I develop a quantitative model where the voting feature of common stock determines the outcome of a proxy contest that may affect a manager's private benefits of control. The value of votes increases in the incumbent manager's private benefits of control, asset growth, and volatility, and information quality. The distribution of common stock ownership among sparse shareholders and blockholders affects the value of votes non-monotonically and non-linearly. A numerical illustration based on the median public U.S. firm from 1996 to 2013 shows that with incumbent private benefits around 15% of cash ow, during a proxy contest the voting component comprises 1.09% of the total common stock value to outside blockholders. Aggregating the sparse ownership into an additional blockholder decreases the value of votes to other blockholders by 0.69% but increases the probability of a successful value-increasing takeover by 2%.


ABSTRACT In this article, we explore what we perceive as pertinent features of shared experience at the excavations of an Iron Age Hillfort at Bodfari, North Wales, referencing artist, archaeologist and examples of seminal art works and archaeological records resulting through interdisciplinary collaboration. We explore ways along which archaeological and artistic practices of improvisation become entangled and productive through their different modes of mark-making. We contend that marks and memories of artist and archaeologist alike emerge interactively, through the mutually constituting effects of the object of study, the tools of exploration and the practitioners themselves, when they are enmeshed in cross-modally bound activities. These include, but are not limited to, remote sensing, surveying, mattocking, trowelling, drawing, photographing, videoing and sound recording. These marks represent the co-signatories: the gesture of the often anonymous practitioners, the voice of the deposits, as well as the imprint of the tools, and their interplay creates a multi-threaded narrative documenting their modes of intra-action, in short, our practices. They occupy the conceptual space of paradata, and in the process of saturating the interstices of digital cognitive prosthetics they lend probity to their translations in both art form and archive.


Background Spin, or the inappropriate formatting of information to emphasize certain outcomes, should not be present in research. This study focuses on identifying and characterizing the presence of spin in systematic review and meta-analysis abstracts that focus on the treatment of opioid use disorder. Methods Search strategies were developed to identify studies pertaining to the treatment of opioid use disorder. The studies were then screened by two authors. These qualifying studies were then evaluated for the presence of spin within their abstracts by two trained authors. These studies were also evaluated by the AMSTAR-2 standards to evaluate the quality of the qualifying systematic reviews by two trained reviewers. Results The sample in this study included 113 systematic reviews and meta-analyses. Spin was present in 20 of these studies (20/113, 17.7%). The most common spin form was spin type 3 (6/20, 30%), followed by types 5 and 9 (both 4/20, 20%), type 6 (3/20, 15%), type 7 (2/20, 10%), and type 8 (1/20, 5%). The remaining spin types 1, 2, and 4 were not present in the sample. Of the 113 included studies, the most common intervention type was pharmacologic (93/113, 82%). No significant association was found between the quality of a systematic review and the presence of spin. Conclusions Findings in this study show positive trends in prevalence of five forms of spin evaluated in abstracts of systematic reviews and meta-analyses looking at treatments for opioid use disorder. However, study quality had no significant association with the presence of spin. Misrepresentation of results, or spin, may alter a clinician's perceptions about treatment efficacies. Therefore, increasing physician awareness of spin may improve clinical decision-making.


Hoekzema, M. 2018. Small RNAs, Big Consequences. Post-transcriptional Regulation and Adaptive Immunity in Bacteria. Digital Comprehensive Summaries of Uppsala Dissertations from the Faculty of Science and Technology 1637. 83 pp. Uppsala: Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis. ISBN 978-91-513-0252-2. It is nowadays widely accepted that non-coding RNAs play important roles in posttranscriptional regulation of genes in all kingdoms of life. In bacteria, the largest group of RNA regulators are the small RNAs (sRNAs). Almost all sRNAs act through anti-sense base-pairing with target mRNAs, and by doing so regulate their translation and/or stability. As important modulators of gene expression, sRNAs are involved in all aspects of bacterial physiology. My studies aimed to deepen our understanding of the mechanisms behind sRNA-mediated gene regulation. We have shown that translation of the di-guanylate-cyclase YdaM, a major player in the biofilm regulatory cascade, is repressed by the sRNAs OmrA and OmrB. OmrAB require the RNA chaperone protein Hfq for efficient regulation. Interestingly, our results suggest a non-canonical mechanism for Hfq-mediated ydaM-OmrA/B base-pairing. Instead of serving as RNA interaction platform, Hfq restructures the ydaM mRNA to enable sRNA binding. We also addressed the question of how bacteria utilize regulatory RNAs to create phenotypic heterogeneity by studying the role of the tisB/istR-1 type 1 toxin-antitoxin system in SOSinduced persister cell formation in E. coli. In addition, I have investigated the prokaryotic CRISPR-Cas immune system, which has led to the development of two molecular tools. The CRISPR-Cas adaptive immune system consists of a CRISPR array, where palindromic repeats are interspaced by unique spacer sequences derived from foreign genetic elements, and the CRISPR-associated (Cas) proteins. In the adaptation stage, memory is created by insertion of spacer sequences into the CRISPR array. We developed a fluorescent reporter that accurately and sensitively detects spacer integration events (denoted: "acquisition") in single cells and in real-time. In the effector stage of immunity, crRNAs, consisting of one spacer-repeat unit, associate with the Cas proteins to form a ribonucleoprotein complex that surveys the cell for invader DNA. Target identification occurs by base-pairing between the crRNA and the complementary sequence in the target nucleic acid, which triggers degradation. We repurposed the E. coli type I-E CRISPR-Cas effector complex Cascade for specific reprogrammable transcriptional gene silencing. The studies presented herein thus contributes to our understanding of RNA-based target identification for gene regulation and adaptive immunity.


: Polymeric materials that are used in photonic devices gain a strong interest by scientific researchers. To improve their optical properties, there is a need to focus on polymeric nanocomposites. In the present work, pure PVDF and PVDF/ZnO nanocomposite films have been prepared by using a casting method. Acetone is used as the solvent for the polymer. PVDF/ZnO nanocomposites are prepared by mixing ZnO nanoparticles with polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) as the polymer matrix. Different contents of ZnO nanoparticles are used as the filler.Analysis of FTIR spectra confirmed the formation α and β phases. The transmittance, absorbance and reflectance spectra are tested. They showed a very low transmittance and a high absorbance in the UV region. The linear absorption and extension coefficients are calculated. They depended on the concentration of ZnO nanoparticles in the nanocomposites. Evaluation of the refractive index is also carried out. SEM and FESEM images of the samples showed that their surfaces are rough.


Aim To evaluate the outcome of surgery and radiotherapy in the treatment of sphenoorbital meningioma (SOM). Method A retrospective study of 66 consecutive cases treated with surgery for SOM with a minimum follow-up of 4 years. Clinical and radiological information were compared before and after the following surgical approaches: frontotemporal craniotomy, frontotemporal craniotomy combined with orbitozygomatic resection and extended lateral orbitotomy alone. Results The median age at presentation was 46 years (range, 26–68 years) and the median follow-up after surgery was 102 months (range, 48–288 months). In total, 48 (73%) patients showed preoperative visual deterioration, with visual field defects. All patients had proptosis at presentation (mean±SD=6.4±3.0 mm). Surgery for patients with SOM arrested visual deterioration in 61% and improved vision in 30% of cases. Furthermore, a substantial reduction of proptosis was achieved in 85% of patients. The proptosis in this group was reduced by 2.6±2.6 mm. There was no correlation between surgical approach and proptosis reduction (p=0.125). The recurrence rate was 17%. Only 1 out of 15 patients who underwent radiotherapy showed signs of recurrence. Conclusions The surgical aims in the treatment of SOM should be the restoration of visual acuity and reduction of proptosis, rather than complete tumour removal. The surgical approach can be tailored to individual cases. The authors recommend radiotherapy in cases of subtotally removed SOM.


A large body of knowledge has accumulated in recent years on the cognitive processes and brain mechanisms underlying language. Much of this knowledge has come from studies of Indo-European languages, in particular English. Chinese, spoken by one-fifth of the world's population, differs significantly from most Indo-European languages in its grammar, its lexicon, and its written and spoken forms – features which have profound implications for the learning, representation, and processing of language. This handbook, the first in a three-volume set on East Asian psycholinguistics, presents a state-of-theart discussion of the psycholinguistic study of Chinese. With contributions by over fifty leading scholars, it covers topics in first and second language acquisition, language processing and reading, language disorders in children and adults, and the relationships between language, brain, culture, and cognition. It will be invaluable to all scholars and students interested in the Chinese language, as well as cognitive psychologists, linguists, and neuroscientists.


