Developing students' algorithmic and computational thinking is currently a major objective for primary and secondary education in many countries around the globe. Literature suggests that students face at various difficulties in programming processes, because of their mental models about basic programming constructs. Arrays constitute the first data structure students have to cope with in introductory programming courses. This paper presents the results of an empirical study on secondary education students' misconceptions and mental representations of the array data structure. Students' responses to written tasks regarding short code segments were mapped to the different levels of the SOLO taxonomy, in order to identify how students use arrays to solve programming problems. The analysis of the results showed that the majority of the students tended to manifest responses assigned to the lower SOLO levels, i.e. prestructural, unistructural and multistructural. The findings indicate that many students in the sample had incomplete or faulty representations of the array concept, which seem to be connected to their misconceptions about the programming variable concept.


Criminal law scholarship is rife with analysis of the victims' rights movement. Many articles identify with the outrage of victims harmed by deviant criminal elements. Other scholarly pieces criticize the movement's denuding of defendants' constitutional trial rights. The point upon which proponents and opponents of the movement tend to agree, however, is that the victim should never be blamed for the crime. The helpless, harmed, innocent victim is someone with whom we can all identify and someone to whom we can all express sympathy. Victim blaming, by all accounts, is an act of legal heresy to feminists, victim advocates, and many criminal law scholars. The aversion to victim-blaming is likely part of the reason why there is a dearth of legal scholarship concerning formal victim blaming defenses. The reality is, however, that the criminal law currently contains doctrines that absolve defendants of liability based on the conduct of the victim. Most obviously, self-defense exculpates a defendant for killing when the victim has engaged in imminently life-threatening conduct. Other victim liability defenses in the criminal law include provocation, defense of others, and defense of property. The problem is that there is no true doctrinal coherence in the existing victim liability defenses. They arbitrarily provide defenses to some defendants who respond to victim conduct and not others. Consequently, defendants who commit crimes, not because the victim is wrongful, but rather because the victim possesses certain minority traits disfavored by the defendant, are eligible for defenses under the current system. Current victim liability law often provides a pass to "reasonable racists," "provoked" wife-killers, and those who kill because of homosexual advances. A critical analysis of victim blaming defenses is more important now than ever. The victims' rights movement has elevated the crime victim to near party status in the criminal prosecution, propelling the once very public arena of criminal law toward privatization. The political force of the victims' rights movements is derived at least in part from a one-side characterization of victimhood, which portrays victims as ultimately irreproachable, truthful, and almost saintly. Juxtaposed with this is an image of the criminal defendant as guilty, unremorseful, and evil. As a result of this incomplete characterization, victims who are themselves wrongful actors are able to utilize the prevailing victimization narratives to gain the panoply of rights and moral sanctity conferred by the victims' rights movement. As a response to this problem with the privatization trend, this article proposes that the criminal law take a fuller view of victims and provides a coherent mechanism through which victim wrongdoing may be assessed at the liability level. The "non-specific victim liability defense" is a defense that applies to any crime. It requires that: (1) the victim engaged in sufficiently wrongful conduct; (2) the wrongful conduct caused the defendant to commit the charged offense; (3) the defendant was not predisposed to commit the charged offense; and (4) the defendant's response balances against the victim's wrongful conduct dictates that the defendant should be exculpated or punishment should be mitigated. This defense represents both a philosophical response to the privatization trend and a logical reformation of existing law. It solves some of the difficult race and gender problems of current victim liability law because it is more prescriptive than descriptive: It requires that the defendant respond to wrongful victim conduct. The defendant is subsequently prevented from asserting the defense if his criminal conduct was based, not on wrongful conduct, but on his own patriarchal, homophobic, or racist belief system. Part I of the article examines the trend toward increased focus on the victim and the movement in criminal law toward privatization. Part II analyzes the problem with the victims' rights movement and discusses the need for a more complete picture of the victim. Part III discusses several problems with the current collection of specific victim liability defenses that can be remedied by substituting the non-specific victim liability defense. Part IV expounds upon the meanings of the elements of the defense and its practical application.


Abstract In May 2017, Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, popularly known as Ahok, the former Christian governor of Jakarta, Indonesia, was found guilty of blasphemy and sentenced to two years in prison. Although he was released in January 2019, his trial and the various reactions it elicited continue to highlight the very sensitive and complex issues surrounding the notion and enforcement of blasphemy and how different communities talk about it. This article focuses on a discussion about the trial between an Indonesian Muslim in favor of the blasphemy charge and an Indonesian Christian opposed to it. Using positioning analysis, it investigates how their conversation in English at a University in Japan exhibited an occasioned, fluid, developing range of evaluative language, both in terms of how they talked about themselves and others. The analysis demonstrates the complex interplay and consistent tension that is often present in inter-religious dialogue, and tracks how a wide array of discourse and contextual factors relate to developing positions, storylines, expressions of social power, and strategies for conflict management. We conclude by highlighting the inherent complexity of the dynamics of such interaction and how it can lead to greater convergence and/or tension, while emphasizing the potential benefits of face-to-face conversations around issues of possible conflict.


In May 2012 Alex Sharpe, Professor of Law at Keele University, UK, visited Lund University where she participated in a series of seminars and workshops organised around a central motif in her work: the legal outsider. As part of her visit she presented a version of a paper recently published in the Modern Law Review titled "Transgender Marriage and the Legal Obligation to Disclose Gender History." The paper focused on and challenged the legal and wider cultural framing of non-disclosure of gender history as harmful and as unethical. The paper is her latest intervention and forms part of a substantial body of writing around transgender/law issues. This corpus includes her book: Transgender Jurisprudence: Dysphoric Bodies of Law (2002), the first to offer a critical treatment of the subject. In a separate workshop she approached the legal constitution and regulation of outsiders through the lens of the monster. This event served to introduce her latest book, Foucault's Monsters and the Challenge of Law. In contrast to a focus on one specific group of legal outsiders (transgender people), Foucault's Monsters offers instead a deeper theoretical analysis and a much broader historical sweep. Drawing on Foucault, the book presents a theoretical framework for understanding the legal production of outsiders and a history of the legal category monster. The history presented works both as a history of the past, but also, and more importantly, as a history of the present whereby sense is made, through the monster template, of contemporary outsider figures: admixed embryos, conjoined twins and transgender people. This interview with Professor Sharpe focuses on these two aspects of her scholarly work: transgender/law relations specifically and the legal constitution and regulation of outsiders more generally understood through Foucault's monster template.


Introduction Over the past two years we have been developing computer programs to investigate various scientific visualization techniques as applied to estuarine data. The original impetus was to be able to visualize the results of the three-dimensional hydrodynamic model under development at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, College of William and Mary (VIMS). We quickly recognized the superior ability of certain graphic approaches, especially pseudocolor animation, to efficiently transmit a tremendous amount of information to the viewer, allowing the scientist to gain an insight into the dynamics of the data not otherwise available. We decided to apply this technique to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Bay Monitoring data set, a field collection effort so large that it sometimes overwhelms our traditional information presentations. What we present here is an alternative way of presenting and archiving large amounts of field measurements. The Chesapeake Bay Program began its water quality monitoring in the summer of 1984. Data collection in the mainstem of the Bay was done by University of Maryland (UMD), VIMS, and Old Dominion University (ODU), supported by EPA, while state regulatory agencies have been responsible for water quality data from the Maryland and Virginia tributaries. More than 130 stations (49 in the Bay proper) were occupied over 120 times each during the water years 1985 through 1990 (Figure 1). This information has been brought together to create color contoured images of the 10 different physical and water quality parameters that were measured. Each parameter for each month is summarized in a color image that shows the map-view surface and bottom distributions plus a vertical North-South section running down the natural channel from the Susquehanna to the mouth of the Bay, Each pixel in the map-view represents a lkm X lkm area. Although a certain amount of data manipulation must occur between the original logged measurements and these images, the distributions shown should best be understood as raw "snapshots" of what was present in the Chesapeake during that month. No data analysis or interpretation is attempted in this report. As a result of findings and recommendations made by the Chesapeake Bay Program in September 1983 (US-EPA, 1983) a comprehensive Water Quality Monitoring program was initiated in June of the following year, funded by the U.S. EPA. The Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE) samples 22 stations from the mouth of the Susquehanna to south of the mouth of the …


Stereospecific polymers were constructed by the successive formation of a trans-CC bond using bis(benzylic gem-dibromide)s as monomers treated with Cu/polyamine under mild conditions. The structure of the polymer was characterized by GPC, NMR, UV-vis and MALDI-TOF-MS. The formation of a trans-CC bond was established by a series of control reactions. Evidence demonstrates that the CC bond is generated by two domino reactions, one is the intermolecular reductive coupling reaction from gem-dibromide to vicinal dibromide and the other is the intramolecular debromination of vicinal dibromide, and therefore, the formation of a trans-CC bond. The successive formation of the trans-CC bond leads to the growth of a polymer chain following a step-growth polymerization mechanism.


ABSTRACT A methodology for the estimation of the soot volume fraction in a three-dimensional laminar diffusion flame is presented. All experiments are conducted in microgravity and have as objective producing quantitative data that can serve to estimate radiative heat transfer in flames representative of fires in spacecraft. The competitive nature of formation and oxidation of soot and its direct coupling with the streamlines (source of oxygen) require for these measurements to be conducted within the exact configuration. Thus three-dimensional measurements are needed. Ethylene is injected through a square porous burner and the oxidizer flows parallel to its surface. The methodology uses CH* chemiluminescence measurements to correct for three-dimensional effects affecting light attenuation measurements. Corrected local soot concentrations are thus obtained. All experiments are conducted during parabolic flights and the parameters varied are fuel and oxidizer flow rates.


