This article investigates the interplay between formal standards, essential patents and informal industry alliances such as consortia and patent pools. Building upon more than 6.200 declarations of essential patents to major international Standard Development Organizations (SDO), we investigate how informal standardization consortia and patent pools influence the number and timing of patent declarations to formal SDOs. This is the first thorough empirical investigation of the effectiveness of industry-driven coordination mechanisms addressing the problems raised by the high number of patents. We find that patent pools increase the number of declared essential patents controlling for the effects of standardization. On the other hand, informal consortia reduce the number of patent declarations at given standardization activity. These findings confirm results in the literature that patent pools provide incentives for strategic patent files and that informal standardization consortia have a regulatory function on the firms' patent strategies.


BACKGROUND
As the use of bundled care payment models has become widespread in neurosurgery, there is a distinct need for improved preoperative predictive tools to identify patients who will not benefit from prolonged hospitalization, thus facilitating earlier discharge to rehabilitation or nursing facilities.

OBJECTIVE
To validate the use of Risk Assessment and Prediction Tool (RAPT) in patients undergoing posterior lumbar fusion for predicting discharge disposition.

METHODS
Patients undergoing elective posterior lumbar fusion from June 2016 to February 2017 were prospectively enrolled. RAPT scores and discharge outcomes were recorded for patients aged 50 yr or more (n = 432). Logistic regression analysis was used to assess the ability of RAPT score to predict discharge disposition. Multivariate regression was performed in a backwards stepwise logistic fashion to create a binomial model.

RESULTS
Escalating RAPT score predicts disposition to home (P < .0001). Every unit increase in RAPT score increases the chance of home disposition by 55.8% and 38.6% than rehab and skilled nursing facility, respectively. Further, RAPT score was significant in predicting length of stay (P = .0239), total surgical cost (P = .0007), and 30-d readmission (P < .0001). Amongst RAPT score subcomponents, walk, gait, and postoperative care availability were all predictive of disposition location (P < .0001) for both models. In a generalized multiple logistic regression model, the 3 top predictive factors for disposition were the RAPT score, length of stay, and age (P < .0001, P < .0001 and P = .0001, respectively).

CONCLUSION
Preoperative RAPT score is a highly predictive tool in lumbar fusion patients for discharge disposition.


Phytoplasmas were found in 33 plant species that were not described as host plants in an earlier Australian survey. Plants displayed characteristic symptoms of little leaf, proliferation, and floral abnormalities. Restriction fragment length polymorphism analysis revealed 13 different restriction patterns. The majority of phytoplasmas showed a restriction pattern identical to that of either the tomato big bud (TBB) or sweet potato little leaf V4 (SPLL-V4) phytoplasma. Phytoplasmas from 6 plant species showed a restriction pattern similar to that of the pigeonpea little leaf (PLL) phytoplasma. One phytoplasma from garden bean displayed a restriction pattern identical to that found in papaya dieback and Australian grapevine yellows (AGY) phytoplasmas. Seven new restriction fragment patterns have been detected and sequence analysis of the 16S/23S spacer region revealed that 3 of these phytoplasmas are related to the faba bean phyllody (FBP) group. The spacer region of a graminaceous phytoplasma was most similar to phytoplasmas from the sugarcane white leaf group. Another graminaceous phytoplasma was identical to a phytoplasma from Indonesia. The spacer region of a phytoplasma from poinsettia (PoiBI) was identical to the western X-disease phytoplasma from North America and Europe. The spacer region of a phytoplasma in stylosanthes contained no tRNAIle. Full-length 16S rRNA gene sequences from selected new phytoplasmas were determined to corroborate results obtained from the spacer region analyses. Three of these phytoplasmas (galactia little leaf, vigna little leaf, and stylosanthes little leaf) are, along with the PoiBI phytoplasma and the graminaceous phytoplasmas, members of phytoplasma groups that have not been reported before in Australia.


David Tuschel Photoluminescence can provide information about the composition and solid-state structure of a material. The high spectral resolution of a Raman spectrometer can be useful in performing photoluminescence spectroscopy of solid-state materials, particularly when the emission spectra consist of narrow bands or even lines. Having the capability to perform photoluminescence and Raman spectroscopies simultaneously with the same instrument is advantageous, especially when studying two-dimensional (2D) crystals. When used to perform photoluminescence spectroscopy, the Raman spectrometer becomes two instruments in one. Photoluminescence Spectroscopy Using a Raman Spectrometer Molecular Spectroscopy Workbench


This article analyzes the use of nanotechnology to commit crimes. A great deal has been written about the societal implications of nanotechnology, and what has been often notes that criminals will exploit the technology for antisocial ends. But while many clearly believe the technology has the capacity for a dark side, no one has focused on how that dark side might manifest itself and on the legal issues the misuse of nanotechnology may generate. This article undertakes both tasks. It begins with the premise that nanotechnology - like computer technology - is likely to be a profoundly transformative technology. It explains why nanotechnology is likely to have wide-ranging effects across various sectors of society and speculates that nanocrime may evolve in a fashion analogous to computer crime. The article then analyzes how nanotechnology might be used to commit crimes of various types and argues that if and when nanocrime emerges, we should not respond - as we did to computer crime - by adopting technologically specific criminal statutes. Instead, we should, insofar as possible, integrate nanocrime into existing criminal law.


Steep slopes form the marginal scarp of the semi-arid northern Brazilian "Nordeste", above depressions or corridors connected to a low erosion plain merging seaward with a coastal erosional-gradational piedmont. Dissected pediments and sparse debris fans visible at the base of some escarpments suggest recent erosive activity and possible slope retreat, although most of these forms are decoupled from major valleys. We describe the morphostructural patterns of chosen escarpments, in the basement as well as in the sedimentary cover, and the morphodynamic conditions of their evolution since the Miocene. Only a few scarps show strong structural control. Many of them are mainly inherited landforms, initiated during the Early Cretaceous rifting or the later margin uplift, a situation which suggests long-term stability. Later on, except in one case (the Araripe scarp), only slight or local backwearing took place, associated with downwearing on low surfaces and pediments, probably in diachronic ways. The Neogene clastic sedimentation on piedmonts and coastal areas mainly reflects the occurrence of dry periods inducing widespread stripping of deep soil horizons and erosion of bare rock slopes and surfaces. Dissection stages occurred in periods of more humid climate and/or low sea level. Marks of strong recent of present activity are mainly registered in the rims of the Chapada do Araripe, owing to favourable structural, hydrogeological and climatic conditions. The moderate volumes of Neogene clastic sediments imply overall low uplift and erosion rates until the Present, favourable to morphological and lithological resistance effects in the landscapes. However, slope instabilities are not uncommon, locally leading to well characterized processes, landforms and deposits of gullying and mass wasting. Therefore, hazards related with slope processes never may be neglected, although only small scale events were recorded in recent times, and times of recurrence of larger events are probably much longer than the historic times.


Solidification and blood flow seemingly have little in common, but each involves a fluid in contact with a deformable solid. In these systems, the solid-fluid interface moves as the solid advects and deforms, often traversing the entire domain of interest. Currently, these problems cannot be simulated without innumerable expensive remeshing steps, mesh manipulations or decoupling the solid and fluid motion. Despite the wealth of progress recently made in mechanics modeling, this glaring inadequacy persists. We propose a new technique that tracks the interface implicitly and circumvents the need for remeshing and remapping the solution onto the new mesh. The solid-fluid boundary is tracked with a level set algorithm that changes the equation type dynamically depending on the phases present. This novel approach to coupled mechanics problems promises to give accurate stresses, displacements and velocities in both phases, simultaneously.


The current dissertation explores the online mediatization of the Boston Marathon bombing crisis by an American newspaper (The New York Times) and a French one (Le Figaro) and their publics' reactions to it. The research was conducted along two main analysis axes: (1) the main frames and themes through which the journalists and the publics gave meaning to the event, and (2) the characteristics of the online public spheres therefore created. The comparative perspective on the journalistic frames showed a strong tendency of homogenization, as the same main frames appeared in both analyzed newspapers. However, the online comments analysis revealed that in both cases, while the publics debated the event within those journalistic frames, they also negotiated or assigned new meanings, therefore creating new themes. The comparative perspective on the online public spheres showed that the major normative conditions of a public sphere were achieved. Nevertheless, certain differences were found that could be explained as pertaining to different cultures: the French debates were characterized by more moments of subjective personal involvement and flaming. From a journalistic practice standpoint the findings indicated that both the American and French publics critically scrutinized every piece of news information, addressed precise requests, and expected journalists to reply and fulfill their informational needs.


