This paper investigates the application of dynamic, Integral Non-Linearity (INL) model of Analog-to-Digital Converters (ADC) to predict the harmonic distortion in pipelined ADCs. The device used to validate the model is Texas Instruments' ADS6129; a 12-bit, 250 MSPS1 pipelined ADC. The performance of the model is measured using single tones in the first Nyquist zone, with an amplitude ranging between −1 dBFS2 and −46 dBFS. Total Harmonic Distortion (THD) and Spurious Free Dynamic Range (SFDR) are used as metrics to compare the performance of the model to the actual ADC. The results indicate that a model for High Code Frequency (HCF) INL is essential for correct prediction of distortion for input signals with small amplitudes. The results also suggest that dynamic INL models offer an effective method to model the distortion in ADCs until Nyquist frequency only. Beyond Nyquist frequency, the non-linear effects of Track and Hold (T/H) start manifesting and the INL model can no longer account for all the distortion seen at the output of ADCs.


A theoretical and experimental investigation of the transport parameters of particles flowing through porous media has been made. These parameters are the particle advective velocity, longitudinal dispersion coefficient, and filter coefficient. Both theoretical and experimental results are limited to flows with low Reynolds number (linear, laminar flow) and high Peclet number (advection dominates diffusion). The theoretical development used dimensionless numbers to define the transport parameters and incorporated them into an advective-dispersion equation describing particle transport. A relationship for unfavorable filtration due to repulsive double layer interactions is proposed.

A solution to the complete advective-dispersion equation for particle transport was derived for the case of a constant filter coefficient. This solution when compared to a similar solution previously derived for solute transport, showed that for small filtration the solutions were identical except for the exponential decay factor due to filtration. A numerical model was developed for the case of a variable filter coefficient.

Flow experiments were conducted in a 1.5 m vertical column with sand (geo. mean diameter = 381 micron), with suspensions of polystyrene latex particles (three cases, mean diameter = 0.1, 1.4 and 2.8 micron), and with NaCl as the electrolyte (0.4 mM < Ionic strength < 2.1 mM). The range of Peclet number studied was 1.26 x 10^4 to 2.00 x 10^6. The measurement of the particle concentrations during passage of a displacement front provided the necessary data to determine the particle transport parameters.

The particle advective velocities for the three different sized particles was found to range approximately from 0 to 5.4% greater than the solute velocity, and these values were within a few percent of predictions based on particle and pore radii.

The longitudinal dispersion coefficient for the three different sized particles was found to be a function of only the advective velocity of the particles and grain diameter of the porous bed which confirmed the dimensional analysis argument and closely matched previous solute work.

A dimensional analysis argument for the relationship between the favorable and unfavorable filter coefficient was proposed to be a function of the ratio of the particle diffusion length of an advecting particle and the double layer thickness (which in turn depends on the ionic strength of the water). A wide range of filtration data (Brownian to advective particles) was empirically fitted using this dimensionless number.

The effects of ionic strength on particle transport were found to be either minimal or separable from the hydraulic variables. For advection, effects of changing ionic strength were analyzed as changes in the effective particle radius and calculations made using this apparent particle radius matched experimental results. For dispersion, an increase of a factor of 6 in the ionic strength increased the longitudinal dispersion by a factor of 1.2.


ABSTRACT A new species of Terminalia L. (Combretaceae) from the Guiana shield is described as T. carinata Sabatier & J.Engel, sp. nov. based on morphological evidences. This new species was often misidentified as T. guyanensis Eichler from which it differs, as well as from other neotropical Terminalia, by its leaf undersurface palish-gray and slightly pubescent, quite long petioles and fruits with two wings wider than the body that is distinctly keeled on one face and flat on the other. An updated description of T. guyanensis is provided and the conservation status of T. carinata Sabatier & J.Engel, sp. nov. and T. guyanensis is evaluated according to IUCN criteria and a status of Least Concern (LC) is proposed for these two species.


Abstract In 2014, the State Council of the Chinese Communist Party announced the institution of a social credit system by 2020, a follow-up to a similar statement on the creation of a social credit system issued by the State Council in 2007. Social credit ratings of the type being developed by the State Council in partnership with Chinese companies go beyond existing financial credit ratings in an attempt to project less-tangible personal characteristics like trustworthiness, criminal tendencies, and group loyalty onto a single scale. The emergence of personal credit ratings is enabled by Big Data, automated decision-making processes, machine learning, and facial recognition technology. It is quite likely that various kinds of personal and social credit ratings shall become reality in the near future. We explore China's version of its social credit system so far, compare the welfare and epistemological qualities of an ecology of personal ratings emanating from polycentric sources versus a social credit rating, and discuss whether a social credit system in an ideologically driven state is less a tool to maximize social welfare through trustworthiness provision and more a method of preventing and punishing deviance from a set of party-held ideological values.


Simulation of Moving Trailing Edge Flaps on a Wind Turbine Blade using a Navier-Stokes based Immersed Boundary MethodAs the rotor diameter of wind turbines increases, turbine blades with distributed aerodynamic control surfaces promise significant load reductions. Therefore, they are coming into focus in relation to research in academia and industry. Trailing edge flaps are of particular interest in terms of control surfaces. The unsteady flow around such flaps is usually investigated by applying linearized unsteady aerodynamic models or by solving the two dimensional unsteady Reynolds averaged Navier-Stokes equations. The latter method is usually applied in combination with moving or interpolated body conforming meshes. A more flexible method would open up an opportunity to investigate the flow features of complex moving flap geometries in great detail. The immersed boundary method offers this flexibility, as the geometry is represented through the introduction of additional forcing terms in the governing equations. This approach allows for simulation of arbitrary geometries in fixed meshes that do not need to conform to the body geometry. The flow solver EllipSys has previously been extended with a base implementation of an immersed boundary method. The present work developed the necessary tools to handle trailing edge flap geometries in two and three dimensions. Validation cases were presented for the circular cylinder in a Cartesian mesh topology as well as in a topology similar to a standard body fitted mesh. To simulate trailing edge flaps, a hybrid approach was developed that modeled only the moving flap as an immersed boundary, while the rest of the airfoil was represented by a conventional body-fitted mesh. The results from the hybrid approach were validated against published wind tunnel measurements and improvement over a thin-airfoil based flow model was proven. A load alleviation control in a changing inflow was presented for a divided flap action, i.e. a segmented flap with independent actuation rates. It has been demonstrated that the total flap deflection can be divided into two separate deflections without deteriorating control authority. The results suggested that the combined use of two independent flap actuators was beneficial when dealing with complex inflows. Full scale turbine measurements were presented and indicated that the flap hinge moment provided suitable input for load control. A novel way of using the hinge moment of a moving flap for load alleviation control was presented. Simulations demonstrated the feasibility and robustness of the approach. The hybrid immersed boundary approach proved to be able to handle 3D airfoil sections with span-wise flap gaps. The flow around and in the wake of a deflected flap at a Reynolds number of 1.63mio was investigated for steady inflow conditions. A control for two span-wise independent flaps was implemented and first load reductions could be achieved. The hybrid method has demonstrated to be a versatile tool in the research of moving trailing edge flaps. The results shall serve as the basis for future investigations of the unsteady flow field around trailing edge flaps.


A developmental instrument for assessment of radiation-induced damage in human lymphocytes includes an automated fluorescence microscope equipped with a one or more chargecoupled- device (CCD) video camera(s) and circuitry to digitize the video output. The microscope is also equipped with a three-axis translation stage that includes a rotation stage, and a rotary tray that holds as many as thirty specimen slides. The figure depicts one version of the instrument. Once the slides have been prepared and loaded into the tray, the instrument can operate unattended. A computer controls the operation of the stage, tray, and microscope, and processes the digital fluorescence-image data to recognize and count chromosomes that have been broken, presumably by radiation. The design and method of operation of the instrument exploit fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) of metaphase chromosome spreads, which is a technique that has been found to be valuable for monitoring the radiation dose to circulating lymphocytes. In the specific FISH protocol used to prepare specimens for this instrument, metaphase lymphocyte cultures are chosen for high mitotic index and highly condensed chromosomes, then several of the largest chromosomes are labeled with three of four differently colored whole-chromosome-staining dyes. The three dyes, which are used both individually and in various combinations, are fluorescein isothiocyanate (FITC), Texas Red (or equivalent), and Cy5 (or equivalent); The fourth dye 4',6-diamidino- 2-phenylindole (DAPI) is used as a counterstain. Under control by the computer, the microscope is automatically focused on the cells and each slide is scanned while the computer analyzes the DAPI-fluorescence images to find the metaphases. Each metaphase field is recentered in the field of view and refocused. Then a four-color image (more precisely, a set of images of the same view in the fluorescent colors of the four dyes) is acquired. By use of pattern-recognition software developed specifically for this instrument, the images in the various colors are processed to recognize the metaphases and count the chromosome fragments of each color within the metaphases. The intermediate results are then further processed to estimate the proportion of cells that have suffered genetic damage. The prototype instrument scans at an average areal rate of 4.7 mm2/h in unattended operation, finding about 14 metaphases per hour. The false-alarm rate is typically less than 3 percent, and the metaphase-miss rate has been estimated to be less than 5 percent. The counts of chromosomes and fragments thereof are 50 to 70 percent accurate.


