The term 'Landscape' with complex objective and subjective concepts and extensive physical and nonphysical aspects, has always been of special interest to authorities and theoreticians in the intellectual fields related to the Ecology, Geography, Urban Design, Landscape Architecture and other related disciplines and fields. Additionally, sometimes provided definitions have simply directed the concept of 'Landscape' toward an environmental issue, which has been taken into consideration from an ecological perspective. As a result, different definitions and approaches have been raised for the issue of 'Landscape'. In this respect, sometimes there have been attempts to define the term 'Landscape' by looking at scholars' and experts' perspectives from other countries (beside Iran) , or sometimes by typically considering their own perception of the term 'Landscape' as a definition. Moreover, the relationship between man and the environment and the interaction between these two elements in the discussions of Landscape experts and scholars, have created complex relations in the existing definitions of 'Landscape'. Thus, sometimes the concept of 'Landscape' is regarded as an objective fact, which is apart from the man and his mind, and sometimes it is considered as an absolute abstract subjective reality. The objective and subjective complexity aspects of 'Landscape' have led the scientific disciplines, developed and grown in the Descartes' bipolar world, to restraint 'Landscape' to merely one-dimensional concept and consider it as an abstract concept in its objective or subjective forms. Furthermore, stated definitions have always been the best indicator and criteria for evaluating the experts' perspectives of the issue and their approach types. Therefore, by collecting and classifying library documents including inside-and-outsidecountry provided definitions of the concept of 'Landscape' in different areas and disciplines and also by qualitative analysis of inferential and analytical methods, this study attempts to examine the concept of 'Landscape' and understand the approaches to deal with it.


The stumbling-bloc argument asserts that regionalism hinders MFN tariff cutting. If this was of first-order importance over previous decades, we should detect this in the levels of the tariffs. Using tariff line data for 23 large trading nations we find that MFN and PTA tariffs are complements, not substitutes since margins of preferences tend to be low or zero for products where nations apply high MFN tariffs. One interpretation is that regionalism is neither a building nor a stumbling bloc. Sectoral vested interests are a 'third factor' that generates the positive correlation between MFN and PTA tariff levels.


OBJECTIVE: The aim of this work is to assess the physical activity level and nutrition habits of university students from the health area, as they will be future disseminators of such information to the community. METHODS: This was a cross-sectional study with 281 students from the health area from the Universidade de Brasilia. Anthropometric variables were evaluated, as well as food habits and physical activity level. RESULTS: A high level of inactivity was observed among the students, except for those of Physical Education who perform physical activities in their school. Low physical activity level was observed among students of low socioeconomic level. Nutrition was considered inadequate for the majority of the students (79.7%). The lowest levels regarding an adequate nutrition were observed for the group of milk derivatives (23.0%), fruits and vegetables (24.9%) and complex carbohydrates (25.9%). A high percentage of inadequate consumption of soft drinks and sweets (74.0%) was observed. The regression analysis indicated that the gender variable was significantly associated with body mass index, where men presented a higher body mass index than women (p<0,001). CONCLUSION: Although the sample was formed by health field students, who, at first, have a better knowledge of healthy lifestyle practices, a high level of inactivity and inadequate eating habits was observed among them. It is necessary to rethink the relationship between theoretical knowledge and real changes in lifestyle in order to promote health.


We report a case of an 80-year-old man who showed an abrupt-onset prolongation of the prothrombin time (PT) and activated partial thromboplastin time (APTT) one month after percutaneous ethanol injection therapy (PEIT) for hepatocellular carcinoma. The patient had chronic hepatitis (not liver cirrhosis), but the liver function had been preserved before PEIT. Supplementation of vitamin K and fresh frozen plasma could not restore the coagulation disturbance, and the following examination revealed the existence of factor V inhibitors. Because the patient was positive for hepatitis C virus and concurrent with advanced chronic renal failure, a careful follow-up without any aggressive therapy, such as administration of steroids and other immunosuppressants, was selected. The PT and APTT had been gradually normalized in the following observation period for several months, and no serious event related to bleeding tendency had occurred. This is the first report of factor V inhibitors arising after PEIT that spontaneously diminished by no additional therapy. doi:10.4021/jmc214w


RMAN Recipes for Oracle Database 12c is an example-driven approach to the Oracle database administrator's #1 job responsibility: Be able to recover the database. Of all the things you are responsible for as database administrator, nothing is more important than the data itself. Like it or not, the fearsome responsibility of protecting your organization's most critical data falls squarely upon your shoulders: Lose that data and your company could fail. Lose that data and you could be out of a job. Oracle's flagship database product fortunately implements a wide-ranging feature set to aid you in the all-important task of safeguarding against data loss. Recovery Manager, or RMAN, is at the heart of that feature set, and is the tool most-often used to initiate database backup and recovery operations. In this book, well-known authors and database experts Darl Kuhn, Sam Alapati, and Arup Nanda have created a set of examples encompassing the gamut of backup and recovery tasks that you might need to perform. Sometimes, especially when the heat is on, a good example is what you need to get started towards a solution. RMAN Recipes for Oracle Database 12c delivers. Itll be the book you reach for when that dreaded call comes in at 3:00am some dreary morning. Itll be the book that lets you sleep at night knowing that no matter what transpires, that you've done your job well and can recover from any outage. RMAN Recipes for Oracle Database 12c gets right to the point with quick and easy-to-read, step-by-step solutions that can help you backup and recover your data with confidence. What youll learn Reliably back up and recover your database using Oracle's Recovery Manager Let Oracle Database manage your backup files via the Fast Recovery Area Automate backup and recovery tasks by writing scripts Troubleshoot RMAN problems and optimize RMAN performance Recover from the loss of a control file, loss of an online redo log, and from other unusual situations Who this book is for RMAN Recipes for Oracle Database 12c is aimed squarely at Oracle database administrators responsible for database backup and recovery operations. Table of Contents Backup and Recovery 101 Jump-Starting RMAN Using the Fast Recovery Area Using RMAN Configuring the RMAN Environment Using the Recovery Catalog Making Backups with RMAN Maintaining RMAN Backups and the Repository Scripting RMAN Restoring the Control File Performing Complete Recovery Performing Incomplete Recovery Performing Flashback Recovery Handling Online Redo Log Failures Duplicating Databases and Transporting Data Tuning RMAN Troubleshooting RMAN Implementing Oracle Secure Backup Performing Backup and Recovery with Enterprise Manager Using the Data Recovery Advisor Using RMAN on Windows DataGuard RMAN and RAC RMAN and ASM RMAN and Exadata


ESE 099 Undergraduate Research and/or Independent Study An opportunity for the student to become closely associated with a professor in (1) a research effort to develop research skills and technique and/or (2) to develop a program of independent in-depth study in a subject area in which the professor and student have a common interest. The challenge of the task undertaken must be consistent with the student's academic level. To register for this course, the student and professor jointly submit a detailed proposal to the undergraduate curriculum chairman no later than the end of the first week of the term. One-term course offered either term Activity: Independent Study 1.0 Course Unit Notes: A maximum of 2 c.u. of ESE 099 may be applied toward the B.A.S. or B.S.E. degree requirements


In recent years, considerable research efforts have been directed to micro-array technologies and their role in providing simultaneous information on expression profiles for thousands of genes. These data, when subjected to clustering and classification procedures, can assist in identifying patterns and providing insight on biological processes. To understand the properties of complex gene expression datasets, graphical representations can be used. Intuitively, the data can be represented in terms of a bipartite graph, with weighted edges corresponding to gene-sample node couples in the dataset. Biologically meaningful subgraphs can be sought, but performance can be influenced both by the search algorithm, and, by the graph-weighting scheme and both merit rigorous investigation. In this paper, we focus on edge-weighting schemes for bipartite graphical representation of gene expression. Two novel methods are presented: the first is based on empirical evidence; the second on a geometric distribution. The schemes are compared for several real datasets, assessing efficiency of performance based on four essential properties: robustness to noise and missing values, discrimination, parameter influence on scheme efficiency and reusability. Recommendations and limitations are briefly discussed.
Keywords: Edge-weighting; weighted graphs; gene expression; bi-clustering


An analysis of Frederick Delius' earliest compositions showed that he had been intensely involved, especially between 1887 – 1892, in exploring various proportioning strategies in his music. Key to this was his development of three- or four-part configurations or 'patterns'. These were typically constructed so that the two outer sections of a pattern, although separate, were in strict proportion, most frequently in Golden Section (GS) proportion. Patterns that used GS were distinguished from the more familiar 'Type I' GS, as belonging to a 'Type II' GS praxis. Analyses of Delius' later works confirmed that both Types I and II GS proportioning continued to play a critical role in structuring his mature works, often leading in larger compositions to elaborate descending hierarchies of GS (less frequently involving 2: 1 or 1: 1) proportioning. These hierarchies tend to show a top-down, stepwise stratification, large-scale patterns usually being placed at their 'top' – often dominating and spanning entire works or movements. Type I GS and other proportioning strategies are then placed at lower levels.
Investigations into possible French sources of Delius' techniques showed that Debussy had been experimenting initially (from 1887) with a single large-scale GS structuring technique (termed here 'GS partitioning') infrequent in Delius. Comparison of 26 components of Delius' proportioning practice with Debussy's confirmed however that wherever a technique was shared, it was Delius who had preceded Debussy's usage, often by a period of several years. Among French artists, Paul Serusier in 1889 signalled a more complex GS proportioning than hitherto, whilst two of his associates, Charles Filiger and Jan Verkade, also used GS from the early 1890s, the latter showing only a brief interest.
Turning to Germany, Emil Naumann, a pupil of Felix Mendelssohn, had been the first to write on GS techniques in music, intimating the use of one technique later taken up by Delius. Several components of Delius proportioning were eventually traced back to Mendelssohn, suggesting both that GS proportioning praxes in 19th century music were being developed in Germany long before the writings of Adolf Zeising or Gustav Fechner, and that Delius had gained his own techniques whilst studying in Leipzig rather than later during his Paris years.
Studies in Delius' social milieu during the 1880s and 1890s suggested that both Delius and his closest friends were pursuing aspects of esoteric knowledge influential on his early works. Thus the operas Irmelin and the Magic Fountain were each laid out as comprehensive alchemical allegories, and confirm that Delius had been strongly attracted to alchemical lore and symbolism sometime before he first met Strindberg. Although no evidence was found of any interest in GS in 19th century esoteric or occult movements, GS and esoterism tended to exist alongside each other, especially in Paris, where they occasionally interacted, as in Delius' first opera Irmelin where GS was used as a symbol of the alchemist's gold. An examination of Delius' vocal texts indicated that they display a strong proclivity towards ascensionism – the impulse to soar upwards. This phenomenon is discussed alongside others in connection with the idea of exceptional or mystical experience having played an intimate role in Delius' personal life and character.


