Using fuzzy logic, and associated techniques such as fuzzy clustering, in a teaching environment necessitates the availability of introductory and pedagogically appropriate tools. In a similar manner, introductory level tools may be necessary for practical applications where users are non-specialists in fuzzy theory, as is often the case. For these two scenarios, and many others, the tools that support the use of the modeling technique must satisfy sets of requirements concerning the interface, functionality, and documentation. Examples of these requirements can include the program's ability to guide the user, without undue restrictions, through the necessary modeling procedures (as in a wizard interface) and explaining (both textually and graphically) the operation of the inference process. After outlining some of the desirable attributes for such tools that are intended to be used by these fuzzy novices, this paper describes the collection of tools collectively known as FUZZYMANAGER. Despite the name, which reflects its project management origins, the system is targeted towards any group of users without a particularly comprehensive or deep knowledge of fuzzy logic, who want an intuitive and graphical approach to fuzzy logic model building. As well as implementing standard inference options and methods, a clustering based algorithm for automatically deriving fuzzy systems from data (either membership functions, rules, or both may be extracted) is outlined. This component assists with the initial system creation process which can be an especially difficult activity for novices.


Explicitly utopian novels are relatively uncommon in twentieth-century Scottish fiction, perhaps due to a prevailing conception of Scottish literature as inherently peripheral; for many critics and authors, Scotland is already a place outside the mainstream of political and historical narrative. Utopian themes and imagery, however, have frequently been used by Scottish writers to address the role of religious experience in contemporary life. In novels by Robin Jenkins, Neil M. Gunn, Alasdair Gray, and Iain M. Banks, the utopian form presents the possibility of abandoning traditional religious practices in favor of direct discourse with the divine. Even as they appear to repudiate organized religion, these novels also demonstrate the continued relevance of God and myth. Whether in outright science fiction such as Banks's Culture series and portions of Gray's "Lanark," classical utopias such as Gunn's "The Green Isle of the Great Deep," or ostensibly realist novels such as Jenkins's "The Missionaries," utopian imagery is used to examine what role the divine might have in a secular society. These Scottish utopias offer a place to discuss the relationships between individuals, communities, and nations and how these relationships are reconstituted in a modernity where God is known only as absence.


Streams of data are produced today at an unprecedented scale. Efficient and stable processing of these streams requires a careful interplay between the parameters of the streaming application and of the underlying stream processing framework. Today, finding these parameters happens by trial and error on the complex, deployed framework. This paper shows that high-level models can help to determine these parameters by predicting and comparing the performance of streaming applications running on stream processing frameworks with different configurations. To demonstrate this approach, this paper considers Spark Streaming, a widely used framework to leverage data streams on the fly and provide real-time stream processing. Technically, we develop a configurable and executable model to simulate both the streaming applications and the underlying Spark stream processing framework. Furthermore, we model the deployment of Spark Streaming on Apache YARN, which is a popular open-source distributed software framework for big data processing. We show that the developed model provides a satisfactory accuracy for predicting performance by means of empirical validation.


This Article commands a more explicit engagement of critical race scholarship with feminist international human rights strategies. It focuses on Jamaican-American women. Part I discusses key aspects of the historical and sociological context in which the migration of Jamaican women to the New York City area has occurred. It also discusses trends in their participation in the paid labor force since the migratory patterns of Jamaican women are strongly linked to their employment opportunities. Part II describes and analyzes significant survival strategies used by working-class Jamaican-American women to escape from, reshape, or resist the exploitative conditions they face. The strategies they adopt out of necessity illustrate not only the shape-shifting, inter/national nature of the sources of their oppression, but also the creativity of their responses to them. Part III discusses the limitations of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, which has been ratified by Jamaica. It also questions whether CEDAW would allow Jamaican-American women to fully address the violations they experience. Next, Part IV identifies opportunities for critical race feminist scholarship to focus on the race- and ethnicity-based subordination of Black women immigrants in the United States. It also elaborates certain divisions within Black communities that must be addressed.The Article concludes by arguing that identity-conscious feminist human rights analyses must extend beyond state boundaries if they are to take full account of the needs of inter/national Black women. Both international human rights and critical race feminist movements must identify and expose the similarities as well as the differences in the oppression of Black women and place those oppressions in a global context. Such coalitions are essential in resisting inter/national forms of domination and would contribute to the creation of diverse coalitions for social change. Those coalitions will include "lionheart gals" who face the dragon on its own territory.


The problem of statehood with regard to relations between China, Yuan and Qing states and dynasties is analyzed in comparative historical context. It is hard to accept the concept of one China (single or divided), during many centuries ruled by different dynasties and never incorporated in other states. Self-names of states and declarations of their succession, as such, do not create historical succession. The concept of China under different circumstances has been used for different purposes: national liberation of the Chinese people from enslaving by foreigners, justifying of internecine fights and/or centralization of the state, the right of a foreign state to conquered China, the right of creation of a world empire or subjection of other states and peoples. Liao, Jin, Yuan and Qing should be considered not as "dynasties of China established by minority nationalities", but as multi-national empires established by non-Chinese peoples: Khitans, Jurchens, Mongols and Manchus, to whom the conquered China or its part was joined. The Song and Ming empires, ROC and PRC represent the state of China in different historical times. However, the formation, structure, sociocultural concepts, ways of legitimization, governing, and national policy differ the Yuan and Qing empires from China, which was only a part of them. Declarations of the Manchus and the Chinese, that their empire is the main state in the world, Zhongguo, are analogous to 60 S.V. Dmitriev, S.L. Kuzmin declarations of German, Ottoman, Russian and some other monarchs about their succession to the Roman Empire. The Chinese worldview underwent serious changes in the course of history. These changes can be better explained as occurring in different (Chinese and non-Chinese) states with different understanding of the Zhongguo principle, than in one state led by Chinese and conquest dynasties.


Stroke is considered as the second and first factor contributing to the mortality and morbidity, respectively, in the developing countries like Iran. Thanks to the development of the public health awareness and establishment of the required infrastructures, the incidence of the communicable diseases has declined immensely in Iran. On the other hand, the mean age of the population is increasing; this increase is inevitably accompanied by the augmented impact of the other stroke risk factors such as hypertension, hyperlipidemia, smoking etc. Consequently, not only the incidence of stroke has increased but also the onset age has decreased significantly; according the latest population-based study in Iran, the incidence of stroke has increased to 20-150 in 100000, yet the onset age is 10 years less than Europeans or Americans. Fortunately, serious and abundant measures have been taken within the recent years through social movements, conferences, mass media, social networks, and beneficiary associations. The integrated program of developing Stroke Units all over the country is seriously being monitored by the Iranian Stroke Association, Medical Sciences Universities and neurologists from all over the country. Stroke is currently the center of attention of the researchers and academia in Iran and numerous large studies in this regard are currently being conducted. The 9th Iranian Stroke Congress was held after many years of the endeavor of Iranian neurologists to promote stroke treatment in their home county despite numerous obstacles. After 2 years of a continuous national campaign, they started and are to pursue modern standards in stroke treatment on a nation-wide scale. Throughout this event, some achievements of this campaign such as promoting the knowledge of neurologists and other medical professionals active in the field of stroke treatment were further reviewed. To achieve further educational goals, educational courses and lectures in the fields of stroke medicine, neurosonology, and interventional neurology were provided. We hope that these educational goals have been realized with the assistance of the prominent lecturers from all over the world and also participants from all other countries.


This paper proposes a distributed TDMA slot allocation protocol that relies on absolutely no information exchange among the participating nodes. This novel property allows the protocol to work in restricted anonymous environments such as in privacy-sensitive body area networks and various military networks in which nodes may need to cooperate in distributed TDMA but are not allowed to explicitly exchange any information such as node-IDs in order to preserve their anonymity. This paper introduces an innovative approach of time-coded packet transmissions for implicitly exchanging slot timing information. It is shown that using such implicit information, together with a notion of interrupt control packets, the nodes are able to self-allocate collision-free TDMA slots in an anonymous manner. The protocol is evaluated and its performance has been shown using extensive simulation models.


Abstract. Variations in the mixing ratio of trace gases of tropospheric origin entering the stratosphere in the tropics are of interest for assessing both troposphere to stratosphere transport fluxes in the tropics and the impact of these transport fluxes on the composition of the tropical lower stratosphere. Anomaly patterns of carbon monoxide (CO) and long-lived tracers in the lower tropical stratosphere allow conclusions about the rate and the variability of tropical upwelling to be drawn. Here, we present a simplified chemistry scheme for the Chemical Lagrangian Model of the Stratosphere (CLaMS) for the simulation, at comparatively low numerical cost, of CO, ozone, and long-lived trace substances (CH4, N2O, CCl3F (CFC-11), CCl2F2 (CFC-12), and CO2) in the lower tropical stratosphere. For the long-lived trace substances, the boundary conditions at the surface are prescribed based on ground-based measurements in the lowest model level. The boundary condition for CO in the lower troposphere (below about 4 km) is deduced from MOPITT measurements. Due to the lack of a specific representation of mixing and convective uplift in the troposphere in this model version, enhanced CO values, in particular those resulting from convective outflow are underestimated. However, in the tropical tropopause layer and the lower tropical stratosphere, there is relatively good agreement of simulated CO with in situ measurements (with the exception of the TROCCINOX campaign, where CO in the simulation is biased low a10–15 ppbv). Further, the model results (and therefore also the ERA-Interim winds, on which the transport in the model is based) are of sufficient quality to describe large scale anomaly patterns of CO in the lower stratosphere. In particular, the zonally averaged tropical CO anomaly patterns (the so called "tape recorder" patterns) simulated by this model version of CLaMS are in good agreement with observations, although the simulations show a too rapid upwelling compared to observations as a consequence of the overestimated vertical velocities in the ERA-Interim reanalysis data set. Moreover, the simulated tropical anomaly patterns of N2O are in good agreement with observations. In the simulations, anomaly patterns of CH4 and CFC-11 were found to be very similar to those of N2O; for all long-lived tracers, positive anomalies are simulated because of the enhanced tropical upwelling in the easterly shear phase of the quasi-biennial oscillation.


