very same time, when the nurses have to create a standpoint and an understanding for the actions they have to take. Creating meaningful design into complex environments is not helped by aiming for a total understanding of the whole system. Instead, agents that form the change of understanding, behaviour and action may work as keys into the creation of new design.


In England at both strategic and operational levels, policy-makers in the public sector have undertaken considerable work on implementing the findings of the Every Child Matters report and subsequently through the Children's Act 2004. Legislation has resulted in many local authorities seeking to implement more holistic approaches to the delivery of children's services. At a strategic level this is demonstrated by the creation of integrated directorate structures providing for a range of services, from education to children's social care. Such services were generally under the management of the Director of Children's Services, holding statutory responsibilities for the delivery of services formally divided into the three sectors of education, health and social services. At a national level, more fundamental policy developments have sought to establish a framework through which policy-makers can address the underlying causes of deprivation, vulnerability and inequality. The Child Poverty Act, 2010, which gained Royal Assent in 2010, provides for a clear intention to reduce the number of children in poverty, acknowledging that 'the best way to eradicate child poverty is to address the causes of poverty, rather than only treat the symptoms'. However, whilst the policy objectives of both pieces of legislation hold positive aspirations for children and young people, a change of policy direction through a change of government in May 2010 seems to be in direct contrast to the intended focus of these aims. This paper explores the impact of new government policy on the future direction of children's services both at the national and local levels. At the national level, we question the ability of the government to deliver the aspirations of the Child Poverty Act, 2010, given the broad range of influences and factors that can determine the circumstances in which a child may experience poverty. We argue that poverty is not simply an issue of the pressure of financial deprivation, but that economic recession and cuts in government spending will further increase the number of children living in poverty.


ABSTRACT The Gram-negative bacterial cell wall component lipopolysaccharide (LPS) is recognized by the noncanonical inflammasome protein caspase-11 in the cytosol of infected host cells and thereby prompts an inflammatory immune response linked to sepsis. Host guanylate binding proteins (GBPs) promote infection-induced caspase-11 activation in tissue culture models, and yet their in vivo role in LPS-mediated sepsis has remained unexplored. LPS can be released from lysed bacteria as "free" LPS aggregates or actively secreted by live bacteria as a component of outer membrane vesicles (OMVs). Here, we report that GBPs control inflammation and sepsis in mice injected with either free LPS or purified OMVs derived from Gram-negative Escherichia coli. In agreement with our observations from in vivo experiments, we demonstrate that macrophages lacking GBP2 expression fail to induce pyroptotic cell death and proinflammatory interleukin-1β (IL-1β) and IL-18 secretion when exposed to OMVs. We propose that in order to activate caspase-11 in vivo, GBPs control the processing of bacterium-derived OMVs by macrophages as well as the processing of circulating free LPS by as-yet-undetermined cell types. IMPORTANCE The bacterial cell wall component LPS is a strong inducer of inflammation and is responsible for much of the toxicity of Gram-negative bacteria. Bacteria shed some of their cell wall and its associated LPS in the form of outer membrane vesicles (OMVs). Recent work demonstrated that secreted OMVs deliver LPS into the host cell cytosol by an unknown mechanism, resulting in the activation of the proinflammatory LPS sensor caspase-11. Here, we show that activation of cytosolic caspase-11 by OMVs requires additional host factors, the so-called guanylate binding proteins (GBPs). The discovery of GBPs as regulators of OMV-mediated inflammation paves the way toward a mechanistic understanding of the host response toward bacterial OMVs and may lead to effective strategies to ameliorate inflammation induced by bacterial infections. IMPORTANCE The bacterial cell wall component LPS is a strong inducer of inflammation and is responsible for much of the toxicity of Gram-negative bacteria. Bacteria shed some of their cell wall and its associated LPS in the form of outer membrane vesicles (OMVs). Recent work demonstrated that secreted OMVs deliver LPS into the host cell cytosol by an unknown mechanism, resulting in the activation of the proinflammatory LPS sensor caspase-11. Here, we show that activation of cytosolic caspase-11 by OMVs requires additional host factors, the so-called guanylate binding proteins (GBPs). The discovery of GBPs as regulators of OMV-mediated inflammation paves the way toward a mechanistic understanding of the host response toward bacterial OMVs and may lead to effective strategies to ameliorate inflammation induced by bacterial infections.


Background: Disparity exists in the availability of dental care services in rural India as compared to urban setup. Majority of dental offices are set in urban areas, with little access to rural population, driving people to primary health centers for all health needs. In situations like these, auxiliary health workers can be delegated with the duties of oral health education to the masses provided they possess adequate information/knowledge regarding oral healthcare and practices. Aim: The aim of this study is to assess the influence of oral health knowledge (OHK) and oral health practices on the oral health status among auxiliary health workers in the health centers of Mangalore. Material and Methods: A cross-sectional study was carried out among the auxiliary health workers in Mangalore. OHK and practices were analyzed using a pretested, screening questionnaire. Oral health status was analyzed using the WHO Oral Health Assessment Form-1997. Data were analyzed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences software, version 16.0 (SPSS Inc., Chicago, IL, USA). Chi-square test and binary logistic regression test were employed. P < 0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results: Majority (72.8%) of the auxiliary workers had good OHK and followed recommended dental practices. Better OHK was associated with better oral health, namely lesser decayed teeth and more filled teeth (P < 0.05). Better OHK correlated negatively with missing teeth among participants (P < 0.05). Visiting a dentist in previous 6 months, brushing twice a day, and changing brush every 3 months were the important predictors of improved oral health (P < 0.05). Conclusion: Better OHK and practices can significantly impact the oral health status of auxiliary health workers in Mangalore. It also projects the impact that it can have on the oral health of rural population as auxiliary health workers are the first line of information for the underprivileged masses. Dedicated oral health programs to educate/train auxiliary workers in health centers can form an alternative approach to reach rural population.