In this extraordinary non-fiction novel, based on a true story, Tahar Ben Jelloun traces the experiences of Salim who, in 1971, took part in a failed coup attempt to oust King Hassan II of Morocco. With sixty others Salim was incarcerated in a secret prison complex in the Moroccan desert: he was to remain there for nearly twenty years. In starkly eloquent, beautiful prose, Ben Jelloun relates the prisoners' experiences as they struggle to survive. The son of a witty, feckless courtier who disowns him, Salim tells stories to keep sane from the suras of his beloved Koran to the plot of A Streetcar Named Desire. Even in the darkest, most terrible conditions, sympathy, insight, the human quest for meaning and understanding, never desert Salim. The resulting novel is a wrenching yet exquisite celebration of the human spirit and its determination to survive. A masterpiece' Judges of the IMPAC award 'a sad and splendid book' New York Times Book Review


By Alan Jacobs. Boulder: Westview Press, 2001. ISBN 0-8133-6577-5 (cloth), 0-8133-6566-X (paper). Pp. ix + 186. $65.00 (cloth), $18.00 (paper). Alan Jacobs has written a fine, thoughtful, and inspiring book. It is part theology, part hermeneutic, part cultural study, and part ethical reflection. In it Jacobs sets out to answer the question, "What would interpretation governed by the law of love look like?" (10). While he takes St. Augustine's discussion in On Christian Doctrine of charity as the gauge of interpretation, his argument is more deeply informed by Jesus' twofold commandment of love, so that in his estimation books must be loved as one loves oneself, and the purpose of interpretation must "be the generation of love" (17). He brings to his task a wide and careful reading of theology, philosophy, literature, literary theory, and Scripture. He writes in a lucid style and illuminates both the books he considers and his own thesis. Jacobs begins with a prelude in which he announces his aim of working out the principles of charitable interpretation. Citing the scene from William Shakespeare's Much Ado about Nothing in which Claudio publicly repudiates Hero as an example of such an interpretation, Jacobs says that the truth, justice, and love expressed in the Friar's and in Beatrice's defenses of Hero--that is, in their interpretation--move Benedick to challenge Claudio and precipitate the righting of Don John's manipulations. In his first chapter Jacobs lays out the scriptural and Augustinian backgrounds for his project and the difficulties faced by his hermeneutic of love. In successive chapters he takes up the role that knowledge, suspicion, kenosis, and justice play in that hermeneutic. These chapters are separated by interludes in which Jacobs discusses novels and other books that raise the question of interpretation; he uses these as examples, positive and negative, of the hermeneutics of love. Accordingly, in Henry James's "The Figure in the Carpet" the narrator's desire to be initiated into the secret of Hugh Vereker's work is, in Jacobs' reading, a Gnostic pursuit of understanding reserved for the elect; the narrator's goal is the opposite of a charitable interpretation, which is open to all. On the other hand, Jane Tompkins' reflections about Buffalo Bill in West of Everything: The Inner Life of Westerns (1992) enact Jacobs' hermeneutic, for in writing about both his virtues and his vices Tompkins tries to see the whole reality of Buffalo Bill and the values he represented. Moreover, she recognizes that the violence she finds so repulsive in Cody's actions is one of which she too is capable. Finally, there is a postlude in which Jacobs takes up the effects of charitable interpretation on its practitioners, and he ends by suggesting the deeply comedic nature of that interpretation. Jacobs' argument is shaped by his reservations about theory and his belief in kerygmatic theology. Jacobs is not phobic about theory; in fact, he knows it well enough to be explicit about where he parts company with it. For example, though he grants language tremendous importance, he is unwilling to see books as "a proliferation of signs or verbal instantiations of ideological forces" but he turns the vertex to see them, instead, as "personal acts--answerable acts" (1). Similarly, his book centers less on intellectual argument than on a proclamation of charity. As he explores various understandings of the relationship between love and knowledge, Jacobs uses Mikhail Bakhtin's work as a bridge between Aristotelian and Christian concepts of love, virtue, and relational goods. He does not seek to appropriate Bakhtin as a crypto-Christian, but he does point out: "It may be that Bakhtin's early account of interpretation both reinforces and is reinforced by Christian theology--in other words, that Bakhtin's charitable hermeneutics is justified by the appeal to the key convictions of the Christian faith, whereas, conversely, those convictions may best be put into hermeneutical practice by Bakhtin's prescriptions" (52). …


Previous investigators reported the impairment of foveal visual acuity by nearby flanking targets (contour interaction) is reduced or eliminated when acuity is measured using low contrast targets. Unlike earlier studies, we compared contour interaction for high and low contrast acuity targets using flankers at fixed angular separations, rather than at specific multiples of the acuity target's stroke width. Percent correct letter identification was determined in 4 adult observers for computer generated, high and low contrast dark Sloan letters surrounded by 4 equal contrast flanking bars. Two low contrast targets were selected to reduce each observer's visual acuity by 0.2 and 0.4 logMAR. The crowding functions measured for high and low contrast letters are very similar when percent correct letter identification is plotted against the flanker separation in min arc. These results indicate that contour interaction of foveal acuity targets occurs within a fixed angular zone of a few min arc, regardless of the size or contrast of the acuity target.


The problem of selecting the modulation and coding scheme (MCS) that maximizes the system throughput, known as link adaptation, has been investigated extensively, especially for IEEE 802.11 (WiFi) standards. Recently, deep learning has widely been adopted as an efficient solution to this problem. However, in failure cases, predicting a higher-rate MCS can result in a failed transmission. In this case, a retransmission is required, which largely degrades the system throughput. To address this issue, we model the adaptive modulation and coding (AMC) problem as a multi-label multi-class classification problem. The proposed modeling allows more control over what the model predicts in failure cases. We also design a simple, yet powerful, loss function to reduce the number of retransmissions due to higher-rate MCS classification errors. Since wireless channels change significantly due to the surrounding environment, a huge dataset has been generated to cover all possible propagation conditions. However, to reduce training complexity, we train the CNN model using part of the dataset. The effect of different subdataset selection criteria on the classification accuracy is studied. The proposed model adapts the IEEE 802.11ax communications standard in outdoor scenarios. The simulation results show the proposed loss function reduces up to 50% of retransmissions compared to traditional loss functions.


Thiopurine methyltransferase (TPMT) is a polymorphic enzyme involved in the metabolism of thiopurine drugs. Owing to polymorphisms in the TPMT gene (TPMT*2–*22), the enzyme activity varies interindividually. Patients with reduced TPMT activity may develop adverse reactions when treated with standard doses of thiopurines. This work focuses on a TPMT genotype/phenotype discrepancy found in a patient during routine testing. The patient displayed very low TPMT enzyme activity and she was genotyped by pyrosequencing as being heterozygous for the 460G>A and 719A>G polymorphisms (TPMT*3A). Complete sequencing in combination with haplotyping of the TPMT gene revealed a novel sequence variant, 500C>G, on one allele and TPMT*3A on the other allele, giving rise to the novel genotype TPMT*3A/*23. When investigating the patient's relatives, they too had the TPMT*3A/*23 genotype in combination with low enzyme activity. We conclude that this novel variant allele affects enzyme activity, as the individuals carrying it had almost undetectable TPMT activity.


Students in introductory computing courses face various challenges. Many learning systems are available to support teaching and learning in introductory computing courses. Empirical work examining the use of such learning systems is available, but limited. In this research, we gathered student perceptions of two learning systems MyProgrammingLab and BlueJ. Understanding student perceptions of learning systems and their impact on learning to program is valuable information for both instructors and students. In this analysis, we gathered student perceptions of MyProgrammingLab and BlueJ in three surveys towards the end of a 15-week semester. Although students encountered problems in MyProgrammingLab and BlueJ, more than three quarters of the students perceived MyProgrammingLab and BlueJ to be useful in helping develop their programming skills. Many students agreed that using MyProgrammingLab and BlueJ helped them better understand the course materials.


Research on musical memory has focussed on the organisation of practice to develop and implement retrieval cues: locations in the music that trigger memory. Cues are distilled during extended practice. Those features of the music that still require attention in performance remain as Performance Cues (PCs). Scholarship demonstrates that theories of expert memory in other fields are also applicable to musical performance. The formal structure of the music provides a ready-made framework that can be used as a hierarchical retrieval scheme. This structure allows for content-addressable memory to meet the demands of performance. Landmarks remain in a musician's long-term memory, relating to structural boundaries and PCs established in practice. Existing research has largely focussed on tonal music, with musical structures that are apparent to the musician. This thesis adopts established methodologies from this body of literature to extend insights on musical memorisation in complex atonal piano repertoire.

Using a range of atonal music, the thesis initially questions how more complex structures affect the development of a retrieval scheme. The argument demonstrates that a musician uses a wide range of intuitive responses to the features of the score to establish a conceptual framework. It is helpful for performers to think in structural terms. Yet in reality a wider range of musical dimensions informs the practitioner. Secondly, the thesis questions how atonal music is memorised by performers. It argues that a wider range of kinaesthetic and conceptual techniques is needed for memorisation of atonal music in comparison to tonal equivalents. Finally, the thesis extends the discussion of replicated use of PCs across performances. Analysis focusses on the acoustic realisation of performance through the use of spectrograms. Examination of the changes in expressive execution of various PCs and musical features provides further insight into the role of memory in the creative act of performance.