The purpose of this research was to select the development of superior genotypes of snap beans adapted to edaphoclimatic conditions of the North and Northwest of Rio de Janeiro State, Brazil, applying the mixed model methodology. The test was installed and carried out in the experimental area of the Instituto Federal Fluminense (IFF), located in the municipality of Bom Jesus do Itabapoana, Rio de Janeiro State, Brazil, using the modified SSD (Single Seed Descent) method. The experiment was of randomized block design with three replications. We evaluated weight of pod per plant and number of pod per plant in ten progenies from the snap bean breeding program of the Universidade Estadual do Norte Fluminense (UENF); individual plants were assessed in each plot and in each replication (block). All progenies had mean productivity superior to 1 kg of pod per plant and 144 pods per plant. The 7 and 2 progenies, which came from the crossings between (UENF 7-5-1) L6 × L20 (UENF 14-3-3) and (UENF 7-5-1) L6 × L13 (UENF 7-20-1), stood out from the others, as they led to a higher predicted additive gain for the two evaluated traits. We concluded that the selection for production of snap beans and grains applying BLUP enabled the prediction and achievement of significant genetic gains for breeding snap beans for subsequent generations


Abstract The recent compilation of a new tectonic map of Indonesia as part of the Geotectonic Map Project of East Asia has prompted a reassessment of the contrasted tectonic styles represented by currently developing orogenic belts. These orogenic styles provide a range of models illustrating the diversity and complexity of tectonic processes which may provide the key to the interpretation of other orogenic belts elsewhere in the world. The following distinctive types of orogenies have been recognized within Indonesia. 1. Sunda Orogeny in Java and Nusa Tenggara: involving subduction of oceanic crust with normal convergence, producing an orogenic belt of Andean type with trench, accretionary complex, forearc basin and Quaternary magmatic arc with active volcanoes built on the margin of the Sundaland continent. 2. Barisan Orogeny in Sumatra: with strongly oblique convergence and major strike slip transcurrent fault movement within the magmatic arc, along which a segment of continental crust is being displaced northwards along the western margin of Sundaland. 3. Talaud Orogeny in the northern Molucca Sea: convergence of the Sangihe and Halmahera oceanic magmatic arcs as the Molucca Sea Plate subsides beneath them. 4. Sulawesi Orogeny in eastern Sulawesi: collision of microcontinental blocks with subduction systems along the eastern margin of Sundaland. 5. Banda Orogeny in the southern Banda Arc between Sumba and Tanimbar: collision of the northern margin of the Australian continent with the subduction system along the southern segment of the Banda Arc. 6. Melanesian Orogeny in Irian Jaya and Papua New Guinea: a more advanced stage in the collision of the northern margin of the Australian continent with a magmatic arc on the Philippine Sea plate, commencing in the early Miocene with a partial reversal of polarity and the subduction of the Caroline plate beneath the collision zone. The present phase of orogenic activity in most of these occurrences commenced in mid-Miocene times and orogenic processes are still in progress.


This thesis is dedicated to the derivation and benchmarking of self-consistent numerical methods that can be applied to interacting bosonic lattice models. The central goal is to derive methods with low numerical complexity but high accuracy, to be applied to complex systems which are out-of reach for established methods such as path integral quantum Monte Carlo (QMC) or the density matrix renormalization group.

In the first part we derive the self-energy functional theory (SFT) for bosons. Building upon previous works on lattice systems without U(1)-symmetry-breaking, we systematically extend SFT to the possibility of a broken U(1)-symmetry and the presence of disorder. SFT incorporates bosonic dynamical mean-field theory as a certain limit, and represents a general non-perturbative framework, enabling the construction of diagrammatically sound approximations in the thermodynamical limit that are controlled in the number of optimization parameters. Using just three variational parameters, we are able to study the Bose-Hubbard model both in its clean version and in the presence of local disorder, showing excellent agreement with numerically exact QMC results. We systematically analyze the corresponding spectral functions, which cannot be fully captured by QMC. In particular, we find that in the presence of disorder the phase transition from the Bose glass to the superfluid phase at strong interactions is driven by the percolation of superfluid lakes which form around doubly occupied sites, leading to a small condensate fraction over a strongly-localized background.

The second part is dedicated to the derivation of reciprocal cluster mean-field theory (RCMF) and its application to the strongly-interacting Harper-Hofstadter-Mott model (HHMm). In RCMF the full lattice in the thermodynamical limit is projected onto finite-size clusters, which are decoupled in reciprocal space through a mean-field decoupling approximation, crucially preserving the symmetries of the non-interacting dispersion. The resulting groundstate phase diagram of the HHMm exhibits band insulating, striped superfluid, and supersolid phases. Furthermore, we observe gapless uncondensed liquid phases at integer fillings, and a metastable competing fractional quantum Hall (fQH) phase. The fQH phase, predicted as the groundstate by other methods, is most likely underestimated by RCMF. We then show how a quasi-one-dimensional geometry stabilizes gapped topologically non-trivial groundstates in the HHMm. We observe quasi-one-dimensional analogues of fQH phases at fillings 1/2 and 3/2, and unconventional gapped non-degenerate groundstates at integer filling with quantized Hall responses. By systematically comparing results computed with RCMF and exact diagonalization (ED), we are able to give conclusive quantitative answers on the phase boundaries of the system, as the two methods approach the thermodynamical limit from opposite sides, since RCMF favours gapless and ED gapped phases.


Behavior Trees are a method for AI programming that consists of a tree of hierarchical nodes controlling the flow of agent's decision making. They have proven, while being a pretty straightforward means to implement an AI, to be incredibly powerful way of obtaining autonomous agents, both due to a fact that the development can be iterable (one can start with implementing simple behavior and gradually improve the tree by adding and modifying nodes and branches) and allowing for, so to say, ``fallback tactics'', should the currently executed action fail. Born in the game industry, they have since gained fair amount of popularity in other domains, including robotics.Evolutionary algorithms, largely popularized by John Holland, have been adapted for use in a vast variety of different problems, including optimization issues and decision handling, often through introducing serious changes to both the algorithm structure and data structures used. Arguably, one of the most valuable modifications was Genetic Programming, popularized through works of John Koza.This thesis documents the work on combining Behavior Trees and Genetic Programming in order to study and observe cooperative and adversative behaviors between agents controlled by genetically generated Behavior Trees. Evolving two kinds of agents in two contrasting scenarios, this thesis focuses on feasibility of selfishness versus utilitarian behaviors and their evolution. After defining what constitutes a success for each case, we attempt to compare the results from respective scenarios to see which behavior type is profitable to exhibit.


In their lead article in a recent symposium issue of the Pace Environmental Law Review, Professors Nolon and Bacher discuss the work of the Kheel Center for the Resolution of Environmental Interest Disputes. Their article highlights the practical implications to the practice of law of rapid changes in urban development and the natural world, and describes how lawyers can create new dispute resolution forums and practices to manage the inevitable conflicts that arise because of these environmental changes. Change is visible everywhere today in the built and natural environment. The U.S. Census Bureau predicts that our domestic population will grow by 100 million, or 33%, by 2040, and urban scholars report that two-thirds of the development on the ground by mid-century will be built between now and then. The cautious reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change make it clear that human behavior is causing climate change and that the consequences of business as usual could be catastrophic. This article argues that the conflicts climate change causes implicate the legal profession and that the practice of law is changing as a result.


In this paper we study the rise of the Sicilian mafia at the end of the 19th century and its impact on medium-term and long-term economic outcomes, state capacity and political competition. The new hypothesis, which we develop and empirically substantiate, is that the mafia's expansion was triggered as a response to the rise of socialist peasant movements starting in 1893. Following the very severe drought and agrarian crisis, the Fasci dei Lavoratori spread among Sicilian peasants, who organized to demand better working conditions and higher wages, and landowners turn to the mafia to counter these movements. Exploiting differences in rainfall and drought intensity in 1893 as a source of variation across municipalities, we document a large response of peasant organizations and then the spread of the mafia within Sicily. The pattern we present is robust and does not exist when one focuses on rainfall or drought variation in other years, bolstering the case that this corresponds to a specific causal channel working only in the context of the expansion of these peasant organizations. Using drought intensity in 1893 as an instrument for mafia in the early 1900s, we then investigate the impact of the mafia on educational outcomes in 1900s, long-term political competition and long-term economic outcomes. Our results indicate a sizable impact of the mafia on literacy in the medium-term, and very large impact on political competition, exhibiting itself by municipalities in which mayoral candidates run without opposition, and also long-term impacts on education and income extending into the decades following World War II.


Thrombolysis is widely used to intervene in acute ischemic stroke, but reestablishment of circulation may paradoxically initiate a reperfusion injury. Here we describe studies with mice lacking protein kinase Cdelta (PKCdelta) showing that absence of this enzyme markedly reduces reperfusion injury following transient ischemia. This was associated with reduced infiltration of peripheral blood neutrophils into infarcted tissue and with impaired neutrophil adhesion, migration, respiratory burst, and degranulation in vitro. Total body irradiation followed by transplantation with bone marrow from PKCdelta-null mice donors reduced infarct size and improved neurological outcome in WT mice, whereas marrow transplantation from WT donors increased infarction and worsened neurological scores in PKCdelta-null mice. These results indicate an important role for neutrophil PKCdelta in reperfusion injury and strongly suggest that PKCdelta inhibitors could prove useful in the treatment of stroke.


Grandparents over the age of 65 who are raising grandchildren are a small but extremely vulnerable population in California. These older adults usually become the primary caregivers of their grandchildren after an unexpected event. They are further faced with the financial challenge of having an additional dependent without additional income. This policy brief documents that the actual income needed to support a basic standard of living for older adults with grandchildren in California is about twice the Federal Poverty Level (FPL), depending on the county. Using 200% FPL as an approximate measure, about two-fifths of older grandparents who are responsible for their grandchildren in the state do not have enough income to make ends meet. The Elder Economic Security Standard™ Index (Elder Index) for California calculates that the costs of housing, food, and the older adults' health care account for more than two-thirds of total household expenses for grandparents and the grandchildren they are raising. Despite the high cost of basic needs, public assistance for low-income older adults and children continues to be squeezed. If they are to efficiently serve members of this fragile population, the existing programs that serve them need to maximize and streamline their impact through better coordination and collaboration.


