Recent powerful pre-trained language models have achieved remarkable performance on most of the popular datasets for reading comprehension. It is time to introduce more challenging datasets to push the development of this field towards more comprehensive reasoning of text. In this paper, we introduce a new Reading Comprehension dataset requiring logical reasoning (ReClor) extracted from standardized graduate admission examinations. As earlier studies suggest, human-annotated datasets usually contain biases, which are often exploited by models to achieve high accuracy without truly understanding the text. In order to comprehensively evaluate the logical reasoning ability of models on ReClor, we propose to identify biased data points and separate them into EASY set while the rest as HARD set. Empirical results show that the state-of-the-art models have an outstanding ability to capture biases contained in the dataset with high accuracy on EASY set. However, they struggle on HARD set with poor performance near that of random guess, indicating more research is needed to essentially enhance the logical reasoning ability of current models.


Historically not only have women cabinet ministers in Western democracies been few in number, but they have generally been limited to "women's ministries" such as education, health, social services, and culture. This article systematically investigates the responsibilities and prestige of portfolios that women cabinet ministers in the ten Canadian provinces have held over a 21-year period, 1976–1997, an era in which their share of cabinet positions rose from less than 4% to almost 25%. Although still concentrated in traditional women's ministries, they have diversified the portfolios they hold. Using a tri-fold classification of portfolios into (1) important, (2) middle range, and (3) junior positions, we find that women increasingly have achieved more prestigious portfolios, perhaps a reflection of the reduced number of cabinet positions in the 1990s and more concerted attempts to promote women. But the law of increasing disproportion still exists, at least in overall terms of the relative prestige of cabinet positions.


At each program point, points-to analysis for statically typed object oriented programming languages (e.g., Java, C++) determines those objects to which a reference may refer (or a pointer may point) during execution. Points-to analysis is necessary for any semantics based software tools for object oriented systems. Our new complexity results for points-to analysis distinguish the difficulty of intraprocedural and interprocedural points-to analyses for languages with combinations of single-level types (i.e., types with data members only of primitive type), exceptions with or without subtyping, and dynamic dispatch. Our results include: 1) the first polynomial-time algorithm for points-to analysis in the presence of exceptions that handles a robust subset of Java without threads and can be applied to C++; 2) proof that the above algorithm is safe, in general, and provably precise on programs with single-level types and exceptions without subtyping, but not dynamic dispatch, thus, this case is in P; 3) proof that an interprocedural points-to analysis problem with single-level types and exceptions with subtyping, but without dynamic dispatch, is PSPACE-hard, while the intraprocedural problem is PSPACE-complete. Other complexity characterizations of points-to analysis in programs without exceptions are presented, including an algorithm with worst-case bound of O(n/sup 5/), which improves over the O(n/sup 7/) worst-case bound achievable from previous approaches of T. Reps et al. (1995) and W.A. Landi and B.G. Ryder (1991).


Since 1946, the United States has had an uneasy relationship with the International Court of Justice (ICJ or World Court or Court). This chapter addresses certain salient aspects of that relationship. Following an introductory Part I, Part II briefly sets forth three "antinomies" (i.e. equally rational but conflicting principles) in U.S. foreign relations that have had important ramifications for the U.S. relationship with the Court from the outset. First, the United States operates on the basis of conflicting principles with respect to the relevance of international law and institutions for U.S. foreign policy. These conflicting principles have been referred to broadly in international relations theory as "realism" and "institutionalism." Second, the United States operates on the basis of conflicting principles with respect to whether states should be treated as equal sovereigns or as units characterized by inescapable power differentials. Third, the United States operates on the basis of conflicting principles with respect to whether international law should be "embedded" in U.S. law, including the manner in which international courts relate to U.S. law. Part III suggests that the International Court was initially designed to accommodate such antinomies (which also exist with respect to other states, to varying degrees) by providing the means for mediating between these conflicting principles. These techniques for mediating antinomies are discussed in the context of the history of the U.S. relationship with the Court from its inception to modern times. Part IV then briefly highlights the unfolding of these antimonies in some of the recent cases of the United States before the Court, with particular attention to the Oil Platforms case, the Israeli Wall advisory opinion, and the Breard/LaGrand/Avena cases. Among other things, Part V suggests that certain formal and informal means for mediating these antimonies may have been forgotten in the past twenty years, leading to a point where the Court readily finds fault in the United States and the United States holds the Court in very low regard. The chapter concludes that these antinomies are unlikely to be resolved through the further development of formal or informal mediating techniques. In the near term, American policymakers will seek to avoid any involvement in matters before the Court, while the Court will embrace opportunities to speak to the legality of U.S. actions.


Recently proposed texture descriptors extracted from the co-occurrence matrix across several datasets is surveyed and validated in this paper; moreover, two new methods for extracting features from the Gray Level Co-occurrence Matrix (GLCM) are proposed. The descriptors are extracted not only from the entire GLCM but also from subwindows. These texture descriptors are used to train a support vector machine. We also explore region-based approaches, which use different methods to divide each image into two different regions; different descriptors are extracted from each region. In this work methods based on saliency detection, edge detection, and wavelets are compared, and some of their fusions are reported as well. Region-based approaches are combined with different methods for extracting features from the GLCM and with three state-of-the-art descriptors: local ternary patterns, local phase quantization, and rotation invariant co-occurrence among adjacent local binary patterns. Experimental results show that the tested approaches improve performance of standard methods. The generality of the proposed descriptors is demonstrated on 15 datasets, and different statistical comparisons based on the Wilcoxon signed rank test are reported that confirm the goodness of the proposed approaches. Experiments show that the new methods for extracting features from the GLCM greatly improve the standard features that are typically extracted, and that the region- based approach boosts the performance of texture descriptors extracted from the whole image. The MATLAB source code of all the proposed approaches will be made available to the public at https://www.dei.unipd.it/node/2357.


From which evaluative foundation should we develop public policies designed to promote wellbeing among different cultural groups in different circumstances? This book seeks to advance an objective, universal theory of cultural evaluation grounded in a eudaemonic account of human wellbeing. The approach brings together a 'thick vague' conception of the good; a determinate, particularist conception of circumstance; an egalitarian moral philosophy with concessions to sufficientarianism, and a normative functionalist view of culture, to assess the value of cultural institutions to those that they affect. Engaging closely with needs and capabilities paradigms, the approach seeks to identify and explain cultural deficits in given circumstances. The applicability of the theory is illustrated through analysis of the effect of settler-indigenous relations on Aboriginal Australian people. This book is ideal for students and scholars of cultural theory and public policy.


Diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) accounts for 30% to 40% of newly diagnosed lymphomas and has an overall cure rate of approximately 60%. Previously, we observed FOXO1 mutations in non-Hodgkin lymphoma patient samples. To explore the effects of FOXO1 mutations, we assessed FOXO1 status in 279 DLBCL patient samples and 22 DLBCL-derived cell lines. FOXO1 mutations were found in 8.6% (24/279) of DLBCL cases: 92.3% (24/26) of mutations were in the first exon, 46.2% (12/26) were recurrent mutations affecting the N-terminal region, and another 38.5% (10/26) affected the Forkhead DNA binding domain. Recurrent mutations in the N-terminal region resulted in diminished T24 phosphorylation, loss of interaction with 14-3-3, and nuclear retention. FOXO1 mutation was associated with decreased overall survival in patients treated with rituximab, cyclophosphamide, doxorubicin, vincristine, and prednisone (P = .037), independent of cell of origin (COO) and the revised International Prognostic Index (R-IPI). This association was particularly evident (P = .003) in patients in the low-risk R-IPI categories. The independent relationship of mutations in FOXO1 to survival, transcending the prognostic influence of the R-IPI and COO, indicates that FOXO1 mutation is a novel prognostic factor that plays an important role in DLBCL pathogenesis.


Purpose:IMRT treatment plan optimization requires a fast yet accurate algorithm to calculate intermediate dose in each iteration. Conventional finite size pencil beam (FSPB) approaches have limitations such as: limited resolution, significant pre‐calculation time, huge memory demand, and limited accuracy in the presence of heterogeneity. In this work, we present a fast dose calculation algorithm that overcomes the limitations of FSPB approaches. Material and Methods: By decomposing the infinitesimal beam dose kernel into the central axis (CAX) and lateral (LSF) components and taking the beam eye view (BEV), we established a Fluence‐map‐Convolution‐Broad‐Beam (FCBB) dose calculation formula. The Collapsed‐cone convolution/superposition (CCCS) doses on water phantom with standard setups and various field sizes are used to derive LSF and CAX, the commissioning data for FCBB. The proposed dose calculation involves a 2D fluence map convolution with LSF followed by table‐lookup with inverse square correction of CAX based on radiological distance calculated via ray‐tracing the density volume. The complexity of FCBB is O(N3) both spatially and temporally, which is orders of magnitude smaller than FSPB in spatial complexity and orders of magnitude faster than CCCS. We implemented FCBB algorithm in C++ language and compared it with CCCS using both simulated and clinical cases. The clinical cases include prostate, H&N and lung patients that were optimized with TomoTherapy TPS. Results: For all tested cases, simulated or clinical, the dose calculation time for CCCS varied from hundreds to thousands of seconds when run on a single PC. It was reduced to sub‐seconds to seconds for FCBB on the same PC. As for the dose differences between FCBB and CCCS, about 90–95% of voxels have Gamma indexes less than 1 for the 3mm/3% criteria. Conclusions: The FCBB algorithm has low memory demand, is ultra‐fast and accurate enough for intermediate dose calculation during IMRT optimization.