The 2005 Special Issue of the "Comparative Law Yearbook of International Business" addresses issues relating to security in immovables. Each Chapter contains an overview of the security in immovables laws of a particular country. The laws vary widely among the countries; the word immovable (or real property in Common Law jurisdictions) even has different definitions in different countries. Crossborder transactions involving immovables are integral to international business dealings. This publication provides a general overview of the methods by which immovables are secured in various countries, and each chapter contains details such as the priority granted creditors and openness of the land registers. Each chapter contains a country-specific explanation of the method by which one obtains a mortgage, lien, or similar security, and an exploration of the possible problems that might arise during Such a process. In addition, special attention is given to the obstacles facing non-nationals interested in buying immovables. The book evidences the varied attitudes at governments towards the purchase of immovables by non-nationals. In some countries, such as The Philippines, non-nationals are prohibited from buying land. Other countries, such as the Slovak Republic, allow foreign acquisition of nearly any immovable, only forbidding purchase of items that no private citizen can own, such as the country's rivers. This publication reflects recent developments in security in immovables, especially in Eastern Europe. The chapter on immovables in Ukraine is based on the country's new property laws, passed in 2004. The chapters on the Czech Republic, the Slovak Republic and Hungary all reflect the changes brought by accession to the European Union. The acquisition of property in a foreign country is an integral facet of international business and practitioners will find this publication's in-depth instructions for the purchase of security in immovables useful as it pertains to individual countries. In addition to showing practitioners how transactions work for individual countries, readers will be able to compare diverse legal regimes to find the one most favorable for their particular business transactions.


Abstract Marbles and interlayered coesite-bearing eclogites near the village of Sanqingge in the Sulu ultrahigh-pressure (UHP) terrane ofeastern China were studied to estimate their P-T evolution. Using garnet, omphacite and phengite as geothermobarometers, the coesite eclogites are calculated to have experienced P-T conditions of 3.4-3.7 GPa and ~600ºC (stage I), followed by decompression and a slight temperature decrease to 2.7-3.2 GPa and 520-560ºC respectively (stage II) and later to 2.6-2.8 GPa and ~500ºC (stage III). No water influx affected the eclogites until reaching amphibolite facies conditions of 0.5-1.3 Gpa and 595-685ºC (stage IV). As we interpret the occasional appearance of calcite with magnesite relics in the core as a reaction of UHP dolomite and magnesite with Ca-rich fluids at stage IV to form CaCO3, the calculated pressure for stage I could be the maximum pressure experienced by these rocks. Thus, the crustal material of the Sanqingge quarry, originally sedimentary carbonates (now marbles) and interstratified basic tuffs (now eclogites), has been buried to a depth of ≥ 120 km at ~600ºC. This burial occurred in a subduction setting along a very low geotherm of 5-6ºC/km. The exhumation possibly occurred in the environment of a subduction channel.


The economic importance of effective traffic management becomes more and more evident as traffic demands increase. Faced with the negative effects of traffic congestion including higher transport costs, greater energy consumption, and increased driver delays, transportation agencies around the world areas have responded by building new roads and enhancing their traffic management systems. However, the high costs associated with these projects, and the possibility that improvements in different parts of a complex traffic management system may give rise to unforeseen interactions, have prompted many metropolitan areas to invest in the creation of metro-wide simulation systems that support the evaluation of alternative traffic management scenarios across an entire traffic network. Such undertakings are far from simple; even small-scale microscopic simulations require large amounts of high-quality data. The objectives of this project were to evaluate the feasibility of developing a traffic simulation system for the Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area, and to propose the most appropriate methodology for the design and implementation of such a system, taking into account local needs and capabilities.


The Norwegian Food Safety Authority (NFSA) and Norwegian Environmental Authority (NEA) asked the Norwegian Scientific Committee for Food Safety (Vitenskapskomiteen for mattrygghet, VKM) for an opinion on factors associated with the introduction of Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) to Norway. VKM appointed a working group consisting of two members of the Panel on Biological Hazards, one member of Panel on Animal Health and Welfare, and two external experts to prepare the answer to the questions. The Panel on Biological Hazards has reviewed and revised the draft prepared by the working group and approved the opinion.
CWD was diagnosed in March 2016 in a wild reindeer (Rangifer tarandus) from the Nordfjella mountain area in Norway and in May and June in two mooses (Alces alces) in Selbu in South Trøndelag County, approximately 300 km north from the first case.
There is currently no information to determine the origin(s) of CWD agents in Norway. However, the sporadic or genetic (somatic mutation) occurrence of prion disease in cervids cannot be excluded, nor can introduction from North America or other countries. Furthermore, there is no evidence that it has not been circulating at low levels in the Norwegian cervid populations for years, but has not previously been identified. In this scientific opinion, information on prion diseases in general, and CWD in particular, is presented in the light of experiences with this disease in North America.
Prions are among the most resilient pathogens known and dissemination of prions into ecosystems is likely to result in long-term problems. Prions bind strongly to soil and remain infectious. In CWD, prions are present in most peripheral organs and also shed into the environment via saliva, faeces, and urine, as well as with the placenta. CWD transmits easily among cervids, either through direct contact, or indirectly via the environment. Migration of animals is relevant for the spread between areas. Strain diversification might occur in CWD and may influence transmission properties of the agents.
Clinical signs of CWD are non-specific and do not alone enable confirmation of the diagnosis. Analysis of tissue from the brainstem at the level of the obex by approved methods is necessary for diagnosis of CWD. Prion infectivity is assessed by bioassays, often involving transgenic mice. In vitro conversion assays, like protein misfolding cyclic amplification (PMCA), provide sensitive quantification of converting activity, which is a good approximation of infectivity.
Genetic variation (polymorphisms) in the gene that encodes PrP (PRNP) can modulate sensitivity towards CWD. The level of such genetic variation in Norwegian wild and semi-domesticated cervids is currently unknown.
 Cattle and sheep are at very low risk of developing CWD and it is highly unlikely that prion diseases in sheep or cattle are the origin of CWD.
 Although transmission of CWD to humans has never been known to occur, and animals other than cervids have not been found to be infected, indicating a species barrier, this possibility cannot be excluded. Thus, measures for reduction of human exposure are recommended. Taking into account uncertainties regarding the plasticity of the CWD agents and the lack of transmission data from the Norwegian isolates, this scientific opinion considers the zoonotic risk of CWD to be very low.


Mentha spicata Linn. (mint), a herb well known for its gastroprotective properties in the traditional system of medicine has been shown to protect against radiation‐induced lethality, and recently its constituents have been found to possess calcium channel antagonizing properties. The present study examined the behavioral radioprotective efficacy of mint oil (obtained from Mentha spicata), particularly in mitigating radiation‐induced conditioned taste aversion (CTA), which has been proposed as a behavioral endpoint that is mediated by the toxic effects of gamma radiation on peripheral systems, primarily the gastrointestinal system in the Sprague‐Dawley rat model. Intraperitoneal administration of Mentha spicata oil 10% (v/v), 1 h before 2 Gy gamma radiation, was found to render significant radioprotection against CTA (p < 0.05), by blocking the saccharin avoidance response within 5 post‐treatment observational days, with the highest saccharin intake being observed on day 5. This finding clearly demonstrates that gastroprotective and calcium channel antagonizing properties of Mentha spicata can be effectively utilized in preventing radiation‐induced behavioral changes. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


Recently revised and updated, this informative reference gives students and professionals a strong foundation in the essentials of business programming using RPG IV. Complete with numerous programming examples and support material, this account covers a variety of topics, including program development process, RPG IV specifications and operations, top down structured design, database definition and processing, interactive applications, and modular programming. Comprehensive and compatible with IBM i Release 5.4, 6.1, 7.1 and later releases, this manual will equip academics with the necessary tools to create highly effective and maintainable RPG IV programs using the latest techniques.


The CAMPATH‐1 (CDw52) antigen has been purified from human spleen. The antigenic epitope is heat stable but sensitive to mild alkali treatment. Experiments with phosphatidylinositol‐specific phospholipase C indicate that it is anchored by a glycosylphosphatidylinositol (GPI) anchor. An N‐terminal sequence of 11 amino acids was determined, followed by an abrupt stop. Using short overlapping mixed oligonucleotide primers, cDNA synthesized from the mRNA of a human B cell line was amplified by the polymerase chain reaction. The product was used to isolate cDNA clones and the full amino acid sequence of the CAMPATH‐1 antigen was deduced. It consists of 37 amino acid residues plus a 24‐residue signal peptide. It has all the features expected for a GPI‐anchored membrane protein except that the predicted mature protein is remarkably short, comprising no more than 18 residues and possibly as few as 12 (depending on the GPI linkage site). Potential attachment sites for carbohydrate are present and it is shown that the antigen contains N‐linked oligosaccharide(s). This structure accounts for the known properties of the antigen, though the exact reasons why it is such a good target for cell lysis in vitro and in vivo are not yet clear.


