Among the 32 tribes of Coreinae currently recognized, Spartocerini comprises 66 extant species distributed in six genera: Euagona Dallas, Eubule Stål, Menenotus Laporte, Molchina Amyot & Serville, Sephina Amyot & Serville and Spartocera Laporte, distributed exclusively in the Western Hemisphere. We performed cladistic analyses using equal (EW) and also implied weighting (IW) based on 56 terminals (23 belonging to the ingroup) and 115 morphological characters, including male and female genitalia. Spartocerini was polyphyletic both under EW and IW because Molchina was nested in Mictini. We remove Molchina from Spartocerini and consider the genus as incertae sedis. Spartocera, Eubule, and Sephina were not recovered as monophyletic. Sephina pubera (Erichson) is considered as incertae sedis within Spartocerini, Eubule ampliata (Valdés) is transferred to Spartocera as a new combination, and Mamurius is included in Anisoscelini.


Why do ECE teachers need to be mentored by ECE administrators? At the data site, the research problem was that students are not meeting the required standards of proficiency in state testing and schools are failing to make adequate yearly progress (AYP) as mandated by the No Child Left Behind of 2001. In an effort to comply with the NCLB Act (2001) mandates, the local school district supported ECE teachers through a mentoring program to address student achievement. School leaders at the data site needed research-based findings on the evaluation of the ECE mentoring program. A sample of n = 66 participants was purposefully selected and interviewed. The findings revealed that mentoring helps ECE teachers. Institutes of higher education, professional development providers, administrators' associations, school districts, and school leaders may benefit from having an awareness of how mentoring helps ECE teachers to improve their instructional practices. Effectiveness of teachers can be increased through opportunities for ongoing, systemic, and systematic mentoring; however, mentoring needs to be intentional, ongoing, and both systemic and systematic.


For Charles Fernyhough, the birth of his daughter Athena was an opportunity to re-evaluate much of what he had learned as a researcher in developmental psychology. Drawing on the detailed notes he made during her infancy, Fernyhough uses Athena's story to explain how a child's mind develops before the age of three, tapping into a parent's wonder at the processes of psychological development in an engaging, child-centered way. It is written with a father's tenderness and a novelist's empathy and style.


We have investigated a THz detection scheme based on mixing of electrical signals in a voltage-dependent capacitance made out of suspended graphene. We have analyzed both coherent and incoherent detection regimes and compared their performance with the state of the art. Using a high-amplitude local oscillator, we anticipate potential for quantum limited detection in the coherent mode. The sensitivity stems from the extraordinary mechanical and electrical properties of atomically thin graphene or graphene-related 2D materials.


The brain is one of the most important and complex organs in the human body. It is responsible for the essential functions of the body. Brain activity monitoring is important in order the diagnosis of neurological disorders and for improving our understanding of the nervous system. To understand the structure and functionality of the brain, it must be monitored in natural or nonclinical settings such as during daily activities including finger tapping and thinking, as well as in outdoor activities like walking, jogging and cycling. This monitoring should assist in the detection of these natural circumstances. There are several techniques to monitor the brain's structure and function including functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), electroencephalography (EEG), magnetoencephalography (MEG), positron emission tomography (PET), and single positron emission tomography (SPECT). Functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) is a non-invasive brain monitoring method which emits NIR light into the brain tissue and detects the transmitted or reflected light from the brain. fNIRS has many advantages over its counterparts in terms of its relatively high temporal/spatial resolution, mobility, portability and safety. It has a higher temporal resolution than fMRI and a greater spatial resolution than EEG. The preparation for fNIRS measurement is also easier than for EEG, as conductive gel is not generally required. This also means patients do not need to wash their hair after fNIRS measurements. Moreover, it is safer compared to LASER technology due to the usage of NIR light. Despite advances in fNIRS technologies, there remain challenges. Its physical set up, including both space requirements and the presence of long cables, contributes to the difficulty in using fNIRS systems for non-clinical environments. Preparation time and price are also concerns. For its use in non-clinical experiments, a portable fNIRS system must be wearable or easily carried by the subject. The cables must also be short and durable. This master thesis research was aimed at addressing the hardware limitations of fNIRS by developing a wearable, small form factor fNIRS system. I have developed an fNIRS system based on the Intel Edison, a high-end embedded system designed for internet of things applications. The Edison on the fNIRS system drives the lighting and data collection process. The system is comprised of two components: a headband containing fNIRS sensors and a control unit which controls the data collection and transmission. The control unit includes an LED driver circuit to turn LEDs on and off, an analog to digital converter to digitize the analog value from the photodetectors and a microprocessor to control data collection and transmission. The control unit is connected to a computer via serial communication. The computer acts as a computing unit, storing the collected data and making the necessary evaluations and calculations. The thesis research involved developing three versions to achieve the goal of creating a robust, wearable, wireless system. We also optimized the intensity of emitted light, the sampling rate and communication between control unit and computing unit. To develop a control unit, I first tested all the components on a breadboard. Then I combined the system on a single 6cm x 7.7cm PCB, effectively miniaturizing the system. Then I connected the sensor with the computing unit and tested the system on a human to measure hemodynamic activity. Simultaneously data was collected from subjects' fingertips and arms for validation. In conclusion, the system successfully detected the subjects' pulses and hemodynamic changes. Since the system is small enough to carry in a pocket or put in the back of the head cap, its next version will be a portable and wearable device with the potential to be used in ambulatory experiments.


We present results validating a novel framework for collecting and analyzing facial responses to media content over the Internet. This system allowed 3,268 trackable face videos to be collected and analyzed in under two months. We characterize the data and present analysis of the smile responses of viewers to three commercials. We compare statistics from this corpus to those from the Cohn-Kanade+ (CK+) and MMI databases and show that distributions of position, scale, pose, movement, and luminance of the facial region are significantly different from those represented in these traditionally used datasets. Next, we analyze the intensity and dynamics of smile responses, and show that there are significantly different facial responses from subgroups who report liking the commercials compared to those that report not liking the commercials. Similarly, we unveil significant differences between groups who were previously familiar with a commercial and those that were not and propose a link to virality. Finally, we present relationships between head movement and facial behavior that were observed within the data. The framework, data collected, and analysis demonstrate an ecologically valid method for unobtrusive evaluation of facial responses to media content that is robust to challenging real-world conditions and requires no explicit recruitment or compensation of participants.


Purpose of review Type 2 diabetes and obesity during childhood, puberty, and adulthood have become more common. This trend presents a global problem in terms of public health and health economics. Associations between intrauterine exposure to hyperglycemia, obesity, and abnormal glucose tolerance (AGT) in offspring have been reported in populations at high risk of diabetes such as Pima Indians, but these associations have not been established in other groups. In this review, we summarize the evidence on obesity and AGT in the offspring of mothers with diabetes. Recent findings Although there are many reports indicating that the incidence of obesity or overweight is higher in the offspring of mothers with gestational diabetes, there is no consensus on whether maternal prepregnancy obesity has a larger impact than intrauterine exposure to hyperglycemia. While the risk of AGT or type 2 diabetes in the offspring of mothers with gestational diabetes is thought to increase after puberty, the incidence of AGT is elevated by the age of 7 years in the offspring of mothers with untreated gestational diabetes. Maternal gestational diabetes is a risk factor for AGT or type 2 diabetes independent of maternal prepregnancy BMI. When the offspring of women who had gestational diabetes and received therapeutic intervention in two randomized controlled studies were followed, the prevalence of obesity and impaired fasting glucose was lower in some 7-year-old girls, but the effect of maternal intervention was limited. The risk of obesity or overweight is higher in the offspring of mothers with type 1 diabetes, even after adjustment for maternal prepregnancy BMI. The risk of type 2 diabetes in such offspring is also higher. Although the offspring of mothers with type 2 diabetes are likely to be at high risk for type 2 diabetes, there are only limited reports supporting this hypothesis. Summary Intrauterine exposure to hyperglycemia is associated with obesity and AGT among offspring. The present review suggests that these associations might depend on the type of maternal diabetes, that is, the timing and degree of exposure to hyperglycemia. There are only a small number of studies on the effect of therapeutic interventions for maternal diabetes on metabolism in the offspring.


The eXtended-nonce ChaCha cipher construction (XChaCha) allows for
ChaCha-based ciphersuites to accept a 192-bit nonce with similar
guarantees to the original construction, except with a much lower
probability of nonce misuse occurring. This enables XChaCha
constructions to be stateless, while retaining the same security
assumptions as ChaCha. This document defines XChaCha20, which uses
HChaCha20 to convert the key and part of the nonce into a subkey,
which is in turn used with the remainder of the nonce with ChaCha20 to
generate a pseudorandom keystream (e.g. for message encryption). This
document also defines AEAD_XChaCha20_Poly1305, a variant of [RFC7539]
that utilizes the XChaCha20 construction in place of ChaCha20.


In addition to their undisputed success in solving classical optimization problems, neuroevolutionary and population-based algorithms have become an alternative to standard reinforcement learning methods. However, evolutionary methods often lack the sample efficiency of standard value-based methods that leverage gathered state and value experience. If reinforcement learning for real-world problems with significant resource cost is considered, sample efficiency is essential. The enhancement of evolutionary algorithms with experience exploiting methods is thus desired and promises valuable insights. This work presents a hybrid algorithm that combines topology-changing neuroevolutionary optimization with value-based reinforcement learning. We illustrate how the behavior of policies can be used to create distance and loss functions, which benefit from stored experiences and calculated state values. They allow us to model behavior and perform a directed search in the behavior space by gradient-free evolutionary algorithms and surrogate-based optimization. For this purpose, we consolidate different methods to generate and optimize agent policies, creating a diverse population. We exemplify the performance of our algorithm on standard benchmarks and a purpose-built real-world problem. Our results indicate that combining methods can enhance the sample efficiency and learning speed for evolutionary approaches.


