We examine the consequences of a sudden increase in household debt burdens by exploiting variation in exposure to household foreign currency debt during Hungary's late-2008 currency crisis. The revaluation of debt burdens causes higher default rates and a collapse in spending. These responses lead to a worse local recession, driven by a decline in local demand, and negative spillover effects on nearby borrowers without foreign currency debt. The estimates translate into an output multiplier on higher debt service of 1.67. The impact of debt revaluation is particularly severe when foreign currency debt is concentrated on household, rather than firm, balance sheets. (JEL E21, E32, F34, G51)


We propose a model to show how the fee structure of listed Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) can increase instead of decrease Management Company opportunistic behaviors. Distinguishing between performance fees paid on the fund market value and management fees paid either on the Net Asset Value (NAV) or on the Gross Asset Value (GAV), we show that only the former aligns the Management Company and shareholder interests. In particular, we demonstrate that management fees lead Management Companies to make suboptimal financing and investment decisions in order to maximize their own wealth at the expense of shareholders. We test the predictions of the model empirically using a panel of Italian listed REITs.


Abstract Legislation proposed by members of the 103rd Congress to address towing vessel safety resulted from three focusing events. The proposed legislation was not passed. There is a continuing need to address the human element in marine casualties. Prevention through enforcement is a viable solution to some human causal factors. Numerous personnel investigations which should have been initiated following towing vessel groundings during 1992 and 1993, were not pursued; despite a presumption of negligence that exists in grounding cases. Due to the presumption, all groundings, and particularly those attributed to human factors during a casualty investigation provide sufficient reason to initiate a personnel investigation to ascertain if the casualty is attributable to the operator's action or inaction. Initiating personnel investigations is necessary to establish whether remedial action is justified. Failure to initiate remedial action against a negligent towing vessel operator's license following a grounding allows the individual to continue operating under the authority of a license. When remedial action is not pursued, similar casualties could reoccur. Therefore, the Coast guard has foregone a prime opportunity; to preclude similar casualties from recurring; and, ultimately improve towing vessel safety.


This paper reports the results of solubility calculation of the phase system HCl- NaCl- H2O at 25℃ whenθ HNa (interactions of two species with the same charge) andΨ HNaCl (interactions of three species) were changed by+ 10% and- 10% . The results indicated that the effects of the two kinds of interactions on the calculated solubility of the system were regular. The calculated solubilities of the system did not vary while the two interactions were increased and decreased simultaneously. The solubility data of the system changed greatly as one interaction was increased and the other decreased. This study is significant for the chemical technology of salting out salts from the water- salt system.


One question that historical phonology should reasonably seek to answer is: are there impossible changes ? That is: are there plausible changes that we could reasonably expect to occur in the diachrony of languages' phonologies, but which nonetheless do not ever occur? In this paper I seek to spell out what it really means to consider this question and what we need to do in order to answer it for any specific case. This will require a consideration of some fundamental issues in historical phonology, including the distinction between exceptionless and lexically-specific/sporadic changes (which I call 'N-changes' and 'A-changes'), and the connection between that distinction and the 'misperception' model of phonological change. It will involve an analysis of aspects of the phonological history of Pulo Annian, Arabic, Italic, Spanish and several varieties of English. I argue that the current state of evidence indicates that there are indeed impossible changes (which I symbolise using 'x ≯ y' to represent that 'x cannot change into y') in a very specific but phonologically real way, and that f ≯ θ is one.


For seamless integration of growing electricity production from intermittent renewable energy sources, Francis turbines are under increasing demand to extend their operating range. This requires Francis turbines to operate under off-design conditions, where various types of cavitation are induced. At deep part load condition, an interblade cavitation vortex observed in a runner blade channel is a typical cavitation phenomenon causing pressure fluctuations and erosion, which prevent a reliable operation of Francis turbines at deep part load. The underlying mechanisms of its development are, however, yet to be understood. In an objective of revealing its developing mechanisms, the present study is aimed at investigating flow structures inside runner blade channels by comparison of three different operating conditions at deep part load using numerical simulation results. After demonstrating interblade vortex structures are successfully simulated by performed computations, it is shown that flow inside the runner at deep part load operation is characterized by a remarkable development of recirculating flow on the hub near the runner outlet. This recirculating flow is concluded to be closely associated with interblade vortex development. The skin-friction analyses applied to the hub identify the flow separation caused by a nonuniform distribution of flow, which describes the underlying physical mechanism of interblade vortex development. Investigations are further extended to include a quantitative evaluation of the specific energy loss induced by interblade vortex development. The integration of energy flux defined by rothalpy evidences the energy loss due to the presence of strong interblade vortex structures.


To test the susceptibility of bullfrogs (Rana catesbeiana) to amphibian chytridiomycosis, groups of captive bred, recently metamorphosed bullfrogs were inoculated with zoospores of Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis, the causative agent of chytridiomycosis, and assayed for clinical and pathological signs of infection. A novel technique for counting B. dendrobatidis zoospore inocula is described. Inoculation regimes varied from single exposures of 1-10 million zoospores per animal to inocula of 10 million zoospores per animal per day for a 31 day period. Twenty-five to fifty percent of each inoculated cohort was histologically positive for B. dendrobatidis on necropsy. However, lesions were focal, small with relatively little thickening of the keratinized epidermis and no clinical signs of chytridiomycosis were observed. Only one animal died during the experiment, due to cardiac puncture procedure. A fungal isolate used in these experiments was inoculated onto four metamorphosed poison dart frogs (Dendrobates tinctorius) to test whether B. dendrobatidis had become attenuated following repeated passage in culture. All four animals died within 30 days with severe chytridiomycosis, whereas two uninfected controls survived, demonstrating that the fungus had not become attenuated. These results provide the first experimental evidence that bullfrogs can be infected byB. dendrobatidis, but are relatively resistant to the disease chytridiomycosis, which is lethal to many other amphibian species. By demonstrating that R. catesbeiana is likely to be an efficient carrier of this pathogen, our experimental data add weight to the hypothesis that this host species is important in the spread of chytridiomycosis, particularly by commercial activities.


Tubes in nuclear steam generators are held up by supports because the tubes are long and slender. Fluid flows of high-pressure and high-temperature in the tubes cause oscillating motions between tubes and supports. This is called as FIV (flow induced vibration), which causes fretting wear in contact parts of tube-support. The fretting wear of tube-support can threaten the safety of nuclear power plant. Therefore, a research about the fretting wear characteristics of tube-support is required. This work is focused on fretting wear transitions from mild wear to severe wear of tube-support materials by various loads and relative displacements. The transition is defined on the basis of the changes in wear amount. To investigate the transition, the fretting wear tester was contrived to prevent the reduction of relative displacement between tube and support by increasing the load. The tube and support materials were Inconel 690 and 409 SS, respectively. The results show that the transition of tube-support wear is caused by the changes of the dominant wear mechanism depending on the applied load and the relative displacement.


Recent global economic developments invite a reconsideration of orthodox macroeconomic theory and policy and encourage a revisiting of the ideas of unorthodox thinkers of the past. This paper reviews fifteen lessons to be learned from the work of Abba Lerner. These lessons, which fall under the general categories of functional finance and full employment, are as relevant today as they were when they were first put forward some five decades ago. They include insights into the workings of the macroeconomy that provide a basis for analyzing current macroeconomic developments and for formulating effective macroeconomic policies.


In the first part of our review of cardiac development,1 we explained the changes occurring during the transformation of the solitary primary heart tube into the primordiums of the definitive heart, describing how this involved the processes of looping, and subsequent formation from the primary tube of the components of the atriums and ventricles. In the second part of our review,2 we then accounted for the steps involved in separation of the atrial and ventricular chambers, emphasising that the processes were more complicated than the simple formation of partitions within the respective atrial and ventricular primordiums.

The subject of this, our third review, is the transformation of the initially solitary outflow portion of the heart tube into the intrapericardial parts of the aorta and the pulmonary trunk, their arterial valves and sinuses, and the subarterial ventricular outflow tracts. In our first review, we summarised some of the problems that continue to plague the understanding of the development of these outflow structures. Thus, initially the entirety of the primary heart tube contained within the confines of the pericardial cavity possesses a myocardial phenotype. Yet, in the definitive heart, the walls of the intrapericardial arterial trunks, along with the sinuses of the arterial valves, and small parts of the subarterial ventricular outlets, have an arterial or fibrous phenotype. The steps involved in the changes of the walls from the myocardial to the arterial and fibrous phenotypes have yet to be clarified. And then, cushions, or ridges, of endocardial tissue initially fuse to divide the entirety of the solitary outflow segment into the presumptive systemic and pulmonary outlets. With subsequent development, these cushions lose their septal function, as the arterial valves and trunks, along with the subpulmonary muscular infundibulum, develop as free-standing structures with their own discrete walls within the pericardial …


As we realized the MEDEVAC from JTF-B was not going to happen, the words of instructors from the Joint Special Operations Medical Training Center (JSOMTC) echoed through my head, ?Men, pay attention to this. There will be a day when you, as Deltas, will have to sustain a patient for hours, possibly days; this is what separates you from any other medical professional in the military, so shut up and stay awake.? We had heard those words every time we started a new section of Special Forces Medical Sergeants (SFMS) course. Now those words were staring right back at us in the form of the patient?s friends and family. We looked at our patient in the back of that beat up truck and knew we could keep our patient alive. We had the knowledge and the equipment; we just didn?t know how much longer we would have to sustain him.