A compositional reservoir simulation model with ten-million grids is successfully computed using parallel processing techniques. The load balance optimization principle for parallel calculation is developed, which improves the calculation speed and accuracy, and provides a reliable basis for the design of reservoir development plan. Taking M reservoir as an example, the parallel numerical simulation study of compositional model with ten million grids is carried out. When the number of computational nodes increases, message passing processes and data exchange take much time, the proportion time of solving equation is reduced. When the CPU number increases, the creation of Jacobian matrix process has the higher acceleration ratio, and the acceleration ratio of I/O process become lower. Therefore, the I/O process is the key to improve the acceleration ratio. Finally, we study the use of GPU and CPU parallel acceleration technology to increase the calculation speed. The results show that the technology is 2.4 ∼ 5.4 times faster than CPU parallel technology. The more grids there are, the better GPU acceleration effect it has. The technology of parallel numerical simulation for compositional model with ten-million grids presented in this paper has provided the foundation for fine simulation of complex reservoirs. Cited as : Lian, P., Ji, B., Duan, T., Zhao, H., Shang, X. Parallel numerical simulation for a super large-scale compositional reservoir. Advances in Geo-Energy Research, 2019, 3(4): 381-386, doi: 10.26804/ager.2019.04.05


'Effects of bank debt relationships on corporate performance' is an empirical survey based on a unique recent dataset regarding German manufacturing firms for the years 2003–2010. It seeks to understand the opportunities for German banks to offer services solely linked to information generated within loan-monitoring processes, relaxing the common assumption that banks are informationally disadvantaged because credit mar-kets do not perfectly equalize in prices but in the bank-optimal rate; the existence of red-lining and rationing demonstrates credit markets' informational imperfection. The flow of information in credit markets is basically one way, and banks improve their abilities to distinguish borrowers to prevent related losses. Therefore, they are able to generate new information that is then used for further borrower evaluation.
This newly generated information is assumed to be superior to borrowers' knowledge, and borrowers might recognize and anticipate this information. Therefore, the informa-tional chain evolves into the proposed theory of the customer-improving loan-monitoring cycle. It is assumed to be true if borrowers with bank debt show better results than borrowers without. Related hypotheses regarding corporate performance preferably are tested by using return on equity. Additionally, net operating margin, net interest, and return on investment are checked for their patterns. They are supplemented by sus-tainability tests regarding the equity-to-debt ratio and the distance-to-default point to evaluate whether positive effects are based on chance or opportunistic behaviour.
All performance hypotheses are rejected. Therefore, the proposed theory does not find support from the evidence, and banks' informational disadvantage remains – even if their borrower evaluation is actually more detailed than before. Accordingly, the survey shows that loan monitoring does not offer informational links to generate new products or services, and banks remain limited to their already applied approaches. German cor-porate performance is basically convexly associated with firm size, and firm perform-ance clearly differs depending on firms' riskiness. However, risky firms' results are superior if they report bank debt because banks' related monitoring generates moderat-ing effects. Thus, particularly risky firms are suggested to use bank debt.


In this paper, we study the success rate of the reconstruction of objects of finite extent given the magnitude of its Fourier transform and its geometrical shape. We demonstrate that the commonly used combination of the hybrid input output and error reduction algorithm is significantly outperformed by an extension of this algorithm based on randomized overrelaxation. In most cases, this extension tremendously enhances the success rate of reconstructions for a fixed number of iterations as compared to reconstructions solely based on the traditional algorithm. The good scaling properties in terms of computational time and memory requirements of the original algorithm are not influenced by this extension.


Abstract. Surface-active compounds present in aerosols can increase their cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) activation efficiency by reducing the surface tension (σ) in the growing droplets. However, the importance of this effect is poorly constrained by measurements. Here we present estimates of droplet surface tension near the point of activation derived from direct measurement of droplet diameters using a continuous flow streamwise thermal gradient chamber (CFSTGC). The experiments used sea spray aerosol (SSA) mimics composed of NaCl coated by varying amounts of (i) oleic acid, palmitic acid or myristic acid, (ii) mixtures of palmitic acid and oleic acid, and (iii) oxidized oleic acid. Significant reductions in σ relative to that for pure water were observed for these mimics at relative humidity (RH) near activation (∼ 99.9 %) when the coating was sufficiently thick. The calculated surface pressure (π = σH2O − σobserved) values for a given organic compound or mixture collapse onto one curve when plotted as a function of molecular area for different NaCl seed sizes and measured RH. The observed critical molecular area (A0) for oleic acid determined from droplet growth was similar to that from experiments conducted using macroscopic solutions in a Langmuir trough. However, the observations presented here suggest that oleic acid in microscopic droplets may exhibit larger π values during monolayer compression. For myristic acid, the observed A0 compared well to macroscopic experiments on a fresh subphase, for which dissolution has an important impact. A significant kinetic limitation to water uptake was observed for NaCl particles coated with pure palmitic acid, likely as a result of palmitic acid (with coating thicknesses ranging from 67 to 132 nm) being able to form a solid film. However, for binary palmitic-acid–oleic-acid mixtures there was no evidence of a kinetic limitation to water uptake. Oxidation of oleic acid had a minor impact on the magnitude of the surface tension reductions observed, potentially leading to a slight reduction in the effect compared to pure oleic acid. A CCN counter was also used to assess the impact on critical supersaturations of the substantial σ reductions observed at very high RH. For the fatty-acid-coated NaCl particles, when the organic fraction (εorg) was > 0.90 small depressions in critical supersaturation were observed. However, when εorg < 0.90 the impact on critical supersaturation was negligible. Thus, for the fatty acids considered here, the substantial σ reductions observed at high RH values just below activation have limited impact on the ultimate critical supersaturation. A surface film model is used to establish the properties that surface-active organic molecules must have if they are to ultimately have a substantial impact on the activation efficiency of SSA. To influence activation, the average properties of surface-active marine-derived organic molecules must differ substantially from the long-chain fatty acids examined, having either smaller molecular volumes or larger molecular areas. The model results also indicate that organic-compound-driven surface tension depression can serve to buffer the critical supersaturation against changes to the organic-to-salt ratio in particles in which the organic fraction is sufficiently large.


This paper measures the technological significance of voluntary standard setting organizations (SSOs) by examining citations to patents disclosed in the standard setting process. We find that SSO patents are cited far more frequently than a set of control patents, and that SSO patents receive citations for a much longer period of time. Furthermore, we find a significant correlation between citation and the disclosure of a patent to an SSO, which may imply a marginal impact of disclosure. These results provide the first empirical look at patents disclosed to SSOs, and show that these organizations not only select important technologies, but may also play a role in establishing their significance.


The first part of this book gives a full account of the textual tradition of Epictetus' Encheiridion and of its three Christian adaptations. The second part consists of critical editions of the four texts.


This investigation was initiated as a result of proposals in the literature that dietary nicotine intake could contribute to the level of nicotine metabolites in biological fluids such as salivary cotinine concentration. Nicotine concentration was determined in several frequently consumed vegetables from the nightshade family (Solanaceae) (i.e., tomatoes, potatoes, aubergines, and peppers), as well as in some of their processed products. The edible Solanaceae fruit analyzed in this investigation were found to contain relatively consistent amounts of nicotine in the range of 2-7 microg/kg for fresh fruits. Nevertheless, the nicotine concentrations of the investigated tomato varieties decreased significantly with increasing degree of ripening of the fruits. In addition, a variety of black as well as green teas was investigated for the nicotine content. Nicotine content in tea leaves was found to be highly variable and sometimes much larger than in the Solanaceae fruits. On the basis of the observed concentrations and the respective food consumption data for different countries, a distributive analysis of the results suggests that the mean daily dietary nicotine intake for the population of the countries for which consumption data were available is approximately 1.4 microg/day, 2.25 microg/day at the 95th percentile.


This paper aims to introduce the sociological processes and mechanisms defining the social imaginary of sports hero, who is a sportsperson acquiring a special status by virtues of his/her extraordinary and exemplary skills, achievements and biography. The sports hero inspires long-term identification and he is symbol of a community, of its values, ideas and collective meanings, while his body incorporates socially appreciated and celebrated qualities. In the dramaturgical and ritual dimension of sport, an athlete can become a collective symbol, and, over time, an hero with mythical features. However, it is only through media narratives that a sportsperson can be heroic and mythical. Thus, the social imaginary in the narrative construction of the sports hero as a central role. The stories revitalise myths, archetypes and beliefs displaying human passions, ambitions, contradictions, conflicts and so on.


Speak up and succeed. "Fear of snakes makes sense. After all, snakes bite! On the other hand, fear of public speaking is worth overcoming. This book is an excellent place to start."-Seth Godin, bestselling author of Purple Cow and Free Prize Inside "Your ability to speak confidently on your feet will impress more people and open more doors than you can imagine. The Confident Speaker shows you how."-Brian Tracy, bestselling author of The Psychology of Selling "Eureka! This book is exactly what every beginning speaker needs."-Dottie Walters, CSP, bestselling author of Speak and Grow Rich "When we speak in public, we convey our knowledge, our interest in others, and our value. Now, thanks to Monarth and Kase, their book The Confident Speaker opens that door to successful public speaking."-Susan RoAne, bestselling author of How To Work A Room(R) "Speaking before a group stresses many otherwise capable people, and as a result their anxiety cripples their careers. Monarth and Kase offer the antidote in their highly readable book."-Dianna Booher, bestselling author of Speak with Confidence and Communicate with Confidence


This lecture treats the problem of designing local control agents for cooperating components in a network of interacting dynamic systems. Each local control agent must ensure that all local specifications are met, but at the same time must ensure that the different components help each other in achieving good global behavior as well as good local behavior. This problem will be illustrated by using urban traffic control and smart electric power grids as examples. Centralized or hierarchical control approaches are not robust against failures in communication networks, and require unrealistic assumptions on the knowledge of each agent about the overall model. A completely decentralized approach, where each local control agent selfishly tries to achieve its local specifications only, runs a high risk of global interactions that may destabilize the system, making it impossible to achieve the specifications. This talk proposes two paradigms for distributed feedback control that require very little information exchange and very little global model knowledge. The leader/follower control paradigm is illustrated for urban traffic control: heavily loaded leader agents send messages to their follower neighbors requesting that these followers give green only to platoons of vehicles travelling towards the leader intersection at those times when this will be optimal for the performance of the leader. Another coordination paradigm is called the coordinating model predictive control (CMPC). Consider a power transmission network that has been partitioned in interacting regions, where CMPC is used in order to prevent the spread of the disturbances following incidents like line or machine failure. CMPC tries to resolve this by having each local control agent apply a model predictive controller, using as on-line available information not only the local voltage and current measurements, but also information on the planned sequence of future control actions of neighboring agents, communicated to it from time to time. This talk will discuss some of the minimal requirements for modeling, communication and control agent set-up in order to robustly achieve specifications using distributed control.