One of the main objectives of wireless networking is to provide mobile users with a robust connection to different networks so that they can move freely between heterogeneous networks while running their computing applications with no interruption. Horizontal handoff, or generally speaking handoff, is a process which maintains a mobile user's active connection as it moves within a wireless network, whereas vertical handoff (VHO) refers to handover between different types of networks or different network layers. Optimizing VHO process is an important issue, required to reduce network signalling and mobile device power consumption as well as to improve network quality of service (QoS) and grade of service (GoS). In this paper, a VHO algorithm in multitier (overlay) networks is proposed. This algorithm uses pattern recognition to estimate user's position, and decides on the handoff based on this information. For the pattern recognition algorithm structure, the probabilistic neural network (PNN) which has considerable simplicity and efficiency over existing pattern classifiers is used. Further optimization is proposed to improve the performance of the PNN algorithm. Performance analysis and comparisons with the existing VHO algorithm are provided and demonstrate a significant improvement with the proposed algorithm. Furthermore, incorporating the proposed algorithm, a structure is proposed for VHO from the medium access control (MAC) layer point of view.


OBJECTIVE
To determine the proportion of postpartum women aged 15-49 in Peru who are susceptible to rubella, in order to help address strategies to eliminate rubella and to prevent congenital rubella syndrome (CRS) in the country.

METHODS
A cross-sectional survey was conducted during March and April 2003 in six main regional hospitals, in the three geographic regions (coast, mountain, and jungle) of Peru. For the postpartum women who provided written informed consent, a questionnaire was administered and a blood specimen was collected. Sera were tested for rubella immunoglobulin G (IgG) antibody, using a commercial enzyme-linked immunosorbent serologic assay (ELISA) kit. Univariate, bivariate, and multivariate analyses were carried out to assess risk factors for susceptibility.

RESULTS
In total, 1 236 postpartum women were enrolled. The overall proportion of IgG-antibody negative women was 12.8% (95% confidence interval (CI): 10.9%-14.6%). Bivariate analysis found the following variables associated with susceptibility: living in the jungle region (odds ratio (OR) = 1.65; 95% CI: 1.13-2.42); age < 19 years (OR = 2.02; 95% CI: 1.35-3.03); being a housewife (OR = 1.69; 95% CI: 1.12-2.55); and having < or = 11 years of education (OR = 2.12; 95% CI :1.20-3.75). Multivariate analysis found the following variables were associated with susceptibility: living in the jungle region (OR = 1.67; 95% CI: 1.13-2.46); age < 19 years (OR = 1.62; 95% CI: 1.07-2.47); having < 4 children born alive (OR = 1.85; 95% CI: 1.00-3.40); and having < or = 11 years of education (OR = 2.07; 95% CI: 1.16-3.71).

CONCLUSIONS
The proportion of postpartum women at the study sites who were found to be susceptible to rubella was 12.8%, placing Peru among the countries facing a moderate level of risk for the occurrence of CRS cases. The findings suggest the need to also provide the rubella vaccine to other population groups, especially women of childbearing age.


Alan Dundes defines myth as a sacred narrative that explains how the world and humanity came to be in their present form. This new volume brings together classics statements on the theory of myth by authors such as William Bascom, Jan de Vries, G. S. Kirk, James G. Frazer, Theodor H. Gaster, Mircea Eliade, Bronislaw Malinowski, C. G. Jung, and Claude Levi-Strauss. Rather than limiting this collection to classical Roman and Greek mythology, Dundes gives the book a worldwide scope. The twenty-two essays by leading experts on myth represent comparative functionalist, myth-ritual, Jungian, Freudian, and structuralist approaches to studying the genre.


Primary cutaneous infection by Aspergillus spp. is an uncommon form of aspergillosis in patients with severe immunosuppression, e.g. patients with HIV infection or hematological malignancies. Disruption of the dermal integrity by trauma or maceration, followed by colonization of the wound by Aspergillus spp. creates a suitable environment for cutaneous infection. Despite aggressive therapy with amphotericin, primary cutaneous aspergillosis can lead to disseminated disease with fatal consequences. Tuberculosis is another rare infection in patients with hematological malignancies, but when present it is usually disseminated. We present a 46-year-old woman with acute myeloid leukemia who developed concomitantly Mycobacterium tuberculosis and Aspergillus niger infection. Cutaneous aspergillosis was diagnosed during neutropenia after induction therapy, which later became disseminated disease during antifungal therapy. Tuberculosis infection was diagnosed in a scalene lymph node biopsy specimen. The patient achieved remission of her underlying disease and responded very well to antituberculous and antifungal therapy.


The English Defence League (EDL) is the biggest populist street movement in a generation. Yet the make-up of the group and what its members believe remain a mystery because it has no formal joining procedures or membership list and much of its activity takes place online.

While leaders of the EDL claim they are a pluralistic, liberal movement that is fighting Islamic extremism, chants heard at demonstrations and the vitriol frequently posted on the EDL's chat forums suggest otherwise. It is in this context that we have undertaken the first ever large-scale empirical study of the EDL, which comprises responses from 1,295 sympathisers and supporters, and includes data on their demographics, involvement in EDL activity, political attitudes and social views. The results show that, although the EDL is usually understood as an anti-Islamic or anti-Islamist demonstrating group, the reality is more complex.

Supporters are characterised by intense pessimism about the UK's future, worries about immigration and joblessness. This is often mixed with a proactive pride in Britain, British history and British values, which they see as being under attack from Islam. Although their demonstrations have often involved violence and racist chants, many members are democrats who are committed to peaceful protest and other forms of activism.

The collection of large amounts of data from social media presents new opportunities for social research to understand the relationship between off- and online activity. As more movements combine – and blur – virtual and real protest, these questions will become increasingly urgent and important. These surveys, collected through Facebook using a new methodology, offer new ways forward in exploring this challenge.


Chronic hyperplastic eosinophilic sinusitis is an inflammatory disease that results in the accumulation of eosinophils, fibroblasts, mast cells, and goblet cells at the site of injury. A common feature of this disease is the presence of nasal polyposis (NP). The current studies were designed to assess the contribution of interleukin (IL)-4 to fibroblast-mediated inflammation in chronic hyperplastic eosinophilic sinusitis/NP. In addition, we hypothesized that cysteinyl leukotrienes (CysLT) may directly influence fibroblast-mediated fibrotic and remodeling pathways in this disorder. Fibroblasts were isolated from NP tissue. All fibroblast lines expressed the IL-4 receptor. IL-4 induced changes in mRNA and protein expression of fibrotic (transforming growth factor-beta1 and -beta2) and inflammatory cytokines and chemokines (IL-6 and CCL11) by fibroblasts as measured by semiquantitative and quantitative polymerase chain reaction, RNase protection assay, and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. The expression of CysLT and other proinflammatory lipid receptors on fibroblasts was evaluated. CysLT1 and CysLT2 receptors were not expressed on fibroblasts; however, LPA(1) receptor was constitutively expressed and LPA(2) receptor expression was upregulated by IL-4. The metabolic cascade involved in CysLT synthesis was not expressed in fibroblasts and could not be induced by IL-4 treatment.


Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) imaging is sensitive to the mobile protons of solvent molecules and, as such, is well suited for studying the solvent diffusion in polymers. The fundamentals of NMR imaging are described, providing a platform for application of NMR imaging to diffusion processes in polymers. The constraints on the imaging experiment imposed by the diffusion process are discussed with respect to sample geometry and the rate of diffusion. A fast imaging scheme known as FLASH is described as an alternative method which reduces the influence of the diffusion rate and NMR relaxation parameters. Example images are given with regard to each of the constraints. An example of the successful application of NMR imaging to the study of Case II diffusion in PMMA is also given. The advantages and disadvantages of NMR imaging as applied to diffusion in polymers, as well as examples of the diffusion process that NMR imaging is uniquely qualified to study, are given in the conclusion.


In educational assessment, it is common to equate test forms in order to draw comparisons between different populations of students. The process of test equating presents a number of challenges, many of which relate inherently to the problem of maintaining a common unit and origin.

In order to develop a general theoretical approach to maintaining a common unit and origin in the measurement of quantitative attributes, the role of the unit is carefully examined. Classical physics is explicitly adopted as the guiding paradigm during the investigations throughout the dissertation. Accordingly, the central objective is to develop a theoretical foundation for maintaining a common unit and origin which meets two criteria: (i) it must be congruent with the definition of measurement in physics captured in the classical theory of measurement (Michell, 1999); and (ii) it must meet a key requirement of measurement in the physical sciences identified by Rasch (1960/1980). Rasch identified the relevant requirement, that of invariant comparison, based on analysis of Newton's second law and showed that the Principle of Invariant Comparison is formally embodied in his measuring function for dichotomous data (Rasch, 1960/1980). This model provides the basis for the development and exposition of general concepts and principles in the dissertation.

In order to achieve the central objective, the unit is made formally explicit and specified in relation to the experimental frame of reference. Rasch (1977) defined a Specified Frame of Reference (SFR) in terms of a collection of objects, a collection of agents, and outcomes of the interaction between these. Drawing on a fundamental distinction introduced by Andrich (2003), the unit of a SFR is referred to as a natural unit and is distinguished from an arbitrary unit, the magnitude of which is theoretically independent of any particular SFR and instrument contained within. From this distinction, a definition of discrimination arises naturally; a definition that is also congruent with classical physics. The distinction and related definitions provide the basis for derivation of a general form of Rasch's measuring function for dichotomous data, referred to as the Extended Frame of Reference Model (EFRM). It is shown that the EFRM provides a rational basis for maintaining a common unit and origin in assessment contexts involving two or more Specified Frames of Reference.

