Smithsonian Contributions to Zoology, No. 645,  Types of Ampullariidae (Mollusca: Gastropoda) in the National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, with Lectotype Designations . — The caenogastropod family Ampullariidae Gray, 1824, is a family of freshwater snails predominantly distributed in humid tropical and subtropical habitats in Africa, South and Central America, and Asia. The family includes the largest of all freshwater snails and frequently constitutes a major portion of the native freshwater malacofauna of these regions. Ampullariid taxonomy is confused primarily because most species were described on the basis of only shell morphology, which is highly variable within species yet relatively conservative among species within the family. The need for rigorous taxonomic treatment of the group is acute, and a starting point for such research is a comprehensive study of type material. With type or possible type material of 20 nominal species-group taxa of Ampullariidae, belonging to the genera Afropomus Pilsbry and Bequaert, 1927 (1 taxon, from Africa), Felipponea Dall, 1919 (2, South America), Forbesopomus Bequaert and Clench, 1937 (1, Asia), Lanistes Montfort, 1810 (2, Africa), Pila Roding, 1798 (2, Asia), and Pomacea Perry, 1810 (11, South, Central, and North America), as well as 1 incertae sedis taxon in Pila or Pomacea , the U.S. National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, has significant holdings, for which this annotated catalogue is provided. To stabilize the nomenclature, lectotypes are designated for eight species-group taxa. No new synonyms are proposed, other than as a result of the provision of a replacement name for elongata Dall, 1921, non d'Orbigny, 1842, nec Rochebrune and Germain, 1904. Accounts are arranged alphabetically by original published species-group name. Information in each account includes original name and combination, citation to the original description, current taxonomic status, type material held by the U.S. National Museum (holotypes, paratypes, syntypes, lectotypes, paralectotypes, and one neotype) with catalogue number(s) and number of specimens in each catalogue lot, type locality, and other remarks or additional information as appropriate. All name-bearing types are illustrated. — Cowie, Robert H., Kenneth A. Hayes, and Ellen E. Strong. iv + 13 pages, 1 figure. Published 25 September 2015.


In a retrospective study the tolerance to Teflon coated catheters in long-term intravenous medication was evaluated in 80 horses. Catheters were inserted into the jugular vein and remained there for 3 to 30 days (average 8.6 days). Catheters were flushed using an heparinized solution after each medication administration. The site of catheter placement was evaluated daily for swelling, pain and venous distensibility respectively. Swelling at the site of insertion was noted in 10 horses, a small subcutaneous abscess formation was identified in one horse. Fourteen sonographic evaluations were performed on 10 horses, demonstrating perivascular changes in four. Thrombus formation did not occur. In all horses the catheter could be identified floating freely within the vascular lumen. Catheter failure occurred in nearly a third of all cases either as a result of mechanical failure or of pull-out by the horse. After removal of the catheter no adverse side effects attributable to the mode of medication were noted in any of the horses. In conclusion, intravenous medication using Teflon-coated catheters is a suitable alternative to other modes of administration.


The theory and practice of marketing has encountered some fundamental changes in the past and will continue to do so in the future. In the last two decades organisations have increasingly been focussing on how to relate to their markets. One response to this complexity of the marketing environment has been Relationship Marketing (RM). While the benefits of long-term and trusting relationships with consumers have generally been accepted, many organisations struggle to establish and/or maintain relationships with their consumers. One of the reasons for this is that the implications of the consumers' perspective with regards to their relationships with organisations have not been investigated and are missing from the current literature. In
acknowledgement, this research explored consumers' perspectives and experiences of their relationships with organisations, in particular, with reference to financial and travel and tourism organisations. The study employed an interpretive approach to research using qualitative
methods to identify the key dimensions involved in interactions with organisations from a consumer's perspective. Discussion groups and in-depth interviews were carried out with members of staff of educational institutions and clubs and societies of Bournemouth.
Key findings showed that the word 'relationship' caused confusion in meaning with respect to organisations due to the personal connotations that consumers associate with the word. Consumers distinguish between relationships at an
emotional level (relational) and at a behavioural level (transactional). The latter was perceived to occur in relationships with organisations as opposed to the
more emotional level taking place in personal relationships. In addition, a relationship moves through different phases (relationship flower) which are
interlinked and involves key dimensions like trust (emotional and logical). Consumers' needs and requirements change throughout life resulting in adjustments of their relationships. The focus on the two different industry
sectors (financial and travel/tourism) aided to outline the two different levels of relationships (emotional and behavioural/transactional) even further and enabled a relationship matrix to be developed highlighting the degree of relational involvement and the degree of risk involved in the different type of relationships. To conclude, this research suggests that due to the confusion concerning the
word 'relationship' organisations need to incorporate key dimensions of a relationship in to their management strategies. In particular, focus should be on newly established or less mature relationships because consumers expect less personal contact in more mature relationships. In fact, an understanding of the changing lifestyle needs and requirements a consumer has will give organisations the opportunity to amend their relationship strategies
accordingly. This will then allow their consumers to choose the type of relationship (relational or transactional) they wish to have. In order to help organisations this research offers a relationship model (flower) which feeds into the after sales/purchase stage of the consumer decision-making process (CDP) by highlighting the different phases of a relationship lifetime indicating the key elements that are involved in each phase. Further research may be carried out in how organisations have responded to the increased uncertainty with regards to their relationship strategies and compare it to consumer perceptions of how the economic crisis has affected their relationships with organisations.


The countries included in this analysis are the four countries which border the Sea of Japan (referred to in this document as "the Sea")?the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK or North Korea), Japan, the Republic of Korea (ROK or South Korea), and the Russian Federation, as well as China by virtue of the Tumen River whose watershed encompasses Chinese territory and which may provide China access to the Sea.


The integration of excitatory inputs in dendrites is non-linear: multiple excitatory inputs can produce a local depolarization departing from the arithmetic sum of each input's response taken separately. If this depolarization is bigger than the arithmetic sum, the dendrite is spiking; if the depolarization is smaller, the dendrite is saturating. Decomposing a dendritic tree into independent dendritic spiking units greatly extends its computational capacity, as the neuron then maps onto a two layer neural network, enabling it to compute linearly non-separable Boolean functions (lnBFs). How can these lnBFs be implemented by dendritic architectures in practise? And can saturating dendrites equally expand computational capacity? To address these questions we use a binary neuron model and Boolean algebra. First, we confirm that spiking dendrites enable a neuron to compute lnBFs using an architecture based on the disjunctive normal form (DNF). Second, we prove that saturating dendrites as well as spiking dendrites enable a neuron to compute lnBFs using an architecture based on the conjunctive normal form (CNF). Contrary to a DNF-based architecture, in a CNF-based architecture, dendritic unit tunings do not imply the neuron tuning, as has been observed experimentally. Third, we show that one cannot use a DNF-based architecture with saturating dendrites. Consequently, we show that an important family of lnBFs implemented with a CNF-architecture can require an exponential number of saturating dendritic units, whereas the same family implemented with either a DNF-architecture or a CNF-architecture always require a linear number of spiking dendritic units. This minimization could explain why a neuron spends energetic resources to make its dendrites spike.


Timed automata are finite automata accompanied by a finite set of real-valued variables called clocks. Optimisation problems on timed automata are fundamental to the verification of properties of real-time systems modelled as timed automata, while the control-program synthesis problem of such systems can be modelled as a two-player game. This thesis presents a study of optimisation problems and two-player games on timed automata under a general heading of competitive optimisation on timed automata.
This thesis views competitive optimisation on timed automata as a multi-stage decision process, where one or two players are confronted with the problem of choosing a sequence of timed moves—a time delay and an action—in order to optimise their objectives. A solution of such problems consists of the "optimal" value of the objective and an "optimal" strategy for each player. This thesis introduces a novel class of strategies, called boundary strategies, that suggest to a player a symbolic timed move of the form (b, c, a)— "wait until the value of the clock c is in very close proximity of the integer b, and then execute a transition labelled with the action a". A distinctive feature of the competitive optimisation problems discussed in this thesis is the existence of optimal boundary strategies. Surprisingly perhaps, many competitive optimisation problems on timed automata of practical interest admit optimal boundary strategies. For example, optimisation problems with reachability price, discounted price, and average-price objectives, and two-player turn-based games with reachability time and average time objectives.
The existence of optimal boundary strategies allows one to work with a novel abstraction of timed automata, called a boundary region graph, where players can use only boundary strategies. An interesting property of a boundary region graph is that, for every state, the set of reachable states is finite. Hence, the existence of optimal boundary strategies permits us to reduce competitive optimisation problem on a timed automaton to the corresponding competitive optimisation problem on a finite graph.


Race, sex, disease. Modes of representing black women in the context of the AIDS epidemic in the United StatesIn this article I try to outline the ways of representing black women in the context of the AIDS epidemic in the United States. The point of departure for prospecting for such images is the development of the feminist thought and women cinema practices, described by E. Ann Kaplan and Alexandra Juhasz, which diverge from a unified category of women towards a multicultural aspect of femininity. In the face of rendering HIV/AIDS dominantly from a white male perspective in the most popular motion pictures about the disease, I begin with Georges Didi-Huberman assumption, according to which, under a layer of popular images of disasters, there are always different depictions yet to be discovered. Referring to the concept of minoritarian strategies, formulated by Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, I attempt to make a formal and stylistic analysis of four films, two documentaries and two features. Simultaneously I try to demonstrate that actions taken by women involved in different levels of film production cross the traditional opposition between the mainstream and independent cinemas. The films analyzed in this article are: Sandra's Web: A Mother's Diary 1996, dir. Beverly Peterson, Wilhemina's War 2015, dir. June Cross, Life Support 2007, dir. Nelson George, and Precious 2009, dir. Lee Daniels.


