Purpose: Pazopanib is a tyrosine kinase inhibitor approved for the treatment of renal cell carcinoma and soft tissue sarcoma. Retrospective analyses have shown that an increased median progression-free survival and tumor shrinkage appear in patients with higher plasma trough levels (Cmin). Therefore, patients with low Cmin might benefit from pharmacokinetically guided individualized dosing. Experimental Design: We conducted a prospective multicenter trial in 30 patients with advanced solid tumors. Pazopanib Cmin was measured weekly by LC-MS/MS. At weeks 3, 5, and 7, the pazopanib dose was increased if the measured Cmin was <20 mg/L and toxicity was <grade 3. Results: In total, 17 patients had at least one Cmin <20 mg/L at weeks 3, 5, and 7. Of these, 10 were successfully treated with a pharmacokinetically guided dose escalation, leading to daily dosages ranging from 1,000 to 1,800 mg. Cmin in these patients increased significantly from 13.2 (38.0%) mg/L [mean (CV%)] to 22.9 mg/L (44.9%). Thirteen patients had all Cmin levels ≥20.0 mg/L. Of these, 9 patients with a high Cmin of 51.3 mg/L (45.1%) experienced ≥grade 3 toxicity and subsequently required a dose reduction to 600 or 400 mg daily, yet in these patients, Cmin remained above the threshold at 28.2 mg/L (25.3%). Conclusions: A pharmacokinetically guided individualized dosing algorithm was successfully applied and evaluated. The dosing algorithm led to patients being treated at dosages ranging from 400 to 1,800 mg daily. Further studies are needed to show a benefit of individualized dosing on clinical outcomes, such as progression-free survival. Clin Cancer Res; 22(23); 5738–46. ©2016 AACR. See related commentary by Ornstein and Rini, p. 5626


In an exact treatment of the Maxwell equations, we derive form and structure factors for reflection from periodic layers, and we show that these factors are significantly different from their analogs in kinematic x-ray diffraction. Quite generally, we show that reflection and impedance can be written precisely as the sum of an additive form factor and the product of a structure factor and a second form factor. This additive form factor does not have an analog in kinematic x-ray diffraction. It is demonstrated that the form factors are found by analytic continuation to an arbitrary wavelength of expressions for the impedance both at long wavelengths and at quarter wavelengths. A correction to the Bragg law relating fringe spacing to the total structure thickness is derived. We go beyond previous numerical work by deriving simple analytic exact expressions for reflection and impedance of periodic layers for all frequencies within the reflection passband, and for an arbitrary number of periods in the structure, an arbitrary index profile within each period, arbitrary layer thicknesses (not just quarter-wave layers), and for arbitrary sizes of the refractive index differences.


In The Politics of Religion in Peru (1884-1935) Ricardo Cubas Ramacciotti offers an account of the Catholic Church's responses to the secularisation of the State and society along with an appraisal of the contributions of Social Catholicism in post-independence Peru.


Effective aquaculture development has been identified as one of the viable means of improving local fish production in Nigeria thus reducing current deficit in fish demand and supply situation. Recently, Nigeria aquaculture sector has made some achievements in term of production level through private sector driven production however the gain recorded in this sector may be eroded significantly and food security threatened if there is no concerted effort to involve aquaculture sector in decisions and policies related to climate change especially as it relates to other users of aquatic system in Nigeria. The issue of climate change and aquaculture is not presently focus in Nigeria despite the facts that the existence of aquaculture in Nigeria is still dependent on availability of prerequisite natural resources such as climate, soil and suitable water. This study examines the climate change and possible impact of this on aquaculture development in Nigeria. The direct and indirect impacts of climate change on the aquaculture growth in Nigeria were identified. The observed and potential impacts were discussed. The sensitivities of fish farming operation to various levels of climate change especially in relation to type, scale, intensity and culture environment in Nigeria showed that climate change may impacts negatively on the fish farmer's livelihood with attendant serious socioeconomic cost. The vulnerability of aquaculture investment to climate change is very high if appropriate adaptation mechanism is not developed. The needs for building on the current capacity in research and technology development in aquaculture related institutions in Nigeria have been identified as key to mitigating against impact of climate change on aquaculture development Technologies for increasing productivity (e.g. quality seed and feed) at different levels of investment, expanding aquaculture zones, enhanced management practices of production systems and improving product quality need to be developed and transferred to the resource poor farmers. The use of Geographical Information System (GIS) in identifying areas of great vulnerability to climate change was discussed. It was concluded that for effective management of impact of climate change on aquaculture in Nigeria, the government at all levels need to develop strong legal frameworks controlling the code of conducts in the aquaculture industry in Nigeria.


The penetration depth in water was measured for Er:YAG laser light in a high density relevant to clinical applications. Various types of focusing elements were used to guide the light efficiently. We found that the transmission distance depended strongly on the beam shape in the water. When we used a plano-convex type of focusing cap, the penetration depth was larger than that when a dome- or ball-type cap were used.


1. Two of the most common consequences resulting from land use and climate change are increased fine sediment loads and shifts in hydrological regimes in freshwater ecosystems. 2. Although a growing number of studies indicate that these stressors are likely to directly affect community composition and organism physiology, little is known about how biological structures produced by aquatic organisms might respond. For example, hydropsychid caddisflies (Trichoptera) are a group of globally distributed aquatic insects that spin silk mesh nets that they use to filter feed. These silk mesh nets are important ecosystem engineering structures in flowing waters that can regulate sediment erosion, food particle delivery by altering near-bed current velocities, and enhance habitat availability for other macroinvertebrates. 3. We conducted two experiments in laboratory mesocosms to assess the effects of increased fine sediment and drought on hydropsychid caddisfly silk. We compared silk thread diameter, thread count, mesh pore area, and thread tensile strength across treatments in which the silk nets were exposed to high levels of total suspended solids or to stream drying over 2 weeks. 4. We found that caddisfly silk was resilient to both forms of stress and maintained its overall structure and tensile strength. 5. Our findings indicate that biological silk structures may be viable ecosystem engineering tools following short-lived disturbances associated with increased sediment loads and drying events. Caddisfly silk may be resilient to various forms of environmental change, with important consequences for recovery of aquatic communities.


Brane Gas Cosmology (BGC) is an approach to unifying string theory and cosmology in which matter is described by a gas of strings and branes in a dilaton gravity background. The Universe is assumed to start out with all spatial dimensions compact and small. It has previously been shown that in this context, in the approximation of neglecting inhomogeneities and anisotropies, there is a dynamical mechanism which allows only three spatial dimensions to become large. However, previous studies do not lead to any conclusions concerning the isotropy or anisotropy of these three large spatial dimensions. Here, we generalize the equations of BGC to the anisotropic case, and find that isotropization is a natural consequence of the dynamics.


Abstract A gonnardite-thomsonite-chabazite-calcite assemblage forms a cement in the Foveaux Formation, a fossiliferous gabbroic boulder bed that accumulated at the base of a sea cliff cut in a Permian igneous complex during late Oligocene-early Miocene time. Gonnardite was the earliest zeolite to form, locally following minor calcite. It was followed epitaxially by thomsonite, co-precipitating with chabazite. Crystal habits indicate a low-temperature origin. The maximum temperature to which the deposit may have been subjected is estimated as not more than ~30°C. The chabazites are Ca-poor chabazite-K and chabazite-Na. Representative electron microprobe analyses are as follows, all + nH2O: thomsonite: Na3.77Ca7.73(Al19.39Si20.65)O80 and Na3.78K0.04Ca7.25Mg0.05(Al19.13Si21.05)O80; gonnardite: Na6.95K0.03Ca4.73(Al16.99Si23.15)O80 and Na8.56K0.03Ca4.05(Al17.32Si22.84)O80; chabazite-K: Na1.18K1.72Ca0.08Mg0.23(Al3.51Si8.49)O24 and Na1.67K1.92Ca0.18Mg0.17(Al4.11Si7.85)O24; chabazite-Na: Na2.51K1.13Ca0.17Mg0.02(Al4.08Si7.93)O24. Such a Si-poor zeolite assemblage is unusual for marine sediments and is attributed to precipitation from marine water impoverished in silica in the gabbroic boulder bed and interacting with shell material and calcic plagioclase. In contrast, a dioritic clast in the boulder bed provides an example of less silica-poor zeolites originally formed in the parent igneous complex. Veinlets in the clast contain scolecite averaging Na1.19Ca7.36(Al15.84Si24.14)O80.nH2O, and mesolite averaging Na5.13K0.03Ca5.24 (Al15.93Si24.13)O80.nH2O, in part as sub-microscopic intergrowths. The composition of scolecite closely corresponds to the most Na-rich scolecite reported hitherto.


One of the most significant breakthroughs in the battle against tuberculosis is the recent approval of the quinoline compound, TMC207, for the treatment of drug-resistant tuberculosis. To gain insight into the molecular determinants of the activity of TMC207 and to evaluate the scope of quinoline compounds as anti-tubercular agents, we synthesized a series of TMC207 derivatives and evaluated their anti-tubercular activity. Making the lateral chain of the drug rigid by linking it to an adjacent phenyl substituent resulted in a decrease in activity. In contrast, replacing a phenyl substituent of TMC207 with a quinoline moiety gave bisquinolines that demonstrated potent anti-tubercular activity in in vitro experiments, in ex vivo mouse bone marrow macrophage assays, and also in the in vivo mouse model of the disease. These results provide new guiding principles for modifying the TMC207 scaffold to develop efficacious anti-tubercular drugs and set the stage for the development of bisquinolines as a promising new class of anti-tubercular agents.


