Grounded on principles of manufacturing design, component-based software development (CBSD) has been viewed as the future trend in software development. In this paper, we propose a methodology for component fabrication and argue that, as in classical product development, business strategy of component development companies must guide the design of reusable business components. Accordingly, we link business strategy with component design through managerial goals (identified as cost effectiveness, ease of assembly, customization, reusability, and maintainability). These managerial goals are then mapped to technical features (identified as coupling, cohesion, number of components, component size, and complexity). We develop a formal model, called Business Strategy-based Component Design that uses the object-oriented model of a business to derive the component structure by grouping appropriate object classes to achieve the desired business strategy. We examine the validity of the model by a two-phase application process.


Physics-based simulation of robots requires models of the simulated robots and their environment. For a realistic simulation behavior, these models must be accurate. Their physical properties such as geometric and kinematic values, as well as dynamic parameters such as mass, inertia matrix and friction, must be modelled. Unfortunately, this problem is hard for at least two reasons. First, physics engines designed for simulation of rigid bodies in real-time cannot accurately describe many common real world phenomena, e.g. (drive) friction and grasping. Second, the prime candidate solution to the model parameter problem, classical parameter identification algorithms, although well-studied and efficient, often necessitate a significant manual engineering effort and may not be applicable due to application constraints. Thus, we present a data-driven general purpose tool, which allows to optimize model parameters for (task-specific) realistic simulation behavior. Our approach directly uses the simulator and the model under optimization to improve model parameters. The optimization process is highly distributed and uses a hybrid optimization approach based on metaheuristics and the Ceres non-linear least squares solver. The user only has to provide a configuration file that specifies which model parameter to optimize together with realism criteria and a set of reference recordings from the real robot system.


Streptococcus equi subspecies equi (S. equi) is the pathogen responsible for the prevalent and highly contagious equine disease called strangles. Strangles has been reported worldwide as a cause of a high level of animal suffering and economic loss. S. equi is susceptible to many antibiotics in vitro, but relapse due to insufficient vascularity often renders such treatment ineffective. Getting effective and universally accepted vaccines against S. equi have been slow mainly because of safety concerns. It was previously reported that colonization of air interface organ cultures, after inoculation with a mutant strain (ΔprtM138-213) deficient in the putative maturase lipoprotein (PrtM, a homologue of the pneumococcal PpmA) was less than that seen in cultures which were infected with wild-type S. equi strain 4047 (Hamilton et al, 2006), indicating that PrtM is a major virulence factor in strangles. It has also been
demonstrated by in vitro and in vivo studies that many streptococcal adhesins, for example, serve as colonization or virulence factors and this makes them attractive targets for therapeutic and preventive strategies against streptococcal infections (Nobbs et al., 2009). S. equi adhesins or other colonization factors may be substrates for PrtM.

Understanding PrtM is key to designing drugs or vaccines against the equine S. equi infection and strangles. In this research, advanced biomolecular techniques were systematically applied to investigate and characterise PrtM, and to evaluate its potential as a therapeutic or vaccine target. Bioinformatics, microbiological, biochemical and molecular biology techniques were used in screening the S. equi WT 4047 and Mutant (prtM138-213) strains to evaluate the immunogenicity and conservation of PrtM. Proteomics techniques: two-dimensional gel electrophoresis and mass spectrometry were employed in evaluating the cell-associated and secreted protein extracts of both the S. equi WT 4047 and mutant (prtM138-213) strains. In this study, genetic engineering technology involving targeted domain knock-out and/or knock-in, was employed in producing the central domain recombinant protein and mutant (prtM138-213) revertants. Following cloning, over-expression and purification of the full length and central domain, biochemical data on the PrtM protein (kcat/KM for S. equi 4047 PrtM full length recombinant protein = 5.84 x 106 /M/s) were derived via enzyme(peptydylprolyl isomerase - PPIase) assay; and crystallography was applied in an attempt to derive structural data on the PrtM protein. Advanced biomolecular techniques (including Western blots and Proteomics) were employed in screening the complemented mutants.

It has been proven from this research that the PrtM of S. equi 4047 is involved in adaptation to NaCl stress and in regulating sensitivity to antibiotics; PrtM may have roles in speeding up the synthesis of hyaluronic acid and in the folding or remodeling of HPr Kinase. The parvulin-type structure of PrtM elucidated by bioinformatics analysis, the cross reactions of the WT and mutant with a number of antisera, the observation that PrtM may be a multisubstrate foldase due to the detectable and significant differences in the proteomes of the WT, mutant and complemented mutants, the dimeric protein formed by the full length recombinant protein of S. equi 4047 WT, and the PPIase-Chaperonine activities of PrtM, all observed from this study, validate PrtM of S. equi 4047 as a viable and novel therapeutic target which pharmaceutical industries should extensively evaluate for the prevention and treatment of S. equi infection and strangles.


Fracture fixation in humans and animals has troubled surgeons and scientists since first it was attempted right up to the present day. At every milestone of achievement in the understanding and practice of fracture repair there has remained a significant problem left unresolved. Of paramount concern is the preservation of blood vessels and soft tissues, avoidance of stress shielding and concentration, promotion. of bone healing and a rapid return to function.

However, matching these principles with the variables of degree and site of fracture/injury, age, size and status of patient, environmental and surgical factors is complex and difficult. To be able to attempt to allow a surgeon to make decisions about every case, knowing that the implant choice does not constrain him but offers flexibility to aim for the ideal fixation for each case, the system must be modular. The objectives were to produce an implant system that would satisfy the most up to date principles of fracture repair through design optimization, mechanical evaluation and testing for specific fracture types. The design was called the bone fastenerod following the optimization and analysis procedures to indicate the origins of its basic formation.

To begin with, the design of the fastenerod had to be optimized and this was achieved using bench testing, initially of selected designs followed by finite element analysis, which allowed a greater number of designs to be processed. Once the optimum design had been found the process of manufacture had to be selected and various possible methods of manufacture were examined until the one most suitable was determined. To analyze the fastenerod, the current industry standard implants that are used in the same clinical type settings were chosen for comparative testing. Testing was performed using static and cyclic loading to failure with wood samples in four point, tensile, side, axial and torsional loading Specific fractures in dog, cat and horse bones were created and repaired using the fastenerod versus the best method currently available and tested in three point, tensile, axial, static loading to failure. Also, specific fractures were created in human mechanical bones and tested using axial, cyclic and four point bending again, comparing the fastenerod w ith the best technology available. The analysis revealed that in static loading the fastenerod was comparable to the industry standards for small implants but not comparable with the large human implants in the specific cases selected However, in the case of the cyclic loading to Mure , the fastenerod performed better than the plate system of similar size, with the ultimate load to failure being higher and no stress concentration leading to implant fracture or failure. Thus, the modular system of the bone fastenerod could now claim to provide fixation that could be flexible, less invasive and destructive to tissues, capable o f greater choice o f screw placement and stiff to level of choice whilst avoiding stress. concentration and shielding On the basis o f this analysis, the fastenerod system can proceed to fu ll c lin ica l trials


The health reform law boosted Medicare fees for primary care ambulatory visits by 10 percent for five years starting in 2011. Using a simulation model with real-world parameters, we evaluate the effects of a permanent 10 percent increase in these fees. Our analysis shows the fee increase would increase primary care visits by 8.8 percent, and raise the overall cost of primary care visits by 17 percent. However, these increases would yield more than a sixfold annual return in lower Medicare costs for other services—mostly inpatient and postacute care—once the full effects on treatment patterns are realized. The net result would be a drop in Medicare costs of nearly 2 percent. These findings suggest that, under reasonable assumptions, promoting primary care can help bend the Medicare cost curve.


Evolutionary convergence of phenotypic traits provides evidence for their functional success. The origin of the orb web was a critical event in the diversification of spiders that facilitated a spectacular radiation of approximately 12 000 species and promoted the evolution of novel web types. How the orb web evolved from ancestral web types, and how many times orb-like architectures evolved in spiders, has been debated for a long time. The little known spider genus Fecenia (Psechridae) constructs a web that resembles the archetypical orb web, but morphological data suggest that Psechridae (Psechrus + Fecenia) does not belong in Orbiculariae, the 'true orb weavers', but to the 'retrolateral tibial apophysis (RTA) clade' consisting mostly of wandering spiders, but also including spiders building less regular webs. Yet, the data are sparse and no molecular phylogenetic study has estimated Fecenia's exact position in the tree of life. Adding new data to sequences pulled from GenBank, we reconstruct a phylogeny of Entelegynae and phylogenetically test the monophyly and placement of Psechridae, and in doing so, the alternative hypotheses of monophyletic origin of the orb web and the pseudo-orb versus their independent origins, a potentially spectacular case of behavioural convergence. We also discuss the implications of our results for Entelegynae systematics. Our results firmly place a monophyletic Psechridae within the RTA clade, phylogenetically distant from true orb weavers. The architectural similarities of the orb and the pseudo-orb are therefore clearly convergent, as also suggested by detailed comparisons of these two web types, as well as the spiders' web-building behaviours and ontogenetic development. The convergence of Fecenia webs with true orbs provides a remarkable opportunity to investigate how these complex sets of traits may have interacted during the evolution of the orb.


