The purpose of the study was to determine the predictors of HIV self disclosure to sexual partners by sero-positive adults, in Central division, Huruma location, Nairobi County, Kenya. The objectives of the study were to examine the prevalence of HIV self disclosure among PLWHA, and to analyze the relationships between selfdisclosure of HIV sero-positive status and the following factors: individual factors of PLWHA; anticipated and enacted consequences of HIV disclosure; sexual practices and cultural factors among PLWHA. The study was a cross-sectional descriptive survey with a sample of 232 PLWHA drawn from HIV support groups in the study area. Data were collected using questionnaires and Focus Group Discussions (FGDs). Qualitative data were analyzed using content analysis and quantitative data by use of SPSS. Research findings showed that 50.5% of PLWHA had disclosed their seropositive status mainly to regular sexual partners. Chi-square results revealed significant relationships between HIV self disclosure and financial constraints (p=0.003); employment status (p=0.001); condom use in last sexual encounter (p=0.001); type of sexual relationship (p=0.024); discussion of HIV testing with partner (p=0.039); knowledge of sexual partners' HIV sero status (p=0.011); method of finding out sexual partners sero status (p=0.039); gender power control in sexual relations (p=0.010); isolation by friends after HIV self-disclosure (P=0.011); being spoken ill of by friends (p=0.006); consequences of disclosure at the workplace (P=0.011); women roles in sexual relations (p=0.001); community beliefs on HIV (p=0.019) and exclusion from rite of wife inheritance (p=0.002). Further analysis using Binary Logistic regression determined eight (8) positive predictors of selfdisclosure of HIV sero-positive status to sexual partners. The positive predictors were: regular sexual relationship (AOR=2.703; p= 0.046), employment status (AOR=1.691; p=0.001), gender power control in sexual relations (AOR=4.129; p= 0.011), discussion of HIV testing with partner (AOR=2.560; p=0.002), anticipated consequences of disclosure from the religious group and (AOR=3.949; p= 0.015) anticipated positive consequences from the workplace (AOR=1.955; p= 0.001), enacted consequences of disclosure from the workplace (AOR=1.990; p=0.002) and expected violent reaction to disclosure by partner (AOR=3.374; p=0.005). The factors that emerged as negative predictors or barriers to HIV self-disclosure to sexual partners were enacted consequences of disclosure from friends (AOR=0.136; p=0.001) and exclusion from the rite of wife inheritance of PLWHA (AOR=0.410; p=0.002). It was concluded that four main factors were positively associated HIV selfdisclosure among the study participants. These included (1) the nature of relationship with the sexual partner(s); (2) anticipated positive outcomes of disclosure from the religious group; (3) Enacted positive consequences at the workplace; not expecting job loss; or being in informal employment; and (4) experiencing financial constraints. The study recommended: promotion of HIV self-disclosure to sexual partners by PLWHA; Safe sexual practices; provider initiated testing and counseling of sexual partners, training of PLWHA with communication skills and strategies to cope with negative consequences of HIV self-disclosure, promotion of community acceptance of PLWHA and cultural practices that promote self-disclosure of HIV sero-positive status to sexual partners among PLWHA.


The paper aims at investigating how the organization of a certain industry evolves once the competition among its firms, producing a 'complex' (i.e. non-modular) product, is modeled as the intertwining of innovative search and organizational change. In order to take the full roster of participants into account, and to retain the inner complexity of their decisions, a Pseudo–NK model is built–up in which a population of firms is called to match a technological frontier. By evolving along different stagesof the sector's life-cycle, such a kind of technological calls for a trade–off between two strategies of cost–reduction through either outsourcing ortechnological search. Overall, the simulation results confirm previous literature as, for example, in the introductory stage of the industry life–cycle,marked by frequent and intense jumps of the technological frontier, firms need to vertically integrate in order to have higher chances to win the competition for a new standard. On the contrary, in the decline stage,in which the technological frontier almost stabilizes, deverticalization allows firms to better compete on costs. These results change if suppliers are allowed to innovate, as they are more likely to lock the market in sub–optimal configurations.


Abstract. Tidal flat sediments are subject to repetitive mixing and resuspension events. In a short-term (24 h) 15N-labelling experiment, we investigated reactive nitrogen cycling in a tidal flat sediment following an experimentally induced resuspension event. We focused on (a) the relative importance of assimilatory versus dissimilatory processes and (b) the role of benthic microalgae therein. 15N-labelled substrate was added to homogenized sediment, and 15N was subsequently traced into sediment and dissolved inorganic nitrogen (DIN) pools. Integration of results in a N-cycle model allowed us to quantify the proportion of major assimilatory and dissimilatory processes in the sediment. Upon sediment disturbance, rates of dissimilatory processes like nitrification and denitrification were very high, but declined rapidly towards a steady state. Once this was reached, the balance between assimilation and dissimilation in this tidal mudflat was mainly dependent on the nitrogen source: nitrate was utilized almost exclusively dissimilatory via denitrification, whereas ammonium was rapidly assimilated, with about a quarter of this assimilation due to benthic microalgae (BMA). Benthic microalgae significantly affected the nitrogen recycling balance in sediments, because in the absence of BMA activity the recovering sediment turned from a net ammonium sink to a net source. The driving mechanisms for assimilation or dissimilation accordingly appear to be ruled to a large extent by external physical forcing, with the entire system being capable of rapid shifts following environmental changes. Assimilatory pathways gain importance under stable conditions, with a substantial contribution of BMA to total assimilation.


