Given that 3D scan matching is such a central part of the perception pipeline for robots, thorough and large-scale investigations of scan matching performance are still surprisingly few. A crucial part of the scientific method is to perform experiments that can be replicated by other researchers in order to compare different results. In light of this fact, this paper presents a thorough comparison of 3D scan registration algorithms using a recently published benchmark protocol which makes use of a publicly available challenging data set that covers a wide range of environments. In particular, we evaluate two types of recent 3D registration algorithms - one local and one global. Both approaches take local surface structure into account, rather than matching individual points. After well over 100 000 individual tests, we conclude that algorithms using the normal distributions transform (NDT) provides accurate results compared to a modern implementation of the iterative closest point (ICP) method, when faced with scan data that has little overlap and weak geometric structure. We also demonstrate that the minimally uncertain maximum consensus (MUMC) algorithm provides accurate results in structured environments without needing an initial guess, and that it provides useful measures to detect whether it has succeeded or not. We also propose two amendments to the experimental protocol, in order to provide more valuable results in future implementations.


The fastest growing segment of the global population is the one that has to date largely been overlooked by the food industry and relatively few food and drink products have been actively targeted to these ageing consumers (Costa & Jongen 2010, Hensel 2012). The majority of new products that are introduced are positioned to a younger demographic – the principal grocery shopper aged 21 to 49 years – under the premise that marketers are interested in securing product adoption at a younger age. The potential market for food products for older consumers over 65 years who represent the single fastest growing demographic in the food industry worldwide remains largely ignored. There are significant opportunities for the food industry to look to an older demographic population for product insights and to develop products to meet the wide variety of needs that this population offers.


Imparting residual compressive stresses in the surface layers of metallic components is one of the ways to improve their fatigue strength characteristics. Shot peening is employed for imparting residual stresses by means of cold work. Shot peening is a complex random process with many input variables. The material responses include residual stresses, cold work, surface roughness, micro-cracks and micro-structure changes. To obtain the maximum fatigue strength, the designer needs to consider both favorable and detrimental aspects of these responses together. The prediction of the responses from the input parameters involves many methods spanning across multiple-disciplines such as plasticity, fracture, optimization etc. The paper presents an overview of the studies that predict the various material responses and suggests a method based on continuum mechanics in order to optimize the fatigue strength of any material.


This dissertation consists of four essays that study topics in macroeconomics, finance and their interplay using nonlinear quantitative equilibrium models and state of the art econometric techniques. Chapter 1 proposes a general equilibrium model with financial intermediation and sovereign default risk to study the macroeconomic consequences of news regarding a future sovereign default. The model, estimated on Italian data, is used to measure the output losses of the 2010-2012 sovereign debt crisis, and to evaluate the effects of credit policies implemented by European authorities. Chapter 2 proposes a new class of time series model that can be used to measure nonlinearities in the data and to evaluate the fit of Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium (DSGE) models solved with high order perturbation. We first characterize this class, the Quadratic Autoregressive (QAR) model. We then show how the QAR model can be used as a diagnostic tool to assess whether a DSGE model is able to replicate the nonlinear behavior of a set of U.S. aggregate time series. Chapter 3 studies the determinants of medium term movements in the market value of U.S. corporations. We find that secular movements in the mean and volatility of TFP growth are strongly associated with these medium term fluctuations in asset prices. These empirical findings are then interpreted within a production based asset pricing model where the mean and volatility of aggregate productivity growth varies over time. We show that the model can rationalize a sizable elasticity of asset prices to the drivers of aggregate productivity. Chapter 4 proposes a method to identify Harrod-neutral technology shocks in the data in presence of input heterogeneity in the aggregate production function. We prove that, in a wide class of models, Harrod-neutral technology shocks are the only one consistent with a certain form of balanced growth. We then use this property to identify Harrod-neutral shocks using a state-space model. Monte Carlo simulations show that the proposed method performs very well in small samples. Degree Type Dissertation Degree Name Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Graduate Group Economics First Advisor Frank Schorfheide Subject Categories Economics This dissertation is available at ScholarlyCommons: http://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/1212 ESSAYS ON NONLINEAR MACROECONOMIC DYNAMICS Luigi Bocola A DISSERTATION in Economics Presented to the Faculties of the University of Pennsylvania in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy


This paper analyses the celebration of Christmas through the lens of Eric Hobsbawm's theory of invented tradition, as well as how this process of invention can contribute to the discourse on contemporary Christmas issues. According to Hobsbawm's theory, an invented tradition is a custom that purposely fabricates a sense of historical continuity and appears to be old-fashioned even when it is new. This paper argues that the holiday, which began as a rowdy carnival and transformed into a quiet domestic affair, was invented through a process that combined disparate elements from paganism, Christianity, and secular customs. The paper investigates both the initial celebration as well as its modern manifestation. Such an analysis demonstrates that Christmas has no true, standardized, or infallible form. The subsequent examination of the contemporary Christmas issues involving paganism, commercialism, secularism, and multiculturalism accordingly demonstrates that the holiday cannot be categorized as fully Christian or non-Christian, or religious or secular. For example, the renaming of Christmas trees as "holiday trees" suggests both the Christian nature of Christmas as well as the celebration's secular capacity for inclusivity. Subsequently, this paper concludes that the hybridity of Christmas is necessary for negotiating expected and ostensibly clear boundaries within modern thinking and society.


Successful YY technology depends on the production of XY females. However, their identification is complicated because they are indistinguishable from normal females. Atypical fish could offer an alternative for a more rapid and precise identification. Progeny of atypical fish was evaluated in order to produce YY-males. In total, nine atypical fish and 18 normal males were selected. The fish were placed in 8 m 3 concrete tanks at a 2:1 sex ratio. The produced fry were collected and reared at 28 ± 1oC in 85 L aquaria. Juveniles were placed in net cages for 30 days and finally in 8 m 3 concrete tanks until the age of 120 days. Progeny test was achieved evaluating differences between sexes in the genital papilla structure. Six of the nine atypical fish selected showed the 3:1 sex ratio (male-female) expected for sex-reversed females. A significantly higher proportion of males than the expected 3:1 distribution were observed in two atypical fish. This boost in male proportion could be attributed to a parental effect interacting with the water temperature during the fry stage. Use of atypical fish could help reduce the time and effort spent to identify XY females during the initial stage of YY technology.


Although humans can discriminate a huge number of odours, the mechanisms behind the perception of odours are not well understood. The theory of the present essay and our experiments were developed with the view that odours are homogeneous perceptions (as opposed to visual objects that are heterogeneous percepts). Other typical examples of homogeneous perceptions are colours and some emotional states. Thus, through perceptual learning, which is a prerequisite for perceiving, we become aware of and may recognise odours in the environment. Typically, odours are detected at very low concentrations as compared to chemical instruments, the "electronic nose" inclusive. Four principles of investigating the human world of odour qualities are discussed: (i) classification and sorting according to odour-quality resemblance, (ii) using names and verbal attributes for odour sources, (iii) using odour qualities for a representative set of reference odorants, and (iv) measuring odour quality by similarity scaling of pairs of odorous stimuli. Although a huge number of odours can be discriminated, the quality of odour mixtures is intermediary among the odour qualities of their components. This applies to single chemical compounds or mixtures thereof and for very broadband mixtures like indoor air. Our perceptual world simply consists of a massive amount of odour qualities potentially attributable to sources in the environment. Their organisation is, however, still a mystery.


A long-view interview with filmmaker Billy Woodberry conducted by screenwriter and scholar Josslyn Luckett gives the filmmaker his due and reflects on his prolific career as an independent filmmaker. The unfolding of Billy Woodberry9s career—both his own new work and the recent critical revaluations of his classic work, such as the naming of Bless Their Little Hearts (1983) to the National Film Registry in 2013—makes words like "rebellion" or "revival" only marginally useful. Any research into the full range of his film work, including his multiple roles as film actor, film narrator, video installation artist, and film history and production professor at California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) since 1989, reveals a Woodberry who might be more properly termed an underground "renaissance" man than a rebel.


Learning is a socially constructed process created by and with learners through their interactions with their experience and their environment. Many of the factors in learning are hidden – even learners themselves may not be aware of them. The affective domain, one of the three classical domains of learning, provides a potential key to these hidden factors in learning, and when included in a reflective dialogue with another, may access some of these hidden or unknown factors, which have the potential for transformation through double-loop learning. Some of the aspects of learning which are likely to be revealed to the learner through the gateway of affect are as follows: Power issues, the prevailing discourse, autonomy, connectedness, relationship, habitus, dispositions and emotion itself as a driver. My theory does not claim that this list is exhaustive. The impact of transformational learning is likely to extend to the organisation through the double hermeneutic effect. This is an issue currently under discussion in the literature. My theory proposes that it is in the double hermeneutic effect that dialogue may play its part, so that reflective dialogues between learners in organisations have the potential to influence the organisation itself. The publications offer my original contribution to the reflective learning field ie practical and usable methods in the form of reflective dialogue at three levels and in five dimensions.