The thesis seeks to extend analysis into the complexities of musical memorisation. Examination of intricate, unusual structures provides a great deal of insight in assessing how musicians adapt their wealth of domain-specific knowledge to tackle the challenges presented. As specific memorisation strategies for musicians remain an under-researched area – particularly for atonal music – the detailed examination of techniques is valuable in developing wider methods that can be applied across all types of repertoire. It is surprising that the teaching of memory technique remains largely absent in higher education institutions. As such, this analysis has broad implications for the educational environment, to develop more formal and integrated didactic procedures. Finally, examination of the varied acoustic realisation of retrieval cues provides original insights into the way in which memorisation can function in a spontaneous, creative manner: a fundamental aim of performance.


After 1994, South Africa passed several pieces of legislation protecting the rights and safety of learners in South African schools. These Acts are all (to a larger or smaller extent) concerned with protecting the physical and psychological integrity of learners in schools. Some shocking reports have indicated that children's rights are neither promoted nor protected in certain schools. The purpose in this study was to determine the relevant legal framework and the current situation with regard to school safety.


This collection of essays promises to make an important contribution to the field of Roman studies, particularly, by its concentration on monuments, to that of Roman art history. The current high level of interest in problems of identity, including studies of colonialism, Romanization, ethnicity, social class, gender and a host of related topics creates a vital intellectual context for the study of the art of provincials and the lower classes. The monuments themselves contribute a critical dimension to this discourse, the more so because the textual evidence for the non-elites of Roman society, apart from inscriptions, is relatively scarce.


This article introduces volume leases as a mechanism for providing server-driven cache consistency for large-scale, geographically distributed networks. Volume leases retain the good performance, fault tolerance, and server scalability of the semantically weaker client-driven protocols that are now used on the Web. Volume leases are a variation of object leases, which were originally designed for distributed file systems. However, whereas traditional object leases amortize overheads over long lease periods, volume leases exploit spatial locality to amortize overheads across multiple objects in a volume. This approach allows systems to maintain good write performance even in the presence of failures. Using trace-driven simulation, we compare three volume lease algorithms against four existing cache consistency algorithms and show that our new algorithms provide strong consistency while maintaining scalability and fault-tolerance. For a trace-based workload of Web accesses, we find that volumes can reduce message traffic at servers by 40 percent compared to a standard lease algorithm, and that volumes can considerably reduce the peak load at servers when popular objects are modified.


In this thesis four methods for automatic verification of images and video on mobile platforms are developed. Both the case of recording images and video and the case of viewing images and video on the mobile LCD screen are considered. The first method is used to test the zoom function of the camera. It uses SURF descriptors along with clustering and histograms to determine which of six discrete zoom levels the current frame belongs to. The second method identifies color effects and color anomalies using histograms. The third method determines if the auto focus works correctly by measuring the average length of edges in the image. The fourth method is an artifact detection scheme using a non-reference implementation of the SSIM metric, used in conjunction with a for this purpose specially designed test setup. Together these methods form a tool kit for detecting the most common errors to occur in images and video during the development stage of mobile platforms.


[About the book]:

Increasingly, identities are the site for interdisciplinary initiatives and identity research is at the heart of many transdisciplinary research centres around the world. No single social science discipline 'owns' identity research which makes it a difficult topic to categorize.

The SAGE Handbook of Identities systematizes this complex field by incorporating its interdisciplinary character to provide a comprehensive overview of its themes in contemporary research while still acknowledging the historical and philosophical significance of the concept of identity.

Drawing on a global scholarship the Handbook has four parts:

Part 1: Frameworks presents the main theoretical and methodological perspectives in identities research.

Part 2: Formations covers the major formative forces for identities such as culture, globalisation, migratory patterns, biology and so on.

Part 3: Categories reviews research on the core social categories which are central to identity such as ethnicity, gender, sexuality, disability and social class and intersections between these.

Part 4: Sites and Context develops a series of case studies of crucial sites and contexts where identity is at stake such as social movements, relationships and family life, work-places and environments and citizenship.


The purposes of this research are to compare: the allocation of land of cassava, the spending of  rice and food consumption patterns, between cassava farmers in the village of implementers and non-implementers of the MP3L (Model Pengembangan Pangan Pokok Lokal) Programme in South Lampung regency.  The research was conducted in Pancasila village and Negara Ratu village, Natar district, South Lampung regency. The number of respondents in the research is 44 people, consisting of 22 cassava farmers in the Pancasila village and 22 of cassava farmers in Negara Ratu village. Analysis method used in this study is a quantitative descriptive.  The results showed that: the allocation of land to plant cassava in Negara Ratu village is wider than in Pancasila village. The land allocation for planting cassava likely caused by the need of farmers to consume cassava and the guarantee of the markets. The average household rice spending at Pancasila village was Rp858,303.03 per capita per year, while the average household rice spending at Negara Ratu village was Rp1,044,121.77 per capita per year. Significant of that difference value was caused by the customs of households at Pancasila village to consume cassava by processing daily, excluding Beras Siger. The desirable food pattern (PPH) score of cassava farmers at Pancasila village (87.8) was higher than PPH score of cassava farmers at Negara Ratu village (80.5).  Reduction of rice has occurred at Pancasila village, but it was not caused by substitution of rice by Beras Siger. Key words: cassava farmers, consumption patterns, land allocation, MP3L


The purpose of this study was to determine the status of, and changes in, the statistical sophistication of research in vocational education in the 1980s. The study also explored relationships among statistical sophistication, problem area studied, and methodological strategy used in vocational education research. Data collected were obtained from 118 guantitative research reports randomly selected from the Journal of Vocational Education Research, the Journal of Agricultural Education. the Journal of Industrial Teacher Education, and the Journal of Vocational Home Economics Education published in the early (1980-1983) and the late 1980s (1986-89). The researcher developed instrument used in this study consisted of four components: background information, statistical sophistication, problem area, and methodological strategy. Each article examined was classified into one of four problem areas: teacher, student, curriculum, and setting, as proposed by Steiner (1978). Each of these articles also was classified into one of four methodological strategies: laboratory experiment, field experiment, field study and ex post facto research, and survey, as used by Schwandt (1983). The three sophistication levels used to classify each statistical technique recorded were basic, intermediate, and advanced. The statistical sophistication level of a research report was determined by the highest level of sophistication among all techniques used in that report. The results indicated that 30 different statistical techniques were used in the sample. The majority of research reports were classified as less than advanced in their levels of statistical sophistication. No significant changes were found in the use of statistical techniques nor did the statistical sophistication level of research change from the early 1980s to the late 1980s. The statistical sophistication of research was related to both problem areas studied and the methodological strategies used. The problem area most frequently studied was "curriculum". "Student" was the least studied problem area. Research on "student" tended to have a higher proportion classified as advanced statistical sophistication. "Survey" was found to be the most frequently identified strategy used. Very few research reports used the "laboratory experiment" strategy. Studies which used "field studies and ex post facto research" tended to have a larger proportion classified as advanced statistical sophistication than those which used "experiments" or "survey" strategies.


A Look at the Past It is interesting to note how technology has changed the way that we communicate with one another. From an historical perspective there have been many inventions that change or enhance the ways that we communicate. Several of the major historical developments of communication are language, alphabet, and writing--enabling humans to go beyond verbal and symbolic communication and on to such technologies as the inventions of the printing press, the telegraph and telephone, radio and television, and computers. These technologies enabled large numbers of people to communicate and share knowledge with one another as well as to the masses of people. As we look at each of these technologies, a sense of touch plays a role in how we use and control them. We can define communication as the expression of meaning or a message conveyed by a sender to a receiver through some channel or medium. The key concepts are message, sender, receiver, and medium. Typically we think of communication as a process that takes place between two people using voices or sound waves. The message may be a simple "hello and how are you today?" However, the sender or the person "sending" the message proceeds through several steps and processes such as creating the message, encoding, and delivering the message through a process of speech. The receiver or person receiving the message must decode and interpret the message and then act or acknowledge that the message has been received. While this is a simple analogy of how two people may communicate, it does represent a significant concept in how we may use other technologies to communicate a message to an individual or many people at one time. As we look at printing and the printing press we can see that a message must be encoded, and then it is processed and printed using technology on some medium, such as paper, where it then can be distributed to others to decode and read the message that has been encoded. Here we can define communication technology as the sensory extensions that humans use to communicate with other humans or machines. It is a way that humans use tools and techniques to create, transmit, receive, process, store, and retrieve information. Aside from speech, the printed word was the major medium of communication for nearly 400 years after the invention of the printing press. However, with the invention of the telegraph and telephone, we may say that we entered the age of electronic communication. The capability to transmit messages and information over great distances almost instantly became a reality with the telegraph and the telephone and wired and wireless connections. While the telegraph and telephone were technologies that were directed toward one-to-one communication between people, the invention of the radio and the television would soon make it possible to communicate without wires and over great distances to many people at the same time. The invention of the radio, television, and satellite figuratively made the world "smaller" and provided the capability to communicate globally with just the click of a button! The Changing Nature in How We Communicate As we look at the evolution of these communication technologies, we can see that messages were recorded as some type of print media or as an electrical signal that was encoded, transmitted received, and decoded as a message. That message could be an audio signal or a televised medium that included audio and video. The users of these technologies used their hands and fingers to write a message, dial a number, or change a television channel. We can say that there is a "tactile" dimension to technology because dials had to be rotated, buttons had to be pressed, or switches changed to interact with and use the technology. As the mechanical buttons were pressed or switches moved, a person could feel the sensation of movement and intuitive "click" as the devices were actuated. …