The term supply chain refers to a network of facilities that includes a variety of companies. To minimise the entire cost of the supply chain, these entities must collaborate. This research focuses on the use of Artificial Intelligence techniques in supply chain management. It includes supply chain management examples like as demand forecasting, supply forecasting, text analytics, pricing panning, and more to help companies improve their processes, lower costs and risk, and boost revenue. It gives us a quick rundown of all the key principles of economics and how to comprehend and use them effectively.


Different amount of polypyrrole (PPy) was synthesized in aqueous solution on zeolite frameworks by chemical oxidation using FeCl3 as the oxidizing agent at ambient temperature (22±1 °C). The proton form of BEA zeolites with SiO2/Al2O3 ratios of 25, 150 and 300 were used as the host for PPy in this study. Both the anionic groups in zeolite structures and the chloride ions from the oxidant functioned as the dopants during the polymerization. For comparison, parallel experiments were carried out with only purified pyrrole and FeCl3 in water solution in order to obtain the bulk PPy powder. Nitrogen adsorption-desorption technique, X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and fourier transform infrared spectroscopy with attenuated total reflectance (FTIR-ATR) were used to characterize the composites. PPy was formed both in the inner and outer surface of the zeolite structures. The composites showed electrical conductivity at ambient temperature in the range from 6.2 × 10 to 1.3 S cm depending on the ratio between pyrrole and H-Beta zeolite. Electrochemical behavior of the synthesized samples were investigated by cyclic voltammetry.


The switch repetition-rate limit of all-optical semiconductor switches, for which the dynamic extinction ratio decreases with increasing repetition rate, is examined and overcome. The extinction ratio is improved by optimization of the interferometer phase bias, which has previously been set to pi. The extinction-ratio increase accompanies a drastic change in the output pulse spectrum. Both the output pulse profiles and the spectra, before and after optimization, are successfully reproduced by simulation. As a result, switch repetition of 42 GHz (2.5 times higher than the semiconductor-carrier cutoff frequency) is achieved by use of 5-ps, 1548-nm pump pulses. What are believed to be record low input pump-pulse energies of 750 aJ (peak power, 140microW) at 10 GHz and 6 fJ (1.1 mW) at 42 GHz are used.


This product was the global winner in New York's Pet Fashion Week 2008, for the Lifestyle innovation award 2008. There were 8 finalists including Alessi, from 35 international entries. It also featured in Tomorrows Technology Today (Greatest Gadgets of 2008). The HugX product embraces emotional design and interaction design methods to provide a design solution which although simple is sophisticated. The HugX 401 series is a total re-think on dog dining. The physical characteristics are not only functional for a range of feeding issues but also emotive building a social relationship with the owner (aesthetics and quality) and pet (usability). Feeding issues include difficulties experienced by long haired or long eared dogs, those which wear Elizabethan collars and digestive issues from vertical feeding. The bowl, which has no corners (no food traps), is angled at 32.5° from the horizontal allowing food to always fall into the centre of the bowl while improving digestive issues. Each bowl has specific grips characterized subtly as ears and a tongue to prevent the user from touching food. Held in an aluminium holder which resembles the character of a dog's body, its narrow waist creates an easy grip or handle for the user, keeping their hands away from the contents of the bowl. The high grip rubber feet and a wide foot print of the holder, prevent toppling or movement around the floor. As the dog feeds at the bespoke angle a greater amount of downward pressure is exerted than side wards - the bowl, within the holder, sits firmly on the ground.


Diurnal water table fluctuations (DWTFs), normally observed in shallow unconfined aquifers, are commonly used to estimate groundwater evapotranspiration (ETg) by applying the soil water balance pioneered by W.N. White in 1932. A key element of White‐based methods is the drainable porosity (or specific yield), a soil water storage parameter that significantly depends on both the vadose‐zone soil moisture fluxes and water table (WT) elevation. However, it has traditionally been treated as either a constant or a function of the WT under hydrostatic soil moisture conditions. Recent research has shown that, at any given shallow WT position, vadose zone fluxes cause the drainable porosity to behave hysteretically, hence requiring estimation of two distinct parameters, drainable (λd) and fillable porosity (λf), during ETg estimation from DWTFs. We present a White‐based method to estimate ETg that implements separate λd and λf parameters and hence accounts for both WT elevation and unsaturated zone moisture fluxes. The modified method not only improves the ETg estimates but also extend the applicability of the White method to periods during rainfall, unlike most previous implementations, which have been limited to omitting such periods. The modified method is demonstrated here for estimation of ETg from two crop fields in Northeast Florida for two growing seasons, each approximately 50 d, in 2010 and 2011, and the ETg estimates are compared with the standard Penman–Monteith method. The modified method significantly improved ETg estimates compared with the hydrostatic λd based method, reducing the root mean square error by 94 and 96% at hourly and daily resolutions, respectively.


We study the planar maximum coverage location problem (MCLP) with rectilinear distance and rectangular demand zones in the case where "partial coverage" is allowed in its true sense, i.e., when covering part of a demand zone is allowed and the coverage accrued as a result of this is proportional to the demand of the covered part only. We pose the problem in a slightly more general form by allowing service zones to be rectangular instead of squares, thereby addressing applications in camera view-frame selection as well. More specifically, our problem, referred to as PMCLP-PCR (planar MCLP with partial coverage and rectangular demand and service zones), is to position a given number of rectangular service zones (SZs) on the two-dimensional plane to (partially) cover a set of existing (possibly overlapping) rectangular demand zones (DZs) such that the total covered demand is maximized. Previous studies on (planar) MCLP have assumed binary coverage, even when nonpoint objects such as lines or polygons have been used to represent demand. Under the binary coverage assumption, the problem can be readily formulated and solved as a binary linear program; whereas, partial coverage, although much more realistic, cannot be efficiently handled by binary linear programming, making PMCLP-PCR much more challenging to solve. In this paper, we first prove that PMCLP-PCR is NP-hard if the number of SZs is part of the input. We then present an improved algorithm for the single-SZ PMCLP-PCR, which is at least two times faster than the existing exact plateau vertex traversal algorithm. Next, we study multi-SZ PMCLP-PCR for the first time and prove theoretical properties that significantly reduce the search space for solving this problem, and we present a customized branch-and-bound exact algorithm to solve it. Our computational experiments show that this algorithm can solve relatively large instances of multi-SZ PMCLP-PCR in a short time. We also propose a fast polynomial time heuristic algorithm. Having optimal solutions from our exact algorithm, we benchmark the quality of solutions obtained from our heuristic algorithm. Our results show that for all the random instances solved to optimality by our exact algorithm, our heuristic algorithm finds a solution in a fraction of a second, where its objective value is at least 91% of the optimal objective in 90% of the instances (and at least 69% of the optimal objective in all the instances).


The article explores the problem of epistemological ignorance. Drawing on the literature of feminist epistemology, in particular the epistemologies of ignorance, it theorizes white ignorance and male ignorance and how it is possible to gain consciousness about one's ignorance, as well as how to be responsible for what one does not know. The article explores ignorance as unconscious habits that inform our mental schemas, our social interactions, and our physicality. It identifies and analyzes these habits of ignorance, drawing on our experiences as team teachers (one a philosophy professor, and the other a professor of women's studies and literary studies) who co-taught an interdisciplinary doctoral seminar in feminist epistemology. It describes and illustrates the pedagogical and scholarly processes that led us to view epistemology as a practice of inquiry that combats ignorance by demanding an inclusive partnership across traditional and counterhegemonic approaches to knowledge. The article claims that a transactional pedagogy of friendship makes possible the disruption and rehabituation of epistemic habits of ignorance, moving inquirers in the direction of more inclusive, reliable, and responsible knowledge.


The composition vector (CV) method is an alignment-free method for sequence comparison. Because of its simplicity when compared with multiple sequence alignment methods, the method has been widely discussed lately; and some formulas based on probabilistic models, like Hao's and Yu's formulas, have been proposed. In this paper, we improve these formulas by using the entropy principle which can quantify the nonrandomness occurrence of patterns in the sequences. More precisely, existing formulas are used to generate a set of possible formulas from which we choose the one that maximizes the entropy. We give the closed-form solution to the resulting optimization problem. Hence, from any given CV formula, we can find the corresponding one that maximizes the entropy. In particular, we show that Hao's formula is itself maximizing the entropy and we derive a new entropy-maximizing formula from Yu's formula. We illustrate the accuracy of our new formula by using both simulated and experimental data sets. For the simulated data sets, our new formula gives the best consensus and significant values for three different kinds of evolution models. For the data set of tetrapod 18S rRNA sequences, our new formula groups the clades of bird and reptile together correctly, where Hao's and Yu's formulas failed. Using real data sets with different sizes, we show that our formula is more accurate than Hao's and Yu's formulas even for small data sets.