Routes of communication in southeastern Campeche have been shaped by economic and political interests, such as the necessities of trade and transportation in the context of the extraction of forest products, among them chicle and mahogany, and the delimitation and political control of the state territory. Based on ethnographic and archival research in the Mexican state of Campeche, the paper discusses the development of communication routes in southeastern Campeche since the early 20th century. The paper shows, among other things, how economic boom and bust periods have shaped forms of communication and social relations.


A chemotaxonomic investigation on the basic fraction of a
medicinal plant Psycrotria rostrata, has resulted in the
isolation of six alkaloidal components . The structures of
these alkaloids were elucidated using spectroscopic methods
such as UV, IR, NMR, MS and also by comparison with literature .
The alkaloids were found to be chimonanthine , calycanthine,
hodgkinsine , a stereoisomer of quadrigemine B, designated as Z-2 and two new compounds, Z-3 and Z-4.
All these alkaloids were actually oligamers of either two ,
three or four units of compounds derived from tryptamines .
Chimonanthine , hodgkinsine , Z-2 and Z-4 were made up of
pyrrolidinoindoline type structures While calycanthine was a


Hundreds of microRNAs (miRNAs) are thought to repress thousands of target messenger RNAs (mRNAs), but it has been difficult to study the interaction between individual miRNA-mRNA pairs. Choi et al. developed a way to block the interaction between a miRNA and specific target sites. Antisense morpholino oligonucleotides complementary to miRNA binding sites could protect specific mRNAs from miRNA-mediated repression. Applying this technology during zebrafish embryogenesis, they found that the miRNA miR-430 inhibits an antagonist and an agonist of the Nodal signaling pathway. Loss of repression led to an imbalance of signaling and abnormal development. W.-Y. Choi, A. J. Giraldez, A. F. Schier, Target protectors reveal dampening and balancing of Nodal agonist and antagonist by miR-430. Science 318, 271-274 (2007). [Abstract] [Full Text]


Conservation actions could be more efficient if there is congruence among taxa in the distribution of species. Patterns in the geographical distribution of five taxa were used to identify nationally important regions for conservation in Canada. Two measures of surrogacy were significantly and positively correlated among taxa, and conservation areas selected for one taxon represented other taxa significantly better than random selections. However, few large protected areas exist in the sites of highest conservation value in southern Canada; these regions are therefore a priority for future conservation regard. By focusing this effort on threatened and endangered species, which are a national priority in Canada, most other species could also benefit.


Outside the United States, the idea of a consumer housing subsidy is a highly developed concept. Housing allowances, shelter allowances, rent allowances-or rent rebates as they are called-have been paid out on a larger scale for longer periods of time on an entitlement basis, with a much greater variety of rationales than in the United States. As the United States moves ahead with its demonstration program, it is timely to examine and evaluate foreign experiences with the consumer housing approach. E. Jay Howenstine addresses common questions that have puzzled many policymakers: How do consumer housing subsidies work? For tenants? Homeowners? Builders? And government officials? Gathered here is the definitive experience of the countries that have employed them. From Australia to the United Kingdom, here is the reality gleaned from a dozen countries and brought to bear on the United States. Both the virtues and the limitations of the approach are presented in detail for everyone interested in housing. This study is divided into three major parts. First, Howenstine reviews the historical background and analyzes housing allowance strategies that foreign governments have adopted. A second part examines in detail the major principles and elements with which governments have fashioned their systems. The third part examines the impact of housing allowance systems and weighs them in the light of the original objectives. Conclusions are also drawn about foreign experiences: Should financial assistance to low-income families be in the form of consumer housing subsidies or producer housing subsidies, or some synthesis of the two systems? Should the housing allowance be maintained as a separate housing policy, or should it be integrated into a general income maintenance policy? This book addresses an increasingly prominent portion of the housing market.


Indigenous Peoples are struggling for water justice across the globe. These struggles stem from centuries-long, ongoing colonial legacies and hold profound significance for Indigenous Peoples' socioeconomic development, cultural identity, and political autonomy and external relations within nation-states. Ultimately, Indigenous Peoples' right to self-determination is implicated. Growing out of a symposium hosted by the University of Colorado Law School and the Native American Rights Fund in June 2016, this Article expounds the concept of "indigenous water justice" and advocates for its realization in three major transboundary river basins: the Colorado (U.S./Mexico), Columbia (Canada/U.S.), and Murray-Darling (Australia). The Article begins with a novel conceptualization of indigenous water justice rooted in the historic United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP)—specifically, UNDRIP's foundational principle of self-determination. In turn, the Article offers overviews of the basins and narrative accounts of enduring water-justice struggles experienced by Indigenous Peoples therein. Finally, the Article synthesizes commonalities evident from the indigenous water justice struggles by introducing and deconstructing the concept of "water colonialism." Against this backdrop, the Article revisits UNDRIP to articulate principles and prescriptions aimed at prospectively realizing indigenous water justice in the basins and around the world.


U.S.-China economic ties have expanded substantially over the past several years. China is now the third largest U.S. trading partner, its second largest source of imports, and its fourth largest export market. However, U.S.-China commercial ties have been strained by a number of issues, including a surging U.S. trade deficit with China, China's refusal to float its currency, and failure to fully comply with its World Trade Organization (WTO) commitments, especially its failure to provide protection for U.S. intellectual property rights (IPR). This report explores these issues in detail, especially concerning the lack of protection for U.S. IPR.


Stemming biodiversity loss requires strategic conservation guided by well articulated targets, whether they be proactive (e.g., protect biodiverse areas) or reactive (e.g., protect threatened species). Both types of targets can be effective, but there are trade-offs, especially for broadly distributed taxa such as migratory species, a group for which conservation has been challenged by limited knowledge of distributions throughout the annual cycle. We combined spatiotemporal distribution models with population trend data to first examine focal areas for the conservation of Neotropical migratory birds (n = 112 species) during the non-breeding period in the Western Hemisphere, based on a proactive approach (highest diversity) versus a reactive approach (strongest declines). For focal areas, we then assessed the extent of recent anthropogenic impact, protected area status, and projected changes in land cover using shared socioeconomic pathways. Spatial priorities for high diversity emphasized southern Mexico and northern Central America, and were strikingly different from areas with species in stronger decline, emphasizing the Andean cordilleras. Only 1.4% of the non-breeding region met targets for diversity and decline, mostly in southern Central America. Areas prioritized to conserve high species diversity have experienced less recent anthropogenic impact than areas prioritized for species in decline but are predicted to ex- perience more rapid land conversion to less suitable agricultural landscapes in the next three decades. Our findings indicate how efficient conservation efforts will depend on the careful consideration of desired targets combined with reliable predictions about the locations and types of land cover change under alternative socioeconomic futures.


Results concerning the electrodynamics of the nightside auroral bulge are presented based on simultanous satellite and ground-based observations. The satellite data include Astrid-2 measurements of electric fields, currents and particles from a midnight auroral oval crossing and Polar UVI images of the large-scale auroral distribution. The ground-based observations include STARE and SuperDARN electric fields and magnetic records from the Greenland and MIRACLE magnetometer network, the latter including stations from northern Scandinavia north to Svalbard. At the time of the Astrid-2 crossing the ground-based data reveal intense electrojet activity, both to the east and west of the Astrid-2 trajectory, related to the Polar observations of the auroral bulge but not necessarily to a typical substorm. The energetic electron fluxes measured by Astrid-2 across the au-roral oval were generally weak being consistent with a gap observed in the auroral luminosity distribution. The electric field across the oval was directed westward, intensifying close to the poleward boundary followed by a decrease in the polar cap. The combined observations suggests that Astrid-2 was moving close to the separatrix between the dusk and dawn convection cells in a region of low conductivity. The constant westward direction of the electric field across the oval indicates that current continuity was maintained, not by polarisation electric fields (as in a Cowling channel), but solely by localized up-and downward field-aligned currents in good agreement with the Astrid-2 magnetometer data. The absence of a polarisation electric field and thus of an intense westward closure current between the dawn and dusk con-vection cells is consistent with the relatively weak precipitation and low conductivity in the convection throat. Thus, the Cowling current model is not adequate for describing the electrodynamics of the nightside auroral bulge treated here.


We study the early-universe cosmology of a Kaluza-Klein (KK) tower of scalar fields in the presence of a mass-generating phase transition, focusing on the time-development of the total tower energy density (or relic abundance) as well as its distribution across the different KK modes. We find that both of these features are extremely sensitive to the details of the phase transition and can behave in a variety of ways significant for late-time cosmology. In particular, we find that the interplay between the temporal properties of the phase transition and the mixing it generates are responsible for both enhancements and suppressions in the late-time abundances, sometimes by many orders of magnitude. We map out the complete model parameter space and determine where traditional analytical approximations are valid and where they fail. In the latter cases we also provide new analytical approximations which successfully model our results. Finally, we apply this machinery to the example of an axion-like field in the bulk, mapping these phenomena over an enlarged axion parameter space that extends beyond those accessible to standard treatments. An important by-product of our analysis is the development of an alternate "UV-based" effective truncation of KK theories which has a number of interesting theoretical properties that distinguish it from the more traditional "IR-based" truncation typically used in the extra-dimension literature.