Background: Metabolic syndrome (MS) is a clustering of risk factors, such as central obesity, insulin resistance, diabetes, hypertension and atherosclerosis. Cigarette smoking is a strong risk factor for cardiovascular diseases; therefore, smoking may be considered as an important risk factor for MS. Smokers are at greater risk than non-smokers to become insulin-resistant and develop cardiovascular diseases. This study aimed to explore the association of cigarette smoking with MS and its components among Iraqi adults who were already smokers for more than 10 years. Methods: This clinical study was conducted on 80 adult Iraqi subjects, aged 50 - 70 years. Subjects were divided into two groups according to their smoking status. Standard questionnaire was completed regarding smoking habits, medications, past medical history and physical activity. Blood pressure measurements and biochemical analysis involving fasting serum glucose and serum lipid profile (total cholesterol, high-density lipoprotein (HDL)-cholesterol and triglycerides (TG)) were done. The diagnosis of MS was based on the American Heart Association (AHA) and the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) criteria. Results: According to the AHA definition, this study showed that MS was higher in smokers than in non-smokers with the relative risk for MS. Furthermore, obesity and dyslipidemia were found to be in 65.6% and 80% of both study groups, respectively. Systolic (P = 0.026) and diastolic blood pressures (P = 0.03) were significantly higher in smokers compared with non-smokers. The present study clearly showed that total serum cholesterol, HDL-cholesterol and low-density lipoprotein (LDL)-cholesterol serum levels were higher in the smoker group; however, a statistical significance was not obtained. Serum TG level was significantly higher (P = 0.025) in smokers than in non-smokers. The remarkable increase in the prevalence of MS among the smokers and non-smokers was correlated with the involvement of more than one component of MS according to the AHA and NHLBI criteria. Conclusions: The present study showed that tobacco smoke exposure increases the incidence of or worsens MS. Obesity and overweight give a comparable risk to smoking in adult subjects. Reducing the rate of cigarette smoking provides a beneficial effect on cardiovascular risk factors of this syndrome, such as body weight, blood pressure, blood cholesterol, and serum glucose. J Endocrinol Metab. 2016;6(6):178-182 doi: https://doi.org/10.14740/jem390e


Satellite remote sensing has special advantages for monitoring the extent of illegal drug production that causes serious problems to the global society. Although remote sensing has been used to monitor opium poppy fields, the main data employed were high-resolution images (:S I m) like pan-sharpened IKONOS, QuickBird, etc. These images are costly, making the full coverage of the crop fields in a large area an expensive exercise. As an alternative, the imagery acquired by E0-1 Hyperion, the only available spacebome hyperspectral sensor currently, is free. However, its spatial resolution is coarser (30 m). Until now, there is little evidence that poppy fields have been identified from aerial or satellite hyperspectral images. This thesis proposed two unsupervised methods (i.e., a MESMA-based one and a MTMF-based one), that could detect poppy fields in Afghanistan from Hyperion data directly. Comparing the two methods, the MTMF-based one has much higher computational efficiency. Moreover, the MTMF-based method performed well in both of the two main environments in Afghanistan. In addition, it was found that the moderate spatial resolution E0-1 Advanced Land Imager (ALI) multispectral data could not produce reasonable detection of poppy fields in Afghanistan.


A collection of pennatulaceans from ten cruises, acquired between 1982 and 1989 from off the western African coast comprises ca. 350 specimens of 13 species. One of the cruise is from the Gulf of Guinea and eight from the Southeast Atlantic. Fifty-four stations were sampled from depths of 91-1112 m. One previously undescribed species in the genus Stylatula is reported and described as new from samples collected from the Namibian continental shelf. Considering these collections, and previous records, the pennatulaceans in the western African region show biogeographic affinities with three geographic areas: West Africa (55.5% of the species), which comprises the Canary, Gulf of Guinea, and Benguela regions; the North Atlantic (3.7% of the species), which represents the more widespread Atlantic taxa; and Cape Endemic (7.4% of the species), which comprises the southern African region.


See also the article 'Religion and income: heterogeneity between countries' in the Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization , 74, 12-29. This paper tests whether the behaviour of households in different countries is homogeneous with respect to the influence of religion on income. The violation of the homogeneity assumption would have two consequences. First, results based on country studies might not be applicable to other countries. Second, one should be careful when pooling cross-country data in this type of research. Data at household level of the European and World Values Survey are pooled for 25 Western countries. We estimate simultaneously an income and a religion equation to correct for the endogeneity of religiosity. We find that estimation outcomes are different between low and high-income countries. Whereas church membership is found to have a positive effect on income for high-income countries, this effect is negative for low-income countries. This result is robust to denominational distribution, participation effects and alternative measures of religiosity.


Axonal regeneration in the mature CNS is limited by inhibitory factors within the extracellular environment. In this study, we show that histones H3 and H4 inhibit neurite outgrowth when applied to cortical neurons in vitro, and that this effect can be reversed by the addition of activated protein C (APC). Elevated levels of histones H3 and H4 were also detected in cerebrospinal fluid following CNS injury, and treatment with APC significantly increased axonal regeneration. Mechanistically, we have determined that histones activate a retrograde signaling cascade that results in phosphorylation of the transcription factor YB-1, and that neurite outgrowth is impaired when YB-1 is overexpressed in cortical neurons. These findings identify extracellular histones as a new class of growth-inhibiting molecules within the injured CNS.