Background: Feather waste is generated in large amounts as a by-product of commercial poultry processing. The main component of feather is keratin. The main purpose of this study was to identify Bacillus spp . (the keratinolytic bacteria) that are able to degrade the feather for producing keratin. Methods: Bacillus spp . Were isolated from the waste of poultries located in Miyaneh city. The bacteria were grown on basal medium containing 1% hen feather as the sole source of carbon ,nitrogen, sulfur and energy at 27ºC for 7 days. Then,the isolates capable of feather degrading were identified. The Bradford method was used to assay the production of keratin in the feather samples. Different pH and temperatures were studied to determine the best conditions for production of keratinase enzyme. Results: Seven Bacillus spp . including: B. pumilis, B. subtilis , B. firmus , B. macerance , B. popilliae , B. lentimorbus and B. larvae were found to be able to degrade the feather with different abilities. Conclusion: B. subtilis was found to be most productive isolate for keratinase enzyme production.


The objective of this study was to assess the possible modifications due to amoxicillin-clavulanic acid (AMC) treatment on total bacteria and on Bifidobacterium species balance in human colonic microbiota. Eighteen healthy volunteers (19 to 36 years old) were given a 875/125 mg dose of AMC twice a day for 5 days. Fecal samples were obtained before and after antibiotic exposure. After total DNA extraction, total bacteria and bifidobacteria were specifically quantified using real-time PCR. Dominant species were monitored over time using bacterial and bifidobacterial Temporal Temperature Gradient gel Electrophoresis (TTGE). At the end of AMC exposure, total bacterial concentrations as well as bifidobacteria concentrations were significantly reduced compared to before AMC exposure:10.7±0.1 log10 16S rRNA gene copies/g vs 11.1±0.1 log10 (p = 0.003) and 8.1±0.5 log10 16S rRNA gene copies/g vs 9.4±0.3 log10 (p = 0.003), respectively. At the same time, the mean similarity percentages of TTGE bacteria and TTGE bifidobacteria profiles were significantly reduced compared to before AMC exposure: 51.6%±3.5% vs 81.4%±2.1% and 55.8%±7.6% vs 84.5%±4.1%, respectively. Occurrence of B. adolescentis, B. bifidum and B. pseudocatenulatum/B. catenulatum species significantly decreased. Occurrence of B. longum remained stable. Moreover, the number of distinct Bifidobacterium species per sample significantly decreased (1.5±0.3 vs 2.3±0.3; p = 0.01). Two months after AMC exposure, the mean similarity percentage of TTGE profiles was 55.6% for bacteria and 62.3% for bifidobacteria. These results clearly demonstrated that a common antibiotic treatment may qualitatively alter the colonic microbiota. Such modifications may have potential long-term physiological consequences.


The chief shortcoming of the conformal finite-difference time-domain (CFDTD) method is the global time-step reduction in order to avoid instability arising from small irregular cells. In this letter, we introduce a new conformal scheme to overcome this problem for the CFDTD method. The time-step reduction is applied only locally to the small irregular cells, which is only 1/3 of that in the regular cells. In order to update the electric field at the interface between the small irregular cell and its adjacent cells, extra magnetic fields next to the small irregular cell are introduced. Through this scheme, the time-step reduction is limited to a few small cells, and the numerical simulation can be the most efficiently implemented in the FDTD framework. Numerical accuracy is verified by comparison with the conventional CFDTD method for the radar cross section (RCS) of perfect conducting curved objects.


This paper estimates the impact of the ongoing housing bust and oil price boom on the US and European economies. It finds that large house price movements (changes in construction investment) are useful to predict exceptionally bad and good times for the US economy, but not for most large European countries. In Europe housing market developments have led to extreme values of GDP, mainly in the UK, Spain and some Nordic countries. Exceptionally good or bad times are defined as realisations of the output gap (the difference between actual and trend GDP) that fall in the % tail of the distribution. Our definition of a 'bad time' thus does not necessarily imply a recession, which is officially defined as two consecutive quarters of falling GDP (and employment). A prolonged period of sub par growth could also lead to an equivalent output gap. Our model allows us to estimate the probability of the US and European economies experiencing exceptionally bad times. We find that the probability for the US is over 50% if one assumes that house prices will continue to fall throughout 2008. Adding the high oil price to the picture increases this probability to over 80%. For most European countries we find a much lower probability; except for Spain, where the probability of a large output gap will rise to over 85 % by the end of 2008 if house prices were to fall as much as in the US.


Faunal evidence from Hallan Çemi Tepesi in southeastern Turkey reveals important similarities and differences in subsistence patterns when compared to the Levant at the time of the Epipaleolithic-Neolithic transition. Possible diet breadth expansion is examined at Hallan Çemi based on prey species and biomass composition, body part analysis, age profiles, and carcass processing patterns. The occupants of Hallan Çemi hunted a wide range of animals, including wild sheep and goats, pigs, red deer, and tortoises. Low-ranked, fast-moving small game animals such as hares and avian fauna are comparatively rare. Small game use at Hallan Çemi resembles patterns observed in some late Natufian sites, but there is focused exploitation of ungulates atHallan Çemi.The site presents a seemingly contradictory pairing of a meat diet composed of high-ranked animal resources and intensive plant seed processing. Also supporting the overall picture of high-ranked animal exploitation are transport biases that favored themeatiest portions of ungulate carcasses, particularly the upper front limb region. Potential explanations for the contrasting meat and plant diet patterns must consider expanding diet breadth in response to demographic packing (expressed mainly in terms of plant exploitation) and display behaviors that emphasized large game but not other parts of the food supply. Hallan Çemi Tepesi: High-ranked Game Exploitation alongside Intensive Seed Processing at the EpipaleolithicNeolithic Transition in Southeastern Turkey


Eutrophication due to excess loading of phosphorus (P) is a leading cause of water quality degradation within the United States. The aim of this study was to investigate P removal and recovery with 12 materials (four calcite varieties, wollastonite, dolomite, hydroxylapatite, eggshells, coral sands, biochar, and activated carbon. This was accomplished through a series of batch experiments with synthetic wastewater solutions ranging from 10-100 mg PO4-P/ L. The results of this study were used to establish largescale, calcite-based column filter experiments located in the Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources' Eco-Machine. Influent and effluent wastewater samples were routinely collected for 64 days. Measures of filter performance included changes in pH, percent reduction and mass adsorbed of P. After the columns reached saturation, filter media was analyzed for the mineralogical content by X-ray powder diffraction (XRD). In the batch experiments, P removal and recovery varied among the media and across treatments. The best performing minerals were calcite, wollastonite, and hydroxylapatite. Eggshells, activated carbon, and coral sands also reduced and adsorbed P. The remaining materials had the lowest reductions and adsorption of P. Results from batch experiments informed the design of large column filters within the Rubenstein School of the Environment and Natural Resources' Eco-Machine. Removal and adsorption rates of P by the three column filters were similar. The columns achieved an average P reduction of 12.53% (se = 0.98) and an average P adsorption of 0.649 mg PO4-P/ kg media (se = 0.03) over a 4-h hydraulic retention time. Paired T-tests showed that P reductions were statistically significant (p-value < 0.05) on the majority of sampling dates until the columns reached saturation. Saturation was reached after 31 days for two of the columns and 36 days for the third column. The filter media consistently buffered the pH of the wastewater to approximately 6.0-7.0 with no indication of diminishing buffer capacity after saturation. XRD analysis was not able to detect any P species within the crystalline structure of the filter media. This research contributes to the understanding of how the selected media perform during P removal and recovery programs, while providing information on the performance of large column filters operating within advanced, ecologically engineered wastewater treatment systems.


The programme of work for this thesis began with the somewhat genenal intention of parallelling in the context of higher order models the ultraproduct construction and its consequences as developed in the literature for first order models. Something of this was, of course, already available in the ultrapower construction of W.A.J. Luxemburg used in Non Standand Analysis. It may have been considered that such a genenal intention was not likely to yield anything of significance oven and above what was already available from viewing the higher order situation as a 'many sorted' first order one and interpreting the first order theory accordingly. In the event, however, I believe this has proved not to be so. In particular the substructure concepts developed in Chapter II of this thesis together with the various embedding theorems and their applications are not immediately available fnom the first order theory and seem to be of sufficient worth to warrant developing the higher order theory in its own terms. This, anyway, is the basic justification for the approach and content of the thesis.


OBJECTIVE
Serum lipids, blood pressure and body mass may mediate the U-shaped relationship of alcohol consumption with type 2 diabetes mellitus and coronary heart disease. This study examines the cross-sectional and long-term longitudinal relationships of (changes in) alcohol consumption with (changes in) serum lipids, blood pressure and body mass indices.

METHOD
In this prospective, observational cohort study, two measurements of alcohol consumption, serum total and high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, triglycerides, blood pressure, body weight, the thickness of four skinfolds and waist circumference were performed 4 years apart in healthy volunteers (143 men and 174 women, 32 years old at the first measurement). Alcohol consumption from beer, wine and distilled spirits was assessed using an extensive dietary history interview. Linear regression analyses were performed to study the cross-sectional relationships between the amount of alcohol consumed at the age of 32 years and the levels of the lipids, blood pressure and body weight indices, and to study the longitudinal relationships between the changes in the amount of alcohol consumed over the 4 years of follow-up and the concurrent changes in the lipids, blood pressure and body weight indices. Nonlinearity was investigated for the cross-sectional relationships.