We introduce a `double-difference' method for the inversion for seismic wavespeed structure based on adjoint tomography. Differences between seismic observations and model predictions at individual stations may arise from factors other than structural heterogeneity, such as errors in the assumed source-time function, inaccurate timings, and systematic uncertainties. To alleviate the corresponding nonuniqueness in the inverse problem, we construct differential measurements between stations, thereby reducing the influence of the source signature and systematic errors. We minimize the discrepancy between observations and simulations in terms of the differential measurements made on station pairs. We show how to implement the double-difference concept in adjoint tomography, both theoretically and in practice. We compare the sensitivities of absolute and differential measurements. The former provide absolute information on structure along the ray paths between stations and sources, whereas the latter explain relative (and thus higher-resolution) structural variations in areas close to the stations. Whereas in conventional tomography a measurement made on a single earthquake-station pair provides very limited structural information, in double-difference tomography one earthquake can actually resolve significant details of the structure. The double-difference methodology can be incorporated into the usual adjoint tomography workflow by simply pairing up all conventional measurements; the computational cost of the necessary adjoint simulations is largely unaffected. Rather than adding to the computational burden, the inversion of double-difference measurements merely modifies the construction of the adjoint sources for data assimilation.


This paper reports on the first empirical investigation of lexical similarity between Icelandic Sign Language and Danish Sign Language. Despite anecdotal reports of similarity between the two varieties and historical records detailing close contact between the two communities, to date no comparative study has been undertaken. Drawing on previous studies including Bickford (2005), McKee and Kennedy (1998, 2000a, 2000b) and Parkhurst and Parkhurst (2001), signs were elicited via a word list adapted from Swadesh (1955) and modified by Woodward (1978, 1991) for the purposes of researching sign languages. The signs for 292 lexical items were analysed by comparing the parameters of hand configuration(together with orientation of the hand/palm), location and movement and classified as Identical, Similar or Different. Results revealed a high percentage of similarity. A much higher degree of lexical similarity was found in the realisation of country names than any other semantic category. The study contributes to work in the field of Nordic Sign Languages and has methodological implications for the study of sign language vocabulary internationally.


After 30 years we are still struggling to address a devastating HIV pandemic in which over 25 million people have died. In 2010, an estimated 34 million people were living with HIV, around 70% of whom live in sub-Saharan Africa. Furthermore, in 2009 there were an estimated 1.2 million new HIV-associated TB cases, and tuberculosis (TB) accounted for 24% of HIV-related deaths. By the end of 2010, 6.6 million people were taking antiretroviral therapy (ART), around 42% of those in need as defined by the 2010 World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines. Despite this achievement, around 9 million people were eligible and still in need of treatment, and new infections (approximately 2.6 million in 2010 alone) continue to add to the future caseload. This combined with the international fiscal crisis has led to a growing concern regarding weakening of the international commitment to universal access and delivery of the Millennium Development Goals by 2015. The recently launched UNAIDS/WHO Treatment 2.0 platform calls for accelerated simplification of ART, in line with a public health approach, to achieve and sustain universal access to ART, including maximizing the HIV and TB preventive benefit of ART by treating people earlier, in line with WHO 2010 normative guidance. The potential individual and public health prevention benefits of using treatment in the prevention of HIV and TB enhance the value of the universal access pledge from a life-saving initiative, to a strategic investment aimed at ending the HIV epidemic. This review analyzes the gaps and summarizes the evidence regarding ART in the prevention of HIV and TB.


In this study we consider the risk estimation as a stochastic process based on the Sample Quantile Process (SQP) - which is a generalization of the Value-at-Risk calculated on a rolling sample. Using SQP's, we are able to show and quantify the pro-cyclicality of the current way nancial institutions measure their risk. Analysing 11 stock indices, we show that, if the past volatility is low, the historical computation of the risk measure underestimates the future risk, while in periods of high volatility, the risk measure overestimates the risk. Moreover, using a simple GARCH(1,1) model, we conclude that this pro-cyclical e ect is related to the clustering of volatility. We argue that this has important consequences for the regulation in times of crisis.


Studies of tropical mammal defaunation highlight the loss of species as well as their reduction in abundance and diversity; however, there is a complex series of effects associated with this anthropogenic disruption, including increases in the relative abundance of disturbance-tolerant mammals and the arrival of alien mammals whose effects on biotic interactions have been poorly studied. We compared the species richness, composition, interaction strength, and patterns of daily activity of mammals that consume the fruits of Pouteria sapota on the forest floor, both inside and outside of the Los Tuxtlas Field Station (LTFS) in Veracruz, southern Mexico. Using camera traps, we recorded eight mammal species interacting with the fruits inside the LTFS ( trees) and nine species interacting outside ( trees). Alien species such as Canis lupus familiaris were recorded both inside and outside of the LTFS, whereas Bos taurus was only recorded outside. Medium-sized generalist mammals were overrepresented both inside and outside of the LTFS, evidencing an impoverishment of the fauna, when compared to the mammal assemblage reported to interact with P. sapota fruits in a more intact forest. The daily activity patterns of the mammals that interacted strongly with P. sapota fruits were different inside and outside the LTFS, particularly in the case of Cuniculus paca. Our results show that the impact of human activity is highly pervasive, directly affecting the mammalian fauna at different levels and indirectly affecting the biotic interactions in which these animals are involved.


How moral and religious beliefs interact with market forces is a subject of much debate. Can economic incentives explain why people believe what they believe? Some of our other work has looked at the impact of economic forces on religious intensity (1) and at how incentives influence the impact of certain moral beliefs on gender-based violence. (2) This essay uses market forces to explain why fiscal and social conservatism and fiscal and social liberalism come hand-in-hand. Religious intensity as social insurance provides a simple explanation. The religious right may be against welfare because it competes against their constituency. We use this hypothesis to help solve three puzzles: (1) Why fiscal and social conservatism align together in most countries is puzzling, since the fiscal libertarianism espoused by the Republican Party would seem to be an equally good fit with a libertarian position on issues of personal choice, such as abortion. (2) Why fiscal and social conservatism did not align together in the past, such as the Social Gospel movement, or in some European countries today, presents another puzzle. Separation between church and state is key. The welfare state is not competitive against religious groups when part of the government budget can be distributed for religious groups. (3) Why some countries separated church and state and sustain high church-state separation, high religiosity, and a low welfare state, while other countries did not separate church and state and sustain low church-state separation, low religiosity, and a high welfare state presents the final puzzle. Today, some argue that depending on the welfare state is the same as worshiping the government as if it were God. For example: Americans of today view their government in the same way as Christians view their God: they worship and adore the state, and they render their lives and fortunes to it. (3) The Bible opposes big human government. Human government has a limited role--it is not the solution to every problem we face. Human government tries to replace God when it attempts to solve every human problem. It is idolatry (worship of a false god) to look to government to solve all our problems (i.e., poverty, health care, education, etc.). (4) However, this has not always been the case. In fact, from "abolition to woman suffrage to civil rights, the leaders of America's most successful liberal crusades have turned to the Bible to justify their causes, but the history of the religious left seems to stop in 1968, the starting point of a decades-long trend by which Democrats have become the secular party and the Republicans the religious party." (5) This leads to the main puzzle--Why do fiscal and social conservatives and liberals come hand-in-hand in the times and places that they do? A large quantity of political science literature documents this pattern in congressional rollcall voting in the United States. (6) While a number of papers also document the same pattern across countries, no obvious theory explains why political alliances align along one diagonal versus another in a matrix of fiscal and social attitudes. Scheve and Stasavage (7) have argued that theories involving denominational differences, altruism, differences in the making of inferences, issue-bundling, and spurious correlation are insufficient. A recent article theorizes why religion is salient in politics but not why Republicans and Democrats divide along religious issues the way they do. (8) Some social psychologists have argued that uncertainty aversion explains why fiscal and social conservatism come together. (9) Uncertainty aversion is consistent with a preference for insurance. The preference for insurance is the main economic hypothesis underlying the theory. The economic literature provides both theory (10) and evidence (11) of religious insurance, but what evidence is there that welfare may compete against the constituency of the religious right? …


Intensive field studies involving over 300 in-depth interviews in
12 American cities were conducted in an effort to ascertain the conditions
or factors associated with variations in the tasks, saliency and legitimacy of local civil defense organizations around the United States.
All of the cities were objectively subject to at least two major natural
disaster threats and half had undergone a major disaster in the last
decade. Data were obtained from key community and emergency organization
officials by way of a disaster probability rating scale, two intensive interview guides, and a general documentary checklist. Among the findings were the following. While overall disaster
planning by civil defense has tended to be differentiated, segmented,
isolated, cyclical and spasmodic , in recent years planning has broadened
to include a wide range of disaster ,agents, a lesser focus on nuclear
attack, more concern with local community viability and increasing
involvement of a greater number of organizations in community disaster
plans. Currently in almost all communities there are multiple layers
of planning with little consensus on disaster tasks, on organizational
responsibility and on the scope of disaster plannlng,is well as confusion
concerning the role of civil defence in such planning. Local civil defence
directors not only differ in following a professional or a political
career path, but also manifest a variety of behavioral styles in carrying
out their roles. Local civil defense agencies tend to be ambiguously viewed as to
their interests, structures and functions by the general public, community
influentials and organizational officials. Civil defense agencies
have also evolved in two different ways -- some following a traditional
path with an emphasis on nuclear hazards and others concerned with a
number of different hazards. High saliency seems to be related to extensive horizontal relationships, broad scope of tasks and multiple hazard concerns. A number of factors undercut the legitimacy of civil defense organizations.
These include changes in organizational purpose, preceived
need for services, decline in resources, poor performance and changing
saliency of the military model. Local offices which have legitimacy tend
to be in localities where there are persistent threats, where civil
defense is within the local governmental structure, where extensive relationships
are maintained with other organizations, and where the output
or product of the civil defense organization is seen as useful to other
community groups. Conditions which are most likely to be productive of successful local
civil defense involvement in disaster planning are that the loca1 organization
develops experience in handling a variety of community emergencies,
that municipal government provides a structure which accepts and legitimizes the
civil defense function, that the local civil defense director
has the ability to generate significant pre-disaster relationships among
those organizations which do become involved in emergency activities, and
that emergency-relevant resources, such as EOCs, be provided and that the
knowledge of their availability is widespread throughout the community.


