Elemental imaging using laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry was performed on whole leaves of the hyperaccumulating plant Noccaea caerulescens after treatments with either Ni, Zn or Cd. These detailed elemental images reveal differences in the spatial distribution of these three elements across the leaf and provide new insights in the metal ion homeostasis within hyperaccumulating plants. In the Zn treated plants, Zn accumulated in the leaf tip while Mn was colocalised with Zn suggesting similar storage mechanisms for these two metals. These data show a Zn concentration difference of up to 13-fold higher in the distal part of the leaf. Also, there was no correlation between the S and Zn concentrations providing further evidence against S-binding ligands. In contrast, Ni was more evenly distributed while a more heterogeneous distribution of Cd was present with some high levels on leaf edges, suggesting that different storage and transport mechanisms are used for the hyperaccumulation of these two metals. These results show the importance of correct sampling when carrying out subcellular localisation studies as the hyperaccumulated elements are not necessarily homogenously distributed over the entire leaf area. The results also have great implications for biotechnological applications of N. caerulescens showing that it may be possible to use the mechanisms employed by N. caerulescens to increase the Zn concentration in nutrient poor crops without increasing the risk of accumulating other toxic elements such as Ni and Cd.


A previously well, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-positive boy, presented with features of chronic mastoiditis with no intracranial complications. Intraoperative findings revealed a chronic granulomatous infection. Culture of pus swabs grew Nocardia asteroides, sensitive to trimethoprim and sulphamethoxazole. The child completed 12 months of treatment. There are very few case reports on N. mastoiditis in the literature, and the incidence of this as a complication of otitis media is unknown. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first case report of N. mastoiditis from Africa.


Wireless communication systems are persistently applying wider bandwidths, larger signal dynamics and higher carrier frequencies to fulfill the demand for higher data rates. This results in an ever increasing demand on the performance of low-cost and power-efficient radio frequency (RF) front-ends. Since the RF technology is, consequently, pushed to its operation boundaries, the intrinsic imperfections of the RF IC technology are more and more governing the system performance of wireless modems. "RF Imperfections in High-rate Wireless Systems" therefore presents a new vision on the design of wireless communication systems. In this approach the imperfections of the RF front-ends are accepted and digital signal processing algorithms are designed to suppress their impact on system performance. To illustrate this approach, this book focuses on multiple-antenna orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (MIMO OFDM), which will be applied as basis for the majority of near-future high-rate wireless systems. The basics of MIMO OFDM are introduced and the typically required signal processing in the implementation of such systems is elucidated. This book treats several of the front-end impairments that seriously affect the performance of MIMO OFDM systems: carrier frequency offset, phase noise, IQ imbalance and nonlinearities. To provide an in-depth understanding of the impact of these RF imperfections, analytical performance results are presented in the book. These results are then used to design different compensation approaches based on digital baseband processing. "RF Imperfections in High-rate Wireless Systems" is of interest to wireless system designers, who want to familiarise with the digital compensation of RF imperfections. For researchers in the field of wireless communications this book provides a valuable overview of this emerging research topic.


Laser-beam propagation through atmospheric turbulence is analyzed theoretically and compared with measurements at λ = 0.63 and 10.6 μm. Calculations based either on irradiance statistics or mutual coherence function (MCF) are analyzed; a general expression for long-term-average beam spread based on the turbulence MCF is obtained. The spread of a laser beam focused over moderate distances can be separated into short- and long-term averages that differ by beam wander, which has been found to be essentially independent of wavelength and adequately described by geometric optics. However, a significant wavelength dependence of short-term-average beam spread is found experimentally. Measurements at 10.6 μm are nearly diffraction limited, whereas corresponding data for 0.63 μm are strongly influenced by variations of the refractive-index structure constant Cn. An empirical formula for long-term-average beam spread is at variance with the wave-number-dependent functional form predicted by MCF calculations. Both the irradiance and MCF approaches go over into the same asymptotic functional dependence for visible wavelengths and long ranges. Angular-beam-spread measurements at 0.63 μm support this conclusion.


In Scotland, agriculture remains the dominant form of land use in rural areas, indicating that the successful implementation of renewable energy strategies has the potential to provide opportunities for dedicated biomass crop production in the rural communities of Scotland. The methodology was developed for a study area surrounding Nethercleuch, Lockerbie in Dumfriesshire, Scotland. This is the largest biomass conversion plant in the UK and it is set to open near Lockerbie later in the year, this study investigates the potential for sourcing dedicated energy crops locally.

This research presents a GIS-based methodology to locate the suitable areas for growing Short Rotation Coppice willow crops in Scotland by using cell-based multi-criteria evaluation. The Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), Multi-criteria Evaluation method, has been successfully implemented in recent years in decision making processes, as well as in GIS. AHP was used as a decision support method for determining the weights of importance in selecting a suitable areas for Short Rotation Coppice production.

In this study, Network Analysis was used to define service areas from Lockerbie. The economic potential of Willow Short Rotation Coppice is known to be heavily determined by the existing road networks, as the condition affects the cost of logistics and hence the viability of investments. When accessible areas were defined, suitability factors were identified based on communications with experts, scientific journals and the network distance from the plant. The factor layers are then overlaid and compiled by the subjective weights in order to create an overall cost surface to determine the suitable areas for Willow Short Rotation Coppice production.


Academic–industrial research to bolster American technological prowess is increasing. The tightening of links between academic and industrial research is symbolized by a building rising on the Stanford University campus that has also become a focus of debate over the proper relationship between the two. This report was originally published in The New York Times, 10 Feb. 1984.


Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a significant public health concern. To date, risk factor research has not differentiated physical violence that leads to injury and/or fear (i.e., clinically significant IPV; CS-IPV) from general physical IPV. Isolating risk relations is necessary to best inform prevention and treatment efforts. The current study used an ecological framework and evaluated relations of likely risk factors within individual, family, workplace, and community levels with both CS-IPV and general IPV to determine whether they were related to one type of IPV, both, or neither for both men and women. Probable risk and promotive factors from multiple ecological levels of influence were selected from the literature and assessed, along with CS-IPV and general IPV, via an anonymous, web-based survey. The sample comprised US Air Force (AF) active duty members and civilian spouses (total N = 36,861 men; 24,331 women) from 82 sites worldwide. Relationship satisfaction, age, and alcohol problems were identified as unique risk factors (in the context of the 23 other risk factors examined) across IPV and CS-IPV for men and women. Other unique risk factors were identified that differed in prediction of IPV and CS-IPV. The results suggest a variety of both established and novel potential foci for indirectly targeting partner aggression and clinically-significant IPV by improving people's risk profiles at the individual, family, workplace, and community levels. Aggr. Behav. 9999:XX-XX, 2014. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.


This article draws upon data generated as part of a 30-month research project, 'Violence Sexuality, Space', undertaken as part of a wider Economic and Social Research Council initiative on Violence. The main focus of the article is upon ideas of property that are a recurring theme in our Manchester key informant data. We offer a jurisprudence of the everyday practices of property through an examination of the ways in which ideas of property are implicated in the production of experiences of security and insecurity, safety and danger, identity and community, as social inclusion and social exclusion. This analysis is grounded in an empirical study of the sexual social order of Manchester's gay Village.


After documenting the long decline in private sector unionism over the last 50 years, we examine data on NLRB representation elections to determine if changes in the administration of the NLRA during the 1980s reduced the level of organizing activity and success. While organizing activity sharply declined in 1981 (just before President Reagan's showdown with the air traffic controllers' union, PATCO), we find little evidence that the changes in the administration of the NLRA later in the decade adversely affected the level of union organizing activity. We then present an accounting framework that decomposes the sharp decline in the private-sector union membership rate into components due to 1) differential growth rates in employment between the union and nonunion sectors and 2) changes in the union new organization rate (through NLRB-supervised representation elections). We find that most of the decline in the union membership rate is due to differential employment growth rates and that changes in union organizing activity had relatively little effect. Given that the differential employment growth rates are due largely to broader market and regulatory forces, we conclude that the prospects are dim for a reversal of the downward spiral of labor unions based on increased organizing activity.


We present the case of a 33 year-old man with no relevant medical history who was seen for skin lesions that had been present on both pretibial areas and lateral borders of the feet for 2 years. The lesions were slightly pruritic and followed an intermittent course with periods of improvement but never healed completely. No improvement was seen with the application of topical corticosteroids. The patient reported no extracutaneous symptoms.


