Abstract. Mesospheric water vapour concentration effects on the ion composition and electron density in the lower ionosphere under quiet geophysical conditions were examined. Water vapour is an important compound in the mesosphere and the lower thermosphere that affects ion composition due to hydrogen radical production and consequently modifies the electron number density. Recent lower-ionosphere investigations have primarily concentrated on the geomagnetic disturbance periods. Meanwhile, studies on the electron density under quiet conditions are quite rare. The goal of this study is to contribute to a better understanding of the ionospheric parameter responses to water vapour variability in the quiet lower ionosphere. By applying a numerical D region ion chemistry model, we evaluated efficiencies for the channels forming hydrated cluster ions from the NO+ and O2+ primary ions (i.e. NO+.H2O and O2+.H2O, respectively), and the channel forming H+(H2O)n proton hydrates from water clusters at different altitudes using profiles with low and high water vapour concentrations. Profiles for positive ions, effective recombination coefficients and electrons were modelled for three particular cases using electron density measurements obtained during rocket campaigns. It was found that the water vapour concentration variations in the mesosphere affect the position of both the Cl2+ proton hydrate layer upper border, comprising the NO+(H2O)n and O2+(H2O)n hydrated cluster ions, and the Cl1+ hydrate cluster layer lower border, comprising the H+(H2O)n pure proton hydrates, as well as the numerical cluster densities. The water variations caused large changes in the effective recombination coefficient and electron density between altitudes of 75 and 87 km. However, the effective recombination coefficient, αeff, and electron number density did not respond even to large water vapour concentration variations occurring at other altitudes in the mesosphere. We determined the water vapour concentration upper limit at altitudes between 75 and 87 km, beyond which the water vapour concentration ceases to influence the numerical densities of Cl2+ and Cl1+, the effective recombination coefficient and the electron number density in the summer ionosphere. This water vapour concentration limit corresponds to values found in the H2O-1 profile that was observed in the summer mesosphere by the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS). The electron density modelled using the H2O-1 profile agreed well with the electron density measured in the summer ionosphere when the measured profiles did not have sharp gradients. For sharp gradients in electron and positive ion number densities, a water profile that can reproduce the characteristic behaviour of the ionospheric parameters should have an inhomogeneous height distribution of water vapour.


In this paper, we have proposed and simulated a graphene-based refractive index sensor with a cylindrical resonator, by using the finite-difference time-domain method. The sensor sensitivity has been derived to show its sensing performance. The proposed device can be utilized in design and construction of optical nano-scale refractive index sensors.


This book builds an essential bridge between climate change and social policy. Combining ethics and human need theory with political economy and climate science, it offers a long-term, interdisciplinary analysis of the prospects for sustainable development and social justice. Beyond 'green growth' (which assumes an unprecedented rise in the emissions efficiency of production) it envisages two further policy stages vital for rich countries: a progressive 'recomposition' of consumption, and a post-growth ceiling on demand. An essential resource for scholars and policymakers.


Infectious bronchitis is a disease of the upper respiratory tract of chickens caused by a Gammacoronavirus (infectious bronchitis virus, IBV). Severe economic losses are caused by IBV due to a reduction in egg production and/or egg quality in layers in addition to poor feed conversion and increased condemnations in broiler chickens. The extreme variability of this virus is in part due to its RNA genome, which predisposes it to mutations and generates genetic variation. In addition, recombination events add to the variability of this virus. IBV variability was first described in 1956 by Jungherr. Since then, dozens of serotypes and hundreds of genotypes have been reported. Variant IBV strains are those that, can escape from the immunity generated by conventional strains, despite not being fully different from conventional strains affecting a geographic region. At the genomic level, these differences can be equal or greater than 5% of the hypervariable region of the S1 gene. These variant strains are usually restricted to geographic regions and most of the time are transient, reason why diagnostics and epidemiological surveillance are crucial to determine their existence and persistence. The main goal of surveillance is to assist the development of efficient preventative measures in the field. This review aims to critically analyse the literature related to IBV variability and judiciously comment and discuss on how to better prevent this poultry endemic disease.


ABSTRACT Background: Transgender (trans) youth who identify outside the gender binary are a growing subpopulation. In this article, we document differences in access to gender-affirming health care between binary and non-binary identified trans youth and explore ways of meeting the health needs of non-binary youth within primary care settings. Methods: The Canadian Trans Youth Health Survey is a national online survey of trans youth, 14–25 years, conducted in 2013–2014. Among the 839 participants who responded to gender identity items in the survey, 41% identified as non-binary. We compared demographic, health outcome, and health care access responses between non-binary and binary (trans girls/women and trans boys/men) youth. Results: Non-binary and binary youth were similar in most demographics, including age, geographic distribution, and ethnocultural backgrounds, however a larger proportion (82%) of non-binary youth were assigned female at birth. Older non-binary youth (aged 19–25) were significantly more likely to forego needed healthcare than older binary youth; no significant differences were found between younger (14–18) non-binary and binary youth in foregoing healthcare. Overall, non-binary youth (13%) were significantly less likely than binary youth (52%) to access hormone therapy, but they were more likely than binary youth to report experiencing barriers to accessing hormone therapy when needed. Conclusions: Non-binary trans youth in Canada report challenges in accessing needed gender-affirming healthcare. Primary care providers are well-situated to integrate a broad range of gender-affirming care services into practice in order to address the unique needs of non-binary youth. Future research is warranted to explore experiences of non-binary youth related to barriers to care and to explore how services can be designed and delivered to better meet the needs of non-binary youth seeking gender-affirming primary care.


The work of philosophers in the existential tradition of Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty presents a challenge to the proposition that the fundamental relation of a person to the environment consists in the relation of the content of an individual mind to the world of entities as represented by that content. Instead, the existential tradition offers an alternative view of human engagement with the world. According to this alternative view, the most fundamental variety of human action consists in the apparently unthinking, skilled action that makes up much of our everyday activities, and that does not require mental guidance or intervention for its successful accomplishment.1 In essence, the existential critique of mentalism, as it might be called, is an attack on the notion that representational mediation defines and explains the most basic kind of human interaction with the environment. This basic interaction has been characterized as consisting in "absorbed coping"2 or in "nondeliberate action."3 One of the most vigorous of recent exponents of the existential critique is Hubert Dreyfus, from whose work I have taken the expression "absorbed coping" and "nondeliberate action." Dreyfus's rejection of mentalism arises in part because he believes it to be irrelevant to, and thus unable to account for the proper understanding of, the nondeliberate action characterizing absorbed coping. Accordingly, Dreyfus has over the course of his work sketched a phenomenology of nondeliberate action that, while explicitly based on insights found in Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, and others, are addressed to contemporary issues in the philosophy of mind as well. For this reason, Dreyfus's phenomenology of nondeliberate action stands as a significant contribution to the phenomenological tradition, and one worthy of consideration. With this essay, I will examine the phenomenon of absorbed coping, with a focus on the class of intentionality that it is said to embody. I will show that while the account of absorbed coping is phenomenologically compelling, the intentionality claimed for it implicates a rather complex conceptual foundation that renders questionable any claim that it embodies a direct response to the environment. I will conclude by suggesting that the phenomenon of absorbed coping, rather than undermining the representationalist position, in fact underscores the usefulness of representationalism in providing an adequate explanation for even the most basic, and seemingly thoughtless, of human behaviors. The Phenomenology of Nondeliberate Action The basic features of absorbed coping are set out in Being in the World, Dreyfus's major commentary on Division I of Heidegger's Being and Time. There, absorbed coping is described as a "basic way of being with things, which does not involve mental activity" (BTW, 52). While it is conceded that the nondeliberate action associated with absorbed coping is characterized by a form intentional directedness, this directedness is understood to be non-representational, that is, it is "not that of a mind with content directed toward objects" (BTW, 69). Indeed, as a chapter section heading puts it, absorbed intentionality is posited as being prior to representational intentionality (BTW, 61). Developing the idea further, Dreyfus writes that "Heidegger accepts intentional directedness as essential to human activity, but he denies that intentionality is mental, that it is ... the distinguishing characteristic of mental states" (BTW, 51, emphasis in the original). In sum, absorbed coping is a mode of action that does not require the mediation of mental representation for its successful execution. Although Dreyfus's remarks on absorbed coping in BTW are important statements of the anti-representationalist position, the most comprehensive yet compact account of this position in the context of nondeliberate action is to be found in a piece that Dreyfus, in collaboration with Jerome Wakefield, contributed to a critical volume on the philosophy of John Searle. …


Abstract Generations of farmer selection in the central Mexican highlands have produced unique maize varieties adapted to the challenges of the local environment. In addition to possessing great agronomic and cultural value, Mexican highland maize represents a good system for the study of local adaptation and acquisition of adaptive phenotypes under cultivation. In this study, we characterize a recombinant inbred line population derived from the B73 reference line and the Mexican highland maize variety Palomero Toluqueño. B73 and Palomero Toluqueño showed classic rank-changing differences in performance between lowland and highland field sites, indicative of local adaptation. Quantitative trait mapping identified genomic regions linked to effects on yield components that were conditionally expressed depending on the environment. For the principal genomic regions associated with ear weight and total kernel number, the Palomero Toluqueño allele conferred an advantage specifically in the highland site, consistent with local adaptation. We identified Palomero Toluqueño alleles associated with expression of characteristic highland traits, including reduced tassel branching, increased sheath pigmentation and the presence of sheath macrohairs. The oligogenic architecture of these three morphological traits supports their role in adaptation, suggesting they have arisen from consistent directional selection acting at distinct points across the genome. We discuss these results in the context of the origin of phenotypic novelty during selection, commenting on the role of de novo mutation and the acquisition of adaptive variation by gene flow from endemic wild relatives.


