Purpose: In the clinical care of functional vision disorders, dynamic retinoscopy such as Monocular Estimate Method has been the mainstay for objective measurement of the accommodative response. It is valuable, fast and widely available. Dynamic retinoscopy however does not allow for quantified measures of accommodation by inexperienced clinicians or technicians. Automated, objective methods for performing simple clinical tests like book retinoscopy would be most useful, if only real-world targets like continuous text could be included. This study was aimed at determining the feasibility of collecting automated, continuous accommodative data during reading. Methods: Real-time accommodative measurements were measured on nine subjects under three conditions while accommodative measurements were collected at 5Hz with the Grand Seiko WAM-5500 open-field autorefractor. The first two conditions tested the ability of the autorefractor to measure accommodative response using peripheral gaze: with distant and near targets. The third condition involved reading from the electronically presented text. Results: Accommodative response, allowing for expected accommodative lag, was measured within 0.25 D of expected clinical values during reading in a 3-line vertical, 15-degree horizontal window. Conclusions: Within the 15o visual angle range, open-field autorefraction is able to accurately measure the realtime accommodative response to within 0.25 D. Although there are dynamic fluctuations in the accommodative response during reading, measured accommodative lag increases with demand and is consistent with the literature on dynamic retinoscopy. Open-field autorefraction has the potential to demonstrate accommodative dysfunction when used in real-time mode.


The Last Train to Zona Verde is Paul Theroux's compelling account of his final African journey. Heading north from Cape Town, through South Africa, Namibia, Botswana and Angola, Paul Theroux makes a final journey along Africa's western edge. The end of the line is the Congo but Theroux discovers that his trip's pleasures are tempered by a growing sense that the Africa which so long ago helped form him has vanished, along with the hopes of many of its people. Yet after 2,500 miles Theroux finds that though this will be his ultimate African adventure there are still surprises to be found by the traveller prepared to step off the beaten track. "A melancholic, farewell journey...Theroux does all this inimitably, and more, getting better the more detours he takes". (Evening Standard). "Hard to put down, brutal honesty. Theroux proves himself a sharp observer of human foibles and a master of pithy description. The book he has crafted out of his experiences packs plenty of bang". (Spectator). "As we worry about the future of the continent, there could be no better guide than Theroux ...his sense that this is his final journey adds to the power". (GQ). "Excellent, barbed reportage". (Independent). "Probably the most important travel writer of his generation". (Sunday Times). Paul Theroux's books include Dark Star Safari, Ghost Train to the Eastern Star, Riding the Iron Rooster, The Great Railway Bazaar, The Elephanta Suite, A Dead Hand, The Tao of Travel and The Lower River. The Mosquito Coast and Dr Slaughter have both been made into successful films. Paul Theroux divides his time between Cape Cod and the Hawaiian islands.


Much attention is currently being paid in both the academic and practitioner literatures to the value that organisations could create through the use of big data and business analytics (Gillon et al, 2012; Mithas et al, 2013). For instance, Chen et al (2012, p. 1166–1168) suggest that business analytics and related technologies can help organisations to 'better understand its business and markets' and 'leverage opportunities presented by abundant data and domain-specific analytics'. Similarly, LaValle et al (2011, p. 22) report that topperforming organisations 'make decisions based on rigorous analysis at more than double the rate of lower performing organisations' and that in such organisations analytic insight is being used to 'guide both future strategies and day-to-day operations'. We argue here that while there is some evidence that investments in business analytics can create value, the thesis that 'business analytics leads to value' needs deeper analysis. In particular, we argue here that the roles of organisational decision-making processes, including resource allocation processes and resource orchestration processes (Helfat et al, 2007; Teece, 2009), need to be better understood in order to understand how organisations can create value from the use of business analytics. Specifically, we propose that the firstorder effects of business analytics are likely to be on decision-making processes and that improvements in organisational performance are likely to be an outcome of superior decision-making processes enabled by business analytics. This paper is set out as follows. Below, we identify prior research traditions in the Information Systems (IS) literature that discuss the potential of data and analytics to create value. This is to put into perspective the current excitement around 'analytics' and 'big data', and to position those topics within prior research traditions. We then draw on a number of existing literatures to develop a research agenda to understand the relationship between business analytics, decision-making processes and organisational performance. Finally, we discuss how the three papers in this Special Issue advance the research agenda. Disciplines Engineering | Science and Technology Studies Publication Details Sharma, R., Mithas, S. and Kankanhalli, A. (2014). Transforming decision-making processes: a research agenda for understanding the impact of business analytics on organisations. European Journal of Information Systems, 23 (4), 433-441. This journal article is available at Research Online: http://ro.uow.edu.au/eispapers/3231 EJISEditorialFinal 16 May 2014 RS.docx       1 of 17


This is the latest in a series of reviews of research on graduated driver licensing (GDL) published in the Journal of Safety Research, covering the period January 1, 2010-June 1, 2012 and work in progress. The intent is to keep researchers and policy makers current regarding the existing state of knowledge about GDL, and to identify information gaps and areas where clarification of research findings is needed. The recent research indicates that we continue to learn about ways to extend GDL benefits, but there remain important questions in need of further inquiry.


Research in psychology and neurology shows that both body and mind are
involved when experiencing emotions (Damasio 1994, Davidson et al.
2003). People are also very physical when they try to communicate their
emotions. Somewhere in between beings consciously and unconsciously
aware of it ourselves, we produce both verbal and physical signs to make
other people understand how we feel. Simultaneously, this production of
signs involves us in a stronger personal experience of the emotions we
express.

Emotions are also communicated in the digital world, but there is little
focus on users' personal as well as physical experience of emotions in
the available digital media. In order to explore whether and how we can
expand existing media, we have designed, implemented and evaluated
/eMoto/, a mobile service for sending affective messages to others. With
eMoto, we explicitly aim to address both cognitive and physical
experiences of human emotions. Through combining affective gestures for
input with affective expressions that make use of colors, shapes and
animations for the background of messages, the interaction "pulls" the
user into an /affective loop/. In this thesis we define what we mean by
affective loop and present a user-centered design approach expressed
through four design principles inspired by previous work within Human
Computer Interaction (HCI) but adjusted to our purposes; /embodiment/
(Dourish 2001) as a means to address how people communicate emotions in
real life, /flow/ (Csikszentmihalyi 1990) to reach a state of
involvement that goes further than the current context, /ambiguity/ of
the designed expressions (Gaver et al. 2003) to allow for open-ended
interpretation by the end-users instead of simplistic, one-emotion
one-expression pairs and /natural but designed expressions/ to address
people's natural couplings between cognitively and physically
experienced emotions. We also present results from an end-user study of
eMoto that indicates that subjects got both physically and emotionally
involved in the interaction and that the designed "openness" and
ambiguity of the expressions, was appreciated and understood by our
subjects. Through the user study, we identified four potential design
problems that have to be tackled in order to achieve an affective loop
effect; the extent to which users' /feel in control/ of the interaction,
/harmony and coherence/ between cognitive and physical expressions/,/
/timing/ of expressions and feedback in a communicational setting, and
effects of users' /personality/ on their emotional expressions and
experiences of the interaction.


Radar offers advantages as a robotic perception modality because it is not as vulnerable to the vacuum, dust, fog, rain, snow and light conditions found in construction, mining, agricultural and planetary-exploration environments. However radar has shortcomings such as a large footprint, sidelobes, specularity effects and limited range resolution—all of which result in poor environment maps. Evidence grids are a flexible and powerful probabilistic method for fusing multiple sensor observations. Sensor models exist for interpreting the range readings of sonar, laser and stereo. However, these existing sensor models do not work with radar because it provides amplitude values for many points downrange. In addition, radar has significant echo signal-to-noise variations between observations as well as limited downrange resolution. This paper presents the development of a radar sensor model, which can fuse amplitude-vector sensor data into an evidence grid. A study of radar phenomena and of frequency-modulated continuous-wave signal processing suggests rules for signal interpretation. The sensor model uses these interpretation rules and captures the volumetric beam geometry. The results include a three-dimensional map of an outdoor scene. This work is a step towards building high fidelity maps to be used in mobile robot navigation, obstacle avoidance and tool deployment under all visibility conditions.


As social media environments become more interactive and amount of users grown tremendously, privacy is a matter of increasing concern. When personal data become a commodity, social media company can share users data to another party such as government. Facebook, inc is one of the social media company that frequently asked for user's data. Although this private data request mechanism through a formal and valid legal process, it still undermine the fundamental right to information privacy. In This Case, social media users need protection against privacy violation from social media platform provider itself.  Private chat is the most favorite feature of a social media. Inside a chat room, user can share their private information contents. Cryptography is one of data protection methods that can be used to hides private communication data from unauthorized parties. In our study, we proposed a system that can encrypt chatting content based on AES and multi-layered MD5 to ensure social media users have privacy protection against social media company that use user informations as a commodity. In addition, this system can make users convenience to share their private information through social media platform.


One of the fastest-growing industries in the world is the tourism industry, which is one of the major contributors to the services sector including Malaysia's economy. In essence, the Tourism and Hospitality industry plays a major role in supporting Malaysian tourism. This paper investigated the factors that influence online booking behaviour by employing a quantitative research approach through descriptive research. These factors include independent variables such as location, price, safety, and facilities that may affect the online reviews and valence reviews towards the dependent variable, which is the hotel choice. Furthermore, the aim of this study is to discover or describe the behaviour in the usage of hotel booking systems. With the fast-growing tourism and hospitality industry, the pattern of hotel booking has also changed from the conventional booking system to online and paperless booking. This study has contributed to the literature on Tourism and Hospitality area that requires more research.