This paper uses data from the Cedefop European Skills and Jobs (ESJ) survey, a new international dataset of adult workers in 28 EU countries, to decompose the wage penalty of overeducated workers. The ESJ survey allows for integration of a rich, previously unavailable, set of factors in the estimation of the effect of overeducation on earnings. Oaxaca decomposition techniques are employed to uncover the extent to which the overeducation wage penalty can be attributed to either (i) human capital attributes, (ii) job characteristics, (iii) information asymmetries, (iv) compensating job attributes or (v) skill needs of jobs. Differences in human capital and job-skill requirements are important factors in explaining the wage premium. It is found that asymmetry of information accounts for a significant part of the overeducation wage penalty for tertiary education graduates, whereas job characteristics and low skill content of jobs explain most of the wage gap for medium-qualified employees. Little evidence is found in favour of equilibrium theories of skills matching and compensating wage differentials. The paper thus highlights the need for customised policy responses (e.g. career guidance; policies to raise job quality) to tackle overeducation.


Abstract : The Personal Software Process (PSP) promotes the use of careful procedures during all stages of development with the aim of increasing an individual's productivity and producing high quality final products. Formal methods use the same methodological strategy as the PSP: emphasizing care in development procedures as opposed to relying on testing and debugging. They also estab-lish the radical requirement of proving mathematically that the programs produced satisfy their specifications. Design by Contract (DbC) is a technique for designing components of a software system by establishing their conditions of use and behavioral requirements in a formal language. When appropriate techniques and tools are incorporated to prove that the components satisfy the established requirements, the method is called Verified Design by Contract (VDbC). In this paper we present a proposal for integrating VDbC into PSP in order to reduce the amount of defects present at the Unit Testing phase, while preserving or improving productivity. The resulting adaptation of the PSP, called PSPVDC, incorporates new phases, modifies others, and adds new scripts and checklists to the infrastructure. Specifically, the phases of Formal Specification, Formal Specification Review, Formal Specification Compile, Test Case Construct, Pseudo Code, Pseudo Code Review, and Proof are added.


In this thesis, we study iterative substructuring methods for linear elliptic problems approximated by the $p$-version finite element method. They form a class of nonoverlapping domain decomposition methods, for which the information exchange between neighboring subdomains is limited to the variables directly associated with the interface, i.e. those common to more than one subregion. Our objective is to design algorithms in $3D$ for which we can find an upper bound for the {\it condition number} $\kappa$ of the preconditioned linear system, which is independent of the number of subdomains and grows slowly with $p$. Iterative substructuring methods for the $h-$version finite element, and spectral elements have previously been developed and analysed by several authors. However, some very real difficulties remained when the extension of these methods and their analysis to the $p-$version finite element method were attempted, such as a lack extension theorems for polynomials. The corresponding results are well known for Sobolev spaces, but their extension to finite element spaces is quite intricate. In our technical work, we use and further develop extension theorems for polynomials in order to prove bounds on the condition numbers of several algorithms. We have also made many numerical tests. We can use our programs for several purposes. Not only can we compute the condition numbers and study the rate of convergence for a variety of the algorithms that we have developed, but we can also compute the bounds on these condition numbers, as given by the theory. This is useful because the theory predicts the order of magnitude and the asymptotic growth of these bounds, not of the actual condition numbers.


A Mobile Ad hoc NETwork (MANET) is an autonomous system of mobile nodes connected by wireless links. There is no static infrastructure such as base station as that was in cell mobile communication. Due to the dynamic nature of the network topology and restricted resources, quality of service (QoS) and multicast routing in MANET is a challenging task. In this paper, we present an entropy-based model to support QoS multicast routing optimization algorithm in mobile ad hoc networks (EQMOA). The basic motivations of the proposed modeling approach stem from the commonality observed in the location uncertainty in mobile ad hoc wireless networks and the concept of entropy. The simulation results demonstrate that the proposed approach and parameters provide an accurate and efficient method of estimating and evaluating the route stability in dynamic mobile networks.


Because of the ubiquitous use of contact lenses, there is considerable interest in better understanding the anatomy of the cornea, the part of the eye in contact with an exterior lens. The recent technology developments in high resolution Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) devices allows for the in-vivo observation of the structure of the human cornea in 3D and at cellular level resolution. Prolonged wear of contact lenses, inflammations, scarring and diseases can change the structure and physiology of the human cornea. OCT is capable of in-vivo, non-contact, 3D imaging of the human cornea. In this research, novel image processing algorithms were developed to process OCT images of the human cornea, in order to determine the corneal optical scattering and transmission. The algorithms were applied to OCT data sets acquired from multiple subjects before, during and after prolonged (3 hours) wear of soft contact lenses and eye patches, in order to investigate the changes in the corneal scattering associated with hypoxia. Results from this study demonstrate the ability of OCT to measure the optical scattering of corneal tissue and to monitor its changes resulting from external stress (hypoxia).


This article contains the Editor's Preface and the Table of Contents of Romano C./Alter K./Shany Y. (eds.), The Oxford University Press Handbook of International Adjudication (2013). The post-Cold War proliferation of international adjudicative bodies and increase in litigation has greatly affected international law and politics. A growing number of international courts and tribunals, exercising jurisdiction over international crimes and sundry international disputes, have become, in some respects, the lynchpin of the modern international legal system. The Oxford Handbook of International Adjudication charts the transformations in international adjudication that took place astride the twentieth and twenty-first century, bringing together the insight of forty-seven prominent legal, philosophical, ethical, political and social science scholars. Overall, the forty contributions in this Handbook provide an original and comprehensive understanding of the various contemporary forms of international adjudication. The Handbook is divided into six parts. The first part provides an overview of the origins and evolution of international adjudicatory bodies, from the nineteenth century to the present, highlighting the dynamics driving the multiplication of international adjudicative bodies and their uneven expansion. Part two analyses the main families of international adjudicative bodies, providing a detailed study of state-to-state, criminal, human rights, regional economic, and administrative courts and tribunals, as well as arbitral tribunals and international compensation bodies. The third part lays out the theoretical approaches to international adjudication, including those of law, political science, sociology and philosophy. The fourth part examines some contemporary issues in international adjudication, including the behavior, role, and effectiveness of international judges, the political constraints that restrict their function, as well and the making of international law by international courts and tribunals. The fifth part examines key actors in international adjudication, including international judges, legal counsel, international prosecutors, and registrars. Finally, part six overviews select legal and procedural issues in international adjudication, such as evidence, fact-finding and experts, jurisdiction and admissibility, the role of the third parties, inherent powers, and remedies.


To better understand how academic research can contribute to innovative growth and to assess how Europe is and could be doing in this respect, we review the analysis and evidence of business science links and Europe's record on this. The evidence and analysis shows that the link between science and industry is neither direct nor obvious. When looking at the evidence for Europe, there is a general lagging behind relative to the US, particularly on academic patenting and university spin-offs. Patenting and licensing is only two of a number of pathways for the transfer of knowledge from universities to industry, and perhaps not even the best forms. Student & researchers' mobility from academe to industry is a critical mechanism to transfer knowledge from the university to industry, particularly when the knowledge to be transferred is hard to codify and is embodied in human capital as is the case for science-based knowledge. Although this is an area of great importance to the study of the innovation process, only recently research has started to attempt to trace researchers' intersectoral mobility When looking for ways to improve the transfers from science to innovation, most of the attention in the academic literature and policy is on finding the critical success factors on the science side. Most of this analysis looks at academic patenting and faculty spin-offs and comes from best US practices. These include proper intellectual property right regimes, where Bayh-Dole type of reforms which allocate property rights to the university, are considered to have cleared the path towards tech transfer in the US. Other best practices include having in place incentive schemes for tech transfers, with a fair share for researchers in royaltees and spin-offs and having in place a dedicated technology transfer office, which critical scale, expertise and experience in mediating technology transfer. But perhaps the most important success factor for tech transfer identified is the quality of the research faculty and their created ideas. Overall, the most salient policy recommendations that stems from the analysis is that policy makers looking for ways to improve the contribution of universities to innovation based growth, should take a long-term perspective for developing an industry-science eco-system, avoiding the temptation of quick "success stories". A particular dangerous policy practice is a target focusing only on the commercialization of university technologies through academic patenting and spin-offs, ignoring the broader contribution to economic development with other pathways, most notably the research based training and mobility of human capital from universities. Policy makers should be more "innovative" in their search for effective policy interventions, venturing beyond the classic spin-off and incubator programs. At the same time, they should be more serious about evaluating their new and existing instruments. To progress, policy makers should support more systematic data collection and analysis on the various pathways for universities' contribution to economic prosperity.