Several patients have been reported to have variant dominant forms of Glanzmann thrombasthenia, associated with macrothrombocytopenia and caused by gain-of-function mutations of ITGB3 or ITGA2B leading to reduced surface expression and constitutive activation of integrin αIIbβ3. The mechanisms leading to a bleeding phenotype of these patients have never been addressed. The aim of this study was to unravel the mechanism by which ITGB3 mutations causing activation of αIIbβ3 lead to platelet dysfunction and macrothrombocytopenia. Using platelets from two patients carrying the β3 del647-686 mutation and Chinese hamster ovary cells expressing different αIIbβ3-activating mutations, we showed that reduced surface expression of αIIbβ3 is due to receptor internalization. Moreover, we demonstrated that permanent triggering of αIIbβ3-mediated outside-in signaling causes an impairment of cytoskeletal reorganization arresting actin turnover at the stage of polymerization. The induction of actin polymerization by jasplakinolide, a natural toxin that promotes actin nucleation and prevents depolymerization of stress fibers, in control platelets produced an impairment of platelet function similar to that of patients with variant forms of dominant Glanzmann thrombasthenia. del647-686β3-transduced murine megakaryocytes generated proplatelets with a reduced number of large tips and asymmetric barbell-proplatelets, suggesting that impaired cytoskeletal rearrangement is the cause of macrothrombocytopenia. These data show that impaired cytoskeletal remodeling caused by a constitutively activated αIIbβ3 is the main effector of platelet dysfunction and macrothrombocytopenia, and thus of bleeding, in variant forms of dominant Glanzmann thrombasthenia.


The problem of explanatory non-symmetries provides the strongest reason to abandon the view that laws can figure in explanations without causal underpinnings. I argue that this problem can be overcome. The solution that I propose starts from noticing the importance of conditions of application when laws do explanatory work, and I go on to develop a notion of nomological (non-causal) dependence that can tackle the non-symmetry problem. The strategy is to show how a strong notion of counterfactual dependence as guaranteed by the laws is a plausible account of what we aim towards when we give law-based explanations. The aim of this project is not to deny that causal relations can do explanatory work but to restore laws of nature as capable of being explanatory even in the absence of any knowledge of causal underpinnings.


ABSTRACT Background: Wilshire et al. suggest that we have overestimated the number of patients that recover from chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) after receiving a course of either cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) or graded exercise therapy (GET), as reported in a secondary analysis of outcome data from the Pacing, graded Activity and Cognitive behavior therapy; a randomized Evaluation (PACE) trial. We provide counter-arguments to this view. Purpose: To provide an alternative view to that offered by Wilshire et al. Methods: We review the two different analyses of PACE trial outcome data to estimate recovery, and compare these to other published trials and cohort studies. Results: While there is no gold standard for recovery from CFS, previous trials and cohort studies provide support for our analysis of recovery in the PACE trial. Our finding that 22% of participants recover from the current episode of CFS after either CBT or GET, compared to 8% after adaptive pacing therapy and 7% after specialist medical care alone, is consistent with the literature. Conclusions: Our original conclusions that ' … recovery from CFS is possible, and that CBT and GET are the therapies most likely to lead to recovery' is an important, reasonable, and hopeful message for both clinicians and patients.


Positron emission tomography (PET)-Computed tomography (CT) plays an important role in cancer management. As a multi-modal imaging technique it provides both functional and anatomical information of tumor spread. Such information improves cancer treatment in many ways. One important usage of PET-CT in cancer treatment is to facilitate radiotherapy planning, for the information it provides helps radiation oncologists to better target the tumor region. However, currently most tumor delineations in radiotherapy planning are performed by manual segmentation, which consumes a lot of time and work. Most computer-aided algorithms need a knowledgeable user to locate roughly the tumor area as a starting point. This is because, in PET-CT imaging, some tissues like heart and kidney may also exhibit a high level of activity similar to that of a tumor region. In order to address this issue, a novel co-segmentation method is proposed in this work to enhance the accuracy of tumor segmentation using PET-CT, and a localization algorithm is developed to differentiate and segment tumor regions from normal regions. On a combined dataset containing 29 patients with lung tumor, the combined method shows good segmentation results as well as good tumor recognition rate.


To Be An Instrument for their Voices: Finding, Writing and Sharing Family Histories; A case study of one woman's search for family identityINTRODUCTIONMy name is Barbara Seals Nevergold. I am the daughter of Rev. Willie B. Seals and Clara Ellis Seals;- Granddaughter of Irene Lair and Guisseppe Nasello, Emma Williams Ellis and Augustus Ellis;- Great granddaughter of Seab Lair and Ella Bucknet Lair, ? Nasello, George Williams and Dinah Bailey Williams, Clem Ellis and Betsey Lewis Ellis;- Great great granddaughter of Mathew Lair and Julia Jackson Lair, ? Nasello; George Hilt and Belle ? Hilt, ? Bailey, James Ellis and Sylvia Hopkins Ellis, and Robert Lewis and Parthenia ? Lewis, and Samuel Buckner and Jane Harris Buckner.This paper is about family, or more accurately, about the search for family from generation to generation, and about giving voice to the power of family in shaping and influencing the lives of its individual members. This paper will look at my personal development as a family historian, examining the events which formed the motivation to begin the research into the history of my family; lessons learned along the way; development of the skills, knowledge and comprehension of historical research methodology, sources and documentation used in the process; examples of family history resources that have expanded access to primary and secondary sources; and examples of products compiled by this writer to share history with others.The quest to identify the origins of family and, ultimately self, is rooted in oral traditions and also in written documents as old as the Biblical texts that trace the family trees of mankind (Genesis 5: 1-32) and Jesus (Matthew 1: 1-16). Yet, family history research is not confined to the genealogical activity of simply tracing the family lineage (Carmack, 1998). Family history looks at the family as a whole. It places the family into an historical perspective to further understand how the events and forces of the time influenced, shaped or otherwise impacted the family's development (Carmack, 1998). The complexity of this field of study is underscored by Williams (1976) who proposed that family history combines the studies of" biography, geography, sociology, law, medicine and, linguistics, to name a few." (P. 11).I am not an historian, by formal training. Like most African Americans in my age cohort, I learned African American history within the narrow context of our collective history of slavery and emancipation. My teachers also added a sprinkling of biographies of "exceptional" Negroes such as George Washington Carver, Booker T. Washington, Dr. Ralph Bunche and Dr. Mary McCloud Bethune to augment this curriculum. Like so many others, black and white Americans, the publication and subsequent television serialization of Alex Haley's Roots (1976) sensitized me to the possibility that African Americans could trace their families back to their slave and African ancestors. Roots also put a face to individual black family units by demonstrating that we were not a monolithic group identified by only one story, that of slavery. Our family sagas illustrate the diversity that exists among African Americans and the uniqueness that can be found within our families.My own personal journey for family identity began only a short time ago. In 1997, I joined an estimated 20 million Americans (Carmack, 1998), who are involved in activities to find, claim and disseminate the histories of their families. While the vast majority of family historians do not start out to establish a career in the study of history, I believe that most of us share common goals, interests and passions with individuals who define themselves, by training and profession, as historians. Like historians, we pose questions about the past and conduct research that seeks to document, confirm and illuminate historical truths and lessons. In turn, our findings can have a profound impact on our understanding of our lives and the forces that have shaped and influenced our development. …


In this study, we present an integrative systematic revision of the spider gecko, Agamura senso lato, in Iran. We sampled 56 geckos of this complex from its distributional range in Iran and western Pakistan and sequenced these for two mitochondrial markers, cytochrome b and 12S ribosomal RNA, and one nuclear marker, melano-cortin 1 receptor. We combined our molecular data with species distribution modelling and morphological examinations to clarify Agamura persica systematics and biogeography. Due to a lack of published data, we used only our data to investigate the spatial and temporal origin of spider geckos within a complete geographic and phylogenetic context. The phylogenetic analyses confirm the monophyly of Agamura. Among spider geckos, Rhinogekko diverged around the early-mid Miocene (17 Mya) from the Lut Block, and then Cyrtopodion diverged from the Agamura clade about 15 Mya in the mid-Miocene as a result of the uplifting of the Zagros Mountains. Subsequent radiation across the Iranian Plateau took place during the mid-Pliocene. Agamura kermanensis exhibits deep divergence from two other species of Agamura (A. persica and A. cruralis), whereas no geographical substructure was observed on the Iranian Plateau for A. persica and A. cruralis. Our findings reveal that diversification is consistent with a biogeographical model explained by different dispersal waves and vicariant events on the Iranian Plateau during the last 18 Mya. The divergence times between clades are compatible with orogenic events in southern Iran that resulted from the collision with Arabia. According to the genetic differentiation of both mtDNA genes (12S and cytochrome b), the systematic status of A. cruralis is confirmed, the new clade was distinguished from the genus Agamura, monophyly of Rhinogekko was confirmed and the allocation of Cyrtopodion gastrophole to the Cyrtopodion clade was confirmed.


