The functional role of cell surface Ia antigens has been studied for in vitro antibody responses, using as a probe the ability of anti-Ia reagents to inhibit these responses. A hybridoma monoclonal anti-Ia reagent specific for a product of I-Ak (Ia.17) profoundly inhibited in vitro antibody responses to TNP-KLH by spleen cells of the I-Ak but not I-Ab haplotype. This inhibition by anti-I-Ak product, but not by interaction with T or B cell product, in spite of the fact that functional B cells as well as accessory cells could be shown to express the determinant detected by this hybridoma reagent. These results suggest that the Ia expressed by accessory cells in of unique functional importance in these responses. To further characterize the function of Ia antigens in this response system, the mechanism of anti- I-Ak inhibition was determined. The inhibition resulting from interaction of anti-I-Ak with accessory cell Ia was not mediated by nonspecific suppressor cells, nor was there nonspecific interference with accessory cell function as a result of the binding of anti-Ia antibody. The relationship between anti-Ia inhibition and T helper cell recognition of self determinations on accessory cells was analyzed using T cells from radiation bone marrow chimeras. It was demonstrated that (B10 X B10.A)F1 leads to B10 (F1 leads to B10) chimera T cells were able to cooperate with B10 (H-2b and I-Ab) but not B10.A (H-2a and I-Ak) accessory cells for responses to TNP-KLH; F1 leads to B10.A T cells were able to cooperate with B10.A but not B10 accessory cells; and both chimera populations were able to cooperate with (B10 X B10.A)F1 (F1) accessory cells. Monoclonal anti-I-Ak inhibited the cooperation of F1 leads to B10.A T cells with the same F1 accessory cells. Thus, inhibition by anti-I-Ak is dependent upon active helper T cell recognition of I-Ak-encoded determinants expressed on accessory cells. These findings demonstrate that T cells recognize self Ia determinants expressed on accessory cells, and that such recognition is required for the generation of T cell-dependent antibody responses.


Image Quiz is a cross-platform set of computer programs designed to help users efficiently become visual experts. Unlike novices, visual experts are able to quickly recognize patterns. This allows chess masters to recognize chess configurations and botanists to identify plants from a glimpse out the window of a moving vehicle. The Image Quiz programs help students rapidly achieve this mastery by adapting techniques from cognitive psychology. They are designed to promote holistic processing, the visual processing mode used by experts. This report focuses on the principles behind the Image Quiz programs, and presents some of their major features. The programs can be used in any discipline that depends on visual information. This includes STEM disciplines like chemistry and mathematics.


The evolution of three genes from the CONSTANS-LIKE gene family is studied in Brassica nigra. We use a combination of population genetic and phylogenetic techniques in order to assess the relative importance of selection and demography on the pattern of DNA variation. The analysis is complicated by the fact that they are recent duplicates of each other and hence there is a potential redundancy factor that has to be considered. The relationship between two of the genes, COa and COb, is however much closer than between any relationship to the third gene, COL1. The three genes are all suspected to play a part in the natural variation of flowering time of B. nigra. The thesis consists of four papers. The first paper is a technical paper concerning when and if the existence of an effective population size can be assumed. More specifically, the impact of population structure and a fluctuating (census) population size on the standard coalescent is studied. The second paper is a population genetic study of B. nigra using micro-satellites and RFLP. The resulting population genetic structure is argued to reflect the early spread of agriculture in Europe. In the third paper the general evolution of the three genes is studied. We find that not all aspects of the data could be accounted for by demography or redundancy effects, but that selection most likely played a part in the evolution of these genes. The fourth paper concerns the functional status of COb, whether it is a pseudogene or not. The most likely scenario is that COb recently became non-functional due to the fixation of a deleterious mutation during a recent bottleneck.


Air quality is strongly dependent on meteorological conditions. Atmospheric circulation encapsulates general information about local meteorological variables to some extent, and can serve as an explanatory variable for air quality at a regional or local scale. Numerical models are another useful tool for understanding the influence of meteorological factors on the chemical and physical processes involved in regional and local air quality variations. The aims of this thesis have been to: (1) investigate regional surface ozone and its correlation to atmospheric circulations by making use of synoptic weather types in southern Sweden; (2) compare numerical models performances in simulating urban meteorological conditions and apply a numerical model to urban air quality study for Gothenburg. The study confirmed the influences of synoptic circulation on regional ozone concentrations by relating the Lamb Weather Types (LWTs) to surface ozone variations. Anticyclones, associated with atmospheric stagnation, tend to create whirling air masses and short trajectories from the European continent, which leads to effective long-range transport, enhanced local ozone photochemical production, and high-ozone levels. Cyclones, on the other hand, can also create high level ozone through frontal passages and enhanced vertical mixing. At the same time, the frequencies of cyclones and anticyclones in this region are highly anti-correlated, making cyclone frequency a skilful predictor of high ozone events. The frequency of cyclones over the past 150 years shows a high variability and showed significantly downward trend. Given the constant conditions from other factors for example emission, continuous decrease in the frequency of cyclones indicates the more occurrences of high-ozone events in southern Sweden. A numerical model The Air Quality Model (TAPM) was used to simulate the complex wind system and other meteorological variables needed for air quality applications in the Gothenburg area. Compared with The PSU/NCAR fifth-generation Mesoscale Model (MM5), TAPM is able to better reproduce near-surface air temperature and wind system in Gothenburg. Both MM5 and TAPM can simulate night-time vertical temperature gradient well, but underestimate daytime vertical temperature gradient and the occurrences of low wind speed situation at night. TAPM was then used to reproduce NOx-O3 reactions and investigate the wind speed effect on spatial differences of NO2 concentrations in the polluted urban landscape. TAPM satisfactorily simulated the relation of NO, NO2 and ozone as well as the site differences for different wind speed categories. However, TAPM underestimated NO at certain sites due to local scale site-specific conditions and missing emissions from nearby roads and other emission sources.


OBJECTIVES
This report describes a method for constructing complete annual U.S. life tables and for extending the age coverage of the life table to age 100. Previously, annual life tables were based on an abridged methodology and were closed with the age category 85 years and over. In the United States, approximately one-third of the population survives beyond age 85 years. This fact, coupled with improvements in age reporting and the availability of higher quality old-age mortality data, recommends that the life table be closed at an older age.

METHODS
The method, similar to that used to construct the decennial life tables, uses vital statistics and census data to calculate death rates for ages under 85 years and Medicare data for ages 85 years and over. Previously, the annual life tables were abridged, and used only vital statistics and census data.

CONCLUSIONS
The complete life table methodology described in this report produces estimates of life expectancy at ages 100 years and younger that are consistent with previously published life tables. Complete life tables based on 1996 mortality data compared favorably with published 1996 abridged life tables and with the 1989-91 decennial life tables. The methodology was implemented beginning with final mortality data for 1997.


Experiential learning is an effective method for changing behavior and teaching new material at work.  Unfortunately, experiential learning is difficult to deliver at scale as it requires hands-on participation and interactivity.EmpowerTheUser (ETU)'s computer-based roleplay simulations enable experiential learning at scale.  In a simulation, learners take on a role and have to react to various situations and make choices that have downsteam consequences.  ETU Simulations engage the learner in cycles of assessment and practice, with summative scoring in the assessment mode and real time coaching and feedback in the practice mode.   ETU partnered with one of the oldest custodian banks headquartered in New York to deliver a series of three simulations on risk management to nearly 6,000 managers on five continents.  User feedback shows that learners are highly satisfied with the program.  Performance improved from simulation I to simulation II, indicating transfer of learning.  Underperforming learners were remediated using the assess/practice/assess learning loop, resulting in a 227% improvement in performance.EmpowerTheUser Simulations provided fast, consistent training in risk management.  Feedback was overwhelmingly favorable and decision tracking within the simulations demonstrated effective learning.


The present paper deals with the ontological status of numbers and considers Frege´s proposal in Grundlagen upon the background of the Post-Kantian semantic turn in analytical philosophy. Through a more systematic study of his philosophical premises, it comes to unearth a first level paradox that would unset earlier still than it was exposed by Russell. It then studies an alternative path that, departing from Frege's initial premises, drives to a conception of numbers as synthetic a priori in a more Kantian sense. On this basis, it tentatively explores a possible derivation of basic logical rules on their behalf, suggesting a more rudimentary basis to inferential thinking, which supports reconsidering the difference between logical thinking and AI. Finally, it reflects upon the contributions of this approach to the problem of the a priori.


In this essay, I realize digitally the virtual designs that Blake evokes in The Song of Los and other illuminated books. Blake's virtual designs are designs we create mentally by recombining an illuminated book's related images. By visualizing mental images concretely, we reify the experiences of memory and imagination, comparison and contrast, that we employ when reading/seeing Blake's works. Moreover, by doing so, we engage in creative processes involving memory and imagination similar to Blake's own when inventing new designs from elements of others. I also realize digitally the original horizontal designs for Blake's "Africa" and "Asia" in The Song of Los before they were altered in printing. As originally executed, each poem functioned autonomously, with text superimposed on a landscape design. Digital recreations demonstrate how radically Blake fused poetry, painting, and printmaking, creating panels, broadsides, or scrolls rather than book pages, and how Song of Los, as printed, was Blake's attempt to reconstruct an experiment about which he had changed his mind.


