Applications of ontologies/knowledge bases (KBs) in many domains (healthcare, national security, intelligence) have become increasingly important. In this dissertation, we focus on developing techniques for answering queries posed to KBs under the open world assumption (OWA).
In the first part of this dissertation, we study the problem of query answering in KBs that contain epistemic information, i.e., knowledge of different experts. We study ALCKm, which extends the description logic ALC by adding modal operators of the basic multi-modal logic Km. We develop a sound and complete tableau algorithm for answering ALCKm queries w.r.t. an ALCKm knowledge base with an acyclic TBox. We then consider answering ALCKm queries w.r.t. an ALCKm knowledge base in which the epistemic operators correspond to those of classical multi-modal logic S4m and provide a sound and complete tableau algorithm. Both algorithms can be implemented in PSpace.
In the second part, we study problems that allow autonomous entities or organizations (collectively called querying agents) to be able to selectively share information. In this scenario, the KB must make sure its answers are informative but do not disclose sensitive information. Most of the work in this area has focused on access control mechanisms that prohibit access to sensitive information (secrets). However, such an approach can be too restrictive in that it prohibits the use of sensitive information in answering queries against knowledge bases even when it is possible to do so without compromising secrets. We investigate techniques for secrecy-preserving query answering (SPQA) against KBs under the OWA. We consider two scenarios of increasing difficulty: (a) a KB queried by a single agent; and (b) a KB queried by multiple agents where the secrecy policies can differ across the different agents and the agents can selectively communicate the answers that they receive from the KB with each other subject to the applicable answer sharing policies. We consider classes of KBs that are of interest from the standpoint of practical applications (e.g., description logics and Horn KBs). Given a KB and secrets that need to be protected against the querying agent(s), the SPQA problem aims at designing a secrecy-preserving reasoner that answers queries without compromising secrecy under OWA. Whenever truthfully answering a query risks compromising secrets, the reasoner is allowed to hide the answer to the query by feigning ignorance, i.e., answering the query as "Unknown". Under the OWA, the querying agent is not able to infer whether an "Unknown" answer to a query is obtained because of the incomplete information in the KB or because secrecy protection mechanism is being applied. In each scenario, we provide a general framework for the problem. In the single-agent case, we apply the general framework to the description logic EL and provide algorithms for answering queries as informatively as possible without compromising secrecy. In the multiagent case, we extend the general framework for the single-agent case. To model the communication between querying agents, we use a communication graph, a directed acyclic graph (DAG) with self-loops, where each node represents an agent and each edge represents the possibility of information sharing in the direction of the edge. We discuss the relationship between secrecy-preserving reasoners and envelopes (used to protect secrets) and present a special case of the communication graph that helps construct tight envelopes in the sense that removing any information from them will leave some secrets vulnerable. To illustrate our general idea of constructing envelopes, Horn KBs are considered.


Copper tin sulphide thin films have been prepared using chemical bath deposition technique on soda glass substrate. In this work, the chemical bath contains different solutions such as copper sulfate, tin chloride, triethanolamine and sodium thiosulphate which could serve as a Cu2+, Sn2+, complexing agent and S2- ion, respectively for the deposition of thin films. The scanning electron microscopy and energy dispersive analysis X-ray technique have been used to study morphology and composition of films. The results indicate that smaller grains could be obtained using lower concentration of sodium thiosulphate solution as shown in scanning electron microscopy analysis. In conclusion, the morphologies of films indicate a clear dependence on the solution concentration.


Summary
Annual microfilarial counts have been determined for periods of 1, 2 and 3 years following the use of diethylcarbamazine (Hetrazan, Notezine) as a microfilaricide in a filariasis control program. Two dosage schedules have been employed: (1) Two mg. per kg. of body weight 3 times a day for 7 days, repeated at the end of the year on the individuals who remained positive, (2) 2 mg. per kg. of body weight 3 times a day, 1 day each month for a period ranging from 12 to 18 months. The results are recorded in terms of (a) percentage of the population positive for microfilariae, (b) average number of microfilariae per 20 cmm. of blood, and (c) the frequency distribution in the population of microfilarial counts per 20 cmm. of blood at six different levels. The results may be summarized as follows:
1.
Of 145 positive individuals treated with schedule (1) the percentage of positives was reduced to 17.5 at the end of the second year; the average microfilarial count per 20 cmm. dropped from 79 to 0.8; and the frequency distribution results showed marked reductions at all levels, no positives occurring above the 11–30 group.
2.
Field studies in areas where considerable migration of population occurs and where supervision of drug administration was not as rigid as in the above group, likewise exhibited marked reductions at the end of 2 years, but to a lesser extent.
3.
The second dosage schedule of 2 mg. per kg. of body weight 3 times a day, 1 day a month, for 1 year gives promise of being a practical method of administrating diethylcarbamazine in a filariasis control program.
4.
A possible "infection factor" based on the experimental results of Rosen in which mosquitoes were fed on man harboring different levels of microfilariae is suggested and a potential "infection rate" is determined from certain experiments in this program showing the frequency distribution at these same levels in man before and after the use of diethylcarbamazine.
5.
All data observed following the administration of diethylcarbamazine as employed in this study show marked reduction in the microfilarial rates. Whether these reductions are sufficient to limit the transmission of W. bancrofti to a level where clinical cases will cease to occur can be determined only by observation over a period of years.


The security of bio-metric information - finger print, retina mapping, DNA mapping and some other chemical and biological modified genes related information - transfer through low bandwidth and unreliable or covert channel is challenging task. Therefore, Security of biometric information is essential requirement in this fast developing communication world. Thus, in this paper, we propose efficient and effective mechanism for confidentiality and authentication for biometric information transmitted by using arithmetic encoding representation over low bandwidth and unreliable channel. It enhances the speed of encryption, decryption and authentication process. It uses arithmetic encoding scheme and public key cryptography e.g. modified version of RSA algorithm called RSA-2 algorithm.


ABSTRACT Producing a prophylactic vaccine for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) has proven to be a challenge. Most biological isolates of HIV are difficult to neutralize, so that conventional subunit-based antibody-inducing vaccines are unlikely to be very effective. In the rhesus macaque model, some protection was afforded by DNA/recombinant viral vector vaccines. However, these studies used as the challenge virus SHIV-89.6P, which is neutralizable, making it difficult to determine whether the observed protection was due to cellular immunity, humoral immunity, or a combination of both. In this study, we used a DNA prime/modified vaccinia virus Ankara boost regimen to immunize rhesus macaques against nearly all simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) proteins. These animals were challenged intrarectally with pathogenic molecularly cloned SIVmac239, which is resistant to neutralization. The immunization regimen resulted in the induction of virus-specific CD8+ and CD4+ responses in all vaccinees. Although anamnestic neutralizing antibody responses against laboratory-adapted SIVmac251 developed after the challenge, no neutralizing antibodies against SIVmac239 were detectable. Vaccinated animals had significantly reduced peak viremia compared with controls (P < 0.01). However, despite the induction of virus-specific cellular immune responses and reduced peak viral loads, most animals still suffered from gradual CD4 depletion and progressed to disease.


Recently developed techniques have been very successful in accurately estimating intra-Autonomous System (AS) traffic matrices. These techniques rely on link measurements, flow measurements, or routing-related data to infer traffic demand between every pair of ingress-egress points of an AS. They also illustrate an inherent mismatch between data needed (e.g., ingress-egress demand) and data most readily available (e.g., link measurements). This mismatch is exacerbated when we try to estimate inter-AS traffic matrices, i.e., snapshots of Internet-wide traffic behavior over coarse time scale (a week or longer) between ASs. We present a method for modeling inter-AS traffic demand that relies exclusively on publicly available/obtainable measurements. We first perform extensive Internet-wide measurement experiments to infer the "business rationale" of individual ASs. We then use these business profiles to characterize individual ASs, classifying them by their "utility" into ASs providing Web hosting, residential access, and business access. We rank ASs by their utilities which drive our gravity-model based approach for generating inter-AS traffic demand. In a first attempt to validate our methodology, we test our inter-AS traffic generation method on an inferred Internet AS graph and present some preliminary findings about the resulting inter-AS traffic matrices.


The advent of democracy and the first democratic non-racial local government elections in 1994 and 1995 respectively, brought about a new era of leadership at the local sphere of government. According to the Constitution of 1996 municipalities must be established throughout the country including the rural areas. This resulted in the election of councillors in the area of jurisdiction of traditional leaders.
The inclusion of municipalities in rural areas brought about two kinds of leadership in rural communities, i.e. traditional leaders and municipal councillors. The Constitution does not define the role of traditional leaders in their communities although section 156 defines the powers and functions of elected councillors, which largely overlaps with those exercised by traditional leaders. In essence, what is legislated in the Constitution is the role of councillors in service delivery. Section 152(b) and 153(a) of the Constitution stipulate one of the objects of local government under the leadership of councillors to be to ensure the provision of services to communities in a sustainable manner and to structure and manage the municipality's administration, budgeting and planning processes to give priority to the basic needs of the community. However, Chapter 12 of the Constitution recognises traditional leaders and makes provision for the advisory role at provincial and national sphere of the government but does not specify what role these leaders should play at local the local sphere of government.
The paper examines the role of traditional leadership in service delivery in the local sphere of government. A comparative analysis of traditional leaders' role and those of municipal councillors are then made. The paper also identifies the deficiencies inherent in the Constitution regarding the role of traditional leaders in local service delivery. It concludes with recommendations on complementary leadership in local service delivery.