RESULTS
A 10-g/day difference in alcohol consumption was positively related with a 0.05 mmol/L (1.9 mg/dl) difference in high-density lipoprotein cholesterol in both cross-sectional (p = .004), and longitudinal (p < .0001) analyses. This relationship did not differ for men and women or for the consumption of beer, wine or distilled spirits. Relationships with changes in total cholesterol, triglycerides, systolic, diastolic, and pulse pressure, body weight and the sum of four skinfolds were not significant. A borderline significant inverse longitudinal relationship was found with waist circumference. The other lifestyle behaviors (tobacco smoking, physical activity and dietary habits) were major confounders of most cross-sectional relationships between alcohol and serum lipids, blood pressure and body mass indices. The longitudinal relationships, however, were not confounded by changes in the other lifestyle behaviors. A significant nonlinear relationship was found for systolic blood pressure, in which drinkers of about 30 g/day had the lowest values.

CONCLUSIONS
Moderate alcohol consumption and moderate long-term changes in alcohol consumption are positively related with the levels and changes in high-density lipoprotein cholesterol in healthy adult men and women. A moderate inverse association between alcohol and waist circumference may be expected. No relationships were found with triglycerides, blood pressure, body weight and the sum of the thickness of four skinfolds. Other lifestyle behaviors confound the cross-sectional, but not the longitudinal, relationships between alcohol consumption and serum lipids, blood pressure and body mass indices. Gender and type of beverage do not modify the relationships between alcohol consumption and these indices.


Purpose: Fluoroscopic tumor tracking without implanted fiducial markers in image‐guidedlungcancerradiotherapy is an important yet challenging research topic nowadays. In this study, a novel strategy using clustering on low‐rank fluoroscopic images is proposed for lungtumor tracking. Methods: Precisely localizing lungtumor position in fluoroscopic images is difficult because of either the obscure boundary between the tumor region and its surrounded non‐tumor tissues or concurrent movement of both tumor and non‐tumor tissues. A fluoroscopic image is first decomposed into low‐rank and sparse components based on a Robust‐PCA model via a split Bregman method in this study. The purpose is to obtain low‐rank fluoroscopic images with less movement of non‐tumor tissues. Later, a k‐means clustering algorithm is applied on low‐rank fluoroscopic images to differentiate tumor from non‐tumor tissues. A morphological process and a connected components analysis are also incorporated on clustering results to determine detected tumor regions for tracking. Results: 400 fluoroscopic images obtained from 3 patients with lungcancer are utilized to evaluate the performance of the proposed tumor tracking strategy. Another strategy, which conducts the same tracking steps via clustering but directly on fluoroscopic images, is implemented for comparison. Experimental results and statistical analysis demonstrate that clustering on low‐rank fluoroscopic images performs significantly better than performing clustering directly on fluoroscopic images for lungtumor tracking. Also, tracking results obtained by the newly proposed strategy are more stable, and they are less likely to be influenced by non‐tumor tissues around the tumor region in fluoroscopic images, which often happens when applying clustering directly on fluoroscopic images. Conclusions: A novel markerless tumor tracking strategy via clustering on low‐rank fluoroscopic images for image‐guidedlungcancerradiotherapy is proposed. Promising results are demonstrated by testing the proposed strategy on real patient data. Acknowledgement: The authors would like to acknowledge the supported from Varian Medical Systems, Inc.


Background & Aim : New graduate nurses suffer high levels of stress which can lead to unpleasant personal and professional outcomes. The aim of this study was to investigate the role of mindfulness and meta-emotion on predicting Emotional Adjustment in novice nurses. Material & Method: The descriptive-correlative method was used for conducting this research. The Statistical population was consisted of all the nurses in Tabriz. A sample of 120 subjects (60 females and 60 males) was randomly selected, using multistage random cluster. For data collection, Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (CERQ), Mindfulness Questionnaire and Meta-emotion Questionnaire was used. The data gathered were analyzed by Pearson correlation and multiple regression, using simultaneous enter method. The data were analyzed by SPSS statistical software (version 21). Results : The Finding indicated that there was a positive relationship between mindfulness and meta-emotion (P<0/01) and between positive Emotional Adjustment and there was a negative relationship between meta-emotion (P<0/01) and negative emotional– cognitive regulation and mindfulness (P<0/01). The results showed that through using the scores from mindfulness and meta-emotion components of novice nurses, we can predict the rate of Emotional Adjustment (P< 0/01). Conclusion: According to the results, novice nurse's cognitive emotion regulation can be improved by teaching mindfulness and meta-emotion skills, and through awareness of the emotions, they can use them efficiently and improve their performance.


Experiments were conducted to control exhaust emissions and determine combustion characteristics of four stroke variable compression ratio, variable speed, single cylinder, spark ignition (SI) engine, with alcohol blended gasoline (80% gasoline, 10% methanol, 10% ethanol by volume) having copper coated combustion chamber [CCCC, copper-(thickness, 300 μ) coated on piston crown, inner side of cylinder head] provided with catalytic converter with sponge iron as catalyst and compared with conventional SI engine (CE) with pure gasoline operation. Exhaust emissions (carbon mono oxide (CO) and unburnt hydro carbons (UBHC) were evaluated at different values of brake mean effective pressure. Combustion characteristics (peak pressure, maximum rate of pressure rise and time of occurrence of peak pressure and maximum heat release) were determined at full load operation of the engine. A microprocessor-based analyzer was used for the measurement of CO/UBHC in the exhaust of the engine. Combustion characteristics were determined by special software package. Copper coated combustion chamber with alcohol blended gasoline considerably reduced pollutants in comparison with CE with pure gasoline operation. Catalytic converter with air injection significantly reduced pollutants with test fuels on both configurations of the combustion chamber. The catalyst, sponge reduced the pollutants effectively with both test fuels in both versions of the combustion chamber.


Currently, the main application of commercially available three-dimensional forward looking sonar (3D FLS) technology is for real-time vessel navigation. Using 3D FLS technology, the vessel operator can detect not only the range and bearing to a navigational hazard, but also the depth of the hazard in the water column. However, 3D FLS is itself a nascent technology for which many exciting applications are yet to be realized. In this work, the current applications of 3D FLS are surveyed, and some useful metrics for the evaluation of a 3D FLS are defined. New possible applications of 3D FLS are introduced. Performance for all known commercially available 3D FLS products according the FLS metrics previously defined is summarized. Finally, some of the differences in applicability for current and emerging applications of the most robust 3D FLS systems are discussed.


Graph spectral analysis can yield meaningful embeddings of graphs by providing insight into distributed features not directly accessible in nodal domain. Recent efforts in graph signal processing have proposed new decompositions—for example, based on wavelets and Slepians—that can be applied to filter signals defined on the graph. In this work, we take inspiration from these constructions to define a new guided spectral embedding that combines maximizing energy concentration with minimizing modified embedded distance for a given importance weighting of the nodes. We show that these optimization goals are intrinsically opposite, leading to a well-defined and stable spectral decomposition. The importance weighting allows us to put the focus on particular nodes and tune the trade-off between global and local effects. Following the derivation of our new optimization criterion, we exemplify the methodology on the C. elegans structural connectome. The results of our analyses confirm known observations on the nematode's neural network in terms of functionality and importance of cells. Compared with Laplacian embedding, the guided approach, focused on a certain class of cells (sensory neurons, interneurons, or motoneurons), provides more biological insights, such as the distinction between somatic positions of cells, and their involvement in low- or high-order processing functions.


This paper studies how the arrival of information affects welfare in a general equilibrium exchange economy with incomplete and differential information. It considers a setup in which agents differ in their attitudes toward risk. This introduces gains from trade. In equilibrium, the information sets differ across agents, i.e., they hold heterogeneous beliefs. For certain structures of primitives, the latter introduces an adverse effect on welfare. In this case, the arrival of information has opposite effects: on the one hand it weakens the adverse effect on trade, and on the other hand it strengthens the Hirshleifer effect. The first effect fosters and the second one discourages risk-sharing trades. When the first effect dominates, welfare increases upon the arrival of more precise information.


Several groups have demonstrated the potential of the Pockels effect in Cadmium Zinc
Telluride (CZT) as a means to detect ionizing radiation. Migrating charge carriers are believed
to generate the signal detected via the Pockels effect due to the distortions they create
within the electric field, however trapped space charge beneath the cathode has been regularly
observed which suggests that the signal amplitude is potentially dominated by a large dose
element. In this work, the effects of electric field collapse at the location of charge carrier
generation, rather than where space charge builds up, is demonstrated. This confirms the
potential to apply the technique for imaging dose rate distributions. Charged coupled device
(CCD) images representing the changes in electric field within the crystal were taken and the
response to illumination from a collimated 1550 nm 4.5 mW IR laser and irradiation from
150 kVp X-rays measured. The data demonstrates that the signal acquired is a combination
of both the local change in the electric field at the location where the carriers are being released/generated
and an element caused by them becoming trapped, leading to space charge
near the cathode. Whilst the presence of both components has been demonstrated, their
time response to an IR pulse measured via a photo-diode is the same (within the 6 ms time
limitation of the system). This means that when using a Pockels detection system the average
change in field can be considered proportional only to the incident dose rate when working
in the millisecond regime.
In addition to finding the origins of the detected signal an investigation into the effects of
doping a Cadmium Manganese Telluride crystal with vanadium was carried out to see whether
the large increases in Pockels constant found in the literature when using doped CZT could
be replicated. However, it was found that whilst there is a slight improvement in the constant
and hence the sensitivity of the crystals it was not as significant as hoped. A fibre optic
Mach-Zehnder interferometer has also been designed and built with the aim of developing
further the results from a previous free-space concept demonstrator. In its present condition
the effects of environment have been minimised but the detector system struggles with large
attenuation losses due to repeated coupling into fibres and is currently not usable, however,
increasing the power of the laser and trying to limit even further the free-space elements in
the future should remedy this.


