As the global economy gradually recovers from the severe recession, the possible risks of unsustainable global imbalances are receiving renewed attention. In assessing global imbalances, it is important to avoid excessively focusing on current account imbalances per se. Rather, the focus should be on the root causes of the imbalance and whether they may become sources of unsustainable financial imbalances. The recent financial crisis, as well as Japan's past experience in the 1980s, highlight the importance of information which cannot necessarily be obtained from current account statistics. Unsustainable financial imbalances can be better captured through information such as the build-up of leverage, gross cross-border capital flows, risk pricing in financial markets, and the extent of currency and maturity mismatches in the financial system. Through careful assessment of such elements central banks and other authorities will be able to assess whether current account imbalances are a reflection of the build-up of domestic financial imbalances. In formulating macroeconomic policy, the traditional emphasis was to ensure domestic stability or to put one's house in order. However, with the deepening of globalisation, the simple sum of each country's policy action may not necessarily achieve an optimal outcome at the global level. It has become ever more important for countries to review the spillover effects of their policies which will also reverberate back to each country through economic and financial interlinkages.


This article describes the research framework for adaptive structures and the design concept of transformable joints. The research of adaptive structures can be splitted into different scales: deformation mechanisms (whole structure), cooperation mechanisms (inter-component) and actuation mechanisms (intra-component). This research will focus on transformable joints, which are based on special material properties (actuation) to accomplish the change of joint stiffness between locked and released states (transformation). Thereby, the control of DOF can be achieved, in order to finally realise the whole structure's form change (deformation). Alternatively under shock loads, the joints release and the structure occur certain deformation to dissipate energy and adjust to external loads. Afterwards, the structure recovers its original shape and removes residual strain through special/smart materials. Then the released joints relock again. By comparison of natural role models and adaptive structures, there are many similarities between them that we can learn from nature. In future research, e.g. adaptive stiffness, the experimental tests of potential materials and prototypes will be the main research methods. While for adaptive geometry, the knowledge of robotics, especially the part of geometric representations and transformations, will help to express this problem in mathematical way. This part will be mostly in conceptual level, so computer simulation will be used. The final goal of this research is to develop energy dissipation and shape-morphing strategies using transformable joints under varying loads as well as shock impact. These kinds of joints can not only be applied to tessellated shell structures, but also introduced to active facade systems.


Viedma ripening and temperature fluctuation are processes based on solution phase racemization and dissolution-growth of racemic or scalemic conglomerates resulting in solid-phase deracemization. The dissolution-growth process is performed by abrasive grinding in the first case and by the temperature fluctuation in the second. But both methods have the intrinsic drawback of being only applicable to conglomerates, accounting for only 10% of all chiral molecules and are not suitable for the 90% of chiral compounds that crystallize as racemic compound. Herein we show that the enantiomeric excess of the solution in the eutectic mixture formed by a racemic compound and one of its enantiomers in suspension changes dramatically by growth-dissolution of the crystals through grinding and temperature fluctuation, converting the racemic compound into the desired enantiomer. With this new finding the scope of Viedma ripening and temperature fluctuation could be significantly expanded and can shed new ideas about the origin of biological homochirality on earth.


Repair and Recombination In most sexually reproducing organisms, the haploid gametes are produced by meiosis, a specialized cell-division during which recombination between the parental chromosomes ensures proper chromosome segregation. Double-strand breaks (DSB) generated in the DNA drive this recombination and are linked to recombination hotspots in the chromatin where histone H3 is methylated on lysine residue 4 (H3K4me) by the Set1C/COMPASS enzyme complex. Acquaviva et al. (p. 215, published online 15 November) show that the Mer2/Mei4/Rec114 complex of the DSB generating machinery is linked to the Set1C/COMPASS enzyme complex through the Spp1 subunit, which contains a PHD-finger capable of binding to H3K4me. The Spp1 subunit recruits the Mer2 protein to sites where recombination will occur, probably by binding to both the H3K4me-marked chromatin and other factors. A protein involved in histone methylation targets the meiotic recombination machinery to chromatin. During meiosis, combinatorial associations of genetic traits arise from homologous recombination between parental chromosomes. Histone H3 lysine 4 trimethylation marks meiotic recombination hotspots in yeast and mammals, but how this ubiquitous chromatin modification relates to the initiation of double-strand breaks (DSBs) dependent on Spo11 remains unknown. Here, we show that the tethering of a PHD-containing protein, Spp1 (a component of the COMPASS complex), to recombinationally cold regions is sufficient to induce DSB formation. Furthermore, we found that Spp1 physically interacts with Mer2, a key protein of the differentiated chromosomal axis required for DSB formation. Thus, by interacting with H3K4me3 and Mer2, Spp1 promotes recruitment of potential meiotic DSB sites to the chromosomal axis, allowing Spo11 cleavage at nearby nucleosome-depleted regions.


Small-business owners represent 99.9% of all U.S. employer firms, employ 48% of the private sector employees, and provide 41.2% of the total U.S. private payroll. However, 50% of new small-business startups fail within the first 5 years of operation. The purpose of this multiple-case study was to explore strategies three small-business coffee shop owners in Duval County, Florida, used to succeed in business beyond 5 years. Three themes emerged from semistructured interviews and methodological triangulation via websites, social media, and site visits: (a) owner networking and designing the business site as a customer networking venue, (b) business plan effectiveness in identifying and addressing initial challenges and subsequent changes, and (c) achieving marketing differentiation.


This paper describes a high-speed USB2.0 address-event representation (AER) interface that allows simultaneous monitoring and sequencing of precisely timed AER data. This low-cost (<$100), two chip, bus powered interface can achieve sustained AER event rates of 5 megaevents per second (Meps). Several boards can be electrically synchronized, allowing simultaneous synchronized capture from multiple devices. It has three parallel AER ports, one for sequencing, one for monitoring and one for passing through the monitored events. This paper also describes the host software infrastructure that makes the board usable for a heterogeneous mixture of AER devices and that allows recording and playback of recorded data.


The presented house price index for Denmark from 1860 to 2012 has been constructed by analysing already published data from Statistics Denmark. Houses are heterogeneous assets, and nowadays they differ in many aspects from houses in 1860. Due to improved building quality, urbanization and the revolution of the transportation, they are now situated in much larger cities and fewer houses are found in the countryside. Furthermore the houses are more and better equipped. Obviously, conceptual and practical difficulties exist in separating the value and the price of the houses when the development in house prices is depicted. The Danish house price index covering all the 152 years is in reality a simple average sale price index for houses. From 1920 on it was possible to construct another and a "pure" house price index, based on the Sales Price Appraisal Ratio (SPAR) method. Several challenges for creating the house price index arose, especially in converting the previous registered house prices in the statistics into current market prices.In real terms, the average sale price index increased more than the SPAR index for the years where the two indices were compared, and the difference express the qualitative improvement of the sold house through the years. The SPAR index contains long house price cycles, and the unique recent bubble is observed. The development in real prices holds no arguments for the SPAR index will increase in the long run. Already published long house price indices exist for Herengracht (the Netherlands), Norway, USA, France, and recently also Australia. Until now, the here presented house price index for Denmark is the longest countrywide house price index ever been published, based on official data, and qualitatively probably the best long house price index.


Stimulated Brillouin scattering beam combining is shown to be extremely sensitive to optical misalignments. For the coupling of two overlapping beams, the angular misalignment bandwidth is of the order of 1 mrad, which corresponds to a separation of +/-0.64 beam spot diameter. This occurs for beam displacements normal to the plane defined by the beams' propagation paths.


This paper reviews empirical evidence about the effects of changes in U.S. monetary policy and fiscal policy that has been accumulated during recent years in a series of collaborative research projects involving a variety of global macroeconometric models. The paper also considers, in particular, the consequences over the next five to six years for key U.S. and foreign economic variables of a significant U.S. fiscal contraction. The quantitative implications of both alternative fiscal spending and tax actions, and alternative treatments of expectations (adaptive versus rational) are analyzed. ; The results suggest that a phased-in fiscal contraction could reduce the level of output for up to several years, as well as the levels of interest rates, the dollar and the U.S. external deficit. The decline in the external deficit would be significantly smaller than the decline in the budget deficit, however. The negative effects on output would be mitigated to the extent that the phased-in contraction were anticipated (i.e., announced credibly in advance), to the extent that monetary policy were eased, or to the extent that the fiscal package emphasized spending cuts and personal taxes rather than corporate and excise taxes.


For over thirty years, large launch vehicles such as Saturn, Delta, Atlas, and Titan have successfully provided the world with access to space. The emphasis of each of those programs was focused on maximizing launch vehicle performance. More recently, in the Space Shuttle program, this traditional emphasis was widened to include the achievement of cost and schedule goals. Future launch vehicle programs, such as the National Launch System (NLS) and the Single Stage to Orbit (SSTO); will need to satisfy even more stringent requirements. Low life cycle costs, high launch rates, demanding surge capacities, short turnaround times, and continuous program evolution and growth considerations will shape the next generation space launch vehicle programs. More than ever, efficient ground operations will play an important role in meeting the requirements of these new programs.