Gardens (landscaped squares) span the north and south side of E. 42nd St. on an overpass street, Tudor City Place; Tudor City is an apartment complex located on the southern edge of Turtle Bay on the East Side of Manhattan. It was the first residential skyscraper complex in the world. The complex was built to bring in middle-class residents who had begun leaving Manhattan for the suburbs. Originally in the two gardens flanking 42nd Street, the south garden featured a "miniaturized" 18-hole golf course. The area where the Tudor Gardens building (Number 2) stands today was the site of tennis courts. Today three garden parks and a children's playground remain; the complex is also linked by stairs to Ralph Bunche Park. Source: Wikipedia; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page (accessed 9/6/2015)


Most industrial processes have several particular characteristics, system requirements and performance which may not be obtained by classical control methodologies. In this case advanced control strategies must be considered. In the face of different options, testing in simulation environments using software packages is a common practice. In this paper, an environment aimed at integrating different software resources in a consistent and uniform way is proposed. It is based on object-oriented approach implemented in a knowledge based shell. In addition, full potential of knowledge based systems can be used for intelligent decision. Finally, an application example of an oil industry is given.<<ETX>>


This study is devoted to understanding the adjustment issues Japanese and Korean international students face in Thai international higher education. An exploratory study of 15 visiting Korean college students and 15 visiting Japanese college students in Thai international programs was conducted using qualitative methods. A series of 30 face-to-face in-depth interviews regarding the participants' sociocultural adjustment to their host community was conducted in 2015–2016. Participants responded to open-ended questions regarding their adjustment experiences and perceptions of the host culture. The interview data was thematically coded into several categories. Participants' experiences were diverse and ranged from very subtle forms of discrimination and stereotyping to sexual harassment. The most frequently reported impediments to sociocultural adjustment included Thai language issues, excessive undesirable attention from the host community, academic adjustment, and difficulty establishing friendships with the host nationals. The most commonly reported coping strategies reported were the use of social support networks and social isolation from the host community. Implications for international relations departments and international programs within a Thai context are discussed.


Stream water quality signals integrate catchment-scale processes responsible for delivery and biogeochemical transformation of the key biotic macronutrients (N, C, P). This spatial and temporal integration is particularly pronounced in the groundwater-dominated streams, as in-stream nutrient dynamics are mediated by the processes occurring within riparian and hyporheic ecotones. In this paper we show long-term high-frequency in-stream macronutrient dynamics from a small agricultural catchment located in the North West England. Hourly in-situ measurements of total and reactive phosphorus (Systea, IT), nitrate (Hach Lange, DE) and physical water quality parameters (turbidity, specific conductivity, dissolved oxygen, temperature, pH; WaterWatch, UK) were carried out on the lowland, gaining reach of the River Leith. High-frequency data show complex non-linear nutrient concentration-discharge relationships. The dominance of hysteresis effects suggests the presence of a temporally varying apportionment of allochthonous and autochthonous nutrient sources. Varying direction, magnitude and dynamics of the hysteretic responses between storm events is driven by the variation in the contributing source areas and shows the importance of the coupling of catchment-scale, in-stream, riparian and hyporheic biogeochemical cycles. The synergistic effect of physical (temperature-driven, the hyporheic exchange controlled by diffusion) and biogeochemical drivers (stream and hyporheic metabolism) on in-stream nutrient concentrations manifests itself in observed diurnal patterns. As inferred from the high-frequency nutrient monitoring, the diurnal dynamics are of the greatest importance under baseflow conditions. Understanding the role and relative importance of these processes can be difficult due to spatial and temporal heterogeneity of the key mechanisms involved. This study shows the importance of in-situ, fine temporal resolution, automated monitoring approaches in providing evidence and understanding reach-scale in-stream biogeochemical processes. In this paper we discuss the advantages and limitations of the in-situ high-frequency nutrient monitoring, the challenges related to data analysis and process inference and the integration of the short-term biogeochemical behaviour with the long-term trends. Finally the potential for integration of the long-term high-temporal resolution datasets with the predictions of reach- and catchment-scale biogeochemical models and observations from coarse-sampling monitoring strategies has been discussed.


The scope of ISO/TC59/SC14 "Design Life of Buildings" is to produce standards on the steps to be taken at various stages of the building cycle to ensure that the resulting constructed facility, will last for its intended life without incurring large unexpected expenditures of money or resources. The standards for design life of buildings also identify a guiding concept on durability of building products of help in implementing the European Construction Products Directive, CPD. Four parts of the standard series, ISO 15686 Buildings and Constructed Assets - Service Life Planning, have been published. Another 4 parts of the 15686 series are on the way to be approved, one being the Part 8 "Reference service life and service life estimation". Of particular importance is the concept of Reference Service Life (RSL; the expected service life in a well-defined set of in-use conditions), the procedures for service life prediction (Part 2) and the Factor Method (FM) for estimation of service life in specific projects (Part 1 and 8). The FM is used to modify an RSL to obtain an estimated service life (ESL) of the components of a design object, while considering the difference between the projectspecific and the reference in-use conditions. This methodology receives much interest from the international R&D community. A challenge is to establish databases on RSL and factor distributions. This presupposes the involvement of the industry and other stakeholders in the work. RSL is also essential in providing environmental information on whole life cycle of building products. According to ISO/DIS 21930 Buildings and Constructed Assets - Sustainability in Building Construction - Environmental Declarations of Building Products, it is necessary to have RSL data of the product to provide scenarios for environmental impacts of the use stage of the product. The Part 9 "Service life declaration in Product standards" is developed in parallel with work in CEN to establish guidance documents for inclusion of durability declarations in product standards. For innovative products EOTA (European Organisation for Technical Approvals) are issuing European Technical Approvals, where the durability evaluation is performed according to EOTA guidance developed on the basis of the service life prediction concepts as expressed in ISO 15686-2. With the rapid development of IFC based standards for digital object oriented models of building products there is a huge need for property sets, such as durability and service life data, which can be linked directly to the building elements.


Hyper-Hitchcock consists of three components for creating and viewing a form of interactive video called detail-on-demand video: a hypervideo editor, a hypervideo player, and algorithms for automatically generating hypervideo summaries. Detail-on-demand video is a form of hypervideo that supports one hyperlink at a time for navigating between video sequences. The Hyper-Hitchcock editor enables authoring of detail-on-demand video without programming and uses video processing to aid in the authoring process. The Hyper-Hitchcock player uses labels and keyframes to support navigation through and back hyperlinks. Hyper-Hitchcock includes techniques for automatically generating hypervideo summaries of one or more videos that take the form of multiple linear summaries of different lengths with links from the shorter to the longer summaries. User studies on authoring and viewing provided insight into the various roles of links in hypervideo and found that player interface design greatly affects people's understanding of hypervideo structure and the video they access.


End-to-end automatic speech recognition systems map a sequence of acoustic features to text. In modern systems, text is encoded to grapheme subwords which are generated by methods designed for text processing tasks and therefore don't model or take advantage of the statistics of the acoustic features. Here, we present a novel method for generating grapheme subwords that are derived from phoneme sequences, therefore capturing phonetical statistics. The phonetically induced subwords can be used for training and inference in any system that benefits from subwords, regardless of architecture and without the need of a pronunciation lexicon. We compare our method to other commonly used methods, which are based on text statistics or on text-phoneme correspondence and present experiments on CTC and RNN-T architectures, evaluating subword sets of different sizes. We find that our phonetically induced subwords can improve performance of RNN-T models with relative improvements of up to 15.21% compared to other subword methods.


An optical design comparison is made between two 60 degrees field-of-view long-eye-relief eyepieces used for viewing a flat image-intensifier P-43 phosphor screen output. One eyepiece contains both spherical glass elements and plastic aspheric elements. The other eyepiece consists of spherical glass elements and a diffractive surface. Both optical designs were optimized by use of identical system constraints for size and weight. The eyepiece containing the diffractive surface provided an improved modulation transfer function performance and has been fabricated and tested. The fabricated lens characteristics and modulation transfer function performance closely matched the design expectations.