The freshwater forms a lense on top of the ocean water and discharges to the ocean through solution channels. One such solution channel is present in Chankanaab Park and is identified due to the cloudy water caused by refraction from mixing. Measurements of flow and salinity profiles were obtained in an inlet and network of caves. Ocean water on the bottom moves inland while the freshwater discharges through the top half of the water column. The water discharge from the top of the cave has a high salinity of 23.1 parts per thousand. Outflow from the cave was measured at 156 cfs with a weighted salinity of 29.5 ppt. Conductivity of tap water from the City of San Miguel was found at 2.8 ppt. Based on the mix of outflow, total freshwater discharge was estimated to be 25 cfs or 16 million gallons per day.


Data replication is one of the widely approach to achieve high data availability and fault
tolerant of a system. Data replication in a large scale distributed and dynamic network
such as grid has effects the efficiency of data accessing and data consistency. Therefore a
mechanism that can maintain the consistency of the data and provide high data
availability is needed. This thesis discusses protocols and strategies of replicating data in
distributed database and grid environment where network and users are dynamic. There
are few protocols that have been implemented in distributed database and grid computing
which is discussed such as Read One-Write All (ROWA), Voting (VT), Tree Quorum
(TQ), Grid Configuration (GC), Three Dimensional Grid Structure (TDGS), Diagonal
Replication in Grid (DRG) and Neighbor Replication in Grid (NRG).
In this thesis, we introduce an enhanced replica control protocol, named Enhance
Diagonal Replication 2D Mesh (EDR2M) protocol for grid environment and compares its result of availability, and communication cost with the latest protocol TDGS (2001) and
NRG (2007). EDR2M proves data consistency by fulfilling the Quorum Intersection
Properties. Evaluations that is suitable and applicability for EDR2M protocol solutions
via analytical models and simulations.
A simulation of EDR2M protocol is developed and the performance metrics evaluated
are data availability, and communication cost. By getting the sufficient number of
quorum, number of nodes in each quorum, and selecting the middle node of the diagonal
sites to have the copy of the data file have improved the availability and communication
cost for read and write operation compared to the latest protocol, TDGS (2001) and NRG
(2007). Thus, the experiment has showed scientifically that EDR2M is the adequate
protocol to achieve high data availability in a low communication cost by providing
replica control protocol for a dynamic network such as grid environment


The Knowledge Evolution offers a unique and powerful road map for understanding knowledge creation, learning, and performance in everyday work. This book reframes current thinking by delving into the hidden world of knowledge supporting both individual and organizational performance, laying the foundation for the emerging art of knowledge management. Packed with best practices from leading edge companies, essential guidelines, design principles, analogies, and conceptual frameworks, it serves as a practical guidebook for mastering the Knowledge Era. It will help managers make more intelligent decisions about knowledge creation, reduce wasteful technology investments and lead to new ease and confidence in applying knowledge and learning principles for themselves and for their organizations. Verna Allee delves into current thinking and practice to unravel the genetic code of knowledge itself. This revolutionary approach has surfaced a simple and elegant knowledge archetype. She demonstrates how this archetype can help us deal with complexity and suggests ways of self-organizing that make profound sense in today's networked enterprises. From strategies for core knowledge competencies to the key components of individual expertise, The Knowledge Evolution zeroes in on the critical success factors for the knowledge-based enterprise. What emerges is an approach to knowledge management that is simple enough to communicate at every level of the organization, yet rich enough to encompass all the complexity of modern enterprises.Verna Allee is the founder of Integral Performance Group, a consulting practice in California that specializes in the learning organization, knowledge competencies, organizational systems change, systems thinking, total quality and learning, benchmarking support, best practices research, and strategic development. She holds a degree in the Study of Human Consciousness and her work is informed by a deep interest in intelligence, human development, cognition, intuition and consciousness. She is the author of Learning Links: Enhancing Individual and Team Performance, Pfeiffer and Co-Jossey Bass, 1996.


In April 2022 four years passed since the introduction into the Polish legal system of extraordinary appeal – a new instrument for the review of final court judgements. The experience of several years of the functioning of this means of challenge provides an opportunity to analyse it on the basis of the emerging case law of the Supreme Court in the context of not only the effectiveness of this kind of appeal, as seen through the prism of procedural justice in criminal matters, but also in the context of emergence of constitutional awareness. It should be assumed that the legislator wanted to introduce a measure that would strengthen the protection of freedoms and rights, also within the framework of criminal proceedings, and which so far did not exist in such a form – in terms of evaluation of the process of applying the law. A few years after its introduction, the fears that extraordinary appeal would become a politically exploited mechanism have not come true. However, after a few years the first cautious conclusions can be formulated regarding its significance for the reliability of the criminal process. Unfortunately, these conclusions are not optimistic. The extraordinary complaint does not play a significant role in the functioning of the criminal process in the shape outlined by the Polish Constitution.


We present the results of a series of short radio observations of six ultracool dwarfs made using the upgraded Very Large Array in S (2–4GHz) and C (4–7GHz) bands. LSR J1835+3259 exhibits a 100 per cent right-hand circularly polarized burst that shows intense narrow-band features with a fast negative frequency drift of about −30 MHz s−1. They are superimposed on a fainter broad-band emission feature with a total duration of about 20 min, bandwidth of about 1 GHz, centred at about 3.5 GHz, and a slow positive frequency drift of about 1 MHz s−1. This makes it the first such event detected below 4 GHz and the first one exhibiting both positive and negative frequency drifts. Polarized radio emission is also seen in 2MASS J00361617+1821104 and NLTT 33370, while LP 349-25 and TVLM 513-46546 have unpolarized emission and BRI B0021-0214 was not detected. We can reproduce the main characteristics of the burst from LSR J1835+3259 using a model describing the magnetic field of the dwarf as a tilted dipole. We also analyse the origins of the quiescent radio emission and estimate the required parameters of the magnetic field and energetic electrons. Although our results are non-unique, we find a set of models that agree well with the observations.


Emergent communication (EC) research often focuses on optimizing task-specific utility as a driver for communication. However, there is increasing evidence that human languages are shaped by task-general communicative constraints and evolve under pressure to optimize the Information Bottleneck (IB) tradeoff between the informativeness and complexity of the lexicon. Here, we integrate these two approaches by trading off utility, informativeness, and complexity in EC. To this end, we propose Vector-Quantized Variational Information Bottleneck (VQ-VIB), a method for training neural agents to encode inputs into discrete signals embedded in a continuous space. We evaluate our approach in multi-agent reinforcement learning settings and in color reference games and show that: (1) VQ-VIB agents can continuously adapt to changing communicative needs and, in the color domain, align with human languages; (2) the emergent VQ-VIB embedding spaces are semantically meaningful and perceptually grounded; and (3) encouraging informativeness leads to faster convergence rates and improved utility, both in VQ-VIB and in prior neural architectures for symbolic EC, with VQ-VIB achieving higher utility for any given complexity. This work offers a new framework for EC that is grounded in information-theoretic principles that are believed to characterize human language evolution and that may facilitate human-agent interaction.


This guide has been created to educate our students, faculty and staff on what the Black Lives Matter movement is.
#BlackLivesMatter was founded in 2013 in response to the acquittal of Trayvon Martin's murderer. Black Lives Matter Foundation, Inc is a gl


A vein-yellowing disease of Ageratum conyzoides in Singapore was shown to be caused by a geminivirus, here named ageratum yellow vein virus (AYVV), which was transmitted by the whitefly Bemisia tabaci but not by inoculation with sap or through seed. AYVV particles (30 × 20 nm) are serologically related to those of other whitefly-transmitted geminiviruses, and reacted with some monoclonal antibodies elicited by particles of African cassava mosaic or Indian cassava mosaic geminiviruses. However, the epitope profile of AYVV differed from the profiles of these viruses, and from those of geminiviruses from vein yellowing-affected A. conyzoides from India and from yellow leaf curl-affected tomato from either Singapore or India. The results provide further evidence of antigenic differences among geminiviruses that cause similar diseases in the same plant species in different geographical regions.


One of the strategies for helping smallholder farmers cope with climate variability and change is the provision of climate services that better decision making around the planning and management of agricultural systems. However, providing such services with location specific timely and actionable information to millions of farmers operating across diverse conditions requires innovative solutions. ICRISAT and its partners have developed and piloted one such system called "Intelligent agricultural Systems Advisory Tool – ISAT" capable of generating and disseminating data driven location specific advisories that assist farmers in anticipating and responding to the emerging conditions through the season. Using a decision tree approach, a structured and systematic approach to decision making was devised that considers the insights obtained from the analysis of historical climatic conditions, climate and weather forecasts and prevailing environmental conditions. Microsoft India developed a platform to access real time data from various 'public' sources, perform the data analytics, implement the decision tree and generate and disseminate messages to farmers and associated actors. The ISAT generated advisories are designed to support both pre-season planning and in-season management.
 During the 2017 monsoon, ISAT was piloted with 417 farmers across four different locations. The messaging system worked extremely well in picking appropriate location specific message from the database and delivering the same to the mobiles of the registered farmers. Mid and end season surveys revealed that more than 80% of the farmers from all villages were satisfied with the frequency, relevance and understandability of the messages delivered. About 58% of the farmers rated the messages are reliable by being correct more than 75% of the times and helped them in managing their farms better by conducting farm operations timely with reduced risk. Compared to farmers in the control villages, groundnut yields of farmers in 5 treatment villages are higher by ~ 16% but this results varied between -7.7 to 56.2%. This study has demonstrated the opportunities available to harness the untapped power of digital technologies to provide actionable advisories timely to smallholder farmers using appropriate data analytics and information dissemination systems.