Grant Jones, founding principal of the noted landscape architecture firm Jones & Jones, has practiced ecological design for more than 30 years and has been a pioneer in river planning, scenic highway design, zoo design, and landscape aesthetics. The latest addition to our successful Source Books inLandscape Architecture series, "Grant Jones/Jones & Jones ILARIS," focuses on Jones's "green print" plan for Puget Sound in Washington State. Working in collaboration with the Trust for Public Lands and using new GIS technology, Jones & Jones developed the software tool ILARIS. This CAD-liketool helps to evaluate the aesthetic resources of landscape regions and is used as a basis for future planning. The Puget Sound model can be applied to other landscapes at risk. Including an interview with Grant Jones, critical essays discussing his work, as well as numerous diagrams, plans, and photographs, Grant Jones/Jones & Jones ILARIS is a thorough study of an important project.


Social protection represents an important tool to mitigate poverty and to promote adequate living standards and conditions. In Latin America social protection has largely taken the form of large scale implementation of conditional cash transfers (CCTs). These transfers have proven successful in combating poverty and inequality across the continent, while facilitating empowerment by increasing access to services and supporting investment in education, health and nutrition. Chile Solidario is an avant garde CCT in the Latin American context, introducing innovative features which are aimed at specifically addressing the multidimensional nature of poverty, considered not only as a consequence of the lack of income, but also as a result of low levels of human and social capital, and the vulnerability of a household to shocks.


Two approaches for modelling the impact of ambient conditions on power lines have been developed and recognised as international standards. Methods of thermal analysis of power lines have been collated and presented in standards by both the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and International Council on Large Electric Systems (Conseil International des Grands Réseaux Électriques, CIGRE). This paper will show the advantages and disadvantages in the respective IEEE and CIGRE approaches and explore the value opportunity of applying a hybrid thermal analysis model to distribution networks exposing new methods of improving asset management practices.


Abstract Many institutions, large or small, make their decisions through some process of deliberation. Nonetheless, deliberating institutions often fail, in the sense that they make judgments that are false or that fail to take advantage of the information that their members have. Micro mistakes can lead to macro blunders or even catastrophes. There are four such failures; all of them have implication for large-scale institutions as well as small ones. (1) Sometimes the predeliberation errors of an institution's members are amplified, not merely propagated, as a result of deliberation. (2) Institutions fall victim to cascade effects, as the initial speakers or actors are followed by their successors, who do not disclose what they know. Non-disclosure, on the part of those successors, may be a product of either informational or reputational cascades. (3) As a result of group polarization, deliberating institutions sometimes end up in a more extreme position in line with their predeliberation tendencies. Sometimes group polarization leads in desirable directions, but there is no assurance to this effect. (4) In deliberating institutions, shared information often dominates or crowds out unshared information, ensuring that institutions do not learn what their members know. Informational signals and reputational pressure help to explain all four errors. The results can be harmful to numerous institutions, including large ones, and to societies as a whole. Markets are able to correct some of these problems, but cascade effects occur there as well.


IGNITION MECHANISM IN NANOCOMPOSITES THERMITES by Rayon Williams Nanocomposite thermites (n-thermites) have been actively investigated for a wide range of potential applications including propellants, explosives, and pyrotechnics. There have been several recent efforts aimed at understanding ignition mechanisms of nanocomposite reactive materials. Although significant progress has been made, ignition mechanisms remain elusive. At the same time, a robust ignition model is required to incorporate these materials in practical energetic formulations. A challenge of this effort is to describe the mechanisms of ignition of n-thermites prepared by Arrested Reactive Milling (ARM) with different stimuli, including heat, spark and impact and also develop a multi-step kinetic model describing different processes affecting ignition. The role of thermally initiated heterogeneous exothermic reactions is evaluated and the effect of decomposition of oxidizer and respective oxygen gas release on ignition is described. N-thermite powders are prepared by ARM and evaluated using thermal analysis, electron microscopy and other analytical techniques. Experimental studies of ignition of n-thermites stimulated by heating, electric spark and impact are conducted with the goal of developing a reaction model capable of describing different experimental data sets. State of the art thermo-analytical equipment and advanced isoconversion methods are used to describe stability and redox reaction mechanisms in the prepared samples. Multiple reaction steps are identified and described quantitatively. Thin layers of the prepared powders coated onto an electrically heated Ni-Cr filament are ignited at heating rates between 200-17000 K/s in a miniature vacuum chamber. Ignition is monitored based on both photodiode and pressure transducer signals recorded simultaneously. For spark-induced ignition, powder layers of different thickness are placed in a grounded brass holder. A needle-like electrode is placed above the powder and sparks with different energies are produced. Real time measurements of current and optical signatures produced by the ignited sample at different wavelengths are taken. The results are processed to determine the spark energy, minimum ignition energy, ignition delay, and other parameters. Shock ignition of nanocomposite 8Al∙MoO3 thermite particles are independently carried out at the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign. An individual particle is targeted by a miniature, laser-driven flyer plate accelerated to a speed in the range of 0.5-2 km/s. Ignition delays observed in both shock and spark ignition experiments for the same material are close to each other and vary in the range of 120 – 200 ns. A reaction mechanism including multiple oxidation steps starting with the Cabrera-Mott (CM) reaction followed by direct oxidative growth of and phase changes in different alumina polymorphs is validated for a stoichiometric 2Al∙3CuO nanocomposite powder prepared by ARM. The reaction kinetics describing these reaction steps are shown to remain credible for the ARM-prepared reactive composites with different scales of mixing, interface morphologies, and component ratios, as long as the components remained Al and CuO. This work presents a further validation and development of this multistep model to describe reaction in another ARM-prepared thermite system, 8Al∙MoO3. IGNITION MECHANISM IN NANOCOMPOSITES THERMITES


[1] Low-latitude ionospheric electric fields and currents are often strongly disturbed during periods of enhanced geomagnetic activity. These perturbations can last for several hours after geomagnetic quieting. We use incoherent scatter radar measurements from Jicamarca and Arecibo during 19–21 October 1998 to study, for the first time, the low-latitude disturbance electric fields during the recovery phase of a large magnetic storm. On 19 October the Jicamarca data showed initially large and short-lived (time scale of about 10–20 min) upward and westward drift perturbations in the early afternoon sector, due to the penetration of strong magnetospheric electric fields probably driven by an increase in the solar wind dynamic pressure. Following the decrease of auroral activity, very strong afternoon and nighttime zonal and vertical disturbance dynamo drifts were observed over Jicamarca but, surprisingly, only small and sporadic perturbation drifts were present over Arecibo. The latitudinal variation of the daytime zonal disturbance dynamo drifts during this day is in good agreement with that previously observed for thermospheric disturbance winds. The disturbance dynamo drifts also indicate significantly different local, storm time, and possibly latitudinal dependences for their vertical/perpendicular and zonal drift components, suggesting large variations in both the amplitude and direction of the disturbance dynamo electric field vector. In the next day, during moderately disturbed conditions, the daytime perturbation drifts were small, but following transient increases in geomagnetic activity, large upward/perpendicular drifts were observed near dusk over Jicamarca and Arecibo, where simultaneous westward perturbation drifts were also seen. These perturbations are consistent with the occurrence of strong prompt penetration electric fields reaching the magnetic equator. The measured prompt penetration drift patterns are generally in good agreement with predictions from global convection models. Later at night, under moderately disturbed conditions, relatively large zonal and meridional disturbance dynamo electric fields were observed by the two radars. Our results illustrate the large variability of the low-latitude perturbation electric fields relative to their climatological values after large storms, probably due to the importance of additional disturbance processes. They also indicate that a much deeper understanding of solar-wind/magnetospheric/ionospheric processes is required for accurate predictions of these electric fields.


It is a well-established result in social psychology that when people feel anxious, they seek advice from others. However, increasingly companies that operate in high-anxiety settings (like financial services, health care, and education) are deploying self-service technologies (SSTs), through which anxious customers transact without human contact. The impact of customer anxiety on service relationships is neither well understood, nor consistently factored into service design. In this paper, two laboratory experiments and one field experiment, conducted in financial service contexts, document the negative effects of anxiety on customer choice satisfaction, firm trust, and long-term engagement, and explore the impact of giving self-service consumers the option to interact with a person. Participants engaged in an online investing simulation who are made to feel anxious due to market downturns are less satisfied with their choices and report lower levels of trust in the firm. Providing participants with the opportunity to interact with an expert, or even another participant, dampens anxiety's negative effects on choice satisfaction and, by extension, firm trust. Interestingly, we find that very few participants who are offered the option to interact with a person take advantage of the opportunity, which is consistent with the idea that it is the mere availability of human contact that mitigates anxiety's deleterious effects. Finally, in a field experiment conducted with a credit union's self-service term loan approval process, the incorporation of access to human contact increased customer loan acceptance by 16%, suggesting that access to human contact can improve long-term service engagement.