It is well known that a finite-size scatterer has a set of natural resonances, which are uniquely determined by the physical properties of the scatterer. This is also the case for a breast tumor which can be regarded as a dielectric scatterer. Since the scatterer is naturally "tuned" at the resonances, it is expected that an increased electromagnetic coupling would take place at the resonance frequencies compared to other frequencies. For a breast tumor, this would mean a higher power absorption, indicating a faster temperature increase resulting in more efficient hyperthermia. In this dissertation, an adaptive microwave concept is demonstrated for breast cancer applications. The general approach is to detect and identify the tumor-specific resonance, determine the electrical location of the tumor, and apply the focused microwave hyperthermia using the identified resonance and the electrical location. The natural resonances vary depending on the tumor size, shape, and breast tissue configuration. Therefore, an adaptive tuning of the microwave source to tumor-specific resonance frequencies could improve the overall efficiency of hyperthermia treatment by allowing for a faster and more effective heating to achieve a desired therapeutic temperature level. Applying the singularity expansion method (SEM), both the resonances and the electrical location can be obtained from the poles and residues, respectively. This SEM-based approach is computationally inexpensive and can easily be implemented as a combination processing into emerging UWB microwave systems. Alternatively, a relatively simple microwave system based on this concept can potentially be used in conjunction with existing mammography.


In culture-based fisheries, managers strive for high stocking efficiency, the ratio between the total weight of caught and stocked fish. Here we present a new time series approach to examine the dependence of reported anglers. catches on stocking and external events, using data on carp ('Cyprinus carpio' L.) from 14 reservoirs in the Czech Republic. Average stocking efficiency varied between 0.25 and 2.2, with values close to unity in most reservoirs. The lowest efficiencies occurred in three reservoirs receiving cold hypoxic water from a large upstream reservoir, while the highest efficiencis were found in two shallow, highly productive reservoirs. Analyses further indicate that stocked carp are typically caught during the year of release or the year after; but also that the mean time lag- between stocking and capture increases with reservoir area. External events can be important: major floods in the years 2002 and 2006 were in many cases followed by large, up to 10-fold, increases in catches in subsequent years; we attribute the surplus catch to carp washed down from upstream aquaculture and river stretches. In contrast, the "Velvet REvolution" (demise of the communist regime in 1989) had no discernible effect on catches in subsequent years. In conclusion, the proposed method can simultaneously estimate the likely mean survival time of stocked carp and identify the impact of major environmental and societal events on recreational fisheries. The approach thus sheds light on the performance of current stocking practices at individual reservoirs, and could be used to monitor and improve stocking strategies and management of culture-based recreational fisheries.


The operations and decision making at a container terminal have been simulated. A Berth Allocation Management System – (BAMS) has been built which consists of two parts: a container terminal simulator modelling the operations and a management simulator modelling the various actors involved in the allocation of container ships to berths. Together these two parts generate berth schedules for arriving container ships. Two berth assignment policies are evaluated in different scenarios, with various quay lengths, berth spacing lengths, and ship arrival sequences. The decisions in assigning ships with different loading and discharging demands to a limited amount of resources, such as berth space and cranes are analysed with the BAMS. The berths at the container terminal are modelled by the BAMS to be dynamic in the sense that berth segmentation is based on the current situation rather than being static. The policies are evaluated in terms of turn-around time and distance travelled by the straddle carriers. The simulation results indicate that an informed choice of berth assignment policy can provide better use of the available resources, e.g., by reducing turnaround time and/or distance travelled by the straddle carriers.


The development of wood composites such as fibreboards or particle boards rely on the intention to improve the efficiency of the wood use and to expand the application of the material wood. The conventional wood composites do have a significant role in the timber industry. In the past decades, these products have been developed to versatile products which combine different resources, especially wood, efficiently. To achieve the best properties of these products and in addition to guarantee a sustainable and eco-friendly production, raw and waste wood are combined to produce wood composites such as particle boards. However, in the last years some factors have led to a competitive situation on the wood market, for instance political support of the bio energy sector, increased use of biomass and forest restructuring. These aspects have led to a competitive situation on the wood market and to a shortage of wood for the timber industry. Because of the shortage of wood resource and thus increasing prices the industry has started to search for alternative strategies. One promising opportunity to reduce the use of the resources might be the application of strategies based on lightweight construction. Therefore, the main topic of this research was to develop a new and innovative sandwich composite with a reduced density but without compromising the mechanical and physical properties. To achieve this objective it was planned to create a nature based composite consisting of almost 100 % popcorn granular. This popcorn composite was combined with thin and stiff face materials to achieve a light sandwich panel, with promising properties for the furniture sector.
For the development of popcorn composites, an expanded popcorn granular of the agricultural raw material maize was used. This granular material was expanded in a special process of pressure and heat. Firstly, it was valid to evaluate the popcorn material and its properties for the suitability of manufacturing a three layered sandwich construction. After the determination of the chemical and physical properties of the popcorn material, the manufacturing of popcorn composites in laboratory scale with sufficient mechanical properties such as internal bonding, followed. Therefore, in a first step popcorn granulate was treated with resin, compressed to a board and afterwards hot pressed. The second step was to cover the popcorn core on both sides with selected face materials such as plywood or aluminium alloy, to achieve a stiff sandwich panel with a high strength. Afterwards, to evaluate the quality of the sandwich panel, properties such as bonding strength (three and four point bending), withdraw screw strength, were tested and compared to conventional light wood based composite.
In the beginning of the examination it was necessary to investigate the properties of the popcorn granular. The results show that the bulk density and the particle size are suitable to produce low density boards. Besides this, the popcorn material does have a low pH value of 4,5 and a high protein content of 8% to 10%. Besides the chemical analysis the evaluation of the sandwich panels regarding mechanical properties were very crucial. Therefore in different test series the panels were produced under defined parameters and tested. The main topics of interest were the relation between density and internal bond of the popcorn composite, use of different binder systems and press parameters, influence of different manufacturing processes (one-step or two-step process) and also the evaluation of the effect of face materials on the sandwich panel properties. The results of the test series show that the production of a lightweight sandwich panel is possible and furthermore that the composites do have sufficient mechanical properties. The testing of the internal bond strength shows that the strength rises by threefold from 0.10 N/mm² to 0.30 N/mm² with an approximate panel density of 100 kg/m³ to 350 kg/m³ respectively. If a particle board achieves a similar internal bonding strength, the board needs a twofold higher density, and in addition to this, a higher amount of resources.
The testing of bending strength of the sandwich boards shows that the strength of the core is sufficient. This results indicate that the popcorn based core layer is able to resist shear stress, caused by a bending force. Moreover the results point out that the bending strength is closely related to the properties of the selected face materials. The results indicate that popcorn based panels do have properties which are comparable and competitive with conventional light products such as paper honeycomb boards.


Since China's accession to the WTO in 2001, China has been on a steep learning curve in terms of engaging in outward direct investment, and state-owned enterprises (SOEs) have played a predominant role in this drive. We argue that investment overseas by SOEs is a double-edged sword as far as its impact on domestic reform is concerned. Investing overseas offers opportunities to deepen structural reform in China, but such investment could also strengthen the monopoly position of some SOEs, which is inconsistent with the objective of domestic reform. Therefore, it is important for China to deepen domestic reform with respect to competition, ownership and regulations, to maximize the benefits from investing overseas. The present paper also discusses how building market-compatible institutions will result in increased innovation. This provides opportunities for Chinese firms to effectively catch up with the advanced technologies to remain competitive in overseas markets.


Abstract The authors investigated the feasibility and possible effects of hypnotic suggestion and music for chronic pain. Ten people completed the 2-week intervention that consisted of daily listening to hypnotic suggestions combined with music. Averaged subjective pain intensity, pain bothersomeness, overall distress, anxiety, and depression decreased from baseline to endpoint. Participants rated pre- and postlistening pain intensity and pain bothersomeness decreased for each session. Information provided during end-of-study interviews indicated all participants were satisfied with treatment and felt they benefited from being in the study. Means and standard deviations are reported for outcome measures and a case study is provided. This preliminary study supports the use of a combined hypnotic suggestion and music intervention for chronic pain.


This paper presents the design, implementation, and evaluation of a system that supports the analysis of visitor interactions with augmented reality (AR) content in museum exhibitions. It can be used in conjunction with the AR authoring and presentation system InfoGrid. InfoGrid enables museum professionals to setup indoor and outdoor AR tours by connecting visual features of physical exhibits with different kinds of media. Visitors can retrieve these media by using the InfoGrid mobile app and scanning the target areas. The analytics application presented in this paper aims to help museum professionals to get an understanding of how visitors are using the AR tours they created. It shows how visitors interact with each AR element and reveals if some elements have been unrecognized. It allows museum professionals to visually inspect the data mapped onto a digital floor plan of the museum. The system visualizes movement paths on the floor plan as well as heatmaps that represent the overall time spent in an exhibit. Data for the evaluation system is anonymously generated by using a logging mechanism of the InfoGrid AR mobile app. Finally, we present a usability evaluation of the analytics system, discuss the results as well as future work.