In this exploratory study, members of an adult community band (N = 38) completed a listening task in which they attempted to identify instruments performing single-tone excerpts and determine the level of expertise of the performer (professional or beginner). We created two different conditions (tones that included initial attack and tones with sustain only and no initial attack) among tones produced by four different instruments (flute, clarinet, alto saxophone, trumpet) on two different pitches (F4 and B-flat4). Results of data analysis indicated that participants were more successful identifying tones that included the initial attack (as opposed to tones consisting of sustain only). Trumpet was the instrument identified accurately most consistently, and participants were more accurate identifying instrument timbre when the pitch was F4 rather than B-flat 4. Results indicated significant three-way interactions between pitch, attack presence, and instrument, and also between pitch, expertise, and attack presence. The presence of the initial attack was a significant variable affecting participants' ability to identify instrumental timbre, a result consistent with findings of previous research. One unique finding suggested that performer expertise did not significantly affect participants' perception of timbre; findings of previous studies using collegiate-level musicians and nonmusicians indicated a significant effect related to performer expertise. Though not significant, a negative correlation (r = -.20) between participants' age and overall score on the task implies perception may be affected by age.


The Telecommunication Services Engineering is a new subject which aims to deal with specification, design, implementation, management and validation aspects of telecommunication services, as well as their deployment over current and future network architectures. One of its main challenges has been to guide the design of a communication infrastructure that allows: (i) the integration of a multitude of services in a single and efficient communication system, and (ii) the creation of an environment upon which these services can be rapidly and easily created, modified and continually adapted to new demands and conditions. Nevertheless, it has become a difficult task to find a sufficiently generic archicteture that acommodates the diversity of services and adaptations through simple parameterization or predefined options. A recently proposed alternative is to define models from which protocols and service architectures can be dynamically programmed or adapted along its life cycle. This work presents a model for the analysis and comparation of service adaptation and programming mechanisms on communication networks, providing a basis for the representation of QoS and multicasting aspects on communication services.


The occurrence of irregular frequencies is known to affect the prediction of hydrodynamic coefficients, whether a rigid body or hydroelasticity analysis is used. For conventional ship-like structures, these irregular frequencies lie outside the range of practical interest for rigid body motions. On the other hand, for a large ship-like offshore structure, such as a Floating Production, Storage and Offloading unit (FPSO), the irregular frequencies are in the range of practical interest. Furthermore, they can create difficulties for the analysis of vessels treated as flexible bodies and of multi-hulled vessels. In these cases, distinguishing between genuine physical effects (e.g. wave interaction between hulls) and that of irregular frequencies is important. The aim of this paper is twofold: first, elimination of irregular frequencies for the zero-forward-speed case and, second, improvement in predictions for the forward-speed case through a more accurate evaluation of the waterline integral term. Although the investigations are illustrated for rigid hulls, namely a rectangular box and a Series 60 hull, the methodology and its effects are equally valid for flexible hulls. For the zero-forward-speed case an extended boundary integral method (the lid method) is used, with the imaginary interior free surface placed approximately 0.1% below the mean free surface. It is confirmed that the lid boundary approach is an efficient and robust method for treating irregular frequencies for stationary rigid floating bodies experiencing low-frequency oscillations. For the forward-speed case a treatment of waterline integral terms is introduced, with reference to sources lying on the free surface. The applications highlight the importance of waterline integral terms which are shown to introduce oscillatory behaviour in the predicted hydrodynamic data. It is also shown that, for the forward-speed case, irregular frequencies do not occur; however, as the forward speed tends to smaller values, the hydrodynamic data exhibit oscillations which depend on the treatment of the waterline integral terms and the use of the direct potential or source distribution method. These methods are also suitable for hydroelasticity analysis with a forward speed.


There is nothing mysterious about what indigenous artists want. They want the same thing as most people: a fair slice of the pie. How to get it, is a much more difficult question to answer. To even find a seat at the table, indigenous art has to first be accepted as contemporary art. This has been its defining struggle in the modern era. The problem, at least until recently, was that the Western tradition of modernism circumscribed the terms of contemporary art. This meant that indigenous artists had first to prove their modernity, a Catch-22 game that they could never win without disavowing their indigeneity.


Improving and widening access to education for women has been a major goal in most developing countries, like Nigeria, in the past four decades. Impressive progress has been achieved at all levels. However, several issues are examined in this paper. First, how did women fare in the wake of this general expansion of tertiary enrolments? Second, what programmes and policies contributed to enhancing women's enrolment? Third, what are the odds against women's participation in higher education in Nigeria? This paper concludes that establishing a link between the programmes/policies offered and the opportunities for women in the labour market was found to be critical. Gender and Behaviour Vol. 4(1) 2006: 550-567


How do mass publics react to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT+) advocacy efforts in socially conservative societies? We consider how the first-ever LGBT+ Pride in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina influences ordinary citizens' attitudes and behavior regarding LGBT+ support. Using nationwide and local panel surveys, we find that support for LGBT+ activism increased locally after the Pride but did not diffuse nationwide, signaling how proximity mechanisms reinforce Pride effects. In survey experiments, we show that subjects are responsive to both mobilization and counter-mobilization appeals by local activists. We also find evidence from a behavioral experiment that the Pride had a positive effect on shifting the allocation of financial resources toward local pro-LGBT+ activists and away from opposition groups. Finally, in-depth interviews with local LGBT+ activists underscore the challenges facing LGBT+ activism in socially conservative societies but also point to the substantial possibilities of collective action on behalf of minorities at risk.


We study the asymptotic behavior of solutions to variational
inequalities with pointwise constraint on the value and gradient
of the functions as the domain becomes unbounded. First, as a
model problem, we consider the case when the constraint is
only on the value of the functions. Then we consider the more general case of
constraint also on the gradient. At the end we consider the
case when there is no force term
which corresponds to Saint-Venant
principle for linear problems.


Feature selection is the problem of choosing a small subset of features that is necessary and sufficient to describe target concept. The importance of feature selection is due to the potential for speeding up the processes of both concept learning reducing the cost of classification, and improving the quality of classification. In this paper, A face recognition system based on rough set theory and neural networks is developed in this study, which PCA (Principal Component Analysis) approach has been used to reduce Feature vector, which is basically transformation of space. For selection of feature we have used the concept of reduct and core from rough set theory. Classification of face was realized using Learning vector Quantization (LVQ) neural network. This method has shown very good performance.


WWVB timing signals have been broadcast from Fort Collins, Colorado since 1963. Starting in the 1960s, oscillators disciplined by WWVB achieved frequency transfer below the 1×10-11 level in most parts of the United States [1]. The majority of current users of WWVB do not correct for path delay between the WWVB transmitter and the user receiver, resulting in timing errors up to 15 ms. When the path delay is removed, timing accuracies traceable to Coordinated Universal Time maintained by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, UTC(NIST), are provided with an uncertainty of 100 µs. In 2012, a binary phase shift keying (BPSK) modulation was added to the 60 kHz carrier at a rate of 1 bit per second (bps) to increase the robustness and reliability of the timing signal [1].

According to Table 4-14 in [2], the projected precision timing requirements in critical infrastructure sectors do not go below 1 µs for time transfer and 1×10-11 for frequency stability over 24 hours. WWVB has met the frequency requirement using a disciplined oscillator since the 1960s. The feasibility for WWVB to meet the time transfer requirement of 1 µs is the topic of this paper.

To evaluate WWVB timing performance, a software-defined radio is used with a Rubidium (Rb) oscillator. The WWVB signal is sampled at 250 kHz using the Rb as the reference. To evaluate the stability of the WWVB signal, the Rb oscillator is disciplined by GPS with a stability better than 10 ns averaged over 24 hours. The WWVB signals were recorded continuously for 21 days. The radio frequency (RF) signal is filtered with a 600-Hz bandpass filter centered at 60 kHz. Next, one-second sample batches are obtained after synchronization of the WWVB signal to the whole second. The time synchronization also enables the removal of the 1 bps data on the carrier. Next, the phase of the carrier is estimated for each 1-s batch, outliers due to interference are removed and the phase of the signal is accumulated to obtain the path delay change as a function of time. The daily repeatability of the path delay is used to evaluate the stability of the WWVB time reference. Next, the daylight portion of the signal that mostly contains the ground path propagation of the WWVB signal is calibrated with GPS as the reference. Following the calibration phase, the Rb is disciplined by the WWVB signal. The results show that 1 µs (1 sigma) timing is feasible with a WWVB-disciplined Rubidium oscillator.


The $k$-means clustering algorithm is a ubiquitous tool in data mining and machine learning that shows promising performance. However, its high computational cost has hindered its applications in broad domains. Researchers have successfully addressed these obstacles with dimensionality reduction methods. Recently, \cite{DBLP:journals/tit/BoutsidisZMD15} develop a state-of-the-art random projection (RP) method for faster $k$-means clustering. Their method delivers many improvements over other dimensionality reduction methods. For example, compared to the advanced singular value decomposition based feature extraction approach, \cite{DBLP:journals/tit/BoutsidisZMD15} reduce the running time by a factor of $\min \{n,d\}\epsilon^2 log(d)/k$ for data matrix $X \in \mathbb{R}^{n\times d} $ with $n$ data points and $d$ features, while losing only a factor of one in approximation accuracy. Unfortunately, they still require $\mathcal{O}(\frac{ndk}{\epsilon^2log(d)})$ for matrix multiplication and this cost will be prohibitive for large values of $n$ and $d$. To break this bottleneck, we carefully build a sparse embedded $k$-means clustering algorithm which requires $\mathcal{O}(nnz(X))$ ($nnz(X)$ denotes the number of non-zeros in $X$) for fast matrix multiplication. Moreover, our proposed algorithm improves on \cite{DBLP:journals/tit/BoutsidisZMD15}'s results for approximation accuracy by a factor of one. Our empirical studies corroborate our theoretical findings, and demonstrate that our approach is able to significantly accelerate $k$-means clustering, while achieving satisfactory clustering performance.