In Central Europe, water frog species coexist in assemblages consisting of Pelophylax lessonae, P. ridibundus and their hybridogenetic hybrid, P. esculentus. Population compositions are poorly understood, partly because of difficulties in distinguishing hybrids from parentals by means of morphology alone. Environmental change and human-mediated, cryptic introductions of non-native water frog species have modified local assemblages. In this contribution we examined the structure of nine water frog populations inhabiting mostly large fish ponds in the Upper Vistula river valley of southern Poland using morphology and PCR-based genotyping of single loci in the nuclear and mitochondrial genomes. We found four different water frog population compositions: two with only P. ridibundus, one composed of P. lessonae and P. esculentus, three with P. ridibundus and P. esculentus, and three containing all three water frog taxa. Historical data show that the area was previously inhabited by lessonae-esculentus populations. We propose that both ecological and genetic replacement by expanding P. ridibundus may have contributed to the decline of the former. Overall, 18% of P. ridibundus frogs contained introgressed P. lessonae mtDNA, however, the frequency of introgressants was most pronounced in populations with a high proportion of P. esculentus. Exotic water frogs were not detected in the study area. Our results bear significance for water frog population dynamics and conservation in Central Europe and highlight the importance of long-term monitoring for the detection of changes in population composition in these amphibians.


[1] Meltwater input often triggers a seismic response from glaciers and ice sheets. It is difficult, however, to measure melt production on glaciers directly, while subglacial water storage is not directly observable. Therefore, we document temporal changes in seismicity from a dry-based polar glacier (Taylor Glacier, Antarctica) during a melt season using a synthesis of seismic observation and melt modeling. We record icequakes using a dense six-receiver network of three-component geophones and compare this with melt input generated from a calibrated surface energy balance model. In the absence of modeled surface melt, we find that seismicity is well-described by a diurnal signal composed of microseismic events in lake and glacial ice. During melt events, the diurnal signal is suppressed and seismicity is instead characterized by large glacial icequakes. We perform network-based correlation and clustering analyses of seismic record sections and determine that 18% of melt-season icequakes are repetitive (multiplets). The epicentral locations for these multiplets suggest that they are triggered by meltwater produced near a brine seep known as Blood Falls. Our observations of the correspondingp-wave first motions are consistent with volumetric source mechanisms. We suggest that surface melt enables a persistent pathway through this cold ice to an englacial fracture system that is responsible for brine release episodes from the Blood Falls seep. The scalar moments for these events suggest that the volumetric increase at the source region can be explained by melt input.


— Pipa is one of the most important Chinese traditional plucked instruments, but its directivity has never been measured systematically. In western, directivity of loudness for western instruments is deeply researched through analysis of sound pressure level, whereas the directivity of timbre is seldom studied. In this paper, a new method for directivity of timbre was proposed, and horizontal directivity patterns of loudness and timbre of Pipa were measured. Directivity of Pipa radiation was measured in an anechoic room. The sound of Pipa played by a musician was recorded simultaneously by 32 microphones with Pipa in the center. The measuring results were examined through listening test. According to the measurement of Pipa directivity radiation, we put forward the best localization of Pipa in the Chinese traditional orchestra and the optimal recording region.


A major concern in plant morphogenesis is whether cortical microtubules are responsible for the arrangement and action of beta-glucan synthases in the plasma membrane. We prepared isolated plasma membrane sheets with cortical microtubules attached and tested whether beta-glucan synthases penetrated through the membrane to form microfibrils and whether these synthases moved in the fluid membrane along the cortical microtubules. This technique enabled us to examine synthesis of beta-glucan as a fiber with a two-dimensional structure. The synthesis of beta-glucan microfibrils was directed in arrays by cortical microtubules at many loci on the membrane sheets. The microfibrils were mainly arranged along the microtubules, but the distribution of microfibrils was not always parallel to that of the microtubules. The rate of beta-glucan elongation as determined directly on the exoplasmic surface was 620 nm per min. When the assembly of microtubules was disrupted by treatment with propyzamide, the beta-glucans were not deposited in arrays but in masses. This finding shows that the arrayed cortical microtubules are not required for beta-glucan synthesis but are required for the formation of arranged microfibrils on the membrane sheet.


The increasing rate of the smart technology implementations in the energy sector brings new control solutions for distributed renewable energy sources (DRES) to tackle the additional challenges on the distribution network that arise from increased integration of renewable energy sources (RES). With these new control solutions, a possibility of new services that could be offered on electricity and ancillary markets emerged, providing a possibility of new source of income for DRES, Demand Response (DR) and Aggregators. This paper presents the main results of the EU FP7 project INCREASE, where innovative controls for DRES and DR units were developed and investigated. The main novelty of the paper is a sensitivity analysis of INCREASE ancillary services and business model applied to representative European grid for overall policy conclusions. The knowledge gained in INCREASE provides the basis for the work in H2020 project STORY, where the demand response strategies will be augmented to encompass small-scale storage solutions.


Numerous measurement researches have been performed to discover the IPv4 network security issues by leveraging the fast Internet-wide scanning techniques. However, IPv6 brings the 128-bit address space and renders brute-force network scanning impractical. Although significant efforts have been dedicated to enumerating active IPv6 hosts, limited by technique efficiency and probing accuracy, large-scale empirical measurement studies under the increasing IPv6 networks are infeasible now. To fill this research gap, by leveraging the extensively adopted IPv6 address allocation strategy, we propose a novel IPv6 network periphery discovery approach. Specifically, XMap, a fast network scanner, is developed to find the periphery, such as a home router. We evaluate it on twelve prominent Internet service providers and harvest 52M active peripheries. Grounded on these found devices, we explore IPv6 network risks of the unintended exposed security services and the flawed traffic routing strategies. First, we demonstrate the unintended exposed security services in IPv6 networks, such as DNS, and HTTP, have become emerging security risks by analyzing 4.7M peripheries. Second, by inspecting the periphery's packet routing strategies, we present the flawed implementations of IPv6 routing protocol affecting 5.8M router devices. Attackers can exploit this common vulnerability to conduct effective routing loop attacks, inducing DoS to the ISP's and home routers with an amplification factor of $\gt {200}$. We responsibly disclose those issues to all involved vendors and ASes and discuss mitigation solutions. Our research results indicate that the security community should revisit IPv6 network strategies immediately.


The nosocomial spread of six genetically related Klebsiella pneumoniae strains producing GES-type beta-lactamases was found in a neonatal intensive care unit, and we previously reported that one of the six strains, strain KG525, produced a new beta-lactamase, GES-3. In the present study, the molecular mechanism of cephamycin resistance observed in strain KG502, one of the six strains described above, was investigated. This strain was found to produce a variant of GES-3, namely, GES-4, which was responsible for resistance to both cephamycins (cefoxitin MIC, >128 microg/ml) and beta-lactamase inhibitors (50% inhibitory concentration of clavulanic acid, 15.2 +/- 1.7 microM). The GES-4 enzyme had a single G170S substitution in the Omega-loop region compared with the GES-3 sequence. This single amino acid substitution was closely involved with the augmented hydrolysis of cephamycins and carbapenems and the decreased affinities of beta-lactamase inhibitors to GES-4. A cloning experiment and sequencing analysis revealed that strain KG502 possesses duplicate bla(GES-4) genes mediated by two distinct class 1 integrons with similar gene cassette configurations. Moreover, the genetic environments of the bla(GES-4) genes found in strain KG502 were almost identical to that of bla(GES-3) in strain KG525. From these findings, these two phenotypically different strains were suggested to belong to a clonal lineage. The bla(GES-4) gene found in strain KG502 might well emerge from a point mutation in the bla(GES-3) gene harbored by its ancestor strains, such as strain KG525, under heavy antibiotic stress in order to acquire extended properties of resistance to cephamycins and carbapenems.


Abstract Local food systems are comprised of networks of actors that work to ensure the sustainability of food supplies within communities. While local food has typically been promoted through direct marketing strategies such as farmers' markets and community-supported agriculture (CSA), retail stores are increasingly carrying and marketing local foods in response to consumer demand and market potential. Given the frequency with which consumers shop at grocery stores, as well as the portion of consumers' food purchases made at these locations, these stores may play a significant role in the success of local agriculture and the shaping of ideology about what is 'local'. We conducted 27 semi-structured interviews with representatives of food retailers known to source and market local foods in the four major urban centers of Oregon's Willamette Valley. Our results reveal that grocers' perceptions of local food vary significantly from one another. Additionally, our results differed in comparison to the published literature on consumers' and producers' ideas of what constitutes local. Food retailers identified varying distances (frequently a region including several states) that they consider local, as well as diverse reasons for choosing to source and market local foods (most commonly supporting the local economy). Some trends in the variation of responses relate to how the size and form of ownership of the grocery stores influence the level at which decisions are made. These wide-ranging perceptions outline many of the realities of the local food movement, as well as opportunities for change.