The aims of education have evolved to include a focus on educating the whole student, in order to develop responsible citizens who are able to contribute to their community and the world at large in the 21 century. In order to accomplish these aims, education in British Columbia has begun to change. Change of this magnitude requires principals and leadership teams who are skilled at change and reform. In order to change the curriculum, instructional strategies, assessment practices, and the pedagogy, the leadership teams in schools need to be prepared to challenge the status quo. This paper provides a review of the literature on Transformational Leadership as a proposed leadership model for education, especially in schools undergoing reform like the schools in British Columbia. Specifically, it proposes eight dimensions of a transformational leader, including the characteristics found in this type of leader. It looks at the effects of Transformational Leadership on the stakeholders, provides suggestions for school districts with respect to their hiring processes and provides recommendations for principal preparation programs in an attempt to better the teacher's who are to become the leaders of tomorrow.


We demonstrate room temperature periodic poling of KTiOAsO4 crystals with a period of 8.49 μm for second harmonic generation of 1066 nm wavelength. The crystals are tested in a continuous wave SHG setup at 533 nm and show high quality periodic ferroelectric domain structure across the whole 1 mm crystal thickness, exhibiting deff = 10.5 pm/V and normalized conversion efficiency of 1.2%/Wcm.


A chemical examination of the bark of Punica granatum L. (Punicaceae) has led to the isolation of five new ellagitannins, punicacorteins A, B, C and D, and punigluconin, together with the known ellagitannins, casuariin (6) and casuarinin (7). Based on chemical and spectroscopic evidence, the structures of punicacorteins A, B, C and D were established as novel C-glycosideic ellagitannins, the former two possessing a unique tetraphenyl (gallagyl) ester group (1 and 2), and the latter two containing a galloyl group in place of the gallagyl group (3 and 4), while punigluconin was characterized as 2, 3-di-O-galloyl-4, 6-(S)-hexahydroxydiphenoylgluconic acid (5).


Schools are searching for innovative ways to meet the unique academic, social-emotional, and behavioral needs of adolescents, many of whom face serious personal and family challenges. An innovative practice that is currently being introduced into school settings is meditation. Types of meditation offered in school-based settings include mindfulness meditation, the relaxation response, and Transcendental Meditation. These practices, as cognitive-behavioral interventions that are available for use by social workers and other school professionals, help students to enhance academic and psychosocial strengths and improve self-regulation capacities and coping abilities. This article defines meditation and meditative practices, reviews the literature showing the benefits and challenges of offering meditation to adolescents in a school-based setting, and describes the relevance of these practices for adolescents. The article also discusses implications for school social workers, teachers, and school administrators and reflects on the current research and future efforts toward building the research base for the promising practice of meditation in schools.


Goldman Sachs and American International Group on the eve of the 2008 financial crisis were bound together through a web of credit risk transfer (CRT) contracts in the form of credit default swaps (CDSs) and synthetic collateralized debt obligations (CDOs). Synthetic CDOs enabled certain hedge funds to profit from the ultimate bursting of the housing bubble due to the funds' savvy in understanding CRT better than their counterparties. This Article constructs a novel theory of CRT that extends the insights of creditor governance theory to CRT transactions. By doing so, this Article establishes a framework for good CRT governance. CRT governance consists of the transaction structures and practices adopted to protect investors (or counterparties) against losses from the underlying credit risk being transferred. Good governance requires governance mechanisms to reduce the informational asymmetries and incentive misalignments of particular CRT transactions — the agency costs of CRT. In practice, most types of CRT transactions are generally well governed and do not contribute to systemic risk despite being lightly regulated. Accordingly, it is incorrect to view the destabilizing losses from subprime residential mortgage-related CRT in 2008 as an inevitable result of CRT transactions being insufficiently regulated or fundamentally flawed. The financial crisis is best understood as resulting from the uniquely poor governance of certain cash CDOs and super senior tranches of synthetic CDOs. This Article concludes by identifying several implications of CRT governance for financial regulators implementing the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.


ABSTRACT In this research, we match web-based activity diary data with daily mobility information recorded by GPS trackers for a sample of 709 residents in a 7-day survey in Beijing in 2012 to investigate activity satisfaction. Given the complications arising from the irregular time intervals of GPS-integrated diary data and the associated complex dependency structure, a direct application of standard (spatial) panel data econometric approaches is inappropriate. This study develops a multi-level temporal autoregressive modelling approach to analyse such data, which conceptualises time as continuous and examines sequential correlations via a time or space-time weights matrix. Moreover, we manage to simultaneously model individual heterogeneity through the inclusion of individual random effects, which can be treated flexibly either as independent or dependent. Bayesian Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithms are developed for model implementation. Positive sequential correlations and individual heterogeneity effects are both found to be statistically significant. Geographical contextual characteristics of sites where activities take place are significantly associated with daily activity satisfaction, controlling for a range of situational characteristics and individual socio-demographic attributes. Apart from the conceivable urban planning and development implications of our study, we demonstrate a novel statistical methodology for analysing semantic GPS trajectory data in general.


Snow accumulation and melt patterns play a significant role in the water, energy, carbon, and nutrient cycles in the montane environments of the Western United States. Recent studies have illustrated that changes in the snow/rainfall apportionments and snow accumulation and melt patterns may occur as a consequence of changes in climate in the region. In order to understand how these changes may affect the snow regimes of the region, the current characteristics of the snow accumulation and melt patterns must be identified. Here we characterize the snow water equivalent (SWE) curve formed by the daily SWE values at 766 snow pillow stations in the Western United States, focusing on several metrics of the yearly SWE curves and the relationships between the different metrics. The metrics are the initial snow accumulation and snow disappearance dates, the peak snow accumulation and date of peak, the length of the snow accumulation season, the length of the snowmelt season, and the snow accumulation and snowmelt slopes. Three snow regimes emerge from these results: a maritime, an intermountain, and a continental regime. The maritime regime is characterized by higher maximum snow accumulations reaching 300 cm and shorter accumulation periods of less than 220 days. Conversely, the continental regime is characterized by lower maximum accumulations below 200 cm and longer accumulation periods reaching over 260 days. The intermountain regime lies in between. The regions that show the characteristics of the maritime regime include the Cascade Mountains, the Klamath Mountains, and the Sierra Nevada Mountains. The intermountain regime includes the Eastern Cascades slopes and foothills, the Blue Mountains, Northern and Central basins and ranges, the Columbia Mountains/Northern Rockies, the Idaho Batholith, and the Canadian Rockies. Lastly, the continental regime includes the Middle and Southern Rockies, and the Wasatch and Uinta Mountains. The implications of snow regime classification are discussed in the context of possible changes in accumulation and melt patterns associated with regional warming.


The objective of the present study is to develop efficient estimation methods for the use of the GEV distribution for quantile estimation in the presence of nonstationarity. Parameter estimation in the nonstationary GEV model is generally done with the maximum likelihood estimation method (ML). In this work, we develop the generalized maximum likelihood estimation method (GML), in which covariates are incorporated into parameters. A simulation study is carried out to compare the performances of the GML and the ML methods in the case of the stationary GEV model (GEV0), the nonstationary case with a linear dependence of the location parameter on covariates (GEV1), the nonstationary case with a quadratic dependence on covariates (GEV2), and the nonstationary case with linear dependence in both location and scale parameters (GEV11). Simulation results show that the GLM method performs better than the ML method for all studied cases. The nonstationary GEV model is also applied to a case study to illustrate its potential. The case study deals with the annual maximum precipitation at the Randsburg station in California, and the covariate process is taken to be the Southern Index Oscillation.


We study the energy consumptions of two strategies that increase the capacity of an LTE network: (1) the deployment of redundant macro and micro base stations by the operator at locations where the traffic is high, and (2) the deployment of publicly accessible femto base stations by home users. Previous studies show the deployment of publicly accessible residential femto base stations is considerably more energy efficient; however, the results are proposed using an abstracted model of LTE networks, where the coverage constraint was neglected in the study, as well as some other important physical and traffic layer specifications of LTE networks. We study a realistic scenario where coverage is provided by a set of non-redundant macro-micro base stations and additional capacity is provided by redundant macro-micro base stations or by femto base stations. We quantify the energy consumption of macro-micro and femto deployment strategies by using a simulation of a plausible LTE deployment in a mid-size metropolitan area, based on data obtained from an operator and using detailed models of heterogeneous devices, traffic, and physical layers. The metrics of interest are operator-energy-consumption/total-energy-consumption per unit of network capacity. For the scenarios we studied, we observe the following: (1) There is no significant difference between operator energy consumption of femto and macro-micro deployment strategies. From the point of view of society, i.e. total energy consumption, macro-micro deployment is even more energy efficient in some cases. This differs from the previous findings, which compared the energy consumption of femto and macro-micro deployment strategies, and found that femto deployment is considerably more energy efficient. (2) The deployment of femto base stations has a positive effect on mobile-terminal energy consumption; however, it is not significant compared to the macro-micro deployment strategy. (3) The energy saving that could be obtained by making macro and micro base stations more energy proportional is much higher than that of femto deployment.


In this paper, we characterize the user behavior in a peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing network. Our characterization is based on the results of an extensive passive measurement study of the messages exchanged in the Gnutella P2P file sharing system. Using the data recorded during this measurement study, we analyze which queries a user issues and which files a user shares. The investigation of users queries leads to the characterization of query popularity. Furthermore, the analysis of the files shared by the users leads to a characterization of file replication. As major contribution, we relate query popularity and file replication by an analytical formula characterizing the matching of files to queries. The analytical formula defines a matching probability for each pair of query and file, which depends on the rank of the query with respect to query popularity, but is independent of the rank of the file with respect to file replication. We validate this model by conducting a detailed simulation study of a Gnutella-style overlay network and comparing simulation results to the results obtained from the measurement.