The State of Charge (SOC) governed fast charging method for secondary lithium based batteries proposed herein charges a battery many times faster than the normal Constant Current-Constant Voltage (CC-CV) charging and reduces the side-effects generally accompanied by various fast charging methods. The proposed charging algorithm takes into account the varying internal impedance of the battery at different SOC levels and minimizes voltage fluctuations. The charging method has been demonstrated using a simulated lab test on a 3.72V lithium-ion battery cell from Navitasys, LLC and modeled using the Battery & Fuel cells module along with the Events interface of COMSOL Multiphysics 4.3b. The experimental and modeling results were compared with other state-of-the art fast charging methods available in the literature.


Abstract This article analyzes the use of religious language on Twitter by members of the U.S. Congress (MOCs). Politicians use various media platforms to communicate about their political agendas and their personal lives. In the United States, religious language is often part of the messaging from politicians to their constituents. This is done carefully and often strategically and across media platforms. With members of Congress increasingly using Twitter to connect with constituents on a regular basis, we want to explain who uses religious language on Twitter, when, and how. Using 1.5 million tweets scraped from members of Congress in April of 2018, we find that MOCs from both major political parties make use of a "religious code" on Twitter in order to send messages about their own identities as well as to activate the religious identities of their constituents. However, Republicans use the code more extensively and with Judeo-Christian-specific terms. Additionally, we discuss gender effects for the ways MOCs use "religious code" on Twitter.


Various South African government reports list food security as a development priority. Despite this prioritisation and despite the fact that South Africa is currently food self-sufficient, ongoing food shortages remain a daily reality for approximately 35 percent of the South African population. The government's commitment to food security to date of writing this contribution manifests in related policies, strategies, programmes and sectoral legislation with the focus on food production, distribution, safety and assistance. A paradigm shift in the international food security debate was encouraged during 2009, namely to base food security initiatives on the right to sufficient food. During a 2011 visit to South Africa, the Special Rapporteur for the Right to Food of the United Nations, accordingly confirmed that a human rights-based approach to food security is necessary in the South African legal and policy framework in order to address the huge disparities in terms of food security (especially concerning geography, gender and race). A human rights-based approach to food security will add dimensions of dignity, transparency, accountability, participation and empowerment to food security initiatives. The achievement of food security is further seen as the realisation of existing rights, notably the right of access to sufficient food. The right of access to sufficient food, as entrenched in section 27(1)(b) of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa , 1996 will accordingly play a central role within a human rights-based approach to food security. Section 27(2) of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa , 1996 qualifies section 27(1)(b) by requiring the state to take reasonable legislative and other measures, within its available resources, to achieve the progressive realisation of each of the section 27(1) rights. The South African government's commitment to food security, as already mentioned, currently manifests in related policies, strategies and programmes, which initiatives will qualify as other measures as referred to in section 27(2) mentioned above. This contribution, however, aims to elucidate the constitutional duty to take reasonable legislative measures as required by section 27(2) within the wider context of food security. This contribution is more specifically confined to the ways in which a human rights-based approach to food security can be accommodated in a proposed framework law as a national legislative measures. Several underlying and foundational themes are addressed in this contribution, amongst others: (a) the relationship between food security and the right of access to sufficient food; (b) food security as a developmental goal; and (c) the increasing trend to apply a human rights-based approach to development initiatives in general, but also to food security.


An efficient IT security management relies upon the ability to make a good compromise between the cost of security countermeasures to be implemented, and the reality of informational risks an organization have to face. In fact, it concerns the capacity of an IT security manager to make decisions in a dynamic and complex environment. Even a well-experienced manager needs reliable tools to optimize the decision making process. The aim of this paper is to propose some relevant metrics and measurements in order to facilitate the decision making and to improve performance and accountability in security measures and procedures. We propose an approach to obtain some meaningful and useful metrics and measurements, to assess the Information Security Preparedness Level in a continuing improvement scope.


This paper presents a method for considering the voltage-dip performance of the power system in the design of subtransmission lines. The shielding performance of the lines is expressed in terms of the number of faults for different number of phases involved in the fault. Relations between fault type and voltage dip at the terminals of sensitive equipment are used to determine the resulting number of equipment trips. The method is illustrated by applying it to three different tower designs used in the Swedish subtransmission networks. It is shown that the installation of shield wires significantly reduces the number of equipment trips, especially in combination with the installation of additional capacitance in adjustable-speed drives.


Glottal-synchronous speech processing is a field of speech science where the pseudoperiodicity of voiced speech is exploited. Traditionally, speech processing involves segmenting and processing short speech frames of predefined length; this may fail to exploit the inherent periodic structure of voiced speech which glottal-synchronous speech frames have the potential to harness. Glottal-synchronous frames are often derived from the glottal closure instants (GCIs) and glottal opening instants (GOIs). The SIGMA algorithm was developed for the detection of GCIs and GOIs from the Electroglottograph signal with a measured accuracy of up to 99.59%. For GCI and GOI detection from speech signals, the YAGA algorithm provides a measured accuracy of up to 99.84%. Multichannel speech-based approaches are shown to be more robust to reverberation than single-channel algorithms. The GCIs are applied to real-world applications including speech dereverberation, where SNR is improved by up to 5 dB, and to prosodic manipulation where the importance of voicing detection in glottal-synchronous algorithms is demonstrated by subjective testing. The GCIs are further exploited in a new area of data-driven speech modelling, providing new insights into speech production and a set of tools to aid deployment into real-world applications. The technique is shown to be applicable in areas of speech coding, identification and artificial bandwidth extension of telephone speech.


Dietary obesity is a major risk factor for the development of cardiovascular diseases. However, the mechanism of high fat diet (HFD)-induced vascular dysfunction remains unclear. In this study we investigated the role of a Nox2-containing NADPH oxidase in high fat diet (HFD: 45% kcal fat)-induced metabolic disorders using Nox2/ApoE double knockout mice in comparison to age-matched ApoE−/− mice on the C57BL/6 background (n=9). ApoE−/− mice under 10 weeks of HFD had significant increases in body weight (NCD 27.9±1.5 vs HFD 31.3±1.1 g) and blood pressure (NCD 114±3.6 vs HFD 128.5±5.7 mm Hg) together with hyperglycaemia and hyperinsulinaemia as compared to age-matched littermates under a normal chow diet (NCD: 9.3% kcal fat). Aortas from HFD ApoE−/− mice had significant increases in O2.-production as detected by lucigenin-chemiluminescence and DHE fluorescence, and this was accompanied by increased endothelium Nox2 expression, Akt and ERK1/2 phosphorylation (immunofluorescence) and impaired endothelium function as assessed by an aorta organ bath. However, all these HFD-induced abnormalities were absent in Nox2/ApoE double knockout mice under the same HFD. Ex vivo organ culture (24 h) further confirmed that high levels of glucose (30 mM) plus insulin (1.2 nM) caused damages to ApoE−/− vessels (but not to vessels from Nox2/ApoE double knockout mice) characterised by ERK1/2 activation, reduced insulin receptor expression and deterioration of endothelial function. In conclusion, Nox2-derived oxidative stress plays an important role in the pathogenesis of dietary obesity-associated metabolic syndrome and endothelial dysfunction. Targeting Nox2-derived ROS represents a valuable therapeutic strategy to these diseases.


OBJECTIVE--To investigate whether the risk of cancer at all sites, and at individual sites other than breast, prostate, ovaries, and endometrium, is increased among relatives of breast cancer patients compared with the general population. DESIGN--A cohort of family members of breast cancer patients was established. The probands were chosen by year of birth or time of diagnosis. Any influence of knowledge of the cancer experience of the relatives has been avoided. The risk estimates are based on expected numbers computed from age and time specific incidence rates for the Icelandic population. SETTING--Iceland. SUBJECTS--The population of Iceland. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES--Relative risks by degree of relatedness and age of proband. RESULTS--The relative risk of cancer at all sites is raised for males and females. This is more than expected based on the known familial risk of breast cancer, prostate, and ovarian cancer. The excess risk of breast, prostate, and ovarian cancer is confirmed, but not that of cancer of the endometrium. The risk of cancer of the pancreas in both sexes and the stomach and kidneys in females is significantly raised. No evidence was found for decreased risk for any cancer type. CONCLUSIONS--The risk of cancer at all sites in relatives of breast cancer patients is increased. In addition to the risk of breast, prostate, and ovarian cancer, the risk of pancreas cancer and cancer of the stomach and kidneys in females is raised, but the last mentioned observations need further confirmation.


ABSTRACT Human encounters with waste can trigger reflections on taken-for-granted assumptions about consumption. Taking this observation as its starting point, this paper explores whether and how the introduction of the kitchen caddy and food waste composting at the municipal scale generates new environmental subjectivities in Australian homes. Using visceral research methods, the paper shows that, other than participation in municipal composting, close encounters with food becoming compost do not trigger more experimental or sustainable relationships with food. Rather, they trigger new configurations of cleanliness, tidiness and storage as participants seek to stabilise their home against the disruptive sight, smell and touch of food becoming compost. In unsettling the boundaries between humans and nonhumans, and cleanliness and chaos, food becoming compost produces visceral disgust among residents who are primed through modern home cultures to maintain cleanliness, control and the prevention of nonhuman intrusions at home. The success of municipal composting thus hinges on households' commitment to 'sustainability work' in placing, storing, cleaning and sealing food to reconfigure the modern home for waste recovery. Reconceptualising municipal composting as a co-production of sensory engagement and household practices, we centre a visceral politics of household sustainability at the heart of municipal composting and resource management.