The extent of racemization of aspartic acid, alanine, and leucine provides criteria for assessing whether ancient tissue samples contain endogenous DNA. In samples in which the D/L ratio of aspartic acid exceeds 0.08, ancient DNA sequences could not be retrieved. Paleontological finds from which DNA sequences purportedly millions of years old have been reported show extensive racemization, and the amino acids present are mainly contaminates. An exception is the amino acids in some insects preserved in amber.


We study the possibility of peace when two countries fight a war over the ownership of a resource. War is always the outcome of the game played by rational countries – under complete or asymmetric information – when there is no pre-established distribution of the resource among countries. When there is such a distribution of the resource, under complete information peace is feasible for some initial distributions of the resource, whereas under asymmetric information there are two classes of equilibria: Peaceful Equilibria, in which peace has a positive probability, and Aggressive Equilibria, which assign probability one to war. Surprisingly, a little asymmetric information may yield war.


Dwarf males in mosses are restricted to certain lineages and have been proposed to be associated with epiphytism and subtropical environments. Here we explore which morphological and environmental characteristics are associated with male dwarfism in a set of 528 pleurocarpous mosses that represent the different lineages, habitats, and climatic conditions found in the world. We evaluate differences in frequencies of states for 48 morphological characters and for occurrences in different environments among species that are monoicous, dioicous without dwarf males, and dioicous with obligate or facultative dwarf males. An ambiguous picture emerged regarding which morphological characters or environmental parameters correlate with male dwarfism, indicating that dwarf males evolved in phylogenetically widely spread groups of pleurocarpous mosses that are not characterized by common characters or environments. Dioicous species with dwarf males were correlated with broad and imbricate leaves, short and wide marginal leaf cells, differentiated, but not inflated alar cells that relatively often consist of more than one cell layer, and patent or recurved upper portions of the inner perichaetial leaves. Such species were also more frequent than expected in temperate montane environments and in non-wetland habitats. Further studies of the evolution of dwarf males among (pleurocarpous) mosses should in a first step focus on these characters and environments. Differences between monoicous species and the two dioicous categories were numerous, including 18 characters between monoicous and dioicous species with dwarf males and 17 between monoicous and dioicous ones lacking dwarf males. Species with dwarf males were thus not more similar to monoicous than to dioicous species lacking dwarf males despite that they are sometimes called 'pseudautoicous'. Резюме


 Involving gender in animal health research is important to understand the real extent of challenges faced by small ruminant producers.  Capacity development and collaboration with scientists from the national agricultural research system (NARS) and extension providers helps target farmers facing animal disease challenges.  Coordinated collaboration between laboratory and field research is crucial to the detection and identification of animal disease, control and prevention as it improves the delivery of quality and safe vaccines and other veterinary products to smallholder farmers.


Vehicular Ad hoc Networks (VANETs) are a killer application of Mobile Ad hoc Networks (MANETs), which exchange data among vehicles and vehicles to roadside infrastructures by routing. To save energy, various routing protocols for VANETs have been proposed in recent years. However, VANETs impose challenging issues to routing. These issues consist of dynamical road topology, various road obstacles, high vehicle movement and the fact that the vehicle movement is constrained on roads and traffic conditions. Moreover, the movement is significantly influenced by driving behaviors and vehicle categories. To this end, we incorporate them into routing and propose energy-efficient routing using movement trends (ERBA) for VANETs—an energy-efficient routing protocol. ERBA classifies vehicles into several categories, and then leverages vehicle movement trends to make routing recommendation. It predicts the movement trends by current directions and next directions after going through the road intersections. With the vehicular category information, the driving behavior patterns, the distance between the current sections and the next intersections, ERBA propagates information among vehicles with less energy consumption. The proposed scheme is validated by real urban scenarios extracted from ShanghaiGrid project. Experimental results show that ERBA outperforms the compared routing protocols with respect to the end-end delay, the packet delivery ratio and the path duration time.


local authorities in european cities are seeking new approaches to develop strategies that help stimulate a shift towards cleaner and more sustainable transport modes. Sustainable Urban mobility Plans (SUmPs) are instruments that contribute towards achieving climate and energy targets set by european Union (eU) leaders and promoted through the european commission (ec) in relevant documents such as the Transport White Paper and action Plan on Urban mobility. a well-prepared SUmP will help to provide high-quality and sustainable mobility and transport to, through and within urban areas. SUmPs foster a balanced development of all transport modes, while encouraging a shift towards more sustainable modes and usage. The plans present both long-term strategies for the future development of transport and mobility infrastructure and services in urban areas as well as short-term plans for implementation of these strategies: timing, allocation of resources and responsibilities and identifying the required finances. They include integrated sets of technical, infrastructure, policy-based and soft measures. Different approaches to sustainable urban mobility planning exist throughout europe. While some countries, such as France and the UK, may be considered forerunners (with plans produced under a different name and slightly different methodology), SUmPs are a new planning tool in other parts of the eU, especially within the new member states. This article presents the way in which the SUmP concept was introduced and accepted in Slovakia.


In the present work, different combustion control strategies have been experimentally tested in a heavy-duty 3.0 L Euro VI diesel engine. In particular, closed-loop pressure-based and open-loop model-based techniques, able to perform a real-time control of the center of combustion (MFB50), have been compared with the standard map-based engine calibration in order to highlight their potentialities. In the pressure-based technique, the instantaneous measurement of in-cylinder pressure signal is performed by a pressure transducer, from which the MFB50 can be directly calculated and the start of the injection of the main pulse (SOImain) is set in a closed-loop control to reach the MFB50 target, while the model-based approach exploits a heat release rate predictive model to estimate the MFB50 value and sets the corresponding SOImain in an open-loop control. The experimental campaign involved both steady-state and transient tests. The three control techniques were compared in steady-state tests under various conditions, featuring standard as well as PCCI combustion mode, different kinds of fuels, a disturbance added to the pressure signals from in-cylinder transducers (to simulate the effect of an aged or low-cost pressure transducer) and an injector with a reduced mass flow rate mounted on one cylinder. The behavior of the three controls was tested in transient conditions as well, analyzing in particular fast load and speed ramps. The above mentioned testing conditions were performed to evaluate the robustness of the pressure-based and model-based techniques compared to standard calibration map-based control and their outcomes in terms of engine operation stability. The proposed real-time combustion control techniques provided fuel consumption and emissions in line with the conventional map-based control. In addition, they lead to an improvement in combustion stability, which can be an important issue especially when transient operations are considered or when non-conventional combustion modes, such as PCCI, are implemented.


Electricity is a basic requirement for a modern economy, and transmission grids at the center of transition to a low-carbon power system. They are the principal means to integrate large shares of wind and solar power and they are essential to ensuring a secure and reliable electricity supply. Grid companies around the world are struggling to find their niche in this transition. The State Grid Corporation of China (SGCC) is one of the principal players in this round of global competition. Central state-owned enterprise (SOEs), such as SGCC, continue to hold the 'commanding heights' of the Chinese economy. Their relationship with the Party-state is crucial to understanding the questions of whether SOEs take orders from, and do the bidding of, the Chinese Communist Party, and how they operate under the state ownership and with a wide range of operational autonomy and expectation that they are profit-maximazing corporations. This book examines the origin, development and expansion of SGCC, the world's largest utility company and the 7th largest corporation. By telling both the electricity story and the SOE story, it provides insights into the challenges facing the grids and their possible futures. It challenges the orthodox account of Chinese politics that portrays SOEs as little more than puppets, jumping to every demand of the Party-state. It shows that SGCC has been built into a modern corporation by entrepreneurial managers. By extending its operation to four continents, SGCC is now a global player, competing with its peers and also having its input in the future low-carbon electricity system. This book challenges the popular interpretation of Chinese government. Piling detail on detail, it provides a comprehensive picture of Chinese political economy that is both new and utterly convincing.


The Spitzer Survey of Stellar Structure in Galaxies ( S 4 G ) is an Exploration Science Legacy Program approved for the Spitzer post–cryogenic mission. It is a volume-, magnitude-, and size-limited (d < 40 Mpc, |b| > 30°, mBcorr < 15.5, and D25 > 1′) survey of 2331 galaxies using the Infrared Array Camera (IRAC) at 3.6 and 4.5 μm. Each galaxy is observed for 240 s and mapped to ≥1.5 × D25. The final mosaicked images have a typical 1σ rms noise level of 0.0072 and 0.0093 MJy sr-1 at 3.6 and 4.5 μm, respectively. Our azimuthally averaged surface brightness profile typically traces isophotes at μ3.6μm(AB)(1σ) ∼ 27 mag arcsec-2, equivalent to a stellar mass surface density of ∼1 M⊙pc-2. S 4 G thus provides an unprecedented data set for the study of the distribution of mass and stellar structures in the local universe. This large, unbiased, and extremely deep sample of all Hubble types from dwarfs to spirals to ellipticals will allow for detailed structural studies, not only as a function of stellar mass, but also as a function of the local environment. The data from this survey will serve as a vital testbed for cosmological simulations predicting the stellar mass properties of present-day galaxies. This article introduces the survey and describes the sample selection, the significance of the 3.6 and 4.5 μm bands for this study, and the data collection and survey strategies. We describe the S 4 G data analysis pipeline and present measurements for a first set of galaxies, observed in both the cryogenic and warm mission phases of Spitzer. For every galaxy we tabulate the galaxy diameter, position angle, axial ratio, inclination at μ3.6μm(AB) = 25.5, and 26.5 mag arcsec-2 (equivalent to ≈μB(AB) = 27.2 and 28.2 mag arcsec-2, respectively). These measurements will form the initial S 4 G catalog of galaxy properties. We also measure the total magnitude and the azimuthally averaged radial profiles of ellipticity, position angle, surface brightness, and color. Finally, using the galaxy-fitting code GALFIT, we deconstruct each galaxy into its main constituent stellar components: the bulge/spheroid, disk, bar, and nuclear point source, where necessary. Together, these data products will provide a comprehensive and definitive catalog of stellar structures, mass, and properties of galaxies in the nearby universe and will enable a variety of scientific investigations, some of which are highlighted in this introductory S 4 G survey paper.