Because habitat quality strongly affects individual fitness, understanding individual habitat selection strategies is fundamental for most aspects of the evolution and conservation of species. Several studies suggest that individuals gather public information, i.e. information derived from the reproductive performance of conspecifics, to assess and select habitats. However, the behavioural mechanisms of information gathering, i.e. prospecting, are largely unknown, despite the fact that they directly constrain individual selection strategies. To test whether prospectors gather public information or other cues of habitat quality, we manipulated brood size of collared flycatchers (Ficedula albicollis) and investigated subsequent attraction of prospectors. Experimentally adding two nestlings increased the probability of attracting prospectors to the nest as a result of increased parental feeding rates. Prospectors were attracted to the most successful sites because feeding rate predicted subsequent fledgling production. In the year following prospecting, individuals selected a breeding site very close to the prospected site. These results provide the first experimental evidence, to our knowledge, of the links between information gathering behaviour and breeding habitat selection strategies based on public information.


GDP growth in the EU Member States of Central and Eastern Europe (EU-CEE), the Western Balkans (WB) and Turkey will remain stable or even increase. The trend growth path will be around 3%. EU-CEE countries will thus continue to catch up to the EU average, however at low speed. Russia and Ukraine, on the other hand, will show a considerably worse performance growth will return in 2017 at the earliest. These are the main results of the newly released medium-term macroeconomic forecast by the Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies (wiiw). In 2015, the EU-CEE group registered the highest rate of economic growth since the outbreak of the financial crisis, 3.4% (see Table 1). In 2016-2017 the group will experience some modest growth deceleration on account of the recent consumption boom subsiding and a temporary decline in EU transfers. As for 2018, the EU-CEE countries will pick up some speed driven by an inflow of new investments and transfers. Uncertainties concerning the global economy do not allow us to predict average growth of more than 3% over the medium term. Countries in the Western Balkans also improved their performance in 2015 and will maintain positive growth rates in 2016 and beyond. However unimpressive it may be, compared to their need for catching-up, the average growth rate in the WB countries (excluding Serbia) will not lag behind that in the EU-CEE countries. Turkey will maintain a fragile stability despite relatively high inflation and a high current account deficit, while coping with increasing challenges emerging, for instance, from the war in Syria, the refugee crisis and the loss of export and tourism revenue owing to the Russian trade sanctions. Russia and Belarus will face yet another year of recession in 2016. Russia will continue to suffer from low oil prices, high inflation, currency depreciation, sanctions and fiscal austerity. As usual, structural change and institutional reforms will be slow and half-hearted, incapable of offsetting the losses. Ukraine's economic growth, after the dramatic fall over the past years, will stabilise as the economy will by and large have completed the adjustment process that was triggered by the country decoupling from Russia and the occupied territories. The Russian annexation of the Crimea and the conflict in East-Ukraine look set to last. Export markets lost will not be regained even in the medium term, nor should one expect the volume of exports to the EU to make up for the shortfall quickly. The divergence of economic performance between the EU-CEE and the WB plus Turkey on the one hand and the CIS-3 (Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan) and Ukraine on the other hand will continue in 2016 and beyond. The difference between the two large country groups, however, will not take on more pronounced dimensions as the recent collapse of the major commodity prices may turn into stagnation. The leading role attributed to household demand in driving economic growth in the EU-CEE and WB countries will be matched by investments. A medium-term investment revival is expected in most of the CESEE countries in both the public and private sectors. FDI has already shown some signs of emerging from stagnation in the EU-CEE and WB countries. Credit conditions for private borrowers have improved. Moreover, gross fixed capital formation is responding to the transfer of EU funds that are bound to decline in 2016, but will recover later, once access to EU transfers provided under the 2014-2020 financing framework picks up. As fiscal consolidation and more rapid economic growth have been achieved, fiscal space has widened in several countries, thus granting governments more room in which to implement and support investments. Even highly indebted countries have managed to adopt a less restrictive fiscal stance. The CIS-3 and Ukraine are outliers in this respect as well; they have started cutting back on expenditures so as to reduce their fiscal deficits. Exports may increase if external demand recovers, but imports may grow even more rapidly as consumption and investment expand in the EU-CEE and WB economies. Thus, net exports will not be a strong driver of economic growth. Foreign investors' income may rise overall, while remittances and labour income from abroad will remain important sources of current account revenues. Special sections of the Forecast shed light on other topical issues low oil prices are mainly supply-driven; the Juncker Initiative will not take the place of EU transfers; outmigration and demography are leading to labour shortages in EU-CEE countries; the recent inflow of refugees may, in the medium term, put pressure on existing migrant workers in Austria.


This article is a study of the disadvantaged groups in Nepal, namely Janajatis, Madhesis, Dalits, and women; groups that have experienced exclusion in the state's apparatus since the mid-18th century unification period. By analysing the representation of caste and minority status in the Ministry of General Administration, the Judicial Service, the Nepal Police, and the Nepal Army personnel, this paper demonstrates recent social inequalities in Nepal. Significantly, the historical 'People's Movement of 2006' paved the way towards a Nepal that is more inclusive, by providing quotas for disadvantaged groups in civil service. However, the issue of reservations is still ardently debated among local communities, academics, government officials, and activists. This paper aims to focus these debates and reviews on the implementation of reservation (quota) seats by analysing empirical data from the personnel records of the Nepal Police and Armed Police Force since 2007. The main argument of this paper is that all qualified candidates should receive equal opportunities in recruitment and promotion in their posts without ethnic, gender, and regional prejudices. By avoiding discriminatory social and cultural values, efforts should be focused on fostering a 'culture of respect' in organisations, institutions, and associations. This is achieved through cultural recognition and acknowledgment, while enabling broader public response to vacancy announcements, thus promoting public ownership of the state. Nepal, which is one of the great examples of multiculturalism, is now debating how to address its cultural diversities. Therefore, this research contributes to the efforts among government officials, policy makers, and INGOs toward promoting greater social inclusion in Nepal.