There is no established dosing schedule for once-daily aminoglycoside dosing regimens, and accepted guidelines for monitoring therapy are lacking. We derived a simplified schedule from the Hull and Sarubbi (J. H. Hull and F. A. Sarubbi, Ann. Intern. Med. 85:183-189, 1976) nomogram, for which efficacy and safety in a once-daily dosing regimen were previously demonstrated, and prospectively followed serum aminoglycoside levels in patients. The standard treatment was gentamicin or tobramycin at 4 mg/kg of body weight given intravenously once daily. When the renal function was decreased, the daily dose was reduced, as follows: for an estimated creatinine clearance of between 50 and 80 ml/min, the daily dose was 3.25 mg/kg, for an estimated creatinine clearance of between 30 and 50 ml/min, the daily dose was 2.5 mg/kg, and for an estimated creatinine clearance of below 30 ml/min, the daily dose was 2 mg/kg. A total of 221 patients were studied (184 received gentamicin and 37 received tobramycin). First trough levels above 2 mg/liter were recorded in 11% of the patients, and they all had a baseline creatinine clearance below 50 ml/min, or a substantial decrease in clearance between enrollment and the day that the trough level was obtained. A peak level below 6 mg/liter was recorded in 6% of the patients, and half of them received the lowest daily dose. Twenty-five of the 179 evaluable patients (14%; 95% confidence interval, 9 to 19%) fulfilled the criteria for nephrotoxicity. In a multiple regression analysis, the duration of treatment and the use of other nephrotoxic antibiotics or high-dose furosemide, but not trough levels, were significant risk factors. Since the meaning of low peak levels is unclear and since most studies with multiple daily regimens confirm the lack of an association between trough levels and toxicity, we believe that monitoring of serum drug levels can be restricted to monitoring of trough levels in patients with a creatinine clearance below 50 ml/min or with a deteriorating renal function.


Distributed Virtual Environment (DVE) systems have experienced a spectacular growth last years. The partitionin g problem has been proven as the most critical issue in order to design scalable and efficient DVE systems. It consists of efficiently assigning clients (3-D avatars) to the server s in the system, and some methods have been proposed for solving it. However, only two of these methods take into account the non-linear behavior of DVE servers with the number of avatars attached to them. In this paper, we propose a fine-grain load balancing technique for solving the partitioning problem in DVE systems. Unlike a previously proposed technique, this proposal takes into account the estimated state of the target server before re-assignin g avatars. The exceeding workload that causes the saturation of a given server is proportionally distributed among several servers, if necessary. This method avoids the cascadin g effect, and it allows to increase system throughput with few re-assignments of avatars. Evaluation results show that th e proposed method can improve DVE system performance, regardless of both the movement pattern and also the initial distribution of avatars in the virtual world.


Abstract In this article, we study judicial behavior at the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (JCPC). British judges in general, and British high court judges in particular, are perceived to be independent and isolated from political pressure and interference. Furthermore, these judges tend to show a particularly high rate of consensus. This has led many scholars to consider that, contrarily to what holds for several other courts around the world (such as the US Supreme Court), the attitudinal model does not find support when British higher court judges are considered. In this paper we assess whether similar conclusions might be drawn from the JCPC, another British court of last resort. We create a unique dataset to study empirically decisions of the JCPC and investigate the extent to which judges exhibit different judicial behavior depending on the type of appeal being brought to the court, i. e., Commonwealth, devolution and domestic appeals. Our results indicate a higher polarization of judicial behavior in the context of devolution appeals (as measured by separate opinions). We discuss these results in the context of the comparative judicial behavior literature and the role of courts in the common law world (with particular reference to human rights).


John Kenneth Galbraith has held up the 'almost unique unreadability' and 'fascinating obscurity' of much of John Maynard Keynes's General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money as a major reason for its success. It created a need for translators and proselytizers to explain its deep meaning to government officials, students and the public at large; and 'as with the Bible and Marx, obscurity stimulated abstract debate' (Galbraith, 1971:44). Unlike much of the preceding theoretical literature on depression economics, Keynes's General Theory was not a theory of the business cycle but rather a theory of the chronic tendency of the free-enterprise economy to depart from full employment, with no automatic tendency, under realistic institutional assumptions, to return to full employment. It is a general theory of disequilibrium or, rather, it explains why there is a multiplicity of possible equilibria, most of them suboptimal, and each one prone to unpredictable shift through the vagaries of businessmen's 'animal spirits'. It called for the visible hand of government to supplement the invisible hand of the market Though a difficult book, Keynes's General Theory is a model of clarity compared with modern 'general equilibrium theory' that purports to explain how 'free', fully flexible markets unencumbered by government may keep the economy close to a unique, optimal full-employment equilibrium. Perhaps for this reason exegesis of the latter now easily displaces Keynesian theory in prestige and classroom time.


Lysophosphatidic acid (LPA) is a naturally occurring phospholipid with growth-factor-like activities [van Corven, Groenink, Jalink, Eichholtz & Moolenaar (1989) Cell 45, 45-54]. We have examined various structural analogues of LPA for their ability to stimulate DNA synthesis in quiescent fibroblasts. When the acyl-chain length is varied, the rank order of mitogenic potency is: 1-oleoyl LPA congruent to 1-palmitoyl LPA greater than 1-myristoyl LPA greater than 1-lauroyl LPA greater than 1-decanoyl LPA; the last compound shows almost no activity over the concentration range tested (1-100 microM). An ether-linked LPA (1-O-hexadecylglycerol 3-phosphate) has much decreased mitogenic activity as compared with the ester-linked analogue at concentrations less than 25 microM, and becomes cytotoxic at higher concentrations. Hexadecylphosphate, which lacks a glycerol backbone, has negligible activity. On a molar basis, diacyl phosphatidic acid (PA) is about equally potent as the corresponding LPA analogue, showing similar acyl-chain-length dependence; the data argue against the possibility that the mitogenic action of PA is due to contaminating traces of LPA. Although the short-chain analogues of LPA and PA fail to antagonize the action of long-chain (L)PAs, the polyanionic drug suramin inhibits LPA- and PA-induced, DNA synthesis in a reversible and dose-dependent manner, at concentrations [IC50 (concn. giving 50% inhibition) approximately 70 microM] that do not affect epidermal-growth-factor-induced DNA synthesis. Suramin appears to act in the early G0/G1 phase of the cell cycle, blocking immediate responses to LPA such as phosphoinositide hydrolysis. We conclude that both LPA and PA can function as growth-promoting phospholipids, with the fatty acid chain length being a major determinant of mitogenic potency.


After the onset of a stroke, blood flows disrupted in areas affected by vascular occlusion limit the delivery of oxygen and metabolic substrates to neurons causing ATP reduction and energy depletion. The glucose and oxygen deficit that occurs after severe vascular occlusion is the origin of the mechanisms that lead to cell death and cerebral injury caused of oxidative stress. Oxidative stress constitutes mechanism of injury of many types of disease processes. On oxidative stress occurs on the increase in ROS and RNS. This paper will discuss about cerebral ischemia that causes activation of ROS and RNS, also the mechanisms that play a role in cell death after cerebral ischemia, for example the role of phospholipase, Haber-Weiss reaction, and lipid peroxidation. It is also described about anti-oxidants to fight free radicals, for examples glutathione peroxidase, catalase and superoxide dismutase.


In order to achieve a better characterisation of a whole failure process, models which
combine damage and fracture mechanics have recently been proposed. Here, a new combined
methodology is presented: in order to describe damage inception and its diffuse propagation,
a gradient-enhanced continuum model based on smoothed displacements is used, which is coupled
to a discontinuous one to describe the final stages of the process.
Special emphasis should be placed on the difficulties concerning the transition between continuous
damage growth and fracture. On the one hand, and in order to conserve the energy
dissipation through the change of models, an appropriate cohesive law must be defined. In this
paper, the proposed technique to define this law is explained. On the other hand, the direction
of the crack path should be determined. Here, a new strategy is proposed: the discontinuity is
propagated following the direction dictated by the medial axis of the damaged domain. That is,
a geometric tool, widely used in the computer graphics field, is used here to locate cracks.


The steadily growing deployment of resilience-critical Internet services is leading to an increasing number of Multi-Homed network sites. Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Lines (ADSL) are an inexpensive way to add a secondary Internet access connection. With the development of Multi-Path Transport Layer protocols - like Multipath TCP (MPTCP) and the Stream Control Transmission Protocol (SCTP) furnished by a Concurrent Multipath Transfer (CMT-SCTP) extension - there is also a strong interest in utilising all access connections simultaneously to improve the data throughput of the applications. However, combining network paths over ADSL with paths over other access technologies like fibre optic links implies highly dissimilar paths with significantly different bandwidths, delays and queuing behaviours. Efficient Multi-Path transport over such dissimilar paths is a challenging task for the new Transport Layer protocols under development. In this paper, we show the difficulties of Multi-Path transport in a real-world dissimilar path setup which consists of a high-speed fibre optic link and an ADSL connection. After that, we present an optimised buffer handling technique which solves the transport efficiency issues in this setup. Our optimisation is first analysed by simulations. Finally, we also show the usefulness of our approach by experimental evaluation in a real Multi-Homed Internet setup.