We predicted density of oak species in the mid-Cumberland Plateau region of northeastern Alabama on the basis of basal area of tree associations based on light tolerances, physical site characteristics, and soil type. Tree basal area was determined for four species groups: oaks (Quercus spp.), hickories (Carya spp.), yellow-poplar (Liriodendron tulipifera L.), and other species. Basal area of all species was also divided into three categories based on shade tolerance (shade tolerant, intermediate tolerance, and shade intolerant). Principal components analysis was used to explore the communalities among the measured site characteristics and the species and shade tolerance groups. Stepwise multiple linear regression modeled the extent to which the forest composition factors and physical and soil indicators predicted the density of oaks. Oak basal area responded negatively to basal area of all shade tolerance groups and the species groups that correlated with them. Elevation was related positively to oak density. Our results support the premise that oaks are weak competitors with species of various shade tolerance strategies.


Key observational indicators of climate change in the Arctic, most spanning a 47 year period (1971–2017) demonstrate fundamental changes among nine key elements of the Arctic system. We find that, coherent with increasing air temperature, there is an intensification of the hydrological cycle, evident from increases in humidity, precipitation, river discharge, glacier equilibrium line altitude and land ice wastage. Downward trends continue in sea ice thickness (and extent) and spring snow cover extent and duration, while near-surface permafrost continues to warm. Several of the climate indicators exhibit a significant statistical correlation with air temperature or precipitation, reinforcing the notion that increasing air temperatures and precipitation are drivers of major changes in various components of the Arctic system. To progress beyond a presentation of the Arctic physical climate changes, we find a correspondence between air temperature and biophysical indicators such as tundra biomass and identify numerous biophysical disruptions with cascading effects throughout the trophic levels. These include: increased delivery of organic matter and nutrients to Arctic near‐coastal zones; condensed flowering and pollination plant species periods; timing mismatch between plant flowering and pollinators; increased plant vulnerability to insect disturbance; increased shrub biomass; increased ignition of wildfires; increased growing season CO2 uptake, with counterbalancing increases in shoulder season and winter CO2 emissions; increased carbon cycling, regulated by local hydrology and permafrost thaw; conversion between terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems; and shifting animal distribution and demographics. The Arctic biophysical system is now clearly trending away from its 20th Century state and into an unprecedented state, with implications not only within but beyond the Arctic. The indicator time series of this study are freely downloadable at AMAP.no.


ABSTRACT This article surveys the fiercely contested posthumous assessments of John Stuart Mill in the newspaper and periodical press, in the months following his death in May 1873, and elicits the broader intellectual context. Judgements made in the immediate wake of Mill's death influence biographers and historians to this day and provide an illuminating aperture into the politics and shifting ideological forces of the period. The article considers how Mill's failure to control his posthumous reputation demonstrates both the inextricable intertwining of politics and character in the 1870s, and the difficulties his allies faced. In particular, it shows the sharp division between Mill's middle and working class admirers; the use of James Mill's name as a rebuke to his son; the redefinition of Malthusianism in the 1870s; and how publication of Mill's Autobiography damaged his reputation. Finally, the article considers the relative absence of both theological and Darwinian critiques of Mill.


When marriages fail, access to judicial divorce is crucial, and typically readily available. When faced with petitions for divorce from same-sex couples, however, courts in states with Defense of Marriage Acts ("DoMA states") are flummoxed; indeed, more often than not, courts in DoMA states refuse access to divorce to same-sex couples. In this essay, we demonstrate that such refusals fail on three levels. First, the denial of access to divorce is bad policy because it traps couples in defunct relationships and leaves families in a sort of legal limbo — married in some jurisdictions, not married in others, and unable to achieve the finality of divorce. Second, it is constitutionally suspect because the denial of access to divorce violates principles of substantive due process and constitutes unconstitutional discrimination under established equal protection jurisprudence. Finally, the denial of same-sex divorce is premised on an unnecessarily narrow view of judicial power. State courts, even in DoMA states, have the power to hear and decide divorce petitions — same-sex or not. In addition, this essay articulates various paths to obtaining same-sex divorce in DoMA states.


Background Several approaches to reduce the incidence of invasive cervical cancers exist. The approach adopted should take into account contextual factors that influence the cost-effectiveness of the available options. Objective To determine the cost-effectiveness of screening strategies combined with a vaccination program for 10-year old girls for cervical cancer prevention in Vientiane, Lao PDR. Methods A population-based dynamic compartment model was constructed. The interventions consisted of a 10-year old girl vaccination program only, or this program combined with screening strategies, i.e., visual inspection with acetic acid (VIA), cytology-based screening, rapid human papillomavirus (HPV) DNA testing, or combined VIA and cytology testing. Simulations were run over 100 years. In base-case scenario analyses, we assumed a 70% vaccination coverage with lifelong protection and a 50% screening coverage. The outcome of interest was the incremental cost per Disability-Adjusted Life Year (DALY) averted. Results In base-case scenarios, compared to the next best strategy, the model predicted that VIA screening of women aged 30–65 years old every three years, combined with vaccination, was the most attractive option, costing 2 544 international dollars (I$) per DALY averted. Meanwhile, rapid HPV DNA testing was predicted to be more attractive than cytology-based screening or its combination with VIA. Among cytology-based screening options, combined VIA with conventional cytology testing was predicted to be the most attractive option. Multi-way sensitivity analyses did not change the results. Compared to rapid HPV DNA testing, VIA had a probability of cost-effectiveness of 73%. Compared to the vaccination only option, the probability that a program consisting of screening women every five years would be cost-effective was around 60% and 80% if the willingness-to-pay threshold is fixed at one and three GDP per capita, respectively. Conclusions A VIA screening program in addition to a girl vaccination program was predicted to be the most attractive option in the health care context of Lao PDR. When compared with other screening methods, VIA was the primary recommended method for combination with vaccination in Lao PDR.


This book offers a novel approach to understanding responsible business practice. Global protests against multinational companies often give the misleading impression that the interests of multinationals and of peaceful societies are at odds. By contrast, Fort and Schipani contend, not only does business benefit from a peaceful environment but it can in fact effectively foster peace through adopting responsible and open working methods. Firms that promote economic development, that allow external evaluation of their affairs and that build a sense of community both within the company and in their local areas make a great contribution to building a more harmonious culture. Relevant for academics and practitioners, the book shows how companies can encourage collaborative working across borders, discourage corruption and create citizenship and problem-solving practices which tend to reduce violence and increase social harmony.


Cologne Zoo was a major place for the captive care of primates of the family Pitheciidae in the second half of the last century. Various species of the genera Cacajao , Chiropotes and Pithecia , which until then had a poor survival record in human care, lived at the Cologne Zoo for years. This offered the unique possibility to gather important information on their biology and care in captivity. Moreover several individuals were featured in a diverse array of technical publications and/or were mentioned in respective texts. However, at that time knowledge on the taxonomy of South American primates was still incomplete. New species and subspecies were named, some of which were kept in the zoo unnoticed. After their death Cologne Zoo donated specimens as vouchers to the Zoologisches Forschungsmuseum Alexander Koenig. We evaluate their species identity in the context of the ongoing debate on the taxonomy of these three genera and also address the potential importance of zoo specimens for the scientific study of taxonomic and biological questions. Furthermore, based on our data the status of Chiropotes israelita and C. sagulatus as valid species is questioned.


An informative guide to market microstructure and trading strategiesOver the last decade, the financial landscape has undergone a significant transformation, shaped by the forces of technology, globalization, and market innovations to name a few. In order to operate effectively in today's markets, you need more than just the motivation to succeed, you need a firm understanding of how modern financial markets work and what professional trading is really about. Dr. Anatoly Schmidt, who has worked in the financial industry since 1997, and teaches in the Financial Engineering program of Stevens Institute of Technology, puts these topics in perspective with his new book.Divided into three comprehensive parts, this reliable resource offers a balance between the theoretical aspects of market microstructure and trading strategies that may be more relevant for practitioners. Along the way, it skillfully provides an informative overview of modern financial markets as well as an engaging assessment of the methods used in deriving and back-testing trading strategies. Details the modern financial markets for equities, foreign exchange, and fixed income Addresses the basics of market dynamics, including statistical distributions and volatility of returns Offers a summary of approaches used in technical analysis and statistical arbitrage as well as a more detailed description of trading performance criteria and back-testing strategies Includes two appendices that support the main material in the bookIf you're unprepared to enter today's markets you will underperform. But with Financial Markets and Trading as your guide, you'll quickly discover what it takes to make it in this competitive field.


This study investigates the results of cell cultures on aluminum (Al) templates with flat-structures, micro-structures, nano-structures and micro/nano-structures. An Al template with flat-structure was obtained by electrolytic polishing; an Al template with micro-structure was obtained by micro-powder blasting; an Al template with nano-structure was obtained by aluminum anodization; and an Al template with micro/nano-structure was obtained by micro-powder blasting and then anodization. Osteoblast-like cells were cultured on aluminum templates with various structures. The microculture tetrazolium test assay was utilized to assess the adhesion, elongation, and proliferation behaviors of cultured osteoblast-like cells on aluminum templates with flat-structures, micro-structures, nano-structures, and micro/nano-structures. The results showed that the surface characterization of micro/nano-structure of aluminum templates had superhydrophilic property, and these also revealed that an aluminum template with micro/nano-structure could provide the most suitable growth situation for cell culture.