A non-homogeneous hidden Markov model (NHMM) is applied for downscaling atmospheric synoptic patterns to winter multi-site daily precipitation amounts. The implemented NHMM assumes precipitation to be conditional on a hidden weather state that follows a Markov chain, whose transition probabilities depend on current atmospheric information. The gridded atmospheric fields are summarized through the singular value decomposition (SVD) technique. SVD is applied to geopotential height and relative humidity at several pressure levels, to identify their principal spatial patterns co-varying with precipitation. We assume the common hidden weather state process to completely account for the temporal structure of precipitation. Given the current weather state, the multivariate probability distribution of precipitation occurrences is approximated using a Chow–Liu tree dependence structure, involving products of bivariate distributions. Conditional on the weather state, precipitation amounts are modelled separately at each gauge as independent gamma-distributed random variables. This modelling approach is applied to 51 precipitation gauges in Denmark and southern Sweden for the period 1981–2003. The downscaling model produces robust predictions of data statistics, such as expected precipitation amounts and spell duration distributions. Moreover, the model-defined weather states show a satisfactory degree of physical consistency.


The use of atomic force microscopy for the characterization of Fe2O3 nanopowders is discussed and demonstrated with several experimental examples related to the new exhibitions of polymorphism in the nano-world. Due to the rare literature data concerning the application of AFM in the analysis of iron oxide particles, our experimental experience, advantages and drawbacks of this microscopic technique including the comparison with the conventionally used TEM are described. The influence of sample preparation, possible artifacts and image deformations on interpretation of AFM data is emphasized.


We present the results of the most comprehensive survey of the Galactic plane in very high-energy (VHE) γ-rays, including a public release of Galactic sky maps, a catalog of VHE sources, and the discovery of 16 new sources of VHE γ-rays. The High Energy Spectroscopic System (H.E.S.S.) Galactic plane survey (HGPS) was a decade-long observation program carried out by the H.E.S.S. I array of Cherenkov telescopes in Namibia from 2004 to 2013. The observations amount to nearly 2700 h of quality-selected data, covering the Galactic plane at longitudes from l = 250° to 65° and latitudes |b|≤ 3°. In addition to the unprecedented spatial coverage, the HGPS also features a relatively high angular resolution (0.08° ≈ 5 arcmin mean point spread function 68% containment radius), sensitivity (≲1.5% Crab flux for point-like sources), and energy range (0.2–100 TeV). We constructed a catalog of VHE γ-ray sources from the HGPS data set with a systematic procedure for both source detection and characterization of morphology and spectrum. We present this likelihood-based method in detail, including the introduction of a model component to account for unresolved, large-scale emission along the Galactic plane. In total, the resulting HGPS catalog contains 78 VHE sources, of which 14 are not reanalyzed here, for example, due to their complex morphology, namely shell-like sources and the Galactic center region. Where possible, we provide a firm identification of the VHE source or plausible associations with sources in other astronomical catalogs. We also studied the characteristics of the VHE sources with source parameter distributions. 16 new sources were previously unknown or unpublished, and we individually discuss their identifications or possible associations. We firmly identified 31 sources as pulsar wind nebulae (PWNe), supernova remnants (SNRs), composite SNRs, or gamma-ray binaries. Among the 47 sources not yet identified, most of them (36) have possible associations with cataloged objects, notably PWNe and energetic pulsars that could power VHE PWNe.Key words: gamma rays: general / surveys / Galaxy: general★ The source catalog is available at the CDS via anonymous ftp to cdsarc.u-strasbg.fr (184.108.40.206) or via http://cdsarc.u-strasbg.fr/viz-bin/qcat?J/A+A/612/A1


Pregold mineralization at the Getchell Carlin-type gold deposit includes
quartz and base metal vein mineralization associated with intrusion of a
Cretaceous granodiorite stock. The veins contain minor pyrite and trace
chalcopyrite, arsenopyrite, galena, and sphalerite. The pyrite is moderately
coarse and, in thin section, has high relief, is well polished, and is fractured
and locally cemented by the gold ore assemblage. White micas are associated with
veins near the granodiorite intrusion. Gold was not observed or detected by fire
assay analyses of samples or electron microprobe analyses of pyrites. Microprobe
analyses show that pregold pyrites have near-stoichiometric compositions.
Variable, low arsenic is present in pyrite in samples overprinted by gold
mineralization. Secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS) analyses detected trace
gold in the coarse, near-stoichiometric pyrite in overprinted samples. The
pregold vein assemblage was fractured and cemented by gold ore-stage
mineralization The gold ore-stage assemblage consists of gold- and arsenic-enriched pyrite
and marcasite encompassed by jasperoid and drusy quartz, and local late
fluorite, orpiment, and galkhaite. The consistent spatial association of
jasperoid and ore pyrite reflects their near-contemporaneous formation. The ore
pyrite occurs as either fine, irregularly shaped grains, or rims on earlier,
gold-free pyrite. In thin section, the pyrite is visibly distinct and has a low
polishing relief and a poor polish. SIMS and electron microprobe analyses show
that ore pyrites commonly contain 8 to 11 wt percent arsenic and as much as
2,400 ppm gold. Near the end of the ore stage, fluorite, orpiment, and galkhaite
precipitated locally in open space created by faulting or limestone dissolution. Late ore-stage mineralization consists dominantly of open space-filling
realgar and calcite, with minor quartz, stibnite, and framboidal pyrite. Realgar
conforms to euhedral crystal faces of ore-stage quartz, fluorite, and galkhaite.
Calcite filled most remaining open space and conforms to euhedral crystal faces
of quartz, fluorite, and realgar. Significant textural observations argue against an earlier interpretation
that the gold mineralization and arsenic minerals formed as two discrete events
separated by 40 m.y. In a few areas where calcite and realgar are in contact
with ore-stage quartz containing gold-bearing pyrite, realgar and calcite
enclose gold-bearing pyrite grains. Massive realgar and calcite distal from
these contacts do not contain the gold-bearing pyrite. The presence of ore
pyrite in realgar, calcite, and jasperoid requires close timing of these
minerals and shows that there is no major time break separating ore-stage and
late ore-stage mineral deposition. Textures indicate, instead, that the ore
stage and late ore stage formed as part of a single, evolving hydrothermal
system. The consistent successive overgrowth of younger minerals on perfectly
preserved euhedral faces of older minerals supports the continuous evolution of
the gold ore stage into the late ore stage. These results are consistent with
fluid inclusions that indicate that paragenetically successive minerals
precipitated from an aqueous ore fluid with consistent salinity and gas contents
but at declining temperatures. Results show that, within error, the 34, 39, and
42 Ma ages determined for fluorite and galkhaite at Getchell and adularia at the
nearby Twin Creeks mine, respectively, most closely approximate the timing of
gold deposition at Getchell.


How does the situation we're in influence the way we behave and think? Professors Ross and Nisbett eloquently argue that the context we find ourselves in substantially affects our behavior in this timely reissue of one of social psychology's classic textbooks. With a new foreword by Malcolm Gladwell, author of The Tipping Point.


Lanthanide-doped upconverting nanoparticles (UCNPs) have the ability to convert low energy photons into high energy photons, making this material appealing for a variety of scientific pursuits, from solar energy conversion to bioimaging. A combination of polymers and nanocomposites increases the utility of these upconverting nanoparticles allowing nanoparticles to be added to any device compatible with polymer coatings. Here, trifluoroacetate salt decomposition enables Er/Yb doped NaYF4 upconverting nanoparticle synthesis. The subsequent deposition of a silica nanoshell yields polar silica-coated upconverting nanoparticles, enabling composite formation with polar urea-containing methacrylic polymers. Hydrogen bonding between urea groups in the polymer and the silica-coated nanoparticles allowed for dispersion of the upconverting nanoparticles to form upconverting composite films. These films exhibit desirable upconversion comparable to the nanoparticles dispersed in methanol. Urea-containing polymers are promising candidates for matrices in nanocomposites formed with polar silica nanoparticles due to favorable polymer–nanoparticle interactions. This architecture is superior to urea-methacrylate homopolymers, since the central low glass transition temperature block will provide critical ductility to the film, thus rendering the film to be durable for optical applications.


This study presents new data about the cross-language application of the Late Closure principle (Frazier, 1978), whose universality was put in question by data from Spanish (Cuetos & Mitchell, 1988). Using sentences containing a restrictive relative clause unambiguously modifying the first or the second noun of a complex NP (os cumplices do ladrao/o cumplice dos ladroes que fugiram), this study compares the behavior of Brazilian and European Portuguese speakers participating in a self-paced reading task. The data confirm that, in early phases of processing, attachment preferences are driven by a locality principle such as Late Closure. Based on a review of studies on Portuguese, Spanish and other Romance languages, we argue that the high- versus low-attachment difference across languages emerges cleanly only in off-line tasks, such as questionnaire studies, thus limiting the types of explanations for the cross-linguistic differences. We also advance an explanation for the high attachment preferences found in unspeeded questionnaire studies based on the Implicit Prosody Hypothesis (Fodor, 1998a, 2002).


A theoretical study of the hydrogen-bonded (HB) complexes between a protein model and nucleic acid bases (NAB) has been carried out. As protein models, N-formylglycinamide (For-Gly-NH 2 , 2-formylaminoacetamide), 1, in β- and γ-conformations and as NABs, the isolated ones, and the AU, GC dimers in the Watson-Crick (WC) disposition have been considered. Only those dispositions with a double HB between the protein model and the nucleic acid bases have been studied. The aromatic CH groups of the nucleic acids have been included as HB donor. The results indicate that the strongest HBs between the individual NAB and the protein models involve the atoms that participate in the formation of the WC dimers. In the trimeric complexes, no significant preference is obtained for the 1-AU trimers studied while in the 1-GC ones the complex where formylglycinamide interacts simultaneously with the carbonyl group of guanine and the amino of cytosine is favored. The electron density of the complexes has been analyzed using the atoms in molecules methodology, finding exponential relationships between the electron density and its Laplacian vs the bond distance. Finally, the effect in the nuclear chemical shielding due to the complexation has been explored. Exponential relationships have been found for the variation of the chemical shift of the 1 H signal for the NH...O and NH...N interactions with the HB distance.


