Silver particles with various morphologies including cubic, spherical, and rod-shaped have been synthesized by a facile solvothermal procedure using poly (vinyl pyrrolidone) (PVP) as an adsorption agent and architecture soft template. Preparation conditions such as the molar ratio and concentration of starting materials were optimized for studying the growth kinetics of silver particles. The amount of chloride ions and PVP plays an important role for the morphology of silver particles during synthesis. Chloride ions as a stabilizer against the aggregation of particles could sufficiently retard particle growth. The selected bounding of PVP molecules on the silver particle is a key for morphological controlling. The morphological evolution of the silver particle was investigated by adjusting systematically preparation parameters. Because of PVP molecules are easily bounded to the (100) facet of silver crystals, the growth of the silver particle occurred around (111) plane. Silver particles with a series of morphologies were created via such anisotropic growth. Copyright © 2011 VBRI press.


Procedurally generating cohesive and interesting game environments is challenging and time-consuming. In order for the relationships between the game elements to be natural, common-sense has to be encoded into arrangement of the elements. In this work, we investigate a machine learning approach for world creation using content from the multi-player text adventure game environment LIGHT (Urbanek et al. 2019). We introduce neural network based models to compositionally arrange locations, characters, and objects into a coherent whole. In addition to creating worlds based on existing elements, our models can generate new game content. Humans can also leverage our models to interactively aid in worldbuilding. We show that the game environments created with our approach are cohesive, diverse, and preferred by human evaluators compared to other machine learning based world construction algorithms.


The famous Alexandrov-Zeeman theorem proves that causality im- plies Lorentz group. The physical meaning of this result is that once we observe which event can causally affect which other events, then, using only this information, we can reconstruct the linear structure of the Minkowski space-time. The original Alexandrov-Zeeman theorem is based on the causal- ity relation between events represented by points in space-time. Knowing such a point means that we know the exact moment of time and the exact location of the corresponding event — and that this event actually occurred at a single moment of time and at a single spatial location. In practice, events take some time and occupy some spatial area. Besides, even if we have a point-wise event, we would not be able to know the exact moment of time and exact spatial location — since the only way to determine the moment of time and the spatial location is by measurement, and measurements are never absolutely accurate. To come up with a more realistic description of observable causality relation between events, we need to consider events which are not pointwise, but rather represented by bounded regions A in the Minkowski space-time. When we have two events represented by regions A and B, the fact that we have observed that the first event can causally influence the second one means that a b for some points a 2 A and b 2 B. In this paper, we show that even if we only know the causal relation between such regions, we can still reconstruct the linear structure on the Minkowski space-time. Thus, already observable causality implies Lorentz group.


This study aims to explore how Filipina entrepreneurs ( EntrePinays ) harmonize their work demands with their family responsibilities and personal needs in order to sustain their business and at the same time live a meaningful and happy life. As an exploratory study utilizing nine participants, the case study approach based on the multiple case dimensions was used. Findings revealed that there are positive and negative spillover effects of work-life relationships. The negative spillover induces stress among the EntrePinays and the positive spillover can lead to their high levels of life satisfaction. Results also showed that EntrePinays are able to harmonize their work and life through various strategies such as personal planning with proper time management, having a flexible work schedule and workload, and delegating routine jobs to trusted employees, usually a family member. Moreover, the extent of spouse support for married entrepreneurs or the degree of support of the family members for non-business work responsibilities and activities has a crucial impact on the extent to which EntrePinays are able to balance their work and family demands.


Neuronal function, survival and architecture all critically depend on the precise transport of intracellular proteins to a vast array of synaptic connections. Disrupted intracellular transport leads to deficits in synaptic transmission, irregular cell morphology, misallocated organelles and cell death. In addition, axonal transport deficits have been noted in the early stages of several debilitating neurological conditions, thus, axonal transport deficits may contribute to disease progression. This makes it important that we understand the contribution of axonal transport to both physiological and pathophysiological cellular processes and to the transport of essential organelles.

As such the aims of this project were as follows: to investigate the long-term transport properties of visualised synaptic vesicles, to investigate whether vesicle transport could be modulated by changes in neuronal activity, to examine whether vesicle transport deficits exist in certain disease models and to develop novel assays for focusing the study of vesicle transport to specific neuronal cell types.

To investigate the transport properties of visualised synaptic vesicles we exploited a lentiviral vector to express a fluorescently tagged version of an abundant synaptic vesicle transmembrane protein, synaptophysin. Using synaptophysin-GFP (syp-GFP) as a synaptic vesicle marker we then tracked the movements of synaptic vesicles in the axons of dissociated hippocampal neurons. Synaptophysin-GFP expression revealed two fluorescent vesicle populations, one population that moved in a rapid and bi-directional manner and one population that accumulated into clusters of stationary vesicles at putative presynaptic sites. Each vesicle population was analysed independently. Moving vesicles were termed motile particles, whilst vesicle accumulations were termed vesicle clusters. To investigate potential activity-dependent changes in vesicle transport and vesicle cluster localisation we used acute or co-culture application of the GABAA receptor antagonists bicuculline (bic) (20µM) or Gabazine (gbz) (20µM), which can generate increased neuronal activity or epileptiform-like activity in vitro. As a result of bic treatment we observed a significant decrease in the size of stationary presynaptic vesicle clusters. Under control conditions the average size of vesicle clusters was 14.7±1.67µm2, reducing to 12.1±1.41µm2 following 10 hours of increased neuronal activity (p=0.0042, Wilcoxon-matched pairs test, n=80, 8 experiments). In addition, increased neuronal activity also led to a significant increase in vesicle cluster turnover, which increased from 28±6.89% under control conditions to 44±8.46% as a result of increased neuronal activity (p=0.0261, unpaired student t-test, n=25, 11 experiments). However, these changes were not accompanied by any alteration in vesicle transport, with the speed, the density and the proportion of motile particles remaining unaffected by increased neuronal activity (table 3.1). This suggests that each vesicle population may therefore be differentially modulated by increased neuronal activity.

To probe deeper for potential activity-dependent vesicle transport changes we restricted our study of vesicle transport to a specific axonal subtype, the hippocampal mossy fiber. To visualise mossy fiber vesicle transport, lentivirus expressing syp-GFP was pressure injected directly into the cell body layer of the dentate gyrus (DG) in hippocampal organotypic slice cultures. This revealed syp-GFP positive vesicles occupying both small (2-15µm3) and large (˃15µm3) mossy fiber synaptic terminals, which were found in and along the stratum lucidum. By examining the distribution of vesicle clusters at different time points following gbz or bic treatment (0hrs, 4hrs, 12hrs, 24hrs and 48hrs) we were able to show that epileptiform activity caused a delayed (>12 hours) but significant decrease in the proportion of large vesicle clusters. By 24 and 48 hours there was a significant decrease in the proportion of large vesicle clusters following bic treatment, decreasing from 9.4±1.21% under control conditions (n=11, 5 experiments) to 4.84%±0.72% after 24hrs (n=10, 4 experiments) and to 3.3±0.73% after 48hrs (n=12, 5 experiments), P<0.001, one-way ANOVA. This decrease in the proportion of large vesicle clusters may represent an important pathophysiological change triggered by epileptiform activity. Importantly, we also observed the same decrease in the proportion of large vesicle clusters in a mouse model of Rett syndrome, which models a severe neurodevelopmental disorder caused by a mutation in the gene coding MeCP2. As a consequence of bic treatment we observed a significant decrease in the proportion of large vesicle clusters from 7.2% ±1.78% in control cultures (n=6, 2 experiments), down to 0.9% ±0.6% in 48hr bic treated cultures (n=8, 3 experiments) and recovering to 6.9%±1.5% following bic wash out (n=11, 3 experiments); p<0.0001, one way ANOVA. Interestingly, Mecp2Stop/y hippocampal organotypic slices showed a greater decrease in the proportion of large vesicle clusters following 48hrs of bic treatment. The proportion of large vesicle clusters in 48hr bic treated WT slices was 3.3%±0.73%, whilst in 48rs bic treated Mecp2Stop/y slices it was 0.9%±0.6%, p=0.01, two-way ANOVA. These observations suggest that Mecp2Stop/y hippocampal organotypic slices are more sensitive to epileptiform activity than WT slices and may possess deficits in the vesicle transport system.

Primary dissociated hippocampal cell cultures benefit from being both optically and experimentally accessible but lack a defined cellular arrangement. This hampers both the identification and study of specific cell types and specific synaptic connections. To overcome this limitation we developed a modified dissociated cell culture assay for defining the arrangement of dissociated hippocampal neurons. We cultured purified DG and CA3 cell populations in close opposition using a magnetic barrier, but transduced only DG granule cells with lenti-synaptophysin-GFP in order to visualise vesicle transport specifically in mossy fibers. Immunocytochemistry and vital dyes were used to confirm that specific cell populations could be cultured in close proximity, to confirm that lentiviral transduction was highly selective to DG granule cells and to post-hoc identify that vesicle trafficking was occurring specifically in mossy fibers. Using this method it was possible to image vesicle transport specifically in mossy fibers and to investigate vesicle cluster dynamics at putative MF-CA3 synapses. We conclude that this method is a significant improvement to previous techniques because dissociated cells can be arranged to form physiologically relevant synaptic connections, whilst remaining highly accessible to both live imaging and experimental manipulation.