We point out that existing measurements of $pp \to ZZ$ cross-section at the LHC in a broad range of ZZ invariant masses allow one to derive a model-independent upper bound on the Higgs boson width, thanks to strongly enhanced off-shell Higgs contribution. Using CMS data and considering events in the interval of ZZ invariant masses from 100 to 800 GeV, we find $\Gamma_H \le 38.8 \times \Gamma_H^{SM} \approx 163$ MeV, at the $95\%$ confidence level. Restricting ZZ invariant masses to $M_{ZZ} \ge 300$ GeV range, we estimate that this bound can be improved to $\Gamma_H \le 21 \times \Gamma_H^{SM} \approx 88$ MeV. Under the assumption that all couplings of the Higgs boson to Standard Model particles scale in a universal way, our result can be translated into an upper limit on the branching fraction of the Higgs boson decay to invisible final states. We obtain $Br(H \to inv) < 0.84 (0.78)$, depending on the range of ZZ invariant masses that are used to constrain the width. We believe that an analysis along these lines should be performed by experimental collaborations in the near future and also in the run II of the LHC. We estimate that such analyses can, eventually, be sensitive to the Higgs boson width as small as $\Gamma_H \sim 10 \times \Gamma_H^{SM}$.


This Article comprehensively addresses Congress's powers under the Constitution's Foreign Commerce Clause. Congress has increasingly used the Clause to pass laws of unprecedented and aggressive reach over both domestic and foreign activity. Yet despite the Clause's mounting significance for modern U.S. regulatory regimes at home and abroad, it remains an incredibly under-analyzed source of constitutional power. Moreover, faced with an increasing number of challenges under the Clause lower courts have been unable to coherently articulate the contours of Congress's legislative authority. When courts have tried, their efforts have largely been wrong. The Article explains why they have been wrong and offers a doctrinally and conceptually sound approach to the Clause based on the text, structure and history of the Constitution. It also engages broader legal and policy questions triggered by the Clause. As I show, the Clause is crucial to how Congress constitutionally may project U.S. law around the world.The Article advances two key limits on Congress's foreign commerce power and reformats the Supreme Court's three-category commerce framework for the Clause in light of these limits. The first is the nexus requirement, which derives from the Constitution's grant of power only to regulate commerce "with foreign Nations," not a general, global power to regulate commerce "among foreign Nations." Foreign commerce that is the subject of federal regulation therefore not only must be "with" foreign nations, but also "with" the United States. That is, there must be a U.S. nexus. The second limit I refer to as the foreign sovereignty concern. It holds that Congress has no more power and, in some contexts, has less power to regulate inside foreign nations under the Foreign Commerce Clause than it has inside the several U.S. states under the Interstate Commerce Clause. For example, Congress cannot create comprehensive global regulatory schemes over international markets or prevent races to the bottom among the world's nations the same way it can create comprehensive national regulatory schemes over domestic markets and prevent races to the bottom among the states. Because Congress lacks primary authority to create such global schemes, it cannot claim a derivative authority to reach local foreign conduct that threatens to undercut those schemes the same way it can reach local intrastate conduct in order to effectuate regulation "among the several States."


Abstract. Geoinformation systems (GIS) and other spatial databases containing land-use data are usually subjected to intensive change processes that impact the quality of their inherent classification and diminish its relevance. Consequently, with time, databases accumulate various types of erroneous information. The combination of the satellite data with the thematic land-use data from a core national GIS, provides an excellent case for GIS-driven analysis of land-use changes. The aim of this research was to assess the land-use changes using time-series of optical Ikonos satellite data. An area of ∼35 km2 in the north of Israel served as the study case of the research. Seven land-use classes were detected in the relevant National GIS spatial database layers updated in the year 2000 and further in the year 2009. These seven type-classes were: water bodies, residential areas, agricultural fields, badlands, natural forests, build-up areas, and plantations. The Iterative discriminant analysis (IDA) algorithm was applied on both GIS datasets using corresponding Ikonos images acquired in 2002 and 2010, respectfully. The IDA process resulted with a re-classification of the initial land-use polygons. It was assessed by validating the classification of all the land-use polygons. Comparing with Ikonos image from the year 2002, the fraction of the polygons that were correctly detected as consistent with the corresponding GIS dataset (77.9%) was relatively close to the fraction of polygons correctly detected as discrepant (75.5%). Classification of Ikonos image from the year 2010 showed that 81.9% of the land-use polygons were correctly detected as consistent whereas the fraction of polygons that were correctly detected as discrepant was about (78.3%). The main advantage of the proposed GIS-driven methodology for detection of changes in land-use classification is its analytical simplicity that allows for straightforward employment of spectral and spatial data in the classification process.


Synopsis Only two interglacial pollen sites are known in Scotland, both in Shetland. There is at present no satisfactory evidence that the decay of the last ice-sheet was interrupted by a significant readvance. Decay was probably complete by 12 500. The Loch Lomond Readvance, which probably began before 10 800, is associated with excellent end moraines (often, significantly, multiple) at more than 100 locations. Former firn lines can be calculated and palaeoclimatic inferences made. The mapped limit of the readvance accords with the distribution of 58 lateglacial pollen sites. Periglacial processes currently operate on the Scottish mountains but were extremely active during the Loch Lomond Readvance, when permafrost (with frost wedges) existed down to sea-level. A summary of the sequence of lateglacial and postglacial sea-level changes (especially in the southeast) includes re-dating of the low-level rock platform and cliff of western Scotland and leads to an unconventional mode of deglaciation for the Glasgow area.