The objective of the evaluation will be to assess the relevance, implementation, and effectiveness of the Bank's support to agricultural development in the region since 2002, with a particular emphasis on projects that aim to increase productivity, competitiveness, and incomes for farmers. To evaluate project implementation and effectiveness, OVE will focus primarily on a set of representative projects; and to evaluate relevance it will use country case studies. Findings will seek to identify factors that affect the success of various types of interventions in different contexts and to provide recommendations on how the Bank can enhance its support for the sector.


While deep learning has been incredibly successful in modeling tasks with large, carefully curated labeled datasets, its application to problems with limited labeled data remains a challenge. The aim of the present work is to improve the label efficiency of large neural networks operating on audio data through a combination of multitask learning and self-supervised learning on unlabeled data. We trained an end-to-end audio feature extractor based on WaveNet that feeds into simple, yet versatile task-specific neural networks. We describe several easily implemented self-supervised learning tasks that can operate on any large, unlabeled audio corpus. We demonstrate that, in scenarios with limited labeled training data, one can significantly improve the performance of three different supervised classification tasks individually by up to 6% through simultaneous training with these additional self-supervised tasks. We also show that incorporating data augmentation into our multitask setting leads to even further gains in performance.


This dissertation is motivated by data generated from a genetic association study of congenital heart defects in Down syndrome (DS). Congenital heart defects are among the most common abnormalities seen at birth. The genetic basis for most congenital heart defects is unknown. One severe form of congenital heart defect, atrioventricular septal defect (AVSD), is highly associated with DS. This makes the DS population a useful tool for discovering of genes that are associated with this specific form of congenital heart defect. Discovering genes that influence risk of AVSD will lead to a better understanding of heart development and of the etiology of these defects. This in turn can lead eventually to improved public health through better screening, prevention, and treatment strategies.Family trios were collected for the Down syndrome heart study. This dissertation discusses statistical issues raised in genetic association studies using family trio data, including the genotype calling problem (i.e. how to generate genotype data from the raw data produced by high-throughput SNP arrays) and analysis strategies. Although the motivating dataset involves trisomic individuals, we developed statistical methods both for disomic and trisomic data.For the genotype-calling problem, we generated two genotype calling methods specifically for disomic family trio data. The first method is an ad-hoc modification of the K-means clustering algorithm that incorporates family information. The second is a likelihood-based method that combines the mixture model approach with a pedigree likelihood. These two methods out-performed existing methods, which ignore the family information, both in simulation studies and a real data analysis. We also extended these two methods to trisomic trio data.With regard to analysis strategies, we discussed alternativeanalysis methods for trio designs, particularly for the combinationof case trios and control trios that we have in the Down syndromedata. We derived likelihood models that help explain the differencesamong some published methods. We also proposed an extension of acombined likelihood-based method proposed by Epstein and others foranalysis of case trios plus independent controls to our design ofcase and control trios.


[1] Theoretical potential geoengineering solutions to the global warming problem have recently been proposed. Here, we present an idealized study of the climate response to deliberately seeding large-scale stratocumulus cloud decks in the North Pacific, South Pacific, and South Atlantic, thereby inducing cooling via aerosol indirect effects. Atmosphere-only, atmosphere/mixed-layer ocean, and fully coupled atmosphere/ocean versions of the Met Office Hadley Centre model are used to investigate the radiative forcing, climate efficacy, and regional response of temperature, precipitation, and net primary productivity to such geoengineering. The radiative forcing simulations indicate that, for our parameterization of aerosol indirect effects, up to 35% of the radiative forcing due to current levels of greenhouse gases could be offset by stratocumulus modification. Equilibrium simulations with the atmosphere/mixed-layer ocean model, wherein each of the three stratocumulus sheets is modified in turn, reveal that the most efficient cooling per unit radiative forcing occurs when the South Pacific stratocumulus sheet is modified. Transient coupled model simulations suggest that geoengineering all three stratocumulus areas delays the simulated global warming by about 25 years. These simulations also indicate that, while some areas experience increases in precipitation and net primary productivity, sharp decreases are simulated in South America, with particularly detrimental impacts on the Amazon rain forest. These results show that, while some areas benefit from geoengineering, there are significant areas where the response could be very detrimental with implications for the practical applicability of such a scheme.


Summary

Human-induced changes in river flow regimes are ubiquitous worldwide. Although numerous case studies have identified negative ecological impacts of changes in different aspects of flow regimes (e.g. magnitude, timing), there have been few attempts to systematically review this literature to derive general relationships regarding ecological responses to changes in flow regimes.
Systematic literature reviews can inform science and management in ecologically complex systems not amenable to experimentation. However, such analysis of existing literature is often limited by inconsistent study design and data reporting. To attempt to overcome these difficulties, we used the recently developed Eco Evidence method and software to analyse 165 studies of ecological responses to changes in river flow regimes.
Eco Evidence provides a rule set and standardised list of terms to assist reviewers to interpret consistently the results of disparate studies. The companion software assists with the synthesis of this information to reach transparent and repeatable conclusions regarding cause–effect hypotheses of ecological responses to environmental drivers.
We compared our results to those of a recent, informal systematic review of the same studies, which is proving extremely influential. Stronger conclusions are reached when evidence is weighted, classified and combined according to the rules in Eco Evidence. Compared to the original review, we reached informative conclusions for a larger number of flow–response hypotheses, found that hypotheses for which the most evidence was available returned inconsistent results, addressed hypotheses at levels of conceptual resolution relevant to management and identified where insufficient evidence exists to reach a conclusion.
Analyses conducted at several levels of conceptual resolution found strong support for many hypotheses regarding ecological impacts. We found a consistent sensitivity to changes in flow regime for both fish and riparian vegetation across a variety of performance metrics. While macroinvertebrate responses varied among performance metrics (e.g. abundance was negatively affected by increases or decreases in flows, diversity was only negatively affected by flow decreases, and assemblage structure was affected by neither), they were largely consistent within these metrics.
We thus conclude that the Eco Evidence approach allowed us to extract more knowledge from the data set than was possible in the original review. Eco Evidence can improve synthesis of the burgeoning ecological literature and improve our general understanding in ecology. Amid widespread calls for 'evidence-based' environmental management, this powerful tool provides managers with a means of using research to help inform complex environmental decision-making.


It is now 20 years since the tumor-associated factor parathyroid hormone-related peptide was identified. Since then, there have been significant changes in the understanding of the hypercalcemic syndromes associated with malignancy and with the role of this peptide in normal physiology as well as this specialized pathologic setting. Parathyroid hormone-related peptide has become a useful diagnostic tool in the differential diagnosis of hypercalcemia, and approaches to inhibit its expression or its effects by malignant cells hold promise for treating the hypercalcemia and osteolysis associated with some cancers.


Declustering and load balancing are important issues in designing a high performance geographic information system (HPGIS), which is a central component of many interactive applications such as real time terrain visualization. The current literature provides efficient methods for declustering spatial point data. However, there has been little work toward developing efficient declustering methods for collections of extended objects, like chains of line segments and polygons. We focus on the data partitioning approach to parallelizing GIS operations. We provide a framework for declustering collections of extended spatial objects by identifying the following key issues: (1) work load metric; (2) spatial extent of the work load; (3) distribution of the work load over the spatial extent; and (4) declustering method. We identify and experimentally evaluate alternatives for each of these issues. In addition, we also provide a framework for dynamically balancing the load between different processors. We experimentally evaluate the proposed declustering and load balancing methods on a distributed memory MIMD machine (Cray T3D). Experimental results show that the spatial extent and the work load metric are important issues in developing a declustering method. Experiments also show that the replication of data is usually needed to facilitate dynamic load balancing, since the cost of local processing is often less than the cost of data transfer for extended spatial objects. In addition, we also show that the effectiveness of dynamic load balancing techniques can be improved by using declustering methods to determine the subsets of spatial objects to be transferred during runtime.


Yield spreads between rates on Treasury nominal and inflation-indexed securities are thought to be distorted measures of expected inflation because of various biases. Three sources of bias are investigated in this paper: risk aversion, inflation uncertainty, and failure to account for the explicit option on the redemption value of the Treasury's inflation-indexed security when there is a probability of deflation. The analysis produces estimates of all three biases. It finds that significant bias could arise from the second and third sources, while any bias from the first


This research investigates evolutionary robotics which uses evolutionary computation to generate robotic controllers. The majority of research in this field has been primarily focused on the use of software genetic algorithms to evolve robotic controllers based on artificial neural networks and fuzzy logic. Investigation into other forms of evolvable robotic controllers however is less studied, thus the focus of this research was to investigate and develop new methods of evolving controllers for evolutionary robotics. This led to the creation of three novel concepts within this field including the evolution of lookup tables for robotic control, the implementation of the robotic simulation in hardware for fitness evaluation of individuals, and advances in virtual Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) for robotic control. The innovative utilization of a lookup table for a robotic controller used multidimensional lookup tables that linked the state of the robot obtained from input sensors to the required output for the robots actuators in order for the robot to function correctly. A population of these tables (chromosomes) were evolved using genetic algorithms. Two multi-dimensional lookup table robotic controllers were successfully evolved using standard genetic algorithms. The novel approach of implementing the robotic simulation in hardware rather than software was performed. The time required for a genetic algorithm to evolve a successful robotic controller is largely dependent on the fitness evaluation of an individual. If the robotic simulation could be performed in hardware then there will be a significant increase in performance. It was shown that hardware robotic simulations could be constructed with an improvement in evolution completion time of over two orders of magnitude greater than that of a software simulation. The use of robotic controllers in the form of two virtual FPGAs were evaluated using two Cartesian based architectures, a fixed layer and a reducing layer virtual FPGA. The configuration bit stream which describes the circuits within the virtual FPGA was evolved by a genetic algorithm implemented in hardware. The input sensors of the robot, indicating its current state were connected to the inputs of the virtual FPGA, while the output was connected to the robot actuators. It was found that both architectures could be evolved to produce robotic controllers.