Marcus Antonius' lost works serve as instructive case studies to review ancient citing practices. His eulogy in honour of Iulius Caesar, the exchange of political invective with Cicero, and the war of propaganda against Octavian, illustrate different modes of reported speech or text. These works, which reflect the political strife of the late Roman Republic, enable us to reveal specific characteristics of testimonies and fragments.
The importance of literary remains for the study of the ancient world has long been acknowledged by classical scholars. Nevertheless, the practice of collecting fragments and testimonies still lacks systematic theorization. This study aims to provide a comprehensive discussion of fragments and testimonies and classify them into their different types.


Background The Stigma Scale of the Explanatory Model Interview Catalogue (EMIC-SS) is a useful option to investigate leprosy-related stigma, but its psychometric qualities are unknown in Brazil. This study investigated the factor structure, the convergent and known-groups validity, and the reliability of the EMIC-SS for Brazilians affected by leprosy. Methodology The Brazilian Portuguese version of the EMIC-SS was validated in 180 persons affected by leprosy at a Reference Center in Rio de Janeiro. Confirmatory factorial analysis (CFA) and Cronbach alpha were used to assess the EMIC-SS internal consistency. The Construct validity was tested using Spearman Correlation, Kruskal-Wallis, and Mann-Whitney tests comparing with the Participation Scale, Rosenberg Self-esteem Scale, Beck Depression Inventory, and a Sociodemographic Questionnaire. Test-retest reliability was evaluated with intra-class correlation (ICC). Main findings CFA confirmed the one- and two-dimensional models of the scale after retaining 12 of the 15 EMIC-SS items. The 12—item EMIC-SS was consistent (α = 0.78) and reproducible (ICC = 0.751, 95% Confidence Interval = 0.657–0.822, p < 0.0001). A significant correlation was observed between the EMIC-SS and the other scales confirming convergent validity. The EMIC-SS and its factors were able to differentiate several hypothesized groups (age, change of occupation, monthly family income, communicating others about the disease, and perception of difficulty to follow treatment) confirming the scale known-groups validity, both in its one and two-dimensional models. Conclusions/Significance Our study found support for the construct validity and reliability of the EMIC-SS as a measure of stigma experienced by people affected by leprosy in Brazil. However, future studies are necessary in other samples and populations with stigmatizing conditions to determine the optimal factor structure and to strengthen the indications of the validated scale.


Background Elevated exposure to the essential element manganese (Mn) can be toxic. Manganese concentrations in ground water vary considerably, and reported associations between Mn and early-life mortality and impaired development have raised concern. We assessed the effects of drinking water Mn exposure during pregnancy upon fetal and infant survival. Methods In this population-based cohort study, we identified the outcomes of pregnancies registered between February 2002 and April 2003 in Matlab, Bangladesh. Using inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry, we measured the concentrations of Mn and other elements in the pregnant women's drinking water. Results A total of 1,875 women were included in the analysis of spontaneous abortions (n=158) and 1,887 women in the perinatal mortality analysis (n=70). Water Mn ranged from 3.0–6,550 µg/L (median=217 µg/L). The adjusted odds ratio (OR) for spontaneous abortion was 0.65 (95% CI 0.43–0.99) in the highest water Mn tertile (median=1,292 µg/L) as compared to the lowest tertile (median=56 µg/L). The corresponding OR for perinatal mortality was 0.69 (95% CI 0.28–1.71), which increased to 0.78 (95% CI 0.29–2.08) after adjustment for BMI and place of delivery (home/health facility; n=1,648). Conclusions Elevated water Mn concentrations during pregnancy appear protective for the fetus, particularly in undernourished women. This effect may be due to the element's role in antioxidant defense.


Introduction to Mechanical Vibrations: Terminology. Single-degree-of-freedom (SDOF) Systems. Free Motion of SDOF Systems. Damped Motion of SDOF Systems. Forced Response of SDOF Systems. Transient Response of SDOF Systems. Multi-degree-of-freedom (MDOF) Systems. Free Motion of MDOF Systems. Forced Response of MDOF Systems. Damped Motion of MDOF Systems. Finite Element Analysis of Vibrating Mechanical Systems. Introduction to Waves in Structures: Longitudinal Waves. Flexural Waves. Flexural Response of an Infinite Beam to an Oscillating Point Force. Flexural Wave Power Flow. Flexural Response of an Infinite Thin Beam to an Oscillating Line Moment. Free Flexural Motion of Finite Thin Beams. Response of a Finite Thin Beam to an Arbitrary Oscillating Force Distribution. Vibration of Thin Plates. Free Vibration of Thin Plates. Response of a Thin Rectangular Simply Supported Plate to an Arbitrary Oscillating Force Distribution. Vibration of Infinite Thin Cylinders. Free Vibration of Finite Thin Cylinders. Harmonic Forced Vibration of Infinite Thin Cylinders. Feedback Control: Single-channel Feedback Control. Stability of a Single-Channel System. Modification of the Response of an SDOF System. The Effect of Delays in the Feedback Loop. The State Variable Approach. Example of a Two-degree-of-freedom System. Output Feedback and State Feedback. State Estimation and Observers. Optimal Control. Modal Control. Feedforward Control: Single Channel Feedforward Control. The Effect of Measurement Noise. Adaptive Digital Controllers. Multichannel Feedforward Control. Adaptive Frequency Domain Controllers. Adaptive Time Domain Controllers. Equivalent Feedback Controller Interpretation. Distributed Transducers for Active Control of Vibration. Active Control of Vibration in Structures: Feedforward Control of Finite Structures. Feedback Control of Finite Structures. Feedforward Control of Wave Transmission. Actuator Arrays for Control of Flexural Waves. Sensor Arrays for Control of Flexural Waves. Feedforward Control of Flexural Waves. Feedback Control of Flexural Waves. Active Isolation of Vibrations: Isolation of Periodic Vibrations of an SDOF System. Vibration Isolation From a Flexible Receiver the Effects of Secondary Force Location. Active Isolation of Periodic Vibrations Using Multiple Secondary Force Inputs. Finite Element Analysis of an Active System for the Isolation of Periodic Vibrations. Practical Examples of Multi-Channel Feedforward Control for the Isolation of Periodic Vibrations. Isolation of Unpredictable Vibrations from a Receiving Structure. Isolation of Vibrating Systems from Random External Excitation the Possibilities for Feedforward Control. Isolation of Vibrating Systems from Random External Excitation Analysis of Feedback Control Strategies. Isolation of Vibrating Systems from Random External Excitation Formulation in Terms of Modern Control Theory. Active Isolation of Vehicle Vibrations from Road and Track Irregularities. Active Structural Acoustic Control, I. Plate Systems: Sound Radiation by Planar Vibrating Surfaces the Rayleigh Integral. The Calculation of Radiated Sound Fields by Using Wavenumber Fourier Transforms. Sound Power Radiation From Structures in Terms of Their Multi-Modal Response. General Analysis of Active Structural Acoustic Control (ASAC) for Plate Systems. Active Control of Sound Transmission Through a Rectangular Plate Using Point Force Actuators. Active Control of Structurally Radiated Sound Using Multiple Piezoelectric Actuator Interpretation of Behaviour in Terms of the Spatial Wavenumber Spectrum. The Use of Piezoelectric Distributed Structural Error Sensors in ASAC. An Example of the Implementation of Feedforward ASAC. Feeback Control of Sound Radiation From a Vibrating Baffled Piston. Feedback Control of Sound Radiation From Distributed Elastic Structures. Active Structural Acoustic Control, II. Cylinder Systems: Coupled Cylinder Acoustic Fields. Response of an Infinite Cylinder to a Harmonic Forcing Function. Active Control of Cylinder Interior Acoustic Fields Using Point Forces. Active Control of Vibration and Acoustic Transmission in Fluid-Filled Piping Systems. Active Control of Sound Radiation From Vibrating Cylinders. Active Control of Sound in Finite Cylinder Systems. Control of Interior Noise in a Full Scale Jet Aircraft Fuselage. Appendix. References. Index.


European small and medium-sized enterprises were severely hit by the international crisis of 2008 and export activity – as a form of internationalisation - was an important component of the recovery. This paper concentrates on the post-crisis period of the Iberian, Baltic and Visegrad countries. As for born global firms have spread and these countries are strongly involved in global production networks, the theory of international new ventures and the network approach can especially be appropriate for them. The significance of SMEs in employment, value added and export and their pace of recovery is different in the three regions. Apart from the structural rearrangements in exporting enterprises, the geographical direction of exports has also changed temporarily towards non-EU markets after the crisis. Based on existing enterprise surveys the second part of the article focuses on the export enhancing and hindering factors in the post-crisis period. Overall, product features and manager attitude proved to be the most important in export competitiveness. Lack of finance and contacts, strong foreign competition and high market entry costs are the leading export barriers for SMEs.


In this extraordinary volume, veteran teacher educator and internationally respected scholar Catherine Cornbleth examines one of the most challenging issues for new teachers - how to effectively teach a diverse student population. Cornbleth weaves the voices and experiences of student teachers from urban elementary and high schools into her own analysis. She invites new and prospective teachers (especially white teachers from middle-class homes) to draw on these experiences to explore how to work more constructively with students different from themselves, and to succeed in schools different than their own. She also speaks to teacher educators about their role in preparing new teachers to face increasing diversity in public schools.Featuring vignettes and interviews throughout, this book offers in-depth descriptions of the issues white student teachers confront as they teach in urban settings, provides insight and advice to help strengthen relationships between racially, socioeconomically, and culturally dissimilar students and teachers, and examines the successes and failures teachers experience when engaging diverse groups of students in meaningful academic learning.


