THE PROCESSING OF COMPLEX, METRICALLY ambiguous rhythmic patterns, of the sort found in much popular music, remains poorly understood. We investigated listeners9 abilities to perceive, process and produce complex, syncopated rhythmic patterns. Rhythmic complexity was varied along a continuum, quantified using an objective metric of syncopation suggested by Longuet-Higgins and Lee. Participants (a) tapped in time to the rhythms, (b) reproduced the same patterns given a steady pulse, and (c) recognized these patterns when replayed both immediately and after a 24-hour delay. Participants tended to reset the phase of their internally generated pulse with highly syncopated rhythms, reinterpreting or "re-hearing" the rhythm as less syncopated. High complexity in rhythmic stimuli can thus force a reorganization of their cognitive representation. Less complex rhythms were more robustly encoded than more complex syncopated rhythms in the delayed memory task. Syncopated rhythms provide a useful tool for future explorations of human rhythmic competence.


We consider the pure exploration problem in the fixed-budget linear bandit setting. We provide a new algorithm that identifies the best arm with high probability while being robust to unknown levels of observation noise as well as to moderate levels of misspecification in the linear model. Our technique combines prior approaches to pure exploration in the multi-armed bandit problem with optimal experimental design algorithms to obtain both problem dependent and problem independent bounds. Our success probability is never worse than that of an algorithm that ignores the linear structure, but seamlessly takes advantage of such structure when possible. Furthermore, we only need the number of samples to scale with the dimension of the problem rather than the number of arms. We complement our theoretical results with empirical validation.


This book aims to promote the debate in Brazil and across the Americas about disaster vulnerability reduction, analyzing its social, economic, environmental, political, technical and institutional dimensions. In this region of the world, with its histories, social organization, politics and distribution of social power, what are the root causes and dynamic pressures of vulnerability? What are the types of vulnerability? How and to what extent, do vulnerabilities intertwine in the phases of anticipate, cope with and recover from harm? How can various actors work to reduce vulnerability? What are the barriers and bridges to do it? Which experiences reveal practices of capacity building for vulnerability reduction? What are the barriers and bridges to capacity building? How best can local, traditional and vernacular knowledge of specific places be combined with outside specialist knowledge in order to reduce disasters?
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Our proposal aims to go beyond speeches, descriptions and detailed analysis. The challenge is to find ways of framing and conceptualizing disaster and practical experiences that guide and stimulate the application of knowledge to allow effective actions. Hopefully this discussion will link contributions from researchers, policymakers, practitioners with different views and different areas of knowledge. With the UNISDR's Global Platform for Disaster Reduction coming to Cancun, Mexico in May of 2017, this is an auspicious moment to pull together such contributions in a free, on-line site in order to stimulate a vigorous discussion that may inform governmental and non governmental reports and interventions at that meeting and at the regional meetings that precede it. Above all, the collection of a critical mass of evidence from the Americas is yet another step in humanity's perennial business of making the world more secure for children and generations to come.


The partitioning of rainfall into evapotranspiration, runoff, and deep infiltration in seasonally dry climates is influenced by strong temporal variability in rainfall and potential evapotranspiration at the intra‐annual scale, which cannot be captured by conventional steady state water balance models. Guided by dimensional analysis and using simplified stochastic soil moisture models, we develop analytical expressions describing the annual partitioning of rainfall into evapotranspiration and deep percolation/runoff in seasonally dry, surface water dependent landscapes. We discuss the related changes to Budyko's curve under different seasonality scenarios, showing that an increase in seasonal rainfall and potential evapotranspiration variability as well as dry season length can lead to a decrease in the annual evapotranspiration ratio. In addition, our model shows that although increased soil water storage can compensate for the decrease in evapotranspiration due to climate seasonality, this effect is more marked in drier climates (higher annual dryness index) compared to wetter climates. Finally, the coupling of the soil moisture model to a minimalist plant growth model shows that in seasonally dry climates, a maximum in biomass is to be expected for a wet season of optimal length, for which the limitations imposed by both water availability and growth duration are at a minimum.


Laboratory bioassays determined the susceptibility of the two-spotted spider mite, Tetranychus urticae Koch, to Hirsutella thompsonii thompsonii Fisher. Direct placement of conidia onto mites which were placed on bean leaf discs floating on distilled water in covered petri dishes yielded a mean mortality of 96.5%. Mortality of mites placed on leaf discs cut from bean plants previously sprayed with a commercial formulation of the bioacaricide (Mycar, Abbott Laboratories, North Chicago, IL) and placed in the covered dishes ranged from ca. 24 to 99%. No significant response to dose of Mycar occurred at the rates tested (1.2-9.6 g/liter). Under greenhouse conditions (22-30@*C; 50-90% RH), the formulated material failed to either sporulate on sprayed foliage or cause mite mortality. Raising humidity levels with intermittent misting of foliage increased sporulation of the fungal inoculum on plant surfaces, but no infections occurred in mites on those plants.


This thesis examines organizational practices in the field of youth online privacy in the Americas. I describe harms created by protective, universalist, individualistic approaches that pose youth as conditional citizens, and make a case for approaches based instead on youth agency, intersectional views of privacy, collective responsibility, and the recognition of youth as subjects of rights today. I demonstrate organizational practices that align with this vision, such as codesign and institutional youth involvement; particular consideration of the needs and rights of marginalized youth; actions that emphasize the role of sociotechnical structures in the defense of youth's right to privacy; the creation of opportunities for intergenerational learning; the use of advocacy frames such as harm reduction and equality; and the reliance on local and creative narratives that resonate with youth. My methods consisted of eighteen semi-structured interviews and an organizational literature review of eighteen organizations that work at the intersections of youth development, personal data protection, digital rights, and countersurveillance. Thesis committee: Sasha Costanza-Chock, Associate Professor of Civic Media (supervisor); Justin Reich, Assistant Professor.


This paper presents several methods for motivating students taking a power system protection (PSP) course. The paper reviews the laboratory activities developed for the PSP course at Curtin University, Australia; these methods are applicable and can be used for PSP course instruction at any institution. These activities were developed to improve the learning experience of the electrical engineering undergraduate and postgraduate students enrolled in this course. Initially, the PSP course at Curtin University consisted of lectures and tutorials accompanied by two sessions of software-based simulations and one session of laboratory demonstration. To motivate the students, several computer-based simulations and practical laboratory experiments were developed. PSCAD and ETAP power system analysis software tools are introduced and used to demonstrate the performance and coordination of different protection relays from steady-state and dynamic points of view. Also, a practical setup composed of a LabVolt power system simulator and industrial relays is used to carry out several practical experiments. The experiments help students observe the performance of protection systems for transformers and induction motors during faults and abnormal operating conditions. Finally, the concept of relay testing and commissioning is introduced by relay standalone experiments using a secondary injection relay test set. The results of these activities were evaluated according to the students' satisfaction, comments, total scores, and interest in PSP.


Background

Chest physiotherapy (CPT) has been used in many neonatal nurseries around the world to improve airway clearance and treat lung collapse; however, the evidence to support its use has been conflicting. Despite the large number of studies there is very little evidence of sufficiently good quality on which to base current practice.

Objectives

To assess the effects of active CPT techniques, such as percussion and vibration followed by suction compared with suction alone, on the respiratory system in infants receiving mechanical ventilation. Additionally, differences between types of active CPT techniques were assessed.

Search strategy

Our search included The Cochrane Library (Issue 2, 2007), MEDLINE (1966 to 2007), EMBASE (1988 to 2007), CINAHL, Science Citation Index, previous reviews including cross-references, abstracts, conference proceedings and grey literature.

Selection criteria

Trials in which ventilated newborn infants up to four weeks of age were randomly or quasi-randomly assigned to receive active CPT or suction alone. Infants receiving CPT for the extubation period were excluded.

Data collection and analysis

Two review authors independently conducted quality assessments and data extraction for included trials. We analysed data for individual trial results using relative risk (RR) and mean difference (MD). Results are presented with 95% confidence intervals (CI). Due to insufficient data, we could not undertake meta-analysis.

Main results

Three trials involving 106 infants were included in this review. In one trial (n = 20) CPT was no better than standard care in clearing secretions. No increase in the risk of intraventricular haemorrhage was noted. Two trials compared different types of active CPT. One trial (n = 56) showed that non-resolved atelectasis was reduced in more neonates receiving the lung squeezing technique (LST) when compared to postural drainage, percussion and vibration (PDPV) (RR 0.25; 95% CI 0.11 to 0.57). No difference in secretion clearance or in the rate of intraventricular haemorrhage or periventricular leucomalacia was demonstrated. The other trial (n = 30) showed that the use of percussion or 'cupping' resulted in an increased incidence of hypoxaemia (RR 0.53; 95% CI 0.28 to 0.99) and increased oxygen requirements (MD -9.68; 95% CI -14.16 to -5.20) when compared with contact heel percussion. There was insufficient information to adequately assess important short and longer-term outcomes, including adverse effects.

Authors' conclusions

The results of this review do not provide sufficient evidence on which to base clinical practice. There is a need for larger randomised controlled trials to address these issues.