The Half-Space Matching (HSM) method has recently been developed as a new method for the solution of 2D scattering problems with complex backgrounds, providing an alternative to Perfectly Matched Layers (PML) or other artificial boundary conditions. Based on half-plane representations for the solution, the scattering problem is rewritten as a system coupling (1) a standard finite element discretisation localised around the scatterer and (2) integral equations whose unknowns are traces of the solution on the boundaries of a finite number of overlapping half-planes contained in the domain. While satisfactory numerical results have been obtained for real wavenumbers, well-posedness and equivalence of this HSM formulation to the original scattering problem have been established only for complex wavenumbers. In the present paper we show, in the case of a homogeneous background, that the HSM formulation is equivalent to the original scattering problem also for real wavenumbers, and so is well-posed, provided the traces satisfy radiation conditions at infinity analogous to the standard Sommerfeld radiation condition. As a key component of our argument we show that, if the trace on the boundary of a half-plane satisfies our new radiation condition, then the corresponding solution to the half-plane Dirichlet problem satisfies the Sommerfeld radiation condition in a slightly smaller half-plane. We expect that this last result will be of independent interest, in particular in studies of rough surface scattering.


The standard view of the political economy of public debt is that myopic and unconstrained politicians prefer to disregard intertemporal smoothing considerations and extract political rents as fast as possible. From this perspective, it seems that the world has much to celebrate, as most emerging market economies -- often suspect of having weak political institutions -- have chosen to save rather than waste most of their exceptional income from high commodity prices. Unfortunately, the optimistic conclusion that these countries may have turned the corner with respect to public resource management may be premature. In this paper we show that while it is true that in the long run there is a negative connection between the level of public debt and the quality of political institutions, this needs not be the case in the short run. Quite the opposite, in the short run, governments with weak political institutions are likely to save more than governments with better institutions facing the same uncertainty. This is due to an option value of rent-seeking whereby the prospect of potentially squandering funds in the future makes governments more "precautionary" today. We show that this result relies on three assumptions: Economic risk is high relative to political risk, markets are sufficiently incomplete, and there exists a rent-less policy-making regime.


Composers of Classical Music of Jewish Descent. By Lewis Stevens. London; Portland, OR: Vallentine Mitchell, 2003. [xxiii, 384 p. ISBN 0-85303-486-6. $62.95.] Illustrations, index. Few would question the propriety of a work of this nature; fewer still would question its potential usefulness. A reference work largely devoted to biographical sketches of "composers of classical music of Jewish descent" has to address three fairly prickly issues at the outset, however: What is classical music?; Who should be considered a composer of classical music?; and Who should be considered Jewish? The author, Lewis Stevens, has the perspicacity to answer all three questions at the outset, and while one may not be wholly satisfied with the answers, one must at least admire the clarity with which Stevens demarcates his territory. Classical music is "music that has sprung broadly from the European musical tradition, and is generally included in standard works on classical music" (p. 2)-yes to the motet, no to jazz and klezmer. He tleliiies composers Lo lhc extent thai musicians best known as performers or scholars are included if they composed within the classical music tradition. As for the matter of who is a Jew-certainly the question most likely to arouse passionate discussion-Stevens respectfully rejects Jewish law as too restrictive, and includes those with at least one Jewish grandparent, regardless of their religious practice or sense of fewishness. Although he does not say so, this does strengthen his work considerably by allowing readers to compare the relationship of composers to their cultures and matters of faith in a given place or time. The book divides into two parts: a series of introductory essays running just shy of a hundred pages, and the biographical sketches themselves. The essays are wellmeaning but otherwise have little to recommend them. Already the second sentence of chapter 1, in which the author feels compelled to footnote his observation that neumes were in use before the tenth century, raises the suspicion that Stevens is neither comfortable writing about music, nor especially equipped to do so. This is in fact one of the book's two fatal weaknesses; confirmation of the suspicion is delivered repeatedly in the next few pages. With regard to the relationship of notation and polyphony, he writes: An important change that occurred from the time of the Middle Ages was that musical tradition was no longer an oral tradition. Whilst monophonie music (a single melodic line) can be learned and handed down orally, it is all but impossible to memorise polyphonic music, which not only requires remembering each line, but also how they fit together. For the development of complex polyphonic music, a system of notation was a prerequisite, (pp. 12-13) Buried in this farrago of naivete, false assumption, and non sequitur is a hint of the book's other fatal weakness: the absence of all but the most cursory attempt at editing beyond page layout ("change that occurred from the time"; "each line . . . they"). What should have been a useful description of the Jewish liturgical modes is an unintentionally virtuosic display of musical ignorance and terminological carelessness. Stevens notes (pp. 16-17) that there are five principal modes, two ibr use with scriptural texts and three for other devotional texts, and identifies the pitch sequences of all five, following to the letter the description in Alfred Sendrey's The Music of the Jews in the Disaspora (New York: Thomas Yoseloff, 1970). Both Stevens and Sendrey refer to the first two as "Pentateuch modes," one associated with the Sephardim, the other with the Ashkenazim. So far so good. Just a few pages earlier, however, Stevens refers to these two modes as "Pentatonic Sephardic" and "Pentatonic Ashkenazic" in a comparative graph of church, diatonic, and synagogue modes. They are, of course, not pentatonic at all, as they are formed by addition of tetrachords to form heptalonic scales. …


Vsevolod Garshin's "The Red Flower" ("Krasnyi tsvetok" 1883) and Wolfgang Borchert's "The Dandelion" ("Die Hundeblume" 1947) are famous stories with remarkably similar structures, yet as far as I know they have not received a comparative treatment. In Garshin's story an asylum patient believes some red poppies are the keepers of the world's evil and he decides to break from his watchful guardians and pluck the poppies to save the world. In Borchert's story a prisoner, repressed from performing any act of self-expression, reaches outside his tightly guarded daily routine to pluck a dandelion and, thus, redeem his sense of individuality and life. On first glance, the stories share obvious traits: the titles are common flora and represent the goal of the protagonists' quests; the stories are set in an institution where anonymity of patient and prisoner is the norm; the protagonists have not chosen to be there; the stories focus on an existence of solitude; and, in both stories the minds of the protagonists uniquely empower seemingly insignificant flowers, an empowerment which reveals awareness and action that distinguish the characters' individual domains. Perhaps most apparently, both characters come to act in a manner best defined as unreasonable. Certainly, Anthony Storr's generalization, "when solitary confinement is accompanied by threats, uncertainty, lack of sleep and other measures, the victim may surfer disruption of normal mental function without being able to muster any compensatory reintegration" (Storr 42), could explain this bent for unreason. Yet, these two character portraits are subject to different, and individual, world conditions. The aims of this paper are to clarify these world conditions, underscore the different ways in which Garshin and Borchert employ similar structures, devices, and motifs, and account for the unreason that might explain the protagonists' exceptional desire. One-person worlds The world of Garshin's and Borchert's stories is best described as a one-person fictional world (Dolezel 1998, 37). Other characters are present in the fictional world, but they are "not admitted into its activities" (Dolezel 1998, 48). The designation "one-person world" does not ignore the fact that the protagonist's communication and interaction in each of these stories are fundamental to these fictional worlds. In any narrative text, Claude Bremond reminds us, there is some form of communication or experience that involves a protagonist (Bremond 390). However, the discursive nature of the world that results from the text does not need to depend on the presence of more than one character. Protagonists can wrestle with societal forms and ideals or reckon with nature. In such instances a protagonist is in communication with a participant or quasi-participant, and this communication affects the order of the narrative. It follows, then, that in Garshin's and Borchert's stories the process whereby the participant--the red flower or the dandelion--becomes the protagonist's focus reveals a trait of the fictional world and presupposes order in the narrative. In addition, the cause of the flower's significance and the manner of interaction between the protagonist and the flower reflect the protagonist's individual nature. Such meditated, spontaneous, and accomplished actions of a character, Thomas Pavel has shown, define the narrative domain of that character (Pavel 1980, 105; 1986, 103). The reason underlying such character definition accords with the personal system of rules that instructs the character in his activities, and each domain has its own rules of perception and ontological structure (Pavel 1980, 107). In Garshin's and Borchert's one-person worlds two levels of communication and experience exist: the level dominated by the domain of the hero, and the level dominated by the actions of the asylum and prison staff. The micro world of the protagonist is a distinct element of the macro world of the institution. …


This report has been prepared in the framework of the project "Transfer of know-how to small and mid-size businesses" of the International Visegrad Fund (IVF) and USAID. It summarizes the conditions of the SME sector (small and medium size enterprises) in Georgia, identifies the main problems in their development and provides recommendations for further interventions based on the Czech experience, existing literature and a survey implemented among SME stakeholders.Georgia generally receives favorable evaluations of its business environment. It ranks high in indices of economic freedom and is among the top countries with respect to ease of starting and doing business. On the other hand, the SME sector suffers from several problems. The most serious obstacle to SME development seems to be in the area of finance; access to finance is difficult for SMEs and the cost of credit is high. Human capital and innovations are among the weak points of Georgian SMEs as well.The different shortcomings of the environment and markets call for different interventions. The paper is roadmap of concrete activities – it contains a set of recommendations to support SMEs development drawn on three different sources: first, the theoretical foundations of entrepreneurship policy, second, the Czech experience and know-how in the SME sector, and finally, the ideas of local experts and stakeholders generated during interviews and workshops.Activities and recommendations have been divided into "generic," which relate to a particular determinant of business environment and have an impact across industries and sectors such as access to financing, education, developing skills training, R&D, innovation, export strategy, start-ups, and those which are "sector-specific," such as banking, health and agriculture. Political stability, the main problem in Georgia, is beyond the scope of possible interventions.