The high representation of wooden houses in Norwegian cities combined with periods of dry and cold climate during the winter time often results in a high risk of severe fires. This makes it important for public authorities and fire departments to have an accurate estimate of the current fire risk in order to take proper precautions. We report on the implementation of a predictive mathematical model based on first order principles which exploits cloud-provided measurements from weather stations and weather forecasts from the Norwegian Meteorological Institute to predict the current and future fire risk at a given geographical location. We have experimentally validated the model during the winter 2018-2019 at selected geographical locations, and by considering weather data from the time of several historical fires. Our results show that our cloud and web-based implementation is both time and storage efficient, and capable of being able to accurately predict the fire risk measured in terms of the estimated time to flashover. The paper demonstrates that our methodology in the near future may become a valuable risk predicting tool for Norwegian fire brigades.


Librarians in academic settings spend a significant amount of time teaching students information literacy skills. Teachers adapt their teaching activities to the constraints of the physical setting of the classroom. Brigham Young University's Harold B. Lee Library modified a classroom from a traditional lecture room to a room where the seating was mobile. The teachers and students were observed and surveyed to see if the change in physical environment impacted the teaching style or learning activities used.  The findings indicate that teachers use familiar routines and lessons in both a traditional lecture-style classroom and a newly-designed flexible learning space as they present information literacy instruction. Teachers who recognised that students benefited from learning activities where they were active participants were more likely to incorporate small changes to their lesson plans. The classroom design can re-energise instruction if the teacher adapts their teaching style to the more flexible learning environment. This article is based on a paper presented at LILAC 2012.


The growing demand for large-scale data mining and data analysis applications has led both industry and academia to design new types of highly scalable data-intensive computing platforms. MapReduce and Dryad are two popular platforms in which the dataflow takes the form of a directed acyclic graph of operators. These platforms lack built-in support for iterative programs, which arise naturally in many applications including data mining, web ranking, graph analysis, model fitting, and so on. This paper presents HaLoop, a modified version of the Hadoop MapReduce framework that is designed to serve these applications. HaLoop not only extends MapReduce with programming support for iterative applications, it also dramatically improves their efficiency by making the task scheduler loop-aware and by adding various caching mechanisms. We evaluated HaLoop on real queries and real datasets. Compared with Hadoop, on average, HaLoop reduces query runtimes by 1.85, and shuffles only 4% of the data between mappers and reducers.


Geometric constructions have already been of interest to mathematicians. However, studies on geometric construction are not adequate in the relevant literature. Moreover, these studies generally focus on how secondary school gifted students solve non-routine mathematical problems. The present study aims to examine the geometric construction abilities of ninth-grade (15 years old) gifted students in solving real-world geometry problems, thus a case study was conducted. Six gifted students participated in the study. The data is consisted of voice records, solutions, and models made by the students on the GeoGebra screen. Results indicate that gifted students use their previous knowledge effectively during the process of geometric construction. They modeled the situations available in the problems through using mathematical concepts and the software in coordination. Therefore, it is evident that gifted students think more creatively while solving problems by means of GeoGebra.


The effects of cilazaprilat were assessed on endothelium-dependent relaxations and contractions in isolated canine arteries. In coronary arteries incubated with indomethacin, cilazaprilat potentiated endothelium-dependent relaxations to bradykinin. In superfusion-perfusion bioassay studies with femoral arteries, cilazaprilat augmented the release of nonprostanoid endothelium-derived relaxing factors caused by bradykinin. To verify whether this effect was solely due to inhibition of the converting enzyme, the effects of cilazaprilat on responses to a variety of endothelium-dependent vasoactive agents were assessed. Endothelium-dependent relaxations to acetylcholine, thrombin, and vasopressin were not altered significantly by cilazaprilat However, those induced by ADP and aggregating platelets were enhanced significantly by the compound. Endothelium-dependent relaxations to ADP-β-S were augmented significantly but to a lesser extent Furthermore, in the presence of the nitric oxide synthase antagonist NG-nitro-L-arginine, ADP-β-S still caused small relaxations that were possibly mediated by endothelium-derived hyperpolarizing factor. These relaxations were augmented by cilazaprilat Thus, the augmentation of purinergic relaxations may involve an increased production of endothelium-derived relaxing factors in addition to the protection of ADP from breakdown. Cilazaprilat did not affect endothelium-dependent contractions to acetylcholine or the calcium ionophore A23187 in canine basilar arteries, previously shown to be mediated by superoxide anions. Thus, cilazaprilat is not a scavenger of superoxide anion. Because this agent potentiates endothelium-dependent relaxations to bradykinin, ADP, and aggregating platelets, the present study suggests that, in addition to the lowering of plasmatic levels of angiotensin II, the antihypertensive and cardioprotective effects of cilazaprilat are mediated through an increased production of endothelium-derived relaxing factors. (Hypertension


The use of social media presents new religious groups with opportunities to assert themselves in contrast to established religious institutions. Intersections of church and cinema form a central part of this phenomenon. On one hand, many churches embrace digital media, from Hollywood clips in sermons to sermons delivered entirely via video feed. Similarly and overlapping with this use of media, churches in cinemas have emerged around the world as a new form of Sunday morning worship. This paper investigates intersections of church and cinema through case studies of two representative congregations. CityChurch, in Wurzburg, Germany, is a free evangelical faith community that meets in a downtown Cineplex for Sunday worship. LCBC (Lives Changed by Christ) is one of the largest multi-sited megachurches on the American East Coast. While LCBC's main campus offers live preaching, sermons are digitally streamed to the rest. Both CityChurch and LCBC exemplify growing numbers of faith communities that rely on popular musical and social media to 1) redefine local and global religious relationships and 2) claim identity as both culturally alternative and spiritually authentic. By engaging with international flows of worship music, films, and viral internet sensations, new media-centered faith communities like CityChurch and LCBC reconfigure established sacred soundscapes. CityChurch's use of music and media strategically differentiates the congregation from neighboring traditional forms of German Christianity while strengthening connections to the imagined global evangelical community. LCBC creates what cultural geographer Justin Wilford dubs a "postsuburban sacrality" that carves out meaning from the banality of strip-mall-studded suburban existence. Analyzing the dynamics of music and media in these new worship spaces assumes growing importance as transnational music and media choices play an increasingly a central role in locally differentiating emergent worship communities from historically hegemonic religious neighbors.


Title of Dissertation: ADSORPTION HUMIDITY EFFECTS, MICROPARTICLE RATE BEHAVIOR AND THERMAL SWING ADSORPTION John J. Mahle, Doctor of Philosophy, 2005 Dissertation Directed by: Professor Michael Harris Department of Chemical Engineering Purdue University Application of adsorption processes for air purification requires an approach, which accounts for the presence of humidity. Four separate but related studies are conducted to examine the adsorption processes. A new pure component adsorption isotherm is developed to describe Type 5 adsorption. The results are used to correlate data of water on activated carbon. This model derives from the concept that capillary condensation accounts for Type 5 behavior and is strongly dependent on the pore size distribution. The new model has the advantage over all other prior models of being invertible in terms of loading and partial pressure. The Henry's law limit and heat of adsorption effects are discussed. A study of coadsorption of water and immiscible organics is also presented. Data for the system chloroethane water on two activated carbons is measured. A new coadsorption model is developed to describe immiscible vapors and water. This model has the advantage of at most one adjustable parameter and can also be solved without iteration. Good agreement is demonstrated between this new model, data measured here and literature data. The use of thermal swing adsorption for air purification is examined in this work. An experimental system is used to perform cycling experiments under dry and humid conditions. A dynamic simulation model is developed to describe several of cycling runs. Using the coadsorption model developed above the good agreement is found between the data and simulation profiles. Optimization of cycle parameters was investigated to show that some moderation of the feed water content is required to obtain high purification of a light vapor challenge at ambient temperature conditions. The internal rate effects of commercial adsorbents have been reported in the literature. There is seldom an attempt to review the many approaches. Data was measured using a gravimetric technique for chloroethane and hexane on BPL activated carbon and 13X molecular sieve. A distributed parameter micropore diffusion model was solved to simulate this data. Regression of the adsorption and desorption data was used to determined micropore diffusion coefficients. These values were shown to compare well with literature values. Adsorption Humidity Effects, Microparticle Rate Behavior and Thermal Swing Adsorption


This thesis evaluates the utility of a sport fishery for yellowfin tuna,
Thunnus albacares, in the Pemba Channel, Kenya, in providing ecological
information relevant to commercial fishery assessment and management.
Age, growth, reproductive status and diet are measured, together with an
innovative assessment of the Indian Ocean yellowfin tuna stock.
Catch/effort and weight data from the records of the sport fishery from
1963-1995 demonstrate a decline in tuna mean weight since the advent
of purse seining in 1984. A periodicity of 5-6 years was detected in the
Indian ocean longline fishery catches, and in the sport fishery
catch/effort and mean weights.
Samples were taken from tuna caught in the sport fishery from 1981-88.
Sport-fished samples were more random in size, age and sex (ratio = 1: 1)
than catches from any of the three major commercial fisheries.
The total mortality rate of cohorts deconvoluted from weight-frequencies
in the sport fishery catch over 6 years was used in a Caddy & Csirke
analysis. Maximum Sustainable Yield estimates of the Indian Ocean stock
were 113,000 tonnes (new method), 110-160,000 tonnes (Walters'
method); compared with only 40-52,000 tonnes using the standard
equilibrium method.
Tuna (1653 over 7 years) were successfully aged using length frequency
analysis and by a novel method based on clusters from a Principal
Components Analysis of morphometric measures. Juvenile growth was
fast, 3.1 cm/month, whereas adults grew at about 2 cm/month.
Gonads (>1500) were staged for 5 years and histologically examined for 2
years. Female yellowfin mature earlier than males, but males become ripe
earlier in the season. The spawning stock consists of females >120 cm FL.
Diet was scored over 4 years and evaluated volumetrically over 2 years.
Juvenile tuna eat fish, but adults opportunistically consume fish,
cephalopods and crabs, depending on availability. Catchability by gear in
both the sport and commercial fisheries is likely influenced by the
currently abundant food.