Doris Lessing's first book after winning the Nobel Prize for Literature revisits her childhood in Southern Africa and the lives, both fictional and factual, that her parents led. 'I think my father"s rage at the trenches took me over, when I was very young, and has never left me. Do children feel their parents' emotions? Yes, we do, and it is a legacy I could have done without. What is the use of it? It is as if that old war is in my own memory, my own consciousness.' In this extraordinary book, Doris Lessing explores the lives of her parents, both of them irrevocably damaged by the Great War. Her father wanted the simple life of an English farmer, but shrapnel almost killed him in the trenches, and thereafter he had to wear a wooden leg. Her mother Emily's great love was a doctor who drowned in the Channel, and she spent the war nursing the wounded in the Royal Free Hospital. In the first half of this book, Lessing imagines the lives her parents might have made for themselves had there been no war, a story that has them meeting at a village cricket match as children but leading separate lives. This is followed by a piercing examination of their lives as they actually came to be in the shadow of that war, their move to Rhodesia, a damaged couple hulking over Lessing's childhood in a strange land. 'Here I still am,' says Doris Lessing, 'trying to get out from under that monstrous legacy, trying to get free.'


Innovation is an important source of growth for many companies. It is also challenging, as it may require that the companies build a new position in the supply chain. The literature is devoid of analysis of different ways to build such positions in the construction industry. The purpose here is to explore the challenges involved in implementing innovations that require companies to establish new positions in a construction supply chain. Three in‐depth case studies in the Swedish timber housing industry illustrate different challenges that arise with the different modes of repositioning of organic growth, collaboration and acquisition, and with moving either backward or forward in the supply chain. Organic growth is a slow process that prevents companies from taking a first‐mover advantage. Acquisitions can involve difficulties with exploiting acquired competences. Collaboration brings the risks of diversity of interests and transient solutions. Furthermore, and as shown in the cases studied, challenges are associated with pre‐existing competencies and relationships, with technology‐oriented companies facing customer‐related difficulties and market‐oriented companies mainly facing ones involving technological solutions. The construction industry's idiosyncrasies amplify these challenges, as its fragmentation makes it difficult to connect with external companies at new positions. Stronger ties with business partners are likely to enable construction companies to exploit more easily innovations that require repositioning in the supply chain.


Background: Childhood asthma has increased worldwide, although recent studies report a prevalence plateau in some western countries. Aims: To investigate the prevalence of asthma and the associated risk factor patterns from ages 7-8 to 11-12 with special emphasis on the hereditary component, and further to study prevalence trends at age 7-8 from 1996 to 2006 and the possible determinants of these trends. Methods: The studies involved two cohorts from Kiruna, Lulea and Pitea: one previously identified cohort of 3430 children age 7-8 followed by yearly questionnaires until age 11-12 with 97% yearly participation. Skin-prick tests for allergic sensitisation were performed at ages 7-8 and 11-12 in subsets of 2148 and 2155 children respectively (88% of invited). In 2006 a new cohort of 7-8-year-olds was identified and examined identically. 2585 (96% of invited) and 1700 (90% of invited) participated in the questionnaire and skin-prick tests, respectively. The questionnaire included questions about symptoms of asthma, allergic rhinitis and eczema, and possible risk factors. Results: In the 1996 cohort, from age 7-8 to 11-12 the prevalence of physician-diagnosed asthma increased (5.7%-7.7%, P<0.01) while current wheeze decreased (11.7%-9.4%, P<0.01), and 34.7% reported ever wheee at ≥one occasion. Remission was 10% of which half relapsed during the study. Remission was significantly lower among sensitised children. The strongest risk factors for current asthma at ages 7-8 and 11-12 were allergic sensitisation (OR 5) and family history of asthma (OR 3). Several other significant risk factors, e.g. respiratory infections, damp house and low birth weight, had lost importance at age 11-12. At age 7-8, parental asthma was a stronger risk factor (OR 3-4) than parental rhinitis or eczema (OR 1.5-2). Sibling asthma had no independent effect. Biparental asthma had a multiplicative effect (OR 10). Maternal and paternal asthma was equally important, regardless of the child's sex and sensitisation status. From 1996 to 2006 the prevalence of current wheeze and asthma at age 7-8 did not increase (P=0.13, P=0.18), while lifetime prevalence of ever wheeze and physician-diagnosed asthma increased (P<0.01, P=0.01). Symptoms of rhinitis and eczema were unchanged, despite 45% increase (P<0.01) in allergic sensitisation. For current asthma the adjusted population attributable fractions of sensitisation and parental asthma increased (35%-41%, 27%-45%). This was however balanced by decreased exposure to infections, maternal smoking and home dampness, resulting in stable asthma prevalence. Stratification by sex revealed that current wheeze increased in boys (P<0.01) but tended to decrease in girls (P=0.37), seemingly due to symptom persistence in males. Several asthma indices followed this pattern. The boy-to-girl ratio in exposure to all studied risk factors increased, which may explain the sex-specific prevalence trends in wheeze. Conclusions: The prevalence of current asthma and wheeze did not increase statistically significantly. However, the risk factor pattern has changed considerably since 1996, which will presumably affect the clinical features of childhood wheeze in this region. Sex-specific trends in wheeze can be explained by changes in exposure, and trends in risk factors should be explored parallel to prevalence trends.


Social worker turnover has been repeatedly identified in Newfoundland and Labrador (NL) as a major issue affecting the stability within Child, Youth and Family Services (CYFS) and the level of client care provided by the organization. Although recent provincial research has identified turnover as a primary issue, no studies have quantified CYFS turnover and examined trends over time, or examined factors associated with intent to leave. The purposes of the current studies are twofold: (1) to quantify and examine trends in CYFS social worker turnover within Eastern Health (EH); and (2) to identify what factors may be contributing to the turnover of CYFS social workers within NL. -- Results from Study 1 indicated that EH's internal and external child welfare worker turnover is high, with internal movements contributing to the majority of the turnover within CYFS. The highest levels of internal turnover were observed in 2007-2008, and the highest levels of external turnover were observed in 2008-2009. The majority of the turnover was internal, and attributable to SWIs and managers changing positions within CYFS. When examined by geographic location, external turnover was generally higher amongst urban teams than rural teams. Wide variations in internal and external turnover were also observed at the team level. -- Findings from Study 2 indicated that approximately one quarter of CYFS social workers surveyed intended to leave their position within 12 months. The results suggested that decreased job satisfaction, increased depersonalization, decreased manager support, increased emotional exhaustion, and rural location were positively correlated with intent to leave. When entered into logistic regression models, the full model accounted for the most explained variance in intent to leave (21.6%). -- These findings suggest that CYFS social workers within EH are experiencing high levels of turnover, specifically internally. Also, across the province CYFS social workers are experiencing levels of burnout, job dissatisfaction, and decreased manager support that are contributing to their desire to leave their positions within CYFS. -- Specifically targeted programs aimed at reducing levels of burnout, increasing job satisfaction, and increasing perceived levels of manager support amongst CYFS social workers will likely help reduce and manage turnover within the organization.


Abstract. The confluence of recent instrumentation deployments in Africa with developments for the determination of plasmasphere electron content using Global Positioning System (GPS) receivers has provided new opportunities for investigations in that region. This investigation, using a selected chain of GPS stations, extends the method (SCORPION) previously applied to a chain of GPS stations in North America in order to separate the ionosphere and plasmasphere contributions to the total electron content (TEC) during a day (24 July) in 2011. The results span latitudes from the southern tip of Africa, across the Equator, to the southern Arabian Peninsula, providing a continuous latitudinal profile for both the ionosphere and plasmasphere during this day. The peak diurnal vertical ionosphere electron content (IEC) increases from about 14 TEC units (1 TEC unit  =  1016 electrons m−2) at the southernmost station to about 32 TEC units near the geographic equator, then decreases to about 28 TEC units at the Arabian Peninsula. The peak diurnal slant plasmasphere electron content (PEC) varies between about 4 and 7 TEC units among the stations, with a local latitudinal profile that is significantly influenced by the viewing geometry at the station location, relative to the magnetic field configuration. In contrast, the peak vertical PEC varies between about 1 and 6 TEC units among the stations, with a more uniform latitudinal variation. Comparisons to other GPS data analyses are also presented for TEC, indicating the influence of the PEC on the determination of latitudinal TEC variations and also on the absolute TEC levels, by inducing an overestimate of the receiver bias. The derived TEC latitudinal profiles, in comparison to global map profiles, tend to differ from the map results only about as much as the map results differ among themselves. A combination of ionosonde IEC and alternative GPS TEC measurements, which in principle permits a PEC determination through their difference, was compared to the composite and separate ionosphere and plasmasphere contributions derived solely by the SCORPION method for one station. Although there is considerably more scatter in the PEC values derived from the difference of the GPS TEC and ionosonde IEC measurements compared to the PEC values derived by the SCORPION method, the average overhead values for this day are comparable for the two methods, near 2 TEC units, at the South African site examined. This initial investigation provides a basis for day-to-day TEC monitoring for Africa, with separate ionosphere and plasmasphere electron content determinations.


