Despite a longstanding belief that education importantly affects the process of immigrant assimilation, little is known about the relative importance of different mechanisms linking these two processes. This paper explores this issue through an examination of the effects of human capital on one dimension of assimilation, immigrant intermarriage. I argue that there are three primary mechanisms through which human capital affects the probability of intermarriage. First, human capital may make immigrants better able to adapt to the native culture thereby making it easier to share a household with a native. Second, it may raise the likelihood that immigrants leave ethnic enclaves, thereby decreasing the opportunity to meet potential spouses of the same ethnicity. Finally, assortative matching on education in the marriage market suggests that immigrants may be willing to trade similarities in ethnicity for similarities in education when evaluating potential spouses. Using a simple spouse-search model, I first derive an identification strategy for differentiating the cultural adaptability effect from the assortative matching effect, and then I obtain empirical estimates of their relative importance while controlling for the enclave effect. Using U.S. Census data, I find that assortative matching on education is the most important avenue through which human capital affects the probability of intermarriage. Further support for the model is provided by deriving and testing some of its additional implications. Journal of Economic Literature Classification: J12, I21, J15


Domain-specific data is the crux of the successful transfer of machine learning systems from benchmarks to real life. Crowdsourcing has become one of the standard tools for cheap and time-efficient data collection for simple problems such as image classification: thanks in large part to advances in research on aggregation methods. However, the applicability of crowdsourcing to more complex tasks (e.g., speech recognition) remains limited due to the lack of principled aggregation methods for these modalities. The main obstacle towards designing advanced aggregation methods is the absence of training data, and in this work, we focus on bridging this gap in speech recognition. For this, we collect and release CROWDSPEECH — the first publicly available large-scale dataset of crowdsourced audio transcriptions. Evaluation of existing aggregation methods on our data shows room for improvement, suggesting that our work may entail the design of better algorithms. At a higher level, we also contribute to the more general challenge of collecting high-quality datasets using crowdsourcing: we develop a principled pipeline for constructing datasets of crowdsourced audio transcriptions in any novel domain. We show its applicability on an under-resourced language by constructing VOXDIY — a counterpart of CROWDSPEECH for the Russian language. We also release the code that allows a full replication of our data collection pipeline and share various insights on best practices of data collection via crowdsourcing.1


For most of the time since 1995, the Japanese price level has declined. Since early 1999, short-term interest rates have mostly remained near zero. Also, starting in 2001, the excess reserves held by banks have risen dramatically. Many observers have concluded that central banks are powerless to end deflation when short-term interest rates are near zero. This paper argues that such a pessimistic conclusion is unwarranted.


This thesis examines the relationship between the concepts of liberty and self in three different contexts - republicanism, liberalism, and post-modernism - all of which are products of particular historical traditions, and which present themselves as alternative 'languages' and practices in political argument today. I attempt to delineate the relation between the self and the concept of liberty within which it operates in each context, and more generally, questions concerning the relationship between personality and polity. The tendency of much recent historical and analytical scholarship when looking at these issues, has been to emphasize the radical differences between the traditions and their conceptual foundations, especially between republicanism and liberalism. Without minimizing the obvious differences, 1 have sought rather in this thesis to emphasize some important similarities in the way each approaches the issues of agency, liberty, and the role and justification of social arrangements. This entails a distinctive reading of some aspects in the history of the development of republican and liberal political argument, particularly in John Locke. An important theme here is the tension between assumptions of natural liberty and autonomy, and the role of the community and government in constructing, fostering, and disciplining the very autonomy that is presupposed. Arguing that the differing accounts of the relation between liberty and self are, in important ways, constitutive of the debate between 'communitarians' and 'proceduralists', I turn to contemporary Rawlsian liberal political theory to see if we can't stand back from this conventional way of looking at the problem and re-think the relations. [Towards this end I make some remarks on the relation between the history of political thought and (so- called) 'analytical' Political theory.] I argue that liberal political theory must be 'perfectionist', though not in the way that communitarians argue, and not in the way that liberals fear. Indeed it must be so if it is to have any chance for success, though 'perfectionism' is a particularly inappropriate way of talking here, and has been taken up too easily and uncritically in the literature. Civic republican practices have something to teach us in this context, though not simply the way they respect the 'negative liberty' of individuals within a scheme of mutually enforcing rights and duties. This leads me in part, to consider how liberalism tries to make transparent elements of not only state coercion, but institutional, social, and non-juridical forms of power which work on, or through, citizens of modem democracies, and how these power relations manifest themselves in modem concepts of liberty, and conceptions of the self. Finally, I consider some aspects of the work of Michel Foucault, particularly a series of lectures and papers he gave on liberalism and 'neo-liberalism' to see if he offers a vantage point (if anything) from which to evaluate our conventional ways of talking about, and acting on, our concepts of liberty and self.


Parallel programming can be extremely challenging. Programming models have been proposed to simplify this task, but wide acceptance of these remains elusive for many reasons, including the demand for greater accessibility and productivity. In this paper, we introduce a parallel programming model and framework called CharmPy, based on the Python language. CharmPy builds on Charm++, and runs on top of its C++ runtime. It presents several unique features in the form of a simplified model and API, increased flexibility, and the ability to write everything in Python. CharmPy is a high-level model based on the paradigm of distributed migratable objects. It retains the benefits of the Charm++ runtime, including dynamic load balancing, asynchronous execution model with automatic overlap of communication and computation, high performance, and scalability from laptops to supercomputers. By being Python-based, CharmPy also benefits from modern language features, access to popular scientific computing and data science software, and interoperability with existing technologies like C, Fortran and OpenMP. To illustrate the simplicity of the model, we will show how to implement a distributed parallel map function based on the Master-Worker pattern using CharmPy, with support for asynchronous concurrent jobs. We also present performance results running stencil code and molecular dynamics mini-apps fully written in Python, on Blue Waters and Cori supercomputers. For stencil3d, we show performance similar to an equivalent MPI-based program, and significantly improved performance for imbalanced computations. Using Numba to JIT-compile the critical parts of the code, we show performance for both mini-apps similar to the equivalent C++ code.


SUMMARY This study evaluates the utility and cost effectiveness of empirical and prophylactic antibiotic treatment of leptospirosis compared with conventional management. We developed decision trees comparing empirical antibiotic treatment (within 4–7 days of symptom onset) or prophylaxis to conventional antibiotic treatment (initiated ⩾7 days post-onset). Costs were calculated using both US and Barbados pricing. Empirical treatment provided slightly lower probability of survival, while prophylactic treatment resulted in slightly higher survival rates. Antibiotic treatment initiated after 4–7 symptomatic days was ineffective in preventing serious health outcomes, but cost less with the exception of azithromycin (US pricing). Empirical treatment in Barbados cost less than conventional treatment. Prophylaxis reduced rare serious health outcomes and resulted in significant cost savings for the United States and Barbados. Prophylactic therapy for high-risk individuals or prompt diagnosis and early treatment (before 4 days of symptoms) appear to be cost-effective approaches to prevent severe complications of leptospirosis.


Immigration law fails to align with the contemporary understanding of substance addiction as a medical condition. The Immigration and Nationality Act regards noncitizens who suffer from drug or alcohol substance use disorder as immoral and undesirable. Addiction is a ground of exclusion and deportation and can prevent the finding of "good moral character" needed for certain immigration applications. Substance use disorder can lead to criminal behavior that lands noncitizens, including lawful permanent residents, in removal proceedings with no defense. The time has come for immigration law to catch up to today's understanding of addiction. The damage done by failing to contemporize the law extends beyond the harms of unwarranted family separation due to the deportation or exclusion of people who suffer from substance use disorder. Holding noncitizens to an archaic standard threatens our civic and political identity as a diverse and democratic country. The bigger the gap between contemporary mores and immigration law and policy, the harder it is for U.S. citizens to develop a civic and political identity that is free of ethnic and racial animus. Double standards for citizens and noncitizens create cognitive dissonance, leaving society vulnerable to discriminatory or stereotypical views to justify the differential treatment. This phenomenon not only harms noncitizens but thwarts the formation of a national civic and political identity free of ethnic and racial bias. This Article proposes and explains the legislative reforms necessary to remedy the current state of immigration law's treatment of substance use disorder.


A group of 500 scientists has just released the first-ever assessment of the status of ecosystems in the United Kingdom, evaluating their ability to provide food, sustain biodiversity, and perform many other services. The overall conclusion: Some 30% of these ecosystem functions are currently declining. The report suggests that the government could do a better job managing these ecosystems—and reap more benefits for society—if it took into account the economic value of a broader array of natural benefits, such as recreation and carbon sequestration.


The present work developed a sensitive and selective method for the determination of 4-chlorophenol (4-CP), 2,4-dichlorophenol (2,4-DCP) and 2,4,6-trichlorophenol (2,4,6-TCP) in an environmental water sample by molecularly imprinted magnetic nanoparticle (Fe3O4@MIP) based extraction coupled with capillary electrophoresis (CE). The highly selective, fast and effective sample pretreatment method with Fe3O4@MIPs can overcome the low sensitivity of the highly efficient capillary electrophoresis-ultraviolet detection method (CE-UV). In order to further improve the detection sensitivity, the analytes eluted from the Fe3O4@MIPs were analyzed by the on-line sample preconcentration large volume sample stacking (LVSS) technique with MEKC. Under optimal concentration conditions, signal enhancements of 781, 3276 and 8916-fold were achieved for 4-CP, 2,4-DCP and 2,4,6-TCP, respectively. The average recoveries of the three analytes in spiked water samples were 99.33–104.5% with a relative standard deviation (RSD) below 6.8%. The detection limits for 4-chlorophenol, 2,4-dichlorophenol and 2,4,6-trichlorophenol were 1.1 × 10−3, 2.13 × 10−4 and 6.68 × 10−5 μg mL−1, respectively.