Forests surrounding streams affect aquatic communities in numerous ways, contributing to energy fluxes between terrestrial and lotic ecosystems. The five papers in this thesis focus on woody debris, terrestrial invertebrates and light, three factors influenced by riparian zone structure, potentially affecting streams and brown trout (Salmo trutta). The individual strength of these stressors and their interactions with each other are not well studied, and their qualitative effects may differ both spatially and temporally as well as with the size-structure of specific fish populations. Using a combination of laboratory and field experiments, I examined the effects of woody debris, terrestrial invertebrates and light on prey availability and on the growth rates, diets and behavior of different size-classes of trout. My field experiments showed that addition of high densities of large wood affected trout growth in a positive way. This positive effect of large wood on trout growth may be related to prey abundance, as indicated by the high standing crop of aquatic macroinvertebrates on the wood. The positive effects on trout may also be related to decreased energy expenditures in wood habitats, as trout increased the ratio between numbers of prey captured and time spent active and that swimming activity and level of aggression decreased as wood densities were increased in a laboratory experiment. Terrestrial invertebrates are generally assumed to be a high quality prey resource for fish and my field experiments showed that reduction of terrestrial invertebrate inputs had a negative effect on trout growth. The availability of terrestrial prey in the stream was also coupled to trout diet and linked to growth, as fish with high growth rates had high proportions of terrestrial prey in their diets. Light, measured as PAR, did not have an effect on chlorophyll biomass, nor was there an effect on aquatic macroinvertebrates or trout. Hence, even if light levels were sufficient for increased photosynthesis, other factors such as low nutrient content may have limited the effects. Many of my results were dependent on fish-size. I observed, for example, that large trout had higher capture rates on surface-drifting terrestrial prey than small trout when prey densities were intermediate or high, but at low prey densities, the consumption of terrestrial prey by large and small trout were similar. Moreover, although large wood and terrestrial invertebrates affected growth of both small and large trout, the effects were generally more consistent for large trout. Although changes in riparian forests typically induce an array of interacting effects that certainly call for further research, the overall conclusion from this thesis is that many of the factors I have studied have profound effects on stream biota and trout. The positive effects from large wood also propose that adding trees to streams may partly compensate for negative effects associated with riparian deforestation.


SIR, The ichthyoses are a heterogeneous group of skin disorders of epidermal differentiation, with both inherited and acquired forms. This cornification disorder may be found isolated or in association with other genetic defects. In 1998, five siblings with congenital ichthyosis, follicular atrophoderma, hypotrichosis and hypohidrosis were described as a new genodermatosis by Lestringant et al. We report a 17-year-old Turkish patient with ichthyosis vulgaris, follicular atrophoderma, woolly hair and hypotrichosis as a second report on this syndrome. A 17-year-old-girl was admitted to our hospital because of woolly hair, sparse eyelashes and eyebrows, and a very dry skin. She was born at term after an uncomplicated pregnancy. Ichthyosis and baldness were present at birth, but there was no history of a collodion baby. She had almost no scalp hair until she was 4 months old. In the early childhood period, funnel-shaped round follicular depressions had appeared on the dorsal aspects of the hands. She stated that her scalp hair had improved and straightened with age. The patient was otherwise healthy and detailed ophthalmological, neurological and audiometric examinations were normal. There was no history of atopy. There was no family history of similar skin problems. Both her parents and paternal grandparents were first cousins. There was no maternal history of drug intake during pregnancy. On examination, there was diffuse ichthyosiform scaling sparing the major flexures and face as in ichthyosis vulgaris (Fig. 1). The ichthyotic skin was hypohydrotic but the axilla, palms and soles sweated normally. Follicular atrophoderma was observed on the backs of her hands (Fig. 2). She had diffuse and patchy non-scarring hypotrichosis with a receding frontal hairline. Her hair was normal in length, but was light brown in colour, coarse, curly and unruly, in contrast to the straight black hair of the rest of her family. Eyelashes and particularly eyebrows were sparse (Figs 3–4). Routine haematological, biochemical, immunological, thyroid and radiological investigations were normal. Osteopoikilosis was not present on the X-rays. Echocardiography and ECG were normal. Hair microscopy was normal apart from curling. Biopsy from ichthyotic skin showed orthokeratosis with focal hypogranulosis (Fig. 5). Electron microcopy showed normal tonofilaments. Based on clinical and laboratory findings a diagnosis of ichthyosis vulgaris associated with follicular atrophoderma, hypotrichosis and woolly hair was made. The patient was prescribed 10% urea cream and salicylic acid ointments. The ichthyotic lesions resolved within a few weeks. Ichthyosis is a feature of several genetic disorders. These are rare disorders and the associated ichthyosis may be mild. The following syndromes with ichthyosis may be considered


This Article explores the intersection between the judicial and scholarly work of Judge Jack Weinstein, particularly as related to mass tort litigation and the development of legal theory and tort law in America. The primary focus will be on Judge Weinstein's handling of the Agent Orange litigation. Judge Weinstein's tenure on the federal bench began in 1967. Some seven years earlier, Ronald Coase published his The Problem of Social Costs, a monumental moment in American legal theory and tort law policy. Three years later, Guido Calabresi published his path-breaking text, The Costs of Accidents. These two texts are representative of the law and neoclassical economics movement, which would indelibly shape tort law theory in America during Judge Weinstein's years as a judge.Law and neoclassical economics is most often discussed as a methodology for analyzing tort law on the basis of efficiency. However, it also exemplifies a broader approach to law that goes beyond efficiency analysis and can be found in much of contemporary legal theory. This broader approach focuses its analysis on the social good as opposed to prioritizing individual rights. It is through the lens of these two features of twentieth-century legal theory (efficiency and the social good), particularly as they apply to tort law, that this Article will examine the Agent Orange litigation.The Agent Orange litigation is a landmark in American history. It involved hundreds of lawsuits, thousands of claimants (15,000 by one estimate), and seven corporate defendants. Aside from its scope, the issues surrounding Agent Orange are particularly worthy of attention because they exemplify the problems associated with resolving mass tort cases. An intriguing aspect of Judge Weinstein's worldview, which is reflected in the disposition of the Agent Orange litigation, is that he champions efficiency and the social good while placing a premium on recognizing individual suffering as an existential reality.Of course, the Agent Orange litigation is also circumscribed by the specter of the Vietnam War, which makes it an even more compelling site of inquiry. The Agent Orange litigation and Judge Weinstein's legendary handling of it provides us with a unique opportunity to consider tort law in the context of not only legal theory, but one of America's most searing historical moments, the Vietnam War.


The final stage of the Messinian salinity crisis (MSC) was characterized by brackish-water "Lago-mare" conditions in the intermediate and marginal basins of the Mediterranean Sea. The presence of Paratethyan (former Black Sea) fauna in these deposits has fueled long-lasting controversies over the connectivity between the Mediterranean and Paratethys and contemporary sea-level drops in both basins. Here, we use the results of sub-precessional climate simulations to calculate the freshwater budget of the Mediterranean and Paratethys in the Messinian. We show that, during the MSC, the freshwater budget of Paratethys was positive, while the Mediterranean was negative. Using these numerical constraints, we propose a Mediterranean outflow pump as an alternative scenario for the two most dramatic hydrological changes in the MSC: (1) the Halite–Lago-mare transition and (2) the Pliocene reestablishment of marine conditions. Following the maximum MSC lowstand during halite formation, progressive Mediterranean sea-level rise resulting from African river runoff and overspill from both the Atlantic and Paratethys eventually reached the level of the Paratethys sill. A density contrast at this gateway caused dense Mediterranean waters to flow into the Paratethys, driving a compensatory return flow. This "pump" mechanism significantly enhanced Paratethyan inflow to the Mediterranean, creating suitable conditions for the Lago-mare fauna to migrate and thrive. When the Mediterranean sea level finally reached the height of the Gibraltar sill, Mediterranean outflow restarted there and enhanced exchange with the Atlantic Ocean. During this reorganization of the circulation, brackish and hypersaline waters were pumped out of the Mediterranean, and open-marine conditions were reestablished without major flooding of the basin at the Miocene-Pliocene boundary.


A New Mathematico-Physical and Information Theoretic Approach Examination of the available hard core information to firm up the process of unification of quantum and gravitational physics leads to the conclusion that for achieving this synthesis, major paradigm shifts are needed as also the answering of `What is Time?' The object of this submission is to point out the means of achieving such a grand synthesis. Currently the main pillars supporting the edifice of physics are: (i) The geometrical concepts of space- time-gravitation, (ii) The dynamic concepts involving quantum of action, (iii) Statistical thermodynamic concepts, heat and entropy, (iv) Mathematical concepts, tools and techniques serving both as a grand plan and the means of calculation and last but not least v)Controlled observation, pertinent experimentation as the final arbiter. In making major changes the author is following Dirac's dictum "....make changes without sacrificing the existing superstructure". It is shown that time can be treated as a parameter rather than an additional dimension. A new entity called "Ekon" having the properties of both space and momentum is introduced along with a space called "Chalachala". The requisite connection with Einstein's formulation and mathematical aperatus required have been formulated which is highly suited for the purpose. The primacy of the Plancks quantum of action and its representation geometrically as a twist is introduced. The practical and numerical estimates have been made and applied to evaluation of the gravitational constant in a a seperate submission "Estimations of gravitational constant from CMBR data".