Plain Language Summary

Chest physiotherapy for reducing respiratory morbidity in infants requiring ventilatory support

There is not enough evidence to determine whether active chest physiotherapy is of benefit to neonates on mechanical ventilation. Babies who require mechanical ventilation are at risk of lung collapse from increased secretions. Chest physiotherapy (patting or vibrating the chest) is used to improve clearance of secretions from the airway to try to prevent lung collapse. This review found no clear overall benefit or harm from chest physiotherapy. Some individual chest physiotherapy techniques were more beneficial than others in resolving atelectasis and maintaining oxygenation. These results do not support one technique over another. Due to the limited number, poor quality and age of trials in this review, there is not enough evidence to determine whether or not chest physiotherapy is beneficial or harmful in the treatment of infants being ventilated in today's intensive care units. Further good quality trials are needed to address this issue.


User-mode Linux (UML)1 is the port of Linux to Linux. It has demonstrated that the Linux system call interface is sufficiently powerful to virtualize itself. However, the virtualization isn't perfect, in terms of individual UML performance, aggregate performance of a number of UML instances sharing a host, or, in one way, functionality. This paper discusses the current weaknesses in the ability of Linux to host virtual machines and proposes some ways of correcting those shortcomings.


This study tried to analyze the pre-service teacher performance in teaching practice while joining the teacher education program using developed system called i-Critical Reflection on Teaching (iCRT) video-based reflection and using traditional way which is paper-based reflection. The objects of this research are sixty pre-service teachers in Manado State University, Faculty of engineering, department education of information communication and technology who are in the third year of the teacher education program which divided in two groups, video-based (VB) reflection (experiment group) and paper-based (PB) reflection (control group) with 30 participants in each group. Quasi-experiment method was used in this study. Totally, 60 pre-service teacher. The VB-Reflection group was used iCRT reflection system and paper-based reflection used by PB-Reflection group. The result show that, there were significant differences between these two group in terms of how they doing the reflection (Self-Reflection, Peer-Reflection and Meta-Reflection) from round one to round three using meaningful learning with ICT framework. This finding indicated that pre-service teacher in video-based reflection group contribute more reflection than pre-service teacher in paper-based reflection. In addition, the analysis result of pre-service teacher teaching practice performance from self-reflection during round 1, round 2 and round 3, there were extremely positive changes showed in VB-Reflection group as well as those in paper-based reflection group with small changes. It also noticed that peer responses helped to encourage the growing awareness of teacher to change themselves in classroom teaching to be better. Therefore, it strongly recommends that the iCRT system use in teacher education program especially in micro teaching course to enhance the quantity and quality of reflection in order to produce qualified prospective teachers who are ready to face the real situation of teaching.


Mixed crop-livestock systems provide livelihoods for a billion people and produce half the world's cereal and around a third of its beef and milk. Market orientation and strong and growing demand for food provide powerful incentives for sustainable intensification of both crop and livestock enterprises in smallholders' mixed systems in Africa. Better exploitation of the mutually reinforcing nature of crop and livestock systems can contribute to a positive, inclusive growth trajectory that is both ecologically and economically sustainable. In mixed systems, livestock intensification is often neglected relative to crops, yet livestock can make a positive contribution to raising productivity of the entire farming system. Similarly, intensification of crop production can pay dividends for livestock and enhance natural resource management, especially through increased biomass availability. Intensification and improved efficiency of livestock production mean less greenhouse gases per unit of milk and more milk per unit of water. This paper argues that the opportunities and challenges justify greater investment in research for development to identify exactly where and how 'win-win' outcomes can be achieved and what incentives, policies, technologies and other features of the enabling environment are needed to enable sustainable, integrated and productive mixed crop-livestock systems.


Head‐mounted displays with dense pixel arrays used for virtual reality applications require high frame rates and low latency rendering. This forms a challenging use case for any rendering approach. In addition to its ability of generating realistic images, ray tracing offers a number of distinct advantages, but has been held back mainly by its performance. In this paper, we present an approach that significantly improves image generation performance of ray tracing. This is done by combining foveated rendering based on eye tracking with reprojection rendering using previous frames in order to drastically reduce the number of new image samples per frame. To reproject samples a coarse geometry is reconstructed from a G‐Buffer. Possible errors introduced by this reprojection as well as parts that are critical to the perception are scheduled for resampling. Additionally, a coarse color buffer is used to provide an initial image, refined smoothly by more samples were needed. Evaluations and user tests show that our method achieves real‐time frame rates, while visual differences compared to fully rendered images are hardly perceivable. As a result, we can ray trace non‐trivial static scenes for the Oculus DK2 HMD at 1182 × 1464 per eye within the the VSync limits without perceived visual differences.


In many resource constrained scheduling applications, the ability to vary task durations provides another degree of freedom for resolving resource conflicts. Furthermore, when each task is associated with a duration-dependent quality profile, activity durations must be determined to maximize overall quality while respecting process deadlines and resource capacity constraints. In this paper, we formulate this type of scheduling problem, which we refer to generally as quality maximization. We develop and empirically evaluate a new precedence constraint posting (PCP) algorithm, along with a number of search control heuristics for solving this class of problems. Our PCP algorithm incorporates linear optimization to set activity durations at each step, and search control heuristics direct the search toward resource feasibility. A central concept in the heuristics we define is use of a measure that combines an activity's reducible duration with its quality profile as a basis for determining how to resolve resource conflicts. This concept is found to yield heuristics that exhibit superior performance. Surprisingly, we also find that use of a simple local estimation of quality degradation at each posting step leads to better performance than use of an exact computation at dramatically reduced computation expense. Overall, the experimental analysis indicates that a good heuristic must strike the right balance between minimizing quality loss at each step and retaining flexibility for future duration reduction.


We revisit the calculation of the relic density of dark matter particles co-annihilating with a top or bottom partner by properly including the QCD bound-states (onia) effects of the colored partners as well as the relevant electroweak processes, which become important in the low-mass region. We carefully set up the complete framework that incorporates the relevant contributions and investigate their effects on the cosmologically preferred mass spectrum, which turn out to be comparable in size to those coming from the Sommerfeld enhancement. We apply the calculation to three scenarios: bino-stop and bino-sbottom co-annihilations in supersymmetry and a vector dark matter co-annihilating with a fermionic top partner. In addition, we confront our analysis of the relic abundance with recent direct detection experiments and collider searches at the LHC, which have important implications in the bino-stop and bino-sbottom scenarios. In particular, in the bino-stop case, recent LHC limits have excluded regions of parameter space with a direct detection rate that is above the neutrino floor.


This provocative and disturbing book is about the transformation of Europe into "Eurabia," a cultural and political appendage of the Arab/Muslim world. Eurabia is fundamentally anti-Christian, anti-Western, anti-American, and antisemitic, while striving for Israel's disappearance and the vilification and isolation of America. The institution responsible for this transformation, and that continues to propagate its ideological message, is the Euro-Arab Dialogue, developed by European and Arab politicians and intellectuals over the past thirty years. With all the drama of a master writer, Bat Ye'or presents a wide range of historical and contemporary documents and facts to tell the story of how the European Union is being subverted by Islamic hostility to the very ethics and values of Europe itself. Readers who seek a fair resolution of the Arab-Israel conflict will be shocked by the evidence produced in these pages of unfair pressures and deliberate distortions. Europe's independence of spirit is shown in the process of being undermined. This book challenges the current demonization of Israel and should be essential reading for everyone interested in true peace in the Middle East


In a recent set of influential papers, researchers have argued that residential mortgage foreclosures reduce the sale prices of nearby properties. We revisit this issue using a more robust identification strategy combined with new data that contain information on the location of properties secured by seriously delinquent mortgages and information on the condition of foreclosed properties. We find that while properties in virtually all stages of distress have statistically significant, negative effects on nearby home values, the magnitudes are economically small, peak before the distressed properties complete the foreclosure process, and go to zero about a year after the bank sells the property to a new homeowner. The estimates are very sensitive to the condition of the distressed property, with a positive correlation existing between house price growth and foreclosed properties identified as being in "above average" condition. We argue that the most plausible explanation for these results is an externality resulting from reduced investment by owners of distressed property. Our analysis shows that policies that slow the transition from delinquency to foreclosure likely exacerbate the negative effect of mortgage distress on house prices. JEL classification: G21, K11, R31


This work presents the evolutionary optimization of a self-organized flocking controller for a swarm of mobile robots. The robotic platform utilized is Kobot, a robot developed specifically for swarm robotic studies. In previous work, a successful self-organized flocking algorithm was proposed, which depends on two basic behaviors of heading alignment and proximal control against nearby robots and obstacles. The controller is subject to many parameters, which include the relative weights of the two behaviors, and the maximum speed, the proportionality constant, and the maximum angular velocity of an individual robot. The possible dependence of the parameters on each other render a grid optimization infeasible. In this work, we present the partial results of an optimization of these parameters via evolutionary strategies by using a set of explicit metrics.


Abstract. Bias correction of climate variables is a standard practice in climate change impact (CCI) studies. Various methodologies have been developed within the framework of quantile mapping. However, it is well known that quantile mapping may significantly modify the long-term statistics due to the time dependency of the temperature bias. Here, a method to overcome this issue without compromising the day-to-day correction statistics is presented. The methodology separates the modeled temperature signal into a normalized and a residual component relative to the modeled reference period climatology, in order to adjust the biases only for the former and preserve the signal of the later. The results show that this method allows for the preservation of the originally modeled long-term signal in the mean, the standard deviation and higher and lower percentiles of temperature. To illustrate the improvements, the methodology is tested on daily time series obtained from five Euro CORDEX regional climate models (RCMs).