Matchmaking mobile applications, or dating apps, have become hugely popular in recent years, with millions worldwide swiping through potential romantic partners. The literature on technologically mediated dating has explored how people manage impressions but has rarely taken an autoethnographic perspective: How does the author, both a researcher of dating apps and a user herself, experience self-presentation? In this paper, I first introduce a theoretical focus on impression management on dating apps. Next, I explain the choice of autoethnography as a method. Drawing from various source materials like personal journaling and chats with matches, I present two autoethnographic pieces: one focusing on my self-presentation as a dating app researcher, and the other on my own dating app use. I follow these by analyzing my motivations and impression construction in the dating app environment, keeping in mind theoretical insights. I conclude with a discussion into the challenges of an autoethnographic approach to impression management.


Recent progress in the use of semiconductor laser amplifiers (SLA's) for high-speed all-optical switching is reviewed. We show that, despite SLA's having lifetimes of ⩾100 ps, they are, to date, the most promising material system for all-optical ultrafast signal processing. We highlight the role of SLA carrier dynamics, which permits switching rates faster than the recovery time. Experimental results are presented that imply that switching rates of as much as ∼100 GHz should be possible. Recent experiments are described in which SLA-based switches were incorporated into novel all-optical architectures.


Physical contact events often allow a natural decomposition of manipulation tasks into action phases and subgoals. Within the motion primitive paradigm, each action phase corresponds to a motion primitive, and the subgoals correspond to the goal parameters of these primitives. Current state-of-the-art reinforcement learning algorithms are able to efficiently and robustly optimize the parameters of motion primitives in very high-dimensional problems. These algorithms often consider only shape parameters, which determine the trajectory between the start- and end-point of the movement. In manipulation, however, it is also crucial to optimize the goal parameters, which represent the subgoals between the motion primitives. We therefore extend the policy improvement with path integrals (PI2) algorithm to simultaneously optimize shape and goal parameters. Applying simultaneous shape and goal learning to sequences of motion primitives leads to the novel algorithm PI2 Seq. We use our methods to address a fundamental challenge in manipulation: improving the robustness of everyday pick-and-place tasks.


This thesis examines the impact of Edward Said's influential work Orientalism and its legacy in respect of contemporary reading and writing across cultures. It also questions the legitimacy of Said's retrospective stereotyping of early examples of cross-cultural representation in literature as uncompromisingly 'orientalist'.

It is well known that the release of Edward Said's Orientalism in 1978 was responsible for the rise of a range of cultural and critical theories from multiculturalism to postcolonialism. It was a study that not only polarized critics and forced scholars to re-examine orientalist archives, but persuaded creative writers to re-think their ethnographic positions when it came to the literary representations of cultures other than their own. Without detracting from the enormous impact of Said, this thesis isolates gaps and silences in Said that need correcting. Furthermore, there is an element of intransigence, an uncompromising refusal to fine-tune what is essentially a binary discourse of the West and its other in Said's work, that encourages the continued interrogation of power relations but which, because of its very boldness, paradoxically disallows the extent to which the conflict of cultures indeed produced new, hybrid social and cultural formations.

In an attempt to challenge the severity of Said's claim that 'every European, in what he could say about the Orient, was consequently a racist, an imperialist, and almost totally ethnocentric', the thesis examines a number of different discursive contexts in which such a presumption is challenged. Thus while the second chapter discusses the 'traditional' profession-based orientalism of nineteenth-century E. G. Browne, the third considers the anti-imperialism of colonial administrator Leonard Woolf. The fourth chapter provides a reflection on the difficulties of diasporic 'orientalism' through the works of Michael Ondaatje while chapter five demonstrates the effects of the dialogism used by Amitav Ghosh as a defence against 'orientalism'. The thesis concludes with an examination of contemporary writing by Andrea Levy that appositely illustrates the legacy of Said's influence.

While the restrictive parameters of Said's work make it difficult to mount a thorough-going critique of Said, this thesis shows that, indeed, it is within the restraints of these parameters and in the very discourse that Said employs that he traps himself. This study claims that even Said is susceptible to 'orientalist' criticism in that he is as much an 'orientalist' as those at whom he directs his polemic.


This specification defines a new mobility option, the IPv4 Traffic
Offload Selector option, for Proxy Mobile IPv6. This option can be
used by the local mobility anchor and the mobile access gateway for
negotiating IPv4 traffic offload policy for a mobility session. Based
on the negotiated IPv4 traffic offload policy, a mobile access gateway
can selectively offload some of the IPv4 traffic flows in the access
network instead of tunneling back to the local mobility anchor in the
home network.


This paper reports on some of the outcomes from a larger research project on Classical Music 'Hyper-Production' And Practice As Research – a UK Arts and Humanities Research Council funded project that seeks to create radical reinterpretations of the classical repertoire through record production.
Our approach to mixing audio for this project is based on a theoretical model that explores the links between the perception and cognition of recorded music, our musicological analyses of the pieces and how that translates into staging and processing decisions. While taking into account Schaeffer's theories about the 'Objet Sonore' (Schaeffer 1966 and Dack 2001) and Smalley's (1986 and 1997) work on spectromorphology, we are utilizing the ecological approach to perception (Gibson 1979; Clarke 2005; Zagorski-Thomas 2014) and the neural theory of language and metaphor (Lakoff & Johnson 2003; Feldman 2008) to examine mix decisions in terms of agency, activity and environment.
Examples from the research project, which include ensemble pieces and layered, overdubbed solo performances, will be deconstructed from a musicological perspective. This will involve foreground and background, thematic material, contrapuntal lines and other musical features being discussed in terms of the number and type of perceived agents, the types of activity in which they are involved and the nature of the environment within which the activity occurs. This will be explored through both literal and metaphorical interpretations of the musical activity. These analyses will then be used to explain the decisions that were made during the mix process. Placing the perceived agents on different parts of the sound stage, highlighting or inhibiting various aspects of the energy expenditure involved in the perceived activity and determining the type and character of the environment within which this activity occurs will be further deconstructed in terms of the specific processing decisions that were made in different instances.


Present day malware shows stealthy and dynamic capability and avails administrative rights to control the victim computers. Malware writers depend on evasion techniques like code obfuscation, packing, compression, encryption or polymorphism to avoid detection by Anti-Virus (AV) scanners as AV primarily use syntactic signature to detect a known malware. Our approach is based on semantic aspect of PE exectable that analyses API Call-grams to detect unknown malicious code. As in--exact source code is analysed, the machine is not infected by the executable. Moreover, static analysis covers all the paths of code which is not possible with dynamic behavioural methods as latter does not gurantee the execution of sample being analysed. Modern malicious samples also detect controlled virtual and emulated environments and stop the functioning. Semantic invariant approach is important as signature of known samples are changed by code obfuscation tools. Static analysis is performed by generating an API Call graph from control flow of an executable, then mining the Call graph as API Call-gram to detect malicious files.


AIM
To assess the symptomatic efficacy of Lactobacillus plantarum 299v (L. plantarum 299v) (DSM 9843) for the relief of abdominal symptoms in a large subset of irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) patients fulfilling the Rome III criteria.

METHODS
In this double blind, placebo-controlled, parallel-designed study, subjects were randomized to daily receive either one capsule of L. plantarum 299v (DSM 9843) or placebo for 4 wk. Frequency and intensity of abdominal pain, bloating and feeling of incomplete rectal emptying were assessed weekly on a visual analogue scale while stool frequency was calculated.

RESULTS
Two hundred and fourteen IBS patients were recruited. After 4 wk, both pain severity (0.68 + 0.53 vs 0.92 + 0.57, P < 0.05) and daily frequency (1.01 + 0.77 vs 1.71 + 0.93, P < 0.05) were lower with L. plantarum 299v (DSM 9843) than with placebo. Similar results were obtained for bloating. At week 4, 78.1 % of the patients scored the L. plantarum 299v (DSM 9843) symptomatic effect as excellent or good vs only 8.1 % for placebo (P < 0.01).

CONCLUSION
A 4-wk treatment with L. plantarum 299v (DSM 9843) provided effective symptom relief, particularly of abdominal pain and bloating, in IBS patients fulfilling the Rome III criteria.


Here it is! This is the Amazon Fire TV User Manual that should have come in the box! BONUS - Sign up to our free monthly newsletter and never miss news, views, tips and tricks of your favorite streaming media devices, including the Amazon Fire TV. From the Number 1 Best Selling authors in Computers and Technology, this clear and concise guide will show you how to get the very best from your new Amazon Fire TV Media Player. Step by step instructions will take you from newbie to expert in just one hour! About the Authors: Tom and Jenna Edwards are the Amazon Tech authors behind the Number 1 Best-selling e-books 250+ Best Kindle Fire HD Apps for the New Kindle Fire Owner and Kindle Fire HDX User Guide: Newbie to Expert in 2 Hours!


The genotype-phenotype relationships are a central focus of modern genetics. While deletion analyses have uncovered many regulatory genes of specific traits, it remains largely unknown how these regulators execute their commands through downstream genes, or executors. Here, we wish to know the number of executors for each trait, their relationships with the regulators and the role natural selection may play in shaping the regulator-executor-phenotype architecture. By analyzing ∼500 morphological traits of the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae we found that a trait is often controlled directly by a large number of executors, the expressions of which are affected by regulators. By recruiting a set of "coordinating" regulators, natural selection helps organize the large number of executors into a small number of co-expression modules. This way, the individual executors can be readily recognized by observational approaches that examine the statistical association between gene activity and trait. When the trait is subject to little or no selection, however, the executors are controlled only by "non-coordinating" regulators that evolve passively and do not build the executors' co-expression. As a result, none of the executors remain a statistically tractable relationship with the trait. Thus, natural selection by governing some traits strongly (such as fertility) and others weakly (such as aging-related phenotypes) profoundly influences the genotype-phenotype relationships as well as their tractability.