BACKGROUND
As neonates transition from a relatively hypoxic environment to extra-uterine life, arterial oxygen saturation dramatically increases. This transition occurs while most organs have not fully matured. The ability for immature tissue to adequately extract and utilize oxygen remains largely unknown. With the development of near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS), measuring specific tissue oxygen saturation (StO2) noninvasively, clinicians can measure StO2 and determine if adequate tissue oxygenation is maintained. The objective of this study is to determine the relationships of NIRS brain and somatic autoregulation function to patients' severity of illness.

METHODS
In this prospective cohort pilot study, after parental consent, neonates less than 34 weeks with arterial access, were enrolled. The FORE-SIGHT NIRS probe was placed on the forehead and abdominal wall for 24 hours. Continuous arterial blood pressure, SpO2 and cerebral and somatic NIRS were used to derive autoregulation function.

RESULTS
Data was obtained from 17 neonates (0.540 to 2.37 kg, gestation 23.0 to 33.2 weeks). The autoregulation function categorizes pressure passive index (PPI) values as good, borderline, or poor. For normal autoregulation function, PPI values tend to be low and fairly constant for a range of MAP. The PPI borderline zone is a hypothetical range of PPI values where autoregulation function transitions from good to poor.

CONCLUSION
Our results show most premature neonates, as long as they maintained normal BP and systemic circulation can autoregulate cerebral perfusion. When BP are above or below the normal MAP for age, the neonate is at risk for losing brain and somatic autoregulation.


Highly
intelligent and technically savvy people are employed to hack data systems
throughout the world for prominence or monetary gain. Organizations must combat
these criminals with people of equal or greater ability. There have been
reports of heightened threats from cyber criminals focusing upon the energy
sector, with recent attacks upon natural gas pipelines and payment centers. The
Center for Innovative and Strategic Transformation of Alkane Resources (CISTAR)
working collaboratively with the Purdue Process Safety and Assurance Center
(P2SAC) reached out to the Computer and Information Technology Department to
assist with analysis of the current cybersecurity posture of the companies
involved with the CISTAR initiative. This cybersecurity research project identifies
the overall defensive cyber posture of CISTAR companies and provides
recommendations on how to bolster internal cyberspace defenses through the
identification of gaps and shortfalls, which aided the compilation of
suggestions for improvement. Key
findings include the correlation of reduced cybersecurity readiness to
companies founded less than 10 years ago, cybersecurity professionals employed
by all CISTAR companies and all CISTAR companies implementing basic NIST
cybersecurity procedures.


The amount of people aged 65+ in the U.S. is increasing, and they are different than the previous generations: they have more teeth, have more disposable income, have more independence and are living longer lives in the community. Predictions for the future 65+ age group are that they will be more ethnically diverse, have more complex medical needs, and have greater dental needs as well. Dental needs are not easily calculated outside of a clinical setting but by using measures of oral health-related quality of life (OHRQoL), several dimensions can be captured. Quality of oral health is gaining importance due to the recognition that oral health is tied to general health. OHRQoL can be used alone but can also be an excellent adjunct to clinical measures. The main hypothesis of this proposal is that there are unmet oral health needs in the older community in Allegheny County that can be revealed through OHRQoL surveys. The enclosed survey is a descriptive, formative study that measures OHRQoL in older adults in Pittsburgh who participate in Meals on Wheels; the intention is to understand the quality of oral health in older adults. The public health significance of Allegheny County OHRQoL survey results is the ability to understand the oral health perceptions and needs of the older adults in Pittsburgh. By gaining that knowledge, it will lead public health efforts, policies and clinicians to address and to anticipate the current and future oral health needs of the geriatric population


The Canadian Federal Election of 2008 is a comprehensive analysis of all aspects of the campaign and election outcome. The chapters are written by leading professors of political science, journalism, and communications. They examine the strategies, successes, and failures of the major political parties -- the Conservatives (Faron Ellis and Peter Woolstencroft), Liberals (Brooke Jeffrey), New Democrats (Lynda Erickson and David Laycock), Block Quebecois (Eric Belanger and Richard Nadeau), and Green Party (Susan Harada). Also featured in this comprehensive volume are chapters on the media coverage (Christopher Waddell) and the way Canada's party finance laws affected the campaign (Tom Flanagan and Harol J. Jansen). The book concludes with a detailed analysis of the voting behaviour of Canadians in 2008 by Harold D. Clarke, Allan Kornberg, and Thomas J. Scotto, and an overview of the long- and short-term forces influencing the future of Canadian electoral politics by Lawrence LeDuc and Jon H. Pammett. The introduction by Christopher Dornan discusses the post-election crisis, while the appendices include all of the election results.


Clinical practice in sports medicine is often guided by axioms or paradigms of practice, some of which have persisted over time despite a lack of objective evidence to support their validity. Evidence-based practice compels practicing clinicians to not only seek out and produce evidence that informs their decision-making, but also to challenge existing paradigms of thought and practice, especially when favorable treatment outcomes remain elusive. Insidious, load induced lateral knee pain around the iliotibial band in runners, cyclists, military personnel, rowers, and other athletes has for decades now been conceptualized as iliotibial band friction syndrome, a biomechanically based and unsubstantiated paradigm based on Renne's 1975 theory that the iliotibial band slips back and forth over the lateral femoral epicondyle during flexion and extension movements of the knee, primarily irritating the underlying bursa and even the iliotibial band itself. Newer evidence about the anatomy and biomechanics of the i...


Given a convex function $f\colon\mathbb{R}^{d}\to\mathbb{R}$, the problem of sampling from a distribution $\propto e^{-f(x)}$ is called log-concave sampling. This task has wide applications in machine learning, physics, statistics, etc. In this work, we develop quantum algorithms for sampling log-concave distributions and for estimating their normalizing constants $\int_{\mathbb{R}^d}e^{-f(x)}\mathrm{d} x$. First, we use underdamped Langevin diffusion to develop quantum algorithms that match the query complexity (in terms of the condition number $\kappa$ and dimension $d$) of analogous classical algorithms that use gradient (first-order) queries, even though the quantum algorithms use only evaluation (zeroth-order) queries. For estimating normalizing constants, these algorithms also achieve quadratic speedup in the multiplicative error $\epsilon$. Second, we develop quantum Metropolis-adjusted Langevin algorithms with query complexity $\widetilde{O}(\kappa^{1/2}d)$ and $\widetilde{O}(\kappa^{1/2}d^{3/2}/\epsilon)$ for log-concave sampling and normalizing constant estimation, respectively, achieving polynomial speedups in $\kappa,d,\epsilon$ over the best known classical algorithms by exploiting quantum analogs of the Monte Carlo method and quantum walks. We also prove a $1/\epsilon^{1-o(1)}$ quantum lower bound for estimating normalizing constants, implying near-optimality of our quantum algorithms in $\epsilon$.


We study polynomials that are orthogonal with respect to a varying quartic weight exp(− N(x2/2 + tx4/4)) for t < 0, where the orthogonality takes place on certain contours in the complex plane. Inspired by developments in 2D quantum gravity, Fokas, Its and Kitaev showed that there exists a critical value for t around which the asymptotics of the recurrence coefficients are described in terms of exactly specified solutions of the Painlevé I equation. In this paper, we present an alternative and more direct proof of this result by means of the Deift/Zhou steepest descent analysis of the Riemann–Hilbert problem associated with the polynomials. Moreover, we extend the analysis to non-symmetric combinations of contours. Special features in the steepest descent analysis are a modified equililbrium problem and the use of Ψ-functions for the Painlevé I equation in the construction of the local parametrix.


Given the ubiquity, time investment, and theoretical relevance of meetings to work attitudes, this study explored whether organizational science should consider employee satisfaction with meetings as a contemporary, important, and discrete facet of job satisfaction. Using affective events theory, we postulated that meetings are affect-generating events that meaningfully contribute to overall job satisfaction. Two surveys queried working adults: Study 1 used a paper-based survey (n = 201), while Study 2 used an Internet-based survey (n = 785). Satisfaction with meetings was positively related to and significantly predicted overall job satisfaction (p < .05) after controlling for individual difference variables (e.g., participant background variables, negative affect), traditional job satisfaction facets (e.g., work, supervision, pay), and other conceptually relevant constructs (e.g., satisfaction with communication, organizational commitment). Exploratory (Study 1) and confirmatory (Study 2) factor analyses provided evidence that meeting satisfaction is a distinct facet of job satisfaction. Finally, as hypothesized, the relationship between meeting satisfaction and job satisfaction depends in part upon the number of meetings typically attended. The relationship was stronger (more positive) when meeting demands were higher and weaker when meeting demands were lower. Implications for assessment, leadership development, on-boarding, and high potential initiatives are discussed. ©2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.


The objective of this paper is to highlight Cloud Computing projects with mutual interests for both mainland China and Taiwan, which present the a strong case of Consulting as a Service (CaaS) as an innovative way for generating profits and delivering services for clients. This paper explains the IT and Cloud development in the Greater China and presents three projects that Taiwanese have been involved in the design, implementation and research. The first project presents a case for Teradata and Shanghai Stock Exchange (SSE), where Taiwanese collaborators have been closely involved. The second project is about two sandstorm simulations in the Inner Mongolia of mainland China and investigates its impacts to the environment and health of the populations. The third project is the Universe Computing which responds to mainland China's call to develop space programme and to explore the unknown territory. Universe Computing includes simulations for satellite orbiting, galaxy formation and galaxy explosion. The author is an investigator for the second and third project and uses Cloud Computing Adoption Framework (CCAF) to design and deploy Software as a Service (SaaS) and Consulting as a Service (CaaS). Taiwanese research and development outputs have been influential to the IT development in the Greater China. This is important to move away any differences and work together to establish more and better research and development results to create a mutual win-win and maintain a high GDP growth.


