In this letter, we propose a novel method for unsupervised change detection in multitemporal multispectral Landsat images using multiobjective evolutionary algorithm (MOEA). The proposed method minimizes two different objective functions using MOEA to provide tradeoff between each other. The objective functions are used for evaluating changed and unchanged regions of the difference image separately. The difference image is obtained by using the structural similarity index measure method, which provides combination of the comparisons of luminance, contrast, and structure between two images. By evolving a population of solutions in the MOEA, a set of Pareto optimal solution is estimated in a single run. To find the best solution, a Markov random field fusion approach is used. Experiments on semisynthetic and real-world data sets show the efficiency and effectiveness of the proposed method.


WAR MADE NEW: Technology, Warfare and the Course of History, 1500 to Today, Max Boot, Gotham books, New York, 2006, 624 pages, $35.00. The prospect of a "revolution in military affairs" dominated American military thought during the final decade of the 20th century, as Soldiers, scholars, and journalists argued for various interpretations of how wars might be fought in the new millennium. Some of these theories have, in fact, proven their utility in combat, but necessity, not theory, remains the mother of invention. The ongoing "long war" has demonstrated and inspired a host of military innovations, from netcentric and asymmetric warfare to unmanned vehicles and improvised explosive devices. In spite of these dramatic changes, the study of military affairs languishes on American college campuses. Nevertheless, the topic has become enormously popular in other venues, from the pages of major newspapers and magazines to cable news shows and best seller lists, and military analysis now seems omnipresent. Enter Max Boot. A distinguished scholar and veteran journalist, Boot lends a particularly clear and pragmatic voice to our national conversation. His first book, The Savage Wars of Peace: Small Wars and the Rise of American Power (Basic Books, New York, 2003), revisits the many lesser known conflicts that have shaped America's military character and her problematic geopolitical status. His latest effort, War Made New: Technology, Warfare and the Course of History, 1500 to Today, casts an even wider net, examining how science has changed war over the past half-millennium. Beginning with the French invasion of Italy at the height of the Renaissance, the author marches briskly through an interesting series of major and minor conflicts to illustrate how new and improved ideas deliver success on the battlefield and quickly inspire imitation and improvement. French artillery, for example, overwhelms the previously impregnable walls of city states such as Florence and Rome, leading to the development of new and better artillery, along with new and better fortifications to defend against it. Similarly, the Japanese navy borrows the idea for a carrier-launched attack at Pearl Harbor from the British success at Tarranto and is in turn driven from the seas by American naval power, particularly carrier battle groups. U.S. ship yards, notes Boot, launched more than 100 new carriers by the end of the war. Better technology and greater industrial capacity are ingredients within this formula for military superiority, but social factors also play an important role, favoring those nations that foster public and private innovation. Empires that stifle intellectual curiosity (and ambition), such as the Hapsburgs and the Chinese, consequently lose their power and influence. …


Presented at the "Disarm! For a Climate of Peace," meeting held on September 30 – October 3, 2016 in Berlin and organized by the International Peace Bureau.


This paper introduces a novel approach to Model-Based Diagnosis (MBD) for hybrid technical systems. Unlike existing approaches which normally rely on qualitative diagnosis models expressed in logic, our approach applies a learned quantitative model that is used to derive residuals. Based on these residuals a diagnosis model is generated and used for a root cause identification. The new solution has several advantages such as the easy integration of new machine learning algorithms into MBD, a seamless integration of qualitative models, and a significant speed-up of the diagnosis runtime. The paper at hand formally defines the new approach, outlines its advantages and drawbacks, and presents an evaluation with real-world use cases.


This paper elaborates on the fundamental role that a theory of the firm can play in order to develop a clear and consistent proposal on accounting for and reporting on intangibles.Departing from some criticisms addressed against IAS/IFRS and SFAS, the paper analyses how intangibles could be consistently accounted for and reported on within four different theories of the firm, namely the Agency Theory, the Transaction Cost Economics, the Resource-Based View, and the Dynamic-Capabilities View of the firm.The paper focuses on some specific problems related to the definition and identification of intangibles, to their recognition and finally to their valuation and measurement, and offers a critical understanding of the different proposal on accounting for intangibles developed within the five theories of the firm.So doing, the paper helps to better understand some critical issues, such as the different importance of internally generated intangible asset, their fair-value versus cost-based valuation, and the relative importance of balance sheet and income statement.


Network embedding plays a crucial role in network analysis to provide effective representations for a variety of learning tasks. Existing attributed network embedding methods mainly focus on preserving the observed node attributes and network topology in the latent embedding space, with the assumption that nodes connected through edges will share similar attributes. However, our empirical analysis of real-world datasets shows that there exist both commonality and individuality between node attributes and network topology. On the one hand, similar nodes are expected to share similar attributes and have edges connecting them (commonality). On the other hand, each information source may maintain individual differences as well (individuality). Simultaneously capturing commonality and individuality is very challenging due to their exclusive nature and existing work fail to do so. In this paper, we propose a deep generative embedding (DGE) framework which simultaneously captures commonality and individuality between network topology and node attributes in a generative process. Stochastic gradient variational Bayesian (SGVB) optimization is employed to infer model parameters as well as the node embeddings. Extensive experiments on four real-world datasets show the superiority of our proposed DGE framework in various tasks including node classification and link prediction.


Abstract Adolescents exhibit a high rate of use of alcohol and illicit drugs. Effect studies rarely describe the actual content of the interventions in detail. Less is known about what was actually done in the prevention than about their effects. Aim: This study is a review study grouping the qualitatively different content components of the various approaches into five categories. Methods: A systematic literature review from Western countries on the topic of school-based interventions and prevention initiatives targeting young people aged 12–20. A modified version of the narrative synthesis approach is used for analysis. The sample consisted of 33 peer-reviewed articles published between January 2010 and December 2014. Findings: Five categories of intervention and prevention programmes were identified: 'Information-based or testing-based primary prevention approaches', 'Primary prevention approaches incorporating skill-training components', 'Universal or primary prevention approaches that include family components', 'Targeted approaches incorporating skill-training components', and 'Approaches incorporating digital features'. Conclusion: Only four studies that employed any form of targeting or profiling of the subjects prior to the delivery of the prevention intervention or initiative were identified. The skewness towards primary prevention skill-training approaches should be addressed, given the diverse consumption patterns among adolescents.


Water-rock interaction is one of the key ingredients in understanding the dynamic processes of surface and subsurface environments of the Earth. It has been, however, frequently remarked that there exist several orders of discrepancy in kinetic rates between laboratory and fields, which is attributed to a large uncertainty in estimates of the surface areas in the various geological situations. In order resolve the problem, it is highly desired to establish an analytical method which provides an accurate estimation of the kinetic rate constant from reaction solvent data obtained by laboratory and also fields. In particular, it is of significant for the considered method to have an ability to identify a model of the surface areas. In this study, we firstly applied Approximate Bayesian computation (ABC) method to select model of surface areas of minerals and evaluate the reaction rate constant from the solution chemistry data. ABC has recently attract attention in the field of machine learning as an efficient inference technique for some problems in which a likelihood function is difficult to evaluate. Here, we discuss one of the simplest chemical reaction systems which is realized in laboratory experiments. Chemical equations are given by a set of ordinary differential equations for each chemical constituent concentrations. For a given set of reaction rate constants and an initial condition, time evolution of the concentrations is obtained relatively easily in numerical simulations, while to evaluate the likelihood function under an observation noise is a non-trivial task. This is the situation that ABC should work effectively. We propose a framework to evaluate the reaction rate constants from partially observed data for the case where time evolution of an intermediate product is only observable from experimental measurements. Actual numerical calculations are based on a population-type Monte Carlo method which is one of various technique in the ABC scheme. It is found that the proposed method successfully evaluates the rate constants for a synthesis data of the intermediate product. In addition, we show some results of the model selection of the surface areas on the basis of ABC.


The CISG (Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods) has remarkably facilitated commercial transactions across boundaries and different legal systems. This article, to be published as a Book Chapter, discusses some possible difficulties caused by using different languages, or words which might be interpreted differently, and some solutions and ways to deal with these difficulties. Three kinds of issues have appeared: the first has to do with drafting issues, and the peculiar problem of the six official languages of the Convention. The second set of issues deals with the interpretation of the Convention and the so-called homeward trend. The third set of issues consists of contract problems among the parties involving translated documents, documents written in a language not understood by one of the parties, or by the court in charge of the litigation. Even though there is a rich literature on these issues, language and translation issues do not seem to have caused major problems in the application of the CISG, at least from the reported cases in the various databases available.


Today, the United States is as dependent on fossil fuels for its patterns of consumption and production as its South was on slavery in the mid-nineteenth century. That US congressmen tend to rationalise fossil fuel use despite climate risks to future generations just as Southern congressmen rationalised slavery despite ideals of equality is perhaps unsurprising, then. This article explores similarities between the rationalisation of slavery in the abolition debates and the rationalisation of ongoing emissions of greenhouse gases in the US congressional debates on the Kyoto Protocol.