We analyze the problem of efficiently storing large amounts of data on a distributed set of servers that may be accessed concurrently from multiple clients by sending messages over an asynchronous network. Up to one third of the servers and an arbitrary number of clients may be faulty and exhibit Byzantine behavior. We provide the first simulation of a multiple-writer multiple-reader atomic read/write register using erasure-coding in this setting that achieves optimal resilience and minimal storage overhead. Additionally, we give the first implementation of non-skipping timestamps which provides optimal resilience and withstands Byzantine clients; it is based on threshold cryptography


This article argues that the academic conflict research community has far less impact on the policy community than the importance of its work deserves. This is so for a number of reasons. First, the scholarly and policy communities communicate badly - the former rarely seeking to make their work more accessible to the latter. This is particularly true of the work of the econometricians, which few in the policy community understand. Second, the still-dominant realist academic security studies community continues to focus on interstate wars, while tending to ignore the 90% plus of armed conflicts that take place within, not between, states. Realist theories are, moreover, largely irrelevant to the task of explaining civil wars. Third, few policymakers recognize that probabilistic theories cannot be refuted by one or several counter-examples, leading them to reject important findings for the wrong reasons. Fourth, the conflict datasets used by quantitative researchers have no official standing, are often incommensurate, are unavoidably inaccurate and ignore key measures of violent conflict. Fifth, while there is some consensus with respect to findings on the causes of civil war, there are also fundamental disagreements. Little effort appears to have been made to resolve the differences. Policymakers have neither the time nor the expertise to choose between competing explanations themselves. Sixth, while there is growing consensus that the causes of civil strife are to be found in the interrelationships between development, governance and security, divisions of labour between academic disciplines and between departments in both governments and international institutions constrain both interdisciplinary and interdepartmental collaboration. The article concludes with a number of recommendations to improve the policy impact of conflict research.


The amplification effect on stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) and Rayleigh scattering in the backward pumped G652 fiber Raman amplifier (FRA) is studied. The pump source is a 1427.2-nm fiber Raman laser whose power is tunable between 0-1200 mW, and the signal source is a tunable narrow spectral bandwidth (l10 MHz) external cavity laser (ECL). The Rayleigh scattering lines are amplified by the FRA and Stokes SBS lines are amplified by the FRA and the fiber Brillouin amplifier. The total gain of SBS lines is the production of the gain of Raman amplifier and that of Brillouin amplifier. In experiment, the SBS gain is about 42 dB and the saturation gain of 25-km G652 backward FRA is about 25 dB, so the gain of fiber Brillouin amplifier is about 17 dB.


Most of the conventional legged robots are based on rigid body parts connected by high-torque actuators and a sophisticated control scheme to achieve stable running locomotion. The energy-efficiency of such robots is roughly 10-100 times lower than that of animals. Recently, there has been an increasing interest in designing compliant robots which exploit body dynamics for adaptive locomotion. It was shown that free-vibration of elastic mechanical structures can generate energy-efficient hopping/walking behavior. However, the velocity of such robots is very low. From this perspective, this paper presents a novel design strategy for running robots which makes use of torsional vibration of elastic beam. We propose a simple physical model which can be used to obtain the resonance frequency of the robot during stance phase. Moreover, this model can represent the dynamic behavior of such a robot during running locomotion.


This thesis addresses the automation of two aspects of compiler validation testing: semantic analysis of existing test programs, and construction of new test programs. Semantic analysis is required during test modification and maintenance, and also when evaluating the language coverage attained by the test suite. In the current state of practice, both the semantic analysis and the construction of new test programs are extremely labor-intensive tasks; both, however, are amenable to automation. We describe two systems; one, which we have implemented, involves test case analysis and feature identification. The other is a proposed system for automatic generation of tests from test specifications. We tested our methods on the largest and most comprehensive compiler validation project to date--the Ada Compiler Validation Capability (ACVC), a large collection of Ada test programs used to verify that compilers conform to the Ada language standard.
We first describe the Ada Features Identification System (AFIS), a system which automates test program analysis. AFIS provides three different methods for identifying Ada language features in test programs, ranging from elementary syntactic items to complex context-sensitive combinations of semantic features. Semantic feature combinations are specified by writing program templates in a pattern language which is an extension of Ada, and pattern-matching these templates against test programs.
In the second part of this thesis we define a language to facilitate the specification of Ada compiler test objectives, and the design of a system that uses these specifications to automatically generate valid Ada test programs. The language allows a test developer to write a specification that embodies the testing goal of a given objective, without including all type and expression information required in a complete test program. These details are supplied automatically by the generator system. We show, by numerous examples taken from the Ada Implementors Guide (the design document for the Ada validation suite), how Ada test objectives can be specified in this language. The focus of our examples is constraint violation checking, which is an important component of Ada's strong typing system, and also a basic organizing principle of the ACVC tests.


Development of larval Normanichthys crockeri from Bahia Independencia, Pisco, Peru is described and illustrated. 3124 specimens were collected with plankton nets in 2000; a developmental series of 66 individuals (1.9-20.5 mm) from recently hatched larvae through transformation was assembled using general morphological features and pigmentation patterns. Cleared und stained specimens were examined for meristic and osteological development, some osteological characters are detailed. Normanichthys crockeri hatches at approximately 1.8 mm. Notochord flexion begins at ca. 6.2mm and ends at ca. 9.0mm, and transformation occurs at ca. 20.0mm BL. The most important diagnostic features of the larvae include early development of large, lightly pigmented pectoral fins, and early dorsal midline pigment on the trunk and tail which decreases gradually with development until the beginning of the flexion stage and does not reappear until the end of postflexion stage. Ventral pigment occurs along the midlines of the abdominal and postanal regions. Preanal finfold pigment is present until late postflexion stage. Pigment always is present at the angular, on the caudal region, and usually at the cleithrum. Larvae are moderately slender with a preanal length roughly half of the body length (ca. 40-53% BL). They have I,5 pelvic-fin rays, 7+6 principal caudal-fin rays and 36-37 myomeres (11-13+24-26, usually 13+24). Cleithrum, bones of the jaws and operculum are among the first to ossify, vertebrate appear at ca. 5.0mm NL and sequence of development is from anterior to posterior. The pectoral fin appears first, followed sequentially by the caudal fin, second dorsal and anal fin which form concurrently, first dorsal fin and pelvic fin.


Accelerators, such as field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) and graphics processing units (GPUs), are special purpose processors designed to speed up compute-intensive sections of applications. FPGAs are highly customizable, while GPUs provide massive parallel execution resources and high memory bandwidth. In this paper, we compare the performance of these architectures, presenting a performance study of SEAL, a fast, software-oriented encryption algorithm on a Virtex-6 FPGA, a Graphics Processor Unit (GPU), and Intel Core i7, a 2-way hyper-threaded, 4-core processor. We show that each platform has relative competitive advantages in encrypting an input plaintext using SEAL.


A dynamic mixture of stereoisomeric macrocycles derived from glutamic acid displayed a homochiral self-selection when increasing the acetonitrile content of the aqueous mixed medium. The homochiral self-sorting required the anionic form of the side chains and increased at higher temperature, implying an entropic origin. Conformational analysis (NMR and MD simulations) allowed us to explain the observed behaviour. The results show that entropy can play a role in the homochiral self-sorting in adaptive bio-inspired chemical systems.


This dissertation aims to understand (1) the transformation of the trade regime from GATT to the WTO within the context of the world order, and (2) the roles of transnational corporations (TNCs) in this transformation. It provides a neo-Gramscian framework for analysis to fill a void in mainstream approaches in IR/IPE literatures on international regimes, which suffer from inadequacies in capturing the 'intersubjective' nature of regimes and non-state actors' roles in global politics. For neo-Gramscian scholars, international regimes are intersubjective entities that are amalgamations of ideas and power configurations inherent to historical structures. Hegemony is a concept that ties together the social forces as agents of historical change within international regimes and world orders. Hegemony refers to the translation of political power to legitimate authority through obtaining the consent of subordinate actors, and is expressed in the consensual aspect of the exercise of power in a given world order. This dissertation primarily contends that the transformation of the trade regime can be characterized as hegemonic because it occurred in conjunction with the transformation in the world order from U.S. post-war hegemony to neoliberal hegemony. With the transformation into the WTO, the legal scope of the trade regime was redesigned, and its normative content was redefined to reflect the ethical framework of neoliberalism. These changes were reflected in the newly acquired recognition of the enhanced legitimate authority of markets vis-a-vis states and the acknowledgement of the necessity to create binding disciplines over governments. The dissertation analyses two cases to understand the roles of TNCs in this transformation process with a particular focus on their activities and abilities to set the regime's agenda. The first case study examines the incorporation of services into the GATT regime before and during the Uruguay Round negotiations (1986-1994), which arguably resulted in a redefinition of the liberalisation and non-discrimination norms. The second case analyses the failed attempt to integrate investment into the WTO before and during the Doha Round that began in 2001. Ultimately, the dissertation argues that U.S. based TNCs proved to be the hegemonic agents of regime transformation and played the leading role in the inclusion of services into the GATT regime. This was achieved by pursuing a high profile agenda-setting campaign from the late 1970s on. Their campaign succeeded in paradigmatically modifying established patterns of thought about trade, the normative content as well as intersubjective meanings of the regime in line with neoliberalism. On the other hand, the investment case suggests the emergence of certain limits to hegemonic ideas, institutions, and forces from the early-1990s on. European TNCs failed in their endeavours to further the regime transformation by integrating investment into the legal and normative framework of the WTO. TNCs' preferences and strategies to set the WTO agenda were constrained and shaped within the context of contested neoliberal hegemony which was further influenced by the resistance and counter-hegemonic cross-border campaigns emerged in the domain of civil society. The analysis in this dissertation is conducted through an interpretative assessment of data compiled from secondary and primary resources including government proposals, negotiation texts, minutes of meetings, and business statements using the qualitative instruments of discourse analysis.