This research examines the use of scenography in museum design and investigates how scenography can impact on visitors' value of experience. This research contributes to existing knowledge on visitors' experiences, museum design and the relationship between them, and aims to inspire new thinking on the potential of scenography to enhance visitors' value of experiences. With ever increasing and improving competition for the public's free time museums are more widely recognised as part of the leisure industry. To remain culturally relevant and financially sustainable museums have had to develop a more profound understanding of not only who their audiences are, but what users require from their experiences, and how they can offer this. Taking influence from the service industry, this research focuses on the visitor as investor and uses the concept of 'value of experience' to examine what people seek when visiting museums.

The study began by reviewing the use of scenography in theatrical performance and considering if this aligns with the role of museums. I analyse existing examples of scenography in museum design and reflect on personal experience to consider the impact of these on visitors. Summarising literature into visitors' experiences, I recognise six types of value that are most commonly sought or recognised by museum visitors. These six values are presented in the 'visitors' value of museum experience groupings', an original system developed for the purpose of this research. The visitors' value of museum experience groupings were tested then used as a framework to review the impact of scenography in museum design. Triangulating data collected from field visits to museum, interviews with museum staff, and consultations with museum visitors I use the value groupings as a guide to investigate the impact of scenography in museum design on their visitors' value of experience.

The research demonstrates that there is an ever increasing use of scenographic components in museum designs and reviews the ways in which these can be applied to support some of the core aims and objectives of museums. Though the impact of scenography can be mutually beneficial for visitor and museum, there are fundamental differences in museums and theatres which mean some principles of scenography cannot be easily transferred to museum spaces. The museum frame is unlike the theatrical frame. Theatres enjoy an artistic licence with which they can choose to be illusionary, exaggerated and deceptive. The theatrical frame sets expectations and behaviours which encourages audiences to suspend their disbelief and engage in personal meaning making. Meanwhile, museums are trusted as places of accuracy, perceived as places of unique learning, and celebrated for being the carers of authentic collections. Considering these factors, the ability or willingness of museum visitors to overlook limitations and read design on a symbolic level is unclear. Though scenography may be able to support museums in offering a range of values, the most unique and fundamental characteristics of museums must be respected and celebrated if they wish to maintain a competitive edge within today's competitive leisure industry.


The authors describe the OAI-PMH protocol (Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting) used for the interchange of metadata on the internet. Analysed are questions such as the context in which the protocol was born –communities of scientific documents repositories– and how it has evolved and extended its reach to include any material in electronic format. Its architecture, based on the client/server model, is briefly described. Clients, which are called "archives",place Dublin Core metadata in the public domain in order for servers or service providers to retrieve this metadata and to build added value services for end users. Communication between archives and services takes place using the http protocol. Questions and replies are coded in xml. The authors conclude with a review of the main institutions that have implemented the protocol, user services based on it, and software tools that facilitate the creation of open archives.


Increasing DBM Reliability using Distribution Independent Tests and Information Fusion Techniques Vidya Rajagopalan In deformation based morphometry (DBM) group-wise differences in brain structure are measured using deformable registration and some form of statistical test. However, it is known that DBM results are sensitive to both the registration method and statistical test used. Given the lack of an objective model of group variation it has been difficult to determine the extent of the influence of registration implementation or contraints on DBM analysis. In this thesis, we use registration methods with varying levels of theoretic similarity to study the influence of registration mechanics on DBM results. We show that because of the extent of the influence of registration mechanics on DBM results, analysis of changes should always be made with a thorough understanding of the registration method used. We also show that minor variations in registration methods can lead to large changes in DBM results. When using DBM, it would be imprudent to use only one registration method to draw any conclusions about the variations being studied. In order to provide a more complete representation of inter-group changes, we propose a method for combining multiple registration methods using Dempster-Shafer evidence theory to produce belief maps of categorical changes between groups. We show that the Dempster-Shafer combination produces a unique and easy to interpret belief map of regional changes between and within groups without the complications associated with hypothesis testing. Another, often confounding, element of DBM is the parametric hypothesis test used to specify voxels undergoing significant change between the two groups. The accuracy and reliability of these tests are contingent on a number of fundamental assumptions made about the distribution of the data used in the tests. Many DBM studies often overlook these assumptions and fail to verify their validity for the data being tested. This raises many doubts about the credibility of the results from such tests. In this thesis, we propose to perform statistical analysis on DBM data using nonparametric, distribution independent hypothesis tests. With no data distributional assumptions, these tests provide both increased flexibility and reliability of DBM statistical analysis.


Hematology today is recognized as one of our most valuable aids in the diagnosis and prognosis of acute inflammatory processes. Still, we find many who are at a loss as to the significance and interpretation of blood pictures in any given condition. In many hospitals a total leukocyte count alone is made, even though it is a well recognized fact among hematologists that of the two parts of a blood picture, that is, total leukocyte count and differential count, the latter is by far the more valuable, while the most valuable data are obtained from the comparative relation of the total leukocyte count and the polymorphonuclear percentage. In the early days of blood counting when this branch of hematology was receiving a great deal of attention from investigators, Sondern1published a paper which stands out as a high light among the numerous ones appearing on the subject at that


1. The aim of this work was to assess whether a form of synaptic modification based on the theory of Bienenstock, Cooper, and Munro (BCM) can, with a fixed set of parameters, reproduce both the kinetics and equilibrium states of experience-dependent modifications cortex. 2. According to the BCM theory, the connection strength of excitatory geniculocortical synapses varies as the product of a measure of input activity (d) and a function (phi) of the summed postsynaptic response. For all postsynaptic responses greater than spontaneous but less than a critical value called the "modification threshold" (theta), phi has a negative value. For all postsynaptic responses greater than theta, phi has a positive value. A novel feature of the BCM theory is that the value of theta is not fixed, but rather "slides" as a nonlinear function of the average postsynaptic response. 3. This theory permits precise specification of theoretical equivalents of experimental situations, allowing detailed, quantitative comparisons of theory with experiment. Such comparisons were carried out here in a series of computer simulations. 4. Simulations are performed by presenting input to a model cortical neuron, calculating the summed postsynaptic response, and then changing the synaptic weights according to the BCM theory. This process is repeated until the synaptic weights reach an equilibrium state. 5. Two types of geniculocortical input are simulated: "pattern" and "noise." Pattern input is assumed to correspond to the type of input that arises when a visual contour of a particular orientation is presented to the retina. This type of input is said to be "correlated" when the two sets of geniculocortical fibers relaying information from the two eyes convey the same patterns at the same time. Noise input is assumed to correspond to the type of input that arises in the absence of visual contours and, by definition, is uncorrelated. 6. By varying the types of input available to the two sets of geniculocortical synapses, we simulate the following types of visual experience: 1) normal binocular contour vision, 2) monocular deprivation, 3) reverse suture, 4) strabismus, 5) binocular deprivation, and 6) normal contour vision after a period of monocular deprivation. 7. The constraints placed on the set of parameters by each type of simulated visual environment, and the effects that such constraints have on the evolution of the synaptic weights, are investigated in detail.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)


This report argues that it is important that a comprehensive medicines policy be developed in Estonia, with clear objectives to address issues of financing, equity in access, protection of vulnerable segments of the population, improvements in rational drug use, macroeconomic efficiency and allocative efficiency. This could be done under the stewardship of the competent authorities, the Ministry of Social Affairs in particular, and involve all relevant stakeholders in consultations to provide input. The areas identified in this report for improvement were: (a) The concerns over increasing and significant out-of-pocket expenses for prescription medicines; (b) Streamlining of the process for drug selection for positive list inclusion and subsequent reimbursement; (c) Stimulate the prescribing and dispensing of generics; (d) Facilitate generic substitution; (e) Market incentives for pharmacies to dispense generics; (f) Simplifying and reducing copayments for patients; (g) Implementing a national program/system to improve prescribing and use of medicines; (h) Monitoring the availability of medicines at pharmacy level; (i) Ensuring adequate and timely distribution of prescription medicines (both wholesale and retail); (j) Reducing VAT on prescription medicines; and (k) Developing a comprehensive medicines policy to include all important areas.


To date, the turn toward market-based regulatory tools in the environmental, health, and safety context has tended to focus on taxes, tradable permits, and information disclosure rules, with comparatively little attention devoted to environmental assurance bonds. This paper argues that environmental assurance bonding offers a particularly attractive regulatory approach for contexts - such as the present state of nanoscale science and engineering - in which both the risk and the benefit sides of the regulatory equation are characterized by great uncertainty. Historical examples and existing scholarly analyses of environmental assurance bonding are reviewed, and the resulting lessons are situated within the larger debate over economic cost-benefit balancing and precautionary approaches to environmental law and policy. In particular, the paper argues that environmental assurance bonding displays the virtue of symmetric humility, paying due heed to the dynamism and complexity both of sociolegal systems such as markets and of biophysical systems such as aquatic ecosystems.


