Traditional methods for the discovery of latent network structures are limited in two ways: they either assume that all the signal comes from the network (i.e. there is no source of signal outside the network) or they place constraints on the network parameters to ensure model or algorithmic stability. We address these limitations by proposing a model that incorporates a Gaussian process prior on a network-independent component and formally proving that we get algorithmic stability for free, while providing a novel perspective on model stability as well as robustness results and precise intervals for key inference parameters. We show that, on three applications, our approach outperforms previous methods consistently.


This paper presents a time-interleaved pipelined-SAR ADC with on-chip offset cancellation technique. The design reuses the SAR ADC to perform offset cancellation, thus saving calibration costs. The inter-stage gain of 8 is implemented in a 6-bit capacitive DAC with a flip-around operation. A capacitive attenuation used in both the first and second DACs significantly reduces the power dissipation and optimizes conversion speed. The detailed circuit implementation of the subthreshold op-amp is discussed, and the possible limits caused by nonidealities are analyzed for a proper correction in the design. These include the inter-stage-gain error and various channel mismatches of offset, gain, and timing. Measurements of a 65-nm CMOS prototype operating at 160 MS/s and 1.1-V supply show an SNDR of 55.4 dB and 2.72 mW total power consumption.


OBJECTIVE
This study is about the in vivo antivirus effect of baicalin.

METHOD
Adopting in vivo experiment, we administered one group of mice 2 days before infected with influenza virus (A/FM/1/47) , while administer the other group with baicalin one day after infected, to observe the effect of baicalin in protecting and curing mice against influenza virus.

RESULT
Baicalin can obviously prolong the survival time of mice infected with influenza virus (A/FM/1/47) (P <0.01), eliminate the influenza virus in lung, reduce the hemagglutination tite and infectivity in pulmo, and reverse mice's pneumonic pathological changes.

CONCLUSION
Baicalin can obviously counteract influenza virus.


Tidal renewable energy is a promising alternative energy resource, and marginal seas are known as excellent sites for tidal energy exploitation. In-stream and tidal energy devices are less exposed to extreme weather events than wind energy. Nevertheless, during tropical storms, the currents may intensify to levels that threaten the integrity of the devices. This paper presents Hurricane Odile and its impact on the currents in the Gulf of California (GC) as a worst case scenario. A methodology to analyze the impact and its potential effects on tidal energy converters installed within the region are presented. The analysis is based on predictions obtained with a 3D shallow water model forced by tides and the meteorological conditions generated by Odile. A tidal model with no wind forcing was used for validation of the tidal model predictions. After validation, the two models were used to analyze the maximum anomaly in surface currents and sea surface height caused by the passage of Odile, and to analyze at which depth the devices could be deemed safe from any impact of the hurricane. Some anomalies extended throughout the water column, even in the deep regions of the GC. This paper highlights the importance of including the meteorological forcing in evaluations of tidal range or in-stream renewable energy resources and introduces new measures of device exposure to the current anomalies.


Abstract: The restriction of Intellectual property rights, as an important principle and system in the Intellectual property law, has its own existence of the reasonable economic basis. This thesis begins with the definition of intellectual asset rights, reveals that the intellectual asset has the double properties of private products and public products, and demonstrates the rationality of moderate private right protection. And then it revises the economic senses in the intellectual property system using the method of economic analysis, and analyzes the important role which intrinsic balance mechanism and exterior restriction mechanism play, to guarantee information resource configured liquidly and carried on effectively. Key words: Law-economics, Restriction of intellectual property rights, Pareto criterion Resume: En tant que le principe et l'institution importants du droit de propriete intellectuelle, la restriction du droit de propriete intellectuelle existe sur la base rationnelle de la science economique. Je commence dans cette these par la delimitation du droit de propriete intellectuelle afin de decouvrir sa double caracteristique: produit prive et produit public, et d'argumenter la rationalite de le proteger mesurement comme le droit prive. Et ensuite, j'etudie la raison economique de l'institution du droit de propriete intellectuelle, au moyen d'analyse economique, et j'explique l'importance de son mecanisme equilibre a l'interieur et son mecanisme restreint a l'exterieur pour assurer la distribution facile et la fonction effective des resources informatiques. Mots-Cles: droit-economie, restriction du droit de propriete intellectuelle, critere de PARETO 1. INTRODUCTION There are many important economic meanings behind law, no matter whether the legislators realize the meaning consciously or not, law-economics or so called economic analysis law came about and owned more and more people's attentions after experiencing certain developing periods. As for what the law-economics is, so far there does not only exist a definition that is widely accepted by the public, but also by very famous scholars such as Richard · A · Posner, Robert · Kart and Thomas · Youln who have not given a definition to the law-economics. 2 Although law-economics has both extensive meaning and profound content, the substance of law-economics_still emphasizes the society's interest and benefit related to legal system, which researches and studies for this subject are conducted from the economic position. It advocates that law should minimize the social cost in the rights' definition. That is, it requires law should choose a kind of right configuration and implementation procedure which have a lower cost. It provides us a way to know and evaluate the intellectual property rights system according to the principle of efficiency. The author uses the method of economic analysis to revise whether the intellectual property system contains the reasonable economic senses and to analyze the important role which intrinsic balance mechanism and exterior limit mechanism plays for guarantying information resource configured liquidly and carried on effectively. 2. PROPERTY RIGHT DEFINITION OF KNOWLEDGE ASSETS The definition of "The Intellectual Property Rights" was brought in from aboard when China joined in the World Property Right Organization at the end of 70 's in 19th century. Intellectual Property has two meanings at least. One is knowledge product or knowledge asset, the essential factor of product or the valuable goods which is so called knowledge property. The other is intellectual property rights itself. Property is defined based on knowledge produce, a kind of intangible asset, and derived from the economist's classification of public product and personal product, thus it is necessary to begin with this classification. 2.1 Personal Product and Public Product The economists classify personal product and public product is based on whether the expense or the use of product that has exclusiveness. …


Over the past decade there has been a growing use of intracranial stents for the treatment of both ischemic and hemorrhagic cerebrovascular disease, including stents to assist in the remodeling of the neck of aneurysms as well as the use of flow diverting devices for aneurysm treatment. With this increase in stent usage has come a growing need for the neurointerventional (NI) community to understand the pharmacology of medications used for modifying platelet function, as well as the testing methodologies available. Platelet function testing in NI procedures remains controversial. While pre-procedural antiplatelet assays might lead to a reduced rate of thromboembolic complications, little evidence exists to support this as a standard of care practice. Despite the routine use of dual antiplatelet therapy (DAT) with aspirin and a P2Y12 receptor antagonist (such as clopidogrel, prasugrel, or ticagrelor) in most neuroembolization procedures necessitating intraluminal reconstruction devices, thromboembolic complications are still encountered.1–3 Moreover, DAT carries the risk of hemorrhagic complications, with intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH) being the most potentially devastating.4 ,5

Light transmission aggregometry (LTA) is the gold standard to test for platelet reactivity, but it is usually expensive and may not be easily obtainable at many centers. This has led to the development of point-of-care assays, such as the VerifyNow (Accumetrics, San Diego, California, USA), which correlates strongly with LTA and can reliably measure the degree of P2Y12 receptor inhibition.6–9 VerifyNow results are reported in P2Y12 reaction units (PRUs), with a lower PRU value corresponding to a higher level of P2Y12 receptor inhibition and, presumably, a lower probability of platelet aggregation, and a higher PRU value corresponding to a lower level of P2Y12 receptor inhibition and, hence, a higher chance of platelet activation and aggregation.

While aspirin resistance is perhaps less common, clopidogrel resistance may be more challenging as …


ABSTRACT The cattle tick, Rhipicephalus (Boophilus) microplus, is a major threat to the improvement of cattle production in tropical and subtropical countries worldwide. Bos indicus cattle are naturally more resistant to infestation with the cattle tick than are Bos taurus breeds, although considerable variation in resistance occurs within and between breeds. It is not known which genes contribute to the resistant phenotype, nor have immune parameters involved in resistance to R. microplus been fully described for the bovine host. This study was undertaken to determine whether selected cellular and antibody parameters of the peripheral circulation differed between tick-resistant Bos indicus and tick-susceptible Bos taurus cattle following a period of tick infestations. This study demonstrated significant differences between the two breeds with respect to the percentage of cellular subsets comprising the peripheral blood mononuclear cell population, cytokine expression by peripheral blood leukocytes, and levels of tick-specific immunoglobulin G1 (IgG1) antibodies measured in the peripheral circulation. In addition to these parameters, the Affymetrix bovine genome microarray was used to analyze gene expression by peripheral blood leukocytes of these animals. The results demonstrate that the Bos indicus cattle developed a stabilized T-cell-mediated response to tick infestation evidenced by their cellular profile and leukocyte cytokine spectrum. The Bos taurus cattle demonstrated cellular and gene expression profiles consistent with a sustained innate, inflammatory response to infestation, although high tick-specific IgG1 titers suggest that these animals have also developed a T-cell response to infestation.