Current laboratory housing systems have mainly been developed on the basis of ergonomic and economic factors. These systems provide adequate, basic physiological requirements of animals, but only marginally fulfil other needs, such as the
 performance of natural behaviour or social interactions. Many signs indicate that the current housing conditions affect the
 well-being of animals negatively. Environmental enrichment may solve some of the problems caused by the restrictive
 laboratory environments, because the more structured environment allows the animals to perform species-specific behaviour.
 When introducing enrichment it is important to evaluate the effects of the enrichment programme used. In the first study described in this thesis, the effects of relatively simple environmental enrichment provided in standard
 laboratory cages on the behaviour of mice in three behavioural tests were investigated. Effects of enrichment on the behaviour
 of the mice were found, although the effects differed per strain. Choice tests have been used to assess laboratory animals' preferences for different environments or for aspects of the
 environment. The preferences of the mice for six different types of nesting material and six nest boxes made of different
 materials were evaluated. All mice showed a preference for cages with nesting material or, in the second series, a nest box. In
 order to gain some insight in the strength of preference for these types of enrichment, the most preferred nesting material and
 the most preferred nest box (from the previous test series) were tested against each other. All mice showed a strong preference
 for the nesting material. This indicates that the presence of nesting material, which can be manipulated, fulfils a need of mice. In a following study the effect of the long-term provision of enrichment was studied. Groups of mice were housed under either
 standard or enriched conditions (provided with the preferred nesting material). Several behavioural and physiological
 parameters were monitored to determine the impact of environmental enrichment. The long-term provision of the nesting
 material showed no major effects on the physiology or behaviour of the mice. These studies led to the conclusion that
 providing a cage with nesting material can be a relatively simple method to contribute to the well-being of laboratory mice,
 without jeopardising the outcome of experiments. Thus there seems to be no good reason to deprive laboratory mice from this
 form of enrichment. In order to further investigate the effects of enrichment on the behaviour of laboratory mice the mice were tested in an open
 field test. The animals from the enriched housing conditions seem to habituate faster to the test situation, reflected in a (rapid)
 decline in exploratory behaviour, whereas control animals continued to explore the new environment longer. Furthermore, the
 behavioural patterns of the mice were registered during 24 h using LABORAS, a newly developed system for the automated
 registration of behaviour. Environmental enrichment appeared to have strain-specific effects on the time budget of mice, but not
 on the circadian rhythm of behaviour. In conclusion, the experiments described in this thesis have indicated that environmental enrichment may have profound
 effects on the behaviour of mice. The degree of complexity of the enrichment however, plays a role in the level of the
 behavioural and physiological effects. Animals from enriched housing conditions seem to be physiologically and
 psychologically more stable and could therefore be considered as more refined animal models. This means that eventually their
 use might lead to a reduction in the number of animals necessary for obtaining valid experimental results.


Geochemical atlases based on the analysis of sediments from surface tributary drainage have been published for Northern Ireland, and England & Wales; the data are smoothed by computer and show regional patterns for the distribution of 20 and 21 elements respectively. Atlases for parts of Scotland present point-source data for up to 25 elements in stream sediments; additional data have been obtained for pan concentrates and stream waters. Regional surveys to provide point-source information are continuing and it is intended that they will in due course cover the whole of the United Kingdom. Research has been successfully undertaken into the applications of geochemical maps to problems of plant and animal health and production, and maps are currently used to delineate areas of potential trace element deficiency and heavy metal excess, particularly where problems may be of a sub-clinical nature. Applications to human health are illustrated with examples of metal anomalies in old mining areas in Derbyshire (Pb) and Somerset (Cd, Zn). Geochemical atlases continue to provide valuable sources of multi-element data for area selection in food, water and medical surveys, and comprise useful base-line information for epidemiological studies.


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abstract
 This study explores the relation between pain sensitivity and the cognitive processing of words. 130 participants evaluated the pain-relatedness of a total of 600 two-syllabic nouns, and subsequently reported on their own pain sensitivity. The results demonstrate that pain-sensitive people associate words more strongly with pain than less sensitive people. In particular, concrete nouns like 'syringe', 'wound', 'knife', and 'cactus' are considered to be more pain-related for those who are more pain-sensitive. These findings dovetail with recent studies suggesting that certain bodily characteristics influence the way people form mental representations (Casasanto, 2009). We discuss three mechanisms which could potentially account for our findings: attention and memory bias, prototype analysis, and embodied cognition. We argue that, whereas none of these three accounts can be ruled out, the embodied cognition hypothesis provides a particularly promising view to accommodate our data.


In a setting of intense competition for international capital companies diligently have to respond to an increasing demand by investors for higher transparency and more effective mechanisms of corporate control. In this context the term icorporate governancei has attracted major attention in the professional sphere and across different areas of academic research. The discussion on agency conflicts resulting from the separation of ownership and control as well as on governance mechanisms to reduce related agency costs have been subject to scientific literature for a long time. Since Berle/Means (1932) addressed potential conflicts of interest between management and shareholders of companies the understanding on key issues of corporate governance has improved. Nevertheless, a well-developed theory about the complex nature of corporate governance is still lacking. From a theoretical as well as from a professional perspective one of the most important issues with respect to corporate governance is whether it is rewarded by the capital market. While general finance literature includes numerous research studies on the impact of corporate governance on firm performance across different capital markets around the world the topic has been rather neglected in real estate literature. Using a set of corporate governance variables, our study empirically investigates the impact of corporate governance on the market value of publicly traded real estate companies for the major European real estate capital markets. For the purpose of the analysis a structural model will be specified and subsequently estimated with an appropriate estimation method. Some of the research questions that are of particular interest in this context include the following: - Is there a relationship between corporate governance mechanisms and the market valuation of publicly traded real estate companies? - Is a greater use of particular corporate governance mechanisms positively related to the valuation of publicly traded real estate companies by the capital market? - If there is a relationship is it economically relevant for decision makers of respective companies or for investors? - Do country-specific differences exist with respect to the importance of particular mechanisms for the governance of publicly traded real estate companies? - Which consequences can be derived for a corporate governance-guided management strategy in the real estate sector as well as for the investment strategy of real estate investors? //The study is supposed to contribute to the existing real estate corporate governance research in two basic ways. First, it provides an insight on the relationship of corporate governance mechanisms on the market valuation of publicly traded real estate companies across different European capital markets. To our knowledge prior research of this kind does only exist for US samples. Furthermore, instead of focusing on single control mechanisms and relying on self-constructed or professionally prepared corporate governance indices, which are likely to be inadequate proxies for a multi-dimensional and dynamic corporate governance construct, we apply a set of widely accepted corporate governance mechanisms.


The present study includes 50 patients symptomatic for tuberculous meningitis and 15 patients with meningitis other than tuberculosis The CSF specimens were subjected for ADA titer estimation, AFB smear preparation and molecular characterization by Nested-PCR for IS6110 gene. Out of 50 specimens 2 came AFB smear positive whereas 29 specimens came positive for Tuberculosis (TB) PCR and 21were negative for TB PCR. 17 specimens came positive by both the targets IS6110 and mpb-64 gene but 9 specimens came positive only by IS6110 gene, but negative for mpb- 64 gene. 3 specimens came positive for mpb-64 gene and the same were negative for IS6110 gene. 29 specimens came positive for Multiplex PCR. ADA activity >10 (U/L) was found in 33 specimens. The positive signals obtained in these CSF specimens were higher with IS6110 system 26/50 (52%) than with mpb-64 system 20/50 (40%). PCR gave a sensitivity of (58%) and specificity of (93.3%), Positive predictive value of (96.6%) and Negative predictive value of (40%) for the diagnosis of TBM in 50 patients who were strongly suspected for Tuberculosis meningitis. ADA activity in the CSF had limited value when using a cut-off value of 10 U/L for the diagnosis of tuberculous meningitis. In actual clinical practice, the diagnosis of CNS tuberculosis requires not a screening examination but rather a definitive molecular procedure like IS6110 and mpb-64 gene characterization for accurate and confirm diagnosis of tubercular meningitis.


We introduce Huggy Pajama, a system for remote hugging targeted at parent-child communication. Expanding on experimentation and research shared in a previously published paper; in this paper we focus on development breakthroughs regarding the wearable output and independently controlled multiple air-actuated modules found in the mobile wearable jacket subsystem. We include practical data in designing the wearable and mobile version of Huggy Pajama with embedded electronic and pneumatic devices, as well as offer results from a user study, from which we find that in order to deliver a mediated hug of high fidelity, the system needs to be capable of actuating hugs with a wide and differing range of pressure. Finally, we also present results from this study that show an overall positive emotional affect in the use of the new and improved version of the Huggy Pajama system.