The Inner Child lives within all of us, it's the part of us that feels emotions and is playful intuitive and creative. Usually hidden under our grown-up personas, the Inner Child holds the key to intimacy in relationships physical and emotional well-being, recovery from addictions, and the creativity and wisdom of our inner selves. "Recovery of Your Inner Child" is the only book that shows you how to have a "firsthand experience" of your Inner Child -- actually feeling its emotions and recapturing its sense of wonder -- by writing and drawing with your non-dominant hand. Expanding on the highly acclaimed technique introduced in "The Power of Your Other Hand, " here Dr. Capacchione shares scores of hands-on activities that will help you to embrace your Vulnerable Child and your Angry Child, find the Nurturing Parent within, and finally discover the Creative and Magical Child that can heal your life.


This handbook covers the vast field of business information systems, focusing particularly on developing information systems to capture and integrate information technology together with the people and their businesses. Part I of the book, "Health Care Information Systems", focuses on providing global leadership for the optimal use of health care information technology (IT). It provides knowledge about the best use of information systems for the betterment of health care services. Part II, "Business Process Information Systems", extends the previous theory in the area of process development by recognizing that improvements in intra-organizational business processes need to be complemented by corresponding improvements in inter-organizational processes. Part III deals with "Industrial Data and Management Systems" and captures the main challenges faced by the industry, such as the changes in the operations paradigm of manufacturing and service organizations. Finally, Part IV, "Evaluation of Business Information Systems", discusses the empirical investigation into the adoption of systems development methodologies and the security pattern of the business systems along with the mathematical models.


In the vicinity of serpentinite wall rocks, the three fissure veins at the Oriental mine, Alleghany district, California, contain small high-grade ore shoots carrying hundreds of troy ounces of gold per ton. In addition minable zones of albitized wall-rock granite ore contain an average of 0.2 ounces of gold per ton. In the veins most native gold is associated with arsenopyrite, but in the granite it occurs as microscopic inclusions within the pyrite. Various geothermometers and paragenetic relations suggest that vein gold deposition occurred during the end stages of mineralization at temperatures between approximately 200 degrees and 300 degrees C, at pressures between 670 and 2,500 bars, and at depths exceeding 2.5 km. During the early stages of mineralization, when most hydrothermal alteration and gold deposition in granite probably occurred, temperatures were above 340 degrees C and possibly as high as 491 degrees C.Muscovite, paragonite, calcite, dolomite, dawsonite, and albite fluid inclusion daughter minerals have been identified in situ by refractive index measurements and by X-ray powder diffraction. The near neutral to alkaline character of the mineralizing fluids, implied by the presence of 0.34 M dissolved dawsonite, and the low equivalent NaCl contents of fluid inclusions suggest that gold may have been complexed with sulfur or arsenic, rather than occurring as chloride complexes.Wall-rock alteration effects include envelopes of intense carbonatization and desilication, surrounding the principal gold quartz veins but also occurring along splits and fractures emanating from the main vein structures. For example, in granite the main alteration effects, dissolution of original quartz and formation of albite, occur along nearly flat-lying fractures, chiefly in the footwall of the Oriental vein. Chemical analyses suggest that desilication of granite and removal of silica during ankeritization of mafic minerals in the other rock types liberated sufficient amounts of silica to form the vein quartz at the Oriental mine. Beyond the fringes of the main alteration envelopes is an outer essentially pervasive alteration zone, characterized by sericitization and chloritization, which grades into greenschist-facies country rocks and may predate mineralization. Gold in high-grade ore shoots may have been precipitated by reactions involving reducing fluids derived from the wall-rock serpentinite near which all high-grade vein ores occur. Limited fluid inclusion data for ore shoot quartz, however, seem to be consistent with the alternative possibility of temperature controls for ore deposition.


Most of sound sources are complex vibroacoustic objects consist of numerous elements. Some coupled vibrating plates of different shapes and sizes can be easily found in urban environments. The main aim of this study is to determine the sound radiation of coupled plates system of practical importance. The investigated vibroacoustic system consist of a thin circular plate coupled with a thick flat baffle with a circular hole. The circular plate has been mounted to the baffle's hole using screws and two steel rings. The measurement setup was located inside a semi-anechoic chamber to assure the free field conditions. It was necessary to take into account the whole system surface to obtain the radiation efficiency based on the Hashimoto's method. Such an approach can be troublesome and time-consuming. Therefore, the criterion has been proposed which allows the vibration velocity measurements and calculations to be performed only for the thin plate's area. An alternative approach has been proposed based on the classical Rayleigh integral formula. Its advantage is a simpler implementation in a computer code. The obtained results have been compared with the theoretical results obtained for the elastically supported circular plate. A good agreement has been obtained at low frequencies.


Development in urban areas around the world has steadily increased in recent years. This rapid development has not been matched by the ever decreasing open space commonly associated with urban centers. Vertical construction, thus, lends itself a very useful solution to this problem. Deep excavation is often required for urban construction. Unfortunately, the ground movements associated with deep excavation can result in damage to adjacent buildings. Thus, it is critically important to accurately predict the damage potential of nearby deep excavations and designing adequate support systems.
A new design method is proposed, as an attempt, to address the problem. The method is semi-empirical and directly links excavation-induced distortions experienced by nearby buildings and the components of the excavation support system. Unlike, the traditional limit equilibrium approach, the method is driven by the distortions in adjacent buildings. It goes further to propose a preliminary cost chart to help designers during the design phase. The benefit is that initial cost is known real time and will help speed up making business decisions. A new design flowchart is proposed to guide the designer through a step-by-step procedure.
The method is validated using 2D Plaxis (the finite element program) simulation. Though the nature of deep excavation is three-dimensional, a plane strain condition is valid when the length of the excavation is long. Hence, two-dimensional finite element simulation was considered appropriate for this effort. Five hypothetical cases were compared and the model performed very well. The lack of available literature on this approach made verification difficult. It is hoped that future case histories will be used to ascertain the veracity of the deformation-based design method.


Timely detection and follow-up of abnormal cellular changes can aid in early diagnosis of breast cancer, thus leading to better treatment outcomes. However, despite substantial breast cancer screening initiatives, the proportion of female breast cancer cases diagnosed at late stages remains high. Distance to screening clinics may affect access to care, particularly for women living in impoverished areas with limited means of reliable transportation. Utilizing breast cancer screening data collected by the Illinois Breast and Cervical Cancer Program between 1996 and 2010, we examined the effect of travel distance to the clinic from which women received breast cancer screening tests on stage of diagnosis. The proportion of abnormal mammograms in White women (1.6%) was higher than in Black women (1.1%) or Hispanic women (0.5%). The average distance traveled to a clinic was also farthest among White women (6.7 mi) than for Hispanic (5.3 mi) or Black women (4.4 mi). Distance to a clinic was significantly associated with increased odds of having abnormal results. When distance to clinic was controlled for, the observed disparity in odds of having an abnormal mammogram between White and Black women was no longer statistically significant. Individual and neighborhood sociodemographic characteristics were significantly associated with distance to clinic, but were not associated with increased odds of having an abnormal mammogram, controlling for distance to the clinic. Findings showed that individual and neighborhood sociodemographic characteristics are directly and indirectly associated with abnormal mammogram results, and that distance to a clinic may mediate, in part, the effects of individual characteristics and neighborhood disadvantage on the probability of having an abnormal mammogram.


The analysis of the damage following the 2009 L'Aquila earthquake clearly indicates a strict control of the local geological conditions over the distribution of the effects.This paper briefly illustrates some of the most significant cases of local effects that have been observed and analysed during the seismic microzoning project promoted by the Italian Civil Protection Department.The observed local effects span over a wide range of typologies, such as classical 1D stratigraphic amplifications within wide extensional basins filled by Quaternary continental deposits, 2D amplifications within basins with horst-and-graben geometry of the bedrock, jointed rock-mass amplification and topographic amplification, though the latter was rarely observed. The paper also focuses on the meaning and significance in terms of site response of the geologicbedrock, which is formed by marine Meso-Cenozoic rocks underlying the Quaternary continental cover in the L'Aquila area, as well as the role of stiff rock bodies within the Quaternary continental succession behaving as a seismic bedrock. A certain number of slope and ground failure cases are also reported, prevailingly falls/topples with rolling and bouncing blocks and cave collapses, as well as co-seismic surface faulting cases. This latter aspect is discussed in the light of the lack of specific recommendations about surface fault-rupture hazard in the Italian regulations for building design in seismic areas.


The Authenticated Encryption with Associated Data (AEAD) primitive, which integrates confidentiality and integrity services under a single roof, found wide-spread adoption in industry and became indispensable in practical protocol design. Recognizing this, academic research put forward a large number of candidate constructions, many of which come with provable security guarantees. Nevertheless, the recent past has shaken up with the discovery of vulnerabilities, some of them fatal, in well-regarded schemes, stemming from weak underlying primitives, flawed security arguments, implementation-level vulnerabilities, and so on. Simply reacting to such findings by replacing broken candidates by better(?) ones is in many cases unduly, costly, and sometimes just impossible. On the other hand, as attack techniques and opportunities change over time, it seems venturous to propose any specific scheme if the intended lifetime of its application is, say, twenty years.In this work we study a workable approach towards increasing the resilience against unforeseen breaks of AEAD primitives. Precisely, we consider the ability to combine two AEAD schemes into one such that the resulting AEAD scheme is secure as long as at least one of its components is (or: as long as at most one component is broken). We propose a series of such combiners, some of which work with fully generic AEAD components while others assume specific internal structures of the latter (like an encrypt-then-MAC design). We complement our results by proving the optimality of our constructions by showing the impossibility of combiners that get along with less invocations of the component algorithms.