Democracy is frequently thought of as a "universal value". Donors for the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) accept this assumption and take measures in recipient countries that aim to promote or uphold values they consider central to democracy, including political competition and individual equality, among others. However, some scholars have questioned whether such values are actually universally applicable, and whether donors need to disavow themselves of the notion that "one size fits all" when it comes to promoting democracy in developing countries. Nevertheless, the role of cultural values in mediating the effectiveness of democracy promotion is relatively under-theorised in existing research. This discussion paper is part of the larger research project "What is democracy's value?", which aims at understanding how societal values and attitudes influence the effectiveness of international democracy promotion in African countries. The project looks at how social values and political attitudes mediate democracy promotion in two specific realms: attempts by heads of state to circumvent presidential term limits, and reforms to legislation in the realm of family law and Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transsexual (LGBT+) rights. This discussion paper focusses on two cases that took place in Uganda: Yoweri Museveni's successful 2005 campaign to remove presidential term limits from the Constitution, and the attempt to pass legislation outlawing homosexuality in 2014. In both cases, OECD donors intervened, to varying degrees, in an effort to uphold basic principles of democracy. Despite popular support for maintaining term limits, donor interventions were unsuccessful in the first case. They were, however, successful in thwarting the Anti-Homosexuality Act, even though it had a high level of popular support. The findings of the Ugandan case studies problematise the assumed link between cultural value dimensions – popularised by cross-cultural researchers such as Hofstede, Schwartz, and Inglehart and Welzel – and popular political attitudes. A tendency towards particular value dimensions does not necessarily seem to predispose Ugandans towards particular attitudes, nor does a match or mismatch between the value dimensions of donors and Ugandans result in a corresponding match or mismatch of political attitudes. Likewise, a widespread political attitude does not dictate the outcomes of reform processes, at least in the authoritarian context in which Ugandan politics takes place. More important is the magnitude of material incentives and/or sanctions offered by donors, and the transnational alliances between international and domestic actors. This is not to say that values do not matter. Cultural values are an integral part of the social and political contexts in which democracy promotion takes place and are an important factor in informing the behaviour of executive decision-makers. A greater understanding of cultural values, beliefs and attitudes is integral for both the study of democracy promotion and designing context-sensitive and effective interventions to support democracy in recipient countries.


This paper aimed at investigating the issue of the future of the Arabic Language with special attention given to exploring the following questions: (1) What are the factors that enhanced the prominent Arabic Language status in the past?(2)What are the phenomena that anticipate the death of the Arabic Language?(3) What are the factors that influenced the Arabic Language and led to the likelihood of its deterioration? (4)What are the best strategies to revive the past prominent status of the Arabic language and to stop its deterioration? More specifically, the paper discussed the status of the Arabic Language with regard to the different chronological stages it experienced during different historical eras. It also explored the influence of colonialism, globalization, current educational systems in the Arab countries and the political Arab scene on the status of the Arabic Language. The paper highlighted different linguistic and social phenomena that anticipate the "death" of the Arabic Language, such as "Arabization", "Englishization", "Diglossia", and "Code-Switching" Authentic visual examples of these linguistic phenomena were provided to elucidate their negative impact on the Arabic Language. More focus was directed to the status of the Arabic Language in the Gulf Countries: conferences and recommendations suggested to protect the standard Arabic Language. In conclusion, this paper, by closely analyzing the current status of the Arabic Language, shed light on the little-recognized issue of strategic plans to protect the identity of the Arab nations.


Metallic surfaces can have unusual effects on fluorophores such as increasing or decreasing the rates of radiative decay and the rates of resonance energy transfer (RET). In the present article we describe the effects of metallic silver island films on the emission spectra, lifetimes, and energy transfer for several fluorophores. The fluorophores are not covalently coupled to the silver islands so that there are a range of fluorophore-to-metal distances. We show that proximity of fluorophores to the silver islands results in increased fluorescence intensity, with the largest enhancement for the lowest-quantum-yield fluorophores. Importantly, the metal-induced increases in intensity are accompanied by decreased lifetimes and increased photostability. These effects demonstrate that the silver islands have increased the radiative decay rates of the fluorophore. For solvent-sensitive fluorophores the emission spectra shifted to shorted wavelengths in the presence of the silver islands, which is consistent with a decrease of the apparent lifetime for fluorophores near the metal islands. We also observed an increased intensity and blue spectral shift for the protein human glyoxalase, which displays a low quantum yield for its intrinsic tryptophan emission. In this case the blue shift is thought to be due to increased emission from a buried low-quantum-yield tryptophan residue. Increased intensities were also observed for the intrinsic emission of the nucleic acid bases adenine and thymine and for single-stranded 15-mers poly(T) and poly(C). And finally, we observed increased RET for donors and acceptors in solution and when bound to double-helical DNA. These results demonstrate that metallic particles can be used to modify the emission from intrinsic and extrinsic fluorophores in biochemical systems.


We address the problem of tracking and recognizing faces in real-world, noisy videos. We track faces using a tracker that adaptively builds a target model reflecting changes in appearance, typical of a video setting. However, adaptive appearance trackers often suffer from drift, a gradual adaptation of the tracker to non-targets. To alleviate this problem, our tracker introduces visual constraints using a combination of generative and discriminative models in a particle filtering framework. The generative term conforms the particles to the space of generic face poses while the discriminative one ensures rejection of poorly aligned targets. This leads to a tracker that significantly improves robustness against abrupt appearance changes and occlusions, critical for the subsequent recognition phase. Identity of the tracked subject is established by fusing pose-discriminant and person-discriminant features over the duration of a video sequence. This leads to a robust video-based face recognizer with state-of-the-art recognition performance. We test the quality of tracking and face recognition on real-world noisy videos from YouTube as well as the standard Honda/UCSD database. Our approach produces successful face tracking results on over 80% of all videos without video or person-specific parameter tuning. The good tracking performance induces similarly high recognition rates: 100% on Honda/UCSD and over 70% on the YouTube set containing 35 celebrities in 1500 sequences.


This paper examines the precision of conventional estimates of the NAIRU and the role of the NAIRU and unemployment in forecasting inflation. The authors find that, although there is a clear empirical Phillips relation, the NAIRU is imprecisely estimated, forecasts of inflation are insensitive to the NAIRU, and there are other leading indicators of inflation that are at least as good as unemployment. This suggests deemphasizing the NAIRU in public discourse about monetary policy and instead drawing on a richer variety of leading indicators of inflation.


This article studies the historical origin, legal training, career patterns, professional identity and ethics, judicial philosophy, and scale of professionalization of thousands of legal specialists in late imperial China from about 1651 to 1911. It is the first serious, extensive study in English of these early modern Chinese jurists and legal professionals who were the de facto judges in probably most of the 1650 Chinese local governments/courts for more than two centuries. For the first time, it uses archival sources to offer an estimate of about 3,000 such trained legal specialists working in local Chinese governments in any given year from roughly 1711 to 1911, which means an estimated total of 30,000 for that period as a whole, assuming an average tenure of 20 years of full employment for them. This study calls for a rethinking of much of the received wisdom on late imperial Chinese law and society, judicial administration, culture and politics, as well as their legacy on modern China's drive for the rule of law. It will also be of value to scholars of comparative law, legal philosophy, professionalism, and Asian legal cultures.


Endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) are synthetic chemicals that alter the function of endocrine systems in animals including humans. EDCs are considered priority pollutants and worldwide research is ongoing to develop bioremediation strategies to remove EDCs from the environment. An understanding of indigenous microorganisms is important to design efficient bioremediation strategies. However, much of the information available on EDCs has been generated from developed regions. Recent studies have revealed the presence of different EDCs in South African natural resources, but, to date, studies analysing the capabilities of microorganisms to utilise/degrade EDCs have not been reported from South Africa. Here, we report for the first time on the isolation and enrichment of six bacterial strains from six different soil samples collected from the Mpumalanga Province, which are capable of utilising EDC nonylphenol as a carbon source. Furthermore, we performed a preliminary characterisation of isolates concerning their phylogenetic identification and capabilities to degrade nonylphenol. Phylogenetic analysis using 16S rRNA gene sequencing revealed that four isolates belonged to Pseudomonas and the remaining two belonged to Enterobacteria and Stenotrophomonas. All six bacterial species showed degradation of nonylphenol in broth cultures, as HPLC analysis revealed 41–46% degradation of nonylphenol 12 h after addition. The results of this study represent the beginning of identification of microorganisms capable of degrading nonylphenol, and pave the way for further exploration of EDC-degrading microorganisms from South Africa.


Energetic particle transport in the interplanetary medium is known to be affected by magnetic structures. It has been demonstrated for solar energetic particles in near-Earth orbit studies, and also for the more energetic cosmic rays. In this paper, we show observational evidence that intensity variations of solar energetic particles can be correlated with the occurrence of helical magnetic flux tubes and their boundaries. The analysis is carried out using data from Parker Solar Probe orbit 5, in the period 2020 May 24 to June 2. We use FIELDS magnetic field data and energetic particle measurements from the Integrated Science Investigation of the Sun (IS⊙IS) suite on the Parker Solar Probe. We identify magnetic flux ropes by employing a real-space evaluation of magnetic helicity, and their potential boundaries using the Partial Variance of Increments method. We find that energetic particles are either confined within or localized outside of helical flux tubes, suggesting that the latter act as transport boundaries for particles, consistent with previously developed viewpoints.


