Hot electron processes at metallic heterojunctions are central to optical-to-chemical or electrical energy transduction. Ultrafast nonlinear photoexcitation of graphite (Gr) has been shown to create hot thermalized electrons at temperatures corresponding to the solar photosphere in less than 25 fs. Plasmonic resonances in metallic nanoparticles are also known to efficiently generate hot electrons. Here we deposit Ag nanoclusters (NC) on Gr to study the ultrafast hot electron generation and dynamics in their plasmonic heterojunctions by means of time-resolved two-photon photoemission (2PP) spectroscopy. By tuning the wavelength of p-polarized femtosecond excitation pulses, we find an enhancement of 2PP yields by 2 orders of magnitude, which we attribute to excitation of a surface-normal Mie plasmon mode of Ag/Gr heterojunctions at 3.6 eV. The 2PP spectra include contributions from (i) coherent two-photon absorption of an occupied interface state (IFS) 0.2 eV below the Fermi level, which electronic structure calculations assign to chemisorption-induced charge transfer, and (ii) hot electrons in the π*-band of Gr, which are excited through the coherent screening response of the substrate. Ultrafast pump-probe measurements show that the IFS photoemission occurs via virtual intermediate states, whereas the characteristic lifetimes attribute the hot electrons to population of the π*-band of Gr via the plasmon dephasing. Our study directly probes the mechanisms for enhanced hot electron generation and decay in a model plasmonic heterojunction.


ABSTRACT

The cruise sector constitutes one of the fastest growing sectors of the tourism industry. With the continued growth of the industry comes the need to develop new ports to accommodate the increased volume of ships as well as the increasing size of modern cruise ships. It is important to understand how the development of new cruise ports impacts the local community. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to identify the attitudes and perceptions of residents regarding the impacts of the new cruise ship port development in Falmouth, Jamaica. The Historic Port of Falmouth was developed through a partnership between Royal Caribbean and the Port Authority of Jamaica and is the largest purpose-built port of call in the Caribbean.
A case study approach was utilized to identify the attitudes and perceptions of residents regarding the impacts of the new port development in Falmouth, Jamaica. The study consisted of semi-structured interviews, and participant observation. The research took place in Falmouth in March 2012. A total of 23 interviews were carried out with residents who had varying levels of involvement with tourism.
The three overarching themes emanating from the analysis of the data are: Big Ships, Big Disappointment, What could be improved? and All is Not Lost at Sea. Findings revealed that Falmouth residents are disappointed with the development because they have not received the economic benefits they were promised by Royal Caribbean. Despite the residents' frustration and disappointment with the port, many still believe that it has given some opportunity for residents to improve their quality of life. The powerlessness of members of small Caribbean communities in the face of large tourism developers is evident throughout the study.


A C- plus L-band fiber ring laser with wide wavelength tunability and single-longitudinal-mode oscillation is proposed and demonstrated experimentally. A saturable-absorber-based autotracking filter, consisted of an unpumped erbium-doped fiber (EDF) and an optical reflected mirror (ORM), is employed to provide fine mode restriction and guarantee the single-frequency operation. Output power of > 2.1 dBm, power stability of </= 0.02 dB, wavelength variation of </= 0.01 nm and side-mode suppression ratio (SMSR) of > 31 dB / 0.05 nm have been experimentally demonstrated for this single-frequency fiber laser over an operating range of 1550 to 1608 nm.


The aerosol extinction-to-backscatter ratio is an important parameter for inverting LIDAR signals in the LIDAR equation. It is a complicated function of the aerosol microphysical characteristics. In this paper, a method to retrieve the column-averaged aerosol extinction-to-backscatter ratio by constraining the aerosol optical depths (AOD) from a Micro-pulse LIDAR (MPL) by the AOD measurements from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) is presented. Both measurements were taken on cloud free days between 1 May 2003 and 30 June 2004 over Hong Kong, a coastal city in south China. Simultaneous measurements of aerosol scattering coefficients with a forward scattering visibility sensor are compared with the LIDAR retrieval of aerosol extinction coefficients. The data are then analyzed to determine seasonal trends of the aetrosol extinction-to-backscatter ratio. In addition, the relationships between the extinction-to-backscatter ratio and wind conditions as well as other aerosol microphysical parameters are presented. The mean aerosol extinction-to-backscatter ratio for the whole period was found to be 29.1±5.8 sr, with a minimum of 18 sr in July 2003 and a maximum of 44 sr in March 2004. The ratio is lower in summer because of the dominance of oceanic aerosols in association with the prevailing southwesterly monsoon. In contrast, relatively larger ratios are noted in spring and winter because of the increased impact of local and regional industrial pollutants associated with the northerly monsoon. The extended LIDAR measurements over Hong Kong provide not only a more accurate retrieval of aerosol extinction coefficient profiles, but also significant substantial information for air pollution and climate studies in the region.


This thesis examines Recursive Markov Chains (RMCs), their natural extensions and connection to other models. RMCs can model in a natural way probabilistic procedural programs and other systems that involve recursion and probability. An RMC is a set of ordinary finite state Markov Chains that are allowed to call each other recursively and it describes a potentially infinite, but countable, state ordinary Markov Chain. RMCs generalize in a precise sense several well studied probabilistic models in other domains such as natural language processing (Stochastic Context-Free Grammars), population dynamics (Multi-Type Branching Processes) and in queueing theory (Quasi-Birth-Death processes (QBDs)). In addition, RMCs can be extended to a controlled version called Recursive Markov Decision Processes (RMDPs) and also a game version referred to as Recursive (Simple) Stochastic Games (RSSGs). For analyzing RMCs, RMDPs, RSSGs we devised highly optimized numerical algorithms and implemented them in a tool called PReMo (Probabilistic Recursive Models analyzer). PReMo allows computation of the termination probability and expected termination time of RMCs and QBDs, and a restricted subset of RMDPs and RSSGs. The input models are described by the user in specifically designed simple input languages. Furthermore, in order to analyze the worst and best expected running time of probabilistic recursive programs we study models of RMDPs and RSSGs with positive rewards assigned to each of their transitions and provide new complexity upper and lower bounds of their analysis. We also establish some new connections between our models and models studied in queueing theory. Specifically, we show that (discrete time) QBDs can be described as a special subclass of RMCs and Tree-like QBDs, which are a generalization of QBDs, are equivalent to RMCs in a precise sense. We also prove that for a given QBD we can compute (in the unit cost RAM model) an approximation of its termination probabilities within i bits of precision in time polynomial in the size of the QBD and linear in i. Specifically, we show that we can do this using a decomposed Newton's method.


The inability to capture the physics of solid-particle suspension in turbulent fluids in simple formulas is holding back the application of multiphase fluid dynamics techniques to many practical problems in nature and society involving particle suspension. We present a force balance approach to particle suspension in the region near no-slip frictional boundaries of turbulent flows. The force balance parameter Γ contains gravity and buoyancy acting on the sediment and vertical turbulent fluid forces; it includes universal turbulent flow scales and material properties of the fluid and particles only. Comparison to measurements shows that Γ = 1 gives the upper limit of observed suspended particle concentrations in a broad range of flume experiments and field settings. The condition of Γ > 1 coincides with the complete suppression of coherent turbulent structures near the boundary in direct numerical simulations of sediment-laden turbulent flow. Γ thus captures the maximum amount of sediment that can be contained in suspension at the base of turbulent flow, and it can be regarded as a suspension capacity parameter. It can be applied as a simple concentration boundary condition in modelling studies of the dispersion of particulates in environmental and man-made flows.


Video game designers iteratively improve player experience by play testing game software and adjusting its design. Deciding how to improve gameplay is difficult and time-consuming because designers lack an effective means for exploring decision alternatives and modifying a game's mechanics. We aim to improve designer productivity and game quality by providing tools that speed-up the game design process. In particular, we wish to learn how patterns encoding common game design knowledge can help to improve design tools. Micro-Machinations (MM) is a language and software library that enables game designers to modify a game's mechanics at run-time. We propose a pattern-based approach for leveraging high-level design knowledge and facilitating the game design process with a game design assistant. We present the Mechanics Pattern Language (MPL) for encoding common MM structures and design intent, and a Mechanics Design Assistant (MeDeA) for analyzing, explaining and understanding existing mechanics, and generating, filtering, exploring and applying design alternatives for modifying mechanics. We implement MPL and MeDeA using the meta-programming language Rascal, and evaluate them by modifying the mechanics of a prototype of Johnny Jetstream, a 2D shooter developed at IC3D Media.


"The purpose of this research was to determine if principals' behaviors or actions related to a systems orientation or person orientation as defined by the trait approach to leadership theory. Also important to the study was to determine if teachers' perceptions of principal leadership behaviors were gender specific,i.e., to determine if subordinates (i.e. teachers) perceived male and female principals differently, as well as to determine if those perceptions differ according to subordinate gender (i.e. do male and female teachers view male and female principals differently?). Data were gathered from a school district in the southeastern United States. Approximately 300 teachers from eleven traditional high schools were surveyed using the Leader Behavior Description Questionnaire (LBDQ) based on the work of Ralph Stogdill and the Ohio State University Leadership Studies. The survey was uploaded and administered as a web based survey, with respondents contacted through email. The evidence from the study shows that there was no statistical difference in the leadership styles of mid level and high performing men and women principals as reported by teachers. However, male principals were reported more often to be in the lower performing quadrants (Structured or Passive Leaders)than women leaders. Female principals were reported as being more attentive to systems and person orientations than their male counterparts. Data gathered outside of the LBDQ provided evidence that women and men teachers both report being more satisfied with female principals than with male principals, as indicated by responses to the question of "do you feel your principal is effective?" "--Abstract from author supplied metadata.