When a bank experiences a negative shock to its equity, one way to return to target leverage is to sell assets. If asset sales occur at depressed prices, then one bank's sales may impact other banks with common exposures, resulting in contagion. We propose a simple framework that accounts for how this effect adds up across the banking sector. Our framework explains how the distribution of bank leverage and risk exposures contributes to a form of systemic risk. We compute bank exposures to system-wide deleveraging, as well as the spillover of a single bank's deleveraging onto other banks. We show how our model can be used to evaluate a variety of crisis interventions, such as mergers of good and bad banks and equity injections. We apply the framework to European banks vulnerable to sovereign risk in 2010 and 2011.


Abstract A new Middle Miocene (Langhian - early Serravallian) assemblage with shark and ray teeth from Nyirád (Hungary, Transdanubia, Veszprém County) consists of nine families, with 15 different species. The assemblage shares many common genera with other Middle Miocene assemblages in the Paratethys (Notorynchus, Carcharias, Otodus, Cosmopolitodus, Hemipristis, Galeocerdo, Carcharhinus, and Aetobatus), and reflects a subtropical climate and a close connection with the Mediterranean Sea. However, a detailed faunal compilation of Miocene selachians reveals that several taxa that were still present in the Mediterranean or lived in the Paratethys during the Lower Miocene disappeared or became very rare by the Middle Miocene in the Central Paratethys (e.g., Isistius, Centrophorus, Mitsukurina, Carcharoides, Parotodus, Alopias). The taxa that went locally extinct in the Paratethys are mainly represented by deep-water or pelagic forms. Their disappearance is most probably related to the gradual separation of the Paratethys from the Mediterranean. The common presence of some large, rather pelagic sharks (e.g., Otodus, Cosmopolitodus) in the Central Paratethys during the Middle Miocene is explained here by the widespread occurrence of their potential prey represented by marine mammals (e.g., whales and dolphins).


Katie Edwards' Admen and Eve (2012) explores the question of how the use of the Bible in contemporary advertising has aided the perpetuation of a whole assortment of gendered and sexual ideologies. Indeed, the mythical and prototypical function of Gen. 2-3 undergirds a certain gendered and sexual epistemology. Popular cultural recycling of Adam and Eve has obviously had a significant impact in promulgating ideologies including but not limited to the binary construction of gender, the social and economic subordination of women, and the "appropriate" gendered performance according to Western cultural norms. This article takes as its point of departure Edwards' discussion of the postfeminist cultural milieu as it applies to Gen. 2-3 to explore some of the broader implications of the commodification of biblical texts under contemporary capitalism. While acknowledging the importance of critical analysis of gender and (hetero)sexual ideologies codified within Eve advertising, I want to focus on intersections with class and capitalism that function within and beneath the layers of gendered ideology. This is, after all, the bottom line of advertising: to sell products according to the imperatives of capital accumulation. The manner in which people engage advertising in modern Western society is hugely influenced by the mediating institution of the market. My intention is not, as such, to diminish the importance of Edwards' focus on feminist and gender concerns, but rather to develop her argumentation through a consideration of where Marxist and feminist ideas might converge but also possibly diverge.


Quality inspection of deposited solder pastes is critical in surface mounting processes. As surface-mount technology (SMT) component pitches decrease, three-dimensional (3-D) measurement of solder pastes has become more and more important in ensuring solder joint reliability. Currently, the 3-D measurements for solder pastes are mainly performed by laser-based systems. However, they suffer from low inspection speed due to the physical line-scanning process. In this paper, a fast and cost-effective 3-D measurement system for deposited solder pastes is proposed. The proposed system uses a liquid crystal display (LCD)-based phase shifting technique to perform full-field 3-D measurement of solder pastes with high accuracy. Experiments have shown that the 3-D profiling and volume measurement of solder pastes are very efficient and effective with the proposed system. The volume measurement repeatability is in the micrometer range. The processing time of the proposed 3-D measurement system for an image of 640/spl times/480 pixels is less than 1 s on a typical personal computer.


The Intention/Reception (I/R) project concerns an investigation of the relationship between composer intention and listener response in electroacoustic (E/A) compositions. Phase one of the project focuses on E/A compositions that contain or are perceived to contain real-world sound references (RWE/A) . The methodology involves introducing works that are unknown to the listening subjects and then evaluating their listening experience. Through repeated listening and the introduction of the composers' articulation of intent (through a work's title, inspiration, elements that the composer intends to be communicated, eventually elements of the compositional process itself – in short, the 'dramaturgy' of the work) listening responses are monitored. The purpose here is to investigate to what extent familiarity contributes to access and appreciation and to what extent intention and reception are meeting in this particular corpus of E/A art music. This paper offers an introduction to the I/R project outlining its background, its context and presenting pertinent points concerning the design and operation of its methodology. Following this, some of the key results discovered thus far, including the first presentation of test data that formed the basis of the conclusions of a recently completed doctoral thesis, will be shared.


Neuroligins are evolutionarily conserved postsynaptic cell adhesion molecules that interact with presynaptic neurexins. Neurons express multiple neuroligin isoforms that are targeted to specific synapses, but their synaptic functions and mechanistic redundancy are not completely understood. Overexpression or RNAi-mediated knockdown of neuroligins, respectively, causes a dramatic increase or decrease in synapse density, whereas genetic deletions of neuroligins impair synapse function with only minor effects on synapse numbers, raising fundamental questions about the overall physiological role of neuroligins. Here, we have systematically analyzed the effects of conditional genetic deletions of all major neuroligin isoforms (i.e., NL1, NL2, and NL3), either individually or in combinations, in cultured mouse hippocampal and cortical neurons. We found that conditional genetic deletions of neuroligins caused no change or only a small change in synapses numbers, but strongly impaired synapse function. This impairment was isoform specific, suggesting that neuroligins are not functionally redundant. Sparse neuroligin deletions produced phenotypes comparable to those of global deletions, indicating that neuroligins function in a cell-autonomous manner. Mechanistically, neuroligin deletions decreased the synaptic levels of neurotransmitter receptors and had no effect on presynaptic release probabilities. Overexpression of neuroligin-1 in control or neuroligin-deficient neurons increased synaptic transmission and synapse density but not spine numbers, suggesting that these effects reflect a gain-of-function mechanism; whereas overexpression of neuroligin-3, which, like neuroligin-1 is also targeted to excitatory synapses, had no comparable effect. Our data demonstrate that neuroligins are required for the physiological organization of neurotransmitter receptors in postsynaptic specializations and suggest that they do not play a major role in synapse formation. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Human neuroligin genes have been associated with autism, but the cellular functions of different neuroligins and their molecular mechanisms remain incompletely understood. Here, we performed comparative analyses in cultured mouse neurons of all major neuroligin isoforms, either individually or in combinations, using conditional knockouts. We found that neuroligin deletions did not affect synapse numbers but differentially impaired excitatory or inhibitory synaptic functions in an isoform-specific manner. These impairments were due, at least in part, to a decrease in synaptic distribution of neurotransmitter receptors upon deletion of neuroligins. Conversely, the overexpression of neuroligin-1 increased synapse numbers but not spine numbers. Our results suggest that various neuroligin isoforms perform unique postsynaptic functions in organizing synapses but are not essential for synapse formation or maintenance.


The Lena River is one of the biggest Russian rivers draining into the Laptev Sea. Due to predicted increasing temperatures the permafrost areas surrounding the Lena will melt at increasing rates. With this melting high amounts of carbon, either organic or as methane will reach the waters of the Lena and the adjacent Laptev Sea. As methane is an important green house gas its further fate in the Lena Delta is of uttermost importance. Methane oxidation by methanotrophic bacteria is the only biological way to reduce methane concentrations. However, the polar estuary of the Lena River is a challenging environment, with strong fluctuations in salinity and temperature.
We determined the activity and abundance of aerobic methanotrophic bacteria (MOB), as well as their population structure. Activity was determined with 3H-CH4 as radioactive tracer, abundance was determined with quantitative PCR and the population structure was characterized by a fingerprinting method (MISA).
Methane concentrations were rather low (41 ± 44 nM), as well as methane oxidation rates (1.1 ± 1.6 nM/d). In polar water (cold and saline) highest activities were found, whereas the highest abundance of MOB was in surface waters. The relation between methane turnover and abiotic factors will be used to characterize the eco-physiology of these polar and estuarine methanotrophs


We combine DNA origami structures with glass nanocapillaries to reversibly form hybrid DNA origami nanopores. Trapping of the DNA origami onto the nanocapillary is proven by imaging fluorescently labeled DNA origami structures and simultaneous ionic current measurements of the trapping events. We then show two applications highlighting the versatility of these DNA origami nanopores. First, by tuning the pore size we can control the folding of dsDNA molecules ("physical control"). Second, we show that the specific introduction of binding sites in the DNA origami nanopore allows selective detection of ssDNA as a function of the DNA sequence ("chemical control").


In recent years, the growth of the WWW has rapidly expanded and it's not always easy to retrieve information. Search engines are very useful, but they treat each page as an independent document. In this paper, we propose an automatic navigation method that follows users' requirements for Web sites. This method detects the essential pages in the site and generates an ordered list of pages that present results by applying page linkage information. Furthermore, we have designed and implemented a prototype system based on our proposed method.