Basically humans need social security to ensure the safety of their lives and be able to fulfill their daily needs. Therefore, humans need insurance in the form of a guarantee program and companies need to do a way to group customers based on the characteristics they have or what is known as customer profiling. In this study the clustering method using the k-means euclidean distance algorithm was used. Before processing data, data needs to be normalized first, then the data is processed into several clusters. Data that has been clustered will produce a category that will be used in the customer profiling process. From this research, the first cluster included in high-paying customers was the tendency to choose the JKM, JHT program and for the second cluster included in the low-wage customer with a tendency to choose the JKK program, JKM. With this research, companies can find out the results of customer profiling to be able to take further action.


The COVID-19 pandemic has brought chaos in education across the world, including developing countries like Nepal. To respond to this educational disruption in this South Asian country, different educational plans and policies were formulated by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology, Government of Nepal. It is not known whether these policies were realistic and practicable, as there is no review of these documents to date. With this backdrop, this paper critically reviews the educational plans and policies that were developed to manage education during the crisis. It appraises the strengths of these policies in terms of their intent and practicalities of implementation in the given situation, and identifies gaps and challenges, and recommends some ways to realistically run the education system. The review reveals that these documents have several strengths, such as they plan to create data in terms of learners' access to resources, value self-learning and parent education, and suggest several alternative ways to resume school. Yet, there are some gaps and challenges, the identification of which can guide the effective delivery of education in Nepal in any kind of crisis period both at present and in future. This paper is expected to help policy makers to revisit the existing policies or guide them when they form future educational policies that are designed to manage education in any kinds of crisis. It is also deemed helpful for teacher educators, practitioners and other educational stakeholders to understand about the educational plans and policies formed to deal with crises.


We investigate the impact of market-supporting institutions on business strategies by analyzing the entry strategies of foreign investors entering emerging economies. We apply and advance the institution-based view of strategy by integrating it with resource-based considerations. In particular, we show how resource-seeking strategies are pursued using different entry modes in different institutional contexts. Alternative modes of entry— greenfield, acquisition, and joint venture (JV)—allow firms to overcome different kinds of market inefficiencies related to both characteristics of the resources and to the institutional context. In a weaker institutional framework, JVs are used to access many resources, but in a stronger institutional framework, JVs become less important while acquisitions can play a more important role in accessing resources that are intangible and organizationally embedded. Combining survey and archival data from four emerging economies, India, Vietnam, South Africa, and Egypt, we provide empirical support for our hypotheses.


Every year, each member of the UK population demands the extraction of 5 tonnes of primary aggregates for the road building and construction industries. At the end of its useful life, some of this material is recycled for low-grade purposes, but only 4% is used to replace primary aggregates in more demanding construction uses. Demand for aggregates continues to increase whilst at the same time planning consents for extraction are becoming harder to obtain. The UK Government has committed itself to following the road marked sustainable development. Important steps have already been taken by calling for increased efficiency of use, and increased reuse and recycling of aggregates. However, further direction is needed. There is a lack of accurate data on the nature and amount of wastes arising, and research on the impacts generated by recycling construction industry waste, compared with its landfill disposal, is limited. This paper demonstrates how the technique of lifecycle assessment can be used to examine the environmental and social impacts of managing construction industry waste in different ways. It is demonstrated that this technique can provide direction along the road to sustainability for the minerals and construction industries. In the UK, about 270 million tonnes of primary aggregates are extracted each year, equivalent to 5 tonnes for every member of the UK population. Aggregate extraction has deleterious impacts on landscape, habitats and local communities, and the current rate of use is clearly unsustainable. The previous UK Government broadly committed itself to following the road marked sustainable development, which should result in the reduction of mineral extraction rates. This approach has since been taken up by the Labour Government. Reducing the need for primary aggregates, in line with the principles of sustainable development, requires the appropriate use of materials, minimising waste production and using secondary materials where possible. Applying sustainability principles to the minerals and construction industries requires a lifecycle approach, whereby impacts are considered from the extraction of raw materials, through processing and transportation, to recycling and final disposal. Lifecycle assessment can help identify where the main environmental impacts lie. This paper describes some of the environmental impacts arising from the minerals and construction industries and discusses ways in which to increase the industries' progress along the road to sustainability. It also examines the use of lifecycle assessment as a guide along this road.


An X-band polarimetric radar was deployed in the Eastern Swiss Alps at an altitude of 2133 m. Radar measurements were complemented with several weather stations deployed in an altitude range from 1500 to 3100 m as well as with a fixed GPS ground station providing integrated water vapor estimates. Around 8000 vertical profiles of polarimetric radar observables above the melting layer collected during two months are analyzed. First, the behavior of the mean profiles of the reflectivity at horizontal polarization (Zh), the differential reflectivity (Zdr), the copolar cross-correlation (ρhv) and the specific differential phase shift (Kdp) are interpreted from a microphysical point of view. It is shown that the whole evolution of snowflakes, from pristine crystals at temperatures around -30°C to dendritic crystals around -15°C, to large aggregates around 0°C is well captured by the polarimetric radar variables. In a second step, the profiles are analyzed as functions of high and low water vapor and snow accumulation conditions. It is found that the vertical profiles of polarimetric radar variables have distinct features in low versus high water vapor conditions. It is shown with a hydrometeor identification scheme that graupel-like particles are found to be dominant right above the melting layer for snow events with high accumulation intensities. High water vapor conditions appear to favor the occurrence of crystal aggregates at high altitudes/low temperatures. The present analyses show that measurements from X-band dual-polarization radar can be useful to characterize the dominant microphysical processes during precipitation in mountainous regions.


In this paper, we investigate how automation alters decision-making responsibilities of mid- and upper-level managers within organizations. We develop a theoretical model of a firm with three organizational layers and two divisions. The firm is managed by an executive (principal); divisions are led by mid-level managers; and production tasks are performed by workers, or alternatively, are automated. There are two frictions between the firm's middle and upper management. First, there is information asymmetry: a manager holds information that is specific to his division and critical for the firm's decision-making, but the principal does not have access to this information. Second, the objectives of the principal and the manager are only partially aligned: while the principal cares about maximizing the total firm profit, the manager cares about his division more than the other division.

In this environment, through an extensive-form game with embedded cheap talk, we show that the princi- pal automates tasks strategically to manage intra-firm frictions and protect divisions from negative produc- tivity shocks. With higher levels of automation, the principal becomes more likely to retain decision-making rights by choosing a "top-down" structure as opposed to a structure where she "delegates" decision-making authority to a manager. Therefore, automation increases centralization of decision-making power at the upper level of organizations. As a consequence, as firms automate tasks, mid-level managers become more focused on day-to-day operations and less involved in strategic decision-making on behalf of the firm.


This thesis presents a novel distributed optimisation framework for machine-tomachine (M2M) communication networks with dynamic traffic generation, heterogeneous applications and different device capabilities. The aim of the framework is to effectively manage the massive access of energy constrained M2M devices while satisfying different application requirements. The proposed framework has three control blocks which run at cluster heads and M2M gateways: i) The distributed duty cycle control that adapts to dynamic network traffics for IEEE 802.15.4 MAC layer protocol with stop-and-wait automatic repeat request (ARQ) and Go-Back-N ARQ schemes. ii) The cluster head control that applies dynamic programming (DP) and approximate dynamic programming (ADP) techniques to maximise single cluster utility while balancing the tradeoff between system performance and algorithm complexity. iii) The gateway control that applies network utility optimisation (NUM) and mixed integer programming (MIP) techniques to maximise the aggregated long-term network utility while satisfying different application requirements among clusters. Both theoretical and practical concerns are addressed by the proposed control framework. Simulation results show that the proposed framework effectively improve the overall network performance in terms of network throughput, energy efficiency, end-to-end delay and packet drop ratio.


Background and objectives:This study focused on exploring the relationship between handgrip strength and Left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) among cardiac disease patients.Methods:This is a crosssectional study. The study conducted at KPJ Damansara Specialist Hospital. Subjects were recruited based on selection criteria as set by the study protocol involved 50 subjects and it was carried out in among conservative management cardiac patients. Main outcome measures was to measure the handgrip strength using Jamar hand dynamometer and the LVEF was assessed by echocardiography. Spearman-rank correlation and simple linear regression analysis were used to analyse the study results. Results:There was a relationship found between bilateral handgrip strength and LVEF among cardiac patients with dominant handgrip strength showed higher correlation value, ρ= 0.375 (p< 0.05) as compared to the non-dominant handgrip strength ρ= 0.334 (p<0.05). However, there was no significant relationship found between dominant and non-dominant handgrip strength and LVEF among male subject with ρ=0.102 (p0.546) and ρ0.155 (p0.360). There were also non-significant relationship between non-dominant handgrip strength and LVEF among female subject ρ=0.348 (p0.203) but significant positive relationship for dominant handgrip strength with LVEF ρ=0.500 (p0.030). Simple linear regression analysis demonstrated an interaction between non-dominant handgrip strength and LVEF (R2=.081, p <0.05) with small effect size.Conclusion:The correlation analysis of the present study demonstrated relationship between bilateral handgrip strength with ventricular function. The subgroup analysis between the genders showed there was significant relationship found between dominant handgrip strength and LVEF among female subject only. Therefore, handgrip strength able provides valid information about ventricular function as the variables were related among female individuals with cardiac disease.