Abstract
 Two new species of the genus Phlebia with tuberculate hymenophore, Phlebia rhodana and Phlebia jurassica (Polyporales, Basidiomycota), collected in the French departments Rhône and Jura respectively, are described and illustrated. The former is recognized by a resupinate, adnate basidiome, becoming widely effused and thick, up to 100 × 15 cm, and 2.5 mm thick; when fresh subgelatinous, ceraceous to subcartilaginous, becoming corneous when dried, with or without cracks. Hymenial surface continuous, smooth, granulose then verrucose-tuberculate with broad warts, or odontoid to subhydnoid with conical, crowded teeth with fimbriate to encrusted bristle apices; in fresh specimens brownish grey, light brown to brownish yellow with rosy or violaceous tints, sometimes reddish brown to very dark chocolate brown, lighter towards apices. Margin thinner, smooth, closely adherent to the substrate, ceraceous or sometimes fibrillose. Context homogeneous, composed of a single layer of densely agglutinated clamped hyphae, with crystalline white deposits up to theapex of the teeth. In hymenium composed of clavate, short basidia, 15-35 × 3.5-5 µm, some terminal dendroid hyphae and rare fusoid elements (cystidioles?). Spores 4.5-5-5.7 × 2.6-3-3.5 µm, shortly ellipsoid or oblong, adaxially slightly flattened, with hyaline, smooth walls, negative in Melzer's reagent. Phlebia jurassica has a basidiome that is resupinate, adnate, subgelatinous to ceraceous when fresh, becoming crustaceous, hard, brittle and with frequently uplifted margin when dried; pale ochraceous to pale brown, with a faint greyish or reddish tint. Surface papillose, pruinose, with more or less prominent bumps; margin variable, often fibrillose. Hyphal system monomitic, hyphae with clamps, those of the subiculum loosely united, irregular, 4–8 µm wide, in the subhymenium 2–4 µm wide and more densely united in a vertical direction. Cystidia numerous, immersed or projecting, 30-110 × 11-25 µm, thin- or thick-walled, stalked, often more or less ventricose and tapering to the more or less obtuse and incrusted apex. Basidia subclavate to subcylindrical, 25-45 × 3.5-5.5 µm, with (2-)4 sterigmata and basal clamp. Spores narrowly ellipsoid to subcylindrical, 4.5-6(-7.5) × (2-)2.5-3.5 µm, smooth, thin-walled, with oil drops, non-amyloid and non-cyanophilous.


An integrated strategy captures the synergies between competitive strategies that seek superior performance in the marketplace and nonmarket strategies that shape the competitive environment. This article extends the conceptual and analytical foundations of integrated strategy to a competitive environment structured by international trade policy. The framework is illustrated by the international trade dispute between the Eastman Kodak Company and Fuji Photo Film Company regarding access to the Japanese market for consumer film and photographic paper. The analysis focuses on the synergies between market and nonmarket strategies in which governments act as agents of their companies. The framework incorporates competition between the two companies in their market environment, competition in the nonmarket environment to influence their government's bargaining position, and bargaining between the governments.


In recent years we have seen the emergence of context-aware mobile sensing apps which employ machine learning algorithms on real-time sensor data to infer user behaviors and contexts. These apps are typically optimized for power and performance on the app processors of mobile platforms. However, modern mobile platforms are sophisticated system on chips (SoCs) where the main app processors are complemented by multiple co-processors. Recently chip vendors have undertaken nascent efforts to make these previously hidden co-processors such as the digital signal processors (DSPs) programmable. In this paper, we explore the energy and performance implications of off-loading the computation associated with machine learning algorithms in context-aware apps to DSPs embedded in mobile SoCs. Our results show a 17% reduction in a TI OMAP4 based mobile platform's energy usage from off-loading context classification computation to the DSP core with indiscernible latency overhead. We also describe the design of a run-time system service for energy efficient context inference on Android devices, which takes parameters from the app to instantiate the classification model and schedules the execution on the DSP or app processor as specified by the app.


During the height of the financial crisis in 2008 and 2009, the government bailed out numerous corporations, including banks, investment banks, and automobile manufacturers. While the bailouts helped end the financial crisis, they were intensely controversial at the time, and were marred by the ad hoc, politicized quality of the government intervention. We examine the bailouts from the financial crisis as well as earlier bailouts to determine what policy considerations best justify them, and how they are best designed. The major considerations in bailing out and structuring the bailout of a firm are the macroeconomic impact of failure; the moral hazard effect of the bailout; the discriminatory effect of the bailout; and procedural fairness. Future bailouts should be guided by principles that ensure that the decisionmaker properly takes into account these factors.


The TCV tokamak has the dual mission of supporting ITER and exploring alternative paths to a fusion reactor. Its most unique tools are a 4.5 MW electron cyclotron resonance heating system with seven real-time controllable launchers and a plasma control system with 16 independent shaping coils. Recent upgrades in temperature, density and rotation diagnostics are being followed by new turbulence and suprathermal electron diagnostics, and a new digital real-time network has been commissioned. The shape control flexibility of TCV has enabled the generation and control of the first 'snowflake' divertor, characterized by a null point in which both the poloidal field and its gradient vanish. The predicted increases in flux expansion and edge magnetic shear have been verified experimentally, and stable EC-heated snowflake ELMy H-modes have been obtained and characterized. ECCD modulation techniques have been used to study the role of the current profile in energy transport, and simulations reproduce the results robustly. The relation between impurity and electron density gradients in L-mode is explained in terms of neoclassical and turbulent drives. Studies of torqueless plasma rotation have continued, highlighting the important role of MHD and sawtooth relaxations in determining the rotation profiles. A newly predicted mechanism for turbulent momentum transport associated with up–down plasma asymmetry has been verified in TCV. Sawtooth period control, neoclassical tearing mode control and soft x-ray emission profile control have been demonstrated in TCV using the new digital control hardware, as a step on the way to more complex applications.


PAST RESEARCH HAS SHOWN THAT MUSIC and language skills are related in normal-reading children as well as in children with dyslexia. In both an ongoing longitudinal study with normal-reading children and a pilot study with children with dyslexia, we found a strong relationship between musical discrimination abilities and language-related skills. In normal-reading children, musical discrimination predicted phonological and reading skills (Studies 1 and 2). These relationships were stronger in children with music training than in control children without music training. In children with dyslexia,musical discrimination predicted phonological skills, which in turn predicted reading abilities (Study 3). Furthermore, normal-reading children with music training surpassed both normal-reading controls and children with dyslexia in melodic discrimination. Controls also outperformed children with dyslexia (Study 4). Taken together, these findings suggest that a music intervention that strengthens the basic auditory music perception skills of children with dyslexia may also remediate some of their language deficits.


Tissue engineering of skeletal muscle has been proposed as a potential regenerative treatment for extensive muscle damage. In this regard, the highly organized structure of skeletal muscles makes the alignment of cells especially indispensable in muscle tissue engineering. However, achieving the desired alignment continues to prove challenging, particularly in 3D engineered tissue constructs. In this study, a biomimetic approach for the generation of functional skeletal muscle fascicle‐like tissues by recapitulating 3D muscle‐like cellular and extracellular organization, is demonstrated. Anisotropic 3D alignment of muscle extracellular matrix (MEM) nanofibrils capable of providing a pro‐myogenic microenvironment by regulating the kinetics of fibrillogenesis in a stretchable elastomeric chip, is achieved. Reprogrammed muscle progenitor cells develop myofibers along the aligned MEM nanofibrils in a 3D configuration, culminating in the structural and functional maturation of skeletal muscle. The resultant 3D muscle fascicle‐like constructs support de novo muscle regeneration and induce functional restoration of injured muscles in animal models inflicted with volumetric muscle loss and congenital muscular dystrophy. This study not only highlights the fundamental roles of the muscle–mimetic structural guidance cues for 3D muscle tissue engineering, but also unveils the clinical potential of artificial muscle constructs in regenerative medicine.


The Lofoten Basin in the Nordic Seas plays a central role in the Atlantic overturning circulation by acting as a reservoir for the warm and saline Atlantic Water flow toward the Arctic Ocean. The mass and heat exchange between Atlantic Water and the Lofoten Basin impacts the water mass transformations and the surface heat loss, but the processes governing this exchange are not well understood or quantified. Here we study the circulation in the Nordic Seas and the heat transport in the Lofoten Basin using a combination of Lagrangian and Eulerian methods. We analyze the trajectories of about 150 surface drifters, augmented with a set of about 47,000 surface trajectories calculated using the output from a regional numerical simulation, to investigate the drifter pathways and their exchange with the Lofoten Basin. The drifters reveal that water parcels with long residence time inside the basin contribute substantially to the heat loss and typically enter from south across the outer rim of the Vøring Plateau and, to some extent from east, from the eastern branch of the Norwegian Atlantic Current. The main contributors to the lateral heat transport to the Lofoten Basin are the near-surface heat transport by the mean flow in the southern sector of the basin and the subsurface eddy fluxes from the Lofoten Escarpment in the east.


This study was aimed to evaluate the degree of thermal stress exhibited by Holsteins under a continental temperate climate. Milk, fat, protein, and somatic cell count test-day records collected between 2000 and 2011 from 23,963 cows in 604 herds were combined with meteorological data from 14 public weather stations in Luxembourg. Daily values of 6 different thermal indices (TI) weighted in term of temperature, relative humidity, solar radiation, and wind speed were calculated by averaging hourly TI over 24h. Heat stress thresholds were first identified by a broken-line regression model. Regression models were thereafter applied to quantify milk production losses due to heat stress. The tipping points at which milk and protein yields declined were effectively identified. For fat yield, no valid threshold was identified for any of the studied TI. Daily fat yields tended to decrease steadily with increasing values of TI. Daily somatic cell score patterns were marked by increased values at both lowest and highest TI ranges, with a more pronounced reaction to cold stress for apparent temperature indices. Thresholds differed between TI and traits. For production traits, they ranged from 62 (TI(1)) to 80 (TI(3)) for temperature-humidity indices (THI) and from 16 (TI(5)) to 20 (TI(6)) for apparent temperature indices. Corresponding somatic cell score thresholds were higher and ranged from 66 (TI(1)) to 82 (TI(3)) and from 20 (TI(5)) to 23 (TI(6)), respectively. The largest milk decline per unit of mild, moderate, and extreme heat stress levels of 0.164, 0.356, and 0.955 kg, respectively, was observed when using the conventional THI (TI(1)). The highest yearly milk, fat, and protein losses of 54, 5.7, and 4.2 kg, respectively, were detected by TI(2), the THI index that is adjusted for wind speed and solar radiation. The latter index could be considered as the best indicator of heat stress to be used for forecast and herd management in a first step in temperate regions under anticipated climate changes.