In today's dynamic market environments, service organizations face the need to improve existing and create new services. While practice and research acknowledge the importance of this phenomenon, it is yet understudied with regard to understanding relevant resources for service innovation. Based on the resource-based view and dynamic capability theory, we develop a theoretical understanding of service innovation. In order to identify relevant resources, here: capabilities and assets, we conduct a qualitative case study at IT-CONSULT, a Germany-based IT consultancy. Results suggest that the current understanding of dynamic capabilities is unable to explain the occurrences at IT-CONSULT. Thus, we discuss the extension of the dynamic capability framework with a new class of capabilities – systemic capabilities – that function to mobilize operational capabilities and assets. Implications of this research for both theory and practice are discussed.


Over the last couple of decades, there has been progressive commitment and remarkable achievements by the international community in lifting people out of poverty across the world. At the same time, elevated levels of inequality in income persists as a global phenomenon – threatening long-term social and economic development, but also undermining individuals' self-worth and sense of fulfillment by putting certain people at a persistent disadvantage. In this, China is no exception. Following the economic reforms in the late 70s and early 80s, the country embarked upon one of the greatest economic expansions in modern history. An unprecedented development that has brought the nation to the verge of eradicating poverty. In spite of these achievements, the economic gains from the growth miracle has been far from equally distributed. Before integrated into the world market, the income distribution in China was considered egalitarian in all aspects, with inequality comparable to the Nordic countries. This changed dramatically over the following decades with the level of inequality rising at one of the fastest rates ever recorded, rendering China among the world's most unequal nations. In the interest of understanding this development, the purpose of this dissertation is to explain how the aggregate disparity in income distribution has evolved in China in the period between 1985 and 2015, but also to shed light on some of the most significant drivers of this evolution. From the descriptive analysis pertaining to the former, there is clear consensus among previous empirical work in that income inequality increased markedly in the years following the economic reforms up until the late 00s. From 1978 to 2010, the top 10% income earners increased its share of national income by 16%, while the share assumed by the bottom 40% of the distribution decreased by 13% in the period. Around 2010, there is a reversal in the trend, as the relative disparity between top and bottom earners declined by 7% up until 2015. The findings from the empirical analysis suggest that trade liberalization has had a significant positive impact on the level of disparity between the top 10% and bottom 40% income earners in post-reform China. At the same time, the regression results find that increased efficiency of redistributive policies has significantly contributed to reduce aggregate income inequality in the period. The analysis is unable to find evidence to support the hypotheses of Kuznets and Milanovic related to determinants of the development. However, given the limitations of the study, more data and dynamic models is needed to conclusively validate these findings.


Unrivaled coverage of a broad spectrum of industrial engineering concepts and applicationsThe Handbook of Industrial Engineering, Third Edition contains a vast array of timely and useful methodologies for achieving increased productivity, quality, and competitiveness and improving the quality of working life in manufacturing and service industries. This astoundingly comprehensive resource, now available in a three-volume set, also provides a cohesive structure to the discipline of industrial engineering with four major classifications: technology; performance improvement management; management, planning, and design control; and decision-making methods. Completely updated and expanded to reflect nearly a decade of important developments in the field, this Third Edition features a wealth of new information on project management, supply-chain management and logistics, and systems related to service industries. Other important features of this essential reference include: More than 1,000 helpful tables, graphs, figures, and formulas Step-by-step descriptions of hundreds of problem-solving methodologiesHundreds of clear, easy-to-follow application examples Contributions from 176 accomplished international professionals with diverse training and affiliations More than 4,000 citations for further readingVolume 1 includes the list of advisory board members, the contributors, Foreword by John Powers, Preface by Gavriel Salvendy, the table of contents, Section 1: Industrial Engineering Function and Skills, and Section II: Technology. Volume 2 includes Section III: Performance Improvement Management and Section IV: Management, Planning, Design, and Control.Volume 3 includes Section V: Methods for Decision Making and the comprehensive Author and Subject Index.The Handbook of Industrial Engineering, Third Edition is an immensely useful one-stop resource for industrial engineers and technical support personnel in corporations of any size; continuous process and discrete part manufacturing industries; and all types of service industries, from healthcare to hospitality, and from retailing to finance.


In this paper, the upgraded Anm model, which places multiple particles into a 3D unit cell, was used to study the microstructural properties of lunar soil simulant. A statistical analysis was performed to study the packing density and shape effects with a large number of modeled particles. The lunar soil simulant JSC-1a was developed to study simulant soil behaviors for large and medium scale engineering studies in support of future human activities on the Moon. Parameters such as particle size distribution, specific gravity, angle of internal friction, and cohesion have all been investigated. However, no research has been performed to explore the microstructural behaviors and their influences on the engineering properties as a whole. As such, Anm model can provide us a useful approach to investigate microstructural features of lunar simulant, e.g. charge contact, lofting, transport, stratification and adsorption. Thus the virtual JSC-1a microstructure can be used to study lunar soil handling, construction, excavation, and transportation. Furthermore, the uniform-thickness shell is a customized parameter to control the minimum inter-particle distances. Integrating this algorithm into individual particles packing, the Anm model can be used to create a virtual lunar regolith to investigate the particle contact charging properties at the individual particle scale. In general, this virtual lunar soil simulant model could provide a broad range of applications to lunar surface missions. It is a potential tool for modeling the behavior of the lunar soils, and accurately predicting the geotechnical properties of lunar soils for lunar base planning and construction.


Abstract Since 1990, nature conservation NGOs are the main players in the running of nation-wide research and monitoring schemes for raptors in Bulgaria. Among them, the Bulgarian Society for the Protection of Birds (BSPB) and Green Balkans are most active, covering the most threatened diurnal raptors in the country. The key species covered by comprehensive monitoring schemes are the Imperial Eagle Aquila heliaca, White-tailed Eagle Haliaeetus albicilla, Egyptian Vulture Neophron percnopterus, Griffon Vulture Gyps fulvus, Black Vulture Aegypius monachus, Saker Falcon Falco cherrug and Red-footed Falcon F. vespertinus. Information on their distribution, numbers, breeding success, productivity, diet, movements etc. is gathered on annual basis. The Buzzard Buteo buteo and Kestrel F. tinnunculus are also regularly monitored at the national level by the Common Bird Monitoring scheme. Distribution of all raptor species has been studied for the purpose of the Atlas of Breeding Birds in Bulgaria. The contemporary satellite telemetry methods revealed important aspects of movements and threats to eagles and vultures from Bulgaria within the country and abroad. Main threats for the raptors in Bulgaria are related to habitat loss, unnatural mortality and disturbance. The main gaps in raptor monitoring in Bulgaria are related to the lack of coverage of most of the diurnal species and owls. There is a strong national and international cooperation in conjunction with the work concerning Imperial Eagle, Egyptian and Griffon Vultures. However, further enhancement of cooperation on other raptor species and issues such as lobbying for implementation of raptor-friendly agricultural practices and enhancement of various economic sectors are needed


Abstract Use of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) is prevalent among HIV-positive individuals despite the success of antiretroviral treatments and limited evidence of CAM's safety and efficacy. To characterize the potential impact of CAM use on HIV care, we conducted a systematic review of 40 studies of CAM use among HIV-positive people. The goals of this review are to: (1) describe the demographic, biomedical, psychosocial and health behavior correlates of CAM use; (2) characterize patient-reported reasons for CAM use; and (3) identify methodological and conceptual limitations of the reviewed studies. Findings confirm that a high proportion of HIV-positive individuals report CAM use (M=60%). Overall, CAM use is more common among HIV-positive individuals who are men who have sex with men (MSM), non-minority, better educated and less impoverished. The use of CAM is also associated with greater HIV-symptom severity and longer disease duration. HIV-positive CAM users commonly report that they use CAM to prevent or alleviate HIV-related symptoms, reduce treatment side-effects and improve quality of life. Findings regarding the association between CAM use, psychosocial adjustment and adherence to conventional HIV medications are mixed. While the reviewed studies are instrumental in describing the characteristics of HIV-positive CAM users, this literature lacks a conceptual framework to identify causal factors involved in the decision to use CAM or explain implications of CAM use for conventional HIV care. To address this concern, we propose the use of health behavior theory and discuss implications of review findings for HIV care providers.


We analyze the time-resolution constraints for two single-shot, time-resolved femtosecond spectroscopic techniques, an excite–probe method, and a transient-grating method. For pulse lengths of tens of femtoseconds, the former technique is shown to provide pulse-length-limited resolution for samples as much as hundreds of micrometers thick. The latter technique is shown to provide nearly pulse-length-limited resolution under a variety of conditions, independent of the sample thickness.