An assessment of quality assurance policies in LTC in Estonia finds in general that much progress has been achieved in creating and monitoring the quality of inputs of services (infrastructure, personnel, planning and funding). Some attempts have been made to evaluate the processes of LTC services, but almost nothing is found about the evaluation of the results.One problem is that quality monitoring is not yet developed, but some steps towards routine monitoring and publishing the results have been included in future plans of social and health care in Estonia. Also, quality-related databases are expected to be improved and published, which allows patients and clients to find the best practices according to their needs.


The Austral archipelago, on the western side of the South Pacific superswell, is composed of several volcanic chains, corresponding to distinct events from 35 Ma to the present, and lies on oceanic crust created between 60 and 85 Ma. In 1982, Turner and Jarrard proposed that the two distinct volcanic stages found on Rurutu Island and dated as 12 Ma and 1 Ma could be due to two different hotspots, but no evidence of any recent aerial or submarine volcanic source has ever been found. In July 1999, expedition ZEPOLYF2 aboard the R/V L'Atalante conducted a geophysical survey of the northern part of the Austral volcanic archipelago. Thirty seamounts were mapped for the first time, including a very shallow one (,27 m below sea level), located at lat 23826.49S, long 150843.89W, ;120 km southeast of Rurutu. A nepheline-rich scoriaceous basalt sample from pillow lavas dredged on the newly mapped seamount's western flank gave a K-Ar age of 230 6 0.004 ka obtained on pure selected nepheline. We propose that this seamount, already called Arago Seamount after a French Navy ship that discovered its summit in 1993, is the missing hotspot in the CookAustral history. This interpretation adds a new hotspot to the already complicated geologic history of this region. We suggest that several hotspots have been active simultaneously on a region of the seafloor that does not exceed 2000 km in diameter and that each of them had a short lifetime (,20 m.y.). These short-lived and closely spaced hotspots cannot be the result of discrete deep-mantle plumes and are likely due to more local upwelling in the upper mantle strongly influenced by weaknesses in the lithosphere.


One of the central issues in learning to rank for Information Retrieval (IR) is to develop algorithms that construct ranking models by directly optimizing evaluation measures used in information retrieval, such as Mean Average Precision (MAP) and Normalized Discounted Cumulative Gain (NDCG). In this paper, we aim to conduct a comprehensive study on the approach of directly optimizing evaluation measures in learning to rank for IR. We focus on the methods that minimize loss functions upper bounding the basic loss function defined on the IR measures. We first provide a general framework for the study, which is based on upper bound analysis and two types of upper bounds are discussed. Moreover, we make theoretical analysis the two types of upper bounds and show that we can derive new algorithms on the basis of this analysis and present two new algorithms called AdaRank and PermuRank. We make comparisons between direct optimization methods of AdaRank, PermuRank, and SVM map , using benchmark datasets. We also compare them with conventional methods of Ranking SVM and RankBoost. Experimental results show that the methods based on direct optimization of ranking measures can always outperform these conventional methods. However, no significant difference exists among the performances of the direct optimization methods themselves.


Spanish has been traditionally classified by grammatical descriptions as a language with free variation in terms of Subject-Verb order (SV versus VS), with certain syntactic-semantic and syntactic-pragmatic restrictions governing each order. This supposed free variation appears to be facing resistance in Caribbean Spanish, since available data have demonstrated a tendency towards a more fixed SV order. However, this property has been less researched compared to other properties of the Null Subject Parameter (NSP) (Ortiz-Lopez 2010; Otheguy & Zentella 2012). For this study, 2968 tokens from a corpus recorded in Cuba were coded according to different factors (subject type, NP complexity, unaccusativity), preferring SV order in 91% of the analyzed cases, while there is a sharp distinction between behavior in pronominal versus nominal NP, the unaccusative/unergative distinction was not a significant factor. Little variation was found in cases of subject pronouns and simple or less-heavy noun phrases, evidencing an almost fixed SV order. The results evidence a different typology within the NSP in Cuban Spanish (and possibly Caribbean Spanish), challenging many previous proposals for Spanish, leaving space for typological debate.


This paper analyses the role of outsourcing of trucks in the famine in Ethiopia in 2000. Using a Delphi approach, it takes the opinion of experts in humanitarian aid logistics to assess the potential benefits of outsourcing of the main mode of transport used in developing countries for distributing aid. A detailed review of the literature in outsourcing of trucking and its application to humanitarian aid forms the basis for a series of statements that are presented to the expert panel through the Delphi process. Conclusions are reached that indicate that outsourcing does have major benefits but also some drawbacks that need to be carefully accommodated.


How do national political institutions influence the process of industrial change? This comparative study of the birth of American and Prussian railroads offers historical insights into this critical, but seldom studied, question. Analyzing developments in the 1830s and 1840s, Colleen Dunlavy shows how two very different political structures affected the dynamics of railroad policy making, the organization of railroad interests, and the process of technological choice. Dunlavy examines the rich political context of a seeming paradox: authoritarian, centralized Prussia adopted a largely hands-off policy toward the railroads, but the more liberal, fragmented American government sought vigorously both to promote and to regulate the new industry. By also fragmenting interests and technological choices, the American structure impeded the emergence of the railroad as a system, while the centralized Prussian structure facilitated it. The book concludes by describing how the railroads themselves precipitated a transformation of both political structures by the 1850s. A keener sensitivity to the impact of political structures, Dunlavy shows, enriches our understanding of the complex interplay between industrial and political change, past and present.


This case study provides a description of the use of music therapy in the treatment of a baby girl, a poor feeder born extremely prematurely, and her mother. Creative music therapy promoted the sucking abilities of the girl and helped increase the sensitivity of the mother during interactions with her daughter. By experiencing inter-subjectivity in music, both the daughter and mother were empowered to relax, stabilize, and identify a common rhythm. Music therapy offered a "place to meet in music," an opportunity for them to create and experience intimate, emotional reconnection even within an intensive care environment.


Background and purpose: Environmental pollution by heavy metals and their transfer to soil and crops are a growing global problem. This study aimed to measure the concentrations of heavy metals in wastewater and sludge wastewater treatment plant in Gorgan, Iran. Materials and methods: In this cross-sectional study, 176 samples of effluent, and returned and dried sludges were analyzed in wastewater treatment plant in Gorgan, during six months in 2016. The concentration of Pb, Cd, Ni, and Cr were determined using polarography (Metrohm797 AV) and furnace atomic adsorption spectroscopy (AA 240 Varian Co.) in the laboratory of Health Faculty in Golestan University of Medical Sciences. Results: The average concentrations of Pb, Cd, Ni, and Cr in the effluent were 0.105 ± 0.06, 0.0089 ± 0.008, 0.095 ± 0.108, and 0.102 ± 0.175 mg/L, respectively. The concentrations of Pb, Cd, Ni, and Cr in returned sludge were 323.48 ± 217.65, 2.44 ± 3.3, 354.14 ± 322.79, and 388.53 ± 252.59 mg1/kg of dry weight, respectively. Also, in dried sludge, the average concentrations of lead, cadmium, nickel, and chromium were 58.48±2.67, N.D, 30.31±1.98, and 506.25±813.81 mg/kg of dry weight, respectively. Conclusion: The concentrations of heavy metals in wastewater effluent and dried sludge, except in returned sludge, were below the standards. Due to long-term use of effluents, necessity of treatment of other parameters, and the effect of bioaccumulation of metals in sludge, caution should be taken for their agricultural application. Also, because of importance of this type of contaminants in soil and food products, continuous monitoring by water companies is highly necessary. © 2017, Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences. All rights reserved.


The expansion that rural tourism has witnessed in the late XIX th century was determined by the existence of two reasons: on the one side the revival and development of the rural area, and the other side the alternative tourism form compared to traditional, classic or table tourism. It is known that regardless of the external environment in which tourist accommodation units operate, an important role belongs to the quality of the services offered and the satisfaction level of the customers. This study aimed to comparatively analyze the economic efficiency of the Confort Pension located in a rural area and the Danacris Pension from the urban area. The reason for choosing these two units was that the types of tourism they represent are significant areas of operation, namely leisure tourism ("Confort " Pension) from Suceava area and business tourism ("Danacris" Pension) fromBucharest. Based on the existing methodology in the specialized literature, specific indicators were calculated in order to highlight economic efficiency. Based on the analysis of the main financial standing indicators and the evolution of income and expenditure one may conclude that both companies were profitable.


The purpose of this paper is to present the current state of affairs in the process of adoption of codes of conduct for local government officials in Serbia. On the basis of a model drafted under the auspices of the Serbian local government association, 130 Serbian municipalities (out of 167) have adopted such codes. The paper tries to picture the environment in which the codes are being adopted, i.e. anti-corruption efforts on the national level, the framework in which Serbian local governments function, process of drafting of the model code and consequent adoption in municipalities. Finally, it attempts to present as critical as possible an evaluation of this process in Serbia, as well as recommend or project further steps necessary for internalisation and full implementation of these codes. To achieve the abovementioned, the paper refers to Serbian legislation and adopted codes of conduct, empirical data collected from municipalities, results of surveys and opinion polls conducted in Serbia in the period from 2001 to 2005, data on other countries available in English, as well as academic texts.