Thermal barrier coatings have got considerable importance for the improvement of gas turbine efficiency. These materials are applied on the surface of gas turbine blades and vanes and are based on a layer of low-oxidation material (mainly MCrAlY alloys, where M stay of Co, Ni or a combination of both) and a ceramic top layer that acts as proper thermal barrier (normally Yttria Partially Stabilized Zirconia). Coating removal is an important aspect in the production of these blades and vanes. "Decoating" or "stripping" is needed during the production of new components as well as for the reconditioning of existing ones. The present paper is dedicated to a new removal method of the ceramic Zirconia layer, based on dry ice blasting. This method will not impact on the roughness and morphology of the bond coat surface, making it suitable for re-coating with TBC, without any further operation before TBC recoating. This possibility has an important impact on the stripping costs and time, avoiding all the operations related to the bond coat. The paper presents the process tests to get the process set up and the characterization of the surfaces comparing the stripped ones with the "original ones" coated by LPPS on new components, ready to be TBC coated. Optical and SEM microscopy, 3D profilometry have been used for characterization. Finally a Thermal Cycling Fatigue test has been carried out in order to validate the procedure of stripping and re-coating.


Sections of mouse gall bladder epithelium fixed by perfusion with buffered osmium tetroxide have been studied in the electron microscope as an example of simple columnar epithelium. The free surface presents many microvilli, each presenting a dense tip, the capitulum, and displaying a radiating corona of delicate filaments, the antennulae microvillares. Very small pit-like depressions, representing caveolae intracellulares, are encountered along the cell membrane of the microvilli. The free cell surface between microvilli shows larger cave-like depressions, likewise representing caveolae intracellulares, containing a dense material. The lateral cell borders are extensively folded into pleats, which do not interdigitate extensively with corresponding folds of the adjacent cell membrane. The terminal bars are shown to consist of thickened densities of the cell membrane itself in the region of insertion of the lateral cell wall with the free cell surface. This thickening is associated with an accumulation of dense cytoplasmic material in the immediate vicinity. The terminal bar is thus largely a cytoplasmic and cell membrane structure, rather than being primarily intercellular in nature. The basal cell membrane is relatively straight except for a conical eminence near the center of the cell, projecting slightly into the underlying tunica propria. The basal cell membrane itself is overlain by a delicate limiting membrane, which does not follow the lateral contours of the cell. Unmyelinated intercellular nerve terminals with synaptic vesicles have been encountered between the lateral walls of epithelial cells. A division of the gall bladder epithelial cell into five zones according to Ferner has been found to be convenient for this study. The following cytoplasmic components have been noted, and their distribution and appearance described: dense absorption granules, mitochondria, Golgi or agranular membranes, endoplasmic reticulum or ergastoplasm, ring figures, and irregular dense bodies, perhaps lipoid in nature. The nucleus of these cells is also described.


[From the introduction]. The town of Shoreham is a sleepy ferry port on the south coast of England. But in January 1995, it was the catalyst for a nationwide campaign against the export of live calves to the continent, where they are slaughtered after gruesome journeys and weeks in wooden crates. After an earlier campaign in the early 1990s, the practice of "in-crate feeding" that continental chefs say produces the most tender veal was banned in Britain. But a market is a market, and the response of British cattle breeders was to ship live calves to the continent, where cattle operations and governments are less fastidious than in Britain. In 1994, a campaign of pressure from British animal rights groups aimed to stop the trade and, as a result, most British ferry companies gave up the practice. But Shoreham and other smaller ports continued to ship live calves to the continent, and a few air shipping companies found the trade lucrative enough to justify chartering aircraft to do the same. That was the background of what happened in Shoreham and of the events that followed, which we shall use in the first section of this paper to illustrate what we will call "the Europeanization of social movements." The remainder of the paper will be devoted, first, to outlining some of the dimensions and problems of European collective action; second, to explaining how we propose to examine it through event analysis and, third, to presenting preliminary data that quantitatively indicate its dimensions over the past decade.


This article sets out the Reserve Bank's conception of the "neutral real interest rate", and identifies factors that influence its level. These factors provide a starting point for thinking about what might cause the neutral real interest rate to change over time, or differ across countries. We consider the uses and limitations of neutral real interest rates in answering some of the questions that are relevant to monetary policy, and present a range of estimates of the neutral real interest rate for New Zealand.


My thesis is an interpretive case study of the exhibition Century City: Art and Culture in the Modern Metropolis (Tate Modern, 1 February – 29 April 2001). It examines a variety of issues pertaining to the making of institutional modern and contemporary art exhibitions in a Western urban context today. It is concerned with exhibition studies' methodology, the reciprocity between the art institution and the city, and the relationship between the art institution and the independent curator. With regards to methodology, I propose various readings of an exhibition that fall under two types of knowledge, namely visible and invisible knowledge. The former refers to all aspects of the exhibition that are seen in the public domain, while the latter considers not immediately accessible information about the exhibition, such as archival material and oral history. I also examine the mutual relationship between the city and the institution through the instrumentalization of the exhibition by city politics, and the correlative micro and macro effects. I thus link the exhibition to a passage from an industrial to a post-industrial economy, New Labour politics and the competition of cities in a worldwide urban network. Within that framework I analyse associated issues, such as London's urban regeneration and cultural tourism, city branding, changing city demographics, the link between the institution, the city and governmental agendas, and the 'world city' race. Finally, I question the changing relationship between the art institution and the independent curator. I reflect on the advantages and limitations of curatorial practice in the context of that relationship by considering the exhibition as a platform for the concurrent expression of both personal and collective curatorial interests, and the exploration of canonical versus contemporary approaches. I conclude that an in-depth study of a contemporary exhibition on these grounds allows for important insights to be gained that contribute to the fields of curatorial and exhibition studies, as well as to urban theory.


This project focused on the use of home energy ratings as a tool to promote energy retrofits in existing homes. A home energy rating provides a quantitative appraisal of a home's asset performance, usually compared to a benchmark such as the average energy use of similar homes in the same region. Home rating systems can help motivate homeowners in several ways. Ratings can clearly communicate a home's achievable energy efficiency potential, provide a quantitative assessment of energy savings after retrofits are completed, and show homeowners how they rate compared to their neighbors, thus creating an incentive to conform to a social standard. An important consideration is how rating tools for the retrofit market will integrate with existing home energy service programs. For residential programs that target energy savings only, home visits should be focused on key efficiency measures for that home. In order to gain wide adoption, a rating tool must be easily integrated into the field process, demonstrate consistency and reasonable accuracy to earn the trust of home energy technicians, and have a low monetary cost and time hurdle for homeowners. Along with the Home Energy Score, this project also evaluated the energy modeling performance of SIMPLE and REM/Rate.


This review has outlined the existing literature relating to activity profiles in elite netball umpires. In particular, the physical (distance travelled), physiological (heart rate), and technical (movement classifications) characteristics have been described. The limited available literature report that on average elite netball umpires travel approximately 3850 m during a 60 min match. Up to approximately 50% of the match is spent standing, with only around 25% of the match in higher intensity movements such as jogging, sprinting, side stepping, or changing direction. Work:rest ratios are typically approximately 1:3 during match play, with additional recovery in the intervals between quarters. This includes an average of 140 sprints for a duration of 2.8 s. Elite umpires spend around 10% of the match at greater than 92% peak heart rate, with the majority (approximately 55%) between 75 and 92% peak heart rate. These characteristics may benefit umpires and strength and conditioning practitioners when designing training programmes. The literature also report a reduction in distance travelled by elite umpires as the match progresses. An accompanying decrease in heart rate suggests that this is not caused by physiological fatigue mechanisms but is a result of technical adjustments in the movement patterns utilised. Indeed, elite umpires tend to sidestep less and walk or stand more as the match progresses. Additionally, gaps in the existing literature have been highlighted, including the relationship between perceptual-cognitive processes and movement, and the application of fitness testing requirements to umpire activity profiles.


Part one of this two-part thesis describes my efforts toward the total syntheses of the complex polycyclic alkaloids (–)-himeradine A and (+)-fastigiatine, which are members of the Lycopodium family of natural products. A cascade reaction sequence featuring a biosynthesis-inspired transannular Mannich reaction was planned to construct the strained and densely functionalized pentacyclic cores of the molecules from acyclic starting materials. After difficulties were encountered in a firstgeneration synthesis plan toward (–)-himeradine A, a second-generation synthesis plan was eventually successful in accomplishing the first total synthesis of (+)-fastigiatine via a formal [3+3]cycloaddition reaction and a retro-aldol tandem transannular Mannich reaction sequence. In part two of this thesis, syntheses of the hibarimicin aglycons, including HMP-Y1, atropHMP-Y1, hibarimicinone, atrop-hibarimicinone, and HMP-P1, are reported. These natural products are amongst the largest and most complex type-II polyketides isolated. A novel benzylic fluoride Michael–Claisen reaction sequence was developed to construct the complete carbon skeleton of HMP-Y1 and atrop-HMP-Y1 via a symmetrical bidirectional double annulation reaction. Through efforts to convert HMP-Y1 derivatives to hibarimicinone and HMP-P1, a biomimetic mono-oxidation to desymmetrize protected HMP-Y1 was realized. A bidirectional unsymmetrical double annulation and biomimetic etherification were developed to construct the polycyclic and highly-oxidized skeleton of hibarimicinone, atrop-hibarimicinone, and HMP-P1. Lastly, a pH-dependent rotational barrier about the C2–C2' bond of hibarimicinone was discovered, which provides valuable information for achieving the syntheses of the glycosylated congeners of hibarimicinone.