Computational aspects of Van der Sandt's binding and accommodation theory (BAT) for presupposition projection and anaphora resolution are presented and discussed in this article. BAT is reformulated to meet requirements for computational implementation, which include operations on discourse representation structures (renaming and merging), the representation of presuppositions (allowing for selective binding and determining free and bound variables), and a formulation of the acceptability constraints imposed by BAT. An efficient presupposition resolution algorithm is presented, and several further improvements such as preferences for binding and accommodation are discussed and integrated in this algorithm. Finally, innovative use of first-order theorem provers to carry out consistency checking of discourse representations is investigated.


And whatever happened to the pesticide content found in Bisleri in 2003. In 2003 and 2006, there turned out to be a dramatic fight that saw Pepsi and Coca-Cola joining hands to fight Sunita Narayan of Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) as the whole country looked on concerned about claims, that the Indian Public had been drinking for years, as a mark of celebration, 'drinks' that were claimed to be efficient toilet-cleaners! A rare sight where the stalwarts of the soft drink industry and all-time staunch rivals came together to fight this new menace that posed a serious threat to their credibility. Joint Parliamentary Committees in India is no ordinary thing where scams worth Rs.1,76,000 crores also need a lot of political backing to make a case for themselves in order to have a JPC probe but the softdrinks had "been there, done that" in August 2003 itself. Old issues like Pesticides used for farming that led to a major health crisis amongst inhabitants of Kerala has got huge ratings for shows like Satyamev Jayate even in 2012. Punjab has the unique privilege of running its very own "Cancer train". Cylinders, by law, can be sold under ISI certification only and yet reports of accidents of cylinders bursting are not a rarity. In cases as recent as May 2012, even major political leaders like Prakash Karat, general secretary of Communist Party of India(M), presiding over party meetings where over 200 party members were sitting, could not evade a LPG cylinder that burst at a distance of few 5 metres from the venue and could have posed a serious threat to life. Children still get shocks from sockets at home while electric switches are under mandatory ISI certification. In Mumbai recently, 643 bikers were fined Rs 200/- each for wearing helmets within a span of three days. Does not make any sense, right? Here is the complete story. They were apparently wearing helmets that did not carry ISI logos on them. This group of citizens, that follow traffic laws and wear helmets, is a rare sight in India and it was understandable when they were infuriated with the authorities for penalizing them. But the authorities were authorized by the commissioner to do so under Section 129 of the Motor Vehicles Act. "What is an ISI mark by the way?" is what 40% of Indians might ask you. But as they say, 'The Khans got around and they also roped in the Tendulkars and the Dhonis to advertise and the glamour quotient got the poor drinking again'. The public memory is often short-lived and more importantly, has at its peril a lot of other issues to deal with. The attitude of the people is 'Somebody will take care of that one. Ye india hai, yaha sab chalta hai.' This is in its very true sense "The Great Indian Tragedy". Everybody knew what the issue was, they got the names right, they drummed up the issue, sparked off the debates but nobody did what was needed- a follow up! And this paper is an attempt to do just that.


The paper examines the relationship between military interventions and democratisation processes which took place in targeted states. While many researchers try to identify relationship between the regime type and countries' war proneness, the authors of this paper put these two variables in a reversed order. To test this so-called "inversed democratic peace" thesis based on an argument that an ongoing war is likely to lead to democratisation, we focus our analysis on the US interventions in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and FR Yugoslavia (Kosovo). We deploy three variables: 1) Foreign policy similarity, to determine whether the intervening actor (USA) had similar or different foreign policy goals at the beginning of interventions; 2) Political regime similarity, to indicate whether there were any deviations in the quality of political regime between the intervening state and the target country, as indicated by the democratic peace postulates; 3) military interventions (independent variable). Foreign policy score includes S score dataset developed by Curtis S. Signorino and Jeffrey M. Ritter (1999), while for the political regime quality, the authors deploy Polity IV data. Statistical analysis including Pearson's correlation, logistic regression and descriptive statistics, will be presented for specific dyad level in three specifically designated models. The authors conclude that it is more likely that military interventions affect further democratisation of the targeted post-conflict societies, if observed in a short term rather than in longitudinal domain, while the foreign policy similarity (with the United States) positively correlates in cases with more successful democratisation process.


The existence of a gap between accounting research and accounting practice has been extensively described in literature. In order to be able to publish a research in a high-ranked accounting journal, it seems that methodological issues are more important than those related to the relevance of the topics covered. To improve research and accounting practice and to avoid the risk of accounting research becoming selfreferential, every effort should be made to bridge the current gap between research and accounting practice. To this end, the development of mutual knowledge of the
agenda of researchers and practitioners on the one hand, and participation in joint projects on the other, could represent possible future solutions to be pursued.


In May 2010 the United States National Science Foundation sponsored a two-day workshop to review the state-of-the-art and research challenges in photovoltaic (PV) manufacturing. This article summarizes the major conclusions and outcomes from this workshop, which was focused on identifying the science that needs to be done to help accelerate PV manufacturing. A significant portion of the article focuses on assessing the current status of and future opportunities in the major PV manufacturing technologies. These are solar cells based on crystalline silicon (c-Si), thin films of cadmium telluride (CdTe), thin films of copper indium gallium diselenide, and thin films of hydrogenated amorphous and nanocrystalline silicon. Current trends indicate that the cost per watt of c-Si and CdTe solar cells are being reduced to levels beyond the constraints commonly associated with these technologies. With a focus on TW/yr production capacity, the issue of material availability is discussed along with the emerging technologies of dye-sensitized solar cells and organic photovoltaics that are potentially less constrained by elemental abundance. Lastly, recommendations are made for research investment, with an emphasis on those areas that are expected to have cross-cutting impact.


The paper presents a general map-based approach to prototyping of products in virtual reality environments. Virtual prototyping of products is considered as a consistent simulation and visualization process mapping the source product model into its target visual representations. The approach enables to interrelate formally the product and visual information models with each other by defining mapping rules, to specify a prototyping scenario as a composition of map instances, and then to explore particular product models in virtual reality environments by interpreting the composed scenario. Having been realized, the proposed approach provides for the strongly formalized method and the common software framework to build virtual prototyping applications. As a result, the applications gain in expressiveness, reusability and reliability, as well as take on additional runtime flexibility...


We present a semi-analytical method for computing the electromagnetic field in and around 3D nanoparticles (NP) of complex shape and demonstrate its power via concrete examples of plasmonic NPs that have nonsymmetrical shapes and surface areas with very small radii of curvature. In particular, we show the three axial resonances of a 3D cashew-nut and the broadband response of peanut-shell NPs. The method employs the source-model technique along with a newly developed intricate source distributing algorithm based on the surface curvature. The method is simple and can outperform finite-difference time domain and finite-element-based software tools in both its efficiency and accuracy.


Abstract Pedestrians are important to cities. However, pedestrians have traditionally received limited attention in travel behaviour research. One reason for this is the lack of simulation tools that can effectively describe and predict pedestrian traffic. In particular, there is a great need to model the fine-scale movement of urban pedestrian especially in the context of high-density urban living. This paper presents a multi-agent-based simulation system that models the fine-scale movement behaviour of pedestrians. A parametric test is carried out to demonstrate the performance of the system. The system is proved to be able to generate reasonable pedestrian flow compared with empirical data in the literature. The system has the potential to be applied in real-world cases and serves as a spatial decision support tool in pedestrian planning because of its support for geographical information system (GIS).


In this brief history of U.S. consumer finance since World War II, the sector is defined based on the functions delivered by firms in the form of payments, savings and investing, borrowing, managing risk, and providing advice. Evidence of major trends in consumption, savings, and borrowing is drawn from time-series studies. An examination of consumer decisions, changes in regulation, and business practices identifies four major themes that characterized the consumer finance sector: innovation that increased the choices available to consumers; enhanced access in the form of consumers' broadening participation in financial activities; do-it-yourself consumer finance, which both allowed and forced consumers to take greater responsibility for their own financial lives; and a resultant increase in household risk taking.


The heart of future segmentation system for industrial markets lies in the ability to distinguish between buying strategies in customer and prospect firms. The author's observation that customers' markets and marketing strategies provide a surrogate for buying approaches gives us the foundation for a usable system. Not one that applies to every industrial sales situation but one that will apply where demand is derived from demand for the customer's products. Since this represents the majority of industrial sales situation we are able to segment with more effect that with the limited tools available up till now. We can observe how marketing channel strategies and promotions differ across these market types. And, since marketing strategy relates closely to buying, we can segment accordingly. Looking to the future development of industrial segmentation strategies we might add other information of value in targeting. These include: financial information and creditworthiness, ownership information, sector growth and regional growth. The paper provides us with the mean to target on basis of buying strategy as well as firm demographics. Much remains to be done and the authors note limitations to their research, but here is a method for segmentation that will improve industrial marketing planning and targeting.