The two projects, through different angles, exploit the spaces between intended communication, performance and meta-communication. Both pieces were funded, in part, by the Arts Council and both were performed at the PARIP conference at Bretton Hall in 2005. 'Threshold:Fleshfold', a commission from Foreign Bodies dance theatre drew together choreographer Vida Midgelow (Director of Foreign Bodies Dance Theatre), set designer Brendan O'Conner (Royal Opera) and myself (composer). The work focuses on foregrounding the background, often minimal in vocabulary, visually and sonically, the piece reduces out the historic practice and techniques of the art forms allowing small details, folds within folds, to be examined. The sound is a complex polyrhythmic work constructed from recordings made from a choir. Previously I had recorded and produced a CD of'music' for a choir, however the recorded moments before the first note is sung, where preparation and anticipation create a liminal and transitional space between rehearsal, non-performance and performance, produced delicate utterances of breathing and note preparation that to me, as the listener, was a more interesting artistic experience than the performance of the music. This became the sonic material for construction. 'Myths and stories by her', commissioned by Red Leaf Dance and choreographed by Jane Bacon uses the choreographer as performer, subject and documenter. Using similar techniques to the audio construction of 'Threshold', 'Myths' draws its sounds from interviews with the choreographer, sometimes constructed into complex polyrhythms, sometimes merely selected and left un-'composed' and un-'choreographed'. The main compositional methodology is that of polyrhythmic binaural constructs of recorded human utterances, almost entirely un-manipulated (in terms of filtering, modulating etc. or breaking the source bond) they alternate left to right at fixed rates that are layered in specific ratios (2:3, 7:9 etc) that turn and interact like geometric patterns on pre black-figure Greek vases.


A calcium-permeable channel that acts as a pain receptor in neurons contributes to T cell activation and inflammatory immune responses in mice. Stimulation of the T cell receptor (TCR) in CD4+ T cells leads to the activation of store-operated calcium channels in the plasma membrane, influx of calcium, activation of the transcription factors nuclear factor of activated T cells (NFAT) and nuclear factor κB (NF-κB), and production of inflammatory cytokines. Bertin et al. investigated whether other plasma membrane calcium channels contributed to T cell activation. Flow cytometry and confocal microscopy analyses showed that TRPV1, a member of the vanilloid subfamily of transient receptor potential (TRP) channels, was found mostly at the plasma membrane of mouse and human CD4+ T cells. TRPV1 is best characterized as a pain receptor in sensory neurons. Patch-clamp assays demonstrated that the TRPV1 agonist capsaicin stimulated calcium currents in CD4+ T cells from wild-type (WT) mice, but not TRPV1-deficient (Trpv1–/–) mice. TCR-stimulated calcium flux in TRPV1-deficient CD4+ T cells was decreased compared to that in WT CD4+ T cells. Confocal microscopy studies showed that TRPV1 associated with the TCR co-receptor CD4 and the nonreceptor tyrosine kinase Lck in resting CD4+ T cells. In response to TCR stimulation, TRPV1 and Lck were recruited to TCR microclusters, and this recruitment depended on the phosphorylation of TRPV1 by Lck. The activation of NFAT and NF-κB was decreased in TCR-stimulated TRPV1-deficient CD4+ T cells compared to that in TCR-stimulated WT CD4+ T cells. As a consequence, TRPV1-deficient T cells secreted less effector cytokines, such as interleukin-2 (IL-2) and interferon-γ (IFN-γ), than did WT CD4+ T cells. In addition, exposure of human CD4+ T cells to a TRPV1 antagonist inhibited their production of IL-2 in response to TCR stimulation. Finally, analysis of mouse models of colitis, an inflammatory intestinal disease, showed that TRPV1 in CD4+ T cells contributed to increased disease severity and decreased survival. Together, these data suggest that TRPV1 contributes to T cell activation and inflammatory cytokine production and that targeting this channel may provide a therapy to inhibit proinflammatory T cell responses. S. Bertin, Y. Aoki-Nonaka, P. R. de Jong, L. L. Nohara, H. Xu, S. R. Stanwood, S. Srikanth, J. Lee, K. To, L. Abramson, T. Yu, T. Han, R. Touma, X. Li, J. M. González-Navajas, S. Herdman, M. Corr, G. Fu, H. Dong, Y. Gwack, A. Franco, W. A. Jefferies, E. Raz, The ion channel TRPV1 regulates the activation and proinflammatory properties of CD4+ T cells. Nat. Immunol. 15, 1055–1063 (2014). [PubMed]


This article examines household food security in the Ekwendeni region of northern Malawi using the concept of entitlements, set within a broader world historical framework. The bargaining approach to household gender relations is critiqued through an examination of the data. Historical relations created a gendered experience of food security in northern Malawi. Qualitative research carried out in the Ekwendeni region indicates that women have fewer entitlements within the household, at least in part due to the modified patrilineal system of the Tumbuka-speaking people with Ngoni heritage in the region. They have a higher workload in terms of household reproduction as well as agricultural and market activities. Women are responsible for caring for sick relatives within and beyond the household, which affects household food security. Wives are less likely to receive support for kin in the form of seeds, cash, land or food, in comparison to husbands, who in turn do not always give these resources to the household. Women do not have much decision-making power over major production issues. There is evidence for high levels of spousal abuse, as well as excessive use of alcohol by husbands, which also affects household food security. Wives' unequal position is thus due to a lack of entitlements, such as land, access to employment, support from kin and the state. Some differences between this area of northern Malawi and other studies from central and southern Malawi are due to the different entitlements, particularly control over land and income, which speaks to the enduring implications of different lineage systems in the region. Food security is thus affected by women's unequal access to entitlements in northern Malawi, set within a world historical framework, which is essential for understanding the broader causes of food insecurity.


Generalizations of traditional preference criteria such as the Sharpe ratio, the information ratio and the Jensen alpha are obtained by maximizing a certain equivalent excess return (CER) under relevant investment conditions. They are increasing functions of CERs and therefore equivalent criteria. They are consistent with utility theory and are applicable to any investment choice. That is not the case for many other popular preference criteria (e.g., Omega index, Sortino ratio, expected shortfall and so-called 'coherent' preference criteria). Most are incompatible with expected utility maximization and therefore best avoided.


Today, chip multiprocessors (CMPs) that accommo- date multiple processor cores on the same chip have become a reality. As the communication complexity of such multicore sys- tems is rapidly increasing, designing an interconnect architecture with predictable behavior is essential for proper system opera- tion. In CMPs, general-purpose processor cores are used to run software tasks of different applications and the communication between the cores cannot be precharacterized. Designing an effi- cient network-on-chip (NoC)-based interconnect with predictable performance is thus a challenging task. In this paper, we address the important design issue of synthesizing the most power efficient NoC interconnect for CMPs, providing guaranteed optimum throughput and predictable performance for any application to be executed on the CMP. In our synthesis approach, we use accurate delay and power models for the network components (switches and links) that are obtained from layouts of the components using industry standard tools. The synthesis approach utilizes the floor- plan knowledge of the NoC to detect timing violations on the NoC links early in the design cycle. This leads to a faster design cycle and quicker design convergence across the high-level synthesis approach and the physical implementation of the design. We validate the design flow predictability of our proposed approach by performing a layout of the NoC synthesized for a 25-core CMP. Our approach maintains the regular and predictable structure of the NoC and is applicable in practice to existing NoC architectures.


Amphibians are known to exhibit phenotypic plasticity in response to variations in predation pressure. Data also indicate that developmental changes can be induced by embryonic exposures to predator non-contact cues. However, the possible consequences of such exposures on larval behavioural activity and sensitivity to chemical cues from predators have remained unexplored. These laboratory experiments examine the effects of predation cues experienced during embryonic development on some morphological and behavioural traits in hatchlings and tadpoles of the common frog (Rana temporaria). Eggs were raised until hatching in the nonlethal presence of either a sympatric predator (larval spotted salamander, Salamandra salamandra), or an allopatric predator (juvenile Turkish crayfish, Astacus leptodactylus), or crushed conspecific tadpoles. Predators were kept either starved, or fed with R. temporaria tadpoles. Embryonic treatments had significant consequences on weight and total length of hatchlings, as well as on the general activity of tadpoles. Olfactometric tests showed that the behavioural responses of tadpoles to chemical cues from the two predators tested were not significantly affected by embryonic treatments. In contrast, embryonic experience showed a significant influence on the behavioural response of tadpoles to chemical cues from crushed conspecifics. These results indicate that the morphology of hatchlings depends on the species and diet of the predators present during embryonic development and demonstrate for the first time that the subsequent activity and chemically mediated antipredator behaviour of tadpoles can be influenced by embryonic experience of the predation risk.


Through the last decades, values have been one of the hot topics for researchers. Hundreds of researches and articles describe and analyze values of different level based on different theories. At the same time, construct of values has still remained a little bit mysterious, because we still do not fully understand and agree how the values shape and develop. Fortunately, most of the researchers agree on that organizational values and success (no matter how we define the success) are connected and dependent on each other. Often in organizations, the values are described and an effort made to propagate them to the employees and integrate into everyday actions. A more complex question remains how to evaluate if the desired values have imprinted themselves in the organization. The main aim of the chapter is to show how the conflicts in the organization might be used as the indicators of organizational real values. The chapter is based on the former researches of the authors and others. Results show that conflicts describe organizational real values and therefore organizational conflicts can be used as a tool to assess the implementation of organizational values.