This paper analyzes a form of epistemic marking in Kogi (Arwako-Chibchan) that positions information between the speech participants from the perspective of the speaker. This form of epistemic marking is tentatively labeled "complex epistemic perspective" and is found with five prefixes that attach to the auxiliary verb. Relevant meaning contrasts are between speaker-perspective and addressee-perspective forms, which may in turn be separated into symmetric and asymmetric forms that signal shared and exclusive knowledge access. The meaning dimension of knowledge access is also subject to a private/public distinction that parallels the notion of "territory of information" (Kamio 1997 and Heritage 2012), where information may belong more to one of the speech participants than the other. The analyzed forms thus share a core function in specifying two simultaneous perspectives as part of the referential ground (e.g., Hanks 1990; 2009). The paper builds on firsthand data collected in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta region of northern Colombia and offers the first comprehensive analysis of epistemic marking in this language.


The use of fiscal policy instruments to stimulate private RD is widespread and important in some countries like Spain. In this paper we explore the effectiveness of RD tax incentives on knowledge capital accumulation in Spanish manufacturing firms using an unbalanced panel and compare the estimates based on claimed and claimable tax reductions. We find that while large firms use the programme more than small ones, the impact of the programme measured by the price elasticity is smaller for large firms than for SMEs. The price elasticities are higher when the ex-ante claimable tax reductions rather than the ex-post actually claimed tax eductions are used to compute the user cost of RD.


In this paper a chemical method applied to synthesize exfoliated graphite (EG) is presented. In this method graphite intercalation compound (GIC) was firstly synthesized by chemical treatment of graphite flakes using a mixture of sulfuric and nitric acids followed by thermal shock of GIC at 1000°C to produce EG. The bulk density of synthesized EG was found to be as low as 4.5 kg/m3. X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) techniques were used for identification and characterization of different materials. According to the XRD observations, the GIC was identified as graphite bisulfate with stage 2, and residue GIC and EG had nearly the same diffraction pattern, but with distinctly lower intensity. In accordance with SEM results the residue graphite bisulfate was swelled in comparison with the graphite flake. The oil sorption capacity of synthesized EG in this work was studied by common static and dynamic tests and compared with other sorbents. The results show the superior capability of EG for oil spill cleanup.


Photons preferentially Compton scatter perpendicular to the plane of polarisation. This property can be exploited to design instruments to measure the linear polarisation of hard X-rays ( ∼ 10 – 100 keV). Photons may undergo two interactions in the sensitive volume of the instrument, i.e. a scattering followed by an absorption. Depending on the materials used to detect these two interactions, the Compton polarimeter can be classified as single-phase (same material for scattering and absorption detectors) or dual-phase (different materials). Different designs have been studied and adopted, and current instruments are predominantly with sensors based on scintillation- or solid-state detectors. X-ray polarimetry requires much higher statistics than e.g. spectrometry or timing, thus systematic effects must be accurately measured and accounted for. In this chapter we introduce the basic formalism of the Compton effect; we describe the design schemes developed so far for scattering polarimeters, including both the single-phase and dual-phase approaches; we overview the calibration methods to reduce the systematic effects; and we describe sources of background which affect the measurements.


Cervical cancer is one of the main causes of death by disease worldwide. In Peru, it holds the first place in frequency and represents 8% of deaths caused by sickness. To detect the disease in the early stages, one of the most used screening tests is the cervix Papanicolaou test. Currently, digital images are increasingly being used to improve Pap test efficiency. This work develops an algorithm based on adaptive thresholds, which will be used in Pap smear assisted quality control software. The first stage of the method is a pre-processing step, in which noise and background removal is done. Next, a block is segmented for each one of the points selected as not background, and a local threshold per block is calculated to search for cell nuclei. If a nucleus is detected, an artifact rejection follows, where only cell nuclei and inflammatory cells are left for the doctors to interpret. The method was validated with a set of 55 images containing 2317 cells. The algorithm successfully recognized 92.3% of the total nuclei in all images collected.


Accurate localization of the seizure onset zone is important for better seizure outcomes and preventing deficits following epilepsy surgery. Recent advances in neuroimaging techniques have increased our understanding of the underlying etiology and improved our ability to noninvasively identify the seizure onset zone. Using epilepsy-specific magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) protocols, structural MRI allows better detection of the seizure onset zone, particularly when it is interpreted by experienced neuroradiologists. Ultra-high-field imaging and postprocessing analysis with automated machine learning algorithms can detect subtle structural abnormalities in MRI-negative patients. Tractography derived from diffusion tensor imaging can delineate white matter connections associated with epilepsy or eloquent function, thus, preventing deficits after epilepsy surgery. Arterial spin-labeling perfusion MRI, simultaneous electroencephalography (EEG)-functional MRI (fMRI), and magnetoencephalography (MEG) are noninvasive imaging modalities that can be used to localize the epileptogenic foci and assist in planning epilepsy surgery with positron emission tomography, ictal single-photon emission computed tomography, and intracranial EEG monitoring. These advanced structural and functional imaging modalities can be combined with postprocessing methods to better understand the epileptic network and obtain valuable clinical information for predicting long-term outcomes in pediatric epilepsy.


Abstract. Aerosol mass spectrometer (AMS) measurements have been successfully used towards a better understanding of non-refractory submicron (PM1) aerosol chemical properties based on short-term campaigns. The recently developed Aerosol Chemical Speciation Monitor (ACSM) has been designed to deliver quite similar artifact-free chemical information but for low cost, and to perform robust monitoring over long-term periods. When deployed in parallel with real-time black carbon (BC) measurements, the combined data set allows for a quasi-comprehensive description of the whole PM1 fraction in near real time. Here we present 2-year long ACSM and BC data sets, between mid-2011 and mid-2013, obtained at the French atmospheric SIRTA supersite that is representative of background PM levels of the region of Paris. This large data set shows intense and time-limited (a few hours) pollution events observed during wintertime in the region of Paris, pointing to local carbonaceous emissions (mainly combustion sources). A non-parametric wind regression analysis was performed on this 2-year data set for the major PM1 constituents (organic matter, nitrate, sulfate and source apportioned BC) and ammonia in order to better refine their geographical origins and assess local/regional/advected contributions whose information is mandatory for efficient mitigation strategies. While ammonium sulfate typically shows a clear advected pattern, ammonium nitrate partially displays a similar feature, but, less expectedly, it also exhibits a significant contribution of regional and local emissions. The contribution of regional background organic aerosols (OA) is significant in spring and summer, while a more pronounced local origin is evidenced during wintertime, whose pattern is also observed for BC originating from domestic wood burning. Using time-resolved ACSM and BC information, seasonally differentiated weekly diurnal profiles of these constituents were investigated and helped to identify the main parameters controlling their temporal variations (sources, meteorological parameters). Finally, a careful investigation of all the major pollution episodes observed over the region of Paris between 2011 and 2013 was performed and classified in terms of chemical composition and the BC-to-sulfate ratio used here as a proxy of the local/regional/advected contribution of PM. In conclusion, these first 2-year quality-controlled measurements of ACSM clearly demonstrate their great potential to monitor on a long-term basis aerosol sources and their geographical origin and provide strategic information in near real time during pollution episodes. They also support the capacity of the ACSM to be proposed as a robust and credible alternative to filter-based sampling techniques for long-term monitoring strategies.


This paper is devoted to the design and the mathematics of a new sorption-coagulation equation type, modeling interactions between metal ions and water-soluble polymers. We motivate a new brand model that accounts for the evolution of the configurational density of polymers and metal ions, which consists in a non-linear transport equation with a quadratic source term, the coagulation. A global in time existence result is establish and a time explicit finite volume scheme for a conservative reformulation of the problem is proposed. Then, we prove a convergence result of the sequence of numerical approximation thanks to $L^1$ - weak compactness arguments.


This study aims to fill a void in the extant policy implementation literature that has overlooked the contribution of sergeants to the successful adoption of policy decisions at the frontlines. By focusing on the Regulated Interactions Policy of the Toronto Police Service and adopting a sociological institutionalism perspective, 17 sergeants representing each of the 17 divisions of the Toronto Police Service were interviewed. This research does not aim to assess the efficacy of this policy, but rather, examines its implementation. The findings show that there are a number of perceived internal and external factors that operate to facilitate or hinder a sergeant's capacity to achieve policy conformance in a police organization in general, and to the Regulated Interactions Policy in particular. Further, these perceived factors are contextualized across the police organization. Prevalent external factors include media portrayals of the police, civilian oversight, perceived levels of respect, and relationship between the police and citizens. Dominant internal factors include supervision, internal discipline, policy and procedure, and top-down command. The findings also demonstrate the methods used by sergeants to positively influence the conformance of frontline officers in a police organization in general, and to the Regulated Interactions Policy in particular. Key methods include communication and translation, rewarding, disciplining, and being present. The findings have three broad implications. First, police officers employ a 'logic of legitimacy' to make conformance choices that are perceived to promote individual and organizational legitimacy by improving police relations or avoiding discipline. Second, sergeants achieve conformance from frontline officers by blending the payoffs of an authoritative approach and a supportive approach. Third, the perspective held by police officers of the state of police-citizen interaction is one that is reactive.


