An Introduction to the History of Structural Concrete: Vol. 1: From Antiquity to the 19th Century. Manual. March 2023. 134 pages. Non-Member price: CHF 100. The fib Bulletin 107 is now available for purchase on the fib website: https://fib-international.org/publications/fib-bulletins/ an-introduction-to-the-history-of-structural-concrete-em-pdf-em-detail.html. This bulletin is a Manual, the first Volume of a series on the History of Structural Concrete prepared by Task Group 1.6. This first Volume follows the structural concrete evolution from Antiquity to the 19th century. The history of concrete is more than stories about the past. It shows where we are today and where we can go. Cement is a binder of the whole story. The history of concrete—and above all, that of building and construction research in the broadest sense—has been a subject of interest for a long time. As engineers, architects or builders, there is no need to reinvent the wheel. Instead, the work of predecessors can be continued. Analysis fib Bulletin 107 cover of past abnormalities and understanding of historical developments are worth using as the basis for future solutions. Above all, being involved with concrete in today's world means dealing with building materials, aesthetic principles, construction methods, and computational techniques of the past and present to identify starting points that can be used in the future to save materials and energy but also working time. In most groundbreaking research projects, in the beginning, researchers found themselves looking into the past. Who was the first person to research a particular topic? What is the stage of development today? What questions remain unanswered? This approach is nothing extraordinary but rather self-evident and has been the guiding force behind the evolution of structures, materials, and construction methods. An inevitable sense of admiration arises when we look at structures and into the story of their builders, who showed great courage by bringing their ideas to life, one structure at a time. The argument of this document represents a novelty for the fib, and it is essential for disseminating the knowledge to the community. It is particularly crucial to disseminate the information presented in this manual to students and young engineers. The historical analysis of the past is essential for the conceptual design of new structures. In addition, historical knowledge is vital when engineers approach existing structures: a critical historical analysis is essential for the correct structural assessment. We can also consider this manual—and the upcoming volumes on the History of Structural Concrete—essential and useful documents at different levels. Regardless of whether you are a student, an engineer, or simply have an interest in cement's history, this bulletin is certain to provide you with valuable insights. fib Bulletin 108 coming soon!


PURPOSE
To investigate the activity of a novel dioxolane L-nucleoside analog, troxacitabine (L-(-)-OddC, BCH-4556), in patients with refractory leukemia.

PATIENTS AND METHODS
Study participants were patients with refractory or relapsed acute myeloid (AML) or lymphocytic (ALL) leukemia, myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS), or chronic myelogenous leukemia in blastic phase (CML-BP). Troxacitabine was provided as an intravenous infusion for more than 30 minutes daily for 5 days at a dose of 8.0 mg/m(2)/d (40 mg/m(2) per course). Courses were given every 3 to 4 weeks according to antileukemic efficacy.

RESULTS
Forty-two patients (AML, 18 patients; MDS, one patient; ALL, six patients; CML-BP, 17 patients) were treated. Median age was 51 years (range, 23 to 80 years); 22 patients were male. Stomatitis was the most significant adverse event, with three patients (7%) and two patients (5%), respectively, experiencing grade 3 or 4 toxicity. Ten patients (24%) had grade 3 hand-foot syndrome, and two patients (5%) had grade 3 skin rash. One patient (2%) had grade 3 fatigue and anorexia. Marrow hypoplasia occurred between days 14 and 28 in 12 (75%) of 16 assessable patients with AML. Two complete remissions and one partial remission (18%) were observed in 16 assessable patients with AML. None of six patients with ALL responded. Six (37%) of 16 assessable patients with CML-BP experienced a return to chronic-phase disease.

CONCLUSION
Troxacitabine has significant antileukemic activity in patients with AML and CML-BP.


Abstract: Drawing on forty semistructured interviews with young Muslim American women, FBI hate crimes data, and civil rights policy reports, this research explores the rise of institutionalized private violence directed at Muslim women. While saving Muslim women from Muslim men through U.S. military invasion remains a dominant cultural ideology and justification for the global War on Terror, I argue that "saving Muslim women" from violence garners significant attention only when foreign Muslim men are positioned as the assailants of such violence. One central form of violence that remains unexamined for Muslim women's lives is the increased exposure to violence in the public sphere following the rapid securitization of the United States after the bombing of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. Of the women interviewed for this study, 85 percent reported experiencing verbal assaults or threats within public spaces, and 25 percent reported experiencing physical violence. This research finds that, although white American men are disproportionately responsible for public forms of Islamophobic violence, the race and gender of these assailants often remain invisible within media accounts.


The study was done to demonstrate that nanoparticles are more toxic than fine particles, even if they have the same chemical composition. The toxicity of a particle within a single cellular system is dependent on several properties including shape, size, chemical composition, and surface charge along with the intrinsic biological pathways activated in a cell following their uptake.
The higher toxicity by nanoparticles compared to fine particles having the same chemical composition is due to the higher density of surface molecules presenting them with a higher surface charge and a larger surface area to react. A Fe(III) nanoparticle behaves like a catalyst providing the space and the proper environment for the biomolecules to react with oxidizing elements.
Due to the special properties nanoparticles retain. Their utilization will increase leading to the advancement of nanotechnology in almost every industrial sector. In view of the potential toxic effects of these particles it must be recommended, that special care should be taken during their production to minimize the exposure of workers. Special emphasis should be laid on the charge and intracellular retention properties when nanoparticles are used for medical purposes such as thermal imaging and cancer drug targeting. This recommendation should be specially implemented for the poorly soluble nanoparticles made out of inorganic compounds such as the iron-containing nanoparticles.


We present and discuss the results of new multiple-scattering radiative transfer calculations for three representative types of galactic environments, filled with either homogeneous or two-phase clumpy dust distributions. Extinction and scattering properties for two types of interstellar dust, similar to those found in the average diffuse medium of the Milky Way (MW) and the Bar of the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC), are considered. The wavelength coverage extends from 1000 to 30000 Å, with particular emphasis on the rest-frame UV. This makes these models especially applicable to starburst galaxies and Lyman-break galaxy samples. The examination of the models concentrates on the study of UV/visual/near-IR reddening effects, the wavelength dependence of attenuation, and on the changes that arise from the transition from homogeneous to clumpy dust distributions in different star/dust geometries. Embedded dust, especially when clumpy, leads to saturation at fairly low reddening values with correspondingly gray attenuation functions. This makes the assessment of the attenuation of the far-UV flux from starburst galaxies difficult, if only UV/visual/near-IR data are available. Existing data for UV-selected starburst galaxies indicate a range of UV attenuation factors of 0-150. Our models reproduce the "Calzetti Attenuation Law," provided one adopts SMC-type dust and a clumpy shell-type dust distribution surrounding the starbursts. The average far-UV attenuation factor for the Calzetti sample is found to be 7.4. The only relatively reliable measure for the UV attenuation factor for single galaxies was found in the ratio of the integrated far-IR flux to the far-UV flux, measured near 1600 Å, requiring the measurement of the entire spectral energy distribution of galaxies.


The words "Asian American film" might evoke a painfully earnest, low-budget documentary or family drama, destined to be seen only in small film festivals or on PBS (Public Broadcasting Service). In her groundbreaking study of the past fifty years of Asian American film and video, Jun Okada demonstrates that although this stereotype is not entirely unfounded, a remarkably diverse range of Asian American filmmaking has emerged. Yet Okada also reveals how the legacy of institutional funding and the "PBS style" unites these filmmakers, whether they are working within that system or setting themselves in opposition to its conventions. Making Asian American Film and Video explores how the genre has served as a flashpoint for debates about what constitutes Asian American identity. Tracing a history of how Asian American film was initially conceived as a form of public-interest media, part of a broader effort to give voice to underrepresented American minorities, Okada shows why this seemingly well-intentioned project inspired deeply ambivalent responses. In addition, she considers a number of Asian American filmmakers who have opted out of producing state-funded films, from Wayne Wang to Gregg Araki to Justin Lin. Okada gives us a unique behind-the-scenes look at the various institutions that have bankrolled and distributed Asian American films, revealing the dynamic interplay between commercial and state-run media. More than just a history of Asian Americans in film, Making Asian American Film and Video is an insightful meditation on both the achievements and the limitations of institutionalized multiculturalism.


The treatment of foreign investment has become the most controversial issue in global governance. At the centre of the controversy lies the mechanism of investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS), which allows private firms legal recourse against governments, if government interference has degraded their investment. Using newly released data covering 696 investment disputes, I assess some of the central claims about ISDS. I argue that the regime has indeed undergone a major shift: a majority of claims deal not with direct takings by low rule of law countries, but with regulation in democratic states. The result of this shift towards indirect expropriation affects firms' incentives: claimants may gain even when they lose a challenge, if litigation can deter governments' regulatory ambitions. The result, as I show, is an increase in the number of cases, accompanied by a precipitous decrease in their legal merit. Investors bringing indirect expropriation claims also appear far less likely to settle, and more likely to publicize the dispute, consistently with theoretical expectations.


Acid soil is one of the most important limitations in agricultural production worldwide. The application of lime and the growth of Al-tolerant genotypes are the most commonly employed strategies for the amelioration of acidic soil constraints. This study evaluates the effect of soil acidity and liming on the growth and mineral nutrition of Al-tolerant potato cv. Tresor and Al-sensitive potato cv. Canberra (Solanum tuberosum L.). Liming increased the total shoot and root dry matter (DM) of cv. Canberra, and the leaf DM of cv. Tresor. 'Tresor' retained a greater ability to acquire nutrients from acidic soil, especially P, Ca, and Mg. In addition, the Al content in the root tips and in other vegetative parts of acidic soil-grown plants indicates, on one hand, the complexity of acidic soil toxicity that was not solely related to Al toxicity and, on the other, the possible involvement of multiple mechanisms of Al tolerance that could be partly related to better nutrient uptake from acidic soil.