To celebrate its fiftieth anniversary, the University of Virginia Press reissues its first-ever publication. The volume's two accounts of the 1609 wreck of a Jamestown-bound ship offer a gripping sea adventure from the earliest days of American colonisation, but the dramatic events' even greater claim to fame is for serving as the inspiration for William Shakespeare's last major work, The Tempest . William Strachey was one of six hundred passengers sailing to Jamestown as part of the largest expedition yet to Virginia. A mere week from their destination, the fleet's flagship, Sea Venture , met a tropical storm and wrecked on one of the islands of Bermuda. Strachey's story might have ended there, but the castaways survived on the tropic island for eleven months and--in an act of almost incomprehensible resourcefulness--used local cedarwood, along with the wreckage of their own ship, to construct two seaworthy boats and continue successfully on their voyage. Strachey's frankness about his fellow travellers, mutinies on the island, and the wretched condition in which they finally found Jamestown kept his document from being officially published initially, but it circulated privately in London, where one of its early readers was William Shakespeare. The second narrative in this volume, by Strachey's shipmate Silvester Jourdain, covers the same episode but includes many fascinating details that Strachey's does not, including some that made their way into The Tempest. Presented with modern spelling and punctuation, this great maritime drama and unforgettable firsthand look at the profound struggle to colonise America offers today's reader the raw material that inspired Shakespeare's masterpiece.


In April 2015, Nepal was struck by a devastating earthquake. The ensuing reconstruction process has suffered from alack of finance, adequate manpower and knowledge of earth quake-specific construction techniques. These concerns are further exacerbated by a lack of information sharing between stakeholders,emphasizing the need for a place where knowledge and resources are stored and made accessible.My project is an information centre meant to address these concerns, to educate and to provide help to the local community in their reconstruction process. The project investigates how the function of public space in Nepal, local climatic design solutions and local building techniques, combined with features of traditional Nepalese architecture, can be employed in the design of a public building.


A suite of early Cretaceous vo1canic rocks (Puerto GOmez and Arequita FIm.) are preserved within the N60° E trending Santa Lucia Basin, southern Uruguay which lies at the southern margin of the Parana - Etendeka continental flood basalt province. New Ar- Ar ages of the basalts range from 134 to 130 Ma while ages from the rhyolites range from 130 to 124 Ma. This magamtism was contemporaneous with the main flood basalt event, although rhyolite activity continued after rifting (127 - 126 Ma). The province therefore contains unique information about melting conditions at the periphery of the influence of the Tristan da Cunha plume.
 The volcanic rocks of southern Uruguay are bimodal in silica, and the majority of basalts of the Puerto G6mez Fm., herein termed the Treinte Y Tres magma type, have major-, trace- element and initial isotope ratios similar to the low -Ti/Y Gramado-Tafelberg magma types of the Paranl-Etendeka. There are also a number of unique basalt samples termed the Santa Lucia magma type. which have low La/Nb, and are considered to have been generated by mixing between lithosphere - and asthenosphere - derived melts. These magmas represent the first sampling of true plume material in this CFB province. The rhyolites of the Arequita Fm. are relatively evolved with variably sized euhedral to anbedral quartz phenocrysts, and ignimbritic textures that are the first described from this province. The rhyolites have lower magmatic temperatures (850 - 950°C) than those of the Parana-Etendeka, and are divided into two geochemical series, the Lascano Series and the Aigtia Series. The rhyolites of the Lascano and Aigua Series are not related to the Puerto Gomez Fm. basaks, but rather they originated from separate sources in the mid to lower crust. where melting was facilitated by mid-crustal level intrusions of basaJtic material as recognised from a large gravity anomaly. Melt production rates in southern Uruguay were low (0.01 km3 yr-1) similar to the rates ca1cuIated for the waning stages of magmatism on the Serra Geral escarpment, southern Brazil. These rates are consistent with the notion that by this time the principal melt production was located in the newly forming ocean with Uruguay at the margins of the influence of the plume.


Within the catalogue of rights, whether conceived in constitutional or international terms, economic and social rights are said to be especially indeterminate. This Article inquires into the conceptual foundations of a minimum core of economic and social rights. The concept of the minimum core has been applied to provide determinacy and even justiciability to the rights to food, health, housing, and education, and also (most ambitiously) to give substance to minimum legal obligations in both national and global distributive justice debates. This Article brings together the methodological insights of comparative constitutional law and international human rights, and traces the ways in which concepts are borrowed from each field. By doing so, this Article disaggregates three contrasting approaches to giving content to the minimum core - that of ascertaining the normative essence, minimum consensus or minimum obligation of economic and social rights. This Article further demonstrates how each approach is ultimately unable to provide an account that satisfies the proclaimed aims of the minimum core's proponents. It ends by gesturing towards alternative ways of approaching a universalized discourse of minimums in economic and social rights.


We study a generic model for self-referential behaviour in financial markets, where agents attempt to use some (possibly fictitious) causal correlations between a certain quantitative information and the price itself. This correlation is estimated using the past history itself, and is used by a fraction of agents to devise active trading strategies. The impact of these strategies on the price modify the observed correlations. A potentially unstable feedback loop appears and destabilizes the market from an efficient behaviour. For large enough feedbacks, we find a `phase transition' beyond which non trivial correlations spontaneously set in and where the market switches between two long lived states, that we call conventions. This mechanism leads to overreaction and excess volatility, which may be considerable in the convention phase. A particularly relevant case is when the source of information is the price itself. The two conventions then correspond then to either a trend following regime or to a contrarian (mean reverting) regime. We provide some empirical evidence for the existence of these conventions in real markets, that can last for several decades.


The purpose of this study was to assess maximum strength (1RM) in the bench press and biceps curl exercises, and relate it to total body mass (BM) and fat-free mass (FFM), as well as to assess the maximum repetition number at different percentages of 1-RM. Eleven women (age: 24 ± 1.4 years) were submitted to body composition assessment, 1-RM tests, and maximum repetition tests at 50, 60, 70 and 80% of 1-RM. For data treatment, multiple linear regression, repeated measures ANOVA and paired t-test were used. FFM explains better than BM the 1-RM variance and can be used to determine a coefficient to estimate the training load. Significant differences were found in the maximum repetition numbers in all percentages and both exercises (bench press (p=0,000) and biceps curl (p=0,000). These results revealed a gradual decrease in the number of repetitions as the load increased.


This article explores the application of geophysical and soil geochemical methods to detect archaeological features in three traditionally 'difficult' survey environments in Scotland: wind‐blown sands (Bay of Skaill, Orkney), clay (Chesterhall Parks Farm, Lanarkshire) and glacial drift deposits (Forteviot, Perthshire). The results presented here are part of the first research project that systematically tested a combined approach using geophysical and soil characterisation to understand the proxy responses of known archaeological features. First, a range of geophysical techniques [earth resistance, magnetometry, frequency domain electromagnetics (FDEM) and ground‐penetrating radar (GPR)] was employed over archaeological targets. Second, the different geophysical results were considered with respect to soil chemical concentrations (total phosphate and multi‐element analysis), texture, pH, conductivity, organic matter content and magnetic susceptibility from archaeological deposits, topsoil and subsoil samples. This study demonstrates that, by focusing on the responses of single archaeological features and assessing their physical and chemical signatures, soil composition and processes involved in the 'history' of buried features are of importance in improving our understanding of the reasons behind their detection with geophysical means. For example, at the cropmark site at Forteviot, chemical transformations can be triggered by organic matter accumulation and increased water retention within prehistoric ditch deposits and can have an effect on the type of magnetic contrast. In addition, chemical concentrations revealing anthropogenic organic materials can explain the enhanced conductivity of theoretically impervious features, as illustrated at the Bay of Skaill site. The study also provide insights into how a particular soil environment may affect different geophysical techniques such as the masking effects of heterogeneous glacial drift deposits or deep windblown sands. These types of survey environments characterise many archaeologically rich areas in Scotland, where integrated strategies, such as the one used in this investigation, are the best option to maximise detection of subsurface features and provide confident and augmented interpretations.


Contemporary lean thinking, especially in knowledge work areas like software engineering, begins with understanding flow. Architecture plays a vital role in enabling the flow of value in software engineering teams and organizations. To date there has been little research in understanding impediments to flow in software engineering organizations. A focus on enabling flow through removing impediments is a useful perspective in creating a more agile, lean thinking software engineering organization. Particularly so when supported by appropriate metrics. This paper presents a case study of how architecture-related impediments impact the flow of work in software engineering teams and organizations. The key contributions of this paper are centered on the concept of flow and impediments in modern software engineering, and its relationship with architecture. We develop an understanding of how a focus on flow and removing impediments, supported by appropriate metrics, is helpful in identifying architecture-related challenges. Drawing on research of one company's practices the paper presents an example of a scenario where flow analysis using specific metrics reveals architecture-related impediments and shows how addressing these impediments improves effectiveness and productivity in ways that would not otherwise have been revealed.