Objective: Propolis is an important bee product, rich in polyphenolic compounds. It has antitumoral, antioxidant, antimutagenic, and other useful activities. Biological activities of propolis are generally attributed to its substance of polyphenolic compounds. The aim of this study was to investigate the in vitro antioxidant properties and reduction amount of intracellular reactive oxygen species (ROS) in human normal foreskin fibroblast cells by Turkish propolis ethanolic extract (EEP). Method: Total phenolic and flavonoid contents, reducing power, radical scavenging capacity, and iron chelating activity of EEP were determined using spectrophotometric methods. Intracellular ROS levels were determined by spectrofluorometric analysis with CM-H2DCFDA. Results: Our results indicated that antioxidant activity was correlated with the higher total phenolic and flavonoid contents of EEP. The generated ROS levels were significantly decreased by EEP compared to only t-BHP group. Conclusion: Ethanolic propolis extract may be evaluated as a potency antioxidant resource and/or a novel natural agent in food and drug industries.


The paper investigates the difference in technical efficiency and in productivity change, and the technology gaps, between French and Hungarian farms in the dairy and cereal, oilseeds and proteinseeds (COP) sectors during the period 2001-2004. The analyses are performed with national FADN data and the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) approach under each country's respective frontier and under a metafrontier. Results revealed that in both the dairy and the COP sectors, Hungarian farms' technology was the more productive, despite a technological deterioration. This suggests technological advantages for large-scale (Hungarian) over small-scale (French) farming in these two sectors. These findings may also be explained by the higher policy support in France. Subsidies received by farms have indeed a stronger negative impact on technical efficiency for French farms than for Hungarian farms, and a negative impact on the ability to lead the technology only for French farms.


Purpose: Tumor-derived circulating cell–free DNA (cfDNA) is a potential alternative source from which to derive tumor mutation status. cfDNA data from four clinical studies of the BRAF inhibitor (BRAFi) dabrafenib or the MEK inhibitor (MEKi) trametinib were analyzed to determine the association between BRAF mutation status in cfDNA and tumor tissue, and the association of BRAF cfDNA mutation status with baseline factors and clinical outcome. Experimental Design: Patients with BRAF V600 mutation–positive melanoma were enrolled in each study after central confirmation of BRAF status in tumor using a PCR-based assay. BRAF mutation status in cfDNA from patient plasma collected at baseline, 732 of 836 (88%) enrolled patients in total, was determined. Results: BRAF mutations were detectable in cfDNA in 76% and 81% of patients with BRAF V600E/V600K–positive tumors, respectively. Patients negative for BRAF mutations in cfDNA had longer progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival in each of the four studies, compared with patients with detectable cfDNA BRAF mutations. The presence of BRAF-mutant cfDNA was an independent prognostic factor for PFS after multivariate adjustment for baseline factors in three of four studies. Patients negative for BRAF mutation–positive cfDNA in plasma had higher response rates to dabrafenib and trametinib. Conclusions: BRAF mutations in cfDNA are detectable in >75% of late-stage melanoma patients with BRAF mutation–positive tumors. The lack of circulating, BRAF mutation–positive cfDNA is clinically significant for metastatic melanoma patients, and may be a prognostic marker for better disease outcome. Clin Cancer Res; 22(3); 567–74. ©2015 AACR.


Body memory and neurobiology – two faces of the same coin? Our genome serves as a basis for cellular development. Ensuing proliferation and differentiation of the cells are regulated by epigenetic factors and specific hormones, and are characterized by external influence like nutrition, environment, and education. This is an important process in adoption. The brain cells further integrate into a complex and stressable network by synaptogenesis and plasticity – a prerequisite in higher brain function. Brain's limbic system conducts memory, cognition, and emotion and interacts with the visual and prefrontal cortex, the frontal and temporal lobes. Perception and imitation are main factors in learning, memory, and emotional reaction. Body memory in neurobiological context may be hypothesized as a concept influenced by (epi)genetics, environmental input (hormones), cultural influence (network building), cognition, and emotion.


Climate change is an issue of growing importance around the globe. As global population increases so does attention focused on human contributions to climate change. One major way humans contribute to climate change is through our diets. Agricultural production is a major source of global greenhouse emissions. It has been estimated that food production is responsible for a large majority of the methane and nitrous oxide which is emitted into our atmosphere each year. Carbon footprint labeling has been developed to give consumers a way to lower their footprint and help lower emissions of greenhouse gasses. At least one retailer, Tesco, in the UK has adopted carbon footprint labeling and affixes them to a large selection of consumer items sold in their stores. Although it can't be assumed that everyone will adopt or even utilize carbon labeling there are things that can be done to encourage adoption and utilization. The main goal of this thesis was to determine what factors lead to a change in consumption or purchasing behavior in favor of a carbon label for respondents from the University of Arkansas in the United States and the University of Ghent in Belgium. Although the respondents sampled for this survey were not representative of the overall populations of either Arkansas or Ghent Belgium their responses did exhibit similarities with the literature. In particular, respondents with higher Perceived Consumer Effectiveness scores were more willing to pay more for a carbon label, regardless of the amount of increase or decrease of the footprint. Also, other significant constructs such as Subjective Knowledge and environmental belief proved to have similar effects on respondents sampled from Arkansas This thesis is approved for Recommendation to the Graduate Council


Due to increasing societal awareness, nowadays companies need to consider environmental issues in their business activities. A requirement that has entered the agenda is the design of products to support efficient end‐of‐life management. However, though previous research has addressed various disassembly aspects there is a need for more understanding on which product properties are essential for efficient disassembly processes. Better understanding is also required regarding when, during the product development process, these properties are established. On the basis of empirical studies of disassembly of electrical and electronic equipment and vehicles, this paper suggests a number of product properties that are essential for efficiency of the disassembly process. Furthermore, the paper analyses when these properties are set in the product development process. Four product properties, denoted disassembly properties, have been identified: ease of identification; accessibility; ease of separation; and ease of handling. The analysis shows that these properties are affected during all product development phases. Especially in the early phases it is crucial to consider the disassembly properties in order to avoid unnecessary and costly design changes that may occur in the later development phases if the design solutions are pulled in the wrong direction.


There is currently much debate about the effectiveness of foreign aid and about what kind of projects can engender economic development. There is skepticism about the ability of econometric analysis to resolve these issues, or of development agencies to learn from their own experience. In response, there is movement in development economics towards the use of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) to accumulate credible knowledge of what works, without over-reliance on questionable theory or statistical methods. When RCTs are not possible, this movement advocates quasi-randomization through instrumental variable (IV) techniques or natural experiments. I argue that many of these applications are unlikely to recover quantities that are useful for policy or understanding: two key issues are the misunderstanding of exogeneity, and the handling of heterogeneity. I illustrate from the literature on aid and growth. Actual randomization faces similar problems as quasi-randomization, notwithstanding rhetoric to the contrary. I argue that experiments have no special ability to produce more credible knowledge than other methods, and that actual experiments are frequently subject to practical problems that undermine any claims to statistical or epistemic superiority. I illustrate using prominent experiments in development. As with IV methods, RCT-based evaluation of projects is unlikely to lead to scientific progress in the understanding of economic development. I welcome recent trends in development experimentation away from the evaluation of projects and towards the evaluation of theoretical mechanisms.


In this paper, we propose a non-photorealistic rendering (NPR) framework for creating landscape art in traditional animation. The proposed method is based on painting techniques for landscape arts, which enables a user to reproduce features of the target work of art and its style. Landscape (background) arts is generally used in animation productions. One image of landscape art and multiple layers of moving characters compose a scene. Landscape art is one of most important factors for making the impression of an animation. We propose a NPR technique that reproduces painting techniques for landscape arts such as leaf painting based on just a few colors, shading to produce a spherical effect. The technique developed by the authors generates dynamic landscape art having a swaying motion in the wind by applying the animation generation technique for swaying trees to it.


Abstract We report data obtained concerning the occupation of trap nests by xylicolous Crabronidae (sensu Melo 1999) in a study carried out in central Spain between 1992 and 1995. In particular, we analyze the data on the occupation of the nests for Psenulus concolor (Dahlbom), Trypoxylon attenuatum F. Smith, and Trypoxylon beaumonti Antropov. All three species use pre-existing cavities of 2-4 mm to establish their nests. The mortality rates varied between 33% and 55%, and of special interest was the variation between the two species of Trypoxylon L. and the absence of mortality due to natural enemies in P. concolor. In the three species, mortality was similar along the nests, with no increase in the innermost or outermost cells. Trichrysis cyanea (L.) was the most abundant natural enemy in the nests analyzed. Sex distribution was not random in any of the species studied: in P. concolor and T. attenuatum, the males developed in the outermost cells, while in T. beaumonti they appeared in the innermost ones. The sex ratio did not deviate from 0.5 in P. concolor and T. attenuaum, although in T. beaumonti, the number of females was significantly higher than that of males.