From 2008 to 2010, leaf spot symptoms were observed on tomato (Solanum lycopersicum Mill.) plants growing in the northern, central and southern highland regions of Tanzania. Symptoms were dark, circular to irregular, water-soaked spots surrounded by chlorotic halos. A total of 136 yellow-pigmented, gram-negative bacteria were isolated from 117 symptomatic plants on nutrient agar. Loopfuls from 24-h-old bacterial cultures were suspended in 500 μl of sterile distilled water and 50 μl of the suspensions were printed on strips of 3MM Whatman chromatography paper. Isolates belonging to the genus Xanthomonas were subsequently identified by PCR amplification of a 402-bp fragment of the Xanthan synthesis pathway gene, gumD (primers: X-gumD-fw 5'GGCCGCGAGTTCTACATGTTCAA and X-gumD-rv 5'CACGATGATGCGGATATCCAGCCACAA). Thirty of the 136 isolates reacted positively in gumD PCR. Pathogenicity of the 30 gumD-positive isolates was confirmed by spraying cell suspensions containing 108 CFU/ml (OD600 = 0.01) of each isolate on four 14-day-old tomato seedlings (cv. Tanya) and sweet pepper (Capsicum annuum L.) cv. Early-Calwonder in a growth chamber at 28 ± 2°C and maintained under humid conditions. Plants sprayed with X. euvesicatoria, X. vesicatoria, X. perforans, and X. gardneri (2) strains NCPPB 2968, 422, 4321, and 881, respectively, served as positive controls. Plants sprayed with sterile distilled water alone served as negative control. The 30 tested isolates were pathogenic on tomato and pepper within 7 to 14 days and induced similar symptoms as those observed on tomato field plants and plants sprayed with reference strains of xanthomonads. Symptoms were not observed on negative control plants. Yellow-pigmented colonies were reisolated from symptomatic plants and their identity confirmed with GumD-PCR. Based on partial sequencing of the fyuA gene using primers developed by Young et al. (4), all 30 isolates were subsequently grouped into five clusters of the genus Xanthomonas. With recent taxonomy of Xanthomonas (2,4), four of these clusters displayed more than 99% sequence identity to known species of Xanthomonas: X. arboricola EU498923 (18 isolates); X. perforans EU498944 (6 isolates), X. vesicatoria EU498876 (2 isolates), and X. euvesicatoria EU498912 (1 isolate). The remaining three isolates formed a fifth cluster displaying less than 94% sequence identity to any known sequence of fyuA (93% matching strains: X. axonopodis EU498914; X. melonis EU498918, and X. cucurbitae EU498891). Representative sequences for each of the five clusters of bacterial leaf spot (BLS) strains mentioned have been deposited in GenBank (Nos. JQ418487, JQ418488, JQ418489, JQ418490, and JQ418491, respectively). BLS of tomato plants and its economic impact has been reported in Tanzania (3). Different BLS causal agents have recently been reported from the Southwest Indian Ocean Region (1), however, corresponding information for Tanzania has been lacking. On the basis of fyuA sequences, this study reports four genotypes of BLS causal agents corresponding to known species of Xanthomonas. In addition, Xanthomonas isolates with a fyuA genotype not previously assigned to any known species has been identified as part of the BLS pathosystem in Tanzania. References: (1) A. A. Hamza et al. Plant Dis. 94:993, 2010. (2) B. J. Jones et al. Syst. Appl. Microbiol. 27:755, 2004. (3) K. C. Shenge et al. Afr. J. Biotechnol. 6:15, 2007. (4) J. M. Young et al. Syst. Appl. Microbiol. 31:366, 2008.


Dynamic personality approaches provide an important step forward for twenty-first century personality theories because they promise greater explanatory power compared with latent trait approaches. Nevertheless, whether dynamic personality theories satisfactorily address motivated action remains unclear. To address this, this article discusses the logic of explanation and problems with latent trait approaches in terms of circularity and reification. The article then assesses explanation within dynamic personality accounts and the putative role of motivation. While dynamic personality approaches avoid many of the problems associated with latent trait accounts, a satisfactory account of motivational systems and "human nature" is currently missing. Suggestions for addressing the dynamics of human nature in terms of criteria for motivational systems are discussed. Attachment theory is offered as one possible foundation for addressing the motivational dynamics of personality.


Family caregivers make important contributions to home health care for older adults, but knowledge of the specific roles they assume is lacking. We analyzed data from 1,758 community-dwelling Medicare beneficiaries aged 65+ receiving Medicare-funded home health care between 2011 and 2016, using linked National Health and Aging Trends Study and Outcomes and Assessment Information Set data. Most (86.7%) beneficiaries receiving home health care had an identified need for family caregiver assistance, and nearly 6 in 10 (57.9%) had identified need for caregiver assistance with five or more tasks. After examining significant associations between older adult characteristics and identified needs for caregiver assistance with specific tasks, we identified three profiles of older adults who demonstrate similar patterns of identified need for family caregiver assistance during home health. These profiles include: (1) older adults with greater functional impairment who more often had identified need for assistance with Instrumental Activities of Daily Living, advocacy, or Activities of Daily Living; (2) older adults with cognitive impairment who more often had identified need for assistance with medication administration or supervision; and (3) older adults with greater clinical severity who more often had identified need for assistance with medical procedures and equipment. Findings support calls to develop training interventions and strengthen the partnership between home health providers and family caregivers. These three profiles present a potential framework for the development of family caregiver training programs.


Robert Lehman, one of the foremost art collectors of his generation, embraced both traditional and modern masters. This volume catalogues 130 nineteenth- and twentieth-century paintings that are now part of the Robert Lehman Collection at the Metropolitan Museum. The majority of the works are by artists based in France, but there are also examples from the United States, Latin America, and India, reflecting Lehman's global interests. The catalogue opens with outstanding paintings by Ingres, Theodore Rousseau, and Corot among other early nineteenth-century artists. They are joined by an exemplary selection of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist canvases by Degas, Renoir, Sisley, Pissarro, Seurat, Signac, Van Gogh, Cezanne, and Gauguin. Twentieth-century masters include Bonnard, Matisse, Rouault, Dali, and Balthus. Newly researched modern works are represented by Vicente do Rego Monteiro, Kees van Dongen, Dietz Edzard, and D.G. Kulkarni (DIZI). From Robert Lehman's studied and conventional taste for nineteenth-century French academic practitioners to his intuitive eye for emerging young artists of his own time, all are documented and discussed here. Some three hundred comparative illustrations supplement the catalogue entries, as do extensively researched provenance information, exhibition histories, and references. The volume also includes a bibliography and indexes.


Online distance education and training is being adopted throughout the world as a cost-effective, flexible answer to widening access for all. This enthusiasm has led to many initiatives and policies from governments to encourage online learning at international, national, regional and institutional levels. Also, changes in distance learning continue to take place as a result of educational discourse and innovations in ICT. Distance learning courses are therefore under pressure to reform, and successful management of external policy planning and internal change management is key to the implementation and maintenance of reforms. World-class leaders, researchers and practitioners share their experiences, research and critical reflection in this book, providing guidance on how to balance quality management with quality learning. Subjects covered include policy and planning, institutional management, management of processes, quality assurance and accreditation, and internationalization. This book will aid anyone involved in running or wanting to implement distance education to effectively manage an online learning programme.


Introduction: Since the early 1970s, Platelet-rich plasma (PRP) has been used in many fields as a potential remedy for having regenerative properties. In dermatology, its use is extended to different hair diseases: alopecia areata, traction alopecia, androgenetic alopecia (AGA), and even cicatricial alopecia. Despite its increasing use in the clinical practice, the protocol used to produce PRP differs greatly between researchers and its efficacy has not been clearly demonstrated. Particularly, AGA is an illness characterized by a progressive hair thinning and miniaturization caused by the effect of dihydrotestosterone (DHT) on the hair follicle. This type of alopecia is the most common in men, increasing its incidence with age. Until the date, there are only two efficient treatments approved by the FDA: Finasteride and Minoxidil. PRP seems to be a potential new candidate according to recent studies, but multiple PRP obtaining techniques have raised ambiguous results about the real efficacy of PRP in patients with AGA. Thus, we have elaborated a methodology to help researchers designing future clinical trials on PRP therapy. We propose a randomized clinical trial with a uniformed PRP obtaining technique in order to properly assess the PRP efficacy as a treatment for AGA. Objective: Analyze the objective data published until the date in order to define the real efficacy of PRP as a treatment for AGA, and offer a design of a clinical phase trial with a standardized methodology to obtain proper scientific evidence of PRP efficacy. Methods: Retrospective systematic review of the literature published and a randomized placebo-controlled, double-bind, half-head study clinical trial proposal with a uniformed PRP obtaining methodology to properly assess its efficacy as a future AGA treatment.


In some quarters of academia, commentators have criticized the lengthy prison sentences meted out to corporate officers convicted of violating federal laws pertaining to white collar crimes. These sentences, made more harsh by amendments to the Federal Sentencing Guidelines pursuant to the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, are seen as disproportionate to the harms created by the acts and inconsistent with the punishments given for violent crimes under state law. For example, the former President of Enron, Inc., Jeffrey Skilling, was sentenced to over twenty-four years in federal prison, just over the minimum sentence calculated by the Guidelines, for violating securities laws; however, in his home state of Texas, to face a minimum of twenty-four years in prison, a murderer would have to kill five individuals without provocation or passion. This disparity, although not unique in comparing state crimes to other federal crimes, such as drug possession and distribution, poses the question: Is Jeff Skilling worse than a serial killer? This Essay comes to the unsettling conclusion that the harsher punishments now available for corporate crime, particularly securities crime, are neither disproportionate or inconsistent with state law crimes after examining the values that society places on the interests protected by such punishments. This Essay presumes that prohibitions and punishments of certain acts reflect the relative values that society places on an interest that is threatened by the targeted activity. For example, larceny historically was criminalized to protect the public peace from breaches arising from the wresting of possession of an object from another. In addition, enhanced penalties for robbery and burglary reflect society's interest not in property but in living free from fear of bodily injury, particular in the safety of one's own home or castle. Today, however, society's greatest fear in most parts of the U.S. is not of random violence or home intrusion but of financial insecurity in the future. This Essay presents the argument that in our modern society, maintaining the integrity of the capital markets is the new "keeping of the peace" and that to today's modern worker, a retirement account is the "castle" that needs protection from invasion.