The set of transactions that occurs on the public ledger of an Ethereum network in a specific time frame can be represented as a directed graph, with vertices representing addresses and an edge indicating the interaction between two addresses. While there exists preliminary research on analyzing an Ethereum network by the means of graph analysis, most existing work is focused on either the public Ethereum Mainnet or on analyzing the different semantic transaction layers using static graph analysis in order to carve out the different network properties (such as interconnectivity, degrees of centrality, etc.) needed to characterize a blockchain network. By analyzing the consortium-run bloxberg Proof-of-Authority (PoA) Ethereum network, we show that we can identify suspicious and potentially malicious behaviour of network participants by employing statistical graph analysis. We thereby show that it is possible to identify the potentially malicious exploitation of an unmetered and weakly secured blockchain network resource. In addition, we show that Temporal Network Analysis is a promising technique to identify the occurrence of anomalies in a PoA Ethereum network.


Abstract. A series of semi-continuous incubation experiments were conducted with the coccolithophore Emiliania huxleyi strain NIWA1108 (Southern Ocean isolate) to examine the effects of five environmental drivers (nitrate and phosphate concentrations, irradiance, temperature, and partial pressure of CO2 (pCO2)) on both the physiological rates and elemental composition of the coccolithophore. Here, we report the alteration of the elemental composition of E. huxleyi in response to the changes in these environmental drivers. A series of dose–response curves for the cellular elemental composition of E. huxleyi were fitted for each of the five drivers across an environmentally representative gradient. The importance of each driver in regulating the elemental composition of E. huxleyi was ranked using a semi-quantitative approach. The percentage variations in elemental composition arising from the change in each driver between present-day and model-projected conditions for the year 2100 were calculated. Temperature was the most important driver controlling both cellular particulate organic and inorganic carbon content, whereas nutrient concentrations were the most important regulator of cellular particulate nitrogen and phosphorus of E. huxleyi. In contrast, elevated pCO2 had the greatest influence on cellular particulate inorganic carbon to organic carbon ratio, resulting in a decrease in the ratio. Our results indicate that the different environmental drivers play specific roles in regulating the elemental composition of E. huxleyi with wide-reaching implications for coccolithophore-related marine biogeochemical cycles, as a consequence of the regulation of E. huxleyi physiological processes.


This Article offers an extended rebuttal to the suggestion to move residents away from dying communities to places with greater economic promise. Rural America, arguably, is one of those dying places. A host of strategies aim to shore up those communities and make them more economically viable. But one might ask, "Why bother?" In similar vein, David Schleicher's provocative 2017 Yale Law Journal article, Stuck! The Law and Economics of Residential Stagnation urged dismantling a host of state and local government laws operating as barriers to migration by Americans from failing economies to robust agglomeration economies. But Schleicher said little about the fate of the places left behind. Schleicher's article drew a number of pointed responses, urging the value and preservation of Small Town America. But those arguments failed fully to meet the rational economic thesis, countering instead with more sentimental or humanitarian concerns. This article offers a way to reconcile the two views, refracted through a health care lens. Health care is a particularly apt perspective for considering the question whether America's rural places are worth saving because it necessarily, under longstanding U.S. policy preferences, walks the line between the economic principles and human rights; individual responsibility and communitarian values; the rational actor and the deserving recipient of aid. The health care exceptionalism case against agglomeration economies urges consideration of the real, quantifiable costs of migration and, correlatively, value of home, as well as the market imperfections inherent in health care and, even more so, in rural health care.


This paper proposes a novel artificial intelligence vision-based monitoring system (AVMS) for ship berthing. To dock a ship, it is necessary to accurately estimate the relative distance between the quay wall and the ship. However, maneuvering large ships near a port is a complicated and difficult procedure. Thus, tugboats push the ship and dock it at the berth under the supervision of a pilot, who receives distance information from a berthing aid system (BAS). The conventional BAS based on laser distance sensors, which is the most widely used approach, is high-priced and limited by the size of the ship. Additionally, if there is an obstacle between the ship and the berth, the distance cannot be measured, since it obscures the laser signal. To address this problem, we develop an AVMS sensor module composed of a low-priced camera, a differential global positioning system (DGPS) receiver, and an inertial measurement unit (IMU) with an algorithm to estimate the distance between ship and berth. To evaluate the performance of the proposed AVMS, field tests are performed at Ulsan port in Korea, and the results are compared with a conventional BAS. From the field test results, the AVMS provides highly accurate estimates and shows robust performance in poor weather conditions compared to the conventional BAS. The AVMS can measure the distance between ship and berth regardless of the size of the ship, since it has a wide field of view. In addition, it provides the pilot with real-time image information of the ship approaching the berth to obtain safe ship berthing.


Episodic memory is associated with the encoding and retrieval of context information and with a subjective sense of reexperiencing past events. The neural correlates of episodic retrieval have been extensively studied using fMRI, leading to the identification of a "general recollection network" including medial temporal, parietal, and prefrontal regions. However, in these studies, it is difficult to disentangle the effects of context retrieval from recollection. In this study, we used fMRI to determine the extent to which the recruitment of regions in the recollection network is contingent on context reinstatement. Participants were scanned during a cued recognition test for target words from encoded sentences. Studied target words were preceded by either a cue word studied in the same sentence (thus congruent with encoding context) or a cue word studied in a different sentence (thus incongruent with encoding context). Converging fMRI results from independently defined ROIs and whole-brain analysis showed regional specificity in the recollection network. Activity in hippocampus and parahippocampal cortex was specifically increased during successful retrieval following congruent context cues, whereas parietal and prefrontal components of the general recollection network were associated with confident retrieval irrespective of contextual congruency. Our findings implicate medial temporal regions in the retrieval of semantic context, contributing to, but dissociable from, recollective experience.


ABSTRACT The radical change in its internal and foreign policies during the late 1980s and the ending of the Cold War have led to South Africa disarming itself with regard to weapons of mass destruction. Following the first democratic election in 1994, South Africa has become a respected member of the world community in the field of arms control and disarmament. Although not always apparent in practice, South Africa attempts to act responsibly when exporting conventional weapons; is a force curbing the proliferation of light and small arms in Southern Africa; and has placed a ban on anti-personnel mines. 1. INTRODUCTION The purpose of this article is to assess arms control and disarmament in South Africa since the end of the Cold War. A conceptual framework is presented to provide insight into the phenomena of arms control and disarmament, whereafter an overview is given of the situation as it developed during and existed at the end of the Cold War. This is done with reference to the post-Cold War period; the introduction of disarmament; South Africa's policy concerning arms control and disarmament; South Africa's approach to the non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction; and South Africa's position concerning conventional weapons, including small and light arms. 2. DISARMAMENT AND ARMS CONTROL: A CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK The concept of disarmament is defined in various ways. According to Bull disarmament is "the reduction or abolition of armaments. It may be unilateral or multilateral; general or local; comprehensive or partial; controlled or uncontrolled". (1) Unilateral disarmament means action by a single state; bilateral disarmament that an agreement has been entered into by two states; and multilateral disarmament that an agreement has been entered into by more than two states, (2) Booth states that "(d)isarmament is a continuation of strategy by a reduction of military means ... these concepts are best understood as strategies in the business of politics among nations". (3) Along similar lines, Buzan views disarmament as "the most direct--and in a sense the crudest--response to the problem of military means. Its logic is that since weapons create the problem, the solution is to get rid of them. This logic can be applied to all weapons--general and complete disarmament (GCD)--or to specific categories of weapons deemed to be particularly dangerous, such as nuclear bombs and biological warfare agents. It can be applied unilaterally or multilaterally, and can involve partial or complete elimination of the specified type(s) of weapon. The concept refers both to the process by which capabilities are reduced, and to the end condition of being disarmed". (4) Singer identifies three different ways in which disarmament can be approached, namely the "tensions first" approach; the "political settlement" approach; and the "weapons first" approach. (5) According to the "tensions first" approach conflict can be decreased or completely eliminated through education and the improvement of relations between the parties involved. This can lead to a better understanding of the situation and greater respect and a sense of tolerance of each other. This in turn could lead to greater flexibility in disarmament negotiations and even to a willingness to disarm. (6) The "political settlement" approach contends that disarmament can only be achieved after political conflict and the accompanying tension have been resolved. Accordingly, disarmament is impossible as long as political issues, important to the parties involved, remain unresolved. (7) The "weapons first" approach is based on the idea that tension can only decrease and political conflict be resolved after the disarmament process has begun. (8) Concerning the concept arms control, Bull describes it as international restraint in arms policy in respect of the quantity, nature, deployment and use of weapons. …


Objective Anal incontinence (AI) is a symptom associated with age, bowel symptoms and obstetric injuries. Primary aim of the study was to establish the prevalence of AI among women and secondarily to evaluate the impact on daily life and conditions associated with AI. Design A cross-sectional study. Setting Participants attended research stations located in different parts of Nord-Trøndelag county, Norway. Data were collected through interviews, questionnaires and clinical examinations. Participants In total, 40 955 community-dwelling women aged 30 years and older were invited. A total of 25 037 women participated, giving a participation rate of 61.1%. Primary and secondary outcome measures Fecal incontinence and flatal incontinence was defined as involuntary loss of feces and flatus weekly or more, respectively. AI was defined as the involuntary loss of feces and/or flatus weekly or more. Urgency was defined as the inability to defer defecation for 15 min. Statistical methods included prevalence estimates and logistic regression analysis. Results Questions about AI were completed by 20 391 (82.4%) women. Among the 20 391 women, AI was reported by 19.1% (95% CI 18.6% to 19.7%) and fecal incontinence was reported by 3.0% (95% CI 2.8% to 3.2%). Urgency was experienced by 2586 women (12.7%, 95% CI 12.2 to 13.1). Impact on daily life was stated by 794 (26.0%, 95% CI 24.4 to 27.5) women with AI. In bivariate age-adjusted analysis of AI, OR and CI for urgency (OR 3.19, 95% CI 2.92 to 3.49) and diarrhoea (OR 3.81, 95% CI 3.32 to 4.38) revealed strongest associations with AI. Conclusions AI affects one in five women older than 30 years. Strongest associated symptoms are urgency and diarrhoea. Trial registration number The study was approved by the Regional Committee for Medical and Health Research Ethics (No. 2009/1214) and followed the Declaration of Helsinki.