Among the three medications approved for the treatment of opioid use disorder, methadone has been in use for the longest period and has the most extensive evidence base of effectiveness. Yet it remains underutilized as new insurance policies favor access to buprenorphine and neglect to dismantle barriers to obtaining methadone. In the absence of wholesale regulatory change, private insurance carriers should take the lead in expanding access to this medication. We offer several solutions for private payers, including expanding coverage, removing prior authorization, addressing out-of-pocket costs, increasing provider reimbursement, and incentivizing system integration.


Using agent technology to support e-commerce automation is a promising direction. However, previous "proof-of-concept" efforts do not scale well in e-commerce automation. An essential reason is that the conventional agent infrastructures are primarily designed for intra-enterprise, group-based agent cooperation, but most e-commerce applications are based on inter-enterprise business partnership. Agents across enterprise boundaries are unlikely to be organized into the same "agent group" and under a centralized coordination. We tackle the issue of scaling inter-enterprise agent cooperation from the following three angles. First, we have introduced the point of presence (POP) approach for integrating message-based agent communication with interface-based service invocation. This approach allows us to unify the messaging service interface for all the agents, and therefore greatly simplify both server-side and client-side interface implementation and maintenance. Next, we have developed the agent-embedded cooperative process manager, for elevating multi-agent cooperation from the conversation level to the business process level, and from centralized process management to peer-to-peer cooperative process management. These emerging technologies are integrated with the E-Carry agent infrastructure, an autonomous and decentralized system we developed at HP Labs. The feasibility of this approach have been demonstrated in a prototyping system.


Youth-led provision within organisations that serve young people is not a new concept. However, the majority of youth-led work is project-based or within educational institutions, and little research exists regarding systemic youth-led work within non-educational youth organisations. This research followed a youth centre in North West England during its transition from a practitioner-led model to a more youth-led model. The aims of this research were to identify and analyse the logics and rationalities, practices and processes, and relationships that facilitated and/or hindered the process of change at the centre.

The research began as a participant action research (PAR) project, which concluded abruptly mid-way through data collection. In collaboration with the youth centre, it morphed into an ethnography that examined youth-led work in the wider centre. The first contribution to knowledge is the analysis of the process of change using a complexity framework, which found that certain kinds of interactions heavily influenced the character of the centre and thus the process of change. The second contribution is in illustrating the way in which young people can realise their ability for youth leadership as an organic process rooted in context of their own interests and priorities.


Aim : Teachers are considered one of the most vulnerable professional groups to suffer from occupational stress and burnout. It is recognized that the phenomena affects individual and educational contexts, so their evaluation becomes a relevant issue. This study aims at contributing to the adaptation of the European Portuguese version of the CBP-R, by studying a sample of Portuguese teachers from primary and secondary schools. The interest herein relates to the fact that it specifically evaluates the dimensions of burnout in teachers. Method : Once the authors' permission to use the instrument was given, we adopted all the procedures necessary to ensure the translation of the CBP-R to European Portuguese. The instrument was then applied to a sample of 513 teachers aged between 22 and 66 years old (M = 41.88, SD = 9.461). We used the version 19.0 of the software SPSS and AMOS, to enter data and perform sample characterization and to study the reliability and confirmatory factor analysis of the CBP-R, respectively. Results : The dimensions of burnout included in CBP-R showed high factorial validity and high internal consistency, according to the tripartite Maslach Model of Burnout (1993). Conclusion : This work suggests that the European Portuguese version of the CBP-R is a useful and appropriate tool to evaluate burnout in teachers, particularly the dimensions of emotional exhaustion, depersonalization and personal accomplishment.


This post considers whether a given deficit resulting in more reserves in circulation and fewer bonds held by the non-government sector raises the likelihood of spiraling inflation, as most interpretations of the government budget constraint (GBC) assume. The approach here recognizes the importance of understanding the balance sheet implications of both of these options that are central to MMT. While most economists typically assume a supply and demand relationship, as in the hypothesized loanable funds market, and then build models accordingly, such an approach can miss important relationships in the real world. In particular, any transaction in a capitalist economy results in changes in the agents' financial statements; if the hypothesized supply and demand relations are not consistent with the actual changes occurring within the financial statements of the relevant agents, then the hypothesized model is irrelevant. In a modern money regime such as ours in which there is a sovereign currency issuer operating under flexible exchange rates, "monetization" versus "financing" as characterized both in the GBC and in the hypothesized loanable funds market fall into this category.


Current work is a thorough investigation on the processing and mechanical properties and the toughening mechanism of nanorubber-modified epoxy and the carbon and glass fibre reinforced composites produced using these matrices. The study is aiming to assess the applicability of these novel nanorubber-modified matrices to advanced industrial applications where fracture toughness is the main concern.

In the first section of this research, process optimisation of the nanorubber-modified epoxy was studied. Dispersion techniques of triple milling, high shear mixing and ultrasonic bath were used in order to enable an even and nano-size dispersion of the acrylonitrile-based nanorubbers in the epoxy matrix. Triple milling was chosen as the dispersion technique which enabled an even and nano-scale dispersion of the nanorubber particles in the epoxy resin matrices. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) images revealed that CNBR-NP could be dispersed evenly in the epoxy matrix using industrial mixing process whereas partial agglomeration was observed in NBR-NP blends. The difference in the dispersion ability of these two nanorubbers in epoxy was related to the difference in van der Waals forces between single nanoparticles, the chemical formula and the polarity of the systems.

In the second stage of this study, the effects of nanorubber on the rheological properties, cure characteristics and mechanical properties of epoxy resin were investigated. The dynamic mechanical behaviour of the carbon fibre reinforced polymer composites (CFRP) with the neat and the nanorubber-modified matrices was also studied. Rheological study showed that the NBR-NP blends attained lower viscosity in comparison to CNBR-NP blends and both systems exhibited shear-thinning behaviour. The dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA) data showed that the addition of nanorubber has negligible effect on the glass transition temperature of the epoxy.

The effects of the nanorubber on the interlaminar shear strength, fracture toughness and tensile fatigue behaviour of carbon and glass fibre reinforced polymer composites (CFRP, GFRP) was studied. Mechanical properties of tensile strength, apparent shear strength, Mode I and Mode II delamination fracture toughness, impact toughness and tension-tension fatigue were analysed. The results showed that the nano-size dispersion of rubber significantly improved the Mode I delamination fracture toughness (G[sub]IC) of the CFRP by 251% and its Mode II delamination fracture toughness (G[sub]IIC) by 81% with the addition of 20 phr of CNBR¬NP to the resin matrix. For the NBR-NP system, the G[sub]IC and G[sub]IIC delamination fracture toughness of the CFRP were improved by 203% and 83% respectively with the addition of 20 phr of NBR-NP to the matrix;. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) images of the CFRP fracture surfaces revealed that the toughening was mainly achieved by the de-bonding of nanorubber, crack path deflection and fibre bridging.

The Mode I delamination fracture toughnesses (G[sub]IC) of the GFRP with the addition of 20 phr of CNBR-NP and NBR-NP were improved by 190% and by 150% respectively. Similarly, the Mode II delamination fracture toughness (G[sub]IIC) of the GFRP panels was improved by 73% and 67% with the addition of 20 phr of CNBR-NP and NBR-NP respectively. SEM images of the Mode I delamination fracture surface of the GFRP panels proved that the interfacial adhesion between the individual glass bundles and the matrix was improved with the addition of nanorubber.

The tensile-fatigue behaviour of the CFRP panels with X CNBR-NP/ R matrices was studied. The normalised test data revealed that the high cycle fatigue life was enhanced by twice with the addition of 15 phr of CNBR-NP in the neat epoxy matrix. SEM images of the fracture surfaces proved that the better. adhesion of nanorubber-modified matrix to the carbon fibres supressed fibre pull-out and contributed towards the enhanced fatigue life of the panels.


The paper introduces a new likelihood ratio test (LRT) for incoherent detection of man-made objects obscured by foliage in forest area. The test is performed to detect changes between a reference image and a surveillance image. The method is developed for change detection in high resolution Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR). For simplicity and lack of more appropriate models, the new LRT is still based on simple and efficient models. If there is no man-made object, the statistical model for clutter and noise of two images will be a bivariate Rayleigh distribution. In contrary, a joint distribution of Rayleigh and uniform is used to model for target, clutter, and noise. The proposed LRT is evaluated using radar data acquired by CARABAS in northern Sweden. The probability of detection is up to 96% with much less than one false alarm per square kilometer.


This study explored knowledge sharing practices in Polish informal scholarly communication. The informal channels of communication include discussion, conversation, information exchange in both forms: face to face and via information and communication technologies. The study was carried out among the Polish academic community using a structured online questionnaire, which contained 88 questions (closed and partly open). Respondents consisted of academics: PhD, PhD with Habilitation, and Professors, employed in several types of universities and academia located throughout the country. A total of 1558 academics responded to the survey, representing all academic disciplines – humanities, social sciences, technical and life sciences. The Polish academic community created rather homogenous networks, generally limited to their own disciplines. The favourite platform to share knowledge was unofficial talks during conferences and seminars. The preferable form of knowledge sharing practices was face to face talks, despite the development of modern information and communication technologies. The biggest barrier to knowledge sharing was the lack of time for free conversations. The most important motivator could be the interest of colleagues. Polish researchers commonly used only electronic mail and rarely used social media and blogs to share knowledge. This is the first national survey about knowledge sharing practices in Polish academic environment.