Document Type Article Publication Date 10-1-2013 Description Excerpt: A Other acclaimed masters of the spoken word scheduled to appear at this year's Festival include David Novak, Minton Sparks, Joseph Bruchac, Milbre Burch, and Jackson Gillman. Each year the Festival seeks to represent storytelling from a range of cultural traditions, and this year is no exception. Rev. Robert Jones and Diane Ferlatte will present stories and music relating African American experience, while Festival attendees may also see and hear performances by Yiddish storyteller Shonaleigh, Chinese American storyteller and musician Charlie Chin, and Brazilian performance artist Antonio Rocha. Several special events will be held in Anyone who shares an appreciation for A the telling of stories should note that the world's oldest and largest festival dedicated to celebrating that ancient art will take place a short drive from western North Carolina on October 4-6, 2013. Copyright Statement This document was published with permission from the journal. It was originally published in the Rapid River: Arts and Cultural Magazine. Citation Information Olson, Ted. 2013. The National Storytelling Festival: Words, Music, and Memories. Rapid River: Arts and Cultural Magazine. Vol.17(2). 30-38. https://issuu.com/rapidrivermagazine/docs/rriver_sept2012  Download


Abstract In Rwanda, Burundi, and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), increased crop productivity is fundamental to accelerating economic growth and improving the well-being of rural households, especially women and children, who are normally resource constrained. This article examines the degree to which women participate in farm management and decision making for crop production activities, and the socioeconomic factors that influence their participation. Our study found out that farms managed by women are cultivated much less intensively than male-managed farms, because of the limited ability of women to acquire technological inputs such as fertilizers and improved seeds. While legumes are grown by both men and women, cassava seems to be "a women's crop," both in terms of cultivation and harvesting. We found that accessibility to rural credit, extension services, social capital in the form of groups, and engagement in off-farm activities are critical for stimulating women's participation in crop production activities. Therefore, women must be empowered through programs designed to promote crops that interest them. They should also be provided agricultural services such as credit to encourage the acquisition of production-enhancing inputs to increase crop yields.


How does an old woman who has outlived all her friends keep from being lonely? By naming the things in her life she knows she will never outlive--like her house, Franklin, and her bed, Roxanne. When a shy brown puppy appears at her front gate, the old woman won t name it, because it might not outlive her. Tender watercolors capture the charm of this heartwarming story of an old woman who doesn t know she s lonely until she meets a plucky puppy who needs a name--and someone to love."


ABSTRACT Although Ustilago hordei infects barley seedlings, symptoms of the disease covered smut are not visible until heading. Natural or artificial inoculation usually results in inconsistent infection, even in highly susceptible lines. Thus, breeding for resistance to covered smut is time consuming and difficult. The ribosomal DNA internal transcribed spacer (ITS) regions of U. hordei were sequenced and a primer pair was developed for polymerase chain reaction (PCR). These primers amplified a 574-bp fragment from DNA of Ustilago spp., but did not amplify DNA from barley or other common barley pathogens. DNA extracted from as few as four U. hordei sporidia was detected by this method. U. hordei DNA was amplified from leaf tissue of inoculated susceptible and resistant plants at different stages of plant development in differential varieties. Growth of the fungus in different leaves of an individual plant was variable. Several highly resistant varieties were shown to contain U. hordei DNA in the first three to four leaves, but not in later leaves. Thus, although the fungus can infect many resistant plants, the plants remain symptomless. Detection of U. hordei prior to heading should assist efforts for breeding for resistance and provide clues concerning the mechanisms of resistance employed by different resistance genes.


This paper contributes to the empirical literature on pensions and saving by studying the influence of funded pension systems on the gross national saving rate using a sample of 48 developed and developing countries over the 1980-2004 period. To the best of our knowledge, this updated database –which builds on the one assembled by Lopez Murphy and Musalem (2004)- is the largest on pension funds stocks and flows. Our panel data econometric results suggest that a one-dollar increase in pension saving increases national saving by between 0 and 20 cents. The structure of the system in terms of mandatory participation and portfolio composition does not affect the results, but the maturity of the system does seem to be a robust driver of national saving, inducing an increase of the saving rate of 0.3-0.5 percentage points for each additional year of existence. Reforming countries does not seem to have attained higher saving rates than others. Concerning other saving drivers, the old age dependency ratio and the urbanization ratio (even though the latter loses significance in some regressions) were negatively correlated with saving, while GDP growth, inflation, the terms of trade, and the current account displayed a positive sign. In terms of saving projections, the rather declining trend in pension saving implies that this is unlikely to boost the national saving rate, but the rising old age dependency ratio might cause, over a 25-year time horizon, a fall in the saving rate of 2.1 and 3.3 percentage points in OECD and non-OECD countries, respectively.


We used Toiviainen and Krumhansl's (2003) concurrent probe-tone technique to track Indian and Western musicians' tonal-hierarchy profiles through modulations in Carnātic (South Indian classical) music. Changes of mode (rāgam) are particularly interesting in Carnātic music because of the large number of modes (more than 300) in its tonal system. We first had musicians generate profiles to establish a baseline for each of four rāgams in isolation. Then we obtained dynamic profiles of two modulating excerpts, each of which incorporated two of the four baseline rāgams. The two excerpts used the two techniques of modulation in Carnātic music: grahabēdham (analogous to a Western shift from C major to A minor), and rāgamālikā (analogous to a shift from C major to C minor). We assessed listeners' tracking of the modulations by plotting the correlations of their response profiles with the baseline profiles. In general, the correlation to the original rāgam declined and the correlation to the new rāgam increased with the modulation, and then followed the reverse pattern when the original rāgam returned. Westerners' responses matched those of the Indians on rāgams with structures similar to Western scales, but differed when rāgams were less familiar, and surprisingly, they registered the shifts more strongly than Indian musicians. These findings converged with previous research in identifying three types of cues: 1) culture-specific cues—schematic and veridical knowledge—employed by Indians, 2) tone-distribution cues—duration and frequency of note occurrence—employed by both Indians and Westerners, and 3) transference of schematic knowledge of Western music by Western participants.


Many saproxylic beetle species (those associated with dead wood) are considered to be threatened by intensive forest management, yet few have been subjected to autecological studies that might help in their conservation. For this thesis, two lines of research were followed to investigate the autecology of six species thought to be vulnerable to intensive forestry. The study was carried out in the wet-eucalypt production forests of southern Tasmania.
The first line of research explored methodologies that could be used to help understand life-history and feeding traits of log-dwelling beetles, in order that the resultant autecological information might be used as input into models of species persistence. Study 1a investigated the sexual development and life-history strategies of two sympatric species of stag-beetle, Lissotes menalcas and L. cancroides; and study 1b used molecular approaches to explore the feeding relationship of a mycophagous saproxylic beetle Prostomis atkinsoni and its putative food source, ‗gingerbread rot'. Both studies in this line of research provided useful methodological insights. Additionally, the findings from study 1asuggest that coexistence of L. menalcas and L. cancroides may be enabled by their differing patterns of sexual development across seasons; while the findings of study 1b were equivocal, in that numerous fungal species were detected in the gut-contents of adult and larval P. atkinsoni but few were found in both; furthermore, there was little overlap in the mycota of beetles' guts and gingerbread rot. Unexpectedly, some species of basidiomycete known to be wood-rotters were found in the guts but not in the gingerbread rot itself.
The second line of research comprised predictive modelling approaches at the level of (a) microhabitat (coarse woody debris) and (b) site and landscape, both aimed at identifying the habitat requirements of all six species and exploring the possibility of making reasonable predictions about the species' occurrence at each of these spatial scales. In study 2a, models performed well in relating the probability of occurrence of each of the six beetle species to the presence or absence of particular suites of rotten-wood types. The addition of site-scale variables did not greatly enhance the models' abilities to predict occurrence of the six species of beetles, but at this level, forest stand structure and age of regeneration generally contributed the most explanatory power. In study 2b, geology, aspect, and time since last fire were good predictors of beetle occurrence across the study-area, although predictive ability may have been inflated by overfitting and autocorrelation. Overall, the models indicate that in unharvested forest these beetles tend to preferentially occur (within their chosen rotten-wood types) in multi-aged stands with a mature eucalypt element, while their continued occurrence in forest regenerating following clearfelling may be explained by their occupation of ‗legacy' coarse woody debris derived from the previous unharvested stand.
The findings from both lines of research provide clear pathways for future exploration and modelling of species persistence in production-forest landscapes, and could help guide management practices accordingly, particularly in relation to the required spatial and temporal arrangement of mature forest.


In examining the opportunities that lie within the larger context of Haitian development efforts, mending the strained environment upon which Haiti's fragile rural agricultural sector depends must be a priority. Though related to other pieces of the Haitian reconstruction puzzle, the question of mending the Haitian environment comes down largely to the best way trees can be incorporated into Haiti's existing agricultural systems. With this in mind, the purpose of this thesis was to complete an analysis of the work and practices of the community organizations of Borgne, Haiti. The organizations of Borgne have mobilized toward environmental development and the preservation of remaining natural resources through a community-wide tree-planting initiative that provides thousands of trees per year to local residents. Beyond an ethnographic assessment, this thesis explores greater implications of the project as a grassroots development model that may potentially be replicated by other communities and organizations throughout Haiti. Field research was completed on site in Borgne in the summer months of 2010. The primary methods employed in data collection were Participatory Action Research and semi-structured interviewing.