Mobile phones are becoming more and more widely used nowadays, and people do not use the phone only for communication: there is a wide variety of phone applications allowing users to select those that fit their needs. Aggregated over time, application usage patterns exhibit not only what people are consistently interested in but also the way in which they use their phones, and can help improving phone design and personalized services. This work aims at mining automatically usage patterns from apps data recorded continuously with smartphones. A new probabilistic framework for mining usage patterns is proposed. Our methodology involves the design of a bag-of-apps model that robustly represents level of phone usage over specific times of the day, and the use of a probabilistic topic model that jointly discovers patterns of usage over multiple applications and describes users as mixtures of such patterns. Our framework is evaluated using 230 000+ hours of real-life app phone log data, demonstrates that relevant patterns of usage can be extracted, and is objectively validated on a user retrieval task with competitive performance.


Suicide-ality poses social, political and health concerns worldwide due to the significant psychological and social burden incurred (Maltsberger & Goldblatt, 1996; Hawton, 2005). In Ireland, rates for completed suicide are notably high among young men aged 15-34 years, who accounted for almost 40% of deaths by suicide in 2003 (NOSP, 2005). While a range of response initiatives have been developed, aimed at addressing suicide-ality at preventive, interventive and post-ventive levels, there has not been a corresponding decrease in prevalence rates of youth suicide in many countries, including Ireland (NOSP, 2009).
The field of suicidology has expanded in recent years, giving rise to substantial theoretical, practice and policy literature. Research in the field has been helpful in: identifying rates and trends in suicide-ality in general and among specific groups, identifying risk and protective factors, and designing and evaluating response strategies. It has been argued that research has been dominated by quantitative methodology and has primarily concentrated on prediction and control rather than understanding (Maris et al., 2000; Leenaars, 2004). Consequently understanding of the suicidal process (Aldridge, 1998) and suicidal person (Webb, 2002) is limited and there is inadequate guidance for professionals working in the area (Maltsberger & Goldblatt, 1996; Ting et al., 2006; Cutcliffe & Stevenson, 2007).
This Grounded Theory study aimed to address these gaps by developing a substantive theory pertaining to the phenomena of suicide-ality among young Irish men that could be utilized to inform mental health theory and practice (Glaser & Strauss, 1967). This involved interviewing seventeen formerly suicidal young men who had contact with mental health services and eliciting their views about their suicidality and what they considered constituted meaningful responses to them in their particular situation.
The study lead to the development of a substantive theory that explains how these young men transcended suicidality when facilitated to re-vitalize their worthiness as persons of value and deserving of life. The theory incorporated a two-stage psychosocial process wherein the young men moved from a death orientation to a life orientation. This was a complex and unpredictable process that entailed identity re-configuration and was punctuated by turning points (Strauss, 1969). Turning points involved profound moments of inner and outer dialogue (Seikkula et al., 1995) that significantly influenced the young men's lives and their journies on their suicide trajectories and life pathways. It is proposed that the mental health practitioner can play a key role in enhancing worthiness by providing and promoting validating interpersonal dialogic encounters, thereby facilitating young men to transcend suicidality.


AYRES, LEONARD PORTER (15 September 1879-29 October 1946), a nationally known educator, economist, and statistician, served as Vice President and Chief Economist of the Cleveland Trust bank for 26 years. Born in Niantic, Connecticut, to Milan Church and Georgiana (Gall) Ayres, Leonard was educated in the public schools of Newton, Massachusetts. After graduating from Boston University in 1902, he taught English in Puerto Rico, becoming superintendent of the island's school system in 1906. Returning to the States in 1907, Ayres earned a Ph.D. degree from Boston University in 1910. He was appointed director of the Department of Education and Statistics at the Russell Sage Foundation in 1908 where he applied statistical methods to a number of educational studies including the Education Survey of the Cleveland School System conducted under the auspices of the CLEVELAND FOUNDATION from 1915 until 1917. During WORLD WAR I, Lieutenant Colonel Ayres organized the Division of Statistics for the military. Ayres joined the Cleveland Trust Company (see AMERITRUST) in 1920 where he edited the bank's "Business Bulletin." While there, he acquired a national reputation for his economic opinions and predictions through his writings. In his book, The Economics of Recovery, published in 1933, Ayres correctly assessed the severity of the Depression compared with past U.S. economic downturns. Reports in his Cleveland years included "The Automobile and its Future" (1921) and "Business in Two War Periods" (1945). During his career, he published seven books, numerous articles and reports.Ayres returned to active military service as a brigadier general from 1940 until 1942. He died in Cleveland of a heart attack in 1946 and was buried in the National Cemetery at Arlington.


The first billion years of the Universe has been a pivotal time: stars, black holes (BHs), and galaxies formed and assembled, sowing the seeds of galaxies as we know them today. Detecting, identifying, and understanding the first galaxies and BHs is one of the current observational and theoretical challenges in galaxy formation. In this paper we present a population synthesis model aimed at galaxies, BHs, and active galactic nuclei (AGNs) at high redshift. The model builds a population based on empirical relations. The spectral energy distribution of galaxies is determined by age and metallicity, and that of AGNs by BH mass and accretion rate. We validate the model against observations, and predict properties of galaxies and AGN in other wavelength and/or luminosity ranges, estimating the contamination of stellar populations (normal stars and high-mass X-ray binaries) for AGN searches from the infrared to X-rays, and vice versa for galaxy searches. For high-redshift galaxies with stellar ages , we find that disentangling stellar and AGN emission is challenging at restframe UV/optical wavelengths, while high-mass X-ray binaries become more important sources of confusion in X-rays. We propose a color–color selection in the James Webb Space Telescope bands to separate AGN versus star-dominated galaxies in photometric observations. We also estimate the AGN contribution, with respect to massive, hot, and metal-poor stars, at driving high-ionization lines, such as C iv and He ii. Finally, we test the influence of the minimum BH mass and occupation fraction of BHs in low-mass galaxies on the restframe UV/near-IR and X-ray AGN luminosity function.


The aims of this thesis were to evaluate the effects of agriculture on amphibians in terms of (i) population genetic consequences of agriculture-induced spatial changes of the landscape and (ii) local adaptation and tolerance to frequently used agrochemicals. The study was performed using the common frog Rana temporaria as a model. Abundance, occurrence, genetic diversity and gene flow were negatively affected by agriculture in southern Sweden, but unaffected or even positively affected by agriculture in the central and northern regions, respectively. These test parameters correlated positively with landscape diversity both in the south and in the north. Moreover, the size and occurrence of R. temporaria populations decreased towards the north i.e. the margin of the species' distribution range. In accordance with theoretical expectations, genetic variability decreased and population substructuring increased as a negative function of (effective) population size. Southern Swedish common frogs are naturally exposed to higher levels of nitrates, and thus have a higher tolerance to high nitrate levels than their northern conspecifics. This suggests local adaptation to naturally varying nitrate levels. Consequently, increased anthropogenic supplementation of nitrate could impact more the northern than the southern Swedish common frog populations. Exposure to the pesticides azoxystrobin, cyanazine and permethrin at ecologically relevant concentrations had small or no effects on R. temporaria tadpoles. The populations with lowest microsatellite variation (fragmented populations) in southern Sweden had considerably lower fitness in terms of survival and growth as compared to those with the highest genetic variability (non-fragmented populations). The results indicate that populations with low levels of neutral genetic variability were phenotypically less differentiated than populations with higher levels of variability. One possible explanation for this is that the degree of population differentiation in low variability populations has been constrained due to lack of suitable genetic variation or inefficiency of selection relative to genetic drift.


Development of a comprehensive geotechnical database for risk management of highway landslide problems is described. Computer software selected to program the client/server application in a data window, components and structure of the geotechnical database, and some of the primary factors considered in constructing the database are discussed. In the establishment of a large database that will be used widely, it is extremely important to select development software that will allow simultaneous use of the database by numerous users. Major integrated components of the database include landslide, rock slope, and soil and rock engineering data. This report mainly focuses on the landslide component. The landslide database module provides programmed procedures for gathering field data and rating the severity of landslides. Secondary components of the database include statistical analyzers and engineering applications for performing "on-line" analysis of data, developing correlation between different soil parameters, and performing engineering analysis and designs. Procedures for entering historical soil and rock engineering data have been developed. Procedures for entering and retrieval of landslide and rock slope data have been developed. Methods for "capturing" geotechnical data in a "real-time" mode, which will allow the storage of geotechnical data as it is generated, are currently being programmed. Issues concerning database security, engineering units, and storing and displaying maps, graphics, and photographs are discussed. The database contains procedures for dynamically overlaying the locations of landslides, rock slopes, and borings onto embedded roadway and digitized geological maps. Latitudes and longitudes of rock slopes and landslides were determined using Global Positioning System equipment (sub-meter accuracy). Strategies and illustrations of graphical user interfaces for data entry and retrieval are discussed. Some 1,400 highway landslides were identified and rated using a simple system devised by the University of Kentucky Transportation Center and the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet.


One of the most important industrial applications of SAT is currently Bounded Model Checking (BMC). This technique is typically used for formal hardware verification in the context of Electronic Design Automation. But BMC has successfully been applied to many other domains as well. In practice, BMC is mainly used for falsification, which is concerned with violations of temporal properties. In addition, a considerable part of this chapter discusses complete extensions, including k-induction and interpolation. These extensions also allow to prove properties.