Focusing on the social situation of German Sign Language (DGS) and their users, the article explores to what extent Ammon's model of social forces that determine what is standard in language can also be applied to visual spatial languages. The paper demonstrates that Am-mon's model is implicitly modality bound and as such cannot fully account for the situation of DGS-using community which largely consists of L2-signers. Although an alternative mod-el is not explicitly offered, the author shows that the model of social forces will need to be extended in order to be modality independent, i.e. applicable to both spoken and signed lan-guages and their communities.


In Kenya, a country that has not been successful in getting its own fossil fuel deposits, the main material used for ethanol production has been molasses but its supply compared to demand is becoming limited. There is need for alternative materials to produce ethanol without affecting food supply. This study investigated the potential of juice from maize stalks grown locally and normally a byproduct of maize farming, for production of fuel ethanol. Selected Kenyan maize varieties were grown in two seasons, March and September of year 2008.This was done under typical field conditions and sampled at three growth stages,
the silking, the milk stage and dry maize stage. Maize varieties for three agroecological zones in Kenya were used, the low dry lands, the medium altitude and the highlands varieties. The juice was extracted by crushing the stalks with a 3-roller mill sugarcane crusher and analyzed for total sugars using a digital refractometer (NR-151, China) and specific sugars using a high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) with a reverse phase column and refractive index detector (RID). The juice was then fermented using baker's yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) at constant temperature of 27DC and a pH range of 4-5, distilled at 78DC and the yield of alcohol determined. The ethanol obtained was tested in a Chinese wick stove (wheel brand model 62) for fuel properties (specific fuel consumption, fire power, burning rate and thermal efficiency) for domestic cooking application. Its performance was compared to that of kerosene fuel. The highest juice yield obtained was 176.67mllstalk (18840litres/hectare) for maize variety HB625 at the green maize stage, while the lowest was 8.33ml/stalk (616Iitres/hectare) for variety Katumani in the dry maize stage. The two varieties also had the highest and lowest ethanol yields at 1445.5litres/hectare and 42litres/hectare respectively. Hybrids had the highest juice and ethanol yields per hectare. The three main sugars identified in the maize stalk juice were sucrose, glucose and fructose. The trend for the sugars was a decrease for fructose and glucose and an increase in sucrose as the maize plant matured. Ethanol obtained burnt with a blue flame compared to the yellow flame of kerosene, with a power output of 1.08kW and a thermal efficiency of 38.2%. However, about 2 times the quantity of fuel and heating time was required for ethanol compared to kerosene to bring to boiling point the same amount of water at the same conditions. The average cost of producing 1 litre of ethanol (93%v/v) from the maize stalks was found to be KSh.63.56 (about 1USD). The study has contributed positively to the search for a clean sustainable energy resource and consequently reduction of dependence on the fossil petroleum fuels in Kenya and other countries. Use of maize stalks as feedstock for ethanol production gives a renewable source of energy for the motor industry and for domestic cooking. Maize grows in plenty inKenya and this can boost energy security for the country and also contribute to economic growth for the country, specifically the rural economy through diversification of the agro-industry.


Background Results from clinical trials are often slowly implemented. We studied whether participation in multicenter clinical trials improves reported dissemination, convincement, and subsequent implementation of its results. Methods We sent a web-based questionnaire to gynecologists, residents, nurses, and midwives in all obstetrics and gynecology departments in the Netherlands. For nine trials in perinatology, reproductive medicine, and gynecologic oncology, we asked the respondents whether they had knowledge of the results, were convinced by the results, and what percentage of their patients were treated according to the results of these trials. We compared the level of knowledge, convincement, and reported implementation of results in practice for the nine trials for respondents who worked in hospitals that had recruited for a trial with respondents who worked in a hospital that had not recruited for that trial. The reported implementation was restricted to six trials that showed decisive results. Results We analyzed 202 questionnaires from 83 departments in obstetrics and gynecology in the Netherlands (93% of all departments). The percentage of respondents who had worked in a hospital that recruited for a specific study varied between 8% and 71% per study and was 28% on average. The relative risk (RR) for knowledge of the study result for respondents who had worked in a recruiting hospital was for all studies positive and varied between 1.1 and 3.3 (pooled RR: 1.8, 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.7–1.9). In general, health-care workers were convinced of trial results, independent of whether they had worked in a hospital that recruited for a trial or not (pooled RR: 1.02, 95% CI: 0.99–1.05). Reported implementation of trial's results, that is, less than 20% were treated with unfavorable treatment according to study results, was better in hospitals that had recruited for those trials (pooled RR: 1.1, 95% CI: 1.02–1.19). Conclusion Participation in these multicenter clinical trials was associated with better knowledge about the trial's results, with a minor improvement of the reported implementation of the study results.


The present study proposes a novel model that establishes the relationship between the bending moment and the curvature of a steerable catheter. The catheters exhibit a nonlinear viscoelastic tendency, so the moment-curvature relationship is modeled as a bending of a quasilinear viscoelastic (QLV) cantilever beam. Stress relaxation tests with multiple magnitudes are performed on a catheter, and the parameter tuning is carried out with the test results to find out the coefficients of the model. The form of the instantaneous moment response, which is an important term within the QLV equation, is selected as a logarithmic form by analyzing the test results. This differentiates the accuracy of the model from using the commonly used exponential form. The performance of the logarithmic QLV model is compared to the conventional models by checking the curvature range each model can cover with a certain accuracy. The covering range for elastic, linear viscoelastic, and exponential QLV models are 22.1%, 64.4%, and 55.5%, respectively, whereas the covering range of the logarithmic QLV model is 100%.


Key exposure is one serious security problem for cloud storage auditing. In order to deal with this problem, cloud storage auditing scheme with key-exposure resilience has been proposed. However, in such a scheme, the malicious cloud might still forge valid authenticators later than the key-exposure time period if it obtains the current secret key of data owner. In this paper, we innovatively propose a paradigm named strong key-exposure resilient auditing for secure cloud storage, in which the security of cloud storage auditing not only earlier than but also later than the key exposure can be preserved. We formalize the definition and the security model of this new kind of cloud storage auditing and design a concrete scheme. In our proposed scheme, the key exposure in one time period doesn't affect the security of cloud storage auditing in other time periods. The rigorous security proof and the experimental results demonstrate that our proposed scheme achieves desirable security and efficiency.


It is widely known that AI planning and model checking are closely related. Compilations have been devised between various pairs of language fragments. What has barely been voiced yet, though, is the idea to let go of one's own modeling language, and use one from the other area instead. We advocate that idea here – to use automata-network languages from model checking instead of PDDL – motivated by modeling difficulties relating to planning agents surrounded by exogenous agents in complex environments. One could, of course, address this by designing additional extended planning languages. But one can also leverage decades of work on modeling in the formal methods community, creating potential for deep synergy and integration with their techniques as a side effect. We believe there's a case to be made for the latter, as one modeling alternative in planning among others.


The Bluebook, or Uniform System of Citation as it was formerly titled, has long been a significant component of American legal culture. The standard account of the origins of the Bluebook, deriving directly from statements made by longtime Harvard Law School Dean and later Solicitor General of the United States Erwin N. Griswold, maintains that the citation manual originated at the Harvard Law Review in the 1920s and was created or adapted by Dean Griswold himself. This account is wildly erroneous, as proven by intensive research we conducted in the archives of Harvard and Yale. In fact, the Bluebook grew out of precursor manuals at Yale Law School, apparently inspired by a legal scholar even more important than Griswold, namely Karl N. Llewellyn. The "uniform citations" movement that began at Yale was actually at first opposed by Harvard.In his most extreme misstatement, Griswold asserted that a collaborative decision was made in the 1920s by Harvard Law Review, Yale Law Journal, Columbia Law Review, and University of Pennsylvania Law Review to share the revenues from publishing the Bluebook (eventually amounting to millions of dollars) among the four journals. There is indeed now four-way revenue-sharing, but it did not commence until the 1970s, and then only after a revolt of the three "junior partners" against Harvard Law Review's complete monopolization of Bluebook income for half a century, a revolt initiated by Joan Wexler of the Yale Law Journal.Some readers may question whether originating the hyper-complicated Bluebook should be a source of pride for Yale. Our response is that, although the Bluebook version that subsequently developed under the leadership of Harvard Law Review currently consists of 582 pages, the two earliest Yale precursors of the Bluebook were, respectively, one page and fifteen pages long.


Popular entertainment media about scientists can inspire interest in real-world science. Science communicators have tapped into this resource by developing books, television shows, and traveling exhibits that tie informal science education to works of fiction. These tools are often framed as the "real science of" a fictional universe. Scientists and science writers involved with these projects argue that science fiction, in particular, creates a sense of wonder that can fuel the desire to learn more, or even to pursue a science career. Science fiction does not have to present realistic science in order to be used for informal science education, but the separation between real-world and fantastic science should be made clear. This paper examines three examples about the "real science of" the program Doctor Who , considering in each case how credibility regarding both the science and fiction content is established, and how aspects of the fictional world are incorporated into the educational content.