We present an a posteriori probability (APP) decoding algorithm for binary linear block codes over a Gilbert-Elliott channel (GEC) using generalized weight polynomials. The proposed approach is based on a single-sweep APP decoding technique that uses matrix multiplications. By fixing the crossover probability in the 'bad' state of the GEC at fifty percent, an APP decoding decision can be reached by evaluating trivariate polynomials without the need for the computationally more expensive matrix multiplications. In this case, the GEC is described by three variables, namely, the average fade to average connection time ratio, the burst factor, and the channel reliability factor. These variables can easily be deduced from error sequence measurements and hence can be related to many practical digital communication scenarios. The polynomial approach is demonstrated using a simple example and results of computer simulations are presented


Volatile 4-alkyl-branched fatty acids are characteristic flavor compounds of sheep and goat. Due to the methyl branch, the carbon C-4 represents a stereogenic center with the possible presence of one or both enantiomers in the respective samples. In this study, we used enantioselective gas chromatography to study the enantiomeric composition of 4-methyloctanoic acid (4-Me-8:0) and 4-ethyloctanoic acid (4-Et-8:0) in milk and dairy products from sheep and goat as well as in goat subcutaneous tissue. Different columns coated with modified cyclodextrins were tested to resolve racemic 4-alkyl-branched fatty acid methyl ester standards. The best enantiomer resolution was obtained on 25% octakis(2,3,6-tri-O-ethyl)-γ-cyclodextrin (γ-TECD) diluted in OV-1701. For analysis of the food samples, the lipids were extracted and fatty acids in the extracts were converted into fatty acid methyl esters. Non-aqueous reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography was used to fractionate the samples in order to gain one solution enriched in 4-Me-8:0 methyl ester and one solution enriched with 4-Et-8:0 methyl ester. Subsequent analysis by enantioselective gas chromatography with mass spectrometry allowed only the detection of one enantiomer of 4-Me-8:0 and 4-Et-8:0 in the samples. By means of a non-racemic standard of 4-Me-8:0, it was found that the predominant enantiomer was (R)-4-Me-8:0.


During the winter of 2007-2008 the Central Asian country of Tajikistan experienced an unusually cold winter which led to shortages of electricity, water and heating as well as food losses and these impacts occurred at the same time as a combined with a drought, and dramatically increased food prices and increased food insecurity. # ese impacts were exacerbated by a lack of investment in the water, power and fuel supplies, health care and education systems since independence in 1991. # is combination of events was termed a compound disaster. # e note explores the conditions in Tajikistan which created the compound disaster, the humanitarian response and how this disaster became a neglected event. # e concept of compound disaster has gained limited acceptance in Central Asia but may also be applicable elsewhere. # e di$ culty of identifying and responding to a compound disaster creates a particular challenge for humanitarian organisations if they are to be e% ective in reducing human su% ering due to disasters.


The paper focuses on the tension between Wittgenstein's "meaning as use" and his ubiquitous use of Vorstellung in the PI. My argument opens with a rough sketch of a theory of natural language in which Vorstellung, defined as variation of perception, plays a prominent part. I then address the distinction between intension and extension in relation to meaning, redefining extension as an essential component in a Vorstellung oriented theory of language. Wittgenstein's treatment of Vorstellung in the PI is discussed in relation to my challenge of the assumed privacy of mental images. Employing his own "private language" arguments, I propose to replace Vorstellung as mental image by the notion of schematization. So redefined, Vorstellung is reviewed in relation to assertability conditions and the aboutness of language. The conclusion suggests a reconciliation of the tension between the demotion of Vorstellung and its pivotal use in the PI by subsuming Vorstellung under a broadened notion of "use".


Aim: Squamous differentiation in eccrine porocarcinoma (EPC) is an unusual phenomenon that has rarely been reported in the literature. This study describes the clinical and pathological findings in a series of 21 cases of EPC showing extensive squamous differentiation. Methods: The H&E-stained sections, epithelial membrane antigen and carcinoembryonic antigen immunohistochemical stains were reviewed for each case. The following variables were examined: age, gender, race, site and size of the EPC. The prevalence of other cutaneous lesions and/or underlying systemic disease was also documented. Results: There was an almost equal gender distribution. Mean age was 61.5 years and the average tumour size was 46.5 mm. An inordinately large number (10/21, 48%) of EPCs occurred in black patients. The tumours were located at various sites with the extremities predominating (10/19, 53%). Seven patients developed other sun-induced skin tumours, three patients were renal transplant recipients, and two patients were HIV-positive, one of whom also suffered from albinism. Six of the 11 patients in whom follow-up was available had an adverse outcome: local recurrence developed in one patient, one patient developed nodal metastases, and one patient experienced both local recurrence and nodal metastases, and of the three patients who died of disease, two developed distant metastases. Conclusion: The findings suggest a possible role for ultraviolet radiation and chronic immunosuppression in the induction of malignant squamous differentiation in a subset of EPCs. Further reports on this histological variant of EPC are required to determine whether a pathogenetic link does indeed exist or whether these tumours simply represent a unique variant of squamous cell carcinoma with divergent acrosyringial differentiation.


X-ray diffraction data for seventeen 5α-pregnanes were collected using a General Electric XRD-5 diffractometer with a nickel-filtered CA-7 copper target tube operated at 40 kv and 20 ma in conjunction with a scintillation counter and a No. 2 SPG preamplifier. The linear scale of a Leeds and Northrup Speedomax G recorder was used to record the X-ray powder spectra. Samples were run at a speed of 0.2°/min using a take-off angle of 2.0°, a 3.0° beam slit, a medium resolution Soller slit, and a 0.1° detector slit. The number of cps was recorded by a digital printer that was synchronized with the 2θ scan. The digital tape readings and Speedomax charts were compared to determine maximum peak heights and locations in accordance with the accepted methods outlined by Klug and Alexander (2) and by Clark (1).


Serum immunoreactive parathyroid hormone (IPTH) was low to nondetectable in spite of hypocalcemia in a patient with chronic magnesium deficiency. The administration of magnesium led to parallel increases in serum IPTH, serum calcium, and renal phosphate clearance. These findings support the view that magnesium depletion may result in impaired synthesis or release of parathyroid hormone in man, or both.


A novel large-scale dynamo mechanism, the magnetic shear-current effect, is discussed and explored. The effect relies on the interaction of magnetic fluctuations with a mean shear flow, meaning the saturated state of the small-scale dynamo can drive a large-scale dynamo – in some sense the inverse of dynamo quenching. The dynamo is non-helical, with the mean field ${\it\alpha}$ coefficient zero, and is caused by the interaction between an off-diagonal component of the turbulent resistivity and the stretching of the large-scale field by shear flow. Following up on previous numerical and analytic work, this paper presents further details of the numerical evidence for the effect, as well as an heuristic description of how magnetic fluctuations can interact with shear flow to produce the required electromotive force. The pressure response of the fluid is fundamental to this mechanism, which helps explain why the magnetic effect is stronger than its kinematic cousin, and the basic idea is related to the well-known lack of turbulent resistivity quenching by magnetic fluctuations. As well as being interesting for its applications to general high Reynolds number astrophysical turbulence, where strong small-scale magnetic fluctuations are expected to be prevalent, the magnetic shear-current effect is a likely candidate for large-scale dynamo in the unstratified regions of ionized accretion disks. Evidence for this is discussed, as well as future research directions and the challenges involved with understanding details of the effect in astrophysically relevant regimes.


It has been recently shown that the expectation-maximization (EM) algorithm may be viewed as message passing in factor graphs, and in particular, for a linear Gaussian system (with unknown coefficients), the EM algorithm may be purely implemented with Gaussian message passing. In this work, with a Gaussian assumption of the data symbols and a Forney-style factor graph representation for single-carrier transmission over frequency selective channels, a Gaussian message passing EM approach for joint channel estimation and detection is developed. The complexity of the proposed approach grows logarithmically with the length of the observation vector, enabling an efficient handling of (quasi-static and time-varying) frequency selective channels with a large number of channel taps.


Inequality in the United States has an important spatial component. More-skilled workers tend to live in larger cities where they earn higher wages. Less-skilled workers make lower wages and do not experience similar gains even when they live in those cities. This dynamic implies that larger cities are also more unequal. These relationships appear to have become more pronounced as inequality has increased. The evidence points to externalities among high-skilled workers as a significant contributor to those patterns.


The information contained within this publication has been prepared by a third party commissioned by Australian Meat Processor Corporation Ltd (AMPC). It does not necessarily reflect the opinion or position of AMPC. Care is taken to ensure the accuracy of the information contained in this publication. However, AMPC cannot accept responsibility for the accuracy or completeness of the information or opinions contained in this publication, nor does it endorse or adopt the information contained in this report.


This paper formalizes and proves correct a compilation scheme for mutually-recursive definitions in call-by-value functional languages. This scheme supports a wider range of recursive definitions than previous methods. We formalize our technique as a translation scheme to a lambda-calculus featuring in-place update of memory blocks, and prove the translation to be correct.


The periplasmic cytochrome c nitrite reductase NrfA is a homodimeric protein containing
ten c-type cytochromes. NrfA catalyses the six electron reduction of nitrite to ammonia
which in turn facilitates anaerobic respiration. NrfA also reduces nitric oxide and
hydroxylamine to ammonium. The reduction of substrate is carried out at the distal position
of a lysine ligated heme and in an active site cavity dominated by a conserved catalytic
triad of histidine, tyrosine and arginine residues.
The role of the catalytic triad of Escherichia coli NrfA has been explored by generating NrfA
variants. Three NrfA variants were studied in which a single active site residue was
substituted: arginine to lysine (R106K), tyrosine to phenylalanine (Y216F) and histidine to
asparagine (H264N). These NrfA variants were then compared to the wild type enzyme.
The comparison of the crystal structures revealed the substituted residues in the NrfA
variants adopted similar positions to the native residues. The ability of the NrfA proteins to
reduce nitrogenous substrates was characterised by both solution assay and protein film
electrochemistry (PFE). The results revealed that R106K and Y216F NrfA maintained the
ability to reduce nitrite whereas the H264N NrfA did not. Further characterisation of H264N
NrfA using PFE identified that not only was nitrite no longer a substrate, it could instead act
as an inhibitor of hydroxylamine reduction.
A fourth variant of E. coli NrfA, in which the lysine ligand was substituted for a histidine
residue (K126H), attempted to examine the importance of lysine ligation to the active site
heme. The crystal structure of the K126H variant revealed the histidine was not ligating the
heme iron. However, spectroscopy of the K126H NrfA was unable to confirm the presence
of a tetra-coordinated heme.
The substitution of the four key residues resulted in proteins with different characteristics to
the wild type enzyme and to each other. This offered an insight into role these residues
play in the reaction mechanism of NrfA.