The discrepancy between the traditional learning methods and the learning preferences of the students of the current generation result in the ineffective and boring studying process. Gamification and game-based learning are popular concepts which application in education to enhance motivation, increase retention levels and deepen engagement of the students with the subject matter has an emerging and promising potential. The Web on the other hand is evolving rapidly, affecting not only the coding techniques and web development approaches, but also introducing new concepts as "grid-based", "responsive design", "mobile-first", "CSS preprocessors", "progressive enhancement", "unobtrusive JavaScript" and many more. This puts a lot of challenges in terms of how to teach effectively these techniques and constantly adapt the classes when introducing them in the curriculum. The paper presents a work-in-progress on designing and developing an educational game for teaching fundamental and modern web design and development concepts to students of the current generation Z. At first it overviews the current state and related work as well as tendencies and emerging practices on the matter, as it also focuses on the application of the different game design principles as essential part of the process. Then it outlines our approach to the development of the educational game, introducing certain game mechanics and dynamics that are applied in the educational game. Next, we introduce the prototyped and developed portions that cover different aspects of the course topics. Finally, we go over the specific usage and implementation as well as the future development and perspectives.


As Cloud Computing becomes prevalent, more and more sensitive information are being centralized into the cloud. For the protection of data privacy, sensitive data usually have to be encrypted before outsourcing, which makes effective data utilization a very challenging task. Although traditional searchable encryption schemes allow a user to securely search over encrypted data through keywords and selectively retrieve files of interest, these techniques support only exact keyword search. That is, there is no tolerance of minor typos and format inconsistencies which, on the other hand, are typical user searching behavior and happen very frequently. This significant drawback makes existing techniques unsuitable in Cloud Computing as it greatly affects system usability, rendering user searching experiences very frustrating and system efficacy very low. In this paper, for the first time we formalize and solve the problem of effective fuzzy keyword search over encrypted cloud data while maintaining keyword privacy. Fuzzy keyword search greatly enhances system usability by returning the matching files when users' searching inputs exactly match the predefined keywords or the closest possible matching files based on keyword similarity semantics, when exact match fails. In our solution, we exploit edit distance to quantify keywords similarity and develop an advanced technique on constructing fuzzy keyword sets, which greatly reduces the storage and representation overheads. Through rigorous security analysis, we show that our proposed solution is secure and privacy-preserving, while correctly realizing the goal of fuzzy keyword search.


The paper explores the additional services that Full Size Frequency Converter, FSFC, solution can provide for the case of an existing pumped storage power plant of 2x210 MW, for which conversion from fixed speed to variable speed is investigated with a focus on fast mode transition. First, reduced scale model tests experiments of fast transition of Francis pump-turbine which have been performed at the ANDRITZ HYDRO Hydraulic Laboratory in Linz Austria are presented. The tests consist of linear speed transition from pump to turbine and vice versa performed with constant guide vane opening. Then existing pumped storage power plant with pump-turbine quasi homologous to the reduced scale model is modelled using the simulation software SIMSEN considering the reservoirs, penstocks, the two Francis pump-turbines, the two downstream surge tanks, and the tailrace tunnel. For the electrical part, an FSFC configuration is considered with a detailed electrical model. The transitions from turbine to pump and vice versa are simulated, and similarities between prototype simulation results and reduced scale model experiments are highlighted.


A phenomenological, qualitative enquiry was implemented to gain an in-depth understanding of the lived-through spinally referred leg pain experience, from a physiotherapy specific research perspective. The methodology of the study is drawing from the phenomenological philosophy of Edmund Husserl, and Giorgi's (2009) modification of his phenomenological method. For Husserl, the central theme and purpose in phenomenology is to describe the essence of the phenomenon as a presence to consciousness; by the means of phenomenological attitude and reduction, including bracketing, and conscious acts. Descriptions of the phenomenon of interest were obtained from four participant volunteers through individual, face to face interviews. Participants were asked to describe concrete situations of spinally referred leg pain, in as much detail as possible. The phenomenological analysis showed that the most essential aspect of lived-through experience is the overriding presence of pain. The other key constituents, which are all interrelated, were: interference with life, emotional engagement, sense of resilience, sense of diagnostic uncertainty, treatment hope and expectation, trust in others and resignation. This study contributed to phenomenological insights into spinally referred leg pain experiences, and has significant implications to understanding the phenomenon from a physiotherapy disciplinary perspective.


In recent years the focus has shifted from the philosophy of restorative justice, to its potential for implementation and the benefits it might bring; to the ways in which it has been implemented in some countries, and likely to be implemented in the future; taking into account the legal, institutional and / or constitutional parameters of justice systems at the beginning of the third millennium. An examination of some critical issues surrounding restorative justice may provide useful insights into the way various countries have responded to rising crime rates and justice demands. Feminist questions on the applicability of restorative justice for more serious types of crime is also extremely relevant to any discussion on criminal justice reform since it is the most common context in which women come into contact with the justice system, both as perpetrators and victims. Closely linked to these debates is the question of the 'institutionalisation' of restorative justice. This article seeks to explore the various debates surrounding restorative justice engagement with criminal justice and focuses on three main issues that complicate this issue in modern societies :
Firstly, to what extent are restorative justice schemes different from traditional justice and is it entirely new? The 'separatist vs. integrationist' argument looks at the relationship between 'restorative justice' and 'criminal justice'. In this regard two distinct schools of thought can be identified.
Secondly, to what extent are restorative justice schemes intended as replacements for traditional justice? Should it be adopted as a small part of justice, for primarily juvenile offenders and minor crimes, or should it replace criminal justice with an evolving restorative criminal justice? Should it stand alongside criminal justice as an alternative system for resolving disputes?
Thirdly, from whose perspective should we consider and evaluate restorative justice and the potential for its implementation? Should evaluation of restorative justice and its implementation be undertaken from the perspective of the state, where the multiple aims are crime reduction and delivering justice fairly and efficiently, or should it be from the perspective of the individual case, so that processes and outcomes always have to meet minimum standards, as in codes of practice and human rights outcomes? Should it be from the perspective of lay participants- defendants, victims, witnesses and local communities, who may have both process requirements and forward looking problem solving, crime prevention aims, all of which are more complicated than the state's simple crime reductive aim of lessening reconviction?


"The Virtual Patient is like a student pilot learning to fly--it draws all your assessment skills together and increases your confidence." (Student user) The Virtual Patient, an interactive multimedia learning resource using a critical care clinical scenario for postgraduate nursing students, was developed to enhance flexible access to learning experiences and improve learning outcomes in the management of critically ill patients. Using real-time physiological animations, authentic content design and local online clinical experts, The Virtual Patient replicates the way in which clinical cues and patient data are presented in the critical care environment, allowing students to work in their own time, at their own pace, with expert support and without ever compromising real patients. This article reports the project's development, design features, and user-evaluation data, concluding with design recommendations. PROJECT BACKGROUND AND AIMS The complex and ever changing clinical contexts in which nursing students practice necessitates the introduction of innovative and flexible teaching strategies in order to improve student access to learning opportunities and learning outcomes. Postgraduate critical care nursing students are, in particular, required to develop advanced health assessment skills and knowledge of diagnostic and therapeutic interventions essential in caring for patients within highly technological environments. For the postgraduate student committed to the demands of her/his clinical workplace, the development of these competencies through course work requires engagement with clinically relevant case study content in contexts which facilitate learning and do not place real patients at risk. The Virtual Patient was produced for rural and metropolitan postgraduate nursing students studying in critical care, emergency, and high dependency courses at Monash University's School of Nursing. The Virtual Patient is an interactive computer simulation that provides students with the opportunity to manage a complex clinical case study in critical care nursing. The aims of the project were to: * provide students with the opportunity to manage complex clinical situations which they may not otherwise experience in their clinical practice; and * enable students to interact with colleagues and leading nurse practitioners, who are not formally associated with the curriculum, via an online discussion group. The educational objectives of The Virtual Patient were to facilitate professional learning by enabling students to: * become familiar with the critical care workplace environment; * develop clinical problem-solving abilities including: ** an understanding of assessment concepts and the significance of assessment findings; ** diagnostic interpretation skills; ** confidence in decision making; ** identification of appropriate therapeutic interventions; and * participate in collaborative learning. To achieve these objectives, the project's pedagogical approach used a student centred, case-based learning model, which required the students to take responsibility for constructing their own understanding of the clinical scenarios. This approach is premised upon two notions; students' professional learning is most effective when they are actively involved in creating their new understandings and competencies and learning is retrieved and remembered longer if undertaken in the context in which it is to be applied (Boud & Feletti, 1991). Use of a clinical case benefits the learners by providing them with an opportunity to reason in context, generate experiences that they may not otherwise have, and engage in problem solving with support and feedback from colleagues and experts (Sutyak, Lebeau, Spotnitz, O'Donnell, & Mehn, 1996; Thomas, O'Connor, Albert, Boutain, & Brandt, 2001). …


In this paper, we investigate the nonparametric estimation of the frequency dependent complex modulus of a viscoelastic material. The strains due to flexural wave propagation in a bar specimen are registered at different cross sections. The time domain data is transformed into frequency domain using discrete Fourier transform and a nonlinear least squares algorithm is then employed to estimate the complex modulus at each frequency. Inherent numerical problems due to associated ill-conditioned matrices are treated with special care. An analysis of the quality of the nonlinear least squares estimate is also carried out. The validity of the theoretical results are confirmed by numerical studies and experimental tests.