Pressure-induced structural transformations in relaxor-based perovskite-type (ABO 3) 0.9PbZn 1/3Nb 2/3O 3-0.1PbTiO 3 single crystals which have a very high piezoelectric response were studied by single-crystal x-ray diffraction and Raman spectroscopy at room temperature and pressures up to 18.1 GPa. Changes in the state of long-range order were observed near 1.0, 2.1, and 5.9 GPa. Initially, upon pressure increase, the ferroic deviation of the atomic positions from the cubic structure is reduced, but the ferroelectric twinning is enhanced, and near 1.0 GPa, the intrinsic ferroelectric multiphase domain pattern formed in the as-synthesized crystals is changed. At 2.1 GPa, the system undergoes a phase transition from a ferroelectric to a relaxor state, which exhibits an average cubic structure but still contains polar nanoregions. At 5.9 GPa, a reversible phase transition typical of Pb-based perovskite-type relaxors occurs, namely a cubic-to-antiferrodistortive phase transition resulting in a long-range order of antiphase octahedral tilts. On decompression, the ferroelectric state reappears below 2.1 GPa, and the local atomic structure is fully recovered at ambient pressure, but the final domain texture differs from the initial one. Ruthenium doping on the B site does not influence the pressure-induced structural transformations.


There is an intense interest on integration of III-V materials on silicon and silicon-on-insulator for realisation of optical interconnects, optical networking, imaging and disposable photonics for medical applications. Advances in photonic materials, structures and technologies are the main ingredients of this pursuit. We investigate nano epitaxial lateral overgrowth (NELOG) of InP material from the nano openings on a seed layer on the silicon wafer, by hydride vapour phase epitaxy (HVPE). The grown layers were analysed by cathodoluminescence (CL) in situ a scanning electron microscope, time-resolved photoluminescence (TR-PL), and atomic force microscope (AFM). The quality of the layers depends on the growth parameters such as the V/III ratio, growth temperature, and layer thickness. CL measurements reveal that the dislocation density can be as low as 2 - 3·107 cm-2 for a layer thickness of ~6 μm. For comparison, the seed layer had a dislocation density of ~1·109 cm-2. Since the dislocation density estimated on theoretical grounds from TRPL measurements is of the same order of magnitude both for NELOG InP on Si and on InP substrate, the dislocation generation appears to be process related or coalescence related. Pertinent issues for improving the quality of the grown InP on silicon are avoiding damage in the openings due to plasma etching, pattern design to facilitate coalescence with minimum defects and choice of mask material compatible with InP to reduce thermal mismatch.


This research has developed a lead-free semiconductor device interconnect technology by studying the processing-microstructure-property relationships of lowtemperature sintering of nanoscale silver pastes. The nanoscale silver pastes have been formulated by adding organic components (dispersant, binder and thinner) into nano-silver particles. The selected organic components have the nano-particle polymeric stabilization, paste processing quality adjustment, and non-densifying diffusion retarding functions and thus help the pastes sinter to ~80% bulk density at temperatures no more than 300°C. It has been found that the low-temperature sintered silver has better electrical, thermal and overall thermomechanical properties compared with the existing semiconductor device interconnecting materials such as solder alloys and conductive epoxies. After solving the organic burnout problems associated with the covered sintering, a lead-free semiconductor device interconnect technology has been designed to be compatible with the existing surface-mounting techniques with potentially low-cost. It has been found that the low-temperature sintered silver joints have high electrical, thermal, and mechanical performance. The reliability of the silver joints has also been studied by the 50-250°C thermal cycling experiment. Finally, the bonging strength drop of the silver joints has been suggested to be ductile fracture in the silver joints as micro-voids nucleated at microscale grain boundaries during the temperature cycling. The low-temperature silver sintering technology has enabled some benchmark packaging concepts and substantial advantages in future applications.


The corporate governance codes are a way of creating trust for companies in national financial markets. The problem with implementing different codes within the European Union has lead to that the trust has been increased for the companies within the different countries but not internationally, within the European Union. This means that investors will have to look into each country code to decide if a company existing in a financial marketplace can be trusted. A resolution for creating trust internationally could be to create a common code for the European Union. Therefore the aim of our research is through a comparison of different corporate governance codes and institutional systems analyse what similarities and differences the codes and the systems have with each other and through our conclusions make a judgement if it is possible to unite the codes into one common code in the European Union.To reach our aim we made three different analyses. In the first analysis we compared four European corporate governance codes (the British, German, Spanish and Swedish) and concluded in which areas we thought the codes could be united. In our second analysis we compared the institutional systems in each of these four countries and concluded the main characteristics of each system that could influence the corporate governance codes. In our third analysis we tried to explain the differences in the codes by the differences in the institutional systems and through the comparison conclude in which parts the codes could be united and in which parts not.


The Digital Humanities myths of being 'revolutionary' and preoccupied with 'making' and 'building' are in fact shibboleths that hamper the under standing of Digital Humanities as a field that in reality is thoroughly grounded in theory. We argue that computational work in the Digital Humanities goes well beyond some utilitarian service to a perceived 'humanities proper'. It is proper academic research in which computational models are expressions of theory. We explain that it is often hard for humanists to appreciate such forms of theory as they are indeed very differently expressed than more conventional abductive humanities reasoning. Nonetheless, thorough and viable theories result from Digital Humanities intellectual work, which includes the labor to produce software and computational models. We propose that all these forms of theory should not be separate from each other. Instead we strive for a strong reciprocal relation between new computational modeling and existing hermeneutics. This is a holistic approach inspired by the New Sociology of Art in which we relate the computational analysis of text immanent features to sociological processes and existing literary theory. We demonstrate this approach with an example from our current project 'The Riddle of Literary Quality'. We explain how this is an approach of many small analytical steps carefully building upon each other. Finally we suggest that many of the unproductive misunderstandings between computational and conventional research approaches could be mitigated by increased attention in curricula syllabi for currently developing methods.