Illegal logging is a cause for widespread concern. It has negative environmental impacts, results in the loss of forest products used by rural communities, creates conflicts, and causes significant losses of tax revenues that could be used for development activities. The Nature Conservancy and World Wide Fund for Nature developed the Alliance to Promote Certification and Combat Illegal Logging in Indonesia to respond to the concern about illegal logging. The Alliance is a three-year initiative that aims to: 1. Strengthen market signals to expand certification and combat illegal logging, 2. Increase supply of certified Indonesian wood products, 3. Demonstrate practical solutions to achieve certification and differentiate legal and illegal supplies, 4. Reduce financing and investment in companies engaged in destructive or illegal logging in Indonesia, 5. Share lessons learned from the project. The Alliance seeks to learn lessons from its ongoing work to inform and adapt its activities, as well as to inform other initiatives seeking to address similar problems. This report is part of this lessons learning process. This report assesses the situation in Indonesia, including a quantitative estimation of illegally produced logs, discusses the causes of illegal logging, and describes the national and international policy and trade context. Then, it considers the work undertaken by the Alliance to address illegal logging in Indonesia; it summarizes the strategy of the Alliance, describes its rationale, and assesses the assumptions underlying the rationale and the objectives. Finally, it summarizes the progress made by the Alliance towards achieving its goal, highlights the lessons that can be learnt from the work in progress, and provides recommendations for the Alliance.


Abstract. Hydrologic processes play an important role in the hydro-pedo-geomorphological feedback cycle of landscape evolution. Soil properties and subsurface flow paths change over time, but due to lack of observations important hydrologic processes such as water flow paths are often not properly considered in soil and landscape evolution studies. We investigated the evolution of subsurface flow paths during landscape development in the calcareous glacier forefield at the Griessfirn in the Swiss Alps. While the main focus was on flow path evolution and the formation of preferential flow paths with soil development, we also looked at the impact of irrigation intensity and vegetation complexity (in what way does the vegetation complexity defined by degree of vegetation cover and functional diversity at each age class relate to subsurface structures and flow path initialization?). We chose four glacial moraines of different ages (110, 160, 4 900, and 13 500 years) and conducted dye tracer experiments with Brilliant Blue (4 g l−1) on three plots at each moraine. The three plots at each age class differed by their degree of vegetation complexity (low, medium, and high) and each was further divided into three equal subplots where dyed water was applied with three different irrigation intensities (20, 40, and 60 mm h−1) and an irrigation amount of 40 mm. Dye pattern characteristics in form of volume density and surface area density were derived by digital image analysis and compared via statistical analysis.Volume density was used to classify the observed dye patterns into specific flow type categories. The effect of soil formation and thus changing soil characteristics on flow types were investigated by the analysis of structural and textural parameters in form of grain size distribution, porosity, bulk density, and loss on ignition. A change in flow types with increasing moraine age was observed from a rather homogeneous matrix flow to heterogeneous matrix and finger flow. Along the soil chronosequence, a reduction in particle sizes and an ongoing vegetation development resulted in an accumulation of organic matter in the topsoil and an increase in water storage capacity (decrease in bulk density and increase in porosity). Differences in irrigation intensity only had an effect on flow types at the oldest moraine, where the frequency of finger flow decreased with increasing irrigation intensity. A relation between vegetation complexity and flow types was only observed at the older moraines, which had a dense vegetation cover. With increasing vegetation complexity the proportion of preferential flow paths in form of finger flow also increased.


Problem Statement: Arithmetic Logic Unit (ALU) of a crypto-processor and microchips leak information through power consumption. Although the cryptographic protocols are secured against mathematical attacks, the attackers can break the encryption by measuring the energy consumption. Approach: To thwart attacks, this study proposed the use of reversible logic for designing the ALU of a crypto-processor. Ideally, reversible circuits do not dissipate any energy. If reversible circuits are used, then the attacker would not be able to analyze the power consumption. In order to design the reversible ALU of a crypto-processor, reversible Carry Save Adder (CSA) using Modified TSG (MTSG) gates and architecture of Montgomery multiplier were proposed. For reversible implementation of Montgomery multiplier, efficient reversible multiplexers and sequential circuits such as reversible registers and shift registers were presented. Results: This study showed that modified designs perform better than the existing ones in terms of number of gates, number of garbage outputs and quantum cost. Lower bounds of the proposed designs were established by providing relevant theorems and lemmas. Conclusion: The application of reversible circuit is suitable to the field of hardware cryptography.


Since 1989, scores of bodies across Eastern Europe have been exhumed and brought to rest in new gravesites. Katherine Verdery investigates why certain corpses-the bodies of revolutionary leaders, heroes, artists, and other luminaries, as well as more humble folk-have taken on a political life in the turbulent times following the end of Communist Party rule, and what roles they play in revising the past and reorienting the present. Enlivening and invigorating the dialogue on postsocialist politics, this imaginative study helps us understand the dynamic and deeply symbolic nature of politics-and how it can breathe new life into old bones.


SUMMARY The Lower Palaeozoic rocks of the Lake District record the rifting of the microcontinental terrane of Avalonia from Gondwana early in the Ordovician, its drift northwards across the Iapetus Ocean and collision with Laurentia and Baltica in the Silurian, and its Acadian deformation in Early Devonian times. Three discrete episodes of magmatism occurred during these events. In late Ordovician (Caradoc) times large volumes of magma were generated in response to subduction of Iapetus oceanic crust beneath Avalonia. Large-scale eruptions formed the basalt–andesite–rhyolite volcanic fields that are now preserved as the Eycott and Borrowdale volcanic groups. Large bodies of mainly granitic magma were emplaced beneath the Borrowdale Volcanic Group as part of the largely Ordovician Lake District batholith; these include, for example, the Eskdale and Ennerdale intrusions. Less than 10 Ma later, a brief episode of silicic volcanism is recorded within the marine sedimentary strata of the lowest part of the overlying Windermere Supergroup. A period of about 40 million years of apparent quiescence then ensued before further granitic masses, the Shap and Skiddaw plutons were emplaced around the margins of the batholith in Early Devonian times. All of these magmatic episodes were accompanied by minor intrusions. The Eycott and Borrowdale volcanic groups are rare examples in the geological record of the products of subaerial volcanism. Preservation is entirely due to subsidence keeping pace with the emplacement of new material. Subsidence resulted both from extensional tectonic processes and, locally, during the movement


Plant breeding methodologies have changed greatly over the past century as new techniques and tools become available to breeders. The introduction of computer technologies, new statistical methods and molecular markers have greatly enhanced the rates of genetic gain that can be achieved in breeding programs. Many important traits for crop improvement, such as yield, quality and quantitative or durable disease resistances, are regarded as quantitative traits and are controlled by multiple quantitative trait loci (QTL). Recent advances in molecular marker systems have created new opportunities and strategies to select for quantitative traits. Strategies for deploying QTL in breeding programs vary from monitoring specific loci through to the deployment of molecular markers flanking the target QTL to the use of whole-genome marker scans to identify individual plants that will offer the greatest opportunity for genetic gain.

Key Concepts:

Yield, many aspects of quality and durable disease resistance are all examples of quantitative traits.

Interactions between the genotype of the plants and the growing environment can be critical in determining the expression of quantitative traits.

Breeding programs usually select for quantitative traits at multiple stages in the breeding process and using replicated trials across multiple locations.

The regions of the genome controlling quantitative traits, QTL, can be mapped by measuring the association between molecular markers and the phenotype across multiple environments in populations segregating for the trait.

The stability of QTL across environments and the proportion of the variation accounted for by the QTL are key criteria in determining the value of the QTL to a breeding program.

Genomic selection, based on whole-genome scan with markers, offers an opportunity to select for large numbers of minor QTL without prior knowledge of the location of the QTL.

Effective delivery of molecular breeding technologies to breeding programs, particularly in poor countries, is dependent on providing access to marker screening platforms resources, and training.

Keywords:

quantitative trait;
breeding;
marker-assisted selection;
genomics selection;
yield;
genotype;
phenotype


One of the many obscure passages in part 4 of Gravity's Rainbow mentions an unnamed "spokesman for the Counterforce" who confesses "in an interview with the Wall Street Journal" (738) how he "tasted [his] first blood" (739) in a complex tunnel system. In his attempt to explain this reference, Terry Reilly has identified the interviewee as speaking from the perspective of a sixteenth-century Catholic soldier engaged in the bloody liberation of the city of Munster from the Anabaptist occupation (Reilly 723). Reilly's detailed analysis dismisses, however, various more contemporary clues in the passage, such as the railway lines running through the tunnels and, of course, the Wall Street Journal; likewise, he does not elaborate on the allusions to Christianity or to the final assembly of Rocket 00001. Taking a cue from precisely these latter hints, one may equally well assume that the blood-drinking spokesman is a member of the Schwarzkommando.