Signal amplification methods were initially designed as an alternative to the target amplification technologies such as polymerase chain reaction (PCR) so as to minimize the possibility of contamination by target amplification products. Unlike target amplification, signal amplification methods (as defined herein) do not rely on enzymes for the amplification. Probe-based amplification techniques such as cleavage-based amplification (36) and rolling-circle amplification (1) rely on enzymes, and will not be covered in this chapter. Signal amplification increases or amplifies the signal generated from the probe molecule hybridized to the target nucleic acid sequence. The advantages of signal amplification methods include specific detection, dynamic range, ease-of-use, and reproducibility. To date these methods have met the challenge from advanced or automated target amplification methods such as real time PCR. Signal amplification technologies include hybrid capture (HC) and branched DNA (bDNA) assays (32, 33). The HC method was developed and marketed initially by Digene Corporation (Gaithersburg, MD) which was acquired by Qiagen (Valencia, CA) in 2007. The bDNA method was initially developed by Chiron (Emeryville, CA), marketed by Bayer Diagnostics (Emeryville, CA) which diagnostic division was acquired by Siemens (Tarrytown, NY) in 2006. Due to the growing demand for quick time to detection, automation, and multiplexing, the popularity of commercial signal amplification methods has declined in clinical virology laboratories.


An ACCA research report, Narrative reporting: analysts' perceptions of its value and relevance, was published in January 2008. The research considered analysts' views on five key elements of narrative reporting, including social and environmental disclosures. Due to the significant interests ACCA has in corporate transparency with regards to sustainability, this specific part of the research has been highlighted in this paper. The other parts of the research have been summarised only.


There is much concern about the long-tail of online political information that now competes with standard news content. Yet we know little about how successfully it does so, and why. From the 2008 US presidential campaign, I develop a rich, original meta-database to map the relationships between the top viral election videos (278 million views) and the known-universe of blogs that linked to them (13,000 links). Through a mixed-method analysis of both content and web metrics, I find that news videos compete with political, entertainment and citizen videos; journalism blogs also compete with political, entertainment, and lifestyle blogs to propagate these new genres of political information. By further analyzing the gatekeeping mechanisms between video and blog categories, I find that online audiences' civic information preferences help explain the rise of these new participatory political information genres, as well as the ways in which legacy media are struggling to adapt.


Introduction - The submission consists of six visual artist's book-works (1988-2009) that form the content of the landmark geographical visual art project, The Atlas of Emptiness and Extremity (1987- ). The accompanying essay describes the context, method and contributions of this immense sea-picture project.

Context - The Atlas photographs identify, examine and report on the seas surrounding us. The Atlas publications accentuate the visual immediacy of the individual site specific, mutually indexical experiences of singularly making sea-photographs in "the far field", and later, viewing these thematic picture-groups as a reader. The publications provide short locatory texts for each picture and basic background information into the adjoining cartographical, historical and cultural geographies particular to these remote places.

The Atlas publications probe the complacent visual vocabulary of traditional sea-pictures, challenging their customary pictorial conventions. The Atlas pictures declare the establishment of a recognisably new pictorial space within the sea-picture tradition. They develop an abstracted visual narrative to portray the abstract metaphorical human concerns around - extremity, the edge and emptiness.

Method - The Atlas Project requires a process of on going, far-distanced expeditionary, site specific, remote field exploration, to enable its picture-making goals. I organise the direction, purpose and content of all of these expeditions.

The methods employed are simple and strict. I only ever make one single, unique photograph from any site. I always use the same nineteenth century camera and lens. The precise placements of locational field events are layered into the photographs to ensure a convincing indexical picture space. The nuanced use of an extreme photographic grey-scale is built into the photographs at the negative exposure and darkroom printing stages. This extensive optical tonal-range physically provides The Atlas pictures with their intense pictorial surface densities and increases the sensation of their complex visual tactility. Most photographs are unable to, or incapable of, physically conveying these visual-emotional perceptions.

Every stage of the project is my original concept, work and the result of my own thought processes. The results of this effort are unique images made in remote places. Three of those places were newly charted and explored as the result of my expeditions.

Contributions - The interiorised pictorial approach developed for the entire Atlas restores compressed, complex indexical pictorial space to photographic depiction. The Atlas publications examine this space, and through it expand the notions of representation and expectation in outdoor photographs. The Atlas photographs speak to the improvisational opportunities available beyond the edge of representational certainly, determined in their new abilities to photographically heed the remote liminal territorial experiences close to this project. The publications propose and verify a new territorial form of terra incognita. The Atlas of Emptiness and Extremity provides the only visual geographical map of the imagination for this unexplored territory.

Conclusion - The Atlas of Emptiness and Extremity is one of the most inventive, geographically comprehensive, single-author analogue photographic fine art projects in the world today.


We consider the infiltration of a wetting fluid into a homogeneous porous medium and the formation of preferential flow paths with saturation overshoots. These are caused by dynamic capillary pressure effects which can be modeled by the rate‐dependent approach of Hassanizadeh and Gray. To track the overshoot wave numerically, we propose an extended Heterogeneous Multiscale Method. In the approach, the rate‐dependent model takes the role of a microscale model. The algorithm is applied to several infiltration problems.


Using store-level and aggregated Consumer Price Index data, we show that restaurant prices rise in response to minimum wage increases under several sources of identifying variation. We introduce a general model of employment determination that implies minimum wage hikes cause prices to rise in competitive labor markets but potentially fall in monopsonistic environments. Furthermore, the model implies employment and prices are always negatively related. Therefore, our empirical results provide evidence against the importance of monopsony power for understanding small observed employment responses to minimum wage changes. Our estimated price responses challenge other explanations of the small employment response, too.


Field research conducted in 2003 and 2004 evaluated hyperspectral radiometry as a tool to detect localized dry spots on creeping bentgrass (Agrostis stolonifera L.) putting greens. Discriminant analysis identified 14 wavebands between 861 and 887 nm that distinguished drought severity. An overall accuracy of 85% was achieved using these wavebands with low-stressed greens correctly classified 91%. High-stressed greens were correctly classified 100% of the time with individual wavebands between 905 and 992 nm using 2003 data as a training model to cross-validate 2004 data. These results suggest these individual wavebands are highly sensitive to early season drought-stress in creeping bentgrass greens and could be considered a more stable portion of the spectrum over time concerning high-stressed creeping bentgrass putting greens. A significant relationship (p = 0.034) was established between average reflectance values of wavebands between 1480 and 1530 nm and volumetric soil water content (VWC). Although not highly correlated, this relationship demonstrated that as VWC increased, reflectance decreased. Data collected in late spring/early summer may be the optimal time to detect areas of putting greens most susceptible to drought stress before unfavorable growth conditions occur.


Nucleus is composed of uncharged neutrons and charged protons, chiefly given the fact that the electrostatic repulsion of the protons tends to disrupt the nucleus? What is the nature of forces that ensure stability between charged and uncharged particles in the nucleus? Attempts have been made to solve this problem both on the experimental and theoretical sides. In this article, a brief statement of these investigations is described. Search for the causes of stability of nuclei have been made in the following four directions, Relative abundance of elements as well as of isotopes that occur in nature, the binding energy per nucleon curve, Decay constant of natural radioactive substances, Magic numbers. Keywords: Uncharged neutrons; Charged and uncharged particles; Nuclei The Himalayan Physics Vol.2, No.2, May, 2011 Page: 61-64 Uploaded Date : 1 August, 2011


The literature on policy convergence has identified numerous aspects and possible causal drivers of convergence. We classify and condense these into a comprehensive framework, which is operationalized for support policies for renewable energy sources in the EU. Our analysis advances the conceptual discussion in two ways. First, we demonstrate that conceptual specifications of convergence (e.g., whether to focus on policy targets, instrument design or policy outcomes) rely on normative assumptions. Second, we argue that theories of economic and political convergence processes complement each other: studies of economic convergence are apolitical as they do not aim to explain why states choose or should choose the same policies to solve a given problem. At the same time, economic convergence yields a necessary condition for successful policy convergence. The empirical evidence, in turn, suggests conditional convergence of support policies and renewables shares in the EU, but does not hint at absolute convergence.


This paper assesses the value of using artificial neural networks in the analysis of clinical and experimental prognostic factors and in the prediction of response to treatment and outcome in prostate cancer. 38 patients are considered in this study. The investigation includes a number of established and experimental factors with 3 clinical outcomes: (a) no response to initial treatment, (b) disease relapse and progression, and (c) sustained complete response to treatment. An overall classification rate of 89.5% is achieved together with equally high sensitivity and specificity rates.


We derive a formula for the expected number of blocks of a given size from a non-crossing partition chosen uniformly at random. Moreover, we refine this result subject to the restriction of having a number of blocks given. Furthermore, we generalize to $k$-divisible partitions. In particular, we find that, asymptotically, the expected number of blocks of size $t$ of a $k$-divisible non-crossing partition of $nk$ elements chosen uniformly at random is $\frac{kn+1}{(k+1)^{t+1}}$. Similar results are obtained for type $B$ and type $D$ non-crossing partitions of Armstrong.