With the advent of newer power supply technologies, power sources with differing energy storage densities and recycling capabilities are becoming available. Combining the power supplies in a hierarchical way would create a unique opportunity for better matching the underlying resources to fluctuating application demands. Such a heterogeneous hybrid network of power supply components could address a variety of power needs and serve a much broader range of system loads with a high efficiency.


Abstract This case study of a network of evangelical churches in Lebanon, based on data collected during an evaluation in 2014, presents a critique of common understandings about the humanitarian principle of impartiality, and questions assumptions about the compatibility between religious fervour and humanitarian values. Churches attempting to respect impartiality while implementing a food aid project for Syrian refugees have sought to mitigate potential problems through relationship-building and promotion of human dignity in order to ensure needs-responsiveness. Though many Lebanese Evangelical Christians do continue to engage in evangelistic activity, they benefit from strong community ties and demonstrate a high level of sensitivity to their beneficiaries' urgent needs as well as their sense of dignity.


The Private Finance Initiative (PFI) is a specific example of health care privatization within the British National Health Service. In this essay, I critically assess the ways in which various Private Finance Initiatives have increased health care efficiency and effectiveness, as well as encouraged medical innovation. Indeed, as the analysis will demonstrate, significant empirical evidence supports the conclusion that Private Finance Initiatives are a driving force of innovation within the British Health Care System.


The number of microbial species in nature may be in the millions, but most have never been observed or detected (Hong et al. 2006). For over 100 years, studies have focused primarily on culturing species from environmental samples in order to examine diversity of the community. With advancements in molecular techniques, a shift has occurred in both the approaches used to create community profiles and to explain what these profiles look like. This knowledge of microbial diversity is crucial for our understanding of the structure, function, and evolution of biological communities.The biodiversity of several thousand organisms has been catalogued throughout Great Smoky Mountains National Park (GSMNP) as part of a long term study call ed the All Taxa Biodiversity Inventory (ATBI). Recently, prokaryotes have become important within this study as well, and early work was focused on collecting data through culture dependent techniques.Here, I implemented a protocol, based completely on molecular techniques to create a library of species in order to describe the community of bacteria within ATBI plots. Through the use of Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR), molecular cloning, Restriction Fragment Length Polymorphism (RFLP), and DNA sequencing I have been able to compare the diversity o f bacteria among three different ATBI plots.Identifications were made for 177 bacterial species representing eleven different phylum including Acidobocteria, Firmicutes, Actinobacteria, Bacteroidetes, Verrucomicrobia,Planctomycetes, Alphaproteobacteria, Betaproteobacteria, Deltaproteobacteria,Gammaproteobacteria, and OP1O. The community profiles detected via these methods provided a new outlook on what bacterial species were dominating these three plots compared to what the previous culture-dependent methods had suggested. Overall , the Acidobacteria and Fimricutes divisions dominated the entire community profile.Albright Grove had nine different divisions represented with the Acidobacteria dominating this site. Cataloochee and Purchase Knob both had eight different divisions represented with the Acidobacteria dominating at Cataloochee and the Proteobacteria dominating at Purchase Knob.Microorganisms are extremely important and essential for all ecosystems; yet prokaryotes are the least understood of all organisms and the least defined taxonomically.Analyzing, comparing, and identifying these different bacterial species in GSMNP provides a better understanding of microbial distribution in soil environments. This allows for a better development of bacterial taxonomy and ultimately will help in understanding bacterial niches.


RESTful .NET is the first book that teaches Windows developers to build RESTful web services using the latest Microsoft tools. Written by Windows Communication Foundation (WFe expert Jon Flanders, this hands-on tutorial demonstrates how you can use WCF and other components of the .NET 3.5 Framework to build, deploy and use REST-based web services in a variety of application scenarios. RESTful architecture offers a simpler approach to building web services than SOAP, SOA, and the cumbersome WS-* stack. And WCF has proven to be a flexible technology for building distributed systems not necessarily tied to WS-* standards. RESTful .NET provides you with a complete guide to the WCF REST programming model for building web services consumed either by machines or humans. You'll learn how to: Program Read-Only (GET) services Program READ/WRITE services Host REST services Program REST feeds Program AJAX REST clients Secure REST endpoints Use workflow to deliver REST services Consume RESTful XML services using WCF Work with HTTP Work with ADO.NET Data Services (Astoria) RESTful .NET introduces you to the ideas of REST and RESTful architecture, and includes a detailed discussion of how the Web/REST model plugs into the WCF architecture. If you develop with .NET, it's time to jump on the RESTful bandwagon. This book explains how. "While REST is simple, WCF is not. To really understand and exploit this part of WCF requires a knowledgeable and experienced guide. I don't know anybody who's better suited for this role than Jon Flanders. ...Jon is first-rate at explaining complicated things. This book is the best introduction I've seen to creating and using these services with WCF." --David Chappell, Chappell & Associates


A two-dimensional transient thermal conduction problem is examined and numerical solutions to the problem generated by ANSYS and Matlab, employing the finite element method, are compared against an analytical solution. Various different grid densities and time-step combinations are used in the numerical solutions, including some as recommended by default in the ANSYS software, including coarse, medium and fine spatial grids. The transient temperature solutions from the analytical and numerical schemes are compared at four specific locations on the body and time-dependent error curves are generated for each point. Additionally, tabular values of each solution are presented for a more detailed comparison.
 The errors found in the numerical solutions by comparing them directly with the analytical solution vary depending primarily on the time step size used. The errors are much larger if calculated using the analytical solution at a given time as a basis of the comparison between the two solutions as opposed to using the steady-state temperature as a basis. The largest errors appear in the early time steps of the problem, which is typically the regime wherein the largest errors occur in mathematical solutions to transient conduction problems. Conversely, errors at larger values of dimensionless time are extremely small and the numerical solutions agree within one tenth of one percent of the analytical solutions at even the worst locations.
 In addition to difficulties during the early time values of the problem, temperatures calculated on convective boundaries or prescribed-heat-flux boundaries are locations generating larger-magnitude errors. Corners are particularly difficult locations and require finer gridding and finer time steps in order to generate a very precise solution from a numerical code. These regions are compared, using several grid densities, against the analytical solutions. The analytical solutions are, in turn, intrinsically verified to eight significant digits by comparing similar analytical solutions against one another at very small values of dimensionless time. The solution developed using the Matlab differential equation solver was found to have errors of a similar magnitude to those generated using ANSYS.
 Two different test cases are examined for the various numerical solutions using the selected grid densities. The first case involves steady heating on a portion of one surface for a long duration, up to a dimensionless time of 30. The second test case involves constant heating for a dimensionless time of one, immediately followed by an insulated condition on that same surface for another duration of one dimensionless time unit. Although the errors at large times were extremely small, the errors found within the short duration test were more significant.


The main objectives of this project were to:
1. Assess the range of biodiversity in representative forests at key stages of the forest cycle;
2. Review possibilities for enhancement of biodiversity in plantation forests and make recommendations;
3. Assess the effectiveness of the Forest Biodiversity Guidelines in light of the results of this study.
Over the forest cycle, ash and Sitka spruce plantations can support diverse vegetation, spider, hoverfly and bird assemblages. These assemblages contain a large
proportion of generalist species and we recorded few species of conservation importance. However, mature stands can develop a characteristic woodland flora and support forest specialist spiders and hoverflies. The various taxonomic groups showed different trends in total species richness across the forest cycle, but highest species richness generally occurs either at the beginning or the end of the forest cycle. High species richness in the pre-thicket stage is probably associated with the persistence of species associated with the preplanting
habitats and should not necessarily be interpreted as a positive contribution by plantation forestry to biodiversity conservation. We, therefore, emphasise the importance of the mature stages for biodiversity, especially as the biodiversity of
forest-associated species tends to be highest in this stage.Forest type generally did not have a major effect on biodiversity and there were few differences in overall species richness between ash and Sitka spruce. Ash sites > 50 yr
old did have distinctive vegetation, spider and hoverfly assemblages, but did not tend to have higher species richness (even of forest-associated species) compared to
the mature Sitka spruce sites. Comparison of the assemblages in the ash and Sitka spruce components of mixed sites does indicate that adding ash to a Sitka spruce plantation increases biodiversity at the plantation scale.
We have made fifteen recommendations for forest planning and management practices that will maintain and/or enhance biodiversity in plantation forests. Twelve of these recommendations will require modifications to the Forest Service's Forest Biodiversity Guidelines. Most of these management recommendations will benefit more than one taxonomic group. Other management recommendations are
specific to particular taxonomic groups, but in no cases do we believe that the management recommendations for one group conflict with those for another group.


A BSTRACT Frankliniella occidentalis is the key vector responsible for the emergence of Tomato spotted wilt virus as a global threat to agriculture. Frankliniella bispinosa is a common thrips in Florida, the Bahamas, and Bermuda, but the role of F. bispinosa in the epidemiology of the virus is not known. The purpose of this study was to determine the ability of F. bispinosa to acquire and transmit Tomato spotted wilt virus in pepper. In laboratory experiments, the number of larvae produced per F. bispinosa female was less than the number of larvae produced per F. occidentalis female. The larvae of F. bispinosa successfully acquired Tomato spotted wilt virus , although at a lower percentage than F. occidentalis . Viruliferous adults of both species transmitted the virus to pepper. Our results confirm the competence of F. bispi- nosa as a vector of Tomato spotted wilt virus .