A study involving the determination of the bed shear stress and thence shear velocity in the Narrows of the River Mersey (a well mixed tidal estuary) is described. The two dimensional equation of motion is examined and it is concluded that in order to determine the energy slope (S) (and thence the shear stress and shear velocity) it is essential to evaluate density, inertia and kinetic energy terms as well as surface slopes. Although the density term is much smaller than the other terms it is important at periods of low slack-water. Measurements of the various terms are described and attention is drawn to the difficulties arising m the case of the surface slopes. Comparison is then made between the values of the shear velocity as predicted from the energy slope and those obtained using velocity traverses throughout the depth and with measurements of velocity at three fixed positions near to the bed. Finally consideration is given to the relationship between the cross-sectional mean velocity (U), the depth-mean velocity (U) and velocity at 3ft. above the bed (U,) and the shear velocity obtained from the energy slope. It is concluded that there is good linear correlation of each of these velocities (U, U and U ) with the shear velocity throughout the tidal cycle except for the period around low slack-water.


Smith v. Van Gorkom arguably was the most important corporate law decision of the 20th century. The supreme court of a state widely criticized for allegedly leading the race to the bottom held that directors who make an uninformed decision face substantial personal liability exposure. In so doing, the court breathed new life into the law of fiduciary duties.For example, Van Gorkom presaged Unocal's significant expansion of judicial review of corporate takeovers. Indeed, a Van Gorkom-based inquiry into whether the board was fully informed remains a key component of the Unocal methodology. Likewise, Van Gorkom laid the foundation for the subsequent Caremark decision and the resulting expansion of judicial inquiry into whether the board of directors exercised proper oversight of its subordinates. In fact, most of the modern edifice of corporate fiduciary duties rests in some degree on the Van Gorkom decision.The perception that the decision had significantly increased director liability exposure drove dramatic changes in the D&O liability insurance market. In turn, important legislative initiatives soon followed, including the now nearly universal liability limiting charter provisions authorized by Delaware General Corporation Law § 102(b)(7).Not surprisingly, the case generated great controversy and, in fact, continues to do so. Did the Trans Union board of directors actually deserve the criticism heaped upon it by the Delaware Supreme Court? Does the Court's decision actually deserve the criticism heaped upon it by most commentators? This essay provides the back story to this remarkable decision and concludes that the gist of the decision is sound.


Background & objective: Oil storage tanks are major industrial facilities which always pose risks of toxic substance release, fires and explosions. Fire has been recognized as the most common risk associated with such facilities, while explosion is the most important one in terms of ability to claim human lives and damage property. The current study aimed at investigating and modeling the effects of fires occurring in a gas condensate tank farm, according to which the level of possible emergencies were specified using the guidelines provided by the Center for Chemical Process Safety. Lastly, control measures were recommended. Methods: In the present study, the release and leakage of gas condensate from floating roof tanks were assessed using HAZOP method. Then, using PHAST software, the amount of radiation intensity received by the surrounding environment was determined, safe boundaries were computed, and according to the CCPS standard the emergency levels were determined. Results: modeling was performed based on the maximum capacity of tanks for both cold and hot seasons. The results revealed that safe distance for a maximum amount of irradiation density (4 KW/m 2 ) related to a sudden release were 60 and 140 meters, respectively. Conclusion: according to the current condition of the plants and storage tanks, a plan was recommended for emergency management and practical suggestions were provided to improve the reliability and consistency.


The main purpose of this study is to empirically assess the impact of financial
deepening, export and investment, on economic growth in thirteen Asian developing
economies. To achieve that end, the bivariate relationship between economic growth
and three macroeconomic variables are tested through these bivariate models, namely:
finance-led, export-led and investment-led. To address the mis-specification problem
inherent in the bivariate studies, a multivariate V AR framework is then utilised to
investigate the long-run relationships among these four variables.
Annual data is used in the analysis covering the period from as early as 1950 to 1996.
The Asian countries selected included Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Indonesia,
Malaysia, Thailand, India, the Philippines, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan
and Sri Lanka.
The empirical evidence obtained from this study suggest the following: for the
bivariate studies, results from the finance-led model suggest a bi-directional
relationship between financial deepening and economic growth in South Korea,Taiwan, Bangladesh and Pakistan. For Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, India and
Myanmar, the evidence supported the "demand following" hypothesis. For the exportled
model, causality results on export-led growth versus growth-led export are mixed
and, in some cases, contradictory. When investment-led model is utilised, there
exhibit one-way Granger causal relationship from investment to growth for South
Korea and Thailand whereas the reverse relationship is shown in Singapore,
Indonesia, Malaysia and Sri Lanka. The feedback relationship is found in the case of
Taiwan, Bangladesh and Pakistan.
Under the multivariate V AR framework, long-run relationships between the
investigated variables are identified in a cointegrating framework, suggesting the
increasing degree of interdependence of these three macroeconomic variables with
economic growth.
Overall result has purported the significance of open economy structure, and outward looking
trade policies in stimulating the economic growth of many developing
economies. Hence, the continuation of open-door economic policies in developing
economies is warranted, and integrating these economies more closely to the
international economies.


Whilst the vision of on-demand computing is very seductive it engenders its own
technical challenges including: design, development and deployment of ubiquitous
utility services, and low-cost, low-skills and low-latency services re-assembly for
lifetime management runtime due to complex and unpredicted service discovery,
interoperation and adaptation. In this paper we argue for the need of a new model for
on-demand ubiquitous services' activation through a polyarchical middleware, which
enables on-demand composition of software applications regardless of service
standards and middleware used. This paper will present early results of a research
study into the development of a framework for ubiquitous service
invocation/activation, which provides an abstract model for on-demand ubiquitous
service composition and execution. This proposed polyarchical middleware could be
used for on-demand wireless application service composition, which include ad-hoc
service discovery, assembly using virtual containers, invocation and adaptation. The
paper will finish with a critical review of our model and concluding remarks followed
by an indication of further work


This paper studies the question: Why are there Firms? Motivated by observations of a variety of economies, several distinct concepts of what it means to be a firm are identified and then analyzed with mechanism design models. In the first class of models, a group of individuals is a firm if they collude and share information. This model is analyzed and compared with the non-firm alternative. Conditions are provided in which firms are preferred to no firms and vice versa. Next, we show how an economy with multiple distinct groups of colluding individuals can be decentralized. ; In the next class of models, collusion is prohibited, but the information structure of the economy depends on whether individuals work together. Activities performed jointly by the individuals are considered to be done with a firm. In the model the degree of economic activity organized by firms is endogenous. Numerical examples are provided in which none, some, and all work is done within a firm. The last class of models studies the long-term nature of firms versus the short-term nature of non- firm arrangements, like spot markets. Multi-stage models are developed in which individuals may be switched between projects. People who work the same project over time are considered to work for a firm. Conditions for the optimality of long-term and short-term arrangements are provided.


Located near shipping lanes, as a possibly highly variable acoustic environment that is frequented by the endangered Southern Resident killer whale (SRKW), Admiralty Inlet, Puget Sound, Washington, has been selected as a potential tidal energy site. The first step to receiving approval to deploy tidal turbines is resolving environmental impacts. In order to determine the presence of SRKW near the turbines, several monitoring technologies are being considered. Broadband noise level measurements are critical for determining design and operational specifications of these technologies. Using a cabled vertical line array from two cruises during flood and ebb tidal periods in May and June 2011,acoustic environment data at the proposed site were acquired at different depths. The ambient noise level decreases approximately 5 dB re 1 μPa per octave for frequency ranges of 1-70 kHz and increases approximately 5 dB re 1 μPa per octave for the frequency from 70 to 100 kHz. The difference between noise pressure levels in different months varies from 10 to 30 dB re 1 μPa for the frequency range below 70 kHz. The most significant contributors to sound pressure levels for the frequency range of 1-50 kHz were found to be commercial shipping and ferry vessel traffic, and the variation could be as high as 30 dB re 1 μPa. The basic information for designing and evaluating both active and passive monitoring systems proposed for deployment and operation of a tidal power generation alert system are provided by these noise level measurements.


Agricultural intensification has been cited as one of the causes of loss of biodiversity. Taita Taveta, a coastal highland region is such like area which has experienced land conversion from forest cover into farmlands with high soil intensification. Soil samples were collected across seven land use types and analysed for Trichoderma occurrence. The fungus was recovered from the soil using the dilution plate and soil washing technique. The remaining soil samples were used to analyse for pH, acidity, organic carbon (C) total nitrogen (N), organic matter (OM), calcium (Ca) phosphorus (P) sodium (Na), potassium (K), magnesium (Mg), Manganese (Mn), Iron (Fe), and Zinc (Zn), and copper (Cu). Soil texture, bulk density, porosity and available water capacity was also determined.   Land use type (LUT), plant cover, and soil physical and chemical properties influenced Trichoderma occurrence. The frequency of isolation of Trichoderma spp. was highest in indigenous forests followed by fallow and horticulture LUTs.   Maize and Coffee LUTs recorded the least. The most frequently occurring species was T. harziunum which was isolated from all land use types LUTs. Carbon, N, organic matter and Fe were high in soils collected from forests thus suggesting they influenced fungal diversity. The forests had clay loam soils with higher porosity and water retention capacity compared with the cultivated LUTs and fallow which were characterized with clay soils and high bulk density, pH, Na, P, K, Ca, Mg, Cu showing the effect of land conversion on soil properties and Trichoderma occurrence. The influence of plant type and land management is also seen in the cultivated LUTs with the same soil properties but with different diversity and abundance of Trichoderma . The diversity of soil factors observed in the maize plots explained the influence of land management on soil physical and chemical characteristics which in turn determined the fungal distribution. Soil depth (0-20cm) did not influence soil factors though fungal diversity, abundance and evenness varied with depth suggesting the influence of substrate availability. Occurrence of Trichoderma spp. and distribution in soil is determined by a number of interacting biotic and abiotic factors


This paper presents an energy efficient intrahospital telemedicine scenario for multi-patient cardiac monitoring using ZigBee network. A telemedicine scenario is proposed in which Electrocardiogram (ECG) signals of patients are acquired through ECG sensor nodes having transmission capability and these ECG signals are received by Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) kept at nursing station through ZigBee network. ECG signals are further transmitted to Doctor's PDA. Energy efficiency of proposed network is investigated by evaluating the performance of various routing protocols in terms of Packet Delivery Ratio (PDR), Battery life, Energy Consumption, End to End delay by varying the transmission power of ECG sensor nodes and for different routing protocols.