Simulation and empirical studies are employed to illustrate application of the EFRM. These studies also serve to illustrate that quantitative hypotheses entailed by the EFRM are open to empirical tests by providing a context for the use of graphical methods and statistical tests of fit. Empirical investigations are used to illustrate consequences of differences between natural units in the context of applied educational assessment. The studies also provide a context in which to characterise the model, and the structure of data that it entails. Although the simulation studies demonstrate the basic efficacy of the model, they also indicate scope for improvement in terms of the precision of estimates. To explore possible approaches to refining the estimation process, Maximum Likelihood (ML) equations are derived and examined. Firstly, Joint Maximum Likelihood (JML) equations are presented. Following this, Conditional Maximum Likelihood (CML) equations are derived. It is shown that while the CML equations permit separation of the person and item parameters, item locations are expressed in terms of natural, rather than arbitrary, units. A particular approach is proposed, emphasising links to the classical theory and the Principle of Invariant Comparison. In considering the proposed approach, a distinguishing feature of the definition of discrimination is highlighted: specifically, the nature of its definition represents the importance of relationships between quantitative attributes, and the specific structure of these relationships, to the measurement of any particular attribute. Although it is not possible to fully study this feature given the scope of the work, it is a key to the implications of the general theoretical framework embodied in the EFRM. Accordingly, these implications are touched on before concluding the dissertation.


The possible positive impact of aromas of plant essential oils is an area with a long history and one that is receiving increasing interest from modern science. Previous research has demonstrated beneficial effects of acute exposure on a range of variables. The current study set out to investigate for the first time whether extended exposure to the aroma of peppermint essential oil could provide benefits to healthy young adults. One hundred participants were randomly assigned to either wear a peppermint infused non-transdermal skin patch or a blank patch, for a period of six hours during which time they went about their normal daily routine. Cognitive and mood assessments were completed and a multivariate analysis of variance indicated a significant difference to exist between the two groups when all variables were analysed together. Further analyses on the individual variables revealed small to medium positive effects of peppermint aroma on aspects of memory and attention and feelings of subjective alertness. These findings add to a growing body of evidence that suggests aroma of peppermint essential oil may act as a positive and easy intervention delivering beneficial objective and subjective outcomes. The findings are discussed in terms of putative mechanisms that might underpin the effects with a focus on possible pharmacological influences.


This paper analyzes the relationship between individuals' locus of control and their decisions to exercise regularly, eat well, drink moderately, and avoid tobacco. Our primary goal is to assess the relative importance of the alternative pathways that potentially link locus of control to healthy habits. We find that individuals with an internal locus of control are more likely to eat well and exercise regularly. This link cannot be explained by the extent to which they are future-orientated and value their health, however. There are important gender differences in explaining the link between perceptions of control and healthy habits. Men with an internal locus of control expect to have higher health returns to their investments in diet and exercise. In contrast, women with an internal locus of control maintain healthy habits because they derive greater satisfaction from those activities than women with external control tendencies.


In situ TiN ceramic particle reinforced FeCoNiCrMnTi high entropy alloy coating was fabricated by laser cladding processing at high purity nitrogen gas atmosphere on the AISI 304 stainless steel substrate. The effect of Ti addition on the microstructure, phase structure, and wear properties of the coatings was investigated. The results showed that the phase structure of the coatings was mainly face-centered cubic (FCC)-type γ phase. A few of cubic or flower-like TiN ceramic were formed after adding titanium into the FeCoNiCrMn powder. When atomic ratio of Ti exceeds 0.5, Laves phases appeared in the coatings. With increasing of Ti, the micro-hardness and wear resistance of the coatings increased, but friction coefficient and crack resistance of the coatings reduced. Suitable Ti content in the FeCoNiCrMnTix, laser composite coating, had higher resistance to adhesive wear, oxidation wear, and cracking resistance.


The diversity of finite tense/aspect/modality markers in Turkish means, firstly, that the functional load for each of them is more restricted than in western European languages, and secondly that for certain discourse types specific forms are usually selected. Thus these forms may constitute rather transparant morphological indicators for the semantics of separate utterances. A case in point are descriptions of scenes (such as picture descriptions) which are based on a simple binary tense/aspect-opposition (pres.tense +Iyor for action): (perfect +mIs for states). Stones about happenings in the past on the other hand tend to centre around the opposition (neutral +DI):(imperfective [durative +Iyordu]: [iterative +()rdI]).In the paper the patterns of acquisition of these oppositions in the speech of children growing up in the Netherlands is analyzed on the basis of picture descriptions and interviews.In the picture descriptions it was found that the 4-year-old kinder-garteners frequently used +DI where one would expect + mIs in adult language. This form has almost completely disappeared in the descrip-tions by the 5-year-old children. Frequent marking with +DI reappears in the descriptions by the 7-year-olds; with them, however, the use of the +DI-forms are not a sign for the lack of differentiation from +mIs but rather reflect the fact that the pictures offered for descrip-tion were sequences: by this age the children are aware that the pictures in fact are not merely separate scenes so that they connect them with +DI-forms, mostly together with the conjunction (ondan) sonra "and then". The same acquisitional pattern is reflected in the data from two control groups of children growing up in Turkey. This is interpreted as resulting from the lack of morpho-syntactic difficulties involved: the acquisitional pattern quite directly reflects the development of cognitive skills.


The findings of laboratory and field investigations into various aspects of the effects of helminth parasites on the ecology and behaviour of minnows Phoxinus phoxinus and three spined sticklebacks Gazsterosteus aculeatus are reported.A sampling programme was implemented at Loch Maragan over a 16 month period between October 1992 and January 1994 (Chapter 2). The overall prevalence of L intestinalis in minnows from the loch was 17.8%: plerocercoids were found to be weakly overdispersed within the minnow population, although one plerocercoid generally dominated multiple infections whenever they occurred. Both total parasite weight, and the weight of the largest plerocercoid present in an infection were found to be positively and highly significantly correlated with host length, with older, larger fish exhibiting higher parasite burdens. This suggests that fish become infected with L. intestinalis at Loch Maragan during a temporally-limited period during early life. No significant effect of the parasite on host body condition was detected. A qualitative model for transmission of L. intestinalis at the site, based on the available epidemiological data and the prevailing ecological conditions, is proposed.The shoaling and investigative behaviours of minnows from two sites in central Scotland were found to differ, and possible reasons for this variation, based on the ecological disparity between the two sites are suggested (Chapter 3). Both small and medium-sized fish formed more cohesive shoals and schooled more frequently when water depth was reduced, but small fish polarised more frequently than medium-sized fish for any given water depth.The effects of visual oddity on individual shoaling behaviour were investigated (Chapter 3). Size-oddity had little influence on shoaling behaviour in the experimental trials, since the non-uniformity of individual small minnows, when placed in a tank with a group of medium-sized minnows, did not affect their shoaling tendency.


The role of the visual arts in the assertion of European colonial power has been the subject of much recent investigation and redefinition. This book takes as a ground for discussion the representation of Indian scenery and architecture by British artists in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. It includes the work of a diversity of artists from the Daniells to Edward Lear, but central to the study is a particular focus on William Hodges, a pioneer in the field who enjoyed a close association with Britain's first Governor General in India, Warren Hastings, and whose impressive body of work as draughtsman, painter and writer formed a crucial legacy for later artists. The book includes many of his paintings and drawings rarely or never previously published, and analyses his art and writing in relation to the intellectual and aesthetic ideas of his time. The paintings and drawings discussed here are shown to be complex objects, standing in a necessarily complex relationship with historical events and ideas. This relationship is explored and defined fully, to present a new intervention in post-colonial cultural theory.


Abstract Nestolaite (IMA 2013-074), CaSeO3·H2O, is a new mineral species from the Little Eva mine, Grand County, Utah, USA. It is named in honour of the prominent Italian mineralogist and crystallographer Fabrizio Nestola. The new mineral was found on sandstone matrix as rounded aggregates up to 2 mm across and up to 0.05 mm thick consisting of tightly intergrown oblique-angled, flattened to acicular crystals up to 30 mm long and up to 7 mm (very rarely up to 15 mm) thick. Nestolaite associates with cobaltomenite, gypsum, metarossite, orschallite and rossite. The new mineral is light violet and transparent with a white streak and vitreous lustre. The Mohs hardness is 2½. Nestolaite is brittle, has uneven fracture and perfect cleavage on {100}. The measured and calculated densities are Dmeas. = 3.18(2) g/cm3 and Dcalc. = 3.163 g/cm3. Optically, nestolaite is biaxial positive. The refractive indices are α = 1.642(3), β = 1.656(3), γ = 1.722(6). The measured 2V is 55(5)° and the calculated 2V is 51°. In transmitted light nestolaite is colourless. It does not show pleochroism but has strong pseudoabsorption caused by high birefringence. The chemical composition of nestolaite (wt.%, electronmicroprobe data) is: CaO 28.97, SeO2 61.14, H2O (calc.) 9.75, total 99.86. The empirical formula calculated on the basis of 4 O a.p.f.u. (atoms per formula unit) is Ca0.96Se1.02O3·H2O. The Raman spectrum is dominated by the Se-O stretching and O-Se-O bending vibrations of the pyramidal SeO3 groups and O-H stretching modes of the H2O molecules. The mineral is monoclinic, space group P21/c, with a = 7.6502(9), b = 6.7473(10), c = 7.9358(13) Å , β = 108.542 (12)°, V = 388.37(10) Å3 and Z = 4. The eight strongest powder X-ray diffraction lines are [dobs in Å (hkl) (Irel)]: 7.277 (100)(100), 4.949 (110)(37), 3.767 (002)(29), 3.630 (200)(58), 3.371 (020)(24), 3.163 (2̄02)(74), 2.9783 (1̄21)(74) and 2.7231 (112)(31). The crystal structure of nestolaite was determined by means of the Rietveld refinement from the powder data to Rwp = 0.019. Nestolaite possesses a layered structure consisting of CaΦ-SeO3 sheets, composed of edge-sharing polyhedra. Adjacent sheets are held by H bonds emanating from the single (H2O) group within the sheets. The nestolaite structure is topologically unique.