In the present study, we immobilized acetylcholinesterase (AChE) enzyme onto acetylcholine removed imprinted polymer and acetylcholine containing polymer. First, the polymers were produced with acetylcholine, substrate of AChE, by dispersion polymerization. Then, the enzyme was immobilized onto the polymers by using two different methods: In the first method (method A), acetylcholine was removed from the polymer, and then AChE was immobilized onto this polymer (acetylcholine removed imprinted polymer). In the second method (method B), AChE was immobilized onto acetylcholine containing polymer by affinity. In method A, enzyme‐specific species (binding sites) occurred by removing acetylcholine from the polymer. The immobilized AChE reached 240% relative specific activity comparison with free AChE because the active enzyme molecules bounded onto the polymer. Transmission electron microscopy results were taken before and after immobilization of AChE for the assessment of morphological structure of polymer. Also, the experiments, which include optimum temperature (25–65°C), optimum pH (3–10), thermal stability (4–70°C), kinetic parameters, operational stability and reusability, were performed to determine the characteristic of the immobilized AChE. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


A theoretical analysis of the mixing associated with (horizontal) advection and dispersion is used to show that the larger scale, longer-term distribution of conservative tracers in the southern North Sea is primarily determined by the residual circulation pattern. Model estimates of this circulation have been substantiated from new year-long high-frequency radar monitoring of flow through the Dover Strait. Model simulations of the saline balance and for the dissolved metals Cd, Cu, Pb, Zn and Ni are made for the North Sea Project (NSP) survey period, using river and atmospheric inputs specified from the 1987 Quality Status Report. Computed concentrations are in reasonable agreement with measured values (except for lead where losses by rapid adsorption were not included in the model). The flushing time, FT , of the southern North Sea (to 56° N) is approximately 240 days. For any conservative tracer and this value of FT, the observed seasonal amplitude in concentration corresponding to a seasonal inflow I cos wt is only 0.23 of the steady concentration corresponding to a continuous inflow I. By contrast with the above responses for 'conservative' tracers entering from rivers or adjacent seas, concentrations of certain 'non-conservative' tracers can be almost entirely determined by localized exchange processes. Thus the spatial pattern of seasonal variability in temperature and dissolved oxygen is shown to be closely correlated with the inverse of water depth. For such tracers, the influence of advection is small and generally confined to coastal or stratified waters. For shorter term processes, this influence of advection is further reduced. The transport of suspended sediments is highly dependent on particle size. While the transport of fast-settling sediments is complicated by periodic episodes of settlement and re-suspension, transport of slow-settling sediments (the main agent for adsorbed contaminants) approximates that of a dissolved tracer. Thus, to first order, simple models incorporating residual advection are adequate to relate inputs to concentrations (averaged over appropriate time and length scales) for reasonably conservative dissolved tracers. Likewise point-models are often adequate to study processes fundamentally concerned with vertical exchange rates particularly for shorter-term processes in well-mixed waters away from the coastal zone.


Saturation effects in gas-phase degenerate four-wave mixing (DFWM) are investigated for conditions of interest for diagnostic applications in flames and plasmas. In particular, the case in which Doppler and collisional broadening are comparable, as is often the case for flame species such as NO and OH, is investigated. DFWM line shapes and signal intensities are calculated nonperturbatively and compared with high-resolution laser measurements. In the nonperturbative calculations the time-dependent density-matrix equations for a two-level system interacting with three laser fields are integrated directly on a grid of spatial locations along the phase-matching axis. The electric-field amplitude for the DFWM signal is determined by multiplying the time-varying, laser-induced polarization at each grid point by the appropriate phase factor and then by summing over all grid points. The calculations are in excellent agreement with measurements of DFWM line shapes and signal intensities for NO in a buffer gas of He over a wide range of He pressure. Under saturation conditions the pressure dependence of the DFWM signal is reduced greatly compared with the unsaturated case. The signal level is still dependent on the ratio of pure dephasing to quenching collisions, even for saturation conditions. From the standpoint of minimal dependence on collisional processes it appears that operation with pump-laser intensities approximately equal to the saturation intensity is optimal. The dependence of the DFWM line shape and signal intensity on the ratio of probe to pump-laser intensity is also investigated.


The European Spallation Source (ESS) is a research center based on the world's most powerful proton driver, 2.0 GeV, 5 MW on target, currently under construction in Lund. With an increased pulse frequency, the ESS linac could deliver additional beam pulses to a neutrino target, thus giving an excellent opportunity to produce a highperformance ESS neutrino Super-Beam (ESSnuSB). The focusing system surrounding the neutrino target requires short pulses. An accumulator ring and acceleration of an H− beam in the linac for charge-exchange injection into the accumulator could provide such short pulses. In this paper we present an overview of the work with optimizing the accumulator design and the challenges of injecting and storing 1.1 ·10 protons per pulse from the linac. In particular, particle tracking simulations with space charge will be described.


We investigate the composition and temperature (10-450 K) dependence of the Yb valence in YbMn6Ge6-xSnx (x = 0.0, 3.8, 4.2, 4.4, and 5.5) using resonant inelastic x-ray scattering (RIXS). The observed change in the Yb valence with composition (from v similar to 3 for x = 0 to v similar to 2.7 for x = 5.5) is likely driven by negative chemical pressure effects due to the Sn for Ge substitution. While Yb is nonmagnetic in YbMn6Ge0.5Sn5.5, intermediate valent Yb magnetically orders at unexpectedly high temperature (up to 90 K) in the alloys with x = 3.8, 4.2, and 4.4. The three latter alloys further exhibit an increase in the Yb valence upon cooling, which is opposite to the usual behavior. Interactions with the magnetically ordered Mn sublattice are invoked to account for these unprecedented phenomena through a simplified model based on an Anderson Hamiltonian with a Zeeman term mimicking the Mn-Yb exchange interactions. We further show that the Yb magnetic behavior in this series can be interpreted based on Doniach's picture. Compared with standard intermediate valent materials where Yb is embedded in a nonmagnetic matrix, the strong Mn-Yb exchange interaction enhances the intermediate valent Yb magnetic ordering temperature and allows for extending the stability domain of the Yb magnetic order towards lower Yb valence.


The Greek culture was enormously influenced by the Minoan culture, as was its foundation stone. It had been developing in Crete from the 3rd millennium to 2ndmillennium BC and being an ode to joy and life. The frescoes representing noble dresses and jewelry of Cretan females, pleasure in sports activities and nature, as well as serene and happy people are genuine masterpieces. A substantial number of sites with remains of Minoan culture have been discovered on the island of Crete. Pendlebury, a renowned British archaeologist, listed nearly sixty sites of that type in the first phase, above twenty in the second and above sixty in the last phase of Minoan age. The well-known and most significant sites of Minoan culture are Knossos,Festos, Malia, Zakros and Agia Hagia Triada. The most interesting archaeological site is the Palace of Knossos reconstructed with its surroundings, including the cereal storerooms, porches and gardens. The Palace of Knossos, with its Grand Staircase with columns, numerous rooms and the throne room, was the palace of the oldest kingdom in Europe. The elegant throne with its high back, carved in stone has been standing in the same place, flanked by the Griffin (mythological creature half lion, half eagle) fresco. Today, the Minoan culture might be observed at archaeological sites and museums, which have been successfully valorized for tourism purposes. H. du Cros model for tourism valorization will be used to highlight what makes a successful tourism valorization of archaeological sites and museums representing the Minoan culture from the aspect of tourism. Moreover, subindicators in tourism sector analyzing market attractiveness and importance factors in tourism product design as well as management sector analyzing cultural significance and robustness will be applied.

 Key words: Minoan culture, archaeological sites, museums, management.


Implementing and ascertaining impact and outcomes of research is a prolonged process that may take several years due to complexities in bureaucratic, social, and economic systems. At the macro level, collective reflection on the different methods and approaches that research projects use to promote uptake and impact is rare but has potential to encourage learning and exchanges between different funders and projects around impact pathways as useful road maps for research. The Covid-19 pandemic has changed the nature of research – while it has increased the demand for evidence to inform decision-making, it has further disrupted both the policy-influencing and engagement activities that would usually accompany such research. This report is based on an analysis of 90 research projects supported by the Covid Collective, COVID CIRCLE, and Covid Response for Equity (CORE) initiatives. It provides an overview and insight into how different funders and initiatives were working to facilitate change in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic. In line with the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) definitions of 'impact', and subsequent work by the ESRC-FCDO's (Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office) Impact Initiative, four categories were used to map the emerging outcomes and different types of change. These outcome areas comprise capacity, networks, conceptual, and instrumental outcomes. Outcome examples were then classified into more detailed descriptive groups highlighted in Table 1.


Whether liver metastases from colon cancer are capable of metastasizing to other sites is an important question in surgical oncology. To answer this question, we have developed a highly metastatic orthotopic transplant model of a liver metastasis from a human colon cancer patient in nude mice that targets the liver and lymph nodes. The metastatic human tumor was transplanted in athymic nude mice by surgical orthotopic implantation (SOI) of a liver metastasis from a colon cancer patient. The human colon tumor was then subsequently implanted in the colon by SOI or, in an additional series of nude mice, in the liver by surgical hepatic implantation (SHI). The mice were then explored over time for lymph node involvement beginning 10 days after implantation. After SOI, 100% of the animals had liver metastasis within 10 days, and subsequently, 19 days after SOI, all lymph nodes draining the liver were involved with metastasis without any retroperitoneal or lung tissue involvement. After SHI, all sites of lymphatic drainage of the liver, including portal, celiac, and mediastinal lymph nodes, were massively involved by metastasis in 100% of the animals as early as 10 days after tumor implantation on the liver. The results of this study demonstrate that liver metastases from colon cancer are capable of remetastasizing to other sites. This study thus suggests that in colon cancer patients with liver metastasis, mediastinal, celiac, and portal lymph node metastases originate from the liver metastasis and not, as previously thought, from primary colon cancer.


The story of the international refugees created by the political tyranny of post-colonial Somalia. The author, an established Somali novelist who went into exile as a form of protest, has interviewed Somalis in Africa and Europe to provide this portrait of how people react, are wounded, how they survive, change and even thrive when they flee their homes and are turned into refugees. It shows how the refugees see themselves and how the host countries treat refugees. It reveals how refugees have adapted, or failed to adapt, to different countries and how their lives became disrupted and recreated as a result of politics and economics. Although it focuses on a particular people, the work should help readers to understand the experiences of people forced by mass migrations to live fragmented lives in the post-modern era of rapid change.