In this paper we look at a number of factors surrounding the sharp increase in lending in Russia. First of all, we discuss the sources of loan growth and factors that have triggered rapid loan growth. Second, we consider the loan portfolio quality, singling out Sberbank and other state banks which could be prone to directed lending and could be subject to lax supervision. Third, we address the potential problem associated with the high exposure of banks to large borrowers and related parties, and concentration of loans to the oil and gas industry. Our analysis shows that rapid loan growth was preceded by strong economic growth and is accompanied by increased investments in fixed assets. In 2003, loan growth was further boosted by the rise in cross-border lending and international bond issuances. The short-term nature of this foreign debt is one of the sources of vulnerability for the Russian banks. The quality and the structure of the loan portfolio has improved significantly in the last years, but the real risk may be hidden because of the negative real interest rates, high growth of loans and lack of transparency. Future loan growth will mainly depend on the success of the current banking reform.


We have investigated the I-V characteristics of strongly disordered ultrathin films of Bi and Sn produced by quench condensation. Our results show that both these systems can be visualized as strongly disordered arrays ofJosephson junctions. The experimentally observed I-V characteristics of these films are hysteretic when the injected current is ramped from zero to critical current and back. These are remarkably similar to the hysteretic I-V of an underdamped single junction. We show by computer simulations that hysteresis can persist in a very strongly disordered array. It is also possible to estimate the individual junction parameters (R, C, and I c ) from the experimental I-V of the film using this model. The films studied are in a regime where the Josephson-coupling energy is larger than the charging energy. We find that a simple relation I c (t)=I c (0)[1-(T/T c ) 4 ] describes the temperature dependence of the critical current quite accurately for films with sheet resistance ∼500 Ω or lower. We also find evidence of a vortex-unbinding transition in the I-V taken at temperatures slightly below the mean-field T c .


Several efficient correspondence graph-based algorithms for determining the maximum common substructure (MCS) of a pair of molecules have been published in the literature. The extension of the problem to three or more molecules is however nontrivial; heuristics used to increase the efficiency in the two-molecule case are either inapplicable to the many-molecule case or do not provide significant speedups. Our specific algorithmic contribution is two-fold. First, we show how the correspondence graph approach for the two-molecule case can be generalized to obtain an algorithm that is guaranteed to find the optimum connected MCS of multiple molecules, and that runs fast on most families of molecules using a new divide-and-conquer strategy that has hitherto not been reported in this context. Second, we provide a characterization of those compound families for which the algorithm might run slowly, along with a heuristic for speeding up computations on these families. We also extend the above algorithm to a heuristic algorithm to find the disconnected MCS of multiple molecules and to an algorithm for clustering molecules into groups, with each group sharing a substantial MCS. Our methods are flexible in that they provide exquisite control on various matching criteria used to define a common substructure.


BACKGROUND
Although the role of primary care for the management of patients with chronic heart failure (CHF) has been highly recommended, structural involvement of primary care in heart failure (HF) management programs is extremely limited.

AIMS
To examine the feasibility and applicability of two most recommended forms of care delivery mode, home visit and telephone support, for CHF management in the setting of community health service center (CHSC).

STUDY DESIGN
Prospective study.

METHODS
This study was conducted in two CHSCs in Beijing, China. Care delivery was led by trained general practitioners or community nurses via home visits in one CHSC and telephone support in the other. Data regarding the change in mortality and hospitalization rate during 12 months and self-care level at 6 months were prospectively collected and compared across the intervention groups.

RESULTS
A total of 329 patients were included, with 142 in the home visit group and 187 in the telephone support group. Patients in both groups had frequent visits to CHSC (8.1±5.9 in the home visit and 7.7±4.1 in the telephone support group, p=0.45) during the follow-up period. Compared to the telephone support group, patients in the home visit group showed a reduction in all-cause mortality (14.1% versus 20.3%, p=0.14), one or more hospitalizations due to any cause (33.8% versus 44.2%, p=0.12) and one or more hospitalizations due to cardiac cause (17.6% versus 24.6%, p=0.13) in the home visit group. The absolute differences were 6.2% (95% CI: 1.9%, 14.3%), 8.4% (95% CI: 2.1%, 18.9%) and 7.3% (95% CI: 1.5%, 16.1%), respectively, although the results were not statistically significant. After 6 months of intervention, patients in both groups achieved marked improvement in self-care with reference to their own baseline values.

CONCLUSION
Although no statistical difference was observed between the two care delivery approaches regarding the clinical outcomes of interest, given the high participation rates, the acceptable rate of adverse events, frequent CHSC visits and patients' preferences in the current study, it was concluded that CHSC might be the optimal setting for delivering care to CHF patients in China.


Many factors influence success in a science career. Hard work, ambition, flair, and luck played a role in the success of Tim Hunt, who won a share of the 2001 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine (along with Leland Hartwell and Paul Nurse) for his discovery of cyclins, key regulators of the cell cycle. We caught up with Hunt—now a group leader emeritus at the Clare Hall Laboratories of Cancer Research UK's London Research Institute—during Postdoc Day at the Institute for Research in Biomedicine. Hunt's career demonstrates the importance of two additional success factors: playfulness and early independence. This interview was edited for brevity and clarity.

Q: After a Ph.D. at the University of Cambridge, you did a postdoc at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. How did it go from there?

![Figure][1]

"You must somehow get independent when you are really young, and take responsibility."

ILLUSTRATION: ROBERT NEUBECKER

A: After a year, the boss went to MIT [Massachusetts Institute of Technology] to set up a new medical school, so it was just me and a technician—Grace Vanderhoff—and we made things up as we went. I usually had two projects going, one with Grace during the day and my own projects, which I did at night. Gradually, the night projects started to go better than the day projects. They allowed me to discover two very important things, which both came through collaborations.

After that, I returned to Cambridge to work in the Department of Biochemistry. And this is another thing that I think was very lucky: I had an independent fellowship from Clare College. I took a fivefold cut in pay, but I found myself among friends, namely Richard Jackson and Tony Hunter. It was a loose federation of graduate students and postdocs, and we could just do whatever we liked. This was terribly satisfactory, and we had a really lovely time.

We were a bit anarchic and bumbling in a way, and I sometimes regretted that I never had any proper, formal biochemical education. We had to work everything out for ourselves. I find myself reacting badly to this idea that there are skill sets you need to have, and you must pass exams to get them. I would rather emphasize the importance of playfulness and of making your own mistakes.

Q: You stood by your results when they were controversial. This takes a lot of self-confidence.

A: You have to be very sure of yourself, it's true, but you're sure of yourself because you know the experiments are robust. I always tell people, "Be your own harshest critic because then nobody can hurt you."

Q: Can young scientists nowadays work as independent postdocs?

A: I think so. There are still lots of fellowships around, so it depends on the environment you find yourself in. You must somehow get independent when you are really young, and take responsibility. In general, however, a conventional principal investigator position takes people out of the lab just when they get really good at doing and designing experiments, and that's a shame.

Q: What was the key to your success?

A: Identifying a good problem to work on. That's the most difficult thing. I also think that, in my case, behind it all was a fairly steely ambition. It's perfectly healthy to want to win a Nobel Prize. I didn't have this ambition exactly, but I thought, "Why wouldn't you want to find out the most important thing you possibly could?" In Cambridge, we were surrounded by Nobel laureates. We never felt that we were in the same league as these Sangers, Cricks, and Brenners, but you realized that even if they were Nobel laureates, you knew stuff they didn't, and you also realized what an amazingly heterogeneous bunch they are.

When people ask me, "What is the secret to success?" I always say, "Keep your eyes on the horizon but your feet on the ground, and preferably your nose to the grindstone." In other words, you have to work.

 [1]: pending:yes


Romantic models dominate our conception of lyric poetry. This essay questions the pertinence of these models to the Renaissance lyric by reading that poetry in the light of Jonathan Culler's classic account of the romantic lyric in his Pursuit of Signs (1981). Culler famously argues that the definitive trope of lyric is apostrophe, in which first-person speakers address pointedly fictive personifications, such as a sick rose or the west wind, in order to emphasize subjective voicing over objective perception. As Culler helps us see, apostrophes are surprisingly important in Renaissance as well as romantic lyric. But the apostrophes of Renaissance lyric characteristically portray first-person speakers as writing in real time and space to "empirical listeners." What makes Renaissance lyric distinctive is its persistently social mode of address. Through readings of apostrophic poetry by Waller, Donne, King, Sidney, Spenser, and Shakespeare, the essay calls for criticism of the lyric that pays closer attention to the differences among historically diverse lyric cultures.


The second set of submissions made by the Law Society of South Africa (LSSA) on the Legal Practice Bill (B20 of 2012) in May this year focused on responding to a number of questions raised by the Justice Portfolio Committee during oral hearings on the Bill, which were held in February. While the LSSA news column in the June issue of De Rebus (2013 (June) DR 11) provided a brief overview of the submissions, this article sets them out in detail.


The Battle of Singapore concluded on 15 February 1942 when Britain surrendered the besieged island to Japan. Singapore was renamed Syonan-to (Light of the South) and incorporated into the Japanese Empire. Five days later, the Straits Times, the official newspaper of the British Straits Colonies, was renamed the Syonan Times (Shimbun) and remade as a device for pro-Japanese propaganda directed at the Singaporean people. This wartime newspaper continued until the Japanese surrender in 1945, at which point the Straits Times was resumed to herald the Allied victory. However this was more than simply a revived newspaper. On its cessation in 1942 the Straits Times was an advertising broadsheet, a relic of nineteenth-century commercial printing. What appeared in September 1945 was a publication in a different mode: a modern newspaper, driven by ideas of journalism and celebrating the stories of the day. The different character of these two papers is apparent in their visual presentation: what had once been dominated by the stock illustration of consumable goods had become text-driven.