Abstract The Spineless Tagless G-machine is an abstract machine designed to support non-strict higher-order functional languages. This presentation of the machine falls into three parts. Firstly, we give a general discussion of the design issues involved in implementing non-strict functional languages. Next, we present the STG language, an austere but recognizably-functional language, which as well as a denotational meaning has a well-defined operational semantics. The STG language is the 'abstract machine code' for the Spineless Tagless G-machine. Lastly, we discuss the mapping of the STG language onto stock hardware. The success of an abstract machine model depends largely on how efficient this mapping can be made, though this topic is often relegated to a short section. Instead, we give a detailed discussion of the design issues and the choices we have made. Our principal target is the C language, treating the C compiler as a portable assembler.


This volume inquires into the intellectual and religious features of Muslim cultures in Iran and India during the early-modern and modern periods. Important transformations occurred in the Indo-Iranian world in these periods, beginning from the Safavids' coming to power in Iran and the Mughals' ascent in India, which occurred almost contemporaneously during the first half of the sixteenth century. The Safavids' conversion of the Iranian plateau to Shi'ism had a decisive influence on Iran's religious and political identity. However, the emergence of a Shi'i power in Iran that was opposed to the Sunni Islam that prevailed on the Indian subcontinent did not lead to a cultural isolation of the two regions. Muslim scholars and texts circulated widely among these countries, and the cultural scene in Safavid Iran was bound to exercise a significant influence on the Muslim intellectual milieu of India. This volume is a collection of essays by scholars working in this field who investigate these topics from varying perspectives. Some essays explore in particular the contacts achieved in this epoch between the Muslim and the Indian traditions. The articles of the first chapter deal with the politics and society during the Safavid-Mughal period. The second chapter investigates the Shi'i legacy in the Deccan region. The essays of the third chapter deal with the activities in Indian and Iranian mystical circles. The fourth chapter explores the Muslim reformist trends of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The fifth chapter looks into scientific and philosophical studies. The last chapter discusses the encounters between the Muslim and the Hindu traditions.


The saga of Recluce, launched in "The Magic of Recluce" and continuing in "The Towers of the Sunset "and "The Magic Engineer" reaches a new climax in "The Order War." "Modesitt has created an exceptionally vivid world," says L. Sprague de Camp, "so concretely visualized as to give the impression that Modesitt himself must have dwelt there." "Publishers Weekly" says, "Modesitt creates a complex world bgased on a plausible system of magic and peopled with engaging and realistic characters." Set after the events of "The Magic Engineer" (and prior to "The Magic of Recluce") "The Order War" illuminates great figures and major events in the historic war between order and chaos that is the central focus of the saga of Recluce. The deadly White Wizards of Fairhaven, wielding the forces of chaos, have completed their great highway through the Westhorns and now threatened the ancient matriarchy of Sarronnyn, the last bastion of order in Candar. The ruler of Sarronnyn appeals to the Black order wizards of Recluce for help. Justen - a young Black Engineer in the city of Nylan - joins the relief force. Despite their success in destroying more than half the White armies, Sarronnyn falls to the White Wizards, and Justen is chased into the most inhospitable desert in Candar. These trials are but the beginning, for the White Wizards have all Candar in their grasp. Justen must fight both Recluce and Fairhaven, as well as the highest powers of order and the forbidden technology to harness chaos itself in his efforts to halt the conquest of the chaos wizards. "The Order War "is the fourth book of the saga of Recluce.


Decisionmakers need information about the quality and quantity of stormwater runoff, the risk for adverse effects of runoff on receiving waters, and the potential effectiveness of mitigation measures to reduce these risks. The Stochastic Empirical Loading and Dilution Model (SELDM) uses Monte Carlo methods to generate stormflows, concentrations, and loads from a highway site and an upstream basin to provide needed risk-based information. SELDM was designed to help inform watermanagement decisions for streams and lakes receiving runoff from a highway or other land-use site. The purpose of this paper is to provide a brief description of SELDM and a hypothetical case study demonstrating the type of risk-based information that SELDM can provide. Total nitrogen (TN) and total phosphorus (TP) were selected as example constituents because nutrients are a common concern throughout the Nation and data for receiving waters, highway runoff, and the performance of best management practices (BMPs) are readily available for these constituents. The case study is hypothetical, but was formulated by using actual data from selected monitoring sites in New England. Data representing streamflow and water-quality were collected at U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) streamgage 01208950 Sasco Brook near Southport, CT, which has a drainage area of 7.38 square miles. In this hypothetical case study a 4-lane highway would replace the current 2-lane road and would have a contributing area of 2.2 acres between the topographic basin divides. Concentrations of TN and TP in highway runoff were simulated with data from USGS highway-runoff monitoring station 423027071291301 along State Route 2 in Littleton Massachusetts. Results of a highway-runoff analysis are shown in relation to three hypothetical discharge criteria for TN and two hypothetical discharge criteria for TP. The risks for exceeding TN discharge criteria of 3, 5, and 8 mg/L for highway runoff are 7.4, 0.83, and 0.13 percent of 1,721 runoff events that may occur during a stochastic 30-year simulation. If a grassy swale is used to treat the runoff, the risks for TN exceedances are reduced to 3.2, 0.33 and 0.03 percent, respectively. The risks for exceeding TP discharge criteria of 0.1 and 0.5 mg/L for highway runoff are 49 and 1.2 percent, respectively. If a grassy swale is used to treat the runoff, the risks for TP exceedances are 57 and 0.8 percent, respectively. The risks for the 0.1 mg/L criterion increase because swales can be a source of TP if pavement concentrations are low. The risks for the 0.5 mg/L criterion decrease because the swale is effective for reducing high TP concentrations. Although the results are mixed for storm-event concentrations, the grassy swale effectively reduces annual loads. Annual loads from the swale are, on average, about 49 percent of highway loads for TN and 62 percent of highway loads of TP because the swale reduces high runoff concentrations and stormflow volumes. Analysis of upstream and downstream concentrations indicates that runoff from the site of interest does not have a substantial effect on instream stormflow concentrations in this example simulation.


The air induction system plays a major role by providing necessary air charge for combustion to take place in an engine cylinder. The pressure drop across the air intake manifold is known to have a significant effect on the indicated power of the internal combustion engine. Most car manufacturers locate the air grill at the front of a vehicle to enhance the volumetric efficiency. However due to wading performance, for a sport utility vehicle like a Land Rover Freelander the air grill is located at the side of the front tyre. The air speed at the grill side is high and creates negative pressure, thus reducing the volumetric efficiency. Therefore, a thorough study of the design of the air induction system (AIS) with negative pressure at the air grill is vital, in order to fully understand the flow behavior in this AIS. Moreover, when the engine is equipped with turbocharger, the performance of the air intake system is also affected by the exhaust parameter which depends on the combustions of fuel in the engine cylinder. The properties of biodiesel are slightly different in density, viscosity and cetane number. These parameters are potentially affecting the combustion in engine cylinder. Thus, the investigation of the effect of fuel on the air intake system is vital for the study of the diesel engine operating with biodiesel. The analysis of the combustion of biodiesel in a V6 diesel engine includes the ignition delay, rate of heat release, in-cylinder peak pressure as well as the exhaust emissions. The study consists of 3 parts; (1) three-dimensional CFD analysis on the performance of the Land Rover Freelander AIS, (2) one-dimensional analysis of a V6 diesel engine with the effect of the AIS, (3) experimental study of a V6 diesel engine operating with RME and ULSD; The three-dimensional analyses on the performance 2 of a Freelander AIS have been conducted to study the effect of negative pressure on pressure-drop in the intake manifold. The results show that the magnitude of negative pressure gives significant effect not just to pressure drop but also to the flow behavior in the intake manifold. The steady flow tests on the actual intake manifold of a Freelander model have been conducted to validate the simulation outcome. The results show good agreement between experiment and simulation. In order to improve understanding on the flow wave action on the intake manifold of a V6 diesel engine, one-dimensional engine simulations have been conducted using commercial Ricardo WAVE v7.2 software. The result shows good agreement between simulation and experiment. The simulation result shows a significant affect on the wave action as pressure drop increases from zero to 20% in the intake manifold. The research continued further to investigate the effect of air induction parameters in the V6 diesel engine such as pressure drop and flow temperature on the performance and emissions of the engine. The effect of intake flow parameter to the engine when operated with RME has been studied and the comparisons have been made when ULSD is used as base fuel. The experimental results show that in general, the engine operating with RME produces lower power and higher bsfc due to low energy content of RME as compared to ULSD. The emissions of NOx are slightly higher, but lower CO and HC are produced. The pressure drop along the AIS has significantly affected the performance as well as emissions of the engine. The performance of the diesel engine drops significantly as the pressure drop increases and exhaust emissions increase considerably.


The financial sector particularly the mutual funds in Oman market have shown limited potential to attract consumers. Consumer attitudes towards financial investments have always been a challenge for the finance companies due to limited risk appetite of consumers which are largely attributed to both cognitive and affective components of attitude. Through a process of methodological triangulation data was collected from experts in the finance sector from a sample of 200 consumers. Pearson product moment correlation and standard multiple regressions through SPSS version 20 were used to study the hypothesized relationships in this study. This study throws light on critical variables that shape consumer attitudes towards mutual funds and recommends the scope for introducing new mutual funds which has significant implications on capital markets in Oman.