Copyright © 2014 University of Cambridge. For an unpowered turbofan in flight the airflow through the engine causes the fan to freewheel. This paper considers the flow-field through a fan operating in this mode, with emphasis on the effects of blade row losses and deviation. A control volume analysis is used to show that windmilling fans operate at a fixed flow coefficient which depends on the blade metal and deviation angles, while the blade row losses are shown to determine the fan mass flow rate.Experimental and numerical results are used to understand how the loss and deviation differ from the design condition due to the flow physics encountered at windmill. Results are presented from an experimental study of a windmilling low-speed rig fan, including detailed area traverses downstream of the rotor and stator. 3D CFD calculations of the fan rig and a representative transonic fan windmilling at a cruise flight condition have also been completed. The rig test results confirm that in the windmilling condition the flow through the fan stator separates from the pressure surface over most of the span. This generates high loss and the resulting blockage changes the rotor work profile leading to modified rotational speed. In the engine fan rotor, a vortex forms at the pressure surface near the tip and further loss results from a hub separation caused by blockage from the downstream core and splitter.


Disparities in verbal ability, a major predictor of later life outcomes, have generated widespread debate, but few studies have been able to isolate neighborhood-level causes in a developmentally and ecologically appropriate way. This study presents longitudinal evidence from a large-scale study of >2,000 children ages 6–12 living in Chicago, along with their caretakers, who were followed wherever they moved in the U.S. for up to 7 years. African-American children are exposed in such disproportionate numbers to concentrated disadvantage that white and Latino children cannot be reliably compared, calling into question traditional research strategies assuming common points of overlap in ecological risk. We therefore focus on trajectories of verbal ability among African-American children, extending recently developed counterfactual methods for time-varying causes and outcomes to adjust for a wide range of predictors of selection into and out of neighborhoods. The results indicate that living in a severely disadvantaged neighborhood reduces the later verbal ability of black children on average by ≈ 4 points, a magnitude that rivals missing a year or more of schooling.


This paper presents a study of the integrated Sachs-Wolfe (ISW) effect from the Planck 2015 temperature and polarization data release. This secondary cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropy caused by the large-scale time-evolving gravitational potential is probed from different perspectives. The CMB is cross-correlated with different large-scale structure (LSS) tracers: radio sources from the NVSS catalogue; galaxies from the optical SDSS and the infrared WISE surveys; and the Planck 2015 convergence lensing map. The joint cross-correlation of the CMB with the tracers yields a detection at 4σ where most of the signal-to-noise is due to the Planck lensing and the NVSS radio catalogue. In fact, the ISW effect is detected from the Planck data only at ≈3σ (through the ISW-lensing bispectrum), which is similar to the detection level achieved by combining the cross-correlation signal coming from all the galaxy catalogues mentioned above. We study the ability of the ISW effect to place constraints on the dark-energy parameters; in particular, we show that ΩΛ is detected at more than 3σ. This cross-correlation analysis is performed only with the Planck temperature data, since the polarization scales available in the 2015 release do not permit significant improvement of the CMB-LSS cross-correlation detectability. Nevertheless, the Planck polarization data are used to study the anomalously large ISW signal previously reported through the aperture photometry on stacked CMB features at the locations of known superclusters and supervoids, which is in conflict with ΛCDM expectations. We find that the current Planck polarization data do not exclude that this signal could be caused by the ISW effect. In addition, the stacking of the Planck lensing map on the locations of superstructures exhibits a positive cross-correlation with these large-scale structures. Finally, we have improved our previous reconstruction of the ISW temperature fluctuations by combining the information encoded in all the previously mentioned LSS tracers. In particular, we construct a map of the ISW secondary anisotropies and the corresponding uncertainties map, obtained from simulations. We also explore the reconstruction of the ISW anisotropies caused by the large-scale structure traced by the 2MASS Photometric Redshift Survey (2MPZ) by directly inverting the density field into the gravitational potential field.


Domain-oriented knowledge-acquisition tools provide efficient support for the design of knowledge-based systems. However, the cost of developing such tools is high, especially when their restricted scope is taken into account. Developers can use metalevel tools to generate domain-oriented knowledge-acquisition tools that are custom tailored for a small group of experts, with considerably less effort than is required for manual tool development. An epistemic obstacle to creating such metatools is the specification model for target knowledge-acquisition tools. The metatool DOTS is based on an abstract-architecture approach to the specification and generation of knowledge-acquisition tools. DOTS is domain and method independent, because it is based on an architectural model of the target knowledge-acquisition tool.


Abstract. The mid-late Ediacaran Period (∼579–541 Ma) is characterized by globally distributed marine soft-bodied organisms of unclear phylogenetic affinities colloquially called the "Ediacara biota." Despite an absence of systematic agreement, previous workers have tested for underlying factors that may control the occurrence of Ediacaran macrofossils in space and time. Three taxonomically distinct "assemblages," termed the Avalon, White Sea, and Nama, were identified and informally incorporated into Ediacaran biostratigraphy. After ∼15 years of new fossil discoveries and taxonomic revision, we retest the validity of these assemblages using a comprehensive database of Ediacaran macrofossil occurrences. Using multivariate analysis, we also test the degree to which taphonomy, time, and paleoenvironment explain the taxonomic composition of these assemblages. We find that: (1) the three assemblages remain distinct taxonomic groupings; (2) there is little support for a large-scale litho-taphonomic bias present in the Ediacaran; and (3) there is significant chronostratigraphic overlap between the taxonomically and geographically distinct Avalonian and White Sea assemblages ca. 560–557 Ma. Furthermore, both assemblages show narrow bathymetric ranges, reinforcing that they were paleoenvironmental—ecological biotopes and spatially restricted in marine settings. Meanwhile, the Nama assemblage appears to be a unique faunal stage, defined by a global loss of diversity, coincident with a noted expansion of bathymetrically unrestricted, long-ranging Ediacara taxa. These data reinforce that Ediacaran biodiversity and stratigraphic ranges of its representative taxa must first statistically account for varying likelihood of preservation at a local scale to ultimately aggregate the Ediacaran macrofossil record into a global biostratigraphic context.


Nanoscale science is an emerging field of our time and opens a broad horizon for applications in almost every area of human activity, from medicine to energy storage. As usual, there are numerous challenges in the way of progress, which slow down the development and application of new ideas. Therefore the versatile investigation of nanostructures is of current importance for the realization of future technologies. The central aim of this thesis was to advance the field of molecular nanoscience on several crucial fronts. For that, the scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) was chosen as the principal experimental technique. It provides an unprecedented resolution at the atomic scale and can be used to reveal topographical or electronic properties of single molecules or atoms on conducting surfaces. Moreover, it gives a certain freedom to manipulate the object of interest at the nanoscale by the apex of the scanning tip. The introduction to this thesis gives a brief overview about the history of nanotechnology and its current status. In the first chapter the theory of the tunnelling effect and the working principle of the STM are presented and the experimental set-up is described. The second chapter is devoted to shot noise measurements with the STM. At first, the theory of shot noise is presented from the view point of the scattering approach. The challenges that arise on the way towards noise detection are discussed from two different sides: current and voltage amplification. Several test measurements are suggested for the approval of the amplification circuity. Afterwards, the data obtained on the copper and gold quantum point contact are shown. The third chapter presents an investigation of a purely organic radical with spin system 1/2. This molecule was previously studied on the Au(111) surface and demonstrated a Kondo effect in the weak coupling regime. In this thesis, its adsorption on Pd(111) and cobalt islands on Cu(111) is explored. The obtained data reveal electronic transport where molecular orbitals and vibration excitations are involved. The final chapter presents an investigation of the sequence controlled polymers - the oligo-triazole amide trimers, which were successfully deposited on the Cu(100) surface by means of the electrospray ion-beam deposition technique. The molecules show a large variety of adsorption conformations which are correlated with the sequence of monomers in the molecular backbone. Each chapter contains a summary and outlook, where possible improvements are discussed and future experiments suggested.


This paper proposes an enhanced model predictive discrete-time sliding mode control (MPDSMC) with proportional-integral (PI) sliding function and state observer for the motion tracking control of a nanopositioning system driven by piezoelectric actuators. One distinct advantage of the proposed controller lies in that its implementation only requires a simple second-order model of the system, whereas it does not need to know neither the hysteresis model nor the bounds on system uncertainties. The unmodeled hysteresis is eliminated by the one-step delayed disturbance estimation technique and the neglected residual modes are suppressed by employing a properly-designed state observer. Moreover, the reasons why the model predictive control methodology and PI action can eliminate the chattering effects and produce a low level of tracking error are discovered in state-space framework. Experimental results demonstrate that the performance of the proposed MPDSMC controller is superior to both conventional PID and DSMC methods in motion tracking tasks. A precise tracking is achieved by the nanopositioning stage along with the hysteretic nonlinearity mitigated to a negligible level, which validates the feasibility of the proposed controller in the domain of micro-/nanomanipulation.


A close-coupling calculation is performed for the photoionization cross section of the high-lying core-excited state 1s2s22p5 1Po of Ne2 + in the energy region of the double K-vacancy resonance 1s02s22p6 1S. The calculation is carried out by using the R-matrix method in the LS-coupling scheme, which includes 27 target states and extensive configuration interaction. The KK-KL x-ray energy, rate and autoionization width of the double K-vacancy state, together with KK-KLL Auger energies and branching ratios of the main channels, are obtained from the cross sections and the contributions of these channels. The calculated resonance energy and x-ray rate are in good agreement with the existing experimental and theoretical results. For the Auger width, our result agrees well with the available experimental result and it is very close to the average of other theoretical data, which shows considerable differences with each other. The Auger energy of the predominate channel KK-KL23L23 2D is in rather good agreement with recent experiments on the Auger spectra. Our branching ratios for the channels KK-KL23L23 2D and KK-KL23L23 2S are larger than the results obtained by the multi-configuration Dirac–Fock method by ∼20% on average, which may be due to the coupling of the continuum channels.