Chinstrap penguins Pygoscelis antarctica are one of the major consumers of Antarctic krill Euphausia superba in the Southern Ocean. To examine their foraging strategy, we studied foraging trip patterns and diving behaviour of chinstrap penguins breeding at Signy Island, Antarctica, using time-depth recorders. Foraging trips of penguins could be divided into 2 groups, short diurnal (7.8 h) and longer overnight (19.9 h) trips, with diurnal trips (74%) being dominant in number (263 out of 355 trips). The diving depths of our study birds were much deeper (to 179 m) than previous studies on this species, with modal maximum dive depth at around 90 to 100 m. Diving patterns and profiles included typical pelagic dives, but also included series of consecutive square-wave shaped dives reaching similar maximum depth, the typical characteristics of benthic dives. These benthic-type dives were more abundant in diurnal foraging trips than overnight trips. Analysis of stomach contents showed that penguins on both types of trip fed almost exclusively on Antarctic krill. There was a positive relationship between indices of the proportion of benthic feeding and of foraging efficiency (stomach content mass divided by foraging trip duration). These results highlight the potential importance of benthic feeding on Antarctic krill, the first such recorded instance for chinstrap penguins. This previously undescribed foraging strategy by one of the major avian consumers of Antarctic krill provides a new insight into the predator-prey interactions of the Antarctic coastal marine ecosystem.


Abstact Research has established that curriculum-based measurement (CBM) procedures yield outcomes that are sensitive to a variety of educational conditions including the level of skill acquisition, context of assessment, duration of assessment, format of probe construction, and relative motivation of the target student. This study was designed to compare performance on multiple-skill mathematics CBM (M-CBM) across three assessments conditions: novel, reward, and neutral. A novel assessment condition was established when the examinee had not been exposed to the assessment conditions within temporal proximity of an administration. A reward condition was established when the examinee received contingent access to desirable stimuli or events dependent on performance. Finally, the neutral condition was established when the conditions were familiar (i.e., not novel) and there was no contingent access to rewards (i.e., not reward). Ninety elementary students across four grades (second grade, n = 24; third grade, n = 25; fourth grade, n = 14; fifth grade, n = 28) were assessed on three consecutive days. Results of repeated measures analysis of variance and follow-up planned analysis of main effects suggested that the median level of M-CBM performance on the first day of assessment (novel condition) was reduced by a statistically significant amount in comparison to either reward or neutral conditions. The difference approximated 3 digits correct per minute. There were no significant differences in performance between neutral and reward conditions. These outcomes suggest that M-CBM is an indicator of optimal performance after the initial day of assessment. Implications and limitations are discussed.


We illustrate the use of the Beckmann formulation of the Kirchhoff theory for surface analysis problems in computer vision. The Beckmann model is a physical model that describes the reflectance of light from rough surfaces. Here, we use the modified form of the Beckmann model for slightly-rough surfaces using the modification of C.L. Vernold and J.E. Harvey (see Proc. SPIE, vol.3426, p.51-6, 1998). The parameters of the model are the surface roughness and the correlation length. We show how the surface roughness can be estimated using the specular reflectance properties. We also propose a technique for estimating the correlation length using pairs of surface images, subject to different illumination directions. With these parameters to hand, the Beckmann model may be used to perform photometric correction, and hence shape-from-shading may be applied to the corrected Lambertian image to recover improved shape. This model may also be used to re-illuminate the recovered surface. We present experiments to illustrate the utility of the method for each of these tasks.


Trust and accountability are often positioned as opposites, the argument being that accountability is based on distrust and correction of identified deficiencies. Yet, trust is also important in order for accountability to lead to improvement; only when teachers and principals are open about the quality of their teaching and their school can there be a meaningful discussion about change. How can we overcome this dilemma? This paper will address the inextricable interaction between trust and accountability, presenting examples from a study in South Africa of how external control in a setting of distrust can undermine agency and improvement, and how high levels of trust can promote more effective accountability relationships. Our study provides relevant insights into why some education systems are unable to generate, evaluate and scale innovations in learning when a lack of trust and capacity leads to strong opposition to external accountability, and when strong bureaucratic accountability creates further inefficiencies in pressurizing educators across the education system to report and monitor on various aspects of education where these efforts do not actually improve the quality of teaching in the classroom or provide information on good practices. Introduction 'For an accountability approach to be truly responsible for the outcomes our children deserve and our communities require, it must support a system that is cohesive, integrative, and continuously renewing. It should enable schools to offer high-quality education, reduce the likelihood of harmful or inequitable practices, and have means to identify and correct problems that may occur.' This statement by DarlingHammond and Snyder (2015, p.3) is part of a wider debate on 'intelligent accountability' and how to design systems which promotes learning in schools and across the education system, and preserves and enhances trust among key participants. The question is particularly relevant for South Africa, which long history of oppression and apartheid have led to great inequalities, despite the country's classification as upper-middle income (World Bank, 2008). 26 years after the fall of apartheid, the systematic racial segregation practiced under apartheid, in conjunction with an overtly white supremacist ideology still has a profound impact on South Africa's society as well as its education system (Spaull, 2012). Howie (2012) explains how South Africa struggles with a widening performance gap between rich and poor students and high levels of drop out, particularly among black Africans. The distribution of resources and capital still privileges white South Africans, according to Nattrass and Seekings (2001) and Spaull (2012) and essentially divides the country and the education system into 'two nations'. Trust and accountability seem to be major causes of the lack of improvement and high inequality. Spaull (2001) for example explains how the national, provincial and local levels of government are not held accountable for their use of public resources, and how there are few (if any) tangible consequences for non-performance. The lack of accountability is further evidenced in Eddy Spicer, Ehren et al's (2016) systematic review which points to school-based registers of teachers' attendance not being checked and how national government fails to sanction teachers who are often absent. Lack of trust seems to inhibit the implementation of effective accountability: teacher unions, for example, reject inspections of teachers and block the publication of assessment data as these are perceived as punitive measures to blacklist underperforming schools and humiliate and subjugate teachers (Jansen, 2001); a practice that was prevalent under Apartheid, particularly for black schools and teachers. The lack of accountability and trust seems to render the system powerless and a better understanding of how both are related is needed to understand how to come to the kind of 'intelligent accountability' needed to improve learning outcomes. This paper presents findings from a systematic literature review to explore: How do trust and accountability interact to prevent sustainable and scalable capacity for improvement in South Africa's system of basic education?


In South Africa we have lived in a society where separation of communities and racial groups has been the norm. Since 1994 the separation is being bridged as more individuals encounter people with different attitudes, value systems and cultural behavioural patterns in social and business environments. This leads to new avenues of understanding, but also to a wider scope for misunderstanding and unintentional miscommunication, especially in the business context. The way in which people communicate in a business setting, varies from culture to culture. Such variation occurs in all stages of development and at all levels of culture. whether from one corporate culture to another, or from one region, state or country to another. Although most rules of business communication apply to the domestic business environment, Intercultural business communication requires knowledge and skills that differ from those within a specific culture. It is impossible to know all the variations in business communication in a multicultural business society like South Africa, but businesspeople can and should prepare themselves for those experiences they are most likely to face in employee and customer relations when conducting business in more than one culture. This article probes the possibility of diminishing business miscommunication in South Africa, by focussing on awareness of barriers to multicultural marketing and management communication. Business communication is defined as consisting of management as well as marketing communication. A pilot survey on existing business communication strategies in a large South African province is discussed. This has pointed towards a more comprehensive research project, with h


The development of compositional distributional models of semantics reconciling the empirical aspects of distributional semantics with the compositional aspects of formal semantics is a popular topic in the contemporary literature. This paper seeks to bring this reconciliation one step further by showing how the mathematical constructs commonly used in compositional distributional models, such as tensors and matrices, can be used to simulate di erent aspects of predicate logic. This paper discusses how the canonical isomorphism between tensors and multilinear maps can be exploited to simulate a full-blown quantifier-free predicate calculus using tensors. It provides tensor interpretations of the set of logical connectives required to model propositional calculi. It suggests a variant of these tensor calculi capable of modelling quantifiers, using few non-linear operations. It finally discusses the relation between these variants, and how this relation should constitute the subject of future work.


This article contributes to our understanding of practices in innovating organizations. Previous studies have demonstrated how breakthroughs in knowledge may fail to be translated into practices if they are not aligned with existing practices, or if they cut across established boundaries and power structures. By drawing upon an ethnographic study of a medical R&D department that has been highly successful in developing new medical practices, this article investigates how such challenges can be overcome. To date, much of the literature has focused on coordination across single, well-defined boundaries. We here extend this focus and introduce the notion of 'boundary organizing' to analyse highly political and contingent processes of innovation and change within and across different practices. We add to existing literature by highlighting how the handling of multiple boundaries, the indirect effects of boundary work, the negotiation of mutual benefits and interests, and mutual adaptation are key aspects of boundary organizing.