Increased attention is being focused on the Sandwich Generation, a rapidly growing subset of the adult population usually in their 40's to 60's who are the primary caregiver for children under the age of 18, as well an aging parent(s). The pull between the two generations is one of the greatest struggles facing mid-life adults 'sandwiched' between caring for their developing children and their aging parents. The delicacies of balancing logistical and emotional resources among the generations can be overwhelming for sandwich generation caregivers. The resulting stress on caregivers is related to higher absenteeism from work, levels of depression, chronic fatigue, and increased rates of job burnout. As life expectancies continue to increase and parenthood continues to be delayed, more adult children will find themselves slung precariously in the middle of caregiving for people at opposite ends of the lifespan. What follows is a personal account describing the day-to-day challenges, grief, and role-reversals that are common among sandwich generation caregivers. This work aims to provide the reader insight into the unique lived experiences and delicate nature of caring for loved ones at opposing ends of the life-cycle.


Intense deformation occurs in an area of about 25 square miles, centered at Des Plaines in northeastern Illinois. Previously called a "cryptovolcanic structure," the Des Plaines disturbance is here called a "cryptoexplosion structure," a term that implies no specific explosive mechanism. Silurian rocks, essentially flat lying and gently warped, surround the roughly circular disturbed area in which beds ranging in age from Mississippian to Early Ordovician underlie the glacial drift. Structural derangement is complex, with many high-angle normal faults but without any over-turning or pronounced tilting of blocks. A graben in which Mississippian and Pennsylvanian rocks are preserved partly surrounds a central uplifted core. The main structural movement has been upward; maximum displacement is at least 900 feet. Only a post-Pennsylvanian age can be established for the faulting, although the possibility exists for multiple ages. A negative gravity anomaly of 8 mgals roughly coincides with the structure. Because of this, it is proposed that the Des Plaines disturbance may be the result of meteorite impact and elastic rebound of rocks in post-Pennsylvanian time. Erosion has removed about 1000 feet of rocks so that only the "root" portion of the impact structure remains at Des Plaines. Because of the pronounced gravity anomaly and the possibility that faulting occurred at more than one time, the concept of faulting produced by the focusing of regional forces at a point cannot be entirely rejected.


In this paper, we describe a pilot implementation and field test of a recently developed approach to real-time adaptive traffic signal control. The pilot system, called SURTRAC (Scalable Urban Traffic Control), follows the perspective of recent work in multi-agent planning and implements a decentralized, schedule-driven approach to traffic signal control. Under this approach, each intersection independently (and asynchronously) computes a schedule that optimizes the flow of currently approaching traffic through that intersection, and uses this schedule to decide when to switch green phases. The traffic outflows projected by this schedule are then communicated to the intersection's downstream neighbors, to increase visibility of vehicles entering their respective planning horizons. This process is repeated as frequently as once per second in rolling horizon fashion, to provide real-time responsiveness to changing traffic conditions and coordinated signal network behavior. After summarizing this basic approach to adaptive traffic signal control and the domain challenges it is intended to address, we describe the pilot implementation of SURTRAC and its application to a nine-intersection road network in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Both the SURTRAC architecture for interfacing with the detection equipment, hardware controller and communication network at a given intersection and the extensions required to account for unreliable sensor data are discussed. Finally, we present the results of a pilot test of the system, where SURTRAC is seen to achieve major reductions in travel times and vehicle emissions over pre-existing signal timings.


Template activating factor-I (TAF-I)alpha and TAF-Ibeta have been identified as the host factors that activate DNA replication of the adenovirus genome complexed with viral basic core proteins (Ad core). TAF-I causes a structural change of the Ad core, thereby stimulating not only replication but also transcription from the Ad core DNA in vitro. TAF-I also activates transcription from the reconstituted chromatin consisting of DNA fragments and purified histones through chromatin remodeling. Although the carboxyl-terminal region, which is highly rich in acidic amino acids, is essential for the TAF-I activity, it remains unclear how other parts are involved in its activity. The native TAF-I isolated from HeLa cells exists as either hetero- or homo-oligomer. Here, we have demonstrated by cross-linking assays that most of TAF-I exists as a dimer. Analyses using deletion mutant TAF-I proteins revealed that the amino-terminal region of TAF-I common to both alpha and beta is essential for dimerization. This region is predicted to form a coiled-coil structure. Indeed, mutations disrupting this putative structure abolished the dimerization capability and reduced the TAF-I activity in the Ad core DNA replication assay. Furthermore, we found that TAF-I mutants lacking the acidic tail act in a dominant-negative manner in this assay. These observations strongly suggest that the dimerization of TAF-I is important for its activity.


Drawdowns during aquifer tests can be obscured by barometric pressure changes, earth tides, regional pumping, and recharge events in the water-level record. These stresses can create water-level fluctuations that should be removed from observed water levels prior to estimating drawdowns. Simple models have been developed for estimating unpumped water levels during aquifer tests that are referred to as synthetic water levels. These models sum multiple time series such as barometric pressure, tidal potential, and background water levels to simulate non-pumping water levels. The amplitude and phase of each time series are adjusted so that synthetic water levels match measured water levels during periods unaffected by an aquifer test. Differences between synthetic and measured water levels are minimized with a sum-of-squares objective function. Root-mean-square errors during fitting and prediction periods were compared multiple times at four geographically diverse sites. Prediction error equaled fitting error when fitting periods were greater than or equal to four times prediction periods. The proposed drawdown estimation approach has been implemented in a spreadsheet application. Measured time series are independent so that collection frequencies can differ and sampling times can be asynchronous. Time series can be viewed selectively and magnified easily. Fitting and prediction periods can be defined graphically or entered directly. Synthetic water levels for each observation well are created with earth tides, measured time series, moving averages of time series, and differences between measured and moving averages of time series. Selected series and fitting parameters for synthetic water levels are stored and drawdowns are estimated for prediction periods. Drawdowns can be viewed independently and adjusted visually if an anomaly skews initial drawdowns away from 0. The number of observations in a drawdown time series can be reduced by averaging across user-defined periods. Raw or reduced drawdown estimates can be copied from the spreadsheet application or written to tab-delimited ASCII files.


Key Points The Bush administration's concept of preemptive action has become a lightning rod in domestic and international politics. Proponents see it as a prudent response to terrorism and rogue states, which may not be deterred from threatening or using weapons of mass destruction (WMD). Critics contend that the concept will exacerbate distrust of the United States on the part of allies and potential partners and may make rogue states more risk-prone. There is a good deal of misunderstanding and confusion about this concept. Preemption usually is associated with military strikes, but financial, diplomatic, and law enforcement measures also can be used in preemptive ways to enhance security. Preemption is not a new option. U.S. officials have contemplated preemptive military actions against WMD several times, usually without taking action. What is new is open discussion of preemption. Successful preemptive strikes require precise, prompt actions with decisive effects. Thus, the United States must be prepared to invest in intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities, planning assets, and, potentially, new military forces. The National Security Strategy of the United States does not establish clear criteria for preemptive military action. Apprehension about the current policy might be assuaged with an elaboration of the general conditions and circumstances, or the factors to be weighed, for the preemptive use of force. ********** What role should preemptive action play in U.S. national strategy? In the wake of the first public statements by President George W. Bush in June 2002, and in the buildup to military action against Iraq, the issue quickly became a lightning rod for controversy. While some commentators hailed preemption as a valuable concept whose time had come, others condemned it as a dangerous precedent that could damage American interests, strain our relations overseas, and make the United States a feared unilateralist in the international system. All the hue and cry has done little to clarify the issues and choices that policymakers face in weighing the utility and limits of the concept. The National Security Strategy of the United States of America (September 2002) states that "the United States will, if necessary, act preemptively" to prevent rogue states or terrorists from threatening or using weapons of mass destruction (WMD) against the United States or its friends and allies (see page 2). Yet there is much misunderstanding and confusion about the administration's concept of preemption, which has led to a great deal of apprehension. Some of the confusion is self-inflicted, some is circumstantial, and some results from willful misreading. While the administration was laying out a general concept, it did so against the backdrop of Iraq. It is not surprising, then, that some have failed to distinguish between the two. Iraq may be the first case study in the new policy--although some argue that action against Iraq was not preemption but a preventive war, while others argue it was a continuation of action from the 1991 Gulf War. In any event, Iraq is not the sum total of the policy. In the popular mind, preemption is synonymous with the use of force, and specifically with military strikes. But the concept has a broader meaning and application, as implied by the administration's careful emphasis on preemptive action. To preempt is defined in Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary as "to prevent from happening or taking place: forestall; preclude." Many of the preemptive actions that the United States is likely to undertake will be nonmilitary. And the nonmilitary methods of preemptive action are likely to be less controversial than military preemption. Historical Antecedents There are a number of historical examples of the United States contemplating preemptive military actions including against WMD-armed adversaries (at least partially motivated by preemption or prevention, sometimes in addition to other motives), but only a small number of examples in which preemptive military action was actually taken. …


This paper, electronically distributed on May 14, 2008, by the American Constitutional Society for Law and Policy, focuses on several of the sixty-one decisions issued by the National Labor Relations Board in September 2007, a group of decisions that many in the labor community have referred to as the "September Massacre." The paper discusses the decisions and their effects on the right to organize and other rights guaranteed under Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act. The paper also explores "the aggregate, weakening effect by both the Bush Board and prior governmental action." In exploring the decisions within this larger context, the paper explains that "many of the September decisions fit into a long history of legislative, administrative, and judicial cutbacks to the original NLRA," and might most accurately be viewed as "the latest, and perhaps most serious, attack on workers' rights." The paper pays special attention to the NLRB's Dana Corporation decision, one of the September decisions that is particularly harmful and revolutionary. The paper concludes with some thoughts on what the labor movement can do to regain economic and political power. Along those lines, the paper suggests a course that includes political activism, legislative changes (both substantive and procedural) to the NLRA, a federal judiciary willing to reverse the NLRB in appropriate circumstances, labor advocates being willing to use what remains of the NLRA to further workers' rights, and renewed attention to the teaching of labor law in our nation's law schools.