Objective: Diabetic nephropathy (DN) has become the second common cause for terminal nephropathy. Serum amyloid A (SAA) is a marker for body inflammation. Previous study showed involvement of SAA in DN onset and pathogenesis. This study aimed to investigate the regulation of inflammatory factor TNF-α and extracellular matrix (ECM) FN by SAA, as well as the effects of SAA on renal glomerular cells in DN patients.
Patients and Methods: A total of 188 diabetic patients were divided into pure diabetic, micro-albumin urea and clinical albumin urea groups. ELISA was used to measure the concentration of SAA and TNF- α. Pearson correlation was used to analyze the association of SAA or TNF-α with UAER. RNA interference was used to inhibit SAA expression in glomerular cells, whilst Western blot was performed to measure the SAA and TNF-α expression in cultured cell supernatant after treated with different glucose concentrations. ELISA was then used to evaluate FN expression.
Results: Micro-albumin urea and clinical albumin urea groups had significantly higher serum SAA and TNF-α concentrations (p<0.05 compared with pure diabetic group). Their concentrations were positively correlated with UAER (r=0.463, and 0.278, p<0.05). After transfection of anti-SAA, renal glomerular cells showed lower TNF-α and FN levels (p<0.05 compared with control cells cultured under highglucose medium).
Conclusions: This study indicated positive correlation between SAA concentration and UAER, indicating the possible involvement of SAA in the onset/progression of DN, which might be possibly via mediating the expression levels of TNF-α and FN.


In the 2013 curriculum the learning materials in primary schools are packaged in an integrated thematic learning model. Although the materials and learning processes are conducted in an integrated manner, the taught material should not be independent of the material concept of each load. The material has been contained in the student book. While the learning process is in the teacher book. Material and learning process is crucial in education, so it is necessary to analyze the concept of material in the student book and the implementation of learning. The analysis of the implementation of learning is done in class IV elementary school of Muhammadiyah 9 Malang. The purpose of the analysis conducted in this research are: 1) to describes the study of facts on the content of social studies in the "Indahnya Keragaman Negeriku" theme grade four elementary school, and 2) to describe the study of facts on the content of social studies during the learning of "Indahnya Keragaman Negeriku" theme grade four elementary school. The type of this research is qualitative descriptive research. Data completion technique used in this research is observation and questionnaire of teacher response. Observations are used to describe the study of social studies content facts in the fourth grade students of the Indahnya Keragaman Negeriku theme. While the questionnaire teacher response used to know the study of facts of social studies content that teachers teach to students. Based on the results of research that has been done can be concluded that the study of facts in Sub-theme one material of "suku bangsa dan bahasa daerah" have been implemented well; The study of facts in the Sub-theme two material of "keragaman rumah adat dan pakaian adat di Indonesia" has been well implemented; The study of facts in the Sub-theme three material of "aktivitas ekonomi yang dilakukan" has been well implemented.


Nowadays, nanoporous films are widely employed in biochemical applications or in opto-photonic devices such as displays, solar cells, or light-guiding systems. In particular, the technological feasibility of nanoporous layers with low refractive indices has recently enabled the development of high-efficiency anti-reflection coatings. In this paper, we report on hybrid polymer nanoporous films that can be fabricated in a single coating step with an industrial aqueous-based method on very large surfaces. Both high transparency and low refractive index are simultaneously achieved over the entire visible spectrum. We eventually demonstrate the potential of such films for broadband AR applications by combining them in a graded-index multilayer that reduces the surface reflectivity of a polymer substrate from 10% to few ‰.


BACKGROUND
Conflicting reports exist in the medical literature regarding the association between industry funding and published research findings. In this study, we examine the association between industry funding and the statistical significance of results in recently published medical and surgical trials.

METHODS
We examined a consecutive series of 332 randomized trials published between January 1999 and June 2001 in 8 leading surgical journals and 5 medical journals. Each eligible study was independently reviewed for methodological quality using a 21-point index with 5 domains: randomization, outcomes, eligibility criteria, interventions and statistical issues. Our primary analysis included studies that explicitly identified the primary outcome and reported it as statistically significant. For studies that did not explicitly identify a primary outcome, we defined a "positive" study as one with at least 1 statistically significant outcome measure. We used multivariable regression analysis to determine whether there was an association between reported industry funding and trial results, while controlling for study quality and sample size.

RESULTS
Among the 332 randomized trials, there were 158 drug trials, 87 surgical trials and 87 trials of other therapies. In 122 (37%) of the trials, authors declared industry funding. An unadjusted analysis of this sample of trials revealed that industry funding was associated with a statistically significant result in favour of the new industry product (odds ratio [OR] 1.9, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.3-3.5). The association remained significant after adjustment for study quality and sample size (adjusted OR 1.8, 95% CI 1.1-3.0). There was a nonsignificant difference between surgical trials (OR 8.0, 95% CI 1.1-53.2) and drug trials (OR 1.6, 95% CI 1.1-2.8), both of which were likely to have a pro-industry result (relative OR 5.0, 95% CI 0.7-37.5, p = 0.14).

INTERPRETATION
Industry-funded trials are more likely to be associated with statistically significant pro-industry findings, both in medical trials and surgical interventions.


Abstract Aim: The aim of the study was to assess patient selection for embolization of varicoceles based on ultrasonography. An additional objective of the work was to evaluate the results of endovascular treatment. Material and methods: From January 2015 till August 2017, 53 patients with varicoceles diagnosed in an ultrasound examination underwent endovascular treatment in the Department of Interventional Radiology and Neuroradiology in Lublin, Poland. Each ultrasound examination was performed using the Logiq 7 GE Medical System with a linear probe at 6–12 MHz using the B-mode and Doppler functions. The study was performed in both the supine and standing position of the patient. The morphological structures of the scrotum and the width of the pampiniform venous plexus were assessed. Based on clinical signs and symptoms as well as ultrasound findings, the patients were selected for endovascular treatment. This procedure involved the implantation of coils in the distal and proximal parts of the testicular vein and administration of a sclerosing agent between the coils. Results: Varicoceles were confirmed in all patients during a color Doppler scan. Diagnostic venography confirmed venous stasis or retrograde flow in the testicular vein and widened vessels of the pampiniform venous plexus over 2 mm in diameter in all patients undergoing endovascular treatment. The diagnostic efficacy of ultrasound was 100%. The technical success of the procedure was 89%. One patient had a recurrence of varicose veins (2.2%). There were no complications in any of the patients. Conclusions: Ultrasound is the preferred method in the diagnosis of varicoceles and selection for their treatment. Testicular vein embolization is a minimally invasive procedure characterized by high efficacy and safety.


Physicians are often required to make critical medical decisions that may be based on previous events in the patient's health history. However, these events may be very difficult to locate in the patient record due to the large volume of unstructured textual data in the patient's chart. Even when the chart is housed in an electronic health record (EMR) system, keyword search within the chart may produce many results that are not relevant or that may overlook related expressions and concepts entirely. In addition, some medical events, such as the occurrence of symptoms, are associated with important attributes such as location or severity. This paper describes a prototype system that performs ontology-based semantic search through clinical text to extract pain severity events, and then presents them in a visualization to monitor the progression of post-surgical pain.


The Sanskrit Mahabharata is one of the greatest works of world literature and pivotal for the understanding of both Hindu traditions and wider society in ancient, medieval and modern South Asia. This book presents a new synthesis of philological, anthropological and cognitive-linguistic method and theory in relation to the study of narrative text by focusing on the form and function of the Mahabharata in the context of early South Asia.
Arguing that the combination of structural and thematic features that have helped to establish the enduring cultural centrality of religious narrative in South Asia was first outlined in the text, the book highlights the Mahabharata's complex orientation to the cosmic, social and textual past. The book shows the extent to which narrative is integral to human social life, and more generally the creation and maintenance of religious ideologies. It highlights the contexts of origin and transmission and the cultural function of the Mahabharata in first millennium South Asia and, by extension, in medieval and modern South Asia by drawing on both textual and epigraphic sources. The book draws attention to what is culturally specific about the origination and transmission of early South Asian narrative and what can be used to enrich our orientation to narrative in human social life more globally.