Heterogeneous multiprocessors have been widely used in modern computational systems to increase the computing capability. As the performance increases, the energy consumption in these systems also increases significantly. Dynamic Voltage and Frequency Scaling (DVFS) is considered an efficient scheme to achieve the goal of saving energy, because it allows processors to dynamically adjust their supply voltages and/or execution frequencies to work on different power/energy levels. In this paper, we consider scheduling non-preemptive frame-based tasks on DVFS-enabled heterogeneous multiprocessor platforms with the goal of achieving minimal overall energy consumption. We consider three types of heterogeneous platforms, namely, dependent platforms without runtime adjusting, dependent platforms with runtime adjusting, and independent platforms. For these three platforms, we first formulate the problems as binary integer programming problems, and then, relax them as convex optimization problems, which can be solved by the well-known interior point method. We propose a Relaxation-based Iterative Rounding Algorithm (RIRA), which tries to achieve the task set partition, that is closest to the optimal solution of the relaxed problems, in every step of a task-to-processor assignment. Experiments and comparisons show that our RIRA produces a better performance than existing methods and a simple but naive method, and achieves near-optimal scheduling under most cases. We also provide comprehensive complexity, accuracy and scalability analysis for the RIRA approach by investigating the interior-point method and by running specially designed experiments. Experimental results also show that the proposed RIRA approach is an efficient and practically applicable scheme with reasonable complexity.


This paper investigates Melanesian-German history across national and regional boundaries, highlighting conflicting pressures on Pacific Islander-Germans during the interwar years; it brings to the fore a Kafkaesque web of contradictory transnational policy developments, legislation and radicalised government practices that impacted on the lives of German-New Guineans who lived in the Mandated Territory of New Guinea and as (transient) diasporas in Australia and National Socialist Germany. The assertions and challenges of Melanesian-Germans to externally ascribed racialised identities by German and Australian agencies are explored within the wider context of German-Pacific Islander experiences and linked to present-day remembering and representations. Whether the descendants of German fathers and New Guinean mothers were fellow citizens or enemy aliens, Germans, New Guineans, Europeans, natives, mixed-bloods or half-castes depended on the political circumstances and on who defined and framed their being and their rights.


We analyse a case study of workers' experience of client abuse in a Danish public welfare organisation. We make an original contribution by putting forward two different theoretical expectations of the case. One expectation is that the case follows a pattern of customer abuse processes in a social market economy – in which workers are accorded power and resources, in which workers tend to frame the abuse as the outcome of a co-citizen caught in system failure and in which workers demonstrate some resilience to abuse. Another expectation is that New Public Management reforms push the case to follow patterns of customer abuse associated with a liberal market economy – in which the customer is treated as sovereign against the relatively powerless worker, and in which workers bear heavy emotional costs of abuse. Our findings show a greater match to the social processes of abuse within a social market economy.


A computer program, APEX, is proposed to investigate idealized formal models representing physics problems. Two types of models are defined: canonical physical objects and physical models. During problem solving, the problem is represented as a data connection network, which is progressively augmented by these models in the form of additional network elements. APEX employs views as a representational framework for connecting the initially informal objects to the formal models of the domain. The view framework supports multiple representations (e.g., viewing many objects as a single canonical physical object), handling of incompletely specified problems, and invertibility of the views. This computational framework provides a powerful representational mechanism that allows a finite set of physical principles to be applied to a potentially infinite variety of problems. As a knowledge engineering technique, views allow general principles to be applied to a variety of objects whose representations differ. >


This research began with an attempt to solve a practical problem, namely, the prediction of the rate at which an operator will learn a task. From a review of the literature, communications with researchers in this area and the study of psychomotor learning in factories it was concluded that a more fundamental approach was required which included the development of a task taxonomy. This latter objective had been researched for over twenty years by E. A. Fleishman and his approach was adopted. Three studies were carried out to develop and extend Fleishman's approach to the industrial area. However, the results of these studies were not in accord with FIeishman's conclusions and suggested that a critical re-assessment was required of the arguments, methods and procedures used by Fleishman and his co-workers. It was concluded that Fleishman's findings were to some extent an artifact of the approximate methods and procedures which he used in the original factor analyses and that using the more modern computerised factor analytic methods a reliable ability taxonomy could be developed to describe the abilities involved in the learning of psychomotor tasks. The implications for a changing-task or changing-subject model were drawn and it was concluded that a changing task and subject model needs to be developed.


Recently a long-lost notebook belonging to Dracula author, Bram Stoker, was discovered in the attic of one of his great grandsons. Published to coincide with the Centenary of Stoker's death the text of this notebook, written between 1871 and 1881 mostly in his native Dublin, will captivate scholars of Gothic literature and Dracula fans alike. Painstakingly transcribed and researched, the entries offer intriguing new insights into the complex nature of the man who wrote Dracula more than one hundred years ago. Assisted by a team of Dracula scholars and Stoker historians, Dacre Stoker and Dr Elizabeth Miller neatly connect the dots between contents of the Notebook and Bram Stoker's later work, most significantly Dracula. Until now, discussion of the very private Bram Stoker has by necessity been largely speculative. Other than names and dates provided by biographers, and Bram Stoker's own sparse self-revelation in his non-fiction work, little has been available to support character studies of this fascinating Victorian gentleman. This personal Notebook shows Stoker's private thoughts and his developing style that foreshadows the journalistic technique of Dracula.


Little qualitative research has been carried out on psychotherapists' perspectives on statutory regulation and the personal meanings they bring to bear to the current debate about professional registration. This research sets out to address this gap by exploring the lived experience of what state registration means to ten psychotherapists drawn from person-centred, gestalt  and integrative approaches. A collaborative relational- phenomenological approach was undertaken using a focus group to collect data. Phenomenological and reflexive analysis highlighted the relevance and pervasive power of shame processes in four emergent themes: feeling pride-feeling shame, belonging-isolation, credibility-ineligibility and fight-flight. While formal regulation offers personal rewards around belonging, status and esteem, a shadow side lurks. Reflexive discussion suggests that unconscious parallel processes may be playing out in the wider professional arena.


Traditional energy performance calculated using building simulation with the typical meteorological year (TMY) weather data represents the energy performance in a typical year but not necessarily the average or typical energy performance of a building in long term. Furthermore, the simulated results do not provide the range of variations due to the change of weather, which is important in building energy management and risk assessment of energy efficiency investment. This study analyzes the weather impact on peak electric demand and energy use by building simulation using 30-year actual meteorological year (AMY) weather data for three types of office buildings at two design efficiency levels across all 17 climate zones. The simulated results from the AMY are compared to those from TMY3 to determine and analyze the differences. It was found that yearly weather variation has significant impact on building performance especially peak electric demand. Energy savings of building technologies should be evaluated using simulations with multi-decade actual weather data to fully consider investment risk and the long term performance. Copyright © 2011 by IPAC'11/EPS-AG.


Abstract There has been considerable public debate over the effect of interchange fees on credit card transactions. Regulators in Australia and Europe have argued that these fees can be set by banks to have an anticompetitive effect. In the US, it has been argued that these fees, together with a rule that prevents a surcharge for credit purchases, might create a cross subsidy between cash and credit customers. Academics have noted that, in particular circumstances, interchange fees have no real effects in the absence of such a no-surcharge rule. This paper demonstrates that the potential neutrality of interchange fees is a general result. We show that in the absence of a no surcharge rule or, alternatively, if there is perfect competition at the merchant level, interchange fees can be changed without leading to any real effects. This result does not depend on the degree or nature of competition at either the bank or the merchant level. We conclude that the elimination of no surcharge rules may provide practical policy solutions for authorities concerned about the level of interchange fees.


Background: Randomized controlled trials, notably PRAMI (Randomized trial of preventive angioplasty in myocardial infarction) demonstrated that immediate percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) in significantly stenosed non-culprit vessels in patients with ST elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) reduces adverse outcomes. However, the impact on clinical practice is unknown. Aims: To investigate whether the number of immediate and staged non-culprit PCIs has changed after the publication of PRAMI and the impact on mortality. Methods: A retrospective analysis of STEMI patients with significant multi-vessel disease presenting 1 year before and after PRAMI were included. Patients were divided into those who had immediate PCI, staged PCI or medical management of the non-culprit vessel. Mortality data for each patient group was analyzed. Results: Significant multi-vessel disease was present in 426 patients, with 202 patients in the pre-PRAMI group and 224 in the post-PRAMI group. The number of immediate non-culprit PCIs pre- PRAMI was 9.4% and increased to 12.5% post- PRAMI [p=ns]. Combining both groups, immediate PCI of the non-culprit vessel was associated with higher mortality than staged PCI [p=0.005]. There was no significant difference in all cause mortality in patients having non-culprit vessel PCI (immediate or staged) when compared to the medically managed cohort. Conclusion: Our center demonstrated a trend towards increased immediate PCI of the non-culprit vessel during the index procedure however, this practice was not widely adopted as recommended by PRAMI. Immediate PCI of non- culprit vessels was associated with increased mortality compared with staged PCI or medical management. However, given the small number of patients undergoing Immediate PCI, larger trials are required to confirm our results.