Unassertiveness is a mal-adaptive behaviour which is usually seen in people with low selfesteem. It affects the ability of individuals to express their opinions, interests and needs openly, directly and honestly in matters that concern them, including standing up for their rights without violating the rights of others. It may also affect academic performance. Based on the above, this study examined assertiveness training and its effects on self-esteem and academic performance among S.S.3 students in selected secondary schools in rural areas of Anambra State. 108 student-participants comprising of 39 males and 69 females were subjects for the study. The participants' age ranged from 15 to 19 years with a mean age of 16.24 years and standard deviation of 1.10. Two hypotheses were formulated and data was collected with the aid of 25-item self-esteem questionnaire by Hudson (1982) and test scores. The participants were divided into two groups; the experimental group and the control group. After statistical analysis of the data, findings revealed that assertiveness training enhanced the self-esteem score of the experimental group whereas no significant changes were observed in that of the control group. Also, there were significant changes in the academic performance between the two groups. It is therefore recommended that government should through the intervention of the education board enhance the current curriculum to include practical assertiveness training among all the SS class students in order to improve on their self-esteem which has a positive implication for improved academic performance.


Consumption, 'to use up, to destroy', is a dirty word. It conjures piles of rubbish; it suggests an extravagant attitude. We, each one of us hoping to be a unique, careful individual, can feel offended at being referred to as 'the consumer'. Yet, 'to consume' is not only a human activity, it is one of the fundamental processes of nature, a natural aspect of the creative process. In this paper, I will emphasize connections between the creative research process, poetics and consumerism. I suggest that research can be envisioned as a cycle of consumption and renewal. Our tools in such a natural philosophy are the contemplation of natural events, and the insights that a poetic understanding of language can give us. To this end, I draw on the ancient Epicurean philosophy, as demonstrated in De rerum natura, written by the Roman poet, Lucretius, in the first century BCE. Lucretius gave a scientific explanation of the universe, in poetry, to demonstrate that natural laws can be derived by reason, contemplation and by the use of the senses. Further, Lucretius' use of language, as a creative medium, modelled the actions of the universe. This insight provides a link between poetry, science and research, one which is still relevant to twenty-first-century scientific research generally. In this paper, I will suggest that it is also specifically relevant to the design and practice of consumer research.

For instance, both research and creativity are aspects of that urge to move beyond subjectivity, towards knowledge that is whole and shared. In Epicureanism, subjective engagement provides access to that which is universal. We can conceive of consumerism, and of consumer research, in the same terms, as a striving for completion, and as a poetic, natural and reciprocal act, involving the transformation of the consumer, and that which is consumed.


Moving target defense (MTD) is a feasible idea for reducing the ratio of successful attacks by altering or diversifying the attributes or parameters of a protected system. As a result of applying MTD techniques to a system, an attacker would have more difficulties in launching attacks. Although several MTD techniques have been proposed for different types of attack, estimating the effectiveness of combining these MTDs remains a challenge. With the aim of setting up a method for evaluating MTDs, we first propose a model composed of two MTD diversification techniques to compare an attack success ratio between theoretical and experimental probability. To validate the proposed model, we conducted an experiment involving an actual attack and then analyzed how our MTD model can adequately estimate a binary-code injection attack. Results show that the rate of attack success is 100% when MTD diversification is not implemented, while the rate is reduced depending on how many variants can be diversified in a target system. Our method is an important first step toward establishing a method for evaluating MTDs, as well as predicting an MTD's defensive abilities.


The use of critical appraisal guidelines to assess the validity of research findings has become an established technique in those disciplines, such as healthcare and medicine, that encourage the use of evidence-based practice. Critical appraisal guidelines provide a rigorous set of criteria, often in the form of a checklist, against which a piece of research can be assessed. Although well established criteria exist for many forms of quantitative research, such as clinical trials and cohort studies, qualitative research is less well served. Through a synthesis of existing best practices in interpretative research this paper provides comprehensive guidelines for the conduct of single case study research and extrapolates from them a set of critical appraisal guidelines to assist in the evaluation of such work.


Reliability at massive scale is one of the biggest challenges we face at Amazon.com, one of the largest e-commerce operations in the world; even the slightest outage has significant financial consequences and impacts customer trust. The Amazon.com platform, which provides services for many web sites worldwide, is implemented on top of an infrastructure of tens of thousands of servers and network components located in many datacenters around the world. At this scale, small and large components fail continuously and the way persistent state is managed in the face of these failures drives the reliability and scalability of the software systems.
 This paper presents the design and implementation of Dynamo, a highly available key-value storage system that some of Amazon's core services use to provide an "always-on" experience. To achieve this level of availability, Dynamo sacrifices consistency under certain failure scenarios. It makes extensive use of object versioning and application-assisted conflict resolution in a manner that provides a novel interface for developers to use.


The report was done collaboratively by two governement agencies —Bappenas, and Gorontalo Province— with the support of UNDP. It aims to be a strategic input for development planning, implementation, budgeting, and monitoring as well as an effort for improving human development index (HDI) in Gorontalo Province. This report identifies 15 sub-districts that have lower scores than the Province's score and need more policy interventions.


There is considerable debate about the extent to which gender equality and womens' rights are universal values. This debate has been particularly heated in Afghanistan where the violation of women's rights by the Taliban regime was one justification used by the US and its allies for their invasion of the country. There is, however, very little research on how ordinary Afghan women view their lives and their place within a highly patriarchal society and how their views might fit into these debates. This paper explores these issues using in-depth qualitative interviews with 12 Hazara women and their husbands in Kabul. These women are all associates of microfinance organisations and the paper also explores the extent to which access to microfinance has contributed to changes in their attitudes and relationships with others in their families and communities. The paper finds that microfinance is only one of the many changes that these women and their families have experienced in the course of their lives. While many of these changes have been extremely traumatic, they have also expanded women's horizons, opening up the possibility of new ways of organising gender relations within the family and community. The paper concludes that while the Afghan women in the study may not espouse the idea of individual rights, they would like to see a fairer gender distribution of rights and responsibilities.


Collaborative filtering (CF) plays an important role in reducing information overload by providing personalized services. CF is widely applied, but common items are not taken account in the similarity algorithm, which reduces the recommendation effect. To address this issue, we propose several methods to improve the similarity algorithm by considering common items, and apply the proposed methods to CF recommender systems. Experiments show that our methods demonstrate significant improvements over traditional CF.


Poverty and environmental deterioration are among the gravest challenges faced in the developing world today. The relationship between poverty and the environment is complex and highly influenced by the socio-economic factors of a country or region. The main objective of this preliminary study was to examine the nature of poverty-deforestation relationships for an area in Bangladesh by using secondary data, interviews and a questionnaire survey. The study found that although the rate of deforestation has decreased in recent years, it is still continuing in the study area, poverty is not the primary cause of deforestation and poor people are not the primary agent for such degradation. Environmental degradation makes people poorer through lack of availability of natural resources, and management of natural resources should include the full participation of local residents and cooperation with government to ensure socio-environmentally sustainable resource management.


This paper studies the transformation of the International Monetary System (IMS) in the run up to and after the 2007-9 Financial Crisis. Adopting a Money View perspective, it argues that the IMS, in contrast to wide-spread skepticism, does have a system-like quality. This paper understands the IMS as a US-centered hierarchical payments system within which short-term debt instruments are issued as credit money by various public and private financial institutions, in particular central, commercial and shadow banks. With the Fed located at the apex of the IMS, credit money forms denominated in US dollars are located highest up in the hierarchy and trade at par with each other, whilst they typically have fluctuating exchange rates to credit money forms denominated in the units of account of other monetary jurisdictions. From this, the paper argues that the key component of today's IMS is the 'realm' of offshore US dollar creation, which is situated in between US dollar-denominated credit money issued in the US ('onshore dollars') and non-US dollar-denominated credit money issued outside the US. In this 'offshore dollar realm', non-US financial institutions are able to create international liquidity via US dollar-denominated private credit money outside the US. The paper systematically carves out the post-2008 setup of the offshore dollar realm with a focus on Eurodollar deposits, offshore money market fund shares, foreign exchange swaps and central bank swaps. With the institutional innovations materializing during the 2007-9 Financial Crisis, the IMS is now a public- private hybrid that fully mirrors the onshore US monetary system in the offshore dollar realm.
This discussion paper is the first in a series of two complementary pieces on the past, present and possible futures of the International Monetary System. It lays the theoretical and historical foundation for the paper "The Future of Offshore Dollar Creation: Four Scenarios for the International Monetary System by 2040", authored by Steffen Murau, Joe Rini and Armin Haas (https://ssrn.com/abstract=3191786).


The occurrence of twin calving in Holstein Friesian cattle is 3 – 5%. Reproductive prob- lems found before and after the time of calving lead to serious economic losses. The authors ' aim was to form a compilation of data regarding the cause and effects of twin calving on dairy cows by comparing the reproductive performance of cows before and after calving twins vs. single calves and also analyzing the milk production of dairy cows both before and after twin calving. Cows that would have twins became pregnant earlier, probably because of their better health and fertility, with shorter gestations and calving interval. However, after calving, cows that had twins showed poorer reproductive performance. The results show that twin-calving cows had better condition prior to calving, resulting in an earlier successful twin calving. However, the economic losses during parturition, metabolic disorders of the cow, and low vitality of the twin calves, coupled with the decreased fertility and elevated culling rate in cows after twinning, may discourage breeding twins in dairy cattle.