GMS proteins shield endocellular membranes from accumulation of effector Immunity-Related GTPases
Jelena Maric-Biresev
Immunity-related GTPases (IRGs) play an important role in host immune response to a variety of intracellular pathogens by accumulation at the membranes of the pathogens and their disruption. However, it was never understood how exactly IRG proteins distinguish the membranes of the pathogen from the host membranes.
Previously, it has been reported that regulatory IRG proteins, named GMS proteins, keep the effector IRG proteins, named GKS proteins, in the inactive GDP-bound state. In this study, it has been shown that GMS proteins also play an important role in protection of the endocellular compartments from GKS protein off-target activation. In the absence of the GMS protein Irgm1, which is localized at the lysosomes, GKS proteins Irga6, Irgb6, Irgb10 and Irgd accumulate and activate at these organelles. In the absence of Irgm3, a GMS protein which is localized at the endoplasmic reticulum (ER), GKS protein Irga6 accumulates at the ER. However, in the cells that lack Irgm1 and Irgm3, GKS proteins accumulate only to lipid droplets, but not to lysosomes or ER, indicating that GKS structures do not accumulate at every GMS-free membrane.
In the second part of the study, the consequences Irgm1 accumulation to the lysosomes are investigated. Irgm1 KO mice undergo leukopenia and succumb after a variety of infections and inflammatory states. The results of this study suggest that the failure of Irgm1 KO mice is rather an indirect consequence of the off-target action of the GKS proteins, than the direct consequence of the Irgm1 response to a variety of pathogens. The GKS proteins, that accumulate at the lysosomes in Irgm1 KO cells, affect the acidity of these organelles and therefore lysosomal ability to process autophagosomes. In IFNγ-induced Irgm1 KO mouse embryonic fibroblasts (MEFs) the mature autophagosome marker LC3-II level is enhanced, the number of autophagosomes is increased and the co-localization between autophagosomes and lysosomes is higher than in the non-induced cells.
Therefore, in this study, it is proposed that the autophagic flux of IFNγ-induced Irgm1 KO MEFs is impaired. The lymphocytes of the Irgm1 KO mice, that are stimulated to proliferate as a response to infection, could be the cells that are most affected by autophagic flux arrest and lysosomal acidification impairment. Thus, this effect could be the cause of described defects in lymphocyte proliferation and lymphocyte necrosis, which cause the death of the Irgm1 KO mouse


Background: Professional equity, evaluation of own contributions and received rewards compared to contributions and rewards of other physicians has not been assessed according to payment methods. The aim of this study is to compare levels of professional equity among physicians paid by fee-for-service (FFS), alternative payment plans (APPs), and blended schemes. Methods: In 2011, medical practitioners in the Saskatoon Health Region, Saskatchewan, were surveyed using a questionnaire developed for physicians to measure professional equity. Intangible rewards were measured by the dimensions of fulfilment and recognition, and tangible rewards by the dimension of income. The three-dimensional structure of the questionnaire was first corroborated through a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). Analyses of variances were then performed to account for differences in the levels of professional equity. A linear regression model predicting levels of professional equity was used to test the interaction between specialty and payment method, controlling by number of patients, gender, and age group. Results: In total, 382 (48.1%) physicians participated: 35.6% were family/general practitioners (FPs); 61% were clinical/surgical specialists; and, 3.4% were pathologists. The internal structure of the questionnaire was confirmed by the CFA. Physicians paid by FFS perceived lower professional equity than those paid by APP ( p = .005). Practitioners under APPs reported higher levels of income ( p = .03) and recognition ( p = .001) equity than those with FFS. FPs perceived lower fulfilment ( p = .003) and income ( p = .008) equity compared to medical-surgical specialists. Furthermore, controlling by number of patients seen per week, higher levels of professional equity are predicted among FPs paid by APPs and blended schemes in comparison to FPs paid by FFS. Conclusions: Higher levels of professional equity were perceived among physicians paid by APPs in comparison to those paid by FFS. Physicians paid by APPs considered that they are receiving fair economic rewards and appropriate recognition. In addition, enhanced levels of professional equity could be predicted among FPs with APPs and blended schemes. APPs could be explored to improve the professional equity of FPs and, indirectly, promote improved primary health care.


This article revisits the authors' experiences as Black queer women teaching undergraduates and receiving graduate education, ultimately reflecting on these from their current professorial positions. It explores how graduate teachers and junior faculty who are Black queer women navigate the process of creating and maintaining feminist pedagogy in the college classroom while simultaneously negotiating universities that have very little space for queer women, Black women, and those at these intersections. The article asserts that feminist classrooms are arenas for discovery, liberation, and resistance of hegemonic structures, and attempts to construct these spaces both in- and outside of women's studies departments. This task is particularly challenging when the instructor holds the very marginalized identities that exist in the content of the class and their education. Ultimately, the article argues that their unique experience has been under-theorized, even by them, and necessitates specific strategies that would not be addressed by a focus on Black women who are assumed to be straight or queer women who are assumed to be white.


This study aims to investigate possible differences in the formation and development of personality traits for children with various language disorders and children who do not have language disorders from a neuropsychological perspective. The child's personality is a psychological and social construct with strong implications on how to relate it to the surrounding individuals and brain function. During childhood, the individual manifests a variety of typologies of behavior and attitudes depending on the context in which they are, so personality traits are formed as a result of existing interactions and the family and educational context. In the case of children with different language disorders, the personality must be structured in a more secure and stable emotional environment, leading to the development of adaptation capacities to the external environment and an increase in stress resistance. Emotions and moods play a significant role in the development of personality traits. In this sense, we have started the research that aims to analyze the personality traits of children with speech difficulties and those who do not have these difficulties. The participants in this study are 60 children aged 7-12 years old from urban areas. The method used is represented by the HiPIC - Hierarchical Personality Inventory for Children (I Mervielde and Filip de Fruyt), a psychological tool for assessing the personality of children aged 6 to 13 and is based on the established Big Five model. The inventory is a personality HiPIC contains 144 items and allows the evaluation of the emotional, interpersonal, motivational and behavioral style of children based on the five dimensions of personality. Parametric statistical methods were used to identify possible differences between the two groups of participants in research. Also factor loadings and correlations between factors as results of exploratory factor analyses were evaluated. The study outputs confirms existing differences in the development of certain personality traits, the specificity being given by the situations experienced in the educational environment, the family environment and in the context of the process of recovering and improving the language disorders.


Variational lower bounds are a simple and efficient way to approximate Bayesian integrals. By bounding the integrand at every point, we obtain a bound on the integral value. Variational Bayes (Attias, 1999) and convex duality methods (Jaakkola & Jordan 1999a; 1999b) are of this type, and—as shown in this paper—so is the approximation method of Cheeseman & Stutz (1996). In each case, EM is used to maximize the bound. The EM updates are derived for Gaussian mixtures and multinomial mixtures with conjugate priors. Experimental results show the lower bound method to be less accurate than Laplace's method, but often simpler.


The Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) has observed the interstellar neutral (ISN) gas flow over the past 6 yr during winter/spring when the Earth's motion opposes the ISN flow. Since IBEX observes the interstellar atom trajectories near their perihelion, we can use an analytical model based upon orbital mechanics to determine the interstellar parameters. Interstellar flow latitude, velocity, and temperature are coupled to the flow longitude and are restricted by the IBEX observations to a narrow tube in this parameter space. In our original analysis we found that pointing the spacecraft spin axis slightly out of the ecliptic plane significantly influences the ISN flow vector determination. Introducing the spacecraft spin axis tilt into the analytical model has shown that IBEX observations with various spin axis tilt orientations can substantially reduce the range of acceptable solutions to the ISN flow parameters as a function of flow longitude. The IBEX operations team pointed the IBEX spin axis almost exactly within the ecliptic plane during the 2012–2014 seasons, and about 5° below the ecliptic for half of the 2014 season. In its current implementation the analytical model describes the ISN flow most precisely for the spin axis orientation exactly in the ecliptic. This analysis refines the derived ISN flow parameters with a possible reconciliation between velocity vectors found with IBEX and Ulysses, resulting in a flow longitude λ∞ = 74.°5 ± 1.°7 and latitude β∞ = −5.°2 ± 0.°3, but at a substantially higher ISN temperature than previously reported.


Zirconia, a biomaterial widely used in dentistry, has recently attracted much attention for its mechanical strength and toughness. Previously, its lack of mutagenic and carcinogenic power was reported. We describe here other essential aspects to be taken into account to define in vitro the biocompatibility of a material: the growth rate, viability, and adhesion capacity of normal stabilized cells growing on it. To this aim, immortalized RAT-1 fibroblasts, growing either on zirconia and on feldspatic (FE) ceramics were compared. In particular, the level of expression and the intra- and extra-cellular organization of fibronectin, a glycoprotein involved in cellular adhesion and migration during tissue repair, was analyzed. Fibroblasts cultured on zirconia showed a higher growth rate, and underwent necrosis at lower levels than cells on FE ceramic, whereas either materials did not stimulate apoptosis. Adhesion capacity of fibroblasts was evaluated measuring adherent cell nucleic acids with the fluorimetric CyQuant assay, and it was found significantly higher in cells cultured on zirconia than on FE ceramic. This finding may be explained by the higher and more precocious expression of the adhesion protein fibronectin observed by indirect immunofluorescence in fibroblasts on zirconia. Overall, the results suggest that zirconia, exerting low cytotoxicity and strongly inducing adhesion capacity, increases cellular growth rate of fibroblasts. All these features suggest that zirconia could represent a more suitable biomaterial than FE ceramic for prosthesis in dentistry.


the third india–africa Forum Summit (iaFS) took place in new delhi in october 2015, just over a year after narendra Modi became prime minister. Situating india–africa ties within the context of india's evolving geopolitical calculations, which see its strategic space being defined as stretching from the Suez to the pacific, is likely to have a significant impact on the relationship. Modi's bolder and more assertive foreign policy is carefully calibrated to reach out to neighbours and global strategic players alike. africa features in Modi's expansive foreign policy as he seeks to carve out a stronger role for india in this designated geostrategic space; keep a watchful eye on Chinese and other external actors in the indian ocean and africa; and build support for india's global aspirations. as india's foreign policy takes on a more geo-economic orientation and africa itself is gearing up to tackle its economic and political challenges and become more central to global debates, the relationship should evolve to emphasise the importance of business opportunities that resonate in creating manufacturing and services based in africa. Equally, there is room for the relationship both at the iaFS level and regionally to accelerate its political and security engagement, thus deepening its relevance in the face of a shifting global power landscape. both sides should make provision for the requisite institutional resources to ensure that the aspirations encompassed in the iaFS can be implemented.