Much like the Chicago Manual of Style, The Manual of Scientific Style addresses all stylistic matters in the relevant disciplines of physical and biological science, medicine, health, and technology. It presents consistent guidelines for text, data, and graphics, providing a comprehensive and authoritative style manual that can be used by the professional scientist, science editor, general editor, science writer, and researcher. Features: scientific disciplines treated independently, with notes where variances occur in the same linguistic areas; organization and directives designed to assist readers in finding the precise usage rule or convention; a focus on American usage in rules and formulations with noted differences between American and British usage; differences in the various levels of scientific discourse addressed in a variety of settings in which science writing appears; and instruction and guidance on the means of improving clarity, precision, and effectiveness of science writing, from its most technical to its most popular.


Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) have shown considerable promise for mitigating the challenge of data scarcity when building machine learning-driven analysis algorithms. Specifically, a number of studies have shown that GAN-based image synthesis for data augmentation can aid in improving classification accuracy in a number of medical image analysis tasks, such as brain and liver image analysis. However, the efficacy of leveraging GANs for tackling prostate cancer analysis has not been previously explored. Motivated by this, in this study we introduce ProstateGAN, a GAN-based model for synthesizing realistic prostate diffusion imaging data. More specifically, in order to generate new diffusion imaging data corresponding to a particular cancer grade (Gleason score), we propose a conditional deep convolutional GAN architecture that takes Gleason scores into consideration during the training process. Experimental results show that high-quality synthetic prostate diffusion imaging data can be generated using the proposed ProstateGAN for specified Gleason scores.


In situ atomic force microscopy (AFM) was used to study the molecular-scale reactivity of anhydrite (1 0 0), (0 1 0), and
(0 0 1) faces exposed to water and CaSO4 aqueous solutions at room temperature. In pure water, dissolution occurs by step
retreat and etch pit nucleation and growth. Both the kinetics of the step retreat and the shape of the etch pits are surface-specific
and crystallographically controlled. In CaSO4 aqueous solutions with concentrations ranging from 0.030 mol/l to
0.075 mol/l, the growth kinetics on anhydrite (1 0 0) and (0 1 0) faces was studied. Growth is also strongly controlled by crystallographic
constraints and occurs exclusively from pre-existing step edges by highly anisotropic spreading of monolayers
(3.5A ˚ in height). The AFM observations demonstrate that monolayer growth can occur on anhydrite (0 1 0) and (1 0 0)
faces even from slightly supersaturated solutions. In addition, the comparison of the step kinetics on anhydrite faces shows
that the mechanisms of step dissolution and growth are essentially the same, with the direction of migration of crystal building
units being reversed at the anhydrite saturation point. Moreover, the analysis of both high resolution AFM images and lateral
force microscopy (LFM) images confirms that the newly-formed monolayers are anhydrite growing in structural continuity
with the original (1 0 0) and (0 1 0) surfaces. However, the formation of the first monolayers is metastable and two-dimensional
nucleation and further multilayer growth of anhydrite are strongly inhibited even at high supersaturations.


The moderately UV- and X-ray-sensitive mutant of Saccharomyces cerevisiae originally designated r/sub 1//sup s/ complements all rad and mms mutants available. Therefore, the new nomination rad24-1 according to the RAD nomenclature is suggested. RAD24 maps on chromosome V, close to RAD3 (1.3 cM). In order to associate the RAD24 gene with one of the three repair pathways, double mutants of rad24 and various representative genes of each pathway were constructed. The UV and X-ray sensitivities of the double mutants compared to the single mutants indicate that RAD24 is involved in excision repair of UV damage (RAD3 epistasis group), as well as in recombination repair of UV and X-ray damage (RAD52 epistasis group). Properties of the mutant are discussed which hint at the control of late steps in the pathways.


Mesoporous silica nanocapsules are a well-known and leading nanocontainers' system applied in several fields (corrosion protection, antifouling, drug delivery). However, it has been already reported that the monomeric cationic surfactant hexadecyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB), used as a template in the synthesis of these nanocapsules, should be replaced because of being a source of nanocapsules' toxicity.
In this work we investigate the replacement of CTAB with dimeric surfactants, known as gemini surfactants. Works already available in the literature show that gemini surfactants tend to exhibit lower toxicity to fresh water and marine species than their conventional analogues. Therefore, this study can be envisaged as a safe-by-design approach to silica nanocapsules synthesis by replacing a commercial surfactant (CTAB) with a gemini surfactant (QSB2-12). Nanocapsules prapred using both surfactants were fully characterized by different techniques (BET, FTIR, DLS, TGA, SEM), while the short-term exposure effect was evaluated towards four marine species (the green microalgae Nannochloropsis gaditana and Tetraselmis chuii, the diatom Phaeodactylum tricornutum, and the microcrustacean Artemia salina).

This work has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement No 792945 (EcoGemCoat) and was developed within the scope of the project CICECO-Aveiro Institute of Materials, UIDB/50011/2020 & UIDP/50011/2020, financed by national funds through the Foundation for Science and Technology/MCTES.

Introduction:
A nanocapsule is a nanoscale shell produced using a nontoxic polymer. They are vesicular frameworks made of a polymeric film which epitomizes an inward fluid center at the nanoscale. Nanocapsules have numerous utilizations, including promising clinical applications for tranquilize conveyance, food upgrade, nutraceuticals, and for self-recuperating materials. The advantages of exemplification techniques are for assurance of these substances to ensure in the unfavorable condition, for controlled discharge, and for exactness targeting. Nanocapsules can conceivably be utilized as MRI-guided nanorobots or nanobots, despite the fact that difficulties remain.

The ordinary size of the nanocapsule utilized for different applications ranges from 10-1000 nm. Notwithstanding, contingent upon the planning and utilization of the nanocapsule, the size will be more specific.

Nanocapsule structure comprises of nanovesicular framework that is shaped in a center shell game plan. The shell of an ordinary nanocapsule is made of a polymeric layer or covering. The kind of polymers utilized is of biodegradable polyester, as nanocapsules are frequently utilized in natural frameworks. Poly-e-caprolactone (PCL), poly(lactide) (PLA), and poly(lactide-co-glicolide) (PLGA) are commonplace polymers utilized in nanocapsule formation. Other polymers incorporate thiolated poly(methacrylic corrosive) and poly(N-vinyl Pyrrolidone). As manufactured polymers have demonstrated to be increasingly unadulterated and reproducible when thought about normally happening polymers, they are frequently favored for the development nanocapsules. Be that as it may, some regular happening polymers, for example, chitosan, gelatin, sodium alginate, and egg whites are utilized in some medication conveying nanocapsules. Other nanocapsule shells incorporate liposomes, alongside polysaccharides and saccharides. Polysaccharides and saccharides are utilized due to their non-poisonousness and biodegradability. They are appealing to use as they take after organic membranes.

The center of a nanocapsule is made out of an oil surfactant that is explicitly chosen to facilitate with the chose tranquilize inside the polymeric layer. The particular oil utilized must be profoundly solvent with the medication, and non-harmful when utilized in an organic domain. The oil-tranquilize emulsion must have low dissolvability with the polymer film to guarantee that the medication will be conveyed all through the framework appropriately and be discharged at the best possible time and area. At the point when the correct emulsion is gotten, the medication ought to be consistently scattered all through the whole inner depression of the polymeric film.

The exemplification technique relies upon the necessities for some random medication or substance. These procedures rely upon the physiochemical properties of the center material, the divider material, and the required size. The most well-known approaches to create nanocapsules are nanoprecipitation, emulsion-dispersion, and dissolvable vanishing.

In the nanoprecipitation technique, additionally named dissolvable dislodging strategy, nanocapsules are shaped by making a colloidal suspension between two separate stages. The natural stage comprises of an answer and a blend of natural solvents. The watery stage comprises of a blend of non-solvents that frames a surface film. The natural stage is gradually infused in the fluid stage which at that point is disturbed to shape the colloidal suspension. When the colloidal suspension is shaped it will be unsettled until nanocapsules start to frame. The size and state of the nanocapsule rely upon the pace of infusion alongside the pace of agitation.

Another regular method to get ready nanocapsules is the emulsion dispersion technique. This technique comprises of three stages: natural, fluid, and weakening stage. In this strategy the natural stage is added to the watery stage under states of high unsettling which structure an emulsion. During this procedure water is added to the emulsion which makes the dissolvable diffuse. The consequence of this emulsion-dissemination is nanocapsule formation.

Dissolvable vanishing is another compelling technique to get ready nanocapsules. In this procedure, single or twofold emulsions are shaped from solvents and are utilized to figure a nanoparticle suspension. Rapid homogenization or ultrasonication is utilized to shape little molecule size in the nanoparticle suspension. When the suspension is steady, the solvents are vanished utilizing either nonstop attractive mixing at room temperature, or by lessening the encompassing pressure.

The table underneath shows how nanocapsules display various attributes dependent on the technique by which they were readied. Nanocapsule types change by size, tranquilize focus, and dynamic substance discharge time.