This ethnographic-phenomenological research aims to explore the phenomenon of peri-urban farming, rural-urban integration, and community building that are crystallized in Chengdu Plain, China in recent years. Through the lens of therapeutic landscape experience, individual and community well-being is examined with these questions: (1) what are participants' experience of farming in this landscape; (2) if this experience benefits well-being on physical, psychological, and spiritual levels; (3) how do elements in the landscape contribute to this experience; (4) how was a healthy grassroots community formed around the farm and what are the implications for the broader society. The phenomenology of embodied experience, reflections on urbanization and urban life, and therapeutic landscape experience compose the theoretical framework. In line with this perspective based on the lifeworld experience, an ethnographic-phenomenological method is applied to this research, with specific instruments of case study, open-ended interview, and participatory observation. Emergent themes from the field work are summarized according to Freire's theory of critical dialogues. I argue in this study that the case of Ningyuan in Chengdu Plain provides an alternative to current policies and processes of urbanization in contemporary China. In this specific context, connections are built between individuals, humans and nature, urban and rural sectors, and different social groups. A community based on shared ideas is formed and emplaced in this landscape. The distress from the fragmented life experience in post-reform China is relieved by resisting institutions and caring for the self, reconnecting to the land, empowering grassroots efforts, and disclosing themselves to one another in public spaces. Based on these discoveries, I suggest that to improve well-being of both rural and urban residents, planners and policy makers should recognize and consider the qualitative differences of each case in planning, and urbanization process should allow space for grassroots engagement, therefore to allow real homecoming for individuals and communities, physically, psychologically, and spiritually.


In this paper, we discuss various types of spyware programs, their behaviour, how they typically infect computers, and the propagation of new varieties of spyware programs. In two experiments, we investigate the occurrence and impact of spyware programs found in popular P2P applications. Based on the findings from the empirical investigations, we try to lift the perspective to a more general view on spyware deriving from the theory of (virtual) network effects. In a model, we categorize in what ways spyware might decrease the utility of belonging to a large virtual network. Here, the baseline is that spyware programs intrude systems and networks, but since they profit from user data they also intrude user privacy. In the model, the intrusions are classified as moderate, severe or disastrous. We found that spyware has the potential to overthrow the positive aspects of belonging to a large network, and network owners should therefore be very careful about permitting such programs in applications and on networks.


This dissertation analyzes outbound tourism from the People's Republic of China to Taiwan to unpack the geopolitics of the state and the everyday, to theorize the mutual constitution of the tourist and the nation-state, and to explore the role of tourism in new forms of protest and resistance, including the 2014 Taiwan Sunflower and Hong Kong Umbrella Movements. It presents a theoretical argument that tourism should be viewed as a technology of state territorialization; that is, as a mode of social and spatial ordering that produces tourists and state territory as effects of power. Based on ethnographies of tourism practices and spaces of resistance conducted between 2012 and 2015 and supported by ethnographic content analysis, this dissertation explores the engagement of PRC tourists with Taiwanese hosts, political representations of Taiwan and China, the territorializing effects of tourism, the production of multiple sensations of stateness, and the ways that tourism is aggravating contradictions between the different territorialization programs of China and Taiwan. It demonstrates that tourism mobilities are entangled with shifting forms of sovereignty, territoriality, and bordering. This dissertation argues that embodied, everyday practices such as tourism cannot be divorced from state-scale geopolitics and that future research should pay closer attention to its unpredictable political instrumentalities and chaotic effects. In dialogue with both mobilities research and borders studies, it sheds light not only on the vivid particularities of the region but on the cultural politics and geopolitics of tourism in general.


Affect detection is a key component in developing intelligent educational interfaces that are capable of responding to the affective needs of students. In this paper, computer vision and machine learning techniques were used to detect students' affect as they used an educational game designed to teach fundamental principles of Newtonian physics. Data were collected in the real-world environment of a school computer lab, which provides unique challenges for detection of affect from facial expressions (primary channel) and gross body movements (secondary channel) - up to thirty students at a time participated in the class, moving around, gesturing, and talking to each other. Results were cross validated at the student level to ensure generalization to new students. Classification was successful at levels above chance for off-task behavior (area under receiver operating characteristic curve or (AUC = .816) and each affective state including boredom (AUC =.610), confusion (.649), delight (.867), engagement (.679), and frustration (.631) as well as a five-way overall classification of affect (.655), despite the noisy nature of the data. Implications and prospects for affect-sensitive interfaces for educational software in classroom environments are discussed.


Folklore is both subject matter and critical discourse, amateur enthusiasm and academic discipline, a resource for committed nation-builders and for local historians. As an introduction to Irish folklore from an Irish perspective, this book develops a theoretical understanding of the dynamics of folklore, and questions its role in society. There are few cultures which offer as much scope for an analysis of this sort as Ireland and the author usefully locates the Irish experience within a comparative framework, using ethnography from Nordic countries and theory from Latin America. Irish Folklore defines the notion of folklore and examines the pivotal role it plays in identity formation, and how it is used by various groups for their own legitimisation.The first of its kind this book is a key text for the study of folklore in Ireland and will be of interest to anyone working in the area of Irish Cultural Studies ethnography or anthropology."


We provide the first comprehensive theoretical model for money markets encompassing unsecured and secured funding, asset markets, and central bank policy. In our model, leveraged banks invest in assets and raise short-term funds by borrowing in the unsecured and secured money markets. We derive how funding liquidity across money markets is related, explain how a shock to asset values can lead to mutually reinforcing liquidity spirals in both money markets, and show how borrowers' flight-to-safety and risk-seeking behavior impacts their liability structure. We derive the socially optimal leverage ratio and funding structure, and show which combination of conventional and unconventional monetary policies and regulatory measures can reduce money market fragility.


Over the last several years banks have experienced a significant increase in the number of regulations impacting their activities, resulting from numerous new laws enacted by Congress. The FDIC Improvement Act of 1991 (FDICIA), the most recent example, may well imposed 40 or more new regulations on banks. Over the next several months, bankers can expect to see numerous regulations proposed for public comment by the banking agencies as a result of FDICIA. Indeed, the agencies have already issued several regulations, including rules relating to assessments for national banks; brokered deposits; and insider lending. Other federal bodies, such as the Environmental Protection Agency and the Architectural and Transportation Barriers Compliance Board, also issue regulations that affect banks. Bankers may successfully influence agency rulemaking by implementing the following suggestions. (1) Seek to provide comment to federal agencies on all proposed regulations. Bankers can, and should, play a role in the drafting of regulations. It is from bankers and their representatives that the agencies learn how a proposed regulation will affect the industry. In most cases, federal agencies are required by law to provide interested persons an opportunity to participate in rulemaking through the submission of written comments. Notice is always given by a federal agency of an opportunity to comment, and it's usually published in the Federal Register. Bankers who don't subscribe to that can learn of proposed regulations in other ways. Banking agencies mail copies to banks they supervise. Other federal agency proposals can be found through trade associations and the media. (2) Don't just complain. In writing comments, bankers should focus on the proposal rather than oppose the law that requires the regulation. For example, in commenting on a proposed regulation implementing the Community Reinvestment Act, it is not effective to argue that CRA should be repealed. That complaint is best directed at Congress. Nor is it effective to merely oppose a regulation. Bankers who do this may blow off steam, but they fail to provide any meaningful information to the agency that may be used in producing an improved final regulation. Bankers should cite specific examples to support their views. Is a new reporting burden created? Are new costs of compliance created? Does a bank have easy access to data required by a proposal? How will a proposal impact bank operations? How will a proposal affect customers? Will a proposal put a bank at a disadvantage against nonbanks? If bankers are unable to comment on all aspects of a proposal, they may still comment on one or two issues. Industry comments influenced a proposed regulation on appraisal standards for federally related real estate transactions. In August 1991, OCC issued a proposed rule to raise the threshold transaction level at which an appraisal by a state-certified or licensed appraiser would be required to $100,000 from $50,000. More than 500 banker letters supported the increase. Many letters gave specific examples of how the proposal would cut consumer and bank costs without affecting safety and soundness. In April 1992, OCC adopted a final rule increasing the de minimis threshold to $100,000. (3) Pay attention to details. First, send comments to the person listed in the proposal, and include the appropriate reference name or docket number. …


The first objective of this study was to identify the economic intelligence requirements of two organizations providing support to start-ups in Western Switzerland (Genilem and Fongit) and to define recommendations to address their key issues. The second objective was to identify needs common to the two institutions and to suggest a set of measures that could be used on a regional scale to rationalize the use of resources. Data were collected through about 20 interviews involving both start up managers and collaborators of the coaching companies. A questionnaire has been sent to most of the companies which had received support from these administrative bodies. As a result, 2 lists of about 15 guidelines were given to Genilem and Fongit. Furthermore, practical measures and a better task allocation have been suggested to the regional support partners. Ultimately, this research helped both Fongit and Genilem to improve their practices. It also served to provide a reflection on what should be considered as essential support for entrepreneurship in the cantons of Vaud and Geneva. In addition, the study offers an innovative methodology for the analysis of the need for economic intelligence. In: F. Pehar/C. Schlogl/C. Wolff (Eds.). Re:inventing Information Science in the Networked Society. Proceedings of the 14 International Symposium on Information Science (ISI 2015), Zadar, Croatia, 19—21 May 2015. Gluckstadt: Verlag Werner Hulsbusch, pp. 549—556. 550 Gerhard Lustig Award Papers


This sociophonetic study is concerned with the relationship between attitude and behaviour in language. A two-fold research design investigates the English accent spoken in and around Bangor, North Wales and the influence of Liverpool English on that accent in relation to people's attitudes. The speech of adolescents and elderly participants from higher and lower socioeconomic backgrounds has been recorded. Participants' linguistic behaviour, categorized through accent judgements, has been compared to their attitudes toward two accents from the area, Welsh English and Liverpool English, as expressed in an attitude questionnaire. Phonetic measurements investigate whether affrication of ,/t/ in North Wales English is a result of Scouse influence. The study has found the Welsh English accent to be a lower class norm, whereas among higher class speakers BBC English is the popular (prestige) norm. A clear influence of Scouse has been found, although only in the speech of lower class teenagers. Affrication of /t/ is shown to be a characteristic of a North Wales English accent. The study confirms the strong relationship between affective attitude and (linguistic) behaviour. Interestingly, it has been found that people's accents are not always congruent with their attitudes.