Groundwater recharge estimation is essential for management of groundwater systems.  As groundwater is a vital source of water for domestic and agricultural activities in the study area (Karbala - Najaf plateau), ?where the Dibdibba aquifer represents the primary and essential aquifer, evaluation of groundwater recharge is critical in the study area. A wide range of methodologies exists for estimating recharge.? ?The water-table fluctuation method strategy might be the most generally utilized system for estimating recharge; it requires learning of changes in water levels over time and specific yield. Advantages of this approach include its simplicity and an insensitivity to the mechanism by which water moves through the unsaturated zone. Sensitiveness in measures created by this technique relates to the compelled precision with which ?specific yield can be calculated and to the degree to which assumptions inherent in the strategy are ?valid. The primary objective of this study is to calculate the annual and monthly ?values of recharge for Jan. 2010 ?through Aug. ??2017? for Dibdibba aquifer at Karbala - Najaf plateau, central of Iraq to use results in the management of groundwater in the study area later?. ?Water levels measured in four observation wells in the study area, measurements were taken daily at the ?middle of the night automatically by using modern electronic devices installed on the wells (from 10 BM to 4 AM) to avoid the effect of pumping ?activity on the water ?levels and to neutralize the effect of evapotranspiration for Jan. 2010 to Aug. 2017?.


There is an obvious parallel between the language of the Self-Incrimination Clause and that of the Confrontation Clause: the former forbids the government from forcing a criminal suspect to become a "witness against himself," while the latter requires the government to allow a criminal defendant to confront the "witnesses against him." The irresistible inference is that the word "witness" means the same thing in both Clauses. And, indeed, the Supreme Court has hinged the question of whether someone is a witness in both contexts on whether he or she has given testimonial evidence. Yet, at least at first blush, the Court has used the word testimonial in two very different ways. In the Self-Incrimination Clause context, testimonial refers to statements of fact or value, as opposed to physical evidence or statements introduced merely to prove how they were made (the assertion requirement). Pursuant to the Confrontation Clause, "testimonial" refers to statements made under circumstances objectively indicating some contemplation of later use at trial, as opposed to statements made in response to an ongoing emergency or for some other reason (the contemplation of litigation requirement). But a closer look reveals that the word testimonial means much the same in both contexts. That is, there is both an assertion requirement and a contemplation of litigation requirement in both. We simply emphasize the former in the Self-Incrimination Clause context and the latter in the Confrontation Clause context. In the latter context, we typically proceed on the assumption that the statement is hearsay - that is, offered for its truth, thus satisfying the assertion requirement - and only if it also satisfies the contemplation of litigation requirement do we say the Confrontation Clause is implicated. By contrast, in the Self-Incrimination Clause context, we typically assume that the contemplation of litigation requirement has been met - because, after all, the evidence has been taken from one suspected of a crime - and then determine whether the evidence constitutes an assertion. This emerging unified view of testimonial evidence provides the best explanation thus far for much of the Court's Miranda jurisprudence. When we see that the Fifth Amendment's assertion requirement parallels the Sixth Amendment's reliance on the definition of hearsay, it becomes clear that the impeachment exception to Miranda is justified on the ground that statements used to impeach are not offered for their truth. The idea that the Self-Incrimination Clause is implicated only where evidence has been created in contemplation of litigation has the benefit of explaining all of the other exceptions to Miranda: the "public safety," "routine booking question," and "undercover officer" exceptions.


A measurement campaign was carried out in February 1998 at Briançon Station, French Alps (44.9 degrees N, 6.65 degrees E, 1,310 m above sea level) in order to determine the UV effective snow albedo that was retrieved for both erythemal and UV-A irradiances from measurements and modeling enhancement factors. The results are presented for 15 cloudless days with very variable snow cover and a small snowfall in the middle of the campaign. Erythemal irradiance enhancement due to the surface albedo was found to decrease from approximately +15% to +5% with a jump to +22% after the snowfall, whereas UV-A irradiance enhancement decreased from 7% to 5% and increased to 15% after the snowfall. Thesevalues fit to effective surface albedos of 0.4, 0.1, and 0.5 for erythemal, and to effective albedos of 0.25, 0.1, and 0.4 for UV-A irradiances, respectively. An unexpected difference between the effective albedos retrieved in the two wavelength regions can be explained by the difference of the environment contribution.


Utilizing a spatial multi-market model for rice in Nigeria that explicitly takes into account the potential for smuggling, in this paper we analyze the welfare implications of alternative rice tariff rates given the government's goals of spurring domestic production and reducing imports. Because smuggling occurs through the diversion of imports from Lagos, the official port of entry in the south, to the north, our modeling framework also captures the spatial effects of higher tariffs on changes in rural and urban prices, production and consumption, the flow of trade in rice, and welfare across different parts of the country. Results show that tariff rates that exceed about 40 percent introduce some smuggling of rice through the north when smuggling becomes more profitable than importing through official channels in the south. It is also at this tipping point that government tariff revenues are maximized. At higher tariff rates with smuggling, the south experiences greater welfare losses, especially in urban areas.


Unemployment influences life experiences and outcomes, but how it does so may be shaped by gender and parenthood. Because research on unemployment focuses on men's experiences of unemployment, it presents as universal a process that may be gendered. This article asks: how do college-educated, heterosexual, married mothers experience involuntary unemployment? Drawing on in-depth interviews with unemployed mothers in the US, their husbands, and follow-up interviews, this article finds that the experience of job loss is tempered for mothers as they derive a culturally valued identity from motherhood which also anchors their lives. Husbands' support emphasises that employment is one of several options mothers can pursue. Couples pivot attention to husbands' careers as they worry about finances, often resulting in marital tensions. Using mothers' unemployment as a case, this study demonstrates that unemployment has more divergent implications depending on gender and parenthood than prior theories suggest.


We prove lower bounds on complexity measures, such as the approximate degree of a Boolean function and the approximate rank of a Boolean matrix, using quantum arguments. We prove these lower bounds using a quantum query algorithm for the combinatorial group testing problem. We show that for any function f, the approximate degree of computing the OR of n copies of f is Omega(sqrt n) times the approximate degree of f, which is optimal. No such general result was known prior to our work, and even the lower bound for the OR of ANDs function was only resolved in 2013. We then prove an analogous result in communication complexity, showing that the logarithm of the approximate rank (or more precisely, the approximate gamma-2 norm) of F: X x Y to 0,1 grows by a factor of Omega (sqrtn) when we take the OR of n copies of F, which is also essentially optimal. As a corollary, we give a new proof of Razborov's celebrated Omega(sqrtn) lower bound on the quantum communication complexity of the disjointness problem. Finally, we generalize both these results from composition with the OR function to composition with arbitrary symmetric functions, yielding nearly optimal lower bounds in this setting as well.


Survival analysis or time-to-event analysis aims to model and predict the time it takes for an event of interest to happen in a population or an individual. In the medical context this event might be the time of dying, metastasis, recurrence of cancer, etc. Recently, the use of neural networks that are specifically designed for survival analysis has become more popular and an attractive alternative to more traditional methods. In this paper, we take advantage of the inherent properties of neural networks to federate the process of training of these models. This is crucial in the medical domain since data is scarce and collaboration of multiple health centers is essential to make a conclusive decision about the properties of a treatment or a disease. To ensure the privacy of the datasets, it is common to utilize differential privacy on top of federated learning. Differential privacy acts by introducing random noise to different stages of training, thus making it harder for an adversary to extract details about the data. However, in the realistic setting of small medical datasets and only a few data centers, this noise makes it harder for the models to converge. To address this problem, we propose DPFed-post which adds a post-processing stage to the private federated learning scheme. This extra step helps to regulate the magnitude of the noisy average parameter update and easier convergence of the model. For our experiments, we choose 3 real-world datasets in the realistic setting when each health center has only a few hundred records, and we show that DPFed-post successfully increases the performance of the models by an average of up to $17\%$ compared to the standard differentially private federated learning scheme.


In old and heavily weathered soils, the availability of P might be so small that the primary production of plants is limited. However, plants have evolved several mechanisms to actively take up P from the soil or mine it to overcome this limitation. These mechanisms involve the active uptake of P mediated by mycorrhiza, biotic de-occlusion through root clusters, and the biotic enhancement of weathering through root exudation. The objective of this paper is to investigate how and where these processes contribute to alleviate P limitation on primary productivity. To do so, we propose a process-based model accounting for the major processes of the carbon, water, and P cycles including chemical weathering at the global scale. Implementing P limitation on biomass synthesis allows the assessment of the efficiencies of biomass production across different ecosystems. We use simulation experiments to assess the relative importance of the different uptake mechanisms to alleviate P limitation on biomass production. We find that active P uptake is an essential mechanism for sustaining P availability on long timescales, whereas biotic de-occlusion might serve as a buffer on timescales shorter than 10 000 yr. Although active P uptake is essential for reducing P losses by leaching, humid lowland soils reach P limitation after around 100 000 yr of soil evolution. Given the generalized modelling framework, our model results compare reasonably with observed or independently estimated patterns and ranges of P concentrations in soils and vegetation. Furthermore, our simulations suggest that P limitation might be an important driver of biomass production efficiency (the fraction of the gross primary productivity used for biomass growth), and that vegetation on old soils has a smaller biomass production rate when P becomes limiting. With this study, we provide a theoretical basis for investigating the responses of terrestrial ecosystems to P availability linking geological and ecological timescales under different environmental settings.