With revolutionary changes in communications technology and the growing complexity of national security, Australia"s intelligence community faces a relentless growth of the information it collects and analyses. This article explores the impact of this challenge on the foreign intelligence assessment process. In particular, three risks—the threat to information security, the pressure of coordinating assessment, and the potentially harmful influence of policymakers—are examined in detail. Among other changes, a proposed Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, modelled on the US equivalent, but with distinctive powers suited to Australia, should help minimise problems likely to arise in the years ahead.


National governments frequently pull strings to get their citizens appointed to senior positions in international institutions. We examine, over a 60 year period, the nationalities of the most senior positions in the United Nations Secretariat, ostensibly the world's most representative international institution. The results indicate which nations are successful in this zero-sum game, and what national characteristics correlate with power in international institutions. The most overrepresented countries are small, rich democracies like the Nordic countries. Statistically, democracy, investment in diplomacy, and economic/military power are predictors of senior positions?even after controlling for the U.N. staffing mandate of competence and integrity. National control over the United Nations is remarkably sticky; however the influence of the United States has diminished as U.S. ideology has shifted away from its early allies. In spite of the decline in U.S. influence, the Secretariat remains pro-American relative to the world at large.


The government set the target for redistribution of land to 30% by 2014. They have adopted the "willing-buyer-willing-seller" model that relies on a voluntary transaction between farmers and government to acquire such land. Frustrated at the slow pace of land reform, the ruling party is starting to indicate that the state will in future rely on its expropriation powers to acquire such land. Section 25 of the Constitution makes it clear that when the state expropriates property, compensation must be paid. The current act, the 1975 Expropriation Act , determines that such compensation must be market value, while the Constitution lists market value as only one of at least five factors that must be taken into account when determining compensation. There have been various attempts at drafting legislation that will bring compensation practices in line with the Constitution , with the latest Bill published in March 2013. This article focusses on the Green Paper that preceded the Bill, and argues that not much direction is given on how compensation for expropriation should be calculated.


Background: Cardiac failure, Cardiovascular diseases (CVD) including coronary artery, cerebrovascular and peripheral vascular disease are the leading causes of morbidity and mortality in both men and women, although female sex has long considered to be a "protective factor" against CVD. This study evaluated the effect of Selective estrogen receptor modulator (SERM) Raloxifene (RAL) therapy on endo-myocardium for therapeutic effectiveness in estrogen-depleted states induced by ovariectomy (OVX). Methods: We divided the rats into four groups: (I) Sham operated (II) ovariectomized controls without any treatment, (III) ovariectomized rats treated with vehicle sesame oil (IV) ovariectomized rats treated with raloxifene 1 mg/kg, s.c. daily for 60 days. Rats were sacrificed by transcardial perfusion. Different chambers of the heart sections were analyzed by image analysis software after hematoxylin and eosin staining. Results: This study reported that an increase in heart weight, cardiac wall thickness and myocytes diameter in response to estrogen depletion that can be effectively reversed by raloxifene treatment. Conclusion: This research revealed that the raloxifene treatment is the novel strategy to alleviate the post-menopausal problems and prevent the heart failure due to cardiac hypertrophy without the adverse effect of estrogen. This original article can give an idea to develop a cardioselective SERM`s which can be a used in both genders. The further studies are needed to find the molecular mechanisms of raloxifene over the hypo estrogenic cardiac myocytes


Now in its Fourth Edition, this best-selling book extracts the most important information on neuroanatomy and presents it in a concise, uncluttered fashion to prepare students for course exams and the USMLE. Highlights of this edition include a brief glossary of key neuroanatomical structures and disease states; addition of an icon to more clearly identify the Clinical Correlations sections; an appendicized table of common neurological lesions; expanded figure legends that identify clinically relevant anatomical relationships; an improved, expanded index; and modified text and figure legends to comply with Terminologia Anatomica. A companion Website will offer bonus USMLE-style questions.


Ideally, according to the author, a real-time distributed programming method should be based on a general high-level style that could be easily accommodated by application programmers using C++ and Java. If such a method were to exist, these programmers could specify the interactions among distributed components and the timing requirements of various actions without expending much effort. Facilitating high-level, high precision, real-time object programming by establishing some form of language tools has consequently become a subject of great interest to the embedded systems community. This article focuses on application programming interfaces (APIs) that take the form of C++ and Java class libraries and support high-level, high precision, real-time object programming without requiring new language translators. These APIs wrap the services of the real-time object execution engines, which consist of hardware, node OSs, and middleware; they enable convenient high-level programming almost to the extent that a new real-time object language can. The author explains the API's fundamental features, how they interact among real-time objects, and how multicast channels and real-time multicast APIs contribute.


Game studies has yet to engage with a sustained debate on the implications of its fundamentally technologically based foundation – i.e. the 'digitality' of digital games. This essay calls for such a debate and offers some initial thoughts on issues and directions.
The humanities and social sciences are founded on the principle that historical and cultural agency reside solely in the human and the social. Drawing on Science and Technology Studies, Actor-Network Theory and cybercultural studies, this essay argues that a full understanding of both the playing of digital games, and the wider techno-cultural context of this play, is only possible through a recognition and theorisation of technological agency.
Taking the Gameboy Advance game Advance Wars 2 as a case study, the essay explores the implications for game studies of attention to non-human agency – specifically the agency of simulation and artificial life software - in digital game play.


In high-performance computing systems, application performance and throughput are dependent on a complex interplay of hardware and software subsystems and variable workloads with competing resource demands. Data-driven insights into the potentially widespread scope and propagationof impact of events, such as faults and contention for shared resources, can be used to drive more effective use of resources, for improved root cause diagnosis, and for predicting performance impacts. We present work developing integrated capabilities for holistic monitoring and analysis to understand and characterize propagation of performance-degrading events. These characterizations can be used to determine and invoke mitigating responses by system administrators, applications, and system software.


Understanding what a software engineer (a developer, an incident responder, a production engineer, etc.) is working on is a challenging problem - especially when considering the more complex software engineering workflows in software-intensive organizations: i) engineers rely on a multitude (perhaps hundreds) of loosely integrated tools; ii) engineers engage in concurrent and relatively long running workflows; ii) infrastructure (such as logging) is not fully aware of work items; iv) engineering processes (e.g., for incident response) are not explicitly modeled. In this paper, we explain the corresponding' work-item prediction challenge' on the grounds of representative scenarios, report on related efforts at Facebook, discuss some lessons learned, and review related work to call to arms to leverage, advance, and combine techniques from program comprehension, mining software repositories, process mining, and machine learning.


Coined at the end of the Second World War, the term "third world" has since then been used to denote a complex of intersections That makes it possible to allude to a single vaguely-defined phenomenon. At times used for the most diverse purposes and meanings, and yet also rejected for ideological and scientific reasons, the coinage expresses a category of nations with considerable differences. The common thread though appears to be the intent to group peoples of colonial origin or those who, having lived a history of colonialism, were burdened with the new forms of colonialism and dependence. New developments in the global order, however, seemed to have contributed to the deterioration and relative disuse of the expression. Wit a revival of the center-periphery discourse and the North-South dichotomy, the usage of the term continues, albeit this time with fewer ideological discriminations and more vagueness.


Most design methods used within interaction design originate from other disciplines. As a result, there are few methods which can focus on designing or redesigning interaction in itself. In this paper we present a structured ideation method called Skewing, which is based on changing already identified, interaction-related properties of an artifact. Hereby, designers can generate interesting re-designs whose interaction design differs from the original product. Moreover, the structured approach in Skewing helps in finding the unusual design solutions in the outer rims of the design space. Lastly, Skewing can also be used as a means to teach the materiality of interaction.


The disposal of radioactive "waste" generated by the nuclear fuel cycle is among the most pressing and potentially costly environmental problems of the 21st century, a heritage from the Atomic Age of the 20th century. Proposed disposal strategies are complicated, not only because of the large volumes and activities of waste, but also because of the political and public-policy issues associated with the long times required for containment and disposal (104 to 106 years). The development and use of highly durable waste forms, materials that have a high chemical durability and resistance to radiation damage effects, can simplify the disposal strategy (Ewing 2001).

An interest in phosphate-based waste forms has developed because the high-level waste generated by reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel can contain substantial amounts of phosphates (up to 15 wt % P2O5) that result from processing technologies that utilized either a bismuth phosphate or tributylphosphate process (Bunker et al. 1995). In addition to the high phosphate content, other metal oxides may achieve significant proportions (up to 15 wt % Fe2O3; up to 30 wt % Bi2O3; up to 30 wt % UO2) (Lambert and Kim 1994).