Aesthetics, race, and nation are densely imbricated with one another. This essay examines their interactions in a newspaper column that describes an aesthetic confrontation between a presumably Arab taxi driver and his passenger, a white European-Dutch columnist. In this column, taste engenders acts of identification and abjection, transmits projections of fear, and underwrites a division of labor and virtue. It thereby serves as a racial border patrolling technology and institutes racial boundaries. To clarify the racial power of aesthetic constellations in the taxicab case, the paper turns to the dualities and integrations that theorists such as Addison, Baumgarten, Schiller, and Hegel have historically located at the center of their conceptions of the aesthetic. Unwrapping the disciplinary operations sustained in the taxi scenario by differentially available separations and integrations between mind and body, public and private, individuality and sociality, the essay investigates what follows for an understanding of aesthetic disciplinarity.


Genetic interaction networks are a powerful approach for functional genomics, and the synthetic lethal interactions that comprise these networks offer a compelling strategy for identifying candidate cancer targets. As the number of published shRNA and CRISPR perturbation screens in cancer cell lines expands, there is an opportunity for integrative analysis that goes further than pairwise synthetic lethality and discovers genetic vulnerabilities of related sets of cell lines. We re-analyze over 100 high-quality, genome-scale shRNA screens in human cancer cell lines and derive a quantitative fitness score for each gene that accurately reflects genotype-specific gene essentiality. We identify pairs of genes with correlated essentiality profiles and merge them into a cancer coessentiality network, where shared patterns of genetic vulnerability in cell lines give rise to clusters of functionally related genes in the network. Network clustering discriminates among all three defined subtypes of breast cancer cell lines (basal, luminal, and Her2-amplified), and further identifies novel subsets of Her2+ and ovarian cancer cells. We demonstrate the utility of the network as a platform for both hypothesis-driven and data-driven discovery of context-specific essential genes and their associated biomarkers.


In this paper we propose a simple technique for tetrahedral mesh improvement without inserting Steiner vertices, concentrating mainly on boundary conforming meshes. The algorithm makes local changes to the mesh to remove tetrahedra which are poor according to some quality criterion. While the algorithm is completely general with regard to quality criterion, we target improvement of the dihedral angle. The central idea in our algorithm is the introduction of a new local operation called multi-face retriangulation (MFRT) which supplements other known local operations. Like in many previous papers on tetrahedral mesh improvement, our algorithm makes local changes to the mesh to reduce an energy measure which reflects the quality criterion. The addition of our new local operation allows us to advance the mesh to a lower energy state in cases where no other local change would lead to a reduction. We also make use of the edge collapse operation in order to reduce the size of the mesh while improving its quality. With these operations, we demonstrate that it is possible to obtain a significantly greater improvement to the worst dihedral angles than using the operations from the previous works, while keeping the mesh complexity as low as possible. 3.


It is now well known that in order to solve global environmental problems, such as global warming, a volunteer participation of sovereign countries to international environmental agreements is needed. However, the effects of greenhouse gases on global warming are not completely known; for instance, there is a lot of uncertainty about the impact of accumulated pollution on the global temperature. In this paper we consider a situation in which countries do not fully know the magnitude of the consequences caused by the accumulation of greenhouse gases. Countries are however able to increase their knowledge by using a Bayesian learning process, on the basis of their observation of the actual damages they incur. Moreover, we assume that some countries are engaged in an agreement aimed at reducing pollution emissions, while others are not. We study the consequences of uncertainty and learning in terms of pollution emissions and welfare, for both signatory and non-signatory countries.


The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) conducts baseline and storm response photography missions to document and understand the changes in vulnerability of the Nation's coasts to extreme storms. On October 5-6, 2014, the USGS conducted an oblique aerial photographic survey from the Virginia/North Carolina border to Montauk Point, New York, aboard a Cessna 182 aircraft at an altitude of 500 feet (ft) and approximately 1,200 ft offshore (Figure 2, http://pubs.usgs.gov/ds/0958/html/ds958_fig2.html). This survey was flown to collect data for assessing incremental changes since the previous survey, flown November 2012, and can be used to assess future coastal change. The photographs provided here are Joint Photographic Experts Group (JPEG) images. The photograph locations are an estimate of the position of the aircraft and do not indicate the location of the feature in the images (see the Navigation Data page, for additional details, http://pubs.usgs.gov/ds/0958/html/ds958_nav.html). These photographs document the configuration of the barrier islands and other coastal features at the time of the survey. ExifTool (http://www.sno.phy.queensu.ca/~phil/exiftool/) is a free software program for reading, writing, and manipulating image, audio, and video metadata. ExifTool was used to add the following to the header of each photo: time of collection, Global Positioning System (GPS) latitude, GPS longitude, keywords, credit, artist (photographer), caption, copyright, and contact information. Photographs can be opened directly with any JPEG-compatible image viewer by clicking on a thumbnail on the contact sheet. All image times are recorded in Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). Table 1 (http://pubs.usgs.gov/ds/0958/html/ds958_table.html) provides detailed information about the assigned location, name, date, and time the photograph was taken along with links to the photograph. In addition to the photographs, a Google Earth Keyhole Markup Language (KML) file is provided and can be used to view the images by clicking on the marker and then clicking on either the thumbnail or the link above the thumbnail. The KML files were created using the photographic navigation files. Note: A KML number was assigned to each photograph to aid navigation of the Google Earth file. These numbers correspond to the site labels in Google Earth.


A versatile multiple time-gate fluorescence lifetime acquisition module is presented. The module is used as an add-on to a two-photon scanning laser microscope equipped with pulsed excitation for fluorescence lifetime imaging. It enables the recording of fluorescence lifetimes by capturing the intensity decay in four or eight time gates. The module allows fluorescence lifetime imaging at high count rates and with a high efficiency. The module is equipped with computer-controlled variable-delay lines for setting the gate widths. Decay times can be accurately measured in the 0.5 ns-1 μs range. Fluorescence lifetime imaging experiments on a number of single dye solutions with different (mono-exponential) fluorescence lifetimes are in excellent agreement with the reference values obtained with time-correlated single photon counting. Measurements on a test specimen exhibiting a bi-exponential decay demonstrate that the two decay components can be quantified with high accuracy. In a specimen containing six different lifetimes, in the range 2.8 to 12 ns, all lifetimes could be well distinguished. As an example, the results of a pH imaging experiment on oral biofilm using carboxyfluorescein are presented. Here, fluorescence lifetime imaging is used both to separate the short-lifetime autofluorescence from the carboxyfluorescein fluorescence and to determine the pH in the biofilm.


We examine the effect of personal, two-way communication on the behavior of borrowers, who have fallen behind on their consumer loan payments. While the lender has informed all borrowers about the delinquency through an automatically generated letter, some borrowers also receive a phone call from a randomly assigned bank agent. We find that borrowers, who speak with a bank agent typically for only a few minutes, are significantly more likely to make timely payments and significantly less likely to default. This finding holds in a subset of hard-to-reach borrowers as well as when we instrument for the call with exogenous variation in borrowers' reachability. The effect of the call is also persistent. Borrowers, who receive a call, are significantly less likely to become delinquent again. Personal aspects of the call, such as the likeability of the agent's voice, significantly affect payment behavior, while the surprise element of the call does not. Our results suggest that the form of communication significantly affects borrowers' payment behavior. JEL-Codes: D030, D100, D140, G200.