Distributed processing algorithms are attractive alternatives to centralized algorithms for target tracking applications in sensor networks. In this paper, we address the issue of determining a initial probability distribution of multiple target states in a distributed manner to initialize distributed trackers. Our approach is based on Monte-Carlo methods, where the state distributions are represented as a discrete set of weighted particles. The target state vector is the target positions and velocities in the 2D plane. Our approach can determine the state vector distribution even if the individual sensors are not capable of observing it. The only condition is that the network as a whole can observe the state vector. A robust weighting strategy is formulated to account for misdetections and clutter. To demonstrate the effectiveness of the algorithm, we use direction-of-arrival nodes and range-Doppler nodes


ABSTRACT Background Previous findings have demonstrated the importance of discourse analysis in post-stroke aphasia, as it allows for in-depth examination of language impairment and represents key components of functional communication. However, little is known about the recovery of discourse over time. Aims The main aim of this study is to measure the longitudinal changes in descriptive discourse production from the acute to chronic stages of post-stroke aphasia recovery. The secondary aim is to explore the association between discourse measures and overall language impairment severity measures at different testing points. Methods & Procedure Seventeen French-Canadian speakers with various types and severities of aphasia following a first left middle cerebral artery stroke participated in this study. They underwent three language assessments (acute: 0 to 72 hours; subacute: 7 to 14 days; chronic: 6 to 12 months post-onset). The picture description from the Western Aphasia Battery was analyzed at three time points. Changes in terms of thematic informativeness and microstructural variables were analyzed. Outcomes & Results Regarding the micro-structural variables, the mean length of utterances (MLU) and the number of words per minute showed significant positive changes between the acute and chronic phases. For the thematic informativeness measures, the number of thematic units (TUs), the number of thematic units per minute (TUs/min) and the number of thematic units per utterance (TUs/utt) increased significantly between the acute and chronic phases. Positive correlations between TUs and MLU in the acute phase and a general language impairment severity measure in the acute and chronic phases suggest a relationship between these measures and global language performance suggesting the potential predictive value of these variables in the acute phase. Conclusions & Implications These findings support the use of thematic units in descriptive discourse analysis during an acute clinical examination of language as they require minimal additional time to score and track changes in post-stroke aphasia recovery. They capture long-term changes in discourse abilities and appear related to overall language measures in both the acute and chronic stages of recovery. The interpretation of the changes in MLU and the number of words per minute is less straightforward, as improvements in these measures carry different interpretations depending on the type of aphasia. Nonetheless, further studies are required to investigate test-retest reliability and the effect of therapy on the changes observed over time when using thematic units to document change in discourse.


Luke Goode This paper considers the implications of recent shifts in the digital news landscape for democracy and the public sphere. It discusses the role of participatory news platforms and the claims made about the new elevated role for citizens as participants in and even producers of news. The paper concludes by arguing that rhetoric suggesting a radical upheaval in power relations between citizens and professional news media risks obscuring the real benefits of new modes of audience engagement.


Alpha-mangostin (α-MG), one of the key xanthone derivatives, displays a multiplicity of curative qualities like antiinfective, anti-malarial, anticarcinogenic, antidiabetic actions as well as antioxidant properties. Furthermore, it has proven to have neuroprotective, hepatoprotective, and cardioprotective features, of which the anticarcinogenic action is the most auspicious. Additionally, several in vitro and in vivo analyses confirm that α-MG partakes in the major stages of tumor growth: initiation, promotion, and progression. Nevertheless, α-MG services as an inhibitory agent that modulate various enzymes involved in the metabolic activation and excretion of carcinogens, resistance to oxidative damage, and attenuation of inflammatory response. Numerous studies have also implicated α-MG in central nervous system (CNS) disorders, among which neuroinflammatory disorders and brain cancer are cardinal. Based on these initial studies on α-MG, we reviewed the pivotal role of α-MG in neuroinflammatory disorders. J Neurol Res. 2017;7(4-5):67-79 doi: https://doi.org/10.14740/jnr455w


SUMMARY: Visual 4D planning and scheduling techniques, that integrate 3D CAD models with the timing of construction activities, have proven to be more beneficial than traditional tools and are increasingly being employed on complex projects. In 4D models, project participants can effectively visualise and analyse problems regarding sequential, spatial, process conflicts and temporal aspects of construction schedules, prior to actual construction operations on site. The objective of this paper is to introduce and evaluate innovative visual planning tools that were developed as part of the VIRCON project. The VIRCON project, funded by EPSRC (UK funding agency), developed seven integrated IT tools with the objective of assisting construction planners to make accurate and informed planning decisions with particular emphasis on the allocation of activity's execution space. The successful development of the VIRCON tools was based upon the industrial requirements, real-life project data, and finally evaluated by the industrial collaborators. This paper will briefly introduce the VIRCON tools and thoroughly report on the industrial user evaluation. The aims of the evaluation were to establish the usefulness and usability of the individual VIRCON tools, and to indicate the potential towards commercialisation and real implementation. Ten collaborators from the construction industry evaluated VIRCON through a real-life case study. The space planning approach and visualisation features developed in this project were found to be practical and communicative.


The explosion of mobile access across the globe has shaken the foundations of the traditional sales funnel, and businesses are scrambling to adapt and find new ways to tap into the market. For all their effort, many have failed to realize that the issue is not how to reach the customer where they are, but where they are going and their mindset at the moment. With the staggering growth in the use of mobile technology as both product research and purchase point, businesses have yet to fully understand the important role mobile devices play in the basic structure of the traditional shopping model and the new importance on linking behavior with location. With the death of the traditional sales funnel comes author Chuck Martin's new model, the Mobile Shopping Life Cycle. Based on the author's in-depth research, Martin has identified the six specific moments in the timeline of the sale which marketers must target effectively in order to reach the mobile buyer. From location-based marketing to mobile payment systems, Martin's model gives marketers access to the tools necessary to build a new sales framework that properly addresses the future of the market.


Marketed plants are very important items of trade in many parts of the world. The community uses these for a variety of purposes such as foods, cosmetics, flavors, spices, and medicines. It seems that plants that are used for medicinal purposes form the most common category. Four plants used for treatment of microbial infections, viz., Bolusanthus speciosus, Erythrina latissima, Crotalaria podocarpa, and Elephantorrhiza goetzei, were investigated, and these yielded several known and novel structures, some with appreciable antibiotic activity against the test organisms. The activity of some of the isolated plants and the parts of the plant from which these were obtained lend support to their traditional use. Bulbine abyssinica and B. capitata yielded phenylanthraquinones, some of which were shown to possess strong antiplasmodial activity. In addition, these yielded isofuranonaphthoquinones, which were also found to be weakly antiplasmodial and antioxidant. Scilla nervosa yielded several known and novel homoisoflavoinds of the 3-benzylchroman-4-ones and 3-benzylidinechroman-4-one type, as well as some stilbenoids. The homoisoflavonoids showed strong antitumor activity against various cancer cell lines. Rhus pyroides gave a novel bichalcone, which showed weak antifeedant activity, consistent with the observation by farmers that the plant was avoided by corn cricket. Results from investigated Dorstenia species originating from Cameroon, Ethiopia, and Tanzania yielded styrenes, coumarins, chalcones, and flavonoids. The chalcones and flavonoids showed various levels of prenylation or geranylation, and an observation made so far is that prenylated flavonoids are only found in Dorstenia species of African origin. The only example of a bis-geranylated chalcone is found in Dorstenia.


Strategic directions of bank development of are a driving force of the long-term determination of bank's business in the countries in transition. It refers to the right vision and mission of the bank as well as its profit centers. In numerous banks in the countries in transition, strategic development plan is frequently neglected, because of the transitory phases of the bank life cycle, bank mergers and acquisitions and globalization of banking services. Unlike the assumed vision of the bank which provides the opportunity of choosing the legal bank development, its mission is to determine its own goals and tasks. The realization of the bank mission is made in the process of determining the vision and strategic plans for the bank development. After determining the bank vision, mission and goals, the bank management chooses the corporative bank strategy on the basis of SWAT analysis. Bank corporative strategy can have the form of 1) the strategy of defeated institution (the specialized strategy, comparative advantage strategy, and bank acquisition strategy), 2) the strategy of dominant institution (confrontation strategy, positioning strategy, and bank offensive strategy), 3) possible loss strategy (hijacking strategy, testing strategy), 4) the strategy of definite loss (strategy of detour, strategy of hope in the future). The bank managers have the task to choose the most appropriate strategy at the given point of time. Therefore, bank managers should first set the bank goals and time span for their realization; afterwards they analyze the possibility of realization of the bank corporative strategy in order to eventually choose the final version of the bank corporative strategy, which thus becomes part of the bank strategic plan.


Synthetic polymer surfaces require surface modification to improve biocompatibility. A generic route to biocompatible silicone elastomers is described involving high yield surface functionalization of standard silicones with hydrosilanes, hydrosilylation using asymmetric, allyl-, NSC-terminated PEO of narrow molecular weight, and covalent modification in one step with amine-containing biological molecules including oligopeptides (YIGSR, RGDS), proteins (EGF, albumin, fibrinogen, mucin), and glycosaminoglycans (heparin). Efficient, high-density binding (e.g., 0.2 EGF molecules/nm2) was demonstrated using radiolabeling studies. The resulting surfaces were demonstrated to be biocompatible by further reaction with biomolecules, for example, thrombosis suppression on surfaces modified by heparin + ATIII, and the formation of confluent corneal epithelial cell layers on EGF, RGDS, or YIGSR surfaces.