1. Learning Disability in Plain English 2. What is Memory? 3. How We Learn 4. Piaget's Theories Simplified 5. Guidelines for Parents 6. Guidelines for Teachers 7. Occupational Therapy in Action 8. Student Writing Samples Appendix and Resources Function-Based Glossary What does Uncle Sam say about all of this? Section 504 Accommodation Plan Section 504 Parent Rights Classroom and Facility Accommodations


The article analyzes modern literature data on the importance of studying the hemodynamics of uterine tumors with dopplerometry in two - and three - dimensional regimens of echography for differential diagnosis of simple proliferating leiomyomas and sarcomas of the uterus. It is shown that the differential diagnosis of benign and malignant tumors using the dopplerometry is based on various features of the blood supply of these tumors. On the basis of the analysis of literature data, it was concluded that in the dopplerometry evaluation of benign, borderline and malignant tumors of myometrium in the two-dimensional regime, there were differences in the localization of the detected vessels in the CDM regimen, in the rates of vascular blood flow and vascular resistance in pulse dopplerometry. For a simple leiomyoma, the absence of a central intra-node localization of blood vessels in the CDM regimen, a low rate of arterial and venous blood flow, as well as an average resistance of arterial blood flow in the regime of impulsive dopplerometry are most typical; in a leiomyoma with eating disorders, the absence of a central intra-node localization of blood vessels, a low rate of arterial and venous blood flow in combination with high arterial resistance were more often observed. For the proliferating leiomyoma, the central intra-node localization of the vessels and the average blood flow velocities with low and medium resistance are characteristic. For sarcoma of the uterus, there is abundant vascularization both around the periphery and in the center, high blood flow rates and low resistance. The authors emphasize that there is information about the low specificity of this gradation, since the detection of a central type of vascularization and low resistance values can be in simple myomatous nodes with edema, eating disorders and destruction, and leads to diagnostic errors and suspicion of malignancy. In the three-dimensional dopplerometry mode for simple leiomyomas, low indices of volume perfusion indices were characteristic, and for proliferating leiomyomas and sarcomas of the uterus – high indices of volume perfusion indices exceeding those in the uterus as a whole.

Based on the review of the literature, the authors concluded that the presently available echographic and dopplerometric two- and three-dimensional markers are characterized by high sensitivity, but very low specificity. The low specificity of the known ultrasonic and dopplerometric criteria combined with the rarity of cases of sarcoma in the uterus against the background of a large number of similar echographically and dopplerometrically leiomyomas lead to low diagnostic accuracy of ultrasound diagnostics. This situation requires a further continuation of the scientific search for differential diagnostic ultrasound criteria by leiomyomas and sarcomas of the uterus using modern technologies, including three-dimensional echography.


Near-ambient pressure x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (NAP-XPS) is a less traditional form of XPS that allows samples to be analyzed at relatively high pressures, i.e., at ca. 2500 Pa, or even higher in some cases. With NAP-XPS, XPS can probe moderately volatile liquids, biological samples, porous materials, and/or polymeric materials that outgas significantly. In this submission, we show NAP-XPS survey and narrow scans from nitrogen gas (N2), a material that could not be analyzed at moderate pressures by conventional approaches. Nitrogen gas is an important reference material for NAP-XPS because residual N2 from the air and/or venting produces an N 1s signal in many NAP-XPS spectra. Nitrogen gas may also be deliberately employed as the gaseous background for NAP-XPS experiments. The survey spectrum of N2 gas contains N 1s, N 2s, N KLL (Auger), and valence band signals. This submission is part of a series of articles on NAP-XPS that has been submitted to Surface Science Spectra. Near-ambient pressure x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (NAP-XPS) is a less traditional form of XPS that allows samples to be analyzed at relatively high pressures, i.e., at ca. 2500 Pa, or even higher in some cases. With NAP-XPS, XPS can probe moderately volatile liquids, biological samples, porous materials, and/or polymeric materials that outgas significantly. In this submission, we show NAP-XPS survey and narrow scans from nitrogen gas (N2), a material that could not be analyzed at moderate pressures by conventional approaches. Nitrogen gas is an important reference material for NAP-XPS because residual N2 from the air and/or venting produces an N 1s signal in many NAP-XPS spectra. Nitrogen gas may also be deliberately employed as the gaseous background for NAP-XPS experiments. The survey spectrum of N2 gas contains N 1s, N 2s, N KLL (Auger), and valence band signals. This submission is pa...


The use of visual information for the navigation of unmanned ground vehicles in a cross-country environment recently received great attention. However, until now, the use of textural information has been somewhat less effective than color or laser range information. This manuscript reviews the recent achievements in cross-country scene segmentation and addresses their shortcomings. It then describes a problem related to classification of high dimensional texture features. Finally, it compares three machine learning algorithms aimed at resolving this problem. The experimental results for each machine learning algorithm with the discussion of comparisons are given at the end of the manuscript.


Public involvement in research occurs when the public, patients, or research participants are actively contributing to the research process. Public involvement has been acknowledged as a key priority for prominent human genomics research initiatives in many different countries. However, to date, there has been no detailed analysis or review of the features, methods, and impacts of public involvement occurring in human genomics research projects worldwide. We reviewed the reported public involvement in 96 human genomics projects (initiatives), based on a database of initiatives hosted by the Global Alliance for Genomics and Health, according to information reported on public domain websites. To conduct the scoping review, we applied a structured categorization of criteria to all information extracted from the search. We found that only a third of all initiatives reported public involvement in any capacity (32/96, 33%). In those reporting public involvement, we found considerable variation in both the methods and tasks of involvement. Some noteworthy initiatives reported diverse and comprehensive ways of involving the public, occurring through different stages of the research project cycle. Our findings suggest there would be intrinsic value in having more public involvement occur in human genomics research worldwide. We also suggest that more systematic ways of reporting and evaluating involvement would be highly beneficial, to help develop best practices. We are now working to apply these findings to four prominent genomics research projects in Australia, to co-design their studies and explore people's views about involvement. These projects include a large cohort study of >15,000 healthy, elderly research participants, the Australian Indigenous Precision Medicine project, a group of patients and families affected by a rare immunological disorder, and an extended family of donor-siblings who share the same sperm-donor father. We have assessed the impacts of involving people at various stages of each project, from study design, to recruitment to ethical oversight and governance. We have created a standardised reporting framework to evaluate impacts across these studies. Learn more at https://scienceforall.world/stardit/


This essay describes my progress bringing the core ideas of economics into conversations with noneconomists about important public policy issues within my faith community, through local politics, and through interdisciplinary conversations in academia. Thinking like an economist is essential to conducting research and performing careful analysis of public policy issues. However, it can reduce the economists' effectiveness in teaching and interacting with neighbors and political leaders. Effective pedagogy requires that faculty be present as good economists to their neighbors, their fellow citizens, in daily conversations and public policy debates. Our continuing education as teachers of economics requires that we enter those conversations as committed students as well--committed to learning how our neighbors process economic facts and principles and how their insights into public policy debates might alter our own understanding.


We consider the k -CARD TREE problem, i.e., the problem of finding in a given undirected graph G a subtree with k edges, having minimum weight. Applications of this problem arise in oil-field leasing and facility layout. While the general problem is shown to be strongly NP hard, it can be solved in polynomial time if G is itself a tree. We give an integer programming formulation of k-CARD TREE, and an efficient exact separation routine for a set of generalized subtour elimination constraints. The polyhedral structure of the convex huLl of the integer solutions is studied.


Fish otoliths are a reliable source of historical data regarding individual fish. Optical and chemical data obtained from otoliths are used to reveal the fish's age, natal areas, dispersal trajectories, and more. However, whereas optical methods are well established and widely practiced, methods for obtaining and interpreting chemical data continue to evolve. Despite rapid advances in the past decade, analytical approaches to otolith microchemisty continue to develop as new opportunities and limitations emerge. Otolith chemistry often reflects environmental conditions such as the chemical composition, temperature, and salinity of the ambient water. However, it is not always clear how these interact to produce the chemical signature observed in the otolith. Such gaps and inconsistencies in our knowledge may result partly from valuable information being discarded when measured concentrations fall below customarily defined detection limits (DL). Below we review some of the inaccuracies that may arise when analyzing chemical data obtained from laser‐ablation inductively coupled mass spectrometry (LA‐ICPMS). We argue that measurements traditionally defined as sub‐DL can contain valuable information that would otherwise be discarded. We base our argument on the analysis of sub‐DL signals obtained from both sides of otoliths core. Specifically, we show that these signals often form sequences that are symmetrical about the core (palindrome), and that the probability of obtaining even the simplest palindromic sequence by chance falls well below the customary 5% significance level. We conclude by discussing how this microchemical data can be analyzed in a manner that is insensitive to errors in concentration readings.