The overall purpose of this thesis is to contribute to the knowledge base concerning the interplay between design and marketing. Based on the findings from the empirical studies, the aim of this thesis is to describe and analyze how marketing and design interplay in companies and the main reasons for such interplay. The research builds upon a multiple-case study of companies mainly within the furniture manufacturing industry. The research focus is the study of companies described as "design led", i.e. "characterized by a dominant logic that views design as central to the companies' strategic positioning"(Beverland and Farrell, 2007). Three different interfaces between design and marketing within the company and towards its external actors are studied. The studied companies illustrate how a company's desire to create a brand that is closely related to product design creates an effect on internal activities as well as the interfaces to external actors, e.g. customers and suppliers. Based on empirical findings, it is proposed that by being design-led, companies may not only create a competitive advantage connected to the good itself and its product design, but also through its potential to offer new products based on the company's design competence and its brand image. One such example of new potential is the offering of an integrated interior solution and the concept of "aesthetic complexity" that is introduced and suggested as a driver for such solutions. Moreover, a more general model on the interplay between product design and marketing compared to those previously presented in literature is suggested. This model considers the different company approaches to design, e.g. more or less selforiented, and marketing, e.g. more or less market-oriented. It is proposed that depending on the company's approach to design and marketing, the coordination between design resources and marketing within the company should be managed differently. This thesis also presents a tentative model on the relationship between the companies' different desired brand images and their sourcing of external designers. It is proposed that a company's desired brand image and its design philosophy affect the company's practices when sourcing external design resources, e.g. in the choice of contracting more or less well-known designers. The conclusions presented in this licentiate thesis may serve as a starting point for managers to understand the interplay between design and marketing in companies. Although still tentative, the conclusions suggest a number of marketing-related prerequisites and consequences when a company aims to be design-led. By considering these different aspects, companies might improve their chances of being successful when creating a brand image that is closely connected to design.


Summary Background Only limited information is available regarding the influence of decellularization on the extracellular matrix in heart valves. Within the extracellular matrix proteoglycans (PG) play a central role in the structural organization and physical functioning of valves and in their capability of settling with endothelial and interstitial cells partially myofibroblasts. We have therefore estimated the effects of decellularization using deoxycholic acid on the structure of the extracellular matrix and PG's in porcine aortic valves. Material/Methods Cupromeronic blue was used, alone or in combination with OsO4/thio-carbo-hydrazide/OsO4 for electron microscopic visualization. For PG and glycosaminoglycan (GAG) investigation a papain digestion was employed in combination with photometric determination using dimethylmethylene blue. Results The results indicate that deoxycholic acid affects the compartmentation of the PG-associated interstitial network not significantly. Compared to controls the PG-rich network was preserved even after deoxycholic acid treatment for 48 h. In parallel to electron microscopy immune assays (ELISA) showed smooth muscle cell α-actin to be reduced to 0.96%±0.71 and total soluble protein to 6.68%±2.0 (n=3) of untreated controls. Protein loss corresponded well with the observations in electron micrographs of rupture and efflux of cell content. Further signs of lysis were irregular cell contours and loss of the basement membrane. Conclusions Efficient cell-lysis without disintegration or loss of integrity of the interstitial PG network can be achieved by treatment of aortic valves with deoxycholic acid for 48h. This protocol might also be suitable for clinical use to optimize conditions for growth and autologous remodelling of valves.


The status and image of minorities often depends not on their
 self-perceptions, but on the official stance taken by the state in which they
 live. While identity is commonly recognized as malleable and personal, the
 official status of minorities is couched in stiff scientific language
 claiming to be authoritative. But as polities change, these supposedly
 scientific categorizations of minorities also change. Based on academic
 reports and parliamentary decisions, in Hungary today the Catholic South
 Slavs known as Bunjevci are officially regarded as an obscure branch of the
 Croatian nation. This has not always been the case. Early records of the
 Bunjevci categorized them in a variety of ways, most commonly as Catholic
 Serbs, Dalmatians, and Illyrians. In the nineteenth century Bunjevac elites
 were able to project to the Hungarian public a mythological positive
 historical image of the Bunjevci, delineating them from the negative
 stereotypes of other South Slavs. This positive image, fixed in
 encyclopaedias and maintained until the Second World War, represented the
 Bunjevci as Catholic Serbs who (unlike Croats or Orthodox Serbs) were
 constantly faithful to the Hungarian state and eager to assimilate. In the
 1920s and 1930s traditional Hungarian stereotypes of Bunjevci protected them
 from abuses suffered by other South Slavs. As political relations
 transformed, official views of the Bunjevci also changed. With the massive
 upheaval during and after the Second World War, there was a change in
 accounts of who the Bunjevci were. The transformation from communism and the
 break-up of Yugoslavia have also evoked demands for changes in identity from
 some Bunjevci, and brought new impositions of identity upon them.


Summary Innexins are one of two gene families that have evolved to permit neighbouring cells in multicellular systems to communicate directly. Innexins are found in prechordates and persist in small numbers in chordates as divergent sequences termed pannexins. Connexins are functionally analogous proteins exclusive to chordates. Members of these two families of proteins form intercellular channels, assemblies of which constitute gap junctions. Each intercellular channel is a composite of two hemichannels, one from each of two apposed cells. Hemichannels dock in the extracellular space to form a complete channel with a central aqueous pore that regulates the cell–cell exchange of ions and small signalling molecules. Hemichannels can also act independently by releasing paracrine signalling molecules. optic ganglion reduced (ogre) is a member of the Drosophila innexin family, originally identified as a gene essential for postembryonic neurogenesis. Here we demonstrate, by heterologous expression in paired Xenopus oocytes, that Ogre alone does not form homotypic gap-junction channels; however, co-expression of Ogre with Innexin2 (Inx2) induces formation of functional channels with properties distinct from Inx2 homotypic channels. In the Drosophila larval central nervous system, we find that Inx2 partially colocalises with Ogre in proliferative neuroepithelia and in glial cells. Downregulation of either ogre or inx2 selectively in glia, by targeted expression of RNA interference transgenes, leads to a significant reduction in the size of the larval nervous system and behavioural defects in surviving adults. We conclude that these innexins are crucially required in glial cells for normal postembryonic development of the central nervous system.


Abstract Natural and lab-evolved proteins often recognize their RNA partners with exquisite affinity. Structural analysis of such complexes can offer valuable insight into sequence-selective recognition that can be exploited to alter biological function. Here, we describe the structure of a lab-evolved RNA recognition motif (RRM) bound to the HIV-1 trans-activation response (TAR) RNA element at 1.80 Å-resolution. The complex reveals a trio of arginines in an evolved β2–β3 loop penetrating deeply into the major groove to read conserved guanines while simultaneously forming cation-π and salt-bridge contacts. The observation that the evolved RRM engages TAR within a double-stranded stem is atypical compared to most RRMs. Mutagenesis, thermodynamic analysis and molecular dynamics validate the atypical binding mode and quantify molecular contributions that support the exceptionally tight binding of the TAR-protein complex (KD,App of 2.5 ± 0.1 nM). These findings led to the hypothesis that the β2–β3 loop can function as a standalone TAR-recognition module. Indeed, short constrained peptides comprising the β2–β3 loop still bind TAR (KD,App of 1.8 ± 0.5 μM) and significantly weaken TAR-dependent transcription. Our results provide a detailed understanding of TAR molecular recognition and reveal that a lab-evolved protein can be reduced to a minimal RNA-binding peptide.


Drs K P JONEs and R D WALKER (Cumbria CA14 2DF) write: Dr J L Day and colleagues bring a note of caution to the current interest in caring well for diabetics at the primary care level (20 June, p 1590). Papers showing how successful miniclinics can be continue to be published '2 but we believe that our experience highlights a possible source of problems not often discussed. In late 1985 an audit of repeat prescriptions in our urban practice of 10 500 patients showed 101 diabetics, whose case records were subsequently examined closely. The results, even in those still attending the hospital diabetic clinic, were dismal, with very poor documentation of most important information. As a result, a practice based clinic was set up on a Tuesday afternoon. This was run by a nurse, who invited four patients to each session; she started a diabetic record card for each patient, and we were both available to check this, to analyse electrocardiographs, and to perform ophthalmoscopy. Sadly, this plan was scuppered by our patients, who proved to be very poor attenders. Out of 36 patients for whom appointments were made, only six turned up. The clinic has thus been much modified to an almost opportunistic system during surgery hours, with rather more success. Enthusiasm in the primary care team willproduce results only ifthe patients cooperate. Other practices whose enthusiasm may still be germinating should take note.


Surveys and experiments have uncovered a strong connection between perceptions of self-determination and preferences for redistribution. This paper presents results from a vignette-based survey that examines whether redistributive preferences are further affected by the dimensionality of luck and self-determination. The vignettes specify whether economic advantages are the result of one self-determined dimension (effort or independence), two self-determined dimensions (effort and independence), one lucky dimension (natural ability or dependence) or two lucky dimensions (natural ability and dependence). Results provide evidence that the presence of two dimensions of luck or self-determination can shift redistributive preferences relative to the presence of one dimension, but only when the decision task is cognitively simple and the vignette's context is easily applicable to everyday life. More generally, whenever the decision task is cognitively complex or the context is ethically simplistic, the dimensionality of self-determination and luck is found to have insignificant effects on redistributive preferences. The results also demonstrate that the presence of a single, salient dimension of luck can increase support for redistribution more than the joint presence of multiple dimensions of luck.