Our Enemies and Us: America's Rivalries and the Making of Political Science. By Ido Oren. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2002. 256p. $29.95. Political scientists periodically step back and reflect on the state of their discipline. Some explore the origins and development of a particular methodological approach to the study of politics, such as behavioralism or public choice. Others place developments in political science in a broader political and cultural context, such as progressivism or liberal reformism. Oftentimes such reflections are laudatory, championing the wisdom that has accrued in the discipline over time. Every so often, however, a critical voice is raised, not only questioning the empirical work being done in the field but challenging the assumptions upon which such work is based. Ido Oren's book is an important addition to this literature. It compels political scientists to stop and think about what they are doing in the discipline and what ideas from the past they may unintentionally be bringing into their empirical work.


Correction of a short nose has been regarded as one of the most challenging and at times vexing procedures in rhinoplasty. One surgical option used to prolong nasal length is the freeing of the alar cartilages from adjacent structures by dividing the nasal tip supporting tissues. Five fibrous connections are known to be important in maintaining the nasal tip shape: fibrous tissues between the upper lateral and lower lateral cartilages; the lateral border of the lower lateral cartilages at the pyriform aperture; the interdormal ligament and anterior septal angle; the footplate of the medial crus and septal cartilage; and the dermocartilaginous ligament. This study was designed to determine which of the fibrous connections providing nasal tip support offer the most effect of lengthening when these structures are divided. We performed 10 open rhinoplasties on fresh cadavers, and we sequentially divided the previously mentioned tip-supporting structures, except the dermocartilaginous ligament. The mucoperichondrium of the upper lateral and septal cartilages was also elevated, in accordance with the usual order of being released in a short-nose correction procedure. We measured the distance between the anterior septal angle and tip-defining points by using calipers while the middle crura of the lower lateral cartilages were stretched with a skin hook. We found that the most effective length was gained by severing the lateral crus from the upper lateral cartilages, and moderate gain was noted from the release at the pyriform aperture and mucoperichondrium of the upper lateral cartilage. Release of other tip-defining structures was not statistically effective.


Lexical ambiguity is a significant problem facing rule-based machine translation systems, as many words have several possible translations in a given target language, each of which can be considered a sense of the word from the source language. The difficulty of resolving these ambiguities is mitigated for statistical machine translation systems for language pairs with large bilingual corpora, as large n-gram language models and phrase tables containing common multi-word expressions can encourage coherent word choices.
For most language pairs these resources are not available, so a primarily rule-based approach becomes attractive. In cases where some training data is available, though, we can investigate hybrid RBMT and machine learning approaches, leveraging small and potentially growing bilingual corpora. In this paper we describe the integration of statistical cross-lingual word-sense disambiguation software with SQUOIA, an existing rule-based MT system for the Spanish-Quechua language pair, and show how it allows us to learn from the available bitext to make better lexical choices, with very few code changes to the base system. We also describe Chipa, the new open source CL-WSD software used for these experiments.


The financial support granted by the National Science Centre of the Republic of Poland (Sonata Bis program — research grant no. DEC-2012/07/E/HS2/00678, entitled: Parametrisation of legilinguistic translatology in the scope of civil law and civil procedure).


Collaborative ad-hoc dissemination of information has been proposed as an efficient means to disseminate information among devices in a wireless ad-hoc network. Devices help in forwarding the information channels to the entire network, by disseminating the channels they subscribe to, plus others. We consider the case where devices have a limited amount of storage that they are willing to devote to the public good, and thus have to decide which channels they are willing to help disseminate. We are interested in finding channel selection strategies which optimize the dissemination time across the channels. We first consider a simple model under the random mixing assumption; we show that channel dissemination time can be characterized in terms of the number of nodes that forward this channel. Then we show that maximizing a social welfare is equivalent to an assignment problem, whose solution can be obtained by a centralized greedy algorithm. We show empirical evidence, based on Zune data, that there is a substantial difference between the utility of the optimal assignment and heuristics that were used in the past. We also show that the optimal assignment can be approximated in a distributed way by a Metropolis-Hastings sampling algorithm. We also give a variant that accounts for battery level. This leads to a practical channel selection and re-selection algorithm that can be implemented without any central control.


Brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) allow a user to interact with a computer system using thought. However, only recently have devices capable of providing sophisticated multi-dimensional control been achieved non-invasively. A major goal for non-invasive BCI systems has been to provide continuous, intuitive, and accurate control, while retaining a high level of user autonomy. By employing electroencephalography (EEG) to record and decode sensorimotor rhythms (SMRs) induced from motor imaginations, a consistent, user-specific control signal may be characterized. Utilizing a novel method of interactive and continuous control, we trained three normal subjects to modulate their SMRs to achieve three-dimensional movement of a virtual helicopter that is fast, accurate, and continuous. In this system, the virtual helicopter's forward-backward translation and elevation controls were actuated through the modulation of sensorimotor rhythms that were converted to forces applied to the virtual helicopter at every simulation time step, and the helicopter's angle of left or right rotation was linearly mapped, with higher resolution, from sensorimotor rhythms associated with other motor imaginations. These different resolutions of control allow for interplay between general intent actuation and fine control as is seen in the gross and fine movements of the arm and hand. Subjects controlled the helicopter with the goal of flying through rings (targets) randomly positioned and oriented in a three-dimensional space. The subjects flew through rings continuously, acquiring as many as 11 consecutive rings within a five-minute period. In total, the study group successfully acquired over 85% of presented targets. These results affirm the effective, three-dimensional control of our motor imagery based BCI system, and suggest its potential applications in biological navigation, neuroprosthetics, and other applications.


Third country nationals have an important effect on, and play an important part in, the economy of the European Union, a trend that is likely to increase over time. This importance could be expected to be reflected in the rights, in particular freedom of movement, granted to them under Community law. Political expediency is however shaped by world, regional and domestic influences that in turn determine the policy towards third country nationals and their legal rights to freedom of movement. These political policies, given practical effect through the law, do not necessarily display legitimacy. Political legitimacy, grounded within legal doctrine, can be analysed through the principles of legal rationality. For Community legal doctrine to be rational it must display the requirements of formal, instrumental and substantive rationality, each mutually exclusive and essential. Analysis of free movement rights for third country nationals is provided in three discrete doctrinal areas before a critical evaluation of them through the lens of legal rationality and set within the matrix of factors that make up policy formation. It is concluded that Community law towards third country nationals is defective, lacks legitimacy and suggestions are made to correct the problems identified.


Praia da Vitoria is a harbour in the eastern coast of Ter ceira, in Azores Islands. These lie in the Nortern Atlantic,bet ween 36 55' and 39 1+3' north latitude and between 26 1+6'and 31 16' west of Greenwich longitude. Terceira island belongs to the central group of islands (fig.l). The port facilities in Praia da Vitoria harbour were con - structed with the main purpose of enabling the unloading of liquid fuels, however intense the swell at the entrance of the harbour. The maritime structures include a rubble mound breakwa ter about 600 m long, rooted at Ponta do Espirito Santo, and an unloading system, independent from the breakwater and made up of a central hose-handling pier, where tankers can berth, anc dolphins to take the mooring lines of the ships. The hose-han - dling platform and the dolphins are connected with one another and with the shore by means of footbridges (figs. 1 and 3).


This study sets out to explore the spatial development, changing use and survival of the post-medieval deer park in Shropshire. In so doing, it is hoped to add to and complement a body of research that has been assembled for other parts of the country, in the belief that individual regional studies can throw light on the wider national picture. Previous research has largely neglected the post-medieval period; this thesis aims to fill that gap.
Following the Norman Conquest, Shropshire was a semi-autonomous region governed by barons appointed by the king, and subsequently by the Council of the Marches. This study examines regional differences - physical, political, social and economic - but also highlights the impact of selected national events on local circumstances, and those points at which local circumstances achieved national significance. At the centre of the discussion lies the survival of the deer park, and the extent to which it was dependent on outside events or local conditions.
The remit of the thesis covers the period c.1500 - c.1900. However, the opening chapter concerns the Middle Ages, providing the context essential to an understanding of the proliferation of deer parks following the Norman Conquest, which reached a peak in the thirteenth century. It serves to introduce topics that are pursued throughout subsequent chapters: the changing nature of hunting, the status conferred by the ownership of a deer park, the appearance of a non-aristocratic professional landowner, and a developing aesthetic awareness of the deer park through the centuries that led to spatial changes in its appreciation and location.
Maps, supported by documentary evidence, are used as a tool in tracing the statistics of deer park survival and numbers are recorded and analysed, in order to compare trends that are local with those that are national.


The classification of high-dimensional data defined on graphs is particularly difficult when the graph geometry is unknown. We introduce a Haar scattering transform on graphs, which computes invariant signal descriptors. It is implemented with a deep cascade of additions, subtractions and absolute values, which iteratively compute orthogonal Haar wavelet transforms. Multiscale neighborhoods of unknown graphs are estimated by minimizing an average total variation, with a pair matching algorithm of polynomial complexity. Supervised classification with dimension reduction is tested on data bases of scrambled images, and for signals sampled on unknown irregular grids on a sphere.


Abstract We present new evidence on the evolution of labor mobility in the United States over the past four decades. Building on the seminal methodology by Blanchard and Katz (1992), combined with multiple sources of regional population and migration data, we show that interstate mobility in response to relative labor demand conditions is not as high as previously established and has been weakening since the early 1990s. In addition, we find that mobility is countercyclical: net migration across regions responds more strongly to spatial disparities in recessions than in normal times. While the declining trend in mobility has been driven by weaker out-migration from states experiencing negative relative shocks, the mobility surge in recessions is mostly accounted for by temporarily stronger in-migration to better-performing states.