In the phase shifted full bridge (PSFB) pulse width modulation (PWM) converter, external snubber capacitors are connected in parallel to insulated gate bipolar transistors (IGBTs) in order to decrease turnoff losses. The zero voltage transition (ZVT) condition is not provided at light loads, thus the parallel capacitors discharge through IGBTs at turn on which causes switching losses and failure risk of the IGBTs. Capacitor discharge through IGBT restricts the use of high-value snubber capacitors, and turnoff loss of the IGBT increases at high currents. This problematic condition occurs especially at the lagging leg. In this study, a new technique enabling the use of high-value snubber capacitors with the lagging leg of the PSFB PWM converter is proposed. As advantages of the proposed technique, high-capacitive discharge current through IGBT is prevented at light loads, the turn-off switching losses of the IGBTs are decreased, and the performance of the converter is improved at high currents. The proposed PSFB PWM converter includes an auxiliary circuit, and it has a simple structure, low cost, and ease of control as well. The operation principle and detailed design procedure of the converter are presented. The theoretical analysis is verified exactly by a prototype of 75 kHz and 10kW converter. The implementation results are presented.


Prior to the COVID pandemic, workspace design lowers workstation panels, densifies work seating, and increases spontaneous interaction to provide amenity spaces and engage community collaboration. As a recent response to COVID-19, workplaces were forced to shut down and allow employees to work in the comfort of their homes, allowing the opportunity to re-prioritize their use of time. There are mixed reviews on how employees respond to the work-from-home conversation. However, none of these responses address any of the design trends. This year-long social experiment of working from home informed the future. It provided a new outlook on what employees truly want in workplace design. This study aims to determine which environment allows workers the most productivity and which lifestyle they prefer. Survey and focus group methods were used in this research. The survey questionnaire was sent to the AED community to determine overall productivity, the value of office space amenities and resources, comfort for the personal and professional blend of life. Respondents were narrowed down to the AED (architectural, engineering, design) community to those knowledgeable and experienced in the design trends. Based on the research findings, the workplace would thrive from a normalized hybrid work culture where remotely perform routine tasks. The total elimination of a workplace site may be unrealistic. However, days would be best set at home for routine tasks accounting for most designers. Productivity is studied to be higher while accommodating for a better work-life balance.


Abstract The consequences of bird mortality caused by collisions with wind turbines are increasingly receiving attention. So‐called acceptable mortality limits of populations, that is, those that assume that 1%–5% of additional mortality and the potential biological removal (PBR), provide seemingly clear‐cut methods for establishing the reduction in population viability. We examine how the application of these commonly used mortality limits could affect populations of the Common Starling, Black‐tailed Godwit, Marsh Harrier, Eurasian Spoonbill, White Stork, Common Tern, and White‐tailed Eagle using stochastic density‐independent and density‐dependent Leslie matrix models. Results show that population viability can be very sensitive to proportionally small increases in mortality. Rather than having a negligible effect, we found that a 1% additional mortality in postfledging cohorts of our studied populations resulted in a 2%–24% decrease in the population level after 10 years. Allowing a 5% mortality increase to existing mortality resulted in a 9%–77% reduction in the populations after 10 years. When the PBR method is used in the density‐dependent simulations, the proportional change in the resulting growth rate and carrying capacity was species‐independent and largely determined by the recovery factor (F r). When F r = 1, a value typically used for robust populations, additional mortality resulted in a 50%–55% reduction in the equilibrium density and the resulting growth rate. When F r = 0.1, used for threatened populations, the reduction in the equilibrium density and growth rate was about 5%. Synthesis and applications. Our results show that by allowing a mortality increase from wind farm collisions according to both criteria, the population impacts of these collisions can still be severe. We propose a simple new method as an alternative that was able to estimate mortality impacts of age‐structured stochastic density‐dependent matrix models.


A chimeric white gene (wpch) and other constructs containing the transposable element mariner from Drosophila mauritiana were introduced into the germline of Drosophila melanogaster using transformation mediated by the P element. In the absence of other mariner elements, the wpch allele is genetically stable in both germ cells and somatic cells, indicating that the peach element (i.e., the particular copy of mariner inserted in the wpch allele) is inactive. However, in the presence of the active element Mos1, the wpch allele reverts, owing to excision of the peach element, yielding eye-color mosaics and a high rate of germline reversion. In strains containing Mos1 virtually every fly is an eye-color mosaic, and the rate of wpch germline reversion ranges from 10 to 25%, depending on temperature. The overall rates of mariner excision and transposition are approximately sixfold greater than the rates in comparable strains of Drosophila simulans. The activity of the Mos1 element is markedly affected by position effects at the site of Mos1 insertion. In low level mosiac lines, dosage effects of Mos1 are apparent in the heavier level of eye-color mosaicism in Mos1 homozygotes than in heterozygotes. However, saturation occurs in high level mosaic lines, and then dosage effects are not observed. A pBluescribe M13+ plasmid containing Mos1 was injected into the pole plasm of D. melanogaster embryos, and the Mos1 element spontaneously integrated into the germline at high efficiency. These transformed strains of D. melanogaster presently contain numerous copies of mariner and may be useful in transposon tagging and other applications.


Colour constancy algorithms aim at correcting colour towards a correct perception within scenes. To achieve this goal they estimate a white point (the illuminant's colour), and correct the scene for its in uence. In contrast, colour management performs on input images colour transformations according to a pre-established input pro le (ICC pro le) for the given constellation of input device (camera) and conditions (illumination situation). The latter case presents a much more analytic approach (it is not based on an estimation), and is based on solid colour science and current industry best practises, but it is rather in exible towards cases with altered conditions or capturing devices. The idea as outlined in this paper is to take up the idea of working on visually linearised and device independent CIE colour spaces as used in colour management, and to try to apply them in the eld of colour constancy. For this purpose two of the most well known colour constancy algorithms White Patch Retinex and Grey World Assumption have been ported to also work on colours in the CIE LAB colour space. Barnard's popular benchmarking set of imagery was corrected with the original implementations as a reference and the modi ed algorithms. The results appeared to be promising, but they also revealed strengths and weaknesses.


In order to dynamically investigate the historical evolution of CO2 emissions induced by consumption and fixed capital investment, this paper defines the concepts of consumption-type emission (CPE) and construction-type emission (CTE). It also proposes the ratio of consumption-type emission to construction-type emission (RCC) as a partial indicator of a CO2 emissions structure that synchronously considers CPEs and CTEs. In this study, we employ an environmentally extended input-output analysis model (EE-IOA) to estimate the carbon emissions from CPE and CTE. By analysing data comprised of 86 samples from 32 countries, the study evaluated the evolution of RCC during the process of industrialisation (including the post-industrialisation period) and economic growth. The empirical results indicate that RCC increases with the advance of industrialisation and the increase in GDP per capita. Carbon emission reduction goals should be established considering the reduction potentials of CPE and CTE, and enhance the carbon emission reduction activity of enterprises through market power by transforming consumers' consumption habits into low-carbon ones. The most significant outcome of this paper is the development of a method for correctly evaluating the emissions levels of countries at different stages of development in order to establish reasonable emissions reduction targets.


Television is the dominant entertainment medium for hundreds of millions. This chapter surveys the economic forces that determine the production and consumption of this content. It presents recent trends in television and online video markets, both in the US and internationally, and describes the state of theoretical and empirical research on these industries. A number of distinct themes emerge, including the growing importance of the pay-television sector, the role played by content providers (channels), distributors, and negotiations between them in determining market outcomes, and concerns about the effects of market power throughout this vertical structure. It also covers important but unsettled topics including the purpose for and effects of both the old (Public Service Broadcasters) and the new (online video markets). Open theoretical and empirical research questions are highlighted throughout.