The modal-expansion method has been used for analyzing electrically steerable passive array radiators (ESPAR) driven by a gap source. A simple model of a four-element ESPAR antenna has been studied and its S-parameter results are in good agreement with those by HFSS. A designed seven-monopole ESPAR antenna has been discussed and simulation results have shown that it can be used to steer its radiation beam by properly adjusting the loaded varactors of its passive elements.


This review includes works published in the general scientific literature during 2015 on the effects of anthropogenic pollutants on freshwater organisms. It begins with two broad sections: research reviews and broad field studies and surveys. This is followed by reviews of research categorized in sections to reflect the pollutant class. These sections include wastewater, stormwater and non‐point source pollution, nutrients, sediment cap materials and suspended clays, botanical extracts, surfactants, metals, persistent organic pollutants, pharmaceuticals, endocrine disruptors, pesticides, petroleum hydrocarbons and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), ionic liquids, and nanomaterials. The final section includes works describing innovations in the field of freshwater pollution research.


Multicommunication means interacting with several people separately but at the same time. Usually multicommunication refers to parallel conversations enabled by communication technologies. The essential element is interactivity: in multicommunication, several mutual, two-way interactions are managed between people. A few adjacent concepts related to multicommunication have also been used in the literature, including multitasking, media or electronic multitasking, polychronicity, and polychronic communication.
 Research interest in multicommunication is growing. Whereas the nascent phases of multicommunication research were largely concerned with observing the manifestation and characteristics of the multicommunication phenomenon, defining the concept of multicommunication, and differentiating multicommunication from similar concepts, contemporary research has spread out in many directions. Three main topics can be distinguished in multicommunication research: motivators of multicommunication, management of multicommunication, and consequences of multicommunication. The research contexts for multicommunication to date have been predominantly limited to working life. Very few studies have actually focused on family communication, contacts between friends, or other contexts involving communication in private life.
 For their preferred methods in empirical multicommunication research, most scholars to date have used surveys, interviews, diaries, critical incidents, and other self-reports, as well as laboratory experiments. Researchers are beginning to learn quite a bit about the motivators and consequences of multicommunication, as described by employees in the workplace. Multicommunication research would thus benefit from the observation and analysis of natural communication found in actual contexts, settings, and relationships.


Landscape Gardening in Japan was first published in 1893 by Josiah Conder, a British architect, urban planner, and teacher, who had come to Japan in 1877 to serve as a professor of architecture at the forerunner of Tokyo University and as a consultant to the Ministry of Engineering. A man of wide interests, Conder was encouraged by the warm reception given his 1891 Flowers of Japan and the Art of Floral Arrangement to undertake a book on gardening. In preparing the present book, he relied not entirely on his own observations but consulted, and "freely borrowed from," some of the most reliable Japanese sources available at the time, the oldest dating to 1633. The resulting book is the product of a Western, Victorian perspective with access to Japanese authoritative texts. Conder's study of the Japanese landscape garden led him to conclude that it represented universal qualities that could be applied to gardening anywhere. In addition to a discussion of these broader truths, the book is so finely detailed and so richly illustrated that it still serves today as a guide to modern garden-lovers, whether of a practical or a theoretical bent. The present volume combines the original study with an additional volume of photographs of famous gardens that was published shortly thereafter and entitled Supplement to Landscape Gardening in Japan. The interior of the book has been redesigned and the text newly set for easier reading and viewing. The book has a new Foreword by Azby Brown and an Afterword by Terunobu Fujimori, providing background information on Conder and putting his accomplishments into perspective. Jacket Illustration: Yokuon-en Zenzu (detail), National Diet Library. The Yokuon-en garden and villa was constructed by Matsudaira Sadanobu around 1794. (See Conder's description in Chapter 1 under Yoku-on-En.) The present illustration is a copy of an original bird's-eye view commemoratively painted in 1842 after the garden's destruction by fire in 1829.


Emergence is easy to exhibit, but very hard to formally explain. This paper deals with square sand grains moving around on nicely stacked columns in one dimension (the physical sandpile is two dimensional, but the support of sand columns is one dimensional). The Kadanoff sandpile model is a discrete dynamical system describing the evolution of finitely many sand grains falling from an hourglass (or equivalently from a finite stack of sand grains) to a stable configuration. The repeated application of a simple local rule let grains move until reaching a fixed point. The difficulty of understanding its behavior, despite the simplicity of its rule, is the main interest of the model. In this paper we prove the emergence of exact wave patterns periodically repeated on fixed points. Remarkably, those regular patterns do not cover the entire fixed point, but eventually emerge from a seemingly disordered segment: grains are added on the left, triggering avalanches that become regular as they fall down the sandpile. The proof technique we set up associated arguments of linear algebra and combinatorics, which interestingly allow to formally demonstrate the emergence of regular patterns without requiring a precise understanding of the non-regular initial segment's dynamic.


The refugee crisis that unfolded in Europe in the summer of 2015 questions the effectiveness of European border and refugee policies. The breakdown of the Dublin and Schengen rules due to chaotic situations at the borders in the Balkans marks a critical juncture for the EU. We consider this breakdown as a consequence of a long-lasting co-operation crisis among EU Member States. The most recent Council decision responds to this co-operation crisis (Council Decision 12098/15). This Policy Brief analyses EU policy and politics and argues that plans for refugee relocation and reception centres as well as the use of qualified majority voting in the Council can unfold a dynamic that helps to solve the co-operation crisis. However, underlying the problems of co-operation and effectiveness is the EU's border paradox: while EU border policy works towards refugee deterrence, EU asylum policy aims at refugee protection. The EU's approach in regulating borders and asylum can be understood in terms of 'organised hypocrisy' (Brunsson, 1993). Reconciling the paradox calls for overcoming such hypocrisy.


We have designed and developed a new class of optical fiber components based on thin-film coatings and fiber gratings. In our design, the function of the thin-film fiber coating is to provide an electrical means to regulate the optical response of the fiber section underlying the coating. Using this principle, we were able to implement both wavelength tunable filters and optical modulators. We implemented wavelength tunable filters by running an electrical current through a metallic coating. The effect of the current is to directly heat the fiber (which hosts a fiber grating), and the resulting temperature change tunes the filter resonance wavelength(s). The main characteristic of this device are: a) the tuning efficiency is inversely proportional to the length of the heated coating; b) thermal tuning does not induce any spectral profile changes; c) the temperature induced wavelength modulation depends on the packaging and is limited to low frequencies. To produce fiber optic phase modulators, we exploited the change in the refractive index determined by a thin-film piezoelectric coating sandwiched between metal electrodes. The induced strains are proportional to the electric field applied to the piezoelectric layer (zinc oxide or lead titanate zirconate sputtered thin-films). We found that the response is flat at low frequencies and dominated by strong radial mode resonances above a few MHz up to GHz frequencies. We also investigated piezoelectric coated fiber Bragg gratings for intensity and Bragg wavelength modulation. Our results indicate that, in these devices, the refractive index of the fiber grating is changed by the straining action of the piezoelectric film. Finally, we operated an all-fiber Mach-Zehnder interferometer, based on two long period fiber gratings, as an intensity modulator. In this case, a zinc oxide piezoelectric actuator modulates the phase difference between the arms of the interferometer and thus the transmitted intensity. Piezoelectric actuators allowed for wavelength and intensity modulation up to GHz frequencies, with a response similar to that of the phase modulators. In conclusion, the all-fiber modulators and wavelength tunable filters that we have designed and implemented are characterized by low insertion loss, high electrical power efficiency, small size, and high optical power damage threshold. We believe that such novel devices represent a useful addition to the tool kit of the fiber-optic system designer.


Introduction Alternative Nicotine Delivery Systems (ANDS) such as e-cigarettes are battery-powered devices that aerosolize nicotine and other substances to simulate smoking without using tobacco. Little is known about the ANDS initiation process among adult smokers. The aims of this research are threefold to: (1) examine how ANDS use affects cigarette use; (2) examine how the immediate environmental and psychosocial contexts of cigarette and ANDS use vary within—and between—participants in general and by menthol preference and race; and, (3) examine participants' 'lived experience' of the subjective perceptions, meaning, influences and utility of cigarette and ANDS use. Methods and analyses This study's mixed method, 6-week longitudinal design will produce a detailed description of the ANDS initiation process among adult smokers (N=100). Qualitative and quantitative data collection will include 3 weeks of: (1) ecological momentary assessment of patterns of cigarette/ANDS use, satisfaction, mood and craving; (2) geospatial assessment of participants' environment, including indoor and outdoor cigarette/ANDS norms and rules; (3) in-depth interviews about the meaning and utility of cigarette smoking and ANDS use; and, (4) saliva cotinine and exhaled carbon monoxide (CO) biomarkers. A diverse sample will be recruited with an equal number of menthol and non-menthol cigarette smokers. As the primary independent variable, we will investigate how ANDS use affects cigarette consumption. We will also examine how smoking-related and ANDS-related rules and norms surrounding product use influence cigarette and ANDS product use, and how the subjective effects of ANDS use affect ANDS perceptions, beliefs and use. Ethics and dissemination This study was funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the US National Institutes of Health (1R21DA036472), registered at ClinicalTrials.gov (NCT02261363), and approved by the Chesapeake IRB (Pro00008526). Findings will be disseminated to the scientific and lay community through presentations, reports and scientific publications. Trial registration number NCT02261363; Pre-results.