Korsakoff's syndrome (KS) is a preventable neuropsychiatric disorder caused by alcoholism induced vitamine B1 deficiency. In the acute phase of this vitamine B1 deficiency, called Wernicke's encephalopathy (WE), the neuropsychiatric disorder is fully reversibly by fast intravenous or intramuscular thiamine treatment. In the chronic phase, KS is characterized by cognitive problems, such as severe memory problems and executive deficiencies. Due to these problems autonomy is vastly restricted and patients are in need of chronic care. In this dissertation, three topics that are fundamental to KS are discussed: 1) The diagnosis of KS in the acute and chronic phase 2) Residual learning potential in KS 3) The rehabilitation of patients with KS Regarding the diagnosis, this dissertation shows that late treatment of patients with acute WE can result in a severe irreversible state of confusion that resembles the acute stage. It is therefore relevant to have a high suspicion of WE in alcoholic patients and preventively treat them with vitamine B1 injections. Although it has been known for over 60 years that this treatment has the potency to improve the neuropsychiatric syndrome in the early stage of WE, this particular treatment is still uncommon medical practice, leading to unnecessary cases of chronic WE or KS. In the chronic phase, neuropsychological assessment is vital to diagnose KS correctly. Cognitive screening instruments can be successfully applied to detect the cognitive problems in KS. The recently developed Montreal Cognitive Assessment is a better cognitive screening instrument to detect KS than the traditionally frequently applied Mini-Mental State Examination. Once diagnosed, patients with KS require specific forms of care that are fundamentally different from regular psychogeriatric dementia care, as reflected by discrepant scores on indices for quality of life. With respect to learning and memory, KS is characterized by severe anterograde amnesia. The memory deficiencies are most pronounced in declarative long-term memory and learning. Spatial declarative long-term memory seems however better preserved than verbal declarative memory on comparable neuropsychological tests. Moreover, some aspects of memory and learning are relatively better preserved in KS than declarative memory. For example, we may automatically take the right turn during spatial navigation or start searching for hidden objects in the right direction without conscious place memory. As this dissertation shows, these forms of implicit spatial learning are relatively spared in KS and are likely to contribute to the residual potential to learn novel routes. When memory rehabilitation is adjusted to the specific needs of KS patients, this will increase their ability to learn and their typically compromised autonomy gets enhanced. One promising form of rehabilitation is Errorless Learning (EL). EL can be successfully applied as a rehabilitation technique to learn and maintain skills or instrumental activities of daily living in patients with KS. The application of such techniques might increase the autonomy of patients and is likely to contribute to a better quality of life. To conclude, as this dissertation suggests it is particularly relevant to use the spared learning potential in KS to rehabilitate patients and reconstruct cognition in KS.


Estuarine vegetation is recognised for its ability to mitigate climate change through carbon sequestration and storage. Within Intermittently Closed and Open Lakes and Lagoons (ICOLLs), cycles of wetting and drying of estuarine vegetation, related to entrance opening and closure (regime), cause changes in vegetation composition and distribution. The influence of entrance regimes on estuarine vegetation and carbon storage has not been widely investigated. Previous studies have focused on carbon storage within open estuaries and tend to ignore spatial variation in estuarine vegetation and, in the case of ICOLLs, the impacts of intermittent entrance regimes on carbon storage. This study aims to establish how different entrance regimes influence estuarine vegetation and associated carbon storage within four NSW ICOLLs. The entrance regime was identified, and the structural and spatial variation in estuarine vegetation was delineated. This was complemented with a soil carbon assessment, which allowed for comparisons between vegetation zones and ICOLLs. Results showed considerable variation in carbon storage both within, and between, the studied ICOLLs. Carbon storage was related to vegetation zones, which varied considerably due to individual characteristics of each ICOLL, including the entrance regime. The relative contribution of vegetation zones to carbon storage was identified, showing substantial carbon storage within Casuarina and/or Melaleuca vegetation zones, a largely unstudied area throughout the literature. The study showed that generalising carbon storage within an estuary or between estuaries may be erroneous due to the high carbon variability within ICOLLs. The study makes a number of recommendations relating to ICOLL management and policy.


OBJECTIVE: To analyze the evolution and prognostic influence of the cardiac troponin I serum levels in patients with congestive heart failure (CHF) submitted to interventricular resynchronization (VR) over a 59-month follow-up period. METHOD: Thirty-three patients with idiopathic dilated myocardiopathy in NYHA functional classes III and IV were submitted to VR. The pre- and post-operative quality of life (QV) was analyzed using the Minnesota Code and the left ventricle function was assessed by echocardiography. The cardiac troponin I levels were compared in 23 patients utilizing the Fisher exact test to analyze the correlation with death and the Kaplan-Meier curve was used to analyze the survival rate. RESULTS: The QV was better after VR with a median of 73 points in the pre-operative period and 36 in the postoperative period (p-value < 0.0001). The left ventricle diastolic diameter (LVDD) reduced from 65 mm in the preoperative period to 60 mm in the postoperative period (p-value = 0.0014) with an increase in the ejection fraction from 37 to 47% (p-value = 0.0004). In 15 patients with normal cardiac troponin I levels, no deaths occurred and of the 8 patients with high levels, six died (p-value = 0.0003). The actuarial survival curve showed a survival rate of 47.1 ± 13.3% at the end of 59 months. CONCLUSION: VR in patients with CHF improves the QV and echocardiographic parameters (ejection fraction and LVDD). It is a good alternative for functional class III and IV patients. The serum levels of cardiac troponin I are predictors of risk to life.


Radicalism can arise and develop due to various factors, but the main and most dominant factor is the existence of radical ideology. It is said to be dominant, because ideology makes it easier to spread than other causes of radicalism. It can be spread through various media, both real and virtual media. Radical thinking is easily accepted because it is conveyed by using religious texts that are interpreted according to the perspective of the messenger. It became increasingly accepted when brought by charismatic religious figures for a group of people, including Ustadz Abu Bakar Ba'syir, who was free to spread his thoughts from behind the prison. This article will highlight on the radical thoughts that were present in the book "Meluruskan Makna Kalimat Tauhid aa Ilaaha Illalloh dan Makna Ibadah". In particular, the author will examine the method of interpretation of Abu Bakr Ba'syir against the verses of the Qur'an which are published in the book. The focus on this method of interpretation was taken because the book was filled with quotations from the verses of the Qur'an and Hadith which were made as arguments to support the writer's ideas. It can be ascertained that the author of the book makes an effort to interpret the Qur'anic texts, so that the methodological aspects need to be examined.


Attributed to climatic change and uncertainty of weather conditions, drought has become a recurrent phenomenon. It is manifested by erratic and uncertain rainfall distribution in rainfall dependent farming areas. The hitherto methods of monitoring drought employed conventional methods that rely on availability of metrological data. The objectives of this research were to: 1) identify the critical factors for efficiently implementing geo-spatial information for drought monitoring, 2) develop a new approach for extracting knowledge from satellite imageries for real time drought monitoring in food insecure areas, and 3) validate and calibrate the new approach for national and regional applications. For this research, satellite data from MSG and NOAA AVHRR were used. The preliminary results confirmed that real time MSG satellite data can be used for monitoring drought in food insecure areas. The output of this research helps decision makers in taking the appropriate actions in time for saving millions of lives in drought affected areas using advanced satellite technology.


This study examines the factors affecting modes of commercializing patented inventions using a novel dataset based on a survey of U.S. inventors. We find that technological uncertainty and possessing complementary assets raise the propensity for internal commercialization. We find that R&D collaboration with firms in a horizontal relationship is likely to increase the propensity to license the invention. In addition, the paper shows that macro-level environment conditions that affect exchange conditions, such as technology familiarity, influence the effects of capabilities on governance choice.


PURPOSE
Prostacyclin (PGI2) is usually described as an endoEDRFsthelium-derived relaxing factor, but the vasoreactivity to PGI2 in the retinal arterioles and the underlying mechanisms are not fully understood. We examined the effects of PGI2 on the retinal microcirculation using beraprost sodium (BPS), a stable PGI2 analogue, and the signaling mechanisms involved in this vasomotor activity.

METHODS
Porcine retinal arterioles were isolated, cannulated, and pressurized without flow in vitro. Video microscopic techniques recorded the diametric responses to BPS.

RESULTS
Beraprost sodium elicited dose-dependent (0.1 pM-0.1 μM) vasodilation of the retinal arterioles that was abolished by the PGI2 receptor (IP) antagonist CAY10441. Beraprost sodium-induced vasodilation decreased by 50% after the endothelium was removed and was inhibited by the nitric oxide (NO) synthase inhibitor N(G)-nitro-L-arginine methyl ester (L-NAME) comparable with denudation. Inhibition of soluble guanylyl cyclase by 1H-1,2,4-oxadiazolo[4,3-a]quinoxalin-1-one (ODQ) and blockage of protein kinase A (PKA) by Rp-8-Br-cAMPS were comparable to L-NAME. Beraprost sodium-induced vasodilation was also inhibited by the nonselective potassium channel inhibitor, tetraethylammonium, and the adenosine triphosphate-sensitive potassium (KATP) channel blocker, glibenclamide. Residual vasodilation in the presence of glibenclamide decreased further with subsequent application of ODQ.

CONCLUSIONS
Beraprost sodium, a stable PGI2 analogue, causes vasodilation of the retinal arterioles mediated via the IP receptor. The current findings suggest that BPS elicits endothelium-dependent and -independent dilation of the retinal arterioles mediated by NO induced by activation of PKA in the endothelium and the KATP channel activation in the vascular smooth muscle, respectively.