Objective: For some analytes test results can be affected by choice of blood collection tubes. Several studies comparing the new BD Vacutainer® Rapid Serum Tubes with the Serum Separator Tubes for routine chemistry and immunoassay tests have been published. However, published studies have not investigated Insulin, C-peptide and High Sensitivity C-Reactive Protein (hsCRP) tests. The aim of this study was to evaluate the comparability of some laboratory tests and rates of hemolysis using Rapid Serum Tubes and Serum Separator Tubes and to also investigate the stability on serum storage time. Materials and Methods: Blood specimens were collected into the two tube types from 97 participants. All tubes were centrifuged (1500×g,10 minutes). Serum from each tube was tested for Insulin, C-peptide, hsCRP, parathyroid hormone, 25-OH Vitamin D, glucose, potassium, phosphorus, AST, magnesium and LDH measurements. Detection of hemolysis was carried out by a spectrophotometric method. Paired blood specimens (n=15) were stored at 4°C and retested at 4 and 24 hour for the evaluation of specimen stability. The significance of the differences between samples was assessed by paired-t test or Wilcoxon test. The mean percentage difference was calculated. Desirable analytical quality specifications and total change limit were used for the interpretation of the test results and the stability of analytes, respectively. Results: Although the results for measured analytes showed statistically significant differences between the two tube types (p<0.05), the mean percentage differences (except for LDH) were within the current desirable allowable bias. No serum samples in the study were hemolysed (≥0.5 g/L) and most of the analytes investigated remained stable (24 hour at 4°C) for both tube types. Conclusion: This study suggests that BD Rapid Serum Tubes are suitable for collection of blood and storage of serum up to 24 hour at 4°C for some laboratory analytes including Insulin, C-peptide, hsCRP.
Key words: Rapid Serum Tubes, Serum Separator Tubes, Stability, Hemolysis


Direct Radiative Effect of Mineral Dust on the Middle East and North Africa Climate Hamza Kunhu Bangalath Dust-climate interaction over the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) has long been studied, as it is the "dustiest" region on earth. However, the quantitative and qualitative understanding of the role of dust direct radiative effect on MENA climate is still rudimentary. The present dissertation investigates dust direct radiative effect on MENA climate during summer with a special emphasis on the sensitivity of climate response to dust shortwave absorption, which is one of the most uncertain components of dust direct radiative effect. Simulations are conducted with and without dust radiative effect, to differentiate the effect of dust on climate. To elucidate the sensitivity of climate response to dust shortwave absorption, simulations with dust assume three different cases of dust shortwave absorption, representing dust as a very efficient, standard and inefficient shortwave absorber. The non-uniformly distributed dust perturb circulations at various scales. Therefore, the present study takes advantage of the high spatial resolution capabilities of an Atmospheric General Circulation Model (AGCM), High Resolution Atmospheric Model (HiRAM), which incorporates global and regional circulations. AMIP-style global high-resolution simulations are conducted at a spatial resolution of 25 km. A significant response in the strength and position of the local Hadley circulation is predicted in response to meridionally asymmetric distribution of dust and 5 the corresponding radiative effects. Significant responses are also found in regional circulation features such as African Easterly Jet and West African Monsoon circulation. Consistent with these dynamic responses at various scales, the tropical rainbelt across MENA strengthens and shifts northward. Similarly, the temperature under rainbelt cools and that over subtropical deserts warms. Inter-comparison of various dust shortwave absorption cases shows that the response of the MENA tropical rainbelt is extremely sensitive to the strength of shortwave absorption. Further analyses reveal that the sensitivity of the rainbelt stems from the sensitivity of the multi-scale circulations that define the rainbelt. Importantly, the summer precipitation over the semi-arid strip south of Sahara, including Sahel, increases in response to dust radiative effect. The maximum response and sensitivity are predicted over this region. The sensitivity of the responses over Sahel, especially that of precipitation, is comparable to the mean state. Locally, the precipitation increase reaches up to 50% of the mean, while dust is assumed to be a very efficient absorber. As the region is characterized by the "Sahel drought", the predicted precipitation sensitivity to the dust loading over this region has a wide-range of socioeconomic implications. The present study, therefore, suggests the importance of reducing uncertainty in dust shortwave absorption for a better simulation and interpretation of the MENA climate in general, and of Sahel in particular.


This paper examines the impact of security on economic development in developing countries. Based on data from the World Bank, we use a sample of thirty-eight developing economies and find that security does affect development in these countries. We observe that the coefficient estimates of two explanatory variables do not have their anticipated sign due possibly to the slight degree of multicollinearity between them. Regression results show that over three-quarters of cross-developing country variations in purchasing power parity per capita gross national income can be explained by its linear dependency on the number of intentional homicides, the number of refugees hosted by a country, military expenditures as a percentage of GDP, the adult literacy rate, the agricultural value added per worker, the share of manufactures in total merchandise exports, net foreign direct investment, net official development assistance, the share of agricultural land in the total land area, the share of public health expenditures in total health expenditures, and the share of youths 15 to 34 years old in the total population. Statistical results of such empirical examination will assist governments in developing countries identify security and other issues that need to be effectively dealt with in order to stimulate economic development.


Falciparum malaria is clinically heterogeneous and the relative contribution of parasite and host in shaping disease severity remains unclear. We explored the interaction between inflammation and parasite variant surface antigen (VSA) expression, asking whether this relationship underpins the variation observed in controlled human malaria infection (CHMI). We uncovered marked heterogeneity in the response of naive hosts to blood challenge; some volunteers remained quiescent, others triggered interferon-stimulated inflammation and some showed transcriptional evidence of myeloid cell suppression. Significantly, only inflammatory volunteers experienced hallmark symptoms of malaria. When we tracked temporal changes in parasite VSA expression to ask whether variants associated with severe disease preferentially expand in naive hosts (as predicted by current theory) we found that var gene profiles were unchanged after 10-days of infection. The diverse outcomes of CHMI therefore depend upon human immune variation and there is no evidence for switching or selection of var genes in naive hosts.


We show that a maximum cut of a random graph below the giant-component threshold can be found in linear space and linear expected time by a simple algorithm. In fact, the algorithm solves a more general class of problems, namely binary 2-variable constraint satisfaction problems. In addition to Max Cut, such Max 2-CSPs encompass Max Dicut, Max 2-Lin, Max 2-Sat, Max-Ones-2-Sat, maximum independent set, and minimum vertex cover. We show that if a Max 2-CSP instance has an 'underlying' graph which is a random graph $G \in \mathcal{G}(n,c/n)$, then the instance is solved in linear expected time if $c \leq 1$. Moreover, for arbitrary values (or functions) $c>1$ an instance is solved in expected time $n \exp(O(1+(c-1)^3 n))$; in the 'scaling window' $c=1+\lambda n^{-1/3}$ with $\lambda$ fixed, this expected time remains linear. Our method is to show, first, that if a Max 2-CSP has a connected underlying graph with $n$ vertices and $m$ edges, then $O(n 2^{(m-n)/2})$ is a deterministic upper bound on the solution time. Then, analysing the tails of the distribution of this quantity for a component of a random graph yields our result. Towards this end we derive some useful properties of binomial distributions and simple random walks.


BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES
Apoptosis is thought to play a key pathogenic role in myelodysplastic syndrome. The aim of our study was to determine whether apoptotic index, p53 and bcl-2 levels correlate with the clinical consequences of ineffective hematopoiesis; namely, the development of cytopenia and the shortened survival of patients with myelodysplastic syndrome.