Dear reader, The Faculty of Laws at University College London has a long and proud history of student-led academic journals of the most excellent standard. It is with great pride that we introduce to the academic literature its inaugural flagship journal, the UCL Journal of Law and Jurisprudence. This Journal is testament to the vision of the Faculty and the dedication of its staff and students who contributed to bringing it into existence. Due to its heritage, this Journal seeks to pay homage to its historical foundations, jurisprudence and legal theory, while balancing expansion into new frontiers of theoretical analysis in contemporary legal discourse.


This paper investigates the use of Petri nets for modeling coordinated cyber-physical attacks on the smart grid. Petri nets offer more flexibility and expressiveness than traditional attack trees to represent the actions of simultaneous attackers. However, Petri net models for attacks on very large critical infrastructures such as the smart grid require a great amount of manual effort and detailed expertise in cyber-physical threats. To overcome these obstacles, we propose a novel hierarchical method to construct large Petri nets from a number of smaller Petri nets that can be created separately by different domain experts. The construction method is facilitated by a model description language that enables identical places in different Petri nets to be matched. The new modeling approach is described for an example attack on smart meters, and its efficacy is demonstrated by a proof-of-concept Python program.


Critique in evangelical Christian contexts has usually been seen as a practice in service of finding the universal. However, I examine a number of contexts in which Christian critique seems to produce serial difference. I suggest that this seriality may itself be seen as a basis on which possibility and alternatives can be found, rather than just as serial failures to reach the universal. I briefly compare different events of serial transformations, in the United States as well as in Papua New Guinea, the site of my ethnographic research on denominational difference.


Background and Objective: BCG vaccination is used in many countries with a high prevalence of TB to prevent childhood tuberculosis meningitis and miliary disease. Local and systemic sideeffects are associated with BCG vaccine. The most critical reaction is disseminated BCG infection which occurs in mostly immunodeficient patients. Materials and Methods: We performed 4 autopsies during 2001-2003 which were suspected for BCGosis clinically and histologically by presence of granulomatous foci in several organs with acid fast bacilli. The mycobacteria were identified by PCR. Their DNA was extracted from the tissue blocks, identified with primers which were designed to detect the RD1 deletion. Results: We found BCG genome by PCR in 3 out of 4 patients. These patients had acid fast bacilli in special staining. Conclusion: Since BCGosis is a fatal and uncommon disease, occurring after vaccination with numerous complications, its diagnosis is of paramount importance and should be considered in the appropriate clinical setting.


©2010 Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association. Reproduction without prior authorization is prohibited. 1 NOTICE OF PURPOSE: TEC Assessments are scientific opinions, provided solely for informational purposes. TEC Assessments should not be construed to suggest that the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, Kaiser Permanente Medical Care Program or the TEC Program recommends, advocates, requires, encourages, or discourages any particular treatment, procedure, or service; any particular course of treatment, procedure, or service; or the payment or non-payment of the technology or technologies evaluated. Executive Summary


The influence of the clearance in the joint must be considered in the modeling and dynamic analysis for the mutibody mechanical systems. The model of the planar revolute clearance joint is built on the base of the clearance vector approach and the continuous contact approach. Furthermore, the friction is included through the modified Coulombs friction law and the lubrication is introduced into the model, with the Reynolds equation employed to evaluate the hydrodynamic forces. A slider-crank drive system of a screen printing machine with a clearance joint is researched as the example, whose dynamic characteristics are simulated by the software ADAMS. It is shown that the clearance has affected the dynamics response of the system and the lubrication is effective to deaden the impact.


The phase behaviour of long hard rods is independent of their length to breadth ratio in the limit that this ratio is very large. We form a binary mixture of rods with different length to breadth ratios but the same second virial coefficient. As the second virial coefficient is the same for both components, their phase behaviour in the pure state is identical. However, the difference in their shapes—one is longer and thinner than the other—results in an increased interaction between a pair of rods of different components. As the difference in shape of the two components is increased, first isotropic–isotropic coexistence is observed (with a critical point), then in addition nematic–nematic coexistence. At first there is a nematic–nematic critical point but this point reaches the isotropic–nematic transition, creating a four phase region. Gibbs' phase rule, as usually stated, permits a maximum of three phases to coexist simultaneously in a binary athermal mixture. Here, the symmetry between the two compone...


While real-time applications used to be executed on highly specialized hardware and individually developed operation systems, nowadays more often regular off-the-shelf hardware is used, with a variation of the Linux kernel running on top.
Within the scope of this thesis, test methods have been developed and implemented as a real-time application to measure several performance properties of the Linux kernel with regards to its real-time capability.
These tests have been run against three different versions of the Linux kernel. Afterwards, the results of the test series were compared to each other.


For decades, compilers have relied on dependence analysis to determine the legality of their transformations. While this conservative approach has enabled many robust optimizations, when it comes to parallelization there are many opportunities that can only be exploited by changing or re-ordering the dependences in the program.
 This paper presents Alter: a system for identifying and enforcing parallelism that violates certain dependences while preserving overall program functionality. Based on programmer annotations, Alter exploits new parallelism in loops by reordering iterations or allowing stale reads. Alter can also infer which annotations are likely to benefit the program by using a test-driven framework.
 Our evaluation of Alter demonstrates that it uncovers parallelism that is beyond the reach of existing static and dynamic tools. Across a selection of 12 performance-intensive loops, 9 of which have loop-carried dependences, Alter obtains an average speedup of 2.0x on 4 cores.


It has been observed that 'the literary influences on Beckett have been far more important than has been acknowledged, and more important indeed, than the philosophical influences' (Smith 2002: 3). The truth of this statement is evidenced by the description that scholars have given of Samuel Beckett's relationship to seventeenth century French classicism. To date, critical interest has been limited for the most part to the figure of the philosopher Rene Descartes on the (fragile) grounds that Beckett was exclusively concerned with the Cartesian imperative of clarity and order, the fundamental dualism between body and mind, and Nominalism.
Together with the assumption that Beckett's vision was essentially Cartesian, his literary filiation with Pascal was suggested by critics, but only in terms of Beckett's formal approach to the theatre. In his short article on En attendant Godot in 1953, the playwright Jean Anouilh was among the first reviewers to suggest that Beckett's drama synthesizes the encounter between 'classicism' and a 'modern' form of art. It is well known that Beckett retained a lifelong admiration for Pascal – indeed, Pascal was one of his 'old chestnuts' (Knowlson 1997: 653). Little attention has been paid, however, to the originality of Pascal's thought, the specific nature of his prose, and the impact these might have had upon Beckett's mature work, especially the trilogy and the subsequent short prose. Yet, in the literary and philosophical context of post-war France, Beckett's filiation with Pascal, their corresponding preoccupations, were evident to his contemporaries, who identified Pascal as an underlying presence in his works.


PARIS--
 According to the United Nations9 latest statistics, released last week, an estimated 5.8 million people worldwide were newly infected with HIV in 1998, bringing the total number of HIV-infected people to 33.4 million. Nearly 70% of the new infections occurred in sub-Saharan Africa, which continues to be the hardest hit region of the globe. Yet AIDS activists and physicians continue to question whether political leaders are treating the epidemic with the urgency it deserves, most notably in South Africa, where health officials have decided not to provide the antiviral drug AZT to HIV-infected pregnant women--despite its proven effectiveness in preventing transmission of the virus to their offspring--because, they argue, it is too expensive.


Thalassemia disease in children, make the family and especially parents faced with many challenges. Better and more effective coping behaviors in father and mother, are followed by increased quality level of the sick child's life and the other family members. Therefore, the present study is conducted aims to evaluate the implementation effect of nursing intervention on coping behaviors of the families with children with Thalassemia major in Thalassemia Center of Doctor Mohammad Kermanshahi Hospital in Kermanshah at 2015. The research has been semiexperimental and the required information was collected through a 45-articles questionnaire of Maccubin called CHIP. The sample consisted of 38 families with children with Thalassemia major who admitted to the hospital of Doctor Mohammad Kermanshahi in Kermanshah that were selected by convenience sampling method in 2015. First, the coping behaviors of these families were determined and then divided into two groups of 19 individuals randomly that nursing intervention was implemented for 6 weeks in four sessions for each member of intervention group individually. Pre-intervention results indicated that the obtained scores in the first and third scales in each two groups is less than normal. Total post-test scores of coping behaviors in the control group have increased near to 1.05 units compared to the pre-test scores. But post-test scores of the families in the test group have increased near to 10.21 units compared to pre-test scores average. To compare the difference of pre-test and post-test scores between both control and test groups, independent t-test was used and based on the results of this test, a significant difference between two groups was observed (P<0.05, df=36, t=-5.928). So, the increase in the scores from pre-test to post-test in the test group was significantly higher. Thus, the implementation of intervention causes a significant increase in coping behaviors of families in the test group compared to the control group. According to the difference between the score average before and after implementation of nursing interventions in the test group compared to the control group, it can be said that implementation of nursing interventions is effective on the coping behaviors of families with children suffering from Thalassemia as well as these families need to strengthen their coping behaviors in the areas of first (maintaining social support) and third (improving social relationships) scales. And this issue needs the plan to implement nursing interventions for these families.


Researchers often report estimates and standard errors for the object of interest (such as a treatment effect) based on a single specification of a statistical model. We propose a systematic approach to assessing sensitivity to specification. We construct estimates of the object of interest for each of a large set of models. Our proposed robustness measure is the standard deviation of the point estimates over the set of models. Each member of the set is generated by splitting the sample into two subsamples based on covariate values, constructing separate parameter estimates for each subsample, and then combining the results.