This book represents a series of short monographs on cytotoxic drugs that are commonly used singly or in combination in oncology. The authors are quite clear in their introduction that the text does not provide a comprehensive account of cancer chemotherapy in the hope that this will avoid disappointment for readers who are looking for such a volume. In essence, they have produced a recipe book of 65 single agent and combination regimens that are widely in use and have supplemented this information with specific advice for prescribers, nurses and pharmacists. As such, this approach allows for rapid access to useful information by each of these groups on most of the commonly used drug cocktails. They are to be congratulated on the fact that the volume includes data on some of the newer agents, such as trastuzumab (Herceptin) and rituximab), that have entered the pharmacopoeia in recent years. In each section there is important information on drug administration and emetogenicity of treatment. There are a number of useful hints for prescribers, nurses and pharmacists that are aimed at avoiding some of the more commonly occurring avoidable complications of cytotoxic drug administration. The authors have attempted to ensure that the information in each section is self-contained with minimal requirement for cross-referencing throughout the rest of the book. While this fact may be seen as a specific strength of the text and may make it useful for occasional reference on a specific regimen that is infrequently used, it also leads to extensive repetition of material. To cite just one example of this tendency, the Cockcroft-Gault formula for calculating creatinine clearance is described in 8 separate places in the first 100 pages of the book and this rate of repetition does not slacken in the rest of the text. Indeed, in each of the regimens where a platinum drug is used there is essentially the same page of text to describe the effects of platins on the renal tract and the need for monitoring. This compartmentalisation of the text detracts from the overall effect and gives the book a feeling of a collection of data sheets rather than the multidisciplinary guide book advertised in the title. I fear that by adopting this approach the authors have ensured that this book will largely be consigned to use as a reference manual in cytotoxic pharmacies and on chemotherapy day units. I doubt that this will be seen as an important acquisition for hospital libraries or oncology departments.


While AEJMC has been in existence for more than eight decades, there has never been an attempt to systematically describe the membership and its characteristics. The need to gather some baseline data to describe the membership in terms of its demographic and cultural diversity became apparent when AEJMC revised its constitution in 1990. To reflect its commitment to diversity, a statement was incorporated in the constitution providing that AEJMC "will monitor the status of women and minorities on a regular basis, report its findings to the membership, and take affirmative steps to rectify problems."A recommendation to address this mandate was brought to the Executive Committee by the Commission on the Status of Women and endorsed by the Commission on the Status of Minorities in 1991. It proposed the idea for a survey to monitor the status of women and minorities in the Association. Following approval to act on this recommendation, Terry Hynes, president from 1991-92, in one of her presidential statements to the members, wrote:AEJMC grew by 60 percent in the past decade, from approximately 1,700 to 2,700 members. So, who are we in 1991? Where do we live? What kinds of educational institutions do we work in? What ranks do we hold in those institutions? What degrees do we have? What age are we? What is our ethnic and racial profile? How many men and women belong to AEJMC? Who, if you will, is the 'typical' AEJMC member?To answer some of these questions, we were asked in late 1991 by AEJMC to conduct a survey of its membership. Some of the major descriptive findings of the project are contained in this report. Explanatory tables begin on page 103.MethodA seven-page, 101-question survey was mailed to all 1,967 active members in spring 1992.(1) We asked questions on a range of topics related to the member's backgrounds, qualifications, teaching, research and service workloads, salary, perceptions of the work environment, and personal experiences of discrimination.(2) Students and retired members were not included. Persons who did not respond within several weeks received one postcard follow-up. In all, 1,160 responded, a response rate of 59 percent.ResultsFor this report we will try to describe the general demographic and social characteristics of the membership, along with selected other information such as type of institution, scholarly productivity and decade of entry into the field. We will take up each of these areas.Gender. Seventy-two percent of the respondents were male and 28 percent female. This represents an increase in female representation from earlier studies. For example, Rush, Oukrop and Ernst (3) found that 7 to B percent of the faculty in 1972 were women. Sharp, et al.(4) reported that by 1983 that proportion had increased to 17 to 19 percent. This represents significant progress in the representation of women, but it is far from acceptable in terms of the overall representation. It is important to note that the pool of available female PhD candidates is increasing, and is now close to parity with male.Ethnic composition. Ninety-two percent of the respondents were white. The rest were 3 percent African-Americans, 2.8 percent Asian-Americans, 0.1 percent Native Americans and 0.8 percent Hispanics, who could be of any race. An additional 1.3 percent identified themselves as "other."Because of the absence of benchmark data, we are unable to report whether this represents progress or the lack of it. But by any reasonable expectation, however, our data show a remarkable under representation of minorities in the field, compared to the society at large.One way to gain perspective on the issues of gender and minority representation is to examine our static data by noting when the present membership entered teaching. By using date of entry as an indicator, we introduced a dynamic component into our analysis to examine how recently women and minorities have come into the field. …


Revolutionizing Egypt's ScienceScientists are carrying Egypt's 25 January revolution, which led to the downfall of longtime president Hosni Mubarak and his dictatorial regime, to the country's universities and research institutes. They are demanding academic freedom, a living wage, an end to corruption, and a clear strategy to help Egypt tackle the coming challenges. The interim government, overseen by the army, is listening. Egypt's current leaders are not waiting for a new elected government, expected to take over sometime in 2012, to make changes. They say that the revolution's ultimate success depends on jump-starting the flagging economy and that one crucial way to do that is to transform the country's troubled research establishment.


Abstract: The growing global interest in enabling more accountable government through the use of the internet is reflected in international initiatives such as the Open Government Partnership (Noveck, 2009; Robinson et al., 2008; Yu and Robinson, 2012). The primary vehicle for the open government agenda has been the online publication of public sectorinformation – or open data. It has been suggested that open data can improve government transparency, enhance citizen engagement in democratic processes and support increased efficiency and effective in public services. It is also proposed that open data can also enable the creation of value in the private sector by providing entrepreneurial opportunities, ensuring better investor information and accelerating product and service innovation (Guerin, 2013). In both industry and in government there is an on‐going debate about how the principles of openness should be applied and how conflicting needs can be reconciled. In a survey of policy‐makers and experts to identify drivers and barriers to implementing open data policy, six of the top seven issues were related to what might be termed "information governance", including: privacy, quality, usability, standardisation, security and charging models (Huijboom and Van den Broek, 2011). One possible approach to addressing this problem is through the concept of IP Modularity (Henkel et al., 2012), which applies a modular systems perspective to show how intellectual property can be partitioned so that external innovation is supported while value appropriation is simultaneously protected. We examine how a similar approach can be applied to open data bygeneralising the model to include a wider range of rights and obligations. Information governance (IG) modularity is developed as a theoretical framework, drawing on concepts from configuration design and Fixson's process perspective (Fixson, 2003).


Over the last quarter of a century, politics in the United States of America have taken a disproportionate turn for the extreme. Many causes are to blame for this trend, including electoral incentives for polarized political rhetoric from candidates and a highly efficient and newly diversified media environment. The result of the trend toward political polarization thus far is that legislatures in the United States have gone from semi-productive bodies in which legislators collaborated and conceded to unfruitful gatherings in which ideologues fail to accomplish much of anything for American citizens. However, this consequence is less dire than the fact that American citizens are now more divided on politics than ever before, and that many Americans tend to sort geographically based on these divisions and pursue media that validates their perspective on such divisions. This paper will argue that political polarization and its subsequent effects on American culture are potential precursors to increased political violence in the United States. This paper will substantiate this argument through critical analysis of political events and through a review of relevant research on both political polarization and political violence. This paper will also provide an overview of the issue of polarization in American politics and its root causes as a means of providing context to the argument that such polarization is an indicator of future political violence, and will conclude with possible solutions for mitigating or reversing the trend of polarization in American politics.


This article demonstrates theoretically that without imposing any structure on the underlying forcing process, the model-free CBOE volatility index (VIX) does not measure market expectation of volatility but that of a linear moment-combination. Particularly, VIX undervalues (overvalues) volatility when market return is expected to be negatively (positively) skewed. Alternatively, we develop a model-free generalized volatility index (GVIX). With no diffusion assumption, GVIX is formulated directly from the definition of log-return variance, and VIX is a special case of the GVIX. Empirically, VIX generally understates the true volatility, and the estimation errors considerably enlarge during volatile markets. The spread between GVIX and VIX follows a mean-reverting process.


After detailing the early Mormon cosmology which necessitated adoption ritual, this article treats the participants, practice, and meaning of adoption in the Nauvoo Temple. Adoption theology, though still burgeoning, also served as an organizational nexus for the trek west. After reaching Utah, Church leaders' views of adoption continued to develop though no adoptions were performed until the St. George Temple was dedicated in 1877. The thirty-one-year hiatus in the ritual's performance did not impede belief in the importance of adoption, though confusion abounded. Once temples were available in Utah, Latter-day Saints performed adoption rituals, but in different ways than in Nauvoo. Furthermore, Church leaders began to question and debate the practice, which ultimately led to Wilford Woodruff's 1894 revelation, transforming the temple liturgy and leading to contemporary Mormon belief and practice.


The purpose of this article is to show how the battle for the citizens' opinions and actions regarding climate change has been played out via language, i.e. via written documents or oral statements, in the media in the U.S. and in Sweden. The results show the importance of language and discourse in our understanding of science and of the relations of power between consensus scientist and contrarians. They also show how these groups have a different resonance in the media as a result of the media logic, the journalistic narrative form and the journalists' professional ideologies as well as of the journalists' and ordinary peoples' lack of knowledge when it comes to the conditions and restrictions of science.