A robot accepted by animals as conspecific is a very powerful tool in behavioral biology, particularly in studies of gregarious animals. In this paper we present the first results of acceptance of a robotic fish designed for experiments on collective animal behavior. The robot consists of two modules: a fish lure fixed on a magnetic base and a miniature mobile robot guiding the lure from below the experimental tank. In order to study the acceptance of the robot among living fish, we varied several parameters of the system and used design of experiments methods to reduce the number of performed experiments and determined the impact of each factor on the acceptance of the robot among a small group of real fish. While a brief comparison of the mean distance of the fish to the robot tends to indicate that the fish are attracted by the lure, a linear model of the acceptance of the robot is presented. Results of this study can be used to improve the design and control of the robot for further animal-robot interaction experiments.


When social actors find themselves at an impasse, perceiving their futures as threatened, how can they respond? If their futures can get broken or interrupted, can they subsequently be reconnected or repaired? If yes, how? Here, I consider an ethnographic case of reconnected futurity drawn from French protest politics: the 2009–2010 Ronde Infinie des Obstines, or "Infinite Rounds of the Stubborn." Opposing Sarkozy-era neoliberal university reforms, the Ronde sought to instrumentalize its temporal and political impasse, shifting its relation to the future out from the register of subjectivity and into the register of ritual motion. By situating the Ronde within the fabric of Parisian political space, I show how it synthesized the politics of occupation with the politics of marching, hopelessness with stubborn endurance, the negation of state temporality with the prefiguration of an alternative future. I conclude by reflecting on the place of temporal repair in relation to recent forms of prefigurative radicalism.


The impact of the global financial crisis varies across countries. We examine whether cross-country differences in output loss and speed of recovery are affected by differences in labor market flexibility. By employing cross-country regressions and including control variables like trade and capital market integration, fiscal balance, financial vulnerability, and institutional differences, we find that lower hiring costs reduce the output loss, notably so in high-income countries. However, the duration of the crisis is longer in case of low dismissal costs, notably so in low-income countries.


The purpose of this research is to study the effect weather has on incidents of crime. The research analyses archival weather records and quantitative incidents of crime for the period 2008 through 2017 for the city of Chicago. The study was conducted for a final year project with the aim of identifying trends and patterns in the data in order to investigate if future forecasts could be made.

The methods implemented to conduct this research include the development of a data warehouse for the modelling of historical data, a statistical analysis of reports produced by the data warehouse using data analysis software, and visualisations of the results and findings of the study through Tableau for end user interpretation. A literature review was carried out to examine existing academic hypothesis and scientific findings on the relationship of weather conditions and criminality. This was to ensure the relevancy and academic integrity of the results and forecasts presented in this study.

The studies investigated in the literature review show evidence of a strong positive correlation between weather and rates of crime. These findings were used as a guideline for the development of a statistical model to demonstrate and visualise the effect temperature and weather conditions have on crime. As the relationship is influenced by and dependent on seasonality, an analysis of seasonal time series data using Holt-Winters exponential smoothing methods was implemented to construct a model to present future forecasts. These forecasts could be of significant benefit to law enforcement agencies and emergency response services to assist in resource allocation and preventative strategies.


The purpose of the current thesis was to explore the mechanisms involved in children's early word learning. In the first paper, the issue of cross-linguistic word learning was examined. The question of interest was whether the type of language a child is acquiring influences his or her interpretation of a novel label for an event. The study sought to test whether children acquiring languages that emphasize more nouns or more verbs, would be guided by their linguistic input, in their interpretation of a label for an object in motion. An infant-controlled habituation paradigm was used to teach two labels for two different events to children acquiring English, French, and Japanese. English and French place a greater emphasis on nouns, whereas Japanese tends to emphasize verbs. Eighteen- to 20-month-olds' interpretation of this event was tested using a switch design, where the original label-object-motion combination was manipulated. Despite differences in the children's linguistic input, both groups of children interpreted the object as being the referent of the novel label. The second paper further explored the nature of children's word-event associations, by its relationship with other standard word-learning measures. Towards this purpose, English- and French-speaking children who had participated in the first experiment at the age of 18 months were invited into the laboratory at 24 months to participate in a standard fast-mapping task. The relationship between children's performance on the habituation task at 18-months and their performance on the fast-mapping task at 24-months was examined. Furthermore, the relationship between children's performance on both tasks and their concurrent and longitudinal vocabulary was also explored. Eighteen-month-olds' ability to form a word-event association was related to their comprehension of familiar words at 24 months. Furthermore, the data also suggested that children's ability to form a word-object association was related to their vocabulary size at 18 and 24 months. These findings emphasize the continuity in children's word-learning abilities as measured by different experimental procedures. Together, these two papers highlight the role of cognitive and perceptual factors in early word learning, and also emphasize the underlying continuity in children's word-learning


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The essay addresses the poetic dimension of David Malouf's novels, suggesting that a poetics of possibility can be found in all his work. The poetics of possibility is a function both of Malouf's thematic interest in the future and of his use of poetic language to draw the reader to imagine various kinds of ways of experiencing and knowing the world. The essay draws upon the philosophy of Ernst Bloch to illuminate the utopian dimension of Malouf's work, whether in seeing the radiance of possibility in simple objects, the silent 'presence' at the centre of language, or the possibility of a different kind of future that Australian society might have experienced.