It is a study that is conducted in PT. BPR Syari'ah Bhakti Haji Bululawang- Malang entitled "An Analysis of the Effectiveness of Credit Distribution in Micro and Small Business (UMK) on PT. BPR Syari'ah Bhakti Haji Bululawang" (A study on PT. BPR Syari'ah Bhakti Haji Bululawang-
Malang).
The purposes of this study are to analyze the financial record of credit on UMK in decreasing problematic credit in PT. BPR Syari'ah Bhakti Haji Bululawang; it is used to know the problem in PT. BPR Syari'ah Bhakti Haji Bululawang and analysis and problem solving also conducted by using theory in relation with the topic.
The data collection that is used here to identify the financial record of balance and profit, so that there is no problematic credit by using the analysis of given credit development, effectiveness analysis (from creditor), and the analysis of NPL (from debtor) on PT. BPR Syari'ah Bhakti Haji Bululawang is that the analysis of given credit development annually and the number of credit development is always facing problem. The analysis of effectiveness comprise liquidity, it is the bank capability in distributing credit. Solvability, it is used to evaluate the BPR capital. Profitability is the BPR capability to yield profit before tax and all properties, and the analysis of NPL is to measure the number of problematic credit.
The result of study is based on the result of financial record; balance and profit. The calculation of trading has the huge risk to be said as proper to give credit. It causes credit distribution more focused on UMK.
Based on the result of study above, the analysis of financial record can be said able to help the banker to determine credit distribution for UMK in getting credit. it is because the analysis of financial record by using this analysis is more accurate to analysis financial record for credit distribution of UMK and it is more knowing the condition of business before decided to be proper in given credit.


Observing network traffic flow for anomalies is a common method in Intrusion Detection. More effort has been taken in utilizing the data mining and machine learning algorithms to construct anomaly based intrusion detection systems, but the dependency on the learned models that were built based on earlier network behaviour still exists, which restricts those methods in detecting new or unknown intrusions. Consequently, this investigation proposes a structure to identify an extensive variety of abnormalities by analysing heterogeneous logs, without utilizing either a prepared model of system transactions or the attributes of anomalies. To accomplish this, a current segment (clustering) has been used and a few new parts (filtering, aggregating and feature analysis) have been presented. Several logs from multiple sources are used as input and this data are processed by all the modules of the framework. As each segment is instrumented for a particular undertaking towards a definitive objective, the commitment of each segment towards abnormality recognition is estimated with various execution measurements. Ultimately, the framework is able to detect a broad range of intrusions exist in the logs without using either the attack knowledge or the traffic behavioural models. The result achieved shows the direction or pathway to design anomaly detectors that can utilize raw traffic logs collected from heterogeneous sources on the network monitored and correlate the events across the logs to detect intrusions.


This is the first academic study of the impact of semi-presidentialism in emerging democracies outside of Europe. Semi-presidentialism is where there is both a directly-elected fixed-term president and a prime minister who is responsible to the legislature. For the most part, semi-presidentialism is seen as being a risky choice for new democracies because it can create potentially destabilizing competition between the president and prime minister. And yet, there are now more than fifty semi-presidential countries in the world. Moreover, many of these countries are in Africa, the former Soviet Union and Asia, often in places where democracy has yet to establish a firm foundation. This study begins with a chapter that discusses the advantages and disadvantages of semi-presidentialism and provides the theoretical framework for a wide-ranging series of country chapters presented in the second part of the book. Written by country/area specialists, the case studies highlight the political processes at work in young semi-presidential democracies. Semi-Presidentialism Outside Europe will appeal to those researching and studying in the fields of comparative politics, development and democracy.


The safety of vehicles increased significantly by using active and passive safety systems. Through the introduction of active suspension systems, the safety of vehicles can be raised even further and the handling improved. It has an influence on the size and distribution of the tire normal forces. Consequently a control of vertical, pitch, roll dynamics and self-steering properties is possible. The influence of active suspension systems on the vehicle handling is realized by varying the roll stiffness distribution between the front and rear axle, whereby the control is based on active antiroll bars. In this way the lateral force potential can be optimally exhaust, the critical lateral acceleration when changing from understeering to oversteering handling reduced and the loss of steering willingness compared to a neutral handling compensated.


The development of nanostructures that can be reversibly arranged and assembled into 3D patterns may enable optical tunability. However, current dynamic recording materials such as photorefractive polymers cannot be used to store information permanently while also retaining configurability. Here, we describe the synthesis and optimization of a silver nanoparticle doped poly(2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate-co-methacrylic acid) recording medium for reversibly recording 3D holograms. We theoretically and experimentally demonstrate organizing nanoparticles into 3D assemblies in the recording medium using optical forces produced by the gradients of standing waves. The nanoparticles in the recording medium are organized by multiple nanosecond laser pulses to produce reconfigurable slanted multilayer structures. We demonstrate the capability of producing rewritable optical elements such as multilayer Bragg diffraction gratings, 1D photonic crystals, and 3D multiplexed optical gratings. We also show that 3D virtual h...


In the modern business world, the IT advances accelerate the world's commercial development with the help of Internet technology in supporting variety of activities. As a result, e-commerce play a significant role in almost every industry. Hotel industry is one of those which are fully beneficial from the e-commerce, which fulfills the custo- mer's needs. This research is conducted to study the character of the hotel e-commerce and the measurement of performance of the hotel e-commerce in Thailand in all perspectives of Balanced Scorecard. In the research, the researcher uses the reasoning appr- oach to describe the relationship between the variables of causes and effects whose directions are precisely specified. The samples of the research are the hotels in the Bangkok metropolitans and vicinity areas. The researcher uses questi- onnaires to measure the customer satisfaction of business operations according to the Balanced Scorecard. Then, the initial collective information is analyzed to categorize those samples in percentage. Next, the result of the satisfaction based on Balanced Scorecard measurement is tested for the relationship of all variables by using the statistic of interr- elation and chi-square values. The result of the research provides us the character of operating of the hotel industries and the sufficiency of operating e-commerce of hotel industries in Thailand. In addition, it can be used as a guideline in hotel business development which enhances the capabilities of performance and competition.


The article reveals the issues of the global character of precarization and substantiates the criteria of precarious employment taking into account its special aspects in Russian Federation. The existing variability of approaches to the definition of precarious employment and the necessity to elaborate its optimal criteria in view of features of national labour have conditioned the relevance of the research. The paper involves international and Russian research on precarity and significantly uses the results of expert survey conducted by the authors in autumn 2016. The experts have considered groups of criteria based on: labour contract term, nature of labour relations, precarious terms of work. The experts also were asked to evaluate different forms of employment in which precarity may exert. As a result of the conducted research, we have elaborated the generalized criteria, which identify various forms of instability in labour market. The authors put forward a hypothesis that the criteria of the International Labour Organization (ILO) need to be adapted to the Russian realities when determining unstable employment, and the phenomenon of precarious employment has to be defined from the point of view of the probabilistic nature of its various manifestations. Based on the results of the research, the authors have qualified the relevance of International Labour Organization's (ILO) criteria in the Russian context. We also have substantiated the probable character of precarious employment and defined probability of precarity exertion in the flexible forms of employment. The set of precarious employment criteria is specified in accordance with Russian context: we have clarified and complemented them, and defined the probability of precarity exertion in different forms of employment. The main result of the research is the structure of criterial standards, which identifies precarious employment.The conceptual issues and findings of the paper can be used as a theoretical and methodological basis to identify the scale of precarious employment in Russia as well as to evaluate precarity exertion in individual workplace.


Energy demand overall the world increases rapidly
in various sectors, one of the highest energy consumption sector is the
building sector. Installation of PV systems is one of the solutions to cover
this demand and will serve in promoting energy efficiency in the Palestinian
municipalities in decreasing the electricity bill, and using the saved money in
constructing new projects and improving the level of services provided to
citizens. In this work, Al-Dahriya municipality has been taken as a case study.
The municipality installed 20 KW of photovoltaic panels on the roof of the main
building in 2015. The cumulative values for one year after installation the PV
system represent a total consumed electricity by the main building was 71,506 kw,
while the total generated power by the PV system that transferred to building
was 32,664 kw, and 5323 kw exported to the grid with total generated power by
PV system was 37,987 kw. The participation of energy that produced by the photovoltaic system is
53.12% of the total power demand of the building. The value of generated power
varies between the summer months and winter months through the difference of
the solar radiation intensity and the number of shinning hours, the largest
reading of solar radiation intensity is in the
summer months. The study ensures the importance of applying selected thermal
insulation materials in order to decrease the heat transfer through the
boundary wall of the building. Furthermore, this study covers the other
buildings and utilities of municipality and recommended with certain issues in order to promote energy efficiency.


Bioeconomy development will create new opportunities for firms operating in the international wood products markets, and identifying and exploiting these opportunities is emphasized as a key concept to achieving business success. Our study will attempt to address a gap in the literature on sawmill industry business development from the viewpoint of international opportunity recognition. The aim of our study is to provide a holistic description on how small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the wood products industry recognize and exploit international business opportunities, and how they utilize network perspectives in this context. The subject was examined through Finnish wood product industry SMEs by interviewing 11 managers and industry representatives. The results suggest that SMEs recognize international opportunities reactively per se. Social networks formed in professional forums were an important information channel for identifying international opportunities. Through vertical business networks, such as sales agents, firms have been able to increase their international market presence and free their own resources for other important activities. Horizontal dyadic business networks were seen to facilitate new international opportunities through cooperation, while excessive reliance on vertical networks raised concerns and seemed not to be effective in international opportunity recognition. Institutional networks formed a systematic way of recognizing international opportunities, but more so at the initial market entry stage.