Abstract
 The brown alga Cystoseira amentacea (Phaeophyceae, kingdom Stramenopiles) constitutes an extensive belt in the shallowest horizon of the infralittoral (the infralittoral fringe), in the Mediterranean Sea. Hydrodynamic modelling was used to infer connectivity between populations of C. amentacea of the Bay of Marseille (Provence, France, NW Mediterranean) and to test the correlation between genetic and hydrodynamic connectivity. We genotyped 183 individuals from six populations at six microsatellite loci. Current fields were computed at a fine resolution by a 3D numerical model simultaneously utilizing the local winds, the Rhone River inputs and offshore circulation. The Lagrangian trajectories of the propagules (zygotes, or rafts) were computed with the ICHTHYOP software, for both NW and SE strong wind forcing (11–12 m·s-1). Cystoseira amentacea displayed a strong and significant genetic structure, not correlated with the geographic distance, i.e. a lack of isolation by distance (IBD). The pairs of sites with the lowest FST were those connected by the current patterns. The time needed for a zygote or a raft to travel from one location to another ranged from 4 to 18 h (i.e. within the survival time of a zygote) and for distances of up to 23 km. Despite the very low dispersal capability of the zygotes, long-distance dispersal is therefore possible. Several non-exclusive processes can account for the genetic structure of C. amentacea populations, such as step-by-step local dispersal, long-distance dispersal of zygotes and rafts by currents, during storms, and the "priority effect", i.e. the importance of the timing of arrival of the propagules.


RDF and SPARQL are established standards for data interchange and querying on the Web. While they have been shown to be useful and applicable in many scenarios, they are not sufficiently adequate for dealing with streams of data and their intrinsic continuous nature. In the last years data and query languages have been proposed to extend both RDF and SPARQL for streams and continuous processing, under the name of RDF Stream Processing-RSP. These efforts resulted in several models and implementations that, at a first look, appear to propose alternative syntaxes but equivalent semantics. However, when asked to continuously answer the same queries on the same data streams, they provide different answers at disparate moments due to the heterogeneity of their operational semantics. These discrepancies render the process of understanding and comparing continuous query results complex and misleading. In this work, the authors propose RSP-QL, a comprehensive model that formally defines the semantics of an RSP system. RSP-QL makes explicit the hidden assumptions of currently available RSP systems, allows defining a formal notion of correctness for RSP query results and, thus, explains why available implementations provide different answers at disparate moments.


A thorough review of literature showed that very little work has been carried out on foraminifera from the Muthupet Lagoon. The most notable research in this aspect has been the recent findings by Rajeshwara Rao et al. (2013), who provided an insight into the ecology of one particular species, Asterorotalia trispinosa (Thalmann, 1933). Infaunal habitat preferences of benthic foraminifera, however, have not been studied in any kind of ecosystem in India so far. It was, therefore, decided to study more on the benthic foraminifera from this important ecosystem with special emphasis on infaunal characteristics. Accordingly, three cores were manually retrieved from the lagoon at water depths ranging from 1 to 1.5 m by inserting acrylic pipes; each core was 45 cm long. The cores were sliced at 1-cm interval and all the sub-samples were rose Bengal-stained in order to establish infaunal depth preferences by species that were abundant or commonly occurring. Counts of living, dead and total populations of the species Asterorotalia spinosa, Elphidium excavatum, Ammonia tepida and Ammonia beccarii were made and their downcore variations analyzed. The results establish the presence of distinct micro-habitats in Muthupet Lagoon, controlling the populations of different species. The same species seems to prefer different infaunal depths within the lagoon, either facilitated by bioturbation or search for more hospitable oxygen conditions in the sediment.


This book is the British Cartographic Society WINNER; the BCS Award 2015 WINNER; the Stanfords Award for Printed Mapping 2015 WINNER; and, John C Bartholomew Award for Thematic Mapping 2015. In London: The Information Capital, geographer James Cheshire and designer Oliver Uberti join forces to bring you a series of new maps and graphics charting life in London like never before. When do police helicopters catch criminals? Which borough of London is the happiest? Is 'czesc' becoming a more common greeting than 'salaam'? James Cheshire and Oliver Uberti could tell you, but they'd rather show you. By combining millions of data points with stunning design, they investigate how flights stack over Heathrow, who lives longest, and where Londoners love to tweet. The result? One hundred portraits of an old city in a very new way. Dr James Cheshire is a geographer with a passion for London and its data. His award-winning maps draw from his research as a lecturer at University College London and have appeared in the Guardian and the Financial Times, as well as on his popular blog, mappinglondon.co.uk. He is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society. Oliver Uberti is a visual journalist, designer, and the recipient of many awards for his information graphics and art direction. From 2003 to 2012, he worked in the design department of National Geographic, most recently as Senior Design Editor. He has a design studio in Ann Arbor, Michigan.


The immense biodiversity of the Atlas Mountains in North Africa might be the result of high rates of microallopatry caused by mountain barriers surpassing 4000 meters leading to patchy habitat distributions. We test the influence of geographic structures on the phylogenetic patterns among Buthus scorpions using mtDNA sequences. We sampled 91 individuals of the genus Buthus from 51 locations scattered around the Atlas Mountains (Antiatlas, High Atlas, Middle Atlas and Jebel Sahro). We sequenced 452 bp of the Cytochrome Oxidase I gene which proved to be highly variable within and among Buthus species. Our phylogenetic analysis yielded 12 distinct genetic groups one of which comprised three subgroups mostly in accordance with the orographic structure of the mountain systems. Main clades overlap with each other, while subclades are distributed parapatrically. Geographic structures likely acted as long-term barriers among populations causing restriction of gene flow and allowing for strong genetic differentiation. Thus, genetic structure and geographical distribution of genetic (sub)clusters follow the classical theory of allopatric differentiation where distinct groups evolve without range overlap until reproductive isolation and ecological differentiation has built up. Philopatry and low dispersal ability of Buthus scorpions are the likely causes for the observed strong genetic differentiation at this small geographic scale.


After passage of Proposition 209, the University of California began searching for race-neutral admissions criteria that would allow it to minimize drops in enrollment of underrepresented minorities. Concern for underrepresented minorities led to several changes in admissions policies, most notably the introduction of comprehensive or holistic review for freshmen admission at all UC campuses. These efforts to identify criteria that would support UC's efforts to maintain a racially and ethnically diverse student body have led to another unexpected development. The Board of Admissions and Relations with Schools (BOARS), UC's faculty committee charged with overseeing admissions policies, has begun to do more than try to find admissions criteria that can help maintain racial and ethnic diversity. The committee has begun to question all criteria, including criteria that have long been regarded as reflecting high academic achievement. The first criterion that BOARS has questioned is related to the National Merit Scholarship Program. On March 1, 2005, Professor Michael Brown, chair of BOARS, wrote to campus admissions committees asking them to reconsider any preferences they might be giving to National Merit Scholars because BOARS had questions and concerns about the merits of the National Merit Scholars Program. This paper describes the questions and concerns that prompted this inquiry.


textabstractIn this study, we develop and analyze models incorporating some of the dynamic aspects of inventory systems. In particular, we focus on two major themes to be analyzed separately: nonstationarity in demand rate and unfixed purchasing prices.

In the first part of the study, we consider an inventory system with a nonstationary demand rate. In particular, we consider critical service parts subject to obsolescence. Inventory management of such items is notoriously difficult due to their slow moving character and the high risks involved when they are not available or no more needed.
In practice, there is a need for policies tailored for service parts taking these aspects into account and easy to implement. We propose an obsolescence based control policy and investigate its performance and impact on costs. We find that ignoring obsolescence in the control policy increases costs significantly and early adaptation of base stock levels can lead to important savings.

In the second part of the study, we consider an inventory system where the supplier offers price discounts at random points in time. We extend the literature by assuming a more general backordering structure. That is, when the system is out of stock, an arriving customer either decides to be backlogged with a certain probability or leaves the system and becomes a lost sale. We derive equations to calculate optimal policy parameters and demonstrate that allowing backorders in face of random deal offerings can result in considerable savings.