This article challenges the prevailing view that U.S. "exceptionalism" provides the strongest narrative for the U.S. rejection of Additional Protocol I to the 1949 Geneva Conventions. The United States chose not to adopt the Protocol in the face of intensive international criticism because of its policy conclusions that the text contained overly expansive provisions resulting from politicized pressure to accord protection to terrorists who elected to conduct hostile military operations outside the established legal framework. The United States concluded that the commingling of the regime criminalizing terrorist acts with the jus in bello rules of humanitarian law would be untenable and inappropriate. In effect, the U.S. concluded that key provisions of Protocol I actually undermine the core values that spawned the entire corpus of humanitarian law. Whether or not the U.S. position was completely accurate, it was far more than rejectionist unilateralism because it provided the impetus for subsequent reservations by other NATO allies. More than two decades after the debates regarding Protocol I, the U.S. position provided the normative benchmark for the subsequent rejection of efforts by some states to shield terrorists from criminal accountability mechanisms required by multilateral terrorism treaties. This article demonstrates that the U.S. policy stance regarding Protocol I helped to prevent the commingling of the laws and customs of war in the context of the multilateral framework for responding to transnational terrorist acts in the aftermath of September 11. In hindsight, the "exceptional" U.S. position was emulated by other nations as they reacted to reservations designed to blur the distinctions between terrorists and privileged combatants. U.S. "exceptionalism" in actuality paved the way for sustained engagement that substantially shaped the international response to terrorist acts. This article suggests that reservations provide an important mechanism for states to engage in second-order dialogue over the true meaning and import of treaties, which in turn fosters the clarity and enforceability of the text.


Abstract Disability culture is a site within which social and positional identities are struggled for and dominant discourses rejected; in which mainstream representations of people with impairments – as victims of personal tragedy – are held to the light and revealed as hegemonic constructions within a disabling society. Drawing upon styles that range from jazz, blues and folk to reggae, performance poetry and punk, disabled singers and bands in the Disability Arts Movement in Britain have been central to the development of an affirmative disability discourse rooted in ideas of pride, anger and strength. Examining lyrics by Johnny Crescendo, Ian Stanton and the Fugertivs – performers emerging as part of this movement in the 1980s and 1990s – this article considers the dark humour which runs through much of this work. It is suggested that these lyrics' observational reflections on everyday experiences of being oppressed as disabled people have been overlooked within critical disability studies to date, but are important in developing an understanding of positive disability identity as a tool available to disabled people in order to make sense of, and express themselves within, the world in which they find themselves.


Sharing multi-partite quantum entanglement between parties allows for diverse secure communication tasks to be performed. Among them, conference key agreement (CKA) - an extension of key distribution to multiple parties - has received much attention recently. Interestingly, CKA can also be performed in a way that protects the identities of the participating parties, therefore providing anonymity. In this work, we propose an anonymous CKA protocol for three parties that is implemented in a highly practical network setting. Specifically, a line of quantum repeater nodes is used to build a linear cluster state among all nodes, which is then used to anonymously establish a secret key between any three of them. The nodes need only share maximally entangled pairs with their neighbours, therefore avoiding the necessity of a central server sharing entangled states. This linear chain setup makes our protocol an excellent candidate for implementation in future quantum networks. We explicitly prove that our protocol protects the identities of the participants from one another and perform an analysis of the key rate in the finite regime, contributing to the quest of identifying feasible quantum communication tasks for network architectures beyond point-to-point.


Postcolonial criticism has been academically defined by an over-reliance on Anglophone texts creating a new type of dominant discourse under which other postcolonial contexts get subsumed. This dissertation is a comparative study of transcultural literary works written by women in Portugal, Spain, and Italy as well as these countries' former African colonies Mozambique, Angola, Equatorial Guinea, and Somalia. It brings into conversation Lusophone, Hispanophone, and Italophone texts by Djaimilia Pereira de Almeida, Isabela Figueiredo, Dulce Maria Cardoso, Paulina Chiziane, Igiaba Scego, Ubah Cristina Ali Farah, Guillermina Mekuy, and Maria Nsue Angue in order to highlight their shared preoccupations with breaching national myths, countering stereotypes, and historical redress. In other words, the aim of my project is to show how these texts contest Eurocentric national representations and propose new ways of belonging, insisting on the plurilingual and multifaceted realities of a world increasingly shaped by migration and diaspora. I use a postcolonial lens in my commitment to dismantling imperial narratives but I also shed light on it by drawing attention to the 'minority' status of these less canonical literatures and the silenced voices they bring into light. I follow the 'minor' transnational model of Lionnet and Shih to illustrate the productivity and creativity of horizontal transcolonial perspectives. My first approach to demonstrating the common dissident nature of these texts focuses on language. I outline how the writers use particular language-related strategies to resist and decolonize different regimes of authority and carve out rebellious forms of agency and subjectivity. Beyond language, I move on to explain how texts negotiate cultural difference through the category of the 'racialized' body marked by gender, race, and social status, specifically analyzing how signifiers of 'otherness' such as hair and skin colour both inform and disrupt lingering imperial narratives. Thirdly, by drawing on social history's attention to common people's voices, I look at these texts as repositories of national and transnational memory and present their contribution to rewrite historical representations of the South, which refers both to Africa and to the peripheral position of Southern Europe in the West.


Structured tasks are distinctive: each task has its own measure of performance, such as the word error rate in speech recognition, the BLEU score in machine translation, the NDCG score in information retrieval, or the intersection-over-union score in visual object segmentation. This paper presents STRUCTED, a software package for learning structured prediction models with training methods that aimed at optimizing the task measure of performance. The package was written in Java and released under the MIT license. It can be downloaded from http://adiyoss.github.io/StructED/.


Advocating a provincialization of critical urban theory, we seek to move beyond current polarizations and disputes over the basis of urban theory, creating space to take seriously the possibility that no single theory suffices to account for the variegated nature of urbanization and cities across the world. Such provincialization requires a serious engagement with both mainstream and critical Anglophone urban theory, challenging the seeming naturalness of knowledge claims through rigorous theoretical and empirical scrutiny from the standpoint of peripheral perspectives located outside the core. This entails recognizing the existence of a shifting ecosystem of critical urban theories, putting these into even-handed critical conversation with one another. The collective resilience of urban theory will be dependent upon ongoing engagement across such diversity. At the heart of such an ecosystem are shifts in practice, seeking a new comparative analytic that destabilizes the universalism of the dominant norm, against which all other exemplars are to be compared, with the imperative of taking the field seriously.


In 1996 the maize market was liberalised and the maize marketing board was abolished. This has meant that prices and production decisions now respond to market forces. At the same time there has been a restructuring of agents at different levels of the maize supply chain and there are relatively high levels of concentration. Maze is of particular importance given its nature as a staple for the majority of the population. The paper provides an overview of the maize supply-chain and assesses the evolution of production and distribution arrangements at different levels, from farmers through to maize millers since liberalisation. It assesses concentration at the levels of production, storage and milling of maize. It examines trade flows and the relationships with domestic demand and supply. Based on this, the research evaluates the determinants of prices and assesses possible competition concerns, before making brief recommendations. Price and Production in the Maize Market following Liberalisation


Purpose: The main objective of this research is to identify the impact of parallel performance of various tasks on the individual effectiveness. Moreover, a methodological goal was set for the research to explore the possibilities of using eye-tracking in the studies of multitasking. Design/Methodology/Approach: The study was conducted in the form of an experiment. All participants worked at the same computer station time was measured with Eye Tracker. Findings: It was confirmed that multitasking requires more time to accomplish tasks and deteriorates creativity, but not correctness of the answers in case of simple tasks. Interestingly, in case of multitasking under time pressure, the performance was worse. Practical Implications: Deeper understanding of the determinants and effects of multitasking on organizational and individual performance enables the adjustment of work organization and management style in order to achieve optimal results. Originality/Value: This paper brings new insights to the studies of multitasking not only in terms of the results of an experimental research, but also in terms of methodological concerns like eye-tracking as a new method of empirical diagnosis.


To understand developers' typical tools, activities, and practices and their satisfaction with each, we conducted two surveys and eleven interviews. We found that many problems arose because developers were forced to invest great effort recovering implicit knowledge by exploring code and interrupting teammates and this knowledge was only saved in their memory. Contrary to expectations that email and IM prevent expensive task switches caused by face-to-face interruptions, we found that face-to-face communication enjoys many advantages. Contrary to expectations that documentation makes understanding design rationale easy, we found that current design documents are inadequate. Contrary to expectations that code duplication involves the copy and paste of code snippets, developers reported several types of duplication. We use data to characterize these and other problems and draw implications for the design of tools for their solution.


Purpose
The study aims to investigate the psychological mechanism that motivates consumers to pay more for a preferred brand that reflects their actual or ideal self-concept, by examining the shift in attention between consumer's present, future, and past moments.

Design/methodology/approach
First, in a survey setting, the study identifies the relationship between temporal focus and self-congruence. Subsequently, we conduct three experiments to capture the effects of temporal focus on brand preference and willingness to pay (WTP). In these experiments, we manipulate consumers' self-congruence and temporal focus.

Findings
The findings show that consumers with a present focus (distant future and distant past foci) tend to evaluate a brand more preferably when the brand serves to reflect their actual (ideal) selves. However, in the absence of present focus consumers' WTP is more for a brand that reflects their ideal selves.