Abstract. In recent years, with the development of satellite orbit and clock parameters accurately determining technology and the popularity of geodetic GPS receivers, Common-View (CV) which proposed in 1980 by Allan has gained widespread application and achieved higher accuracy time synchronization results. GPS Common View (GPS CV) is the technology that based on multi-channel geodetic GPS receivers located in different place and under the same common-view schedule to receiving same GPS satellite signal at the same time, and then calculating the time difference between respective local receiver time and GPST by weighted theory, we will obtain the difference between above local time of receivers that installed in different station with external atomic clock. Multi-channel geodetic GPS receivers have significant advantages such as higher stability, higher accuracy and more common-view satellites in long baseline time synchronization application over the single-channel geodetic GPS receivers. At present, receiver hardware delay and surrounding environment influence are main error factors that affect the accuracy of GPS common-view result. But most error factors will be suppressed by observation data smoothing and using of observation data from different satellites in multi-channel geodetic GPS receiver. After the SA (Selective Availability) cancellation, using a combination of precise satellite ephemeris, ionospheric-free dual-frequency P-code observations and accurately measuring of receiver hardware delay, we can achieve time synchronization result on the order of nanoseconds (ns). In this paper, 6 days observation data of two IGS core stations with external atomic clock (PTB, USNO distance of two stations about 6000 km) were used to verify the GPS common-view theory. Through GPS observation data analysis, there are at least 2–4 common-view satellites and 5 satellites in a few tracking periods between two stations when the elevation angle is 15°, even there will be at least 2 common-view satellites for each tracking period when the elevation angle is 30°. Data processing used precise GPS satellite ephemeris, double-frequency P-code combination observations without ionosphere effects and the correction of the Black troposphere Delay Model. the weighted average of all common-viewed GPS satellites in the same tracking period is taken by weighting the root-mean-square error of each satellite, finally a time comparison data between two stations is obtained, and then the time synchronization result between the two stations (PTB and USNO) is obtained. It can be seen from the analysis of time synchronization result that the root mean square error of REFSV (the difference between the local frequency standard at the mid-point of the actual tracking length and the tracked satellite time in unit of 0.1 ns) shows a linear change within one day, However the jump occurs when jumping over the day which is mainly caused by satellites position being changed due to the interpolation of two-day precise satellite ephemeris across the day. the overall trend of time synchronization result is declining and tends to be stable within a week-long time. We compared the time synchronization results (without considering the hardware delay correction) with those published by the International Bureau of Weights and Measures (BIPM), and the comparing result from a week earlier shows that the trend is same but there is a systematic bias which was mainly caused by hardware delays of geodetic GPS receiver. Regardless of the hardware delay, the comparing result is about between 102 ns and 106 ns. the vast majority of the difference within 2 ns but the difference of individual moment does not exceed 4ns when taking into account the systemic bias which mainly caused by hardware delay. Therefore, it is feasible to use the geodetic GPS receiver to achieve the time synchronization result in nanosecond order between two stations which separated by thousands kilometers, and multi-channel geodetic GPS receivers have obvious advantages over single-channel geodetic GPS receivers in the number of common-viewing satellites. In order to obtain higher precision (e.g sub-nanosecond order) time synchronization results, we shall take account into carrier phase observations, hardware delay ,and more error-influencing factors should be considered such as troposphere delay correction, multipath effects, and hardware delays changes due to temperature changes.


Changes in phytoplankton dynamics influence marine biogeochemical cycles, climate processes, and food webs, with substantial social and economic consequences. Large‐scale estimation of phytoplankton biomass was possible via ocean colour measurements from two remote sensing satellites – the Coastal Zone Colour Scanner (CZCS, 1979–1986) and the Sea‐viewing Wide Field‐of‐view Sensor (SeaWiFS, 1998–2010). Due to the large gap between the two satellite eras and differences in sensor characteristics, comparison of the absolute values retrieved from the two instruments remains challenging. Using a unique in situ ocean colour dataset that spans more than half a century, the two satellite‐derived chlorophyll‐a (Chl‐a) eras are linked to assess concurrent changes in phytoplankton variability and bloom timing over the Northeast Atlantic Ocean and North Sea. Results from this unique re‐analysis reflect a clear increasing pattern of Chl‐a, a merging of the two seasonal phytoplankton blooms producing a longer growing season and higher seasonal biomass, since the mid‐1980s. The broader climate plays a key role in Chl‐a variability as the ocean colour anomalies parallel the oscillations of the Northern Hemisphere Temperature (NHT) since 1948.


Abstract Objective: The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of an assistive technology (AT) intervention to improve the use of available computers as assistive technology in educational tasks for students with physical disabilities during an ongoing school year. Methods: Fifteen students (aged 12–18) with physical disabilities, included in mainstream classrooms in Sweden, and their teachers took part in the intervention. Pre-, post-, and follow-up data were collected with Goal Attainment Scaling (GAS), a computer usage diary, and with the Psychosocial Impact of Assistive Devices Scale (PIADS). Teachers' opinions of goal setting were collected at follow-up. Results: The intervention improved the goal-related computer usage in educational tasks and teachers reported they would use goal setting again when appropriate. At baseline, students reported a positive impact from computer usage with no differences over time regarding the PIADS subscales independence, adaptability, or self-esteem. Discussion: The AT intervention showed a positive effect on computer usage as AT in mainstream schools. Some additional support to teachers is recommended as not all students improved in all goal-related computer usage. A clinical implication is that students' computer usage can be improved and collaboratively established computer-based strategies can be carried out by teachers in mainstream schools.


As a consortium partner the authors took part in a research project aiming at the development of high added value, healthy and environment friendly animal products. From among the products developed by the consortium (rabbit meat, omega3-fatty acid enriched beef, goose liver from non forcible feeding, selenium-, vitamin-E and natural color enriched eggs) the present study describes the results concerning beef and rabbit meat. The given products are chosen because they are produced in and exported from Hungary in considerable quantities and their competitiveness can be further improved. In order to able to map the consumer preferences a 300 count nationwide, representative, questionnaire based survey was designed and performed. Actual products were tested by focus groups and professional interviews. Beside the specific features of the products a common character is that the marketing strategy focuses on the distinctive nutritional benefits and other quality parameters that seem to be of crucial importance for the targeted consumer segment. Their unique character and health protecting effects make their branding and using community labeling easy. Their positioning points toward the prestige products therefore consumers tend to accept higher prices. In marketing communication the image building advertisement can be a common goal.


Switchgrass is a high yielding, low-input intensive, native perennial grass that has been promoted as a major second-generation bioenergy crop. Raw switchgrass is not a readily acceptable feedstock in existing power plants that were built to accommodate coal and peat. The objective of this research was to elucidate some of the characteristics of switchgrass biochar produced via carbonization and to explore its potential use as a solid fuel. Samples were carbonized in a batch reactor under reactor temperatures of 300, 350 and 400 °C for 1, 2 and 3 h residence times. Biochar mass yield and volatile solids decreased from 82.6% to 35.2% and from 72.1% to 43.9%, respectively, by increasing carbonization temperatures from 300 °C to 400 °C and residence times from 1 h to 3 h. Conversely, biochar heating value (HV) and fixed carbon content increased from 17.6 MJ kg −1 to 21.9 MJ kg −1 and from 22.5% to 44.9%, respectively, under the same conditions. A biomass discoloration index (BDI) was created to quantify changes in biochar colors as affected by the two tested parameters. The maximum BDI of 77% was achieved at a carbonization temperature of 400 °C and a residence time of 3 h. The use of this index could be expanded to quantify biochar characteristics as affected by thermochemical treatments. Carbonized biochar could be considered a high quality solid fuel based on its energy content.


This article argues that Busby Berkeley's unique musical spectacles invert the cinematic taxonomy found in Deleuze's twin volumes on Cinema through the process of 'becoming-music.' By taking up a form that I term 'visual-music,' in which musical properties are incorporated within the image, Berkeley's work problematizes Deleuze's philosophy of cinematic sound and benefits instead from the conceptions of the musical refrain and rhythm located in Deleuze and Guattari's A Thousand Plateaus . Breaking away from traditional Deleuzian readings of cinema, I demonstrate, through a close textual analysis of Berkeley's use of both the aural and visual refrain, that Berkeley's images become 'visual-music' in order to deterritorialize (i.e. reconfigure our understanding of) the sound rather than the image. Using the 'Shadow Waltz' from Gold Diggers of 1933 as an example, I argue that a Berkeley musical number resituates the music's territory of soft romanticism to reveal the sexuality inherent in the sonic forms of popular music.


This issue of the e-journal of Applied Psychology is focused on the psychology of families. Papers addressing clinical, health and social issues in relation to family functioning were sought, in particular those that considered how families coped or did not cope with both external stresses (e.g., migration) and internal stresses (e.g., illness, childhood transitions). Articles which addressed ways to strengthen family functioning, and factors contributing to resilience in families, were also invited. Our aim was to present papers reflecting a range of approaches, including both qualitative and quantitative research and empirical and review papers.


Paintings of textiles and ornament on ceilings of early Western Himalaya Buddhist temples have an important role to play in the experience of sacred space and religious meaning. Roger Goepper (1993 , 1995 ) was one of the first Western scholars to point out the importance of textile depictions and ceiling decoration in the art of Alchi/ Ladakh (ca 1200). Various other researchers, focusing in particular on the Assembly Hall of Tabo/ Spiti, Himachal Pradesh (mid. 11th C), elucidated specific aspects of ceiling depictions as purely decorative elements, imitations of textile patterns (Wandl 1996) or focused on the possible function of ornamental depictions as honorific covers as suggested for earlier ceiling paintings in Dunhuang by Whitfield & Farrer 1990 and Whitfield 1996 . Giuseppe Tucci (1935) was the first to interpret early Western Himalayan temple's ceilings as symbolic representations of canopies, which was later adopted by Klimburg-Salter 1996 , 1997 , 2001 for various distinctive types of ceilings in Afghanistan and Western Tibet. However, collating new data from examples of this genre of painting during different periods as a single corpus allows a fresh perspective on the genre of ceiling designs and gives insights into structural principles of this long and refined artistic expression as well as the interpretation of their meaning within the architectonic tradition of Western Tibet temples and their overall iconographic programmes.


In lowand middle-income countries, institutions of higher education are turning to online models of instruction to reduce costs and broaden their educational reach. While a growing body of causal research can speak to the effectiveness of online models in the United States, there is little rigorous evidence about the use of online models in lower income countries. To fill this gap in the research, I use a randomized design to examine the effectiveness of a blended model in undergraduate STEM courses in Mongolia. On average, students assigned to the online instructional format withdraw from courses at a higher rate; this finding is not observed among the highest achieving students, suggesting lower-ability students may encounter barriers to persistence under new online learning models. Nevertheless, overall course performance is equivalent between treatment and control, suggesting the online model may be as effective as face-to-face instruction at a lower cost.