We study offline reinforcement learning (RL), which aims to learn an optimal policy based on a dataset collected a priori. Due to the lack of further interactions with the environment, offline RL suffers from the insufficient coverage of the dataset, which eludes most existing theoretical analysis. In this paper, we propose a pessimistic variant of the value iteration algorithm (PEVI), which incorporates an uncertainty quantifier as the penalty function. Such a penalty function simply flips the sign of the bonus function for promoting exploration in online RL, which makes it easily implementable and compatible with general function approximators. Without assuming the sufficient coverage of the dataset, we establish a data-dependent upper bound on the suboptimality of PEVI for general Markov decision processes (MDPs). When specialized to linear MDPs, it matches the information-theoretic lower bound up to multiplicative factors of the dimension and horizon. In other words, pessimism is not only provably efficient but also minimax optimal. In particular, given the dataset, the learned policy serves as the "best effort" among all policies, as no other policies can do better. Our theoretical analysis identifies the critical role of pessimism in eliminating a notion of spurious correlation, which emerges from the "irrelevant" trajectories that are less covered by the dataset and not informative for the optimal policy.


Abstract We analyzed chat transcripts from 590 undercover Internet sex stings across the US, using the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count software program to examine trends in sexual word usage, total word usage, and clout (a measure conveying social dominance) for convicted child sex offenders and undercover agents. Offenders and agents varied greatly in their scores in these word categories; however, generally, offenders used more words in each: 91% used more sexual words, 66% used more words overall, and 82% exhibited more clout than their respective agents. Linguistic analyses can provide the trier of fact with objective measures of psychometric properties that may help them assess the offender's predisposition and appropriateness of government conduct. Additionally, our data-set shows the distribution of these language dimensions across a wide sample of offenders, providing a statistical context for linguistic evidence from individual cases. As language-based digital evidence become more prevalent, forensic linguistic analyses may prove invaluable in the courtroom.


"The Archaeology of Identities: A Reader" brings together seventeen seminal articles from this exciting new discipline in one indispensable volume for the first time. Editor Timothy Insoll expertly selects a cross-section of contributions by leading authorities to form a comprehensive and balanced representation of approaches and interests. Issues covered include: gender and sexuality; ethnicity, nationalism and caste; age; ideology; and, disability. Chapters are thematically arranged and are contextualised with lucid summaries and an introductory chapter, providing an accessible introduction to the varied selection of case studies included and archaeological materials considered from global sources. The study of identity is increasingly recognized as a fundamental division of archaeological enquiry, and has recently become the focus of a variety of new and challenging developments. As such, this volume will fast become the definitive sourcebook in archaeology of identities, making it essential reading for students, lecturers and researchers in the field.


According to Posnerian law and economics, common law (i.e., judge-made law) tends to promote efficiency. Public choice teaches that statutory (legislated) law need have no such efficiency property because, unlike appointed judges, legislators are subject to short election cycles and are beholden to special interests for election and re-election. The collateral source rule is a common law norm that permits an injured party to recover damages from both the tortfeasor (injurer) and from private insurance. Published work in the law and economics literature indicates that despite an appearance that the rule permits unwarranted double recover, the rule is indeed generally efficient. Despite its efficiency properties, the rule has been modified by statute in many jurisdictions in recent decades. Insurers reap transitory gains if exceptions to the collateral source rule are granted by statute whereas medical care providers achieve an ongoing gain if their sector is specifically excluded from the rule's application. The authors report the results of their exhaustive survey of statutory law concerning the collateral source rule in the fifty states, District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and Virgin Islands. The categorized findings reveal significant exceptions to the collateral source rule introduced into statutory law to the benefit of the special interests identified.


This chapter takes three glossed texts emanating from early medieval Wales and considers the contribution the glossing makes to the educational utility of the texts. By a happy chance, texts have survived which arguably illustrate three distinct stages in the learning of Latin – from the early manipulation of Latin morphology and vocabulary-learning through the development of a familiarity with Latin verse to sophisticated annotation and commentary.


Britain mediated successfully in the Indo-Pakistani clash over the Rann of Kutch region in spring 1965, but when hostilities broke out over Kashmir soon afterwards, 10 Downing Street managed to alienate New Delhi with what was supposed to be an even-handed statement. The Indian government seemed to feel that the Labour government had violated some kind of historic special obligation to them, and the Anglo-Indian relationship was damaged. For his part Prime Minister Harold Wilson condemned the 'pro-Pakistani faction' in the Commonwealth Relations Office responsible for drafting the statement, although he had been warned of the likely consequences. Eventually, the Soviet Union, operating through the United Nations, mediated an end to the war. The article draws upon British government documents to fill a gap in the literature, and it ends with a few reflections on Britain's 'decline' as demonstrated by the failure to end the conflict over Kashmir in 1965.


We investigate the tunneling properties of collective excitations in the ferromagnetic phase of a spin-1 spinor Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC). In addition to the Bogoliubov mode, this superfluid phase has two spin excitations, namely, the gapless transverse spin wave and the quadrupolar mode with a finite excitation gap. In the mean-field theory at T=0, we examine how these collective modes tunnel through a barrier potential that couples to the local density of particles. In the presence of supercurrent with a finite momentum q, while the Bogoliubov mode shows the so-called anomalous tunneling behavior (which is characterized by perfect transmission) in the low-energy limit, the transverse spin wave transmits perfectly only when the momentum k of this mode coincides with {+-}q. At k={+-}q, the wave function of this spin wave has the same form as the condensate wave function in the current-carrying state, so that the mechanism of this perfect transmission is found to be the same as tunneling of the supercurrent. Using this fact, the perfect transmission of the spin wave is proved for a generic barrier potential. We show that such perfect transmission does not occur in the quadrupolar mode. Further, we consider the effects of potentials breaking U(1) andmore » spin-rotation symmetries on the transmission properties of excitations. Our results would be useful for understanding excitation properties of spinor BEC's, as well as the anomalous tunneling phenomenon in Bose superfluids.« less