These complex compositions have presented special challenges in developing crystalline ceramics that can accommodate the full compositional range of the waste streams. The early work on phosphate glasses led to the idea that crystalline phosphates might make extremely durable waste forms, particularly for actinides. The earliest suggestion was for the use of monazite (Boatner 1978, Boatner et al. 1980, McCarthy et al. 1978, 1980). The attractive qualities of monazite as a nuclear waste form are: (1) a high solubility for actinides and rare earths (10 to 20 wt %); (2) evidence from natural …


Above Givetian and Frasnian continental deposits, the Upper Frasnian transgression starts in the Booischot borehole, within the Aisemont Formation which is represented by its middle shaly part and its upper limestone level containing Frechastraea limitata (Milne-Edwards & Haime, 1851) and Phillipsastrea ananas (Goldfuss, 1826). In the Heibaart borehole also situated in the Campine Basin, the Silurian basement is capped by a few metres of the Middle Frasnian Huccorgne Formation where have been observed Thecostegites bouchardi (Michelin, 1846), Stachyodes and a very small remain of a massive cerioid rugose coral. Then, the Aisemont Formation seems to be completely developed. At its top, a mineralization of sulphides is similar to that of Chaudfontaine, in the same lithostratigraphic context. Additionally, Frechastraea pentagona (Goldfuss, 1826) is present in the Heibaart borehole, at the base of the shaly sequence overlying the Aisemont Formation in the two investigated wells. The Frasnian marine deposits of the Booischot and Heibaart boreholes are related to those of the Soumagne and Bolland boreholes at the southeastern border of the Brabant Massif. But, they are very different from those of the unstable area of Vise located at the eastern end of the same structural unit.


A focal regular flagging instrument in a considerable lot of these pathways is proline-coordinated phosphorylation, which is managed by numerous kinases and phosphatases. The structure and capacity of these phosphorylated proteins are additionally constrained by a solitary proline isomerase: PIN1. PIN1 is overactivated in malignant growths and it advances disease and malignant growth undifferentiated cells by upsetting the equalization of oncogenes and tumor silencers.


An important aspect of tallgrass prairie reconstructions is the origin of the seeds being planted. Our experiment questions whether or not there is a difference in the lengths, weights, and rates of germination in native and non-native Ratibida pinnata (Gray-headed Coneflower) and Sorghastrum nutans (Indiangrass) seeds. We collected samples from the Conard Environmental Research Area (CERA) near Kellogg, Iowa, which we then measured, weighed, and incubated to test their rates of germination. The results showed that the total weight and length of the non-native S. nutans was significantly greater, and the total weight of the non-native R. pinnata was significantly higher, but the mean length and germination rates of the latter were not significant. The significant variations in seed length and total seed weight support conservationists' claims that only local seeds should be used in tallgrass prairie reconstruction.


Cultural, social, and intellectual historians have begun to examine the intersecting histories of European colonialism and psychiatry. At their best, these studies engage with at least four distinct historiographies. First, they revise the history of European medicine by illustrating the importance of the colonies to metropolitan scientific developments. Second, they explore the relationship between knowledge and power in the colonial context that the pre-occupied scholars since the publication of Edward Said's Orientalism in 1978. Third, they explicitly address the psychology of colonialism, a phenomenon at the heart of many intriguing yet speculative works in postcolonial studies. Finally, they open a new methodological window into the history of race by exploring institutional psychiatry's contributions to definitions of race and citizenship under colonialism. This essay reveals the potential implications of such research by highlighting recent studies of British and French colonial psychiatry in Africa and Asia, while also addressing possible future directions for the study of colonial psychiatry.


Projection photolithography has been used as a fabrication method for radial grove gratings. Use of photolithographic method for diffraction grating fabrication represents the most significant breakthrough in grating technology in the last 60 years, since the introduction of holographic written gratings. Unlike traditional methods utilized for grating fabrication, this method has the advantage of producing complex diffractive groove contours that can be designed at pixel-by-pixel level, with pixel size currently at the level of 45 45 nm. Typical placement accuracy of the grating pixels is 10 nm over 30 nm. It is far superior to holographic, mechanically ruled or direct e-beam written gratings and results in high spatial coherence and low spectral cross-talk. Due to the smooth surface produced by reactive ion etch, such gratings have a low level of randomly scattered light. Also, due to high fidelity and good surface roughness, this method is ideally suited for fabrication of radial groove gratings. The projection mask is created using a laser writer. A single crystal silicon wafer is coated with photoresist, and then the projection mask, with its layer of photoresist, is exposed for patterning in a stepper or scanner. To develop the photoresist, the fabricator either removes the exposed areas (positive resist) of the unexposed areas (negative resist). Next, the patterned and developed photoresist silicon substrate is subjected to reactive ion etching. After this step, the substrate is cleaned. The projection mask is fabricated according to electronic design files that may be generated in GDS file format using any suitable CAD (computer-aided design) or other software program. Radial groove gratings in off-axis grazing angle of incidence mount are of special interest for x-ray spectroscopy, as they allow achieving higher spectral resolution for the same grating area and have lower alignment tolerances than traditional in-plane grating scheme. This is especially critical for NASA Constellation- X project that will utilize hundreds of gratings all of which need to be precisely aligned for x-ray observation of space.


Our intuition tells us that we, our conscious selves, cause our own voluntary acts. Yet scientists have long questioned this; Thomas Huxley, for example, in 1874 compared mental events to a steam whistle that contributes nothing to the work of a locomotive. New experimental evidence (most notable, work by Benjamin Libet and Daniel Wegner) has brought the causal status of human behavior back to the forefront of intellectual discussion. This multidisciplinary collection advances the debate, approaching the question from a variety of perspectives. The contributors begin by examining recent research in neuroscience that suggests that consciousness does not cause behavior, offering the outline of an empirically based model that shows how the brain causes behavior and where consciousness might fit in. Other contributors address the philosophical presuppositions that may have informed the empirical studies, raising questions about what can be legitimately concluded about the existence of free will from Libet's and Wegner's experimental results. Others examine the effect recent psychological and neuroscientific research could have on legal, social, and moral judgments of responsibility and blame -- in situations including A Clockwork Orange-like scenario of behavior correction. Contributors: William P. Banks, Timothy Bayne, Sarah-Jayne Blakemore, Suparna Choudhury, Walter J. Freeman, Shaun Gallagher, Susan Hurley, Marc Jeannerod, Leonard V. Kaplan, Hakwan Lau, Sabine Maasen, Bertram F. Malle, Alfred R. Mele, Elisabeth Pacherie, Richard Passingham, Susan Pockett, Wolfgang Prinz, Peter W. Ross


Despite advances in drug-delivery technologies, successful oral administration of protein drugs remains an elusive challenge. When protein drugs are administered orally, they can rapidly denature or degrade before they reach their targets. Such drugs also may not absorb adequately within the small intestine. As a protein drug for treating diabetes, insulin is conventionally administered via subcutaneous (SC) injection, yet often fails to achieve the glucose homeostasis observed in nondiabetic subjects. Some of this difference may relate to insulin transport: normally, endogenously secreted insulin moves to the liver via portal circulation. When administered subcutaneously, insulin moves through the body via peripheral circulation, which can produce a peripheral hyperinsulinemia. In addition, because SC treatment requires multiple daily injections of insulin, patients often do not fully comply with treatment. Oral administration of exogenous insulin would deliver the drug directly into the liver through portal circulation, mimicking the physiological fate of endogenously secreted insulin. This characteristic may offer the needed hepatic activation, while avoiding hyperinsulinemia and its associated long-term complications. This Account demonstrates the feasibility of using chitosan nanoparticles for oral insulin delivery. Nanoparticle (NP) delivery systems may provide an alternative means of orally administering protein drugs. In addition to protecting the drugs against a harmful gastric environment, the encapsulation of protein drugs in particulate carriers can avert enzymatic degradation, while controlling the drug release and enhancing their absorption in the small intestine. Our recent study described a pH-responsive NP system composed of chitosan (CS) and poly(γ-glutamic acid) for oral delivery of insulin. As a nontoxic, soft-tissue compatible, cationic polysaccharide, CS also adheres to the mucosal surface and transiently opens the tight junctions (TJs) between contiguous epithelial cells. Therefore, drugs made with CS NPs would have delivery advantages over traditional tablet or powder formulations. This Account focuses on the premise that these CS NPs can adhere to and infiltrate the mucus layer in the small intestine. Subsequently, the infiltrated CS NPs transiently open the TJs between epithelial cells. Because they are pH-sensitive, the nanoparticles become less stable and disintegrate, releasing the loaded insulin. The insulin then permeates through the opened paracellular pathway and moves into the systemic circulation.


This document outlines the simulation to be developed in the MocNet project.
It will be a discrete event simulation using
next-event incrementing to advance time. As we're interested in
cell-level data, we will simulate the movement between cells
according to a probabilistic random walk. Despite this
coarse discretisation of space, some underlying geographical features
will be captured by the probability matrices. We note that even
simulations that capture the geography more precisely will merge into
our simulation when only returning cell-level data. The MocNet
Simulation will also include some temporal dependencies caused by
e.g. commuting. The simulation consists of two different parts: the
mobility simulation and a call arrival simulation. Each part will be
presented below. Also, two different geographical environments and
three anomaly situations will be simulated: a road with an accident
and a town centre with a flash mob and a flee situation.


Travel between home and work structures the daily life of many workers in Belgium. How is this mobility organised and what are the factors which influence the modal choice of workers? What are the levers which influence this choice and, in particular, what is the role of companies in this area? The objective of this synopsis is to review the current situation of these complex questions and it is organised in three parts: the context of these journeys, the evolution of mobility behaviour and its deciding factors, and the levers for action in order to evolve towards more sustainable mobility. This synopsis also shows that travel between home and work is not only a transport issue, but is also related to people's residential situation and land use planning. The latter suffers because of the institutional division of Belgium and calls for more coherence and dialogue among stakeholders. Despite this context, companies have significant room for manoeuvre, which this synopsis illustrates through three areas for action: the organisation of work, the management of the mobility of workers and accessibility.