Multi-facetted control efforts against malaria in endemic areas have led in the last decade to a sizeable decrease in its prevalence and incidence in almost all tropical regions. A parallel decline of the number of malaria cases in returning travelers is being observed, even if this trend is not so spectacular after a stay in West or Central Africa. This fast evolution should question the need of systematic chemoprophylaxis for all short-term travelers going to the tropics, in particular to very low risk areas of Southern Asia or Latin America. Surprisingly both North American and European guidelines diverge substantially regarding the indications of chemoprophylaxis according to the geographic risk, with more or less liberal recommendations, often not strongly supported. A neutral comparison between the low risk of contracting a potentially severe (P. falciparum) malaria in most Asian or Latin American regions with the very limited but "uncompressible" risk of severe drug toxicity should lead to a decrease in unnecessary prescriptions based on erroneous feelings rather than robust evidence. An harmonization of the European recommendations is highly desirable for this mobile and informed population. Intermediate or alternative preventive strategies should be also be explored.


Classical planning tasks are usually modelled in the PDDL which is a schematic language based on first-order logic. Nevertheless, most of the current planners turn this first-order representation into a propositional one via the grounding process. It is well known that the grounding process may cause an exponential blowup. Therefore it is important to detect which grounded atoms are redundant in a sense that they are not necessary for finding a plan and therefore the grounding process does not need to generate them. This is usually done by a relaxed reachability analysis, which can be improved by employing structural symmetries. Symmetries are bijective self-maps preserving the structure of the PDDL task. In this paper, we introduce a new method which is based on self-maps preserving the structure but which need not be bijective. We call these maps PDDL endomorphisms and we show that they can be used for pruning of redundant objects even if they appear in a reachable atom. We formulate the computation of endomorphisms as a constraint satisfaction problem (CSP) that can be solved by an off-the-shelf CSP solver.


We show that disclosing machine predictions to affected parties can trigger self-fulfilling prophecies. In an investment game, we experimentally vary investors' and recipients' access to a machine prediction about recipients' likelihood to pay back an investment. Recipients who privately learn about an incorrect machine prediction alter their behavior in the direction of the prediction. Furthermore, when recipients learn that an investor has disregarded a machine prediction of no-repayment, this further lowers the repayment amount. We interpret these findings as evidence that transparency regarding machine predictions can alter recipients' beliefs about what kind of person they are and what investors expect of them. Our results indicate that providing increased access to machine predictions as an isolated measure to alleviate accountability concerns may have unin- tended negative consequences for organizations by possibly changing customer behavior.


Cycling becomes more and more popular, especially among young people who favor active modes of transport. Drinking and drug use is also more common among young people and affect their capability of driving. The objective of this paper is to present the exploration of cycling under the influence of alcohol and drugs conducted in the framework of the research project titled "Velivr'" through a questionnaire survey among IRTAD Group members and a quantitative survey among cyclists in Paris. Results showed that in many countries safe cycling attracts growing attention but the vulnerability of cyclists is not fully realised. The CUI problem is not appropriately addressed through insufficient enforcement and provision for measures to prevent it. All in all, cycling under the influence of alcohol and/or drugs is a problem growing in parallel with cycling itself.


This research demonstrated the fabrication of nominally 5 ft. (1.5 m) and 10 ft. (3 m) long carbon/epoxy IsoBeam™ structures, with a rectangular 5" (12.7 cm) wide by 10" (25.4 cm) deep cross-section. The IsoBeam structure is a composite lattice structure that is a geometric derivative of the IsoTruss® structure. IsoTruss composite structures have proven to be stiff, light-weight, and efficient in a variety of loadbearing applications. Modifying the geometry to yield a rectangular cross-section provides additional applications for these beams as structural elements in buildings, aircraft, vehicles, and other structures. Three IsoBeam structures were manufactured – two 5-foot (1.5 m) long beams and one 10-foot (3 m) long beam – with carbon/epoxy tows comprising Toray T700SC-12K-50C carbon fibers pre-impregnated with TCR Composites UF3369- 100 epoxy resin. An aluminum 3-dimensional modified pin-mandrel was designed and manufactured. The composite tows were positioned on the mandrel under tension using a combination of hand and machine filament winding to create the complex geometry of the IsoBeam structure (the complex IsoBeam geometry prohibits the filament-winding process from producing a full IsoBeam structure without hand intervention). Each member was circumferentially wrapped with overlapping 1 inch (2.5 cm) wide strips of Dunstone Hi-Shrink Tape (polyester) to consolidate the tows during the curing process. The results of this research indicate high quality manufacturing as evidenced by high volume fraction and low void ratio.


A method of automated recognition of three-dimensional (3D) features in images generated by ground-penetrating imaging radar (GPIR) is undergoing development. GPIR 3D images can be analyzed to detect and identify such subsurface features as pipes and other utility conduits. Until now, much of the analysis of GPIR images has been performed manually by expert operators who must visually identify and track each feature. The present method is intended to satisfy a need for more efficient and accurate analysis by means of algorithms that can automatically identify and track subsurface features, with minimal supervision by human operators. In this method, data from multiple sources (for example, data on different features extracted by different algorithms) are fused together for identifying subsurface objects. The algorithms of this method can be classified in several different ways. In one classification, the algorithms fall into three classes: (1) image-processing algorithms, (2) feature-extraction algorithms, and (3) a multiaxis data-fusion/pattern-recognition algorithm that includes a combination of machine-learning, pattern-recognition, and object-linking algorithms. The image-processing class includes preprocessing algorithms for reducing noise and enhancing target features for pattern recognition. The feature-extraction algorithms operate on preprocessed data to extract such specific features in images as two-dimensional (2D) slices of a pipe. Then the multiaxis datafusion/pattern-recognition algorithm identifies, classifies, and reconstructs 3D objects from the extracted features. In this process, multiple 2D features extracted by use of different algorithms and representing views along different directions are used to identify and reconstruct 3D objects. In object linking, which is an essential part of this process, features identified in successive 2D slices and located within a threshold radius of identical features in adjacent slices are linked in a directed-graph data structure. Relative to past approaches, this multiaxis approach offers the advantages of more reliable detections, better discrimination of objects, and provision of redundant information, which can be helpful in filling gaps in feature recognition by one of the component algorithms. The image-processing class also includes postprocessing algorithms that enhance identified features to prepare them for further scrutiny by human analysts (see figure). Enhancement of images as a postprocessing step is a significant departure from traditional practice, in which enhancement of images is a preprocessing step. This work was done by Han Park, Timothy Stough, and Amir Fijany of Caltech for NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The software used in this innovation is available for commercial licensing. Please contact Karina Edmonds of the California Institute of Technology at (626) 395-2322. Refer to NPO-40698. Features Representing Two Pipes were generated by applying a feature-extraction algorithm to data from a GPIR scan of 110th Street in New York City. This synthetic image contains the detection marks overlaid on GPIR data from a mid-depth horizontal slice viewed from overhead. The gaps and undulations are minimized in subsequent processing by a multiaxis data-fusion/pattern-recognition algorithm.


We perform a unified systematic analysis of d  +  1 dimensional, spin representations of the isometry algebra of the maximally symmetric spacetimes AdSd+1, and dSd+1. This allows us to explicitly construct the effective low-energy bulk equations of motion obeyed by linear fields, as the eigenvalue equation for the quadratic Casimir differential operator. We show that the bulk description of a conformal family is given by the Fierz–Pauli system of equations. For this is a massive gravity theory, while for conserved currents we obtain Einstein gravity and covariant gauge fixing conditions. This analysis provides a direct algebraic derivation of the familiar AdS holographic dictionary at low energies, with analogous results for Minkowski and de Sitter spacetimes.


Abstract The thoracic pump and the abdominal pump are osteopathic manipulative (OM) lymphatic pump techniques frequently used by osteopathic physicians to treat patients with infections (eg, pneumonia, otitis media). Although there is a widely accepted belief among the osteopathic medical profession that increasing lymphatic flow is beneficial, no measurements of lymph flow during osteopathic manipulative treatment have been reported. The authors surgically instrumented five mongrel dogs to record lymphatic flow in the thoracic duct (TDF) and cardiac variables during three intervention protocols. After recovery from surgery, canine subjects were placed in a standing-support sling, and TDF, cardiac output, mean aortic blood pressure, and heart rate were recorded during two randomized 30-second sessions of manipulative intervention using the osteopathic thoracic pump and abdominal pump techniques on two successive days. Lymph flow in the thoracic duct increased from 1.57±0.20 mL·min-1 to a peak TDF of 4.80±1.73 mL·min-1 during abdominal pump, and from 1.20±0.41 mL·min-1 to 3.45±1.61 mL·min-1 during thoracic pump. Lymph flow in the thoracic duct and cardiac variables were also recorded for canine subjects during physical activity (ie, treadmill exercise at 3 miles per hour at 0% incline). During physical activity, TDF increased from 1.47±0.33 mL·min-1 to 5.81±1.30 mL·min-1. Although cardiac variables did not change significantly during manipulative intervention with lymphatic pump techniques, cardiac output and heart rate did increase during physical activity. The authors conclude that physical activity and manipulative intervention using thoracic pump and abdominal pump techniques produced net increases in TDF (P<.05).