Historian Carlo Ginzburg uses the occasion of his Menachem Stern Lectureship to present a provocative and characteristically brilliant examination of the relation between rhetoric and historiography. In four lectures, based on a wide range of texts -- Aristotle's Poetics; humanist Lorenzo Valla's tract exposing the Donation of Constantine as a forgery; an early 18th-century Jesuit historical account purporting to record the diatribe of a Mariana Island native against Spanish rule; and Proust's commentary on Flaubert's style -- he demonstrates that rhetoric, if properly understood, is related not only to ornament but to historical understanding and truth. Ginzburg discovers a middle ground between the empiricist or positivist view of history, and the current postmodern tendency to regard any historical account as just one among an infinity of possible narratives, distinguished or measured not by the standard of truth, but by rhetorical skill. As a whole, these lectures stake out a position that both mediates and transcends warring factions in the current historiographical debate.


This study explores the predictive skill of seasonal rainfall characteristics for the first rainy (and planting) season, May–June, in Central America. Statistical predictive models were built using a Model Output Statistics (MOS) technique based on canonical correlation analysis, in which variables that forecast with the Climate Forecast System version 2 (CFSv2) were used as candidate predictors for the observed total precipitation, frequency of rainy days and mean number of extremely dry and wet events in the season. CFSv2 initializations from February to April were explored. The CFSv2 variables used in the study consist of rainfall, as in a typical MOS technique, and a combination of low‐level winds and convective available potential energy (CAPE), a blend that has been previously shown to be a good predictor for convective activity. The highest predictive skill was found for the seasonal frequency of rainy days, followed by the mean frequency of dry events. In terms of candidate predictors, the zonal transport of CAPE (uCAPE) at 925 hPa offers higher skill across Central America than rainfall, which is attributed in part to the high model uncertainties associated with precipitation in the region. As expected, dynamical model predictors initialized in February provide lower skill than those initialized later. Nonetheless, the skill is comparable for March and April initializations. These results suggest that the National Meteorological and Hydrological Services in Central America, and the Central American Regional Climate Outlook Forum, can produce earlier more skilful forecasts for May–June rainfall characteristics than previously stated.


Abstract Although onshore to offshore retreat of brachiopods, in terms of their community-level abundance, took place through the Mesozoic and Cenozoic, this study shows that comparable trends also occurred repeatedly on a short time scale and mainly were driven by variations in sediment and nutrient supply. In the Kössen Formation (Upper Triassic), brachiopods retreated to offshore habitats during nutrient-rich, siliciclastic regimes and expand to onshore habitats during nutrient-poor, carbonate regimes. Epifaunal bivalves occupied onshore and offshore habitats during both siliciclastic and carbonate regimes. Infaunal suspension-feeding bivalves expanded to offshore habitats during nutrient-rich, siliciclastic regimes and retreated from offshore habitats during nutrient-poor, carbonate regimes. Thus, the onshore to offshore retreat of brachiopods and the offshore expansion of infaunal bivalves repeatedly coincided with the switch from a nutrient-poor, carbonate regime to a nutrient-rich, siliciclastic regime. Because brachiopods and epifaunal bivalves were abundant in micrite-rich, soft-bottom habitats, the replacements between infaunal and epifaunal communities cannot be explained by variations in substrate consistency alone. Differences in guild structure between siliciclastic and carbonate regimes and onshore to offshore replacements indicate that distribution of bivalves and brachiopods is related to their differential response to low nutrient supply, turbidity, and, possibly, oxygen levels. Based on actualistic evidence, brachiopods are able to thrive in nutrient-poor conditions due to low metabolic demands and are less tolerant of high-turbidity conditions than bivalves. Epifaunal bivalves that co-occur with brachiopods in nutrient-poor habitats may have been characterized by higher clearance rates in contrast to infaunal bivalves with similar metabolic requirements. Although higher biogenic sediment disturbance or other biotic interactions could play a significant role in the retreat of brachiopods to offshore habitats, this study highlights the importance of varying nutrient supply and turbidity in governing onshore to offshore replacements on short time scales.


This paper presents and reports on a VLIW code compression technique based on vector Hamming distances. It investigates the appropriate selection of dictionary vectors such that all program vectors are at most a specified maximum Hamming distance from a dictionary vector. Bit toggling information is used to restore the original vector.A dictionary vector selection method which considered both vector frequency as well as maximum coverage achieved better results than just considering vector frequency or vector coverage independently. This method was found to outperform standard dictionary compression on TI TMS320C6x program code by an average of 8%, giving compression ratios of 72.1% to 80.3% when applied to the smallest compiler builds. The most favorable results were achieved with a Hamming distance upper limit of 3.An investigation into parallel compression showed that dividing the program into 32-bit parallel streams returned an average compression ratio of 79.4% for files larger than 200kb. This approach enables parallel decompression of instruction streams within a VLIW instruction word. Suggestions for further work include compiler/compression integration, more sophisticated dictionary selection methods and better codeword allocation.


A current programme of wildlife utilisation in the Andean region involves the capture of wild vicunas, their shearing, transport and, in some cases, captive farming. The effects of these interventions on the physiology, and thus welfare, of wild vicunas are unknown. As a first step to quantifying and thus mitigating any adverse welfare consequences of this harvest, we measured the immediate and longer-term physical and physiological effects of capture, shearing and transport. A sample of juvenile male vicunas was captured. Six were shorn at the capture site, six after two weeks in captivity, and the remaining seven animals were kept as controls for 39 days. In general, vicunas showed changes in blood glucose, packed cell volume, cortisol, and neutrophil:lymphocyte ratios within 4-6 h following capture. Creatine kinase was also affected by capture and transport, showing a peak plasma level 24 h after capture, which was followed by a peak plasma level of aspartate aminotransferase four days after capture and transport. After 12 days in captivity, all of the vicunas showed physiological parameters close to expected baseline values for the species. We could detect no differences in physiological parameters between animals that were captured, sheared and transported and those that were only captured and transported. Similarly, we could detect no differences in most responses of vicunas between those sheared after 12 days in captivity and a control group held under similar conditions but from which blood was sampled without shearing. A further comparison between animals sheared immediately after capture and animals sheared after 12 days in captivity revealed that creatine kinase levels were higher in the former group. During transport prior to release back into the wild, only minor injuries (lip bleeding and limb contusions) and a significant increase in rectal temperature were observed. Our results provide a basis for recommendations to improve the welfare of vicunas during the wool harvest, and provide baseline and stress-response data to serve as reference points for further studies of vicuna welfare.


We consider stationary soliton states in a birefringent optical fiber with two components locked in phase. Two values of the phase difference between the two components of the soliton states are studied: 0 and π/2. These cases allow us to find composite soliton states in a simple way. The bifurcation diagrams for the coupled soliton states in these two cases are constructed. The stability of these soliton states is examined also.


People with Down syndrome, whatever their age, are people first. They are people with abilities, strengths and weaknesses like everyone else. They may have additional needs but first they have the same needs as everyone else of their age group. The quality of health care, education and community support provided to children and adults with Down syndrome makes a real difference to their progress throughout life. This module provides an introduction to all the issues that need to be addressed to enable individuals with Down syndrome, and their families, to enjoy full and happy lives within their communities. It offers an overview of the development of individuals with Down syndrome from infancy to adult life. It also provides a summary of the causes of Down syndrome, the incidence and prevalence of the condition, life expectancy and associated education and health care needs. Further modules in this series address each of these issues in detail.


We investigated the relationship of gastric mucosa-associated lymphoid tissue (MALT) lymphoma tumorigenesis to Helicobacter pylori infection, the t (11;18) translocation, and alterations in cell cycle regulators. We sought to assess the implications of altered expression of p27(Kip1), a cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitor, on high-grade transformation and responsiveness to eradication therapy. We used immunohistochemistry to examine p27(Kip1), p53, and Ki-67 expression in 23 MALT lymphomas, five diffuse large B-cell lymphomas (DLBCLs), and four DLBCLs with associated MALT lymphoma. All of the MALT lymphomas were positive for p27(Kip1) expression and negative for p53 with a low Ki-67 index, regardless of the sensitivity of these cells to eradication. All DLBCLs were negative for p27(Kip1) and positive for p53, exhibiting a high Ki-67 index. In DLBCLs with MALT lymphoma, p27(Kip1) expression was absent from both the MALT and large cells components. In all of these lymphomas, the MALT components were negative for p53 and displayed a low Ki-67 index, while the large cell components were positive for p53 with a high Ki-67 index. The expression patterns of the DLBCLs differed significantly from those of the MALT lymphomas. p27(Kip1) was not detected in either component of DLBCL with MALT lymphoma, suggesting that decreased expression of p27(Kip1) in the MALT component may be related to high-grade transformation. Thus, p27(Kip1) expression in morphological MALT lymphomas could be useful tool to predict high-grade transformation to DLBCL.


SUMMARY: Twenty Audouin's gulls, Larus audouinii, breeding in the Ebro Delta (NW Mediterranean) were radio-tracked in 1998 to study their foraging behaviour and activity patterns. Some detrimental effects of tagging on the breeding success of the birds were detected, especially when both members of the pair were tagged. The results were actually constrained by the low number of locations due to natural breeding failure and failure in tag emission, as well as the adverse effect of tagging. However, through a combination of aircraft surveys at sea and a fixed station for automatic tracking of the presence of the birds at the colony, novel individual-based information of home ranges and activity patterns was obtained. Trawler fishing activity seemed to influence both the foraging range and habitat use: while trawlers operated, gulls overlapped their fishing grounds with vessels, probably to scavenge on discards. Very few locations were obtained during a trawling moratorium period, although they were all recorded in coastal bays and terrestrial habitats. During the trawling activity period, gulls ranged over a minimum convex polygon area of 2900 km2. Gulls were tracked up to 40 km from the colony, but some individuals were observed beyond 150 km while still breeding. Arrivals and departures from the colony were in accordance with the trawling timetable. However, most birds also showed some nocturnal foraging activity, probably linked to active fishing of clupeoids (following diel migrations) or to the exploitation of purse-seine fishing activity. Foraging trips lasted on average 15 hours: males performed significantly shorter trips than females, which spent more time outside the colony. The proportion of nocturnal time involved in the foraging trips was the same for males and females, but whilst all males initiated their trips both during the day and at night, some females only initiated their trips during the day. Hatching success was found to be related to foraging effort by males. Gulls spent on average ca. 38% of their time budget outside the nesting territory, representing the time devoted mainly to flying, foraging and other activities.