Introduction Risk factors associated with many chronic diseases can be improved through regular physical activity. This study investigated whether cross-sectional associations between physical activity, assessed by the Exercise Vital Sign (EVS), and cardiometabolic risk factors can be detected in clinical settings. Methods We used electronic records from Kaiser Permanente Southern California members (N = 622,897) to examine the association of EVS category with blood pressure, fasting glucose, random glucose, and glycosylated hemoglobin. Adults aged 18 years or older with at least 3 EVS measures between April 2010 and December 2012, without comorbid conditions, and not taking antihypertension or glucose-lowering medications were included. We compared consistently inactive (EVS = 0 min/wk for every measure) with consistently active (EVS ≥150 min/wk) and irregularly active (EVS 1–149 min/wk or not meeting the consistently active or inactive criteria) patients. Separate linear regression analyses were conducted controlling for age, sex, race/ethnicity, body mass index, and smoking status. Results Consistently active women had lower systolic (−4.60 mm Hg; 95% confidence interval [CI], −4.70 to −4.44) and diastolic (−3.28 mm Hg; 95% CI, −3.40 to −3.17) blood pressure than inactive women. Active men had lower diastolic blood pressure than inactive men. Consistently active patients (women, −5.27 mg/dL [95% CI, −5.56 to −4.97]; men, −1.45 mg/dL [95% CI, −1.75 to −1.16] and irregularly active patients (women, −4.57 mg/dL [95% CI, −4.80 to −4.34]; men, −0.42 mg/dL [95% CI, −0.66 to −0.19]) had lower fasting glucose than consistently inactive patients. Consistently active and irregularly active men and women also had favorable random glucose and HbA1c compared with consistently inactive patients. Conclusion Routine clinical physical activity assessment may give health care providers additional information about their patients' cardiometabolic risk factors.


SIR,-I was interested to read of the high incidence of deep vein thrombosis (DVT) following total hip replacement described by Mr J D Stamatakis and his colleagues (23 July, p 223). This alarming incidence, coupled with the known serious embolic complications, gives much food for thought and obviously should influence us in the management of patients undergoing the operation. However, I would like to ask two questions. Firstly, what were the diagnoses of the patients, and, secondly, what were the prior drug therapies ? Presumably some of the patients suffered from rheumatoid arthritis and some may well have been taking aspirin. It is my clinical impression that DVT is rare in rheumatoid disease and aspirin is well known to influence the clotting mechanism. Although drug action may be difficult to assess by the methods used in the study, the influence of the underlying disease process could easily be judged and I think it is important that that information should be made available.


The healthcare industry is facing various challenges due to global megatrends, such as increasing average life expectancy, ageing population, technological advancements, urbanization and globalization. Currently, outdated hospital facilities are being thoroughly renovated in large and costly projects to meet contemporary operational requirements. Renovation work in hospital environments is particularly challenging, as the facility should remain operational during the renovation. Traditional ways of retrofitting tend to create a lot of disturbance, such as isolating sections for long periods, noise, and pollution. This study explores alternative ways to maintain a healthcare facility, without the need for major retrofits. The research approach is qualitative, utilizing stakeholder (owner - user - service provider) interviews as the main data. Based on the findings, the lifecycle sustainability of a hospital building would be improved if large, intrusive renovation projects could be replaced with multiple minor projects. Modular thinking could offer one solution to the problem. Modularity allows for more frequent minor maintenance procedures of hospital facilities, instead of major renovation cycles of decades. Modular solutions also reduce the operational downtime and costs, and create less onsite disturbance. On the other hand, modular solutions may be difficult to implement in existing buildings, which have not been originally designed to allow for such adaptability. Building on the interviews and review of existing literature, the study offers several potential solutions to improve the future adaptability and flexibility of hospital buildings. The benefits and challenges related to each solution are also discussed. The findings will benefit facility owners, managers and users, struggling with the requirements of contemporary healthcare facilities.


Winter ice cover can be related to the temperature of air, but morphological and meteorological differences cause large variations. Physically based modelling help their study, as results can be controlled and verified. A lot of data is needed, and in the process liability and interpretation of data are important. In this study long series of data are used to study winter ice coverage of morphologically different lakes in Southern Finland. Physical factors in the vertically resolving lake model, the Probe model, were considered. The ice model is based on the use of the temperature of air and it is successful in describing regular ice formation and break-up. Suitability for individual lakes could be improved by changing the factors for melting, the wind limit for breaking the ice and the temperature limit for determining ice coverage. Depth delays and mixing increases cooling of water. For freezing date, the differences between lakes are about one month. Ice break-up is strongly determined by air temperature, but the model can help to relate differences to morphology. During warmer winters horizontal variations have more importance; there can also be periods of partial ice-cover. For further study of those the model should be developed; modelling over years in succession is then a necessity.


This paper describes thrust ripple reduction in an ultrahigh-acceleration moving-permanent-magnet linear synchronous motor (MPM LSM). The pole pitch of the permanent magnet (PM) is adjusted to reduce thrust ripple because this technique is effective and is easily applicable for many design procedures of PM LSMs. However, in addition to reducing the thrust ripple, this adjustment affects parameters such as the number of driving phases, the average thrust, the mover mass, and the working range. These parameters influence the performance and the usability of linear motors. In this study, the PM pole pitch of an MPM LSM is adjusted. The MPM LSM produces an average thrust of 4030 N, but the ratio of the peak-to-peak thrust ripple to the average thrust exceeds 80%. The influences on the properties of the MPM LSM are numerically investigated and discussed. The PM pole pitch of the MPM LSM is determined based on the numerical analysis and an improved mover whose pitch was numerically determined is fabricated. The improved mover has a light frame and 18 PMs for realizing a high thrust-to-mover mass ratio (thrust per mover mass). The experimental results demonstrate that the improved MPM LSM can generate 4.56 × 103 N with a peak-to-peak thrust ripple of 7.04%.


Glutathione transferases (GSTs) are dimeric enzymes containing one active-site per monomer. The omega-class GSTs (hGSTO1-1 and hGSTO2-2 in humans) are homodimeric and carry out a range of reactions including the glutathione-dependant reduction of a range of compounds and the reduction of S-(phenacyl)glutathiones to acetophenones. Both types of reaction result in the formation of a mixed-disulfide of the enzyme with glutathione through the catalytic cysteine (C32). Recycling of the enzyme utilizes a second glutathione molecule and results in oxidized glutathione (GSSG) release. The crystal structure of an active-site mutant (C32A) of the hGSTO1-1 isozyme in complex with GSSG provides a snapshot of the enzyme in the process of regeneration. GSSG occupies both the G (GSH-binding) and H (hydrophobic-binding) sites and causes re-arrangement of some H-site residues. In the same structure we demonstrate the existence of a novel "ligandin" binding site deep within in the dimer interface of this enzyme, containing S-(4-nitrophenacyl)glutathione, an isozyme-specific substrate for hGSTO1-1. The ligandin site, conserved in Omega class GSTs from a range of species, is hydrophobic in nature and may represent the binding location for tocopherol esters that are uncompetitive hGSTO1-1 inhibitors.


Brain networks are expected to be modular. However, existing techniques for estimating a network's modules make it difficult to assess the influence of organizational principles such as wiring cost reduction on the detected modules. Here we present a modification of an existing module detection algorithm that allowed us to focus on connections that are unexpected under a cost-reduction wiring rule and to identify modules from among these connections. We applied this technique to anatomical brain networks and showed that the modules we detected differ from those detected using the standard technique. We demonstrated that these novel modules are spatially distributed, exhibit unique functional fingerprints, and overlap considerably with rich clubs, giving rise to an alternative and complementary interpretation of the functional roles of specific brain regions. Finally, we demonstrated that, using the modified module detection approach, we can detect modules in a developmental dataset that track normative patterns of maturation. Collectively, these findings support the hypothesis that brain networks are composed of modules and provide additional insight into the function of those modules. AUTHOR SUMMARY The human brain is characterized by a complex pattern of anatomical wiring, in the form of white-matter tracts that link large volumes of neural tissue. The organization of this pattern is likely driven by many factors, including evolutionary adaptability, robustness to perturbations, and a separation of the timescales necessary to produce a diverse repertoire of neural dynamics. In this study, we sought to disentangle two such factors—the drive to decrease the cost of wiring, and the putative drive to increase the efficiency of the network topology—and we explored the impacts of these factors on the brain's modular organization. The contributions of this work include a new algorithmic approach to community detection and novel insights into the role of modules in human brain function.


[1] On 8–11 July 2007 the eastern United States experienced a severe heat wave and smog event with maximum temperatures approaching 38°C and maximum 8 h average ozone mixing ratios of 125 ppbv. We examine this episode with observations and numerical simulations using the Weather Research and Forecasting model with online chemistry (WRF/Chem with RADM2). The general features of this severe smog event–a broad area of high pressure, weak winds and heavy pollution, terminated by the passage of a cold front–were well simulated by the model. WRF/Chem underpredicted O3 maxima by 5–8 ppbv where air quality was poor, usually in the northeast, but overpredicted maxima by up to 16 ppbv where ozone amounts were low, usually in the southeast. Simulated O3 vertical profiles over Beltsville, Maryland, showed good agreement with ozonesonde measurements, but the model boundary layer was too deep on 9 July, contributing to the low bias over this region. The representation of NOx chemistry in RADM2 may lead to an underestimation of NOx lifetime and is likely partially responsible for low O3 biases in the most polluted area in the northeast. To simulate the maximum effect of nighttime multiphase NOy loss, we set the N2O5 heterogeneous hydrolysis reaction rate constant to zero. This increased the mean bias outside the area of highest ozone concentration but substantially improved O3 and NOy over most of the domain, especially in smoggy areas such as the rural, Pinnacles site.