The literature on the clinicopathologic characteristics of tumoral intraepithelial neoplasms (neoplastic polyps) of the gallbladder (GB) is fairly limited, due in part to the variability in definition and terminology. Most reported adenomas (pyloric gland type and others) were microscopic and thus regarded as clinically inconsequential, whereas papillary in situ carcinomas have been largely considered a type of invasive adenocarcinoma under the heading of "papillary adenocarcinomas." In this study, 123 GB cases that have a well-defined exophytic preinvasive neoplasm measuring ≥1 cm were analyzed. The patients were predominantly female (F/M=2:1) with a mean age of 61 y and a median tumor size of 2.2 cm. Half of the patients presented with pain, and in the other half the neoplasm was detected incidentally. Other neoplasms, most being gastrointestinal tract malignancies, were present in 22% of cases. Gallstones were identified in only 20% of cases. Radiologically, almost half were diagnosed as "cancer," roughly half with polypoid tumor, and in 10% the lesion was missed. Pathologic findings: (1) The predominant configuration was papillary in 43%, tubulopapillary in 31%, tubular in 26%. (2) Each case was assigned a final lineage type on the basis of the predominant pattern (>75% of the lesion) on morphology, and supported with specific immunohistochemical cell lineage markers. The predominant cell lineage could be identified as biliary in 50% (66% of which were MUC1+), gastric foveolar in 16% (all were MUC5AC+), gastric pyloric in 20% (92% MUC6+), intestinal in 8% (100% CK20+; 75% CDX2+; 50%, MUC2+), and oncocytic in 6% (17% HepPar+ and 17% MUC6+); however, 90% of cases had some amount of secondary or unclassifiable pattern and hybrid immunophenotypes. (3) Of the cases that would have qualified as "pyloric gland adenoma," 21/24 (88%) had at least focal high-grade dysplasia and 18% had associated invasive carcinoma. Conversely, 8 of 47 "papillary adenocarcinoma"-type cases displayed some foci of low-grade dysplasia, and 15/47 (32%) had no identifiable invasion. (4) Overall, 55% of the cases had an associated invasive carcinoma (pancreatobiliary type, 58; others, 10). Factors associated significantly with invasion were the extent of high-grade dysplasia, cell type (biliary or foveolar), and papilla formation. Among systematically analyzed invasive carcinomas, tumoral intraepithelial neoplasia was detected in 6.4% (39/606). (5) The 3-year actuarial survival was 90% for cases without invasion and 60% for those associated with invasion. In contrast, those associated with invasion had a far better clinical outcome compared with pancreatobiliary-type GB carcinomas (3-yr survival, 27%), and this survival advantage persisted even with stage-matched comparison. Death occurred in long-term follow-up even in a few noninvasive cases (4/55; median 73.5 mo) emphasizing the importance of long-term follow-up. In conclusion, tumoral preinvasive neoplasms (≥1 cm) in the GB are analogous to their pancreatic and biliary counterparts (biliary intraductal papillary neoplasms, pancreatic intraductal papillary mucinous neoplasms, and intraductal tubulopapillary neoplasms). They show variable cellular lineages, a spectrum of dysplasia, and a mixture of papillary or tubular growth patterns, often with significant overlap, warranting their classification under 1 unified parallel category, intracholecystic papillary-tubular neoplasm. Intracholecystic papillary-tubular neoplasms are relatively indolent neoplasia with significantly better prognosis compared with pancreatobiliary-type GB carcinomas. In contrast, even seemingly innocuous examples such as those referred to as "pyloric gland adenomas" can progress to carcinoma and be associated with invasion and fatal outcome.


In the era of big data, Federated Learning (FL) has drawn great attention as it naturally operates on distributed computational resources without the need of data warehousing. Similar to Distributed Learning (DL), FL distributes most computational tasks to end devices, but emphasizes more on preserving the privacy of clients. In other words, any FL algorithm should not send raw client data, if not the information about them, that could leak privacy. As a result, in typical scenarios where the FL framework applies, it is common for clients to have or obtain insufficient training data to produce an accurate model. To decide whether a prediction is trustworthy, models that provide not only point estimations, but also some notion of confidence are beneficial. Gaussian Process (GP) is a powerful Bayesian model that comes with naturally well-calibrated variance estimations. However, it is challenging to learn a stand-alone global GP since merging local kernels leads to privacy leakage. To preserve privacy, previous works that consider federated GPs avoid learning a global model by focusing on the personalized setting or learning an ensemble of local models. In this work, we present Federated Bayesian Neural Regression (FedBNR), an algorithm that learns a scalable stand-alone global federated GP that respects clients' privacy. We incorporate deep kernel learning and random features for scalability by defining a unifying random kernel. We show this random kernel can recover any stationary kernel and many non-stationary kernels. We then derive a principled approach of learning a global predictive model as if all client data is centralized. We also learn global kernels with knowledge distillation methods for non-identically and independently distributed (non-i.i.d.) clients. We design synthetic experiments to illustrate scenarios where our model has a clear advantage and provide insights into the rationales. Experiments are also conducted on real-world regression datasets and show statistically significant improvements compared to other federated GP models.


The study of Latin American and Caribbean international relations has a long evolution both within the development of international relations as a general academic undertaking and in terms of the particular characteristics that distinguish the approaches taken by scholars in the field. This handbook provides a thorough multidisciplinary reference guide to the literature on the various elements of the international relations of Latin America and the Caribbean. Citing over 1600 sources that date from the nineteenth century to the present, with emphasis on recent decades, the volume's analytic essays trace the evolution of research in terms of concepts, issues, and themes. The Handbook is a companion volume to Atkins' Latin America and the Caribbean in the International System, Fourth Edition, but also serves as an invaluable stand-alone reference volume for students, scholars, researchers, journalists, and practitioners, both official and private.


How do animals represent space, time, number and rate? From insects to humans, Charles Gallistel explores the sophisticated computations performed in these ubiquitous yet neglected domains of animal learning. He proposes new and imaginative hypotheses about brain and mental processes and provides original insights about animal behavior using a computational-representational framework that is an exciting alternative to traditional associative theories of learning.Gallistel argues compellingly that experimental psychologists should begin to view the phenomena of learning within a framework that utilizes as the proper unit of analysis the computation and storage of a quantity, rather than the formation of an association that has been the basis of traditional learning theory. His approach reveals the formal structure of the environmental relationships that animals master to time and orient their behavior. It clarifies what representations different animals can and cannot compute and the nature of the computations by which animals derive these representations.The author backs up this thesis with studies that encompass a vast range of animal learning: animal navigation (the use of dead reckoning and cognitive maps); the mechanisms of timekeeping in the nervous system; the registration and utilization of time of occurrence (circadian phase) in learned behavior; the learning and use of temporal intervals and of numerosity; the computation of rates of occurrence; modern findings and theories of classical conditioning. Gallistel surveys the experimental literature in zoology, biology, neuroscience, and psychology that bears on those aspects of their environment that animals represent and the computations they perform in constructing and utilizing those representations. He reveals the fundamental role these representations play in learning and memory, and the implications of these findings in the search for the cellular basis of memory.Charles R. Gallistel is Professor of Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania. The Organization of Learning is included in the series Learning, Development, and Conceptual Change, edited by Lila Gleitman, Susan Carey, Elissa Newport, and Elizabeth Spelke. A Bradford Book


A social indicators approach to trust in justice recognizes that the police and criminal courts need public support and institutional legitimacy if they are to operate effectively and fairly. In order to generate public cooperation and compliance, these institutions must demonstrate to citizens that they are trustworthy and that they possess the authority to govern. In this paper we first outline the conceptual roadmap for a current comparative analysis of trust in justice. We then describe the methodological development process of a 45-item module in Round 5 of the European Social Survey, which fields the core survey indicators. After presenting the findings from a quantitative pilot of the indicators, we consider the policy implications of a procedural justice model of criminal justice.


In recent years, efforts in state legislatures to enact comprehensive immigration regulations have become increasingly pervasive. When Alabama enacted a comprehensive immigration law in 2011, it became only the third state in three decades to require public school personnel to inquire into schoolchildren's immigration status. Although section 28 of the Beason-Hammon Alabama Taxpayer and Citizen Protection Act differed significantly from its two more restrictive predecessors, which expressly denied a free public education to unlawfully present children, all three laws have been invalidated on equal protection grounds. Despite that result, this Note argues that the differences between Alabama's provision and its predecessors may allow other state laws modeled after section 28 to survive constitutional scrutiny in the future. Consequently, this Note maintains that federal regulations promulgated under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibit actions by recipients of federal funding that have a disproportionately adverse impact on individuals on the basis of their race, color, or national origin, provide a more promising avenue for the federal government to challenge state laws patterned on section 28 that tend to chill educational opportunity for Hispanic students.


We investigate the light-element behavior of red giant stars in northern globular clusters (GCs) observed by the SDSS-III Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment. We derive abundances of 9 elements (Fe, C, N, O, Mg, Al, Si, Ca, and Ti) for 428 red giant stars in 10 GCs. The intrinsic abundance range relative to measurement errors is examined, and the well-known C–N and Mg–Al anticorrelations are explored using an extreme-deconvolution code for the first time in a consistent way. We find that Mg and Al drive the population membership in most clusters, except in M107 and M71, the two most metal-rich clusters in our study, where the grouping is most sensitive to N. We also find a diversity in the abundance distributions, with some clusters exhibiting clear abundance bimodalities (for example M3 and M53) while others show extended distributions. The spread of Al abundances increases significantly as cluster average metallicity decreases as previously found by other works, which we take as evidence that low metallicity, intermediate mass AGB polluters were more common in the more metal-poor clusters. The statistically significant correlation of [Al/Fe] with [Si/Fe] in M15 suggests that 28Si leakage has occurred in this cluster. We also present C, N, and O abundances for stars cooler than 4500 K and examine the behavior of A(C+N+O) in each cluster as a function of temperature and [Al/Fe]. The scatter of A(C+N+O) is close to its estimated uncertainty in all clusters and independent of stellar temperature. A(C+N+O) exhibits small correlations and anticorrelations with [Al/Fe] in M3 and M13, but we cannot be certain about these relations given the size of our abundance uncertainties. Star-to-star variations of α-element (Si, Ca, Ti) abundances are comparable to our estimated errors in all clusters.