Official histories of the Straits Times tend to ignore the period of the Japanese occupation, seeing the Syonan Shimbun as a separate publication and a product of oppression. I take a different approach, seeing the three distinct phases as a continuous production. Looking at the visual language and editorial content of these newspapers over the period 1942–1945, I argue that the Syonan Shimbun redefined the parameters of newspapers in Singapore, allowing the Straits Times to take up its more serious post-war position. Despite the Japanese newspaper being a heavily controlled vehicle for propaganda, it ironically established the image of what a free journalistic press could be in Singapore, suggesting the newspaper's political role in rebuilding the country. When control of the printing press was returned to Singaporean hands, they continued in this mode of discussion, rather than the private economic imperative of their earlier publication. In this paper I look at a transitional period for the Singaporean newspaper, accounting for its revitalised character through the influence of Japanese wartime propaganda in South East Asia. This suggests one way that Japan's material production in its occupied territories influenced the later development of these places after the war.


The deflection of light by massive bodies has been of interest to mathematicians
and physicists from time to time since Newton suggested the possibility in his
1704 work, "Opticks". This deflection was calculated in the late eighteenth and
early nineteenth centuries, treating light as a classical particle. The deflection was
again calculated by Einstein in the early twentieth century, using his new general
theory of relativity, to be twice the previous classical result. The measurement of
the deflection of light passing close by the Sun was widely publicized as a dramatic
confirmation of general relativity, in the now famous 1919 expeditions.
In the last three decades, gravitational lensing has become an important tool for
astrophysicists, especially in searching for dark matter and exoplanets. By 1991,
astrophysicists were suggesting that exoplanets could be found using microlensing,
and since 2004 at least ten planets have been found in this way. In microlensing,
light from a background star passes close to the lensing system, and is deflected
around the lens. Because of this, more light rays reach the observer, producing
magnification of the background source. This magnification changes over time, as
the source, lens and observer move into and out of alignment. The details of the
magnification over time are plotted in a 'light curve', which is simply intensity
versus time. A planet orbiting a lensing star can make changes in the light field at
the observer's plane ("magnification map"). Such changes show up as variations
to the shape of the simple light curve.
This thesis presents a mathematical model for the paths taken by light rays near
a massive object such as a star or black hole. I begin the thesis by considering the
spacetime around a non-rotating, uncharged, spherically symmetric object. Such
a spacetime is described by the Schwarzschild metric equation. After considering
the deflection angle and travel-time delay in such a system, I derive an acceleration
vector for the massless particle ("photon"). This acceleration vector is used to plot
the light paths of many photons passing through a binary system using numerical
integration, resulting in a magnification map very similar to those currently in
use by astrophysicists. In the following chapter I consider a linear approximation
of the acceleration vector just mentioned, considering the light path as a small
perturbation about a straight line. Such an approach results in a linear third order
ordinary differential equation, but with non-constant coefficients. Unexpectedly,
a closed-form solution is found, resulting in path equations accurate to first order
in the relevant small parameter. This allows for very rapid computation of the
magnification map. Some examples are presented and compared against the fully
non-linear numerical results of the previous chapter, and also against a simpler
approach used by some other authors.
The final section of results of the thesis is given to consideration of the effect of
rotation of the lensing object. In considering the Kerr metric which describes
such a system, I follow an approach similar to that used in previous chapters.
Thus, an acceleration vector is derived, which is used to plot a magnification
map for a binary system containing a rotating object. Rotation causes bending
and asymmetry in the magnification map. This is illustrated for certain cases of
interest. A second order approximation is also considered, as well as application
of the equatorial special case to calculation of travel time delay. This delay is
compared to that expected for a non-rotating object.


Four female Bactrian camels (Camelus bactrianus) were offered a diet of chopped mixed hay, composed predominantly of timothy, at three levels of intake. Digestibility of the hay was measured by total collection and rates of passage using cobalt (III) ethylene diamine tetra acetate and Chromium-mordanted hay. The time spent eating and ruminating per day was ascertained by continuous observation for 24 hours. Results from this experiment indicate that Bactrian camels appear to digest a predominantly grass hay to a similar extent seen with sheep and cattle, but at approximately 1 /4-1 /2 of the dry matter intakes (g/kg BW) observed with the latter species. Increases in daily metabolic faecal out-put and metabolic faecal N per kg DM intake compare favourably with ruminant data. Total mean retention (TMR) time of liquid and particulate markers was quite long but fall within a range exhibited by domestic ruminants fed restricted levels of roughages. The long TMR values were due to very long intestinal transit times. Fractional turn-over rates in the forestomachs and caecum-proximal colon were higher than would be expected for cattle at similar intakes. The observed relatively large changes in passage parameters but small depressions in digestibility with increasing intake are similar to that seen with sheep or cattle fed hay diets. This experiment also indicates that camels appear to spend an amount of time eating, ruminating or chewing per unit intake that is commensurate with that seen in adult cattle. However, at ad libitum (AL) intakes, the maximum amount of time spent ruminating was 5.39 h/d. Since camels possess an efficiency of rumination (min/g) similar to that of cattle but appear to be limited to 5-5.5 h of ruminating per d, the low AL intakes observed may be due to an inability to process highly fibrous forages as well as sheep or cattle.


According to phenomenological and enactive approaches, human sociality does not start from isolated individuals, but from intercorporeality and interaffectivity. To elaborate this concept, the paper introduces (1) a concept of embodied affectivity, regarding emotions as a circular interaction of the embodied subject and the situation with its affective affordances. (2) This leads to a concept of embodied interaffectivity as a process of coordinated interaction, bodily resonance, and 'mutual incorporation' which provides the basis for a primary empathy. (3) Finally, developmental accounts point out that these empathic capacities are also based on an intercorporeal memory that is acquired in early childhood.


The Aquatic Warbler Acrocephalus paludicola is one of the most threatened Western Palearctic passerine species, classified as globally Vulnerable. With its breeding grounds relatively secure, a clear need remains for the monitoring and protection of the migration and wintering grounds of this rare and endangered migrant. Recent research has shown that the Aquatic Warbler migrates through northwest Africa in autumn and spring. The wintering grounds are apparently limited to wetlands of sub-Saharan West Africa, with records from only about 20 localities in Mauritania, Mali, Senegal and Ghana. Given the lack of knowledge of its whereabouts, we decided to use the available data to predict the wintering distribution of the Aquatic Warbler with the help of Geographic Information Systems (GIS). We used a novel approach to model the distribution of rarely recorded species, which is based on a combination of presence-only and presence‐absence modelling techniques. Using the program BIOMOD, we thus generated four progressively more conservative predictions of where the Aquatic Warbler overwinters in Africa. Whereas the most permissive model predicts the Aquatic Warbler to be found in a latitudinal band stretching from the Senegal river delta all the way to the Red Sea coast, the most restrictive model suggests a much smaller area concentrated within the regions around the Senegal river delta in northern Senegal and southern Mauritania and around the Niger inundation zone in southern Mali and eastern Burkina Faso. Such model predictions may be useful guidelines to focus further field research on the Aquatic Warbler. Given the excellent model predictions in this study, this novel technique may prove useful to model the distribution of other rare and endangered species, thus providing a means to guide future survey efforts.


Mega data centers and their interconnection networks have drawn great attention in recent years because of the rapid public adoption of cloud-based services. The unprecedented amount of data that needs to be communicated between data centers imposes new requirements and challenges to inter-data-center optical networks. In this article, we discuss the traffic growth trends and capacity demands of Google¿s inter-data-center network, and how they drive the network architectures and technologies to scale capacities and operational ease on existing fiber plants. We extensively review recent research findings and emerging technologies, such as digital coherent detection and the flexgrid dense wavelength-division multiplexed channel plan, and propose practical implementations, such as C+L-band transmission, packet and optical layer integration, and a software-defined networking enabled network architecture for both capacity and operational scaling. In addition, we point out a few critical areas that require more attention and research to improve efficiency and flexibility of an inter-data-center optical network: optical regeneration, data rate mismatch between Ethernet and optical transport, and real-time optical performance monitoring.


Background: Aortic thromboembolism (ATE) is a potentially fatal and rare condition in dogs. Ischemic neuromyopathy is main consequence, characterized by paraparesis or paraplegia, loss of femoral pulses, pain and hypothermia in distal part of affected limbs. In felines, affection is primarily associated with heart problems, whereas in dogs, condition is due to diseases which compromise the blood flow, such as, hyperadrenocorticism, immune-mediated hemolytic anemia, disseminated intravascular coagulation, sepsis, and more rarely cardiac problems. The aim of this article is describe a case of acute aortic thromboembolism due to bacterial endocarditis in a dog. Case: A female, 9-year-old dog, weighing 28.5 kg, was referred for examination due to acute paraparesis and pain. Patient showed cyanosis in nail beds and cold extremities in hind limbs, heart murmur degree V / IV, and bilateral absence of femoral arterial pulse. Due to suspicion of ATE, patient was treated with heparin, aspirin and tramadol, however it came to die less than 24 h after initial care. At necropsy, there was pulmonary edema, moderate hyperemia and severe tricuspid mitral valve. A thrombus with 3.0 cm of diameter in left atrium was found. At beginning of aorta there was also a thrombus measuring 5.0 cm x 0.3 cm x 0.3 cm and other thrombus in abdominal aortic trifurcation measuring 3.0 cm x 0.5 cm x 0.5 cm. Kidneys showed diffusely marked coagulative necrosis associated with extensive congestion and hemorrhage in corticomedullar region. Multiples focus of dark red coloration lesions and elevated surfaces ranging from 0.5 to 3.0 cm of diameter were observed in the spleen. Histological examination of heart valves showed presence of moderate amounts of degenerate neutrophils indicating bacterial endocarditis, whereas, same exam of kidneys, interstitial inflammatory infiltrate mostly constituted by a small quantity of degenerated neutrophils and lymphocytes was found. Thus, final diagnosis was ATE, resulting from bacterial endocarditis. Discussion: Aortic thromboembolism is an uncommon disease in dogs, generally affecting patients ranging from medium to big-sized and middle-aged to elderly dogs. Majority of dogs show chronic signs, whilst acute presentation, described herein, is uncommon. Clinical signs, showed by our patient were similar to what occur in felines with same disease, being absence of femoral pulse pathognomonic for both species. Patients can present partial or full obstruction to aortic trifurcation, with signs which range from weakness to paraplegia, as a consequence of ischemic neuromyopathy, as well observed in the present report. On post-mortem examination clinical suspicion of ATE was confirmed, however, unlike majority of reports of this condition in literature, two more thrombus were also identified. Due to acute picture and fast evolution to death, complementary exams, such as, two-dimensional ultrasound or Doppler, which are effective in viewing of presence of occlusion of aortic and decrease of blood flow, were not possible to accomplish. Severity and fatal evolution of this picture also prevented both etiologic diagnosis and treatment to be conducted. In consulted literature, descriptions of ATE due to bacterial endocarditis in dogs weren't found, but it is believed that in present report, ATE may have occurred due to bacterial endocarditis. Unfortunately, both prognoses of bacterial endocarditis as ATE are poor and association of these two affections is probably associated with fast worsening picture and evolution to death.