Immediately after their introduction in the beginning of the fourties of the previous century, the agents used to combat infectious diseases caused by bacteria were regarded with suspicion, but not long thereafter antibiotics had the status of miracle drugs. For decades mankind has lived under the impression that infectious diseases were no longer a threat to human health. This optimism was so high at a certain moment that antibiotics were also used against viral infections, whereas viruses are not even sensitive to antibiotics. This wrong use, or if one likes, misuse of antibiotics took also place in animal husbandry, where many tons of antibiotics were added to the feed of healthy animals, just because they grew so nicely from these additives. However, also in the use of antibiotics an ancient law in physics, "action equals reaction" turned out to be applicable. Bacteria reacted to the fact that they were attacked by changing their hereditary properties (through mutation) or by taking up parts of the hereditary properties of organisms (bacteria and fungi) able to produce certain antibiotics themselves. As a result of this reaction, already a short while after the introduction of antibiotics, the first bacteria could be isolated that had become insensitive (immune) for particular antibiotics. The bacteria in fact, had even more surprises in store. They turned out to be fanatic collectors of the pieces of hereditary properties that made them immune for antibiotics and like a stamp collector puts his stamps in an album, they also put their collection in an album (an integron). In this way, the best collectors have now become insensitive to more than ten different types of antibiotics. At the moment there are even bacteria that are not sensitive anymore to whatever type of antibiotic and for these bacteria treatment with antimicrobial agents is no longer available. Where, "work together, live together" is the current motto of the Dutch government, "work together to survive together" might be the motto of bacteria. They put this into practice by passing on their album with its integron collection from one bacterial species to the other. In this way a bacterium that used to be sensitive and could very well be treated with antibiotics can in one stroke become resistant to sometimes thirteen different antimicrobial agents, resulting in the fact that an infection with such a bacterium becomes untreatable. In this thesis research with respect to the sensitivity of the bacterium Salmonella, which can cause intestinal infections in human and animals, for antimicrobial agents is described. Since the (wrong) use of antibiotics can influence the development of resistance to antibiotics, in these studies a comparison has been made between Salmonella bacteria isolated from human, pigs, cattle and poultry in Vietnam and The Netherlands. Whereas in The Netherlands antibiotics are only available on prescription by a physician or veterinarian, antibiotics can be purchased over the counter in Vietnam. This leads to a significantly different attitude in both countries with respect to handling antibiotics. Examples are i.e. not taking a course of antibiotics of the correct dose, not taking a course of antibiotics of sufficient duration, not only taking a course of antibiotics in the case of bacterial infections and the continuing use of antibiotics as growth promoters in Vietnam. Resistance to antibiotics in Salmonella bacteria isolated in Vietnam turned out to occur frequently. In the Netherlands where the development of resistance has been monitored and registered for years the problem was hardly less. In Salmonella isolates from some animal species even resistance to antibiotics for which the use of that antibiotic is not allowed in that animal, was observed. In the current studies Salmonella bacteria have been isolated, both in Vietnam and in the Netherlands that have a collection in their integron album which is unique and has not been described before. At the end of the thesis the measures that could be taken to counteract the development of antibiotic resistance are discussed. The necessity of continuously making an inventory of the situation at local, regional, national and global level is accentuated, as is the shared responsibility that the government and civilians have with respect to the improper use of antibiotics.


Abstract:In Brazil and throughout the African diaspora, rarely are black women, especially poor black women, considered leaders of social movements, much less political theorists. While Afro-Brazilian women are at the very heart of the struggle for urban housing and land rights in Salvador, the prevailing image of black women, particularly those who live in poor neighborhoods, is that they lack the knowledge and political sophistication needed to organize mass social movements. This article seeks to undermine this image by exploring how black women have come to radicalize local communities. It also explores why they are the main political actors interpreting the racial, gender, and class dynamics of urban development policies and fighting to reform projects of socio-spatial inclusion in cities. Bridging the scholarly gap between black feminist theorization and the grassroots practice of intersectionality, I argue that black women who organize as blacks, women, and poor people provide key insights into how intersectionality is mobilized for social and poltical change. Furthemore, the ethnographic focus on black women's activism illustrates the ways in which grassroots politics have advanced our understanding of intersectional identity formation in relationship to the material interests of the marginalized communities in Brazil.


The application of the 'direct amide cyclization' conditions to the linear δ-hydroxy diamide 11 is described (Scheme 3). Instead of the cyclization to the expected nine-membered cyclodepsipeptide, only the chloro acid 12 was obtained. Its formation could be explained by consecutive formation of the 1,3-oxazol-5(4H)-one 16 and the six-membered imino lactone 17 as intermediates (Scheme 4). The spontaneous isomerization of the latter gave 12 in a good yield.


During the emplacement and cooling of igneous bodies, fluidization of wet sediment by water vapour may occur by heating, or by pressure relief during the opening of fractures. Momentary fluidization causes sediment reconstitution and local transport. Continuous fluidization can result in substantial sediment displacement. Theoretical considerations show that fluidization due to heating is not likely to occur at depths where pressure is much greater than 312 bars. Studies of the emplacement of sills of andesite (Ayrshire), fluid rhyolite (Ramsey Island) and viscous rhyolite (Moelwyn Hills) recognize a wide range of phenomena attributable to wet sediment fluidization and in places modify existing interpretations. The transgressive bases of the subaqueously welded ash-flow tuffs of the Capel Curig Volcanic Formation are consistent with emplacement attended by fluidization of the subjacent sediment. Evidently fluidization is a means by which large volumes of wet sediment can be replaced by igneous material with minimal disturbance of the remaining host. Also, fluidization can result in exceptionally complex contact relationships between sedimentary host and intrusive rocks, and can cause fractures formed during cooling to be thoroughly pervaded by sediment. Fluidization is commonly associated with the formation of peperites.


Programs for demand management have become critical following extended water shortage in Australia. Changing attitudes is a major element of water conservation programs. Information and education are likely to be necessary but not sufficient components of any program for behaviour change. A combination of factors is needed to promote water saving behaviour. Changing the behaviours of less responsive water users requires a better understanding of what shapes water conservation behaviours. Programs and conservation behaviour models need to take account of both 'internal' influences, such as attitudes and habits, and 'external' influences, such as the water delivery environment, pricing and social norms for water use.


We develop an approximate analytical solution to the steady-state equations that describe a nested fiber, Raman laser cavity that incorporates Bragg reflectors. From this solution the output power, the threshold power, and the efficiency are found. Numerical simulation of a six-step cascade shows that the approximate analytical solution is accurate within 1.5%. It appears that the laser behaves differently depending on whether it has an even or odd number of Stokes waves.


This essay questions why there is a heightened attention to sound and auditory experience in the modernist novel. I argue that aside from being influenced by developing auditory technologies, modernist writers use sound and auditory experience to subvert traditional Enlightenment notions of self and narrative, which tend to privilege sight. While vision indicates an analytical self, distanced from the world, audition allows for a self immersed in the world. By examining the novels of Virginia Woolf, Dorothy Richardson and James Joyce, I demonstrate how modernist writers connect their characters through shared listening, how music and nuances in voice are able to represent the ineffable and how stream of consciousness is a part of the auditory imagination. I suggest that much of the formal experimentation associated with modernism is dependent on this representation of sound and auditory experience.


China's Cybersecurity Law, which is thus far the most important internet legislation to be passed in the country, came into effect on June 1, 2017. The law has attracted significant attention and criticism from foreign companies. Although the Chinese government claims that the Cybersecurity Law will help reduce the risk of cyberattacks and safeguard national security, some critics believe that the law will further erode internet freedom in China. In particular, concerns have been raised that the law may not effectively enhance China's current level of cybersecurity but instead may be used to facilitate government censorship and surveillance, to increase unnecessary business operating costs, to steal intellectual property from foreign companies, and to protect domestic industries from global competition.

This Article provides a thorough analysis of important provisions of the Cybersecurity Law as well as their policy implications. It views the Cybersecurity Law as part of a broader set of policy steps that have been taken to streamline laws concerning the internet and national security. The law fulfills China's persistent aim to assert its internet sovereignty by imposing heavy obligations on network operators and critical information infrastructure operators. This Article contends that the law should be understood from the perspective of China's unique conception of cybersecurity and human rights. As cybersecurity is defined much more broadly in China than it is in the Western world, any digital information threatening social or political stability will be viewed as a cybersecurity, or even a national security, concern. This explains why the scope of the Cybersecurity Law is unprecedented. Moreover, the treatment of personal information in the Cybersecurity Law reflects China's human rights philosophy. While individuals enjoy a certain degree of human rights protection, those rights do not effectively protect them from government action.


The freshwater ichthyofauna of the Fiji islands remained poorly documented before the establishment of the Pacific-Asia Biodiversity Transect (PABITRA) network. The PABITRA approach assesses biodiversity along ocean-to-mountain transects and promotes sustainable land use on islands across the Pacific. Multiple surveys of freshwater fish species along the Viti Levu PABITRA transect have contributed six new occurrence records and one new species to the known freshwater fishes of Fiji since 2002. In total, 21 indigenous species of fish (9% endemic) from 10 families and no introduced fishes were found in the three PABITRA sites. Diversity was highest (16 species) at Savura forest reserve and decreased further inland into Sovi and Wabu. The assemblage found is dominated by highly migratory species (95%) that traverse the different aquatic habitats (marine, estuarine, lowland and upland streams) covered by the PABITRA transect. This high degree of connectivity highlights several growing issues affecting aquatic fauna on the high island of Viti Levu. The reduction in forest cover along the gateway transects, especially in the terminal reaches, and infrastructure development such as dams and weirs have deleterious effects on the migration routes of the Fijian ichthyofauna. Several species collected are important food sources and have cultural totemic importance to local inhabitants along the vertical transect. This paper documents the ichthyofauna of the Fiji gateway transect, ecological characteristics of this assemblage, IUCN Redlist conservation assessment status and highlights factors affecting the fragility and resilience of these communities, particularly focusing on the importance of life-history patterns and watershed conditions.