Inceptisols is one among many ordos which distribution is quite wide in Indonesia. Based on data from the Agency for Agricultural Research and Development (2000) with low to moderate organic matter content. As the organic matter content is low enough, the addition of organic matter is needed. Organic materials needed, can be used for fertilizers. Fertilizers used may be organic or inorganic fertilizers. The aim of this study is to learn about the effect of treatment mucus earthworm to nutrients contained in the Inceptisol soil. The purpose of the study is to determine the effect of fermented liquid earthworm ( Lumbricus rubellus ) manure to increased phosphorus nutrients available in the Inceptisol soil and add available phosphorus nutrients in the Inceptisol soil. With the hypothesis of increasing the dose liquid earthworm ( Lumbricus rubellus) manure fermentation can increase levels of available phosphorus in the Inceptisol soil. The benefits of this research is a fermented earthworm ( Lumbricus rubellus ) liquid organic fertilizer can add available  phosphorus nutrients to the Inseptisols soil. This research was conducted in the greenhouse of the Faculty of Agriculture, University of Brawijaya, while liquid fertilizer process conducted in Sidoarjo Mr. Subchan house. Basic analysis of the soil was conducted in the laboratory of Chemistry, Department of Chemistry, Mathematics Faculty, University of Brawijaya. This research was conducted from March to May 2016. Based on our research of liquid mucus earthworms fertilizer may improve available phosphorus nutrient, pH and C-organic with the highest increase incubation for 4 weeks at P3 doses treatment with 100mL / L of water. The more number of liquid earthworm mucus fertilizer on the Inceptisols soil, the more the increase in the available phosphorus nutrients, pH and C-organic in the Inceptisols soil.


This thesis presents the development of models for the simulation and optimization of the design of a planar solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) stack. Fuel cells produce electric power directly from a fuel by electrochemical reactions. The high efficiencies demonstrated make them a promising technology for energy conversion. The main challenges lie with reliability and cost reduction. Some applications demand at the same time strong requirements on the compactness of the system and its ability to load following. The models have been developed to represent the novel stack proposed by HTceramix SA (Yverdon, Switzerland) which is tested and partly developed at the Laboratoire d'Energetique Industrielle (LENI). The model has been created in a way which allows its use for design optimization: this requires detailed and validated outputs to gain insight in the behavior of a new stack design and computational efficiency to allow sensitivity studies and optimization. Electrochemistry, mass and heat transfer phenomena are combined with a 2D fluid motion description to obtain a generalized model which can be applied to a large range of geometries. An efficient stack modeling approach is proposed. Validation of the model has been carried out with measurements and a 3D computational fluid dynamics model. A methodology based on parameter estimation has been used to identify kinetic parameters and other uncertain parameters. Local temperature measurements and a local current density measurement have been performed and also used for model validation. The 2D model has been successfully validated showing good agreement with both the experiments and the detailed 3D model. Simulation of the novel stack geometry (counter-flow) has allowed to identify the main problems arising from this compact geometry where the non-homogeneous velocity field creates stagnant zones which limit the operation at high efficiency. The simulated temperatures are characterized by important gradients and excessive level values (>850°C) for an intermediate temperature SOFC (700-800°C). This motivated to work on an alternative geometry, which based on simulation results, solves most of the problems previously identified. The thesis presents several examples of the influence of design on the system performance and reliability. Transient simulations have been performed and the design choice had only a small impact on the transient behavior which presents intrinsically an important thermal inertia. On the contrary, degradation behavior is dependent on the design. Stack degradation has been simulated by including the metal interconnect degradation into the stack model. The approach has allowed to identify a new criterion to express degradation consistently for different test conditions. To assist stack design, new approaches are necessary. The geometry of a stack was initially determined by a number of decision variables (such as cell area, thickness of the channels and interconnects) on which extensive sensitivity analysis were conducted. This method is of limited use as each of the objectives on stack design led to different solutions. To overcome this limitation, multi-objective optimization has been applied to the stack design problem. Application of this method is new in this field and different optimization strategies are tested. The results from the optimization allow to identify a clear trade-off between the compactness of the stack and the temperature level (and therefore the degradation).


The Cloud Computing operational model is a major recent trend in the IT industry, which has gained tremendous momentum. This trend will likely also reach the IT services that support Critical Infrastructures (CI), because of the potential cost savings and benefits of increased resilience due to elastic cloud behaviour. However, realizing CI services in the cloud introduces security and resilience requirements that existing offerings do not address well. For example, due to the opacity of cloud environments, the risks of deploying cloud-based CI services are difficult to assess, especially at the technical level, but also from legal or business perspectives. This paper discusses challenges and objectives related to bringing CI services into cloud environments, and presents an architectural model as a basis for the development of technical solutions with respect to those challenges.


With rapid development and gradual maturity of cloud computing technology, cloud computing service on the Internet is also widely applied. However, the issue of high energy efficiency becomes a main issue facing the opening of cloud computing new era. With social development in recent years, virtualization technology and could computing mode also get rapid development due to such features as flexible management, high resource utilization rate and good expandability. Moreover, they can be used to predict wide prospects in future data centers. For a solution to high energy consumption of cloud computing data center, we combine traditional energy consumption management techniques with virtualization technologies, and propose an effective model and measuring method under cloud computing environment. This is an important research orientation.


Abstract Scaphitid ammonites (scaphites) are common in the Upper Cretaceous Pierre Shale and Bearpaw Shale of the Western Interior of North America. We redescribe Hoploscaphites nodosus (Owen, 1852) and H. brevis (Meek, 1876) from the Baculites compressus–B. cuneatus zones of the upper Campanian. The types of both of these species were collected in the mid-19th century in what was then called Nebraska Territory, and included parts of present-day South Dakota, North Dakota, and Montana. Based on our present knowledge of the distribution of these species, the type material was probably collected from the B. compressus–B. cuneatus zones in the Pierre Shale at Sage Creek, a tributary of the Cheyenne River, Pennington County, South Dakota. Traditionally, the more robust, more coarsely ornamented scaphites (comprising the "nodosus group") from the Pierre Shale and Bearpaw Shale were assigned to Jeletzkytes Riccardi, 1983, and the more slender, more finely ornamented scaphites were assigned to Hoploscaphites Nowak, 1911. However, our large collections of these scaphites from the Baculites compressus–B. cuneatus zones reveal a complete intergradation between the two morphological extremes, and for many specimens, the choice of genus is arbitrary. In addition, our studies of other biostratigraphic zones in the Pierre Shale and Bearpaw Shale reveal that cooccurring species of these two "genera" share more in common with each other than they do with congeneric species from other horizons. Furthermore, contrary to earlier assumptions, Jeletkytes is not endemic to the Western Interior Basin of North America and occurs, for example, in the U.S. Atlantic Coastal Plain and Europe. We thus provisionally treat Jeletzkytes as a junior subjective synonym of Hoploscaphites. This expanded definition of Hoploscaphites is consistent with present-day concepts of other scaphitid genera such as Discoscaphites Meek, 1876, and Trachyscaphites Cobban and Scott, 1964. In Hoploscaphites nodosus and H. brevis, the juvenile shell is planispirally coiled with a small umbilicus. The whorl section is initially depressed and becomes more compressed through ontogeny. The angle of the body chamber in juveniles is approximately two-thirds of a whorl. At the approach of maturity, the shell uncoils, forming a relatively long shaft and recurved hook. The ratio of whorl width to whorl height reaches a minimum value at midshaft. The apertural margin at maturity is constricted and terminates in a flared lip. Commonly, the last two or three septa, corresponding to the formation of the hook, are more closely spaced (approximated). These features indicate that the rate of growth decreased and eventually stopped at maturity ("morphogenetic countdown" associated with determinate growth). Both species of scaphites occur as dimorphs, which are referred to as macroconchs (presumably females) and microconchs (presumably males). In samples of specimens of the same species within a single concretion, macroconchs are approximately 20% larger than microconchs. In addition to size, dimorphs are distinguished by differences in shape, including the presence or absence of an umbilical bulge, the size of the umbilical diameter, the outline of the umbilical shoulder relative to that of the venter in side view, and the relative change in whorl height in passing from the mature phragmocone to the shaft of the body chamber. The holotype of Hoploscaphites nodosus, by monotypy, is UC 6381, the original of Scaphites nodosus Owen (1852: 581, pl. 8, fig. 4). Adults exhibit a range of variation in size, degree of compression, and coarseness of ornament. The exposed phragmocone occupies most of the coiled portion of the shell, and is approximately two-thirds of a whorl in angular length. Adults are large (LMAX averages 91.8 mm in macroconchs and 78.0 mm in microconchs) and ellipsoidal in side view, with a strongly recurved hook (apertural angle averages 73° in macroconchs). The ratio of whorl width to whorl height at midshaft averages 0.99 in macroconchs and 1.02 in microconchs. The whorl section is subquadrate/ovoid to reniform, with broadly rounded to flat flanks, and a broadly rounded venter. Ribs are straight to slightly flexuous and cross the venter with a weak adoral projection. There are 5–7.25 ribs/cm on the venter at midshaft in macroconchs and 6–8 ribs/cm on the venter at midshaft in microconchs. Umbilicolateral tubercles usually appear midway on the exposed phragmocone, but may already be present near the point of exposure. At midshaft, they occur at one-third to one-half whorl height and are relatively widely and evenly spaced, and usually extend to the aperture. Ventrolateral tubercles are generally present at the point of exposure. They are unevenly spaced on the exposed phragmocone, becoming more evenly spaced on the shaft. They attain their maximum size at midshaft, sometimes forming large, subspinose clavi that project out to the side. They become smaller and more closely spaced on the hook, and usually extend to the aperture. The suture is characterized by a broad, asymmetrically bifid first lateral saddle and narrow, symmetrically to asymmetrically bifid first lateral lobe. The holotype of Hoploscaphites brevis, by original designation and monotypy, is USNM 367, the original of Scaphites nodosus var. brevis Meek (1876: 428, pl. 25, fig. 1). Adults exhibit a wide range of variation in size, degree of compression, and coarseness of ornament. Adults are small to large (LMAX ranges from 29.5 to 101.5 mm in macroconchs and from 26.7 to 81.2 mm in microconchs), and rounded to ellipsoidal in lateral view. The body chamber consists of a relatively short shaft and a weakly recurved hook (apertural angle averages 59° in macroconchs). The ratio of whorl width to whorl height averages 0.73 at midshaft in both macroconchs and microconchs. The whorl section is subquadrate/ovoid, with fairly flat flanks, and a broadly rounded venter. Ribs are fine and flexuous and cross the venter with a weak adoral projection. There are 6–14 ribs/cm on the venter at midshaft in macroconchs and 8–18 ribs/cm on the venter at midshaft in microconchs. In most small specimens, umbilicolateral tubercles are absent on the phragmocone and, instead, the primary ribs are strong and adorally concave in this area. In large specimens, umbilicolateral tubercles usually appear midway or near the adoral end of the exposed phragmocone. They are small and relatively evenly spaced. In almost all specimens, umbilicolateral tubercles are present on the body chamber, and occur at one-fourth to one-third whorl height. They are more or less uniformly spaced with, occasionally, some approximation near the point of recurvature. In specimens that are rounded in lateral view, the umbilicolateral tubercles are arranged in a broad arc, which is one of the hallmarks of this species. Ventrolateral tubercles are stronger than umbilicolateral tubercles, and are usually present on the phragmocone starting anywhere from the point of exposure to the adoral end of the phragmocone. In general, they are unevenly spaced on the phragmocone, commonly occurring in pairs or clusters, becoming more evenly spaced on the shaft. As in H. nodosus, they attain their maximum size at midshaft. The ventrolateral tubercles usually die out near the point of recurvature, but if not, they become smaller, more bullate, and more closely spaced toward the aperture. The suture is the same as that in H. nodosus. Hoploscaphites landesi Riccardi, 1983, is a junior subjective synonym of H. brevis. The holotype is a small, compressed, finely ornamented microconch of H. brevis. It grades into larger, more robust specimens, with coarser ornament. We thereby expand the definition of H. brevis to include a wide range of variation in adult size, and argue that such variation reflects variation in the age (and size) at which individuals reach maturity. Establishment of separate species for different size specimens, given that all other aspects of their morphology (shell shape, whorl cross section, pattern of ribs, distribution of umbilicolateral and ventrolateral tubercles, and suture) are the same, seems unwarrented. Hoploscaphites nodosus and H. brevis are widespread in the Baculites compressus–B. cuneatus zones in the Western Interior of North America, which represent a time interval of approximately 580 ky (Cobban et al., 2006). They are also present in parts of the underlying Didymoceras cheyennense Zone and the overlying B. reesidei Zone, but their exact distribution in these zones is not yet known. Hoploscaphites nodosus and H. brevis occur in the Bearpaw Shale in Alberta and Saskatchewan, the Bearpaw Shale and Pierre Shale in Montana, and the Pierre Shale in North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, Colorado, and Kansas. They occur in nearshore deposits such as the unnamed shale member of the Pierre Shale in Grand County, Colorado, in offshore deposits such as the DeGrey Member of the Pierre Shale in Buffalo County, South Dakota, and in cold methane seeps in the Pierre Shale in Custer County, South Dakota. They are absent in the U.S. Gulf and Atlantic Coastal plains and northern Europe, although similar forms are present in both these areas in strata above and below the biostratigraphic interval containing the ranges of H. nodosus and H. brevis. Thus, although H. nodosus and H. brevis are endemic to the Western Interior of North America, they are part of a more broadly distributed clade that is also present in the U.S. Gulf and Atlantic Coastal plains and northern Europe. As adults, these scaphites probably lived just above the sea bottom. They preferred oxygenated water, as indicated by the fact that they are generally associated with a diverse molluscan community. Habitat depths are estimated at less than 100 m, based on studies of the mechanical properties of the septa and siphuncle (Tsujita and Westermann, 1998). The high angle of orientation of the aperture a