A protease (thermolysin) was used to directly synthesise a number of dipeptides from soluble Fmoc-amino acids onto a solid support (PEGA1900) in bulk aqueous media, often in very good yields. This shift in equilibrium toward synthesis is remarkable because for soluble dipeptides in aqueous solution hydrolysis rather than synthesis is observed. Three possible reasons for the equilibrium shift were considered: (i) using a solid support makes it easy to use an excess of reagents, so mass action contributes towards synthesis; (ii) reduction in the unfavourable hydrophobic hydration of the Fmoc group within the solid support compared with the free amino acid in solution and (iii) suppression of the ionization of amino groups linked to the solid phase due to mutual electrostatic repulsion. It was found that under the conditions studied the second effect was most important.


Abstract. Very few sequences of high resolution wind and temperature measurements in the lower thermosphere are available in the literature, which makes it difficult to verify the simulation results of models that would provide better understanding of the complex dynamics of the region. To address this problem the Turbopause experiment used four rockets launched over a period of approximately two hours from Poker Flat Research Range, Alaska (64° N, 147° W) on the night of 17–18 February 2009. All four rocket payloads released trimethyl aluminum trails for neutral wind and turbulence measurements, and two of the rockets carried ionization gauges and fixed-bias Langmuir probes measuring neutral and electron densities, small-scale fluctuations and neutral temperatures. Two lidars monitored temperature structure and sodium densities. The observations were made under quiet geomagnetic conditions and show persistence in the wind magnitudes and shears throughout the observing period while being modulated by inertia-gravity waves. High resolution temperature profiles show the winter polar mesosphere and lower thermosphere in a state of relatively low stability with several quasi-adiabatic layers between 74 and 103 km. Temperature and wind data were combined to calculate Richardson number profiles. Evidence for turbulence comes from simultaneous observations of density fluctuations and downward transport of sodium in a mixed layer near 75 km; the observation of turbulent fluctuations and energy dissipation from 87–90 km; and fast and irregular trail expansion at 90–93 km, and especially between 95 to 103 km. The regions of turbulent trails agree well with regions of quasi-adiabatic temperature gradients. Above 103 km, trail diffusion was mainly laminar; however, unusual features and vortices in the trail diffusion were observed up to 118 km that have not been as prevalent or as clearly evident in earlier trail releases.


In seismic exploration, random noise deteriorates the quality of acquired data. This study analyzed existing denoising methods used in seismic exploration from the perspective of random noise. Wavelet thresholding offers a new approach to reducing random noise in simulation results, synthetic data, and real data. A modified wavelet threshold function was developed by considering the merits and demerits of conventional soft and hard thresholding schemes. A MATLAB (matrix laboratory) simulation model was used to compare the signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs) and mean square errors (MSEs) of the soft, hard, and modified threshold functions. The results demonstrated that the modified threshold function can avoid the pseudo-Gibbs phenomenon and produce a higher SNR than the soft and hard threshold functions. A seismic convolution model was built using seismic wavelets to verify the effectiveness of different denoising methods. The model was used to demonstrate that the modified thresholding scheme can effectively reduce random noise in seismic data and retain the desired signal. The application of the proposed tool to a real raw seismogram recorded during a land seismic exploration experiment located in north China clearly demonstrated its efficiency for random noise attenuation.


A thermo-optically driven adaptive mirror is presented. It is based on the thermal expansion of a thin film heated with a light pattern. We describe a procedure for the preparation of a silicon elastomer with a high-quality optical surface. This material, Sylgard 184, has a high linear thermal expansion coefficient of 3.110-4 K-1. Surface modulations are recorded in an interferometer. Modulations of 350 nm result at an intensity of 370 mW/cm2. The resolution is measured with a line pattern. The contrast drops to 30 % at 1.6 line pairs per millimeter (lp/mm).


Laser control schemes for selective population inversion between molecular vibrational states have recently been proposed in the context of molecular cooling strategies using the so-called exceptional points (corresponding to a couple of coalescing resonances). All these proposals rest on the predictions of a purely adiabatic Floquet theory. In this work we compare the Floquet model with an exact wavepacket propagation taking into account the accompanying non-adiabatic effects. We search for signatures of a given exceptional point in the wavepacket dynamics and we discuss the role of the non-adiabatic interaction between the resonances blurring the ideal Floquet scheme. Moreover, we derive an optimal laser field to achieve, within acceptable compromise and rationalizing the unavoidable non-adiabatic contamination, the expected population inversions. The molecular system taken as an illustrative example is H.


In the last year, public discussion of cybercrime has a few major buzz words, including Stuxnet, zero-day vulnerabilities, Anonymous, HBGary, RSA, and Lockheed Martin. The Stuxnet worm exploited four zero-day vulnerabilities in the summer of 2010 and damaged Iranian nuclear infrastructure. In February 2011, security firm and government contractor HBGary Federal announced that they intended to go after individuals involved in the loose knit group of hackers that call themselves Anonymous, and Anonymous responded by hacking into HBGary Federal's systems and publishing confidential company emails on the web that revealed some of HBGary Federal's questionable activities. Security firm RSA, which produces SecurID two-factor authentication technology, revealed in March 2011 that information relating to this technology was obtained by advanced hacking techniques. The effects of the RSA breach started to become more apparent in May 2011 when government contractor Lockheed Martin experienced cyber intrusions using counterfeit SecurID security keys. In August 2011, another term was added when McAfee's research division announced the results of an investigation: Five years. McAfee asserts that for the last five years, major cyber intrusions have been occurring, likely by the same actor or group, giving the intruders access to national secrets, SCADA configurations, source code, design schematics, and much more. The source of these intrusions is not known, though many suspect state actors, and Republican presidential primary candidate Jon Huntsman stated during the Republican presidential debates that he considers such cyber attacks to be acts of war.With the significant technological development occurring in this area, the legal framework is still lacking. There is arguably not currently an effective way of addressing cybercrime under criminal law, and private remedies through lawsuits are likely to be inadequate. Congress has been making progress towards addressing cybersecurity issues, but between a Congressional Cybersecurity Caucus, a Cybersecurity Task Force, and several different congressional committees that assert jurisdiction over cybersecurity issues, clear congressional consensus on the topic is likely to be a long time coming. The urgency of the topic and the current lack of guidance leaves potential targets with the need to defend their own systems. Our research began with a broad focus: analyzing the legal framework surrounding cybersecurity issues and making recommendations for implementing a framework that would permit the use of active self-defense in cyberspace ('active defense'), as opposed to requiring network administrators to always rely solely on the passive defense options of firewalls, patches, and antivirus software. Active defense includes technologies that detect attacks, trace the attacks to their source, and enable counterstrikes to halt the attacks.


Research publications are often used as proxies for the scientific progress and development of a particular country. Country-specific bibliometric studies reflect national strategies to build capacity in tertiary education, research, and health services. In Namibia, no study to date has analyzed trends at the country level. The aim of this study was to evaluate the biomedical publication patterns in Namibia between 1995 and 2009. Using the keyword 'Namibia' in PubMed and ISI Web of Knowledge, resulting papers were hand searched for information on subject areas, types of studies undertaken, first authorship patterns, and institutions involved in biomedically-focused publications. This study identified 450 publications between 1995 and 2009. Only 129 (28.6%) involved Namibian authors. Just over half (58%) of the studies were carried out in Namibia but varied dramatically by subject area. 52% of Namibian-authored papers were Namibian first-authored with a decreasing trend since 2004. Only 7.5% (34) of the publications involved authors from Namibian universities. Namibia has a strong potential to develop in biomedical research but there is a need for tertiary institutions to modify current policies, continue to diversify subareas and become equipped to build capacity with local and international collaborators.


Data-driven algorithmic tools allow their users to process large amounts of data quickly, extract patterns from the data that humans cannot otherwise detect, and make reliable predictions. These tools have proven valuable in domestic legal practice, negotiations, and other fields closely related to international law. Yet governments and their international lawyers have ignored this new wave of tools as they conduct international relations.

This article argues that governments should begin to use these tools to their advantage in creating and implementing international law. These capabilities could support states' decision-making as they negotiate treaties, adjudicate international legal disputes, and evaluate the status of customary rules. Even if international lawyers for governments in the United States and Europe are skeptical about the benefits of machine learning and big data, they must consider the possibility that states such as China will begin to deploy these tools in power-enhancing ways.

High-tech international lawyering will have important implications for international law and relations. Tools that are readily available and easy to use will serve as important equalizers for less powerful states, but more advanced technologies are likely to exacerbate existing power differentials. The article therefore offers ways that less powerful states and outside actors can counterbalance technology-driven power shifts that may undercut the enduring ambitions of international law.


Sentiment indicators are often appealing to investors since financial markets are known to be influenced not only by economic fundamentals but also by emotions (Shiller & Akerlof, 2009). In current studies, however, a range of alternative sentiment indices is used each of which purports to have predictive value for the movements in financial markets. Consequently, a question mark remains in regards to the comparability of findings across different research papers. The goal of this study is to address the question of choice between competing sentiment indicators in EUR/USD trading. To identify the indicator having the best predictive value we estimate expected returns for individual sources and forecast models via backtesting (Campbell, 2005). Our findings support the notion that the predictive value depends on the source of the sentiment-indicator, on timing aspects, with more recent sentiments having greater predictive strength, and on the type of rule (e.g., buy/sell) harnessed.