DESIGN AND METHODS
The apoptotic index, determined by TdT-mediated dUTP nick-end labeling, as well as bcl-2 and p53 protein levels, evaluated by immunohistochemistry, were studied in bone marrow trephine biopsy archival samples from 25 healthy subjects aged over fifty (control group), 61 consecutive patients with myelodysplastic syndrome and 17 patients with de novo acute myeloid leukemia according to FAB criteria. The correlation between relevant clinical parameters was analyzed with Spearman's correlation test. Factors influencing survival were studied by Cox proportional hazards regression analysis.

RESULTS
The apoptotic index did not correlate with blood counts at diagnosis and had no prognostic influence on the overall survival of patients with myelodysplastic syndrome. The p53 score correlated with both the leukocyte count (r=-0.274, p=0.034, Spearman's) and hemoglobin concentration (r=-0.316; p=0.014) in the myelodysplastic syndrome patients and showed an independent and significant prognostic influence on their overall survival (p=0.045, Cox's) while the bcl-2 score was not correlated with their blood counts or prognosis.

INTERPRETATION AND CONCLUSIONS
Apoptotic index and bcl-2 do not correlate with key clinical data in patients with myelodysplastic syndrome, while p53 levels show a good correlation with these data and may be a useful parameter to add to current prognostic schemes in this entity.


BACKGROUND
Hyperinsulinemia, which is usually related to insulin resistance, is considered to be an important risk factor for coronary artery disease. Our study examines the influence of portal delivery of endogenous insulin after pancreas transplantation on plasma lipid metabolism, as compared with systemic delivery of insulin.

METHOD
Pancreas was transplanted heterotopically in normal rats by anastomosis of the donor portal vein to the recipient portal vein (PPTx) or inferior vena cava (CPTx) as an in vivo model of endogenous hyperinsulinemia.

RESULTS
The mean value of plasma insulin concentration of CPTx and PPTx rats was 149 and 165% that of control rats, whereas the plasma glucose concentration of CPTx and PPTx rats did not differ significantly from that of control rats. Plasma triglyceride (TG) concentrations were significantly lower in both PPTx and CPTx rats than control rats. During the intravenous glucose tolerance test, the area under the insulin concentration curves of CPTx and PPTx rats was 204 and 215% that of control rats, and they were correlated negatively with plasma TG concentrations. Plasma cholesterol and TG concentrations were significantly lower in PPTx rats than in control and CPTx rats.

CONCLUSIONS
Chronic hyperinsulinemia has a dose-dependent inhibitory effect on the regulation of plasma TG concentrations in rats with a transplanted pancreas. Significant lower lipid levels in PPTx rats than in CPTx rats suggest that portal delivery of insulin from the transplanted pancreas is relatively preventive for the atherosclerotic process as compared with systemic delivery of insulin.


Surrealism will usher you into death, which is a secret society. It will glove your hand, burying there the profound M with which the word Memory begins. (1) Memory believes before knowing remembers. Believes longer than recollects, longer than knowing ever wonders. (2) After more than fifty years, we have no simple way to account for the haunting effect of William Faulkner's Light in August. It seems clear that we deform the novel when we attempt the procrustean task of fitting it into categories of naturalism or regionalism; when we respond to it as a literal and figurative crisis in black and white; when we work with it as a Calvinist or more broadly-Christian parable; or when we fit it into a Yoknapatawpha mythic saga. The text resists univocal attempts at demystification. Yet, however baffled by Faulkner's design, few readers are content to adopt the attitude of Lena Grove, who moves through and beyond the paradoxical realm of the novel always "waiting to be surprised" (p. 480). One of Faulkner's earliest readers, Irving Howe, described the interpretative problem Light in August poses. Like all subsequent observers, Howe was struck by the novel's powerful "scenic" substance, "more than mere pleasant landscape or inert backdrop." (3) Yet, he was troubled by the absence of a perceptive hero, a character able to come to terms with that scene through the powers of observation and intelligence. Howe thus complains of Faulkner's "failure to work into Christmas' mind ... to the point of providing the `flash-in' that we are led to desire." (4) He was even less satisfied with "the good unruffled vegetable Lena" as reference point for the novel. Ultimately, Howe is left with a tentative but suggestive vision of Light in August. He points to the novel's texture rather than its text, as a product of a painterly eye, "a series of brilliant tableaux" (5) rather than a succession of narrative events. Light in August presents Howe with visual rather than verbal incongruities, as in a scene by Breughel: The arrangement of the book ... resembles an early Renaissance painting--in the foreground a bleeding martyr, far to the rear a scene of bucolic peacefulness with women quietly working in the fields. (6) In a more contemporary reading, Albert Guerard describes Faulkner's gift for "illuminating distortion" and suggests that the novel derives its peculiar energy from "the interpenetration of the fantastic and the substantial," the evocation of images that may be startling but are also "altogether fleshly `real'." (7) Guerard could as easily be describing a surrealist painting: a work situated on the precarious border between dream and conscious perception. Light in August, with its surprising loops of time, its structure of coincidence and uncanny juxtaposition, and its exploitation of the powerful play of association, might best be viewed, from our vantage point, as Faulkner's surrealistic canvas. What Howe found a disappointing absence--Faulkner's refusal to represent the consciousness of his problematic hero--may instead signal a different presence: the liminal, the partially-concealed subconscious life, given shape through a kind of pictorial sensibility, rendered in an array of signs and symbols. There are many reasons to consider surrealism--both as ideology and art form--as intertext for Light in August. The timing is right: Tzara, Eluard, De Chirico, Magritte, Dali, Breton, Ernst, and other poets, artists and film-makers were issuing manifestoes, seemingly bent on sabotaging the censoring power of rationality and opening passageways to the unconscious: exploiting what Breton called "divine disorder." The "movement" was not confined to Europe; as film-maker Luis Bunuel recalls, "More than anything else, surrealism was a kind of call heard by certain people everywhere"; (8) it signalled an artistic and political revolt. Faulkner, who was a gifted amateur watercolorist and illustrator himself, may well have been aware of the controversy surrounding the first American exhibition of surrealist art in Hartford, and the gift of Salvador Dali's famous surrealistic painting, "The Persistence of Memory," to the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1931. …


With an emphasis on marine biogenic sulphur the first 26 months of fine particle (< 1 μm radius), aerosol data from the new air chemistry station on Zeppelinfjellet, Spitsbergen (79°N, 12°E, 474 m asl), were evaluated to elucidate source- and transformation processes of the Arctic aerosol. Results from 2 particle counters, an integrating nephelometer, and filter samples were available for our interpretation. On the filters we had analysed soot, (EC), sodium (Na + ), methansulphonate, MSA - , and sulphate (SO 4 2- ). Fine particle composition revealed a strong regional marine biological source of MSA - and SO 4 2- which we estimated to contribute 26% to the non-sea salt sulphur in summer. In winter, no more than 2% of the non-sea-salt sulphur could be attributed to the marine biological source. Rigorous air mass analyses combined with the EC data as a tracer for regional anthropogenic combustion sources showed that this regional biological source became active already in March over the Barents Sea and over the North Atlantic. In summer, the levels of the biogenic sulphur components were very similar to those measured at the southern hemispheric marine site of Cape Grim (1.5 and 0.92 nmol m -3 for MSA - and nss-SO 4 2- , respectively). For samples with minimum anthropogenic influence we found a constant MSA - /nss-SO 4 2- ratio in the fine particle size range. This ratio had a value of 28% and was temperature-independent. Our results comprise the first long-term record of Arctic aerosol data taken in the upper part of the planetary boundary layer which often is influenced by persistent Arctic stratus. With a cloud-segregation scheme we segregated the aerosol data into a group measured interstitially, i.e., inside boundary layer clouds (INT), and an out-of cloud group, (OOC). Average INT/OOC-ratios of fine particle mass, nss-SO 4 2- , and soot were 0.19, 0.21, and 0.21, respectively. While exhibiting similar INT/OOC-ratios in winter, MSA - had an average INT/OOC-ratio of 0.63 in summer implying that it was less scavenged than the other components. Complementary physical aerosol data corroborated our interpretation of MSA 1 on average residing on smaller particles than nss-SO 4 2- . Together with the scavenging results our data support the concept that MSA - most likely is formed by condensation onto existing particles while SO 4 2- predominantly is formed by in-cloud oxidation of SO 2 . DOI: 10.1034/j.1600-0889.1994.00005.x


Despite tremendous growth in the importance and reach of the Web, users have little recourse when a Web page fails to load. Web browsers provide little feedback on such failures, typically offering only generic suggestions such as re-checking the URL or the machine's network settings. Hence, users are often unable to diagnose Web access problems, and resort to haphazardly modifying their settings or simply trying again later. We advocate a client-based collaborative approach for diagnosing Web browsing failures. Our system, WebProfiler, leverages end-host cooperation to pool together observations on the success or failure of Web accesses from multiple vantage points. These are fed into a simple, collaborative blame attribution algorithm. Our evaluation on a controlled testbed shows WebProfiler can accurately diagnose 3.6 times as many failures than possible from a single client's perspective. We present the design and prototype implementation of WebProfiler for an enterprise network.