In this paper we show that Helium-like Hydrogen spectra obtained by Randell L. Mills [1] and Ultra Dense Hydrogen obtained by Holmlid [2] are interpretable as experimental evidences of Binuclear Atoms. The Hydrogen Binuclear Atom, a model proposed 25 years ago, is a metastable configuration in which the two nuclei are held together at a very short distance in an atom-like configuration. This should be a peculiar configuration of the Hydrogen molecule where nuclei are characterized by a high kinetic energy, and nuclear motion is coupled with electronic motion. This is a completely different model from the usual Born-Oppenheimer picture of atoms and molecules we are used to, where nuclei oscillate about their equilibrium positions and electronic motion is decoupled from the nuclear one. The identification of Helium-like Hydrogen Spectra and Ultra Dense Hydrogen as Binuclear Atoms has a strong impact on one of the main objections to Low Energy Nuclear Reactions (LENR): the overcoming of the Coulomb barrier thus identifying a sound mechanism for the occurrence of LENR. Far for being conclusive, this work has the only aim to take this hypothesis more seriously, and focus the attention of people interested in LENR mechanism on this subject.


This work investigates an emerging and promising soil stabilisation method known as bio-cementation using microbial-induced calcite precipitation (MICP). MICP utilises bacteria to hydrolyse urea to give carbonate ions which react with a calcium-rich solution (i.e. calcium chloride) to produce calcium carbonate (calcite) that binds the soil particles together leading to increased soil strength and stiffness. In this paper, the effectiveness of bio-cementation of silica sand under different environmental and physical conditions was investigated including the initial soil density, temperature and pH of soil. A set of laboratory tests were conducted including soil permeability, unconfined compression strength and determination of calcium carbonate content. The results indicate that bio-cementation is more effective for sand of high initial density. The results also demonstrate that although the calcium carbonate production was facilitated at an elevated temperature of 50oC, the build-up of strength was less efficient than at room temperature. Also alkaline (pH 9.5) or acidic (pH 3.5) conditions were adverse to strength development. Sufficient permeability was retained by all bio-cemented samples, which indicates good drainage ability that allows rapid dissipation of the excess pore water pressure upon loading.

A new promising and innovative modification of MICP treatment was also evaluated using the seawater as a replacement for one of the reactants in production of calcium carbonate. This new process provides a high potential for using bio-cementation in maritime environment for applications such as coastal erosion prevention. Treatment using the seawater to replace the calcium chloride has resulted in stabilised soils that exhibit reasonable strength and efficient crystal formation, which confirms the viability of the proposed seawater process for bio-cementation.


Multilingual pre-trained contextual embedding models (Devlin et al., 2019) have achieved impressive performance on zero-shot cross-lingual transfer tasks. Finding the most effective fine-tuning strategy to fine-tune these models on high-resource languages so that it transfers well to the zero-shot languages is a non-trivial task. In this paper, we propose a novel meta-optimizer to soft-select which layers of the pre-trained model to freeze during fine-tuning. We train the meta-optimizer by simulating the zero-shot transfer scenario. Results on cross-lingual natural language inference show that our approach improves over the simple fine-tuning baseline and X-MAML (Nooralahzadeh et al., 2020).


This study performed a flood risk assessment using one of the multi criteria decision-making methods to identify the small stream basins with high risk of flooding and to determine the optimal small stream restoration measures by priority ranking for flood risk. The 12 representative factors for the flood risk assessment were carefully selected and constructed for the three main aspects, such as pressure factors, state factors and response factors including the government capacities under the pressure-state-response classification system for identifying the 212 small stream watersheds. The entropy weight coefficient method helps to reduce subjective judgments as well as calculate effective weighting coefficients. To evaluate the practical applications of the proposed method, the results from the preference ranking organization method for enrichment evaluation (PROMETHEE) with six preference functions are compared with the official priority ranking of flood risk assessment for the Small Stream Watershed Restoration Projects which is determined by the weighted method. Also, guidelines for the community-based restoration projects such as prevention or preparedness, sustainable development and resilient recovering have been suggested based on the three predicted priority ranking groups. It is expected that the flood risk assessment ranking ensured by full verification can help to establish optimal regional restoration plans against flooding disasters with respect to causes and characteristics of past flash flood.


It has evaluated antropogenous influence on the coenopopulations of Rosa majalis Herrm. with application of morphometric methods. It was ascertained that antropogenous influence has strict impact on morphology. For example, R. majalis in Picea-Abies forests with antropogenous disturbance has more short stems and has no flowers.


The endocannabinoid system and cannabinoid-based treatments have been involved in a wide number of diseases. In particular, several studies suggest that cannabinoids and endocannabinoids may have a key role in the pathogenesis and therapy of multiple sclerosis (MS). In this study we highlight the main findings reported in literature about the relevance of cannabinoid drugs in the management and treatment of MS. An increasing body of evidence suggests that cannabinoids have beneficial effects on the symptoms of MS, including spasticity and pain. In this report we focus on the effects of cannabinoids in the relief of spasticity describing the main findings in vivo, in the mouse experimental allergic encephalomyelitis model of MS. We report on the current treatments used to control MS symptoms and the most recent clinical studies based on cannabinoid treatments, although long-term studies are required to establish whether cannabinoids may have a role beyond symptom amelioration in MS.


Leaf drop of lettuce, caused by the fungus Sclerotinia sclerotionunb is a sporadic but potentially destructive disease in Arizona During the 1988-89 lettuce season in western Arizona, different fungicides and formulations of materials were evaluated in the field for disease control. All tested compounds provided significant disease suppression and increased yields, provided that a sufficient rate of fungicide was applied. Ronilan and Rovral, the two fungicides currently registered for use on lettuce for Sclerotinia leaf drop, were the most effective fungicides in this test, performing significantly better than the two experimental materials. The SODF formulation of Ronilan provided significantly better disease control than the SOW formulation of the same compound.


High-quality automatic speech recognition (ASR) is essential for virtual assistants (VAs) to work well. However, ASR often performs poorly on VA requests containing named entities. In this work, we start from the observation that many ASR errors on named entities are inconsistent with real-world knowledge. We extend previous discriminative n-gram language modeling approaches to incorporate real-world knowledge from a Knowledge Graph (KG), using features that capture entity type-entity and entity-entity relationships. We apply our model through an efficient lattice rescoring process, achieving relative sentence error rate reductions of more than 25% on some synthesized test sets covering less popular entities, with minimal degradation on a uniformly sampled VA test set.


Interest in food movements has been growing dramatically, but until recently there has been limited engagement with the challenges facing workers across the food system. Of the studies that do exist, there is little focus on the processes and relationships that lead to solutions. This article explores ways that community-engaged teaching and research partnerships can help to build meaningful justice with food workers. The text builds on a special roundtable session held at the Annual Meeting of the American Association of Geographers in Chicago in April 2015, which involved a range of academic scholars and community-based activists. We present these insights through a discussion of key perspectives on collaborative research and teaching and learning as food-labor scholar-activists. We argue that despite significant gaps in the way that food movements are addressing labor issues, community-campus collaborations present an opportunity for building alliances to foster food justice. Building on our collective analysis and reflection, we point to five recommendations for fostering collaboration: connecting to personal experience; building trust; developing common strategies; building on previous community efforts; and, appreciating power differences and reciprocating accordingly. We conclude with some final thoughts on future research directions.


Background The direct isolation of integron gene cassettes from cultivated and environmental microbial sources allows an assessment of the impact of the integron/gene cassette system on the emergence of new phenotypes, such as drug resistance or virulence. A structural approach is being exploited to investigate the modularity and function of novel integron gene cassettes. Methodology/Principal Findings We report the 1.8 Å crystal structure of Cass2, an integron-associated protein derived from an environmental V. cholerae. The structure defines a monomeric beta-barrel protein with a fold related to the effector-binding portion of AraC/XylS transcription activators. The closest homologs of Cass2 are multi-drug binding proteins, such as BmrR. Consistent with this, a binding pocket made up of hydrophobic residues and a single glutamate side chain is evident in Cass2, occupied in the crystal form by polyethylene glycol. Fluorescence assays demonstrate that Cass2 is capable of binding cationic drug compounds with submicromolar affinity. The Cass2 module possesses a protein interaction surface proximal to its drug-binding cavity with features homologous to those seen in multi-domain transcriptional regulators. Conclusions/Significance Genetic analysis identifies Cass2 to be representative of a larger family of independent effector-binding proteins associated with lateral gene transfer within Vibrio and closely-related species. We propose that the Cass2 family not only has capacity to form functional transcription regulator complexes, but represents possible evolutionary precursors to multi-domain regulators associated with cationic drug compounds.