Research limitations/implications
The study does not have an actual measure on consumers' WTP; instead we use single-item measure.

Practical implications
This study sheds new light on branding strategy. The results suggest that authentic and aspirational branding strategies are relevant to publicly consumed products. Brand managers could incorporate consumers' temporal focus into branding strategy that could significantly influence consumer preference and WTP for their brands.

Originality/value
This study expands our understanding of brand usage imagery congruity by showing that temporal focus is an important determinant of self-congruence. In this regard, this study empirically investigates the relationship of temporal focus, self-congruence, brand preference, and WTP. It further reveals that mere brand preference does not necessarily lead consumers to pay more for symbolic brands.


The success of machine learning in a broad range of applications has led to an ever-growing demand for machine learning systems that can be used off the shelf by non-experts. To be effective in practice, such systems need to automatically choose a good algorithm and feature preprocessing steps for a new dataset at hand, and also set their respective hyperparameters. Recent work has started to tackle this automated machine learning (AutoML) problem with the help of efficient Bayesian optimization methods. Building on this, we introduce a robust new AutoML system based on scikit-learn (using 15 classifiers, 14 feature preprocessing methods, and 4 data preprocessing methods, giving rise to a structured hypothesis space with 110 hyperparameters). This system, which we dub AUTO-SKLEARN, improves on existing AutoML methods by automatically taking into account past performance on similar datasets, and by constructing ensembles from the models evaluated during the optimization. Our system won the first phase of the ongoing ChaLearn AutoML challenge, and our comprehensive analysis on over 100 diverse datasets shows that it substantially outperforms the previous state of the art in AutoML. We also demonstrate the performance gains due to each of our contributions and derive insights into the effectiveness of the individual components of AUTO-SKLEARN.


The inner regions of the most massive compact stellar objects might be occupied by a phase of quarks. Since the observations of the massive pulsars PSR J1614-2230 and of PSR J0348+0432 with about two solar masses, the equations of state constructing relativistic stellar models have to be constrained respecting these new limits. We discuss stable hybrid stars, i.e. compact objects with an outer layer composed of nuclear matter and with a core consisting of quark matter (QM). For the outer nuclear layer we utilize a density dependent nuclear equation of state and we use a chiral SU(3) Quark-Meson model with a vacuum energy pressure to describe the objects core. The appearance of a disconnected mass-radius branch emerging from the hybrid star branch implies the existence of a third family of compact stars, so called twin stars. Twin stars did not emerge as the transition pressure has to be relatively small with a large jump in energy density, which could not be satisfied within our approach. This is, among other reasons, due to the fact that the speed of sound in QM has to be relatively high, which can be accomplished by an increase of the repulsive coupling. This increase on the other hand yields too high transition pressures for twins stars to appear.


Degradation of natural rubber by Streptomyces spp using dilute solution viscosity measurement technique was studied. Natural rubber latex was dissolved in xylene and exposed to Streptomyces spp for 1, 2 and 3 weeks. The degradation by these species was monitored by measuring the intrinsic viscosity for the various time of exposure. In the absence of the degrading, the intrinsic viscosity for rubber solution is 0.58 g/dl, while when subjected to 1, 2 and 3 weeks exposure in organism (Streptomyces), the intrinsic viscosity for the rubber solution are 0.54 g/dl, 0.52 g/dl and 0.48 g/dl respectively. The result shows that the intrinsic viscosity decreased with an increase in time of exposure of rubber solution to the degradant. This is expected since longer time of exposure to the degradant will provoke chain scission and subsequent reduction in molecular weight which is a measure of the rate of degradant of the polymer.


Reorganizing European fiscal policy is a main topic in current reform considerations. In particular, the creation of a European stabilization mechanism is being discussed. This study examines the macroeconomic effects of a stabilization fund, the economic consequences of which are analyzed in an equilibrium model. The model shows that a stabilization fund reduces economic fluctuations and is thus a mechanism for making the entire currency area more crisis-proof in the future. However, it should be noted that a stabilization fund may be more politically feasible than shifting responsibility from the national level to a new European Ministry of Finance. Moreover, moral hazard in regards to the behavior of individual countries must be taken into account when designing the stabilization fund. For example, parallel to the introduction of a European stabilization fund, compliance with fiscal rules should be effectively enforced.


The authors study the Ge diffusion during HfO2 growth by molecular beam epitaxy on differently in situ prepared germanium substrates and at different growth temperatures. While HfO2 layers grown directly on Ge do not show any germanium contamination, oxygen rich interfacial layers such as GeOx or GeOxNy partly dissolve into the HfO2 layer, giving rise to high Ge contamination (from 1% to 10%). The use of nitridated interfacial layers does not prevent Ge diffusion into the HfO2 during the growth process because of the high oxygen content present in the nitridated germanium layer.


Background The aetiological diagnostic of fevers in Laos remains difficult due to limited laboratory diagnostic facilities. However, it has recently become apparent that both scrub and murine typhus are common causes of previous undiagnosed fever. Epidemiological data suggests that scrub typhus would be more common in rural areas and murine typhus in urban areas, but there is very little recent information on factors involved in scrub and murine typhus transmission, especially where they are sympatric - as is the case in Vientiane, the capital of the Lao PDR. Methodology and Principal Findings We therefore determined the frequency of IgG seropositivity against scrub typhus (Orientia tsutsugamushi) and murine typhus (Rickettsia typhi), as indices of prior exposure to these pathogens, in randomly selected adults in urban and peri-urban Vientiane City (n = 2,002, ≥35 years). Anti-scrub and murine typhus IgG were detected by ELISA assays using filter paper elutes. We validated the accuracy of ELISA of these elutes against ELISA using serum samples. The overall prevalence of scrub and murine typhus IgG antibodies was 20.3% and 20.6%, respectively. Scrub typhus seropositivity was significantly higher among adults living in the periphery (28.4%) than in the central zone (13.1%) of Vientiane. In contrast, seroprevalence of murine typhus IgG antibodies was significantly higher in the central zone (30.8%) as compared to the periphery (14.4%). In multivariate analysis, adults with a longer residence in Vientiane were at significant greater risk of past infection with murine typhus and at lower risk for scrub typhus. Those with no education, living on low incomes, living on plots of land with poor sanitary conditions, living in large households, and farmers were at higher risk of scrub typhus and those living in neighborhoods with high building density and close to markets were at greater risk for murine typhus and at lower risk of scrub typhus past infection. Conclusions This study underscores the intense circulation of both scrub and murine typhus in Vientiane city and underlines difference in spatial distribution and risk factors involved in the transmission of these diseases.


According to a recent European Union report, lighting represents a significant share of electricity costs and the goal of reducing lighting power consumption by 20% demands the coupling of light-emitting diode (LED) lights with smart sensors and communication networks. In this context, this paper proposes the integration of these three elements into a smart streetlight, incorporating a 24 GHz phased-array (Ph-A) front-end (FE). The main building blocks of this Ph-A FE integrated in a low cost 90 nm complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) technology are fully characterized. The selected FE's architecture allows the implementation of transceivers as well as Doppler radar sensors functionalities. More specifically, the Ph-A technology is applied to a Doppler radar sensor in order to realize multi-lane road scanning and pedestrian detection. That way, the smart streetlight can become eco-friendly by turning on the LEDs only when necessary as well as to measure traffic parameters such as vehicle speed, type and direction. Intercommunication between the smart streetlights is based on a time-sharing mechanism that uses the same FE reconfigured as transceiver. Thanks to this functionality, the recorded traffic information can be relayed through adjacent streetlights to a control center, and control commands and warnings can be spread through the network. The system requirements are derived assuming a simplified model of the operating scenario with a typical inter-light distance of 50 m and line-of-sight between lights. The radar range is around 60 m, which allows for continuous coverage from one streetlight to the adjacent one. Meanwhile, a communication range of 140 m is derived as a fundamental requirement for reliable communication between streetlight sensors because it allows bypassing of one node in case of failure. For the developed building blocks — a low-noise amplifier, a variable-gain amplifier, a voltage-controlled oscillator and a vector modulation phase shifter — the design methodology is presented together with measurement results. The system power, consumption, noise figure and gain are estimated by means of a system analysis based on the measured data from the implemented blocks and the state of the art performances for the missing parts. It is shown that the requirements can be fulfilled with a total power consumption of around 375 mW in Doppler radar sensor mode and around 190 mW in transceiver mode. To the authors' knowledge, this kind of integration is new and overcomes some limitations of the currently used solutions based on infrared sensors and low-throughput communications.


This research background by the hoisterous of entertainment amusement medium in Malang, among others is sport medium and entertainment amusement of billiard. The phenomenon
generate situation that named with market buyet, where service or goods which on the market exceed dai required by consumer. Besides, storey level emulation of service business also mount.
Mass promotion no longger be assumed effective in handling the problem, and Marketing Public Relations become one of the way to assist company face emulation. O2 Pool & Cafe is natural company enough emulation tighten to be added with problems of image. Researcher interest to conduct research concerning how Marketing Public Relations application in O2 Pool & Cafe Malang.
In science discipline, Public Relations and of Marketing is two different area. Practitioner of Marketing more orient at selling yielding profit, whereas PR more more see the function of him in preparing and propagating information and also for the agenda of carrying out communications. This difference is nowadays linked with applying of Marketng Public Relations ( MPR) which directly support company promotion or product and also isn't it image. Marketng Public Relations attend in business world as one of the gone through by way is the company so that/ to be remain to eksis in the middle of emulation.
In research concerning Marketing Public Relations application in O2 Pool & Cafe Malang, researcher use descriptive approach qualitative to obtain get the understanding of fact and situation that happened field. While method the used is case study where the research done to condition and background of department of Marketing Public Relations O2 Pool & Cafe Unlucky with a purpose to give complete picture regarding Marketing Opublic Relations applications in O2 Pool & Cafe Malang.
Research result at department of Marketing Public Reletions in O2 Pool & Cafe Malang indicate that role of more uppermost Public Relations in making decision of workplan for the agenda of supporting program of Marketing specially. This company MPR assume profit company of
diffraction in earning if company image can improve for repair. In face of emulation, this company maximize Marketing sinergi and of Public Relations in one department that is Marketing Public Relations. Program of MPR in O2 Pool & Cafe Malang which most uppermost is performed a turnament routinely each month. The Turnament pertained event special is one of the media of Public Relations. The Event considered to be by effective media in supporting the
target of company. The effectiveness shown with a few got benefits performed a the event, among others as medium isn't it image and also attainment of company target.