Energy losses from forced air distribution systems have a significant impact on the energy efficiency of buildings. Little work has been done to quantify these losses in apartment buildings. In this paper the authors will discuss field measurements made on four forced air heating systems to evaluate the duct system energy losses to unconditioned basements. The apartments were heated by natural gas furnaces located in the basements. The systems had bare sheet metal ductwork exposed to the basement conditions. The pre-retrofit measurements were made on the systems after sealing large easily visible leaks. The post-retrofit measurements were made after wrapping the ducts in foil backed glass fiber insulation and additional leak sealing. Only the sections of duct exposed to the basement were retrofitted because only these sections were accessible. This study examines the potential energy savings for this type of limited retrofit. The energy losses were separated into leakage and conduction terms. Leakage measurements were made using register flowhood techniques. Conduction losses were estimated by measuring temperatures in the plenums and at the registers. Analysis of the measurements has shown typical reduction in leakage flow due to duct sealing of about 40%. The reduction in leakage translated into a reduction in energy consumption of about 10%.


This chapter covers recent advances in the development of nanostructure-based material technologies to benefit next-generation electro-optical (EO) and infrared (IR) sensor and imager applications. Nanostructured materials can now be integrated into a variety of technological platforms, offering novel optoelectrical properties that greatly enhance device performance in many practical applications. Use of novel carbon nanotube (CNT) based materials has enabled new approaches for applying nanostructure design methodologies that can offer enhanced performance for low-cost bolometers for IR detection and imaging applications. We will discuss the development of carbon nanostructure based infrared detectors and arrays, including concepts that will provide high performance, high frame rate, and uncooled microbolometers for mid-wave infrared (MWIR) and long-wave infrared (LWIR) band detection. In addition, nanostructured antireflection (AR) coatings are being developed that significantly enhance transmission over a broad spectrum, providing substantial improvements in device performance compared to conven-tional thin film AR coatings. These nanostructured AR coatings have been demonstrated over visible to LWIR spectral bands on various substrates. In this chapter, we discuss both theoretical and measured results of these diverse nanostructure technologies to advance sensing performance over a wide range of spectral bands for defense, space, and commercial applications.


Human beings are not model epistemic citizens. Our reasoning can be careless and uncritical, and our beliefs, desires, and other attitudes aren't always as they ought rationally to be. Our beliefs can be eccentric, our desires irrational and our hopes hopelessly unrealistic. Our attitudes are influenced by a wide range of non-epistemic or non-rational factors, including our character, our emotions and powerful unconscious biases. Yet we are rarely conscious of such influences. Self-ignorance is not something to which human beings are immune.

In this book Quassim Cassam develops an account of self-knowledge which tries to do justice to these and other respects in which humans aren't model epistemic citizens. He rejects rationalist and other mainstream philosophical accounts of self-knowledge on the grounds that, in more than one sense, they aren't accounts of self-knowledge for humans. Instead he defends the view that inferences from behavioural and psychological evidence are a basic source of human self-knowledge. On this account, self-knowledge is a genuine cognitive achievement and self-ignorance is almost always on the cards.

As well as explaining knowledge of our own states of mind, Cassam also accounts for what he calls 'substantial' self-knowledge, including knowledge of our values, emotions, and character. He criticizes philosophical accounts of self-knowledge for neglecting substantial self-knowledge, and concludes with a discussion of the value of self-knowledge.

This book tries to do for philosophy what behavioural economics tries to do for economics. Just as behavioural economics is the economics of homo sapiens, as distinct from the economics of an ideally rational homo economicus, so Cassam argues that philosophy should focus on the human predicament rather on the reasoning and self-knowledge of an idealized homo philosophicus.


This study analyses whether the role of religion for employment of married women in Europe has changed over time and along women's life cycles. Using information on 44'000 married European women from the World Values Survey 1981-2013, we find that in OECD-Europe there is little difference among women of any age since 1997. For non-OECD-Europe, we find differences by religion among young women, but not among those older than 40 years, which we attribute to an upbringing under communist regimes. Only Muslim women show a lower employment probability that persists across time, regions, and life cycles.


Facial expression and action units (AUs) represent two levels of descriptions of the facial behavior. Due to the underlying facial anatomy and the need to form a meaningful coherent expression, they are strongly correlated. This paper proposes to systematically capture their dependencies and incorporate them into a deep learning framework for joint facial expression recognition and action unit detection. Specifically, we first propose a constraint optimization method to encode the generic knowledge on expression-AUs probabilistic dependencies into a Bayesian Network (BN). The BN is then integrated into a deep learning framework as a weak supervision for an AU detection model. A data-driven facial expression recognition(FER) model is then constructed from data. Finally, the FER model and AU detection model are trained jointly to refine their learning. Evaluations on benchmark datasets demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed knowledge integration in improving the performance of both the FER model and the AU detection model. The proposed AU detection model is demonstrated to be able to achieve competitive performance without AU annotations. Furthermore, the proposed Bayesian Network capturing the generic knowledge is demonstrated to generalize well to different datasets.


Economic growth may involve change, but there can be change without economic growth insofar as outputs of some products or employment in some regions or industries grows while there are equal decreases elsewhere. National accounts data do not reveal such shifts, yet they may involve investment and disinvestment, require the acquisition of new skills and cause changes in the location of economic activities. Some simple examples are provided, demonstrating that the rate of growth and the pace of change are by no means perfectly correlated. Hence separate measures of change are required if we are to understand what is happening in the economy.


In many practical situations encountered in industries, there is incomplete knowledge of material properties, boundary conditions, and sources for a given material/manufacturing process. However, process monitors such as thermocouples are typically used to measure temperature evolution in certain locations to bridge the resulting gaps. Spatial gradients of temperature are needed to predict required quantities such as internal stresses developed during the process. The temperature measurements are typically performed on a coarse grid. Computation of stresses needs temperatures on a much finer grid for a more precise estimation of spatial gradients. Usually bilinear and/or weighted interpolation techniques are used to improve the spatial resolution of temperatures. However, in the cases where there are strong exothermic and/or endothermic reactions occurring during the process, such interpolation techniques are error-prone. Using more thermocouples to measure temperature on finer grid would be an easy solution. However, such measurement is intrusive as well as perturbing in addition to increasing the cost of data acquisition. The mapping of temperatures from coarser grid to finer grid is an ill-posed problem. In addition to the spatial distribution temperatures, the thermocouple measurements also contain valuable temporal information in the form of derivatives. This additional information of temporal derivatives helps in improving the conditioning of the apparently ill-posed problem. The objective of this project is to develop an algorithm/procedure for mapping temperatures from coarse grid to a finer grid recognizing as well as the valuable temporal information in the corresponding derivatives.


On Wall Street, in the culture of high tech, in American government: Libertarianism--the simple but radical idea that the only purpose of government is to protect its citizens and their property against direct violence and threat-- has become an extremely influential strain of thought. But while many books talk about libertarian ideas, none until now has explored the history of this uniquely American movement--where and who it came from, how it evolved, and what impact it has had on our country. In this revelatory book, based on original research and interviews with more than 100 key sources, Brian Doherty traces the evolution of the movement through the unconventional life stories of its most influential leaders-- Ludwig von Mises, F.A. Hayek, Ayn Rand, Murray Rothbard, and Milton Friedman--and through the personal battles, character flaws, love affairs, and historical events that altered its course. And by doing so, he provides a fascinating new perspective on American history--from the New Deal through the culture wars of the 1960s to today's most divisive political issues. Neither an expose nor a political polemic, this entertaining historical narrative will enlighten anyone interested in American politics.


Out-of-pocket (OOP) financing of health care leaves households exposed to the risk of unforeseen expenditures that absorb a large share of the household budget. We explain variation in the incidence of catastrophic medical expenditures across households in six Asian countries/territories. Except in India and Sri Lanka, larger households are more likely to incur catastrophic payments. The incidence is higher in rural areas and lower among households with a sanitary toilet and safe drinking water. Household total consumption is positively correlated with the incidence of catastrophic payments. We distinguish between effects through the mean and the variance of the OOP budget share by estimating a linear regression model with multiplicative heteroscedasticity. Total consumption is positively correlated with the variance of the OOP budget share. The direction of the mean effect differs across countries. We consistently reject exogeneity of total consumption. Correcting for endogeneity generally reduces the magnitude of the coefficient on total consumption and leaves it insignificant. One interpretation is that households finance health payments from savings, borrowing and assets sales resulting in a rise both in total household expenditure and its health care share.


The Internet has become an integral part of business activities of most corporations today. Electronic supply chain management (SCM) can improve the operational efficiency of the firm by streamlining processes between the company and its suppliers, business partners, and customers. This research explores the extent and the degree of Internet application in Swedish small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The analyses of the data show that the Swedish SMEs use the Internet in their supply chain activities to a large degree. The study establishes some differences between smaller and larger organizations as well as between manufacturing and service companies.