Primary brain injury in stroke is followed by oxidative stress and further neural damage. Glutathione (GSH) is critical in antioxidant defense. Since cysteine is limiting in GSH synthesis, Phase 1 of this study investigated the effect of a dietary sulphur amino acid deficiency (-SAA) on neural damage in global hemispheric hypoxia-ischemia (GHHI). Rats were fed a -SAA or control diet for 6 days, and subjected to GHHI after 3 days. Histologically evaluated neural damage at 7 days post hypoxia-ischemia was greater in -SAA rats. Brain GSH concentration was decreased in -SAA rats 3 days after ischemia. A cysteine precursor, L-2-oxothiazolidine-4-carboxylic acid (OTC) administered to -SAA rats did not ameliorate neural damage. GSH is decreased by protein-energy malnutrition (PEM) in some tissues. Phase 2 investigated the effect of PEM on brain oxidative stress, neural damage and behaviour after global ischemia in adult male gerbils. In a 2x2 factorial design, gerbils were fed an adequate protein (12%; C) or low protein (2%; PEM) diet for 4 weeks, then subjected to transient ischemia (I) or sham surgery (S). After 12 hours of reperfusion, brain from half the gerbils was collected for biochemical analyses. Remaining gerbils were fed pre-surgery diets for 10 more days. To assess functional consequences of ischemia, gerbils were placed in an open field on Days 3, 7 and 10 after surgery. On Day 10, viable hippocampal CA1 neurons were counted. C-I gerbils did not habituate as readily in the open field on day 3 as C-S, but normalized by day 7. PEM-I gerbils failed to habituate by day 10, traveled greater distance than other gerbils and 7 of 12 displayed thigmotaxis, a 'wall-hugging' preference for the outer perimeter of the open field. CA1 neuron loss in I was 61.5% of S, but unaffected by PEM. Four of 12 PEM-I gerbils had marked increases in hippocampal glia. Hippocampus protein thiols were reduced by PEM and by ischemia, consistent with oxidative stress. GSH concentration, glutathione reductase activity and thiobarbituric acid reactive substances were not significantly affected by PEM or ischemia. Findings from these two studies suggest well-nourished but not nutritionally-deficient rodents tolerate a mild brain insult. This is clinically relevant because many elderly stroke victims suffer from PEM at the time of ischemia, which may compromise recovery.


This contribution explores the archaeological evidence for the supply of imported fineware along the Central road (Via Diagonalis) in the province of Thrace during the Principate. Finds from twelve sites situated in close proximity to its route have been examined. According to the available data, the import of ceramic goods started around the time of the road's construction during the reign of Emperor Nero, at the latest. Italian and South Gaulish sigillata along with thin-walled pottery were among the earliest documented imports in Serdica, together with products of Western Asia Minor and/or the Pontic region. Later on, products of Pergamene (Eastern sigillata C), Pontic and probably also Moesian workshops were attested.Philippopolis, and sites studied from its territory, were supplied with fine wares, originating from Western Asia Minor (ESC, Eastern sigillata B) and the Pontic region (Pontic sigillata) since the second-third quarter of the 1st century AD. During the 2nd and the first half of the 3rd century the majority of ceramic goods came from the Pergamon region, supplemented with occasional imports of ESB, Cnidian relief wares, etc.The sites from the territories of Augusta Traiana and Hadrianopolis, as well as Hadrianopolis itself, were supplied during the 2nd and 3rd century with fine wares mainly from the region of Pergamon. A small number of finds of Eastern sigillata A and B, Pontic sigillata and African red slip ware shows alternative extra-provincial sources of goods.The evidence from the transport containers indicate that the bulk of amphora-borne commodities came from similar to the abovementioned provenances, so it could be suggested that at least some of the imported ceramic artefacts could have been transported as side products of wine, olive oil and other agricultural stocks.


Using the German local business tax as a testing ground, we empirically investigate the impact of firm agglomeration on municipal tax setting behavior. The analysis exploits a rich data source on the population of German firms to construct detailed measures for the communities' agglomeration characteristics. The findings indicate that urbanization and localization economies exert a positive impact on the jurisdictional tax rate choice which confirms predictions of the theoretical New Economic Geography (NEG) literature. Further analysis suggests a qualification of the NEG argument by showing that a municipality's potential to tax agglomeration rents depends on its firm and industry agglomeration relative to neighboring communities. To account for potential endogeneity problems, our analysis exploits long-lagged population and infrastructure variables as instruments for the agglomeration measures.


The question presented to the Supreme Court in Schuette v. Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action is, "Whether a state violates the Equal Protection Clause by amending its constitution to prohibit race- and sex-based discrimination or preferential treatment in public-university admissions decisions." Given that the Supreme Court barely tolerates affirmative action preferences, it is exceedingly unlikely to endorse a lower court ruling that overturns a state ban on them.Nevertheless, it is worth examining the reasoning of the Sixth Circuit's decision in Schuette, because it exemplifies many interesting nuances regarding the debate over the constitutionality of affirmative action preferences, nuances that were mostly ignored in the dissenting opinions. Judge Cole's opinion demonstrates (1) that despite decades of jurisprudence permitting state university affirmative action preferences only if used for "diversity" purposes, its legal advocates, including federal judges, still act under the assumption that the purpose of preferences is to benefit students who are members of underrepresented minority groups; (2) some affirmative action advocates cling to an obsolete model of American politics that posits that African Americans and members of other minority groups lack any substantial political power; (3) some affirmative action advocates tend to discuss the issue as if the only groups affected are African Americans and whites, neglecting both that Asian Americans tend to be harmed by university admissions' preferences, and that African Americans are a shrinking minority of those eligible for preferences, with Hispanics a significantly larger and faster-growing demographic group; and (4) affirmative action advocates tend to be dismissive of the claim that race is different and more problematic than other criteria that university officials may consider in admissions, for moral, historical, and practical reasons. While not unassailable, these reasons seem to provide a significant non-arbitrary rationale for state voters to ban official reliance on race and ethnicity.


Background: Osteoporosis is a systemic skeletal disorder characterized by low bone mass and micro-architectural deterioration of bone tissue, with a consequent increase in bone fragility and fracture. Use of Highly Active Anti-Retroviral Therapy (HAART) has been associated with prolonged survival and consequently with an increase in the prevalence of decreased bone mineral density. Quantitative Ultrasound (QUS) is gaining popularity as an appropriate tool for determination of bone mineral density profiles in resource- poor settings. Objectives: To determine and compare the difference in the prevalence of Bone Mineral Density (BMD) abnormalities using quantitative calcaneal ultrasound between HIV infected patients on a TDF based first-line regime for at least one year, HAART-naive HIV positive patients in Mbagathi Comprehensive Care Clinic (CCC) and a HIV negative control group seen at the Mbagathi Voluntary Counselling and Testing Centre (VCT). To describe the occurrence of traditional risk factors associated with decreased BMD in the above populations (oral corticosteroid use, smoking, alcohol, previous bone fracture, body mass index and physical inactivity). Methods: This was a cross-sectional comparative group descriptive study of HIV positive adult patients on TDF based first-line regime (exposed), HIV positive HAART- naive adult patients (unexposed) and HIV negative adult group (control) at Mbagathi Hospital. Random sampling was used to recruit 315 participants (105 in each arm). An interviewer administered questionnaire was used to document risk factors for low BMD. Quantitative ultrasound bone mineral density was done using a heel ultrasonic gel- coupled QUS system, the Sunlight Mini Omni (Beam Med Ltd, Israel). Results: The prevalence of osteoporosis among HIV positive respondents on HAART was significantly higher (58.1%) compared to HIV positive respondents not on HAART (32.6%) (Z-test p-value = 0.001) and HIV negative respondents (9.3%) (Z-test p-value = 0.001). Older patients had lower levels of BMD (i.e. more negative BMD. p-value = 0.032). HIV positive respondents on HAART had lower BMI than HAART naive and HIV negative individuals (23.6%, 24.8% and 26.1% respectively). There was a significant positive correlation between T-score and BMI (p-value 0.043). There was no significant correlation between Tscore and the other traditional risk factors (oral corticosteroid use, smoking, alcohol use, history of bone fractures and physical activity). Conclusions: Use of TDF based HAART regimes is associated with higher rates of osteoporosis compared to HAART naive and HIV negative populations which may be partly mediated by lower Body Mass Index (BMI).


Following the strategy outlined in an accompanying paper, we studied 32 X-linked muscular dystrophy families (29 Duchenne [DMD] and three Becker [BMD] type) for abnormalities of HindIII and BglII fragments detected by the entire dystrophin cDNA. Twenty-one different single-intragenic deletions, and no duplications, were identified. The deletion endpoints were precisely mapped on the published HindIII fragment map. Detailed analysis of overlapping deletions led to clarification of the fragment order for some previously unsettled regions of the HindIII map and to the construction of a partial map of exon-containing BglII fragments. For the regions involved in deletions, the corresponding HindIII and BglIII fragments could be identified. Noncontiguous comigrating fragments were detected in two regions by careful analysis of the patterns in deletion patients. Four of the 21 deletions generated novel restriction fragments that facilitated detection of female carriers in these families. Twelve of the deletions had a breakpoint in one of the two large introns known to be the sites of breakpoint clusters. By combining deletions and RFLP analyses, we unequivocally identified the gamete that first carried the mutation in 13 families: eight oocytes and five sperm. Germ-line mosaicism previously detected in one male was confirmed by cDNA studies. In two additional families gonadal mosaicism was found in females. As evidence is accumulating for frequent mitotic origin of these deletion mutations, this phenomenon has to be considered when postulating mutational mechanisms and in genetic counseling of DMD/BMD families.