To coincide with Experimenta Utopia Now: International Biennial of Media Art at MONA participating artists Knowles & Sowerwine will be discussing their individual & collaborative artworks. Expanding on their ideas, inspirations, processes & techniques.

Their work has been exhibited nationally & internationally. In 2010 their installation You Were In My Dream, commissioned by Experimenta Media Arts, won the 2010 Premier of Queensland's National New Media Art Award, Australia's most significant prize for new media art. They also won the People's Choice Award.

In 2008 their animated film Doll Stories: Mary was shown as part of the International Digital Art exhibition in Beijing. In 2006 their installation Expecting was exhibited at the Institute for Contemporary Art, London & FACT, Liverpool. Expecting toured around Australia in 2004/2005 as part of the Experimenta: House of Tomorrow exhibition.

In 2004 Van & Isobel made the film Clara, a 7-minute stop-motion animation. It premiered at the Cannes Film Festival as one of nine short films in the Official Selection, where it won a Special Mention. Clara went on to win a Golden Hugo for Best Animation at the 2005 Chicago Film Festival. In January 2006 Clara screened at the Sundance Film Festival.

Their first collaboration, the stop-motion animation Gillian, was highly commended in the 2001 Dendy Awards as part of the Sydney Film Festival, and screened at NewFest 2003 in New York.


Author(s): Solomonik, Edgar | Advisor(s): Demmel, James | Abstract: This thesis targets the design of parallelizable algorithms and communication-efficient parallel schedules for numerical linear algebra as well as computations with higher-order tensors. Communication is a growing bottleneck in the execution of most algorithms on parallel computers, which manifests itself as data movement both through the network connecting different processors and through the memory hierarchy of each processor as well as synchronization between processors. We provide a rigorous theoretical model of communication and derive lower bounds as well as algorithms in this model. Our analysis concerns two broad areas of linear algebra and of tensor contractions. We demonstrate the practical quality of the new theoretically-improved algorithms by presenting results which show that our implementations outperform standard libraries and traditional algorithms. We model the costs associated with local computation, interprocessor communication and synchronization, as well as memory to cache data transfers of a parallel schedule based on the most expensive execution path in the schedule. We introduce a new technique for deriving lower bounds on tradeoffs between these costs and apply them to algorithms in both dense and sparse linear algebra as well as graph algorithms. These lower bounds are attained by what we refer to as 2.5D algorithms, which we give for matrix multiplication, Gaussian elimination, QR factorization, the symmetric eigenvalue problem, and the Floyd-Warshall all-pairs shortest-paths algorithm. 2.5D algorithms achieve lower interprocessor bandwidth cost by exploiting auxiliary memory. Algorithms employing this technique are well known for matrix multiplication, and have been derived in the BSP model for LU and QR factorization, as well as the Floyd-Warshall algorithm. We introduce alternate versions of LU and QR algorithms which have measurable performance improvements over their BSP counterparts, and we give the first evaluations of their performance. We also explore network-topology-aware mapping on torus networks for matrix multiplication and LU, showing how 2.5D algorithms can efficiently exploit collective communication, as well as introducing an adaptation of Cannon's matrix multiplication algorithm that is better suited for torus networks with dimension larger than two. For the symmetric eigenvalue problem, we give the first 2.5D algorithms, additionally solving challenges with memory-bandwidth efficiency that arise for this problem. We also give a new memory-bandwidth efficient algorithm for Krylov subspace methods (repeated multiplication of a vector by a sparse-matrix), which is motivated by the application of our lower bound techniques to this problem. The latter half of the thesis contains algorithms for higher-order tensors, in particular tensor contractions. The motivating application for this work is the family of coupled-cluster methods, which solve the many-body Schrodinger equation to provide a chemically-accurate model of the electronic structure of molecules and chemical reactions where electron correlation plays a significant role. The numerical computation of these methods is dominated in cost by contraction of antisymmetric tensors. We introduce Cyclops Tensor Framework, which provides an automated mechanism for network-topology-aware decomposition and redistribution of tensor data. It leverages 2.5D matrix multiplication to perform tensor contractions communication-efficiently. The framework is capable of exploiting symmetry and antisymmetry in tensors and utilizes a distributed packed-symmetric storage format. Finally, we consider a theoretically novel technique for exploiting tensor symmetry to lower the number of multiplications necessary to perform a contraction via computing some redundant terms that allow preservation of symmetry and then cancelling them out with low-order cost. We analyze the numerical stability and communication efficiency of this technique and give adaptations to antisymmetric and Hermitian matrices. This technique has promising potential for accelerating coupled-cluster methods both in terms of computation and communication cost, and additionally provides a potential improvement for BLAS routines on complex matrices.


Wayne Booth wrote some of the most influential and engaging criticism of our time, most notably the 1961 classic "The Rhetoric of Fiction", a book that transformed literary criticism and became the standard reference point for advanced discussions of how fiction works, how authors make novels accessible, and how readers re-create texts. While Booth's work was formative to the study of literature, his essential writings have never been collected in a single volume - until now. Selected by Walter Jost in collaboration with Booth himself, the texts anthologized here present a picture of this indispensable critic's contributions to literary and rhetorical studies. The selections range from memorable readings of Macbeth, Jane Austen, George Eliot, and Henry James to engagements with Booth's intellectual heroes, such as Richard McKeon and Mikhail Bakhtin. But rhetoric, Booth's abiding concern as a critic and thinker, provides the organizing principle of the anthology. "The Essential Wayne Booth" illuminates the scope of Booth's rhetorical inquiry: the entire range of resources that human beings share for producing effects on one another. Whether about metaphors for our friendship with books or the two cultures of science and religion, the texts collected here always return to the techniques and ethics of our ways of communicating with each other - that is, to rhetoric. "The Essential Wayne Booth" is a capstone to Booth's long career and an eloquent reminder of the ways in which criticism can make us alive to the arts of writing, talking, and listening.


BACKGROUND
Universal infant free school meals (UIFSM) were introduced in September 2014 and are available to all key stage 1 (4-7 years) children attending state-maintained infant and primary schools in England. The present study aimed to investigate the school-based factors, child and family socio-demographic characteristics, and parental beliefs associated with UIFSM take up in an urban community.

METHODS
A cross-sectional questionnaire survey was completed in October to November 2015, amongst parents whose children attended eligible schools in Leicester, England. A questionnaire about school meals was also completed by each school.

RESULTS
Parents reported their child did not take (non-UIFSM, n = 159) or took (UIFSM, n = 517) a UIFSM on most days. The non-UIFSM group were more likely to be White-British, have a higher socio-economic status, have English as a first language, and involve their child in the decision over whether or not to take UIFSM, compared to the UIFSM group. Cluster analysis revealed that non-UIFSM parents were either concerned over quality of meals and what/how much their child ate, concerned only by what/how much their child ate or whether their child did not like the food provided. Two subsets of parents in the UIFSM group were either very positive about UIFSM or appeared to take meals because they were free. Schools used a variety of measures to increase and maintain UIFSM take up.

CONCLUSIONS
Parents like to have control over what their child eats at school and children need to enjoy their school meals. Using a range of interventions to target subsets of parents may help local authorities, schools and caterers to increase UIFSM take up.


It is well-known that human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) is critical for breast cancer (BC) development and progression. Several studies have revealed the role of the ubiquitin/proteasome system (UPS) in cancer. In this study, we investigated the expression level of Proteasome 26S subunit, non-ATPase 3 (PSMD3) in BC using BC cell lines, human BC tissue samples, Oncomine, and TCGA databases and studied the PSMD3-HER2 protein interaction. PSMD3 was upregulated in BC, particularly in the HER2+ subtype. PSMD3 immunostaining was detected in the cytoplasm and nucleus of BC tumor tissues. Strong interaction between PSMD3 and HER2 at the protein level was observed. Knockdown of PSMD3 significantly impaired the stability of HER2, inhibited BC cell proliferation and colony formation, and induced cell apoptosis. Ubiquitination process was strongly enhanced after knockdown of PSMD3 in association with decreased HER2 level. Accumulation and Localization of LAMP-1 in the cell membrane with decreased HER2 immunostaining was observed after knockdown of PSMD3. High expression level of PSMD3 was associated with HER2 expression (p < 0.001), tumor size (p < 0.001), and clinical stage (p = 0.036). High expression level of PSMD3 predicted a short overall survival (OS), particularly for HER2+. Overall, we provide a novel function for PSMD3 in stabilizing HER2 from degradation in HER2+ BC, which suggests that PSMD3 is a novel target for HER2+ BC.


Objectives
Obesity-related cancers (e.g., breast, colorectal, and endometrial) account for 40% of all US cancer diagnoses and disproportionately affect females. More than half of Americans are unaware that excess adiposity is a modifiable risk factor for certain types of cancers, and many do not perform healthy diet behaviors. It is unclear whether these patterns also appear in survivors of obesity-related cancers, a disease that could potentially be prevented by a healthy diet and weight management. Thus, we examined beliefs about cancer prevention and diet behaviors among female survivors of obesity-related cancers.

Methods
Adult female cancer survivors enrolled in cycles 1 or 2 of the Health Information National Trends Survey (HINTS) 5 were included in this study if they reported a diagnosis that met the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention definition for an obesity-related cancer (n = 241). Data about 1) cancer history, 2) beliefs about cancer prevention, and 3) dietary behaviors (produce intake, eating out) were used in independent t-tests and Chi-square analyses. Due to the survey's complex sampling design, reported estimates were weighted and the jackknife replication method was used.