Since the end of the war over 25 years ago, Vietnam has haunted America. Today, many people remember the war as a series of terrible pictures - taken by courageous civilian and military photographers. But there are other images of the war that we have rarely seen. These are the pictures taken by the other side, the Vietnamese, the enemy. Pictures of a peasant people fighting the most powerful nation on earth - and finally defeating it. In this book, we meet the Vietnamese soldier-photographers who risked their lives to capture their country's struggle in evocative, stunning images. For them, photography was a weapon used to win the war. Nine out of ten Vietnamese photographers were taken by bullets, bombs, dysentery, and malaria. Page returns to understand the spirit and dedication of these men, and to commemorate the sacrifice and loss of both sides. This is a new visual record of the war whose images have become so familiar. Through interviews with these photographers, and through their surprising images, a fresh per-spective emerges on the most troubling and divisive foreign war ever fought by the United States.


Haemopoiesis has been studied throughout the life cycle of the parasitic lamprey, Lumpetra fluviatilis, with supplementary data being provided by its nonparasitic derivative, Lampetra planeri. Attention was paid to the location of the principal haemopoietic sites in both the larval and post-larval stages and to the mode of differentiation of the blood cells. In the prolarva, the formation of blood cells takes place initially in the blood islands but, at the time when the gut starts to rotate, this role is taken over by the typhlosole. After the ammocoete has reached about 20 mm in length, division and maturation of blood cells were also clearly detected in the intertubular and fat cell region of the nephric fold. Both the typhlosole and nephric fold discharge blood cells into the circulation and throughout the rest of larval life constitute the main sites of lymphopoiesis, erythropoiesis and granulopoiesis. At the beginning of transformation, however, both these structures undergo involution and by the end of metamorphosis the haemopoietic function has been assumed by the fat column. This latter organ remains active throughout the adult phase until near the end of the spawning run at which time it undergoes massive degenerative changes.

Differentiation of blood cells from the fixed cells of haemopoietic tissues occurs only in the blood islands of the prolarva and in the typhlosole during the very earliest stages of its development. Throughout the rest of the life cycle, the mode of formation of blood cells was the same in haemopoietic tissues containing a reticular network (typhlosole, fat cell region of the nephric fold and fat column) as in haemopoietic tissue where there was no such fibrous arrangement (the intertubular tissue of the more ventral regions of the opisthonephric kidney). Haemopoietic tissues could be seen to be formed in all the above structures by the accumulation of immature cells in tissue spaces which form a suitable environment for cell division and maturation. Descriptions are given of lineages leading from small lymphocyte-like stem cells to erythrocytes and to eosinophilic and neutrophilic granulocytes, and from large lymphocytes to macrophages.


Objective: The role of hypertension and its impact on outcome in patients with acute coronary syndrome (ACS) is still debated. This study aimed to compare the outcomes of hypertensive and nonhypertensive ACS patients. Methods: Using data of ACS patients enrolled in the Acute Myocardial Infarction in Switzerland Plus Registry from 1997 to 2013, characteristics at presentation and outcomes in hospital and after 1 year were analyzed. Hypertension was defined as previously diagnosed and treated by a physician. The primary endpoint was mortality. Data were analyzed using multiple logistic regressions. Results: Among 41 771 ACS patients, 16 855 (40.4%) were without and 24 916 (59.6%) with preexisting hypertension. Patients with preexisting hypertension had a more favorable in-hospital outcome [odds ratio (OR) in-hospital mortality 0.82, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.73–0.93; P = 0.022]. The independent predictors of in-hospital mortality for patients with preexisting hypertension were age, Killip class greater than 2, Charlson Comorbidity Index greater than 1, no pretreatment with statins and lower admission systemic blood pressure. Preexisting hypertension was not an independent predictor of 1-year mortality in the subgroup of patients (n = 7801) followed: OR 1.07, 95% CI 0.78–1.47; P = 0.68. Independent predictors of mortality 1 year after discharge for the 4796 patients with preexisting hypertension were age, male sex and comorbidities. Angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors or angiotensin II receptor antagonists and statins prescribed at discharge improved the outcomes. Conclusion: Outcome of ACS patients with preexisting hypertension was associated with an improved in-hospital prognosis after adjustment for their higher baseline risk. However, this effect was not long-lasting and does not necessarily mean a causal relationship exists. Short-term and long-term management of patients with hypertension admitted with ACS could be further improved.


This research aims were to: (1) produce Conceptual Attainment worksheet, (2) know concepts understanding improvement, (3) know science process skills improvement. This was a development research by using 4-D models (define, design, develop, and disseminate). The development product was tested in grade XI SMA Negeri 1 Magelang, 20 students for limited test and 33 students for field test. The research results: (1) produced worksheet based on validator's score from language structure and design PA 96.97%, appropriate learning with Conceptual Attainment method PA 95.24%, and learning to improve science process skills PA 95%, which all aspects got the best category. Almost students agreed to the worksheet with presentation 78% for limited test and 89% for field test. Concepts understanding improvement based on normalized gain (g) was 0.56 for limited test and 0.50 for field test. Science process skills improvement wasn't significant for all the test with range 0.1-0.3.


ABSTRACT Social housing in Australia is at a significant juncture. High levels of housing stress, increasing levels of socio-spatial polarisation and reduced government funding are posing complex policy challenges. Social mix policies are one response to these challenges, arising from the problematisation of social housing estates as socially excluded. This problematisation is examined through case studies of two Sydney social housing renewal projects: Telopea and Riverwood North. Drawing on interviews with government, private-sector and not-for-profit housing practitioners, the paper identifies two distinct discourses of social exclusion within this problematisation—culture of poverty discourse and equity discourse—that shape the implementation of social mix. These discourses reveal that implementing social mix is more complex than simply managing the cohabitation of residents in different tenures. Rather, the practice of social mix is embedded within discourses about the nature and causes of social exclusion. These discourses, in their turn, inform the multiple and sometimes conflicting aspirations pursued through social mix policies.


Well known for coining the term 'Global Village', Marshall McLuhan's thinking was, and still is, revolutionary. His theories, many of which are illustrated in this astonishing 'inventory of effects', force us to question how modes of communication have shaped society. This is an astonishing work by a truly astonishing man. "The Penguin on Design" series includes the works of creative thinkers whose writings on art, design and the media have changed our vision forever. This is one of four books in that series.


Abstract. Capacity Building in promoting geospatial technologies and their applications has its significance in ensuring good governance and resources management at local, regional and global scales. To emphasize this strongly in young generation, the International Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ISPRS) has been engaged for more than 16 years by having an exclusive Technical Commission on Education and Outreach elements. Every 4 years, this Commission has been addressing different aspects of geospatial technologies by setting up theme specific Working Groups (WGs). ISPRS Student Consortium (SC) is part of the Commission and promotes the profession to the youth. The Consortium serves as a platform of communication and information exchange among members, enabling professional networking and fostering collaborations.The Technical Commission V (TC-V) on Education and Outreach (2016–2021) has constituted eight theme WGs with different roles and activities to work upon following areas (i) multi-tier training for all levels (ii) collaborative effort at national, regional and international level (iii) dissemination through distance learning mode and web-based resource sharing & (iv) use of best practices to implement through citizen science approach, open source tools & geo web services. These WGs have made significant contributions by engaging actively workshops and new scientific initiatives in past four years. TC-V with support of International Policy Advisory Committee conducted a full-day program on International Cooperation on Earth Observation.I am happy to note that for XXIV Congress 2020, there were 33 submissions of research papers on Education and Outreach. Of these, 21 were submitted for Archives and 13 for Annals. These papers include several disciplines covering surveying, new methodologies in geoinformatics, robotic vision, citizen science in disasters bringing education to the capacity development in different disciplines. Besides these, a total of 13 papers were accepted from an initial total of 29 submissions under the Youth Forum track. All these papers were reviewed by selected experts. These papers include several disciplines covering surveying, new methodologies in geoinformatics mapping of urban landscapes, burnt area detection, morphological analysis of landslides, 3D reconstruction of buildings, classification and analysis of point clouds, applications of UAVs for aquatic vegetation and evaluation of existing image processing and interpretation techniques. The current research from the youth also demonstrate the increased use of multi-source imagery, mapping different landscapes using UAVs and the potential of 3D models.We sincerely thank all the reviewers and acknowledge strong efforts made by Area Chairs to ensure quality of all accepted papers. We greatly appreciate the perseverance and dedication of the Scientific and Organizing Committee. We are confident that the present 2020 edition of ISPRS Congress Proceedings will serve as platform for discussion on the current research efforts on the Education and Outreach themes cutting across different disciplines.


The presence of freaks in American literary texts, particularly as they re-emerge in late 20th century works, articulate a complex set of relationships that define what Elizabeth Grosz calls "acceptable, tolerable, knowable humanity" played out by audiences and actors on a national stage (55). This dissertation investigates the freak as a figure of critical potential for both reclamation and appropriation through feminist, queer, and disability studies lenses. It tracks the shifting relationships between "freaks" and U.S. national culture, illustrating how the freak serves as a powerful figure that disrupts binary logics and expands the knowable limits of public life. However, it also recognizes that the power of the freak is double-edged, illustrating how the resurgence of freak shows in the postmodern cultural landscape has also enabled the appropriation of freakishness by "norms" through the same powerful logics of exceptional individualism and diverse pluralism that configure the freak show as a "freaktopia."