Understanding how tasks progress over time enables digital assistants to help with current activities and support future activities.
Imbuing assistants with the ability to track task progress requires machine-learned models. In this paper, we describe an ongoing effort to collect signals from Cyber, Physical, and Social (CPS) activities, together with human assessments of task progression, to serve as a benchmark for training and testing such models. Collecting this data over time is inherently challenging in the daily sensing scenario. Consequently, lessons learned from our ongoing data collection are discussed to provide more insights for future research innovations in task intelligence


The design of a major full-scale experimental concrete road investigating the construction, performance and cost of continuously reinforced concrete pavements (CRCP) is described. The performance of seven CRCP sections, each approximately 1.6 km long, will be compared with that of conventional jointed concrete pavements, both unreinforced and reinforced. The thicknesses of the CRCP sections are 250, 230 and 210 mm which are respectively 30, 50 and 70 mm less than the control sections. Two end treatments are being investigated; anchorages which restrain movement and wide flange beam joints which accommodate movement. Also included in the experiment are lengths of jointed unreinforced concrete pavement with narrow unsealed transverse joint grooves; over one length of this type of construction the separation membrane has been omitted.(a) (TRRL)


Protein banding patterns of seed obtained by sodium dodecyl sulphate Polyacrylamide get electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE) or acid polycrylamide gel electrophoresis (A-PAGE) were used to distinguish between different Cyclopia species ('heuningbostee'). An electrophoretic formula was determined for each species using relative band mobility and the number of protein bands Distinctive band patterns were obtained enabling the species to be identified using either SDS-PAGE or A-PAGE Banding patterns showed that this technique can be used as a tool for taxonomic classification of Cyclopia species.


Realistic secure processors, including those built for academic and commercial purposes, commonly realize an "attested execution" abstraction. Despite being the de facto standard for modern secure processors, the "attested execution" abstraction has not received adequate formal treatment. We provide formal abstractions for "attested execution" secure processors and rigorously explore its expressive power. Our explorations show both the expected and the surprising. On one hand, we show that just like the common belief, attested execution is extremely powerful, and allows one to realize powerful cryptographic abstractions such as stateful obfuscation whose existence is otherwise impossible even when assuming virtual blackbox obfuscation and stateless hardware tokens. On the other hand, we show that surprisingly, realizing composable two-party computation with attested execution processors is not as straightforward as one might anticipate. Specifically, only when both parties are equipped with a secure processor can we realize composable two-party computation. If one of the parties does not have a secure processor, we show that composable two-party computation is impossible. In practice, however, it would be desirable to allow multiple legacy clients (without secure processors) to leverage a server's secure processor to perform a multi-party computation task. We show how to introduce minimal additional setup assumptions to enable this. Finally, we show that fair multi-party computation for general functionalities is impossible if secure processors do not have trusted clocks. When secure processors have trusted clocks, we can realize fair two-party computation if both parties are equipped with a secure processor; but if only one party has a secure processor (with a trusted clock), then fairness is still impossible for general functionalities.


Survivable traffic grooming (STG) is a promising approach to provide reliable and resource-efficient multigranularity connection services in wavelength-division-multiplexing (WDM) optical networks. In this paper, we study the STG problem in WDM mesh optical networks employing path protection at the connection level. Both dedicated-protection and shared-protection schemes are considered. Given network resources, the objective of the STG problem is to maximize network throughput. To enable survivability under various kinds of single failures, such as fiber cut and duct cut, we consider the general shared-risk-link-group (SRLG) diverse routing constraints. We first resort to the integer-linear-programming (ILP) approach to obtain optimal solutions. To address its high computational complexity, we then propose three efficient heuristics, namely separated survivable grooming algorithm (SSGA), integrated survivable grooming algorithm (ISGA), and tabu-search survivable grooming algorithm (TSGA). While SSGA and ISGA correspond to an overlay network model and a peer network model, respectively, TSGA further improves the grooming results from SSGA and ISGA by incorporating the effective tabu-search (TS) method. Numerical results show that the heuristics achieve comparable solutions to the ILP approach, which uses significantly longer running times than the heuristics.


The site-attachment behaviour of O. melanura settlers was examined in an estuarine area of western Greece. The approach that was followed included underwater assignments of shoal identities and continuous recording of specific behavioural traits. Variations between ontogenetic stages with respect to the pattern of residence at the sites were quantified via an index (the residence-persistence index (RPI)) devised for this purpose. Our findings suggest that this species initiates settlement in small shoals that occupy specific sites at the substratum where they reside for various days. This behavioural trait is stage-specific and gradually diminishes as the fish complete metamorphosis, while at the same time they change their social organisation. Such an ontogeny-dependent site-attachment behaviour has not been described before and is markedly different from that described for other members of the Sparidae family.


For over half a century, Superstars have battled to win the WWE Championship. While the name may have changed, the prestige attached to the championship has exploded. That is due in no small part to the immortals of wrestling that have held this coveted title - Bruno Sammartino taking the title from the first holder Buddy Rogers; the totally unexpected win of Superstar Billy Graham; Hulk Hogan's win over the Iron Sheik, who had refused a pay-off to injury Hogan; Andre the Giant's surrender of the title to Ted DiBiase; the newcomer win of the Undertaker; the commanding wrestling abilities of Bret Hart; Shawn Michaels's win in Montreal; the stunning victories of "Stone Cold" Steve Austin; the triumph of the People's Champion, The Rock; Triple H playing the game; the never surrender attitude of John Cena. This is the chronicle of how the title that is now known as the WWE Championship became sports-entertainment's most coveted prize.


The Lisbon Agenda that was launched in 2000, and had a set time-period of ten years. The purpose of the Lisbon Agenda was to make the EU the most competitive, knowledge-based economy in the world, and at the same time preserving, or even improving social cohesion and maintain environmental sustainability. The Lisbon Agenda had a large number of goals, in both quantified and qualified measures, in different areas. The main instrument that was put forward was the open method of co-ordination (OMC) that includes indicators, benchmarking, peer pressure, and best practise demonstrations. The forthcoming Lisbon Agenda will certainly need new approaches, and new instruments. One of the areas of instruments that can be further explored is innovation policies where the use of R&D and human capital is enhanced. Human capital is a natural part of a knowledge-based economy, and has positive impacts on growth, and jobs in the economy. Innovation policy instruments are diversified and are integrated in many areas of an economy and on many levels, which make them ideal for the next Lisbon Agenda. The instruments can have a general or specific characteristics and some span over the two characteristics.


This paper reports the findings of a Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning-funded project to explore key features of effective support for pre-registration nursing students in practice settings.

Background
The cultivation of positive practice learning environments for students of nursing, including high quality learning support, has been long established as a thorny issue for nurse educators and practitioners. Indeed it was a key theme for the very first nursing research series, supported by the Royal College of Nursing, in the early 1980's. This included Fretwell's (1982) work on ward teaching and learning, Orton's (1981) work on the ward learning environment and Ogier's (1982) work on the role of the ward sister. Since then there has been an explosion of research in this area.

As a profession we have a responsibility to ensure high quality learning support for students in practice settings. If we do not, there will be wide-ranging implications for the quality of patient care, work-related stress, role satisfaction, retention and attrition and professional reputation. Given the significant investment in nurse education and the need to retain nurses in the workforce, it is unsurprising therefore that the practice learning environment has emerged as a key policy issue in the United Kingdom and internationally.
Previous research indicates that relationships between the learner and staff are crucial in supporting learning in practice (Pearcey and Elliott, 2004) and that 'learning is maximised when the learner is effectively partnered with a clinician and experiences are shared' (Henderson et al., 2009, p.178). In this context, The Programme Tutor (PT) – a role unique to the pre-registration nursing programme at The Open University (OU) – is crucial in facilitating learning in the practice setting. The purpose of the PT role is to work longitudinally with both students and their mentors to support learning in practice and monitor student progress. The PT therefore plays a pivotal role in facilitating learning in the practice setting, aspects of which may have potential for transfer to the wider health education sector.

Objectives
The overall aim of the project was to critically examine the experiences of a sample of PTs supporting students and mentors on the pre-registration nursing programme at the OU in order to identify the key features of effective PT practice. These features would then inform the continuing development of the programme. Two PTs were recruited as co-researchers on the project, the objectives of which were to:

• Explore PT's experiences of supporting students and mentors
• Explore PT's views regarding student progression
• Identify how PTs 'grow' into their role
• Identify enabling and disabling factors contributing to role effectiveness
• Examine the boundaries between the role of the PT and mentor
• Explore variations in the PT role across the UK.

Data collection and analysis
A sample of 20 PTs working on the final practice module of the pre-registration nursing programme, and located across the nations and regions of the UK, was identified. Following ethical approval, telephone interviews were conducted using an interview guide informed by both a review of the literature and the experience of the PT co-researchers. Telephone interviews were used in preference to individual face-to-face interviews in order to accommodate the dispersed geographical spread of participants. The interviews were recorded using digital recording equipment and following transcription, conventional approaches to qualitative data analysis were used to identify common themes across the data.