Abstract. A three-dimensional (3-D) chemical transport model (CTM), SLIMCAT, has been used to quantify the effect of denitrification on ozone loss for the Arctic winter 2004/2005. The simulated HNO 3 is found to be highly sensitive to the polar stratospheric cloud (PSC) scheme used in the model. Here the standard SLIMCAT full chemistry model, which uses a thermodynamic equilibrium PSC scheme, overpredicts the ozone loss for Arctic winter 2004/2005 due to the overestimation of denitrification and stronger chlorine activation than observed. A model run with a coupled detailed microphysical denitrification scheme, DLAPSE (Denitrification by Lagrangian Particle Sedimentation), is less denitrified than the standard model run and better reproduces the observed HNO 3 as measured by Airborne SUbmillimeter Radiometer (ASUR) and Aura Microwave Limb Sounder (MLS) instruments. Overall, denitrification is responsible for a ~30 % enhancement in O 3 depletion compared with simulations without denitrification for Arctic winter 2004/2005, which is slightly larger than the inferred impact of denitrification on Arctic ozone loss for previous winters from different CTMs simulations. The overestimated denitrification from standard SLIMCAT simulation causes ~5–10 % more ozone loss at ~17 km compared with the simulation using the DLAPSE PSC scheme for Arctic winter 2004/2005. The calculated partial column ozone loss from SLIMCAT using the DLAPSE scheme is about 130 DU by mid-March 2005, which compares well with the inferred column ozone loss from ozonesondes and satellite data (127±21 DU).


Abstract. Rice production is increasingly limited by water scarcity. Covering paddy rice soils with films (so-called ground cover rice production system: GCRPS) can significantly reduce water demand as well as overcome temperature limitations at the beginning of the growing season, which results in greater grain yields in relatively cold regions and also in those suffering from seasonal water shortages. However, it has been speculated that both increased soil aeration and temperature under GCRPS result in lower soil organic carbon and nitrogen stocks. Here we report on a regional-scale experiment conducted in Shiyan, a typical rice-producing mountainous area of China. We sampled paired adjacent paddy and GCRPS fields at 49 representative sites. Measured parameters included soil carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) stocks (to 1 m depth), soil physical and chemical properties, δ15N composition of plants and soils, potential C mineralization rates, and soil organic carbon (SOC) fractions at all sampling sites. Root biomass was also quantified at one intensively monitored site. The study showed that: (1) GCRPS increased SOC and N stocks 5–20 years following conversion from traditional paddy systems; (2) there were no differences between GCRPS and paddy systems in soil physical and chemical properties for the various soil depths, with the exception of soil bulk density; (3) GCRPS increased above-ground and root biomass in all soil layers down to a 40 cm depth; (4) δ15N values were lower in soils and plant leaves indicating lower NH3 volatilization losses from GCRPS than in paddy systems; and (5) GCRPS had lower C mineralization potential than that observed in paddy systems over a 200-day incubation period. Our results suggest that GCRPS is an innovative production technique that not only increases rice yields using less irrigation water, but that it also increases SOC and N stocks.


Today, Greece is the European Union member state where journalism and the media face their most acute crisis. This study identifies the urgent problems facing media policy in Greece and how they affect independent journalism.

Since the 1980s and '90s, deregulation has increased the viewing choices for audiences in Greece. At the same time, the legal and regulatory framework has helped concentrate ownership of press, television, and radio outlets. Private channels operate with temporary licenses and independent regulatory authorities function superficially and ambivalently. As a result, the market has been dominated by a handful of powerful newspaper interests, which have
expanded into audiovisual and online media. Recent laws have further liberalized media ownership and cross-ownership.

Media Policy and Independent Journalism in Greece, based partly on in-depth interviews with key actors, explores these issues and more in this six-chapter report.


Privacy regulators are embracing privacy by design as never before. This is the idea that "building in" privacy throughout the design and development of products and services achieves better results than "bolting it on" as an afterthought. In the US, a very recent FTC Staff Report makes privacy by design one of three main components of a new privacy framework. According to the FTC, firms should adopt privacy by design by incorporating substantive protections into their development practices and implementing comprehensive data management procedures; the latter may also require a privacy impact assessment (PIA) where appropriate. In contrast, European privacy officials view privacy by design as also requiring the broad adoption of Privacy Enhancing Technologies (PETs), especially PETs that shield or reduce identification or minimize the collection of personal data. Despite the enthusiasm of privacy regulators, privacy by design and PETs have yet to achieve widespread acceptance in the marketplace. One reason is that Internet firms derive much of their profit from the collection and use of personal data and may be unwilling to build in privacy if it disrupts profitable activities or new business ventures. Nor does the available evidence support the view that privacy by design pays for itself (except perhaps for a small group of firms who must protect privacy to maintain highly valued brands and avoid reputational damage). At the same time, the regulatory implications of privacy by design remain murky at best, not only for adopters but also for free riders. This Article seeks to clarify the meaning of privacy by design and thereby suggest how privacy regulators might develop appropriate incentives to offset the certain economic costs and uncertain privacy benefits of this new approach. It begins by developing a taxonomy of PETs, classifying them as substitutes or complements depending on how they interact with data protection or privacy laws. Substitute PETs aim for zero-disclosure of PII, whereas complementary PETs enable greater user control over personal data through enhanced user controls. Next, it explores the meanings of privacy by design in the specific context of the FTC's emerging concept of "comprehensive information privacy programs." It also examines the activities of a few industry leaders, who rely on engineering approaches and related tools to implement privacy principles throughout the product development and the data management lifecycles. Building on this analysis and using targeted advertising as its primary illustration, the Article then suggests how regulators might achieve better success in promoting the adoption of privacy by design by 1) identifying best practices in privacy design and development, including prohibited practices, required practices, and recommended practices; and 2) situating best practices within an innovative regulatory framework that a) promotes experimentation with new technologies and engineering practices; b) encourages regulatory agreements through stakeholder representation, face-to-face negotiations, and consensus-based decision making; and c) supports flexible, incentive driven safe harbor mechanisms as defined by (newly enacted) privacy legislation.


Data were collected on 1739 records of Japanese Black calves during the period 1937-2002 at the Department of Livestock and Grassland Science, National Agricultural Research Centre for Western Region, Oda City, Shimane Prefecture. The objectives were to estimate heritability, maternal effect and genetic and phenotypic correlations between birth weight, weaning weight and average daily gain from birth to weaning; to evaluate calf breeding values and to evaluate the genetic and phenotypic trends for these traits. Heritability estimates of birth weight, weaning weight and average daily gain were 0.39, 0.17 and 0.26, respectively. The corresponding maternal components were 0.10, 0.10 and 0.11, respectively. Genetic correlations between birth weight and weaning, birth weight and average daily gain and weaning weight and average daily gain were 0.30, -0.17 and 0.86, respectively. The corresponding phenotypic correlations were 0.19, -0.33 and 0.90, respectively. Calf breeding values ranged between -17.93 and 2.83, between -4.72 and 18.08 and between -0.070 and 0.182kg for birth weight, weaning weight and average daily gain, respectively. Regression coefficients of breeding values of birth weight, weaning weight and average daily gain on year of calving were not significant and accounted for 0.011±0.012, -0.02±0.02 and -0.0002±0.0002, respectively. The corresponding regression coefficients of the phenotypic values of weaning weight and average daily gain on year of calving were significant and accounted for 2.16±0.31 and 0.013±0.002, respectively. However, that of birth weight was not significant (0.18±0.10). Breeding values fluctuated across years of study with no clearly defined pattern or trend. A similar trend was observed for phenotypic values. It was concluded that the environment rather than genetics, might have had a higher influence on the performance of calves since no selection had been previously applied in this herd.


CONTEXT
Autism is a condition of unknown origin with well-documented impairments in social perception and cognition.

OBJECTIVE
To assess the relevance of the fusiform-amygdala system to the pathophysiology of autism spectrum conditions.

DESIGN
Cross-sectional case-control study.

SETTING
University hospital.

PARTICIPANTS
A total of 27 adults with autism spectrum conditions and 29 age-, sex-, and intelligence quotient-matched typically developed healthy controls. Patients were assessed according to DSM-IV criteria using the Autism Diagnostic Interview-Revised.

INTERVENTIONS
We applied an automated measurement to estimate fusiform gyrus cortical thickness and a manual tracing method to obtain amygdala volumes. We analyzed volumetric covariance among these brain regions and assessed the functional relevance of anatomical findings by analyzing correlations with emotional face-processing performance.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES
Fusiform gyrus cortical thickness, amygdala volume, emotional face processing.

RESULTS
We found a specific local increase in cortical thickness of the fusiform gyrus and associated impairments in face processing in individuals with autism. Anatomical covariance between amygdala volume and the increase in fusiform gyrus local thickness was significantly smaller in the group with autism spectrum conditions.