Currently, the Russian government has announced the creation of 9 tourism and recreational zones, which have preferential taxation and are designed to develop domestic and foreign tourism. The paper considers the prospects for the development of the Baikal region concerning Special economic zone of tourism and recreation "Baikal Harbour". The complex approach was used which included the variety of methods such as landscape and geochemical research, the study of contemporary environmental situation in order to assess the prospects for the development of recreation and nature protection. To assess the prospects for the region development as the local population see them the sociological survey was carried out. The SWOT-analysis revealed the positive and negative factors of territory development. To meet the priorities of socio-economic development of the Republic of Buryatia it is optimal to encourage the growth of Special economic zone "Baikal Harbour". The impact of this zone is believed to be nonthreatening in comparison with unorganised tourism. The diversity of tourism and entertainment creates the necessary conditions for the efficient spending of tourists having a rest in the resort, and provides cash flow, allowing compensate all the investments in basic facilities and tourist infrastructure.


Reversible or information-lossless circuits have applications in digital signal processing, communication, computer graphics and cryptography. They are also a fundamental requirement in the emerging field of quantum computation. We investigate the synthesis of reversible circuits that employ a minimum number of gates and contain no redundant input-output line-pairs (temporary storage channels). We prove constructively that every even permutation can be implemented without temporary storage using NOT, CNOT and TOFFOLI gates. We describe an algorithm for the synthesis of optimal circuits and study the reversible functions on three wires, reporting distributions of circuit sizes. Finally, in an application important to quantum computing, we synthesize oracle circuits for Grover's search algorithm, and show a significant improvement over a previously proposed synthesis algorithm.


In this paper, the physico-chemical stabilization method of electrical power plant fly ash of the Province of Lodz in central Poland was studied. The chemical composition and leachability of metals were determined in the investigated samples. The ashes were vitrified in a thermal plasma process and their chemical stability was tested to determine whether the ashes can be disposed safely into the environment, specifically onto surface soil. The heavy metal leachability tests proved that the products after vitrification were more stable than non-vitrified waste making it more suitable for disposal into the environment.


ABSTRACT This paper adds new empirical evidence on the mutual relationships between credit constraints, total factor productivity, Research and Development (R&D) investments and exporting, by jointly considering them in a simultaneous equation framework. Our empirical analysis focuses on a large sample of manufacturing firms from France, Germany, Italy and Spain. Our results confirm the well-known mutual positive correlation among exporting, R&D and firm's productivity. They also show the existence of a mutual relationship between exporting, productivity and credit constraints: exporters and high productivity firms are less likely to be credit constrained, while better access to credit is associated with larger productivity and a higher probability of exporting. By contrast, we find no significant relation between investing in R&D and the probability to be credit constrained, conditional on exporting. This suggests that efficiency-improving strategies, mediated by the existence of credit constraints, are at the core of firm growth achieved through exporting and innovation.


To provide ancillary services in HVDC applications, modular multilevel converters (MMCs) with integration of energy storage systems are a promising solution as they take advantage of the modularity and the controllability of the stored energy. In these solutions, an energy storage system is connected to the DC capacitor of a submodule (SM) to make an energy storage submodule (ES-SM). An MMC with partial integration (MMC-PIES) is an MMC with each arm made of a mix of SMs and ES-SMs. In this paper, we propose a novel design methodology for these converters considering they are built based on existing prebuilt submodules, while design methodologies in the literature consider the SM and ES-SM characteristics to be degrees of freedom. Therefore, the proposed approach is closer to an industrial standpoint and computes the minimum number of ES-SMs to comply with requirements. We also include a new optimization method for the circulating currents needed to balance the energy in the SM and ES-SM capacitors. Design scenarios are presented. The results show that the value of the DC capacitance and the current limitation of the switches highly influence the design, restricting the possible operating points. In addition, half-bridge ES-SMs seem to be a more promising solution than full-bridge ES-SMs, reducing the number of ES-SMs.


The long term contribution of forests to the livelihoods of the rural poor had been long appreciated. More than half of Africa's fast-growing population rely directly and indirectly on forests for their livelihoods. As the continent faces stresses from poverty and economic development, another major uncertainty is looming that could alter many of the relationships between people and forests. This uncertainty is climate change. Climate impacts such as changes in temperature and rainfall patterns resulting in drought, flooding, all exert significant effect on forest ecosystems and their provision of goods and services, which form the safety nets for many African rural poor. Building adaptation strategies becomes an option for forest-dependent households and communities, and even countries whose economies largely depend on the related sectors. The review details cases of impacts, underlying causes of vulnerability, and identified coping and adaptation strategies, as reported in their National Communications by many African countries to the United Nations Framework Convention for Climate Change.


Abstract Background. Silent peptic ulcer has been considered to be associated with nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID). The recent studies have reported no relationship between them. Aim. We attempted to investigate an association between asymptomatic peptic ulcer and NSAID in Korean adults. Methods. The subjects were enrolled from participants visiting Myongji Hospital for health examination program of the Korean National Health Insurance Corporation. The questionnaires were designed to investigate individual medical information and gastroduodenal symptoms. Results. From May 2005 to March 2009, 5459 participants were enrolled and 299 participants were excluded. Of 5160 participants, 3144 (60.9%) participants were asymptomatic and 424 (8.2%) participants had peptic ulcer. Among 3144 asymptomatic participants, NSAID-taking participants had the odds ratio of 1.4 [95% confidence interval (CI): 0.7–2.6, p = 0.339] for the risk of peptic ulcer. Among 424 peptic ulcer patients, 247 (58.3%) were asymptomatic. They had lower prevalence of NSAID use (4.9% vs. 14.7%). The asymptomatic gastric ulcer patients had smaller size and more frequent healing stage than the symptomatic gastric ulcer patients. In multivariable analysis of 424 peptic ulcer patients, NSAID patients had the odds ratio of 0.249 (95%CI: 0.115–0.536, p < 0.05) for asymptomatic peptic ulcer. In subgroup analysis of 284 gastric ulcer patients, NSAID-taking patients had the odds ratio of 0.263 (95% CI: 0.105–0.657, p = 0.004) for asymptomatic peptic ulcer. Conclusion. NSAID has an inverse association with asymptomatic patients with gastric peptic ulcer, but has no association with gastroduodenal symptoms in duodenal ulcer patients. These suggest that NSAID may be associated with gastroduodenal symptoms rather than masking symptoms, at least in gastric ulcer patients.


The continuous advancement of mobile technologies offers an opportunity for mobile carriers and banks to offer mobile banking services. However, such convergence of services from mobile carriers and banks raises many complex issues, particularly because it requires alliances among the actors who have different and sometimes conflicting interests. Using the mobile banking sector in Korea, this paper examines how the alliances between mobile carriers, banks, and other related parties are formed, and analyzes how technology affects competition and collaboration among them when a new convergence service is created by two, previously unrelated industries, in this case, by banks and mobile carriers. In so doing, we use the actor– network theory (ANT). As ANT helps analyze how actors form alliances and enroll other actors including nonhuman actors (i.e., technology) to secure their interests through the use of the technology, there is a fit between ANT and the emergence of new, converged services. This paper shows that it is technology that shapes the actor–network of convergence services, and that competition between banks and mobile carriers in mobile banking is about how to inscribe their interests in a given technology and thereby who can translate customers into their own network.


Despite the rich biodiversity of plants in the islands of southeast Asia, modern pollen reference collections are still sparse for this part of the world. With only limited availability of pollen data, the ability to answer questions, regarding climate change and environmental change, to aid archaeological investigations through the reconstruction of past vegetation, or even for modern investigations, is challenging. No palynological work had ever been carried out in the Kelabit Highlands of Sarawak, Malaysian Borneo, before this investigation. During 2007–2008, as part of the 'Cultured Rainforest Project', a number of cores were extracted for multi-proxy palaeoecological analysis, including pollen analysis. The cores produced a 50,000-year record of climate, environmental and later anthropogenic change. To aid fossil pollen identification, a modern pollen reference collection was also established. In August 2008, 253 modern plant species from a wide range of habitats were collected from in and around the villages of Bario and Pa'Dalih. Specimens were identified at the Department of Forestry Sarawak Herbarium (SAR), whilst pollen slides from all of the plant specimens were prepared at Queens University Belfast. This paper presents a detailed account of the pollen grains (176 species) collected from the Kelabit Highlands, and from SAR (25 species).


American Indians remain familiar as icons, yet poorly understood as historical agents. In this ambitious book that ranges across Utah, Nevada, New Mexico, Colorado and eastern California (a region known as the Great Basin), Ned Blackhawk places Native peoples squarely at the centre of a dynamic and complex story as he chronicles two centuries of Indian and imperial history that profoundly shaped the American West. On the distant margins of empire, Great Basin Indians increasingly found themselves engulfed in the chaotic storms of European expansion and responded in ways that refashioned themselves and those around them. Focusing on Ute, Paiute and Shoshone Indians, Blackhawk illuminates this history through a lens of violence, excavating the myriad impacts of colonial expansion. Brutal networks of trade and slavery forged the Spanish borderlands, and the use of violence became for many Indians a necessary survival strategy, particularly after Mexican Independence when many became raiders and slave traffickers. Throughout such violent processes, these Native communities struggled to adapt to their changing environments, sometimes scoring remarkable political ends while suffering immense reprisals. "Violence over the Land" is a passionate reminder of the high costs that the making of American history occasioned for many indigenous peoples, written from the vantage point of an Indian scholar whose own family history is intimately bound up in its enduring legacies.