There are three versions of interference imaging of refractive index distribution in thin samples suggested in this contribution. These are based on imaging of interference field created by waves reflected from the front and the back sample surface or imaging of interference field of Michelson or Mach-Zehnder interferometer with the sample put in one of the interferometers arm. The work discusses the advantages and disadvantages of these techniques and presents the results of imaging of refrective index distribution in photorefractive record of a quasi-harmonic optical field in thin LiNbO3 crystal sample.


The modeling and understanding of the deep-water formation variability, especially in the North Atlantic sector, is of crucial importance for the common global ocean variability, in particular on interannual to decadal time-scales.
The local restriction of the deep water formation areas makes it necessary to follow new model approaches that are able to resolve these areas with a sufficient high resolution without ignoring the global context.
This study aims to validate the ability of the Finite-Element Sea-Ice Ocean Model (FESOM) to reproduce a reliable deep water formation in North Atlantic ocean and to analyse its variability on interannual to decadal time-scales. The FESOM approach works on unstructured triangular surface meshes, which allows us to faithfully resolve coastlines and local areas of interest.

The first part of the thesis presents the characteristics of a global FESOM setup designed to study the variability in the deep-water formation areas over five decades for the period 1958-2004. The setup features a regionally increased resolution in the deep water formation areas in the Labrador Sea, Greenland Sea, Weddell Sea and Ross Sea as well as in equatorial and coastal areas.
Further, this part of the thesis deals with the applied spinup procedure and the general validation of the FESOM model setup with respect to the performance of the sea-ice and ocean model component.
Based on the analysis of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC)
we demonstrate that the upper ocean is converged within the applied spinup procedure.
The sea ice model reproduces realistic sea-ice distributions and variabilities in the sea ice extent on both hemispheres as well as sea ice transport that compares well with observational data.
The general ocean circulation model is validated based on a comparison of the model results with Ocean Weather Ship data in the North Atlantic. We can prove that the vertical structure is well captured in areas with improved resolution.
Further, we are able to simulate the decadal ocean variability in the Nordic Sea Overflows as well as several salinity anomaly events and corresponding fingerprint in the vertical hydrography.

The second part of the thesis focuses on the validation of the model capability to reproduce a realistic deep-water formation in the Labrador Sea. Therefor, we examine
two classes of Labrador Sea water (LSW) which are analysed and compared to observed LSW layer thicknesses derived from profile data for the time interval 1988-2007.
We show, that the model setup reproduces in the temporal evolution of the potential density, temperature and salinity two different phase since the late 1980s. These two phases are well known in observational data and are characterized by a significantly different LSW formation. Whereas the first phase features a dominant increase in the layer thickness of the deep Labrador Sea water (dLSW), is the second phase characterized by a degeneration of dLSW.
To highlight the processes that are responsible for the variability in dLSW layer thickness we apply a Composite Map Analysis (CMA) between an index of dLSW and sea level pressure, as well as the thermal and haline contributions to the surface density flux. The composite maps reveal that a North Atlantic Oscillation like pattern is one of the main triggers for the variability of LSW formation in the model.
Our model results indicate that a massive dLSW formation can act as a low-pass filter to the atmospheric forcing, so that only persistent NAO events correlate with the dLSW index.
Additionally our results show that the central Labrador Sea in the model is dominated by the thermal contributions of the surface density flux, while the haline contributions are shielded from the central Labrador Sea by the branch of the Labrador Sea Boundary Current system.
In our model, this shielding allows only a minor haline interaction with the central Labrador Sea by lateral mixing.

Another aim of the thesis is to examine the general model variability on interannual to decadal time scales. Therefore we study the variability in a normal and random forced FESOM run.
By definition of a North Atlantic Deep Water (NADW) index for the normal and random forced FESOM run we could identify an interannual and quasi decadal variability of 7.1 yr and 14.2 yr, respectively.
It is found that the normal forced run is dominated by the quasi decadal variability and the random forced run by the interannual variability. The quasi decadal variability could be attributed to the atmospheric forcing, while the interannual variability could be linked to internal modes of the ocean.
We defined in analogy to the baroclinic mass transport index (BMT) a DGyre from the horizontal barotropic streamfunction.
The comparison of the observed BMT index and the modeled DGyre index reveals that the model is able to reproduce the variability of the index comparing to the observed one, although the model tends to overestimate the magnitude of the index.
To further isolate the horizontal but also the vertical variability in the model we apply a principal oscillation pattern (POP) analysis in a three dimensional context. We discovered two exceptional strong interannual modes whose variability could be attributed to a propagating Rossby wave structure.


he effects of stress can have a significant impact on an individual's personal life, relationship with colleagues, job satisfaction and career prospects. If unmanaged, stress can be the trigger that drives talented, motivated teachers out of our classrooms and into other professions. Yoga and meditation have been prescribed as a form of complementary alternative medicine for the treatment of stress, anxiety and depression. The current exploratory, mixed-methods case study aimed to determine if the participants in a five-week pranayama meditation (yoga breathing) course experienced a degree of stress relief. The course included one 60-minute weekly meditation class focusing on breath awareness. The Perceived Stress Scale was administered pre and post-course, weekly journal reflections were recorded, and a structured interview was completed at the conclusion of the course. Findings indicated that the participants experienced a decrease in their perceived level of stress. Participants reported benefits in both their professional and personal lives.


In the first version of ItSpace (2007), artist Peter Traub subverted the convention of the online social network by creating nine profile pages on the web site MySpace that featured everyday objects from his house. Each page had a photo of an object, a description, and, most importantly, a one-minute piece of music composed of recordings of the object being struck and resonated in various ways. The objects were "friends" with each other, and visitors to the site were invited to create new ItSpace pages to friend the existing ones. In the physical version of ItSpace, the original nine objects are brought partly back into the physical world through photographs affixed to backing boards. Each photo board has a push-button embedded in the featured object. When a visitor presses the button, it triggers a one- to two-minute remix of the object's sounds in real time. No two remixes are the same, and visitors may press multiple buttons and combine objects to create a collage. From an interface perspective, the interactive possibilities are limited by the push-button switches -- similar to how interaction and control on a site like Facebook or MySpace is limited within the tightly controlled confines of the commercial social network. In both the online and physical versions of ItSpace, Traub says, "I want visitors to learn something about me that could not fit into the limiting format of a personal profile. Instead, they encounter a collection of objects from where I live and listen to how I treat those objects musically and aesthetically. ItSpace traces connections, imagined and real, between me and these objects in my home, telling the viewer/listener about the space in which I live in a way that language cannot convey."


Stolen information technology (IT) is a domestic and global problem. Theft of IT by upstream producers has a pernicious effect on the competitive market and violates fundamental policies designed to protect those who create and invent such assets. Companies profiting from stolen IT are not just free-riding on the successes of those who design and produce the products and ideas that are a driving force in the U.S. economy – they are destabilizing rational pricing and distorting lawful competition by virtue of outright theft. Current legal recourse is insufficient to address such misconduct; new approaches are needed at the state and federal level. The Federal Trade Commission has, and should exercise, its authority to sanction IT theft. At the state level, legislation along the lines of the recently passed Washington statute holds out the promise of accountability for significant misconduct, fairness in pricing, a level and vibrant competitive playing field, and the hope for the production of better and more efficient goods and services.


In today's turbulent environment, competitive pressures and market unpredictability have dramatically lashed business profits. Agility is an essential ability for firms facing such an environment. However, coping with the hostile business environment requires not only the agility from individual firms but also the collaboration from their supply chain partners. Supply chain agility (SCA) therefore is vital to the competitiveness and performance of a firm and its supply chain partners. Exploring how to effectively enable SCA is significant for both practice and theory development. Recently, firms are increasingly relying on integrated information systems and analytical tools, such as business intelligent systems, and close collaboration with their supplier chain partners to enhance their responsiveness. This paper seeks to broaden the understanding about the enabling roles of IOS integration, analytical ability of inter-organizational information systems (IOS), and supply chain flexibility on SCA based on the dynamic capabilities view and real options theory. With a sample of 147 matched-pair data gathered from the top 2000 Taiwanese manufacturing firms, our results support the effect of IOS integration on supply chain flexibility, including offering and sourcing flexibilities, which in turn facilitate SCA. We also propose and show the moderating effect of analytical ability of IOS on the process of enabling SCA. These results contribute to a better understanding of how SCA may be achieved in theory and in practice. The model and findings of this study should be able to serve as a basis for future research for studying SCA.