Strategy and methodology is presented for the analysis of organic pollutants, with the purpose of evaluating treatment procedures for landfill leachate. Today, many investigations of treatment procedures are focusing on the measurement of water quality parameters such as chemical and biochemical oxygen demand, (COD and BOD), and total organic carbon, (TOC) when assessing the organic compounds in waste waters. These parameters give an unclear picture of the actual organic constituents. A developed analytical protocol, the Laqua protocol, covers several classes of organic contaminants, including both polar and non-polar markers, as well as inorganic parameters. As markers for polar compounds some phenols are selected and for non-polar markers polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB) and polybrominated diphenylethers (PBDE) are used. Unidentified markers are also followed to back up trends. The monitoring of individual compounds gave valuable information in understanding the processes in the treatment procedures. A toxicity test suitable for leachate water based on the crustacean Artemia Salina was also developed and included in the evaluation protocol. Combined with a simple fractionation of the leachate water, this test gave valuable information about the origin of the toxicity, which mainly originated from ammonium. The protocol was implemented and tested on a pilot plant for different treatment procedures in Kristianstad, Sweden. The bottle neck in the complicated analysis of organic pollutants is the expensive and resource demanding sample preparation step. In this thesis focus has been on developing automated, cost effective analytical procedures with sample preparation based on membrane technology. For PCBs, phthalates and organochlorine pesticides (OCP), automated procedures have been based on membrane-GC methodology, and for phenols an automated system, based on membrane-LC methodology, has been developed. A simple very efficient method based on disposable hollow fibre has been developed for the analysis of PBDE with GC-MS for final determination. All the developed methods dramatically decrease the time and effort spent on sample preparation, and demand only a very small fraction of organic solvents compared to conventional methods. The developed methods have very good performance, and as an example PCB extracted from 1 ml sample in 10 minutes gave detection limits of 2 - 3 ng/l, and relative standard deviations (RSD) at 0.1 µg/l of 1.6 - 5.0 % for all ten PCB congeners investigated. (Less)


The wild-type, PsaD-less, and PsaL-less strains of the cyanobacterium Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803 were used to study subunit interactions in photosystem I (PSI). When the membranes of a PsaD-less strain were solubilized with Triton X-100 and PSI was purified using ion-exchange chromatography and sucrose-gradient ultracentrifugation, the PsaL subunit was substantially removed from the core of PSI, whereas other subunits, such as PsaE and PsaF, were quantitatively retained during purification. When the wild-type PSI was exposed to increasing concentrations of NaI, the PsaE, PsaD, and PsaC subunits were gradually removed, whereas PsaF, PsaL, PsaK, and PsaJ resisted removal by up to 3 M NaI. The absence of PsaL enhanced the accessibility of PsaD to removal by NaI. Treatment of the wild-type PSI complexes with glutaraldehyde at 4[deg] C resulted in a 29-kD cross-linked product between PsaD and PsaL. The formation of such cross-linked species was independent of PSI concentrations, suggesting an intracomplex cross-linking between PsaD and PsaL. Taken together, these results demonstrate a structural interaction between PsaD and PsaL that plays a role in their association with the PSI core.


Ergative case is said to mark transitive subjects, and it is widely assumed that this is true under the ordinary definition of transitive; however, Bittner and Hale (1996) propose that ergative languages fall into two types, neither of which is based on the ordinary notion of transitivity. In one, a direct object is not necessary for ergative case: any verb with an external argument counts as transitive, following Hale and Keyser 1993 (e.g., Warlpiri). In the other, a direct object is necessary, but not sufficient: the subject gets ergative case only if the object moves out of the VP (e.g., Inuit). This article argues that Niuean, Dyirbal, and Nez Perce are also of this object shift type. A search yielded no language where ergative case is clearly governed only by ordinary transitivity; languages that do fit the stereotype have only ergative agreement. A formal account of the correlation between object shift and ergative case is proposed, under which ergative case can be used as a ''last resort,'' as one of three ways to avoid the locality violation that object shift creates.


ABSTRACT Caisim is one of the many leafy vegetables marketed, in addition to foodstuffs can also be used for the treatment of various diseases, among others, to cure headaches, blindness disease, blood purifier, improves digestion and mempelancar, fever, sore throat, anti- cancer. Research objective was to repair work function studies to determine the effect of organic fertilizer for best growth and production caisim (Brassica rava cv). This research has been conducted in UPT (Technical Implementation Unit) experimental farm of Faculty of Agriculture University of Riau, Pekanbaru. This study was conducted over three months , starting from October to December 2011. Experiment was conducted using a completely randomized design (CRD) consisting of 5 treatments. Each treatment was repeated 5 times to obtain 25 experimental units . The treatment in this study was a control without fertilizer (P0), compost fertilizer TKKS 30 tonnes/ha (P1), chicken manure 20 tonnes/ha (P2), bokashi rice straw 5 tonnes/ha (P3) and fertilizer mashitam 0.5 tonnes/ha (P4). Data were obtained and analyzed statistically using analysis of varience (ANOVA). and followed by Dunnet test at the 5% level . The parameters measured were plant height (cm), root length (cm), leaf area (cm 2 ), plant fresh weight (kg/plot) and the fresh weight of plants consumed (kg /plot). The results showed that chicken manure 20 tonnes /ha and composted oil palm empty fruit bunche (TKKS) 30 tonnes/ha gave the best results on the growth and yield of caisim. Keywords : caisim , recommended dosage , a variety of organic fertilizers


We address the problem of optimal scale-dependent parameter learning in total variation image denoising. Such problems are formulated as bilevel optimization instances with total variation denoising problems as lower-level constraints. For the bilevel problem, we are able to derive M-stationarity conditions, after characterizing the corresponding Mordukhovich generalized normal cone and verifying suitable constraint qualification conditions. We also derive B-stationarity conditions, after investigating the Lipschitz continuity and directional differentiability of the lower-level solution operator. A characterization of the Bouligand subdifferential of the solution mapping, by means of a properly defined linear system, is provided as well. Based on this characterization, we propose a two-phase non-smooth trust-region algorithm for the numerical solution of the bilevel problem and test it computationally for two particular experimental settings.


Herbert Marcuse, Erich Fromm, Max Horkheimer, Franz Neumann, Theodor Adorno, Leo Lowenthal--the impact of the Frankfurt School on the sociological, political, and cultural thought of the twentieth century has been profound. The Dialectical Imagination is a major history of this monumental cultural and intellectual enterprise during its early years in Germany and in the United States. Martin Jay has provided a substantial new preface for this edition, in which he reflects on the continuing relevance of the work of the Frankfurt School.


Recently, a significant amount of attention has been directed toward Mobile Multiplayer Games. Current games are still limited to a few players and often rely on a server based structure, but it seems that future mobile games will be distributed, supporting large player groups. In the mobile gaming environment, network partition is a frequent phenomenon which could make the gaming experience much less enjoyable. Therefore games need a partition detection mechanism to seamlessly create separate games within the separated partitions without having to restart a game. This paper proposes two different partition detection mechanisms, one using a centralized approach, the other one utilizing the advantages of a distributed mechanism. The simulations show that both approaches detect partitioning reliably, with both having unique advantages.


Background In Australian Football, hip, groin and thigh (HGT) muscle injuries have had the highest incidence and prevalence. A previous study showed that football players with relatively more severe pre-season 'HGT' injuries had a significantly smaller size of the multifidus muscle. Objective This study was designed to examine the robustness of multifidus muscle measurements as a predictor of lower limb injuries incurred by Australian Football League players. Design This was a prospective quasi-experimental research design. Muscle measurements were conducted at the start of the pre-season to predict pre-season injuries, and at the start of the playing season to predict injuries in the playing season. Setting Players from 6 clubs of the Australian National football league were eligible for inclusion (n=275). Players were assessed on club premises. Participants Assessments were conducted on 259 elite football players for the pre-season (94.2% of eligible players), and 261 players at the start the playing season (94.9%). Risk factor assessment Morphology of the multifidus muscle was assessed using ultrasound imaging. Injury data were obtained from records collected by the AFL club staff during the pre-season and the playing season. Main outcome measurements The dependent variable in the binomial logistic regression was occurrence of lower limb injuries in the pre-season and the playing season. Results A lower limb injury was incurred by 38.2% of the players in the pre-season and 69.5% of the players in the playing season. A new model using cross-sectional area of the multifidus muscle reliably and consistently predicted lower limb injury in both the pre-season and playing season. In the season, 'kicking leg' was related to injury. Conclusions The results of this study have established the predictive power of multifidus muscle size to predict injury in elite football players. These results provide a strong direction for clinicians who screen and treat athletes.


This thesis is an investigation of the organisation and conduct of academic research collaborations in Kenya and the factors shaping them. This contributes to an understanding of the status and processes involved in collaborative research, and how this is affected by the associated research environments, important in informing best practice in improving and promoting collaborative research. Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) have become indispensable tools for supporting collaborative work. This thesis also discusses the role ICTs are playing in collaboration processes, and the factors contributing to their adoption and use within the studied community. Factors and variables identified as affecting the processes of collaborative research from a range of models, theories and frameworks in past studies were analysed for their effects within the Kenyan context. A mixed methods research design was adopted. Data collection involved a quantitative survey involving 248 academic members of staff in four disciplines across four major Kenyan universities. This was supplemented by semi-structured in-depth interviews with selected individuals within the studied population. In addition, this was complemented by an extensive document review that targeted university websites, repositories and policy documents.


There has been extreme utilization of petroleum derivatives in recent decades for the generation of electrical vitality, which is contaminating nature in a regularly expanding approach to respond to the exponential demand for electrical power. In light of the essential vision of Saudi Arabia's government towards the fractional change of reliance on oil as a national wellspring of economy, there is consideration for dependence on resources available inside the country, especially the potentials of renewable sources as alternatives. Saudi Arabia appreciates its geographical advantage inside the sun-belt zone, which has the most impressive sun-situated radiation total on earth. It is a correlative ideal position to consider interest in this valuable asset, through which it can achieve its vision by virtue of its promising whole deal prospects. This study highlights an approach for creating sunlight-based maps that examines the intensity of sun-radiation and its viability to deliver power. The system is to record the measures of sunlight radiation from several allocated data acquisition sites over the study area and balance them with the standard count, and later, make a sun-map in light of the yield. Likewise, the study will register the rate of energy from sun-situated radiation for the area and make preliminary proposals for the achievement of this test.


in this paper, the AOS packet service data transfers structure is presented first. Based on it, the effective throughput rate of AOS packet service is analyzed. Then, in order to improve the effective throughput rate, a scheme of AOS cross layer transmission system is presented. In the proposed scheme, based on the space channel state, the dynamic optimization parameters of network layer, Space Date Link Protocol sublayer and Sync and Channel Coding sublayer in AOS are selected. Then the switch thresholds are presented. Finally, the effective throughput rate of the proposed AOS cross layer transmission system is simulated. Simulations show that the throughput rate can be optimized effectively.