The methods used by the UK Police to investigate complaints of rape have unsurprisingly come under much scrutiny in recent times, with a 2007 joint report on behalf of HM Crown Prosecution Service Inspectorate and HM Inspectorate of Constabulary concluding that there were many areas where improvements should be made. The research reported here forms part of a larger project which draws on various discourse analytical tools to identify the processes at work during police interviews with women reporting rape. Drawing on a corpus of video recorded police interviews with women reporting rape, this study applies a two pronged analysis to reveal the presence of these ideologies. Firstly, an analysis of the discourse markers 'well' and 'so' demonstrates the control exerted on the interaction by interviewing officers, as they attach importance to certain facts while omitting much of the information provided by the victim. Secondly, the interpretative repertoires relied upon by officers to 'make sense' of victim's accounts are subject to scrutiny. As well as providing micro-level analyses which demonstrate processes of interactional control at the local level, the findings of these analyses can be shown to relate to a wider context – specifically prevailing ideologies about sexual violence in society as a whole.


INTRODUCTION Oil revenue constitutes over 80 per cent of Iran's total export earnings and 42.5 per cent of gross domestic product. (1) The importance of oil has placed energy policy on the top of the government agenda. At the same time this huge oil revenue made the control on oil industry at the center of power struggle and competition among various political groups. These groups have tried to develop and increase their influence in oil sector with legally or illegally methods and ways. While economic factors could justify Iran's energy policy decision-making process, they failed to explain many political factors affecting Iran's energy policy. The role of political factors in shaping Iran's energy policy can be explained by the power structure in Iran, the role of all-powerful supreme leader, the position of the president as well as the interests of ruling groups. The present study is an attempt to analyze these political factors which lead Iran's energy policy. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK Energy and its decision making process in Iran have been reviewed by different scholars who have written about states behaviors in the world politics. According to their researches, energy policy decision-making can be influenced by domestic factors. According to this approach each state behaves differently as a result of its domestic political structure. For instance, while domestic political oppositions are strong in one state, leader's orientations are strong factor in the other, and interest groups are powerful in third state, and so forth. James N. Rosenau in his work "Pre-Theories and Theories and Foreign Policy" (1966)as one of the followers of domestic explanations, argues that there are different levels of causation that shape states behaviors such as individual's role or government structure. Although, he recognizes that there are numerous domestic factors that can and do influence states behavior, these influences are necessarily channeled through the political apparatus of a government that identifies, decides, and implements policy. (2) Policy is made by people configured in various ways depending on the nature of the problem and the structure of the government. For instance about foreign policy decision making process, Margaret G. Hermann in her book "How Decision Units Shape Foreign Policy: A Theoretical Framework" (2001) argues that two questions must be addressed if we are going to get inside the"black box" of government to understand the relevance of leadership to the policymaking: (1) What types of actors make policy decisions? (2) What is the effect of these decision units on the resulting foreign policy? Hermann has replied these questions according to the decision unit dynamics framework. Based on the unit dynamics framework, there are three different models suggestions related to the process of government making decision foreign policy. They contain: predominant leaders, single group, and coalition. The predominant leader's model type is that "...the regime has one individual in its leadership who is vested with authority." (3) Single group assumes that" ... if the government is not structured around a single individual, there may be a designated group that is responsible for dealing with the occasion under consideration." (4) And, the coalition model means that "... the unit is composed of multiple autonomous actors. That is, two or more entities [individual leaders, groups of policymakers, bureaucratic agencies, and interest groups] have the power to commit or withhold the resources of government." (5) According to this definition, coalition model exists in Iran where there are autonomous actors who can direct Iran's domestic and internal policies and energy policy as well. These actors include: Ministry of Oil, Supreme Leader, President, Interest Groups and Institutions, the Expediency Council, Parliament, and the Guardian Council. SUPERVISION OF OIL MINISTRY National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) is the fourth largest state oil firm in the world. …


The broad aim of the work in this thesis is to apply atomistic simulation techniques to advance our understanding of the surface chemistry of two important iron oxide minerals, hematite (α-Fe2O3) and maghemite (γ-Fe2O3), which have important applications in many fields, including as remedial agents in the soil and catalysts.
First we have compared several interatomic potential models to describe the structures and properties of four iron oxide polymorphs, namely α-Fe2O3(hematite), β-Fe2O3, γ-Fe2O3 (maghemite) and e-Fe2O3 to choose a suitable potential for these systems, where we have considered cell volume, angles, Fe-O bond distances and relative stabilities of the four polymorphs. Next, we have investigated the energetic of vacancy ordering in γ-Fe2O3 (maghemite), using a statistical approach to evaluate uptake and ordering as a function of temperature. Our results show clearly that full vacancy ordering, in a pattern with space group P41212, is the thermodynamically preferred situation in the bulk material. This stability arises from a minimal Coulombic repulsion between Fe3+ cation sites for this configuration. Using this ordered model for maghemite, we have studied the surfaces of hematite (α-Fe2O3) and maghemite (γ-Fe2O3) both in dehydrated and hydroxylated form, and their interactions with two organic molecules, namely methanoic acid and hydroxyethanal, as models of organic pollutants. Finally, we have also considered the interaction of the same mineral surfaces with arsenate, another toxic pollutant found in soils and groundwater.


ABSTRACT: STR‐based DNA profiling is an exceptionally sensitive analytical technique that is often used to obtain results at the very limits of its sensitivity. The challenge of reliably distinguishing between signal and noise in such situations is one that has been rigorously addressed in numerous other analytical disciplines. However, an inability to determine accurately the height of electropherogram baselines has caused forensic DNA profiling laboratories to utilize alternative approaches. Minimum thresholds established during laboratory validation studies have become the de facto standard for distinguishing between reliable signal and noise/technical artifacts. These minimum peak height thresholds generally fail to consider variability in the sensitivity of instruments, reagents, and the skill of human analysts involved in the DNA profiling process over the course of time. Software (BatchExtract) made publicly available by the National Center for Biotechnology Information now provides an alternative means of establishing limits of detection and quantitation that is more consistent with those used in other analytical disciplines. We have used that software to determine the height of each data collection point for each dye along a control sample's electropherogram trace. These values were then used to determine a limit of detection (the average amount of background noise plus three standard deviations) and a limit of quantitation (the average amount of background noise plus 10 standard deviations) for each control sample. Analyses of the electropherogram data associated with the positive, negative, and reagent blank controls included in 50 different capillary electrophoresis runs validate that this approach could be used to determine run‐specific thresholds objectively for use in forensic DNA casework.


The article presents a framework and empirical investigation to demonstrate the role of task difficulty in the effectiveness of collective intelligence. The research contends that collective intelligence, a form of community engagement to address problem solving tasks, can be superior to individual judgment and choice, but only when the addressed tasks are in a range of appropriate difficulty, which we label the "collective range". Outside of that difficulty range, collectives will perform about as poorly as individuals for high difficulty tasks, or only marginally better than individuals for low difficulty tasks. An empirical investigation with subjects randomly recruited online supports our conjecture. Our findings qualify prior research on the strength of collective intelligence in general and offer preliminary insights into the mechanisms that enable individuals and collectives to arrive at good solutions. Within the framework of digital ecosystems, the paper argues that collective intelligence has more survival strength than individual intelligence, with highest sustainability for tasks of medium difficulty.


The psychological contract has been identified as a significant predictor of retention in higher education (Charlton, Barrow and Hornby-Atkinson 2006). This HEA Psychology network funded programme seeks to assess the impact of an 'intervention' designed to manage the psychological contract between 1st year undergraduate students and their tutors in the context of an evolving student-centre programme of personal and academic development planning (PAD). An action research approach is adopted. A range of other academic related measures are used to help provide a greater understanding of why students persist or not with HE and to place the psychological contracts data in a wider context.
The findings reveal variations in the expectations of both staff and student samples as well as gaps between what staff and students expect in terms of the student/HE relationship. Several differences emerged between those students who leave and those who persist with their study to the end of year 1. In particular, students who leave are more likely to expect that lectures and handouts will provide all the information they need to pass the course, engage in greater self-handicapping behaviour and show a significant fall in their performance approach scores across the year suggesting reduced effort, persistence and aspirations. The qualitative data provide insights into differences between the expectations of younger and more mature students and provide a rich context for interpreting the quantitative measures.

Actions that have arisen as a consequence of this research are summarised as are plans for future research in this area.


Erosion rates and annual soil loss tolerance (T) values in evaluations of soil management practices have served as focal points for soil quality (SQ) research and assessment programs for decades. Our objective is to enhance and extend current soil assessment efforts by presenting a framework for assessing the impact of soil management practices on soil function. The tool consists of three steps: indicator selection, indicator interpretation, and integration into an index. The tool's framework design allows researchers to continually update and refine the interpretations for many soils, climates, and land use practices. The tool was demonstrated using data from case studies in Georgia, Iowa, California, and the Pacific Northwest (WA, ID, OR). Using an expert system of decision rules as an indicator selection step successfully identified indicators for the minimum data set (MDS) in the case study data sets. In the indicator interpretation step, observed indicator data were transformed into unitless scores based on site-specific algorithmic relationships to soil function. The scored data resulted in scientifically defensible and statistically different treatment means in the four case studies. The efficacy of the indicator interpretation step was evaluated with stepwise regressions using scored and observed indicators as independent variables and endpoint data as iterative dependent variables. Scored indicators usually had coefficients of determination (R 2 ) that were similar or greater than those of the observed indicator values. In some cases, the R 2 values for indicators and endpoint regressions were higher when examined for individual treatments rather than the entire data set. This study demonstrates significant progress toward development of a SQ assessment framework for adaptive soil resource management or monitoring that is transferable to a variety of climates, soil types, and soil management systems.