By the end of the 20th century, Hong Kong had emerged as one of the world's major international financial centres. Today, while finance remains central to Hong Kong's future, it is facing unprecedented challenges, in China, in the region and globally. In the context of China, the continuing process of economic reform and financial development raises many opportunities but at the same time brings into question Hong Kong's traditional role as the primary intermediary between China and the global financial system. At the same time, the global and European financial crises have raised fundamental questions about finance, exchange rate systems, the global position of China, and the future role of the renminbi, including Hong Kong's role therein. Reflecting the centrality of finance to Hong Kong, Article 109 of the Hong Kong Basic Law, ascribes the Hong Kong Government an obligation "to provide an appropriate economic and legal environment for the maintenance of the status of Hong Kong as an international financial centre." However, Hong Kong has yet to take a comprehensive approach to this obligation or to consider its strategic and practical implications. While the creation of the Hong Kong Financial Services Development Council (FSDC) is a very important step, more remains to be done. There is no question that Hong Kong has developed impressively and is performing very well as an international financial centre. This is clear and well established and is thus not the central theme of this report. Rather, this report seeks to consider areas where Hong Kong could do better. Thus, the central theme of this report focuses on the need for a more strategic approach to Hong Kong's future as a financial centre, based on an analysis of academic and policy research and current expectations of best regulatory and commercial practice. This report is the first of a major research project on "Enhancing Hong Kong's Future as a Leading International Financial Centre", funded by the Hong Kong Research Grants Council Theme-based Research Scheme. Throughout this report (and in the two others which will follow in 2015 and 2017) our analysis seeks to answer one specific question: What policies and legislative/regulatory changes will maximise the long-run, risk-adjusted value of financial activities to Hong Kong, given that other international financial centre policymakers react strategically to such policies? In addressing this issue, the report provides 21 recommendations focusing on five major areas: The first grouping addresses methods to help improve the way the public contributes to financial sector policymaking. The second group proposes ways that the directing minds of Hong Kong's financial and commercial organisations can participate more actively in ensuring Hong Kong's regulators adopt policies which actually improve Hong Kong's competitiveness among international financial centres (rather than just copy international "best practice"). The third grouping looks at ways to broaden cooperation with China. The fourth grouping looks at ways to diversify Hong Kong's financial sector to access opportunities beyond those presented by the Mainland. The final grouping of recommendations discusses ways of improving the way Hong Kong's regulators work to help maximise the risk-adjusted returns to the financial sector as a whole.


There is an urgent need for new tools for the rapid diagnosis of tuberculosis disease. We evaluated the potentials of 74 host markers as biomarkers for the immunological diagnosis of tuberculosis and monitoring of treatment response. Fifty-five individuals that presented with signs and symptoms requiring investigation for tuberculosis disease were prospectively recruited prior to clinical diagnosis, at a health centre in Cape Town, South Africa. Patients were later classified as having tuberculosis disease or other respiratory diseases (ORD) using a combination of clinical, radiological and laboratory findings. Out of 74 host markers that were evaluated in plasma samples from study participants using a multiplex platform, 18 showed potential as tuberculosis diagnostic candidates with the most promising being NCAM, CRP, SAP, IP-10, ferritin, TPA, I-309, and MIG, which diagnosed tuberculosis disease individually, with area under the ROC curve ≥0.80. Six-marker biosignatures containing NCAM diagnosed tuberculosis disease with a sensitivity of 100% (95%CI, 86.3-100%) and specificity of 89.3% (95%CI, 67.6-97.3%) irrespective of HIV status, and 100% accuracy in the absence of HIV infection. Furthermore, the concentrations of 11 of these proteins changed with treatment, thereby indicating that they may be useful in monitoring of the response to tuberculosis treatment. Our findings have potential to be translated into a point-of-care screening test for tuberculosis, after future validation studies.


Buschmann's randomised controlled trial in which 2-year-old children with specific expressive language delay were exposed to an intervention with a parent based programme purports to demonstrate significant improvement and challenges the complacency of the "watch and wait" policy for such children.1 Do these findings plug one of the many gaps in our evidence base with which we try to judge the role of assessment and interventions in the screening and surveillance of language acquisition difficulties? 2 3 Do they run counter to the conclusions of the UK National Screening Committee Child Health Subgroup report on speech and language delay in May 2005 in which the clinician is assured that there is a good prognosis for isolated expressive language delay presenting under the age of 3 and that watchful waiting is a reasonable approach unless the parent is very worried? 4 5

Firstly we need to examine the rigor and design of this trial and then we can return to the question as to how relevant its findings are to everyday clinical practice. The trial benefits from some strong design features such as blinded randomisation and outcome assessments, but it is not perfect and two concerns that might affect translation into everyday practice are the failure to analyse according to intention to treat and the lack of detail as to how potential participants were identified.

Participating children and their families were referred by clinicians delivering a population-wide free routine developmental check-up in Germany. The authors made the important observation that good outcomes for treated children were not frustrated by lower maternal education and socio-economic status, as these can be critical factors in language delay and …


Breaking with perspectives that merely criminalize audiovisual piracy, this article describes this phenomenon as one of the key elements of an informal economy of communication that shapes unofficial transnational flows. We analyze to what extent the networks of this informal economy have concurred in the changing geographies of global audiovisual flows. We first study under what conditions piracy has fueled the rise of new contraflows of non-Western cultural products and then discuss whether these have given form to counterhegemonic flows, that is, flows that carry content running counter to the dominant meanings of American programs. At the same time, we explore the ways in which piracy has contributed to an increased global presence of U.S. cultural products.


Abstract : This study is a double blind randomized placebo-controlled clinical trial using repeated measures. The objective is to improve recovery of functional skills for persons living in states of seriously impaired consciousness 3 to 12 months after severe TBI. This will be achieved by determining the neurobehavioral and neural effects of repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS), which is a non-invasive technique to stimulate the brain. The evidence of therapeutic efficacy from the literature in non-TBI related neurologic populations combined with our preliminary findings with severe TBI, indicate that rTMS merits investigation as a neurotherapeutic for severe TBI and that the proposed repetitive TMS protocol should be examined to determine effectiveness in inducing structural and functional neural plasticity and improving neurobehavioral recovery after severe TBI. Specific Aims: Aim I will determine presence, direction and sustainability of rTMS-induced neurobehavioral effects measured with the Disability Rating Scale. Aim II will determine the presence, direction and sustainability of rTMS-induced changes in functional neural activation and whether or not these changes correlate with improving neurobehavioral function. Aim III will examine the effect of rTMS on white fiber tracts and whether or not the rTMS-related effects correlate with improving neurobehavioral function. Aim IV addresses the need to confirm rTMS safety for severe TBI.


The well-being generated by each place is an unobservable characteristic affecting local competitiveness and territorial growth. In evaluating local well-being, the use of residents' perceptions may generate biased evaluations. Alternatively, a revealed-preference analysis of tourists' happiness might be exploited to assess the quality of life at the destination. Then, we develop a hedonic utility function to analyze a huge and original dataset of foreign tourists' satisfaction, visiting Italy over 2005-2014, on a large number of place-based amenities. Results show a great diversity in the mix of features that affect tourist well-being at each destination, indicating strong heterogeneity in place-based amenities, correlated in space. The presence of spatially correlated common factors of competitiveness asks for coordinated action plans on the part of local and regional authorities.


Markov decision processes (MDPs) are formal models commonly used in sequential decision-making. MDPs capture the stochasticity that may arise, for instance, from imprecise actuators via probabilities in the transition function. However, in data-driven applications, deriving precise probabilities from (limited) data introduces statistical errors that may lead to unexpected or undesirable outcomes. Uncertain MDPs (uMDPs) do not require precise probabilities but instead use so-called uncertainty sets in the transitions, accounting for such limited data. Tools from the formal verification community efficiently compute robust policies that provably adhere to formal specifications, like safety constraints, under the worst-case instance in the uncertainty set. We continuously learn the transition probabilities of an MDP in a robust anytime-learning approach that combines a dedicated Bayesian inference scheme with the computation of robust policies. In particular, our method (1) approximates probabilities as intervals, (2) adapts to new data that may be inconsistent with an intermediate model, and (3) may be stopped at any time to compute a robust policy on the uMDP that faithfully captures the data so far. Furthermore, our method is capable of adapting to changes in the environment. We show the effectiveness of our approach and compare it to robust policies computed on uMDPs learned by the UCRL2 reinforcement learning algorithm in an experimental evaluation on several benchmarks.


The Structural Foundations of International Finance examines the ways in which national economies, especially those of industrialized countries, are affected by the operations of international financial markets. Although these markets provide productive funding, there is also much speculative trading in stocks and currencies which can cause booms, slumps and hinder recovery. The authors advocate entrepreneurial coordination by productive enterprises for balanced and stable growth, with reduced risks of financial crises and recessions.


While almost all wealthy individuals make charitable contributions during their lifetimes, most fail to make charitable gifts when they die. But when they do, these contributions are, on average, many times larger than the gifts they gave over their last few years of life, even though earlier giving would have almost always reduced their total tax burden. In this study, we use a file of estate tax returns matched to income tax returns to analyze charitable giving by wealthy individuals at the time of their death (2007) compared with giving over their last five years of life (2002–06). We examine likely reasons for these giving patterns and their implication: that strengthening appeals focused on the legacy opportunities provided by wealth might significantly increase charitable giving.