Background: Age estimation of living or deceased individuals is an important aspect of forensic sciences. Conventionally, pulp-to-tooth area ratio (PTR) measured from periapical radiographs have been utilized as a nondestructive method of age estimation. Cone-beam computed tomography (CBCT) is a new method to acquire three-dimensional images of the teeth in living individuals. Aims: The present study investigated age estimation based on PTR of the maxillary canines measured in three planes obtained from CBCT image data. Settings and Design: Sixty subjects aged 20–85 years were included in the study. Materials and Methods: For each tooth, mid-sagittal, mid-coronal, and three axial sections—cementoenamel junction (CEJ), one-fourth root level from CEJ, and mid-root—were assessed. PTR was calculated using AutoCAD software after outlining the pulp and tooth. Statistical Analysis Used: All statistical analyses were performed using an SPSS 17.0 software program. Results and Conclusions: Linear regression analysis showed that only PTR in axial plane at CEJ had significant age correlation (r = 0.32; P< 0.05). This is probably because of clearer demarcation of pulp and tooth outline at this level.


Market success depends in large part on how well consumer behaviour and perception supplies understand. They need to understand how consumers evaluate products characteristics, gather information regarding various alternatives and use this information to select specific product. The object of this research was to determine consumer perception of Serbian agricultural and food products and especially perception of home made products. In October 2008, a research was conducted in the Belgrade market on a sample of 338 persons. The results were analyzed using univariant statistical analyses. The results of this research can be used by producers for defining marketing activities and by researchers to conduct further research in this field.


The fourth of Herodas is entitled in the papyrus —a title which very well describes the beginning and end of the poem, but disregards the middle, the most important part. The poem divides naturally into sections as follows: (i)1–20a;(2) (i)20b–38, (ii) 39–563, (iii) 56b–78; (3) 79–95. In (1) we hear one of the women of the title carrying out the offering to the god. This section has been examined in detail by R. Wünsch, 'Ein Dankopfer an Asklepios', Arch. Rel. Wiss. vii (1904), 95 ff., who shows that it corresponds closely to the form of prayer used in real life, starting with the invocatio of the god, comprising greeting () and mention of his dwelling-places (Trikka, Kos, Epidauros), family (parents, Koronis and Apollo;


The growing amount of textual data in the legal domain leads to a demand for better text analysis tools adapted to legal domain specific use cases. Semantic Text Matching (STM) is the general problem of linking text fragments of one or more document types. The STM problem is present in many legal document analysis tasks, such as argumentation mining. A common solution approach to the STM problem is to use text similarity measures to identify matching text fragments. In this paper, we recapitulate the STM problem and a use case in German tenancy law, where we match tenancy contract clauses and legal comment chapters. We propose an approach similar to local interpretable model-agnostic explanations (LIME) to better understand the behavior of text similarity measures like TFIDF and word embeddings. We call this approach eXplainable Semantic Text Matching (XSTM).


Electromobility is widely seen as one of the most promising options to reduce Greenhouse gas emissions in passenger transport. In accordance with the German Government via the National Platform for Electromobility (NPE), an estimated target of 1 million of electric vehicles for 2020 is expected for Germany. One challenge for the widespread development of electric vehicles market is the lack of infrastructure. The great unknowns here are: how many charging stations will be needed in the future? How will they be geographically distributed? Travel patterns and socio-economic data are analyzed in order to determine potential factors influencing electric vehicle ownership. This thesis develops a method to determine the infrastructure demand based on the number of electric vehicles. The distribution of the estimated number of charging stations and its geographical representation will be applied in the German framework.. The thesis will focus on charging infrastructure for electric vehicles in Germany. Identification and evaluation of different charging technologies will be carried out. One of the objectives is to build up a model to determine the infrastructure demand of future vehicle concepts using advance statistical and mathematical methods. Sensitivity analysis for different scenarios might be another point to study. Besides, the model?s results are then to put in context to existing infrastructure plans by policy makers on national and european level


Since 2003, South African policy discourse about persistent poverty has been dominated by the notion that poor people stay poor because they are trapped in a 'second economy', disconnected from the mainstream 'first world economy.' This paper considers the adequacy of this notion in the light of research conducted in 2002 and 2005-2006 in Mount Frere in the rural Eastern Cape, and in Cape Town's African suburbs. It argues that a process of simultaneous monetisation, de-agrarianisation and de-industrialisation has created a heavy reliance on a formal sector in which employment is becoming increasingly elusive and fragile. Fieldwork suggested high levels of economic integration, corporate penetration and monetisation even in the remote rural Eastern Cape. Rather than being structurally disconnected from the 'formal economy,' formal and informal, 'mainstream' and marginal activities are often thoroughly interdependent, supplementing or subsidising one another in complex ways. The dynamics of these diverge significantly from those imagined both in 'second economy' discourse and in 'SMME' policy. Instead of imagining a separate economic realm, 'structurally disconnected' from the 'first economy,' it is more helpful to grasp that the South African economy is both unitary and heterogeneous, and that people's prospects are determined by the specific ways in which their activities are caught up in the complex networks and circuits of social and economic power. Rather than 'bringing people into' the mainstream economy policymakers would do better to strengthen existing measures to reduce vulnerability, and to consider ways of counteracting disadvantageous power relations within which they are caught, and supporting the livelihood strategies that are found at the margins of the formal economy.


This study is based on the findings of a single surgeon's practice of mitral valve replacement of 167 patients from April 2005 to June 2017 who developed symptomatic mitral restenosis after closed or open mitral commisurotomy. Both clinical and color doppler echocardiographic data of peri-operative and six months follow-up period were evaluated and compared to assess the early outcome of the redo mitral valve surgery. With male-female ratio of 1: 2.2 and after a duration of 6 to 22 years symptom free interval between the redo procedures, the selected patients with mitral valve restenosis undergone valve replacement with either mechanical valve in 62% cases and also tissue valve in 38% cases. Particular emphasis was given to separate the adhered pericardium from the heart completely to ameliorate base to apex and global contraction of the heart. Besides favorable post-operative clinical outcome, the echocardiographic findings were also encouraging as there was statistically significant increase in the mitral valve area and ejection fraction with significant decrease in the left atrial diameter, pressure gradient across the mitral valve and pulmonary artery systolic pressure. Therefore, in case of inevitable mitral restenosis after closed or open commisurotomy, mitral valve replacement is a promising treatment modality.


Background: Around 17 million people die from cardiac arrest worldwide every year, but no drug therapy has been shown to improve survival. Failure to adequately rescue the heart and brain leads to post-resuscitation syndrome, including coagulopathy imbalances, organ failure and death. Adenosine and lidocaine (AL) have been shown to elicit cardioprotection in cardiac surgery and haemorrhagic shock. In an effort to translate this protection to cardiopulmonary resuscitation, the effects of AL on cardiac and haemodynamic rescue were examined following asphyxial-induced cardiac arrest in the rat.

Methods: All studies employed asphyxial-induced cardiac arrest rat model. Cardiac arrest, defined as mean arterial pressure (MAP) <10 mmHg, was induced by stopping the ventilator and clamping the line for 8 minutes. Resuscitation attempt comprises of 0.5 mL intravenous drug injection, declamping ventilator line, and chest compressions (300 min⁻¹). The end points were return of spontaneous circulation (ROSC), haemodynamics during or following resuscitation, and ECG stability at different temperatures. When applicable, coagulopathy was assessed using plasmatic PT and aPTT tests and whole blood thromboelastometry. The level of statistical significance was p<0.05.

Experimental design: After obtaining the optimal AL dose, the first study is designed to assess the effect of adenosine (A 0.48 mg), lidocaine (L 1.0 mg), AL (0.48/1.0 mg) and saline (0.9% NaCl) on ROSC, haemodynamic rescue and ECG stability during compression phase every 5 min over 60 min. The animal's temperature was allowed to drift (34-35°C). The second study examined the effect of intra arrest and post-resuscitation moderate hypothermia (28-32°C) versus normothermia (36-37°C) among the different treatment groups (AL, lidocaine or saline, n=8) during intermittent compression phase and following one 60 sec set of compressions. An adenosine group was not included due to high mortality in the first study. In the third study, the effect of Mg²⁺ addition was examined during post- ROSC moderate hypothermia (28-32°C) with 6 group treatments (n=8): 1) saline; 2) adenosine-Mg²⁺ (AM); 3) lidocaine-Mg²⁺ (LM), 4) AL-Mg²⁺ (ALM), 5) AL, and 6) Mg²⁺ alone (Mg). Post-arrest coagulopathy was also assessed. The fourth study investigated the effects of ALM (n=10) compared to saline (n=12) on ROSC, ECG rhythm, postresuscitation haemodynamics, coagulopathy and neurohistological changes following intra-arrest hypothermia and two-hour active rewarming post resuscitation. Lastly, ALM (n=12) was then compared with standard-of-care epinephrine (n=12) with the same resuscitation and temperature protocol as the fourth study.