A series of Alx-(Alq3)1-x granular films is prepared on Si wafer with native oxide layer using co-evaporation technique. Large lateral photovoltaic effect (LPE) is observed, with an optimal LPV sensitivity of 75 mV/mm in x = 0.35 sample. The dependence of LPE on temperature and Al composition is investigated, and the possible mechanism is discussed.


This paper examines the working definitions of the term 'technology' across a range of disciplines such as industrial relations, organizational behaviour, operations management and development economics. The precise 'subdefinition' of technology in use depends on the disciplinary problematic. We develop a conceptual device called the technology complex to reveal the pattern that is observable when a large number of subdefinitions are compared. The technology complex is a list of the distinctive 'elements' that comprise the disciplinary subdefinitions of technology and it orders this list of elements from the 'physical' to the 'cultural'. The technology complex captures the idea that a working definition of technology will be some selection from the elements of the complex. The technology complex also captures the idea that in its most general sense 'technology' is 'knowledge related to artefacts'. We apply the technology complex to the issue of determinism in technological and social change using the examples of aircraft design and robotics. We argue that there is not an 'either—or' issue between the social and the technological influences on change since the terms are not distinct: 'technology' always includes some aspect of the social. We show how what appears to be 'technological determinism' in the examples of aircraft design and robotics use can be understood through the technology complex.


ABSTRACT In contrast to other available next-generation sequencing platforms, PacBio single-molecule, real-time (SMRT) sequencing has the advantage of generating long reads albeit with a relatively higher error rate in unprocessed data. Using this platform, we longitudinally sampled and sequenced the hepatitis C virus (HCV) envelope genome region (1,680 nucleotides [nt]) from individuals belonging to a cluster of sexually transmitted cases. All five subjects were coinfected with HIV-1 and a closely related strain of HCV genotype 4d. In total, 50 samples were analyzed by using SMRT sequencing. By using 7 passes of circular consensus sequencing, the error rate was reduced to 0.37%, and the median number of sequences was 612 per sample. A further reduction of insertions was achieved by alignment against a sample-specific reference sequence. However, in vitro recombination during PCR amplification could not be excluded. Phylogenetic analysis supported close relationships among HCV sequences from the four male subjects and subsequent transmission from one subject to his female partner. Transmission was characterized by a strong genetic bottleneck. Viral genetic diversity was low during acute infection and increased upon progression to chronicity but subsequently fluctuated during chronic infection, caused by the alternate detection of distinct coexisting lineages. SMRT sequencing combines long reads with sufficient depth for many phylogenetic analyses and can therefore provide insights into within-host HCV evolutionary dynamics without the need for haplotype reconstruction using statistical algorithms. IMPORTANCE Next-generation sequencing has revolutionized the study of genetically variable RNA virus populations, but for phylogenetic and evolutionary analyses, longer sequences than those generated by most available platforms, while minimizing the intrinsic error rate, are desired. Here, we demonstrate for the first time that PacBio SMRT sequencing technology can be used to generate full-length HCV envelope sequences at the single-molecule level, providing a data set with large sequencing depth for the characterization of intrahost viral dynamics. The selection of consensus reads derived from at least 7 full circular consensus sequencing rounds significantly reduced the intrinsic high error rate of this method. We used this method to genetically characterize a unique transmission cluster of sexually transmitted HCV infections, providing insight into the distinct evolutionary pathways in each patient over time and identifying the transmission-associated genetic bottleneck as well as fluctuations in viral genetic diversity over time, accompanied by dynamic shifts in viral subpopulations.


The high-technology industry has been developing in Taiwan for about 20 years and has become the biggest export industry in Taiwan with the third largest share of the world marked (after the USA and Japan). It not only produces high-tech talents and employment opportunities, but also demonstrates considerable overall growth and is advancing industrial and economic development. However, several severe fire and earthquake disasters that the semiconductor industry has encountered have caused it to suffer uncountable damage to and loss of property, for which the fire underwriters have paid huge compensation. As a result, most foreign fire underwriters are very cautious about accepting re-insurance for semiconductor companies in Taiwan. This research begins with an analysis of the building characteristics of plant and the potential dangers therein. Then it designs an effective safety system for such plants, which may help prevent disasters or lower the loss arising. Finally, this research suggests establishing the "emergency response and disaster recovery system" as a reference for the industry to implement safety management.


This small-scale study, undertaken by NFER and NESTA, revealed both benefits and challenges of implementing a flipped learning approach to mathematics teaching. Flipped learning involves the use of digital technology, such as video, to provide direct instruction on new concepts outside of the classroom. Students come to lessons already having a preliminary understanding of the topic, freeing up class time for the teacher to focus on other beneficial learning activities. Nine case-study schools across England and Scotland piloted a flipped learning approach for around 4-6 weeks during 2014-2015. Each case study visit involved lesson observations, teacher interviews, student focus groups and teacher and student questionnaires with both a class using flipped learning and a comparison class. Detailed and specific guides to implementing flipped learning accompany the research report. Key Findings: Where flipped learning was reported to work effectively, there was more time in class for active learning activities, such as: practising and applying mathematical knowledge; individualised coaching support provided by the teacher; collaborative learning; and whole-class discussion Flipped learning encouraged students to take responsibility for their learning, to learn at their own pace, to deepen their knowledge and understanding and to make faster progress than would otherwise have been the case Enabling factors and challenges included access to technology, homework culture, appropriateness of online resources to the age and ability level of students and teachers' openness to the approach and capacity to implement it Most teachers in the study intended to continue using flipped learning, or aspects of it, as part of a varied repertoire of teaching strategies and to develop its potential further.


Care in context is edited by academics, based in South Africa and Switzerland, who have all published extensively in academic journals and books. Their writing covers a range of topics, including women and gender, HIV/AIDS and gender, gender-based violence and educational issues.
The book has a foreword by Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, Executive Director for United Nations (UN) Women, who advocates for the equal sharing of care duties by men and women, in order to give girls an opportunity to reach their potential. In the preface, Joan C. Tronto of the University of Minnesota notes that there is an element of justice and human rights to caring, and that it is a holistic matter.


This work presents a design of drying small food particles like tea, tobacco with a reduced height of about fifty percent compared to the convectional straight type. The geometry is designed such that, the particle leave the dryer at an average constant time, to prevent variation in the dryness properties, Simulation result of straight type dryer in FLUENT, the commercial software is validated by industrial data implemented in MATLAB, which shows reasonable agreement. A reduced height type with a swirling or screw type is designed to reduce the height and also maintain the drying residence time.


To the extent the primacy of justice is acknowledged in tax policy debate, such acknowledgment is coupled with the assertion that, of course, questions of justice cannot be meaningfully debated. The discussants then attempt to resolve the issue in question by use of ad hoc arguments of fairness and efficiency. The major purpose of this article is to show that not only is justice the primary issue, but that questions of justice can be meaningfully addressed. First, I will examine some of the ad hoc arguments of fairness and efficiency which have been made by proponents of a consumption base and will point out the unpersuasiveness of such arguments when the primacy question of justice has not been addressed. Next, I will show that while true utilitarians would acknowledge the primacy of justice, utilitarianism is no more persuasive than ad hoc maxims with respect to questions of justice. Next, I will explain how the relative merits of competing principles of social justice can be meaningfully debated by non-philosophers within the framework for comparative philosophical analysis developed by John Rawls. I will then examine the principles of social justice described by John Rawls and explain both the purpose that an income tax plays in a society structured in accordance with these principles and the definition of income that should be adopted by a society so structured. I will then consider the purpose of the income tax and the indicated definition of income under a libertarian theory of justice. Finally, I will illustrate the use of the Rawlsian framework for comparative philosophical analysis by examining how libertarian principles of justice might be derived and justified.


Experiments on a quasi-two-dimensional Belousov-Zhabotinsky (BZ) reaction-diffusion system, pe- riodically forced at approximately twice its natural frequency, exhibit resonant labyrinthine patterns that develop through two distinct mechanisms. In both cases, large amplitude labyrinthine patterns f orm that consist ofinterpenetrating fingers off requency-locked regions differing in phase by π. Analysis of a forced complex Ginzburg-Landau equation captures both mechanisms observed for the f ormation ofthe labyrinths in the BZ experiments: a transverse instability off ront structures and a nucleation of stripes from unlocked oscillations. The labyrinths are found in the experiments and in the model at a similar location in the forcing amplitude and frequency parameter plane.