Markets for organically produced high quality cotton (Gossypium hirsutum L.) are projected to increase. Field experiments were conducted in Palamas, Karditsa in Central Greece, to compare the effects of two cropping systems on fiber quality of three cotton cultivars. The experiments, conducted during three years, were laid out in a split plot design with four replicates, two main plots (organic and conventional system) and three sub-plots (cotton cultivars). Findings suggest that fiber quality index (FQI), spinning consistency index (SCI) and multiplicative analytic hierarchy process (MAHP) are three indices that could be integrated in a useful protocol for the evaluation of different cropping systems for cotton cultivation. In particular, our results indicate that in general there was not any superiority of conventional compared to the organic cropping system regarding fiber quality as shown by the above mentioned indices. Regarding the length of the cotton fiber, this was positively correlated with micronair and the uniformity index of the cotton fiber. The organic system resulted to higher values of SCI than the ones of the conventional (1547.9 and 1522.3, respectively). The present 3-years study shows that organic cultivation of cotton can ensure high fiber quality and this was clearly confirmed by means of the several important indices.


A novel internal cooling structure has been raised recently to enhance internal cooling effectiveness and reduce coolant requirement without using film cooling. This study mainly focuses on verifying the actual cooling performance of the structure and investigating the heat transfer mechanism of the leading edge part of the structure, named bended channel cooling. The cooling performances of the first stage of GE-E3 turbine with three different blade leading edge cooling structures (impingement cooling, swirl cooling and bended channel cooling) were simulated using the conjugate heat transfer method. Furthermore, the effects of jetting orifice geometry and channel Reynolds number were studied with simplified models to illustrate the flow and heat transfer characteristics of the bended channel cooling.
 The results show that the novel internal cooling structure has obvious advantages on the blade leading edge and suction side under operating condition. The vortex core structure in the bended channel depends on orifice width, but not channel Reynolds number. With the ratio of orifice width to outer wall thickness smaller than a critical value of 0.5, the coolant flows along the external surface of the channel in the pattern of "inner film cooling", which is pushed by centrifugal force and minimizes the mixing with spent cooling air. Namely, the greatly organized coolant flow generates higher cooling effectiveness and lower coolant demand. Both the Nusselt number on the channel surfaces and total pressure loss increase significantly when the orifice width falls or channel Reynolds increases, but the wall jet impingement distance appears to be less influential.


The recognition of faces is a fundamental visual function with importance for social interaction and communication. Scientific interest in facial recognition has increased dramatically over the last decade. Researchers in such fields as psychology, neurophysiology, and functional imaging have published more than 10,000 studies on face processing. Almost all of these studies focus on the processing of static pictures of faces, however, with little attention paid to the recognition of dynamic faces, faces as they change over timea topic in neuroscience that is also relevant for a variety of technical applications, including robotics, animation, and human-computer interfaces. This volume offers a state-of-the-art, interdisciplinary overview of recent work on dynamic faces from both biological and computational perspectives. The chapters cover a broad range of topics, including the psychophysics of dynamic face perception, results from electrophysiology and imaging, clinical deficits in patients with impairments of dynamic face processing, and computational models that provide insights about the brain mechanisms for the processing of dynamic faces. The book offers neuroscientists and biologists an essential reference for designing new experiments, and provides computer scientists with knowledge that will help them improve technical systems for the recognition, processing, synthesizing, and animating of dynamic faces.


Accumulating evidence suggests that sporadic Parkinson's disease has a long prodromal period during which several non‐motor features develop, in particular, impairment of olfaction, vagal dysfunction and sleep disorder. Early sites of Lewy pathology are the olfactory bulb and enteric plexus of the stomach. We propose that a neurotropic pathogen, probably viral, enters the brain via two routes: (i) nasal, with anterograde progression into the temporal lobe; and (ii) gastric, secondary to swallowing of nasal secretions in saliva. These secretions might contain a neurotropic pathogen that, after penetration of the epithelial lining, could enter axons of the Meissner's plexus and, via transsynaptic transmission, reach the preganglionic parasympathetic motor neurones of the vagus nerve. This would allow retrograde transport into the medulla and, from here, into the pons and midbrain until the substantia nigra is reached and typical aspects of disease commence. Evidence for this theory from the perspective of olfactory and autonomic dysfunction is reviewed, and the possible routes of pathogenic invasion are considered. It is concluded that the most parsimonious explanation for the initial events of sporadic Parkinson's disease is pathogenic access to the brain through the stomach and nose – hence the term 'dual‐hit'.


The principles of good taxation are a set of guiding values necessary for any responsible state to consider in constructing their tax policy. The principles are derived from various philosophical and economic discussions including but not limited to the role of the state, ownership of natural resources, the optimal size of the state, the emphasis on individual versus community rights, and what is reasonable. Adam Smith (1776) initiated the discussion on the principles of good taxation including equality, certainty, convenience and economy. Others have expanded and articulated the principles to include reasonable and neutral. Curran (2001), Hamill (2006), and others have considered the principles of good taxation from a religious viewpoint. Along different lines, Croteau (2005) develops the principles of giving for a religious institution. As religious institutions rely on giving in a similar manner that states rely on taxes, it is useful to review the principles of good taxation in comparison to the principles of giving. This research finds strong consistency between the principles of good taxation and the principles of giving. Additionally, the principles of giving make a strong argument for elevating the importance of effective allocation of tax revenues as a principle of tax collections.


Public recreation land management agencies have been searching for ways to increase revenue. User fees as implemented by the Fee Demonstration Program have received the most attention. Corporate sponsorships and private donations have also been implemented and other options, such as partial privatization, closure of some areas, and different forms of public-private partnerships have been debated. The present paper reports results from a 2002 mail survey of randomly selected Idaho and New Hampshire households, designed to elicit public attitudes about a wide variety of management policies for public (federal/state) recreation lands. The most socially acceptable forms for raising revenue were donation boxes (61.1%), corporate sponsorships for visitor centers (61.8%) and education facilities (61.1%), and adopt-a-site contracts (81.0%). Both increased taxes and user fees faced greater opposition (about 49% of respondents) than support (39%). In addition, user fees have resulted in (reported) changes in behavior among a quarter of the respondents, and may have stronger negative impact on low-income households and on the users of public recreation lands. This study is relevant to the current debate in Congress about the future of the Fee Demonstration Program. Our findings can also be used by policy makers interested in raising revenue through socially acceptable management policies. Our results suggest that donations, adopt-a-site and corporate sponsorships (for selected areas) should be used to raise additional revenues, and if additional funding is needed, policy makers may be justified to advocate for increased taxation rather than fees.


The classification of simple biset functors is known, but the evaluation of a simple biset functor at a finite group G may be zero. We investigate various situations where this happens, as well as cases where this does not occur. We also prove a closed formula for such an evaluation under some restrictive conditions on G.


We consider the design of optimal quantizers for the distributed estimation of a deterministic parameter. In particular, we design deterministic scalar quantizers to maximize the minimum asymptotic relative efficiency (ARE) between quantized and unquantized ML estimators. We first design identical quantizers using the class of score-function quantizers (SFQ). We show that the structure of SFQs generally depend on the parameter value, but can be expressed as thresholds on the sufficient statistic for a large class of distributions. We provide a convergent iterative algorithm to obtain the best SFQ that maximizes the minimum ARE for distributions of that class. We compare the performance of the optimal SFQ with a general quantizer designed without making any restrictions on the structure. This general quantizer is hard to implement due to lack of structure, but is optimal if the iterative design algorithm does not encounter local minima. Through numerical simulations, we illustrate that the two quantizers designed are identical. In other words, the optimal quantizer structure is that of an SFQ. For a distributed estimation setup, designing identical quantizers is shown to be suboptimal. We, therefore, propose a joint multiple quantizer design algorithm based on a person-by-person optimization technique employing the SFQ structure. Using numerical examples, we illustrate the gain in performance due to designing nonidentical quantizers.


EVIDENCE-BASED MEDICINE (EBM) hit the headlines around 25 years ago when the McMaster Medical School in Canada named the new learning strategy they had developed.1 Since then, EBM has grown from strength to strength. Demonstration of EBM is now a core standard for general practice in Australia, where contemporary practice is based on best available evidence.2 Perhaps the most enduring feature of EBM that demonstrates its prowess in guiding modern clinical management is that virtually no one reminisces about the distant, and now extinct, cousins of EBM. The best known of these fundamentally flawed approaches to medicine is 'eminence-based medicine' (EmBM). In this approach, decisions are enforced by the 'elder clinical statesman' using a technique that is a cross between the patronage system and well-meaning descriptions of personal experience extrapolated across a broader field. Parodies of EmBM abound, including the formation of levels and grades of EmBM promulgated by the Utopian College of Emergency Medicine (UCEM).3 Other flawed approaches, as expertly documented by Isaacs and Fitzgerald,4 include vehemence-based medicine (stridency of proponent), eloquence-based medicine (sartorial and vocal sophistication of proponent) and nervousness-based medicine (irrational fears of litigation driving irrational management choices). In a world where we all agree to follow EBM, perhaps the real challenge is when the evidence just is not there. As detailed in The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners' (RACGP's) practice standards, 'in the absence of well-conducted clinical trials or other higher order evidence, the opinion of consensus panels of peers is an accepted level of evidence and may be the best available evidence at that time.'2 This of course leads to the question: why isn't the evidence available? The solution proposed by the World Organization of Family Doctors (WONCA) conference in 2004 was expanded primary care research and education, to run with a parallel rise in investment in primary care research.5 And the outcome since then? There has been significant primary healthcare research capacity building on a broader scale across the globe, including the establishment of multidisciplinary research training programs, resulting in thriving primary healthcare research outputs.6 However, as suggested by the current RACGP practice standards,2 there is still much work to do. In this issue of Australian Journal of General Practice, we provide examples illustrating three key pillars of the application of EBM to the general practice clinical environment: • research focused on primary healthcare • ongoing education for general practitioners (GPs), to further their understanding of assessing the evidence • EBM used in patient management. Emery, Pirotta, Macrae, et al examine a novel method of risk communication to promote appropriate patient choice of colorectal cancer screening modality.7 Parker, Grundy and Bero consider the issue of dissecting research results where there is pharmaceutical industry sponsorship.8 Thistlethwaite and Weeks explore GPs' decision making when prescribing new medicines using an EBM approach,9 while Spurling, Mitchell and van Driel unlock the mysteries of using Cochrane reviews in clinical decision making.10 EBM is now an undisputed cornerstone of clinical practice. Recognition that GPs need general–practice focused, evidencebased answers is spurring on a slow but definitive increase in primary healthcare research.11 Our patients are the certain beneficiaries.