Search engines not only assist normal users, but also provide information that hackers and other malicious entities can exploit in their nefarious activities. With carefully crafted search queries, attackers can gather information such as email addresses and misconfigured or even vulnerable servers.

We present SearchAudit, a framework that identifies malicious queries from massive search engine logs in order to uncover their relationship with potential attacks. SearchAudit takes in a small set of malicious queries as seed, expands the set using search logs, and generates regular expressions for detecting new malicious queries. For instance, we show that, relying on just 500 malicious queries as seed, SearchAudit discovers an additional 4 million distinct malicious queries and thousands of vulnerable Web sites. In addition, SearchAudit reveals a series of phishing attacks from more than 400 phishing domains that compromised a large number of Windows Live Messenger user credentials. Thus, we believe that SearchAudit can serve as a useful tool for identifying and preventing a wide class of attacks in their early phases.


Background: Alzheimer's disease (AD) is neurodegenerative disorder that develops over a period of years that differs
 from normal aging. One of the most important risk factors is increasing age, and the majority of people with
 Alzheimer's are 65 years and older. AD reduces life expectancy and is one of the major causes of physical disability,
 institutionalization, and low quality of life among the elderly. AD is highly related to functional disability and
 institutionalization. There are many factors associated with AD including physical and behavioural complications.
Aim: To assess epidemiological pattern and complications of AD among patients in Aseer region, Saudi Arabia.
Methodology: A descriptive cross-sectional study included 110 Alzheimer patients (66 males and 44 females)
 registered at Aseer Central Hospital, Southern of Saudi Arabia. A pre-structured questionnaire was used for data
 collection that included patients' personal characteristics and frequency of exposure to complications associated
 with Alzheimer disease.
Results: About 72% of the patients aged 70 years or older and 60% were males. Almost all of the patients were
 citizens 97.3% and 62.7% were married. Exact of 56.4% of the patients were illiterate and only few 4.5% were
 university graduated. Pneumonia was the most frequent complication followed by getting lost, fall down, and bone
 fracture. Getting lost was significantly more among males than females (P=0.007), while pneumonia was significantly
 more among patients treated in governmental hospitals (P=0.003). On the other hand, bone fractures and falling
 down did not differ significantly according to patients' personal characteristics.
Conclusions: The most frequent complications associated with Alzheimer Disease in our study population were
 pneumonia, getting lost, falling down and bone fractures. Risk factors associated with these complications include
 male gender for getting lost. Health care providers are advised to provide close care to Alzheimer disease patients.


A linear-quadratic differential game related to robust control problems in linear time-varying systems is considered. We show that difficulties, which may arise in obtaining the solution of the game and the optimal control law, are related to the fact that the trajectories x(t) (where the state x = (x1, ..., xn)) of the controlled system may be exactly or approximately localized in the subspace of dimensionality less than n, under all possible bounded piecewise continuous control impacts acting on the inputs, provided that the initial vector x(t0) is fixed, x(t0) = x0. We demonstrate how to overcome these difficulties by using the solution D(t) of "inverse" matrix differential equation of Riccati type and the pseudo-inverse matrix D+(t). We establish new sufficient conditions for the existence of the saddle point. We show that the optimal control can be extended beyond conjugate points if D(t) ≥ 0. We also derive and prove new explicit formulae for robust optimal control law using the matrices D(t) and D+(t). With the use of the pseudo-inverse matrix D+(t) uncontrollable (or almost uncontrollable) components can be automatically eliminated in choosing robust optimal control. In this paper robust optimal control problems in linear time-varying systems are investigated in the finite-horizon case.


This is a collaborative submission from a group of academics based in the UK with expertise in Information technology law and related areas. The preparation of the response has been funded by the Information Technology Think Tank, which is supported by the Arts & Humanities Research Council and led by the SCRIPT/AHRC Centre for Research and Intellectual Property and Technology, University of Edinburgh. This response has been prepared by Karen Mc Cullagh, a lecturer in IT, Media & Public Law and a member of Media@UEA at the University of East Anglia. In addition, this response is submitted by the following individuals: Dr Abbe Brown, University of Edinburgh, Professor Joseph Cannataci, University of Central Lancashire, Dr Catherine Easton, Manchester Metropolitan University, Karen Mc Cullagh, University of East Anglia, Judith Rauhofer, University of Edinburgh, Kevin Rogers, University of Hertfordshire, Felipe Romero Moreno, Oxford Brookes University, Joseph Savirimuthu, University of Liverpool, Professor Burkhard Schafer, University of Edinburgh.


Perfectionism can be healthy: striving for perfection requires the ability to selfregulate, namely willpower. This paper formalizes the intuitive relation between healthy perfectionism and willpower in the presence of temptation. The value of a menu of options for an individual with limited willpower corresponds to the lower bound of the value assigned to the same menu by a perfectionist, when temptation and perfectionism intensities are free to vary. Moreover, the higher the perfectionism strive, the higher the willpower. The relation between overwhelming temptation and the Strotz model is a particular case of the result. When there is uncertainty about temptation, we generalize Dekel and Lipman (2012) providing conditions such that a preference is represented by a random willpower representation, if and only if, it has an equivalent random perfectionism representation.


Sequential quantile estimation refers to incorporating observations into quantile estimates in an incremental fashion thus furnishing an online estimate of one or more quantiles at any given point in time. Sequential quantile estimation is also known as online quantile estimation. This area is relevant to the analysis of data streams and to the one-pass analysis of massive data sets. Applications include network traffic and latency analysis, real time fraud detection and high frequency trading. We introduce new techniques for online quantile estimation based on Hermite series estimators in the settings of static quantile estimation and dynamic quantile estimation. In the static quantile estimation setting we apply the existing Gauss-Hermite expansion in a novel manner. In particular, we exploit the fact that Gauss-Hermite coefficients can be updated in a sequential manner. To treat dynamic quantile estimation we introduce a novel expansion with an exponentially weighted estimator for the Gauss-Hermite coefficients which we term the Exponentially Weighted Gauss-Hermite (EWGH) expansion. These algorithms go beyond existing sequential quantile estimation algorithms in that they allow arbitrary quantiles (as opposed to pre-specified quantiles) to be estimated at any point in time. In doing so we provide a solution to online distribution function and online quantile function estimation on data streams. In particular we derive an analytical expression for the CDF and prove consistency results for the CDF under certain conditions. In addition we analyse the associated quantile estimator. Simulation studies and tests on real data reveal the Gauss-Hermite based algorithms to be competitive with a leading existing algorithm.


Since the operative definition given by C. W. J. Granger of an idea expressed by N. Wiener, the Wiener-Granger causality (WGC) has been one of the most relevant concepts exploited by modern time series analysis. Indeed, in networks formed by multiple components, working according to the notion of segregation and interacting with each other according to the principle of integration, inferring causality has opened a window on the effective connectivity of the network and has linked experimental evidences to functions and mechanisms. This tutorial reviews predictability improvement, information-based and frequency domain methods for inferring WGC among physiological processes from multivariate realizations and quantifying the strength of the cause-effect relations in network physiology. Studies relevant to cardiovascular control and neuroscience are listed as examples of applications in prominent biomedical fields in which WGC analysis led to remarkable advancements in our knowledge. The review pays special attention to procedures for checking the reliability of the WGC approaches according to the statistical framework of hypothesis testing.


A linear theory is presented for waves generated by an arbitrary bed deformation {in space and time) for a two-dimensional and a three -dimensional fluid domain of uniform depth. The resulting wave profile near the source is computed for both the two and three-dimensional models for a specific class of bed deformations; experimental results are presented for the two-dimensional model. The growth of nonlinear effects during wave propagation in an ocean of uniform depth and the corresponding limitations of the linear theory are investigated. A strategy is presented for determining wave behavior at large distances from the source where linear and nonlinear effects are of equal magnitude. The strategy is based on a matching technique which employs the linear theory in its region of applicability and an equation similar to that of Korteweg and deVries (KdV) in the region where nonlinearities are equal in magnitude to frequency dispersion. Comparison of the theoretical computations with the experimental results indicates that an equation of the KdV type is the proper model of wave behavior at large distances from the source region.