Research to date on Aboriginal electoral participation - and the participation of Metis and off-reserve First Nations in particular - remains quite limited, leaving those policy makers and groups seeking to increase Aboriginal voter turnout to make assumptions about Aboriginal voter turnout that may or may not be valid. Drawing on original quantitative survey data collected in northern Saskatchewan, the authors of this paper demonstrate that Aboriginal groups differ from each other in federal voter turnout; that the federal turnout differences between on-reserve First Nations and Metis peoples (but not on- and off-reserve First Nations) largely reflect socio-demographic differences; and that on-reserve First Nations are less likely to report federal voting than non-Aboriginal peoples, even after other variables are taken into account. The authors suggest that it is important to consider local context and history in addition to socio-demographic and "voting resource" variables in order to understand - and, potentially, to increase - Aboriginal federal turnout levels.


[Note: For a revised and expanded version of this paper, please see Hidden Foreign Aid, http://papers.ssrn.com/abstract=1044041] Whether the U.S. government should be allowed to claim credit for the private philanthropy of its citizens is a hot topic in today's foreign aid debate. Overlooked in this debate, however, is a form of aid that straddles the traditional public/private divide: charitable tax expenditures. Through the many tax privileges that the United States grants to its nonprofit organizations, the government implicitly foots some portion of the bill anytime these organizations send money abroad for development purposes. Unlike official development assistance (ODA), these tax expenditure funds are privately organized and distributed, yet unlike voluntary transfers they are paid for by the public fisc. This is not private aid; it is privatized aid. At the same time that direct expenditures on aid were falling in recent decades, these tax expenditures were rising. The basic, descriptive goal of this Comment is to show how nonprofit tax policies have shaped the content of American aid. The broader goal is to connect this insight with the literatures on tax expenditures and international development. If one accepts the Comment's theoretical premise, then U.S. government spending on aid is somewhat larger, and substantially different in character, than most commentators have assumed. Although tax expenditures on foreign aid raise a number of concerns, they also, I contend, possess unique virtues that can make them a valuable complement to ODA.


The productivity of the work force is the most decisive factor as far as the success of an organization is concerned. The productivity in turn is dependent on the psychosocial well-being of the employees. Stress can affect one"s health, work performance, social life and the relationship with family members. The stress response is a complex emotion that produces physiological changes to prepare us for "fight or flight" to defend ourselves from the threat or flee from it.The stressors and its consequences are to be understood at individual and organizational level. Stress in the workplace has emerged as a major issue for businesses and has reached alarming proportions. Organizations must develop stress prevention as well as stress reduction techniques. This research focuses on practices adopted by organizations to prevent, minimize and to overcome the stress. The study aims at understanding use of yoga, meditation and soothing humor by different organizations as an antidote to workplace stress.


Abstract Spatially and temporally high-resolution video imagery was combined with traditional surveyed beach profiles to investigate the evolution of a rapidly eroding beach nourishment project. Upham Beach is a 0.6-km beach located downdrift of a structured inlet on the west coast of Florida. The beach was stabilized in seaward advanced position during the 1960s and has been nourished every 4–5 years since 1975. During the 1996 nourishment project, 193,000 m3 of sediment advanced the shoreline as much as 175 m. Video images were collected concurrent with traditional surveys during the 1996 nourishment project to test video imaging as a nourishment monitoring technique. Video imagery illustrated morphologic changes that were unapparent in survey data. Increased storminess during the second (El Niño) winter after the 1996 project resulted in increased erosion rates of 0.4 m/d (135.0 m/y) as compared with 0.2 m/d (69.4 m/y) during the first winter. The measured half-life, the time at which 50% of the nourished material remains, of the nourishment project was 0.94 years. A simple analytical equation indicates reasonable agreement with the measured values, suggesting that project evolution follows a predictable pattern of exponential decay. Longshore planform equilibration does not occur on Upham Beach, rather sediment diffuses downdrift until 100% of the nourished material erodes. The wide nourished beach erodes rapidly due to the lack of sediment bypassing from the north and the stabilized headland at Upham Beach that is exposed to wave energy.


Abstract Background: Proton breast radiotherapy has been suggested to improve target coverage as well as reduce cardiopulmonary and integral dose compared with photon therapy. This study aims to assess this potential when accounting for breathing motion and a variable relative biological effectiveness (RBE). Methods: Photon and robustly optimized proton plans were generated to deliver 50 Gy (RBE) in 25 fractions (RBE = 1.1) to the CTV (whole left breast) for 12 patients. The plan evaluation was performed using the constant RBE and a variable RBE model. Robustness against breathing motion, setup, range and RBE uncertainties was analyzed using CT data obtained at free-breathing, breath-hold-at-inhalation and breath-hold-at-exhalation. Results: All photon and proton plans (RBE = 1.1) met the clinical goals. The variable RBE model predicted an average RBE of 1.18 for the CTVs (range 1.14–1.21) and even higher RBEs in organs at risk (OARs). However, the dosimetric impact of this latter aspect was minor due to low OAR doses. The normal tissue complication probability (NTCP) for the lungs was low for all patients (<1%), and similar for photons and protons. The proton plans were generally considered robust for all patients. However, in the most extreme scenarios, the lowest dose received by 98% of the CTV dropped from 96 to 99% of the prescribed dose to around 92–94% for both protons and photons. Including RBE uncertainties in the robustness analysis resulted in substantially higher worst-case OAR doses. Conclusions: Breathing motion seems to have a minor effect on the plan quality for breast cancer. The variable RBE might impact the potential benefit of protons, but could probably be neglected in most cases where the physical OAR doses are low. However, to be able to identify outlier cases at risk for high OAR doses, the biological evaluation of proton plans taking into account the variable RBE is recommended.


For Switzerland as located in the heart of Europe transport policy is a matter of particular importance. Especially transports between Italy and Germany use the Swiss corridors through the Alps. Therefore Switzerland realised a most ambitious construction project called NEAT (Neue Alpen Transversale) to improve the European train connections especially for freight transports. One part of the project is the new Gotthard base tunnel, the longest railway tunnel of the world and the most impressive element of the new transalpine railway line through the Alps. In view of the difficult accessibility and extreme climatic conditions, ensuring the fast and reliable transit of more than 300 trains per day through the two 57 km long single-track galleries represents a considerable technical challenge. The Gotthard base line directly links the northern and southern sides of the Alps and the project of building a new line should achieve the following goals: Massive increase in goods capacity (twice as much as today) Much shorter North-South transit time for passengers and freight Reduced traction power requirements, per weight unit of transported goods, as a result of the elimination of steep slopes. The construction work started in 1996 and will be probably finished by 2013. Because of the length of the tunnel five points were chosen, from which the drilling started. The shortest but technical most challenging phase of construction is located under the small village of "Sedrun" in the canton of "GraubA¼nden". Sedrun is a tourism destination for skiing, 1335 m above sea level with about 1.500 inhabitants. Here a gallery leads to a mine shaft with a depth of 800 m, ending at 550 m above sea level. At the intermediate access of Sedrun a multifunctional station is located which also is used for crossover, air ventilation, technical infrastructure and in case of emergency. The construction site with its enormous needs on resources, infrastructure, workforces - for example at the beginning a lot of specialists from South African mining branch came to Sedrun – may be a big challenge for the small village. In 2004 during the peak period up to 400 workers have been employed. Also logistical solutions for the transport of machines and material to the construction side and the carrying of stone to the deposits have to be developed. An ongoing long-term accompanying research (2000 – 2013) is analysing the ecological, economic and social impact on the construction site for the village and the region. The research project wants to assess the sustainability of such a long-term construction process. The contracting body is an advisory group of public institutions including the community of Sedrun, the region 'Obere SurselvaÂ', the canton GraubA¼nden and the Swiss Federal Office of Transport. Within the long-term research a set of indicators will be collected every year furthermore an every third year deep-rooted analysis on different topics will be done. The project also has the function of an early-warning system to anticipate unexpected stresses and strains. The results of the research will be visualised from a documentary film team. Besides the annual research we tried to answer the following question: Which are the economic impacts of the construction site for the region of Sedrun? The decision to choose Sedrun as one of the five construction sites for the Gotthard base tunnel did not only change the ecological and social situation in the region but also has economic effects on the community. Especially the local building sector but also hotels, restaurants and local industry are benefiting from the construction site. To calculate these economic effects for the region of Sedrun we used the method of the incidence analysis. The incidence analysis is a kind of cost-benefit analysis which is especially suited to assess the spatial effects of infrastructural facilities or the service of these facilities. Considering the direct effects we focus on the receipts and expenditures which are directly connected with the realisation of the project. The economic effects could be divided into the so called tangible and intangible effects. Tangible effects are measurable as indirect economic effects (spill-over effects). To measure the indirect economic effects we carry out an interview survey among the workers to calculate the additional economic impacts caused by the expenditures of the workers in the region. The intangible effects could be explained as soft and mostly not quantifiable effects. To acquire the intangible effects we carry out an image analysis based on national newspaper articles about the construction site in Sedrun. In our paper we present the structure and main indicators of the long-term accompanying research and the results of the incidence analysis to calculate the economic effects for the region.