The repeated annual use of herbicides to control wild oats (Avena ludoviciana and A.fatua) was investigated. In the first trial the wild oat seed density in the soil after a wheat crop was less than the initial soil seed density only after treatment with tri-allate at 0.85 kg combined with barban 0.175 kg/ha. Seed numbers in the soil had declined 5 months after the crop, so that the number in the tri-allate plots was also less than one year previously. In a four-year trial, tri-allate and trifluralin (0.4 kg/ha) produced levels of wild oat control which resulted in grain yield increases between 55% and 120% in 3 of the years. There were still 5-12 wild oat plants/m2 in the maturing wheat crop in the third and fourth years of applying tri-allate and trifluralin. Barban was less effective on wild oats than the other herbicides, resulting in smaller yield increases. The incidence of wild oats in relation to crop rotations was surveyed over 4 years on 5 farms covering 2000 ha. Winter crops following 2 or 3 summer crops had low wild oat populations (1 on a scale 0 to 10). The wild oat density was rated at 2.5 and 5 in second and third winter crops respectively.


Certain difficulties with the usual one-center multipole expansion of long-range intermol. interaction energies can be circumvented by multicenter multipole expansions using several expansion sites in each mol., such as, e.g., the nuclear positions. Based on the topol. partitioning of the mol. vol. provided by Bader's 'atoms in mols.' theory, a method has been developed for calcg. the required at. multipole moments and polarizabilities. The performance of these topol. partitioned elec. properties is examd. for the calcn. of multipole expanded first-order electrostatic and second-order induction energies by comparing their convergence behavior with that of the corresponding one-center expansions. The homomol. dimers of the water, carbon monoxide, cyanogen, and urea mols. serve as examples. The results show that distributed elec. properties calcd. within the topol. partitioning scheme indeed solve the 'shape' convergence problem, which arises in the calcn. of interaction energies of large nonspherical mols. via multipole expansions.


Abstract. In this paper we analyse the upward earthquake hypocentral migration in the ten known subduction zones and discuss a possible mechanism of such migration. The total time of the migration appears to range from 2.5 to 10 years. It leads to the estimation of the average velocity Vz~ 60−300 km yr−1. It probably corresponds to the movement of the forcing agent like stress or deformation wave from depths of the upper mantle (600–700 km) to the level of the lithosphere with subsequent initiation of fluid migration inside the crust to trigger shallow earthquakes. Averaged over all zones upward migration travel time is about 5 years ( ≈120 km yr−1) that coincides approximately with the period of characteristic temperature variation (El Nino) and crustal seismic periodicity in the Pacific region. These findings are helpful for the study of the seismic precursors and analysis of earthquake triggering.


In a Jacksonville Florida interview in early April with The Japan Times and Ryukyu Asahi Broadcasting Co., a TV network based in Okinawa, former infantryman Larry Carlson, 67, also said that Okinawan stevedores were exposed to the highly toxic herbicide as they labored in the holds of ships, and that he witnessed it being sprayed at Kadena Air Base. Carlson is one of only three American servicemen who have won benefits from the U.S. government over exposure to the toxic defoliant on Okinawa — and the first of them to step forward and reveal that massive amounts of it were kept on the island.


The importance of the signaling compound salicylic acid for basal defense of potato (Solanum tuberosum L. cv. Désirée) against Phytophthora infestans, the causal agent of late blight disease, was assessed using transgenic NahG potato plants which are unable to accumulate salicylic acid. Although the size of lesions caused by P. infestans was not significantly different in wild-type and transgenic NahG plants, real-time polymerase chain reaction analyses revealed a drastic enhancement of pathogen growth in potato plants depleted of salicylic acid. Increased susceptibility of NahG plants correlated with compromised callose formation and reduced early defense gene expression. NahG plants pretreated with the salicylic acid analog 2,6-dichloro-isonicotinic acid allowed pathogen growth to a similar extent as did wild-type plants, indicating that salicylic acid is an important compound required for basal defense of potato against P. infestans.


Because many existing dams are subject to overtopping, there is a need to understand embankment behavior during an overtopping event. Understanding of this behavior will allow evaluation of specific embankments and provide a basis for design of protective measures. This paper describes overtopping incidents which illustrate basic erosion and destruction mechanisms. Prototype experience indicates many embankments can survive shallow overtopping for short durations. Under some conditions embankments have withstood relatively high overtoppings (5-6 feet) for extended periods. Critical factors influencing embankment performance are identified.


Security concerns are widely seen as an obstacle to the adoption of cloud computing solutions and although a wealth of law and regulation has emerged, the technical basis for enforcing and demonstrating compliance lags behind. Our Cloud Safety Net project aims to show that Information Flow Control (IFC) can augment existing security mechanisms and provide continuous enforcement of extended. Finer-grained application-level security policy in the cloud. We present FlowK, a loadable kernel module for Linux, as part of a proof of concept that IFC can be provided for cloud computing. Following the principle of policy-mechanism separation, IFC policy is assumed to be expressed at application level and FlowK provides mechanisms to enforce IFC policy at runtime. FlowK's design minimises the changes required to existing software when IFC is provided. To show how FlowK can be integrated with cloud software we have designed and evaluated a framework for deploying IFC-aware web applications, suitable for use in a PaaS cloud.