The ethical principles of confidentiality, anonymity and informed consent were upheld throughout the study. The sample was assured that confidentiality would be maintained at all times throughout the project. Anonymity was protected by using pseudonyms both for PTs and organisations. Informed consent was gained at the start of the project and participants were able to withdraw from the project at any stage.

Findings suggest that PTs find their role both rewarding and vital in the context of creating supportive learning environments and ultimately supporting students' transition to become registered practitioners. Being an effective communicator and establishing and maintaining relationships with students, mentors and service managers was described as crucial to the success of the role. Understanding the pressures within practice environments and being able to acknowledge the realities of 'working at the coalface' enabled PTs to support both students and mentors in such settings.

Conclusion
This paper will elaborate more fully the findings of the project, illustrated with reference to verbatim quotes from the data. Although a role unique to the OU pre-registration nursing programme, there may be aspects of the role which could be transferable to other practice-based learning settings. This will be interactively debated with conference delegates.
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References
Fretwell, J. E. (1982) Ward teaching and Learning, Royal College of Nursing, London.

Henderson, A., Twentyman, M., Eaton, E., Creedy, D., Stapleton, P. and Lloyd, B. (2009) Creating supportive clinical learning environments: an intervention study, Journal of Clinical Nursing, 19, pp.171-182.

Ogier, M. E. (1981) An ideal sister, Royal College of Nursing, London

Orton, H. D. (1981) Ward learning climate, Royal College of Nursing, London

Pearcey, P. A. and Elliott, B. E. (2004) Student impressions of clinical nursing, Nurse Education Today, 18, pp.29-31.


ATP-sensitive potassium (K-ATP) channels are ubiquitously expressed on the plasma membrane of cells in several organs, including the heart, pancreas, and brain, and they govern a wide range of physiological processes. In pancreatic β-cells, K-ATP channels composed of Kir6.2 and SUR1 play a key role in coupling blood glucose and insulin secretion. A tryptophan residue located at the cytosolic end of the transmembrane helix is highly conserved in eukaryote and prokaryote Kir channels. Any mutation on this amino acid causes a gain of function and neonatal diabetes mellitus. In this study, we have investigated the effect of mutation on this highly conserved residue on a KirBac channel (prokaryotic homolog of mammalian Kir6.2). We provide the crystal structure of the mutant KirBac3.1 W46R (equivalent to W68R in Kir6.2) and its conformational flexibility properties using HDX-MS. In addition, the detailed dynamical view of the mutant during the gating was investigated using the in silico method. Finally, functional assays have been performed. A comparison of important structural determinants for the gating mechanism between the wild type KirBac and the mutant W46R suggests interesting structural and dynamical clues and a mechanism of action of the mutation that leads to the gain of function.


This article uses a recently compiled dataset on the UK album sales to determine which factors contribute to best-selling album sales success. We control for factors including length of time since release, nationality of artist, artist type and album type, testing the increasing returns to information hypothesis. Information on general public online review scores for the albums in the dataset allows for a strong test of the accuracy of online reviews in predicting music sales, as online reviews are a relatively recent phenomenon, while the release of many of the albums predates the widespread use of Internet.


The β4-N-acetylgalactosaminyltransferase 3 (B4GALNT3) transfers GalNAc in a β1,4-linkage to GlcNAc forming the LacdiNAc (LDN) determinant on oligosaccharides. The LacdiNAc-binding adhesin (LabA) has been suggested to mediate attachment of Helicobacter pylori to the gastric mucosa via binding to the LDN determinant. The O-glycan core chain specificity of B4GALNT3 is poorly defined. We investigated the specificity of B4GALNT3 on GlcNAc residues carried by O-glycan core 2, core 3 and extended core 1 precursors using transient transfection of CHO-K1 cells and a mucin-type immunoglobulin fusion protein as reporter protein. Binding of the LabA-positive H. pylori J99 and 26695 strains to mucin fusion proteins carrying the LDN determinant on different O-glycan core chains and human gastric mucins with and without LDN was assessed in a microtiter well-based binding assay, while the binding of 125I-LDN-BSA to various clinical H. pylori isolates was assessed in solution. Liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) and western blotting confirmed the requirement of a terminal GlcNAc for B4GALNT3 activity. B4GALNT3 added a β1,4-linked GalNAc to GlcNAc irrespective of whether the latter was carried by a core 2, core 3 or extended core 1 chain. No LDN-mediated adhesion of H. pylori strains 26 695 and J99 to LDN determinants on gastric mucins or a mucin-type fusion protein carrying core 2, 3 and extended core 1 O-glycans were detected in a microtiter well-based adhesion assay and no binding of a 125I-labelled LDN-BSA neoglycoconjugate to clinical H. pylori isolates was identified.


Analysis of Advanced Actinide-Fueled Energy Systems for Deep Space Propulsion Applications. (December 2009) Troy Lamar Guy, B.S. University of Houston Chair of Advisory Committee: Dr. Pavel V. Tsvetkov The present study is focused on evaluating higher actinides beyond uranium that are capable of supporting power and propulsion requirements in robotic deep space and interstellar exploration. The central technology in this thesis is based on utilizing advanced actinides for direct fission fragment energy conversion coupled with magnetic collimation. Critical fission configurations are explored which are based on fission fragment energy conversion utilizing a nano-scale layer of the metastable isotope 242m Am coated on carbon fibers. A 3-D computational model of the reactor core is developed and neutron properties are presented. Fission neutron yield, exceptionally high thermal fission cross sections, high fission fragment kinetic energy and relatively low radiological emission properties are identified as promising features of 242m Am as a fission fragment source. The isotopes 249 Cf and 251 Cf are found to be promising candidates for future studies. Conceptual system integration, deep space mission applicability and recommendations for future experimental development are introduced.


Academic courses on interculturality have become a rapidly growing discipline in the West, where supranational bodies such as the European Union and UNESCO promote intercultural education as a path towards improved global cultural relations. Through interviews with students who completed a university course on interculturality, this essay investigates the tenets of interculturality and problematises whether this discourse merely reproduces a classificatory logic embedded in modernity that insists on differences among cultures. The argument put forward is that in the analysed context, interculturality tends to reproduce the very colonial ideas that it seeks to oppose. In doing so, interculturality reinforces the collective 'we' as the location of modernity by deciding who is culturally different and who is in a position that must be bridged to the mainstream by engaging in intercultural dialogue.


The activation of presynaptic G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) is widely reported to inhibit transmitter release; however, the lack of accessibility of many presynaptic terminals has limited direct analysis of signalling mediators. We studied GPCR-mediated inhibition of fast cholinergic transmission between superior cervical ganglion neurones (SCGNs) in culture. The adrenoceptor agonist noradrenaline (NA) caused a dose-related reduction in evoked excitatory postsynaptic potentials (EPSPs). NA-induced EPSP decrease was accompanied by effects on the presynaptic action potential (AP), reducing AP duration and amplitude of the after-hyperpolarization (AHP), without affecting the pre- and postsynaptic membrane potential. All effects of NA were blocked by yohimbine and synaptic transmission was reduced by clonidine, consistent with an action at presynaptic alpha2-adrenoceptors. NA-induced inhibition of transmission was sensitive to pre-incubation of SCGNs with pertussis toxin (PTX), implicating the involvement of Galpha(i/o)betagamma subunits. Expression of Galpha transducin, an agent which sequesters G protein betagamma (Gbetagamma) subunits, in the presynaptic neurone caused a time-dependent attenuation of NA-induced inhibition. Injection of purified Gbetagamma subunits into the presynaptic neurone inhibited transmission, and also reduced the AHP amplitude. Furthermore, NA-induced inhibition was occluded by pre-injection of Gbetagamma subunits. The Ca(2+) channel blocker Cd(2+) mimicked NA effects on transmitter release. Cd(2+), NA and Gbetagamma subunits also inhibited somatic Ca(2+) current. In contrast to effects on AP-evoked transmitter release, NA had no clear action on AP-independent EPSPs induced by hypertonic solutions. These results demonstrate that Gbetagamma subunits functionally mediate inhibition of transmitter release by alpha2-adrenoceptors and represent important regulators of synaptic transmission at mammalian presynaptic terminals.