Mediterranean coastal aquifers are highly stressed, partly because of intensive agricultural activities in semi-arid or arid context. Water quality of groundwater is often degraded by different processes: salt water intrusion, diffuse pollution... In this context, the Korba aquifer on the eastern coast of Cape Bon (Tunisia) undergoes overexploitation. Since the 60's, reversal of hydraulic gradient and saline intrusion were studied (Ennabli, 1980; Kouzana et al. 2009a , 2009b; Kouzana et al., 2010) and the groundwater hydrogeological functioning was modeled (Kerrou et al., 2010; Panicoti et al. 2001a, 2001b; Zghibi et al., 2011). Crucial for local agriculture, aquifer management led to the implementation of artificial recharge with treated wastewaters at the end of 2008. Since then, groundwater quality was monitored to trace the effectiveness of artificial recharge, based on boron isotopes, to better determine the different system components. Samples were taken from recharge control piezometers and in farmers' wells. Cation exchange was demonstrated to be one of the main processes controlling the groundwater quality. Sodium, potassium and boron were clearly in deficit compared to a mixing line with seawater, whereas calcium, strontium and bicarbonates were in excess. Treated wastewaters were concentrated in chloride and sodium and sometimes more than in wells, equivalent to a mixing of 6 to 14 % with sea water. The 2009 isotopic signatures in wells were clearly distributed on a mixing line between a nitrate-polluted and salinized pole especially constituted by abandoned wells and which had already reached equilibrium governed by cation exchange or sorption processes, and fresh groundwater. This mixing line explained the intermediate composition of a less salinized groundwater pole of intensively pumped wells. In 2010, in a context of low rainwater inputs, a general decrease of 11B in the same wells may indicate mixing with deeper groundwaters and a continuous isotopic re-equilibration between the two previous end-members according to the different inputs, e. g. rainwater recharge or river flows. 11B increased between 2010 and 2011 up to their 2009 value. Such a variation between 2010 and 2011 cannot be linked to a simple cation exchange but appear more reasonably linked to a higher rainfall recharge after a rainy winter. The mixing of treated wastewater was estimated at a maximum of 30 % with groundwaters and seemed very local. According to fluxes directions, artificial recharge could clearly not influence some wells composition. The impact of artificial recharge seemed thus very limited in terms of quality: recharge waters were salted and poorly contribute to refresh the system. Ultimately, the degradation of irrigated soils and crops diversity, currently limited by salt tolerance, will not improve. Moreover, B isotopes showed that artificial recharge seemed to influence some piezometers at vicinity but had low impact, if any, on close farmers' wells.


Empires and the Reach of the Global" brings the history of empires into sharp focus by showing how imperialism has been a shaping force not just in international politics but in the economies and cultures of today's world. Focusing on both the strengths and limits of imperial power, Tony Ballantyne and Antoinette Burton describe the creation and disintegration of the reigning world order in the period from 1870 to 1945.Using the British, Japanese, and Ottoman empires as case studies, the authors trace the communication, transportation, and economic networks that were instrumental to empire building. They highlight the role of empires as place-making regimes that organize geographic space as distinct territories. Militaries and missionaries, workplaces and households, all served as key domains of interaction within these territories, as colonial officials sought to manage the customs and lifeways of indigenous populations. Imperial connections contributed to the shrinking of time and space, but colonial encroachments also provoked opposition, which often played out in locations of everyday activity, from fields and factories to schools and prisons. Colonized territories sponsored a variety of forms of organized resistance, with full-fledged nationalist movements erupting onto the global scene in the interwar period.Ballantyne and Burton stress that empire was not something fabricated in European capitals and implemented "out there." Rather, imperial systems, with their many racial, gendered, and economic forms, affected empires in all of their parts--the metropole as well as the farthest outpost.


In two short histories of the independence of the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank since its creation in 1913—the first with respect to the Fed's monetary policymaking, the second focused on its regulatory policymaking—the author shows that the range of the Fed's powers has varied greatly over time, and that changes in those powers have had major effects on the extent of Fed independence. Moreover, the shifts over time in Fed powers reflect, to a significant degree, conscious trade‐offs by Fed leaders. A large number of somewhat surprising Fed positions on important regulatory matters can be explained as more or less deliberate attempts to preserve the Fed's monetary powers from political interference by yielding some of its independence in exercising its regulatory authority. In a case involving one of the most destructive U.S. financial regulatory policies, the Fed's effective neutrality on, and thus failure to support, the elimination of restrictions on interstate branch banking is seen as contributing to the chronic instability of the U.S. banking system, which has suffered some 20 major crises since the early 1800s (as compared to the crisis‐free Canadian system, with its nationwide banking from its inception). The Fed's reluctance to intervene is attributed to its unwillingness to antagonize powerful Congressional supporters of state banking interests and, more generally, to a "game of bank bargains" that can be seen at work in the political economy of virtually all countries. In more recent times, the most costly episode in this time‐honored game features a series of implicit or, in some cases, explicit agreements between large U.S. banks and urban activist groups—under the aegis of the Community Reinvestment Act, and with the oversight and implicit blessing of the Fed—to make on the order of $4.6 trillion loans to "subprime" borrowers in exchange for the activists' (and the Fed's) support in Congressional merger hearings. The resulting nationwide debasement of mortgage underwriting standards and sheer volume of "toxic assets," in combination with clearly inadequate capital requirements (which the Fed also failed to correct), are viewed as if not the principal cause of the crisis, a far bigger contributor than, say, the Fed's widely criticized unwillingness to tighten monetary policy in the early 2000s. To prevent the Fed from continuing to sacrifice its independence in regulatory matters to preserve its freedom to conduct monetary policy, the author proposes that authority for regulatory and monetary policy be vested in two separate regulatory bodies. If carried out, such a policy change would enact a proposal made by then Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson in 2008, just before the global financial crisis hit.