Purpose – The main objective is to analyse the relationship between environmental factors and entrepreneurship in a regional Spanish level. The research is based on the GEM theoretical model and Institutional Economics is used as a theoretical framework.Design/methodology/approach – GEM regional Spanish data is used in the empirical part of the study, using both univariable and multivariable techniques in the statistical analysis.Findings – There exists a significant influence of the environmental factors in the total entrepreneurial early stage activity index (TEA) of the Spanish regions. This influence is summarized by two canonical functions that represent the institutional and the natural entrepreneurial framework conditions, which discriminate the 17 regional TEA in the four established groups with a goodness of fit higher than a 75%. The most influent variables are those that represent the expert evaluation over post secondary educational entrepreneurial orientation, over government policies referred to laws and bureaucracy and over the opportunities existence.Research limitations/implications – The study is focused specifically on institutional factors. There is a need to distinguish in the future research, formal and informal environmental factors, to determine their effects on entrepreneurship.Practical implications – The results of this paper open the door to new developments in the study of the influence of the framework conditions in undernational entrepreneurship level. Also, the methodology of this research could be useful for other countries to advance in the regional entrepreneurship studies with GEM data and to compare their obtained results.Originality/value – The study provides a framework for analysing environmental factors to new firm creation in a regional level.


Norman is the clever one of a close-knit Jewish family in the East End of London. Infant prodigy; brilliant barrister; the apple of his parents' eyes...until at forty-one he becomes a drug addict, confined to his bedroom, at the mercy of his hallucinations and paranoia. For Norman, his committal to a mental hospital represents the ultimate act of betrayal. For Rbbi Zweck, Norman's father, his son's deterioration is a bitter reminder of his own guilt and failure. Only Bella, the unmarried sister, still in her childhood white ankle socks, can reach across the abyss of pain to bring father and son the elusive peace which they both desperately crave.


Limited access to safe transportation is one of the greatest challenges to labor force participation faced by women in developing countries. This paper quantifies the causal impacts of improved urban transport systems in women ́s employment outcomes, looking at Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) and elevated light rail investments in the metropolitan region of Lima, Perú. We find large gains in employment and earnings per hour among women, and not for men, due to these investments. Most of the gains arise on the extensive margin, with more women being employed, but employment does not appear to be of higher quality than that for comparison groups. We find also evidence of an increase in the use of public transport. Results are robust to alternative specifications and we do not find evidence that they are driven by neighborhood composition changes. Overall, these findings suggest that infrastructure investments that make it more convenient and safer for women to use public transport can generate important labor market impacts for women who reside in the area of influence of the improved infrastructure.


Victoria University together with Tourism Victoria conducted a research project titled
The Impact of Overseas Students on tourism in Victoria. The main aim of the study
was to find out about the tourism interest and tourism information needs of overseas
students, as well as to identify the importance and value of overseas students to
tourism in Victoria.
Altaf Patel and Ian Michael, from the Graduate School of Business, Victoria
University under the supervision of Dr Anona Armstrong, undertook this project as
part of their Master in Business Administration (MBA). A total of 600 questionnaires
were distributed randomly to seven tertiary institutions in Victoria. Of those 600
questionnaires 219 were received completed by students.
There is a continuing growth in the business of Australian education export to Asia.
In 1995 there were approximately 70,000 Asian students studying in Australia
yielding $2 billion directly in export income, of this about $400 million a year is
contributed to the Victorian economy by about 17,900 students.
This research into the impact of overseas students on tourism in Victoria has
produced a number of key findings.
The major reasons for students to study in Australia were Quality of education and
Improvement of English language.
Friends and relatives were key influences in students decision making as to where
to study.
Sixty four percent of all students researched took holidays while studying in
Australia, New South Wales and Victoria were the highest visited destinations.
Forty four percent of the respondents who travelled, liked making their own
arrangements.
The most visited places/attractions in Melbourne were Victoria Market, South Gate
and Crown Casino, with regards to attractions outside Melbourne the Twelve
Apostles and Sovereign Hill outshone others.
Private transport was the most popular means of travel for touring purpose. Driving
and Shopping were activities they enjoyed most.
Sixty seven percent of students wanted to revisit places they had seen.
An average of $225 was spent by students on their last trip around Victoria, they
however stated that they could spend up to $392 per person. Using the number of
students (overseas) in Victoria ie. 17,900 and taking into consideration 64.4% would
travel, they can spend approximately $4,518,819 per annum.
Thirty six percent found it convenient to undertake travel during the summer break,
it should also be mentioned that 60% of all students go home for this break.
Word of mouth played a significant mode of sourcing travel information, 73.1% said
so. 65 % stated that gathering information on tourism was easy.
Students found Victoria to be an interesting tourist destination.
There were 54.8% of students whose friends and relatives visit them while studying.
Of these 54.8%, 46.2% said they visit them once a year, 39.7% twice a year and
9.9% thrice a year. The average expenditure of a friend/relative is $527 in turn
generating almost $8.0 million.
Around 63.5% of students will visit Melbourne & Victoria after completion of their
studies, this brings around 11,300 new inbound tourists per year. In turn these
tourist numbers generate $6 million.
Melbourne and Victoria will benefit tremendously in terms of attracting newer
tourists, as 76.7% of students say they would recommend it.


Classic / British English Sheherezade is beautiful and clever. She also knows a thousand and one wonderful stories. Her husband wants to kill her, but he can't. Sheherezade tells him stories about a clever servant girl and a boy judge, about Ali Baba and Aladdin. What happens next? Her husband wants to know. He listens - and she lives.


A theoretical analysis was carried out to investigate the characteristics of plasma arc injected transverse to a transverse-alternating magnetic field. Two mathematical models were developed to describe both the oscillating amplitude of the plasma arc root and the heat flux density distribution of plasma arc on the workpiece surface. The characteristic of plasma arc under the external transverse-alternating magnetic field imposed perpendicular to the plasma current was discussed. The effect of processing parameters, such as working gas flux, arc current, magnetic flux density and the standoff from the nozzle to the workpiece, on the oscillation and heat flux distribution of plasma arc were also analyzed. The results show that it is feasible to adjust the shape and heat flux density of the plasma arc by the transverse alternating magnetic field, which expands the region of plasma arc thermal treatment and uniforms the heat flux density upon the workpiece. Furthermore, the oscillating amplitude of plasma arc decreases, and the heat flux density gradient upon the workpiece increases with decrease of the magnetic flux density. Under the same magnetic flux density, more gas flux and more arc current cause the oscillating amplitude to decrease. The researches have provided a deeper understanding of adjusting of plasma arc characteristics.


In this study, we propose a novel graph neural network called propagate-selector (PS), which propagates information over sentences to understand information that cannot be inferred when considering sentences in isolation. First, we design a graph structure in which each node represents an individual sentence, and some pairs of nodes are selectively connected based on the text structure. Then, we develop an iterative attentive aggregation and a skip-combine method in which a node interacts with its neighborhood nodes to accumulate the necessary information. To evaluate the performance of the proposed approaches, we conduct experiments with the standard HotpotQA dataset. The empirical results demonstrate the superiority of our proposed approach, which obtains the best performances, compared to the widely used answer-selection models that do not consider the intersentential relationship.


The pathophysiological mechanisms of primary dystonia have largely remained obscure. Yet there is one undeniable observation: lesioning or high-frequency stimulation of the internal segment of the globus pallidus (GP) ameliorates dystonic symptoms. The latter observation implicates abnormal pallidal activity in the genesis of primary dystonia. Recently, excessive oscillatory pallidal activity in the 3-10 Hz frequency range, synchronized with dystonic EMG, has been related to the occurrence of involuntary muscle activity in these patients. However, it is unclear whether this pathological synchronization is driven by GP, caused by re-afference from dystonic muscle, or due to a combination of these two processes. Here we used the Directed Transfer Function as a spectral measure to identify the degree and direction of coupling across time between GP and muscle in seven patients with primary dystonia. We show that pallidal local field potential activity <or= 10 Hz is coherent with dystonic movements, and that although the coupling between GP and activity in the sternocleidomastoid muscle is bidirectional, the drive from GP to muscle significantly outweighs that from muscle to GP. In addition, the net GP drive to muscle is not stable but fluctuates across time, in keeping with the dynamic nature of dystonic muscle activity.


This paper discusses an episode in social security policy making that has until now remained unexplored. This is the review, at the request of then Labour Secretary of State for Social Services, Richard Crossman MP, in the latter months of 1969 and early 1970 into the possibility of introducing loans to the Supplementary Benefit system as a replacement for some exceptional needs and exceptional circumstances payments. The paper examines files held at the National Archives to discuss the nature and extent of the proposed scheme and the objections of civil servants to loaning Supplementary Benefit. The paper demonstrates how the worst-case scenario outlined by civil servants in 1970 was introduced some 15 years later as Social Fund loans. The paper then discusses economic, ideological and social change that provided the context for the introduction of loans as part of the Social Fund in the 1980s.