The development of technology has increased the production of cars from year to year. To promote those cars, indeed, the producer needs advertisements in order to inform, attract, and persuades the potential consumers to buy the product. Most of the car advertisements apply visual and verbal imagery that evokes one to find the intended meaning. The car advertisement consists of highly selective word or diction that need special attention to analyze the intended meaning of car advertisements. Thus, the writer is interested in investigating the intended meaning of car advertisements and how the readers could capture the intended meaning in the advertisements. Moreover, the writer also wants to find out whether the communication of advertisements is successful in transmitting the message to the reader or not. In order to catch the intended meaning, one could refer to stylistic and diction approach. Particularly, the diction approach is used to serve this purpose and the tools such as denotation, connotation and imagery and also the theory of advertising communication. The theory of Semantics, Pragmatics, and Dictionary are included in this research. For the related theories, this study uses the review theories of William Leiss and Joseph Dominick (1996), for the principle advertising communication. Qualitative study is used in this study since it describes the linguistic phenomena in the car advertisements as it investigates the intended meaning of car advertisements. In other words, it reconstructs the making process of car advertisements. Moreover, it also applies small questionnaires in this study in order to find whether the communication between the advertiser and consumers is successful or not. As the conclusion, it is shown in the analysis, that whenever people use stylistics and diction approach such as denotation, connotation and imagery, one would find the intended meaning of advertisements. Based on the denotation, connotation and imagery, people can reconstruct the message of the advertisements. Moreover, by putting the health hazards warning in car advertisements, it can alert the public about the existence of pollution in our life. This kind of health hazard information is effective because the individual could make their own choice over the widest possible opportunities. In other words, when people realize the negative side of car pollution, then, they could minimize the use of car in an effective way, for example they could use bus or train.


Nose ornaments from the tomb of the `Lady of Cao', a mummified woman representative of the Moche culture and dated to the third-or-fourth century AD, were analyzed by X-ray digital radiography. These spectacular gold and silver jewels are some of the most sophisticated metalworking ever produced in ancient America. The Mochecivilization flourished along the north coast of present-day Peru, between the Andes and the Pacific Ocean, approximately between 100 and 600 AD. The Moche were very sophisticated artisans and metal smiths, being considered the finest producers of jewels and artifacts of the region. A portable X-ray digital radiography (XDR) system consisting of a flat panel detector with high resolution image and a mini X-ray tube was used for the structural analysis of the Moche jewels aiming at inferring different joining methods of the silver-gold sheets. The radiographic analysis showed some differences in the joint of the silver-and-gold sheets. Presence of filler material and adhesive for joining the silver-and-gold sheets was visible as well as silver-gold junctions without filler material (or with a material invisible in radiography). Furthermore, the technique demonstrated the advantage of using a portable XDR micro system when the sample cannot be brought to the laboratory.


Evaluation of aquifer yields with the conventional time- drawdown method is based on the assumption of Theisian or infinite radial flow (IRF) of ground water to a well. However, long-term aquifer yields are controlled by heterogeneities and boundary conditions, which lead to departures from the assumptions underlying the IRF. Accurate prediction of long-term aquifer yields therefore requires evaluation of aquifer heterogeneities. This study involves estimation of Shiraz aquifer parameters from aquifer tests in Fars province, Iran. Aquifer-test responses indicate internal heterogeneity at a scale below the resolution attainable with the available well control. Reliable estimates of aquifer parameters are obtained by applying a derivative technique to the analysis of time drawdown data. Derivative analysis allows us to identify test segments for which the assumption of IRF is valid. Conventional time-drawdown analyses and derivative curves are then integrated with geological information to identify the nature of heterogeneities and assess their impact on long-term aquifer response to pumping. Finally a conceptual model is proposed for the aquifer.


Since the end of the 20th century, particularly after the Cold War ended, national borderlines have been redrawn many times in the areas of the Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and a wide range of Asia, and people started crossing national borderlines to immigrate to other countries. As a result, the definition of a modern nation with one ethnicity, one language, and one culture collapsed. Under the policy of multiculturalism, Australia accepts immigrants from all over the world, and Australian literature at present is characterized as being ethnically, culturally, and linguistically hybrid. In this paper I look at Australian writers such as Brian Castro and Nam Le and compare them with other writers who are considered post-colonial writers, such as Salman Rushdie, V.S. Naipaul and Kazuo Ishiguro. I focus on how these writers attempt to present their identities along with their subjectivities. I also compare them with a Japanese writer, Haruki Murakami, whose literary works are widely read throughout the world, crossing cultural, ethnic, and language barriers, even though he writes in Japanese and has a mono-cultural background. I investigate the reason why Murakami's works are accepted by many contemporary readers worldwide. I finally explore the meaning of national identity and subjectivity in the globalizing world, and clarify the transformation of modern literature.


Public Administration aims at producing value for citizens; the use of ICTs to improve government and governance, as implied by e-Government, can be considered as a means to increase the public value produced by Public Administration. As a consequence, the policies for e-Government can be evaluated according to their ability to increase the Public Administration capacity of producing public value, both for citizens as users and citizens as operators of Public Administration. In the first case, the policies for e-Government can be evaluated with respect to the quality of the services delivered to citizens; in the latter case they can be evaluated with respect to their ability to improve the system of Public Administration. In this paper, we describe a public value evaluation of two different systems of support to e-Government projects implemented in Lombardy Region (Italy). Both systems support Small Local Government Organizations that set up aggregations in order to implement innovation projects. The two systems we will consider concern the funding for eGovernment projects according to the Italian National Action Plan for e-Government and the Regional Government funding for the implementation of Inter-organizational Information Systems for Local Government (SISCoTEL). Considering the stability in time, the attractivity and the level of trust within the funded aggregations as indicators of public value (considered from an internal point of view), in the paper we will use data concerning the Local Government in Lombardy to compare the two supporting models according to their capacity to set up aggregations that are stable, attractive and that could strengthen the level of trust among the partners. In section 1 we will describe some of the actions currently in use in Italy to support the spread of E-Government at a local level. In section 2 we will describe the models for supporting innovation implemented in the National Action Plan for eGovernment and in the Regional Plan for the activation of SISCoTELs. In section 3 we will compare the main characteristics of the two supporting models. Finally, in section 4 we will evaluate the two models, from a public value point of view, with respect to their capacity to strengthen the cooperation among Local Government organizations.


We study the supersymmetric quantum mechanics of monopoles in bosonic, N = 2 and N = 4 supersymmetric Yang-Mills-Higgs theory, with particular emphasis on monopoles of charge–(1, 1) in a theory with gauge group SU(3) spontaneously broken to U(1)× U(1). In the moduli space approximation, the quantum states of bosonic monopoles can be described by functions on the moduli space. For N = 2 supersymmetric monopoles, quantum states can be interpreted as either spinors or anti-holomorphic forms on the moduli space. The quantum states of the N = 4 supersymmetric monopole correspond to general differential forms on the moduli space. In each case, we review the moduli space approximation and derive general expressions for the supercharges as differential operators. In the geometrical language of forms on the moduli space, the Hamiltonian is proportional to the Laplacian acting on forms. We propose a general expression for the total angular momentum operator and verify its commutation relations with the supercharges. We use the known metric structure of the moduli space of charge–(1, 1) monopoles to show that there are no quantum bound states of such monopoles in the moduli space approximation. We exhibit scattering states and compute the corresponding differential cross sections. Using the general expressions for the supercharges we construct the short supermultiplet of supersymmetric monopoles, and study its decomposition under the proposed angular momentum operator.


Spirituality has received increasing attention as an area to be considered in counseling and college student development, but little has been written about specific interventions to address college students' spiritual needs. The authors present the format, content, and outcomes of an experiential group that was established to facilitate women's spiritual exploration and development. ********** Currently, significant national attention is being paid to the role of spirituality in people's mental health and well-being (Bullis, 1996; Favier, Engersoll, O'Brien, & McNally, 2001; Fukuyama & Sevig, 1999, 2002; Kelly, 1995; W. R. Miller, 1999; Richards & Bergin, 1997, 2000; Sperry & Shafranske, 2005). Coinciding with this trend, there has been a growing interest in addressing college students' spiritual needs and development (Love, 2001; V. W. Miller & Ryan, 2001; Rogers & Dantley, 2001). This has included an increased awareness and dialogue within and among staff at college counseling centers about the ways to address spiritual matters when treating student mental health needs. For example, a survey of college counselors found that more than 70% were open to the discussion and use of the topics of religion and spirituality in counseling (Weinstein, Parker, & Archer, 2002). Also students in counseling programs have supported the need for training in this area (Souza, 2002). College students have a clear need for counselors who are open to addressing their spiritual concerns. The literature in this area suggests that religious and spiritual concerns are a focus for many college students and may often be related to psychological distress. A recent study reported that of 5,472 undergraduates and graduate students, 26% reported considerable distress related to religious or spiritual matters. These spiritual concerns were also significantly associated with distress about loss of a relationship, sexual assault, confusion about values, homesickness, and suicidal ideation, all typical issues addressed by counseling center staff (Johnson & Hayes, 2003). Schafer (1997) explored the relationship between religiosity, spirituality, and distress among college undergraduates. He Sound that students who placed a high importance on religion had higher personal distress than did those who placed less importance on religion. Students who believed more or less strongly in God had higher distress than did those who were ambivalent or unsure about the existence of God. And finally, students who had a sense of meaning had lower distress than did students who lacked a sense of meaning. Despite the need for counseling services and programs to address spiritual concerns (Weinstein et al., 2002), there is little information about clinical interventions in use that have a spiritual focus. The only information we found on a specific intervention was a brief article from 1990 describing a group on spirituality conducted at a college counseling center (Genia, 1990). This interreligious/spiritual exploration group offered at the University of Pennsylvania was an unstructured, 10-session group designed to provide a supportive and spiritually diverse forum for students to address their personal concerns in the areas of religion and spirituality. The author of the study did not specify whether the group intervention included undergraduates, graduate students, or both of these student populations (Genia, 1990). In the current article, we describe the process, format, and content of an experiential group that was developed and implemented for graduate women interested in exploring spiritual identity issues at a college counseling center, and we examine the themes and outcomes that resulted from this group's sessions. The facilitators chose to limit the group to graduate students because of their potential developmental differences from undergraduates in their spiritual identity (Parks, 2000). Also, we decided to focus the group on women because of the literature suggesting that the paths and challenges posed in women's spiritual development differ from those of men (Anderson & Hopkins, 1991; Christ, 1995; Gilligan, 1993). …