This Report contains an overview of the current Australian tax treatment of the arts industry. To assist with this analysis, the art sector is divided into three broad categories: artists, art bodies and contributors. The Report highlights a number of mechanisms in the Australian tax system which relate to the arts - some which assist and some which do not. Briefly, the major observations are: • Employee-artists are subject to similar rules as those that apply to other Australian employees. • For business-artists: a) If trading as a sole trader (contractor), the business-artist may be deemed an 'employee' for Superannuation Guarantee purposes. This assists business-artists to accumulate superannuation savings for their retirement. b) To smooth out income fluctuations, there is the ability to average income in a year when there is above-average professional income. c) They could be regarded as a 'small business', and thereby access a number of tax concessions, such as small business capital gains tax (CGT) concessions. d) Rules can quarantine artistic tax losses, so the losses cannot offset other income, such as part-time wages. There is a carve-out for some artists if their non-artist income is less than $40,000 per annum. e) Rules can attribute personal service artistic income directly to artists even though a business structure (such as 'company') has been interposed between artists and their clients. • For Art Bodies: a) The constitution of the Art Body may enable it to be exempt from income tax. b) The Art Body may be eligible to register as a Deductible Gift Recipient (DGR). Status, as a DGR means that donations to the Art Body may be tax deductible for taxpayers. c) If the Art Body is not exempt from income tax, then its tax treatment will depend on the business form utilised. • For Individuals (alive) the tax treatment of their contributions to the arts vary: a) Donations of cash or property to non-DGRs would normally not be deductible for taxpayers. However, this can be altered if the individual donates through an intermediary DGR (such as the Australian Business Arts Foundation), which then can forward the contribution to a non-DGR. Donations through an intermediary DGR will be tax deductible for the taxpayer. b) The 'net inflated amount' may be tax deductible when there is a minor benefit received in return for donations to DGRs, such as charity dinners and charity auctions. c) Deductions for cultural goods are available for donations to certain cultural institutions. d) Deductions for donations to DGRs of other non-cultural goods and land can be available. However, the taxpayer could have a deemed capital gain for the donation, which may negate the benefit of the tax deduction for the donation. e) Volunteering of time and services (including expenses incurred in doing volunteer work) is unlikely to be tax deductible for volunteers. f) The purchase of art work is likely to be subject to restrictive CGT rules that either limit the cost base or quarantine subsequent capital losses on disposal of the art. • For Individuals who make testamentary donations, these will normally not be tax deductible unless the donation is of cultural goods (in very limited circumstances). • For enterprises purchasing or supporting the arts, they may be able to claim a tax deduction for advertising received in connection to the support. However, such a deduction could be denied or reduced if the purchase includes 'entertainment'. • Individuals can set up their own DGRs by creating a Prescribed Private Fund (PPF), a non-profit trust which itself contributes to other DGRs which may include Art Bodies. • New film tax offset incentives have been introduced which replace the prior deduction system. After providing an overview of the Australian tax system, this Report analyses the tax treatment of Artists, Art Bodies and Contributors. The Report also canvasses the new tax offset concessions for the film industry, and then outlines some concluding observations about potential reforms that will be further developed in Report #4.


Distinguishing causes from effects is an important problem in many areas. In this paper, we propose a very general but well defined nonlinear acyclic causal model, namely, post-nonlinear acyclic causal model with inner additive noise, to tackle this problem. In this model, each observed variable is generated by a nonlinear function of its parents, with additive noise, followed by a nonlinear distortion. The nonlinearity in the second stage takes into account the effect of sensor distortions, which are usually encountered in practice. In the two-variable case, if all the nonlinearities involved in the model are invertible, by relating the proposed model to the post-nonlinear independent component analysis (ICA) problem, we give the conditions under which the causal relation can be uniquely found. We present a two-step method, which is constrained nonlinear ICA followed by statistical independence tests, to distinguish the cause from the effect in the two-variable case. We apply this method to solve the problem "CauseEffectPairs" in the Pot-luck challenge, and successfully identify causes from effects.


Some practices that come within the scope of the antitrust laws, such as price fixing by competitors, are by their very nature harmful to the interests of consumers. Generally firms that engage in them will try to conceal these practices and the work of the antitrust authorities will consist of discovering them. In legal proceedings concerning such cases, the harmfulness of the practice itself is seldom an issue of debate. The scope of the antitrust laws also extends over practices whose implications for consumers are much less obvious and very much dependent on the specifics of the market in which they are used. A joint venture, for example, may be a means to pool expertise and capacity that allows a better product to be introduced to the market at an earlier point in time. Yet it may also be used by parent companies to facilitate collusion. For such practices to be condemned under the antitrust laws, evidence must be produced of their actual harmful effects on consumers. This thesis presents an evaluation of the level of legal certainty offered by the method of investigation that the European Commission adopts to examine these more ambiguous practices. This must be seen against the background of the recent modernisation of the European Commission's interpretation of Article 81 of the EC Treaty (which prohibits agreements in restraint of competition). It is argued that these reforms, in particular due to the way they have been put into practice, have put pressure on firms' ability to predict whether their agreement will be challenged and found to have produced negative effects. It is examined, also, how legal certainty may be improved. Specifically, the costs and benefits of requiring the Commission to articulate more clearly what harm to consumers it expects from the restraint it challenges and to present more empirical evidence in support of this claim are considered.


Liberalisation of generation and supply activities in the electricity sectors is often followed by regulatory reform of distribution networks. In order to improve the efficiency of distribution utilities, some regulators have adopted incentive regulation schemes that rely on performance benchmarking. Although regulation benchmarking can influence the "regulation game", the subject has received limited attention. This paper discusses how strategic behaviour can result in inefficient behaviour by firms. We also present a survey of issues encountered by electricity regulators. We then use the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) method with US utility data to examine implications of selected cases of strategic behaviour. The results show that gaming can have significant effects on the measured performance and profitability of firms.


Introduction Since Emancipation, Black farmers in America have fought continuously to acquire self-determination of their lives and that of their families via the attainment, retention, and cultivation of farmland. Impressively, by 1920 Black farmers neared the one million mark and owned nearly 15 million acres (Gilbert, Wood, and Sharp 2002; Wood and Gilbert 2000). Yet, in subsequent years as these farmers endured numerous economic and racialized obstacles including untimely delivery of operating loans, insufficient information about program availability, and racist treatment in many county USDA offices, their number has declined at a rate nearly three times that of White farmers (US Commission on Civil Rights 1982; Wood and Gilbert 2000). Importantly, Black-owned farmland has declined by over 50 percent since around 1910 (Gilbert, Wood, and Sharp 2002). Arguably the most cohesive attempt to alleviate the racially motivated barriers that have contributed to the rapid decline of Black farmers and Black-owned farmland across America came during the class-action lawsuit Timothy Pigford et al., v Dan Glickman, Civil Action No. 97-1978 (1997). Better known as Pigford, this class-action lawsuit was the result of the collaborative grassroots efforts of farmers, their families, legal teams, and social justice organizations. Collectively, they advocated for the return of land to African-American farmers. Ultimately these farmers prevailed by forcing what was then the largest class-action civil rights settlement in the history of the country. However, despite their legal success, most Black farmers and farm advocacy groups feel that in general, Black farmers received insufficient financial restitution for the discrimination inflicted by agents of the USDA's Farmers Home Administration (FmHA), now known as the Farm Service Agency (FSA), and the Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC). This essay examines the organization of and advocacy for African-American farmers beginning with support for Pigford in 1997 (Pigford I) up until the passage of Senate Bill 3838 (Pigford II), which allows for the allotment of $1.15 billion to those farmers who could prove their claims of discrimination. Additionally, we review the immediate and long-term implications of this legislation for Black farmers and landowners. Next, we identify barriers that continue to obstruct Black farmers' success in agricultural enterprises, those groups that are actively working to transform the downward spiral of Black agriculture in America, and the role that government may play to contribute to the success of these farmers. And furthermore, we introduce the reader to the Black Farmers and Agriculturalists Association and review the basic problems of racial discrimination within the USDA. We then turn to an overview of the elements of the Pigford lawsuit and its recent resolution embodied in Senate Bill 3838. And finally, we discuss the USDA as a site of institutional racism and consider the need for continued vigilance of its programs and activities. The Black Farmers and Agriculturalists Association The Black Farmers and Agriculturalists Association (BFAA) is a national grassroots network of farmers, activists, scholars and concerned citizens dedicated to: alleviating the struggles of Black farmers, developing and educating young Black farmers, and seeking equality for these farmers through the justice system. BFAA is based in the New Deal Resettlement Community of Tillery, North Carolina, which we discuss in more detail below. For now, however, it is important to recognize that the community was established through a land acquisition program initiated as part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal (Conkin 1959). These resettlement communities, as they were called, intended to provide landless people an opportunity to acquire property. In the larger Tillery project, called Roanoke Farms, both Black and White families participated and acquired their own land for the first time. …


Recent progress has shown that low-temperature processed tin oxide (SnO2) is an excellent electron selective layer (ESL) material for fabricating highly efficient organic–inorganic metal-halide perovskite solar cells with a planar cell structure. Low-temperature processing and a planar cell structure are desirable characteristics for large-scale device manufacturing due to their associated low costs and processing simplicity. Here, we report that plasma-enhanced atomic layer deposition (PEALD) is able to lower the deposition temperature of SnO2 ESLs to below 100 °C and still achieve high device performance. With C60-self-assembled monolayer passivation, our PEALD SnO2 ESLs deposited at ∼100 °C led to average power conversion efficiencies higher than 18% (maximum of 19.03%) and 15% (maximum of 16.80%) under reverse voltage scan for solar cells fabricated on glass and flexible polymer substrates, respectively. Our results thus demonstrate the potential of the low-temperature PEALD process of SnO2 ESLs for large-scale manufacturing of efficient perovskite solar cells.