Aging processes of TiC particle dispersed Al–l%Mg2Si composite materials were investigated by Vickers micro-hardness measurement, and transmission electron microscope (TEM) observation. At relatively lower aging temperature, the Vickers micro-hardness curves of each composite materials had a similar tendency with that of the matrix alloy. The size and distributions of the precipitates in the composite material were almost same to those of the matrix alloy. At higher aging temperature, aging time to reach a maximum hardness in the 4 vol%TiC composite materials was shortened as compared with those of the matrix alloy. At the aging temperature, age hardening was scarcely observed in 8%TiC composite materials. By the TEM observation, relatively large size of needle-or rod-like precipitates were observed in 4 vol%TiC composite material, while very coarse rod-like precipitates were sparsely distributed in 8 vol%TiC composite material. At more elevated temperature, the very coarse rod-like precipitates were observed in both the composite materials, consequently, the age hardening could not be detected on the hardness curves of the materials. The small amount of dislocations which were probably introduced by quenching after solid solution treatment were observed near the TiC particles. The precipitates near the particles were especially coarsened.


This report deals with three aspects of risk related to blood pressure and high blood pressure. The first aspect of risk concerns distributions of systolic blood pressure (SBP) and diastolic blood pressure (DBP) in the adult population and their relation to long-term risk of morbidity and mortality. By middle age, only a minority (about 20%) of Americans have optimal SBP and DBP levels, less than 120 mm Hg and less than 80 mm Hg, respectively. For the majority with higher levels, risks of major clinical events, including death from cardiovascular diseases and from all causes, are markedly increased. The relations of SBP and DBP with risk are strong, continuous, and graded. Risk is sizable not only for persons with high blood pressure by usual clinical criteria (SBP greater than or equal to 140 mm Hg or DBP greater than or equal to 90 mm Hg), but also for those with "high-normal" blood pressure (e.g., SBP 130-139 mm Hg or DBP 80-89 mm Hg). Thus, the blood pressure problem is a population-wide one and requires for its control a combined population-wide and high-risk strategy. A major component of this strategy must be nutritional-hygienic measures for the primary prevention of the rise in blood pressure during adulthood and of high blood pressure (i.e., primary prevention not only of the complications of high blood pressure but also of high blood pressure itself) through improved lifestyles having the potential to shift downward the blood pressure distribution of the whole population. The second aspect of risk concerns the known risk factors (i.e., aspects of modern lifestyle) leading to the mass occurrence of blood pressure rise during adulthood and of high blood pressure. These risk factors are high salt intake, high dietary sodium/potassium ratio, calorie imbalance and resultant obesity, and high alcohol intake. The extensive data base establishing the role of these common traits in the etiology of the blood pressure/high blood pressure problem is the scientific foundation for efforts to achieve the primary prevention of high blood pressure. The third aspect of risk relates to the combined impact of other risk factors along with blood pressure-high blood pressure in markedly increasing the probabilities of morbidity and mortality (e.g., "rich" diet, diet-dependent serum cholesterol and uric acid, smoking, diabetes, and target-organ damage). Prevention and control of lifestyle-related traits are essential components of the strategy for dealing with the blood pressure-high blood pressure problem.


Due to increased attention by regulating agencies to the dissolved oxygen levels of water released through hydroelectric power plants, the Electric Power Research Institute has developed a Utility Guide and a General Reference Manual as an aid to understanding and meeting dissolved oxygen criteria in permit requirements. Through an overall description of reservoir stratification and the circumstances that can lead to low dissolved oxygen levels, the guide begins with a general test to determine if a particular site is likely to encounter the problem. If low levels of dissolved oxygen are possible, a detailed procedure is recommended to 1) determine the site-specific conditions; 2) identify the applicable dissolved oxygen criteria; 3) determine if the site is within compliance; and 4) arrive at the best mitigation alternative. Additional aspects of the subject are referred to in this abstract.


The number of mobile devices within academia has increased significantly over the last couple of years and users expect to be able to get connectivity everywhere, at home, on the road and at educational institutions. At the same time however, the security of wireless LANs becomes more and more of a concern In 2003, the TERENA Task Force on Mobility [1] was created to look at WLAN security issues and to formulate requirements to design an international roaming solution that would provide National Research and Educational Networks' (NRENs') users with secure Internet access at academic campuses across Europe. The solution proposed was tested and proved to be very successful with more and more institutions joining it. This infrastructure is called eduroam, which stands for Education Roaming. Within the 6th framework project GEANT2 [2], the aim is to expand the existing infrastructure into a pan-European full service for Roaming and Authentication/Authorisation.


In this study, aqueous methanol and n-butanol extracts of aerial parts of Solanum trilobatum L. (Solanaceae) were tested for antimicrobial activity by disc diffusion method. From the results, it was found that extracts from leaves, flowers, stem and fruits revealed antimicrobial activity against Gram (+) and Gram (-) bacteria. Maximal antibacterial activity was seen against Klebsiella with aqueous extract whereas methanol extract of stem showed maximal activity against Staphylococcus aureus. The Minimum Inhibitory Concentration (MIC) exhibited by S. trilobatum aqueous extracts against tested organisms ranged between 0.06-0.5 mg/ml. Presence of tannins, saponins, flavanoides, phenolic compounds, cardiac glycosides and carbohydrates indicates S. trilobatum, is one of the potential medicinal plant for therapeutic use.