It is important that feline stress is considered in cats in the veterinary hospital, as stress can negatively impact on the welfare of the individual in several ways, for example, stressed cat can often be difficult to examine and may require restraint during handling. Such handling can often further impact negatively on the animal's emotional state — such signs of stress related to the veterinary environment and difficulty in examining can make it hard to make a diagnosis. Furthermore, for animals experiencing a stay in the veterinary hospital, stress can increase the recovery time of the patient. It is therefore important to assess each feline patient and take measures appropriate to that individual to help them cope in an inherently stressful environment. As animals descended from a solitary ancestor, cats are often very subtle in their body language and behaviour (e.g. posture, facial expressions, type and frequency of specific behaviours), and as a result signs of stress can be difficult to detect. However, veterinary nurses are well placed to monitor behavioural signs of stress displayed by patients in the hospital. As well as learning such signs, being able to communicate them both verbally and through the use of written records will not only ensure each patient has the best care from nurse to nurse, it will also help any student nurses in the practice learn these skills. Stress in the feline patient was the subject of discussion at The Veterinary Nurse workshops 2015


Introduction. Although the association between inner ear abnormalities and progressive sensorineural hearing loss is well known, vestibular signs or loss of vestibular function in these patients are often unrecognised by medical practitioners.

Case report. We report on two siblings with identical inner ear malformations, with special reference to the vestibular symptoms they displayed, as well as the rapid decline in hearing they both experienced in early childhood. We provide a brief overview of the latest classification of these inner ear defects as well as a review of the literature pertaining to children with inner ear malformations presenting with vestibular symptoms.

Conclusion. Gross anatomical defects of the inner ear are present in approximately 20% of cases of congenital hearing loss. These defects may result in a rapidly progressive hearing loss. Any child presenting with vestibular symptoms should be referred for an audiological assessment.


We studied the frequency of microvessels in T3 N0 M0 colorectal carcinomas from patients with widely different survival times. Microvessels (<50 microm diameter) were enhanced by immunostaining with antibody to factor VIII-related antigen and counted in 40x high-power fields in sections of resected carcinomas from 9 patients who died of disease in 24 months or less (short-term survivors) and 13 who had no evidence of disease at 109 months or longer (long-term survivors). The means of the 10 highest counts for each case were compared between the long- and short-term survivor groups. The mean +/- SD microvessel count was 25.4 +/- 6.5 for the short-term survivors and 30.3 +/- 6.4 for the long-term survivors. Median counts were 27.2 and 29.4, respectively. The distribution of microvessel counts was skewed toward higher counts in the long-term survivors. There was no correlation between microvessel counts and tumor site, size, or grade; lymphovascular invasion; or the presence of a mucinous component. Although there was a trend toward a higher frequency of microvessels in patients with longer survival, it is unlikely that microvessel count is an independent prognostic indicator for patients with T3 N0 M0 colorectal carcinoma because there is only a small difference in microvessel frequency between patients with widely different survival times.


Macrocyclic ligands which bind to transition metal ions are known to form stable and kinetically inert metal complexes. They might be potentially used as soil micronutrients which have properties over and above their more commonly used NTA, EDTA and DTPA acyclic counterparts. Work has been directed to the synthesis of functionalised macrocyclic ligands to bind to copper and nickel and other transition metals. Macrocyclic ligands have been selected to bind to the respective transition metals, under mild conditions, to form kinetically stable complexes. The stereoselective synthesis 1,8-disubstituted derivatives of 1,4,8,11- tetra-azacyclotetradecane (cyclam) has been achieved and copper and nickel complexes prepared. For the 1,8-dibutyl derivative, the square-planar nickel(II) complex exists as two diastereoisomers, as revealed by crystallographic analysis. The structure of the copper(II) complex of this ligand confirmed that a strong in-plane ligand field was conserved in square-planar complexes not withstanding the dialkylation at nitrogen. The structure of the copper (ID complexes of two 1,8-dicarboxymethyl derivatives of cyclam also reveal primary N(_4) co-ordination with carbonyl oxygens occupying the elongated axial sites. The tricyclic ligand 1,5,8,12-tetraazatricyclo[l0,2,2,2(^5,8)]octadecane is readily prepared from one of these diacids and the copper complex is kinetically stable in acidic solution. The synthesis of [12]N(_3) di- and tri-substituted triazacyclododecane ligands has also been effected through the intermediacy of monotosylamide derivatives. Copper(II) and nickel(II) complexes have been isolated as crystalline solids and have been characterised by spectrophotometric and FAB mass spectrometric methods.


This work is inspired by biological nanostructured surfaces possessing structural color generation and wettability control. Nanostructured films consisting of a tantalum pentoxide (Ta2O5) nanopost array (nanograss) formed on top of a continuous Ta2O5 layer on a reflective Ta thin-film have been fabricated and investigated. A non-iridescent coloration typical for short-range order was produced by the nanograss while iridescent coloration was produced by the underlying continuous Ta2O5 layer. When the nanograss surface is wetted with organic liquids, a different non-iridescent blue color appears. Moreover, this blue color can be dynamically and reversibly switched on and off by applying electrical current to an indium-tin-oxide electrode.


of a dissertation at the University of Miami. Dissertation supervised by Professor Ian McNiece. No. of pages in text. (119) In regenerative medicine, efforts should include utilization of the safest and least invasive methods with the goal of achieving optimal therapeutic outcome. Advancements in stem cell science have triggered the use of cells to cure various disease conditions. However the clinical success of such approaches depends largely on understanding the basic biology of the key players involvedstem cells, stromal cells and their microenvironment. Research shows that stromal cells have key roles in protecting and regulating tissue resident stem cells and maintaining tissue homeostasis. The objective of this dissertation work is to study the role of stromal cells in tissue repair and to find properties of stromal cells relevant for use in regenerative therapy. Many clinical studies have focused on transplantation of isolated and ex vivo expanded stem cells into patients to achieve tissue repair. This study looks at the feasibility of stromal cell mobilization by growth factors and drugs. The effect of mobilized stromal cells was tested in an animal model of liver injury. Further, the properties of stromal cells isolated from different tissue sources were compared. Injections of combinations of granulocyte colony stimulating factor (G-CSF) and AMD3100 (plerixafor) were able to mobilize stromal cells into circulation. This combination also improved survival and tissue function in mice with CCl4 induced liver damage. Stromal cells obtained from different sources were similar in morphology, phenotype and differentiation capacity into MSCs but were functionally different. Heart derived stromal cells and heart stromal cell conditioned media both inhibited proliferation of tumor cells in vitro. These findings present stem cell mobilization as an alternate or adjunct treatment to current regenerative approaches. Unique properties of different stromal cells, like the tumor cell suppression ability of heart stromal cells, will increase our understanding of their biology and enable more educated choices to be made in selection of cell source for regenerative therapies.


A detailed analysis of new and existing photometric,
spectroscopic and spatial distribution data of the eccentric
binary V731 Cep was performed. Spectroscopic orbital elements
of the system were obtained by means of cross-correlation
technique. According to the solution of radial velocities with
UBVRc and Ic light curves, V731 Cep consists of two
main-sequence stars with masses M1 = 2.577 (0.098) Msolar, M2 =
2.017 (0.084) Msolar, radii R1 = 1.823 (0.030) Rsolar, R2 =
1.717 (0.025) Rsolar and temperatures Teff1 = 10700 (200) K,
Teff2 = 9265 (220) K separated from each other by a = 23.27
(0.29) Rsolar in an orbit with inclination of 88.70 deg (0.03).
Analysis of the O-C residuals yielded a rather long apsidal
motion period of U = 10000 (2500) yr compared to the
observational history of the system. The relativistic
contribution to the observed rates of apsidal motion for V731
Cep is significant (76 per cent). The combination of the
absolute dimensions and the apsidal motion properties of the
system yielded consistent observed internal structure parameter
compared to the theory . Evolutionary investigation of the
binary by two methods (Bayesian and evolutionary tracks) shows
that the system is t = 133(26) Myr old and has a metallicity of
[M/H] = -0.04(0.02) dex. The similarities in the spatial
distribution and evolutionary properties of V731 Cep with the
nearby open cluster NGC 7762 suggest that V731 Cep could have
been evaporated from NGC 7762.


Objective: To determine the indication and necessity of echocardiographic assessment and therapeutic interventions in critically ill children. Methods: A total of 140 children, including 75 mechanically ventilated (MV) and 65 spontaneously breathing (SB) children, who were admitted consecutively from March to August 2013 were evaluated prospectively. Data regarding the indication for echocardiography and therapeutic approaches used were documented. For evaluating disease severity, the Pediatric Risk of Mortality Score III (PRISM) was ascertained. The correlation between PRISM score and the requirement of echocardiographic evaluations were analyzed. Results: Patients ages were between 45 days to 18 years. The male-to-female ratio was 1.33. In 35.4% patients who underwent echocardiographic evaluation, no definitive alteration occurred in treatment approach, whereas in the remaining 64.6% patients, decisive or supplemental information was gathered. Echocardiography was indicated in 88% MV children and 46.2% SB children. Echocardiographic evaluation was necessary in MV children and there was a positive correlation between the PRISM score and the requirement of echocardiographic assessment (p<0.001). Conclusion: Echocardiographic evaluation is an invaluable tool especially in MV children and the requirement of echocardiographic assessment increases according to clinical severity. Basic training for intensivists in this procedure is crucial and needs to be improved and supported in critically ill.