In a postmodern world of literary criticism where the ambiguities of absences, traces, and endlessly shifting signifiers threaten to reign supreme, a significant movement of the past decade has been a critical approach called "New Historicism." Although those who have been called, or who call themselves, "New Historicists" are so diverse that no clear cut definition of the term is possible--indeed, attempts to do so have become a central occupation of various theorists--two general features of this kind of scholarship can be identified: the first is a concern with locating a literary text within the parameters of a specific cultural context or historical moment; the second is the belief that "to understand" a text is "to retrieve what it meant to its contemporaries" (During 172). Accordingly, one strategy employed by those who wish to historicize literary works is a focus on reader response, just as the works which seem to function best as cultural indicators are those which have popular appeal. Both aspects are well represented in Janice Radway's recent study of "Harlequin" type romance. Instead of attempting to interpret such works from her own "educated" perspective, Radway attempts to "read the romance" in the ways that its contemporary readers do. By conducting extensive interviews with such readers, she is able not only to account for the popularity of such fiction but also to relate it to various cultural pressures. "Reading" popular literature of earlier periods is, of course, more difficult. Readers of such works are no longer available for questioning, just as records of their responses are rare. Moreover, the entire cultural context needs to be reconstructed. Thus, to account for the popularity of pre-20th-century "best sellers," what seems required is attention to the role of technological, religious, economic, legal, political and social factors in the production and reception of literary texts. In short, one could argue that only historians are fully equipped to "historicize" literary texts, and it is indeed from this quarter that "New Historicism" has been criticized. According to Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, for example, New Historicists know too little about actual history to make any convincing arguments (214). To the same effect, but more inclusively, Brook Thomas has argued that no one can possibly recreate the entire cultural milieu in which a text appeared, and consequently New Historicists doom themselves to interpretive blunders, inadequate cultural theorizing, and hopeless historical generalizations (9). Instead of wanting utterly to reject attempts to historicize literary texts, however, Thomas is mainly concerned with the need for a more modest objective and methodology. Specifically, he argues that a more realistic endeavor for the scholar who wishes to look at a text in its original context is to focus on one particular aspect of that context and to explore how that aspect relates to the reception of the text. My purpose in the following essay is to combine the strategy recommended by Thomas with the attitude which informs Radway's study. I want to focus on the Protestant intellectual milieu as a way of historicizing one of the most popular works of the late 19th century--Ben-Hur, by Lew Wallace. First published in 1880, by 1893 Ben-Hur had become the best-selling novel of the century, even outselling Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin (see Carter 67). In a memorial published at the time of Wallace's death in 1905, a commentator attributed the popularity of Ben-Hur to the fact that it had gone "straight to the heart of solid puritans, who thank Heaven! are still the backbone of America" (The Nation 149). The climate in which Ben-Hur first appeared, however, was one in which there was still a strong vestigial objection to the novel genre on the part of the Protestant reading public (Reynolds 197ff; Tompkins 147-60). Although Ben-Hur therefore clearly played an important role in ending what Carl Van Doren has called the Protestant "village opposition" to the novel (113, 114), the question that arises in turn is how it was able do so. …


The term internal medicine began to be used by German writers in the late 19th century to designate a branch of practice incorporating the growing understanding of morbid anatomy, microbiology, physiology, and biochemistry. American practitioners of internal medicine began to take a respected place in world medicine toward the close of the 19th century. Noteworthy changes followed World War II, owing to allocation of large sums of money for biomedical research by governments, philanthropic organizations, and the pharmaceutical industry. Clinical problems in this period shifted in preponderance from acute infections to the chronic diseases that accompany aging. Complex diagnostic procedures, together with a diversity of therapeutic choices, created need for full-time teachers and clinical investigators in medical schools, as well as for subspecialists in practice. The pendulum may have swung too far toward specialization, and in the future a substantial proportion of practitioners of internal medicine will still continue to serve as generalist physicians.


Software monitoring systems have high performance overhead because they typically monitor all processes of the running program. For example, to capture and replay crashes, most current systems monitor all methods; thus yielding a significant performance overhead. Lowering the number of methods being monitored to a smaller subset can dramatically reduce this overhead. We present an approach that can help arrive at such a subset by reliably identifying methods that are the most likely candidates to crash in a future execution of the software. Our approach involves learning patterns from features of methods that previously crashed to classify new methods as crash-prone or non-crash-prone. An evaluation of our approach on two large open source projects, ASPECTJ and ECLIPSE, shows that we can correctly classify crash-prone methods with an accuracy of 80--86%. Notably, we found that the classification models can also be used for cross-project prediction with virtually no loss in classification accuracy. In a further experiment, we demonstrate how a monitoring tool, RECRASH could take advantage of only monitoring crash-prone methods and thereby, reduce its performance overhead and maintain its ability to perform its intended tasks.


The art of miniature painting in India traces its origin to the Buddhist manuscript Illustrations of the Pala period in Nepal and Eastern part of India in the 8th to 11th century. The Jain manuscripts in Gujrat and Rajasthan, as early as 11th century, also point towards a practice of such illustrations. These manuscripts, apart from portraying religious literature, also covered wide ranging topics such as medicine, astrology, etc. They were profusely illustrated, and were mostly inscribed on palm leaves. Apart from serving as important treatises, they were widely used as gifts during royal marriages and accessions. However, the Mughal Rule in India brought a certain degree of sophistication, refinement and finesse to this form of art. Under successive Mughal Rulers, the art of miniature painting reached its zenith. While Babur and Humayun, who were great lovers of art and literature, could not build proper ateliers during their reigns due to their frequent military campaigns and conflicts, they were responsible for bringing to India two versatile artists, Abdus Samad and Mir Sayed Ali from the Safavid Persian Court-whose works would have significant impact on the art of miniature paintings in the Mughal Courts. Humayun's successors Akbar, Jahangir and Shah Jahan built some of the most significant ateliers under their rules, and some of the preeminent miniature artists like Basavan, Manohar, Bichitar, Ustad Mansur, Balchand and Murad flourished under their patronage. Some very significant works like Baburnama, Akbarnama, Razamnama, etc. were also commissioned by the early Mughal Emperors. With the decline of the Mughal Empire, the miniature painting scene shifted to the Rajput Courts in Rajasthan and the Hill States in Northern India. Various important Schools of painting –like the Mewar, Marwar, Jaipur, Hadoti, Kangra, Basholi, and Garhwal – Schools, to name a few, started flourishing under their respective rulers. While the Mughal influence still prevailed, yet each school had its own distinctive characteristic and feature. The subjects of these paintings and manuscripts ranged from religious literature, court scenes, royal processions, flora and fauna, textiles, jewelry to elaborate equestrian and hunting scenes. However, the most riveting and captivating depictions were in the form of elaborate and brilliant portraits of the rulers, their nobles and courtiers, which not only throw light on their magnificent reigns, but also open a window to the culture, tradition and practices of those times. This essay makes an attempt to study the fine art of portraiture in miniature paintings in the various Mughal, Provincial and Rajput Courts to bring out their historical and cultural significance.


The article describes new methods of stereo encoding for FM radio broadcasting. Digital signal processing makes possible to construct an encoder with properties that are not attainable using conventional analog solutions. The article describes the mathematical model of the encoder, on the basis of which a specific program code for DSP was developed. The article further deals with a new method of composite clipping which does not cause impurities in the output spectrum, and at the same time preserves high separation between the left and right audio channels. The application of the new method is useful mainly where there are unwanted signal overshoots on the input of the stereo encoder, e.g., in case of signal transmission from the studio to the transmitter site through a route with psychoacoustic lossy compression of data rate.


In this thesis, advanced techniques for spectrum sensing in cognitive radio are addressed. The problem of small sample size in spectrum sensing is considered, and resampling-based methods are developed for local and collaborative spectrum sensing. A method to deal with unknown parameters in sequential testing for spectrum sensing is proposed. Moreover, techniques are developed for multiband sensing, spectrum sensing in low signal to noise ratio, and two-bits hard decision combining for collaborative spectrum sensing.

The assumption of using large sample size in spectrum sensing often raises a problem when the devised test statistic is implemented with a small sample size. This is because, for small sample sizes, the asymptotic approximation for the distribution of the test statistic under the null hypothesis fails to model the true distribution.
Therefore, the probability of false alarm or miss detection of the test statistic is poor. In this respect, we propose to use bootstrap methods, where the distribution of the test statistic is estimated by resampling the observed data. For local spectrum sensing, we propose the null-resampling bootstrap test which exhibits better performances than the pivot bootstrap test and the asymptotic test, as common approaches. For collaborative spectrum sensing, a resampling-based Chair-Varshney fusion rule is developed. At the cognitive radio user,
a combination of independent resampling and moving-block resampling is proposed to estimate the local probability of detection. At the fusion center, the parametric bootstrap is applied
when the number of cognitive radio users is large.

The sequential probability ratio test (SPRT) is designed to test a simple hypothesis against a simple alternative hypothesis.
However, the more realistic scenario in spectrum sensing is to deal with composite hypotheses, where the parameters are not uniquely defined. In this thesis, we generalize the sequential probability ratio test to cope with composite hypotheses, wherein the thresholds are updated in an adaptive manner, using the parametric bootstrap.
The resulting test avoids the asymptotic assumption made in earlier works. The proposed bootstrap based sequential probability ratio test minimizes decision errors due to errors induced by employing maximum likelihood estimators in the generalized sequential probability ratio test. Hence, the proposed method achieves the sensing objective. The average sample number (ASN) of the proposed method is better than that of the conventional method which uses the asymptotic assumption. Furthermore, we propose a mechanism to reduce the computational cost incurred by the bootstrap, using a convex combination of the latest K bootstrap distributions. The reduction in the computational cost does not impose a significant increase on the ASN, while the protection against decision errors is even better. This work is motivated by the fact that the sequential probability ratio test produces a smaller sensing time than its counterpart of fixed sample size test. A smaller sensing time is preferable to improve the throughput of the cognitive radio network.

Moreover, multiband spectrum sensing is addressed, more precisely by using multiple testing procedures. In a context of a fixed sample size, an adaptive Benjamini-Hochberg procedure is suggested to be used, since it produces a better balance between the familywise error rate and the familywise miss detection, than the conventional Benjamini-Hochberg. For the sequential probability ratio test, we devise a method based on ordered stopping times. The results show that our method has smaller ASNs than the Bonferroni procedure.
Another issue in spectrum sensing is to detect a signal when the signal to noise ratio is very low. In this case, we derive a locally optimum detector that is based on the assumption that the underlying noise is Student's t-distributed. The resulting scheme outperforms the energy detector in all scenarios. Last but not least, we extend the hard decision combining in collaborative spectrum sensing to include a quality information bit. In this case, the multiple thresholds are determined by a distance measure criterion. The hard decision combining with quality information performs better than the conventional hard decision combining.