The communication barrier of deaf and dumb community with the society still remains a matter of concern due to lack of perfect sign language translators. Usage of mobile phones for communication remains a dream for deaf and dumb community. We propose an android application that converts sign language to natural language and enable deaf and dumb community to talk over mobile phones. Developing Sign Recognition methods for mobile applications has challenges like need for light weight method with less CPU and memory utilization. The application captures image using device camera process it and determines the corresponding gesture. An initial phase of comparison using histogram matching is done to identify those gestures that are close to test sample and further only those samples are subjected to Oriented Fast and Rotated BRIEF(Binary Robust Independent Element Features) based comparison hence reducing the CPU time. The user of the application can also add new gestures into the dataset. The application allows easy communication of deaf and dumb with society. Though there are many computer based applications for sign language recognition, development in android platform is adequately less.


This contribution attempts to demonstrate how sentencing guidelines operate in practice, with the assistance of a basic factual scenario plus two slight variations. The factual scenario involves a simple instance of the sexual offence commonly known as rape. The likely sentences for the related offences in four different jurisdictions are then considered and discussed. These jurisdictions are those of Minnesota and the US federal system (both of which use sentencing guideline manuals to establish a presumptive sentence), the law of England and Wales (where guidelines are issued in a narrative format through guideline judgments, and the new Sentencing Guidelines Council in conjunction with the Sentencing Advisory Panel), and South African law (where the sentence discretion is very wide, but currently limited by minimum sentences legislation). In the process it is shown how much more uncertain the eventual sentence is under the South African system with its wide discretion.


In the last two decades, there have been significant developments in membrane filtration processes for the dairy and beverage industries. The filtration systems can be classified into four main groups: reverse osmosis, nanofiltration, ultrafiltration and microfiltration. The primary objective of this book is to assess critically the pool of scientific knowledge available to the dairy and beverages industry, as a tool for process and product innovation, quality improvement and safety.

The book is divided into three main parts. Part I reviews the principals, developments and designs of membrane processes that are mainly used in commercial dairy and beverage applications. Part II provides information on the applications of membrane processes in the manufacture of dairy products, from on-farm concentration of milk as a pre-treatment for cheesemaking to fractionation of milk and whey to provide ingredients for food and other applications. Part III considers membrane applications during the manufacture of fruit juices, beer and cider, wine and vinegar. These include concentration, deacidification and dealcoholisation processes.

Membrane Processing: Dairy and Beverages Applications is an ideal new reference for dairy and beverage processors involved in the application of membranes, both to aid the creation of novel products, and to improve their process economics. Students and lecturers of food and dairy science and technology will value its in-depth discussion of membrane processes, whilst readers based in the dairy industry will prize it as the most up-to-date and advanced volume yet published on this crucially important topic.


The traffic assignment problem aims to calculate an equilibrium route flow vector, generally by seeking a zero of an appropriate objective function. If a continuous dynamical system follows a descent direction for this objective function at each nonequilibrium route flow vector, the system converges to equilibrium. It is shown that when this dynamical system is discretized with a fixed step length, the system eventually approaches close to equilibrium provided that the objective function is continuously differentiable and that the rate of descent is bounded below. The method of successive averages is widely used in traffic assignment; it has a decreasing step size at each iteration. With the same conditions as above, it is shown that the resulting dynamical system converges to equilibrium. In the steady-state model, the necessary conditions are shown to be satisfied, provided that the route cost vector is a continuously differentiable monotone function of the route flow vector. However, continuous differentiability of the cost function is shown not to hold in the dynamic queueing model.


Welfare persistence is estimated in and compared between Swedish-born and foreign-born households. This is done within the framework of a time-stationary dynamic discrete choice model controlling for the initial condition and unobserved heterogeneity. Three different types of persistence are controlled for in terms of observed and unobserved heterogeneity, serial correlation, and structural state dependence, the focus being on the latter measure. In a second step we analyze the long-run effects of receiving social assistance on future household earnings and disposable income. The results show that state dependence in Swedish welfare participation is strong in both Swedish-born and foreign-born. However, the size of the effect is three times as large for the latter group. When the effect is distributed over time, it disappears after three years for both groups. The effect of structural state dependence is decomposed into a number of observed explanatory factors. Surprisingly small effects are found from typical foreign-born factors such as time in the country and country of origin, both important determinants for welfare participation in general. When investigating the effect of social assistance participation on future earnings, we find a strong and persistent effect over the whole observation window, while no such effect could be found for disposable income. This indicates that the economic incentives to leave the dependency are very weak. The picture is similar for both Swedish-born and foreign-born, even though the negative earnings effect is somewhat larger for the latter.


We address the problem of extracting semantics of tags -- short, unstructured text-labels assigned to resources on the Web -- based on each tag's metadata patterns. In particular, we describe an approach for extracting place and event semantics for tags that are assigned to photos on Flickr, a popular photo sharing website supporting time and location (latitude/longitude) metadata. The approach can be generalized to other domains where text terms can be extracted and associated with metadata patterns, such as geo-annotated web pages.


Research used is descriptive case study which seeking basic answer about the cause of a phenomena and test the result from available data.
The purpose of this research is to find the financial performance of Koperasi Pegawai Telkom CAMAR Banyuwangi from period 2003 until 2006. The use of this research is to give alternative for strategic decision handling based on accurate qualitative information for long term purpose and further action to deal with problem faced and to find better action.
Based on the financial performance analysis by using time series method from 2003 to 2004, the ratio of liquidity shows bad result, and the equity ratio also shows the same result. Ratio analysis of operational cost shows that the financial performance are not too good, specially if based on profitability ratio which shows that the Koperasi performance is shown good and the ROE condition is declining. The financial performance of 2004 to 2005 shows good performance based on liquidity and the equity ratio shows bad performance at RE1 and RE2. From the operational cost analysis shows good financial performance, profitability ratio also shows good performance as well. The result from 2005 until 2006 shows that the liquidity ratio shows good performance, the equity ratio shows bad performance. Operational cost analysis shows good result, but based on profitability ratio the result is not good specially at ROE and ROTA. The cross sectional analysis for financial ratio done based on the decision of Head of KUKM Department No. 129/KEP/Menteri KUKM/IX/2002, and can be concluded that the financial performance at KOPEGTEL CAMAR Banyuwangi 20003 falls into good category and the 2004 until 2006 falls into average category.
Several suggestion from this research is the KOPEGTEL CAMAR Banyuwangi can be more effective in the usage of equity for activity cost. This need to be done because from the period of research we found that the indicator of equity usage is declining. The member of koperasi must be ask to be more active in increasing the development of koperasi, by becoming astive member so that the koperasi can prosper as settled.


This paper compares technological development paths that determine future mitigation scenarios aimed at stabilizing atmospheric CO2 concentrations. Future social and economic development paths have already been compared in relation to their impact on climate mitigation by Morita, Nakicenovic and Robinson (2000). This paper is an expansion of that earlier comparison. Forty stabilization scenarios are reviewed, and all use as their baseline the new scenarios by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published in the Special Report on Emission Scenarios (Nakicenovic et al, 2000).
Several common tendencies and characteristics can be observed across the scenarios. First, the different technological development paths described in the baseline IPCC scenarios require that: CO2 emissions be reduced by different levels; different schedules for the reductions be adopted; and, different technology/policy measures be chosen to stabilize atmospheric CO2 concentrations - even to achieve the same stabilization level. Second, no one single measure is sufficient for the development, adoption and diffusion of mitigation options to achieve stabilization within the accepted time-frame. Third, the level of technology/policy measures needed to achieve stabilization toward the end of the 21st century or beginning of the 22nd century will be greatly affected by the choice of technological development paths over next decades. The paper also identifies some characteristics in technological measures across the different technological development paths to achieve the stabilization targets.