Effects of riparian vegetation on fluvial sediment dynamics depend on morphological traits of the constituent species. Determining the effects of different morphological guilds on sedimentation rates, as influenced by multiple aspects of dam operations, can help identify viable strategies for streamflow and vegetation management to achieve riparian resource goals. Plants of increasing size and branching density or complexity have been found to have greater effects on sedimentation in free‐flowing systems; however, this relationship could differ in regulated rivers. We tested the hypothesis that plant guilds of increasing height and branching complexity would be positively associated with sedimentation rates on 23 sandbars deposited in zones of recirculating flow (eddies) along the Colorado River in Grand Canyon. We used an image‐based vegetation classification and digital elevation models from annual topographic surveys to track associations between six plant morphological guilds and topographic change over 5 years. Vegetation had significant associations with deposition after accounting for geomorphic setting, but the ordinal guild scale was not positively correlated with deposition magnitude. Instead, low‐statured rhizomatous and herbaceous guilds were particularly effective at capturing sediment in the separation zone of sandbars, whereas tall herbs and large shrubs were most effective at capturing sediment in reattachment zones. These nuanced interactions between geomorphic position and morphological guild may be a direct consequence of flow regulation through modifications to physical deposition and erosion processes. Flow regulation may also select for a narrow subset of morphological guilds, reducing the diversity of vegetation feedbacks on sedimentation and emphasizing geomorphic drivers.


Aim: To investigate the relation between obsession and eating behaviours among university students including some factors that affected this relation. Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted with 1754 university students. The study sample was selected using the stratified sampling method. Basic demographic data were collected. Eating attitudes were determined using the Eating Attitude Test (EAT)-40, and obsessive-compulsive behaviours were determined using the Maudsley Obsessive Compulsive Inventory (MOCI). Anthropometric measurements were also examined. Results: Females (16.2%) were observed to have higher risks of eating disorder than males (11.4%) (p<0.05). Eating disorder risk was also higher among students in the educational sciences (20.4%), health sciences (14.4%), applied sciences (11.8%) and social sciences (10.4%) (p<0.05). A positive relation was found between eating behaviour and obsession (r=0.337, p<0.001). Conclusion: The study found a relationship between eating behaviour and obsession. It also concluded that gender and education were the factors that affected eating behaviour and obsession.


Recent efforts to measure energy poverty more comprehensively attempt to redress the shortcomings of binary metrics that remain in common use. However, significant challenges remain both with the construction of the new measurement frameworks and their application. The paper presents an analysis of recent multidimensional measurement approaches and applications to draw inferences on the implications of applying these for the measurement of energy access and in informing policies aimed at improving it. The assessment suggests that despite progress having been made in capturing the multidimensional nature of energy poverty, the new measures are currently too complex to operationalize at the global level and too prescriptive to gain acceptance in diverse national contexts. Further efforts are thus required to consolidate and simplify the new frameworks for global tracking purposes, and to adapt and modify these to specific country contexts to inform national policy and planning. A subset of key energy poverty dimensions and uniform set of indicators need to be shortlisted for the purposes of global comparisons, while specific national tracking efforts can apply dimensions and thresholds most suited to accurately capture energy poverty and its drivers in a given context.


We conduct laboratory experiments and direct numerical simulations on internal gravity waves generated by tidal flow over a model three‐dimensional Gaussian mountain on the sea floor. When 2ω < N (where ω is the tidal frequency and N is the buoyancy frequency), the flow generates second harmonic internal waves that propagate perpendicular to the tidal forcing direction. These unexpected harmonics are observed only when the maximum slope of the bottom topography is greater than the slope of internal wave propagation. The out‐of‐plane harmonics saturate at a higher tidal forcing amplitude than the normal in‐tidal‐forcing‐plane harmonics, and could lead to increased wave breaking and mixing near rough topography in the ocean.


Recently, multivariable moored systems (MVMS) have been developed to study the ecology and physics of the upper ocean. Concurrent MVMS measurements provide time series of beam attenuation coefficient, stimulated and natural chlorophyll fluorescence, photosynthetically available radiation, and dissolved oxygen along with currents and temperature. MVMS data have been obtained during experiments in the Sargasso Sea (34°N 70°W) and south of Iceland (59°N 21°W). This series of in situ, high frequency, long-term observations are the first of their kind in the open ocean and provide an impetus for similar observations relevant to studies of optical variability, primary production, particulate fluxes, and pollution in other oceanographic environments. We are presently utilizing MVMS systems to study problems related to the discharge of wastewaters into the coastal marine environment near Los Angeles. The overall goal of our efforts is to determine how particulate distributions in the vicinity of an ocean outfall change in response to physical and biological processes. These efforts include a benthic component which concerns the resuspension of bottom sediments in response to various physical forcing conditions and a water column component which involves the variability and distributions of effluent and phytoplankton (and their detrital products) particulate matter and their effects upon the subsurface light field.


Outsourced software project is one of the main ways of software development, which is of high failure rate. Intelligent risk prediction model can help identify high risk project in time. However, the existing models are mostly based on such a hypothesis that all the cost of misclassification is equal, which is not consistent with the reality that in the domain of software project risk prediction, the cost of predicting a fail-prone project as a success-prone project is different from predicting a success-prone project as a fail-prone project. To the best of our knowledge, the cost-sensitive learning method has not yet been applied in the domain of outsourced software project risk management though it has been widely used in a variety of fields. Based on this situation, we selected five classifiers, and introduced cost-sensitive learning method to build intelligent prediction models respectively. This paper totally collected 292 real data of outsourced software project for modeling. Experiment results showed that, under cost-sensitive scenario, the polynomial kernel support vector machine is the best classifier for outsourced software project risk prediction among the five classifiers due to its high prediction accuracy, stability and low cost.


Bark beetle outbreaks are a major threat to forest productivity, and a robust forecast of early flight activity is necessary for inhibition or mitigation of large-scale infestations. We used spring phenology of common wild plants in a phenology-based forecasting approach for European spruce bark beetle Ips typographicus L. early flight activity in Bavaria, Southern Germany, and tested this novel approach against traditional thermal sum-based predictions. Our phenology- based forecast employing the 2 phenological phases of first flowering of common snowdrop Galanthus nivalis L. and leaf budburst of horse chestnut Aesculus hippocastanum L. proved to be more robust and accurate than the thermal sum-based forecast. This is explained by both bark beetle phenology and plant phenology being results of a complex control chain of environmental factors, which can be approximated by temperature sums only to a limited degree. However, our space-for-time approach demonstrates strong and unequivocal temperature sensitivity of bark beetle and plant phenology. This indicates a common pattern in bioclimatic mediation of ecophys- iological processes for both plants and insects as the mechanistic foundation for forecasting. In the case of costly bark beetle activity monitoring data often characterised by gaps and irregular sam- pling intervals, plant phenology can thus provide an easily observable alternative or complemen- tary predictor for early flight activity. Our results indicate that forest practitioners can benefit from simple phenological observations to improve the timing of adequate management measures to mitigate bark beetle mass infestations.


Hyperphosphorylation of microtubule-associated proteins such as tau and neurofilament may underlie the cytoskeletal abnormalities and neuronal death seen in several neurodegenerative diseases including Alzheimer's disease. One potential mechanism of microtubule-associated protein hyperphosphorylation is augmented activity of protein kinases known to associate with microtubules, such as cdk5 or GSK3beta. Here we show that tau and neurofilament are hyperphosphorylated in transgenic mice that overexpress human p25, an activator of cdk5. The p25 transgenic mice display silver-positive neurons using the Bielschowsky stain. Disturbances in neuronal cytoskeletal organization are apparent at the ultrastructural level. These changes are localized predominantly to the amygdala, thalamus/hypothalamus, and cortex. The p25 transgenic mice display increased spontaneous locomotor activity and differences from control in the elevated plus-maze test. The overexpression of an activator of cdk5 in transgenic mice results in increased cdk5 activity that is sufficient to produce hyperphosphorylation of tau and neurofilament as well as cytoskeletal disruptions reminiscent of Alzheimer's disease and other neurodegenerative diseases.


The workings of electronics at low temperature have many potential advantages since, up to a certain level of integration, reduce losses and increase the speed of electronic circuitry. Besides cryogenic applications used for scientific and medical purposes, the operation of circuits at low temperatures has been proposed in the past to increase general electronic system performance to be abandoned later by the fast technological increase in performance of modern electronic devices. The objectives of the present paper are to review the recommendations or modifications to make possible electronic designs, including implementation aspects that work at low temperature and severe thermal environment while being compliant with present manufacturing standards for space applications. The recommendations may involve materials selection, operation over the PCBs (soldering), storage and the operation of electronics at low temperatures and wide thermal cycles.