In the final phase of the post-quantum cryptography standardization effort, the focus has been extended to include the side-channel resistance of the candidates. While some schemes have been already extensively analyzed in this regard, there is no such study yet of the finalist Kyber.In this work, we demonstrate the first completely masked implementation of Kyber which is protected against first- and higher-order attacks. To the best of our knowledge, this results in the first higher-order masked implementation of any post-quantum secure key encapsulation mechanism algorithm. This is realized by introducing two new techniques. First, we propose a higher-order algorithm for the one-bit compression operation. This is based on a masked bit-sliced binary-search that can be applied to prime moduli. Second, we propose a technique which enables one to compare uncompressed masked polynomials with compressed public polynomials. This avoids the costly masking of the ciphertext compression while being able to be instantiated at arbitrary orders.We show performance results for first-, second- and third-order protected implementations on the Arm Cortex-M0+ and Cortex-M4F. Notably, our implementation of first-order masked Kyber decapsulation requires 3.1 million cycles on the Cortex-M4F. This is a factor 3.5 overhead compared to the unprotected optimized implementationin pqm4. We experimentally show that the first-order implementation of our new modules on the Cortex-M0+ is hardened against attacks using 100 000 traces and mechanically verify the security in a fine-grained leakage model using the verification tool scVerif.


Abstract. Global climate change is predicted to alter the ocean's biological productivity. But how will we recognise the impacts of climate change on ocean productivity? The most comprehensive information available on its global distribution comes from satellite ocean colour data. Now that over ten years of satellite-derived chlorophyll and productivity data have accumulated, can we begin to detect and attribute climate change-driven trends in productivity? Here we compare recent trends in satellite ocean colour data to longer-term time series from three biogeochemical models (GFDL, IPSL and NCAR). We find that detection of climate change-driven trends in the satellite data is confounded by the relatively short time series and large interannual and decadal variability in productivity. Thus, recent observed changes in chlorophyll, primary production and the size of the oligotrophic gyres cannot be unequivocally attributed to the impact of global climate change. Instead, our analyses suggest that a time series of ~40 years length is needed to distinguish a global warming trend from natural variability. In some regions, notably equatorial regions, detection times are predicted to be shorter (~20–30 years). Analysis of modelled chlorophyll and primary production from 2001–2100 suggests that, on average, the climate change-driven trend will not be unambiguously separable from decadal variability until ~2055. Because the magnitude of natural variability in chlorophyll and primary production is larger than, or similar to, the global warming trend, a consistent, decades-long data record must be established if the impact of climate change on ocean productivity is to be definitively detected.


'Ultrasonic elliptical vibration cutting' technology, which has been developed by the authors, is applied to ultraprecision machining of single crystal germanium in the present research. The germanium is an excellent material for infrared optical devices, whereas ultraprecision micro-machining of the germanium is difficult due to its brittleness. Micro grooving experiments are carried out on the (100), (110) and (111) surfaces of single crystal germanium substrates, and basic effects of the elliptical vibration on the ductile micro-machining are clarified as follows. Critical depth of cut to generate a completely fracture-free surface on the single crystal germanium is increased significantly in all crystal orientations on the (100) and (111) surfaces, and ultraprecision micro grooving is realized successfully at a large depth of cut of 1 mum by applying the elliptical vibration cutting. This improvement by the elliptical vibration cutting is considered to be caused by reduction of instantaneous uncut chip thickness and cutting force in each cycle of the elliptical vibration. When the rake angle becomes negative, influence of the crystal orientation on the critical depth of cut becomes negligible, while it is considerable at 0 degree. On the other hand, the rake angle does not have considerable influence on average values of the critical depth of cut between -20 to 0 degree. The critical depth of cut is increased in all crystal orientations as the cutting speed is reduced in the elliptical vibration cutting


: Most young people living in the world of today do not express much interest in history and historical landmarks. It is therefore quite surprising that speci fi c digital games portraying various historical periods or their alternative, partly fi ctitious versions might at least raise their players' awareness of real historical facts and sites. Some of these games have been able to achieve global popularity. The author uses the digital game series Assassin's Creed (2007 – present day) as an example of a digital gaming environment which features historical fi ction merged with real historical events and fi gures. The aim of the study is to better understand the ways Assassin's Creed portrays historical landmarks all over the world and bring them closer to the players. The basic assumption is that at least some of the players, here seen as potential "gamers-tourists", may be interested in fi nding out more about the depicted historical sites and their true counterparts. Given the aforemen-tioned assumption, our ambition is to discuss the digital game series Assassin's Creed and its tendency to o ff er visually attractive virtual re-creations of real historical sites, re-fl ecting on the series' presumed ability to depict historical landmarks, fi gures and events in mostly fi ctitious, but still interesting and eye-catching ways.


Cryptochromes (CRYs) are a class of flavoproteins that sense blue light. In animals, CRYs are expressed in the eyes and in the clock neurons that control sleep/wake cycles and are implied in the generation and/or entrainment of circadian rhythmicity. Moreover, CRYs are sensing magnetic fields in insects as well as in humans. Here, we show that in the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster CRY plays a light-independent role as "assembling" protein in the rhabdomeres of the compound eyes. CRY interacts with actin and appears to increase light sensitivity of the eyes by keeping the "signalplex" of the phototransduction cascade close to the membrane. By this way, CRY also enhances light-responses of the circadian clock.


Most researches regarding structural design of electromagnetic systems have been focused on a single physical phenomenon such as magnetic, electric or thermal effect. However, analysis and design of the multi-physics phenomenon is coming to the fore related with the actuator system targeting on the small size and high performance. Two or more physics phenomena are taken into account in a multi-physics system and the multi-physics analysis is performed using the governing equation in the formulation of a partial differential equation. Accordingly, in actuator design, it is generally hard to predict an optimal shape accurately considering both the magnetic and the thermal effect simultaneously. The objective of this research is set to establish a simultaneous/parallel design process for a multi-physics problem combining magnetic and thermal effects by employing the adoptive weighting factor while the previous work mostly suggests a sequential design process. The proposed method has been applied to yoke shape design of a C-core type magnetic actuator for minimizing the heat transfer effect as well as maximizing the actuating force. The topology optimization scheme based on the density approach is employed to obtain the optimal shape.


The workhorse model of the New Trade Theory fails to explain four strong and central patterns of postwar trade data. These patterns are, first, the massive increase in trade volumes, second, the small fraction of traded varieties the average country imports, third the correlation between per capita income growth and trade growth, and fourth, the correlation between trade growth and growth in the number of source countries per imported good. The present paper shows that a small and reasonable change in the demand structure can reconcile the model with the data. It departs from standard theory by assuming that consumers derive bounded marginal utility from varieties. This implies that consumers purchase only the cheaper share of varieties and that expensive foreign varieties bearing high transport costs are not imported. Technological progress which increases per capita consumption of the varieties in the consumption basket decreases marginal utility derived from each of them and induces consumers to extend their consumption to more expensive varieties produced at more distant locations. This additional margin along which trade can expand induces a substantial increase in the trade share as productivity grows. Productivity change is thus identified as a joint determinant of trade shares, the number of source countries per good, and per capita income, explaining the trends and correlations in the data.


We propose a hierarchical approach for making long-term predictions of future frames. To avoid inherent compounding errors in recursive pixel-level prediction, we propose to first estimate high-level structure in the input frames, then predict how that structure evolves in the future, and finally by observing a single frame from the past and the predicted high-level structure, we construct the future frames without having to observe any of the pixel-level predictions. Long-term video prediction is difficult to perform by recurrently observing the predicted frames because the small errors in pixel space exponentially amplify as predictions are made deeper into the future. Our approach prevents pixel-level error propagation from happening by removing the need to observe the predicted frames. Our model is built with a combination of LSTM and analogy based encoder-decoder convolutional neural networks, which independently predict the video structure and generate the future frames, respectively. In experiments, our model is evaluated on the Human3.6M and Penn Action datasets on the task of long-term pixel-level video prediction of humans performing actions and demonstrate significantly better results than the state-of-the-art.


We present here the 2.3-Å crystal structure of the Escherichia coli YdiB protein, an orthologue of shikimate 5-dehydrogenase. This enzyme catalyzes the reduction of 3-dehydroshikimate to shikimate as part of the shikimate pathway, which is absent in mammals but required for the de novo synthesis of aromatic amino acids, quinones, and folate in many other organisms. In this context, the shikimate pathway has been promoted as a target for the development of antimicrobial agents. The crystal structure of YdiB shows that the protomer contains two α/β domains connected by two α-helices, with the N-terminal domain being novel and the C-terminal domain being a Rossmann fold. The NAD+ cofactor, which co-purified with the enzyme, is bound to the Rossmann domain in an elongated fashion with the nicotinamide ring in the pro-R conformation. Its binding site contains several unusual features, including a cysteine residue in close apposition to the nicotinamide ring and a clamp over the ribose of the adenosine moiety formed by phenylalanine and lysine residues. The structure explains the specificity for NAD versus NADP in different members of the shikimate dehydrogenase family on the basis of variations in the amino acid identity of several other residues in the vicinity of this ribose group. A cavity lined by residues that are 100% conserved among all shikimate dehydrogenases is found between the two domains of YdiB, in close proximity to the hydride acceptor site on the nicotinamide ring. Shikimate was modeled into this site in a geometry such that all of its heteroatoms form high quality hydrogen bonds with these invariant residues. Their strong conservation in all orthologues supports the possibility of developing broad spectrum inhibitors of this enzyme. The nature and disposition of the active site residues suggest a novel reaction mechanism in which an aspartate acts as the general acid/base catalyst during the hydride transfer reaction.