Murderous Maths has been given a gorgeous new cover look! Using a host of hilarious characters, Kjartan Poskitt presents all the tricks, tips and shortcuts to algebra they don't teach at school. Readers must pit their wits against Professor Fiendish in the Foul Formula Challenge and Chainsaw Charlie and his gruesome gang discover that even the simplest maths can be murderous. But look no further: The Phantom is here to banish algebraic agony - for good!


Summary This independent study assesses how EU standards on privacy and data protection are safeguarded from liberalisation by existing free trade agreements (the General Agreement of Trade in Services (GATS) and the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA)) and those that are currently under negotiation (the Trans-atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and the Trade in Services Agreement (TiSA)). It was jointly commissioned by the European Consumer Organisation (BEUC), the Center for Digital Democracy (CDD), the Transatlantic Consumer Dialogue (TACD) and European Digital Rights (EDRi), and executed by the Institute for Information Law (IViR) at the University of Amsterdam. Based on the premise that the EU does not negotiate its privacy and data protection standards, the study clarifies safeguards and risks in respectively the EU legal order and international trade law. In the context of the highly-charged discourse surrounding the new generation free trade agreements under negotiation, this study applies legal methods in order to derive nuanced conclusions about the preservation of the EU's right to regulate privacy and the protection of personal data.


This paper presents six document classification models using the latest transformer encoders and a high-performing ensemble model for a task of offensive language identification in social media. For the individual models, deep transformer layers are applied to perform multi-head attentions. For the ensemble model, the utterance representations taken from those individual models are concatenated and fed into a linear decoder to make the final decisions. Our ensemble model outperforms the individual models and shows up to 8.6% improvement over the individual models on the development set. On the test set, it achieves macro-F1 of 90.9% and becomes one of the high performing systems among 85 participants in the sub-task A of this shared task. Our analysis shows that although the ensemble model significantly improves the accuracy on the development set, the improvement is not as evident on the test set.


Single-photon avalanche diodes (SPADs) are primary devices in photon counting systems used in quantum cryptography, time resolved spectroscopy and photon counting optical communication. SPADs convert each photo-generated electron hole pair to a measurable current via an avalanche of impact ionizations. In this paper, a stochastically self-regulating avalanche model for passively quenched SPADs is presented. The model predicts, in qualitative agreement with experiments, three important phenomena that traditional models are unable to predict. These are: (1) an oscillatory behavior of the persistent avalanche current; (2) an exponential (memoryless) decay of the probability density function of the stochastic quenching time of the persistent avalanche current; and (3) a fast collapse of the avalanche current, under strong feedback conditions, preventing the development of a persistent avalanche current. The model specifically captures the effect of the load's feedback on the stochastic avalanche multiplication, an effect believed to be key in breaking today's counting rate barrier in the 1.55-μm detection window.


High pressure (∼1 Torr) microwave plasmas in argon are investigated in the range of gas pressures from 400–1000 mTorr for microwave (MW) power levels of 1300–1600 W by means of electrical probes. Electron number density, electron temperature, and plasma potential obtained from single Langmuir probe (SP), floating double probe (DP), and emissive probe (EP) are compared with one another. Standard analyses for the single and double probe characteristics are performed, whereas the inflection point method is used for determining the plasma potential from the emissive probe. Averaged over all power levels, the range of values for the plasma parameters are determined to be (i) 3.5–4.9 eV from the SP and 2.0–2.4 eV from the DP method for electron temperatures, (ii) 0.92–3.5 × 1011 cm−3 from the SP and 1.2–2.7 × 1011 cm−3 from the DP method for electron densities, and (iii) 17.5–22.6 V from the SP and 12.4–36.6 V from the EP method for the plasma potentials.


Scholars have long disagreed on which of two rules is more effective when a fiduciary engages in self-dealing. Some defend the "strict" no-conflict rule, which categorically bans self-dealing. Others prefer the "flexible" and "pragmatic" fairness rule, which allows self-dealing if it is fair to beneficiaries. The centrality of this debate cannot be overstated: corporate law as a field is fundamentally concerned with self-dealing by fiduciaries. Yet a lack of firm data means that this debate has dragged on for decades, with no end in sight.

This Article makes a simple but powerful point: the entire debate is somewhat misguided because, in operation, the difference between the two regimes is not as important as scholars generally assume. This is best seen by comparing the operation of the United Kingdom — which continues to employ the traditional no-conflict rule — with the United States, which adopted the fairness rule. The no-conflict and fairness rules share a common structure: they require strict loyalty but provide exceptions or cleansing devices that save fiduciaries from liability. Only the no-conflict rule allows companies to adopt their own exceptions. Based on this analysis, neither rule is self-evidently stricter or more pragmatic. In fact, examining the fiduciary rules in operation, including the exceptions that companies actually adopt and directors actually use, reveals that they are quite similar in operation. Both task neutral directors with policing directorial self-dealing.

This finding underscores the need for scholars and policymakers alike to focus not on the choice between no conflict and fairness but rather on the best use of exceptions or cleansing devices. The availability of proof of fairness as a cleansing device in the United States occasionally matters — but far less than commentators have claimed. It is often irrelevant because of its severity, rather than relevant because of its leniency. More attractive exceptions are usually available to self-dealing directors. This finding also complicates the dominant narrative holding that U.S. law significantly weakened as it evolved from no conflict to fairness; far from rejecting a stricter U.K. law, U.S. law came more closely to resemble U.K. law in operation.


This paper unveils a new resource for macroeconomic research: a long-run dataset covering disaggregated bank credit for 17 advanced economies since 1870. The new data show that the share of mortgages on banks' balance sheets doubled in the course of the 20th century, driven by a sharp rise of mortgage lending to households. Household debt to asset ratios have risen substantially in many countries. Financial stability risks have been increasingly linked to real estate lending booms which are typically followed by deeper recessions and slower recoveries. Housing finance has come to play a central role in the modern macroeconomy.