In light of the widely accepted view that Ia-restricted L3T4+ T helper cells play a decisive role in controlling the differentiation of Lyt-2+ cells, experiments were designed to examine whether Lyt-2+ cells can respond to antigen in the absence of L3T4+ cells. The results showed that highly purified Lyt-2+ cells gave high primary mixed lymphocyte reactions (MLR) to various class I differences, including both mutant and allelic differences; responses to class II (Ia) differences were generally undetectable with Lyt-2+ cells. The intensity of MLR to class I differences was not affected by addition of anti-L3T4 monoclonal antibodies (mAb) to the cultures or by removing T cells from the stimulator populations. Negative selection experiments showed that Lyt- 2+ cells could respond to class I differences across Ia barriers. MLR of purified Lyt-2+ cells peaked on days 3-4 and then fell sharply; background responses with syngeneic stimulators (auto-MLR) were virtually absent. Parallel experiments with purified L3T4+ cells showed that this subset responded in MLR only to class II (Ia) and not class I differences, reached peak responses only on day 6 rather than days 3-4, and often gave high auto-MLR. Within the first 3-4 d of culture, MLR were generally higher with Lyt-2+ cells than L3T4+ cells. Although no evidence could be found that Ia-restricted L3T4+ cells were required for the response of Lyt-2+ cells, presentation of antigen by Ia+ cells appeared to be essential. Thus, responses were ablated by pretreating stimulator cells with anti-Ia mAb plus C'. Significantly the failure of Lyt-2+ cells to respond to anti-Ia plus C'-treated stimulators could not be restored by adding syngeneic spleen cells; addition of IL-2 led to only a minor (15%) restoration of the response. It is suggested that Ia+ cells provide an obligatory second signal required by Lyt-2+ cells.


This paper studies transaction costs changes arising from the introduction of the Internet in transactions between firms. We divide transaction costs into coordination costs and motivation costs. We classify coordination efficiencies into three categories: process improvements, marketplace benefits, and indirect improvements. For motivation costs, we focus on informational asymmetries. We apply this framework to internal data from an Internet-based firm to measure process improvements, marketplace benefits, and motivation costs. Our results suggest potentially large process improvements and marketplace benefits. We find little evidence that informational asymmetries are more important in the electronic marketplace than in the existing physical ones. Copyright 2001 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd


A dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences of Tribhuvan University in Fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English, 2014.


Michael Gerber has dedicated much of his professional life to the study of entrepreneurship and business dynamics. His "E-Myth Academy" is renown in the entrepreneurial world for its business insight and guidance as well as its inspirational advice. In "The E-Myth Physician", best-selling author Gerber returns to his roots in order to provide indispensable advice to doctors who own and run their own practices. Gerber provides excellent business insights into topics such as streamlining systems, effective small-business management practices, healthy patient relations and managing cash flow, all with the goal of freeing physicians from the daily grind of running a business and leading them to a happier and more productive life while doing the job they love, practicing medicine.


Network Security: Know It All explains the basics, describes the protocols, and discusses advanced topics, by the best and brightest experts in the field of network security.

Assembled from the works of leading researchers and practitioners, this best-of-the-best collection of chapters on network security and survivability is a valuable and handy resource. It consolidates content from the field's leading experts while creating a one-stop-shopping opportunity for readers to access the information only otherwise available from disparate sources.

* Chapters contributed by recognized experts in the field cover theory and practice of network security technology, allowing the reader to develop a new level of knowledge and technical expertise.

* Up-to-date coverage of network security issues facilitates learning and lets the reader remain current and fully informed from multiple viewpoints.

* Presents methods of analysis and problem-solving techniques, enhancing the reader's grasp of the material and ability to implement practical solutions.

* Examples illustrate core security concepts for enhanced comprehension


International Journal of Exercise Science 8(3): 243-255, 2015. Caffeine enhances aerobic performance, but research is equivocal regarding anaerobic performance. This study examined effects of caffeine (7 mg/kg) on anaerobic performance in anaerobically active males (n = 10). Participants completed counterbalanced, double blind caffeine (Caf) and placebo (Pl) trials including a) 6 x 15 s upper body Wingates (UWant), b) 6 x 15 s lower body Wingates (LWant) and c) 6 x15 s maximal effort static hand grip test (HG) with 3 min recovery between bouts, 30 min between exercises. Peak power (Ppeak), mean power (Pmean), and heart rate (HR) as well as perceptual measures included ratings of perceived exertion (RPE), muscle pain perception (MPP), and perceived recovery status (PRS) were recorded per bout. Session RPE (S-RPE) (15 min post) for each exercise mode and trial RPE (T-RPE) [10 min post relative to testing period for each treatment (Caf vs. Pl)]. A series of 2 (trial) x 6 (bout) ANOVA's assessed differences and Tukey's LSD post hoc test were used when necessary. Results showed increased performance (main effect) (UWant) for Ppeak (Caf: 6.72 + 1.2 W/kg vs. Pl: 6.41 + 1.0 W/kg); and Pmean (Caf: 5.39 + 0.8 W/kg vs. Pl: 5.18 + 0.8 W/kg); however no significant main effect for LWant or HG was observed. No significant differences were observed for perceptual measures. Caf improved anaerobic performance in repeated UWant (bouts 1-4) but not LWant or HG. Further studies are warranted to examine Caf ergogenic properties in repeated exercises dominated by anaerobic metabolic pathways given the equivocal results.


Thin elastic solids are easily deformed into a myriad of three-dimensional shapes, which may contain sharp localized structures as in a crumpled candy wrapper, or have smooth and diffuse features like the undulating edge of a flower. Anticipating and controlling these morphologies is crucial to a variety of applications involving textiles, synthetic skins, and inflatable structures. Here we show that a "wrinkle-to-crumple" transition, previously observed in specific settings, is a ubiquitous response for confined sheets. This unified picture is borne out of a suite of model experiments on polymer films confined to liquid interfaces with spherical, hyperbolic, and cylindrical geometries, which are complemented by experiments on macroscopic membranes inflated with gas. We use measurements across this wide range of geometries, boundary conditions, and lengthscales to quantify several robust morphological features of the crumpled phase, and we build an empirical phase diagram for crumple formation that disentangles the competing effects of curvature and compression. Our results suggest that crumples are a generic microstructure that emerge at large curvatures due to a competition of elastic and substrate energies.


The International Conference on e-Business, ICE-B, aims at bringing together researchers and practitioners who are interested in e-Business technology and its current applications. The mentioned technology relates not only to more low-level technological issues, such as technology platforms and web services, but also to some higher-level issues, such as context awareness and enterprise models, and also the peculiarities of different possible applications of such technology. These are all areas of theoretical and practical importance within the broad scope of e-Business, whose growing importance can be seen from the increasing interest of the IT research community.


We provide evidence that the robust association between cognitive skills and economic growth reflects a causal effect of cognitive skills and supports the economic benefits of effective school policy. We develop a new common metric that allows tracking student achievement across countries, over time, and along the within-country distribution. Extensive sensitivity analyses of cross-country growth regressions generate remarkably stable results across specifications, time periods, and country samples. In addressing causality, we find, first, significant growth effects of cognitive skills when instrumented by institutional features of school systems. Second, homecountry cognitive-skill levels strongly affect the earnings of immigrants on the U.S. labor market in a difference-indifferences model that compares home-educated to U.S.-educated immigrants from the same country of origin. Third, countries that improved their cognitive skills over time experienced relative increases in their growth paths. From a policy perspective, the shares of basic literates and high performers have independent significant effects on growth that are complementary to each other, and the high-performer effect is larger in poorer countries.


In family-centric societies, maintenance of hope amongst ill family members is a pivotal duty of the family. Meeting this duty often takes the form of continuing treatment even when such options may be futile. This makes efforts to maximize quality-of-life options challenging. We explore Singaporean perceptions surrounding quality-of-life advocates who advice quality-of-life measures over potentially life-prolonging treatment in terminal illness using a novel video vignette based semi-structured interviews. Findings suggest that quality-oflife advocates are viewed as failing in their filial obligations and perceived as 'selfish', 'money-minded' and 'immoral'. These findings highlight the need to educate patients and caregivers about quality-of-life approaches.


This thesis deals with the determination of the most suitable methods of finding the flood magnitude-return period relationship for Irish flood data using the annual maximum statistical model. Data from approximately 200 gauging stations in the Republic of Ireland, from the archives of OPW, EPA and ESB, were available. The research work is primarily based on the data of 115 of these gauging sites. As a preliminary step to building statistical models for frequency analysis, flood flow characteristics are examined with a view to determining the regional behaviour of flood flow statistics, selecting appropriate statistical distributions to describe the flood data and examining the seasonal aspect of flooding. Most floods occur during the winter half of the year with some notable floods occurring during summer, especially in August. Because of Ireland's humid climate the range of variation of flow values from year to year, as measured by the coefficient of variation, is quite small by international standards. Likewise, the skewness of flow series is modest. While no single statistical distribution can be considered to be "best" at all locations in the context of at-site analysis it has been found that both the Extreme Value Type 1 (Gumbel) and the lognormal distributions provide reasonable models for the majority of stations. Flood estimation (QT ) by the Index Flood method using the Region of Influence (ROI) approach is investigated. The members of the pooling group in the ROI scheme are chosen with the help of a Euclidean distance or similarity measure, dij . Tests have been carried out on the effect on the estimated value of growth factor (XT ) of catchment area, peat coverage, lakiness (as measured by FARL), geographical location and period of record, where the periods fall between the 1950s and the 2000s. None of these attributes were judged to be of sufficient influence to warrant special provision. Also, tests were carried out on the effectiveness of different combinations of catchment descriptors in the definition of dij and the most effective descriptors were found to be AREA, SAAR and BFI. The GEV distribution is recommended for use in the Index Flood method, except in cases where it implies an upper bound, where then EV1 is recommended. Homogeneity is examined in the context of the estimation of XT because a homogeneous pooling group of sites is required to minimise the error in estimating XT . Tests based on Monte Carlo simulation were conducted to assess how successful a region of influence method of identifying pooling group membership is in selecting groups that qualify as being homogeneous. The results show that even with a carefully considered selection procedure, it is not certain the pooling groups identified are perfectly homogeneous. As a compromise it is recommended that a group containing more than 2 values of L-coefficient of variation outside the 95% confidence limits for that variable should not be considered as being homogeneous. The standard errors (se) associated with estimates of XT and QT are investigated. The standard error of QT estimated by the index flood method is dominated by se(Qmed). The se(QT ), expressed as a percentage, is found to vary only slightly with T. When Qmed is estimated from at-site data and XT is estimated from a pooling group containing approximately 500 station years of data then se(QT ) is of the order of 5% to 10% QT regardless of the magnitude of the return period. If Qmed is estimated from a catchment descriptor based formula alone and XT is estimated from a pooling group containing approximately 500 station years of data then se(QT ) is of the order of 36% QT . The performance of pooling group based estimation is also investigated. Experiments using Monte Carlo simulation show that the size of a pooling group is not a significant factor for estimating flood quantiles provided the number of station years is more than 350. An increased heterogeneity decreases the advantage of pooled estimation over that of at-site estimation. A heterogeneity measure (H1) less than 4.0 can render the pooled estimation to be preferable to that of at-site estimation for estimating extreme quantiles. The at-site estimation is preferred when the record lengths at the site concerned exceed 50. Guidance is provided on the estimation of the design flood of required annual exceedance probability at both gauged and ungauged locations. A number of examples is presented in Chapter 7 which cover a range of difficult cases that can arise in practice. In some of these cases, the user may be recommended to consider using an at-site based estimate in preference to the generally recommended regional pooling based method.