Material heterogeneity at some scale is common in present engineering and structural materials as a means of strength improvement, weight reduction, and performance enhancement in a great many applications such as impact and blast protection, construction, and aerospace. While the benefits of transitioning toward composites in practical applications is obvious, the methods of measurement and optimization required to handle spatial heterogeneity and bridge length scale differences across multiple orders of magnitude are not. This is especially true as loading rates transition into the shock regime. Composite materials, such as concrete, have advantages afforded to them by their microstructure that allow them to dissipate and scatter impact energy. The mechanical mismatch between constituent phases in composites (mortar and cement paste in concrete, crystals and binder in polymer bonded explosives, ceramic powder and epoxy in potting materials, etc.) provides the interfaces required for shock wave reflection. The degree to which a shock is disrupted from its accepted form as a propagating discontinuity in stress and particle velocity is highly dependent upon the size, shape, and density of the interfaces present. The experimental and computer aided simulations in this thesis seek to establish a scaling relationship between composite microstructure and shock front disruption in terms of particulate size and density through the use of multi-point heterodyne velocity interferometry. A model particulate composite has been developed to mimic the wave reflection properties of materials such as Ultra High Performace Composite (UHPC) concrete and polymer bonded explosives, while also being simple to source and manufacture repeatably. Polymethyl Methacrylate (PMMA), a thermoplastic polymer, and silica glass spheres satisfy the manufacturing constraints with a shock impedance mismatch of 4.1, when placed in-between the shock impedance of UHPC concretes (~ 10) and polymer bondedexplosives (~ 2). The flexibility afforded by the model composite allows for the use of mono-disperse bead particle diameter distributions centered at 5 discrete diameters centered in the range associated with high scattering effectiveness (5-50 times the shock thickness in the pure matrix material). Shock front disruption is measured at multiple points on the rear surface of a plate impact target to observe shock spreading and spatial heterogeneity in material response due to random particle placement. Shock rise times are reported for composites of 30% and 40% glass spheres by volume, with glass spheres of 100, 300, 500, 700, and 1000 micron diameter. Composites with single mode as well as bi-modal bead diameter distributions are subjected to plate impact loading at an average pressure of 5 GPa. In single mode composites, a linear dependence of shock wave rise time on particle diameter is observed, with a constant of proportionality equal to the bulk shock speed in the material. Bi-modal bead diameter composites were fabricated in order to achieve higher volume fractions without composite degradation. The addition of a second phase to a base 30% glass by volume composite mix results in significant increases in shock wave rise time for base mixes of 500 micron beads, while a point of maximum scattering effectiveness is observed for base mixes
of 1000 micron diameter beads. A comprehensive two dimensional series of CTH hydrocode simulations has been completed in tandem with experiments. An evaluation of the discrepancies in simulation and experimental results is presented. Shock disruption mechanisms and matrix/interface damage effects are discussed as possible sources of error and potential avenues for model improvement. The scaling arguments and model deficiency corrections made in this thesis have the potential to drive the development of new approaches of modeling shock waves in heterogeneous materials as well as optimization of microstructure for maximum shock front disruption.


Shoaling of finite amplitude periodic waves over a sloping bottom is calculated in a numerical wave tank which combines: (i) a Boundary Element Model to solve Fully Nonlinear Potential Flow (FNPF) equations; (ii) an exact generation of zero-mass-flux Streamfunction Waves at the deeper water extremity; and (iii) an Absorbing Beach (AB) at the far end of the tank, which features both free surface absorption (through applying an external pressure) and lateral active absorption (using a piston-like condition). A feedback mechanism adaptively calibrates the beach absorption coefficient, as a function of time, to absorb the period-averaged energy of incident waves. Shoaling of periodic waves of various heights and periods is modeled over 1:35,1:50, and 1:70 slopes (both plane and natural), up to very close to the breaking point. Due to the low reflection from both the slope and the AB, a quasi-steady state is soon reached in the tank for which local and integral properties of shoaling waves are calculated (K" c, H/h, kH, rjm, Sxx,...). Comparisons are made with classical wave theories and observed differences are discussed. Parameters providing an almost one-to-one relationship with relative depth kh in the shoaling region are identified. These could be used to solve the so-called depth-inversion problem.


Neisseria meningitidis is a leading cause of invasive meningococcal disease and humans are the only known host. The administration of meningococcal vaccines has reduced the number of meningococcal cases and carriage rates in humans. Current vaccine strategies target important immunological determinants. Insertion sequence 1301 (IS1301) has been shown to facilitate evasion of the host immune response by disrupting antigen expression. The public health importance of this study is in the design of future vaccines against N. meningitidis and in understanding the emergence of new clones. In the 1990s there was an increase in serogroup C meningococcal disease in Maryland that was associated with antigenic shift at the fetA gene. The isolates were characterized as either an early clone or late clone based on the outer membrane protein sequence profiles. The 2:P1.5,2:F.1-30 sequence profile is classified as an early clone while the 2:P1.5,2:F.3-6 sequence profile is classified as a late clone. Previous studies determined that the late clone contained IS1301, while the early clone did not. The goal of this present study is to characterize the IS1301 insertion sites in the late clone to determine if this genetic element contributed to clonal emergence. Early and late clone isolates were characterized by DNA sequence analysis of the housekeeping gene, fumC. A single nucleotide polymorphism characteristic of the hypervirulent ET-15 clone was identified in the late clone isolates. Southern blot analysis using an IS1301 probe revealed a heterogeneous population with multiple insertion sites, ranging from five to ten insertions, within the serogroup C late clone genomes. Of note was a high molecular weight triplet banding pattern common to the majority of isolates. Several different IS1301 specific, PCR-based strategies were performed in an attempt to clone the IS1301 elements corresponding to the bands of the IS1301 triplet. In addition, whole genome sequence analysis was performed on one of the late clone isolates. Initial whole genome analysis demonstrates IS1301 integration within an opacity-associated protein (Opa), which promotes adherence to host cells. Further investigations are necessary to determine the effect of IS1301 insertion on antigenic variation.


This paper guides us about the impact of Exchange rate Pakistan rupee in terms of US Dollar and KSE 100 index. We take the data of period comprises from January 01, 2006 to December 31, 2012 excluding year 2013due to general elections of Pakistan, which held in May 2013 after which stock market took a boom. We applied different statistical tools to analyze the obtained data. We also analyze the causal relationship between both the time series. First of all we carry out normality test and found that both PKR- USD exchange rate and KSE 100 index are non-normally distributed. We conclude through unit root test that both series are stationary at the level form. Furthermore we found negative correlation in between KSE100 indices and USD-PKR exchange rate though very weak relationship exists. Furthermore we check for causal relationship between two time series through Granger Causal Test and found that bidirectional relationship exists between KSE 100 indices and Exchange Rate.


This discussion paper offers a preliminary exploration of the concept and phenomenon of "flex crops and commodities", building on an earlier and initial analysis and abbreviated idea put forward by some of the authors of this paper.

We discuss the dual concepts of the "multiple-ness" and "flexible-ness" of crops and commodities as two distinct but intertwined dimensions of some key crops and commodities.

These key crops and commodities are shaped by the changing global context that is itself (re)moulded in large part by the convergence of multiple crises and the various responses to those crises. Building on these dual concepts, we will identify and explain the minimum requirements for crop and commodity flexing.

We will also try to typologize the various types of crop and commodity flexing, namely, "real flexing", "anticipated/speculated flexing", and "imagined flexing"—to allow for a deeper examination of these interrelated processes.

The boundaries between these categories (multiple/flexible, real, anticipated and imagined) are not always clearly demarcated, requiring us to examine the issue of flex crops and commodities in a more interlinked manner.

We will focus our initial exploration on the political dynamics of such interactions and intersections, looking into the factors that encourage or discourage, facilitate or hinder maximization of the "multiple-ness" and/or "flexible-ness" of particular crops and commodities.

Finally, and as a way of closing, we will outline the implications of these dynamics for how we think of engaged research, public actions and policy advocacy, including a brief discussion of what we call "flex policy narratives" by governments and corporations.
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Malaysia does not have a national competition law. Competition is regulated at the sectoral level in the country. Two economic sectors have legal provisions for competition law but these have been relatively ineffectively enforced. The benefits of Malaysia's industrial policy as well as the policy reforms in regulation and trade have been compromised by the lack of a formal institution to address competition related issues. Hence, the future priority and direction of regulatory reform is obvious -- the country needs to implement a competition law and build the related institutions and capacities.


The steady laminar compressible boundary-layer swirling flow with variable gas properties and mass transfer through a conical nozzle, and a diffuser with a highly cooled wall has been studied. The partial differential equations governing the nonsimilar flow have been transformed to a system of coordinates using modified Lees transformation. The resulting equations are transformed into coordinates having finite ranges by means of a transformation which maps an infinite region into a finite region. The ensuing equations are then solved numerically using an implicit finite-difference scheme. The results indicate that the variation of the density-viscosity product across the boundary layer and mass transfer have strong effect on the skin friction and heat transfer. Separationless flow along the entire length of the diffuser can be obtained by applying suction. The results are found to be in good agreement with those of the local nonsimilarity method but they differ appreciably from those of the local similarity method.


Hypervisors' smooth operation and efficient performance has an immediate effect in the supported Cloud services. We investigate scheduling algorithms that match I/O requests originated from virtual resources, to the physical CPUs that do the actual processing. We envisage a new paradigm of virtualized resource consolidation, where I/O resources required by several Virtual Machines (VMs) in different physical hosts, are provided by one (or more) external powerful dedicated appliance(s), namely the I/O Hypervisor (IOH). For this reason I/O operations are transferred from the VMs to the IOH, where they are executed. We propose and evaluate a number of scheduling algorithms for this hypervisor model, concentrating on providing guaranteed fairness among the virtual resources. A simulator has been built that describes this model and is used for the implementation and the evaluation of the algorithms. We also analyze the performance of the different hypervisor models and highlight the importance of fair scheduling.