In recent years, Acinetobacter strains have emerged as one of the most important nosocomial pathogens, especially in patients admitted to an intensive care unit (ICU). The progressively increasing antibiotic resistance against A. baumannii is now a major problem in our country as it is throughout the world. This resistance against A.baumannii has increased and led clinicians to find alternative antibiotics or antibiotic combinations. In the present study, it is aimed to evaluate the interaction between colistinrifampicin, colistin-imipenem, tigecycline-rifampicin and tigecycline-imipenem antibiotic combinations using microdilution checkerboard and E-test methods against ten multidrug resistant A. baumannii strains. Since A. baumannii strains have become frequently observed as an infection factor and since antimicrobial resistance rates have increased, there should be newly developed drugs for better treatments. In this study, 50 A. baumannii strains were isolated from various clinical specimens between June 2005 and September 2009 in Celal Bayar University, Faculty of Medicine, Department of Microbiology and Clinical Microbiology, and in Bacteriology Laboratory. Isolation and identification procedures were performed by using conventional biochemical tests as well as by BBL Crystal GN; N/F ID (Becton Dickinson, USA) or Phoenix 100 BD systems (Becton Dickinson, USA). The antibiotic susceptibilities of strains were investigated by using the disk diffusion method according to the recommendations of the Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute. According to our in vitro study results, the checkerboard method, which was used to examine the synergy between colistin-rifampicin and colistin-imipenem, showed 80% synergistic activity. Tigecycline-imipenem combination had lowest synergetic (10%) efficiency and highest antagonistic effect (30%). The consistency between checkerboard and E-test methods was 52,5% (range 10-70%). Further comparison studies of the E-test synergy technique with the checkerboard and time-kill methods are warranted.


Despite extensive efforts, the etiology of about 40 to 60% of community-acquired pneumonia remains unclear; a number of these cases are attributed to Legionella. The incidence in this group may be as high as 38%. Cultivation is still supposed to be the gold standard, but there is doubt about the sensitivity in clinical practice. Researchers established a new method for the detection of Legionella by using PCR to amplify genomic ribosomal DNA and a reverse dot blot for the detection of L. pneumophila and non-pneumophila species. The authors used a multiplex-PCR and the coamplification of human DNA (pyruvate dehydrogenase gene) as an internal control to avoid false-positive results. To avoid false-positive results, incubation with uracil-N-glycosylase was used, and for avoidance of false-negative results the coamplification of the pyruvate dehydrogenase gene was used, creating an amplificate of 185 bp in length in each PCR. The authors used the established method to investigate clinical specimens of 93 patients taken out of a prospective randomized study about the epidemiology of community-acquired pneumonia in Berlin, Germany, from 1991 to 1992. They were able to demonstrate the ability to detect Legionella using PCR in conjunction with reverse dot blotting. This method allows the enhanced detection of non-pneumophila species in addition to established methods. Interpretation of the results for the incidence of non-pneumophila infections remains controversial because of a lack of facts about pathogenity of this group and comparable results in other studies.


The act and experience of programming is, at its heart, a fundamentally human activity that results in the production of artifacts. When considering programming, therefore, it would be a glaring omission to not involve people who specialize in studying artifacts and the human activity that yields them: archaeologists. Here we consider this with respect to computer games, the focus of archaeology's nascent subarea of archaeogaming.
One type of archaeogaming research is digital excavation, a technical examination of the code and techniques used in old games' implementation. We apply that in a case study of Entombed, an Atari 2600 game released in 1982 by US Games. The player in this game is, appropriately, an archaeologist who must make their way through a zombie-infested maze. Maze generation is a fruitful area for comparative retrogame archaeology, because a number of early games on different platforms featured mazes, and their variety of approaches can be compared. The maze in Entombed is particularly interesting: it is shaped in part by the extensive real-time constraints of the Atari 2600 platform, and also had to be generated efficiently and use next to no memory. We reverse engineered key areas of the game's code to uncover its unusual maze-generation algorithm, which we have also built a reconstruction of, and analyzed the mysterious table that drives it. In addition, we discovered what appears to be a 35-year-old bug in the code, as well as direct evidence of code-reuse practices amongst game developers.
What further makes this game's development interesting is that, in an era where video games were typically solo projects, a total of five people were involved in various ways with Entombed. We piece together some of the backstory of the game's development and intoxicant-fueled design using interviews to complement our technical work.
Finally, we contextualize this example in archaeology and lay the groundwork for a broader interdisciplinary discussion about programming, one that includes both computer scientists and archaeologists.


Abstract. We propose a new framework of systematic fracture mapping and major calving event prediction for the large ice shelves in Antarctica using multisource satellite data, including optical imagery, SAR imagery, altimetric data, and stereo mapping imagery. The new framework is implemented and applied for a comprehensive study of the fracturing of Ronne-Filchner Ice Shelf (RFIS), the second largest ice shelf in Antarctica, using a long time dataset dating back to 1957. New remote sensing data that have been made available in the past decade, including Landsat 8, WV-2, ZY-3 and others, greatly enhance our abilities to detect new fractures and monitor large rifts in three dimensions. Two large rifts, Rifts 1 and 2, were newly detected and are comparable to the Grand Chasm that caused a major calving event in the region in 1986. Three-dimensional rift models generated from quasi real-time stereo ZY-3 images revealed important topographic information about the large rifts that can be used to improve the reliability of ice shelf modeling and support enhanced analyses of ice shelf stability. Based on the results of the 2D and 3D fracture mapping, the spatial and temporal analyses of the overall fracture changes and large rift evolutions, i.e., the level of fracturing in RFIS, were slightly increased, particularly at the front of the ice sheet. The overall fracture observations do not seem to suggest immediate significant impacts on the stability of the shelf. However, the most active regional fracturing activities occurred at the front of Filchner Ice Shelf (FIS). A potential upcoming major calving event of FIS is estimated to occur in 2051. The stability of the ice shelf, particularly with regard to the developments of Rifts 1 and 2, should be closely monitored.


A common perception is that there are two competing visions for the future evolution of the Web: the Semantic Web and Web 2.0. A closer look, though, reveals that the core technologies and concerns of these two approaches are complementary and that each field can and must draw from the other's strengths. We believe that future web applications will retain the Web 2.0 focus on community and usability, while drawing on Semantic Web infrastructure to facilitate mashup-like information sharing. However, there are several open issues that must be addressed before such applications can become commonplace. In this paper, we outline a semantic weblogs scenario that illustrates the potential for combining Web 2.0 and Semantic Web technologies, while highlighting the unresolved issues that impede its realization. Nevertheless, we believe that the scenario can be realized in the short-term. We point to recent progress made in resolving each of the issues as well as future research directions for each of the communities.


In April 2010, the world watched in alarm as BP's Macondo well suffered a fatal explosion and a catastrophic leak. Over the next three months, amid tense scenes of corporate and political finger-pointing, millions of barrels of crude oil dispersed across the Gulf of Mexico in what became one of the worst oil spills in history. But there is more to BP's story than this. Tom Bergin, an oil broker turned Reuters reporter, watched the 'two-pipeline company' of the early 1980s grow into a dynamic oil giant and PR machine by the turn of the twenty-first century. His unique access to key figures before, during and after the spill - including former CEO Tony Hayward - has enabled him to piece together this compelling account of a corporation in crisis, and to examine how crucial decisions made during BP's remarkable turnaround paved the way for its darkest hour.


Article History: Received 07.07.2011 Received in revised form 08.08.2011 Accepted 15.08.2011 Available online 02.04.2012 The restructured primary education programs have different reflections on Turkish educational system and these reflections continue to be. A reflection of the renewed primary education programs has been noticed in exam for the transition to secondary school. A new exam under the name of Placement Test (SBS) has been applied since 2008. Compared with other tests, significant changes have been made within the scope of the SBS. One of these changes is to give place to the questions including images in SBS Turkish tests. When literature is reviewed, it is seen that there has been no research which analyzes the questions including images in SBS Turkish tests. The purpose of this study is to analyze the rate, diversity and content of the questions including images in SBS Turkish tests according to 6th, 7th and 8th class levels. With this purpose, SBS test booklets were analyzed using document review method which is one of the qualitative research approaches. The rate, diversity and content of the questions including images in SBS Turkish tests in the class level were determined by applying Miles and Huberman's interactive model, coding and note-taking procedures and they were presented in findings of the research. According to the findings, it has been concluded that there is no standard in the rate by years and it was concentrated on them under specific headings in the range of variety and content. Provided that the results reached and recommendations made are taken into consideration, it is recommended that the images should be used in the new exam for transition to secondary school. © 2012 IOJES. All rights reserved


In the southern Gulf of California, the generation of new oceanic crust has resulted in linear magnetic anomalies and seafloor bathymetry that are characteristic of active seafloor-spreading systems. In the northern Gulf of California and the onshore (southeastern California, USA) Salton Trough region, a thick sedimentary package overlies the crystalline crust, masking its nature, and linear magnetic anomalies are absent. We use potential-field data and a geotherm analysis to constrain the composition of the crust (oceanic or continental) and develop a conceptual model for rifting. Gravity anomalies in the northern Gulf of California and Salton Trough are best fit with crustal densities that correspond to continental crust, and the fit is not as good if densities representative of mafic rocks, i.e., oceanic crust or mafic underplating, are assumed. Because extensive mafic underplated bodies would produce gravity anomalies that are not in agreement with observed gravity data, we propose, following earlier work, that the anomalies might be due to serpentinized peridotite bodies such as found at magma-poor rifted margins. The density and seismic velocities of such serpentinized peridotite bodies are in agreement with observed gravity and seismic velocities. Our conceptual model for the Salton Trough and northern Gulf of California shows that net crustal thinning here is limited because new crust is formed rapidly from sediment deposition. As a result, continental breakup may be delayed.