In this paper, we describe two explorations in the use of hybrid user interfaces for collaborative geographic data visualization. Our first interface combines three technologies: augmented reality (AR), immersive virtual reality (VR), and computer vision-based hand and object tracking. Wearing a lightweight display with an attached camera, users can look at a real map and see three-dimensional virtual terrain models overlaid on the map. From this AR interface, they can fly in and experience the model immersively, or use free hand gestures or physical markers to change the data representation. Building on this work, our second interface explores alternative interface techniques, including a zoomable user interface, paddle interactions, and pen annotations. We describe the system hardware and software and the implications for GIS and spatial science applications.


This brief seeks to analyse whether the new global actor consisting of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS), as an emerging political and institutional force of the South, can contend economically with the hegemony of the West. Can it manage to confront key sociopolitical and economic issues of the developing countries for their resolution in the interests of the vast majority of the people of its members and the rest of the South? Can BRICS be a force for transformation of the global governance organisations and institutions, particularly the United Nations (UN) and its Security Council, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank and the World Trade Organization (WTO)? The brief seeks to address what other countries of the South hope and expect of BRICS in terms of their development and role within the international political economy.


11 A facility that includes a probe station and a scanning open-ended waveguide probe for measuring near electromagnetic fields (see figure) has been added to Glen Research Center's suite of antenna-testing facilities, at a small fraction of the cost of the other facilities. This facility is designed specifically for nondestructive characterization of the radiation patterns of miniaturized microwave antennas fabricated on semiconductor and dielectric wafer substrates, including active antennas that are difficult to test in traditional antenna-testing ranges because of fragility, smallness, or severity of DC-bias or testfixture requirements. By virtue of the simple fact that a greater fraction of radiated power can be captured in a nearfield measurement than in a conventional far-field measurement, this near-field facility is convenient for testing miniaturized antennas with low gains. This facility makes it possible to test a complete set or any subset of a multiplicity of antennas on the same substrate in one session. The multiple antennas can all be of the same design or different designs. Unlike in prior antenna-testing facilities, there is no need for wafer-level dicing or packaging to isolate individual antennas from a multiple-antenna substrate before testing, and no need for special text fixtures. Hence, alternative prototype antenna designs can be evaluated in rapid succession to converge on an optimum design in less time (and, hence, at less cost) than in prior antenna-testing facilities. In this facility, radio-frequency (RF) signals and DC bias voltages and currents are supplied to an antenna under test (AUT) through RF and DC probes, respectively, that are parts of the probe station. The equipment in this facility includes a commercially available RF probe station, a coplanar-waveguide ground-signal-ground microwave probe that makes contact with the AUT, the aforementioned scanning open-ended waveguide probe, an automatic network analyzer (more specifically, a vector network analyzer)/microwave receiver, and a computer. The mechanisms for scanning the open-ended waveguide probe are a three-axis slide mechanism and a rotation mechanism that, under computer control, positions this probe for acquisition of data at prescribed grid points on a plane very close to the AUT. This nearfield scanning scheme enables capture of a maximum amount of energy radiated by one or multiple small antennas while they are DC-biased, without need for any special fixture. The system is controlled by userfriendly operational, data-acquisition, and data-analysis software. The dimensions of the near-field scan area and the distance between grid points are specified by the user via the computer keyboard as inputs to a software-generated control panel. After each scan, the data-analysis software processes the measurement data and displays the farfield radiation pattern of the AUT, computed from the near-field measurements. This work was done by Afroz Zaman, Richard Q. Lee, William G. Darby, Philip J. Barr, and Félix A. Miranda of Glenn Research Center; and Kevin Lambert of Analex Corp. Further information is contained in a TSP (see page 1). Inquiries concerning rights for the commercial use of this invention should be addressed to NASA Glenn Research Center, Innovative Partnerships Office, Attn: Steve Fedor, Mail Stop 4–8, 21000 Brookpark Road, Cleveland, Ohio 44135. Refer to LEW-17877-1. Probe Station and Near-Field Scanner for Testing Antennas Multiple antennas on the same substrate can be evaluated quickly and inexpensively. John H. Glenn Research Center, Cleveland, Ohio


In work with the microscope, maximum returns in the way of crisp imagery, in detail and in visual comfort, as well, are obtained only when the conditions of illumination are carefully adjusted. Since the eye is a physiological mechanism, special conditions beyond those basic to good photomicrography are necessary for high visual efficiency. The problem of vision through a microscope is discussed and the literature relative to visual acuity is reviewed. Conditions for high visual acuity and visual comfort are outlined.


Ireland has faced significant economic hardship since 2008, with the Irish radio industry suffering as advertising revenues evaporated. The difficult economic circumstances have forced radio station management to devise new and cost effective ways of generating much-needed income. The answer has come in the form of Facebook, the leading Social Network Site (SNS) in Ireland. Using Ireland as a case study, this chapter looks at how radio station management are utilising the social network strategically in a bid to enhance their audiences and revenues. Radio station management consider Facebook to be an invaluable promotional tool which is very easily integrated into radio programming and gives radio a digital online presence, reaching far greater audiences than possible through broadcasting. Some radio stations are showing ambition and are realising the marketing potential that Facebook and other SNSs hold. However, key changes in practice, technology and human resources are required to maximise the profit-making possibilities offered by Facebook.


Abstract Braune, S., Riedel, A., Schulte-Mönting, J. and Raczek, J. Influence of a Radiofrequency Electromagnetic Field on Cardiovascular and Hormonal Parameters of the Autonomic Nervous System in Healthy Individuals. Radiat. Res. 158, 352–356 (2002). The potential health risks of radiofrequency electromagnetic fields (EMFs) emitted by mobile phones are of considerable public interest. The present study investigated the hypothesis, based on the results of our previous study, that exposure to EMFs can increase sympathetic vasoconstrictor activity. Forty healthy young males and females underwent a single-blind, placebo-controlled protocol once on each of two different days. Each investigation included successive periods of placebo and EMF exposure, given in a randomized order. The exposure was implemented by a GSM-like signal (900 MHz, pulsed with 217 Hz, 2 W) using a mobile phone mounted on the right-hand side of the head in a typical telephoning position. Each period of placebo exposure and of EMF exposure consisted of 20 min of supine rest, 10 min of 70° upright tilt on a tilt table, and another 20 min of supine rest. Blood pressure, heart rate and cutaneous capillary perfusion were measured continuously. In addition, serum levels of norepinephrine, epinephrine, cortisol and endothelin were analyzed in venous blood samples taken every 10 min. Similar to the previous study, systolic and diastolic blood pressure each showed slow, continuous, statistically significant increases of about 5 mmHg during the course of the protocol. All other parameters either decreased in parallel or remained constant. However, analysis of variance showed that the changes in blood pressure and in all other parameters were independent of the EMF exposure. These findings do not support the assumption of a nonthermal influence of EMFs emitted by mobile phones on the cardiovascular autonomic nervous system in healthy humans.


This study investigates the effects of market structure and research and development (R&D) on the innovation activities of firms. Fixed and random effects count data models are estimated with firm-level data for the U.S. food processing industry. Results show a positive association between patents and R&D, and patents and market structure, suggesting that firms which exhibit noncompetitive behavior are likely to develop new products and processes. Significant intra-industry spillovers of knowledge are identified using industry R&D. For this industry, deadweight losses from imperfect competition may be offset by greater product variety and quality of food products for consumers.


This doctoral thesis has investigated what hinders material recirculation in society, to later suggest possible ways to support material recirculation in the future. Since material recirculation is proposed as a way to use waste materials for new production, it was deemed relevant to investigate two separate case studies that enabled recirculation from production systems and waste management. These two case studies addressed the topics of designing with waste and sorting waste, presented in Topics 1 and 2, respectively. Additionally, a third topic was developed as a way of providing a broader context for the case studies. Given that it has been argued that waste is a design flaw and that there are many design strategies aimed at waste minimization, Topic 3 investigated specifically how design currently relates to material recirculation. Designing with waste proved to be a difficult endeavour, mainly due to the lack of a clear design brief and reliable information about secondary materials. Topic 1 resulted in a process diagram for how to design with waste, based on generic design process models. This process diagram is complemented with two earlier steps needed to design with waste: 1) Collect and sort the discarded material in an adequate manner, 2) Investigate and test secondary material's properties. Waste sorting is therefore a precondition to designing with waste. Improving the way waste materials are sorted and collected is a challenging task that has been broadly researched from several disciplines. It is a topic that couples behavioural and societal aspects that are difficult to explain, to complex technical solutions, resulting in a challenging complex socio-technical system. Topic 2 concludes that it is crucial to understand what service users deem as convenient infrastructure when designing waste collection systems. To better understand service users, user requirement elicitation methods that are commonly used in the design discipline might be useful to develop and improve waste sorting systems. Topic 3 concludes that design currently does not sufficiently support material recirculation. Although designers see and describe the effect their profession has on resource use and waste generation, in practice only a third of the consulted designers had actively used EoL considerations in their latest project. In order to aid designers in recirculating materials, Topic 3 presents two models: 1) A resource recovery route model, based on recirculation to different life-cycle stages, and 2) A model of ways in which designers can address resource conservation. The factors hindering material recirculation found in the three topics could be grouped into six main barriers. Material recirculation is complicated, it is a task with many steps, a variety of materials and several actors are involved. Since so many people are involved, acting by themselves, there is a lack of control over how materials flow through society. There is also a lack of communication among the different actors. As a result, the actions and responsibilities of the different actors are unclear. To know how to best use the discards, reliable information about the material properties is needed, but such information is often unavailable. Recirculating materials requires more time and effort than simply discarding them. These barriers seem to point to a lack of guidance and common vision around what material recirculation should mean for the different actors in society. To generate a common vision among the main stakeholders (i.e. producers, users and waste managers) policy regulations and collaborations that foster better understanding among the actors are suggested as possible ways forward.