The evolution of the Malay Basin, a Tertiary extensional basin offshore Peninsular Malaysia, is explained in terms of a simple kinematic model that accounts for the following key observations: (1) Major basement faults along the basin axis are E-trending rather than NW-trending, (2) Through-going strike-slip faults are absent from the basin axis and margins, and (3) En echelon fold pattern in postrift strata seems to have been influenced by the geometry of underlying extensional half-grabens. Basin development during late Eocene-early Oligocene began with sinistral transtensional shear of a broad NW-trending shear zone (axial shear zone) which contains pre-existing E-trending basement faults. The shearing caused crustal blocks that are bounded by the faults to rotate anticlockwise and form E trending half-grabens between them. Reversal of shear during the early to middle Miocene, from sinistral to dextral, caused transpressive deformation and inversion of the half-grabens. The intensity of deformation increases southeastwards towards the West Natuna Basin as a result of the buttressing effect of the N atuna basement ridge which resisted the dextral motion along the axial shear zone.


Objective: Cisplatin is a powerful antineoplastic drug widely used in the therapy of cancer patients. To attenuate undesirable side effects of the drug, chemotherapeutic regimens are employed based on the use of antioxidant supplementation. The goal of the present study is the examination of the impact of cotreatment with cisplatin and tannic acid (TA) on key members involved in poly(ADP-ribose) polymer (pPARr) turnover in rat liver and thymocyte nuclei, i.e., poly(ADP-ribose)polymerase 1 (PARP 1) activity, poly(ADP-ribose)glycohydrolase (PARG), and NAD+ content. Materials and Methods: Wistar albino rats were randomly distributed in four groups: Control group, treated with cisplatin, tannic acid, and cotreated with tannic acid and cisplatin. The drugs were injected intra-peritoneal. Animals were treated according to regulations of National Centre of Bioethics (Armenia). Cell nuclei were isolated according to standard procedure. PARP 1 activity was evaluated by NAD+ consumption. PARG protein was estimated by sandwich Elisa method. Data are expressed as mean ± s.d. Statistical differences in the results between groups were evaluated by the Student's t-test. A probability (P) value of < 0.05 was considered significant. Key Results: Cisplatin and tannic acid displayed hepatotoxic effects in rat liver in 48 h after treatment. Although treatment of rats either with cisplatin or TA downregulated NAD+ and PARG content in liver nuclei, the drugs exhibited oppositely directed effects on PARP 1 activity. Cotreatment with cisplatin and TA-stimulated PARP 1 activity in liver nuclei did not affect the basal level of NAD+ and prevented drastic decrease in PARG protein level. Conclusions: Cisplatin-induced inhibition of PARP 1 activity, NAD+, and PARG content in liver nuclei were eliminated after cotreatment of rats with tannic acid.


Benzo(a)pyrene added to human plasma in vitro associated with the plasma lipoproteins, especially the low-density frac tion. The influence of plasma low-density lipoprotein on cellular uptake of benzo(a)pyrene was studied using WI-38, a human embryonic lung fibroblast line, and GM 1915, a skin fibroblast line derived from a patient with homozygous familial hypercholesterolemia. The WI-38 cells were low-density-lipoprotein re ceptor positive, and the familial hypercholesterolemia cells were receptor negative by standard binding studies with 125I-labeled low-density lipoprotein. Following 2 hr of incubation at 37 or 4°,cell association of benzo(a)pyrene was determined with benzo(a)pyrene bound to lipoprotein or added at the same concentration to serum-free medium or medium containing delipidated serum. Uptake from delipidated or serum-free me dium by both cell lines was linear with concentration, while incorporation of benzo(a)pyrene bound to low-density lipopro tein was much less and nonlinear at higher concentrations of lipoprotein. While low-density lipoprotein apparently influenced the availability of benzo(a)pyrene to the cell, no differences were noted in the incorporation of benzo(a)pyrene by WI-38 and familial hypercholesterolemia cells. Thus, benzo(a)pyrene entered the cells from low-density


This landmark volume provides the most comprehensive overview to date of the prehistory and archaeology of the Caddo peoples. The Caddos lived in the Southeastern Woodlands for more than 900 years beginning around AD 800-900, before being forced to relocate to Oklahoma in 1859. They left behind a spectacular archaeological record, including the famous Spiro Mound site in Oklahoma as well as many other mound centers, plazas, farmsteads, villages, and cemeteries. The Archaeology of the Caddo examines new advances in studying the history of the Caddo peoples, including ceramic analysis, reconstructions of settlement and regional histories of different Caddo communities, Geographic Information Systems and geophysical landscape studies at several spatial scales, the cosmological significance of mound and structure placements, and better ways to understand mortuary practices. Findings from major sites and drainages such as the Crenshaw site, mounds in the Arkansas River basin, Spiro Mound, the Oak Hill Village site, the George C. Davis site, the Willow Chute Bayou Locality, the Hughes site, Big Cypress Creek basin, and the McClelland and Joe Clark sites are also summarized and interpreted. This volume reintroduces the Caddos' heritage, creativity, and political and religious complexity.


This paper addresses the problem of characterizing classes of pairs of binary trees of equal size for which a signed reassociation sequence, in the Eliahou-Kryuchkov sense, can be shown to exist, either with a size induction hypothesis (reducible pairs), or without it (solvable pairs). A few concepts proposed by Cooper, Rowland and Zeilberger, in the context of a language-theoretic approach to the problem, are here reformulated in terms of signed reassociation sequences, and some of their results are recasted and proven in this framework. A few strategies, tactics and combinations thereof for signed reassociation are introduced, which prove useful to extend the results obtained by the aforementioned authors to new classes of binary tree pairs. In particular, with reference to path trees, i.e. binary trees that have a leaf at every level, we show the reducibility of pairs where (at least) one of the two path trees has a triplication at the first turn below the top level, and we characterize a class of weakly mutually crooked path tree pairs that are neither reducible nor solvable by any previously known result, but prove solvable by appropriate reassociation strategies. This class also includes a subclass of mutually crooked path tree pairs. A summary evaluation of the achieved results, followed by an outline of open questions and future research directions conclude the paper.


OBJECTIVE. The aim of this scoping review was to describe the characteristics and features of substance abuse interventions for women in North America and discuss the findings from an occupational perspective. METHOD. A scoping review was conducted to examine North American peer‐reviewed literature published between 2001 and 2014. Four databases were searched using terms related to intervention, substance abuse, and women only. Descriptive statistics of categorical groupings were used to describe the data sources and characteristics and features of the interventions. RESULTS. Forty‐two articles met the inclusion criteria, with the majority citing a harm‐reduction approach and using multifaceted interventions with various targets for change. CONCLUSION. Substance abuse interventions for women are typically multifaceted and follow a harm‐reduction philosophy. Further research into the efficacy of interventions that more specifically target occupation beyond substance use is needed.


As recorded in the earliest existing written work of architecture, The Ten Books on Architecture written by Vitruvius in 27 BC, one of the primary goals of architecture has been to strike the balance between "Firmness, Commodity and Delight" or structural integrity, functional efficiency, and aesthetic beauty. While the terms "sustainability" and "sustainable architecture" were not coined until the late twentieth century, Vitruvius' treatise did incorporate the underlying concepts of sustainability: resource efficiency, human thermal comfort and recognition of regional environmental factors, under the category of commodity. Beginning in the late nineteenth century however, with technological advances in materials and the introduction of modern mechanical systems, these underlying sustainable concepts appeared to have been forgotten and commodity was reduced to a focus primarily on spatial relationships. These changes in design values have come at a cost. This is evidenced first by the ever-increasing dependency of modern forms on fossil fuel driven mechanical systems to create and maintain optimal human thermal comfort. This is also evidenced by the decreasing presence of uniquely regional architectural forms. The ubiquitous use of homogenous universal or "placeless" architectural forms such as interchangeable residential housing tracts and retail strip malls represent the pursuit of brand recognition and economies of scale offered by universal standardization at the expense of regional and climatically appropriate architectural design. The purpose of this paper is to critically review and analyze the impacts on architectural form, function and appearance of a case study residence located in the extreme arid climate of the Sonoran desert in the Southwest United States, in which the concept of sustainability was incorporated as one of the primary design fundamentals. The case study residence is an approximately 2,000 square foot home built for a family of five with four bedrooms and two bathrooms and a separate attached guest bedroom and bath. This paper will provide an overview and analysis of the case study residence in terms of: 1) the original project values and goals as represented by the design and computer energy modeling process and 2) the project results as captured by the qualities (structural and aesthetic) of the final constructed physical form and its post-occupancy performance (functional, spatial and resource conservation).


Purpose: This study assessed the value of training in mirroring combined with training in empathy in a personal-selling setting when these two supplement training in more conventional areas. To a large extent, this investigation is exploratory. Previous attempts to probe into this topic do not appear in the literature. Methodology: Students in personal-selling classes acted as sales representatives in an attempt to sell a service (attendance at a seminar) to small retailers. One group was trained in mirroring and another in empathy. Yet another received instruction in both mirroring and empathy. Finally, control-group members received neither mirroring nor empathy training. Chi-square tests, t tests, Tukey k tests, and an analysis of variance were used. The hypotheses were that mirroring and empathy training, and especially mirroring combined with empathy, would perform better than no training in these areas. Findings: The analysis revealed that those who were trained in mirroring were more successful in obtaining intent to purchase than were control-group members. Likewise, trainees in empathy were more successful than those without training. Both of these experimental groups performed at levels that did not diverge significantly. Members of the group with instruction in both mirroring and empathy contributed more effectively than any other group. Originality, Value, and Contribution: This is the first published study that systematically examined the effectiveness of both mirroring and empathy training in a personal-selling setting. Previous writings have presented research relating to nonselling functions. Others have discussed the value of mirroring and empathy in narrative that was not supported by data. The findings of this study suggest that both of these topics of coverage have merit when acting as a supplement to more conventional training content. They reveal that sales managers may be more successful in training members of the sales force if mirroring and empathy training is employed. The investigation supplies support for the proposition that this form of instruction can be useful in both academic and practical applications.