Negative carbon and calcium isotope excursions, as well as climate shifts, took place during the most severe mass extinction event in Earth's history, the end-Permian (∼252 Ma). Investigating the connection between carbon and calcium cycles during transient carbon cycle perturbation events, such as the end-Permian, may help resolve the intricacies between the coupled calcium-carbon cycles, as well as provide a tool for constraining the causes of mass extinction. Here we identify the deficiencies of a simplified calcium model employed in several previous studies, and we demonstrate the importance of a fully coupled carbon cycle model when investigating the dynamics of carbon and calcium cycling. Simulations with a modified version of the Long-term Ocean-atmosphere-Sediment CArbon cycle Reservoir model, which includes a fully coupled carbon-calcium cycle, indicate that increased weathering rates and ocean acidification (potentially caused by Siberian Trap volcanism) are not capable of producing trends observed in the record, as previously claimed. Our model results suggest that combined effects of carbon input via Siberian Trap volcanism (12,000 Pg C), the cessation of biological carbon export, and variable calcium isotope fractionation (due to a change in the seawater carbonate ion concentration) represents a more plausible scenario. This scenario successfully reconciles δ13C and δ44Ca trends observed in the sediment record, as well as the proposed warming of >6°C.


This thesis presents the work on modelling road accident count in Malaysia through the development panel count model. This research is motivated by several factors. The first is the alarming phenomenon pertaining to the high rates of road accidents which has generated interest among researchers and policy makers to find ways and means to overcome this global issue. Secondly, the effect of adverse weather condition is known to affect road safety and although various intervention measures have been implemented, significant results have yet to be achieved. Hence, a better understanding of such phenomenon is essential to allow necessary measures to be taken to improve road safety. An extensive literature review was made to gain a better understanding on road accidents phenomenon and evolution of statistical model for count data. Through an extensive literature review, the gap was identified in the development of road accident models in Malaysian which overlooked the panel count models. Additionally, there is also the issue of potential bias in the panel count model estimator particularly with the issues of fixed effects estimator. Thus, the first research objective is to develop panel count model for road accidents data in Malaysia. The second objective is to evaluate the effect of panel size and time dimension on the estimator of panel count model using Monte Carlo simulation. This research involved two phases which are statistical modelling and simulation study. In the first phase of the research, the panel data models based on the fixed and random effects Poisson and Negative Binomial models were developed. Several estimation methods such as conditional and unconditional approaches were used to model road accident data for 12 states in Malaysia. The results revealed that precipitation in the form of rainfall, dry spell and number of rainy days has significant effect on road accidents in Malaysia. The risk of road accident occurrence significantly increases during the rainy months with shorter dry spell period of gap between rain and no-rain. On the other hand the risk is lessening with the rainfall in the months of longer spell period. In the second phase, the Monte Carlo simulation method using SAS programming was used to evaluate the effect of the changes of sample (panel) size as well as number of time periods on the alternative conditional fixed-effects Negative Binomial (FENB) and the Projected Score Method (PSM) estimators. For small sample size and when the number of panel wave/time periods is fixed, the results of the estimation of the unconditional FENB (with correction for standard error) are less satisfactory. This is evidence from the large sampling variability, large SE and RMSE generated. Additionally, the unconditional fixed effects perform better than the PSM method at different level of individual size. The main contribution of this study in the field of road accidents is the fundamental knowledge of new evidence-based research finding of road accident occurrence relating to weather condition. As one of the tropical countries, the considerable amount of precipitation in a form of rainfall and dry spell in Malaysia are found to be a significant contributor to road accidents in the country. This study also provides a framework for Monte-Carlo simulation methodology in evaluating the alternative fixed effects panel model estimator. For future research, the advantage of bootstrapping technique for panel count data involving small sample size and time period can be investigated.


Temporal variability (seasonal and inter-annual) in the assembly of phytoplankton communities from the northern Alboran Sea was investigated. For this purpose, the taxonomic composition of the micro- and nano-phytoplankton communities at three fixed stations was determined every three months from 1994 to 2002. A total of 357 different taxa were identified. Most of them (about 54%) were diatom species belonging to 57 genera. Dinoflagellates and coccolitophorids accounted for 118 and 30 taxa respectively. Two time periods could be differentiated with respect to the cell abundance. Thus, the mean abundance from 1994 to 1999 was 338 cell ml -1 and it dropped to about 60 cell ml-1 during the period 2000-2002. Diatoms and un-identified small flagellates dominated the communities during this first period, although a significant increase in the abundance of coccolitophorids occurred after 1997. Pseudo-nitzschia, Leptocylindrus and Chaetoceros were the dominant genera. In contrast, the coccolitophorids Emiliania huxleyi and Gephyrocapsa spp. quantitatively dominated the communities from 2000 to 2002. These shifts in the community assembly were assessed by performing a sample-oriented stepwise discriminant analysis (SDA). The analysis separated the samples into three year-groups, with great inter-annual variability. In contrast, the SDA did not find any seasonal sucessional pattern. In spite of this result, chlorophyll a and cell abundance tended to be higher in the spring period, which has been described for the whole Alboran basin. The nutrient concentrations in the 75 m upper seawater layer had inter-annual fluctuations. Thus, NO 3 - +NO 2 - , PO 4 -3 and Si(OH) 4 concentrations decreased significantly in 1997-1998. Additionally, lower Si(OH) 4 concentrations and Si:P molar ratios were obtained in 2000. These results suggest that the inter-annual shifts in the phytoplankton taxonomic composition were due to alterations in the nutrient regime. In this paper we discuss the possible rationale for these nutrient changes.


This book presents an extensive set of sophisticated tools to solve numerical problems with a verification of the results using the features of the scientific computer language PASCAL-XSC. The overriding concern of this book is reliability - the automatic verification of the result a computer returns for a given problem. This book is the first to offer a general discussion on arithmetic and computational reliability, analytical mathematics and verification techniques, algorithms, and (most importantly) actual implementations in the form of working computer routines. In each chapter, examples, exercises, and numerical results demonstrate the application of the routines presented. It is not assumed that the reader has any prior formal knowledge of numerical verification or any familiarity with interval analysis. Some of the subjects that the book covers in detail are not usually found in standard numerical analysis texts. This book is intended primarily as a reference text, however, it can also be used as a textbook for an advanced course in scientific computation with automatic result verification.


The question of how the digital transformation of the public sphere affects political processes has been of interest to researchers since the spread of the Internet in the early 1990s. However, today there is no clear or unambiguous answer to this question; expert estimates differ radically, from extremely positive to extremely negative. This article attempts to take a comprehensive approach to this issue, conceptualizing the transformations taking place in the public sphere under the influence of Internet communication technologies, taking their political context into account, and identifying the relationship between these changes and possible transformations of political regimes. In order to achieve these goals, several tasks are tackled during this research. The first section examines the issue as to whether the concept of the public sphere can be used in a non-democratic context. It also delineates two main types of the public sphere, the "democratic public sphere" and the "authoritarian public sphere," in order to take into account the features of public discourse in the context of various political regimes. The second section discusses the special aspects of the digital transformation of the public sphere in a democratic context. The third section considers the special aspects of the digital transformation of the public sphere in a non-democratic context. The concluding section summarizes the results of the study, states the existing gaps and difficulties, outlines the ways for their possible extension, and raises questions requiring attention from other researchers.


Phosphorylation by cAMP-dependent protein kinase (PKA) regulates a vast number of cellular functions. An important target for PKA in brain and heart is the class CL-type Ca2+ channel (Cav1.2). PKA phosphorylates serine 1928 in the central, pore-forming α1C subunit of this channel. Regulation of channel activity by PKA requires a proper balance between phosphorylation and dephosphorylation. For fast and specific signaling, PKA is recruited to this channel by an protein kinase A anchor protein (Davare, M. A., Dong, F., Rubin, C. S., and Hell, J. W. (1999) J. Biol. Chem. 274, 30280–30287). A phosphatase may be associated with the channel to effectively balance serine 1928 phosphorylation by channel-bound PKA. Dephosphorylation of this site is mediated by a serine/threonine phosphatase that is inhibited by okadaic acid and microcystin. We show that immunoprecipitation of the channel complex from rat brain results in coprecipitation of PP2A. Stoichiometric analysis indicates that about 80% of the channel complexes contain PP2A. PP2A directly and stably binds to the C-terminal 557 amino acids of α1C. This interaction does not depend on serine 1928 phosphorylation and is not altered by PP2A catalytic site inhibitors. These results indicate that the PP2A-α1C interaction constitutively recruits PP2A to the channel complex rather than being a transient substrate-catalytic site interaction. Functional assays with the immunoisolated class C channel complex showed that channel-associated PP2A effectively reverses serine 1928 phosphorylation by endogenous PKA. Our findings demonstrate that both PKA and PP2A are integral components of the class C L-type Ca2+ channel that determine the phosphorylation level of serine 1928 and thereby channel activity.