An automotive bushing is a device used in automotive suspension systems to reduce the load transmitted from the wheel to the frame of the vehicle. A bushing is a hollow cylinder, which is bonded to a solid steel shaft at its inner surface and a steel sleeve at its outer surface. The relation between the force applied to the shaft and the relative deformation of a bushing is nonlinear and exhibits features of viscoelasticity. In this paper, an automotive bushing is regarded as nonlinear viscoelastic incompressible material. Instron 8801 equipment was used for experimental research and ramp-to-constant displacement control test was used for data acquisition. Displacement dependent force relaxation function was obtained from the force extrapolation method and expressed as the explicit combination of time and displacement. Pipkin-Rogers model, which is the direct relation of force and displacement, was obtained and comparison studies between the experimental results and the Pipkin-Rogers results were carried out.


This paper presents a technique for statistically characterizing a search space and demonstrates the use of this technique within a practical telescope scheduling application. The characterization provides the following: (i) an estimate of the search space size, (ii) a scaling technique for multi-attribute objective functions and search heuristics, (iii) a "quality density function" for schedules in a search space, (iv) a measure of a scheduler's performance, and (v) support for constructing and tuning search heuristics. This paper describes the random sampling algorithm used to construct this characterization and explains how it can be used to produce this information. As an example, we include a comparative analysis of an heuristic dispatch scheduler and a look-ahead scheduler that performs greedy search.


PURPOSE/OBJECTIVES
To determine whether provision of Reiki therapy during outpatient chemotherapy is associated with increased comfort and well-being.

DESIGN
Double-blind, randomized clinical controlled trial.

SETTING
Outpatient chemotherapy center.

SAMPLE
189 participants were randomized to actual Reiki, sham Reiki placebo, or standard care.

METHODS
Patients receiving chemotherapy were randomly placed into one of three groups. Patients received either standard care, a placebo, or an actual Reiki therapy treatment. A demographic tool and pre- and post-tests were given before and after chemotherapy infusion.

MAIN RESEARCH VARIABLES
Reiki therapy, sham Reiki placebo therapy, standard care, and self-reported levels of comfort and well-being pre- and postintervention.

FINDINGS
Although Reiki therapy was statistically significant in raising the comfort and well-being of patients post-therapy, the sham Reiki placebo also was statistically significant. Patients in the standard care group did not experience changes in comfort and well-being during their infusion session.

CONCLUSIONS
The findings indicate that the presence of an RN providing one-on-one support during chemotherapy was influential in raising comfort and well-being levels, with or without an attempted healing energy field.

IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING
An attempt by clinic nurses to provide more designated one-to-one presence and support for patients while receiving their chemotherapy infusions could increase patient comfort and well-being.


The Nordmannvikdalen Fault (NF) represents one of the two observed postglacial faults in Norway. The two faults constitute the northernmost part of the Lapland province of postglacial faults, occurring in large tracts of northern Sweden and northern Finland. The 1.3 km-long, NW– SE-trending NF is thought to be a normal fault with scarp height increasing from less than 0.50 m in the NW to c. 1.50 m in the SE. A tectonic origin for the Nordmannvikdalen Fault, which seems to be aseismic today, has recently been questioned and alternative causes as either gravitational collapse or overburden creep have been suggested. We carried out three 3–5 m-deep trenches and two ground penetrating radar (GPR) profiles in September 2017 to study the fault at depth. The trenching reveals deformation structures within the lodgement till. The faulting led to cracking of the ground, forming a vertical wedge-shaped crevice, with a width similar to previously recorded large ice wedges and ice wedge casts (fossil ice wedges) in polygonal pattern ground in Arctic areas. The width increases with increasing scarp height, i.e., the vertical displacement. The crevice was filled with sediment, snow and water freezing to ice, with subsequent infilling, during melting seasons, of more debris from the side walls of the host material and cryoturbated and soliflucted soil. The Nordmannvikdalen Fault appears, from the trenching, to have been formed in one single seismic event. The new GPR data show bedrock reflectors dipping approximately 38–45° towards the NE, below the NF scarp. The average angle of the terrain slope between the Nordmannvikdalen Fault scarp and the valley floor is 14°, and the altitude difference between the fault scarp and the Nordmannvikdalen valley floor is approximately 200 m. We find no reason to downgrade the fault to 'very unlikely to be neotectonics'.


A permutation π is said to be τ -avoiding if it does not contain any subsequence having all the same pairwise comparisons as τ . This paper concerns the characterization and enumeration of permutations which avoid a set F^j of subsequences increasing both in number and in length at the same time. Let F^j be the set of subsequences of the form σ (j+1)(j+2), σ being any permutation on \1,...,j\. For j=1 the only subsequence in F^1 is 123 and the 123-avoiding permutations are enumerated by the Catalan numbers; for j=2 the subsequences in F^2 are 1234 2134 and the (1234,2134)avoiding permutations are enumerated by the Schroder numbers; for each other value of j greater than 2 the subsequences in F^j are j! and their length is (j+2) the permutations avoiding these j! subsequences are enumerated by a number sequence \a_n\ such that C_n ≤ a_n ≤ n!, C_n being the nth Catalan number. For each j we determine the generating function of permutations avoiding the subsequences in F^j according to the length, to the number of left minima and of non-inversions.


Neoclassical tearing modes (NTMs) are magnetic islands which increase locally the radial transport and therefore degrade the plasma performance. They are self-sustained by the bootstrap current perturbed by the enhanced radial transport. The confinement degradation is proportional to the island width and to the position of the resonant surface. The q = 2 NTMs are much more detrimental to the confinement than the 3/2 modes due to their larger radii. NTMs are metastable in typical scenarios with βN ⩾ 1 and in the region where the safety factor is increasing with radius. This is due to the fact that the local perturbed pressure gradient is sufficient to self-sustain an existing magnetic island. The main questions for burning plasmas are whether there is a trigger mechanism which will destabilize NTMs, and what is the best strategy to control/avoid the modes. The latter has to take into account the main aim which is to maximize the Q factor, but also the controllability of the scenario. Standardized and simplified equations are proposed to enable easier prediction of NTM control in burning plasmas from present experimental results. The present expected requirements for NTM control with localized electron cyclotron current drive (ECCD) in ITER are discussed in detail. Other aspects of the above questions are also discussed, in particular the role of partial stabilization of NTMs, the possibility to control NTMs at small size with little ECH power and the differences between controlling NTMs at the resonant surface or controlling the main trigger source, for the standard scenario namely the sawteeth. It is shown that there is no unique best strategy, but several tools are needed to most efficiently reduce the impact of NTMs on burning plasmas.


Thirty-two patients with Crohn's disease were treated with a fibre-rich, unrefined-carbohydrate diet in addition to conventional management and followed for a mean of four years and four months. Their clinical course was compared retrospectively with that of 32 matched patients who had received no dietary instruction. Hospital admissions were significantly fewer and shorter in the diet-treated patients, who spent a total of 111 days in hospital compared with 533 days in the non-diet-treated control group. Whereas five of the controls required intestinal operation, only one diet-treated patient needed surgery. This is in strong contrast to general experience with this disease. Treatment with a fibre-rich, unrefined-carbohydrate diet appears to have a favourable effect on the course of Crohn's disease and does not lead to intestinal obstruction.


This article stems from a panel discussion of what lawyers need to do to comply with legal advertising regulation. The topic highlights a "disconnect" between regulation - what we say lawyers may do - and what we, in fact, allow lawyers to do. It also highlights the degree to which current regulation of advertising is a product of history - in part, a product of blindly following old methods of conceptualizing the issues. The article suggests that, for modern advertising regulation to make sense, we need to reevaluate our whole way of looking at the subject. Two sets of developments have occurred since the early days of legal advertising regulation. The first is that image concerns, as a justification for regulation, are no longer valid. This proposition stems not only from constitutional decisions, but also from the practical reality that regulating legal advertising no longer can have the effect of shoring up the profession's image. The second development has to do with the specific dangers that modern advertising creates. What society deems inappropriately misleading, and the way consumers view legal advertising, has changed. As a consequence, even the valid traditional justification for advertising regulation - preventing misleading advertisement - is likely to be mis- or over-used. It continues to serve as a guise for implementing invalid "image" concerns. And it sometimes focuses on advertising that encourages litigation (e.g., "we've won many personal injury cases") for the wrong reasons - that the claims encourage clients to think their cases have merit or value, rather than for the reason that the advertising lawyer is less qualified than his communications suggest. The goal of regulating unfair competition, too, can be misused. These developments suggest that current regulation of legal advertising continues to rely on old tools to regulate phenomena that do not necessarily correspond to the valid reasons why legal advertising might be regulated. The article therefore encourages the rule makers to identify the targets of advertising regulation more precisely and to determine precisely what they are trying to regulate and why. Greater honesty in regulation would help rule makers avoid disconnects the article identifies - between rules and their justifications and between rules and their enforcement. By way of example, the article considers regulation of advertising on the internet. The internet presents specific issues or potential dangers that differ from the traditional concerns of advertising regulation. The article suggests that these merit direct consideration - both as to whether they should be regulated and whether restriction would be constitutional.