Gender is a contested category of analysis, generally understood to describe the characteristics and practices of its end products, men and women. Alternatively, this interdisciplinary study of changing masculinity in the Canadian Forces conceptualizes gender as characterizing the social worlds that people inhabit, worlds through which they are constructed and reconstructed as gendered beings, and which they negotiate, change or resist. The military has been selected as the investigative terrain because military technology--a social system comprising human and material resources--has been under-researched as a matrix of gender in the West. The conceptual framework for this study draws on linkages between gender constructs and warfare practices in various small-scale societies, and on comparisons between the organization and practice of warfare in pre-state versus archaic state societies. The result of this comparative framework is the problematization of certain structural features of the contemporary Forces, features which address one of it core preoccupations: engendering and sustaining bellicosity in its combatants, and obviating their resistance. These technologically rationalized features, shown to be historically anomalous, are designed to control how soldiers think about and carry out their deadly work. The study employs a triangulated methodology to gather data from interviews, written texts, and participant observation. Narrative analysis of this data affords a gendered mapping of military social practice and thought, culminating in the military gendering of human lives and deaths. Women, in their multiple feminine incarnations, are revealed for the threats which they pose to the Forces' 'operational effectiveness'--constructed as homogeneously masculine. Herein lie the ideological and practical reasons why 'gender integration' in the Forces--ordered in a 1989 Canadian Human Rights Tribunal ruling--may be an oxymoron, and why women more readily resist military authoritarianism than men.


This project spans three sub-collections. This case study in Windermere/Kensington in the Western Cape focuses on the coloured residents of the area and examines the socio-political environment and racial/gender discrimination with regards to alcohol under apartheid policies. Themes include: discriminatory laws, government policy, housing, racialised spaces and the smuggling of alcohol by residents and shebeens (a bar, predominately in the townships where alcohol is sold).


A comparatively rapid method is presented for determining theoretically the bending stresses of helicopter rotor blades in forward flight. The method is based on the analysis of the properties of a vibrating beam, and its uniqueness lies in the simple solution of the differential equation which governs the motion of the bent blades.


The Younger Dryas (YD) interval, from approximately 12.9 to 11.5 kyr cal BP, a rapid reversion to glacial climate conditions at the Pleistocene-Holocene transition, has generally been attributed to the release of meltwater from the Laurentide Ice Sheet to the North Atlantic or Arctic oceans. The reaction of the North Pacific region to this shutdown of the thermohaline circulation in the North Atlantic during Younger Dryas is, however, little understood. The YD cold interval is of great interest for understanding rapid natural climate change, especially with regard to recent global warming scenarios. Various archives such as glacier ice, tree rings, lacustrine and marine sediments provide evidence for strong climate variability during the Late Glacial-Holocene transition. In our study, we investigated a relict, buried ice-wedge system within the continuous permafrost zone near Barrow, northern Alaska (71°18N, 156°40W). The Barrow ice-wedge system is buried under about three meters of Late Glacial/early Holocene ice-rich sediments. The ice wedges are accessible through a shaft which extends into an underground excavation, where a detailed description and sampling with an electrical chain saw were carried out. Permafrost is not only susceptible to recent climate change, it also may store evidence of these changes in ground ice, especially in ice wedges. Ice wedges can be assessed by stable water isotope methods similar to glacier ice climate reconstructions. Ice wedges are assumed to be indicative of winter climate conditions, because the seasonality of thermal contraction cracking and of the infill of frost cracks are generally related to winter and spring, respectively. In this paper, we present a winter climate record from ice wedges in permafrost of northern Alaska, a region, where paleoclimate records extending beyond the Late Glacial-Holocene transition are generally rather sparse, often restricted to lake sediments and rely mostly on summer indicators such as pollen. This reconstruction is the first radiocarbon-dated centennial-scale stable water isotope record from permafrost at all. The Late Glacial winter climate reconstruction from Barrow ice wedges clearly demonstrates the existence of a Younger Dryas cold event, formerly believed to be reduced or absent in this area. Comparing the Barrow ice-wedge record to Greenland ice cores (such as N-GRIP), we observe similar and contemporaneous isotopic variations in the same order of magnitude, underpinning the climatic relevance of our ice wedge data. The Barrow ice-wedge stable isotope record additionally displays a gradual change of the atmospheric moisture source conditions during the Younger Dryas reflected in a shift of the d excess, potentially being associated with the successive opening of the Bering Strait.


Increasing demands for optical anticounterfeiting technology require the development of versatile luminescent materials with tunable photoluminescence properties. Herein, a number of fluorescent carbon‐ and oxygen‐doped hexagonal boron nitride (denoted as BCNO) phosphors are found to offer a such high‐tech anticounterfeiting solution. These multicolor BCNO powders, developed in a two‐step process with controlled annealing and oxidation, feature rod‐like particle shape, with varied luminescence properties. Studies of the optical properties of BCNO, along with other characterization, provide insight into this underexplored material. Anticounterfeiting applications are demonstrated with printed patterns which are indistinguishable to the naked eye under visible light but become highly discernible under UV irradiation. The fabricated patterns are demonstrated to be both chemically stable in corrosive environments and physically robust in mechanical bending testing. These properties render BCNO as promising and versatile anticounterfeiting material a wide variety of environments.


Background: The HEcoPerMed consortium developed a methodological guidance for the harmonization and improvement of economic evaluations in personalized medicine. Materials & methods: In three therapeutic areas, health economic models were developed to scrutinize the recommendations of the guidance. Results: Altogether, 20 of the 23 recommendations of the guidance were addressed by the models. Seven recommendations were applied in all studies, six in two of the studies and seven in one of the studies. Recommendations with an essential role on the final conclusions of the analyses were identified in each study. Conclusion: The guidance was found to be best used as a tool to identify and prioritize issues, verify solutions and justify decisions during the economic analysis of personalized interventions.


Withering is the first step in tea processing and has a significant impact on final product quality. During the tea green leaf withering and its preparation for the next stage of processing (curling), reduction in moisture content of the leaf is accompanied by occurrence of biochemical interactions that play an important role in product quality; its aroma in particular. Air flow rate and withering time are two important parameters that affect withered tea leaves. In the present study, impact of withering on the quality of black tea product was examined based on environmental conditions and green tea quality through sensory evaluation method. A laboratory scale trough was used for withering operation. Two factors of air flow rate and withering time duration were considered with three and five levels respectively. Results showed that the impact of the air flow rate on dry tea appearance, liquor color, taste, aroma, infused leaves and final product quality (black tea) is significant at the 1% level. The interaction between air flow rate and withering time was also significant on dry tea appearance, liquor color, infused leaves and final product quality at 1%, and aroma at 5% probability levels respectively.


The paper is a CDA investigation on discursive strategies employed by various British newspapers between 1996-2006 in the ways they represent refugees, asylum seekers and immigrants. The period covers several world events which have impacted such representation, creating a large number of articles on and/or about these groups. A combination of quantitative and qualitative down-sampling technique is then devised to restrict the number of articles to a sensitive sample which takes into account the newspapers' ideological stands; conservative/liberal, their types; quality/tabloid and the relevant world events. The paper discusses some of the salient issues in the ways these groups of people are represented in British newspapers during these 10 years and shows that despite differences — arising from differences in ideological viewpoints and their types — in some important ways all the newspapers contribute to construct refugees, asylum seekers and immigrants in similar ways.


We apply the recently developed technique of ultrafast scanning tunneling microscopy to study carrier dynamics in InAs/GaAs self-assembled quantum-dot samples. The results obtained with this new technique are compared with standard ensemble-averaging ultrafast optoelectronic techniques such as femtosecond optical pump/probe reflectivity measurements and time-resolved terahertz spectroscopy. These measurements reveal a unified picture of the relaxation dynamics in InAs/GaAs self-assembled quantum-dot samples at T=300 K. The initial carrier relaxation proceeds by Auger carrier capture from the InAs wetting layer on a time scale of 1–2 ps, followed by recombination of carriers in the wetting layer, GaAs substrate, and quantum dots on time scales of 350 ps, 2.3 ns, and 900 ps, respectively. The consistency of these three experimental techniques demonstrates ultrafast scanning tunneling microscopy as a reliable tool for probing the local dynamics of nanostructures.


This study describes the use of gas chromatography/mass spectrometry with selected ion monitoring to screen 18 anabolic steroids banned by the International Olympic Committee. These anabolic steroids are analyzed in two fractions depending on their excretion pattern: nonconjugated (free) or conjugated fraction. The wet procedure of extracting steroids from urine consists of an initial isolation of lipophilic compounds on a column packed with Amberlite XAD-2 resin, followed by enzymatic hydrolysis with beta-glucuronidase from Escherichia coli. After extraction, the hydrolyzed steroids are derivatized to the corresponding trimethylsilyl ethers. The derivatized steroids are analyzed by gas chromatography/mass spectrometry with selected ion monitoring of their characteristic ions. It takes 12 and 26 min to run GC/MS and edit the raw data for nonconjugated and conjugated fractions respectively.