Results: In the first study, AL led to consistently higher MAP during chest compressions (p<0.05; 35-45 and 55 minutes) followed by lidocaine, and was lowest with adenosine and saline. Improved ECG rhythm was apparent in AL-treated rats. No groups sustained ROSC after 5-10 min resuscitation at body temperature 34-35°C. Similarly, during normothermia, no rats achieved ROSC after 10 min. However, during induced hypothermia (28-32°C), ROSC was achieved in 75% controls and in 100% lidocaine and AL-treated rats. After 40 min, 37.5% of AL hypothermic rats achieved ROSC compared to 12.5% of lidocaine and none of saline rats (χ²=56.058 df (5) p<0.01). Arterial pressures were significantly higher in AL and lidocaine hypothermic rats than hypothermic controls or any normothermic groups (p<0.05 at 30-60 min). Saline controls (normothermic or hypothermic) experienced a large number of ventricular tachycardia (VT) and fibrillation (VF), whereas both AL groups had no VF over 60 min. With a single set of 60 sec compressions and induced hypothermia, 75% saline, 87.5% lidocaine and 100% AL-treated rats immediately achieved and maintained ROSC over the 60 min observation period. AL with Mg²⁺ (ALM) and AL only led to 100% ROSC without VF during two-hour post-ROSC hypothermia (28-32°C). Two out of eight animals in saline, three in Mg, four in AM and one in LM groups did not attain ROSC. Furthermore, ALM but not AL led to significantly higher arterial pressures from 30-120 min of ROSC compared to all other groups. After 90-120 min, ALM rats had MAP ranging from 70-76 mmHg; whereas, Mg rats had the lowest pressures, with MAPs ranging from 41-46 mmHg. Following intra-arrest hypothermia and post resuscitation rewarming, 100% ALM rats achieved ROSC compared to 67% controls (χ²=3.889, p<0.05), and generated higher MAP from 45-120 min post ROSC than controls (p<0.05 at 75-120 min). After 120 min, coagulation analysis from saline controls displayed hypocoagulopathy (prolonged EXTEM/INTEM clotting time, clot formation time, prothrombin time, activated partial thromboplastin time), decreased maximal clot firmness, lowered elasticity, and lowered clot amplitudes but no change in lysis index. These coagulation abnormalities were mostly prevented by ALM, but the presence of neurohistopathology changes was not significantly different from controls. Compared to epinephrine, ALM achieved 100% ROSC at significantly lower MAP (39 ± 3.3 mmHg vs 129 ± 7.0 mmHg) and heart rate (59 ± 5.5 bpm vs 151 ± 13.6 bpm), while three out of 12 epinephrine rats failed to achieve ROSC due to persistent VF. After 90-120 min, arterial pressures in ALM were significantly higher than epinephrine group (81 ± 2.9 mmHg compared to 62 ± 3.9 mmHg at 120 min). Similar to ALM, epinephrine treatment mostly prevented abnormal coagulation at 120 min post resuscitation.

Conclusion: A bolus of AL administered immediately prior to chest compressions resulted in higher developed arterial pressures during compressions compared to lidocaine, adenosine or saline treatment at body temperatures 34-35°C. However, ROSC was not sustained within 5-10 min in any group. Moderate hypothermia during and after resuscitation significantly improved ROSC sustainability and developed pressures during intermittent compressions, however, ROSC achievement was higher in AL than any other group. Mg²⁺ addition in AL solution (ALM) further improved post-resuscitation haemodynamics compared to saline, AM, LM, AL and Mg²⁺ alone during moderate hypothermia. ALM also improved ROSC and haemodynamics during post-resuscitation rewarming following intra-arrest hypothermia, and was superior when compared to epinephrine. Death of epinephrine-treated rats was from refractory VF, while ALM prevented fatal arrhythmias during induced hypothermia or active rewarming. Acute coagulopathy was apparent after 120 min ROSC following cardiac arrest, and both ALM and epinephrine mostly prevented the abnormalities. ALM with induced hypothermia may offer clinical benefits in cardiac arrest victims to rescue the heart and improve post cardiac arrest haemodynamics and coagulation status.


The past twenty years have seen great theoretical and empirical advances in the field of corporate finance. Whereas once the subject addressed mainly the financing of corporations--equity, debt, and valuation--today it also embraces crucial issues of governance, liquidity, risk management, relationships between banks and corporations, and the macroeconomic impact of corporations. However, this progress has left in its wake a jumbled array of concepts and models that students are often hard put to make sense of. Here, one of the world's leading economists offers a lucid, unified, and comprehensive introduction to modern corporate finance theory. Jean Tirole builds his landmark book around a single model, using an incentive or contract theory approach. Filling a major gap in the field, The Theory of Corporate Finance is an indispensable resource for graduate and advanced undergraduate students as well as researchers of corporate finance, industrial organization, political economy, development, and macroeconomics. Tirole conveys the organizing principles that structure the analysis of today's key management and public policy issues, such as the reform of corporate governance and auditing; the role of private equity, financial markets, and takeovers; the efficient determination of leverage, dividends, liquidity, and risk management; and the design of managerial incentive packages. He weaves empirical studies into the book's theoretical analysis. And he places the corporation in its broader environment, both microeconomic and macroeconomic, and examines the two-way interaction between the corporate environment and institutions. Setting a new milestone in the field, The Theory of Corporate Finance will be the authoritative text for years to come.


Original intent and original public meaning are generally thought to be opposing camps within originalism. Both theories assert that that the meaning of a constitutional provision was fixed at the time it was enacted. But they disagree fundamentally on the nature of interpretation. Original intent asserts that the meaning sought is that intended by the Constitution's enactors. Original public meaning asserts that the meaning sought is that revealed by the text as reasonably understood by a well-informed reader at the time of the provision's enactment.

In this Essay, we unite these two conflicting principles of originalism under the original methods approach to constitutional interpretation, thereby providing a single coherent foundation for originalism. Under original methods, the Constitution is interpreted using the conventional legal interpretive rules deemed applicable to a document of its type at the time it was enacted. As properly understood, both the original intent and original public meaning approaches mandate that the Constitution be interpreted using the same conventional interpretive rules. Under original public meaning, a reasonable and knowledgeable person at the time would interpret the constitutional text by using the rules that were then thought to apply to it. Under original intent, the enactors would have intended the Constitution to be interpreted based on the conventional interpretive rules applied to it at that time.

We further argue that these interpretive rules should be identified using the methods that people at the time would have employed for determining the interpretive rules. Just as constitutional provisions should be interpreted using the interpretive rules employed at the time of the relevant provision's enactment, so too should the interpretive rules be identified based on the methods employed to identify those interpretive rules. We illustrate our approach by exploring the controversy of the Bank of the United States, showing, for instance, that there was a consensus against use of the substantive intent of the Philadelphia Convention as an interpretive rule.


This paper discusses some of the difficulties found with a desiccant dehumidification system installation in a museum archive. The operator of the system reported shutting down and abandoning the system within the first year after installation. Portable mechanical dehumidifiers were used for roughly six years until a retrofit project brought this to management's attention. Investigations revealed that the dehumidification system design and installation were causing water to condense in the regeneration air ducts which then drained through the desiccant dehumidifiers and regeneration air ducts. Recommended corrections are discussed but have not been implemented and tested.


Virtual learning environments (VLEs) provide a seamless interface for organising online learning, and are proving indispensable in distance learning. The technological environments, though, are often adopted with little thought about pedagogical strategies, especially for students who may be adversely affected by the additional challenges of new technology. The mature age student, in particular, faces a barrage of factors, which may adversely affect their learning abilities. This paper explores factors that influence achievement of learning objectives by mature students. We propose a self-efficacy model which enables learners to attain self-efficacy in virtual learning environments. The model takes into account factors that impact specifically on mature students. We propose changes in learning as well as pedagogical strategies to accommodate the specific needs of mature students.


This paper develops a forecasting procedure based on a Bayesian method for estimating vector autoregressions. The procedure is applied to ten macroeconomic variables and is shown to improve out-of-sample forecasts relative to univariate equations. Although cross-variables responses are damped by the prior, considerable interaction among the variables is shown to be captured by the estimates.We provide unconditional forecasts as of 1982:12 and 1983:3.We also describe how a model such as this can be used to make conditional projections and to analyze policy alternatives. As an example, we analyze a Congressional Budget Office forecast made in 1982:12.While no automatic causal interpretations arise from models like ours, they provide a detailed characterization of the dynamic statistical interdependence of a set of economic variables, which may help inevaluating causal hypotheses, without containing any such hypotheses themselves.


No Child Left Behind (NCLB) is the single most influential piece of federal education legislation in American history, and Hess and Petrilli provide a concise yet comprehensive look at this important and controversial act. Signed into law in 2002, NCLB seeks to ensure that all American students are proficient in math, reading, and science by 2014. Trumping two centuries of state primacy in K-12 education, it set standards for measuring student performance, ensuring the quality of teachers, and providing options for students in ineffective schools. The authors trace the heritage of these new policies, explain how they work, and examine the challenges of their implementation.


This cut paper image depicts the monument to Shakespeare in Poet's Corner of Westminster Abbey. 'William Shakespeare was buried in Holy Trinity Church, Stratford upon
Avon in 1616 but it was not until l740 that a memorial statue to him was erected in Poets? Corner in Westminster Abbey. Some time after Shakespeare?s death there were suggestions that his remains be moved from Stratford to the Abbey but the idea was soon abandoned.The life-size white marble statue was sponsored by the Earl of Burlington, Dr Mead, Alexander Pope and Mr Martin. It was designed by William Kent and created by Peter Scheemakers. The inscription above the head of the statue can be translated ?William Shakespeare l24 years after death by public esteem?. The carved heads on the pedestal of the statue are believed to be of Queen Elizabeth I, Henry V and Richard III. The figure of Shakespeare leans his elbow on a pile of books and his left hand points to a scroll detailing a variant of Prospero?s lines, in Latin, from 'The Tempest': The Cloud capt Tow?rs, The Gorgeous Palaces, The Solemn Temples, The Great Globe itself, Yea all which it Inherit, Shall Dissolve; And like the baseless Fabrick of a Vision, Leave not a wreck behind.' (www.william-shakespeare.info) This piece is signed and dated by the artist.


UNLABELLED
Objective Peripheral enamel staining is often noticed after removal of long-term veneer or crown provisional restorations. Application of carbamide peroxide (CP) easily removes the stain, but the potential for immediate bonding with a resin-based cement is questionable. This project tested the short-term, shear bond strength of a commercial, photo-curable, resin cement to bovine enamel after application of a 10% concentration of CP placed for different exposure times.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
Bovine enamel was flattened and polished. Surfaces had either no CP application (control), or 10% CP applied for 10, 20, or 30 seconds. Teeth were acid-etched, rinsed, dried, and controlled sized stubs of a commercial resin cement were photocured onto the treated surfaces. The shear bond strength of each specimen was determined using a universal testing machine, and results were compared using an analysis of variance at a preset alpha of 0.5 (n = 10/group).