Taking Rain City District of Ya'an for example, this paper based on ComGIS (Component Object Model Geographic Information System) platform takes comprehensive and systematic detection on the exposure dose of chemical carcinogens and non-carcinogens from drinking water sources in this region and discusses health risk assessment of single factor and the whole health risk assessment. As, Hg, Cr, Pb, Cd and fluorides in some drinking water sources of Rain City District are analyzed according to Standards For Drinking Wa-ter Quality (GB5749-2006). A health risk assessment model called USEPA is also applied to drinking water health risk assessment and management countermeasure is proposed.
The results show that the greatest health risk for individual person per year is caused by Cr(VI). The health risk of carcinogens is much higher than that of non-carcinogens: the greatest risk value due to non-carcinogen pollutants is caused by fluoride (F), achieving 1.05×10-8/a. The ranking of risk values due to non-carcinogen pollutants by drinking water is Pb>fluoride (F)>Hg, within Pb accounting for 44.77%, fluo-ride (F) accounting for 34.30% and Hg accounting for 20.92%. The average individual carcinogenesis annual risk of Cr(VI) is the greatest, achieving 8.91×10-4/a. The ranking of risk value due to chemical carcinogen by rural drinking water of Ya'an is Cr6+>As>Cd, within Cr6+ accounting for 91.12%, As accounting for 5.89% and Cd accounting for 3.00%. Based on this, the strategy and measures of the health risk management are put forward.
This study has worked efficiently in practice. Compared with the same kind of methods which have been found, the paper has the outstanding results for the health risk assessment of the rural drinking water safety.


Abstract In recent years the European Union has taken a number of steps towards improving civil protection cooperation in Europe. European leaders regularly declare the importance of boosting cooperation to prepare for and respond to disasters and emergencies afflicting member states. Those declarations have been accompanied by a flourish of policy activity, the building of new structures, and even treaty changes. On the surface, this little-known area of European integration appears to be proceeding with great success. A closer look, however, reveals significant gaps between member states' general expressions of enthusiasm and problematic cooperation in practice. We draw upon public goods theory to explain why this might be the case; more specifically, we identify likely game-theoretic obstacles to cooperation in different areas of the civil protection field. We evaluate our theoretical propositions by examining the current state of cooperation in marine pollution response, chemical contamination management, and flood response. We find that cooperation success in practice corresponds generally, but not perfectly, with the predictions of public goods theory. Our findings offer a nuanced view of civil protection cooperation in Europe and illuminate options for improved cooperation in the future.


Several studies have shown that persistent infections and inflammation can favor carcinogenesis. At the same time, certain types of pathogens and antitumor immune responses can decrease the risk of tumorigenesis or lead to cancer regression. Infectious agents and their products can orchestrate a wide range of host immune responses, through which they may positively or negatively modulate cancer development and/or progression. The factors that direct this dichotomous influence of infection-mediated immunity on carcinogenesis are not well understood. Even though not universal, several previous reports have investigated the inverse link of pathogen-induced "benign" inflammation to carcinogenesis and various other pathologies, ranging from autoimmune diseases to allergy and cancer. Several models and ideas are discussed in this review, including the impact of decreased exposure to pathogens, as well as the influence of pathogen load, the timing of infection, and the type of instigated immune response on carcinogenesis. These phenomena should guide future investigations into identifying novel targets within the microbial and host proteome, which will assist in the development of cancer therapeutics and vaccine remedies, analogous to earlier efforts based on helminthic components for the prevention and/or treatment of several pathologies. Clin Cancer Res; 19(11); 2834–41. ©2013 AACR.


Limited transaction and unit attribute information curtail the diffusion potential of green homes and create significant valuation and underwriting problems for the housing debt capital markets—more specifically mortgage originators (lenders) and appraisers. Put into the context of the technology adoption life cycle this missing information prevents green homes from crossing the chasm into the mainstream market. As lenders and appraisers are the gatekeepers of the mainstream mortgage markets, they will be key stakeholders in any strategy for green homes to cross this chasm. The missing transaction and attribute data creates two opportunities for scholarship. The first opportunity is to create and provide preliminary evidence of the chasm in the green housing market place. The second opportunity is to analyze, in the context of this chasm, what information and tools appraisers are using, at present, to estimate the value of high performance homes.


- This system technique is used for efficient data mining in SRMS (Student Records Management System) through vertical approach with association rules in distributed databases. The current leading technique is that of Kantarcioglu and Clifton[1]. In this system I deal with two challenges or issues, one that computes the union of private subsets that each of the interacting users hold, and another that tests the inclusion of an element held by one user in a subset held by another. The existing system uses different techniques for data mining purpose like Apriori algorithm. The Fast Distributed Mining (FDM) algorithm of Cheung et al. [2], which is an unsecured distributed version of the Apriori algorithm. Proposed system offers enhanced privacy and data mining with respect to the Encryption techniques and Association rule with Fp-Growth Algorithm in private cloud (system contains different files of subjects with respect to their branches). Due to this above techniques the expected effect on this system is that, it is simpler and more efficient in terms of communication cost and combinational cost. Due to these techniques it will affect the parameter like time consumption for execution, length of the code is decrease, find the data fast, extracting hidden predictive information from large databases and the efficiency of this proposed system should increase by the 20%.


An antibody generated against a neutral phosphonate diester transition-state analog was found to catalyze the aminoacylation of the 3'-hydroxyl group of thymidine with an alanyl ester. A comparison of the apparent second-order rate constant of the antibody-catalyzed reaction [5.4 x 104 molar-1 minute-1 (M-1 min-1)] with that of the uncatalyzed reaction (2.6 x 10-4 M-1 min-1) revealed this to be a remarkably efficient catalyst. Moreover, although the concentration of water (55 M) greatly exceeds that of the secondary alcohol, the antibody selectively catalyzes acyl transfer to thymidine. The antibody exhibits sequential binding, with Michaelis constants of 770 �M and 260 �M for acyl acceptor and donor, respectively, and a dissociation constant of 240 pM for hapten. This antibody- catalyzed reaction provides increased insight into the requirements for efficient aminoacylation catalysts and may represent a first step toward the generation of "aminoacyl transfer RNA synthetases" with novel specificities.


What determines the level of deference the Supreme Court gives to agency interpretations of statutes? One explanation is that deference choices accord with what I term the "deference dichotomy." When agency interpretations are in a legislative rule adopted through notice-and-comment procedures and have the "force of law," the Court applies a heightened deference framework. But when agency interpretations are in interpretive or other non-legislative rules adopted through less formalized procedures, the Court gives minimal or no deference. Although scholars have advocated that approach for decades and the Court has now adopted it as formal doctrine, the Court's actual choice of deference framework follows a less predictable pattern. Some scholars have suggested ideology as an alternative explanation, but empirical studies across administrative law domains have come to conflicting conclusions about its effect on deference choices. Other scholars have argued that the complexity of the statute and judicial views about the agency influence deference choices, but these studies have not been generalized across agencies and statutes. In this Article, I employ a distinct approach, examining Supreme Court deference choices across multiple agencies administering multiple statutes in a single substantive field. I find that in the civil rights field, the Supreme Court's deference choices appear to have been motivated by a factor that has gone unnoticed in the literature thus far — judicial resistance to "administrative constitutionalism." To the extent that civil rights agencies resolve statutory questions central to ongoing constitutional controversies in the Supreme Court, such as the meaning of "discrimination," they are practicing administrative constitutionalism — resolving interpretive questions that rest on constitutional values. When civil rights agencies have engaged with constitutional meaning in this way, the Court has refused to apply heightened deference to the agency's interpretation of the statute even when precedent or the deference dichotomy suggests that it should. I argue that this judicial resistance to administrative constitutionalism implicates important questions about authority over constitutional meaning. When the Court denies heightened deference to administrative constructions of statutes implicating ongoing constitutional controversies, it is preserving its exclusive power to determine constitutional meaning. Such resistance places the Court in the role of defining the substance of civil rights statutes insofar as they implicate the Constitution, and thus supplements the Court's often-remarked practice of curbing legislative constitutionalism.


Abstract In Qatar, cardiovascular diseases are the leading cause of mortality and morbidity. Cardiovascular diseases can be prevented and controlled by modifying lifestyle risk behaviours such as physical inactivity, unhealthy diet and smoking. Obesity as the result of physical inactivity and unhealthy diet raises the risk of heart diseases. Studies show that 62.6% of Qatari women were overweight and the prevalence of overweight is high among adult females with 80% of women 30 years and over. Qatar World Health Survey in 2006 shows that only 40% of Qatari women participated regularly in sports or other physical activities. Furthermore, waterpipe smoking is increasing across the Eastern Mediterranean. Funded by the Qatar National Research Fund, the ultimate goal of this study was to find ways to effectively promote cardiovascular/coronary artery disease prevention and management activities among Qatari women (citizen and resident Arabic women) by exploring factors affecting the ways in which Qatari women participate in physical activities, healthy diet and smoking. An exploratory qualitative research approach was used in this study, with a semi-structured questionnaire using open ended questions to gather data. Individual in-depth interviews were conducted with 50 Arabic women who are 30 years and over, have confirmed diagnosis of CVD/coronary artery diseases to investigate factors influence lifestyle risk behaviours associated with cardiovascular diseases amongst Qatari women (citizen and resident Arabic women). The study's results show that social support networks; cultural beliefs, values, practices, and religion; rapid economic growth; changing environmental and social conditions influence women's participation on physical activities, dietary practices and smoking. Conclusion: Prevention of cardiovascular diseases and promotion of healthy lifestyle should consider women's specific health condition and socio-economic status; empower women to take charge of their health; facilitate women's informal and formal social support networks; provide culturally appropriate public education; create healthy environment with more recreational facilities for women and children.