We propose a new real-time load sharing policy (LSP), which optimally dispatches the incoming workload according to the current availability of the operators. Optimality means here that the global service permanently requires the engagement of a minimum number of operators while still respecting due dates. To cope with inherent randomness due to operator failures as well as non-stationary fluctuating incoming workload, any optimal LSP rule will necessarily rely on real-time updating mechanisms. Accordingly, a permanent monitoring of the traffic workload, of the queue contents and of other relevant dynamic state variables is often realized by a central workload dispatcher. In this contribution, we abandon such a "classical" approach and we propose a fully decentralized algorithm which fulfils the optimal load sharing process. The underlying decentralized decisions rely on a "smart tasks" paradigm in which each incoming task is endowed with an autonomous routing decision mechanism. Incoming jobs hence possess, in this paper, the status of autonomous agents endowed with "local intelligence". Stigmergic interactions between these agents cause the optimal LSP to emerge. We emphasize that beside a manifest strict relevance for applications, our class of models is analytically tractable, a rather uncommon feature when dealing with multi-agent dynamics and complex adaptive logistics systems.


A new centralized clustering protocol for periodic traffic wireless sensor networks is proposed in this paper. The proposed protocol uses one-step off-line cluster computation algorithm, where all the clustering schemes and their respective durations are calculated by the base station (BS) once at the network initialization. This provides the BS a global vision and enables it to reach better clustering schemes with adapted rounds' durations. It also eliminates costs proportional to periodic online re-clustering, using an energy prediction model. A new weight function is proposed to evaluate the chance of sensor-nodes to become CHs in a round. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed protocol considerably prolong the network lifetime and the packet delivery ratio as compared to the LEACH-C protocol. The enhancement exceeds the double for the network lifetime and is more than ten times for packet delivery ratio.


ABSTRACT The contemporary visibility and importance of English throughout the Asian region coupled with the emergence and development of distinct varieties of Asian Englishes have played an important part in the global story of English in recent years. Across Asia, the numbers of people having at least a functional command of the language have grown exponentially over the last four decades, and current changes in the sociolinguistic realities of the region are often so rapid that it is difficult for academic commentators to keep pace. One basic issue in the telling of this story is the question of what it is we mean by the term 'Asia', itself a word of contested etymology, whose geographical reference has ranged in application from the Middle East to Central Asia, and from the Indian sub-continent to Japan and Korea. In this article, my discussion will focus on the countries of South Asia, Southeast Asia, and East Asia, as it is in these regions that we find not only the greatest concentration of 'outer-circle' English-using societies but also a number of the most populous English-learning and English-knowing nations in the world.


This review is published jointly by The IET and the Parliamentary Group for Energy Studies. The aim of this review is to take a longer term perspective on UK energy policies since 1980, the year in which the Parliamentary Group for Energy Studies was founded.
The authors are leading energy policy analysts Professor Peter Pearson, Director of the Low Carbon Research Institute of Wales, Cardiff University, and Professor Jim Watson, Director of the Sussex Energy Group, University of Sussex.
The publication identifies key trends in the development of UK energy policies, and offers reflections on what has changed (and what has not) and what lessons might be learned.


Reservoirs are usually designed and operated for multiple purposes, which makes the multiple-objective issue important in reservoir operation. Based on multiple-objective dynamic programming (MODP), this study proposes an improved multiple-objective DP (IMODP) algorithm for reservoir operation optimization, which can be used to solve multiple-objective optimization models regardless whether the curvatures of trade-offs among objectives are concave or not. MODP retains all the Pareto-optimal solutions through backward induction, resulting in the exponential increase of computational burden with the length of study horizon. To improve the computational efficiency, this study incorporates the ranking technique into MODP and proposes an efficient IMODP algorithm. We demonstrate the effectiveness of IMODP through a hypothetical test and a real-world case. The hypothetical test includes three cases in which the trade-offs between objectives are concave, convex, and neither concave nor convex. The results show that IMODP satisfactorily captures the Pareto front for all three cases. The real-world test focuses on hydropower and analyzes the trade-offs between total energy and firm energy for Danjiangkou Reservoir. IMODP efficiently identifies the Pareto-optimal solutions and the trade-offs among objectives.


Matrix transposition is an important algorithmic building block for many numeric algorithms such as FFT. It has also been used to convert the storage layout of arrays. With more and more algebra libraries offloaded to GPUs, a high performance in-place transposition becomes necessary. Intuitively, in-place transposition should be a good fit for GPU architectures due to limited available on-board memory capacity and high throughput. However, direct application of CPU in-place transposition algorithms lacks the amount of parallelism and locality required by GPUs to achieve good performance. In this paper we present the first known in-place matrix transposition approach for the GPUs. Our implementation is based on a novel 3-stage transposition algorithm where each stage is performed using an elementary tiled-wise transposition. Additionally, when transposition is done as part of the memory transfer between GPU and host, our staged approach allows hiding transposition overhead by overlap with PCIe transfer. We show that the 3-stage algorithm allows larger tiles and achieves 3X speedup over a traditional 4-stage algorithm, with both algorithms based on our high-performance elementary transpositions on the GPU. We also show our proposed low-level optimizations improve the sustained throughput to more than 20 GB/s. Finally, we propose an asynchronous execution scheme that allows CPU threads to delegate in-place matrix transposition to GPU, achieving a throughput of more than 3.4 GB/s (including data transfers costs), and improving current multithreaded implementations of in-place transposition on CPU.


Understanding the optical properties of onion tissues is essential to applying optical methods for onion quality inspection. This study estimated the optical properties of dry skin, wet skin, and flesh of red, Vidalia sweet, white, and yellow onions at the wavelength of 633 nm. The total diffuse reflectance, total transmittance, and collimated transmittance of single-layer onion tissues were measured by spectroscopic systems. Based on the measured data, the absorption coefficient ua and reduced scattering coefficient us' of onion tissues were calculated using the inverse adding-doubling method. The results indicated that the dry and wet skins had significantly higher ua and us' than the flesh at 633 nm. For both skins and flesh, the ua varied between cultivars, while the differences of the us' between cultivars were less profound. All types of onion tissues were high-albedo materials at 633 nm. Using the calculated optical properties, Monte Carlo simulations were performed to model the light propagation in 25 different scenarios of multi-layer onion tissues for four cultivars, respectively. The results showed that the incident light at 633 nm would lose 99% of its energy within 6 layers in any of the simulated scenarios, and the light penetrated more layers in the sweet onions than in the other three cultivars. This work provided fundamental understanding of the optical properties of onion tissues and the light propagation in onion bulbs at 633 nm. The investigation of the onion optical properties will be extended to a broader spectrum in the future.


The Toll-like receptors 2 and 4 (TLR2 and TLR4) function in detection of bacterial infection, responding to lipopolysaccharide (LPS) from Gram-negative bacteria or peptidoglycan (PGN) from Gram-positive bacteria, respectively. Although the two receptors generate similar signaling outputs, evidence is accumulating that responses to the two are notably distinct. In fact, Carl et al. show that even when using the same signaling elements, the TLR2 and TLR4 signals act distinctly to control expression of a single gene target. The authors monitored activation of the gene encoding the secretory interleukin-1 receptor antagonist, sIL-1Ra. Although activation of either TLR2 or TLR4 activated expression of sIL-1Ra mRNA, the two signals acted synergistically. In both cases, promoter deletion analysis showed that the transcription factor PU.1 was required for a full response, and pharmacological inhibition of the p38 stress-activated protein kinase showed that the kinase was also required for full transcriptional activation. Nevertheless, these common elements had distinct roles depending on whether cultured murine macrophages were treated with LPS or PGN. The promoter regions required for the responses to TLR2 or TLR4 were different and even the p38-dependent response mapped to distinct regions of the promoter, with the response to TLR2-activated p38 requiring PU.1, whereas the p38-mediated signal from TLR4 did not. The authors conclude that TLR2 and TL4 must activate different DNA binding proteins (to account for the distinct promoter regions required) and that, even when using very similar pathways (through p38 and PU.1), signals from the two receptors result in distinct gene regulatory responses. V. S. Carl, K. Brown-Steinke, M. J. H. Nicklin, M. F. Smith Jr., Toll-like receptor 2 and 4 (TLR2 and TLR4) agonists differentially regulate secretory interleukin-1 receptor antagonist gene expression in macrophages. J. Biol.Chem. 277, 17448-17456 (2002). [Abstract] [Full Text]


BACKGROUND
Therapeutic hypothermia reduces mortality and neurological injury for neonates with hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy (HIE). The aim of this meta-analysis is to evaluate use of servo-controlled devices during transport to the referral hospital.

METHODS
PubMed and Medline (Ovid) searches were used to identify studies comparing HIE patients' temperatures on arrival at the referral hospital for those cooled with servo-controlled devices versus no device during. Random effects models were used to conduct a meta-analysis comparing the two groups' proportion of patients arriving in the target temperature range as well as the mean and variability in body temperature on arrival. Studies' level of evidence and risk of bias were also assessed.

RESULTS
Eight published studies with total of 573 patients met the inclusion criteria, with a "B" grade of recommendation overall. A significantly higher proportion of infants cooled with a servo-controlled device arrived in the target temperature range (pooled relative risk = 2.47, 95% confidence interval: 1.46-4.17, p < 0.001). The arrival temperature in the device cooled group was on average 0.82°C lower (95% CI: 0.29-1.35°C, p = 0.002) with an 82% lower temperature variance.

CONCLUSIONS
Although the predominance of observational studies and presence of some risks of bias somewhat limits the strength of recommendation, the existing research consistently indicates that using a servo-controlled device during transport of neonates with HIE increases the probability of arriving at the referral hospital in the target temperature range, with a lower body temperature and less variability. Future research is needed to investigate differences in mortality and neurological impairment.