Takings jurisprudence is engaged in a constant paradox. It is conventionally portrayed as chaotic and muddy, and yet attempts by the judiciary to create some sense of order in it by delineating the field into distinctive categories that each have a different set of rules are often criticized as analytically incoherent or normatively indefensible. This Article offers an innovative approach to the taxonomic enterprise in takings law, by examining what is probably its starkest and most entrenched division: that between taking and taxing. American courts have been nearly unanimous in refusing to scrutinize the power to tax, viewing this form of government action as falling outside the scope of the Takings Clause. Critics have argued that the presence of government coercion, loss of private value, and potential imbalances in burden sharing mandate that the two instances be conceptually synchronized and subject to similar doctrinal tests. The main thesis of this Article is that this dichotomy, and other types of legal line drawing in property, should be assessed not on the basis of a pointblank analysis of allegedly-comparable specific instances, but rather on a broader view of the foundational principles of American property law and of the way in which takings taxonomies mesh with the broader social and jurisprudential understanding of what "property" is. Identifying American property law as conforming to two fundamental principles-formalism of rights and strong market propensity-but at the same time as devoid of a constitutional undertaking to protect privately-held value against potential losses as a self-standing strand in the property bundle, this Article explains why prevailing forms of taxation do seem to be disparate from other forms of governmental interventions with private property. Focusing attention on property taxation, this Article shows why taxation is considered a lesser-evil type of government coercion, how the taking/taxing dichotomy better addresses the public-private interplay in property law, and why taxation is often viewed as actually empowering property rights and private control of assets.


The dynamic performance of motor bearings is highly influential on the performance of the entire motor system. More specifically, the presence of bearing defects often results in reduced efficiency, or even severe damage, of the motor under consideration. In order to determine when it is necessary to take a motor off-line for preventative maintenance, these faults must be diagnosed. In this paper, the frequency spectrum of the bearing vibration signal is analyzed using a fuzzy logic fault diagnosis methodology. The preliminary results show that fuzzy logic can be used for accurate bearing fault diagnosis if the input data is processed in an advantageous way.


Equations for Rayleigh scattering in a mixture of gases are derived and compared to frequent approximations in the literature. The traditional Rayleigh scattering equation as modified by King for scatter from a pure gas is correct, whereas another version sometimes appearing in modern literature is erroneous. Use of a mixture's refractive index, which is equivalent to assuming the isotropic molecular polarizabilities of the component gases are identical, is an approximation. Another common approximation is using only number-density weighting of the King factors. Approximation errors can be large when the major components of a mixture have disparate optical properties. Fortunately, the errors for Earth's air are much smaller and comparable to errors from other sources.


We address the problem of scheduling a multiclass M/M/m queue with Bernoulli feedback on m parallel servers to minimize time-average linear holding costs. We analyze the performance of a heuristic priority-index rule, which extends Klimov's optimal solution to the single-server case: servers select preemptively customers with larger Klimov indices. We present closed-form suboptimality bounds approximate optimality for Klimov's rule, which imply that its suboptimality gap is uniformly bounded above with respect to i external arrival rates, as long as they stay within system capacity; and ii the number of servers. It follows that its relative suboptimality gap vanishes in a heavy-traffic limit, as external arrival rates approach system capacity heavy-traffic optimality. We obtain simpler expressions for the special no-feedback case, where the heuristic reduces to the classical cµ rule. Our analysis is based on comparing the expected cost of Klimov's rule to the value of a strong linear programming LP relaxation of the system's region of achievable performance of mean queue lengths. In order to obtain this relaxation, we derive and exploit a new set of work decomposition laws for the parallel-server system. We further report on the results of a computational study on the quality of the cµ rule for parallel scheduling.


Most of the existing personalization systems such as content recommenders or targeted ads focus on individual users and ignore the social situation in which the services are consumed. However, many human activities are social and involve several individuals whose tastes and expectations must be taken into account by the system. When a group profile is not available, different profile aggregation strategies can be applied to recommend adequate items to a group of users based on their individual profiles. We consider an approach intended to determine the factors that influence the choice of an aggregation strategy. We present evaluations made on a large-scale dataset of TV viewings, where real group interests are compared to the predictions obtained by combining individual user profiles according to different strategies.


A crucial challenge for economists is figuring out how people interpret the world and form expectations that will likely influence their economic activity. Inflation, asset prices, exchange rates, investment, and consumption are just some of the economic variables that are largely explained by expectations. Here George Evans and Seppo Honkapohja bring new explanatory power to a variety of expectation formation models by focusing on the learning factor. Whereas the rational expectations paradigm offers the prevailing method to determining expectations, it assumes very theoretical knowledge on the part of economic actors. Evans and Honkapohja contribute to a growing body of research positing that households and firms learn by making forecasts using observed data, updating their forecast rules over time in response to errors. This book is the first systematic development of the new statistical learning approach. Depending on the particular economic structure, the economy may converge to a standard rational-expectations or a "rational bubble" solution, or exhibit persistent learning dynamics. The learning approach also provides tools to assess the importance of new models with expectational indeterminacy, in which expectations are an independent cause of macroeconomic fluctuations. Moreover, learning dynamics provide a theory for the evolution of expectations and selection between alternative equilibria, with implications for business cycles, asset price volatility, and policy. This book provides an authoritative treatment of this emerging field, developing the analytical techniques in detail and using them to synthesize and extend existing research.


The control of time-delay bilateral teleoperation systems involves a delicate tradeoff between the conflicting requirements of transparency and robust stability. The control design is complicated by latency in data communication between the master and slave sites, as well as uncertainties in the dynamics of operator, master, slave, and environment. This paper proposes a systematic design procedure for improving teleoperation fidelity while maintaining its stability in the presence of dynamic uncertainty and a constant time delay. In a two-step control approach, first local Lyapunov-based adaptive/nonlinear controllers are applied to linearize the system dynamics and eliminate dependency on the master and slave parameters. Teleoperation coordination, subject to parametric uncertainty in the user and environment dynamics, is then achieved by formulating an I/O time-delay Hinfin robust control synthesis that is solved via its decomposition to the so-called adobe problems. The transparency and robust stability properties of the proposed method is examined via numerical analysis. Furthermore, the results are successfully validated in experiments.


This classic book contains an introduction to systems of l-adic representations, a topic of great importance in number theory and algebraic geometry, as reflected by the spectacular recent developments on the Taniyama-Weil conjecture and Fermat's Last Theorem. The initial chapters are devoted to the Abelian case (complex multiplication), where one finds a nice correspondence between the l-adic representations and the linear representations of some algebraic groups (now called Taniyama groups). The last chapter handles the case of elliptic curves with no complex multiplication, the main result of which is that the image of the Galois group (in the corresponding l-adic representation) is "large."


This document specifies an experimental multicast handover
optimization mechanism for Proxy Mobile IPv6 (PMIPv6) to accelerate
the delivery of multicast traffic to mobile nodes after handovers. The
mechanism, called Subscription Information Acquisition through the LMA
(SIAL), is based on speeding up the acquisition of mobile nodes'
multicast context by the mobile access gateways. To do that,
extensions to the current PMIPv6 protocol are proposed. These
extensions are not only applicable to the base solution for multicast
support in Proxy Mobile IPv6, but they can also be applied to other
solutions developed to avoid the tunnel convergence problem.
Furthermore, these extensions are also independent of the role played
by the mobile access gateway within the multicast network (acting as
either multicast listener discovery proxy or multicast router).


marc h 20 09 JE A N -F RA N CO IS P O D EV IN Our intuition, going back forever, is that to move, say, a rock, one has to touch that rock, or touch a stick that touches the rock, or give an order that travels via vibrations through the air to the ear of a man with a stick that can then push the rock—or some such sequence. This intuition, more generally, is that things can only directly affect other things that are right next to them. If A affects B without being right next to it, then the effect in question must be indirect—the effect in question must be something that gets transmitted by means of a chain of events in which each event brings about the next one directly, in a manner that smoothly spans the distance from A to B. Every time we think we can come up with an exception to this intuition—say, flipping a switch that turns on city street lights (but then we realize that this happens through wires) or listening to a BBC radio broadcast (but then we realize that radio waves propagate through the air)—it turns out that we have not, in fact, thought of an exception. Not, that is, in our everyday experience of the world. We term this intuition "locality." Quantum mechanics has upended many an intuition, but none deeper than this one. And this particular upending carries with it a threat, as yet unresolved, to special relativity—a foundation stone of our 21st-century physics.