CONCLUSIONS
Our data provide the first anatomical evidence of an abnormal amygdala-fusiform system and its behavioral relevance to face-processing deficits in autism spectrum conditions. In light of recent evidence of the involvement of the fusiform gyrus and amygdala in social perception as well as the areas of social cognition and emotional awareness, all of which are relevant to autism, our findings might represent a core pathophysiological mechanism of autism.


This paper tries to establish why the law of contracts should express the value of reciprocity. Although scholars have intensively discussed equality in exchange and the prohibition of unfair terms in contracts, few attention has been paid to the questions of knowing if and why it matters that the value of reciprocity be incorporated to the expressive content of contract law, that is, that the law, through the regulation of contractual activity, makes clear its adhesion to the value of reciprocity as equality in exchange or denying of exploitation of one of the parties by the other. The paper argues that the legal expression of the value of reciprocity - which may take place through either a general principle of contractual equality or more specific requirements, as such that of complying with the mean price (or "market price") or that of not establishing certain clauses - is important for two kinds of reasons. first, the expression by the law of the value of reciprocity should be deemed important because the expressive content of the law is intrinsically important. in the case of reciprocity, it is argued that the law, as it manifests the wish that there be some correspondence between the sacrifice made and the advantage obtained by each party, ends up proclaiming, indirectly, The more basic values of equality and fraternity. Second, the legal expression of the value of reciprocity is important in face of its consequences. These consequences are not circumscribed to the ones coming from limits imposed to the freedom of the contractual parties or to the refusal of the courts to enforce unfair contracts, since the legal endorsement of the value of reciprocity may influence the reasons for acting of the contractual parties. As a result, instead of acting only in order to maximize her own gain, each party may include the protection of the interests of the other one among the reasons of her decisions. This paper was organized as follows. After the introduction, which contains some brief remarks on legal expressivism, part II offers a broad definition and some particular conceptions of contractual reciprocity. About each one of these conceptions, some difficulties or inconveniences, which are mostly tied to the attempt of imposing reciprocity through the restrictions of the legal efficacy of voluntarily made agreements, are referred to. Part III is dedicated to two forms of surveying the legal expression of the value of reciprocity, which correspond to the two forms of expressivism before mentioned; it seeks to establish, first, why the legal expression of the value of contractual reciprocity is intrinsically important and, second, to estimate which consequences that expression may have - with particular attention, in this last case, to the eventual influence that the symbolic addition of the value of reciprocity to the law of contracts may exercise over the reasons for acting of the contractual parties. In part IV, two ways by which the value of reciprocity can be expressed through law are compared: one, abstract, by which reciprocity is proclaimed without allusion to a more precise conception about what reciprocity is, and other, concrete, which reveals a certain conception of reciprocity or a particular requirement to observe reciprocity in some contracts. part V concludes the paper with some suggestions for future research.


The article attempts to give a semiotic definition of the intellectual attributes of belief (in its broader sense), religious belief and atheism, treating all three of them as sign systems – cultural languages. To define the formal structure of the phenomenon of religion, five aspects of the corresponding communicative act should be considered – the orientational, the sign-creating, the cognitive, the teleological and the energetic ones. Belief as an orientational act cannot be treated without including autocommunication: the I-you relation is accompanied by the I-I relation in the form of vertical and horizontal topological imaginations. The sign-creating aspect of belief is expressed, on the one hand, in the performative characteristics of utterances (utterance = act) and, on the other hand, in symbolic mnemonic programming. As a cognitive act, communication typical of belief is mythological, expressing identification with the addressee and the subjective eternity of the relation. Teleologically, belief is connected with the existential projection; energetically we treat belief as energeia – the creative force of man. Relying on the Scriptures and theological literature (mainly the works of Paul Tillich), the article analyses the appearance of all these communicative characteristics in religious sign-creating. Atheism as negation of God is formally an antithetic structure of thinking, which is characterized by the symmetry of the antithetic plus-side with the intellectual characteristics of the minus-side. Based on the characteristics of belief, it is particularly interesting to observe how Marx (and his disciples) have "furnishedˮ the orientational, teleological and energetic characteristics of atheism, and how the dedicative structure of thinking has also given birth to earthly gods.


This study aims to measure the quality of life (QoL), using the proposed conceptual model within the context of the interactions between human behaviour and the environment. It aims to research the effect of the control of residents on QoL, and the findings constitute the basis for a discussion on the effects of environmental policies on QoL. Doğanbey in Bursa, which is in close proximity to the Khans (Inns) District, is selected as the study area because it represents an urban transformation implemented according to administrative decisions. QoL measurements in the research reflect people's evaluations, their adaptation to post-transformation environment and the implementation process by means of questionnaires and in-depth interviews. The findings indicate that lack of resident control has an adverse effect on satisfaction and QoL, and that an urban transformation conducted without user participation will fail. In conclusion, the study aims to contribute to decision-making mechanisms within the framework of residents' influence to ensure increased QoL. The intention of the authors is to promote the usage of QoL scale developed for other housing or transformation areas by modifying the questions according to varying geographies and social groups.


The direction of gravity represents a fundamental signal that plants use to shape their growth and development. In the simplest description of this phenomenon, roots grow down and shoots grow up; however, closer examination reveals that different plant organs such as the individual branches of a tree, maintain different angles to gravity, their 'gravitropic set-point angle'. When displaced from this orientation, plant organs have the ability to redirect growth to regain their preferred angle through the process of gravitropism. The starch-statolith hypothesis describes the cellular mechanism whereby plants can sense the direction of gravity and so regulate growth in response to this signal. The sedimentation of dense starch-filled amyloplasts within specialised sensory cells is thought to generate an as yet undefined directional biochemical signal. This signalling system then modulates transport of the plant hormone auxin resulting in its accumulation and the localisation of growth that leads to the gravitropic response.

Key Concepts:

Plants sense the direction of gravity and regulate growth of roots and shoots using this information.

Directional growth in response to gravity is known as gravitropism.

Different organs can use gravitropism to maintain different genetically defined angles, or gravitropic set-point angles, relative to the gravity vector.

Sensing the direction of gravity is achieved by dense starch-filled amyloplasts sedimenting in specialised sensory cells, called statocytes.

The statocytes are the columella cells of the root cap and the endodermal cells in the shoot.

Sedimentation of amyloplasts generates an initial biochemical signal within the statocytes that has yet to be defined.

Signalling within the statocytes triggers redistribution of transporters for the hormone auxin to the plasma membrane on the lower side of the cell.

Asymmetrical activity of auxin transport causes this hormone to accumulate on the lower side of the root or shoot.

Auxin promotes cell elongation in shoots and inhibits this process in roots.

Differential cell elongation between one side of an organ and the other causes the root to bend downwards and the shoot upwards.

Keywords:

amyloplast;
auxin;
columella;
endodermis;
gravitropism;
gravitropic set-point angle;
plastid;
root cap;
statocyte;
statolith


The Strategy of Spatial Development of the Russian Federation until 2025 aims at the economic growth acceleration and reduction of the intra-regional socio-economic differences. Therefore, the factors affecting the economic growth of regions, convergence of regions, spillover effects from the neighbouring regions are of importance. Russian regions are very different and do not converge to a unique equilibrium path. 80 Russian regions were divided into the groups of poor, middle and rich regions. Three main hypotheses were considered, based on the differences in the 1) convergence speed, 2) influence of the same factors, 3) different mutual influence of regions. They were tested using a modified spatially autoregressive model for the three groups using the Russian regional data for 2000–2017. Beta-convergence was found only for the middle and rich regions, the rate of convergence was higher in the rich regions. The poor regions did not grow faster than the other regions, confirming the relevance of the Strategy of Spatial Development. The similarities and differences were identified in the factors ensuring the economic growth of regions belonging to the three groups. The growth in all regions is stimulated by the regional economy openness. The growth of rich regions can be achieved by increasing the investment and reducing the investment risk. However, the investments in the poor and middle regions are not effective. The poor and middle regions receive positive spillovers from the growth of the neighbouring regions. It is possible to expect reduced differences in the living standards between the poor and rich regions.


This document provides deployment guidelines for securing the Domain Name System (DNS) in any enterprise a government agency or a corporate entity. The deployment guidelines follow from an analysis of security objectives and consequent protection approaches for all DNS components. This document was originally published in May 2006. Since then the following IETF RFCs , FIPS and NIST Cryptographic guidance documents have been published and this revision takes into account the specifications and recommendations found in those documents - DNNSEC Operational Practices (RFC 4641), Automated Updates for DNS Security (DNSSEC) Trust Anchors (RFC 5011), DNS Security (DNSSEC)Hashed Authenticated Denial of Existence (RFC 5155), HMAC SHA TSIG Algorithm Identifiers (RFC 4635), The Keyed-Hash Message Authentication Code (HMAC) (FIPS 198-1), Digital Signature Standard (FIPS 186-3) and Recommendations for Key Management (SP 800-57P1 & SP 800-57P3). In addition this revision provides illustrations of Secure configuration examples using DNS Software offering NSD, in addition to BIND, guidelines on Procedures for migrating to a new Cryptographic Algorithm for signing of the Zone (Section 11.5), guidelines for Procedures for migrating to NSEC3 specifications from NSEC for providing authenticated denial of existence (Section 11.6) and deployment guidelines for Split-Zone under different scenarios (Section 11.7).