In this paper we present a technique for automatically assessing the amount of damage a small number of participant nodes can inflict on the overall performance of a large distributed system. We propose a feedback-driven tool that synthesizes malicious nodes in distributed systems, aiming to maximize the performance impact on the overall behavior of the distributed system. Our approach focuses on the interface of interaction between correct and faulty nodes, clearly differentiating the two categories. We build and evaluate a prototype of our approach and show that it is able to discover vulnerabilities in real systems, such as PBFT, a Byzantine Fault Tolerant system. We describe a scenario generated by our tool, where even a single malicious client can bring a BFT system of over 250 nodes down to zero throughput.


We present ALADIN (All Layer AdaIN); a novel architecture for searching images based on the similarity of their artistic style. Representation learning is critical to visual search, where distance in the learned search embedding reflects image similarity. Learning an embedding that discriminates fine-grained variations in style is hard, due to the difficulty of defining and labelling style. ALADIN takes a weakly supervised approach to learning a representation for fine-grained style similarity of digital artworks, leveraging BAM-FG, a novel large-scale dataset of user generated content groupings gathered from the web. ALADIN sets a new state of the art accuracy for style-based visual search over both coarse labelled style data (BAM) and BAM-FG; a new 2.62 million image dataset of 310,000 fine-grained style groupings also contributed by this work.


One of the most important developments over the past three decades has been the spread of liberal economic ideas and policies throughout the world. These policies have affected the lives of millions of people, yet our most sophisticated political economy models do not adequately capture influences on these policy choices. Evidence suggests that the adoption of liberal economic practices is highly clustered both temporally and spatially. We hypothesize that this clustering might be due to processes of policy diffusion. We think of diffusion as resulting from one of two broad sets of forces: one in which mounting adoptions of a policy alter the benefits of adopting for others and another in which adoptions provide policy relevant information about the benefits of adopting. We develop arguments within these broad classes of mechanisms, construct appropriate measures of the relevant concepts, and test their effects on liberalization and restriction of the current account, the capital account, and the exchange rate regime. Our findings suggest that domestic models of foreign economic policy making are insufficient. The evidence shows that policy transitions are influenced by international economic competition as well as the policies of a country's sociocultural peers. We interpret the latter influence as a form of channeled learning reflecting governments' search for appropriate models for economic policy.


A recently concluded Austroads study identified effective and innovative countermeasures for improving safety outcomes on urban arterial roads. Included in the study were raised platforms at priority controlled intersections (raised intersections), midblock and pedestrian crossings (wombat crossings). While these treatments have been widely applied overseas and, to an extent, across Australia and New Zealand (especially wombat crossings and at midblock sections on local and collector roads), a measure of effectiveness in mixed use and high volume environments in an Australian context was required. Using available speed and crash data from across Australia, this paper applied Poisson regression analysis in a retrospective quasiexperimental study to determine the effect of raised platforms on crash occurrence and severity. The results showed that overall, raised platforms are effective in improving road safety on urban roads. The effectiveness differed by platform type; platforms were most effective in reducing casualty crashes at wombat crossings. Casualty crashes fell by 63% at wombat crossings, 47% at midblock platforms and an indicative 55% reduction at priority controlled intersections. Furthermore, 85th percentile speed reductions of between 5 km/h and 8 km/h were observed at the different platforms. While this study provides an effectiveness measure for raised platforms on urban roads in Australia, most sites were high order collector roads. Further work is required to determine when and where on the urban arterial network platforms are most and/or least effective, the effect of design and implementation considerations on effectiveness and overall effectiveness in different conditions and different road users.


Variation of Photoelectric Current with Temperature. The photoelectric current from pure potassium, in highly exhausted cells, is found, contrary to previous belief, to vary with the temperature, and in the sense of the temperature change. The temperature range investigated was from room temperature to the temperature of liquid air; the variation of the photoelectric current with temperature is negligible above 0°C but becomes greater the lower the temperature. The change in photoelectric current is greater the lower the frequency of the exciting radiation, and occurs in both the normal and selective photoelectric effects.Variation of Surface Work Function with Temperature. The variation of photoelectric current with temperature is shown to be in harmony with the supposition that the work function of the surface is altered. Such an alteration of the work function is shown experimentally by the occurrence of a bodily shift along the voltage axis of the voltage-current curve of a photo-sensitive cathode when the potassium, which is changed in temperature, is the anode. It is further checked by the change in the long wave-limit of photoelectric emission of the surface whose temperature is varied. On cooling potassium from +20° to −180°C its work function is increased by about 1/5 volt.


Purpose of review Innate lymphoid cells (ILCs) are specialized immune cells that rapidly sense environmental perturbations and regulate immune responses and tissue homeostasis. ILCs are mainly tissue resident and their crosstalk within tissue microenvironments influences both local and systemic metabolism. Reciprocally, metabolic status conditions ILC phenotype and effector function. In this review, we discuss the role of ILCs as metabolic sentinels and describe how ILC subset-specific activities influence homeostasis and disease. Finally, we highlight emerging challenges in the field of ILC immunometabolism. Recent findings Accumulating evidence suggests that ILCs metabolism, phenotype, and function are shaped by signals from the tissue microenvironment. Dietary, endogenous, and microbial metabolites are sensed by ILC subsets and can impact on ILC-mediated immune responses. Recent studies have found that mitochondria are central regulators of ILC effector function. Furthermore, ILCs have emerged as crucial sensors of metabolic stress, suggesting they might act as metabolic sentinels, coordinating tissue and host metabolism. Summary Our understanding how ILCs mechanistically regulate host metabolism and defenses is still incomplete. Unraveling critical metabolic features of ILCs may lead to novel therapeutic strategies that target these cells in the context of disease.


This paper describes the design and implementation of Egalitarian Paxos (EPaxos), a new distributed consensus algorithm based on Paxos. EPaxos achieves two goals: (1) availability without interruption as long as a simple majority of replicas are reachable—its availability is not interrupted when replicas crash or fail to respond; and (2) uniform load balancing across all replicas—no replicas experience higher load because they have special roles. Egalitarian Paxos is to our knowledge the first distributed consensus protocol to achieve both of these goals efficiently: requiring only a simple majority of replicas to be non-faulty, using a number of messages linear in the number of replicas to choose a command, and committing commands after just one communication round (one round trip) in the common case or after at most two rounds in any case. We prove Egalitarian Paxos's properties theoretically and demonstrate its advantages empirically.


The letters of Charles and Bessie Ewing provide eyewitness accounts of the social upheaval and warfare that shook turn-of-the century China. In addition to discussing their missionary activities in the villages of North China and their struggle to master the Chinese Mandarin dialect, the Ewings describe the impact of Western culture upon the social structure of Imperial China as they lived it. Ruoff sets the larger scene about which the Ewings wrote: the Sino-Japanese war, the extra-territorial treaties, the Boxer Uprising, the foreign military interventions, the belated effort to modernize by the Manchu dynasty, the struggle against opium addiction, the student political movement, and the beginning of the Chinese Revolution. We also learn about the last great empress of China, Tzu Hsi, and the last emperor, the child Pu Yi. Through the Ewing correspondence and his own narrative, Ruoff shows the parallel between the attitude toward the Chinese held by the foreign community in the 1890s and the equally restricted outlook the Chinese held of their land and themselves. But just as the views held by the young Congregationalist minister Ewing change during his nearly two decades of service in China, so also the views of the Chinese themselves undergo vast changes. This book is both a history of a period in modern China and the story of an American family living that history.


Russia is a post-communist country struggling to adapt to the modern world economically and politically. In the twenty-first century, Russia faces postmodern social, cultural, and political problems with its old policy of deterrence. For Russia's political leaders and military planners, three scenarios define their postmodern setting: 1) the world's leading military and economic powers, with the exception of China, are market-based economies and political democracies; 2) the revolution in military affairs, based on advances in information, electronics, and communications, is driving both civil and military technology innovation; and 3) the Cold War's fundamental war-fighting premises, such as deterrence based on nuclear weapons and on conventional armed forces organized and trained for massive wars of attrition, have changed radically. These points'implications for future Russian strategy are profound, Stephen J. Cimbala and Peter Rainow argue. Russia faces an increased presence of its former adversary, the United States, in adjacent territories; an increasingly assertive NATO, which includes many of Moscow's former allies; and continued fighting in Chechnya. Ominously, China aspires to overtake Russia as the world's second-ranked military power and establish its hegemony over the Pacific basin. In short, Russia confronts a radically new political and military world order that demands adapting to postmodern thinking about deterrence and defense. The danger is that Russia, realizing that it lags behind in leveraging modern technology for military purposes and that it must scrap its dependence on conscription, now relies on nuclear weapons as its first line of deterrence against either nuclear or conventional attack.