Senegal is engaged in the process of liberalizing its external trade under various trade negotiations. At the same time, female participation in the labor market has increased significantly over the last decade. Studies show that the feminization of work is greater in industrial sectors and in semi-industrialized economies, where export industries, such as garments and light manufacturing, employ more women than in agricultural sectors and economies. In semi-industrial economies, liberalization reduces the overall gap between men and women in terms of wage rates, labor market participation and income distribution. In contrast, in agricultural economies – and in agricultural sectors in (semi-) industrial economies – trade is found to favor men, as they are more likely to be engaged in the production of cash crops for export while women focus on import-competing food crops.
Most CGE empirical studies find relatively small welfare and poverty impacts of trade liberalization. These results are not very surprising as in a static framework, which is generally used, welfare gains and poverty impacts result solely from a reallocation of resources. However, there is strong evidence that openness to international trade creates a more competitive environment, and stimulates the diffusion of new technologies, innovation, the adoption of new methods of production and an increase in the availability of imported inputs. It is also argued that in the presence of firm heterogeneity, increased trade leads to a rationalization of output toward the most productive firms.
We contribute to this literature by integrating the growth effects of trade liberalization and the resulting long-run impacts on welfare and poverty. In other words, the question we are trying to answer is, if such productivity gains occur as a result of trade liberalization, who would benefit the most from it.


This essay argues that the works of the nineteenth-century American philosopher, poet, and naturalist Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) have moulded Australian place writings of the last one hundred years. Beginning with the foundational work into Australian literature done by the American critics C. Hartley Grattan (1902-1980), A. Grove Day (1904-1994), and Joseph Jones (1908-1999), the article goes on to contextualize the discussion in the contemporary transhemispherical scholarship of Australian literary historian Harry Heseltine and American ecocritic Robert Zeller. Both syncretic and embodied, Thoreau's literary approach to place draws from a fusion of multi-sensory experience, ethnographic inquiry, and bodily participation in the landscape through walking. Australian place writers including Edmund Banfield (1852-1923), Charles Barrett (1872-1959), Jack McLaren (1884-1954), Derek Robert (c. 1920-?), Barbara York Main (1929-), and Rod Giblett (1951-), explicitly or implicitly, reflect the influence of Thoreau's embodied aesthetics.


The objective of this study was to evaluate the in situ and in vitro degradation kinetics and to predict the digestible neutral detergent fiber (dNDF) from the incubation times; in situ and in vitro degradation kinetic parameters; and equations fitted for agricultural and agro-industrial byproducts. Byproducts from pineapple, cocoa, palm kernel, corn gluten meal, common bean, sunflower, guava, cassava bark, cassava stems, cassava foliage, papaya, mango, passion fruit and turnips were evaluated. There were differences between the byproducts as for the potentially neutral detergent fiber (NDF) fraction and the in situ NDF degradation rate in the final volume of the gases generated by fibrous carbohydrates (FC), for the lag time and for the in vitro fractional degradation rate of the FC. There was equivalence between the dNDF values predicted in situ and those observed in vivo; however, there was low precision of estimates. The degradability in the in vitro incubation times of 30 and 48 hours presented equivalence with the values observed, but also did not present precision in the estimates. The equations fitted without lignin were not precise and accurate to estimate the dNDF of agricultural and agro-industrial byproducts. The equation with lignin and with the digestion rate obtained by the in vitro method presented more precise estimates. Byproducts from common bean, cassava bark and papaya presented greater NDF availability, whereas those of guava had the lowest NDF availability. The digestible NDF fraction was best predicted with the in situ incubation time of 72 hours. The equation fitted utilizing in vitro or in situ digestion rates enables the prediction of the NDF availability of agricultural and agroindustrial byproducts.


We quantify, compare, and generalize responses of experimental nutrient loadings (LN) on planktonic community structure and function in coastal waters. Data were derived from three mesocosm experiments undertaken in Baltic (BAL), Mediterranean (MED), and Norwegian (NOR) coastal waters. A planktonic model with seven functional compartments and 30–32 different carbon flows fit to all three experiments was used as a framework for flow‐rate estimation and comparison. Flows were estimated on the basis of time series of measured biomass, some measured flows, and inverse modeling. Biomass and gross uptake rate of carbon of most groups increased linearly with increasing LN in the nutrient input range of 0–1 µmol N L−1 d−1 at all locations. The fate of the gross primary production (GPP) was similar in all systems. Autotrophic biomass varied by two orders of magnitude among locations, with the lowest biomass and response to nutrient addition in MED waters. The variation of GPP among sites was less than one order of magnitude. Mesozooplankton dominated by doliolids (Tunicata), but not those dominated by copepods, presumably exerted efficient control of the autotrophic biomass, thereby buffering responses of autotrophs to high nutrient input. Among the many factors that can modify the responses of autotrophs to nutrients, the time scale over which the enrichment is made and the precise mode of nutrient enrichment are important. We suggest a general concept that may contribute to a scientific basis for understanding and managing coastal eutrophication.


Hand held mobile devices are widely used today primarily due to their rich functionality and the ease of portability. However, the battery life of these devices is very limited and deploying resource hungry applications such as streaming on these mobile devices is a challenging task. It is extremely important to maximize the efficient use of the contained resources on these devices especially when they participate in a mobile ad hoc network. The optimization can occur in any layer of the OSI stack, however, this thesis work focuses only on the routing protocols used in the network layer. In this thesis work we have been able to evaluate the Energy Efficiency of the four most widely used MANET routing protocols (AODV, OLSR, DSDV and DSR) in terms of their energy consumption and performance. The initial phase of the work was carried out using the Network Simulator 2(NS2) tool and later the observations were done on a real world MANET testbed. The influence of several external factors on the performance and energy consumption are also taken into consideration while performing the simulations and experiments. The results obtained from our observations provide both qualitative and quantitative analysis of the routing protocols. Furthermore, it also highlights how the behaviour of the protocols are sometimes highly unpredictable, yielding results that we may not expect.


Keywords: Attribute Product, price, purchase.
ABSTRACT

This study entitled "Analysis and Product Attribute Factors Considered Consumer Price In Purchasing Mobile CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) Brand Nokia at Nokia Professional Center Malang." This study aims to analyze the factors of product attributes and price that consumers consider the purchase of the CDMA mobile phone Nokia brand and to determine the most considered factor of consumers between the product attributes and price in the purchase of CDMA mobile phones brand Nokia in Nokia Professional Center Malang.
Population in this research is that consumers who have purchased and used CDMA mobile phones brand Nokia in Nokia Professional Center (NPC) in Malang. The sampling technique using accidental sampling with samples taken was 100 people. The analytical tool used is factor analysis.
The results of factor analysis produces factors have eigenvalues of product attribute values of 4.795 and 39.960% of variance and loading value which lies between 0.754 to 0.798 or 75.4% to 79.8% formed by the variable ease of remembering the product name, slogan attractiveness variables , variable attractiveness Nokia chasing, chasing changing convenience variable, the variable engineering consultancy, the variable completeness of the information, variable compensation, variable ease of repair and price factors have eigenvalues values of 2.728 and 22.719% of variance and loading value which lies between 0.818 to 0.829 or 81.8% to 82.9% formed by the variable price of the Nokia compared to other brands, conformity variable price with quality, discounted variable rates, and variable ease of payment. Eigenvalues have the largest value of product attribute values of 4.809 and 40.071% variance. This value indicates that the factor of product attributes is the dominant factor considered by consumers in the purchase of Nokia CDMA mobile phone.


: Th is article critiques assumptions made by urban anthropologists and other scholars of cities, focusing on currently fashionable theories of infrastructure, materiality, and complexity. It problematizes how scholarship informed by actor-network theory, assemblage theory and other varieties of (post)postmodern-ism uses morphological optics and metaphors to represent social life, the material world, and existence itself as necessarily "fl at," "complex" or "fuzzy." As a correc-tive, it proposes reorienting our social morphologies with reference to a Marxist notion of infrastructure, founded on a dynamic understanding of the relationship between determining economic base and determined superstructure. It constructs its theoretical edifi ce with reference to the remaking of post-1945 Warsaw as a socialist city through property expropriation and monumental architectural and planning works, and post-1989 attempts to unmake its socialist character through property reprivatization and unplanning.


Airborne acquisition and on-road mobile mapping provide complementary 3D information of an urban landscape: the former acquires roof structures, ground, and vegetation at a large scale, but lacks the facade and street-side details, while the latter is incomplete for higher floors and often totally misses out on pedestrian-only areas or undriven districts. In this work, we introduce an approach that efficiently unifies a detailed street-side Structure-from-Motion (SfM) or Multi-View Stereo (MVS) point cloud and a coarser but more complete point cloud from airborne acquisition in a joint surface mesh. We propose a point cloud blending and a volumetric fusion based on ray casting across a 3D tetrahedralization (3DT), extended with data reduction techniques to handle large datasets. To the best of our knowledge, we are the first to adopt a 3DT approach for airborne/street-side data fusion. Our pipeline exploits typical characteristics of airborne and ground data, and produces a seamless, watertight mesh that is both complete and detailed. Experiments on 3D urban data from multiple sources and different data densities show the effectiveness and benefits of our approach.