ISSN: 2319-7706 Volume 5 Number 11 (2016) pp. 145-152 Journal homepage: http://www.ijcmas.com Green tea and Black tea extracts are known to exhibit significant antibacterial activity against many pathogenic microbes. With the emerging threat of growing antibiotic resistance amongst bacterial strains posing serious challenge to clinicians left with few options there has been an increasingly growing interests to explore new antimicrobial compounds from herbal extracts, which could be incorporated in the treatment of such infections. So, this study was undertaken to evaluate and compare the antibacterial activity of different extracts of Green tea and Black tea against standard bacterial strains. This Cross-sectional Analytical study was conducted in the Department of Microbiology of a Tertiary care Teaching hospital of Central India over a period of three months. Antimicrobial activity of Aqueous, Ethanolic, Methanolic and Acetone extracts of Green tea and Black tea was determined by Agar well diffusion method. Green tea extracts exhibited higher antimicrobial activity than Black tea extracts. Amongst Green tea extracts aqueous extract was found to be most effective while amongst Black tea extracts methanolic extract was most effective. All tea extracts have shown significant antibacterial activity against S.aureus ATCC 25922 with Aqueous extract of Green tea exhibiting highest activity. All Green tea extracts exhibited significant activity against E.coli ATCC 25923 higher than Black tea extracts. As compared to Green tea extracts, Black tea extracts showed much lower activity against P.aeruginosa ATCC 27853. S.aureus was found to be most susceptible to tea extracts followed by E.coli and P.aeruginosa. Green tea and Black tea extracts have shown significant antibacterial activity with former being more effective than later. In future there is immense potential of clinical application of polyphenolic contents of tea extracts as adjuvant therapeutic agents to tackle the menace of growing antibiotic resistance. K e y w o r d s Agar well diffusion, Anti bacterial activity, Antibiotic resistance, Black tea, Catechins, Green tea,


Relative to earlier research, this study from the Center for Reinventing Public Education provides a more in-depth analysis of policy features across the 27 states that allow online charter schools. It presents a well-organized description of policy features and includes a set of policy recommendations that generally, but not always, follow well from the study's evidence. Because the findings are largely negative, this report may be seized on by groups that are broadly critical of charter schools. But the report is published by an organization that often advocates for charter school growth, and the authors' discussion of findings suggests that the charter school establishment is advocating for separating online charter schools from brick-and-mortar charter schools and governing them with a separate policy framework. While there is some justification for such an approach, online charter issues are not completely distinct from issues that arise from other charters. Overall, the detailed analyses of policy environments and the summary of problems in the online charter school sector included in this report should be useful to policymakers who are willing and able to pursue more restrictive oversight and increase accountability for online charter schools. Review of The Policy Framework For online charTer SchoolS


Federal Courts Struggle with Supreme Court Refusal to Promulgate a Bright-Line Rule for Evaluating ERISA Plan Administrators' Conflicts of Interest- Metropolitan Life Insurance Company v. Glenn.1 - The Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 ("ERISA") regulates employer-provided pension and welfare benefit plans to ensure that participants receive their promised benefits.2 Under an ERISA-governed employee benefit plan, a single entity may act in a "dual role" as both an insurer and the payer of benefit claims.3 ERISA requires administrators to "provide a full and fair review of claim denials."4 In the event of a benefit denial, beneficiaries may seek judicial review after exhausting their administrative remedies.5 Where ERISA "grant[s] the administrator or fiduciary discretionary authority to determine eligibility for benefits," courts must review denials deferentially.6 In Metropolitan Life Insurance Company v. Glenn, after being diagnosed with a heart condition, Respondent Wanda Glenn ("Glenn") applied for disability benefits from Metropolitan Life Insurance Company ("MetLife").7 MetLife served as both the administrator and insurer of Glenn's insurance plan under ERISA.8 In 2000, MetLife determined that Glenn qualified for 24 months of disability and in 2002 an Administrative Law Judge determined that she could not "perform[] any job[] for which she could qualify existing in significant numbers in the national economy."9 Accordingly, the Social Security Administration ("SSA") awarded Glenn permanent disability payments.10 MetLife, however, denied Glenn's claim for continued benefits under a similar standard requiring Glenn's condition prevent her from both performing her own job and "the material duties of any gainful occupation for which she was reasonably qualified [,]" finding her "capable of performing full time sedentary work."11 Following the exhaustion of her administrative remedies, Glenn filed suit in the Southern District of Ohio, as permitted under ERISA.12 The federal district court denied Glenn relief.13 However, on appeal the Sixth Circuit, under a deferential standard of review as prescribed by ERISA, 14 reversed the lower court's holding.15 In finding an abuse of discretion, the Sixth Circuit specifically determined that MetLife 's position as both determining eligibility for and providing benefits presented a conflict of interest, but treated it only as a "relevant factor."16 The Sixth Circuit also considered the following factors: (l) the SSA's contradictory conclusion that Glenn could not work; (2) MetLife's focus upon a single physician report which favored their position while ignoring other, more detailed reports; (3) MetLife neglecting to provide their experts with all relevant physician reports; and (4) MetLife's disregard of evidence demonstrating the aggravation of Glenn's condition by stress.17 MetLife sought and obtained certiorari regarding the existence of conflict of interest for dual-role plan administrators. 18 The United States Supreme Court also considered the Solicitor General's request to consider "how any such a conflict should be taken into account" and affirmed.19 In its holding, the Court applied the principles from Firestone Tire O Rubber Co. v. Bruch which similarly entailed an entity that both evaluated claim validity and paid the benefits.20 Specifically, benefit denials in this context demand a deferential standard of review21 and "if a benefit plan gives discretion to an administrator... who is operating under a conflict of interest, that conflict must be weighed as a factor in determining whether there is an abuse of discretion."22 The United States Supreme Court held that a conflict of interest exists when the same entity serves as an ERISA plan administrator and payer of benefits.23 However, this conflict of interest serves as only one factor in the deferential review of whether the denial of the claim constituted an abuse of discretion. …


This thesis presents a study of the transmission dynamics of nosocomial
pathogens in hospital wards, with particular reference to methicillinresistant
Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and vancomycin-resistant enterococci
(VRE). The work makes use of mathematical models, and observational
and epidemiological studies.
Transmission dynamics of a potential pathogen are first explored using
a stochastic host-vector epidemic model, where health-care workers' hands
are assumed to be the vectors. Consequences of changes in patient management
are presented, and stochastic effects are shown to be essential to an
understanding of ward dynamics.

Observations of carer handwashing behaviour and carer-patient contact
patterns are described, and the factors associated with hand washing compliance
and contact rates explored using statistical models. Patient-carer
mixing patterns are investigated. Refinements to the host-vector model are
used to show how different aspects of observed contact patterns may both
increase and decrease the spread of nosocomial pathogens. For contact patterns
typical of intensive care units, the model predicts that infection rates
will increase as the staff-to-patient ratio decreases, so understaffing may
result in more cross-infection even if handwashing levels do not change.
The effect of antibiotic treatment on the spread of resistant strains is
studied using a two-strain model. Changing patterns of antibiotic use are
shown to be capable of causing large and rapid changes in ward prevalences
of resistant strains.
To investigate possible fitness costs, growth kinetics of methicillin-sensitive
and methicillin-resistant S. aureus strains are compared. No evidence for
differences in growth rates is found, though there is a suggestion that MRSA
stains may have longer lag periods.

Finally, a Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) approach is developed to
enable model parameters to be estimated from the incomplete data typical
of ward-based epidemiological studies. The approach is used to estimate
parameters using S. aureus and VRE transmission data. With the latter
data, transmission rates were related to patient antibiotic use. All antibiotic
combinations considered were associated with increased acquisition rates,
the effect being strongest for cephalosporins.


Many philosophers of science and methodologists have argued that the ability to repeat studies and obtain similar results is an essential component of science. A finding is elevated from single observation to scientific evidence when the procedures that were used to obtain it can be reproduced and the finding itself can be replicated. Recent replication attempts show that some high profile results---most notably in psychology, but in many other disciplines as well---cannot be replicated consistently. These replication attempts have generated a considerable amount of controversy and the issue of whether direct replications have value has, in particular, proven to be contentious. However, much of this discussion has occurred in published commentaries and social media outlets, resulting in a fragmented discourse. To address the need for an integrative summary, we review various types of replication studies https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X17001972 Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Library Erasmus University Rotterdam, on 21 Nov 2017 at 13:57:07, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at 2 and then discuss the most commonly voiced concerns about direct replication. We provide detailed responses to these concerns and consider different statistical ways to evaluate replications. We conclude there are no theoretical or statistical obstacles to making direct replication a routine aspect of psychological science.


The concept of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and stakeholder management is relatively new to the Ghanaian business sector. Unilever Ghana ltd. has consistently had a prominent CSR drive in Ghana for several years. It has been found that stakeholder involvement in CSR is important for implementing relevant CSR programs which creates goodwill, good reputation and enhances business value. It is on this basis that this case study of Unilever Ghana was conducted. It investigates the CSR process of the company, the involvement and management of stakeholders in that regard and the relationship with corporate (financial) performance. Using the stakeholder approach as theoretical frame, interviews with open-ended questioning style as well as documents are used as sources of evidence. Analysis of the data is done with the help of building empirical models which will serve as guidelines for management practitioners dealing with stakeholder relations and CSR in modern Ghana.