Background Plasticizers with estrogenic activity, such as bisphenol A (BPA), have been reported to have potential adverse health effects in humans. Due to mounting evidence of these health effects and public pressure, BPA is being phased out by the plastics manufacturing industry and replaced by other bisphenol variants in "BPA-free" products. Objectives We have compared estrogenic activity of BPA to 6 bisphenol analogues (bisphenol S, BPS; bisphenol F, BPF; bisphenol AP, BPAP; bisphenol AF, BPAF; bisphenol Z, BPZ; bisphenol B, BPB) in three human breast cancer cell lines. Methods Estrogenicity was assessed by cell growth in an estrogen receptor (ER)-mediated cell proliferation assay, and by the induction of estrogen response element (ERE)-mediated transcription in a luciferase assay. Gene expression profiles were determined in MCF-7 human breast cancer cells by microarray analysis and confirmed by Illumina-based RNA sequencing. Results All bisphenols showed estrogenic activity in promoting cell growth and inducing ERE-mediated transcription. BPAF was the most potent bisphenol, followed by BPB > BPZ ~ BPA > BPF ~ BPAP > BPS. The addition of ICI 182,780 antagonized the activation of ERs by bisphenols. Data mining of ToxCast high-throughput screening assays confirms our results but also shows divergence in the sensitivities of the assays. The comparison of transcriptome profile alterations resulting from BPA alternatives with an ERα gene expression biomarker further indicates that all BPA alternatives act as ERα agonists in MCF-7 cells. These results were confirmed by RNA sequencing. Conclusion In conclusion, BPA alternatives are not necessarily less estrogenic in a human breast cancer cell model. Three bisphenols (BPAF, BPB, and BPZ) were more estrogenic than BPA. The relevance of human exposure to BPA alternatives in hormone-dependent breast cancer risk should be investigated.


The IPsec, Internet Key Exchange (IKE), and IKEv2 protocols rely on
security algorithms to provide privacy and authentication between the
initiator and responder. There are many such algorithms available, and
two IPsec systems cannot interoperate unless they are using the same
algorithms. This document specifies optional suites of algorithms and
attributes that can be used to simplify the administration of IPsec
when used in manual keying mode, with IKEv1 or with IKEv2. [STANDARDS-
TRACK]


The central goal of medical genomics is to understand the inherited basis of sequence variation that underlies human physiology, evolution, and disease. Functional association studies currently ignore millions of bases that span each centromeric region and acrocentric short arm. These regions are enriched in long arrays of tandem repeats, or satellite DNAs, that are known to vary extensively in copy number and repeat structure in the human population. Satellite sequence variation in the human genome is often so large that it is detected cytogenetically, yet due to the lack of a reference assembly and informatics tools to measure this variability, contemporary high-resolution disease association studies are unable to detect causal variants in these regions. Nevertheless, recently uncovered associations between satellite DNA variation and human disease support that these regions present a substantial and biologically important fraction of human sequence variation. Therefore, there is a pressing and unmet need to detect and incorporate this uncharacterized sequence variation into broad studies of human evolution and medical genomics. Here I discuss the current knowledge of satellite DNA variation in the human genome, focusing on centromeric satellites and their potential implications for disease.


This article examines teachers' subject expertise in a context where geography could be considered a neglected school subject. Using an empirical approach to the problem, the article aims to provide a view on the dynamics of teaching primary geography in Chile, through considering teachers' narratives on curriculum making and their associated conceptualisations of the discipline. 21 rural educators were interviewed about geography education to gain a general view of primary geography in the country. Findings reveal the need to understand how teachers conceive of and accommodate geographical knowledge. Even though there is a recognised chain of pressures regarding curriculum changes and deficient initial teacher training, geography as a school subject is still in place because of teachers' practices. Recognising their dynamics will shed light on how to make geography sustainable as a school subject in the future.


SummaryA simple system of differential equations is presented to simulate the intracolonial population dynamics of non-swarming colonies of the honeybee (Apis mellifera) in temperate zones. The model generates colony growth patterns that are in agreement with empirical data. A new hypothesis based on the model is proposed to explain the occurrence of the brood-rearing peaks in non-swarming colonies. It focuses on the importance of the initiation of swarming behavioural patterns when the population density of workers exceeds a critical number. A sensitivity analysis of the model revealed considerable variation among the different parameters integrated in the model with regard to influence on colony dynamics. The information potential in a dynamic model of this kind is discussed.


In recent years, a lot of effort has been expended in determining if SAT solver performance is predictable. However, the work in this area invariably focuses on individual machines, and often on individual solvers. It is unclear whether predictions made on a specific solver and machine are accurate when translated to other solvers and hardware. In this work we consider five state-of-the-art solvers, 26 machines and 143 feature instances selected from the 2011 to 2014 SAT competitions. Using combinations of solvers, machines and instances we present four results: First, we show that UNSAT instances are more predictable than corresponding SAT instances. Second, we show that the number of cores in a machine has more impact on performance than L2 cache size. Third, we show that instances with fewer reused clauses are more CPU bound than those where clause reuse is high. Finally, we make accurate predictions of solution time for each of the instances considered across a diverse set of machines.


Recently a reconstruction was published for the fragmented remains of at least 13 registers of repoussé bronze frieze of Near Eastern workmanship, layered with fragments of Greek incised bronze. These were excavated from Well 17 near the north wall of the stadium at Olympia in February 1960 by the Deutsches Archaölogisches Institut. Nearly 30 years were spent on piecing together the fragments and on their subsequent conservation, analysis, and interpretation. The Near Eastern frieze and the incised Greek bronze were found to have been smelted in the same smelting operation, according to scientific analyses. The original publication proposed that some imported bronze frieze was melted down and reworked by Greek craftsmen. Both original frieze and reworked incised bronze were used together to create three sphyrelaton korai. The authors carefully catalogued all the pieces, and did a meticulous and persuasive reconstruction of the bronze fragments and the korai, of the bronze analysis, and of the connections of the Greek incised motifs to the Near East in general. In that publication, however, they almost completely neglected the history of the bronzes before they arrived in Greece. This missing history is the main subject of this article; in addressing this topic, I analyze the Near Eastern motifs, consider the purpose for which the Near Eastern bronze was initially fabricated, and put forth some observations about the techniques of working the reliefs and possible dates for its initial manufacture and termination of use in the Near East. A corrected date for its reuse in Greece is offered, based on the motifs incised on the Greek bronze, their organization, and style features of the korai, the final product.


OBJECTIVE
Distress tolerance (DT), the ability to withstand aversive internal states, represents an important risk factor for substance use relapse and a potential treatment target. Neurobiological research in substance using populations suggests that continued substance use could erode DT, whereas abstinence could bolster it. The current study characterized trajectories of behavioral and self-reported indices of DT and examined the prospective effect of substance use on DT trajectories among those seeking treatment for substance use.

METHOD
Individuals (N = 263, Mage = 42.68, SD = 11.8, 70.7% male, 94.7% African American) in residential substance use treatment completed subjective (Distress Tolerance Scale) and behavioral (Mirror Tracing Persistence Task-computerized version) DT measures, as well as report of daily substance use (timeline follow-back) over 5 assessment time-points from pretreatment to 12 months posttreatment. Latent curve modeling estimated DT trajectories and their associations with substance use behavior, including abstinence duration (days until first use) and substance use frequency (percentage of substance use days between assessments).

RESULTS
Self-reported and behavioral DT indicators both exhibited positive, nonlinear change over time (standardized slope parameter estimates: Distress Tolerance Scale β = 0.61, p < .01; Mirror Tracing Persistence Task β = 0.34, p < .01). Abstinence duration was associated with greater improvement in behavioral (β = .20, p = .03) DT specifically. Frequency of use was statistically significantly associated with attenuated behavioral DT at 6-month (β = -.12, p = .03) and 12-month follow-ups (β = -.08, p = .045).

CONCLUSIONS
DT appears to improve appreciably posttreatment, and return to substance use may shape the degree of this improvement. Collectively, these findings support the conceptualization of DT as a malleable treatment target and emphasize the benefit of abstinence on improvement in DT. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).


Latest estimates for world cereal production in 2015 and EU‐28 production in 2014 are approximately 2540 and 323 mil tons, respectively. The FAO estimated that the global wheat consumption is about 66 kg/per capita. Among the most important risks associ ‐ ated with wheat consumption are mycotoxins. It has been estimated that up to 25% of the world's crops grown for food and feed may be contaminated with mycotoxins. Despite efforts in controlling fungal growth, mycotoxin co‐contamination represents an unavoid ‐ able risk, occurring pre‐ and postharvest and resulting in reduced nutritional value and possible risks for human and animal health. In addition to health risks, mycotoxins have a detrimental effect on the quality and the processing performance of wheat. Mitigation measures to manage the challenge of mycotoxins in wheat include strategies at pre‐ and postharvest. Preharvest events are predominantly dictated by environmental factors and good agronomic/cultural practices, whereas storage and processing are the major areas where contamination can be prevented at postharvest. Integrating as many management options as possible may minimize the risk of mycotoxin contamination in wheat and wheat products.