Aspects of the structure/function relationships in leaves of Lolium temulentum L. were examined during their growth, ageing and senescence. The first part of the thesis deals with the blade and sheath and demonstrates the presence of interactions within leaves (between blade and sheath) and between leaves during their extension growth. ' A short biddhemical study of aspects; of blade and sheath ageing and. senescence of attached 4th leaves examined changes in fresh and dry weight, total chlorophyll, soluble protein, and nucleic acids (both quantitative and qualitative by polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis). The overall patterns of change were similar to those previously described for artificially' induced grass leaf senescence but differences were found between the two organs. It was concluded that the blade was not a good model for sheath or leaf senescence. A study of the vasculature of the leaf - with particular reference to metabolite trans port during ageing and senescence - revealed the presence of tyloses in the protoxylem vessels/lacunae at the blade/sheath junction of senescing leaves. The second part of the thesis deals with the membranous ligules of L. temulentum, L. perenne L., L. multiflorum Lam., L. x hybridum Hausskn., and Festuca pratensis Huds. The structure and ultrastructure of all appeared to be the same and had the appearance of a glandular organ. Using a number of cytochemical procedures in L. temulentum, catalase, cytochrome c oxidase and succinate dehydrogenase activities were identified, along with the apparent secretion of a glycoprotein- like material by the cells of the adaxial epidermis. Aspects of the endomembrane system of cells of the latter tissue and initiation and early development of the ligule of L. temulentum were also studied. The structure/function relationships within these ligules are discussed in terms of a possible function of the membranous grass ligule. Aspects of ligule and root cap biology in L. temulentum were compared.


Abstract. This contribution presents the analysis of an earlier proposed double membrane sensor for measuring mass density and rheological properties of liquids with respect to different driving modes. Concerning practical implementation the sensor mounting and the stability of the polyethylene foil, currently used as membrane material, are investigated. The sensor is based on two opposed membranes vibrating in parallel where a sample liquid is enclosed between the membranes. The excitation and read-out mechanisms of the membrane vibration are based on Lorentz forces induced in a static magnetic field. Each membrane carries three conductive paths for excitation, which can be separately connected to the excitation currents. This allows the excitation of the first and second modes of vibration and enables prestressing the second mode of oscillation. Analyzing the material-stability of the used polyethylene foil shows a strong long-term drift of the modulus of elasticity and an increase of internal damping with increasing temperature. Comparing the resonance frequency of the fundamental mode with earlier measurements achieved with the second mode of resonance indicates an increased sensitivity to density featuring a reasonably sustained quality factor for high viscosities. Thereby, the sensitivity can be adjusted by varying the distance between the membranes.


The ship rat invasion of Big South Cape Island/Taukihepa in the 1960s was an ecological catastrophe that marked a turning point for the management of rodents on offshore islands of New Zealand. Despite the importance of this event in the conservation history of New Zealand, and subsequent major advances in rodent eradication and biosecurity, the source and pathway of the rat invasion of Big South Cape Island has never been identified. Using modern molecular methods on contemporary and historical tissue samples, we identify the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) haplotype of ship rats (Rattus rattus) on Big South Cape Island and compare it to that of ship rats in the neighbouring regions of Stewart Island/Rakiura and southern New Zealand, all hypothesised as possible source sites for the invasion. We identify two haplotype clusters, each comprising three closely related haplotypes; one cluster unique to Stewart Island, and the other found in southern New Zealand and elsewhere. By a process of elimination we rule that the ship rat invasion of Big South Cape Island was neither by swimming nor boat transport from Stewart Island, and is unlikely to have come from the south coast ports of New Zealand. However, because the ship rat haplotype found on Big South Cape Island is cosmopolitan to New Zealand's South Island and elsewhere, we can only confirm that the invasion likely originated from some distance, but are not able to identify the invasion source more precisely. An unexpected consequence of our study is the discovery of five new mtDNA haplotypes for R. rattus that have not been previously reported.


Objective: The aim of this study was to evaluate cost-effectiveness of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and workplace dialogue intervention (WDI), both as stand-alone interventions and in combination, compared with treatment as usual (TAU), for employees on sickness absence with mental disorders. Methods: Employees (n = 352, 78.4% females) on sickness absence were randomized to one of four groups. Cost-utility analyses were conducted from a health care perspective and a limited societal perspective. Results: All groups reported significant improvements in health-related quality-of-life (HRQoL) and there were no significant differences in HRQoL or costs between groups. The probability of cost-effectiveness for ACT+WDI was 50% compared with ACT, indicating that both treatment alternatives could be considered equally favorable for decision-makers. TAU and WDI were rejected due to less economic efficiency. Conclusion: Adding WDI to ACT cannot be recommended on the basis of our study results.


We present a framework to incorporate near-infrared (NIR) information into algorithms to better segment objects by isolating material boundaries from color and shadow edges. Most segmentation algorithms assign individual regions to parts of the object that are colorized differently. Similarly, the presence of shadows and thus large changes in image intensities across objects can also result in mis-segmentation. We first form an intrinsic image from the R, G, B, and NIR channels based on a 4-sensor camera calibration model that is invariant to shadows. The regions obtained by the segmentation algorithms are thus only due to color and material changes and are independent of the illumination. Additionally, we also segment the NIR channel only. Near-infrared (NIR) image intensities are largely dependent on the chemistry of the material and have no general correlation with visible color information. Consequently, the NIR segmentation only highlights material and lighting changes. The union of both segmentations obtained from the intrinsic and NIR images results in image partitions that are only based on material changes and not on color or shadows. Experiments show that the proposed method provides good object-based segmentation results on diverse images.


A method that supports distribution of multibody dynamic analysis is proposed and developed. Ethnographic methods are used as a means for gaining a deeper understanding of the engineering analysis work practice, and the findings form the base for a cooperative design of the system. The concept of design rationale is applied in order to deal with current problems of engineering analysis, such as irrelevant input and output, as well as satisfying the need for useful, real-time feedback. The web based simulation environment, applied to vehicle system dynamics, contains the simulation packages ADAMS and MATLAB and incorporates database technology. The possibility to distribute simulation models and results, from simulation experts to design experts and engineers, as well as subcontractors, is created. The proposed method requires changes in the existing multibody dynamic simulation methodology regarding aspects of incorporation in product development theories.


This paper firstly analyzes different payment methods of individual account and the pension replacement rate under the pension payment method. Results show that it will be more scientific and reasonable for the individual account of new rural social pension insurance to adopt the actuarial model of payment according to proportion of income and periodic prestation at variable amount. The Guiding Opinions on New Rural Social Pension Insurance sets forth individual account should be paid at fixed amount, and the insured voluntarily selects payment level as per criteria set by the State. The monthly calculation and distribution amount of pension is the total amount of individual account divided by 139. Therefore, it should start from continuation of policies and make adjustment of payment level in accordance with growth of per capita net income of rural residents. When condition permits, it is expected to realize transition to payment as per income proportion and periodic prestation at variable amount.


Man in all historical periods had to use domestic and medicine herbal plants. Over the last half century, the use of synthetic and chemical drugs is highly prevalent. The harmful effect of chemical drugs on human life has increased the tendency to use medicinal plants once more. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of Avena sativa active ingredients on the wound healing and skin inflammation on the rat model.

 Materials & Methods : Extract of water, methanol and ethanol Avena sativa seeds were prepared by water distillation and Soxhlet systems. The components of all samples were determinate using TLC experiment. Thirty male Wistar rats in five groups were used in this experimental study and the rats were anesthetized with Ketamin (1 mg/kg), and standard ulcer (2 cm) was induced on the shaved dorsal by scatter.

 Result : The results of this experiment showed that all extracts decreased the time of wound healing significantly in comparison with the controls groups. There was no symptom of colloid even scar

 Conclusion : These extracts seem to accelerate the formation of the epidermis and causes wound healing. Total extract of Avena sativa has an important role in wound healing.


Road trauma in regional and remote areas of Australia and New Zealand are a major road safety problem. Drivers and riders in regional and remote areas are at an unacceptably greater risk of road deaths and injuries than those living in major cities. This edition of the Austroads Guide to Road Safety Part 5: Road Safety for Rural and Remote Areas provides practical guidance on the most effective responses to reduce road trauma in regional and remote areas in Australia and New Zealand. The guide examines the characteristics of crashes on regional and remote roads through analyses of casualty crash data and identifies causes and risks associated with regional and remote crashes in the existing literature. Closely aligned with the Safe Systems holistic approach to eliminating harm on the road network, the guide concludes with a discussion of evidence-based countermeasures and new initiatives that are urgently needed to eliminate fatalities and serious injuries in regional and remote areas.


This article provides an overview of the new developments in the activity of the Court of Justice of the European Communities during the last three years. During this time, the Community legal system has undergone several institutional changes. The internal organization and working methods of the Court have evolved and the case law has been enriched with new decisions. Special attention is given to the new developments of the preliminary ruling procedure which is considered to be the most important form of cooperation between the Court of Justice of the EC and national courts. Lately, preliminary rulings make up for more than half of the all decisions of the Court of Justice. A short overview of the principal aims of the preliminary ruling system – ensuring the uniform application and interpretation of Community law in all the Member States, reinforcing the rights of individuals as guaranteed by the EC law – is followed by an analysis of its application in the latest case law. Particular attention is given to the new emergency preliminary ruling procedure to deal with references concerning the area of freedom, security and justice. Some possible options of this special procedure are discussed in this article. The experience of the new Member States with regard to the Court is discussed separately. The new Member States take part in the procedure as applicants, defendants or interveners. Separate attention is given to the cooperation of the Court of Justice of the EC with the national courts of these Member States by way of preliminary rulings. This article is illustrated by the latest case law of the Court of Justice of the EC. The case law is commented.