To begin to understand how tissue specificity is established and maintained, Odom et al. (see the Perspective by Kulkarni and Kahn) have looked at the genes regulated by the transcription factors HNF1α, HNF4α, and HNF6 in human hepatocytes and pancreatic islet cells. Microarray and immunoprecipitation analyses were used to determine that HNF4α binds to almost half of the actively transcribed genes. HNF6 was involved in regulatory motifs that have been associated with sensitivity to sustained inputs. Lack of these HNF transcriptional regulators can cause a type of diabetes, and thus an understanding of these circuits may help future treatment of this disease. D. T. Odom, N. Zizlsperger, D. B. Gordon, G. W. Bell, N. J. Rinaldi, H. L. Murray, T. L. Volkert, J. Schreiber, P. A. Rolfe, D. K. Gifford, E. Fraenkel, G. I. Bell, R. A. Young, Control of pancreas and liver gene expression by HNF transcription factors. Science 303, 1378-1381 (2004). [Abstract] [Full Text] R. N. Kulkarni, C. R. Kahn, HNFs--Linking the liver and pancreatic islets in diabetes. Science 303, 1311-1312 (2004). [Summary] [Full Text]


We examined the relationship between plasma B-type natriuretic peptide (BNP) level and diurnal variability pattern of blood pressure (BP). Twenty-four-hour ambulatory BP monitoring was performed in 98 patients with asymptomatic essential hypertension, and the patients were classified into four groups according to their circadian BP variation profiles: dippers (n=29), nondippers (n=36), extreme dippers (n=19), and risers (n=14). Plasma BNP was measured by enzyme immunoassay. Based on the distribution pattern of BNP values, the values were analyzed after logarithmic transformation. Significant differences in plasma BNP levels among the types of circadian BP variations were demonstrated by analysis of variance (p<0.0005). Nondippers and risers showed significantly higher plasma BNP levels (mean [range: −1 SD and +1 SD]: 16.1 [6.3, 41.6] pg/mL and 29.2 [15.9, 53.4] pg/mL, respectively) than dippers (8.4 [3.7, 19.1] pg/mL). The area under the receiver operating characteristics curve for distinguishing patients with abnormal circadian BP variation from those with normal variation was 0.72, indicating that plasma BNP levels were useful for distinguishing between these patients. Specificity of 69% and sensitivity of 72% were obtained with a cut-off value of 10.5 pg/mL (log plasma BNP, 1.02) for distinguishing the abnormal diurnal BP profile group from the normal group. In conclusion, hypertensive patients with abnormal diurnal BP variation patterns (nondippers, extreme dippers, and risers) showed higher plasma BNP levels than those with normal circadian BP variation (dippers). Plasma BNP level is clinically useful for the identification of hypertensive patients who have abnormal circadian BP variability, which increases the risk of cardiovascular events.


Key messagesThe future of forest tenure security for local forest dependent communities in Lampung province is linked to the effective implementation of social forestry (SF) programs, which granted communities management rights to state forests. If SF schemes are implementated effectively, the tenure rights of forest dependent communities will be assured.Participatory prospective analysis (PPA) by an expert group consisting of governmental and nongovernmental organization representatives, identified six key driving forces that will influence SF implementation in the next 10 years. These include:- the dynamics of SF regulations including regulation of forest product businesses- economic options created by communities to improve livelihoods- community tenure rights to forest resources- budgetary support from regional government- human resources capacities of implementating agents such as the Province Forestry Office, Forest Management Unit (FMU) and NGOs- the clarity of stakeholder roles including community awareness.The different scenarios, which describe plausible conditions of forest tenure reform implementation in Lampung, range from persistence of the status quo, where communities continue to have partial rights to state forests, to variations that include full ownership rights, complete withdrawal of community rights to forests, and the privileging of economic interests over environmental sustainability.The desired scenarios are associated with adequate budget allocations including dedicated budgets for implementation. Lack of coordination is a disadvantage and is characteristic of undesired scenarios. The capacity of implementing agents is also a key factor, especially their capacity to work with communities and to support them. Functional forest-based enterprises to support community livelihoods, which in turn provide strong incentives for sustainable forest management, are important. Taken together, the scenarios suggest that devolving SF implementation to the lowest unit, the FMU, is the best option. However, this should be accompanied by community empowerment, the allocation of adequate budgets and support and cooperation among all involved actors.The expert group developed an action plan for enhancing SF scheme implementation over the next 10 years. Strategies include enhancing budgetary support to the regional government, strengthening the role of the FMU, strengthening community tenure rights and enhancing local livelihoods. Key actions include supporting cross-sectoral coordination, developing PES systems to boost regional government revenues, increasing legal literacy at community level and community/participatory mapping of resources.The action plan will be integrated into Lampung Provincial Government's forestry development program and will guide Lampung's Social Forestry Working Group.Overall, the PPA method reveals that the implementation of SF programs is multi-faceted, capturing the diverse concerns and roles of different stakeholders. It also enhances the capacity of stakeholders to jointly analyse problems, to anticipate the future and to design current actions to mitigate future problems or enhance the likelihood of meeting desired objectives.


A 7‐d, constant rate aquifer test conducted by University of Waterloo researchers at Canadian Forces Base Borden in Ontario, Canada, is useful for advancing understanding of fluid flow processes in response to pumping from an unconfined aquifer. Measured data include not only drawdown in the saturated zone but also volumetric soil moisture measured at various times and distances from the pumped well. Analytical analyses were conducted with the model published in 2001 by Moench and colleagues, which allows for gradual drainage but does not include unsaturated zone characteristics, and the model published in 2006 by Mathias and Butler, which assumes that moisture retention and relative hydraulic conductivity (RHC) in the unsaturated zone are exponential functions of pressure head. Parameters estimated with either model yield good matches between measured and simulated drawdowns in piezometers. Numerical analyses were conducted with two versions of VS2DT: one that uses traditional Brooks and Corey functional relations and one that uses a RHC function introduced in 2001 by Assouline that includes an additional parameter that accounts for soil structure and texture. The analytical model of Mathias and Butler and numerical model of VS2DT with the Assouline model both show that the RHC function must contain a fitting parameter that is different from that used in the moisture retention function. Results show the influence of field‐scale heterogeneity and suggest that the RHC at the Borden site declines more rapidly with elevation above the top of the capillary fringe than would be expected if the parameters were to reflect local‐ or core‐scale soil structure and texture.


Custom-made hardware is attractive for sophisticated signal processing in wearable electroacoustic devices, but has a high initial cost overhead. Thus, signal processing algorithms should be tested thoroughly in real application environments by potential end users prior to the hardware implementation. In addition, the algorithms should be easily alterable during this test phase. A wearable system which meets these requirements has been developed and built. The system is based on the high performance signal processor Motorola DSP56309. This device also includes high quality stereo analog-to-digital-(ADC)- and digital-to-analog-(DAC)-converters with 20 bit word length each. The available dynamic range exceeds 88 dB. The input and output gains can be adjusted by digitally controlled potentiometers. The housing of the unit is small enough to carry it in a pocket (dimensions 150 × 80 × 25 mm). Software tools have been developed to ease the development of new algorithms. A set of configurable Assembler code modules implements all hardware dependent software routines and gives easy access to the peripherals and interfaces. A comfortable fitting interface allows easy control of the signal processing unit from a PC, even by assistant personnel. The device has proven to be a helpful means for development and field evaluations of advanced new hearing aid algorithms, within interdisciplinary research projects. Now it is offered to the scientific community.


Person re-identification is the problem of recognizing people across images or videos from non-overlapping views. Although there has been much progress in person re-identification for the last decade, it still remains a challenging task because of severe appearance changes of a person due to diverse camera viewpoints and person poses. In this paper, we propose a novel framework for person reidentification by analyzing camera viewpoints and person poses, so-called Pose-aware Multi-shot Matching (PaMM), which robustly estimates target poses and efficiently conducts multi-shot matching based on the target pose information. Experimental results using public person reidentification datasets show that the proposed methods are promising for person re-identification under diverse viewpoints and pose variances.


As the Port of Los Angeles and the shipping industry continue to expand, states struggle to regulate the heavy trucking businesses that support the shipping companies. In American Trucking Assn's, Inc. v. City of Los Angeles, the Supreme Court struck down as preempted by the Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act of 1994 parts of a Concession Agreement that sought to regulate the relationship between these trucking companies and the Port. The Court declined to decide a second question of whether the Port could punish trucking companies that routinely fail to comply with regulations. This Comment argues that the FAAAA's broad preemption has left states unable to regulate the heavy trucking industry properly. Considering this deficiency, Congress or the EPA must step in to control the industry and prevent it from further polluting the envi-


The Virtual Haydn: Complete Works for Solo Keyboard . Tom Beghin, Martha de Francisco, Wieslaw Woszczyk, et al. Recorded, edited, and mixed April 2007–March 2009. Naxos NBD0001-04, 4 Blu-ray discs.

This review was prepared using the CD version:

The Virtual Haydn: Complete Works for Solo Keyboard . Tom Beghin, Martha de Francisco, Wieslaw Woszczyk, et al. Recorded, edited, and mixed April 2007–March 2009. Naxos 8.501203, 12 CDs with accompanying DVD and 94-page booklet.

In the celebrated portrait of Joseph Haydn by Ludwig Guttenbrunn, now in the Haydn Museum at Eisenstadt, the composer sits at a square piano with his left hand on the keyboard and a quill pen poised in his right (Fig. 1).1 An inkwell rests on a piece of manuscript paper on the top of the case, awaiting the composer's inspiration. The illegibility of the musical notation stresses the pregnant silence of the image. Here Haydn is portrayed alone in his study, absorbed in the mental space of his own musical imagination. Although he was not the most virtuoso performer of his age, he used various types of keyboard instrument throughout his career for composition, teaching, and performance. The present series of recordings directly addresses his extraordinarily effective use of the keyboard as a medium of multifaceted communication—with pupils, patrons, publishers, women friends, and concertgoers. It explores the ways in which Haydn adapted his compositions to the acoustics of particular music rooms. In the picture, his surroundings are strictly private and spatially compressed, but the act of composition itself is predicated on the expectation of performance in more expansive, public settings.