Much has been written about the law of lethal self-defense, but comparatively little has been written about nonlethal self-defense. And very little has been written on what is likely the most significant restrictions on nonlethal self-defense - restrictions on possessing and carrying stun guns and irritant sprays, which are indeed almost always nonlethal. Seven states and several cities, for instance, totally ban private possession of stun guns, even in the home. And that's so even though in all those states gun possession in the home is perfectly legal. This article discusses the most common such nonlethal weapon restrictions: (1) general bans on possession or carrying, (2) bans on possession by minors (including older minors), (3) bans on possession by felons (including nonviolent felons), (4) bans on possession or carrying in public universities, public housing, and public transportation systems, and (5) bans on carrying in public parks and in places that sell alcohol. All of these, it argues, are generally bad policy, though the case against them is stronger as to some restrictions than others. It also argues that many such restrictions should be seen as unconstitutional under the right to bear arms, whether federal or state (at least 40 state constitutions secure an individual right to bear arms). It argues that they should be seen as unconstitutional under the right to defend life, which is expressly secured by 21 state constitutions and that might be implicitly secured by the federal constitution. And it argues that when a law allows possession of deadly weapons and not nondeadly weapons, then people who have religious beliefs that forbid deadly force (even in self-defense) but allow nondeadly force should get religious exemptions from such rules, in the roughly half the states that have presumptive religious exemption regimes.


For most of its history, the U.S. military has maintained a policy of exclusion toward lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people serving in uniform. The justifications for these exclusions have included the view that being homosexual or transgender is a psychological disorder, that it undermines military morale and effectiveness, and a fear that LGBT people would be vulnerable to foreign espionage. Explicit policies banning consensual homosexual sex—and excluding from service those who engage in it—date to the period between World Wars I and II, but de facto efforts at exclusion have existed since the early days of the republic.
 Regulations governing homosexuals in the military came under pressure in the 1970s and 1980s as societal views toward lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) people changed, and those LGB service members discharged under the policy increasingly challenged their treatment in court. (Public pressure to change regulations governing transgender people in the military arose mostly in the 2000s, though litigation efforts date to the 1970s.) In addition to general shifts in public and legal opinion, the debate over LGB people serving in the U.S. military was affected by the experience of foreign militaries that allow LGB people to serve. United States law began to loosen formal restrictions on LBG people serving in uniform with the passage of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" (DADT) in 1994, but it still required LGB people to serve in secret. Changing public perceptions of LGB people and problems implementing the ban galvanized support for eliminating such restrictions. In 2010, President Obama signed legislation repealing DADT and removing all restrictions on LGB people serving in the military. However, transgender people do not enjoy the same rights. The Trump administration has revised Obama-era rules on transgender service members to enable greater exclusion. The issue is being contested in the courts and appears ripe for further political and legal dispute.


In this master's thesis the hydrolytic degradation in 18O-water solutions of six drug substances has been studied. The aim was to develop a mass spectrometric method for easier identification of degradants, since hydrolysis in 18O-water will generate degradants with higher mass compared with hydrolysis in regular water.The degradation was carried out in both acidic and basic conditions. About 10 % degradation was aimed for in the study and the storage time and conditions were adjusted to accommodate that. The samples were then analyzed with UPLC-MS. Separation was achieved on either an Acquity BEH C18 or HSS T3, 100 x 2.1 mm, 1.7 μm column. The mobile phases consisted of water and acetonitrile with the addition of 0.1 % formic acid.Structures for the detected degradants were proposed based on the molecular ion data from the regular and 18O-experiments. Most of these degradants have previously been reported. Structures for some previously unreported degradants are also proposed. These structures should need to be confirmed with future studies.The usefulness of the 18O-method has been evaluated and it was concluded that it is valuable to use as a complement to the generic hydrolytic experiment. In this study, the extra information gained from the 18O-experiment was used to confirm a number of proposed structures. It was also crucial in the rejection of two proposed structures for degradants of duloxetine. The method is most useful when confirming water involvement in reactions, for example in drug degradation. It is also a good alternative for obtaining structural information if the laboratory does not own a high-resolution MS.


The Concept of Healthy Ageing in Hong Kong by CHIU Mei Lan Mandy Master of Philosophy The purpose of this study is to explore the concept of 'Healthy Ageing' in Hong Kong. The research attempts to explore the historical base from which 'Healthy Ageing' has been conceptualized in both Western and Chinese societies. This study also tries to provide an overview of literature that relevant to the 'Healthy Ageing' concept, and to provide an initial theoretical framework of 'Healthy Ageing' in a Hong Kong Chinese context. This study mainly adopts a qualitative approach in exploring the meaning of the concept. Since that 'Healthy Ageing' is likely to be conceptualized from the concept of health and ageing, which have been here since the early days, a method of documentary analysis on the origin of the concept and the paths leading to what it is at present has been employed. To re-construct the concept in Hong Kong, this thesis works towards an explanation of the historical base of the concept of 'Healthy Ageing' in both Chinese and Western societies since Hong Kong has evolved from a mixture of both cultures. Comparative cultural analysis and research's own interpretation act as important roles in the present study to consolidate those raw documents in particular of the Chinese literature and construct a new model for the concept. Having constructed a model of 'Healthy Ageing', an expert in cultural studies was then interviewed at the end of May 2002 for verifying the model. Adopting a comparative cultural analysis, this study found that the fundamental elements, say physical and psychosocial well-being, in conceptualization of health in both East and West are almost the same, but manifestations and interpretations show some variations. Chinese people are apt to manifest and interpret their concept of health by an holistic approach, while the concept of health in Western societies is more likely to be manifested in a "compartmental" approach. These variations are basically derived from the differences of geo-cultural adaptations and the differences in individual lifestyles. As to the concept of ageing, this study revealed that ageing subject as a process instead of an end-stage of life-span. According to one view of human beings, life-spans can be divided into eight periods: Prenatal (pregnancy), Infancy (0-3), Early Childhood (3-6), Middle Childhood (6-12), Adolescence (12-20), Young Adulthood (20-40), Midlife (40-65) and Old Age (65+). It is a natural and integral process of growing old starting from birth and ending at death, in which a continuous process of biological, psychological and social changes will be experienced in a person's life-course. After reconstructing health and ageing concepts, a tentative model of healthy ageing was developed in this study. In this study, healthy ageing is an holistic and dynamic concept. It is a state of interactions and adaptations between people and the environment in attaining optimal health in one's life-span. It is a three-dimensional concept that encompasses health, health-ageing and health-ageing-environment dimensions. For the health dimension, there are six interrelated cross-life domains in achieving healthy ageing, which involve physical, psychological, social, economic, spiritual and environmental well-being. For the health-ageing dimension, people can achieve healthy ageing by attaining health in each stage of life. In this process, the health at younger stage influences the health at older stage. Thus, keeping healthy in early stage benefits the health conditions in later stages, although it cannot be said that what happens in early stage might not be unchangeable for later stages. Adopting health-promoting strategies in later stage can also provide opportunities for individuals to achieve healthy ageing. The health-ageing-environment dimension refers to the people-environment adaptation for attaining optimal health in their life-spans. Basically, people can ideally achieve healthy ageing by adopting health-promoting strategy at every stage of life. However, those favourable and unfavourable external environments will limit and change the opportunities for a person to achieve healthy ageing. To achieve optimal health in their life-spans, people are required to adjust themselves, adapting to their environment and also helping to shape the environment. Therefore, an individual-community approach is crucial for attaining healthy ageing. I declare that this thesis <<The concept of Healthy Ageing in Hong Kong>> is the product of my own research and has not been published in any other publications. CHIU Mei Lan Mandy September 2002


A great deal of effort has been devoted to developing gated photochromic systems due to their advantages in the smart materials and opto-electronic fields, whereas the gating function through certain ions has rarely been addressed. Since the photochromic materials gated by ions can be readily further processed into a multi-functional molecular switch and probe, we herein designed and conveniently synthesized a star-shaped Schiff-based diarylethene derivative showing typical photochromic properties in solution. This compound possesses two response channels (colorimetric and fluorogenic) to Cu2+ ions with photoswitching characteristics, making it a viable photochromic probe. It is noteworthy that its photochromic reactivity can be locked when Cu2+ ions are introduced into the solution. Moreover, the photoinactive and photoactive states can be interchanged reversibly by binding Cu2+ ions and unbinding Cu2+ ions using EDTA, which shows promise for application in multi-controlled molecular switches and smart materials. The mechanism of the photochromic properties locked by Cu2+ ions is reasonably proposed by theoretical simulations. These results could be valuable for the further development of molecular switching systems with multiple stimuli responses.


A number of methods for multiple-objective optimization problems (MOP) give as solution to MOP the set of optimal solutions for some single-objective optimization problems associated with it. Well-known examples of these single-objective optimization problems are the minsum and the minmax. In this note, we propose a new parametric single-objective optimization problem associated with MOP by means of Goal Programming ideas. We show that the minsum and minmax are particular instances, so we are somehow combining minsum and minmax by means of a parameter. Moreover, such parameter has a clear meaning in the value space. Applications of this parametric problem to classical models in Locational Analysis are discussed.