We present CoCoX (short for Conceptual and Counterfactual Explanations), a model for explaining decisions made by a deep convolutional neural network (CNN). In Cognitive Psychology, the factors (or semantic-level features) that humans zoom in on when they imagine an alternative to a model prediction are often referred to as fault-lines. Motivated by this, our CoCoX model explains decisions made by a CNN using fault-lines. Specifically, given an input image I for which a CNN classification model M predicts class cpred, our fault-line based explanation identifies the minimal semantic-level features (e.g., stripes on zebra, pointed ears of dog), referred to as explainable concepts, that need to be added to or deleted from I in order to alter the classification category of I by M to another specified class calt. We argue that, due to the conceptual and counterfactual nature of fault-lines, our CoCoX explanations are practical and more natural for both expert and non-expert users to understand the internal workings of complex deep learning models. Extensive quantitative and qualitative experiments verify our hypotheses, showing that CoCoX significantly outperforms the state-of-the-art explainable AI models. Our implementation is available at https://github.com/arjunakula/CoCoX


The treatment of cervical disc herniations has evolved in the last 2 decades. While the anterior cervical discectomy and fusion continues being the gold standard for the treatment of radicular pain triggered by cervical disc herniation, other surgical approaches have been developed. Percutaneous endoscopic cervical discectomy has demonstrated the ability to decompress the exiting nerve root and dural sac correctly and encouraging clinical outcomes has been reported in the literature. One of the most important advantages offered by the endoscopic technique is the capability to resolve the patient's symptoms without the need for interbody fusion. Also, a specific and selective decompression under continuous visualization with minimal surgery-related trauma can be achieved. There are two percutaneous endoscopic cervical discectomy approaches: anterior and posterior. The decision to perform each other depends on pathology site. However, the endoscopic technique requires previous surgical training, a steep learning curve, and proper patient selection. The development of new hardware such as endoscopes with better optics, lighting systems, and endoscopic surgical tools have allowed using endoscopic techniques in more complex cases. The objective of this review is the technical description of the anterior and posterior percutaneous endoscopic cervical discectomy.


A regular map is a symmetric tiling of a closed surface, in the sense that all faces, vertices, and edges are topologically indistinguishable. Platonic solids are prime examples, but also for surfaces with higher genus such regular maps exist. We present a new method to visualize regular maps. Space models are produced by matching regular maps with target shapes in the hyperbolic plane. The approach is an extension of our earlier work. Here a wider variety of target shapes is considered, obtained by duplicating spherical and toroidal regular maps, merging triangles, punching holes, and gluing the edges. The method produces about 45 new examples, including the genus 7 Hurwitz surface.


model using data ountries where English gdom/Ireland, South lippines and Singapore. language proficiency Zealand and United ◆ The Medical Journal of Australia ISSN: 0025-729X 18 March 2013 198 5 1-1 ©The Medical Journal of Australia 2013 www.mja.com.au Matters arising TO THE EDITOR: In a recent article,1 Elkin and colleagues concluded that, compared with Australian-trained doctors (ATDs), international medical graduates (IMGs) posed a greater risk of attracting complaints to medical boards. However, we think the conclusion is not supported by the data, and might have been compromised by the analytical methods used. Box 1 of the research article1 shows that IMGs accounted for 37% of the t tal number of doctors, but were involved in 30% of complaints, suggesting that the risk of complaints among IMGs was lower than among ATDs. Indeed, in a reanalysis of the data, we found that the rate of complaints against IMGs was 25% lower (P<0.001) than that for ATDs (Box). The logistic regression used by the authors is suboptimal for count and rate data, which are likely to follow the Poisson distribution. We reanalysed the data using a Poisson regression model assuming similar durations of practice and found that the rate of complaints was highly dependent on the language background of IMGs (Box). For instance, compared with the complaint rate against ATDs, the complaint rate among IMGs whose countries list English as an official language was significantly lower (34%; P< 0.001), but was not lower among IMGs from nonEnglish speaking countries (P=0.098). Furthermore, among IMGs whose language requirements may have been waived by the medical board, the rate of complaints was substantially lower than among ATDs (46%; P <0.001). In summary, our reanalysis of the data suggests that compared with ATDs, IMGs had a lower rate of complaints against them.


This study consisted in characterizing the strategies used by professors; implemented through virtual educational platforms. The context of this research were the classrooms of the Santiago de Cali University and the virtual space of the Chamilo virtual platform, where two professors from the Faculty of Education of the same university participated. The methodological approach of the investigation is qualitative, the observation and the interviews were the procedure to collect the data used. The results obtained and the analyzed literature show that there are different strategies used by professors through the implementation of the Chamilo virtual educational platform as a support to face-to-face classes, leading us to recognize that its utility has different intentions at the moment of being implemented by the professor.


The latest ten years' economic growth in Thailand and the associated increase in roadway and railway traffic has exposed the existing bridge structures as bottlenecks of these transportation networks. The need to increase axle loads has necessitated that the Department of Highways and State Railway supervise their approximately 15,000 bridge structures more efficiently to utilize available capacities and allocate maintenance and rehabilitation funds in a prioritized manner. Therefore, both organizations have implemented modern Bridge Management Systems which apply systematic approach to activities related to maintenance management and heavy transport administration.


A large body of research work has been done to enable robots to learn motor skills from human demonstrations. Likewise, much work has been done on investigating how humans can learn from robots or get physically assisted by them. However, these two bodies of work have been mostly detached from each other. A set of works in robotics has been enabling robots to learn motor skills through imitation and self-improvement while another set of works in robotics and sports science has studied how robots can help humans perform movements with less effort, assist humans in rehabilitation and in motor skill learning.

In most of the work on humans being assisted by robots, there is no attempt to improve upon predefined movements or demonstrations through machine learning techniques. In part, this lack of machine learning in the area of robot-assisted human motion is due to the high cost of collecting data of humans interacting with robots. Collecting this type of data might involve risks to humans, usually takes a large amount of time, usually requires expensive equipment and trained personnel. Collecting data of interactions between humans, from videos for example, does not present some of these difficulties. Nevertheless, data of interactions between humans may not be readily usable for machine learning techniques applied to robotics because of the differences between the morphology of humans and robots, lack of information about forces and torques, which may be critical to succeed in some tasks, endless variability of interaction scenarios, etc. Consequently, it is hard to collect enough data to infer the behavior of the robot given the behavior of the human and the environment in any possible situation. It is also hard to make the robot improve its interaction with humans through trial and error in a safe manner within a feasible amount of time. Therefore, even state-of-the-art work on robots assisting humans often avoids machine learning. Robot-assisted training and rehabilitation are based for example on spring-damper systems with fixed stiffness and damping coefficients. Assisted teleoperation relies for example on expert demonstrations or on rules designed to assist users in specific situations such as grasping multiple objects.

However, in order to increase the usability and range of applications of robot assistants, it is crucial that these robots autonomously adapt to different humans, tasks and environments. Moreover, it would be desirable that a robot could teach or assist a human just like a human can teach a new skill to a robot via kinesthetic teaching, i.e., moving the robot arm with gravity compensation.

Building on data-efficient machine learning techniques, this thesis presents a unifying perspective to the fields of robots learning from humans and humans from robots. Using stochastic movement representations and reinforcement learning techniques, we enable robots to learn motor skills from a few human demonstrations and improve these motor skills. Subsequently, the robot can help humans learn a new motor skill or perform a challenging task such as teleoperation requiring obstacle avoidance and accuracy.

We start by tackling one of the key problems in human-robot interaction: how can a robot learn to react to human movements which can vary both in shape and speed? We present a method to enable robots to learn interaction models from demonstrations with different speeds even if the demonstrations are corrupted by noise or occlusion, for example. These interaction models, which are based on stochastic movement representations, can then be used to predict the rest of a human action given observations of its beginning as well as to compute the most suitable robot reaction.

Often, human demonstrations are suboptimal because the human is a non-expert, the environment changes rendering the demonstrations ineffective, the robot cannot accurately reproduce the demonstration, etc. In such cases, it is necessary to improve upon the initial demonstrations. We present an approach to deal with this problem by enabling the human to teach new motor skills to robots through demonstrations and incremental feedback. Furthermore, by using probabilistic conditioning, the robot is able to generalize learned movements to different situations.

Human demonstrations can be suboptimal not only with respect to their shape in space but also with respect to their speed profile. The robot may have for example to adapt the speed of a movement to throw an object further away or closer, hit an object faster or slower, etc. These can be local adaptations of the speed profile instead of simply accelerating or decelerating the whole movement uniformly. Moreover, if a high degree of accuracy is required, it may be very difficult for a human to correct the initial demonstrations through incremental feedback. Besides that, it is desirable that the robot improve its movements without always requiring human input. We address this problem by optimizing through reinforcement learning movement parameters that determine the speed profile of movements.

Having addressed key problems towards making robots more capable of learning from human demonstrations and improve upon these demonstrations, we start to look into how robots can help humans learn new motor skills or perform a challenging teleoperation task. As before, using stochastic movement representations, we address the problem of giving visual feedback to a human trying to learn a new motor skill. Our proposed algorithm aligns expert demonstrations in space and time and builds a probability distribution of trajectories. When a user tries to perform that motor skill, our algorithm uses the built probability distribution based on the expert demonstrations to evaluate if the user attempt matches or not the expert movements and gives visual feedback to the user.

A similar principle can be used to give haptic feedback to the user, helping him/her to succeed in challenging teleoperation tasks. As we demonstrate through user studies, teleoperation tasks may be difficult for humans when, for example, the human cannot accurately estimate the 3D position of objects or the human needs to control several degrees of freedom at the same time. In this case, the failed attempts of the human are used as initial demonstrations and are optimized through reinforcement learning to generate trajectory distributions that satisfy the requirements of the task.