Scientists have long speculated that one of the functions of sleep is to restore and repair the brain, but whether this is a "core" purpose of sleep remains controversial. Now, a paper published in Science this week on page [373][1] provides direct experimental evidence that the mouse brain cleans itself during sleep, by expanding channels between neurons that allow an influx of cerebrospinal fluid. The fluid flushes out detritus such as amyloid proteins, which accumulate as plaques in Alzheimer's disease, twice as fast when mice are sleeping as when they are awake.

 [1]: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/342/6156/373.abstract


The body size of the organisms represents an important parameter, which may have consequences on their ecology, reproductive activities, evolution and development. Allometry relationship is the study of the size (or growth) of a body part in relation to the final size (or growth) of the organism. This study analyzed the allometric relationships between females of Podocnemis unifilis (Troschel, 1848), their eggs and hatchlings, and between nest features and the clutch in the flooded forest portion (varzea) of lower Amazon River, Santarem, state of Para, Brazil. Podocnemis unifilis clutches' were monitored in the Tabuleiro da Agua Preta during the reproductive cycle of 2009. The females found nesting were measured and the physical features of the nests were measured, and the latter were also marked with numbered stakes. The eggs and hatchlings of these nests were removed and counted, and their biometry was performed. The female parameters analyzed (straight-line carapace length and mass) were correlated with almost all the egg and hatchling variables, with the exception of the egg length and the hatchling mass. Future studies directed to the better understanding of how the environmental features influence nest features can be applied, being useful for more effective applications of management actions for the species.


This week's articles highlight a lipokine that limits atherosclerosis, biomaterials for bone regeneration, and a cytokine associated with malaria pathogenesis. ATHEROSCLEROSIS Artery-saving fat A bioactive lipokine promotes metabolic resilience of organelles and limits the progression of atherosclerosis. I. Çimen, B. Kocatürk, S. Koyuncu, Ö. Tufanlı, U. I. Onat, A. D. Yıldırım, O. Apaydın, Ş. Demirsoy, Z. G. Aykut, U. T. Nguyen, S. M. Watkins, G. S. Hotamışlıgil, E. Erbay, Prevention of atherosclerosis by bioactive palmitoleate through suppression of organelle stress and inflammasome activation. Sci. Transl. Med. 8, 358ra126 (2016). [Abstract] BIOMATERIALS Building better bones A new, mechanically elastic biomaterial can be custom 3D-printed, is surgically friendly, and promotes robust bone regeneration. A. E. Jakus, A. L. Rutz, S. W. Jordan, A. Kannan, S. M. Mitchell, C. Yun, K. D. Koube, S. C. Yoo, H. E. Whiteley, C.-P. Richter, R. D. Galiano, W. K. Hsu, S. R. Stock, E. L. Hsu, R. N. Shah, Hyperelastic "bone": A highly versatile, growth factor–free, osteoregenerative, scalable, and surgically friendly biomaterial. Sci. Transl. Med. 8, 358ra127 (2016). [Abstract] MALARIA Bolstering the host to beat malaria Angiopoietin-1 is dysregulated in pediatric severe malaria, and targeting it prevents vascular dysfunction and death in a mouse model of cerebral malaria. S. J. Higgins, L. A. Purcell, K. L. Silver, V. Tran, V. Crowley, M. Hawkes, A. L. Conroy, R. O. Opoka, J. G. Hay, S. E. Quaggin, G. Thurston, W. C. Liles, K. C. Kain, Dysregulation of angiopoietin-1 plays a mechanistic role in the pathogenesis of cerebral malaria. Sci. Transl. Med. 8, 358ra128 (2016). [Abstract]


Accounting provides a fundamental underpinning for capital markets, and the worldwide spread of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) marks one of the most advanced attempts to develop globally consistent financial rules.

The financial crisis has generated heated debate on the economic role of fair-value accounting and other IFRS principles. Underlying these controversies are differing views about the mission and governance of accounting standard-setters, and how standards interact with other public policy instruments. Choices are made more difficult by the absence of relevant precedents for the unique institutional features of the global standard-setting organisation, the IFRS Foundation.


This Comment discusses the recent growth in prevalence of online social networks ('OSNs') in both personal and commercial contexts and, given the novelty and breadth of current issues surrounding OSNs, focuses analysis on problems that arise when attempting to locate a home for claims involving OSNs within the current Illinois publicity statute, the Illinois Right of Publicity Act. Of the thirty states that recognize the right of an individual to recover damages for the appropriation of his identity, Illinois is one of nineteen states to codify these rights by statute and adopts the majority view - extending protection to individuals without regard to their celebrity status.Due to the pervasive nature of the media as emphasized throughout this Comment, the inevitable correlating rise in OSN-related litigation evidences the increasing significance of the issues raised. Most of these issues involve the implication of user publicity or privacy rights stemming from the exploitation or appropriation of a user's online identity. While this is especially true when the user is a celebrity, this Comment provides an extensive analysis concerning the role OSNs play in the creation of a new breed of celebrity borne not of traditional media, but of an entirely novel form pioneered by OSNs. It argues that by providing a convenient interface and expansive network to share and communicate a digital persona to the public is in many ways beneficial, from a commercial standpoint, OSNs represent a highly viable medium enabling ready access to a highly vulnerable 'cyber-captive' audience. Further, this Comment argues the extensive potential scope of such claims beckons the need for the Illinois court system to address the unique issues raised, particularly those involving a right of publicity based on the digital persona as a non-traditional notion of celebrity. This Comment provides an in-depth analysis of the 2011 Illinois case Maremont v. Fredman Design Group where an individual alleged damage to her publicity right under the Illinois Right of Publicity Act stemming from unauthorized postings to the individual's OSN pages. A discussion of several tests applied by courts around the United States as well as to the definition of the right of publicity in Illinois exposes many issues of significance yet to be tackled by the Illinois court system or recognized within the current Illinois statute. The Comment concludes arguing that, in limited circumstance, Illinois should recognize a digital right of publicity and proffers a tailored statutory revision incorporating a two-part analysis to be applied to claims implicating this right.


By exploiting our recently derived exact formula for the Lindhard polarization function in the presence of Bychkov-Rashba (BR) and Dresselhaus (D) spin-orbit interaction (SOI), we show that the interplay of different SOI mechanisms induces highly anisotropic modifications of the static dielectric function. We find that under certain circumstances the polarization function exhibits doubly singular behavior. It leads to an intriguing phenomenon, beating of Friedel oscillations, which can be controlled by external fields. This effect is a general feature of systems with BR+D SOI and should be observed in structures with a sufficiently strong SOI.


A large number of benefits achieved through the successful implementation of Six Sigma programmes in different industries have been documented. However, very little research has been conducted on their applications in the shipping sector, especially in the Onshore Service Functions (OSFs) of shipping companies. Literature shows that heavy human involvement in the service industries such as shipping leads to a high volume of uncertainties which are difficult to be correctly and effectively measured or managed by simply using the traditional data analysis and statistical methods in Six Sigma. The aim of this study is to develop new quantitative analytical methodologies to enable the application and implementation of Six Sigma to improve the service quality of OSFs in shipping companies. Intensive investigations on the feasibility and effectiveness of the developed new methods and models through case studies in world leading container ship lines and shipping management companies have been carried out to ensure the achievement of the aim.This study firstly reviews the evolvement of quality control and some typical methods in the area, the development of Six Sigma, its tools and current applications, especially in the service industries. It is followed by a new framework of the Six Sigma implementation in the OSFs of shipping companies which is supported by a few real process excellence projects carried out in a world-leading ship line. In the process of the framework development, various issues and challenges appear largely due to the existence of uncertainties in data such as ambiguity and incompleteness caused by extensive subjective judgements. Advanced methods and models are developed to tackle the above challenges as well as complement the traditional Six Sigma tools so that the new Six Sigma methodologies can be confidently applied in situations where uncertainties in data exist at different levels.A new fuzzy Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to an Ideal Solution ii(TOPSIS) method is developed by combining the traditional TOPSIS, fuzzy numbers and interval approximation sets to facilitate the effective selection of Six Sigma projects and achieve the optimal use of resources towards the company objectives. A revised Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA) model is proposed in the "Analyse" step in Six Sigma to improve the capability of classical FMEA in failure identification in service industries. The new FMEA model uses the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) and Fuzzy Bayesian Reasoning (FBR) approaches to increase the accuracy of failure identification while not compromising the easiness and visibility of the Risk Priority Number (RPN) method. Decision Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL) and Analytical Network Process (ANP) methods are incorporated with Fuzzy logic and Evidential Reasoning (ER), for the very first time to generate a Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) management method where the weights of indicators are rationally assigned by considering the interdependency among the indicators. Incomplete and fuzzy evaluations of the KPIs are synthesised in a rational way to achieve a compatible and comparable result.It is concluded that the newly developed Six Sigma framework together with its supporting quantitative analytical models has made significant contribution to facilitate the quality control and process improvement in shipping companies. It has been strongly evidenced by the success of the applications of the new models in real cases. The financial gains and continuous benefits produced in the investigated shipping companies have attracted a wider range of interests from different service industries. It is therefore believed that this work will have a high potential to be tailored for a wide range of applications across sectors and industries when the uncertainties in data exceed the ability that the classical Six Sigma tools and methods possess.