Values of the Hubble constant reported to date that are based upon measurement of the Sunyaev-Zeldovich (SZ) effect in clusters of galaxies are systematically lower than those derived by other methods (e.g., Cepheid variable stars or the Tully-Fisher relation). We investigate the possibility that systematic errors may be introduced into the analysis by the generally adopted assumptions that observed clusters are in hydrostatic equilibrium, are spherically symmetric, and are isothermal. We construct self-consistent theoretical models of merging clusters of galaxies, using hydrodynamic/N-body simulations. We then compute the magnitude of H0 derived from the SZ effect at different times and at different projection angles, both from first principles and by applying each of the standard assumptions used in the interpretation of observations. Our results indicate that the assumption of isothermality in the evolving clusters can result in H0 being underestimated by 10%-30%, depending upon both epoch and projection angle. Moreover, use of the projected, emission-weighted temperature profile under the assumption of spherical symmetry does not significantly improve the situation except in the case of more extreme mergers (i.e., those involving relatively gas-rich subclusters). Although less significant, we find that asphericity in the gas density can also result in a 15% error in H0. If the cluster is prolate (as is generally the case for on-axis, or nearly on-axis, mergers) and viewed along its major axis, H0 will be systematically underestimated. More extreme off-axis mergers may result in oblate merger remnants, which, when viewed nearly face-on, may result in an overestimation of H0. A similar effect is noted when viewing a prolate distribution along a line of sight that is nearly perpendicular to its major axis. In both cases the potential overestimation occurs only when the remnant is viewed within 15°-30° of face-on. Bulk gas motions and the kinematic SZ effect do not appear to be significant except for a brief period during the very early stages of a merger. Our study shows that the most meaningful SZ measurement will be accompanied by high-resolution temperature data and a detailed dynamical modeling of the observed system. In lieu of this, a large sample selected to avoid dynamically evolving systems is preferred.


Hannah Arendt is well-studied in Russia; her legacy is noticeable in academic discussions. However, her theoretical positions can hardly bring about a significant change in the present state of local political and philosophical affairs. The reason is the same for both the unusual popularity of her theoretical concepts and their lack of practical relevance. Her non-traditional approach to politics seamlessly fits into recurrent patterns of Russian social life which are no-less distant from the established forms of Western political culture. Being uncritically transplanted into different soil, her unorthodox way of thinking about politics found an immediate enthusiastic reception in Russia, but not at the same level of scrutiny as was in the West. Paradoxically, this proves that Arendt's views may confirm the local status-quo, rather than challenging it. In this paper, I will try to explain this paradox by presenting both the elements of her theory that remain under-appreciated by her Russian followers, and her dogmatic positions shared with her school of thought, which can be elucidated by reading them against the Russian context. Arendt's theory features hidden, but distinct, elitist, and liberal tendencies; to some degree, her theory goes well with the Machiavellian character of contemporary Russian politics. However, at the exact point when she finds an unlikely ally in Isaiah Berlin, her normative solutions mostly go unnoticed. On the other hand, reading her texts against the Russian experience exposes some of her preconceptions about human existence, the meaning of political life, and our relations to history, all of which weaken the practical relevance of her thoughts.


Acari River basin, located at the north zone of Rio de Janeiro city, is one of the most populated regions of this city (with 20% of its total population) and encompasses an area of 107 km. This watershed is characterized by medium and low-income occupations and suffers from various different problems due to its non-planned urbanisation. Flooding is one of the most critical and complex issues in this region of the city. This problem is worsened by factors such as intense urbanisation, high imperviousness rates, riverbanks and floodplain occupation, existence of hydraulic singularities, tidal influence, among others. In order to manage this situation, the Municipality proposed a canalisation project based on the enlargement of Acari River. This measure alone was not able to solve the problem as it could transfer the flood downstream to highly occupied low-lying areas. In order to adjust design concepts, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro conducted a research searching for a more sustainable flood control measures set. The study was carried out with the support of a hydrodynamic cell model. The model was calibrated based on an intense real flood event and applied to the simulation of scenarios representing present situation and combinations of several structural measures (including the canalisation project). The results have shown that a sustainable solution can be achieved through the combination of the proposed channel design project with other measures such as storage structures, multifunctional landscapes and communities relocation.


Mapping of the Collections of History of Medicine in Estonian Museums Leili Kriis, Sirje Sisask University of Tartu Museum The work plan of the University of Tartu Museum for the following years includes creating a new exposition for the university's Old Anatomical Theatre. This made us wonder, what kinds of collections of history of medicine are there in other Estonian museums. A great opportunity to obtain information opened up with the Ministry of Culture's support programme for developing museums that we participated in with our project "Mapping of the Collections of History of Medicine in Estonian Museums" from 17 April to 31 December 2013. To obtain data, we designed a questionnaire for the chief treasurers of the museums. Based on the answers we received, the following overview was compiled. At the time we conducted the survey, more than half of the materials of history of medicine in the museum collections had been entered also into the Estonian Museum Information System MuIS. Keywords related to the topic of medicine have been used. Most of the corresponding materials in Estonian museums are connected to pharmacies (material objects as well as photographs and archive materials), and furnishings of dental practices (Parnu Museum, Voru County Museum, etc.). Regional museums also contain objects of veterinary medicine. There are rare items of history of medicine such as an inoculation knife, cupping lancets, bloodletting devices, a bone saw, an irritation instrument, healing stones, a homoeopathic pharmacy, and many more. The most noteworthy archive materials are probably the inoculation materials, mud treatment materials (materials and manuscripts of Dr Hunnius from Haapsalu, mud treatment history of Saaremaa), and manuscripts by medics (historical overviews). Topics like doping (the Estonian Sports Museum), designing medical institutions (hospitals, sanatoriums, etc.) (Museum of Estonian Architecture, Museum of Viljandi), diseases and stress, and how these are reflected in a person's creative work (Estonian Theatre and Music Museum) have also been documented. Most valuable are the stories found in the collections of county museums that tell of medical institutions (hospitals, pharmacies, sanatoriums, leprosariums, etc.) that have operated or are operating in the region and reflect the specific character of the region, as well as the materials of well-known local medics. Also materials related to alternative and folk medicine. All this enriches the general picture of the Estonian history of medicine. Our working group reached the conclusion that the contents of the MuIS dictionary should be structured in a better manner and supplemented with topics that are reflected in specific museum collections (alternative medicine, nutrition, environment, etc.). Images of museum objects are also important data carriers in the database. Rare historical documents deserve to be digitised as soon as possible since they tend to become fragile with time. Regional museums should also find room for materials related to the history and doctors of local medical institutions.


The Palanan Wilderness is a large, circular wildlife reserve encompassing the land and sea within a 45 km radius centered around the Palanan Point in Isabela Province on the northeastern coast of Luzon Island. It was set aside by the Philippine government in 1979 to protect the fast diminishing indigenous fauna and flora of the Sierra Madre Range. Aerial reconnaissance shows that the wilderness consists of a nearly continuous canopy of rain forests extending all the way from the crests of Sierra Madre Range eastwards and downwards to the Pacific Ocean and is minimally interrupted by human settlements along the alluvial plain of Palanan River and a few landing points along the coast. The flora of the Palanan Wilderness is representative of the Sierra Madre Range in northern Luzon. It is very diverse and largely undocumented. In 1961, Mr. H. GUTIERREZ of the Philippine National Herbarium collected briefly in the forested area between the towns of San Mariano and Palanan and made the only known collection of a unique monotypic Philippine fern, Podosorus angustatus. Later in 1968 the JACOBS & MENDOZA expedition to the vicinity of Dingalan and Baler South of the Palanan Wilderness made 421 collections, one fifth of which proved to be new to science. Botanically speaking, the area is at present still one of the least known regions in the country (Tan & Rojo, 1989).


We have studied bremsstrahlung produced by polarized 2.1 MeV electrons colliding with a thin gold target. We have observed a strong correlation between the orientation of the electron spin and the angle of x-ray linear polarization at the x-ray high energy tip region. This indicates a dominance of the spin-orbit interaction in bremsstrahlung.


Arctic charr (Salvelinus alpinus) is a curious salmonid species due to its geographical situation and possibly sympatric evolution. In Lake Thingvallavatn different morphs with different behavior and feeding patterns cohabit. Though the different morphs differ in many characteristics such as size, color and form, they have similar genetic base. Nevertheless, recently were discovered the presence of immunological differences between dwarf and murta in Thingvallavatn, in the MHCIIα locus specifically. Previous studies indicate MHC heterozygotes have higher survival likelihood than homozygotes. In our study we have processed 264 individuals among three of the different morphs searching for a possible connection between parasite load and different physical (sex, weight, age, location) or genetic (polymorphism in the MHCIIα region) factors. We found some connections or correlations between some of the parasites studied (Diphyllobothrium sp., Dyplostomum sp., Eubothrium salvelini and Nematodes) and some physical variables (weight and age) as we expected but genetic results were unpredicted. This may because our genotyping sample is small. In conclusion, parasite load is directly related with morph and some physical factors and aims to be directly related with MHCIIα polymorphism but we have not enough analyzed data to make our hypothesis consistent.