We assist humans in teleoperation tasks initially by tackling motion planning problems in static environments. Subsequently, we build up a framework that enables robots to solve motion planning problems and interact with humans in dynamic environments. Finally, we tackle tasks with multiple possible solutions such as grasping multiple objects and infer the intention of the user to select the most appropriate guidance.

In summary, this thesis uses stochastic movement representations to enable robots to learn motor skills from human demonstrations and incremental feedback. These movement representations are used in conjunction with reinforcement learning algorithms to make the robot improve upon the demonstrations or upon arbitrary initial trajectory distributions. The robot can use trajectory distributions based on expert demonstrations to help non-experts acquire a new motor skill. In addition, if the human demonstrations are not suitable, the robot can use trajectory distributions optimized trough reinforcement learning to help users perform challenging tasks, e.g. in teleoperation. Further applications of the algorithms and frameworks proposed in this thesis may lie in fields such as rehabilitation, training in sports and human-robot collaboration.


Patterns of vertebrate gene regulation have changed during the course of evolution. The gain, loss, and modification of gene regulatory elements may underlie a substantial proportion of phenotypic changes on animal lineages. To investigate the gain of regulatory elements throughout vertebrate evolution, we identified genome-wide sets of putative regulatory regions for five vertebrates, including humans. These putative regulatory regions are conserved nonexonic elements (CNEEs), which are evolutionarily conserved yet do not overlap any coding or noncoding mature transcript. We then inferred the branch on which each CNEE came under selective constraint. Our analysis identified three extended periods in the evolution of gene regulatory elements. Early vertebrate evolution was characterized by regulatory gains near transcription factors and developmental genes, but this trend was replaced by innovations near extracellular signaling genes, and then innovations near posttranslational protein modifiers.


Until recently, only the United States had an active venture capital market. This is changing rapidly, as many other countries have experienced rapid growth in venture capital financing over the past five years. This book contains new scientific articles showcasing the latest research on venture capital in Europe. Venture capital investment remains a hot topic with portfolio managers, individual investors, academics worldwide. This book examines in detail all the major issues regarding venture capital investment: contracting, financing, regulation, valuation, etc. and identifies new trends in the venture capital arena. Features a foreword by Josh Lerner. *The only book in which academics from around the world present the latest research on venture capital in Europe *Covers all of Europe as well as including overview papers about venture capital industry, public and private venture capital, valuation, financing, contracting, structuring, regulation, etc. *Comprehensive, authoritative coverage


Abstract : The High-Level Architecture (HLA) provides a common architecture for distributed modeling and simulation. In its original form the HLA allows a number of simulations to be joined together into a federation using a single run time infrastructure. Recently there has been an interest in joining multiple such federations together using a mediating unit, called an HLA bridge. This document presents an in-depth study of the feasibility of an HLA bridge in the context of the current HLA interface specification. The results are summarized on two levels. First, we identify general classes of problems and solutions. Second, we provide a detailed discussion of the desired behavior of selected service protocols in the presence of a bridge federate.


Chronic kidney disease (CKD) contributes to a significant burden on the healthcare system and economy worldwide. In the last two decades, a new form of CKD: chronic kidney disease of unknown etiology (CKDu) in which the disease is not attributed to known causes has emerged as a major health issue in different geographical areas over the world mainly from farming community and has become a global concern today. Despite intense and numerous research works dedicated to CKDu, very little is known with certainty regarding its etiology and the pathophysiology behind its development. Recent evidences are emerging in favor of possible role of agrochemicals and pesticides in the pathogenesis of CKDu. Organochlorine pesticides (OCPs) due to their longer half- life and lipophilic nature persist long in the environment and are known to be biomagnified through food chain. Some study reports by the authors and a few others constitute the important body of evidences depicting the association between chronic exposures to OCPs and occurrence of CKDu through environmental contamination in farming as well as non-farming communities in different geographical areas around the globe.


Despite the increasing importance attached to the right of publicity, its doctrinal scope has yet to be clearly articulated. The right of publicity supposedly allows a cause of action for the commercial exploitation of a person's name, voice, or image. The inconvenient reality, however, is that only a tiny fraction of such instances are truly actionable. This Article tackles the mismatch between the blackletter doctrine and the shape of the case law, and it aims to elucidate, in straightforward terms, what the right of publicity actually is.
This Article explains how, in the absence of a clear enunciation of its scope, courts have come to define the right of publicity negatively, through the application of independent defenses based on free speech guarantees and copyright preemption. This inverted doctrinal structure has created a continuing crisis in the right of publicity, leading to unpredictable outcomes and the obstruction of clear thinking about policy concerns.
The trick to making sense of the right of publicity, it turns out, is to understand that the right of publicity is not really one unitary cause of action. Instead, as this Article shows, the right of publicity is best understood as three discrete rights: an endorsement right, a merchandizing entitlement, and a right against virtual impressment. This restructuring provides predictability and removes the need to resort to constitutional doctrines and preemption analysis to resolve everyday cases. The multiple-distinct-rights view may also provide pathways to firmer theoretical groundings and more probing criticisms.


We describe a system which enhances the experience of museum visits by providing users with language-technology-based information retrieval capabilities. The system consists of a cross-lingual search engine, augmented by state of the art semantic expansion technology, specifically designed for the domain of the museum (history and archaeology of Israel). We discuss the technology incorporated in the system, its adaptation to the specific domain and its contribution to cultural heritage appreciation.


Two-dimensional magnetic recording (TDMR) is a novel recording architecture intended to support densities beyond those of conventional recording systems. The gains from TDMR come primarily from more powerful coding and signal processing algorithms that allow the bits to be packed more tightly on the disk, and yet be retrieved with acceptable error rates. In this paper, we present some preliminary results for an advanced channel model based on micromagnetic simulations, coined the Grain Flipping Probability model. This model requires a one-time computationally complex characterization phase, but subsequently provides fast and accurate two-dimensional (2-D) readback waveforms that include effects captured from micromagnetic simulations and the statistical effects derived from the granularity of the recording medium. We also show the performance of several detectors over a pre-existing TDMR channel model directly as a function of channel density rather than the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR).


This paper explores the growth effects of the enlargement of a common market from two to three countries by making use of a three-country equilibrium growth model with heterogeneous labour. We prove that the enlargement will stimulate the backward countries' economic growth. In addition, we also demonstrate that the higher the new member country's average talent level is, the more likely it is that the enlargement can speed up the initial integrated-economy's economic growth.


Economic consequences of climate change for the Swiss winter tourism have been assessed in two studies. Though estimates of the potential annual costs highly differ between them, they however agree on two points. On the one hand, winter tourism will be one of the most affected economic sectors. On the other hand, impacts of climate change on this sector will be very disruptive. In this context, adaptation strategies must play an important role in the Swiss winter tourism sector in order to alleviate these impacts. When thinking of technical adaptation measures, snowmaking facilities very often come to the fore. Hence, our first task in this thesis work was to picture the achieved level of investments towards this kind of facility. The umbrella organization of the cableway sector indicates that 42 km2 (19% of the total slopes' area) which represents roughly 1400 km of ski slopes could already be snowed artificially in 2005. In the three most important Swiss ski regions (Valais, Grisons and Bern), we found that the percentage of the total slopes' area that could be snowed in 2005 was lying in the same range (i.e. from 18% to 22%). With respect to the numerous investments that will probably be planned in the years to come, an important issue deals with the commitment of cantonal authorities in the adaptation process carried out by the ski area operation companies located on their territory. Are these commitments different from one canton to another and how could they evolve in the short and mid-term? What are the consequences of regional differences in the authorities' commitments for the companies' vulnerability towards climate change? Among the reviewed cantons, we found that Bern is clearly the canton where the investments are less dependent to the authorities' support. On the contrary, Fribourg, Vaud, Ticino and (to a lesser extent) Saint-Gall are the cantons in which ski area operation companies are most dependent on authorities' support for their snowmaking investments. Based on these results, it was however difficult to determine clear-cut consequences for the vulnerability of companies located in different regions. In addition, we found that companies with transport revenues ranging between 1 to 5 Mio CHF have constituted the core of the beneficiaries. While small companies are generally not eligible for large support towards snowmaking investments, the highest companies of the sector were only rarely recipient of authorities' support mainly because they did not need it to finance their investment. Despite the different forms and features of financial support provided in the different cantons, we have also derived a unique value for the financial support provided at the cantonal and federal levels towards snowmaking investments in Switzerland. This overall financial support (overall equivalent subsidy) has been estimated at 12.5 Mio CHF (state at the end of 2006). After having analyzed to which extent public authorities have already supported snowmaking investments and verified under which conditions these facilities will continue to be supported in the future, a crucial question was then to determine whether snowmaking investments could actually reduce the potential costs of climate change. This question arises since snowmaking facilities implies large investment and operating costs. In order to answer this question, several statistical models of the ski area operation companies' operating results have been assessed. While such models were only estimated with the data concerning the 2003/04 and 2004/05 winter seasons, estimation results derived from them nonetheless prepare the ground for assessing more precisely the impacts of snowmaking investments under climate change. First, our results show that the partial effect of snowmaking investments on EBITDA is positive but tends to decrease for higher level of investments. Secondly, we were also able to show to which extent additional snowmaking investments could have potentially improved the financial situation of Swiss ski area operation companies. Under the conditions of the winter season 2003/04, 69.5% of the Swiss companies operating more than 15 kilometers of ski slopes would have increased their net income with a one kilometer increase in snowmaking facilities. Because we have tried to explain or predict the companies' EBITDA, variables other than those related to snowmaking investments were added in our statistical models. This feature has allowed us discussing ongoing issues such as the impacts of horizontal reconfiguration, modernization of the transport facilities and increase in the ski resorts' lodging capacity on the ski area operation companies' profitability. Besides snowmaking facilities, we have also analyzed efficiency improvements of companies as another potential adaptation measure to climate change. For a sample of 20 valaisan companies, we have evaluated their performance using a DEA approach. However, few firms were rated as inefficient when making use of this approach. This result is mainly due to the limited number of companies included in our analysis. Indeed, gathering data was not an easy task for this research.