Biological invasions are rapid evolutionary events in which populations are usually subject to a founder event during introduction followed by rapid adaptation to the new environment. Molecular tools and Bayesian approaches have shown their utility in exploring different evolutionary scenarios regarding the invasion routes of introduced species. We examined the situation for the tobacco aphid, Myzus persicae nicotianae, a recently introduced aphid species in Chile. Using seven microsatellite loci and approximate Bayesian computation, we studied populations of the tobacco aphid sampled from several American and European countries, identifying the most likely source populations and tracking the route of introduction to Chile. Our population genetic data are consistent with available historical information, pointing to an introduction route of the tobacco aphid from Europe and/or from other putative populations (e.g. Asia) with subsequent introduction through North America to South America. Evidence of multiple introductions to North America from different genetic pools, with successive loss of genetic diversity from Europe towards North America and a strong bottleneck during the southward introduction to South America, was also found. Additionally, we examined the special case of a widespread multilocus genotype that was found in all American countries examined. This case provides further evidence for the existence of highly successful genotypes or 'superclones' in asexually reproducing organisms.


Background: Mortality in hemodialysis patients still remains unacceptably high. Enhanced arterial stiffness is a known cardiovascular risk factor, and pulse wave velocity (PWV) has proven to be a valid parameter to quantify risk. Recent studies showed controversial results regarding the prognostic significance of PWV for mortality in hemodialysis patients, which may be due to methodological issues, such as assessment of PWV in the office setting (Office-PWV). Method: This study cohort contains patients from the "Risk stratification in end-stage renal disease – the ISAR study," a multicenter prospective longitudinal observatory cohort study. We examined and compared the predictive value of ambulatory 24-hour PWV (24 h-PWV) and Office-PWV on mortality in a total of 344 hemodialysis patients. The endpoints of the study were all-cause and cardiovascular mortality. Survival analysis included Kaplan-Meier estimates and Cox regression analysis. Results: During a follow-up of 36 months, a total of 89 patients died, 35 patients due to cardiovascular cause. Kaplan-Meier estimates for tertiles of 24 h-PWV and Office-PWV were similarly associated with mortality. In univariate Cox regression analysis, 24 h-PWV and Office-PWV were equivalent predictors for all-cause and cardiovascular mortality. After adjustment for common risk factors, only 24 h-PWV remained solely predictive for all-cause mortality (hazard ratio 2.51 [95% CI 1.31–4.81]; p = 0.004). Conclusions: Comparing both measurements, 24 h-PWV is an independent predictor for all-cause-mortality in hemodialysis patients beyond Office-PWV.


The two-photon absorption coefficient of the highly nonlinear crystal KNbO3 at 430 nm is reported. Furthermore, we demonstrate efficient (50-60%) high pulse energy second-harmonic generation at 430 nm with subpicosecond pump pulses. Blue pulses with ~2.7 microjoule energies were obtained using a 1 mm-thick KNbO3 crystal. Full-text article is not available.


Abstract Environmental taxes should play an important part in environmental policy as they help to internalize externalities, reduce damage, and increase the quality of life; besides they allow raising revenue for national and local governments. The aim of this paper is to evaluate environmental effectiveness, economic efficiency, equity impact, administrative feasibility and cost, and political acceptability of environmental (energy, transport, and natural-resource) taxes in Latvia. The study is based on desk research. The results demonstrate little evidence that existing environmental taxes lead to a significant reduction in environmental pollution and waste flows, but they have a significant fiscal effect. Most of the environmental taxes in Latvia apply direct and indirect subsidies, but most of the revenue comes from taxes on energy and transport. Environmental tax rates in Latvia are the result of political compromise and are not backed by the research on environmental costs of the particular activity. This paper fills the gap in environmental policy evaluation by looking at the performance and effectiveness of environmental taxes in Latvia.


Strategic leadership is understood in this thesis to operate through the interaction of 'personal' and 'impersonal' communications between stakeholders in an organisational learning context. The thesis illustrates the impact of these 'emergent' and 'structured' 'forms of text' on strategic performance, competence and delivery. It explores the complex-dynamic consequences for the areas of Innovation (pertaining to knowledge leadership), Social Architecture (pertaining to human resource development) and Reputation (pertaining to the strategic management of organisational behaviour and information). Communications are interpreted from a neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) perspective, which the thesis calls Nanopsychology (NLPS). The focus is on how persons' self-reference can influence strategic change through leadership in action. This person-centric focus contrasts with modernist forms of intervention such as Management by Objectives (MBO), hence the title 'Leadership by Subjectives' (LBS). The thesis draws on current management literature on the strategic leadership of organisational behaviour to critique MBO as a modernist meta-discourse. It argues that the modernist 'meta-text' frames human decision-making within a singular, 'massively modular', serial solution for transforming organizations and the people in them. Instead, the thesis employs a post-modern understanding of information in the New Economy by applying a Complexity perspective to explore the impact of the 'post-human condition' on work-based learning relationships. Within a modernist evolutionary paradigm, research is conducted either a-priori (or deductively) or a-posteriori (or inductively). The thesis considers that such approaches fail to transcend and/or include effective strategies to address the issue of subjectivity as a form of emergent information. It develops a practicemethod- theory iterative approach which is based around a process of 'abductive discovery' called Q Methodology. Three case studies are presented which illustrate how to apply Non-parametric statistics, Emergent-Participative Strategy and Q Factor Analysis as forms of Psychographic (as opposed to psychometric) research. The objective is to explore how to assist learners, change consultants, corporate managers, and national policy makers, as well as academics and other participants to add value to the ethical, social and financial 'triple bottom line' by paying attention to how their emergent communications structure information. The 'Q' thesis is a Technology Futures Analysis (TFA) method which applies a number of meta-frameworks drawn from relationship, counselling and evolutionary psychology, to interpret subjective data as communicative information. By conceptually integrating the frameworks as methods for TFA, it shows how it is possible to 'pattern' a multi-level 'synchronicity in action' between Human Capital, Identity, Relationships, Learning and Knowledge. The thesis concludes that MBO may be an efficient organisational strategy for behavioral control in organisations. However it cannot work, without an in-depth understanding of the effect upon the triple bottom line of the complex-dynamic interaction between a changing economy, human relationships and personal identity.


The authors of the article state that the development of precariat is a social phenomenon produced by the neoliberal political and economic project, for the scientific analysis of which both worldwide and in Lithuania, according to the authors, insufficient attention is paid. The article introduces a qualitative analysis reviewing the formation and development of precariat, as a comparatively new qualitative economic-social phenomenon. The influence of this phenomenon for various areas of the societal life has not raised any doubts recently, yet they have huge influence on such areas as closer and more distant work environment, the opportunities of social dialogue and social security of employees. Theoretically it is not clear if the development of precariat should be considered as the formation of "some kind of class" with its own attributes, or "work status", where an employee is merely short of a number of things within his work environment and his social security rights are not ensured. Even though for some "voluntary" precariat representatives such unstable, "unbound" situation associates with the "economics of happiness", for many members of involuntary precariat it marks a much greater exploitation by the employers, less security, "dequalification" and worse rights in the area of social security. At the end of the article the authors provide their conclusions and proposals regarding the issues related to the undefined status of precariat, as well as possible solutions. Increasing the scope of social security and the ensuring the guarantees of self-employed is one of the measures in socially oriented countries to solve the issues related to the precariat. Allocation of basic, universal income for all residents is one of the possibly effective measures in improving the situation of precariat and other residents and ensuring social safeness in modern world. Another needed measure for overcoming the negative conditions of precariousness is effective social work with its reviving of values of life and people abilities by means of social services in the present world. Social work with its professional and ethical strength can enable the necessary "participative" and "empowerment" changes in policy and politics on the local, national and international levels and development towards social cohesion and sustainability in society.


Decision trees have been a very popular class of predictive models for decades due to their interpretability and good performance on categorical features. However, they are not always robust and tend to overfit the data. Additionally, if allowed to grow large, they lose interpretability. In this paper, we present a mixed integer programming formulation to construct optimal decision trees of a prespecified size. We take the special structure of categorical features into account and allow combinatorial decisions (based on subsets of values of features) at each node. Our approach can also handle numerical features via thresholding. We show that very good accuracy can be achieved with small trees using moderately-sized training sets. The optimization problems we solve are tractable with modern solvers.


Statistical machine translation (SMT) systems use empirical models to simulate the act of human translation between language pairs. This dissertation surveys the ability of currently popular syntax-aware SMT systems to model real-world multitext, and shows different types of linguistic phenomena occurring in natural language translation that these popular systems cannot capture. It then proposes a new grammar formalism, Generalized Multitext Grammar (GMTG), and a generalization of Chomsky Normal Form, that allows us to build an efficient SMT system using previously developed parsing techniques. The dissertation addresses many software engineering issues that arise when doing syntax-based SMT using large corpora and lays out a object-oriented design for a translation toolkit. Using the toolkit, we show that a tree-transduction based SMT system, which uses modern machine learning algorithms, outperforms a generative baseline.