Sandy soils of Central Vietnam represent an important soil order that increasingly contributes to regional economic growth. However these soils have generally low productivity because of chemical and physical constraints associated with low pH values and sand contents exceeding 70%, are common for those soils. Obviously, organic matter management represents a key factor for crop productivity improvement on these soils. However, before considering the possible contributions of various organic amendments, it is important to evaluate the actual contribution of the initial soil organic matter through its N-mineralization, considered as a prime source of N for plants. Therefore, soil samples (0-20 cm) representing peanut growing sandy soils were collected before the spring season to incubate with 4 types of organic materials which added to the same sandy soil amount under anaerobic conditions for 0, 5, 10, 20, 30 and 40 days to determine their Nmineralization capacity. The release of NH4, NO3 was on average higher in treatments with added organic fertilizers. Significant amounts of NH4 and NO3 were found with different types of organic materials added to the soil and increased with the time of incubation from 5 to 40 days after incubation. Fitting the results with a first order kinetic equation led to the calculation of potentially mineralizable nitrogen. The N-pool identified in this study can be considered as very labile N which might be available to crops within few weeks. Therefore, the total N-content of soils cannot be considered as a reliable indicator of short term Navailability.


In this document, we formally analyze security in electronic voting and electronic auctions. On-line voting over is now available in several countries, for example in Estonia or parts of Switzerland. Similarly, electronic auctions are increasingly used: eBay had over 112 million active users and over 350 million listings in 2012, and achieved a revenue of more than 14 billion US Dollars. In both applications, security is a main concern, as fairness is important and money is at stake. In the case of voting protocols, privacy is crucial to ensure free elections. We propose a hierarchy of privacy notions in the Applied Pi-Calculus, including different levels of coercion, special attacks such as forced-abstention attacks, and inside attackers. We also provide generalized notions for situations where votes are weighted (e.g. according to the number of shares in a company), and show that for many protocols the case with multiple coerced voters can be reduced to the case with one coerced voter. This result is made possible by a unique decomposition result in the Applied Pi-Calculus showing that any finite process has a unique normal form with respect to labeled bisimilarity. Moreover we provide multiple case studies illustrating how our taxonomy allows to assess the level of privacy ensured by a voting protocol. In the case of auction protocols we also consider a hierarchy of privacy notions, and several fairness and authentication properties such as Non-Interference, Non-Cancellation and Non-Repudiation. We analyze all these properties automatically using ProVerif on three case studies, and identify several flaws. Moreover we give an abstract definition of verifiability in auctions and provide case studies in the symbolic and computational model using ProVerif and CryptoVerif respectively. Again, we identify several shortcomings, but also give a computational proof for one protocol. Finally we explore the idea of ``true bidder-verifiable auctions'', i.e. auctions that can be verified by a non-expert, as the property is ensured through physical properties instead of complex cryptography. We propose two such protocols, discuss how to model the underlying physical properties, and provide a formal analysis of both protocols using ProVerif.


Particle physicists at Europe's CERN laboratory in Switzerland say they have observed bizarre new cousins of the protons and neutrons that make up the atomic nucleus. Protons and neutrons consist of other particles called quarks, bound by the strong nuclear force. By smashing particles at high energies, physicists have blasted into fleeting existence hundreds of other quark-containing particles. Until recently, all contained either two or three quarks. But since 2014, researchers working with CERN's Large Hadron Collider have also spotted four- and five-quark particles. Such tetraquarks and pentaquarks could require physicists to rethink their understanding of quantum chromodynamics, or they could have less revolutionary implications. Researchers hope that computer simulations and more collider studies will reveal how the oddball newcomers are put together, but some wonder whether experiments will ever provide a definitive answer.


This study uses the Rogers International Commodity Index (RICI) for composite commodities and RICI-Agriculture (RICA), RICI-Energy (RICIE), and RICI-Metals (RICIM) indices to examine the relationship between various commodity and stock markets. The empirical results indicated that stable long-term relationships exist between some commodity and stock markets, and that commodity indices generally lead stock market indices. Thus, in a number of countries/regions, investors can predict fluctuations in stock prices using variations in commodity indices. However, the RICI composite commodities index, RICIA agricultural commodity index, and RICIM metals index are subject to the influence of the U.S. stock market. Furthermore, when serious crises or high volatility occurs in stock markets, investors can use the RICIM metals index as a safe haven asset, incorporating it into investment portfolios to reduce risk. Under normal stock market circumstances, no hedging effects exist between commodity market indices and stock markets. Consequently, investors cannot use commodity indices as hedging instruments.


Abstract Background Men sexually interested in children of a specific combination of maturity and sex tend to show some lesser interest in other categories of persons. Patterns of men's sexual interest across erotic targets' categories of maturity and sex have both clinical and basic scientific implications. Method We examined the structure of men's sexual interest in adult, pubescent, and prepubescent males and females using multidimensional scaling (MDS) across four datasets, using three large samples and three indicators of sexual interest: phallometric response to erotic stimuli, sexual offense history, and self-reported sexual attraction. The samples were highly enriched for men sexually interested in children and men accused of sexual offenses. Results Results supported a two-dimensional MDS solution, with one dimension representing erotic targets' biological sex and the other dimension representing their sexual maturity. The dimension of sexual maturity placed adults and prepubescent children on opposite ends, and pubescent children intermediate. Differences between men's sexual interest in adults and prepubescent children of the same sex were similar in magnitude to the differences between their sexual interest in adult men and women. Sexual interest in adult men was no more associated with sexual interest in boys than sexual interest in adult women was associated with sexual interest in girls. Conclusions Erotic targets' sexual maturity and biological sex play important roles in men's preferences, which are predictive of sexual offending. The magnitude of men's preferences for prepubescent children v. adults of their preferred sex is large.


Medical Infrared Imaging (IR) is a noninvasive diagnostic method that allows the examiner to evaluate and quantify temperature changes on the skin surface, which is reflected as any abnormal internal temperature variation. However, thermograph images are essentially a 2D technique and its image does not provide useful anatomical information associated with it. Therefore, this paper presents a new method for combining 2D Infrared Images with Magnetic Resonance Images (MRI) and/or Computer Tomography (CT) images, employing an image registration (fusion) methodology. As a result, it is generated a new hybrid 3D model, denominated 3D THERMO. This new 3D model involves the visualization of a rendered image, which has the additional of being generated based on multi imaging modality: the temperature (functional information) originated from the thermal images (IR) and also the MRI or CT images (anatomical or structural information). This innovative tool will help improvements in clinical applications, such as medical diagnosis and for monitoring treatment of certain pathologies.


This work presents a straightforward methodology to achieve small linear trinuclear molecules based on the Co(II)-carboranylcarboxylate system obtained by carving a 1D polynuclear analogous system with the use of diethylether. The reaction of the carboranylcarboxylic ligand, 1-CH3-2-CO2H-1,2-closo-C2B10H10 (LH) with different cobalt salts leads to the polynuclear compound [Co2(μ-H2O)(1-CH3-2-CO2-1,2-closo-C2B10H10)4(THF)4], and the polymeric [Co(μ-H2O)(1-CH3-2-CO2-1,2-closo-C2B10H10)2]n(H2O)n. This latter 1D chain has been obtained by an unprecedented synthetic strategy for the isolation of cobalt(ii) compounds. [Co3(μ-H2O)2(1-CH3-2-CO2-1,2-closo-C2B10H10)6(H2O)2(C4H10O)2], is formed by the dissociation of the polymeric structure that forms when a mild coordinating solvent such as diethylether is added. These compounds have been characterized by analytical and spectroscopic techniques. X-ray analysis of and revealed that presents a dinuclear structure whereas is trinuclear; in both cases a six-coordinated Co(II) compound with water molecules bridging each of the two Co(II) centres has been observed. The magnetic properties of and show a weak antiferromagnetic behaviour, respectively, between the Co(II) centres mediated by two carboxylate ligands and a molecule of water.


Abstract The aim of the study presented was to experimentally analyze an effect of the nutrient type and its concentration on the variability of rheological properties of the baker's yeast suspensions for different time periods. Aqueous suspensions of the baker's yeast of various concentration (solution I, without nutrient) and yeasts suspended in aqueous solution of sucrose or honey as nutrients with different concentration (solution II or solution III) were tested. Experiments were carried out using rotational rheoviscometer of type RT10 by a company HAAKE. The measurements were conducted for different time periods (from 1 h up to 144 h) at given fluid temperature. On the basis of the obtained data, rheological characteristics of the aqueous solution of baker's yeast suspensions without and with nutrients of different sucrose or honey concentration were identified and mathematically described.


The complex coupling constant of a photorefractive polymer was measured as a function of an applied electric field by use of a modified ac phase modulation technique. We determined that both a photorefractive index grating and a nonphotorefractive absorption grating were present. The electric field dependencies of the amplitude and the phase of the photorefractive gain coefficient were accurately described by standard photorefractive theory. The accuracy of the photorefractive phase shift as measured by this phase-modulation technique was ±1° near phase shifts of 90° and ±3° near phase shifts of 45°.


A translucent object hidden in a highly scattering medium is shown to be visible when the early portion of the transmitted diffuse pulse (snake photons) is detected. The use of the snake scattered photons to image objects depends on the scattering characteristics along a quasi-straight-line path that the photons traverse across the medium. A translucent object with different scattering characteristics compared with its surrounding medium will change the intensity of the snake photons. By scanning the medium across the laser beam and detecting only the snake photons, a translucent object hidden in a highly scattering medium could be located.