Abstract Conjoint analysis is used to examine landowner attitudes toward specific management program attributes and requirements. Our results suggest that the majority of respondents are very reluctant to convey landowner rights, such as timber rights or public access, without unrealistic levels of compensation ($ 53 to $ 185 per hectare per year). This implies the need to develop alternatives to the conventional economic incentive based approach to forest management. It is envisioned that the conjoint methodology used here could readily be applied to study landowner decision making in other countries.


This study offers both an account of twentieth-century technology in the Netherlands and a view of Dutch history through the lens of technology. It describes the trajectory of modernization through technology in certain characteristically Dutch contexts--including the omnipresence of water, the pervasiveness of urbanization coupled with a high-tech agricultural sector, and the legacy of colonialism--but at the same time makes it clear that Dutch struggles over technology choices, infrastructure development, mass production, and the role of government are comparable to the experience of any Western industrialized country. The book, which synthesizes findings originally presented in a series of seven volumes published in the Netherlands, uses the idea of contested modernization as an overarching concept through which to understand Dutch technological history. The modernizers of Dutch society--including engineers, management consultants, architects, and others--did not always agree on how to modernize; moreover, the unruliness of specific practices often derailed or redirected implementation. Tensions between top-down and bottom-up modernization, and between scale-enlargement and more flexible arrangements of mutual coordination and cooperation shaped Dutch history. The chapters examine such topics as attempts to create an industrial nation, materially connected through infrastructure; the conflicts that came with the arrival of mass production and the emergence of a consumer society; and land-use planning in a low-lying country. Copublished with Walberg Pers, the Netherlands


Introduction: School failure is a major challenge at individual and social levels, owing to its negative impact on social cohesion, citizen participation, economic development, and sustainability and also its impact on health habits. Various studies have shown the link between family socio-economic level and educational results, to the point that this factor has been regarded as their principal
determinant. Nonetheless, the essentially attributing school failure to the students' milieu is only descriptive in value and could impede the development of more appropriate responses to this challenge. A better systemic and integral understanding of the phenomenon might contribute to a better approach to the problem through the development of new proposals for public policy and socio-educational actions. To this end, it is necessary to have appropriate measurement instruments that evaluate different dimensions in an integrated manner. Method: The objective of this study is to evaluate the psychometric properties of the Questionnaire on Determinants of Success at School (QDSS) in a sample of 858 secondary-school students resident in vulnerable socio-demographic settings from 5 Spanish cities. The questionnaire combines items about factors that specialist literature has significantly linked to educational attainment, excluding those that already have specific validated questionnaires. Results: The principal component analysis gave 7 factors: school environment, relationships with classmates, personal expectations, social capital, ITC study resources, climate in class, and family support. The goodness of fit indices show good properties for the questionnaire. Conclusion: The QDSS is an instrument that has appropriate psychometric properties for use in identifying factors that support educational success in secondary-school students.


In this study, we present an empirical survey of the patterns of trade and FDI in Africa based on a sample of 28 countries and their transactions with the OECD countries. These patterns are used to test whether the predictions of the new trade theory with multinationals as described by Markusen and Venables (1995,1998) fit the development in Africa. The theory states that multinational production will gradually outgrow trade as countries converge in terms of income, yet our econometric study gives only week evidence supporting such a pattern. Alternative explanations are also investigated, and it is shown that trade barriers, geographical distance, income per capita and access to ocean explain much of the variation in trade and FDI in Africa. JEL classification codes: F12, F14, F21


The 2000 presidential election had a searing effect on this nation. Few who witnessed the events in Florida could displace the images of election officials peering at punch cards, struggling to determine the intent of voters. Congress, for example, did not forget. Congress did not wish to see the scenes from Florida replayed in future elections. And so, in 2002, it enacted the Help America Vote Act, known as HAVA, which provided $325 million to the states to replace their punch card voting systems. Many states have enthusiastically embraced this invitation, replacing punch cards with electronic voting machines, known as direct recording electronic devices (DREs). Given the rapidly approaching 2006 deadline to upgrade, other states are currently considering such activity. In the rush to solve one problem, however, states may be creating another, far greater, one. To be sure, DREs promise to reduce certain errors, increase access for voters with disabilities, and relieve election officials of the challenge of ascertaining the voters' intent. But the full panoply of dangers from such systems have largely avoided scrutiny. This Article attempts to remedy this deficiency. In particular, it underscores several disturbing characteristics of electronic voting, including reduced transparency, increased magnitude of error and fraud, and lack of security controls. I supplement the analysis of the DRE software by examining vote counting flaws in the 2004 presidential election, including machine breakdowns, vote totals that exceeded or underrepresented the number of voters who cast ballots, and incidents in which the machines switched votes from one candidate to another. I also collect circumstantial evidence such as exit polls and pre-election polls that significantly diverged from the official vote count and questionable activity in states such as Ohio. Although such evidence does not automatically prove the existence of error or fraud, it is crucial given the nontransparent nature of the vote counting process and inability to directly uncover fraud. I conclude by offering recommendations to improve the accuracy and verifiability of vote counting today. In particular, I propose for electronic voting machines a voter-verified paper trail, random audits, open source software, and other recommendations. Only after these proposals are adopted can voters have confidence that the promise of vote counting technology will match its perils.