Results
The sample had a mean age of 63.2 ± 2.8 years and a mean BMI of 27.3 ± 1.0 kg/m2. Ratings on a 4-point scale (1 = strongly agree, 4 = strongly disagree) revealed that participants viewed cancer as somewhat preventable. About half of the participants agreed that being overweight or obese (46%) and eating a healthy diet (53%) had 'a lot of' influence over cancer development. When examining diet behaviors, only a quarter of the participants reported eating ≥ 2 cups of fruit (21%) and vegetables (25%) daily. Overall, participants 'sometimes' to 'rarely' used caloric information from menus to make food decisions [mean score: 3.4 (SE 0.1); scale: 1 = always, 5 = never].

Conclusions
Female survivors of obesity-related cancers are somewhat aware that cancer can be prevented, but do not consistently perform behaviors that can reduce their risk of cancer reoccurrence. Collectively, the evidence suggests that clinicians should emphasize the importance of weight management for obesity-related cancers and provide diet strategies during consultations with this population.

Funding Sources
All authors are being supported by the National Institutes of Health.


BACKGROUND
There is uncertainty about which children with cough are most and least likely to experience complications.

AIM
To derive a clinical prediction rule for complications in pre-school children presenting to primary care with acute cough.

DESIGN OF STUDY
Prospective cohort study.

SETTING
Eight general practices in Leicestershire, United Kingdom.

METHOD
Pre-school children with cough for < or =28 days and without asthma were recruited. Sociodemographic, clinical history, and examination data were collected and univariable logistic regression used to explore the associations with complications. These were defined as any new symptom, sign or diagnosis identified by a primary care clinician at a parent initiated reconsultation, or hospital admission, before cough resolution. Those factors with stronger relationships (P< 0.2) were then modelled using multivariable logistic regression to identify the factors independently associated with complications.

RESULTS
The pre-test probability of complications was 10%. On univariable analysis, fever (odds ratio [OR] = 4.86; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.74 to 13.6), chest signs (OR = 2.72; CI = 1.06 to 6.96), and tachypnoea (OR = 3.80; CI = 1.22 to 11.8) were associated with complications. On multivariable analysis, only fever (OR = 5.56; CI = 1.75 to 17.6) and chest signs (OR = 2.88; CI = 1.02 to 8.05) were independently associated with complications. These ORs translate into post-test probabilities of complications of 6% for children with neither fever nor chest signs, 18% for children with chest signs, 28% for children with fever, and 40% for children with fever and chest signs.

CONCLUSIONS
If validated, this clinical prediction rule could be used to individualise the management of acute cough in pre-school children.


To
solve the shortage problem of the computing power provided by the single
machine or the small cluster system in scientific research, we offer a
collaborative computing system for users. This system has massive operation
ability. It introduced a scalable mixed collaborative computing model. Through
the internet and the heterogeneous computing equipment, the system uses the
task decomposition model. This system can solve the research and development
problem because of the shortage of capacity. To test the model, a subtask
decomposition example is used. The results of the example analysis show that
the computing work can obtain the shortest computation time when the number of
calculation nodes is more than the number of subtasks; Maximum calculation efficiency
can be achieved when the number of the calculating nodes closes to the number
of subtasks. Through joint collaborative computing, the extensible mixed collaborative
computing mode can effectively solve the mass computing problem for the system with
heterogeneous hardware and software. This paper provides the reference for the
system, which provides large scale computing power through the Internet and the
research problem of due to the lack of computing ability.


In the village of Pescadero, forty-five minutes' drive north of Santa Cruz, Dee Harley runs San Mateo County's only active dairy. Harley and her staff care for a herd of more than 200 American Alpine goats, crafting the animals' milk into sought-after cheeses (chevre, feta, ricotta, and fromage blanc) that have consistently garnered awards at national and international competitions. An increasingly popular agritourism destination for denizens of the San Francisco and Monterey Bay Areas, Harley Farms also offers leisurely, informative tours of its entire dairy operation, from the birth of hundreds of kids each spring to the on-site sale of delicate white cheeses decorated with fresh herbs and colorful edible flowers grown on the farmstead. A native of Yorkshire, England, Harley discovered Pescadero while traveling in California as a young woman. In the gently rolling coastal landscape and in the rural community's intimate spirit, she saw reflections of her verdant birthplace. When Harley fell in love with Tim Duarte, the local restaurateur who eventually became her husband, Pescadero became her new home. Harley took up residence on a nine-acre farmstead originally built in 1910 as a cow dairy—and shuttered, like many small local farms, after California's industrializing dairy industry migrated to the Central Valley. She worked for a while for Larry Jacobs and Sandra Belin at nearby Jacobs Farm. In 1982, she acquired six goats from a local dairywoman. The herd began to grow; one thing led to another, and Harley Farms was born. Sarah Rabkin conducted this interview with Dee Harley on April 8th, 2009, in a private residence at Harley Farms. Outside the small cottage, guard llamas looked on while goats played atop a chicken tractor in the middle of a green pasture; small children participating in a farm tour reverently cradled newborn kids; flowers bloomed in garden beds. Dee Harley described the origins and evolution of her business and the day-to-day life of her small farm. She also articulated the values that inform her choices as a farmer and a businesswoman: deep community ties; a sense of responsibility to the local economy; dedication to the health of the herd and the land; creation of a high-quality product; truth in advertising; a sense of whimsy; a fierce resistance to unrestrained growth, and commitment to the preservation of an intimate, sustainable operation.


This study investigates the Chinese media coverage on climate change over the period 2005 to 2015. By analyzing 48 news articles from five mainstream Chinese newspapers, we identify six frames in climate change reporting: conflict, collaboration, human interest, attribution of responsibility, environmental and human impact, and leadership. The environmental and human impact frame is used the most, followed by the frames of attribution of responsibility, collaboration, and conflict. Results also reveal that the use of certain frames is associated with the use of certain information sources. This study suggests the overlooked fact that Chinese party-sponsored newspapers have been framing climate change from the perspective of global collective efforts.


Background: Addressing the needs of young adults undergoing orthodontic for faster treatment with unrealistic requirements has become challenge in modern era to orthodontists. So, to meet the treatment needs of the patients a combined multidisciplinary approach of orthodontists and oral surgeon is required. Various techniques are emerging in accelerated orthodontics field. Piezosurgery being a novel minimally invasive technique has shown to be a emerging trend with good results with the piezocision technique. Objectives: We aim to evaluate and compare the conventional corticotomy with piezo-guided corticotomy in accelerated osteogenic orthodontic treatment. Methods: This randomized comparative study has sample size of 24 subjects equally divided in two groups, i.e. conventional corticotomy group done with bur and piezo-guided corticotomy group. The time required for the surgical procedure, rate and amount of tooth movement and total treatment time required for completion of space closure was measured. Along with this, secondary parameters like gingival recession, periodontal pocket formation and dehiscence/ fenestration formation were also assessed. Results: Piezosurgery being minimally invasive requires more time for surgical procedure, however, it more efficiently moved tooth with reduced total treatment time when compared to conventional corticotomy. The piezosurgical group resulted in faster rate as well as amount of tooth movement than bur group. Although there was no statistically significant difference evident in complications associated with accelerated orthodontics tooth movement. Conclusion: A novel, minimally invasive approach for surgical orthodontics with better patient acceptance is equally effective in accelerating orthodontic tooth movement and definitely widen the scope of surgically accelerated orthodontic treatment with prognostically satisfactory clinical outcomes.


Iron regulatory protein 1 (IRP1) is a dual-function protein. With an iron-sulfur cluster bound, it is a cytosolic aconitase enzyme, but without it, IRP1 binds iron-responsive elements (IREs) in messenger RNA and regulates the expression of genes involved in iron transport, storage, and utilization. Walden et al. now describe the structure of IRP1 bound to ferritin H IRE at 2.8 angstrom resolution and compare it with the known structure of cytosolic aconitase. The switch between the two functions is coupled to large-scale domain rearrangements, from a compact structure in the aconitase to an extended structure that interacts with the IRE at two sites. The RNA binding and enzyme active sites overlap with many amino acids that serve different roles in each state. W. E. Walden, A. I. Selezneva, J. Dupuy, A. Volbeda, J. C. Fontecilla-Camps, E. C. Theil, K. Volz, Structure of dual function iron regulatory protein 1 complexed with ferritin IRE-RNA. Science 314, 1903-1908 (2006). [Abstract] [Full Text] T. A. Rouault, If the RNA fits, use it. Science 314, 1886-1887 (2006). [Summary] [Full Text]


The Semantic Web facilitates integrating partial knowledge and finding evidence for hypothesis from web knowledge sources. However, the appropriate level of granularity for tracking provenance of RDF graph remains in debate. RDF document is too coarse since it could contain irrelevant information. RDF triple will fail when two triples share the same blank node. Therefore, this paper investigates lossless decomposition of RDF graph and tracking the provenance of RDF graph using RDF molecule, which is the finest and lossless component of an RDF graph. A sub-graph is {\em lossless} if it can be used to restore the original graph without introducing new triples. A sub-graph is {\em finest} if it cannot be further decomposed into lossless sub-graphs. The lossless decomposition algorithms and RDF molecule have been formalized and implemented by a prototype RDF graph provenance service in Swoogle project.