The academic achievement of odd semester students of
Surabaya Anesthesiology Nursing Study Program (S-ANSP) of the
academic year 2002/2003 was low shown by 28% good qualification
grades and by 72% sufficient qualification grades data.The main
purpose of this research was to analyze the influence of lecturers'
performance and Teaching-Learning process to students of S-ANSP
academic performance. This was an analytic observational research,
conducted cross-sectionally. The population was students of S-ANSP
odd semester from the academic year 2003/2004 (130 people) and all
lecturers which were given the authority and responsibility to give
lectures and to be students' tutor amounting to 32 people, the sample
utilized was a total sample (non random sampling).The research results
were the entire students' academic achievement had a mean value of
70.94125; the 1st semester grades had a mean value of 70.2675 with
sufficient and good modus value; the 3rd semester's mean value was
68.8750 with a sufficient modus value; and 5th semester's mean value
was 77 with a good modus value. The results of the Linear Regression
Test (α =0.05) showed that there was an influence of lecturers'
performance to students' academic achievement (p=0.049;
R2=0.1651); and of lecturers' performance in teaching planning to
students' academic achievement (p=0.011; R2 =0.2568); that there
was no influence of lecturers' performance in teaching implementation
to students' academic achievement (p=0.186); and that there was no
influence of lecturers' performance in teaching evaluation to students'
academic achievement (p=0.097). Students with good school grades
were advised to maintain their performance, while students with low
grades were advised to improve their grades by eliminating their habitual
attitude that studying was only to graduate and to get a diploma. To the
Head of S-ANSP, it is advisable to have an assessment on lecturers'
performance followed by rewards and also improvement efforts on
students' study interest.


When I first became interested in Northwest Coast archaeology a review of the literature revealed that no other major culture area of North America was so poorly known archaeologically. At the same time the ethnographic cultures of the region had been intensively studied and the opportunity to use the direct historic approach seemed promising. The selection of the Bella Bella' region as the focus of studies came about through discussion and correspondence with other archaeologists working on the coast. The National Museum of Canada had ongoing research on the Queen Charlotte Islands and the Skeena river mouth. Simon Fraser University was initiating research in the Bella Coola region. The geographically intermediate and archaeologically little known Bella Bella region seemed an obvious choice. Research was initiated during June of 1968. This preliminary season was devoted to exploratory efforts as a guide to future research. At the inception of the work, none of the researchers had prior experience in the area, nor much experience in the survey and excavation of shell middens, consequently during the first week of the season we initiated a survey to locate prehistoric sites. Our first efforts consisted of motoring along the shoreline looking for any obvious remains or unusual topographic or vegetational features. We would then go ashore to examine likely areas. We also examined other areas selected at random to learn if we were overlooking any sites. The dense vegetation combined with the steepness of the shoreline quickly convinced us that more efficient survey methods had to be developed. We were recording less than one site per day, yet were expending great amounts of energy. We therefore began a systematic program of interviewing residents about the location of sites. Many local people knew the locations of pictographs and petroglyphs; but their knowledge of midden locations was less precise. One man in particular, Willie Gladstone, of the Bella Bella band, at that time 82 years old, proved to be a mine of information. He provided us with more than fifty site locations, and marked our navigational charts with additional comments regarding site type and distinctive features. We then proceeded to visit and record each location. At the conclusion of the field season we had recorded 51 sites and had yet to investigate an additional 31 sites reported by local residents. Additional efforts during 1968 included test excavations at Namu and Kisameet. The survey (Fig. 1) from its inception in 1968 has been directed by J. Anthony Pomeroy who is preparing a separate report on this aspect of our project.


Abstract. The near-infrared nadir spectra measured by SCIAMACHY on-board ENVISAT contain information on the vertical columns of important atmospheric trace gases such as carbon monoxide (CO), methane (CH4), and carbon dioxide (CO2). The scientific algorithm WFM-DOAS has been used to retrieve this information. For CH4 and CO2 also column averaged mixing ratios (XCH4 and XCO2) have been determined by simultaneous measurements of the dry air mass. All available spectra of the year 2003 have been processed. We describe the algorithm versions used to generate the data (v0.4; for methane also v0.41) and show comparisons of monthly averaged data over land with global measurements (CO from MOPITT) and models (for CH4 and CO2). We show that elevated concentrations of CO resulting from biomass burning have been detected in reasonable agreement with MOPITT. The measured XCH4 is enhanced over India, south-east Asia, and central Africa in September/October 2003 in line with model simulations, where they result from surface sources of methane such as rice fields and wetlands. The CO2 measurements over the Northern Hemisphere show the lowest mixing ratios around July in qualitative agreement with model simulations indicating that the large scale pattern of CO2 uptake by the growing vegetation can be detected with SCIAMACHY. We also identified potential problems such as a too low inter-hemispheric gradient for CO, a time dependent bias of the methane columns on the order of a few percent, and a few percent too high CO2 over parts of the Sahara.


Given the emerging role of oxide spinels as hole conductors, we discuss in this article the traditional vs. new methodologies of determining the type of conduction mechanism at play––localized polaronic vs. band-like transport. Applying (i) traditional small polaron analysis to our in-situ high temperature four-point conductivity and thermopower measurements, we previously found an activated mobility, which is indicative of the small polaron mechanism. However, (ii) employing the recent developments in correcting density functional methodologies for hole localization, we predict that the self-trapped hole is unstable and that Rh2ZnO4 is instead a band conductor with a large effective mass. The hole mobility measured by high-field room temperature Hall effect also suggests band rather than polaron conduction. The apparent contradiction between the conclusion of the traditional procedure (i) and first-principles theory (ii) is resolved by taking into account in the previous transport analysis the temperature dependence of the effective density of states, which leads to the result that the mobility is actually temperature-independent in Rh2ZnO4. Our case study on Rh2ZnO4 illustrates the range of experimental and theoretical approaches at hand to determine whether the transport mechanism of a semiconductor is band or small polaron conduction.


Motivated by applications in robotics and computer vision, we study problems related to spatial reasoning of a 3D environment using sublevel sets of polynomials. These include: tightly containing a cloud of points (e.g., representing an obstacle) with convex or nearly-convex basic semialgebraic sets, computation of Euclidean distances between two such sets, separation of two convex basic semalgebraic sets that overlap, and tight containment of the union of several basic semialgebraic sets with a single convex one. We use algebraic techniques from sum of squares optimization that reduce all these tasks to semidefinite programs of small size and present numerical experiments in realistic scenarios.


As a consequence of the aims of this project, this thesis is divided into two distinct sections. Initially, the computationally efficient phase-screen forward modelling technique is extended to allow investigation of non-normal ray paths. The code is developed to accommodate all diffracted and converted phases up to critical angle, building on a geometrical construction method previously developed with a narrow-angle approximation. The new approach relies upon pre-scanning the model space to assess the complexity of each screen. The propagating wavefields are then divided as a function of horizontal wavenumber, and each subset is transformed to the spatial domain separately, carrying with it angular information. This allows both locally accurate 3D phase corrections and Zoeppritz reflection and transmission coefficients to be applied. The phase-screen code is further developed to handle simple anisotropic media. During phase-screen modelling, propagation is undertaken in the wavenumber domain where exact expressions for anisotropic phase velocities are incorporated. Extensive testing of the enhanced phase-screen technique includes simple analytical models to justify the inclusion of multiple energy alongside synthetic examples from models commonly used to test numerical modelling techniques. Additionally the code is tested with real models from a producing field in a marine sedimentary location where an exhaustive range of geophysical techniques were used to constrain the VTI parameters. Secondly within this thesis, the narrow angle version of the phase-screen method is used to generate a comprehensive pre-stack seismic reflection dataset for our industrial partners. Current exploration within the European oil and gas community is heavily focused on regions where the targets for production are positioned beneath plateau basalts oh the north west European margin. These environments produce a complex seismic response due to the scattering generated by the internal composition of the basalt flows. This study generates a large subsurface volume, derived from geological mapping projects in the Hold-with-Hope region of north east Greenland, and synthetically acquires a realistic 3-D reflection study across it. The basalt is uniquely generated as a single random volume with distinct correlation lengths in each orthogonal direction and a novel approach to determine seismic attenuation through basalts is developed. Initial results from this data set are presented after careful optimisation of the modelling code and parameters.


Modern superscalar pipelines have tremendous capacity to consume the instruction stream. This has been possible owing to improvements in process technology, technology scaling and microarchitectural design improvements that allow programs to speculate past control and data dependencies in the superscalar architecture. However, the speed of the memory subsystem lags behind due to physical constraints in bringing in huge amounts of data to the processor core. Cache hierarchies have subdued the impact of this speed gap, however, there is much that can be still done in improving microarchitecture. Data prefetching techniques bring in memory content significantly before the instruction stream actually witnesses demand misses. However, a majority of the techniques proposed so far depend upon an initial demand miss that initiates a stream of previously identified prefetches. In this thesis, we propose a novel prefetching algorithm, which leverages branch prediction to facilitate deep memory system speculation. The branch predictor directed lookahead mechanism builds a speculative control flow path for the instruction stream about to be fetched by the main superscalar pipeline. Prefetches are generated along this speculative path from a condensed representation of the memory instructions, leveraging register index based correlation. The technique integrates eloquently with the main pipeline's branch predictor to filter out prefetches along invalid speculative paths. Impact of the prefetching scheme is analyzed using outof-order model of the Gem5 cycle accurate simulator. Evaluation shows that on a set of 13 memory intensive SPEC CPU2006 benchmarks, our prefetching technique improves performance by an average of 5.6% over the baseline out-of-order processor.