Social networking sites (SNSs) provide researchers with an unprecedented amount of user derived personal information. This wealth of information can be invaluable for research purposes. However, the privacy of the SNS user must be protected from both public and private researchers. New research capabilities raise new ethical concerns. We argue that past research regulation has largely been in reaction to questionable research practices, and therefore new innovations need to be regulated before SNS users' privacy is irreparably compromised. It is the responsibility of the academic community to start this ethical discourse.


Traceroute [Jacobson88], originally written by Van Jacobson in 1988, has become a classic tool for determining the routes that packets take from a source host to a destination host. It does not provide any information regarding the physical location of each node along the route, which makes it difficult to effectively identify geographically circuitous unicast routing. Indeed, there are examples of paths between hosts just a few miles apart that cross the entire United States and back, phenomena not immediately evident from the textual output of traceroute. While such path information may not be of much interest to many end users, it can provide valuable insight to system administrators, network engineers, operators and analysts. We present a tool that depicts geographically the IP path information that traceroute provides, drawing the nodes on a world map according to their latitude/longitude coordinates.


Binational same-sex couples in the United States all too often face a difficult reality. Due to discriminatory immigration laws, which prevent United States citizens from sponsoring their same-sex partners for permanent residence, same-sex couples must choose between deportation and separating their families. The Uniting American Families Act, however, offers a remedy to this unacceptable inequality. Yet the Act currently does not have the congressional support it needs to pass. This Note argues that President Obama, as the country's Executive, should use his "bully pulpit" to inspire the Act's passage. Specifically, this Note examines the manifestation and extent of Executive power in relation to immigration, the timeliness of the issue, and the recent broadening of Executive power to support a conclusion that Mr. Obama should take


When the Supreme Court adjudicates United States v. Texas, the lawsuit challenging the Obama administration's executive actions on immigration, one focal point may be the question of whether those initiatives — Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents and its predecessor, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals — impermissibly confer "lawful presence" upon their recipients. In both of his opinions for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, Judge Jerry E. Smith went out of his way to characterize DAPA and DACA as affirmatively conferring their recipients with "lawful presence." In their briefing to the Supreme Court the plaintiffs have now followed his lead, arguing that DAPA and DACA impermissibly "transform presence deemed unlawful by Congress into lawful presence."In this essay, I explain why these claims about "lawful presence" are incorrect and ultimately a red herring. Describing DAPA and DACA as entailing a grant of "lawful presence" mischaracterizes those initiatives, relying upon a misunderstanding of both the structure and content of immigration law and the manner in which undocumented immigrants are recognized and constructed as legal subjects. Moreover, as a legal matter, "lawful presence" does not even exist as a thing in the sense that Judge Smith and the plaintiffs describe it. In order to characterize DAPA and DACA as something other than guidance structuring the exercise of enforcement discretion, as permitted by existing law, both Judge Smith and the plaintiffs fashion a conception of "lawful presence" as constituting an aggregated, intertwined package of benefits, in a manner that approximates conventional understandings of lawful immigration "status." That conception, however, has no actual legal basis. Ultimately, since "unlawful presence" does not carry the meaning that Judge Smith and the plaintiffs ascribe to it, there is only the illusion of a substantive problem here.


Daniel Kahneman's recent book, Thinking, Fast and Slow, is a must-read for any scholar and policymaker interested in behavioral economics. Thus far, behavioral economists did predominantly experimental work that uncovered discrete manifestations of people's bounded rationality: representativeness, availability, anchoring, overoptimism, base-rate neglect, hindsight bias, loss aversion, and other misevaluations of probability and utility. This work has developed no causal explanations for these misevaluations. Kahneman's book takes the discipline to a different level by developing an integrated theory of bounded rationality's causes and characteristics. This theory holds that humans use two distinct modes of reasoning, intuitive (System 1) and deliberative (System 2), while systematically allowing their fast intuitions to supersede deliberation. These intuitions grow from familiar stereotypes, resemblances and emotions that oftentimes do not align with reality and take the person astray. The dominance of these untutored, and yet powerful, intuitions explains people's various misconceptions in the domains of probability and utility.The book is beautifully written: its insights are rich, profound, and at the same time lucid and exceptionally well presented. The book develops clear explanations for complex economic and psychological phenomena and accompanies them with brilliantly selected examples from real life and controlled experiments.These virtues, however, do not make the book uncontroversial. My Review critically examines Kahneman's account of people's probabilistic irrationality that occupies the majority of the book. This examination unfolds my profound disagreement with Kahneman's grim assessment of ordinary people's reasoning, widely known as the bounded-rationality theory.Specifically, I argue that Kahneman and his collaborators have used an incomplete and unstable set of criteria for appraising people's determinations of probability. This set of criteria is incomplete for two reasons. First, it does not account for the divide between rule-free 'beliefs' and rule-based 'acceptances,' drawn by philosophers of rationality. Acceptance is a mentally active process that includes application of decisional rules to available information. Belief, by contrast, is a person's feeling, sensation or hunch: an intellectually passive state of mind generated by unanalyzed experiences. People participating in Kahneman's and other behavioral economists' experiments have formed no rule-driven acceptances. All they did was to report their beliefs because this is what the experimenters asked them to do. Individuals' rationality, however, properly manifests itself only in acceptances that apply rules of reasoning. A person who fails to align her intuitive beliefs with the rules of probability may well be – and oftentimes is – perfectly rational in her rule-driven decisions. Kahneman's criteria for probabilistic rationality also fail to recognize a distinct – and perfectly rational – framework of reasoning, known as causative or Baconian. Under this framework, an event's probability corresponds to the quantum and variety of the evidence that confirms the event's occurrence while eliminating rival scenarios. This qualitative evidential criterion separates causative probability from the mathematical calculus of chances. Individuals who apply this criterion in making case-specific decisions are far from being irrational.Kahneman's criteria for probabilistic decisions are unstable because they tolerate the presence of unspecified causality and malleable reference classes in experimental settings and provide no directives on how to deal with these problems. These problems are present in all of Kahneman's experiments that mixed statistical data with case-specific events. As a result, these experiments do not reveal anything about the rationality of participants' probabilistic decisions. A person who ascribes probability to a causally unspecified event featuring a malleable reference class can never go wrong: her guesswork is as good as Kahneman's or anyone else's.Based on this analysis, I revisit the flagship experiments substantiating Kahneman's theory of bounded probabilistic rationality ('The Blue Cab,' 'Feminist Bank Teller,' and 'The Librarian'). Contrary to Kahneman's assessment, I demonstrate that these experiments reveal no irrationalities in the participants' probabilistic decisions. Moreover, I show that the rationality criteria favored by Kahneman and other behavioral economists can set up the 'irrationality maze' - a situation in which all decisions available to a person are irrational.I argue, in conclusion, that the 'bounded probabilistic rationality' theory is unproven. Policymakers therefore ought to put on hold the behavioral economists' recommendations urging the government to step in and fix people's probabilistic decisions. This paternalism, 'soft' and invasive alike, is wasteful and potentially pernicious. Implementing it will suppress individuals' creativity and heterogeneity without introducing substantial improvements in their decisions.


An inversionless gain of anti-Stokes radiation above the oscillation threshold in an optically dense far-from-degenerate double- ? Doppler-broadened medium accompanied by Stokes gain is predicted. The outcomes are illustrated with numerical simulations applied to sodium dimer vapor. Optical switching from absorption to gain via transparency controlled by a small variation of the medium and of the driving radiation parameters, which are at a level of less than one photon per molecule, is shown.


The Bauhaus is the most widely known, discussed, imitated, dissected, exhibited phenomenon in modern design. Yet since the Second World War design education has lost sight of one of its most important legacies: the need to think about design in a theoretically self-conscious way. By re-examining Bauhaus ideas and encouraging critical thinking about the means and ends of design, this work provides the opportunity to reinvigorate today's graphics. Conceived, designed and edited at The Herb Lubalin Study Center of Design and Typography, The Cooper Union, New York, this book traces the origins and impact of the Bauhaus in relation to basic design, graphic design and typography. While the text is a challenging exploration of the Bauhaus's aims and achievements, the book itself is a manifesto of Bauhaus ideals, synthesizing editorial concept, typography and craftsmanship. Essays by eminent contributors address various aspects of the Bauhaus, including its relationship to Weimar culture, Herbert Bayer's geometric type design called 'universal', and the psychological implications of Kandinsky's celebrated attempts to establish fundamental laws of form and colour with his triangle/square/circle test. Illustrations include extensive samples of typographical design, instructional diagrams and symbols. Designed in a manner that befits the aspirations of the Bauhaus, this manual will be an inexhaustible fund of inspiration for design professionals and a revelation for all those interested in 20th-century culture.


ABSTRACT The recent trend towards selective immigration policies is based on the racialization of certain categories of migrants into irretrievably unassimilable Others. In Europe, this trend has materialized largely through the application of integration requirements to the immigration of foreigners, the so-called "civic integration turn". Based on an analysis of parliamentary debates about civic integration policies in the Netherlands, this paper asks which migrants are considered likely or unlikely to integrate based on which presumed characteristics. We find that Dutch civic integration policies aim at barring "migrants with poor prospects". In sharp contrast with a long history of Dutch social policies, politicians deny state responsibility for migrants' emancipation based on a discursive racialization of these migrants as unassimilable. While class has hitherto been largely ignored in the literature on migration and the politics of belonging, we show that class, intersecting with culture and gender, is key in this process of racialization.