Drought is a repetitive phenomenon in different continents and its effects are not limited only to dry and semidry areas, but they could also be seen in areas with high rates of precipitation and in any season of the year. One of the most important stages in monitoring the drought is to determine indices in order to analyze its intensity, continuity and frequency. The data related to the overall monthly precipitation collected from synoptic stations of the area during the statistical period of 1976-2005 have been used for monitoring drought in Guilan and analyzing its characteristics. In the present study, continuity, intensity and frequency of drought have been extracted using two indices, the standard distribution and deciles and by the help of time series from standardized precipitation index. The results of this study indicated that the two analyzed methods give the same results and drought is not an infrequent phenomenon in the rainy part of northern Iran, but it is a repetitive and reversible phenomenon. The surveys indicated that in 1991 and 1995, an intense drought has happened in the province.


In this paper we present a new approach for obtaining the terminology of a given domain using the category and page structures of the Wikipedia in a domain and language independent way. The idea is to take profit of category graph of Wikipedia starting with a set of categories that we associate with the domain. After obtaining the full set of categories belonging to the selected domain, the collection of corresponding pages is extracted, using some constraints. The set of titles of recovered pages and categories is selected as initial domain term vocabulary. The system has been evaluated substituting by it the term candidates analyzer module of an state-of-the-art term extractor, YATE. The results show that this resource may be used for this task overcoming some of the limitations of alternative knowledge sources. This approach has been applied to three domains (astronomy, chemistry, economics and medicine) and two languages (English and Spanish).


It was only in the sixteenth century that texts began to refer to the significance of "economic activity"---of sustaining life. This was not because the ordinary business of life was thought unimportant, but because the principles governing economic conduct were thought to be obvious or uncontroversial. The subsequent development of economic writing thus parallels the development of capitalism in Western Europe. From the seventeenth to the twenty-first century there has been a constant shift in content, audience, and form of argument as the literature of economic argument developed. This book proposes that to understand the various forms that economic literature has taken, we need to adopt a more literary approach in economics specifically, to adopt the instruments and techniques of philology. This way we can conceive the history of economic thought to be an on-going work in progress, rather than the story of the emergence of modern economic thinking. This approach demands that we pay attention to the construction of particular texts, showing the work of economic argument in different contexts. In sum, we need to pay attention to the economy of the word. l The Economy of the Word is divided into three parts. The first explains what the term economy has meant from Antiquity to Modernity, coupling this conceptual history with an examination of how the idea of national income was turned into a number during the first half of the twentieth century. The second part is devoted to Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, considering first the manner in which Smith deals with international trade, and then the way in which the book was read in the course of the nineteenth century. Part III examines the sources used by Karl Marx and Leon Walras in developing their economic analysis, drawing attention to their shared intellectual context in French political economy. Available in OSO:


The Tengiz oilfield, in the Precaspian Basin, western Kazakhstan, was discovered in 1981, but the size of the field and its large oil reserves were not fully estimated until many years later. Presently, it is known that the oilfield stretches over an area of almost 400 km2 but the thickness of the productive zone was not recognized untill recently. Formation pressure distribution in the Tengiz carbonate reservoir allows definition of the position of the oil–water contact. Reservoir characterization and hydrodynamic data are the basis for a dynamic model of the Tengiz oil accumulation which reflects the reservoir architecture, filling history of the reservoir and distribution of productive zones.


The radium (Ra) quartet (228Ra, 226Ra, 224Ra, and 223Ra) has been investigated in Loch Etive, a Scottish fjord, to provide new constraints on water mixing rates and on the inputs of Ra from sediments. Maximum water transport rates for the inflowing estuarine layer at 5 m depth, determined from the excess 223Ra (223Raex), indicate that this water travels at no more than 2.4 ± 0.2 cm s−1 net and that it takes 17 ± 2 d for waters to travel from the mouth to the head of the loch if no horizontal mixing is taken into account. Alternatively, neglecting advection, the short‐lived Ra distribution could be explained by horizontal mixing rates of 6.1 × 106 cm2 s−1 (223Raex) or 9.1 × 106 cm2 s−1 (224Raex). Periodic overturning circulation plays an important role in resetting chemical cycles in the isolated deep basin of the inner loch. Sediment in this deep basin provides the major input of 228Ra to the isolated deep water, and the accumulation of 228Ra in deep waters allows an assessment of sedimentary fluxes of 228Ra, a poorly constrained aspect of the 228Ra input to the global ocean. The calculated sedimentary 228Ra flux of 2.1 ± 0.2 (× 109) atoms m−2 yr−1 in the inner deep basin is comparable with previous measurements of sedimentary 228Ra inputs from shelf sediments, supporting existing global 228Ra budgets, which are used to assess global rates of groundwater discharge to the ocean.


The Late Bronze Age 'Minoan' eruption of Santorini, Greece occurred from within an existing caldera. Low-temperature pyroclastic flow emplacement on shallow slopes outside the caldera can only be consistent with the caldera being filled with eruption products that are not preserved. Field observations and seismic reflection surveys suggest that this missing material has been downfaulted. The volume of the caldera infill is estimated as 18–26 km3 dense rock equivalent (DRE), increasing the total of the Minoan eruption deposits to 78–86 km3 DRE and making it the largest known Holocene eruption. This study highlights a general mechanism whereby caldera eruption volumes could be significantly underestimated.


Title of Dissertation: TEACHING TAIWANESE INDIGENOUS STUDENTS: CASE STUDIES OF THREE HAN CHINESE TEACHERS Shu-Huei Yen, Doctor of Philosophy, 2006 Dissertation directed by: Associate Professor Linda Valli Department of Curriculum and Instruction Research clearly indicates that Indigenous students continue to fail in the Taiwan public school system. One way to address this problem is to improve classroom instruction. This study examines the beliefs, knowledge, and practices of three Han Chinese female teachers, in three different settings, who were considered exemplary teachers of Indigenous students by the superintendent, teacher educators, principals, or administrators. It also explores related personal and contextual factors in order to better understand how teaching expertise was developed and was supported or impeded. Using qualitative research methods, I collected data via classroom observations, semi-structured interviews, and analysis of pertinent documentation. The data were examined, using a conceptual analysis model comprising two perspectives: culturally relevant teaching and critical pedagogy. The data analysis identified five themes in the teachers' beliefs, knowledge, and practices of teaching Indigenous students: (a) self-confidence and commitment, (b) differentiated expectations, (c) cultural pedagogy, (d) character development, and (e) an ethic of care. The findings also showed that the three teachers relied on their own experiences, their memorable teachers' styles, and their accumulated teaching experiences to develop their teaching expertise. Moreover, findings demonstrated that the teachers' work was constrained by time limitations for teaching and by a conservative school culture that devalued instructional innovation. On the other hand, teaching was supported by a collaborative school culture and by a school policy that valued Indigenous cultural development. Based on the research findings, this study suggests that teacher educators and school administrators provide a venue for teachers to discover their hidden beliefs about Indigenous culture and about their teaching practices; provide the theoretical and practical knowledge and skills needed by Indigenous students; and create school environments that support personal and professional improvements that will improve the teaching of Indigenous students. Moreover, this study suggests that teacher educators and school administrators consider cultural contexts when preparing teachers to teach Indigenous students. Culturally relevant teaching might well be suitable for educators who work in the Indigenous areas. Critical pedagogy, in turn, might well meet the needs of teachers who work with diverse populations of students in large urban schools. TEACHING TAIWANESE INDIGENOUS STUDENTS: CASE STUDIES OF THREE HAN CHINESE TEACHERS


Along with the arrival of the third technological revolution, emerge as the times require computer information technology, and make our country in the new media era. In recent years, computer information technology has been widely applied to each field of the society, especially in the music field, our country music production technology has made great progress and improvement, the combination of the two will make our country music level has been raised to a new level. Based on this reason, a discussion on the application and development of production technology of computer music under new media environment is proposed, in order to better understand the development direction of manufacturing technology of computer music and understand the new media to the computer music technology demand.


We propose a novel distributed random access scheme for wireless networks based on slotted ALOHA, motivated by the analogies between successive interference cancellation and iterative belief-propagation decoding on erasure channels. The proposed scheme assumes that each user independently accesses the wireless link in each slot with a predefined probability, resulting in a distribution of user transmissions over slots. The operation bears analogy with rateless codes, both in terms of probability distributions as well as to the fact that the ALOHA frame becomes fluid and adapted to the current contention process. Our aim is to optimize the slot access probability in order to achieve rateless-like distributions, focusing both on the maximization of the resolution probability of user transmissions and the throughput of the scheme.