Figure 1
Ludwig Guttenbrunn, Joseph Haydn , ca. 1770. Eisenstadt, Landesmuseum Burgenland. Used by permission.

Haydn's solo keyboard works have received less attention in his discography than the symphonies, chamber music, and choral works, although they chart a crucial period in the development of the Classical sonata during the second half of the eighteenth century. Around eighty of his keyboard sonatas are known, even if only twelve …


This research formally models e-government success factor relationships with particular reference to developing countries. Much existing research assumes the success factors are mutually independent or in one-way linear dependency. This understanding could hinder the achievement of a successful e-government system – that is, a sustainable system. It is critical for developing countries to ensure that implemented e-government systems can be sustained. This research employs a system thinking approach which is implemented using system decomposition and System Dynamics methods. Acknowledging the broad and complex nature of the success factors and adopting a point of view that the success factor is a system, the system decomposition method organises the success factors system into a manageable number of subsystems, each of which is further decomposed into sub-subsystems. This decomposition method enables the researcher to focus on a (set of) sub-subsystem(s) while at the same time adopt a holistic view. The System Dynamics method is applied to model the detail and dynamic relationships of the success factors within and between selected sub-subsystems. From within two important sub-subsystems, software maintenance and information systems staff management, the success factors relationships and its dynamic nature are modelled using this method. The relationships between the success factors are derived from the existing literature. A case study data collected from a successful e-government system in Indonesia and some necessary System Dynamic processes are used to validate the model – that is, to build soundness and confident usage of the model. The developed model captures the complexity of the relationships between elements and processes of the software maintenance, the expectancy theory variables, and the competence and availability of the information systems staff. It provides an explicit perspective on the dynamic feedback relationships between these factors and e-government success. For this model, e-government success is operationalised as a high level of e-government software availability over time. Through the model, this research results in an improvement of insight into the explicit mechanism of success factors, within software maintenance and information systems staff management, influencing e-government success and assists decision-makers to implement decisive policies for achieving sustainable system services delivery. Simulation of the model, for example, shows that the ability of the e-government system of the Indonesian Ministry of Agriculture to achieve success is because of its ability to provide a sufficient level of rewards. These rewards dynamically influence staff effort and availability levels which in turn affect recurrent faults of software maintenance. These faults then influence the level of software availability over time which in turn affects rewards. Opportunities for future research include linking the model with systems development, funding, change management and users' feedback, and incorporating hardware and computer networks.


The recently proposed distribution correction estimation (DICE) family of estimators has advanced the state of the art in off-policy evaluation from behavior-agnostic data. While these estimators all perform some form of stationary distribution correction, they arise from different derivations and objective functions. In this paper, we unify these estimators as regularized Lagrangians of the same linear program. The unification allows us to expand the space of DICE estimators to new alternatives that demonstrate improved performance. More importantly, by analyzing the expanded space of estimators both mathematically and empirically we find that dual solutions offer greater flexibility in navigating the tradeoff between optimization stability and estimation bias, and generally provide superior estimates in practice.


This paper introduces a new experimental city generation, assembly and development platform, the urban mutations platform. We describe in detail a methodology for modeling urban systems and their dynamics, based on self-organization principles. The urban area is seen as an organism comprised of different "body parts", the urban subunits. Upon creation of an initial 3D urban environment, it is possible to add to the subunits the so-called mutations, i.e. structural and functional components that can have beneficial or detrimental effects to the future city development. After addition of the mutations we allow the city to reorganize itself and observe possible changes in the urban configuration. These changes can be directly correlated to the added mutations and their urban qualities and allow us to probe the effect that different structural and functional elements have on the dynamic behaviour of the city, when placed at specific locations.


In Bayesian networks, a most probable explanation (MPE) is a most likely instantiation of all network variables given a piece of evidence. Recent work proposed a branch-and-bound search algorithm that finds exact solutions to MPE queries, where bounds are computed on a relaxed network obtained by a technique known as node splitting. In this work we study the impact of variable and value ordering on such a search algorithm. We study several heuristics based on the entropies of variables and on the notion of nogoods, and propose a new meta-heuristic that combines their strengths. Experiments indicate that search efficiency is significantly improved, allowing many hard problems to be solved for the first time.


Abstract The effect of an extended drydown on the water relations ofTamarix ramosissima(saltcedar), a desert phreatophyte, was investigated along the floodplain of the Virgin River (southern Nevada) during a hot dry summer period. Seedlings ofTamarixwere grown in lysimeters (120 cm depth, 51 cm radius) positioned along a gradient from the desert's edge to the interior of the stand and monitored for growth and evapo-transpiration over a 2-year period prior to this study. Water tables were maintained at approximately 60 cm during the evapo-transpiration study by applying weekly irrigation directly to the water table via piezometers. At the end of the 2-year period, three lysimeters were selected for a drydown experiment (desert's edge, river's edge, open stand). On 7 July 1995 all irrigation was terminated for a 29-day period. After the drydown period was over, irrigation was applied for an 18-day period to re-establish water table depths. Sapflow (transpiration) was monitored during the entire 47-day period (drydown, wetup) with stem flow gauges, soil moisture with time domain reflectometry, and plant water relations with a steady state porometer and pressure chamber. Results indicated that sapflow decreased significantly as water tables and stored soil water declined. Daily sapflow totals on a leaf area basis were higher for the plant growing along the river's edge, with midday hourly values significantly higher when a water table was present. On day 26, sapflow reached zero in the open stand lysimeter. As sapflow approached zero, a significant decrease in the time in which daily sapflow stopped occurred, rather than a delayed sapflow start time. Upon application of water on day 29, all three plants growing in the lysimeters responded by increasing sapflow within a 24-h period. Relative stomatal conductance (p= 0·001), leaf xylem water potential (p= 0·001) and sapflow (p= 0·001) measured during both the drydown and wetup stages were all linearly correlated with relative soil water in storage, indicating that relative soil water in storage could decline by as much as 90% and that upon alleviation of the soil moisture stress no hysteresis would be observed within these parameters. Such results indicate thatTamarixcan be subjected to significant soil water deficits and still respond rapidly to the presence of water. We conclude that significantly longer drydown periods without plant contact with a water table would be required to cause catastrophic cavitation inTamarix.


Abstract. Inferring climate from palaeodata frequently assumes a direct, linear relationship between the two, which is seldom met in practice. Here we simulate an idealized proxy characterized by a nonlinear, thresholded relationship with surface temperature, and we demonstrate the pitfalls of ignoring nonlinearities in the proxy–climate relationship. We explore three approaches to using this idealized proxy to infer past climate: (i) methods commonly used in the palaeoclimate literature, without consideration of nonlinearities; (ii) the same methods, after empirically transforming the data to normality to account for nonlinearities; and (iii) using a Bayesian model to invert the mechanistic relationship between the climate and the proxy. We find that neglecting nonlinearity often exaggerates changes in climate variability between different time intervals and leads to reconstructions with poorly quantified uncertainties. In contrast, explicit recognition of the nonlinear relationship, using either a mechanistic model or an empirical transform, yields significantly better estimates of past climate variations, with more accurate uncertainty quantification. We apply these insights to two palaeoclimate settings. Accounting for nonlinearities in the classical sedimentary record from Laguna Pallcacocha leads to quantitative departures from the results of the original study, and it markedly affects the detection of variance changes over time. A comparison with the Lake Challa record, also a nonlinear proxy for El Nino–Southern Oscillation, illustrates how inter-proxy comparisons may be altered when accounting for nonlinearity. The results hold implications for how univariate, nonlinear recorders of normally distributed climate variables are interpreted, compared to other proxy records, and incorporated into multiproxy reconstructions.


The paper addresses the problem of learning a regression model parameterized by a fixed-rank positive semidefinite matrix. The focus is on the nonlinear nature of the search space and on scalability to high-dimensional problems. The mathematical developments rely on the theory of gradient descent algorithms adapted to the Riemannian geometry that underlies the set of fixed-rank positive semidefinite matrices. In contrast with previous contributions in the literature, no restrictions are imposed on the range space of the learned matrix. The resulting algorithms maintain a linear complexity in the problem size and enjoy important invariance properties. We apply the proposed algorithms to the problem of learning a distance function parameterized by a positive semidefinite matrix. Good performance is observed on classical benchmarks.