Many people around the world suffer from neurological injuries of various sorts that cause serious difficulties in their lives, due to the loss of important sensory and motor functions. Functional electrical stimulation (FES) provides a possible solution to these difficulties by means of a feedback connection allowing the target organ (or organs) to be controlled by electrical stimulation. The control signals can be provided using recorded data extracted from the nerves (electroneurogram, ENG). The most common and safe approaches for interfacing with nerves is called cuff electrodes which deliver the required feedback path for the implantable system with minimum risk. The amount of recorded information can be improved by increasing the number of electrodes within a single cuff known as multi-electrode cuffs (MECs) configuration. This strategy can increase the signal to noise ratio for the recorded signals which have typically very low amplitude (less than 5μV). Consequently multiple high gain amplifiers are used in order to amplify the signals and supply a multi-channel recorded data stream for signal processing or monitoring applications. The signal processing unit within the implantable system or outside the body is employed for classification and sorting the action potential signals (APs) depending on their conduction velocities. This method is called velocity selective recording (VSR). Basically, the idea of this approach is that the conduction velocity of AP can be determined by timing the appearance of the signal at two or more points along the nerve and then dividing the distance between the points by the delay. The purpose of this thesis to investigate an alternative approach using artificial network for APs detection and extraction in neural recording applications to increase the velocity selectivity based on VSR using MECs. The prototype systems impose four major requirements which are high velocity selectivity, small size, low power consumption and high reliability. The proposed method has been developed for applications which require online AP classification. A novel time delay neural network (TDNN) approach is used to decompose the recorded data into several matched velocity bands to allow for individual velocity selectivity at each band to be increased. Increasing the velocity selectivity leads to more accurate recording from the target fibre (or fibres) within the nerve bundle which can be used for applications that require AP classification such as bladder control and the adjustment of foot drop. The TDNN method was developed to obtain more information from an individual cuff without increasing the number of electrodes or the sampling rate. Moreover, the optimization of the hardware implementation for the proposed signal processing method permits savings in power consumption and silicon area. Finally, a nerve signal synthesiser and noise generator for the evaluation of the VSRmethod is described. This system generates multiple artificial AP signals with a time offset between the channels with additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) to simulate the MEC and hence reduce the cost and the number of the animals required for experimental tests.


Purpose: To evaluate effects of the EX-PRESS® glaucoma filtering device on the corneal endothelial cell density (ECD) in eyes with open angle glaucoma (OAG). Designs: A prospective, non-comparative study. Methods: We prospectively evaluated the changes in the ECD, hexagonality, and coefficient of variation (CV) in 20 eyes of 19 patients who had an implantation of the EX-PRESS®. The type of glaucoma was exfoliation glaucoma in 6 eyes, uveitic glaucoma in 5 eyes, secondary glaucoma following vitrectomy in 4 eyes, primary OAG in 3 eyes, and neovascularization glaucoma in 2 eyes. Corneal specular microscopy was performed at the central cornea before, 1, and 2 years after the EXPRESS ® implantation. Results: The mean ECD was 2008 cells/mm2 before the surgery, 1956 cells/mm2 at 1 year, and 1846 cells/mm2 at 2 years after the surgery which represent a decrease of 5.0% at 1 year and a further decrease of 9.4% at 2 years. The decrease in the ECD from baseline to 1 year was not statistically significant, however the decreases from the baseline to 2 years (P<.0001) and from 1 year to 2 years (P=.0001) were significant. There was a significant change in the CV between the baseline and 1 year (P=0.03), and the change between baseline and 2 years was close to a statistically significant difference (P=0.07). There was no significant change in hexagonality during the 2 years. Two eyes with low preoperative ECD had a marked decrease in the ECD at 2 years. Conclusions: There is a slow decrease in the ECD after the EX-PRESS® implantation.


This paper examines the contribution of translation to the shaping of ISIS concepts and discourses circulated through its media machine, which includes Dabiq Magazine and the Al-Furqan Foundation. It will explore propaganda strategies used by ISIS to disseminate radical thought through professional digitalized media by drawing on a corpus of texts published in such outlets – including political speeches given by ISIS leaders, as well as online reports, all of which are translated by ISIS' own translators, the mujtahidun (the industrious ones). A comparative analysis of the original and the translated texts reveals a number of translation strategies that ISIS deploys to construct radicalized knowledge, to serve a violent agenda, and to appeal to a large number of potential foreign fighters. It will be argued that non-translation is a particularly important strategy employed to achieve these objectives. It will also be suggested that Islamic concepts such as Khilāfah, Jamā'ah, Ummah, Hijra, Bay'ah, Da'wah, Jihād, tawāghīt, and other motifs saturated with an ancient Islamic register tend to be left untranslated as a way of reinforcing perceptions of Muslim unity, power, allegiance, and brotherhood against the enemy. The analysis further reveals that particular ideological concepts are left untranslated when ISIS propagandists advocate fighting against the "unbelievers", arguably in an attempt to galvanize the group's followers – whether by appealing to their religious fanaticism or by promoting the uncritical reproduction of symbolic discourses grounded in Islamic history. These strategies highlight a need for awareness of the importance of language use in the reproduction of radical systems of thought and the use of (non-)translation for recruitment purposes. This socio-political linguistic study draws on Critical Discourse Analysis – incorporating the work of Fairclough (1995), Gramsci (1971) and Bourdieu (1991) to unravel the connections that exist between language use and the power of ISIS as a group, and to illustrate how specific translation techniques are adopted to reinforce the Caliphate's hegemony.


Excerpt] The Coke workers' victory was all the more remarkable given the killings that had decimated the Guatemalan labor movement. Between 1978 and 1984, tens of thousands of Guatemalan civilians were murdered by the Army and its death squads, including hundreds of trade unionists. The Coca-Cola workers' bold action helped break through the curtain of fear left by the massacres, and helped inspire a cautious renewal of union activity. Now the Lunafil workers were following the example of the Coke workers, and no one was quite sure what would happen. "Only" five unionists had been murdered since the Army allowed a civilian to take office as President in 1986. But the Army was still the real power in the country, and the danger to trade unionists was still very real. A sit-in strike was pushing the boundaries of what would be allowed. So like the Coca-Cola workers, the union at Lunafil was appealing for international support. The events that followed illustrate how crucial support actions by U.S. unionists can be for the heroic struggles of Third World workers. That phone call from Guatemala to New York City ended up helping keep open a hole in the wall that Lunafil's owners built to isolate the strikers. And the Lunafil workers' fight shows the importance of penetrating the walls of distance, language and culture that separate workers and unionists around the world.


William C. Martin has freshly reinterpreted the Tao Te Ching to speak directly and clearly to the most difficult of modern tasks -- parenting. With its combination of free verse and judicious advice, The Parent's Tao Te Ching addresses the great themes that permeate the Tao and that support loving parent- child relationships: responding without judgment, emulating natural processes, and balancing between doing and being.


This Article challenges existing narratives about the future of American Indian land tenure. The current highly-federalized system for reservation property is deeply problematic. In particular, the trust status of many reservation lands is expensive, bureaucratic, controlling, and linked to persistent poverty in many reservation communities. Yet, for complex reasons, trust property has proven largely immune from fundamental reform. Today, there seem to be two primary options floated for the future: a "do the best with what we have" approach that largely accepts core problems with trust, perhaps with some minor efficiency-oriented tinkering, for the sake of the benefits and security it does provide, or a return to old, already-failed reform strategies focused on simply "liberating" American Indian people with a forced transition to state-based fee-simple property. Both strategies respond, sometimes implicitly, to deep impulses about how property should work, especially in a market economy, but both also neglect sufficient respect for the true potential of more autonomous indigenous property regimes.

This Article engages property theory and related work on property system change to make the case for more radical institutional land reform as a realistic alternative choice, even in the complex and multi-layered environment of existing reservations. Property systems are full of dynamic, pluralistic potential, and property powerfully shapes the contours of both human communities and physical landscapes. This Article unearths this existing potential and charts a series of alternative steps, driven primarily by respect for tribal governments' own actions and choices, to reclaim new, modern versions of indigenous land tenures within reservation spaces.


To guarantee the safety of public transport and effectiveness in dispatching buses, overall solution on Beijing Bus Monitoring System (BJ-BMS) based on GPS is put forward in this paper. The system is composed of communication control and GIS subsystems, each of which was independently developed in the beginning and integrated in the end.The key technologies of the system are described in detail. In addition to some fundamental functions such as real-time monitoring, some featured functions tightly combined with the daily operations in Beijing Bus Company are realized in the BJ-BMS. Finally, the status of system implementation and maintenance are introduced, which have proven to be very effective in practical applications during 2008 Beijing Olympics.


Percent road center (PRC) is a performance indicator which is sensitive to driver distraction. The original definition of PRC is based on fixation data extracted from eye movement recordings, but it has also been suggested that PRC can be determined directly from the gaze data without segmenting it into saccades and fixations. The primary aim of this paper is to investigate if this is the case. Naturalistic driving data from a small scale field operational test comprising seven vehicles was used in the evaluation. It was found that PRC time traces based on gaze data and fixation data, respectively, were highly similar (correlation coefficient=0.95, average wavelet semblance=0.84) except for an absolute amplitude difference of about 8%. This indicates that the two approaches can be used interchangeably and that the processing step of segmenting gaze data into saccades and fixations can be left out. In addition to this finding, design issues related to the calculation of PRC are investigated. Especially, the impact of gaze cases pointing towards the intersection of the road centre area and the centre rear mirror were investigated. Results lead to conclude that gazes and fixations on the centre rear mirror should be removed from the PRC calculations, as they may negatively influence the correctness of the performance indicator.


I develop and apply a nonparametric approach to estimate demand in differentiated products markets. Estimating demand flexibly is key to addressing many questions in economics that hinge on the shape—and notably the curvature—of market demand functions. My approach applies to standard discrete choice settings, but accommodates a broader range of consumer behaviors and preferences, including complementarities across goods, consumer inattention, and consumer loss aversion. Further, no distributional assumptions are made on the unobservables and only limited functional form restrictions are imposed. Using California grocery store data, I apply my approach to perform two counterfactual exercises: quantifying the pass-through of a tax, and assessing how much the multi-product nature of sellers contributes to markups. In both cases, I find that estimating demand flexibly has a significant impact on the results relative to a standard random coefficients discrete choice model, and I highlight how the outcomes relate to the estimated shape of the demand functions.