ABSTRACT Quinn (2004) reported that the asymmetry in categorization of humans versus nonhuman animals by human infants (i.e., a representation for humans that includes nonhuman animals vs. a representation for nonhuman animals that excludes humans) was based on holistic information. The current research investigated how this asymmetry was affected by stimulus inversion. Three- to 4-month-olds were familiarized with humans or cats and then tested with a novel cat versus a novel human in upright and inverted presentation conditions. Only the human portion of the asymmetry was affected by inversion, implying that only the upright human familiarization condition engaged configural processing. The findings are consistent with the idea that differences in the way that infants process humans versus nonhuman animals can be likened to an expert-novice distinction in the early development of perceptual category representations. KEYWORDS: categorization, perceptual expertise, configural processing, infants. The question of how humans are conceptualized among other animals has met with different answers in the cognitive literature. For example, Carey (1985) has proposed that humans are the prototype for other animals, whereas Medin and Waxman (in press) have argued that humans are represented as having a dual status inclusive of a general representation in which humans are represented as being like other animals and a more specific representation in which humans are represented as being distinct from other animals. The question of how infants represent humans has also drawn different responses, including arguments that infants represent humans as intentional agents that are not constrained by physical principles (Kuhlmeier, Bloom, & Wynn, 2004), or as solid, material objects (Saxe, Tzelnic, & Carey, 2006). There has also been the suggestion that infants represent the configuration of parts that make up the human body (Gliga & Dehaene-Lambertz, 2005), although with debate regarding when during early development this configural representation emerges (Slaughter & Heron, 2004). In addition, there has been the report that humans are the first class of objects to give rise to processes of object individuation (Bonatti, Frot, Zangl, & Mehler, 2002). Finally, Quinn (2005, in press) has reported differences in the ways that young infants, 3 to 4 months of age, represent categories of humans and nonhuman animals, leading to the argument that young infants' considerable familiarity with humans may generate the first domain of perceptual expertise. Here we report evidence that infants' generalization from human to nonhuman animal images occurs only with upright whole images, which is consistent with the idea that infants represent humans on a configural expert-like basis. Do Infants Represent Humans as a Category? If one is interested in the question of how infants conceptualize humans, an important issue to address is whether infants categorize humans as similar to or different from categories of nonhuman animals. Given the perceptual differences between humans and nonhuman animals (i.e., humans wear clothes, stand upright, and have arms) and given the abilities of young infants to separate various nonhuman animal species into different categories (Eimas & Quinn, 1994), one might expect that infants would represent humans as distinct from categories of nonhuman animals. To determine whether this was the case, Quinn and Eimas (1998) presented 3- to 4-month-olds with a dozen photographic images of clothed humans (males and females) in standing, walking, and running poses followed by a preference test consisting of a novel human paired with a horse or cat image. Counter to expectation, the infants generalized their familiarization to the novel humans, cats, and horses; they did not exhibit novel category preferences for the cats or horses. In addition, a control experiment assessing a priori preference showed that infants did not have a spontaneous preference for looking at humans over cats or horses. …


Plants have long been excluded from the conversation regarding intelligent functioning in living things. This mindset dates back to ancient times, when plants were assigned a low-functioning and unintelligent rung on the scala naturae. In comparison to animals, plants have evolved to respond to their environment with a modular body plan, which lacks a nervous system and 'intelligent' organ, such as a brain. Despite this, research has demonstrated that plants are able to sense their environment, transmit sensory information throughout the entire organism, and respond to this sensory information with appropriate physiological responses. Also, plants have been shown to demonstrate aspects of learning and memory -cognitive functions once thought to be restricted to 'intelligent' beings (i.e. animals). The argument against plant intelligence is largely semantic-based, and stems from the concept that the word 'intelligence' cannot be applied to organisms which lack organs responsible for intelligent functioning. To truly appreciate the intelligent functioning of plants, we must eliminate this semantic barrier through a re-evaluation of our conventional understanding of intelligence. Perhaps this would require us to view intelligence, not as a quality unique to animals, but as a biological property, which in varying degrees is present in all life forms.


We demonstrate how the compilation of SQL expressions into machine code leads to significant query runtime improvements in PostgreSQL 9. Our primary goal is to connect recent research in query code generation with one of the most widely deployed database engines. The approach calls on LLVM to translate arithmetic and filter expressions into native x86 instructions just before SQL query execution begins. We deliberately follow a non-invasive design that does not turn PostgreSQL on its head: interpreted and compiled expression evaluation coexist and both are used to execute the same query. We will bring an enhanced version of PostgreSQL that exhibits notable runtime savings and provides visual insight into exactly where and how execution plans can benefit from SQL expression compilation.


Abstract Catsper3 and Catsper4 are two recently identified testis-specific genes homologous to Catsper1 and Catsper2 that have been shown to play an essential role in sperm hyperactivated motility and male fertility in mice. Here we report that Catsper3 and Catsper4 knockout male mice are completely infertile due to a quick loss of motility and a lack of hyperactivated motility under capacitating conditions. Our data demonstrate that both CATSPER3 and CATSPER4 are required for hyperactivated sperm motility during capacitation and for male fertility. The present study also demands a revisit to the idiopathic male infertility patients who show normal sperm counts and normal initial motility for defects in sperm hyperactivated motility and for potential CATSPER gene mutations. The CATSPER channel also may be an excellent drug target for male contraceptives.


In the early 1950's the Corps of Engineers' Jacksonville District initiated a series of laboratory tests to investigate the overtopping of proposed levee sections for Lake Okeechobee, Florida. For economic reasons, the alternative to build levees with crest elevations that were at times below the limit of wave runup was investigated and the quantities of water carried over the structures for various freeboard allowances, structure slopes and wave conditions determined. The initial tests were conducted at the Waterways Experiment Station (WES) in Vieksburg, Mississippi for the Jacksonville District at what was taken to be a 1 to 30 model scale. Model wave heights varied from 1+.05 cm to 12.2 cm (0.133 to 0.^0 ft). In order to expand the range of test conditions investigated, the Beach Erosion Board, currently the Coastal Engineering Research Center (CERC), commissioned an expanded series of tests that considered the overtopping of riprap faced, curved and stepped seawalls as well as the overtopping of "smooth" slopes. These tests, also conducted at WES, were considered to be at a 1 to 17 scale with model wave heights ranging from 5-36 cm to 21.5 cm (0.176 to O.706 ft). A number of tests were subsequently conducted in CERC's large wave tank to determine the influence scale effects might have on overtopping. These tests are referred to as 1 to 2 1/2 scale tests. The model wave heights investigated ranged from U8.8 cm to 11*0.2 cm. (1.60 to h.6o ft).


In 1864, Wilhelm Bleek published a collection of Khoi narratives titled Reynard the Fox in South Africa, or Hottentot Fables and Tales. This article critically examines this foundational event in South African literary history, arguing that it entailed a Victorian circumscription of the Khoisan imagination, containing its libidinal and transgressive energies within the generic limits of the naïve European children's folktale. Bleek's theories of language and race are examined as providing the context for his editorial approach to Khoi narratives in which the original 'nakedness' was written out. The extent of Bleek's censorship of indigenous orature becomes visible when comparing his 'fables' to a largely unknown corpus of Khoi tales, collected by the German ethnographer Leonhard Schultze during the Nama genocide in the early twentieth century. The article compares these collections of oral narratives, and suggests that this has implications for the way the famous Bleek and Lloyd /Xam archive was subsequently constituted in the 1870s. Wilhelm Bleek's interventions in civilising the Khoisan imagination marks a move away from a potentially Rabelaisian trajectory in South African literature through which the Khoisan could be represented and represent themselves. In admitting a sanitised indigenous orature into the colonial literary order, it is argued that Bleek helped to create a restrictive cultural politics in South Africa from which the country is yet to emerge fully.


Wheat is the most important Ethiopian crop, and rust one of its greatest antagonists. There is a need for cheap and scalable rust monitoring in the developing world, but existing methods employ costly data collection techniques. We introduce a scalable, accurate, and inexpensive method for tracking outbreaks with publicly available remote sensing data. Our approach improves existing techniques in two ways. First, we forgo the spectral features employed by the remote sensing community in favor of automatically learned features generated by Convolutional and Long Short-Term Memory Networks. Second, we aggregate data into larger geospatial regions. We evaluate our approach on nine years of agricultural outcomes, show that it outperforms competing techniques, and demonstrate its predictive foresight. This is a promising new direction in crop disease monitoring, one that has the potential to grow more powerful with time.


This paper applies contingent claim analysis to value pension contracts for real-life collective pension plans with intergenerational risk sharing and offering DB-like benefits. We rewrite the balance sheet of such a pension fund as an aggregate of embedded generational options. This implies that a pension fund is a zero-sum game in value terms, so any policy change inevitably leads to value transfers between generations. We explore intergenerational value transfers that may arise from a plan redesign or from changes in funding policy and risk sharing rules. We develop a stochastic framework which accounts for time-varying investment opportunities and computes the embedded generational options. Changes in the values of the generational options enable us to evaluate the impact of policy modifications in the pension contract with respect to intergenerational transfers and redistribution. We find that a switch to a less risky asset mix is beneficial to elderly members at the expense of younger members who lose value. A reallocation of risk bearing from a plan with flexible contributions and fixed benefits to a plan with fixed contributions and flexible benefits leads to value redistribution from older plan members to younger ones. c © 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.


The fastest, easiest, most comprehensive way to learn Adobe Dreamweaver CS4 Adobe Dreamweaver CS4 Classroom in a Book contains 11 lessons. The book covers the basics of learning Adobe Dreamweaver and provides countless tips and techniques to help you become more productive with the program. You can follow the book from start to finish or choose only those lessons that interest you. Learn how to create and manage web sites, build rich interactive interfaces, incorporate graphics, text, and video, and use Photoshop Smart Objects. The Classroom in a Book series is by far the best training material on the market. Everything you need to master the software is included: clear explanations of each lesson, step-by-step instructions, and the project files for the students. Barbara Binder, Adobe Certified Instructor, Rocky Mountain TrainingClassroom in a Book, the best-selling series of hands-on software training workbooks, helps you learn the features of Adobe software quickly and easily. Classroom in a Book offers what no other book or training program doesan official training series from Adobe Systems incorporated, developed with the support of Adobe product experts.