In the face of rapid development in information technology coupled with a growing
dynamism in global markets, manufacturing systems have to be re-constructed for
short term or long term goal. Such innovations promise to lead to a new competitive
stage, which typically involve design of function, information and behaviour of
systems. In order to design the system, simulation has often been chosen. However,
simulation has proved limited and fails to aid design of such a complex systems
because of consuming much computing time and cost, especially when modelling
larger systems. Thus, there is a need to seek a new approach, in a way that results in
simulating such a large manufacturing system with less demand on computing time and
cost.
This study researches into a hybrid modelling approach to minimise these limitations. It
includes proposing a hybrid modelling methodology and developing a hybrid modelling
tool. The methodology integrates simulation and metamodelling techniques. The
metamodel employed in the study possesses, not only characteristics of conventional
metamodels in terms of representing relationships in quantity, but also in time lapse.
This is the originality of the study and the significant distinction between this research
and application of metamodelling in conventional ways. The hybrid modelling tool is
developed to support and demonstrate the identified hybrid methodology. LISP has
been used as the software language for the hybrid modelling tool. The result of this
work concludes that the hybrid modelling approach is capable of simulating a complex
manufacturing system with less demands on the computer.
The work reported in this thesis has been carried out in conjunction with the EPSRC
research project, Hierarchical Manufacturing System Modelling (HMSM)
(GR/F96549), to produce an Integrated Design and Modelling Methodology (IDEM).
The project was initially a collaborative research program including Loughborough
University of Technology (LUT), Morris Crane Ltd., of Loughborough and GEC
Large Machine, of Rugby. The experience of these collaborators has proved most
valuable in supporting the research, and have provided a cross section of views and
comments. The research reported in this thesis is set in the context of the HMSM
Research group at Loughborough.


Drawing from positive organizational behavior, psychological capital has been shown to be a beneficial resource allowing leaders to remain positive and future-oriented. While having hope, optimism, confidence, and resilience are particularly effective in periods of great risk and uncertainty, extreme environments likely affect leaders' psychological capital, as evidenced by changes to these comprising factors. Answering several recent calls for historical and narrative-based approaches to leadership in extreme events, we use content analysis and historiometrics in the case of Benjamin Montgomery, the first African American plantation owner in the post–Civil War U.S. South, who faced a sequence of extreme events after purchasing the plantation on which he was formerly a slave. We triangulate our examination through the letters Montgomery penned to his former owner Joseph Davis—the older brother of Confederacy President Jefferson Davis, records on the focal actors, and historical documents from the period. We then reconstruct and examine the relative contextual severity and its impact on Montgomery's psychological capital across a 6-year period directly following the Civil War (1865-1870). We find that while unfamiliar extreme episodes erode leader psychological capital, those resources are restored when such periods are overcome and experience is gained. We also reconsider psychological capital as a profile multidimensional construct and show underlying pairs of dimensions, which we label as overt positivity (optimism and resilience) and realistic positivity (hope and confidence), trend similarly yet remain distinct from the other pair. The implications of these findings and future directions are then discussed.


Carmoisine is the synthetic food dye, which is used in the manufacturing of some medicals and food products. Previously, we had already been established, that it is able to form the ion associates with some organic amines and their salts, including medicinal substances, and it was capable in this form to be extracted from aqueous solution. The aim of our research was studying the properties of formed ion associate between carmoisine and myramistin - quaternary ammonium compound. As the result of the work performed, that absorption spectra of mixture of carmoisine and myramistin was characteristic by bathochromic shift of the aromatic and long wavelength peak maxima in visible area of the initial dye and by hypochromic effect, reflected particularly in the area of the maximum of the dye. The partition coefficients for various solvents ror the associate were spectrophotometrically established and it is shown, that the highest ratio was observed when extraction associate with chloroform from the aqueous solution without addition of buffer. The dependence of the absorbance on the pH value of the aqueous medium was studied and shown, that change in the pH range from 2.0 to 8.0 had no significant effect on degree of the extraction with chloroform the associate. The dependence of the absorbance of myramistin with carmoisine associate on extraction time was studied and it was shown, that the optimal time was 2 minutes The stoichiometric ratio of the components in the resulting ion associate was established with isomolar series method and was confirmed with HPLC and it was 1:1.


Spomenik ("monument") was a digital memorial architecture that transposes in time otherwise hidden cultural memories of atrocity. Spomenik, was designed as a simple digital audio guide, embedded in a remote rural location (Kočevski Rog, Slovenia) to work without the infrastructure normally present at national memorial sites. By resurrecting voices and cultural narratives of the deceased and placing them back into the landscape through digital means, Spomenik opens a dialogue about the events of the past and their relation to networks of the living; it explored the role of voice and agency, as serviced through design, in the act of memorialization. This article presents a detailed case study of a design-led inquiry about digital memorialization and digital preservation of cultural heritage. It offers a reflective account of the nature of legacy and the extent to which it is (and perhaps should be) necessarily bound to networks of collective memory, mediated through designed cultural tools.


Punishment and Freedom: The Rabbinic Construction of Criminal Law, by Devora Steinmetz. Series: Divinations: Rereading Late Ancient Religion. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008. 224 pp. $55.00. Anyone who has studied bSanhedrin-Makkot should definitely read this book. Readers will find real substance in Devora Steinmetz's discussions of pagan-natural-law versus Torah-commanded-law as well as in her breathtaking feats of finely reasoned talmudic interpretation. Essentially, Steinmetz discusses a number of passages in the Bavli dealing with the death penalty. At the center of her discussion is the punishment of hereg, beheading by a sword: an act that obviously disfigures the criminal as his blood is absorbed into the earth. The Torah (Dt. 13:15) specifies this repulsive punishment solely for the inhabitants of an idolatrous city and for no other crime. There are three other manners of death that do not disfigure (especially in the talmudic etiquette of execution) because they spill no blood: stoning, choking, and burning. While the Torah mandates a death penalty for murder, it nowhere assigns any specific manner of execution. Our author sets out to unravel the rabbis' peculiar choice of decapitation to punish the crime of murder. For the rabbis, the Book of Genesis describes concepts of (near) innate, socially instilled consciousness of natural justice. They say Adam was commanded (Genesis 2:16) to obey "Noahide laws." They understood that violations of these laws incurred the punishment, each and every one, of hereg. Hereg, then, must be the punishment for infractions against natural social laws because they interfere with the efficient functioning of all society. The revelation of this punishment, made by God to Noah in the interim space between the original creation and Noah's new world, links Adam's laws to Noah's power to seek punishment for infractions of social laws. But only one crime and ensuing punishment is cited in scripture, namely, Genesis 9:6, which says, in effect, "you kill a person and a person will kill you" - natural justice. The rabbis reasoned that since murder is only one of the universal prohibitions in Noahide Laws and is punishable through spilling the blood of the criminal, so it must follow that all the other universal Noahide Laws were meant to be punished by the "spilling of blood" (hereg by sword). The rabbis noted this is the only punishment mentioned anywhere in the Torah (Dt 13:15) that cannot help but spill blood. So murder, unlike any other capital ctime, is not only an infraction against divine command; it is first and foremost an infraction of natural, social law, punishable by decapitation. In scripture's poetic, perhaps even mythic, view this harsh consequence is rooted in the natural underpinnings of Creation. Genesis 4:10 describes how the murdered Abel's blood "cries" out for justice from the stained earth. Numbers 35:16-21: says that premeditated murder requires restoration for the bloodied earth through bloody retribution by natural justice meted out by wronged family members. Steinmetz's discussion of the spilling of the blood of a heifer (Dt. 21 :8-9) for unsolved murders accompanied by a recitation, referring to "spilled innocent blood," and atonement, adds a nice flourish to her argument. In spite of murder being an intuitive social wrong, the rabbis picture the judicial proceedings of hereg as following all warrants of mishnaic theories of revealed, positive law. …


The performance of DSL transceivers can be impaired by interference from other transceivers operating over wires in the same binder group. It is therefore important to test DSL transceivers in the presence of crosstalk, which can be simulated in a programming environment such as MATLAB. The simulated crosstalk can then be exported to an arbitrary waveform generator (AWG) for injection onto the line through a high-impedance noise injection circuit. This document describes a method of crosstalk simulation and calibration whereby white gaussian noise (WGN) is passed through a frequency-domain filter that gives the noise the spectral characteristics of crosstalk. The crosstalk is calibrated by measuring its power with a vector signal analyzer (VSA) and adjusting the output level on the AWG to achieve the desired noise power. By using MATLAB to estimate the simulated crosstalk power in the same manner as the VSA, the calibration can be performed in MATLAB without taking actual measurements.


In many sports it is highly important to attain skills to judge and regulate the perceived force needed for the execution of motor actions. In the present article it is emphasized that, while more research on these issues is sorely needed, there are psychophysical methods available to handle force. The putting shot in golf is used as an example, and it is shown how one of the psychophysical scales, the Borg CR100 Scale, functions in laboratory as well as field conditions. Detailed recommendations to players, instructors, and sport psychology practitioners are given for how to use the Borg scale in practice and in games, and it is concluded that such a scale is likely to be useful in many other sports as well.