The division of responsibility between state and federal authorities in bankruptcy is complex. The U.S. Constitution cedes the power to pass bankruptcy laws to the federal government. For political reasons, however, since 1867 the federal bankruptcy law has deferred to one degree or another to the states with respect to the designation of property exempt from administration in a bankruptcy case. The constitutionality of this practice under the uniformity requirement in the Bankruptcy Clause of the Constitution has been settled since 1902. More recently, however, considerable disagreement has arisen in the case law over whether this deference extends to exemptions enacted by a state that apply solely in bankruptcy. In this article, the author examines the constitutionality of such exemptions under both the Bankruptcy and the Supremacy Clauses. He concludes that serious questions exist on both counts given the potential of such exemptions, respectively, to undermine the uniform application of core bankruptcy policy and frustrate the full attainment of the goals of the bankruptcy system. At the same time, however, the author notes that the growth in the prevalence of such exemptions, coupled with other contemporary social and economic developments, suggest that the political considerations that for so long accounted for the use of state exemptions in bankruptcy cases may have abated to the point that the issue can be most efficaciously resolved by federalizing bankruptcy exemptions — an approach near-unanimously urged by congressional commissions and commentators for over forty years as far superior to the present system.


Title of dissertation: GAS-FILLED AXISYMMETRIC ACOUSTIC RESONATORS Adel El-Sabbagh, Doctor of Philosophy, 2005 Dissertation directed by: Professor Amr Baz A. James Clark School of Engineering In this dissertation, the harmonic oscillations of gas-filled axisymmetric acoustic cavities near resonance conditions are considered. This problem has gained considerable interest during the last decade when compression ratios of up to 340% have been achieved. The objective of this dissertation is to develop theoretical models that can predict the performance of resonators of complex geometries in a straightforward manner to enable the selection of optimal resonator configurations that yield high compression ratios. With this goal in mind, a mathematical model is developed based on the equations of conservation of mass, linear momentum, and state equation for ideal gas. The model accounts for the full nonlinear behavior of the gas oscillations. The equations are cast in a weighted residual form which can be solved provided that the exact mode shapes for the linear problem can be determined. The model is proved to be accurate in capturing experimental phenomena such as the formation of shock waves at large excitations. However, it is solvable only for resonators with simple geometries. In order to overcome these deficiencies, a finite element model is developed based on the weak form of the governing equations. The finite element model enables the prediction of resonators of complex geometries with either body or boundary excitation sources at different flow conditions. Furthermore, the model is integrated with the dynamics of axisymmetric piezoelectric bimorphs that are used to actuate the acoustic cavity instead of the conventional actuation systems. The coupling between the cavity and piezoelectric bimorph models is achieved by considering their mutual interactions. The validity of the coupled model is validated experimentally and against the predictions of a commercial finite element software (ANSYS) that deals with linear acoustic equations. Close agreement is obtained between theory and experiment indicating that the developed analytical and experimental tools can be confidently used in the design of axisymmetric acoustic resonators that possess a high potential of applicability in designing smart structures and vibration control. GAS-FILLED AXISYMMETRIC ACOUSTIC RESONATORS


Purpose: For some people, exposure to everyday sounds presents a significant problem. The purpose of this tutorial was to define and differentiate between the various sound tolerance conditions and to review some options for their clinical management.

METHOD
We informally reviewed the literature regarding sound tolerance conditions. The terminology and definitions provided are mostly consistent with how these terms are defined. However, many inconsistencies are noted. Methods of assessment and treatment also differ, and different methodologies are briefly described.

RESULTS
Hyperacusis describes physical discomfort or pain when any sound reaches a certain level of loudness that would be tolerable for most people. Misophonia refers to intense emotional reactions to certain sounds (often body sounds such as chewing and sniffing) that are not influenced by the perceived loudness of those sounds. Noise sensitivity refers to increased reactivity to sounds that may include general discomfort (annoyance or feeling overwhelmed) due to a perceived noisy environment, regardless of its loudness. Phonophobia, as addressed in the audiology profession, describes anticipatory fear of sound. Phonophobia is an emotional response such as anxiety and avoidance of sound due to the "fear" that sound(s) may occur that will cause a comorbid condition to get worse (e.g., tinnitus) or the sound itself will result in discomfort or pain. (Note that phonophobia is a term used by neurologists to describe "migraineur phonophobia"-a different condition not addressed herein.) Conclusions: The literature addresses sound tolerance conditions but reveals many inconsistencies, indicating lack of consensus in the field. When doing an assessment for decreased sound tolerance, it is important to define any terms used so that the patient and all health care professionals involved in the care of the patient are aligned with the goals of the treatment plan. Treatment generally involves gradual and systematic sound desensitization and counseling.

SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL
https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.20164130.


Many people have been trying to come to grips with the new ways of learning that are supported by networked tools in recent years. These new ways feature distributed social networks at their core and are proving to be much more popular and often more effective than traditional schooling. Science communities such as faulkes-telescope.com and labrats.org, and massive multiplayer games such as World of Warcraft, are in the vanguard. John Seely Brown and Doug Thomas make an important contribution to understanding what makes these networks so powerful. They use the term disposition to refer to an attitude or stance toward the world that inclines the person toward effective practice. They find that a "questing disposition", which has always been important for inquiry and learning, is encouraged and supported in these vanguard social learning networks. Their work will reward your time and attention. --Peter Denning, Editor


Aim: The present study was undertaken to find out the possible radioprotective efficacy of apigenin against whole body gamma (γ)-irradiation, oxidative damage and hematological alterations in Swiss albino mice. Materials and Methods: The percentage of mice surviving 30 days, of exposure to radiation dose (7-11 Gy) was used to construct survival dose response curves. Apigenin (15 mg/kg body weight) was administered intraperitonially ( i . p ) for 7 consecutive days, once daily, and then the mice were exposed to single dose of 7 Gy of γ-radiation. Mice were sacrificed at 24 hours post irradiation, and liver and intestine were taken for various biochemical estimations viz. lipid peroxidation (LPO) markers [thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARS), conjugated dienes (CD) and lipid hydroperoxides (LOOH)], antioxidant status [superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase (CAT), glutathione peroxidase (GPx) and reduced glutathione (GSH)]. Further blood was collected for the hematological studies [Haemoglobin (Hb) content, red blood cell (RBC) and white blood cell (WBC) count]. Results: Apigenin 15 mg/kg body weight elevated radiation LD 50 from 8.2 to 10 Gy, indicating the dose modifying factor (DMF) of 1.21. It was found that there was an increased LPO level with decreased antioxidant status in 7 Gy irradiated Swiss albino mice. It has been also observed that Hb content, WBC and RBC count was decreased in irradiated Swiss albino mice. Conversely, significant decrease in LPO and restoration of antioxidant status and hematological changes was observed in apigenin pretreated group. Conclusion: Hence, apigenin pretreatment renders protection against 7 Gy radiation-induced biochemical and hematological alterations in Swiss albino mice.


Objectives Use of tobacco-based narghiles may have potentially fatal consequences, such as carbon monoxide (CO) intoxication. However, there are only limited studies on the effects on human health and CO levels of tobacco-free narghile products. The primary aim of this study was to investigate the effect of tobacco-free narghile consumption on carboxyhemoglobin (COHb) levels and whether this would cause CO intoxication in active and passive narghile users. Design Observational study. Methods Four hundred ninety-nine individuals exposed to tobacco-free narghile smoke were divided into four groups; Group I: active narghile smokers, and non-cigarette smokers, Group II: active narghile smokers and active cigarette smokers, Group III: passive narghile smokers and non-cigarette smokers and Group IV: passive narghile smokers and active cigarette smokers. Fifty-nine healthy volunteers were enrolled as control groups (Group V, non-cigarette smoker controls, and Group VI, cigarette smoker controls). COHb levels were compared among the groups. Results Mean pre-exposure % COHb levels for groups I-IV were 2.61± 1.46, 3.00±1.37, 2.09±1.45 and 3.00±2.13, and post-exposure % COHb levels for groups were 3.45±1.92, 4.17±2.01, 2.60±1.66 and 4.50±2.32, respectively. Control groups (V-VI) % COHb levels were 0.90±0.82 and 1.60±0.85, respectively. COHb levels rose significantly after exposure to tobacco-free narghile smoke in all groups (p<0.001). COHb levels in all groups were higher than those in healthy individuals. Additionally, 12.8% of those exposed to tobacco-free narghile smoke had toxic COHb levels. Conclusion The use of tobacco-free narghile products represents a potential danger, and COHb levels in active and passive smokers can reach intoxication levels. (Hong Kong j.emerg.med. 2016;23:17-27)


We develop a framework for quantifying delay propagation in airline networks. Using a large comprehensive data set on actual delays and a model-selection algorithm (elastic net) we estimate a weighted directed graph of delay propagation for each major airline in the US. We use these estimates to decompose the airline performance into "luck" and "ability." We find that luck may explain about 38% of the performance difference between Delta and American in our data. We further use these estimates to describe how network topology and other airline network characteristics (such as aircraft fleet heterogeneity) affect the expected delays. Finally, we propose a model of aircraft scheduler who decides which flights to delay and by how much. We then use the estimated model to evaluate counterfactual scenarios of investments in airport infrastructure in terms of their impact on delays.