Wireless sensor networks make the previously unobservable, observable. The basic idea behind these networks is straightforward: all wires are cut in traditional sensing
systems and the sensors are equipped with batteries and radio's to virtually restore the cut wires. The resulting sensors can be placed closely to the phenomenon that
needs monitoring, without imposing high wiring costs and careful engineering of the position of the devices. Sensors can even be attached to mobile objects. As a result, monitoring can be done more efficiently and at higher sensing resolution compared to traditional sensor systems. Yet, these are not the only advantages of wireless sensor networks.
We —as user of the wireless sensor network– are not interested in constant streams of sensor readings, but we are more interested in the interpretation of the sensor readings. This is exactly the big potential of wireless sensor networks. Due to intelligence, added locally to the wireless sensors, and collaboration between the individual sensors, the network by itself can carry out complex tasks related to observing. To achieve these goals, wireless sensors must be "on speaking terms" i.e. the nodes must be able to exchange information. The aim of this thesis is to provide a set of communication rules —commonly
known as medium access control (MAC) protocol– that organizes efficient communication through a shared wireless medium and is well suited for the inherent characteristics of wireless sensor networks. The MAC protocol determines when a wireless sensor transmits its sensor information and is thereby in control of one of the most energy consuming components in the wireless sensor hardware architecture. The lifetime of the battery operated wireless sensors is thus heavily dependant on the efficiency of the MAC protocol.
This thesis provides a self-organizing, schedule-based medium access approach. In general, this class of medium access is recognized for its energy-efficiency and robustness against high peak loads. These aspects are required by wireless sensor networks. Its drawbacks are message delay, over-provisioning and required time synchronization between wireless sensors.
In our approach, wireless sensors analyse local medium usage and autonomously choose when to access the medium i.e. transmit. In the analysis, medium usage of second order neighbours is also taken into account. Therefore, our approach does not suffer from the well-known hidden terminal problem, and additionally, the wireless
medium is spatially reused without energy-wasting conflicts. The medium access schedule of wireless sensors is adjusted when —e.g. due to mobility of nodes– conflicting schedules exist. The correctness of the general medium access control protocol is verified with a formal analysis tool, the model checker Uppaal.
Based upon the general schedule-based medium access approach, EMACs and LMAC are designed. Both protocols have been implemented on prototype wireless sensors designed in this thesis. The prototype hardware platforms are used to demonstrate that time synchronization is sufficiently attainable between wireless sensors.
The EMACs protocol includes clustering techniques to determine the role of wireless sensors concerning wireless communication. To maintain a connected communication
structure, potentially not all sensors are required to actively participate in multi-hop communication. Therefore, two roles are introduced. Active sensors create
a connected backbone, which is used by passive sensors. Passive sensors can conserve energy and the lifetime of the wireless sensor network is extended. With the introduction of these roles, we actively target one of the drawbacks of schedule-based access: over-provisioning.
The LMAC protocol is a simplified version of the EMACs protocol. In wireless sensor networks, sensor readings are most often forwarded to so-called gateway nodes.
These nodes present the findings of the network to an exterior user. The LMAC protocol includes the necessary functionality to transport messages to gateways without
requiring additional routing protocols. Using the LMAC protocol, we demonstrate that message delays can be significantly reduced. Our methods are applicable on our
general schedule-based medium access approach, thereby addressing one of the drawbacks of schedule-based medium access: latency.
The LMAC protocol can be easily compromised when attackers have full knowledge of the protocol. Encrypting messages, applying source authentication and authenticating
message content, makes the task of undermining a wireless sensor network more difficult, yet security keys are easily compromised. Wireless sensor networks are
even more easily attacked with jamming. We present such (energy-efficient) jamming attacks for our schedule-based medium access approach and in particular LMAC. For
this class of attacks little knowledge is required about the MAC protocol, which makes it a realistic threat. We show its effectiveness on LMAC and present countermeasures.
Additionally, consequences for other schedule-based MAC protocols are discussed.


Background: Assessment of soil arsenic (As) bioavailability may profoundly affect the extent of remediation required at contaminated sites by improving human exposure estimates. Because small adjustments in soil As bioavailability estimates can significantly alter risk assessments and remediation goals, convenient, rapid, reliable, and inexpensive tools are needed to determine soil As bioavailability. Objectives: We evaluated inexpensive methods for assessing As bioavailability in soil as a means to improve human exposure estimates and potentially reduce remediation costs. Methods: Nine soils from residential sites affected by mining or smelting activity and two National Institute of Standards and Technology standard reference materials were evaluated for As bioavailability, bioaccessibility, and speciation. Arsenic bioavailability was determined using an in vivo mouse model, and As bioaccessibility was determined using the Solubility/Bioavailability Research Consortium in vitro assay. Arsenic speciation in soil and selected soil physicochemical properties were also evaluated to determine whether these parameters could be used as predictors of As bioavailability and bioaccessibility. Results: In the mouse assay, we compared bioavailabilities of As in soils with that for sodium arsenate. Relative bioavailabilities (RBAs) of soil As ranged from 11% to 53% (mean, 33%). In vitro soil As bioaccessibility values were strongly correlated with soil As RBAs (R2 = 0.92). Among physicochemical properties, combined concentrations of iron and aluminum accounted for 80% and 62% of the variability in estimates of RBA and bioaccessibility, respectively. Conclusion: The multifaceted approach described here yielded congruent estimates of As bioavailability and evidence of interrelations among physicochemical properties and bioavailability estimates.


The main goal of this thesis work was to develop, implement and evaluate an algorithm that enables mining association rules from datasets that contain quantified distance information among the items. This was accomplished by extending and enhancing the Apriori Algorithm, which is the standard algorithm to mine association rules. The Apriori algorithm is not able to mine association rules that contain distance information among the items that construct the rules. This thesis enhances the main Apriori property by requiring itemsets forming rules to " deviate properly " in addition to satisfying the minimal support threshold. We say that an itemset deviates properly if all combinations of pair-wise distances among the items are highly conserved in the dataset instances where these items occur. This thesis introduces the notion of proper deviation and provides the precise procedure and measures that characterize it. Integrating the notion of distance preserving frequent itemset and proper deviation into the standard Apriori algorithm leads to the construction of our Distance-Based Association Rule Mining (DARM) algorithm. DARM can be applied in data mining and knowledge discovery from genetic, financial, retail, time sequence data, or any domain where the distance information between items is of importance. This thesis chose the area of gene expression and regulation in eukaryotic organisms as the application domain. The data from the domain was used to produce DARM rules. Sets of those rules were used for building predictive models. The accuracy of those models was tested. In addition, predictive accuracies of the models built with and without distance information were compared.


Whereas aesthetics and ethics form the axiological branch of philosophy, the latter's prominence in the discourse of philosophy of education is quite obvious. More attention needs to be given on the role of aesthetics, especially the influence of women teachers' body grooming on the education of preschoolers. This paper hermeneutically interprets the philosophical ideals of women teacher's body grooming on preschoolers. The philosophical sensitisation of young minds for educational purposes is grounded on what they observe in preschool learning environments such as Kindergartens or Montessori centres or nursery schools where majority of teachers are females. Philosophic tenets for education which have long lasting impact on the human mind are greatly influenced by women teachers' body grooming and clothing during the preschool days where the mind is stimulated to think, reason and produce knowledge. The paper contends that more interpretations can be discerned from body grooming of any gender that can lay the foundation of education.


Thermal annealing plays a crucial role for healing the defectiveness in the ion implanted regions of DIMOSFETs (Double Implanted MOSFETs) devices. In this work, we have studied the effect of a double step annealing on the body (Al implanted) and the source (P implanted) regions of such devices. We found that a high temperature annealing (1750°C, 1h) followed by a lower temperature one (1500°C, 4h) is mandatory to achieve low defects concentration and good crystal quality in both the n-and p-type zones of the device.


The 1995 to present eruption of Soufrière Hills Volcano on Montserrat is one of the most important and best-studied eruptions of an explosive andesitic volcano. This volume presents scientific findings from the period between 2000 and 2010; it follows on from Memoir 21, which focused on the early years of activity between 1995 and 1999. In addition to descriptions and analysis of the growth, collapse and explosions associated with lava domes, there are papers on the deformation of the volcano caused by the deep magma, the petrology and geochemistry of the lavas and associated gases. Of particular note are: an overview of the insights into the deep structure of the volcano that resulted from a major international seismic tomography experiment; and an analysis of the quantitative risk assessment process that has run now for most of the eruption, the longest such continuous assessment in the world.


Objectives: Injuries to the ulnar collateral ligament (UCL) are one of the most common and severe incurred by pitchers. Baseball pitchers of all ages and levels have seen an increase in the diagnosis of these injuries. Tears of the UCL are caused by high valgus forces at the elbow of which the UCL is the primary restraint. Biomechanical studies have demonstrated that baseball pitchers either approach or exceed the maximum tensile strength of the UCL while throwing. Valgus force is additionally resisted by the flexor pronator (FP) muscles: flexor carpi ulnaris (FCU), flexor digitorum superficialis (FDS), and pronator teres (PT), which act as secondary stabilizers. The importance of these secondary stabilizers has not been clearly demonstrated. The goal of this study was to monitor the strength changes in the secondary stabilizers of the elbow over the course of the baseball season and to attempt to correlate any of those changes to observed UCL injuries. Methods: With approval of the Institutional Review Board, 19 professional minor league baseball pitchers were evaluated in spring training and then at the conclusion of the season for flexor-pronator muscle strength. Additionally, their medical histories were assessed for incidents of ulnar collateral ligament injuries and days missed from baseball activities. Each player was assessed using custom testing devices measuring forearm pronation strength, wrist flexion strength, and isolated ring finger FDS strength. Both dominant and non-dominant arms were evaluated and the same testing procedure was performed both at spring training and at the conclusion of the baseball season. Strength was defined as the maximum isometric force generated over three trials. For each test, percentile rank was determined within the sample. A comparison between spring and fall assessments was done using a paired two sample T-test for means. Results: For all three tests, there was a demonstrated decrease of strength in both the pitching arm and non-pitching arm over the season. Pronation strength, wrist flexion strength, and FDS strength to the ring finger decreased 16.1%, 13.7%, and 4.9% respectively in the throwing arm. The decrease in pronation strength and wrist flexion strength in the throwing arm were statistically significant (p=0.001 and 0.003 respectively). Although the non-throwing arm also decreased in strength, it did not reach statistical significance. Two of the nineteen players were diagnosed with ulnar collateral ligament sprains during the season. The two injured players were the 1st and 3rd weakest in a composite percentile strength ranking from the spring assessment. Conclusion: In this study, we showed a diminution of strength of the muscles that act as secondary stabilizers of the ulnar collateral ligament over the course of the professional baseball season. The flexor pronator muscles (specifically the FCU, PT, and FDS) may help protect baseball pitchers from ulnar collateral ligament injuries and weakness of these muscles might make individuals prone to ulnar collateral ligament injuries and subsequent valgus overload syndrome. It is possible that this data would be helpful to predict individuals who are predisposed toward ulnar collateral ligament injuries, as well as in the development of comprehensive flexor-pronator muscle strengthening programs aimed at maintaining secondary stabilizer strength over the course of the baseball season.