Live attenuated infectious bronchitis viruses (IBV) are routinely used by the poultry industry to control against outbreaks and to prevent infections. These viruses which are adapted to grow in embryonated chicken eggs contain a mixed viral population known as quasispecies. We sequenced the spike gene of the viruses obtained from Massachusetts (Mass), Connecticut (Conn), Arkansas (Ark-DPI), Georgia (GA98) and Delaware (DE072) vaccine vials and also from chickens infected with the same vaccine virus to study the dynamics of IBV vaccine genetic adaptation and selection in their host. We identified the unique spike gene sequence contained in reisolated vaccine viruses, which showed that modified live IBV vaccines contain subpopulations that undergo selection and mutation in chickens following vaccination. Using this data we were able to distinguish infectious bronchitis vaccine viruses circulating in the field from true field viruses.
Coronaviruses have a diverse genetic makeup and are known to evolve very rapidly by accumulating genetic changes from nucleotide mutations, insertions and deletions and also through recombination events between viral genomes. In order to better understand genetic diversity and evolutionary rates in coronaviruses we sequenced the entire genome of eleven IB field viruses of serotypes Mass, Conn and California (Cal), isolated over a 40, 25 and 8 year period respectively. We examined molecular changes to determine how rapidly IBV evolves and if recombinations occur. Our data revealed that the viruses were evolving at evolutionary rates that ranged from 10-2 to 10-6 substitutions/site/year. Molecular evidence also revealed that the Mass and Conn viruses that are routinely used by Poultry producers in vaccination programs did not accumulate changes while the Cal viruses for which no vaccine exists, had the highest evolutionary trends. Phylogenetic analysis also revealed that Mass and Conn field viruses grouped with reisolated vaccine viruses and that multiple recombinations occurred between vaccine virus and an unknown number of field or vaccine viruses.
This data is significant because it highlights the risk of examining viral evolution in the face of vaccination. Identifying sequence changes that occur when IBV replicate in a new host and changes in viruses isolated over a long period of time is biologically significant because it will broaden our knowledge of the evolutionary rate of coronavirus evolution.


Background: Body shape concerns among adolescents are gradually increasing in India. What was initially thought of as a western concept is now being increasingly seen in India as well. Possibly the result of advent of media and globalization. Although research on this issue and factors influencing it are emerging in Asian countries including India,(1) the evidence is markedly deficient.
Methodology: The Study was conducted among engineering, degree and medical college first year students in Khammam. Study sample comprised of 260 students, out of which there were 99 engineering, 81 degree and 80 MBBS first year college students. Body shape concern was measured by Body Shape Questionnaire. Self-esteem by Revised Feelings of Self Inadequacy scale and social anxiety was measured by Interaction Anxiousness Scale.
Results: The main findings of the present study were that, there was a significant negative correlation of body shape concern and self-esteem and a significant negative correlation between self-esteem and social anxiety. There was a significant positive correlation between body shape concern and social anxiety. Body shape concern is more in females than in males (mean BSQ score in females=80.73 and in males=67.02). There was a significant difference of three variables when viewed in regard to different BMI levels namely under, normal and overweight.
Conclusion: Current study has demonstrated that there is a relationship between body image, feelings of self-esteem and social anxiety.

Keywords: social anxiety, self-esteem, body shape concern, BMI.


The aim of this study was to compare the anthropometric and physical fitness characteristics of the different playing positions in adolescent soccer players. Furthermore, differences among playing ages (under 14, under 16, and under 18 years) were determined. One hundred and sixty-seven young male national level soccer players were tested on anthropometric characteristics and physical performance tests (30 m sprint, ball kicking, overhead medicine ball throw, and countermovement jump). The results demonstrated differences in anthropometric characteristics between positions (p < 0.05). Differences were also found in the physical performance tests; forwards performed better in the throwing, countermovement jump, and sprint tests than defenders. Midfielders demonstrated greater countermovement jump performances than right defenders. Our results highlight that there is an influence of playing position on the anthropometric and physical qualities in adolescent players. This emphasizes the importance of evaluating the physical profile of players and their development according to playing age and playing position.


Education in any nation and to individuals within it is very important because education remains a valuable tool for fighting ignorance, disease, squalor and poverty. It is a means to raising enlightened citizenry who will help in bringing about a prosperous nation. Adult education is therefore not to be neglected as it had been in the past as its focus is to get adult (who had never been to school before or those who could not further their education because of one challenge or the other) to learn and through learning, change their attitudes and behaviours with the hope that this process of change will affect not only individuals positively but also the nation. It is in this light of the importance of adult education, that this paper gives on overview of the various challenges facing adult education and to seek solutions to such. Such challenges include long years of neglect by the government, perception of people about adult education, teaching methods and facilitators, funding and the problems facing adult learners themselves. The list cannot be exhausted. Making frantic efforts to provide well equipped adult education centres, well trained facilitators, funding the programmes of adult education adequately and adult learner's willingness to participate in programmes that would develop them and the communities in which they live will definitely bring progress to adult education. Keywords: Education, development, self-reliance, change, participate.


Abstract Environmental heterogeneity largely dictates the spatial distributions of parasites and therefore the susceptibility to infection of host populations. We surveyed avian malaria infections in Rufous-collared sparrows (Zonotrichia capensis) across replicated altitudinal and latitudinal transects along the western slope of the Peruvian Andes to assess geographic patterns of prevalence. We found malaria infection prevalence peaked at midelevations along all 3 altitudinal transects (x̄ ≈ 2,733 m), with highest overall prevalence observed in the northern transect. We observed low levels of malarial parasite diversity, with 94% of infected birds carrying a single Haemoproteus (subgenus Parahaemoproteus) strain. The remaining infected birds harbored either a single alternate Haemoproteus or 1 of 2 Plasmodium strains. Our data suggest that temperature and precipitation are the primary drivers of the spatial patterns in avian malaria prevalence along the western slope of the Andes.


The potential threat of the smallpox virus as a bioterror weapon has long been recognized, and the need for developing suitable countermeasures has become especially acute following the events of September 2001. Traditional antiviral agents interfere with viral proteins or functions. In a new study, Yang et al. focus instead on host cellular pathways used by the virus. A drug that interferes with the cellular ErbB-1 signal transduction pathway, activated by smallpox growth factor, sheds new light on how the virus replicates in the cell. Drugs that target the ErbB-signaling pathways represent a promising new class of antiviral agents.


A multispectral scanning spectrometer was used to obtain measurements of the bidirectional reflectance and brightness temperature of clouds, sea ice, snow, and tundra surfaces at 50 discrete wavelengths between 0.47 and 14.0 mm. These observations were obtained from the NASA ER-2 aircraft as part of the First ISCCP (International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project) Regional Experiment (FIRE) Arctic Clouds Experiment, conducted over a 1600 km 3 500 km region of the north slope of Alaska and surrounding Beaufort and Chukchi Seas between 18 May and 6 June 1998. Multispectral images in eight distinct bands of the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) Airborne Simulator (MAS) were used to derive a confidence in clear sky (or alternatively the probability of cloud) over five different ecosystems. Based on the results of individual tests run as part of this cloud mask, an algorithm was developed to estimate the phase of the clouds (liquid water, ice, or undetermined phase). Finally, the cloud optical thickness and effective radius were derived for both water and ice clouds that were detected during one flight line on 4 June. This analysis shows that the cloud mask developed for operational use on MODIS, and tested using MAS data in Alaska, is quite capable of distinguishing clouds from bright sea ice surfaces during daytime conditions in the high Arctic. Results of individual tests, however, make it difficult to distinguish ice clouds over snow and sea ice surfaces, so additional tests were added to enhance the confidence in the thermodynamic phase of clouds over the Chukchi Sea. The cloud optical thickness and effective radius retrievals used three distinct bands of the MAS, with a recently developed 1.62- and 2.13-mm-band algorithm being used quite successfully over snow and sea ice surfaces. These results are contrasted with a MODIS-based algorithm that relies on spectral reflectance at 0.87 and 2.13 mm.


In this paper, the rigorous linking of exact stochastic models to mean-field approximations is studied. Using a continuous-time Markov chain, we start from the exact formulation of a simple epidemic model on a certain class of networks, including completely connected and regular random graphs, and rigorously derive the well-known mean-field approximation that is usually justified based on biological hypotheses. We propose a unifying framework that incorporates and discusses the details of two existing proofs and we put forward a new ordinary differential equation (ODE)-based proof. The more well-known proof is based on a first-order partial differential equation approximation, while the other, more technical one, uses Martingale and Semigroup theory. We present the main steps of both proofs to investigate their applicability in different modelling contexts and to make these ideas more accessible to a broader group of applied researchers. The main result of the paper is a new ODE-based proof that may serve as a building block to prove similar convergence results for more complex networks. The new proof is based on deriving a countable system of ODEs for the moments of a distribution of interest and proving a perturbation theorem for this infinite system.