Barely a week goes by without a new privacy revelation or scandal. Whether by hackers or spy agencies or social networks, violations of our personal information have shaken entire industries, corroded relations among nations, and bred distrust between democratic governments and their citizens. Polls reflect this concern, and show majorities for more, broader, and stricter regulation -- to put more laws "on the books." But there was scant evidence of how well tighter regulation actually worked "on the ground" in changing corporate (or government) behavior -- until now. This intensive five-nation study goes inside corporations to examine how the people charged with protecting privacy actually do their work, and what kinds of regulation effectively shape their behavior. And the research yields a surprising result. The countries with more ambiguous regulation -- Germany and the United States -- had the strongest corporate privacy management practices, despite very different cultural and legal environments. The more rule-bound countries -- like France and Spain -- trended instead toward compliance processes, not embedded privacy practices. At a crucial time, when Big Data and the Internet of Things are snowballing, Privacy on the Ground helpfully searches out the best practices by corporations, provides guidance to policymakers, and offers important lessons for everyone concerned with privacy, now and in the future.


During the past two decades, the trend towards diversification by large corporations in the advanced industrialised nations has been a transition from diversification to specialisation. However, there is little evidence of these same trends being duplicated in the emerging-market countries. Are large business enterprises in the emerging market countries slow in responding to the new strategic logic or is there some justification for such discrepancy'? The study provides the rationale to support a contingency theory of diversification. Diversification strategy is an outcome of not only a firm's resource base and the characteristics of industries, but also depends upon the level of development and transactional efficiency of resource markets within the country and the role of inter-firm collaboration. The study follows a resource-based approach to corporate strategy. The study is based on a qualitative case study approach. The empirical analysis is based on two levels. First, I examined the overall diversification strategies of the 20 largest Thai business groups. Second, I conducted detailed case studies of the diversification decisions of three Thai business groups focusing specifically upon diversification into the telecommunications sector. The case studies are constructed around three companies that diversified into the telecommunications industry in Thailand during the same period. Data from another 13 diversifying companies and five public organisations also provide additional sources of empirical evidence. The empirical evidence shows that diversification into a business which may not be operationally related to the core business -a concept which has lost favour in many of the Anglo-Saxon countries - makes strategic sense in the business environment of the emerging market countries. Essentially, the 'general' theory of diversification holds true in many cases. The key is a) to recognise the different characteristics of markets for resources and the strategic resources in different parts of the world, and b) to understand that strategic resources do not depend on just availability of resources in the market and internal resources within the firm, but also the role of inter-firm collaboration. Differences in business environment raises the question of whether a single diversification strategy is universally applicable.


In this paper, a novel approach for quantifying the parametric uncertainty associated with a stochastic problem output is presented. As with Monte-Carlo and stochastic collocation methods, only point-wise evaluations of the stochastic output response surface are required allowing the use of legacy deterministic codes and precluding the need for any dedicated stochastic code to solve the uncertain problem of interest. The new approach differs from these standard methods in that it is based on ideas directly linked to the recently developed compressed sensing theory. The technique allows the retrieval of the modes that contribute most significantly to the approximation of the solution using a minimal amount of information. The generation of this information, via many solver calls, is almost always the bottle-neck of an uncertainty quantification procedure. If the stochastic model output has a reasonably compressible representation in the retained approximation basis, the proposed method makes the best use of the available information and retrieves the dominant modes. Uncertainty quantification of the solution of both a 2-D and 8-D stochastic Shallow Water problem is used to demonstrate the significant performance improvement of the new method, requiring up to several orders of magnitude fewer solver calls than the usual sparse grid-based Polynomial Chaos (Smolyak scheme) to achieve comparable approximation accuracy.


This paper initiates a systematic development of a theory of non-commutative optimization, a setting which greatly extends ordinary (Euclidean) convex optimization. It aims to unify and generalize a growing body of work from the past few years which developed and analyzed algorithms for natural geodesic convex optimization problems on Riemannian manifolds that arise from the symmetries of non-commutative groups. More specifically, these are algorithms to minimize the moment map (a non-commutative notion of the usual gradient), and to test membership in moment polytopes (a vast class of polytopes, typically of exponential vertex and facet complexity, which quite magically arise from this a-priori non-convex, non-linear setting). The importance of understanding this very general setting of geodesic optimization, as these works unveiled and powerfully demonstrate, is that it captures a diverse set of problems, many non-convex, in different areas of CS, math, and physics. Several of them were solved efficiently for the first time using non-commutative methods; the corresponding algorithms also lead to solutions of purely structural problems and to many new connections between disparate fields. In the spirit of standard convex optimization, we develop two general methods in the geodesic setting, a first order and a second order method, which respectively receive first and second order information on the "derivatives" of the function to be optimized. These in particular subsume all past results. The main technical work, again unifying and extending much of the previous work, goes into identifying the key parameters of the underlying group actions which control convergence to the optimum in each of these methods. These non-commutative analogues of "smoothness" in the commutative case are far more complex, and require significant algebraic and analytic machinery (much existing and some newly developed here). Despite this complexity, the way in which these parameters control convergence in both methods is quite simple and elegant. We also bound these parameters in several general cases. Our work points to intriguing open problems and suggests further research directions. We believe that extending this theory, namely understanding geodesic optimization better, is both mathematically and computationally fascinating; it provides a great meeting place for ideas and techniques from several very different research areas, and promises better algorithms for existing and yet unforeseen applications.


Given one feature of a novel animal, humans readily make inferences about other features of the animal. For example, winged creatures often fly, and creatures that eat fish often live in the water. We explore the knowledge that supports these inferences and compare two approaches. The first approach proposes that humans rely on abstract representations of dependency relationships between features, and is formalized here as a graphical model. The second approach proposes that humans rely on specific knowledge of previously encountered animals, and is formalized here as a family of exemplar models. We evaluate these models using a task where participants reason about chimeras, or animals with pairs of features that have not previously been observed to co-occur. The results support the hypothesis that humans rely on explicit representations of relationships between features.


Background and Aims: Influenza is one of the most important emerging and reemerging infectious diseases in the world. The aim of this study is molecular and phylogenetic analyses of the variations in circulating influenza A/H1N1 virus isolates during 2014-2015 in Iran and investigate on the drug resistance conditions in the related Iranian isolates. Materials and Methods: Throat samples from Iranian patients with acute respiratory tract infection were subjected for typing and subtyping by multiplex real-time RT–PCR. Seven positive samples were randomly selected and full-length amplification of Neuraminidase gene (NA) were carried out by RT-PCR. The related amplicons were sequenced and analyzed by bioinformatics software. Results: Phylogenetic analysis on the NA gene of the A/H1N1 isolates revealed a high degree of sequence identity with the corresponding NA genes from viruses circulating in the USA, Russian, India, Thailand, and East Asia region. Moreover, the NA sequences showed point mutations N44S, V106I, V241I, N248D, N369K; resulted in increasing of stability and transmission improvement of the viruses [1, 2]. The NA sequences showed a similarity of 9899% with the reference strain NC_026434.1 /California/2009. 52.5% of mutations were silent. On amino acid level, the dedicated sequence of NA protein showed 97% identity among isolates. Oseltamivir and Zanamivir resistant mutations were not detected in the isolates. Conclusions: Gathering NA sequence data of influenza viruses isolated from Iran and compare it with counterpart data from other geographical regions would be helpful to explain epidemiological rules governing antigenic drift and reveal the antiviral drug (neuraminidase inhibitors) sensitivity of human influenza A (H1N1) viruses.


Abstract High confidence in a system's survivability requires an accurate understanding of the sys-tem's threat environment and the impact of that environment on system operations. Unfortu-nately, existing development methods for secure and survivable information systems often employ a patchwork approach in which the focus is on deciding which popular security com-ponents to integrate rather than making a rational assessment of how to address the attacks that are likely to compromise the overall mission. This report proposes an intrusion-aware design model called trustworthy refinement through intrusion-aware design (TRIAD). TRIAD helps information system decision makers formulate and maintain a coherent, justifi-able, and affordable survivability strategy that addresses mission-compromising threats for their organization. TRIAD also helps in evaluating and maintaining an information system design in terms of its ability to implement a survivability strategy . This report demonstrates the application of TRIAD to the refinement of a survivability strategy for a business that sells products over the Internet. TRIAD provides a solid foundation for the further refinement, experimentation, and valida-tion of an approach to exploit knowledge of intruder behavior to improve system architecture design and operations. Ultimately, with effective tool support and evidence of its efficacy, TRIAD will be integrated with more comprehensive life-cycle models for the development and maintenance of high-confidence systems.


As climate change threatens the food security of millions, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, understanding the underlying mechanisms of drought and heat tolerance in African cereal crops is imperative. A holistic approach is required to produce crops more resilient to climate change that involves complementing conventional breeding strategies with a thorough understanding of gene expression changes under stress conditions. Climate change scenarios include extended droughts, increase in daily temperature and flooding. Although strategies to slow down climate change are in place, these remain long term, and more immediate measures need to be implemented to ensure food security. We need to develop germplasm, which is the genetic material that is passed on from one generation to the next, of staple crops that is adapted to climate change.


The COVID-19 pandemic has focused renewed attention on the ways in which building HVAC systems may be operated to mitigate the risk of airborne disease transmission. The most common suggestion is to increase outdoor-air ventilation rates so as to dilute the concentrations of infectious aerosol particles indoors. Although this strategy does reduce the likelihood of disease spread, it is often much more costly than other strategies that provide equivalent particle removal or deactivation. To address this tradeoff and arrive at practical recommendations, we explain how different mitigation strategies can be expressed in terms of equivalent outdoor air (EOA) to provide a common basis for energy analysis. We then show the effects of each strategy on EOA delivery and energy cost in simulations of realistic buildings in a variety of climates. Key findings are that in-duct filtration is often the most efficient mitigation strategy, while significant risk reduction generally requires increasing total airflow to the system, either through adjusted HVAC setpoints or standalone disinfection devices.