With the growth of adaptive educational systems available for students, semantic integration of user modeling information from these systems is emerging into an important practical task. Ontologies can serve as the major representational framework for such integration. However, not all adaptive systems rely on ontologies for representing domain knowledge. In this paper, we report an experiment on integration of domain models of two different adaptive systems.


One goal of modern computer science is to engineer computer programs that can act as autonomous, rational agents; software that can independently make good decisions about what actions to perform on our behalf and execute those actions. Applications range from small programs that intelligently search the Web buying and selling goods via electronic commerce, to autonomous space probes. This book focuses on the belief-desire-intention (BDI) model of rational agents, which recognizes the primacy of beliefs, desires, and intentions in rational action. The BDI model has three distinct strengths: an underlying philosophy based on practical reasoning in humans, a software architecture that is implementable in real systems, and a family of logics that support a formal theory of rational agency.The book introduces a BDI logic called LORA (Logic of Rational Agents). In addition to the BDI component, LORA contains a temporal component, which allows one to represent the dynamics of how agents and their environments change over time, and an action component, which allows one to represent the actions that agents perform and the effects of the actions. The book shows how LORA can be used to capture many components of a theory of rational agency, including such notions as communication and cooperation.


The main aim of this research was to investigate the impact of stressors and supports present in both work and non-work domains on occupational health. Using a multi-dimensional survey (SWS-Survey of Occupational Health), the relationships between personal and environmental stress and support was determined for a sample of stress injury claimants (n = 60) and non-claimants (n = 570). A series of regression analyses found significant differences between claimants and non-claimants for both stressors and supports. Poor mental health was best predicted by stress scales for claimants and non-claimants. However, for non-claimants, work support was found to be a significant determinant of outcome. Good mental health was best predicted by support scales for non-claimants, but only by personal support for claimants. Overall, these findings highlighted the influential role of work and personal supports in mitigating the negative impact of stress as well as promoting well-being in the workplace. Specifically, employers must recognise the impact of worker's subjective appraisal of their circumstances and focus on facilitating occupational well-being among their employees.


INTRODUCTION
 Emergency medical services (EMS) are sometimes required to respond to cases that are later found not to be emergencies, resulting in high levels of inappropriate responses. This study evaluated the extent to which this occurs.

METHODS
 All cases dispatched over 72 hours by the eThekwini EMS in Durban, South Africa, were prospectively enrolled in a quantitative descriptive study. Vehicle control forms containing dispatch data were matched and compared with patient report forms containing epidemiological and clinical data to describe the nature and extent of inappropriate responses based on patient need. Data were subjected to simple descriptive analysis, correlations and χ2 testing.

RESULTS
 A total of 1 385 cases met the study inclusion criteria. Marked variations existed between dispatch and on-scene priority settings, most notably in the highest priority 'red-code' category, which constituted >56% of cases dispatched yet accounted for <2% at the scene (p<0.001). Conversely, >80% of 'red-code' dispatches required a lower priority response. When comparing resource allocation according to patient interventional needs, >58% of cases required either no intervention or transport only and almost 36% required basic life support intervention only (p<0.001). Moreover, <12% of advanced life support dispatches were for patients found to be 'red code' at the scene.

CONCLUSION
 There is a significant mismatch between the dispatch of EMS resources and actual patient need in the eThekwini district, with significantly high levels of inappropriate emergency responses.


Some American linguist once said: 'The text is all we have'. I would like to add that there is no text without context. With regard to speech acts, this idea is often encapsulated in the term 'situated speech act', in order to capture the notion that speech acts, in themselves, are not 'real': they have to be situated in reality, that is, in the context in which they were produced. This, by the way, is an insight already expressed by Austin as early as 1958 (Austin 1962). Not only are speech acts situated in a context; the context itself situates the speech acts, it creates them, as it were. A so-called indirect speech act is what the context makes it to be – not necessarily what the words spoken express by themselves; vice versa, a speech act (broadly: an utterance) may create the context for which it is appropriate. In international negotiations, for instance, the diplomatic speech acts are the instrument creating the final document, the communique or diploma, on which further negotiations are deemed to build; the felicity conditions for such acts cannot be captured by simplistic principles such as 'sincerity' or by universal maxims such as 'quantity' or 'quality' (as already remarked by the British diplomat Harold Nicolson in 1919; Nicolson 1934: 208). Similarly, the Conversation Analysts are partly right in maintaining that conversation creates the structure in which it happens; but in addition, one should be mindful that conversations are also 'situated', that is, their structuring happens in a general context of society. Here, 'parts meet a greater whole': speech acts are always 'situated', that is they are basically pragmatic acts (Mey 2001).


Summary Parthenium hysterophorus is a weed of global signifi- cance causing severe economic, environmental, human and animal health problems in Asia, Africa, Australia and the Pacific. In South Asia, P. hysterophorus occurs in India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal. A host-specific leaf-feeding beetle Zygogramma bicolorata from Mexico was introduced into India in 1984, as a biological control agent for P. hysterophorus. In this study, a GIS-based distribution map of P. hysterophorus and its biological control agent Z. bicolorata in South Asia based on meta-analysis is presented. The map highlights the limited published information on P. hysterophorus incidence in many of the states and territories in India, as well as in neighbouring Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal and Pakistan. Incidence of Z. bicolorata was recorded as three distinct clusters, covering many states in India. In Pakistan, Z. bicolorata was recorded in the Punjab region bordering India. A CLIMEX model based on the current distribution of Z. bicolorata in India suggests that the geographic range of this agent in India and Pakistan can extend to other P. hysterophorus-infested areas in the region. The CLIMEX model also suggests that all of Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, and parts of Nepal are climatically suitable for Z. bicolorata.


UNLABELLED
The fabrication of ear prosthesis is considered by many prosthetists to be one of the more difficult replacements in maxillofacial reconstruction. The severe undercuts and pronounced convolutions of the ear's surface present a challenge in simulating a natural proportioned prosthesis. The mould for the ear is generally made by creating a three surface die to reproduce the unique configuration adequately and to allow retrieval of the finished prosthesis without damage. This article presents an outlined procedure in the basic fabrication of a prosthetic ear by a conventional technique where the wax pattern is fabricated from the impression of an individual with a similarly proportioned ear.

CLINICAL RELEVANCE
Fabricating an auricular prosthesis may be part of the work of a maxillofacial department.


In 1970 Michael O. Finkelstein (with William B. Fairley) proposed that under some circumstances a jury in a criminal trial might be invited to use Bayes' Theorem to address the issue of the identity of the criminal perpetrator. In 1971 Laurence Tribe responded to this proposal with a rhetorically-powerful and wide-ranging attack on what he called "trial by mathematics." Finkelstein responded to Tribe's attack by further explaining, refining, and defending his proposal. Although Tribe soon fell silent – forever – on the use of mathematical and formal methods to dissect or regulate uncertain factual proof in legal proceedings, the Finkelstein-Tribe exchange precipitated a decades-long debate about "trial by mathematics." However, that debate, which continues to this day, became generally (but not uniformly) unproductive, sterile, and repetitive years ago. Although surely a variety of factors led to this desultory end, the debate about "trial by mathematics" was doomed to die with a whimper rather than a bang because two misunderstandings plagued much of the debate almost from the beginning. The first misunderstanding was a widespread failure to appreciate that mathematics (including the probability calculus and Bayes' Theorem) is part of a broader family, or class, of rigorous methods of reasoning, a family of methods that is often called "formal." The second misunderstanding was a widespread failure to appreciate that mathematical and formal analyses (including but not only those analyses that use numbers) can have a large variety of purposes. However, it is not too late to right this upended ship. Before any further major research project on "trial by mathematics" is begun, interested researchers in mathematics, probability, logic, and related fields, on the one hand, and interested legal professionals, on the other hand, should try to reach agreement about the possible distinct purposes that any given mathematical or formal analysis of inconclusive argument about uncertain factual hypotheses might serve. Putting aside the special (and comparatively trivial) case of mathematical and formal methods that make their appearance in legal settings because they are accoutrements of admissible forensic scientific evidence, I propose that discussants, researchers, and scholars of every stripe begin by carefully considering the possibility that mathematical and formal analysis of inconclusive argument about uncertain factual questions in legal proceedings could have any one (or more) of the following distinct purposes: 1. To predict how judges and jurors will resolve factual issues in litigation. 2. To devise methods that can replace existing methods of argument and deliberation in legal settings about factual issues. 3. To devise methods that mimic conventional methods of argument about factual issues in legal settings. 4. To devise methods that support or facilitate existing, or ordinary, argument and deliberation about factual issues in legal settings by legal actors (such as judges, lawyers, and jurors) who are generally illiterate in mathematical and formal analysis and argument. 5. To devise methods that would capture some but not all ingredients of argument in legal settings about factual questions questions. 6. To devise methods that perfect – that better express, that increase the transparency of – the logic or logics that are immanent, or present, in existing ordinary inconclusive reasoning about uncertain factual hypotheses that arise in legal settings. 7. To devise methods that have no practical purpose – and whose validity cannot be empirically tested – but that serve only to advance understanding – possibly contemplative understanding – of the nature of inconclusive argument about uncertain factual hypotheses in legal settings.