Self-attention mechanism has been widely used for various tasks. It is designed to compute the representation of each position by a weighted sum of the features at all positions. Thus, it can capture long-range relations for computer vision tasks. However, it is computationally consuming. Since the attention maps are computed w.r.t all other positions. In this paper, we formulate the attention mechanism into an expectation-maximization manner and iteratively estimate a much more compact set of bases upon which the attention maps are computed. By a weighted summation upon these bases, the resulting representation is low-rank and deprecates noisy information from the input. The proposed Expectation-Maximization Attention (EMA) module is robust to the variance of input and is also friendly in memory and computation. Moreover, we set up the bases maintenance and normalization methods to stabilize its training procedure. We conduct extensive experiments on popular semantic segmentation benchmarks including PASCAL VOC, PASCAL Context, and COCO Stuff, on which we set new records.


Venom peptides found in terebrid snails expand the toolbox of active compounds that can be applied to investigate cellular physiology and can be further developed as future therapeutics. However, unlike other predatory organisms, such as snakes, terebrids produce very small quantities of venom, making it difficult to obtain sufficient amounts for biochemical characterization. Here, we describe the first recombinant expression and characterization of terebrid peptide, teretoxin Tgu6.1, from Terebra guttata. Tgu6.1 is a novel forty-four amino acid teretoxin peptide with a VI/VII cysteine framework (C–C–CC–C–C) similar to O, M and I conotoxin superfamilies. A ligation-independent cloning strategy with an ompT protease deficient strain of E. coli was employed to recombinantly produce Tgu6.1. Thioredoxin was introduced in the plasmid to combat disulfide folding and solubility issues. Specifically Histidine-6 tag and Ni-NTA affinity chromatography were applied as a purification method, and enterokinase was used as a specific cleavage protease to effectively produce high yields of folded Tgu6.1 without extra residues to the primary sequence. The recombinantly-expressed Tgu6.1 peptide was bioactive, displaying a paralytic effect when injected into a Nereis virens polychaete bioassay. The recombinant strategy described to express Tgu6.1 can be applied to produce high yields of other disulfide-rich peptides.


In this work we present Picasso: a lightweight device class fingerprinting protocol that allows a server to verify the software and hardware stack of a mobile or desktop client. As an example, Picasso can distinguish between traffic sent by an authentic iPhone running Safari on iOS from an emulator or desktop client spoofing the same configuration. Our fingerprinting scheme builds on unpredictable yet stable noise introduced by a client's browser, operating system, and graphical stack when rendering HTML5 canvases. Our algorithm is resistant to replay and includes a hardware-bound proof of work that forces a client to expend a configurable amount of CPU and memory to solve challenges. We demonstrate that Picasso can distinguish 52 million Android, iOS, Windows, and OSX clients running a diversity of browsers with 100% accuracy. We discuss applications of Picasso in abuse fighting, including protecting the Play Store or other mobile app marketplaces from inorganic interactions; or identifying login attempts to user accounts from previously unseen device classes.


Bioinformaticians judge the likelihood of the overall RNA secondary structure based on comparing its base pair probabilities. These probabilities can be calculated by various tools and are frequently displayed using dot plots for further analysis. However, most tools produce only static dot plot images which restricts possible interactions to the capabilities of the respective viewers (mostly PostScript-viewers). Moreover, this approach does not scale well with larger RNAs since most PostScript viewers are not designed to show a huge number of elements and have only legacy support for PostScript. Therefore, we developed iDotter, an interactive tool for analyzing RNA secondary structures. iDotter overcomes the previously described limitations providing multiple interaction mechanisms facilitating the interactive analysis of the displayed data. According to the biologists and bioinformaticians that regularly use out interactive dot plot viewer, iDotter is superior to all previous approaches with respect to facilitating dot plot based analysis of RNA secondary structures.


Most available research on analysis of reinforced concrete structures under impact loads focuses on using continuum models such as membrane and solid elements, which renders the problem expensive in terms of computational effort. Therefore, a gap exists in the available literature, as no simple finite element has sufficient capabilities to deal with impact and shock problems while considering detailed local parameters.

Meanwhile, the objective of this research is to develop several non-linear planar finite element models capable of accurately predicting the response of reinforced concrete structures subjected to impact dynamic loading. A mixed and displacement- based element that use an explicit time integration method and consider large deformations are being developed together with a third force-based first-order element that employs the explicit time integration method. A new algorithm that eliminates the need for iterations at the element level is proposed. The strain rate effect is accounted for in the material constitutive models.

The developed explicit fibre beam models, particularly the force-based and mixed elements, represent a simple yet powerful tool for simulating the nonlinear complex effect of impact loads on structures accurately while using very few finite elements. The elements can particularly model fibrous slender reinforced concrete structures and steel concrete panels under impact loading. A simplified procedure is also developed to employ the planar elements in solving three-dimensional problems where the load is applied in the out-of-plane direction. The proposed elements are validated using benchmark experiments available from the literature.

The results of the numerical studies proved the newly developed elements are capable of providing accurate and computationally efficient estimates of structural demands under severe impact loading conditions.