The importance of tertiary education cannot be over emphasized. Tertiary institutions provide a nation with varied human capital essential for building and growing the economy of a nation. Human development through the provision of teachers is a valuable role that teacher education tertiary institutions play. The teacher training colleges in Ghana are in the early days of being tertiary institutions. In tertiary institutions where accreditation is required for operation, better education management with emphasis on assuring quality is sine qua non. Quality assurance is pivoted to the continuing operations and success of a tertiary institution. This paper examined the implications of the transition to tertiary status and the urgency and importance of internal evaluation practices in the colleges of education. The paper also addressed internal quality assurance from total quality management and systems thinking perspectives and identified four pillars as anchoring internal quality assurance: creating quality institutional climate, promoting quality assurance at the departmental level, shifting focus from quality assurance for accountability to quality assurance for improvement and engaging in reflective practice and peer review as major tools to facilitate quality assurance.


Aim: Assessment of a modified procedure of hemorrhoidectomy in terms of some postoperative complications in comparison to the original Milligan-Morgan hemorrhoidectomy. Methods: Total 182 patients with primary hemorrhoids were enrolled in the study, in Diwaniya Teaching Hospital, Iraq. The patients were equally divided and managed by the standard Milligan-Morgan open hemorrhoidectomy and the intended modification of the original procedure with the primary aim of reducing some of post-operative complications by providing wound coverage using the ligated hemorrhoidal pedicle which is further fixed to the cut edge perianal skin. Four post-operative complications pain, bleeding, fistula, and mucosal ectropion were compared between both groups. Results: There were 170 males and 12 females with a ratio of 14.16:1. Pain scale was not statistically different in both groups, with majority of patients 77.5% complained from mild and moderate pain. Most patients (91.7%) have a mild or no postoperative bleeding, with no significant differences between the two procedures. The frequency of post-operative low anal fistula was significantly higher in the modified procedure (7.7%, p=0.014). The development of post-operative mucosal ectropion was interestingly and significantly high (18.7%, p<0.00005) in patient who were subjected to the modified hemorrhoidectomy as compared to the classical hemorrhoidectomy. Conclusion: Understanding of the detailed anatomy of the anorectum is a crucial step before attempting any form of hemorrhoidectomy, and any modification for the originally tested procedures should follow the principles of preservation of the vital anatomical structure and its relations. The modification in our study associated with high frequency of post-operative fistula and ectropion.


A linear stability analysis is carried out for the interaction of an erodible sediment bed with a sediment-laden, stratified flow above the bed, such as a turbidity or bottom current. The fluid motion is described by the full, two-dimensional Navier–Stokes equations in the Boussinesq approximation, while erosion is modelled as a diffusive flux of particles from the bed into the fluid. The stability analysis shows the existence of both Tollmien–Schlichting and internal wave modes in the stratified boundary layer. For the internal wave mode, the stratified boundary layer acts as a wave duct, whose height can be determined analytically from the Brunt–Väisälä frequency criterion. Consistent with this criterion, distinct unstable perturbation wavenumber regimes exist for the internal wave mode, which are associated with different numbers of pressure extrema in the wall-normal direction. For representative turbidity current parameters, the analysis predicts unstable wavelengths that are consistent with field observations. As a key condition for instability to occur, the base flow velocity boundary layer needs to be thinner than the corresponding concentration boundary layer. For most of the unstable wavenumber ranges, the phase relations between the sediment bed deformation and the associated wall shear stress and concentration perturbations are such that the sediment waves migrate in the upstream direction, which again is consistent with field observations.


Introduction. Between 1999-2007, the U.S. deported 4.8 million migrants to Mexico; of these, 1.1 million migrants were deported to the border city of Tijuana, Baja California. Deportees are often returned to unfamiliar communities where they may experience emotional and socioeconomic stressors that may raise their risk for engaging in unsafe behaviors. Objective. This exploratory study describes adaptation to the post-deportation environment among Mexican-born injection drug-using women. Method. In 2008, we conducted qualitative interviews in Tijuana with 12 women reporting U.S. deportation. Our analytic framework focused on acculturation stress, adaptation and social capital in relation to HIV risk, considering a gender perspective. Results. We found that the stress caused by the deportation experience and acclimating to the post-deportation community may have contributed to the women's participation in high-risk HIV behaviors (e.g., unprotected sex, sex work). Female deportees reported limited access to post-deportation social capital resources (e.g., social support, healthy social networks). Social factors (e.g., discrimination, lack of a government identification) challenged women's resettlement and likely contributed to economic and health vulnerabilities. Discussion and conclusion. These preliminary findings suggest that deportees may benefit from organized services at repatriation, including mental health screening. Macro-level interventions that address stigma and facilitate deportees' economic integration may help stem engagement in risk behaviors.


Flow characteristics across a fin-tube heat exchanger, which is installed at an angle to air stream in the flow passage of the air-conditioning equipment, are investigated. Already, velocity measurements and flow visualizations are performed in both the inlet and exit chamber of the heat exchanger. As for the flow characteristics in the equipment are in general agreement with results of flow visualization tests implemented in the test section which was made with particularly manufactured Plexiglas. Also, numerical calculation results on the flow patterns by the finite volume method agree well with flow visualization results. Analytical and experimental attempts help us to understand effects of the flow incidence angle and Reynolds number on the performance of the heat exchanger. Lastly, it compared the flow characteristics of in-line arrangement tubes model which manufactured newly and staggered arrangement tubes model by the visualization methods.


We demonstrate the fabrication of single mode optical waveguides by irradiating polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) with a low cost Hg lamp through a conventional quartz mask. By increasing the refractive index of the irradiated areas, waveguiding is achieved with an attenuation of 0.47 dB/cm at a wavelength of 635 nm. The refractive index change is stable in ambient air and water for time periods of more than 3 months. The excitation of water-dispersed fluorescent nanoparticles in the evanescent field of the waveguide is demonstrated.


The paper reports on the growing phenomena of art-making on mobile devices and contributes findings from two studies of artists' responses to iPad painting apps: the first is a series of exploratory workshops where artists were recruited to engage with a range of art apps, the second is a series of in-depth interviews with two artists who had incorporated the device and Brushes app into their painting practice over a period of months and years. The artists in both studies generally agreed that the devices and apps were easy to use and enjoyable but remained ambivalent about the technologies and outcomes. Although there was excitement around new creative possibilities there were also tensions around the status of the work being produced. The paper reflects on the role of popular digital production apparatus and information exchange on the constitution of artist-identities at a time of rapid techno-cultural change. It argues that while tablet computing and art apps have democratized certain artistic processes these technologies have generated conflict with traditional conceptions of art and curation.


While interning for the Santa Cruz Probation Department-Juvenile Division, during my Fall 2010 to Spring 2011semesters, I was able to offer an on-line career planning tool program for at-risk youth. The goal of the Career Locker program was to increase school bonding, and career school interest to decrease juvenile delinquency in Santa Cruz County. The Career Locker consisted of assessing the youth's career interests to match those interests to a specific career, so that youth could explore different educational institutions that offered preparation for their desired career.


Fuzzy rough sets are the generalization of traditional rough sets to deal with both fuzziness and vagueness in data. The existing researches on fuzzy rough sets are mainly concentrated on the construction of approximation operators. Less effort has been put on the attributes reduction of databases with fuzzy rough sets. This paper mainly focuses on the attributes reduction with fuzzy rough sets. After analyzing the previous works on attributes reduction with fuzzy rough sets, we introduce formal concepts of attributes reduction with fuzzy rough sets and completely study the structure of attributes reduction. An algorithm using discernibility matrix to compute all the attributes reductions is developed. Based on these lines of thought, we set up a solid mathematical foundation for attributes reduction with fuzzy rough sets. The experimental results show that the idea in this paper is feasible and valid.


About 300,000 more persons in single-parent families lived in extreme poverty in 1998 than 1996. This primarily reflects an increase in the number of low-income families that left or chose not to enroll in government support programs. Increasing enrollment in government safety net programs could make a big difference. In 1998, if all families with children participated in the post-reform government safety net programs for which they qualified, poverty would have been 20 percent lower and extreme poverty would have been 70 percent lower. These poverty improvements provide a strong rationale for changing existing programs to provide family-friendly delivery systems and more standardized eligibility requirements. These changes could maximize the number of families that take advantage of government safety net programs.


This article examines a new lightweight, slim, high energy efficient, light-transmitting, self-supporting envelope system, providing for seamless, free-form designs for use in architectural projects. The system exploits vacuum insulation panel technology. The research was based on envelope components already existing on the market and patents and prototypes built by independent laboratories, especially components implemented with silica gel insulation, as this is the most effective transparent thermal insulation there is today. The tests run on these materials revealed that there is not one that has all the features required of the new envelope model, although some do have properties that could be exploited to generate this envelope, namely, the vacuum chamber of vacuum insulation panels, the use of monolithic aerogel as insulation in some prototypes, and reinforced polyester barriers. These three design components have been combined and tested to design a new, variable geometry, energy-saving envelope system that also solves many of the problems that other studies ascribe to the use of vacuum insulation panels.