An analysis of New Zealand's vegetation cover is presented, based on vegetation information from the New Zealand Land Resource Inventory. This survey, undertaken between 1973 and 1979, recorded vegetation in homogeneous land inventory map units as part of a physical resource inventory, using a classification of 45 vegetation components covering indigenous and introduced vegetation cover. The analysis is presented within the framework of a classification of New Zealand's vegetation cover, which is a functional grouping of the most common combinations of vegetation mapped. The classification emphasises the number of significant components of vegetation cover within map units rather than their importance or dominance. The total of 6863 different combinations of vegetation cover recorded in 89875 map units have been aggregated into 232 primary units of vegetation cover, termed vegetation cover categories. These were grouped into 88 vegetation cover classes and II vegetation cover groups. The latter, identifying the components of New Zealand's vegetation cover at the broadest level were as follows: grassland (22.5% of the New Zealand land area), grassland-cropland (8.2 %), scrubland and fernland (2.2%), forest (18.3%), forest-scrub (7.7%), grassland-scrub (26%), grassland with forest (3% forest with grassland (0.7%), grassland-scrub-forest (5.3%), miscellaneous (2.2%), no vegetation (3.9%). The analysis is briefly discussed and compared with other available information. The comparatively detailed analysis of grassland and scrubland vegetation has revealed the large extent of mixed vegetation cover, especially grassland-scrub mixtures. It is concluded that the analysis confirms the dynamic and complex nature of New Zealand's present vegetation cover.


We propose an approach to insert physical objects in audio digital signal processing chains, filtering the sound with the acoustic impulse response of any solid measured in real-time. We model physical objects as a linear time-invariant system, which is used as an audio filter. By interacting with the object or with the measuring hardware we can dynamically modify the characteristics of the filter. The impulse response is obtained correlating a noise signal injected in the object through an acoustic actuator with the signal received from an acoustic sensor placed on the object. We also present an efficient multichannel implementation of the system, which enables further creative applications beyond audio filtering, including tangible signal patching and sound spatialization.


"Men and women have the right to live their lives and raise their children in dignity, free from hunger and from the fear of violence, oppression or injustice. Democratic and participatory governance based on the will of the people best assures these rights." (United Nations Millennium Declaration, 2000, p. 2). I. Introduction In many parts of Africa (especially sub-Saharan Africa) there exists a shortage of qualified human resources, particularly in the skilled (e.g., engineers, accountants, computer scientists) and professional (e.g., attorneys, physicians, teachers, professors) sectors of society, for a plethora of reasons, not the least of which is "brain drain." "Brain drain" is the process whereby a country's skilled and highly skilled workforce perpetually leave the country for a variety of reasons. As a result, the political and economic systems are transformed and can become fragile, even more so in weak states. Moreover, large-scale departures (emigration or mass exoduses) of corporate executives and university graduates have contributed to this shortage. This mass exodus is primarily due to the desire to improve their living conditions, either by pursuing higher education studies abroad or by seeking better paying jobs. Other native citizens depart to flee from insecurity created by civil unrest, regional conflicts, and repressive authoritarian regimes exacerbated by unstable political and socioeconomic conditions. The resulting "brain drain" heightens the dependency of African economies on foreign aid. The aid is primarily from the West, which is often viewed as a new form of colonialism, that is, neo-colonialism. This new form of colonialism creates an abyss of dependent economic entrenchment. As more African countries make the arduous transition to democratic rule (currently nineteen of the fifty-three countries are democracies), the likelihood of mass exoduses may become less attractive, since democracies tend to accommodate skilled and highly skilled workers far better than non-democracies. By accommodation, we are talking about things like higher wages and salaries, adequate healthcare, advanced educational opportunities and more opportunities for vertical mobility in all sectors of society. However, even if the mass exoduses continue, I am suggesting that civil society and emigration may actually create vacuums of opportunities for ordinary as well as privileged citizens throughout Africa. Thus, this paper seeks to view democratic transitions and consolidation in nascent democracies in Africa from an alternative paradigm. That is, by investigating democratization in Africa while considering civil society and push and pull factors like emigration and "brain drain," such evidence should reveal more germane discussions on the complexities of democratization in Africa. Perhaps, nascent African democracies may be creating an alternative wave of democracy as opposed to "riding" the third wave (Huntington 1991). Qualitatively and quantitatively measuring democratic processes and outcomes in Africa is a recent occurrence, and most results are tenuous at best and inconclusiveness at worst because of the various methodological analyses, which do not necessarily reflect the complexities in Africa (McHenry 2000). Nevertheless, democratization is a maturation process as it always has been in emerging democracies as well as developed Western democracies. However, because of the enduring entrenchment of ethnic, class, and religious cleavages, the process of democratization is that much more demanding for embryonic democracies in Africa. Akinrinade (1999, p. 238) appropriately warns us that "democratization can be a highly disruptive process as it encourages existing conflicts to manifest freely." Akinrinade (1999, p. 238) goes onto to posit that "democracy presupposes and requires elite fragmentation, the formation of competing groups that jostle for power in a consolidated political space. …


Background Methotrexate (MTX) has been used to treat psoriasis for over half a century. Even so, clinical data characterising its efficacy and safety are sparse. Objective In order to enhance the available evidence, we conducted two meta-analyses, one for efficacy and one for safety outcomes, respectively, according to PRISMA checklist. (Data sources, study criteria, and study synthesis methods are detailed in Methods). Results In terms of efficacy, only eleven studies met criteria for study design and passed a Cochrane risk of bias analysis. Based on this limited dataset, 45.2% [95% confidence interval 34.1–60.0] of patients achieve PASI75 at primary endpoint (12 or 16 weeks, respectively, n = 705 patients across all studies), compared to a calculated PASI75 of 4.4 [3.5–5.6] for placebo, yielding a relative risk of 10.2 [95% C.I. 7.1–14.7]. For safety outcomes, we extended the meta-analysis to include studies employing the same dose range of MTX for other chronic inflammatory conditions, e.g. rheumatoid arthritis, in order not to maximise capture of relevant safety data. Based on 2763 patient safety years, adverse events (AEs) were found treatment limiting in 6.9 ± 1.4% (mean ± s.e.) of patients treated for six months, with an adverse effect profile largely in line with that encountered in clinical practice. Finally, in order to facilitate prospective clinical audit and to help generate long-term treatment outcomes under real world conditions, we also developed an easy to use documentation form to be completed by patients without requirement for additional staff time. Limitations Meta-analyses for efficacy and safety, respectively, employed non-identical selection criteria. Conclusions These meta-analyses summarise currently available evidence on MTX in psoriasis and should be of use to gauge whether local results broadly fall within outcomes.


Most recommender systems use Collaborative Filtering or Content-based methods to predict new items of interest for a user. While both methods have their own advantages, individually they fail to provide good recommendations in many situations. Incorporating components from both methods, a hybrid recommender system can overcome these shortcomings. In this paper, we present an elegant and effective framework for combining content and collaboration. Our approach uses a content-based predictor to enhance existing user data, and then provides personalized suggestions through collaborative filtering followed by clustering. We present experimental results that show how this approach, Clustered Content-Boosted Collaborative Filtering, performs better than a pure content-based predictor, pure collaborative filter, and a naive hybrid approach.


Informative art is computer augmented, or amplified, works of art that not only are aesthetical objects but also information displays, in as much as they dynamically reflect information about their environment. Informative art can be seen as a kind of slow technology, i.e. a technology that promotes moments of concentration and reflection. Our aim is to present the design space of informative art. We do so by discussing its properties and possibilities in relation to work on information visualisation, novel information display strategies, as well as art. A number of examples based on different kinds of mapping relations between information and the properties of the composition of an artwork are described.


Background : To better understand the childhood physical inactivity crisis, Report Cards on physical activity of children and youth were prepared concurrently in 30 very high Human Development Index countries. The aim of this article was to present, describe, and compare the fi ndings from these Report Cards. Methods : The Report Cards were developed using a harmonized process for data gathering, assessing, and assigning grades to 10 common physical activity indicators. Descriptive statistics were calculated after converting letter grades to interval variables, and correlational analyses between the 10 common indicators were performed using Spearman ' s rank correlation coef fi cients. Results : A matrix of 300 grades was obtained with substantial variations within and between countries. Low grades were observed for behavioral indicators, and higher grades were observed for sources of in fl uence indicators, indicating a disconnect between supports and desired behaviors. Conclusion : This analysis summarizes the level and context of the physical activity of children and youth among very high Human Development Index countries, and provides additional evidence that the situation regarding physical activity in children and youth is very concerning. Unless a major shift to a more active lifestyle happens soon, a high rate of noncommunicable diseases can be anticipated when this generation of children reaches adulthood.


In this project, the concept of employing liquefied gas compounds as draw agent has been investigated among 137 gaseous compounds by determining their high solubility in water, the resulting osmotic pressure and their re-generation through thermal-depression methods. The screening process resulted in an organic liquefied gas draw solution suitable for Forward Osmosis desalination process. This is a polar, non-ideal with partially miscibility under 4 bars external pressure generates an osmotic pressure at maximum solubility (34% weight percentage) of 220 bars which is seven times more than seawater osmotic pressure. In addition, there is a significant reduction in solubility of the liqefied gas in water when the external pressure on draw solution is reduced from 4 bars to atmospheric pressure. This suggests that the liquefied gas draw agent could be separated from the solution by depression – thermal processes such as gas striping or atmospheric-vacuume flash methods. The performance of FO process using the novel liquefied gas draw solution was simulated using Excel software to achieve optimum operating conditions including operating temperature, cross flow rate and draw solution concentration. The results showed that the draw solution side should be kept under a pressure of maximum 10 bars. This depends on the operating temperature to dissolved the liquefied gas in water as much as possible. However, the operating pressure of the feed side could vary to cover a range 1 bar to 10 bar.