Role of Terrestrial Organic Matter in Food Webs of the Rocky Intertidal Zone Douglas O Fairbanks Jr. Department of Biology, BYU Master of Science Terrestrial organic matter (TOM) constitutes an important source of energy in many aquatic environments (streams, lakes, wetlands). This is the first study to examine the role of TOM in food webs of the rocky intertidal zone. We compared the consumption of red alder leaves (Alnus rubra) to common marine sources of drifting detritus along the southern Oregon coast (Nereocystis luetkeana, Phyllospadix spp., and Fucus gardneri). We used short term (hours to days) and long term (months) feeding experiments to compare the rate of consumption among each plant species during the Spring and Fall of 2014 and 2015. In addition, we quantified the amount of TOM in beach wrack and in the drift of two streams that flowed directly to the rocky intertidal zone. We also measured the food quality of each plant species (C:N and polyphenolic concentrations). On average, the two small streams in this study transported 1,113.6 kg AFDM/m of TOM per day during Fall leaf abscission to the rocky intertidal zone. Also, the biomass of terrestrial leaves in beach wrack varied from negligible (2.1 g AFDM) to the dominant source of detritus (60.7 g AFDM) depending on if it was the dominant riparian plant growing along the edges of the shore. Consistent with previous research, N. luetkeana was a high quality food (C:N = 15:1; polyphenolics = 418 mg/ml), whereas F. gardneri (C:N = 22:1; polyphenolics = 8098 mg/ml) was more recalcitrant. Phyllospadix spp. was puzzling because it had low concentrations of polyphenolics (800 mg/ml) but was not consumed. Alnus rubra had a high concentration of structural compounds (C:N = 33:1) and intermediate levels of polyphenolics (3,415 mg/ml after leaching). Both short term and long term experiments showed that the rates of consumption of Spring-shed, green leaves and freshly fallen brown leaves of A. rubra were intermediate between N. luetkeana and the less palatable marine species (F. gardneri and Phyllospadix spp.). Thus, A. rubra was eaten by common intertidal consumers and may constitute an important source of energy between brief inputs of more nutritious marine resources (e.g. N. luetkeana).


Background Since the relationship between dogs and their owners has changed, and dogs moved from being working dogs to family members in post-industrial countries, we hypothesized that zoonotic transmission of opportunistic pathogens like coagulase positive staphylococci (CPS) is likely between dogs and their owners. Methodology/Principal Findings CPS- nasal carriage, different aspects of human-to-dog relationship as well as potential interspecies transmission risk factors were investigated by offering nasal swabs and a questionnaire to dog owners (108) and their dogs (108) at a dog show in 2009. S. aureus was found in swabs of 20 (18.5%) humans and two dogs (1.8%), and spa types which correspond to well known human S. aureus lineages dominated (e.g. CC45, CC30 and CC22). Multilocus sequence typing (MLST) of the two canine strains revealed ST72 and ST2065 (single locus variant of ST34). Fifteen dogs (13.9%) and six owners (5.6%) harboured S. pseudintermedius, including one mecA-positive human isolate (MRSP). Pulsed field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) revealed that one dog/owner pair harboured indistinguishable S. pseudintermedius- isolates of ST33. Ten (48%) of the 21 S. pseudintermedius-isolates showed resistance towards more than one antimicrobial class. 88.9% of the dog owners reported to allow at least one dog into the house, 68.5% allow the dog(s) to rest on the sofa, 39.8% allow their dogs to come onto the bed, 93.5% let them lick their hands and 52.8% let them lick their face. Bivariate analysis of putative risk factors revealed that dog owners who keep more than two dogs have a significantly higher chance of being colonized with S. pseudintermedius than those who keep 1–2 dogs (p<0.05). Conclusions/Recommendations In conclusion, CPS transmission between dog owners and their dogs is possible. Further investigation regarding interspecies transmission and the diverse adaptive pathways influencing the epidemiology of CPS (including MRSA and MRSP) in different hosts is needed.


This paper sets out to identify and analyse patterns in the external history of Portuguese collections with translations of Polish literature between 1855 and 2009. By doing so, it will provide preliminary insights into how these collections have presented Polish literature to the Portuguese readership and, ultimately, how they have contributed to the canonization of Polish authors/texts and the formation of cultural relations between the two (semi)peripheral languages/cultures concerned. To achieve these goals, in the first part relevant information regarding the corpus will be provided. Secondly, the methodology for analysing collections will be briefly elucidated. Thirdly, the results of the study will be presented. More specifically, the findings of preliminary analysis leading to statistical coding of peritextual elements will be described, six collection profiles will be examined and chronological patterns in the canonization of a given Polish author will be traced. Finally, the paper's findings will be summarized and hypotheses to be tested in future research will be proposed.


The emerging class of epidermal devices opens up new opportunities for skin-based sensing, computing, and interaction. Future design of these devices requires an understanding of how skin-worn devices affect the natural tactile perception. In this study, we approach this research challenge by proposing a novel classification system for epidermal devices based on flexural rigidity and by testing advanced adhesive materials, including tattoo paper and thin films of poly (dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS). We report on the results of three psychophysical experiments that investigated the effect of epidermal devices of different rigidity on passive and active tactile perception. We analyzed human tactile sensitivity thresholds, two-point discrimination thresholds, and roughness discrimination abilities on three different body locations (fingertip, hand, forearm). Generally, a correlation was found between device rigidity and tactile sensitivity thresholds as well as roughness discrimination ability. Surprisingly, thin epidermal devices based on PDMS with a hundred times the rigidity of commonly used tattoo paper resulted in comparable levels of tactile acuity. The material offers the benefit of increased robustness against wear and the option to re-use the device. Based on our findings, we derive design recommendations for epidermal devices that combine tactile perception with device robustness.


This paper examines the upcoming world of Wireless Services and Intelligent Vehicle Transportation System (IVTS). Recent advances in powerful and miniature computing, and transceiver technology, is enabling more technology to be placed inside a vehicle. The wireless sensors and transceivers onboard individual cars can communicate with other cars, or with the road. The information collected by individual vehicle, as well as those distributed by a central transportation control communication system can help to reduce accidents and time wasted in traffic congestion. This paper describes what exactly an intelligent vehicle highway system is. Furthermore, the pieces of technology needed to make this intelligent vehicle transportation system will be examined. The benefits of deploying this system, such as reduced traffic congestion, increased driving efficiency, and accident avoidance are discussed. Finally, the cost to deploy such project is analyzed and compared to the potential savings gained from reduced accidents, and fewer peoples' time wasted in traffic gridlock. The paper concludes with issues and challenges that need to be resolved in order to have a fully functional IVTS.