RESULTS
No significant differences (p = 0.819) in shear bond strength were found among any CP cleaning treatments or the experimental (nontreated) control.

CONCLUSIONS
Short-term application of 10% carbamide peroxide prior to acid etching, to remove enamel stains in teeth prepared to receive ceramic veneers or crowns, does not reduce immediate shear bond strength of resin-based cement to enamel.

CLINICAL SIGNIFICANCE
Clinicians can confidently apply 10% CP for short-term, localized stain removal on enamel and not be concerned about affecting subsequent bond strength of a resin-based cement to enamel. (J Esthet Restor Dent, 2016).


After the observed Evil Wave Form (EWF) event in 1993, an ICAO Threat Model (TM) and Threat Space (TS) are proposed for GPS L1 C/A signal to characterize those distortions [1]. Then, a Signal Quality Monitoring (SQM) algorithm is designed to protect civil aviation users from the potential risk of these signal anomalies. Under the development of new ICAO standards for Galileo, the EWF for Galileo signals have to be characterized in order to design suitable SQM algorithm to protect aviation user when using those new signals in operation. Based on the ICAO TM and the TS adapted to Galileo signals, a SQM design needs to be defined for Galileo E1 and E5 signals in Dual Frequency Multi-Constellation (DFMC) systems. This paper focuses on the SQM design and compliance test when considering a very large EWF TS including the Galileo TS. The hazardous EWF cases that need to be detected by the SQM are those characterized by a differential bias larger than the Maximum tolerable Error (MERR) within the tested TS. The EWF differential bias is defined as the worst bias observed when the anomaly occurs on the satellite after (called rising scenario) or before (called risen scenario) it is being monitored by the SBAS reference stations. The required missed detection and false alarm probabilities for the tested TS are evaluated based on the called time-varying MERR methodology [2] and SBAS parameters. The paper proposes a SQM and code pseudorange jump monitor (CCI) that is compliant with the SBAS integrity and continuity requirements considering the TS for Galileo signals.


In order to evaluate the effect of seed priming on salinity modification of safflower (cv. Goldasht), a hydroponic experiment was conducted at Research Greenhouse of Vali-e-Asr University of Rafsanjan, Iran, in 2009. Priming treatments at 4 levels (no priming as control, and priming with distilled water, NaCl and Ca(NO3)2 for 24 hours) and salinity treatments at 4 levels (0, 8, 16 and 24 dS/m) were considered in a factorial experiment, based on complete randomized blocks design, with 4 replications. Results showed that chlorophyll content and K was significantly decreased with increasing salinity, while, proline, Na and Mg contents were increased with increasing salinity. Seed priming affected proline and Na contents and K/Na ratio significantly. The highest proline content (1.98 µmol/g freshleaf weight) was observed in NaCl pretreatment. The lowest Na (0.6%) and the highest K/Na (1.79) were observed in control and priming with Ca(NO3)2, respectively. Crop growth rate was reduced by 25, 33 and 55 percent in 8, 16 and 24 dS/m salinity levels, respectively, compared with control. It was concluded that proline and sugar content in shoots of this safflower cultivar increased in response to salinity, and seed priming with NaCl could modify salinity effects, especially net assimilation rate.


This paper analyses the transposition into EU law of the well-known margin of appreciation concept as a tool to accommodate diversity. From the example provided by the European Court of Human Rights case law, the use of this technique by the Court of Justice of the European Union in the field of fundamental rights protection is discussed. The analysis is conducted by exploring the different legal context in which the Luxembourg court operates, as illustrated by the functions that it performs, both as a supreme and a federal constitutional court. Beyond some common elements, the different perspective of the Luxembourg court is reflected in some distinct features in the use of the margin of appreciation, as for instance the impact on the scope of the margin of appreciation of factors such as the existence or absence of a European consensus in the field, or the degree of harmonisation provided by EU law on the level at which Member States must protect the fundamental right concerned. Despite these differences, there is a similar approach as compared to the use of margin of appreciation concept by the Strasbourg court, by the interconnection of the notions of consensus, harmonisation and subsidiarity in EU law. Given this background, this paper argues that the use of the margin of appreciation by the Court of Justice of the European Union can also be considered as a tool to accommodate diversity, in that sense that its use provides a balance between the respect of the EU constituent and legislator choices and those of the national authorities.


A new chemical compound is developed at Petroleum University of Technology to enhance the recovery of the free imbibition process and simulta neously hinder asphaltene precipitation. The compound is tested on heavy oil samples from Marun oil field, Bangestan reservoir. The effects of the chemical compound on viscosity, hydrocarbon composition, and average molecular weight of the heavy oil are investigated. It is found that th e substance dramatically reduces oil viscosity and molecular weight and hinders the precipitation of a sphaltene in the heavy oil. The results of free imbibition tests demonstrate a significant recovery enhancement after oil reacts with the compound and is used in water in an Amott cell. Finally, the new chemical compound causes a significant reduction in surface tension and contact angle. Thi s is verified by the molecular analysis of heavy oi l after reacting with this ionic compound.


Recent technological advances are enabling a new generation of smart cameras that represent a quantum leap in sophistication. While today's digital cameras capture images, smart cameras capture high-level descriptions of the scene and analyze what they see. These devices could support a wide variety of applications including human and animal detection, surveillance, motion analysis, and facial identification. Video processing has an insatiable demand for real-time performance. Smart cameras leverage very large-scale integration to meet this need in a low-cost, low-power system with substantial memory. Moving well beyond pixel processing and compression, these VLSI systems run a wide range of algorithms to extract meaning from streaming video. Recently, Princeton University researchers developed a first-generation smart camera system that can detect people and analyze their movement in real time. Because they push the design space in so many dimensions, these smart cameras are a leading-edge application for embedded system research.


Rapidly increasing electricity demands and capacity shortage of transmission and distribution facilities are the main driving forces for the growth of Distributed Generation (DG) integration in power grids. One of the reasons for choosing a DG is its ability to support voltage in a distribution system. Selection of effective DG characteristics and DG parameters is a significant concern of distribution system planners to obtain maximum potential benefits from the DG unit. This paper addresses the issue of improving the network voltage profile in distribution systems by installing a DG of the most suitable size, at a suitable location. An analytical approach is developed based on algebraic equations for uniformly distributed loads to determine the optimal operation, size and location of the DG in order to achieve required levels of network voltage. The developed method is simple to use for conceptual design and analysis of distribution system expansion with a DG and suitable for a quick estimation of DG parameters (such as optimal operating angle, size and location of a DG system) in a radial network. A practical network is used to verify the proposed technique and test results are presented.


OBJECTIVE--To determine whether intrauterine growth retardation associated with normal umbilical artery blood flow is a benign condition. DESIGN--A prospective comparative study of growth retarded fetuses with normal and abnormal umbilical artery blood flow. SETTING--The fetal assessment clinic of a large maternity hospital in Ireland. PATIENTS--179 Women with singleton pregnancies in which the fetal abdominal circumference, measured by ultrasonography, was below the fifth centile for gestation. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES--Perinatal deaths, fetal distress requiring caesarean section, preterm delivery, cerebral irritation. RESULTS--Of 124 fetuses with normal flow, all physically normal fetuses survived but one baby had cerebral irritation; there were six preterm deliveries and four caesarean sections for fetal distress. Among 55 women with abnormal flow there were two midtrimester abortions, three perinatal deaths, and one case of cerebral irritation in physically normal fetuses. CONCLUSIONS--Intrauterine growth retardation associated with normal umbilical blood flow is a different entity from that associated with abnormal flow, normal flow being largely benign and abnormal flow carrying a serious risk of adverse outcome.


AGE AND LIFETIME BASED POLICIES FOR PERISHABLE ITEMS Saeed Poormoaied Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering Advisor: Ülkü Gürler October 2018 Many inventory systems hold items which perish after a specific time. Upon perishing, the inventory level falls down to zero which may incur irreparable costs to the system. Therefore, developing a genius control policy for managing such inventories is a crucial task. Since the lifetime of items are now affecting the inventory level, applying the traditional inventory policies which are based only on the stock level causes some shortcomings. The traditional inventory policies lack the information regarding the lifetime of items. On the other hand, the optimal policy for perishable items is known to be a periodic review policy keeping the complete information regarding the remaining lead times of orders, inventory onhand, and lifetimes of items. Optimal control policy class for continuous review is still an open question. In this regard, we attempt to contribute the remaining lifetime of items into the inventory policy for perishable items with positive lead time and fixed lifetime under a continuous review with a service level constraint. We develop a class of hybrid control policies which utilize the remaining lifetimes of items in addition to stock levels. We study a stochastic single item inventory system where demand follows a Poisson process and unmet demand is lost. The aging process of a new batch starts when it joins the inventories. We provide an exact analytic model by using an embedded Markov chain process to derive the stationary distribution of the effective lifetimes in the presence of both one and more than one outstanding orders assumptions. Operating characteristics of the system are derived using the renewal reward theorem. Additionally, we propose some control policies based on only the remaining lifetime of items. Our results reveal that the hybrid policies consistently outperform the stock level and remaining lifetime-based polices, especially when demand during the lifetime is sufficiently small and unit perishing cost is high. It is observed that the dominance relations among these two policy classes depend on the particular parameter setting. In particular, when the lifetime of items is long enough, the stock level based policy performs very well. Finally, we present our methodology for finding iii