Background. Clinicians use information regularly in clinical care. New electronic information resources provided in push, pull, and prompting formats have potential to improve information support but have not been designed for individualization. Physicians with differing risk status use healthcare resources differently often without an improvement in outcomes.
Questions. Do physicians who are risk seeking or risk avoiding and comfortable or uncomfortable with uncertainty use or prefer electronic information resources differently when answering simulated clinical questions and can the processes be modeled with existing theoretical models?
Design. Cohort study.
Methods. Primary care physicians in Canada and the United States were screened for risk status. Those with high and low scores on 2 validated scales answered 23 multiple-choice questions and searched for information using their own electronic resources for 2 of these questions. They also answered 2 other questions using information from 2 electronic information sources: PIER©1 and Clinical Evidence ©2.
Results. The physicians did not differ for number of correct answers according to risk status although the number of correct answers was low and not substantially higher than chance. Their searching process was consistent with 2 information-seeking models from information science (modified Wilson Problem Solving and Card/Pirolli Information Foraging/Information Scent models). Few differences were seen for any electronic searching or information use outcome based on risk status although those physicians who were comfortable with uncertainty used more searching heuristics and spent less effort on direct searching. More than 20% of answers were changed after searching---almost the same number going from incorrect to correct and from correct to incorrect. These changes from a correct to incorrect answer indicate that some electronic information resources may not be ideal for direct clinical care or integration into electronic medical record systems.
Conclusions. Risk status may not be a major factor in the design of electronic information resources for primary care physicians. More research needs to be done to determine which computerized information resources and which features of these resources are associated with obtaining and maintaining correct answers to clinical questions.
1 PIER is copyrighted © 2005 by the American College of Physicians, 190 North Independence Mall West, Philadelphia, PA 19106-1572, USA. (http://pier.acponline.org/index.html?cliapinc ). Accessed July 12, 2005. 2 Clinical Evidence is copyrighted © by the BMJ Publishing Group Limited, London, England, UK. 2005. (http://www.clinicalevidence.com/ceweb/conditions/index.jsp ). Accessed July 12, 2005.


This paper investigates, in a simplified macro context, the joint determination of the (incorrect) perceived model and the equilibrium. I assume that the model is designed by a self-interested economist who knows the true structural model, but reports a distorted one so as to influence outcomes. This model influences both the people and the government; the latter tries to stabilize an unobserved demand shock and will make different inferences about that shock depending on the model it uses. The model's choice is constrained by a set of autocoherence conditions that state that, in equilibrium, if everybody uses the model then it must correctly predict the moments of the observables. I then study, in particular, how the models devised by the economists vary depending on whether they are "progressive" vs. "conservative". The predictions depend greatly on the specifics of the economy being considered. But in many cases, they are plausible. For example, conservative economists will tend to report a lower keynesian multiplier, and a greater long-term inflationary impact of output expansions. On the other hand, the economists' margin of manoeuver is constrained by the autocoherence conditions. Here, a "progressive" economist who promotes a Keynesian multiplier larger than it really is, must, to remain consistent, also claim that demand shocks are more volatile than they really are. Otherwise, people will be disappointed by the stabilization performance of fiscal policy and reject the hypothesized value of the multiplier. In some cases, autocoherence induces the experts to make, loosely speaking, ideological concessions on some parameter values. The analysis is illustrated by empirical evidence from the Survey of Professional Forecasters.


The influence of experimental parameters on the performance of plasmonic sensors is of great importance in analytical sciences. The plasmon coupling conditions (angle of incidence, metal composition, laser frequency and excitation/emission properties of fluorophores) were thus investigated for surface plasmon-enhanced fluorescence on metallic nanohole arrays. Optimal fluorescence enhancements were achieved when the plasmon resonance, the excitation laser and the fluorophore's excitation wavelengths were matched. The enhancement of the acceptor emission of a rhodamine 6G(Rh6G)-Quasar670™ FRET pair was achieved on the nanohole arrays by tuning the plasmon wavelength with the maximal overlap of the donor's emission and acceptor excitation. Silver nanohole arrays achieved larger fluorescence enhancement than gold nanohole arrays at 532 nm, while gold nanohole arrays led to larger fluorescence enhancement at 635 nm. These results demonstrate the importance of tuning the plasmon coupling conditions for surface plasmon-enhanced fluorescence sensing.


To date no single critic has yet published a monograph charting the development of Amitav Ghosh's fiction. Yet Ghosh is one of the most distinctive and influential
writers to come out of India since Rushdie and, with five novels already published at the age of forty-seven, his fiction is continuing to develop in ambition and scope. This
thesis is an attempt to fill the critical gap by providing a sustained account of Ghosh's writing. I contend that at the heart of his corpus is the argument that knowledge is
produced by structures of dominance, particularly the military, economic, and epistemic strategies of colonialism.

In the Introduction I set out my methodological parameters, tracing the debate about knowledge and power through Foucault's conceptualization of power as a pervasive set of social relations; Said's recognition that contemporary thought has been crucially shaped by colonialism; and arriving at Bhabha's insight that, colonial models of power and knowledge are ambivalent, split, and self-contradictory.
Threaded through this discussion I provide tangible examples, from colonial texts and art, which cast new light on the theories. The Introduction then turns to Ghosh's
writing, particularly focusing on the way in which his interrogation of borderlines - between nations, discursive fields, and genres - sends out a challenge to the
compartmentalization of much Western thought.

I discuss Ghosh's novels in chronological order, suggesting that in each of them he examines the imbrication of at least one specific form of knowledge in colonial power structures. In Chapter One, I discuss representations of science in The Circle of Reason. I argue that science has often been regarded as a legitimate and legitimizing
form of knowledge that is disinterested, culturally neutral, benevolent in intention, and allowing access to objective 'truth'. Recent theorists, however, have indicated that science is culturally located, with its own biases and interests. Western science and technology helped both to establish and consolidate power in an active way in
colonized countries, and also provided a moral justification for imperial nations to continue their exploitation of Asia and Africa. Yet, through the character of Balaram, Ghosh demonstrates that science was reshaped
in the Indian context. Chapter Two focuses on Ghosh's treatment of space in The Shadow Lines. Dramatized here is the notion that space is not simply a given, but is socially constructed and imagined. The novel suggests that the Western obsession with defining nations and firm boundaries on maps has reified a view of space as a territory to be owned, measured and divided.
Chapter Three argues that in In an Antique Land, Ghosh turns his attention to prevailing perceptions of time. As well as exploring Ghosh's rewriting of conventional
history, this chapter also considers the whole problem of representing the historical or ethnic Other. Ghosh rejects any single historical or anthropological account's claim to provide an authentic and complete version of the Other. He
suggests that to provide a non-coercive description of alterity, the text should be multifaceted,
imaginative, and open-ended. In Chapter Four, I return to Ghosh's discussion of scientific and technological discourse. The Calcutta Chromosome, I suggest, is
another attempt at problematizing the boundaries between science and pseudoscience, and challenging the 'claim to know' (CC, 103) of Western scientists such as Ross. My
argument concludes with a summary of the thesis's main concerns and a brief adumbration of the ways in which Ghosh's most recent novel, The Glass Palace, fits
into Ghosh's argument about knowledge and power.


This paper investigates a cross-layer design approach for minimizing energy consumption and maximizing network lifetime (NL) of a multiple-source and single-sink (MSSS) WSN with energy constraints. The optimization problem for MSSS WSN can be formulated as a mixed integer convex optimization problem with the adoption of time division multiple access (TDMA) in medium access control (MAC) layer, and it becomes a convex problem by relaxing the integer constraint on time slots. Impacts of data rate, link access and routing are jointly taken into account in the optimization problem formulation. Both linear and planar network topologies are considered for NL maximization (NLM). With linear MSSS and planar single-source and single-sink (SSSS) topologies, we successfully use Karush-Kuhn-Tucker (KKT) optimality conditions to derive analytical expressions of the optimal NL when all nodes are exhausted simultaneously. The problem for planar MSSS topology is more complicated, and a decomposition and combination (D&C) approach is proposed to compute suboptimal solutions. An analytical expression of the suboptimal NL is derived for a small scale planar network. To deal with larger scale planar network, an iterative algorithm is proposed for the D&C approach. Numerical results show that the upper-bounds of the network lifetime obtained by our proposed optimization models are tight. Important insights into the NL and benefits of cross-layer design for WSN NLM are obtained.


This paper investigates how the association between cognitive achievement and self-rated health in middle age differs by race, and attempts to explain these differences. The role of cognition in health determination has received only limited empirical attention, and even less is known about how race may affect this relationship. Using data from the NLSY, I find that while whites with higher cognitive achievement scores tend to report substantially better general health, this relationship is far weaker or wholly absent among blacks. Further tests suggest that about 35% of this racial difference can be explained by behavioral decisions during adulthood, and that another portion of the disparity may trace back to prenatal and early childhood experiences. The paper closes by noting that its results are broadly consistent with explanations of the racial health gap that emphasize entrenched forms of racial discrimination.


In response to the financial scandals at the turn of the century, Sarbanes-Oxley and related reforms radically changed the relationship between accountants and the companies they audit. As a result, auditors exert greater power in the negotiations with management that produce critical numbers in company financial statements. That power provides auditors with newfound ability to resist pressure to certify financial statements that are overly favorable to company stock prices. With the best of intentions, some now urge that company attorneys should expand their efforts to police clients' financial statements. But the introduction of lawyers into the bargaining between management and an auditor would likely reverse the benefits of the recent reforms. Attorneys today suffer from the very biases in favor of management that plagued auditors before the reforms. Lawyers' client-focused ethos reinforces that bias. Their necessarily meager accounting knowledge, and the absence of any systematic review of lawyers' input to such negotiations, mean that attorney bias will have free rein. Adding lawyers to the mix will therefore more likely hinder financial reporting than help.