As a result of the economic reform in china, the Chinese government needs a i nT\ k* huge of foreign investments to modernize its market. This creates opportunities for n foreigners to invest in this country. There are several factors affecting foreign companies' decisions in investing in China. Such factors are characteristics of market, distribution system, government restrictions on foreign trade and foreign investments, competition policy, price controls, and preferential treatment offered by government to foreign investors. Investments in many particular industries are encouraged by the government, especially infrastructure and telecommunication projects, since these industries have not yet been developed enough for the new open market policies. Forms and strategies to enter to Chinese market are discussed in this paper. The most favorite form of foreign investors is Chinese-foreign joint venture. An example of how existing company, Motorola, runs its business in China are also shown in the report. OPPORTUNITIES TO INVEST IN CHINA


The dynamics of animal populations are determined by several key demographic parameters, which vary over time with resultant changes in the status of the population. When managing declining populations, the identificationof the parameters that drive such change are a high priority, but are rarely achieved for large and long-lived species. Southern elephant seal populations in the South Indian and South Pacific oceans have decreased by as much as 50 % during the past 50 yr. The reasons for these decreases remained unknown. This study used a projected stochastic Leslie-matrix model based on long-term demographic data to examine the potential role of several life-history parameters in contributing to the declines. The models simulated the observed population trends that were independently derived from annual abundance surveys. Small changes in survival and fecundity had dramatic effects on population growth rates. At Macquarie Island for example, a small change (ca. 5%) in survival and fecundity rates resulted in the population reverting from a decreasing one to a population that increased. The vital rates that had the greatest impact on fitness were, in order of importance: (1) juvenile survival, (2) adult survival, (3) adult fecundity and (4) juvenile fecundity. Population viability analysis (PVA) for each of the 2 decreasing populations revealed that there was a high probability of the Marion Island population becoming extinct within the next 150 yr, while the probability of extinction at Macquarie Island was low. The estimated mean times to extinction for each population was 134 yr (95% confidence intervals: 105 to 332 yr) at Marion Island and 564 yr at Macquarie Island (the earliest time to extinction was 307 yr).


The Malaysian food manufacturing industry is an important industry in terms of its
contribution to manufacturing output, growth and profitability in the food sector.
One of the most influential approaches among various theories of industrial
organisation is the Structure-Conduct-Performance (S-C-P) model, which highlights
the competitive conditions in an industry by examining the structure of the industry
related to the behaviour and performance of firms. The elements that constitute
market structure and the manner in which it affects firms7 performance and conduct
are important aspects to consider in understanding the S-C-P relationships.
This study analyses the determinants of changes in S-C-P over time for the food
manufacturing industry in Malaysia, which is divided into five selected subindustries.
The data used in this study are based on secondary data collected from
various firms registered under the Company Commission of Malaysia. This study
covers a period of 10 years, i.e. from 1992 to 2002. Concentration Ratio and
Herfindahl-Hirschman Index and Gini Coefficient are used to measure the market
structure. Meanwhile, the market conduct is measured by Advertising-Sales Ratio,
whilst, the Profitability Ratio Analysis and Sales Ratio are used to measure market
performance. Regression analysis using Two-Stage Least-Square is carried out to
study the S-C-P model.
The results indicate that the Malaysian food manufacturing industry tended to have
low concentrated market throughout the study period. Nevertheless, the findings also
show the industry was still characterised with oligopolistic practices which was
evident by the existence of a few large firms. The advertising and rate of return also
fluctuated slightly due to the influence of market elements.
The results of regression analysis prove the existence of primary and feedback
effects between market structure, conduct and performance based on industrial
organisation approach in Malaysian food manufacturing industry. The main findings
of this study are concentration do depend on firm profitability as well as advertising
intensity; concentration do determine advertising; however, advertising seems to
have no effect on profitability. In addition, advertisement intensity and profitability
demonstrate the feedback effect; effect of conduct on structure; and performance on
conduct and market structure. The relationship between concentration and
advertising shows that concentrated industry spends more on advertising. Thus,
higher profits also lead to higher advertising.


The title of this thesis, Images of the Maker, has been
chosen to suggest that during the period 1837 to 1944, the
artist-character in the novel emerges as a significant
reflection of the various writers' thoughts about creation, both
artistic and divine. This study looks at artist-characters in
the belief that they can shed light on individual novels and
suggest interesting connections between apparently disparate
works.
Although any discussion which includes the social and
religious placement of the artist-character must take note of
such difficult abstractions as "culture," "aesthetics," and
"metaphysics," the approach through history or philosophy has
been avoided as far as possible. The aim has been to concentrate
on ideas revealed by the texts themselves.
In the first chapter, the artist-character in novels of
the Victorian period is examined. Changes in attitude towards
the artist as Romantic stereotype are shown to be connected with
both Christianity and science.
From the basis of issues established here, Chapter II
discusses Henry James's concern withthe morality of art in its
relation to life. This is seen as central to his artistic
endeavour. The chapter explores the manifestation of this
concern in a variety of artist-characters. The quite different artist-characters of Wells, Bennett,
and Galsworthy, analysed in Chapter III, support the notion of a
split in attitudes at the turn of the century. However, while
there is much in the work of these writers to confirm the
general view of them as philistines, undisturbed by the tensions
which produce the aesthete or naturalist, their approach to the
artist (particularly as architect) shows their concern with the
social relevance of art.
During the discussion in the first three chapters, the
nature of the artist's difficulties in the early twentieth century begins to emerge. This leads to a consideration of the
novels of Forster, Woolf, and Lawrence.
The last chapter, on Joyce Cary's first trilogy, suggests
ways in which an understanding of the artist's transformations
during this period can help to give critical bearings for an
assessment of the post-modernist novel, in which the writer's
struggle with his own creation has been a persistent theme.


A few years ago, the first CNN surpassed human performance on ImageNet. However, it soon became clear that machines lack robustness on more challenging test cases, a major obstacle towards deploying machines"in the wild"and towards obtaining better computational models of human visual perception. Here we ask: Are we making progress in closing the gap between human and machine vision? To answer this question, we tested human observers on a broad range of out-of-distribution (OOD) datasets, recording 85,120 psychophysical trials across 90 participants. We then investigated a range of promising machine learning developments that crucially deviate from standard supervised CNNs along three axes: objective function (self-supervised, adversarially trained, CLIP language-image training), architecture (e.g. vision transformers), and dataset size (ranging from 1M to 1B). Our findings are threefold. (1.) The longstanding distortion robustness gap between humans and CNNs is closing, with the best models now exceeding human feedforward performance on most of the investigated OOD datasets. (2.) There is still a substantial image-level consistency gap, meaning that humans make different errors than models. In contrast, most models systematically agree in their categorisation errors, even substantially different ones like contrastive self-supervised vs. standard supervised models. (3.) In many cases, human-to-model consistency improves when training dataset size is increased by one to three orders of magnitude. Our results give reason for cautious optimism: While there is still much room for improvement, the behavioural difference between human and machine vision is narrowing. In order to measure future progress, 17 OOD datasets with image-level human behavioural data and evaluation code are provided as a toolbox and benchmark at: https://github.com/bethgelab/model-vs-human/


PURPOSE
To evaluate the Eclipse electron Monte Carlo (eMC) dose calculation algorithm using patient specific dosimetry measurements, and to investigate possible patient specific QA guideline.

METHODS
Electron treatments were planned for 58 patients on Eclipse (Version 10.0) using the eMC algorithm for two Varian TrueBeam linear accelerators (Linac-A and Linac-B). The dose calculations were based on patient anatomy (patient plan), and a solid-water phantom (QA plan). The calculation results were compared with physics measurement using a solid-water phantom and a pinpoint ion chamber.

RESULTS
The monitor units as calculated on the QA plans were (2.1±2.0)% higher than the measurement on both accelerators, excluding outliers with small fields (3 cm or less) and extended SSD (above 105 cm). The difference of QA plan and measurement was consistent with the calculation uncertainty of the eMC algorithm (2%). The monitor units as calculated on the patient plans were (8.0±5.0)% (Linac-A) and (5.5±5.0)% (Linac-B) higher than the corresponding measurement. However, we observed that the eMC algorithm under-estimated the dose for one patient treated on nose, by as much as 28.5% for the patient plan and 12.9% for the QA plan. For this patient, a calculation based on an output look-up table was within 2% of the measurement.

CONCLUSION
The measurements indicate that the eMC algorithm predicts dose reasonably well for QA plans using the same homogeneous phantom. However, for CT-based patient plans, the eMC algorithm generates a larger number of monitor units versus the QA plan. It may reflect the impact of patient surface curvature and tissue inhomogeneity to the eMC algorithm and further investigation is needed. Caution should be taken for eMC patient plan with small field size and extended SSD. A lookup table of output factors based on measurement can be generated as a quick reference for electron dose calculation.


In this paper, we present the design and prototype of a six-legged walking robot which uses lightweight piezoceramic composite curved actuator (LIPCA) as its actuator. LIPCA consists of multiple layers of glass/epoxy and carbon/epoxy that encapsulate a unimorph piezoelectric ceramic actuator. It uses lightweight fiber-reinforced plastic layers, and it is a lighter structure and generates a higher force and a larger displacement than other conventional piezo-composite type actuators. Like most six-legged walking insects including cockroaches, our robot uses the alternating tripod gait where the front and rear legs on the same side move together with the middle leg on the other side for its locomotion. Two LIPCA strips in different phases are used for actuating each tripod so that only one tripod may touch the ground. All the experiments with the prototype show that LIPCA can be used as an alternative actuator for small and light mobile robots