HYPOTHESIS
Protocol Doppler ultrasonography of the liver (DUSL) is useful for detecting early hepatic artery thrombosis (HAT). Urgent exploration based on DUSL findings and immediate revascularization of the liver may avoid HAT-related sequelae, namely, biliary complications and retransplantation after pediatric liver transplantation.

DESIGN
Case-control study.

SETTING
University hospital.

PATIENTS
Group 1 included 96 liver transplantations performed in 75 pediatric patients from June 1, 1994, to August 31, 1999. Group 2 included 43 liver transplantations performed in 39 pediatric patients from September 1, 1999, to September 30, 2001.

INTERVENTION
In group 1, DUSL was performed on the first posttransplantation day or on request. Angiographic confirmation of suggested HAT was treated with thrombolysis, angioplasty, or thrombectomy. In group 2, protocol DUSL was performed every 12 hours in the first week and every 24 hours in the second week. The suspicion of HAT warranted urgent surgery without the patient undergoing angiography.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES
Incidence of HAT, biliary complications, and retransplantation. Graft and patient survival. Hospital stay, and number of admissions and operations after undergoing HAT.

RESULTS
The incidence of HAT was 10.4% (10 of 96 transplantations) in group 1 and 7.0% (3 of 43 transplantations) in group 2. The incidence of biliary complications after HAT was 100% in group 1 and 0% in group 2 (P=.02). The incidence of retransplantation after HAT was 90.0% (9 of 10 patients) in group 1 and 0% in group 2 (P=.01). Of the 10 patients who experienced HAT in group 1, 5 patients underwent early retransplantation (mean length of time, 13.2 days). All 5 patients who did not undergo early retransplantation had biliary complications. Four of these 5 patients underwent retrasplantation at a later time (mean length of time, 687 days). In group 2, DUSL identified early HAT in 3 patients (7.0%). Emergent thrombectomy and arterial reconstruction were undertaken. All 3 (100%) have their original graft and are alive. None experienced biliary complications. One-year graft and patient survival is 72.0% and 84.0%, respectively, in group 1 and 80.0% and 85.0%, respectively, in group 2. Shorter hospital stay, fewer readmissions, and surgery after HAT were noted in group 2.

CONCLUSIONS
Protocol DUSL detects early HAT and urgent revascularization based on DUSL can significantly reduce the incidence of biliary complication and graft loss requiring retransplantation in pediatric liver transplantation.


Subsidence in the karst of Apulia (Southern Italy), one of the classical karst areas of Italy, is described in this paper. The carbonate rocks that make up the geological structure of the Apulia region are affected by subsidence, which is of different type and intensity depending upon geological , topographical, and hydrogeological conditions. In particular, we discriminate between inland subsidence and coastal subsidence. Inland subsidence is generally restricted to the presence of individual cavities, either empty or partly or totally filled with deposits produced by dissolution of soluble rocks underground. Locally, such subsidence can cause severe effects on anthropogenic structures above. The coastal plains of Apulia, particularly the southernmost part (Salento Peninsula) , show interesting karst subsidence. Here the main feature is the development of compound sinks extending for several thousands of square metres, or the formation of individual, mostly circular, dolines along the coastline. Occurrence of one or the other of the above features seems to depend upon topographical conditions, and also upon their relationship with sea level oscillations.


This paper describes our approach to applying typeoriented inductive logic programming (ILP) to information extraction (IE) tasks and the latest experimental results in learning IE rules from the data generated from 100 newspaper articles. Information extraction involves extracting key information from text corpus in order to fill empty slots of given templates. A bottle neck in building IE systems is that constructing and verifying IE rules is labor intensive and time consuming. To automatically generate IE rules, we employ an ILP system RHB + that learns logic programs whose variables have type information. After giving our approach to applying ILP to information extraction tasks in detail, the process of learning IE rules is illustrated. Experiments were conducted on the data generated from 100 newspaper articles relating to release of new products. The results show high accuracy and precision of the learned rules. This indicate that type-oriented ILP has a high potential for the use of automatically generating IE rules.


Study of the absorption spectrum in film dosimetry is important because the spectral absorbance of the film is related to the film's total absorption dose. We investigated the absorption spectra of Gafchromic EBT2 film at various rotational angles in a visible wavelength band. The film was irradiated with 6- MV photon beams for a total dose of 300 cGy. The absorption spectra for different angles of rotation were obtained 24 h after the irradiation and we fitted the spectra by using Lorentzian functions. Two dominant absorption peaks, one at approximately 586 nm (green) and the other at 634 nm (red) were observed. The measured spectrum was decomposed into peaks at 542 nm, 558 nm, 578 nm, 586 nm, 626 nm, 634 nm, and 641 nm. The maximum total area of the red absorption band occurred at 45° (225°) and the minimum at 90° (270°). As the angle of rotation changed, the intensities and integrated areas of the blue and the green peaks also changed with a 180° period, with minima at 90° and 270°, and maxima at 0° and 180°, although the overall absorbance was very low. The spectral peak wavelengths remained constant within ±1.2 nm for all angles. The absorption spectrum of the film should no hysteresis of; spectra taken at 0° and 360° were substantially the same and showed similar behaviors for all rotational angles. The change in the absorbance with the rotational angle of the film affected the dosimetric properties, resulting in rotational variations of the film's dosimetry in each red-green-blue channel.


The most common approach to light-based indoor positioning relies on multilateration of received signals to the mobile device. Any deficiencies in the fidelity of these light signals can significantly distort position estimates. In this paper, we propose a method to dynamically control the light distribution from the overhead luminaires to mitigate fading effects that would otherwise occur under static lighting. By manipulating the direction of the luminaire, effectively the dispersion pattern, we introduce signal diversity in the form of multiple pointing angles and light distributions. In addition to providing angle diversity, steering and then tracking sustains the maximal line-of-sight path between a source and receiver, which reduces angle-dependent attenuation and optimizes the signal-to-noise ratio for any coordinate without needing to change the physical properties of the source or receiver. This gain in signal strength combats the limited field-of-view of luminaires and photodiodes to provide better overall coverage, which translates directly to increase positioning accuracy, particularly in a 3D space. In the results, we show field-of-view gains of 43% and improvements in MSE of 20cm.


The problem of modeling semi-structured data is important in many application areas such as multimedia data management, biological databases, digital libraries, and data integration. Graph schemas (Buneman et al. 1997) have been proposed recently as a simple and elegant formalism for representing semistructured data. In this model, schemas are represented as graphs whose edges are labeled with unary formulae of a theory, and the notions of conformance of a database to a schema and of subsumption between two schemas are defined in terms of a simulation relation. Several authors have stressed the need of extending graph schemas with various types of constraints, such as edge existence and constraints on the number of outgoing edges. In this paper we analyze the appropriateness of various knowledge representation formalisms for representing and reasoning about graph schemas extended with constraints. We argue that neither First Order Logic, nor Logic Programming nor Frame-based languages are satisfactory for this purpose, and present a solution based on very expressive Description Logics. We provide techniques and complexity analysis for the problem of deciding schema subsumption and conformance in various interesting cases, that differ by the expressive power in the specification of constraints.


Three experiments were carried out on 53-hr cultured human leukocytes on chromosome mutagenicity of benzene with particular reference to combined effects with gamma-radiation and inhibitory effect on rejoining of radiation-induced chromosome breaks. The results and their analyses were summarized as follows: 1) Benzene can induce mainly chromatid-type deletions, especially gaps, suggesting that the cells in their late S-G2 stage have a higher susceptibility to chromosome breakage by benzene. 2) The aberration tield of dicentrics and rings induced by 100 rads irradiation can significantly be enhanced by the treatment of benzene equal to or in excess of 0.2 mM. 3) Quantitative analyses using newly defined "Synergetic effect factor" revealed that combined cytogenetic effect of benzene with radiation could be synergetic exclusively in dicentrics and rings, being almost additive in the other types of aberration. 4) The experiment with dosage fractionation method showed that the more strongly benzene could inhibit the rejoining of radiation-induced chromosome breaks, the higher concentration it was treated at. Related iwth these results, possible inducps, and the repair and its inhibition of radiation-induced DNA-strand(s) breaks. Further studies for related effects by benzene are needed on protein synthesis, activities of repair enzymes and fine structure of chromosomes.