This paper focuses on the situation of undergraduates from a conservative Muslim society (Kuwait), who opt to major in English Language and Literature. Informal observations are reported that indicate that this might present a disturbing predicament since it requires of such students an appreciation of values and traditions which are contrary to those upheld in their religion and practised in their society. Since, it is argued, this could have an inhibiting effect on mastery of their subject, particularly on the language front, a detailed questionnaire was administered to a group of students from the Department of English Language and Literature, Kuwait University, to ascertain the extent of the problem. Responses showed a high degree of religiosity among the students and considerable unease regarding some of the material they had to read, in spite of a fairly exacting standard of censorship already applied by the teaching staff. The nature of what disturbs them is gone into in some detail as are the ways that students reportedly cope with this problem. Since distancing seems a very common strategy used to maintain psychological equilibrium, this would seem to have adverse effects on the most commonly stated aim of these students which was to perfect their language and it is suggested that the concept of the English degree in such an environment may need to be re-thought. Finally, the question is raised of what kind of individual places himself in such a conflict situation and remains there. A personality test showed that the students taking part in the study scored highly on certain personality variables which suggests that these students may be unconsciously self-selected from a certain personality type and this, in turn, may explain how they are able to operate both within their field of study and their socio-religious traditions.


Christianity, Judaism, and Islam are usually treated as autonomous religions, but in fact across the long course of their histories the three religions have developed in interaction with one another. The author examines how Muslims, Christians, and Jews lived with and thought about each other during the Middle Ages and what the medieval past can tell us about how they do so today. There have been countless scripture-based studies of the three "religions of the book," but Nirenberg goes beyond those to pay close attention to how the three religious neighbors loved, tolerated, massacred, and expelled each other-all in the name of God-in periods and places both long ago and far away. Nirenberg argues that the three religions need to be studied in terms of how each affected the development of the others over time, their proximity of religious and philosophical thought as well as their overlapping geographics, and how the three "neighbors" define-and continue to define-themselves and their place in terms of one another. From dangerous attractions leading to interfaith marriage; to interreligious conflicts leading to segregation, violence, and sometimes extermination; to strategies for bridging the interfaith gap through language, vocabulary, and poetry, Nirenberg aims to understand the intertwined past of the three faiths as a way for their heirs to produce the future-together.


Development of vaccines against opportunistic infections is difficult as patients most at risk of developing disease are deficient in aspects of the adaptive immune system. Here, we utilized an experimental immunization strategy to induce innate memory in macrophages in vivo. Unlike current trained immunity models, we present an innate memory-like phenotype in macrophages that is maintained for at least 70 days post-immunization and results in complete protection against secondary challenge in the absence of adaptive immune cells. RNA-seq analysis of in vivo IFN-γ primed macrophages revealed a rapid up-regulation of IFN-γ and STAT1 signaling pathways following secondary challenge. The enhanced cytokine recall responses appeared to be pathogen-specific, dependent on changes in histone methylation and acetylation, and correlated with increased STAT1 binding to promoter regions of genes associated with protective anti-fungal immunity. Thus, we demonstrate an alternative mechanism to induce macrophage innate memory in vivo that facilitates pathogen-specific vaccine-mediated immune responses.


Excitons of CdTe tetrapod-shaped nanocrystals are theoretically analyzed. Individual electron and hole states are calculated by solving one-particle Schrodinger equation by the finite element method with the single-band effective-mass approximation and exciton states are obtained by numerical diagonalization of the configuration interaction Hamiltonian. Spatial symmetries of the exciton states are related to those of the one-particle states by group theory and verified by numerical calculation. It is shown that the lowest exciton state is an optically active A1 exciton. Optical absorption spectra are calculated and compared with available experimental data.


Although research on professional competence has has adopted a number of approaches that have highlighted the importance of practice and values in enacting a professional identity, there is currently no established framework for empirical investigations. Based on a discourse analytic framework, this paper demonstrates how ethical codes in a number of consulting professions (law, accountancy and engineering/surveying) can be analyzed empirically by focusing on the collocation patterns found in the genre. The analysis will focus on how professionals are expected to behave in relation to two identity components in their ideal conducts of behavior: identity roles (or identity shifts) and identity virtues (positive attributes associated with a particular role). The engineering profession is found to have a fairly even representation of most of the identity roles identified: provider to client, unspecified/general, professional peer, employer and professional association. The legal profession places greater emphasis on the roles of provider to client and professional peer, whereas accountancy professionals tend to represent their identity roles more generally, although the role of provider to client remains an important category. With regard to identity virtues, i.e., the ideal dispositions or values displayed, all three professions highlight the primacy of professional standards or competence, with integrity and responsibility also emphasized by some.


This chapter examines the verbal categories of German in terms of grounding predications. Using the broad notion of deixis as a starting point for the examination, it first proposes a unified description of grounding predications as a particular class of deictic expressions. Second, it suggests that three general classification criteria – the nature of the grounded entity, the nature of the grounding relation, and the construal configuration of the ground – constitute a model which may be applied on grounding predications in different languages in order to discover their similarities and differences. The proposed model is applied to the German clausal grounding system, concentrating on German temporal and modal grounding predications.


Undertaking research on the political economy of sanctions in Iran covers a wide area of study. In a research project, relevant data and key questions can be collected in order to organize them methodologically and write a book on this issue. In this article, within the conceptual framework of political economy, interactions of a few variables involved in the sanctions on Iran are studied. First, the article explores the immoral aspect and consequently illegal aspect of sanctions as an American policy tool to coerce Iran's behavior regarding its legal right of nuclear enrichment. Then the article sheds light on economic impacts of the sanctions through examples. It also discusses political impacts of the sanctions and practical experience of how Iranians tackle these restrictions. It finally proposes an alternative way to change this hostility dominated environment of the Iran-US relations. This article concludes that As sanctions remain over a prolonged period they tend to become even less effective in achieving their political objectives; the sanctioning countries consequently tend to impose additional, more extensive sanctions, which only promotes further radicalization in both the sanctioned and sanctioning countries. The only way to stop this vicious cycle is for both sides to negotiate in good faith and with open minds.