W. E. B. Du Bois was a public intellectual, sociologist, and activist on behalf of the African American community. He profoundly shaped black political culture in the United States through his founding role in the NAACP, as well as internationally through the Pan-African movement. Du Bois's sociological and historical research on African-American communities and culture broke ground in many areas, including the history of the post-Civil War Reconstruction period. Du Bois was also a prolific author of novels, autobiographical accounts, innumerable editorials and journalistic pieces, and several works of history. Published in 1924 in response to growing racial tensions, W. E. B. Du Bois's The Gift of Black Folk explores the contributions African Americans have made to American society, detailing the importance of racial diversity to the United States. Writing for a general audience, Du Bois employs a sweeping scope for his argument, covering the European discovery of America to the twentieth century. In doing so he works to prove that through African Americans' struggle for freedom and equality, they have most fully realized the goal of democracy. With a series introduction by editor Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and an introduction by Glenda Carpio, this edition is essential for anyone interested in African American history.


When used for structured regression, powerful Conditional Random Fields (CRFs) are typically restricted to modeling effects of interactions among examples in local neighborhoods. Using more expressive representation would result in dense graphs, making these methods impractical for large-scale applications. To address this issue, we propose an effective CRF model with linear scale-up properties regarding approximate learning and inference for structured regression on large, fully connected graphs. The proposed method is validated on real-world large-scale problems of image de-noising and remote sensing. In conducted experiments, we demonstrated that dense connectivity provides an improvement in prediction accuracy. Inference time of less than ten seconds on graphs with millions of nodes and trillions of edges makes the proposed model an attractive tool for large-scale, structured regression problems.


In this thesis we study some of the problems which occur when type inference is used in a type system with subtyping. An underlying poset of atomic types is used as a basis for our subtyping systems. We argue that the class of Helly posets is of significant interest, as it includes lattices and trees, and is closed under type formation not only with structural constructors such as function space and list, but also records, tagged variants, Abadi-Cardelli object constructors, >, and ⊥. We develop a general theory relating consistency, solvability, and solution of sets of constraints between regular types built over Helly posets with these constructors, and introduce semantic notions of simplification and entailment for sets of constraints over Helly posets of base types. We extend Helly posets with inequalities of the form a 6 τ , where τ is not necessarily atomic, and show how this enables us to deal with bounded quantification. Using bounded quantification we define a subtyping system which combines structural subtype polymorphism and predicative parametric polymorphism, and use this to extend with subtyping the type system of Laufer and Odersky for ML with type annotations. We define a complete algorithm which infers minimal types for our extension, using factorisations, solutions of subtyping problems analogous to principal unifiers for unification problems. We give some examples of typings computed by a prototype implementation.


Vehicles are becoming complex software systems with many components and services that need to be coordinated. Service oriented architectures can be used in this domain to support intra-vehicle, inter-vehicles, and vehicle-environment services. Such architectures can be deployed on different platforms, using different communication and coordination paradigms. We argue that practical solutions should be hybrid: they should integrate and support interoperability of different paradigms. We demonstrate the concept by integrating Jini, the service-oriented technology we used within the vehicle, and JXTA, the peer to peer infrastructure we used to support interaction with the environment through a gateway service, called J2J. Initial experience with J2J is illustrated.


Protein secretion is an important process that allows for cell-cell communication and coordinated immune responses to be carried out by immune cells. Methods for the study of cytokine secretion of large cell populations have been well developed, however few methods exist to study cytokine secretion with single-cell resolution. Methods that have been developed, including mRNA assays, flow cytometry with labeled cytokines, ELISPOT assays, and microwell entrapment, have been used to study single-cell cytokine release, but each have drawbacks. One of the main drawbacks is the inability to combine cytokine detection with high resolution imagery of the secreting cells. Such a method would allow the study of intracellular structures and events in combination with cytokine secretion due to external stimuli. To address this, a system was developed that utilizes SU-8 nanopillar structures to suspend cells above a surface, enabling a modified sandwich ELISA to take place underneath individual cells. High-resolution confocal microscopy was used for cytokine detection and simultaneous cellular imaging. Although further optimization must be carried out for a fully functional system to be demonstrated, this project describes the successful development of an antibody coating for the fluorescent detection of IL1b, and has made steps toward being able to perform live IL-1b secretion studies from THP-1 ASC GFP cells.


Pollution swapping can be defined as the increase in one pollutant as a result of a measure introduced to reduce a different pollutant. Although pollution swapping is widely understood it has received relatively little research attention and receives little consideration in agri-environmental policy. Evidence of pollution swapping in constructed wetlands, riparian buffer zones, cover crops, crop residue retention and notillage is examined in this paper. These widely used mitigation options are all successful at reducing diffuse pollutants but literature review shows that there is potential for them to increase levels of one or more other pollutants. There is potential for the widespread adoption of mitigation options to result in unexpected increases in some pollutants. There are a number of barriers to the recognition of pollution swapping in agrienvironmental legislation including a lack of tools to evaluate the relative impacts of different pollutants, gaps in our knowledge of the impacts of mitigation measures on nontarget pollutants and institutional barriers. Stevens and Quinton 2009 Physics and Chemistry of the Earth 34 589-594


Marine mammal Brucella spp. have been isolated from pinnipeds (B. pinnipedialis) and cetaceans (B. ceti) from around the world. Although the zoonotic potential of marine mammal brucellae is largely unknown, reports of human disease exist. There are few studies of the mechanisms of bacterial intracellular invasion and multiplication involving the marine mammal Brucella spp. We examined the infective capacity of two genetically different B. pinnipedialis strains (reference strain; NTCT 12890 and a hooded seal isolate; B17) by measuring the ability of the bacteria to enter and replicate in cultured phagocytes and epithelial cells. Human macrophage-like cells (THP-1), two murine macrophage cell lines (RAW264.7 and J774A.1), and a human malignant epithelial cell line (HeLa S3) were challenged with bacteria in a gentamicin protection assay. Our results show that B. pinnipedialis is internalized, but is then gradually eliminated during the next 72 – 96 hours. Confocal microscopy revealed that intracellular B. pinnipedialis hooded seal strain colocalized with lysosomal compartments at 1.5 and 24 hours after infection. Intracellular presence of B. pinnipedialis hooded seal strain was verified by transmission electron microscopy. By using a cholesterol-scavenging lipid inhibitor, entrance of B. pinnipedialis hooded seal strain in human macrophages was significantly reduced by 65.8 % (± 17.3), suggesting involvement of lipid-rafts in intracellular entry. Murine macrophages invaded by B. pinnipedialis do not release nitric oxide (NO) and intracellular bacterial presence does not induce cell death. In summary, B. pinnipedialis hooded seal strain can enter human and murine macrophages, as well as human epithelial cells. Intracellular entry of B. pinnipedialis hooded seal strain involves, but seems not to be limited to, lipid-rafts in human macrophages. Brucella pinnipedialis does not multiply or survive for prolonged periods intracellulary.


This thesis is primarily concerned with the reflection factors of affine Toda field theories on the half-line x ≤ 0. First, we consider the classical background configurations of low rank a,(^(1)) affine Toda theories with a boundary, constructed by the analytic-continuation of soliton solutions of the corresponding imaginary-coupling theories. We show that only a small subset of such solutions provide acceptable vacuum configurations. These are classified according to the integrable boundary conditions they obey and their classical reflection factors are considered. We next consider the quantum theories, where we aim to provide evidence for or against exact reflection factors proposed in the literature. We do this by explicit calculation of the low-order coupling dependence of the reflection factors via perturbation theory. Two particular examples are considered in detail. The first is the O(β(^2)) calculation for a(_2)(^1) affine Toda field theory with the boundary condition. This will be a good example to study since it is the subject of many conjectured exact reflection factors and also demonstrates the renormalisation of the boundary potential required to retain quantum integrability. The second example will be the O(β(^4)) calculation for sinh-Gordon theory. In light of the added complexity of the higher-order calculation we consider only the Neumann boundary condition. Finally we look at the renormalisation of sinh-Gordon theory and its duality properties.


Service Orientation (SO) and grid computing are two computing paradigms that when put together using Internet technologies promise to provide a scalable yet flexible computing platform for a diverse set of distributed computing applications. This practice gives rise to the notion of a computing cloud that addresses some previous limitations of interoperability, resource sharing and utilization within distributed computing. In such a Service Oriented Computing Cloud (SOCC), applications are formed by composing a set of services together. In addition, hierarchical service layers are also possible where general purpose services at lower layers are composed to deliver more domain specific services at the higher layer. In general an SOCC is a horizontally scalable computing platform that offers its resources as services in a standardized fashion. Workflow based applications are a suitable target for SOCC where workflow tasks are executed via service calls within the cloud. One or more workflows can be deployed over an SOCC and their execution requires scheduling of services to workflow tasks as the task become ready following their interdependencies. In this thesis heuristics based scheduling policies are evaluated for scheduling workflows over a collection of services offered by the SOCC. Various execution scenarios and workflow characteristics are considered to understand the implication of the heuristic based workflow