A predictive estimator (PE) is a neural microcircuit hypothesized to explain how the brain processes certain types of information. They participate in a hierarchy, passing predictions to lower layers, which send back prediction errors. Meanwhile, the network learns optimal connection weights in order to minimize the prediction errors. This two-way process has been used to hypothesize models for brain mechanisms, such as visual information processing. However, the standard implementation for a PE uses the same weight matrix for both feed-forward and feed-back projections, which is not biologically plausible. In this thesis, we investigate the predictive estimator using individual feed-forward and feed-back connection weights. We extend the model and introduce the Symmetric Predictive Estimator (SPE). We investigate the dynamics of a SPE network, analyze its stability, and define a general learning rule. A functional model of the SPE is implemented analytically, and in a neural framework using spiking neurons. Both implementations are built as Python modules that can accept generic, numerical inputs. With a series of general experiments, we demonstrate its ability to learn non-linear functions and perform a supervised-learning task. This variation on the PE may provide insights to the theory of predictive estimators and their role in the brain.


The subject of the three essays is virtual water trade. 'Virtual water' is the water used in production of the goods and virtual water import is the water used to produce imported goods. The virtual water concept has been originally proposed by Allan (1997, 1998) building on the Heckscher-Ohlin-Vanek's theory according to which commodity trade can be seen as an implicit exchange in the factors of production embedded in the commodities. The concept of 'virtual water trade' refers to the opportunity to minimize water consumption in water-short countries by increasing imports of products that require a large amount of water in their production cycle (water-intensive products) and limiting the export of water-intensive goods. Virtual water is thus a concept that links water, food, and international trade.
The first essay, titled 'International legal aspects of water and virtual water trade', investigates the existing international legal framework applicable to virtual water trade, with the aim of assessing what types of trade rules would promote global water-efficiency. The analysis focuses on three aspects: water-footprint regulatory standards, water-footprint labeling schemes, and water-related agricultural subsidies. The analysis shows that - even if a tendency can be detected from plain rejection, over more nuanced statements, towards a certain 'readiness' for acceptance of environmental protection-driven trade distorting measures - current trade norms do not provide appropriate incentives for the full deployment of water savings achievable through virtual water trade. The analysis also addresses the question of whether certain recent developments in international legal theories (including the 'responsibility to protect' doctrine) may act as building blocks in the achievement of global water-efficiency.
The second essay, titled 'The relation between interstate conflicts and trade, oil and food: a gravity model and networks' approach', tests from an econometric point of view the relationships between interstate conflicts and control over water flows, through the lens of international trade. Making use of a novel dataset which distinguishes the direction of trade flows between country pairs and the direction of conflicts, the analysis tests the impact of countries' (bilateral and multilateral) trade openness on conflicts and the impact of countries' trade integration on conflicts; trade integration has been measured with a social networks approach and utilizing several networks metrics, such as number of ties, (un)weighted cluster coefficients, overlapping, page rank, as well as with (import) similarity indexes. Results indicate that trade openness plays the most significant role on the probability of wars between country pairs, with opposite effect of bilateral and multilateral trade. As for the strategic role of the different commodities investigated, results confirm that virtual water trade, similarly to oil trade, plays a strategic role in international relations.
The third essay, titled 'The water suitcase of migrants' investigates the relation between human migrations and water resources and its role for food security and trade policy in water-scarce countries. It is commonly believed that human migrations are beneficial to the water endowments of origin countries for reducing the pressure on local resources. The analysis shows that such belief is over-simplistic, by reframing the problem by considering the international food trade and the corresponding virtual water flows, which quantify the water used for the production of traded agricultural commodities. By means of robust analytical tools, the analysis shows that migrants strengthen the commercial links between countries, triggering trade flows caused by food consumption habits persisting after migration. Thus, migrants significantly increase the virtual water flows. Finally, a comparison with the water footprint of individuals shows that where the water suitcase of migrants exceeds the water footprint of individuals, migrations turn out to be detrimental to the water endowments of origin countries, with socio-economic and environmental implications for water-scarce and food-insecure countries.


ABSTRACT Changes in shape of sand and silt in streams may be a reflection of changes in source rock rather than the progressive effects of transport. If so, shape characteristics should change as the stream crosses geologic contacts. To clarify the problem, stream sediment samples were collected in two drainage basins on the west flank of the Bighorn Mountains, Wyoming. Three size fractions--fine sand, very fine sand, and coarse silt--were studied, using Fourier analysis and the scanning electron microscope. Provenance discrimination improves with increasing grain size. In all three size ranges sediment derived from a glaciated crystalline rock source can be differentiated from that derived from sedimentary rock sources. Sand from sedimentary rock sources can be subdivided into shape families according to the extent of diagenesis. In very fine sand and fine sand, sediment from the Flathead Sandstone is distinguishable from that derived from other sedimentary rocks. In fine sand the Tensleep and Darwin sandstones are also distinguishable as separate sources. Along Tensleep Creek, changes in the shape composition of sediment occur rather continuously due to transport of sediment by past glacial processes. Along Paintrock Creek, however, shape proportions do not change in a continuous manner but instead change by abrupt, discrete jumps which occur where additional sources provide sediment. The shape changes are due to the dilution of upstream sediment by sediment from adjacent sources. This suggests that downstream sources provide sediment at a greater rate than the upstream sources even though the gradient decreases with distance. This can be explained by the fact that the younger, downstream sedimentary rocks are more friable than the upstream rocks.


Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) rely on the Domain Name System (DNS) for replica server selection. DNS-based server selection builds on the assumption that, in the absence of information about the client's actual network location, the location of a client's DNS resolver provides a good approximation. The recent growth of remote DNS services breaks this assumption and can negatively impact client's web performance. In this paper, we assess the end-to-end impact of using remote DNS services on CDN performance and present the first evaluation of an industry-proposed solution to the problem. We find that remote DNSusage can indeed significantly impact client's web performance and that the proposed solution, if available, can effectively address the problem for most clients. Considering the performance cost of remote DNS usage and the limited adoption base of the industry-proposed solution, we present and evaluate an alternative approach, Direct Resolution, to readily obtain comparable performance improvements without requiring CDN or DNS participation.


The performance of orthogonal matching pursuit (OMP) for variable selection is analyzed for random designs. When contrasted with the deterministic case, since the performance is here measured after averaging over the distribution of the design matrix, one can have far less stringent sparsity constraints on the coefficient vector. We demonstrate that for exact sparse vectors, the performance of the OMP is similar to known results on the Lasso algorithm (Wainwright, 2009). Moreover, variable selection under a more relaxed sparsity assumption on the coefficient vector, whereby one has only control on the l1 norm of the smaller coefficients, is also analyzed. As consequence of these results, we also show that the coefficient estimate satisfies strong oracle type inequalities.


A sixth species of Ebinania is described from nine specimens collected at depths of 982- 1170 off southern Australia. Eight of the specimens were from the vicinity of Tasmania and the nearby mainland, and the ninth is from near Perth, Western Australia. The new species differs from its congeners in having cirri on the head, well-developed orbital rims, cranial arch 3 twisted upwards, prevomerine teeth in a continuous band, a single terminal chin pore, obsolete lateral line pores, and an overall pale colour. This is the third species of psychrolutid known from off continental Australia. Variation in important characters used in diagnosis of species of Ebinania is reported and problems of the characters in diagnosing these species are discussed. A key to species of Ebinania is provided.


Liaisonship in academic libraries continues to evolve and librarians need to engage their entrepreneurial spirit to remain relevant in this rapidly changing and dynamic environment. Liaisons frequently have to balance responsibility for multiple academic departments and/or student populations such as veterans, athletes, or international students, with service and scholarship activities. Enterprising librarians can stay ahead of the curve by building a profile of the academic departments or student populations they serve and developing an engagement plan for the year. Building profiles is a research-gathering and reflective process that can provide insight into how liaisons can build relationships with their departments or student populations. The profiles then provide the foundation for generating an annual engagement plan. Plans consider outreach to students, faculty, and other campus partners, and thoughtfully map out a course of action. Engagement plans outline broad ideas and then break them into actionable items with deadlines. Planning ahead and balancing liaison workload can increase the likelihood of successful engagement throughout the year.


DISSOLUTION KINETICS OF MODEL API IN MOLTEN POLYMER EXCIPIENTS DURING BATCH PROCESSING by Shen Ji In the pharmaceutical industrial application field, hot-melt extrusion (HME) has been recently introduced to develop new solid dosage forms and products. By dissolving the poorly–soluble active pharmaceutical ingredients (API) into water-soluble polymers, the bioavailability of the Class II (with low solubility and high permeability in water) API in Biopharmaceutical Classification System (BCS) could be significantly improved in the body. For readily water-soluble API, HME provides a new approach to produce a controlled release drug system. Hence, pharmaceutical HME is a promising processing method in the pharmaceutical industry. However, HME has not been widely applied into the pharmaceutical industry. The thermal degradation of the polymer (and/or other excipients) and API are major concerns in the pharmaceutical HME process: researchers aim to dissolve the total loading of the API into the excipient within the short residence time with minimal API degradation. Therefore, the kinetics of the dissolving process should be known. In this work, the expression of dissolution process and the impact of shear rate, API concentration and API species in dissolution kinetics are determined. The viscosities of the mixture at different shear rates are also measured. A model API shall be dissolved into a polymeric excipient by conducting melt-mixing experiments using the Brabender Batch Mixer. DISSOLUTION KINETICS OF MODEL API IN MOLTEN POLYMER EXCIPIENTS DURING BATCH PROCESSING


Password authentication is a common approach to system security. The conventional verification table approach has significant drawbacks. Recently, neural networks have been used for password authentication to overcome the shortcomings of traditional approaches. In neural network approaches to password authentication, no verification table is needed; rather, encrypted neural network weights are stored within the system. Existing layered neural network techniques have their limitations such as long training time and recall approximation. This study proposes the use of a Hopfield neural network technique for password authentication. In comparison to existing layered neural network techniques, the proposed method provides better accuracy and quicker response time to registration and password changes.