We present the results of tomographic inversion computed with the use of the LOTOS code for Sicily and surroundings, a region of great geodynamic interest located on the Nubia-Europe margin where previous analyses have progressively improved the knowledge of seismic velocity structure without, however, permitting fine detection of tectonic units and structural discontinuities. We used LOTOS's devices for inversion, grid rotation and adaptation to ray density for application to a dataset of 7105 local earthquakes of the period 1990-2012. Our tomographic model highlights a previously undocumented major discontinuity which is located approximately along the northern coast of Sicily and is characterized by a sudden transition from low velocity imbricate thrust sheets and accretionary wedge in mainland Sicily (to the south) to relatively high velocity Tyrrhenian continental crust (to the north). Combining this finding with available geological and geodynamic information, we conclude that this northern Sicily seismic velocity discontinuity, which approximately corresponds to a regional fault system known as Kumeta-Alcantara, may have played a major role in the Miocene to Middle Pliocene, when lithosphere tearing occurred between the Tyrrhenian sea and Sicily in response to trench retreat. The more recent geodynamic settings of northern Sicily and the southern Tyrrhenian can be unravelled from Quaternary geological observations, seismicity and GPS data, which indicate that (i) the northern Sicily discontinuity has ceased to be active in more recent times; and (ii) the reorganized slow convergence of Nubia with respect to Europe is currently accommodated ~100 km north of Sicily, along the east-trending seismogenic belt enclosing Ustica and the Aeolian Islands.


Background. Most patients admitted to an intensive care unit (ICU) for mechanical ventilation require endotracheal intubation. Cuffed endotracheal tubes (ETTs) are utilised as they provide a better seal to facilitate ventilation and minimise aspiration. Complications due to overinflation or underinflation of the cuff may occur. Neither the frequency of intermittent cuff pressure (Pcuff) measurement nor the advantage of continuous Pcuff monitoring has been clearly established. Objective. To determine deviations in ETT Pcuff from the recommended range during the intervals between routine thrice-daily Pcuff measurements in adult ICU patients. Our key objective was to identify the extent and cause of ETT Pcuff changes during these intervals. In addition, we attempted to demonstrate the failure of routine thrice-daily Pcuff monitoring to detect the large variation in Pcuff of patients throughout the day. Methods. This prospective, observational study was conducted in the King Edward VIII Hospital ICU, Durban, KwaZulu-Natal Province, South Africa. Ethical and institutional approval was obtained. Consent was obtained from patients' next of kin. Intermittent Pcuff was recorded using mechanical manometers, and continuous measurements using pressure transducers.  Results. Thirty-five critically ill adult patients were enrolled. The mean study time was 11.1 h. The mean Pcuff was 25.6 (standard deviation 7.1) cmH 2 O for the intermittent group and 26.6 (8.7) cmH 2 O for the continuous group. The intermittent pressure measurements were in the low-pressure range ( 30 cmH 2 O). For continuous pressures, 13% of the time was spent in the low-pressure range, 64% in the target pressure range, and 23% in the high-pressure range. For the entire study, 588 events causing Pcuff alterations were recorded.  Conclusion. Continuous monitoring of Pcuff indicated that the endotracheal Pcuff varied extensively during mechanical ventilation in critically ill patients, such variation being noted both between patients and within individual patients. Variations in individual patients occurred both during intrinsic patient activities and those of ICU personnel as part of routine patient maintenance. Intermittent monitoring may not detect these variations. Continuous monitoring of Pcuff during mechanical ventilation in ICUs is thus recommended for all patients.


We hypothesized that placing the arm in 90° abduction, through 90° flexion and 90° external rotation, could improve ultrasound visualization of the subclavian vein. In 49 healthy volunteers, a single operator performed a view of the subclavian vein in neutral position and abduction position. A second blinded operator measured the cross-sectional area of the subclavian vein. Abduction position increased the cross-sectional area of the subclavian vein from 124 ± 46 (mean ± SD) to 162 ± 58 mm2 (P = 0.001). An increase of the cross-sectional area of ≥50% was observed in 41% volunteers (95% confidence interval, 27%–56%, n = 20); this technique offers an alternative approach (maybe safer) for ultrasound-guided catheterization of the subclavian vein.


Human visual performance has been observed to show superiority in localized regions of the visual field across many classes of stimuli. However, the underlying neural mechanisms remain unclear. This study aims to determine whether the visual information processing in the human brain is dependent on the location of stimuli in the visual field and the corresponding neuroarchitecture using blood-oxygenation-level-dependent functional MRI (fMRI) and diffusion kurtosis MRI, respectively, in 15 healthy individuals at 3 T. In fMRI, visual stimulation to the lower hemifield showed stronger brain responses and larger brain activation volumes than the upper hemifield, indicative of the differential sensitivity of the human brain across the visual field. In diffusion kurtosis MRI, the brain regions mapping to the lower visual field showed higher mean kurtosis, but not fractional anisotropy or mean diffusivity compared with the upper visual field. These results suggested the different distributions of microstructural organization across visual field brain representations. There was also a strong positive relationship between diffusion kurtosis and fMRI responses in the lower field brain representations. In summary, this study suggested the structural and functional brain involvements in the asymmetry of visual field responses in humans, and is important to the neurophysiological and psychological understanding of human visual information processing.


X-ray backlighting and microscopy systems for the 1-10-keV range based on spherically or toroidally bent crystals are discussed. These systems are ideal for use on the Sandia Z machine, a megajoule-class x-ray facility. Near-normal-incidence crystal microscopy systems have been shown to be more efficient than pinhole cameras with the same spatial resolution and magnification [Appl. Opt. 37, 1784 (1998)]. We show that high-resolution (< or = 10 microm) x-ray backlighting systems using bent crystals can be more efficient than analogous point-projection imaging systems. Examples of bent-crystal-backlighting results that demonstrate 10-microm resolution over a 20-mm field of view are presented.


The drug discovery process can be significantly improved through understanding how the structure of chemical compounds relates to their function. A common paradigm that has been used to filter and prioritize compounds is ligand-based virtual screening, where large libraries of compounds are queried for high structural similarity to a target molecule, with the assumption that structural similarity is predictive of similar biological activity. Although the chemical informatics community has already proposed a wide range of structure descriptors and similarity coefficients, a major challenge has been the lack of systematic and unbiased benchmarks for biological activity that covers a broad range of targets to definitively assess the performance of the alternative approaches. We leveraged a large set of chemical-genetic interaction data from the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae that our labs have recently generated, covering more than 13,000 compounds from the RIKEN NPDepo and several NCI, NIH, and GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) compound collections. Supportive of the idea that chemical-genetic interaction data provide an unbiased proxy for biological functions, we found that many commonly used structural similarity measures were able to predict the compounds that exhibited similar chemical-genetic interaction profiles, although these measures did exhibit significant differences in performance. Using the chemical-genetic interaction profiles as a basis for our evaluation, we performed a systematic benchmarking of 10 different structure descriptors, each combined with 12 different similarity coefficients. We found that the All-Shortest Path (ASP) structure descriptor paired with the Braun-Blanquet similarity coefficient provided superior performance that was robust across several different compound collections. We further describe a machine learning approach that improves the ability of the ASP metric to capture biological activity. We used the ASP fingerprints as input for several supervised machine learning models and the chemical-genetic interaction profiles as the standard for learning. We found that the predictive power of the ASP fingerprints (as well as several other descriptors) could be substantially improved by using support vector machines. For example, on held-out data, we measured a 5-fold improvement in the recall of biologically similar compounds at a precision of 50% based upon the ASP fingerprints. Our results generally suggest that using high-dimensional chemical-genetic data as a basis for refining chemical structure descriptors can be a powerful approach to improving prediction of biological function from structure.


Pamphlet issued by the United States National Bureau of Standards discussing the reasons that the U.S. decided passed the Metric Conversion Act of 1975 and provides tables, illustrations, and formulas for converting between customary units and metric units of measuring weight, length, volume, and temperature. It also includes a discussion of how one might expect to use metric measurements in the marketplace, in the home, and at work.


On a world scale, the dissolution of limestone and gypsum by natural waters creates extensive karst landforms that can be very difficult ground for civil engineers. Caves threaten foundation integrity, notably where their width is greater than their roof thickness. Sinkholes pose many problems, and are classified into six types, including subsidence sinkholes formed in soil cover within karst terrains. Rockhead morphology varies from uniform to pinnacled, also creating difficult ground to excavate or found upon. A proposed engineering classification of karst defines various complexities of ground conditions by the geohazards that they provide, mainly the caves, sinkholes and rockhead relief. Ground investigation techniques and foundation design philosophies are considered so that they are appropriate to the ground conditions provided by the different classes of karst.


In the past, the focus of the computer industry has been to improve hardware performance and add more and more features to the software. As a result, more and more appliances surrounding us are equipped with embedded computational power and wireless communication. As such, they become ever more flexible and multifunctional, and almost indispensable in daily life. On the other hand, the resulting systems become increasingly complex and unreliable, posing new challenges to designer and user. Organic Computing (OC) has the vision to address the challenges of complex distributed systems by making them more life-like (organic), i.e. endowing them with abilities such as self- organization, self-configuration, self-repair, or adaptation. The designer's task is simplified, because it is no longer necessary to exactly specify the low-level system behavior in all possible situations that might occur, but instead leaving the system with a certain degree of freedom which allows it to react in an intelligent way to new situations. Also, use of such systems is simplified, as they can be controlled by setting few high-level goals, rather than having to manipulate many low-level parameters with unclear influence. In this paper, we give a general introduction to OC, and propose a generic observer-controller architecture as a framework for designing OC systems. Then, it is shown how to use this architecture at the example of a traffic light controller. The paper concludes with a summary and a discussion of future challenges.