Novel chemotherapeutic drugs are needed to improve tuberculosis (TB) control, especially in the developing world. Given the magnitude of the problem and the resources available in countries that have the highest burden of disease, the present standards of care for the treatment of drug-susceptible TB, drug-resistant TB, TB/human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) coinfection, and latent TB infection are all unsatisfactory. Because no truly novel compounds for the treatment of TB have been discovered in the past 40 years, the recent enhanced activity in the research and development of new TB drugs is extremely encouraging. Seven compounds are presently in clinical development specifically for the treatment of TB. Other known antibiotic compound families are being investigated preclinically, in an attempt to identify new antimicrobial drugs with specific antituberculous activity. In addition, novel targets have been identified and are the subject of efforts to validate their potential usefulness in the treatment of TB.


This engrossing book tells the story of American high schools in the nineteenth century. William Reese analyzes the social changes and political debates that shaped these institutions across the nation-from the first public high school, established in Massachusetts in 1821, to the 1880s, by which time a majority of secondary students in the North were enrolled in high schools. Reese also explores in generous detail the experience of going to school. Drawing on the writings of local educators and school administrators as well as on student newspapers, diaries, and memoirs, he brings to life the high schools of a century ago, revealing what students studied and how they behaved, what teachers expected of them and how they taught, and how boys and girls, whites and blacks, and children in different parts of the nation perceived their schools. America's earliest public high schools were built in major cities along the eastern seaboard, and they became an important factor in the building of free public school systems, bringing a broad range of middle-class citizens into their orbit. Reese shows that although high schools were condemned by critics as elite institutions of classical learning, they were in fact largely dedicated to offering talented, mostly middle-class youth a quality education in modern, practical subjects.


Abstract Bee pollen, an important bee product, is harvested as a food supplement for humans, so it must be safe in terms of toxic components for consumption. The aim of this study is to determine the amounts of polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins (PCDDs), polychlorinated dibenzofurans (PCDFs), dioxin-like polychlorinated biphenyls (dl-PCBs) and non dioxin-like PCBs (ndl-PCBs) in the bee pollen pellets of Apis mellifera L. collected from Çankırı, located in the central Anatolia region of Turkey, between June and July 2014. Six types of pollen belonging to four families: Centaurea triumfettii L. - Asteraceae family; Brassica spp. L. - Brassicaceae family; Cistus spp. L. - Cistaceae family; Onobrychis spp. L., Hedysarum spp. L. and Trifolium spp. L. - Fabaceae family, were determined through microscopic analysis. Dioxin and PCB congeners were determined in a pooled bee pollen sample and all the results were found lower than the European Union regulatory limits for other foods. To the best of our knowledge, this is among the first studies on dioxin analysis in bee pollen worldwide.


M ANY TASKS ARE trivial for humans but continue to challenge even the most sophisticated computer programs. Traditional computational approaches to solving such problems focus on improving artificialintelligence algorithms. Here, we advocate a different approach: the constructive channeling of human brainpower through computer games. Toward this goal, we present general design principles for the development and evaluation of a class of games we call "games with a purpose," or GWAPs, in which people, as a side effect of playing, perform tasks computers are unable to perform. The Entertainment Software Association (www. theesa.com/facts/gamer_data.php) has reported that more than 200 million hours are spent each day playing computer and video games in the U.S. Indeed, by age 21, the average American has spent more than 10,000 hours playing such games15—equivalent to five years of working a full-time job 40 hours per week. DOI:10.1145/1378704.1378719


This article reviews several approaches to the study of anger in the Old Testament. It focuses on the use of methodology in these trends with specific reference to the common neglect of Classical Hebrew terminology and expressions relating to the emotion of anger. Such styles lead to an impoverished understanding of the ideal cognitive model of anger as reflected in Classical Hebrew. By contrast, the few recent cognitive linguistic studies on the same subject prove to be far more successful in giving a detailed account of the ancient Israelite conceptualisation of this emotion.


Latinos are the fastest growing population group in the United States.Through their language and popular music Latinos are making their mark on American culture as never before. As the United States becomes Latinized, how will Latinos fit into America's divided racial landscape and how will they define their own racial and ethnic identity? Through strikingly original historical analysis, extensive personal interviews and a careful examination of census data, Clara E. Rodriguez shows that Latino identity is surprisingly fluid, situation-dependent, and constantly changing. She illustrates how the way Latinos are defining themselves, and refusing to define themselves, represents a powerful challenge to America's system of racial classification and American racism.


The mining of bauxite ore at Weipa on Cape York Peninsula in Australia requires total extinguishment of overlying native Eucalyptus tetrodonta open forest habitat, and its effect on biodiversity and ecological services is unknown. The remnant landscape consists of a mosaic of regenerating habitats, and a network of remnant and mostly protected habitat patches of rainforests, swamps and corridors of riparian habitats. Fringing these remnants is a halo (also referred to as ecotone) of otherwise extinguished woodland habitats which are located above bauxite ore that it is mostly uneconomic to recover. For some of these habitats this study compared patterns of incidence and abundance of one hundred and ninety-five species of small to medium terrestrial vertebrates - fourteen mammals, one-hundred and thirty-two birds, thirty-two reptiles and seventeen frogs. The study sampled thirty-two sites, and employed a sampling design stratified into two bauxite ore values (economic and uneconomic), three landscape positions (woodland, ecotone and riparian), three riparian habitat types (creek, swamp and marine) and two geographic regions (the operational areas to the north and south of Mission River).

On the question of the relationship of the fauna of Eucalyptus tetrodonta open forest habitat to underlying ore value, the results showed no significant difference in the incidence, richness, diversity or composition of the systematically surveyed fauna above economic and uneconomic bauxite. At the more detailed species-specific level, significant differences in abundance were observed for an uncommon gekko (Heteronotia binoei) found exclusively in open forest habitat, and a common dragon (Diporiphora bilineata) found in all surveyed habitats. Both of these species were more abundantly recorded in woodland habitat above economic ore. The gekko H. binoei is widespread throughout the Australian continent, and is not considered threatened or vulnerable. The findings suggest that for the overwhelming proportion of the native terrestrial vertebrate fauna surveyed, in a variegated landscape the open forest habitat above uneconomic ore is most probably an effective substitute for open forest habitat above economic ore.

Unexpectedly, the survey found very strong evidence that the overall biodiversity of the fauna of the open forest habitat was as quantitatively rich as the terrestrial component of the vertebrate fauna of riparian habitats within the landscape, although overall abundances were higher in riparian habitats. The findings thus affirmed the importance of specifically and independently conserving woodland habitats in addition to riparian habitats, as part of any conservation strategy.

When analysed by class, the results confirmed that the bird, reptile and frog faunas of open forest and riparian habitats were significantly different, and that patterns of biodiversity between the classes did not coincide.

The survey further demonstrated that the vertebrate fauna of open forest habitat (ecotone) immediately adjacent to riparian habitats had a distinguishable and significantly different composition to that of woodland habitats (principally due to preferences amongst birds and the presence of mostly riparian frogs), and so it cannot simply be considered a substitute for woodland habitat being lost.

What was suggested from the detail of the survey was the particular affinity of the arboreal gekkos to open woodland habitats, which may be related to the presence of mature trees with their hollows and extensive bark sheeting. This raises concerns about the usefulness of treating areas of young regeneration as an effective habitat replacement for these species, and to what extent the degree of landscape alteration will risk the viability of existing populations.

Although no richer in species, the survey found strong evidence that swamp faunas had significantly more individuals, and a distinctive bird and reptile composition, when compared to creek or marine faunas. The observation that many species were seen significantly more frequently in particular riparian habitats reinforces the significance of independently conserving all types of riparian habitats surveyed, which is the existing policy of the minesite operator.

The two regions that were being mined - Andoom and Weipa - had no significant difference in their total species richness, abundance or composition of their terrestrial fauna, despite the Andoom region having more swamp habitat than Weipa.

The most frequently recorded species was - sadly - the introduced Cane Toad Bufo marinus. The ascendancy of this species to its present level of abundance almost certainly explains the only conspicuously absent mammal from this study relative to earlier studies - the Northern Quoll Dasyurus hallucatus. The invasion of the Cane Toad is also the most likely explanation for an anecdotal record of a significant decline in varanid abundance by a traditional custodian.

Despite intensive and extensive mining disturbance, the native terrestrial vertebrate fauna at the time of the survey was substantially present when compared to earlier surveys, and the work has provided a solid basis for identifying and measuring threatening changes in distribution and abundance in future surveys.


Abstract. While a remarkable continuity in smallholder agricultural production has been identified, the shift from subsistence orientation towards more wage dependence appears in a different light when analysed under a gender perspective. "Feminisation" has been a catchphrase to characterise some of these processes; however, the debate has been subject to overgeneralisation, and can only inadequately grasp the gender dynamics in what has been referred to as "new ruralities". Illustrated for high-value crop production as an expression of agricultural transition in the Global South, this contribution offers a critical account of the feminisation thesis. Instead of discarding the notion of feminisation, it advocates a reassessment of its potential as a comprehensive framework against which empirical findings can be reflected. While conventional uses of the feminisation thesis have, in their great majority, come up with the conclusion that for women it can always only get worse, I propose a perspective which reveals gains and risks and how they are shared between men and women as they engage in new agricultural labour markets. This perspective rests on a methodology for case-based, comparative studies developed in this paper as a contribution for assessing the nature of agricultural transition and to investigate the qualitative change associated with new ruralities. A distinctive appreciation of the substance of agricultural change for different members of the rural society – namely men and women, but also different men, and different women – is the premise for overcoming barriers to shared development, and for framing effective governance in the context of global development.