The mechanisms of cell death by hyperthermia were investigated in the spontaneous
 mammary tumors of the Strong A strain of mice. Circulating hot-water in a latex bag was
 used to apply a local heat dose of 46uC for 1 hour to the tumors in anaesthetized mice.
 The tumors were surgically removed from the mice under anesthesia at various times after
 heat treatment and studied by electron microscopy. Cytoplasmic swelling and condensation
 of nuclear chromatin occurred 5 minutes after heat treatment. Degenerative changes then
 became progressively more pronounced at 24, 48, and 72 hours after heat treatment. This
 included disorganization of the cytoplasm and loss of organelles, a marked increase in the
 number and size of lysosomes, the disruption of plasma membranes, the loss of nuclear
 membranes, nucleoli, and the fragmentation of condensed chromatin. There was also
 infiltration by granulocytes, and bundles of collagen fibrils into the tumor tissue. The
 mouse mammary tumor virus particles in the heated tumor cells were deformed and turned
 into amorphous masses. Our findings suggest that heat induced degenerative changes in the
 spontaneous mouse mammary tumors occurs through a combination of mechanisms including
 mitochondrial damage, rupture of cell membranes, damage to nuclei, and a marked increase
 in lysosomal activity, the latter playing the primary role in the hyperthermic killing of
 malignant cells.


RNA-binding motif protein 5 (RBM5), also known as LUCA-15/H37, is a gene that maps to human chromosome 3p21.3, a critical region that is deleted in a large number of human cancers, of which the majority are lung cancers, and that is predicted to contain one or more tumor suppressor genes (TSGs). RBM5 is a tumor suppressor gene and is most frequently deleted at the earliest stage of lung cancer development. It represents a significant area of recent progress in cancer genomic, cytogenetic, and molecular biological research because of its role in the induction of cell cycle arrest and apoptosis and the regulation of inhibition of in lung cancer metastasis. RBM5 is involved in the suppression of epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) expression, thus preventing proliferation, angiogenesis, invasion, and metastasis of lung cancer. In this way it exhibits its tumor suppressive capacity during lung cancer progression. Exploration of RBM5's potential importance in inhibiting tumor metastasis includes downstream players in the RBM5-mediated metastasis suppressor pathway(s). This review highlights the differential expression of the RBM5 tumor suppressor gene which impacts cell proliferation and apoptosis control during lung cancer progression. Regulating RBM5 expression may be a novel therapeutic target for lung cancer.


The amphibian Amietophrynus regularis is distributed throughout equatorial Africa, with presumed introduced populations in the Cape Verde archipelago. Portions of the 12S and 16S rRNA mitochondrial regions of 30 specimens from Kenya, Uganda, Niger, Mali, Burkina-Faso, Ghana, Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde were used to assess genetic diversity and to identify the most probable geographic origin for the introduction of this toad on the latter archipelago. Two lineages with 1.4% genetic divergence between them were identified in western and eastern Africa. All sequences from the different Cape Verde Islands were identical to each other and to the Guinea-Bissau samples, indicating, together with other historical evidences, that an anthropogenic introduction event probably occurred, possibly from Guinea-Bissau, but further work is needed to confirm this. As previously noted, several individuals from previous genetic studies seem to have been misidentified.


DNA extraction is a method which enables scientists to acquire samples of DNA from different sources. This experiment examined a few of these DNA extraction methods and their efficiency. Each method was conducted in the laboratory to test the procedure. Some procedures worked, while others did not. The extraction methods that did not work were then manipulated and tried again. The protocols that worked were then analyzed with a spectrophotometer to obtain the concentration of DNA within each sample. This also detected whether RNA, or other cellular proteins, were in the extracted material. This data was used to determine how well the method isolates pure DNA.


AIMS
To assess the maternal and fetal acceptability of buprenorphine and neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS) in children born to buprenorphine-maintained mothers.

DESIGN AND SETTING
Open-label, flexible dosing, inpatient induction with outpatient maintenance, conducted at the University of Vienna within the existing pregnancy and drug addiction program.

PARTICIPANTS
Fifteen opioid-dependent pregnant women.

INTERVENTION
Sublingual buprenorphine tablets (1-10 mg/day).

MEASUREMENTS
Mothers: withdrawal symptoms (Wang Scale), nicotine dependence (Fagerström Scale: FTQ) and urinalysis. Neonates: birth outcome and NAS (Finnegan Scale).

FINDINGS
All subjects were opioid-, nicotine- and cannabis-dependent. Buprenorphine was well tolerated during induction (Wang Score < or = 4) and illicit opioid use was negligible (91% opioid-negative). All maternal, fetal and neonatal safety laboratory measures were within normal limits or not of clinical significance. Mean birth outcome measures including gestational age at delivery (39.6 +/- 1.5 weeks), Apgar scores (1 min = 8.9; 5 min = 9.9; and 10 min = 10), birth weight (3049 +/- 346 g), length (49.8 +/- 1.9 cm) and head circumference (34.1 +/- 1.8 cm) were within normal limits. The NAS was absent, mild (without treatment) and moderate (with treatment) in eight, four and three neonates, respectively. The mean duration of NAS was 1.1 days.

CONCLUSIONS
Buprenorphine appears to be well accepted by mother and fetus, and associated with a low incidence of NAS. Further investigation of buprenorphine as a maintenance agent for opioid-dependent pregnant women is needed.


With the commissioning of the second MAGIC gamma-ray Cherenkov telescope situated close to MAGIC-I, the standard analysis package of the MAGIC collaboration, MARS, has been upgraded in order to perform the stereoscopic reconstruction of the detected atmospheric showers. MARS is a ROOT-based code written in C++, which includes all the necessary algorithms to transform the raw data recorded by the telescopes into information about the physics parameters of the observed targets. An overview of the methods for extracting the basic shower parameters is presented, together with a description of the tools used in the background discrimination and in the estimation of the gamma-ray source spectra.


In the modern customer centric competitive arena, satisfaction, quality and loyalty prove to be key factors reciprocally interrelated in a causal, cyclical relationship. The higher the (perceived) service quality, the more satisfied and loyal are the customers. In particular, financial institutions (i.e. banks) realised the strategic importance of customer value and seem to be continuously seeking innovative ways to enhance customer relationships. In fact, as the offers of many financial services are very similar and slightly differentiable, loyal customers have a huge value, since they are likely to spend and buy more, spread positive word-ofmouth, resist competitors' offers, wait for a product to become available and recommend the service provider to other potential customers. This paper focuses on those dimensions that were reported in the marketing literature. The major contribution of this paper lies in the simultaneous consideration of the perceptions of both financial service providers and their clients to construct a model for the management of long term marketing relationships, in which social bonds play a very important role, especially in the area considered. Firstly, the paper will try to investigate which dimensions are important in customer relationship with the banks. Then, the paper tries to study the effect of social network in establishing long lasting relationships, that will minimise the customers' switching costs, according to the perceptions of both relationship bankers and their clients.


Compound 1 [Cu24(m-BDC)24(DMF)20(H2O)4]·24DMF·40H2O (m-BDC is 1,3-benzenedicarboxylate and DMF is N,N-dimethylformamide) has been synthesized and structurally characterized by X-ray diffraction. It consists of Cu24 clusters arranged in such a way that 12 dimers are connected through m-BDC ligands. The clusters exhibit an internal cavity where crystallization molecules of DMF and water are located. Additionally, there are guest DMF and water molecules in the voids generated by the 3D packing of the Cu24 clusters. The thermal stability of compound 1 has also been characterized, concluding that hydrogen bonds between solvent molecules are responsible for the robustness of the network. Compound 1 is similar to seven other compounds found in the literature. This work is focused on the crystallochemical comparison of these compounds, which concludes that there are two mother structures related to the hexagonal and cubic close packing of polyhedra. Derivative compounds are produced in the presence of different solvent molecules (differences affecting both the nature and the number of the guest molecules).


The Coase theorem is most often formulated in terms of bi-lateral monopoly, for instance between a polluting factory and an affected neighbour.  Instead, we introduce multiple affected neighbours and the concept of anticommons, in which autonomous actors with separate yet necessarily complementary inputs each has the right to deny but not to permit use.  Once we posit multiple owners possessing complementary rights, strategically maximizing against each other as well as against the actor who wishes to purchase a portion of that right, the outcome is neither efficient nor invariant.  Our finding, based on non-cooperative game theory, is sustained even under the restrictive Coase assumptions regarding complete information, perfect rationality, and zero transaction costs. The implication is that suboptimal bundling agreements in cases of multiple stakeholders is not the mere product of market imperfection, but instead is a systematic result.


Our objective was to profile genetic pathways whose differential expression correlates with maturation of visual function in zebrafish. Bioinformatic analysis of transcriptomic data revealed Jak-Stat signalling as the pathway most enriched in the eye, as visual function develops. Real-time PCR, western blotting, immunohistochemistry and in situ hybridization data confirm that multiple Jak-Stat pathway genes are up-regulated in the zebrafish eye between 3–5 days post-fertilisation, times associated with significant maturation of vision. One of the most up-regulated Jak-Stat genes is the proto-oncogene Pim1 kinase, previously associated with haematological malignancies and cancer. Loss of function experiments using Pim1 morpholinos or Pim1 inhibitors result in significant diminishment of visual behaviour and function. In summary, we have identified that enhanced expression of Jak-Stat pathway genes correlates with maturation of visual function and that the Pim1 oncogene is required for normal visual function.