Foraminiferal assemblages from platform carbonates in the Carlow district (SE Ireland) are analysed. This platform contains a near-continuous succession of Upper Asbian to lower Upper Brigantian strata. Detailed sampling of several quarry and borehole sections allows characterization of foraminiferal assemblages throughout the succession. Assemblages typifying the Late Asbian, Early Brigantian and Late Brigantian are described, with the most common genera and species, as well as the guides for the recognition of these substages. In addition, three successive faunal events are recognized within the Early Brigantian. A comparison with northern England foraminiferal assemblages from the Asbian and Brigantian stratotype sections shows a great similarity in the recorded taxa. Furthermore, these taxa have closely comparable stratigraphical ranges, demonstrating the biostratigraphic utility of these foraminifera throughout Ireland and Britain. Taxa proposed here as guides for the basal Brigantian are potentially an alternative to the previously published taxa (which are either unrecorded, or recorded at higher stratigraphic levels in the Brigantian).


We study the spectrum of the Toeplitz matrix with a sine kernel, which corresponds to the single-particle reduced density matrix for free fermions on the one-dimensional lattice. For the spectral determinant of this matrix, a Fisher–Hartwig expansion in the inverse matrix size has been recently conjectured. This expansion can be verified order by order, away from the line of accumulation of zeros, using the recurrence relation known from the theory of discrete Painlevé equations. We perform such a verification to the tenth order and calculate the corresponding coefficients in the Fisher–Hartwig expansion. Under the assumption of the validity of the Fisher–Hartwig expansion in the whole range of the spectral parameter, we further derive expansions for an equation on the eigenvalues of this matrix and for the von Neumann entanglement entropy in the corresponding fermion problem. These analytical results are supported by a numerical example.


During the years 1954––1958, the Vietnamese Workers9 Party, in a series of advances and retreats, asserted control over all forms of intellectual and cultural expression in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. This essay looks at how one of Vietnam9s greatest poets, Xuâân Diệu (1916––1985), navigated his way through these turbulent years. When the storm finally abated in the latter half of 1958, some of the regime9s most important intellectuals found themselves marooned in far-away labor camps with their reputations in ruins and their careers sunk. Not so with Xuâân Diệu——he had been buffeted about in the rough waters but ultimately was able to sail on with his career intact. He fared well in his personal life, too, since the party leadership allowed him to continue sharing an elegant, state-owned French villa with his sister, Ngoo Xuâân Như, and her husband, Huy Cận——Xuâân Diệu9s homosexual partner. How did Xuâân Diệu do it?


Test were undertaken with a Renault Express 1.4 litre converted to natural gas operation. The effect of cold starts at cold temperatures and vehicle weight on taile pipe emissions were investigated with petrol and natural gas operation over the FTP75 and 91/441/EEC drive cycles. The results show that the emissions with natural gas are unaffected by cold temperature, unlike petrol emission which are several times higher at -15°C that at 25°C. A crude simulation, accounting for the actual temperature, shows that the conversion of a significant quantity of light duty vehicles to natural gas operation could reduce the emissions of CO and HC by more that 90% in Switzerland.


Abstract. A new technique for determining the depth of expendable bathythermographs (XBTs) is developed. This new method uses a forward-stepping calculation which incorporates all of the forces on the XBT devices during their descent. Of particular note are drag forces which are calculated using a new drag coefficient expression. That expression, obtained entirely from computational fluid dynamic modeling, accounts for local variations in the ocean environment. Consequently, the method allows for accurate determination of depths for any local temperature environment. The results, which are entirely based on numerical simulation, are compared with the experiments of LM Sippican T-5 XBT probes. It is found that the calculated depths differ by less than 3% from depth estimates using the standard fall-rate equation (FRE). Furthermore, the differences decrease with depth. The computational model allows an investigation of the fluid flow patterns along the outer surface of the probe as well as in the interior channel. The simulations take account of complex flow phenomena such as laminar-turbulent transition and flow separation.


High input of organic carbon and/or slowly renewing bottom waters frequently create periods with low dissolved oxygen concentrations on continental shelves and in coastal areas; such events can have strong impacts on benthic ecosystems. Among the meiofauna living in these environments, benthic foraminifera are often the most tolerant to low oxygen levels. Indeed, some species are able to survive complete anoxia for weeks to months. One known mechanism for this, observed in several species, is denitrification. For other species, a state of highly reduced metabolism, essentially a state of dormancy, has been proposed but never demonstrated. Here, we combined a 4 weeks feeding experiment, using 13C-enriched diatom biofilm, with correlated TEM and NanoSIMS imaging, plus bulk analysis of concentration and stable carbon isotopic composition of total organic matter and individual fatty acids, to study metabolic differences in the intertidal species Ammonia tepida exposed to oxic and anoxic conditions. Strongly contrasting cellular-level dynamics of ingestion and transfer of the ingested biofilm components were observed between the two conditions. Under oxic conditions, within a few days, intact diatoms were ingested, degraded, and their components assimilated, in part for biosynthesis of different cellular components: 13C-labeled lipid droplets formed after a few days and were subsequently lost (partially) through respiration. In contrast, in anoxia, fewer diatoms were initially ingested and these were not assimilated or metabolized further, but remained visible within the foraminiferal cytoplasm even after 4 weeks. Under oxic conditions, compound specific 13C analyses showed substantial de novo synthesis by the foraminifera of specific polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs), such as 20:4(n-6). Very limited PUFA synthesis was observed under anoxia. Together, our results show that anoxia induced a greatly reduced rate of heterotrophic metabolism in Ammonia tepida on a time scale of less than 24 hours, these observations are consistent with a state of dormancy.


We study a new and elegant instance of geometric dissection of 2D shapes: reversible hinged dissection, which corresponds to a dual transform between two shapes where one of them can be dissected in its interior and then inverted inside-out, with hinges on the shape boundary, to reproduce the other shape, and vice versa. We call such a transform reversible inside-out transform or RIOT. Since it is rare for two shapes to possess even a rough RIOT, let alone an exact one, we develop both a RIOT construction algorithm and a quick filtering mechanism to pick, from a shape collection, potential shape pairs that are likely to possess the transform. Our construction algorithm is fully automatic. It computes an approximate RIOT between two given input 2D shapes, whose boundaries can undergo slight deformations, while the filtering scheme picks good inputs for the construction. Furthermore, we add properly designed hinges and connectors to the shape pieces and fabricate them using a 3D printer so that they can be played as an assembly puzzle. With many interesting and fun RIOT pairs constructed from shapes found online, we demonstrate that our method significantly expands the range of shapes to be considered for RIOT, a seemingly impossible shape transform, and offers a practical way to construct and physically realize these transforms.


Shale gas is a novel source of fossil fuel which is extracted by induced hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking". This article examines the socio-political dimension of fracking as manifested in the UK press at three key temporal points in the debate on the practice. Three newspaper corpora were analysed qualitatively using Thematic Analysis and Social Representations Theory. Three overarching themes are discussed: "April–May 2011: From Optimism to Scepticism"; "November 2011: (De-)Constructing and Re-Constructing Risk and Danger"; "April 2012: Consolidating Social Representations of Fracking". In this article, we examine the emergence of and inter-relations between competing social representations, discuss the dynamics of threat positioning and show how threat can be re-construed in order to serve particular socio-political ends in the debate on fracking.


Understand what every developer should know about performance when building Windows Store apps. Not designed as a comprehensive reference, this book instead zeroes in on the essentials of planning for great performance and provides a solid starting point for building fast apps. This concise, performance-focused guide: Provides an introduction to the Windows platform from a performance point of view Describes how to set performance goals, establish tests to track performance, and covers tools to instrument code and analyze performance Explains why common techniques such as micro benchmarks and ad hoc testing often fall short in verifying performance Focuses on managed C#/XAML apps Although tools and techniques also apply to Visual Basic/XAML apps, all code examples use C# HTML5/JavaScript and C++/XAML are not covered


The speech we encounter in daily life casual conversation often contains impoverished or reduced acoustic information, in comparison to careful speech, and yet listeners can understand such speech with ease. This study explores differences in processing between reduced/ conversational speech and unreduced/careful speech. In a cross-modal identity priming experiment, listeners heard reduced vs. careful pronunciations of real words and then saw visual stimuli and decided whether the visual stimulus was a real word. This experiment investigates processing differences between reduced and unreduced speech using the American English flapped /d/ and word-medial /g/. American English listeners are shown to process unreduced (clear) targets more quickly than reduced targets.


Background: Therapeutic strategy for patients with colorectal cancer liver metastases (CRLM) is based on good monitoring and correct assignment to classes of liver resectability based on imaging criteria, taking into account the surgical risk.
Objective: To identify the post-treatment time frame for confirming resectability (conversion to resecability) or permanent unresectability. Methods: The study is a prospective analysis based on a Scientific Protocol (Surveillance of patients with colorectal cancer liver metastases) used in the Ist Surgical Oncology Unit, Regional Institute of Oncology Ia?i, Romania. Surgical treatment, oncologic treatment, response to therapy , postoperative surgical complications, were assessed at 3, 6 and 9 months after start of the study.
Results: In the interval July 2012 - January 2014, 106 patients were diagnosed with CRLM. According to the classes of liver resectability the patients were divided into four groups: group I (clear resectability), group II (possibly resectability), group III (susceptible resectability), group IV (unresectable metastases). Relevant for the study were only groups II and III. Thus, in group II patients the rate of conversion to resectability was 23.07% and in group III patients 26.66%. These results were obtained after 3, 6 and 9 months of therapy, respectively.
Conclusions: Rigorous surveillance of patients with CRLM according to a well-established scientific protocol, and their assignment to liver resectability classes represent the first step ofthe oncosurgical therapeutic strategy. An improvement in the rate of conversion to resectability could be achieved through regular assessment of treatment response based on international criteria that should include besides the number and size of target lesions the posttherapy morphological tumor changes.