Furthermore, the feasibility of the integrated Forward Osmosis process and depression - compression methods for seawater desalination was investigated in terms of estimating the specific energy consumption (SEC) using HYSYS 7.2 simulation software. The specific energy consumption (SEC) was predicted at optimum operating conditions resulting from FO process simulation based on the production of 1m3/h of potable water from seawater at a recovery rate of 50%. The electrical energy requirement of the process was calculated and the result of simulation was compared to the energy requirement of current desalination technologies. Energy saving of the novel FO desalination process is projected to range from 30% to 60%. The estimated SEC of the present FO desalination process was 2.7kWh/m3 and could be decreased to 0.5kWh/m3 when a heat recovery process is used.

The results presented in this project demonstrate that the proposed novel forward osmosis desalination process with thermal-depression regeneration using the liquefied gas draw solution is a feasible and cost-effective desalination method. The novel draw agent produces high osmotic pressure and can be easily separated from the product clean water by using low-pressure steam with temperature input less than 150°C. While the feed water recovery in the FO process is higher than other desalination methods, the specific energy consumption of this novel FO desalination process is significantly low.

The future works should focus on experimental tests to measure the osmotic pressure, permeated water flux, reverse draw agent flux and energy consumption in a bench scale or a pilot unit studies.

A patent application, based on the present process, has recently been filled at the UK patent Office and the application number is GB1321711.2 (Adel Sharif and Maryam Aryafar, A novel Forward Osmosis Desalination process, GB1321711.2, 2013).


The accuracy of implantation using navigation and robotic hip replacement (THR) has been proven and accepted. Time taken for the use of technology, has been one of the major factors quoted by many surgeons for not using it. Aim was to analyse the time taken during different steps of the procedure and identify which part needs further improvement. Secondary aim was to compare the time with computer navigation technology. 20 total joint replacements were carried out with MAKO robotic system using extended software version, which includes both acetabular and femoral guidance. The times of different surgical steps were noted. After the incision was made, and joint exposed the trackers for the pelvis and femur were then inserted, tightened and verification pins inserted. Femoral registration matching was started at 15 minutes (SD5.4 Range7-22). Femoral Neck Cut level was made at 22.5 minutes (SD4.5 Range15-29). It took mean 7.5 minutes to match the femoral anatomy to preop CT scan anatomy. Pelvic registration matching was done at 42.4 minutes (SD5.9 Range33-50). It took average 8.4 minutes to match pelvic anatomy. Bone reaming was with robotic arm at 50.8minutes (SD5.5 Range40-57). The cup was impacted at 56.2 minutes (SD5.2 Range45-60). Cementing stem added 14 minutes. The navigation hip replacement surgery took mean 60 minutes in uncemented and 72minutes for cemented stems. Robotic technique took 10 minutes longer. There is room for improvement in two main modifiable steps. Total registration matching time which took 16 minutes and using a uncemented stem. Should time constraint supersede accuracy achievable with technology?


A new method based on the boundary element method (BEM) is developed to calculate high quality factors of whispering-gallery modes by studying the Poynting vector. The method has high calculation accuracy, which exceeds traditional methods with the same PC computation resource. To demonstrate the feasibility of the present method, circular and quadrupole microcavities are investigated with this method and compared with the results by analytical and finite element method (FEM) results, respectively.


In this paper, we introduce a generic framework for semi-supervised kernel learning. Given pair-wise (dis-)similarity constraints, we learn a kernel matrix over the data that respects the provided side-information as well as the local geometry of the data. Our framework is based on metric learning methods, where we jointly model the metric/kernel over the data along with the underlying manifold. Furthermore, we show that for some important parameterized forms of the underlying manifold model, we can estimate the model parameters and the kernel matrix efficiently. Our resulting algorithm is able to incorporate local geometry into the metric learning task; at the same time it can handle a wide class of constraints. Finally, our algorithm is fast and scalable -- unlike most of the existing methods, it is able to exploit the low dimensional manifold structure and does not require semi-definite programming. We demonstrate wide applicability and effectiveness of our framework by applying to various machine learning tasks such as semi-supervised classification, colored dimensionality reduction, manifold alignment etc. On each of the tasks our method performs competitively or better than the respective state-of-the-art method.


Aim: The aim of the present pilot study was to evaluate the clinical performance of a recently developed glass-ionomer cement with coating in permanent teeth within a 12-month period. Methods: Forty-five Equia restorations were placed in 35 permanent molars, 6 premolars and 4 permanent anterior teeth in 27 patients. Equia restorations were clinically evaluated at baseline and at recalls after 3, 6 and 12 months. Modified USPHS evaluation criteria were used for assessment of restorations for retention, color matching, marginal discoloration, marginal adaptation, secondary carious lesions, surface texture, anatomic form and postoperative sensitivity. Restorations were scored as follows: Alpha represented the ideal clinical situation; Bravo was clinically acceptable; Charlie was clinically unacceptable situations where the restoration had to be replaced. Results: After one year, none of the restorations failed according to the modified USPHS evaluation criteria. Secondary caries and postoperative sensitivity were not observed in any of the restorations. Conclusion: Within the limitations of the present studs, the results suggest that the new glass-ionomer cement restorations with coating are clinically acceptable, but further studies of longer durations are needed to confirm these outcomes.    Normal 0


Spatially disaggregated maps of the incidence of poverty can be constructed by combining household survey data and census data. In some cases, however, statistical authorities are reluctant, for reasons of confidentiality, to release household-level census data. This paper examines the loss in precision associated with using aggregated census data, such as village- or district-level means of the data. We show analytically that using aggregated census data will result in poverty rates that are biased downward (upward) if the rate is below (above) 50 percent and that the bias approaches zero as the poverty rate approaches zero, 50 percent, and 100 percent. Using data from Vietnam, we find that the average absolute error in estimating provincial poverty rates is about 2 percentage points if the data are aggregated to the enumeration-area level and around 3-4 percentage points if they are aggregated to the provincial level. Even census data aggregated to the provincial level perform reasonably well in ranking the 61 provinces by the incidence of poverty: the average absolute error in ranking is 0.92.


Chlamydomonas reinhardtii is a unicellular green alga. In C. reinhardtii, three types of photoreceptors are known to be present: rhodopsins, phototropins, and cryptochromes. The single cryptochrome is the most likely photoreceptor for adjusting the circadian clock to the daily light/dark cycles, because cryptochromes are involved in clock entrainment in higher plants and insects. In this segment of the research, C. reinhardtii strains, which were genetically modified through transformation with a RNA interference construct, were screened for reduction in cryptochrome compared to the control strain. After C. reinhardtii cultures were harvested in complete darkness, all soluble proteins were extracted from the cells. The proteins were subjected to Western blot (immunoblot) analysis with chemiluminescent detection. Quantification of the images obtained with a digital camera revealed cryptochrome reductions between 0 and 50 percent in the ten strains tested. Should the strains with 50 percent reduction show a reduced ability to entrain to light/dark cycles, such results would suggest that cryptochrome is the primary photoreceptor that controls circadian clock resetting in C.


Large photonic bandgaps (PBGs) have been obtained by sweeping linearly the parameters of complex sublattices inside the unitary cells of square- and triangular-lattice photonic crystals. An efficient frequency-domain finite-element method with periodical boundary conditions has been used for theoretical analyses. PBGs in silicon/air photonic crystals for both polarization modes have been considered for up to 21 eigenmodes and both low- and high-order PBGs have been obtained by this relatively simple systematic process.


A tailored model of a system is the prerequisite for various analysis tasks, such as anomaly detection, fault identification, or quality assurance. This paper deals with the algorithmic learning of a system's behavior model given a sample of observations. In particular, we consider real-world production plants where the learned model must capture timing behavior, dependencies between system variables, as well as mode switches—in short: hybrid system's characteristics. Usually, such model formation tasks are solved by human engineers, entailing the well-known bunch of problems including knowledge acquisition, development cost, or lack of experience. Our contributions to the outlined field are as follows. (1) We present a taxonomy of learning problems related to model formation tasks. As a result, an important open learning problem for the domain of production system is identified: The learning of hybrid timed automata. (2) For this class of models, the learning algorithm HyBUTLA is presented. This algorithm is the first of its kind to solve the underlying model formation problem at scalable precision. (3) We present two case studies that illustrate the usability of this approach in realistic settings. (4) We give a proof for the learning and runtime properties of HyBUTLA.