Structural Maintenance of Chromosomes (SMC) protein complexes are key determinants of chromosome conformation. Using Hi-C and polymer modelling, we study how cohesin and condensin, two deeply-conserved SMC complexes, organize chromosomes in budding yeast. The canonical role of cohesins is to co-align sister chromatids whilst condensins generally compact mitotic chromosomes. We find strikingly different roles in budding yeast mitosis. First, cohesin is responsible for compacting mitotic chromosomes arms, independent of and in addition to its role in sister-chromatid cohesion. Cohesin dependent mitotic chromosome compaction can be fully accounted for through cis-looping of chromatin by loop extrusion. Second, condensin is dispensable for compaction along chromosomal arms and instead plays a specialized role, structuring rDNA and peri-centromeric regions. Our results argue that the conserved mechanism of SMC complexes is to form chromatin loops and that SMC-dependent looping is readily deployed in a range of contexts to functionally organize chromosomes. Highlights Cohesin compacts mitotic chromosomes independently of sister chromatid cohesion. Formation of cis-loops by loop extrusion fully accounts for cohesin-mediated compaction. Condensin is not required for mitotic chromosome compaction of yeast chromosome arms Condensin has a focused pre-anaphase role at centromeres and rDNA in yeast


Increasing mobility and the resulting rising traffic demands cause serious problems in urban regions world-wide. Approaches to alleviate the negative effects of traffic include an improved control of traffic lights and the introduction of dynamic route guidance (DRG) systems that take current conditions into account. Based on the self-organising Organic Traffic Control system, we introduce a novel DRG concept for urban road networks. It is inspired by the well-known Distance Vector Routing protocol from the Internet domain and increases the network's robustness with respect to congested or blocked roads. We demonstrate the efficiency of the developed approach in a simulation-based evaluation.


This thesis looks at the practice of design as it emerges in architectural design and service design. The lens adopted considers design both as an activity as well as a space full of contradictions, which are accumulated tensions. Design activity is a professional occupation that interacts with other activities, whereas design space is a range of possibilities considered for a project. The contradictions in both sides are separately identified and then rejoined to follow the transitions from one side to another. When pursuing this dialectic, this research has found two ways in which design reproduces contradictions in society. The first, reductive design, aims to reduce contradictions by partitioning the design space into small manageable parts. The second, expansive design, aims to expand contradictions by increasing awareness for the possibilities in the design space. The former ignores, hides, or removes contradictions from the design space and the later uncovers, highlights, or takes advantage of contradictions in the design space. The combination of reductive design and expansive design leads to uneven development. This understanding of design comes from three short-term empirical studies of architectural design and service design projects, which were complemented with two experiments undertaken with design students. The empirical studies show evidence that expansive design may emerge from playing design games; however, this also depends on the willingness of participants to deal with contradictions in an inclusive way. The main contribution of this thesis is highlighting and developing further the concept of expansive design, which implies dealing with contradictions in an inclusive way.


This book examines the relatively recent and under-explored phenomenon of outward foreign direct investment (FDI) from the large emerging market countries, focusing on the four BRIC states (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) and on the services sector meaning primarily telecommunications, finance, and transport. It considers the international legal framework governing FDI, discussing the nature and extent of the bilateral and regional investment treaty commitments undertaken by each of the BRIC states, including their commitments under the WTO General Agreement on Trade in Services, as well as their obligations as members of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. Drawing on trends observed in the regulatory approach of these countries to FDI in services, including the observed flow of FDI both to and now from the developing world, the book proposes a multilateral investment treaty aimed at the liberalization and protection of FDI in services. The treaty will capture the emerging equilibrium in global FDI patterns signifying a unified approach to the regulation of foreign investment in the growing services economy by developing and developed economies alike. The treaty will strengthen the legitimacy of investor-state dispute settlement and recognize public interest norms such as environmental protection and human rights as well as allow signatories to retain sovereignty over matters relating to national security and economic stability.


The establishment of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) process and the International Criminal Court (ICC) were seen by many to constitute significant progress in the protection of human rights. However, these institutions are now in crisis, due in large part to their failure to prevent or prosecute recent acute human rights abuses in Syria. There have been two responses to this crisis: the first assumes that the crisis is caused by the current structures of international governance, in particular the power of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), and calls for radical reform. The second sees possibilities within the current structure and advocates making R2P and the ICC more closely aligned under UNSC control. The article argues that both responses are mistaken and sets out an argument in favour of refocusing on the complementary nature of each institution. The Court's most successful actions have been in exercising the powers afforded by its complementary jurisdiction in situations such as Colombia. Similarly, R2P works more successfully at preventing conflict and changing expectations of acceptable state behaviour than it does at confronting situations in which large-scale violence has begun. The article argues that the ICC and R2P should focus on 'positive complementarity' agendas, with the ICC devoting more resources to assisting states to build legal capacity in order to deter future conflict through stronger domestic criminal systems, and advocates of R2P focusing less on intervention in live conflict situations and more on building within states the capacity and resources to protect their own populations.


In this paper we undertake a large-scale study of online user search behavior based on search and toolbar logs. We identify three types of search: web, multimedia, and item. Together, we show that these different flavors represent almost 10% of all online pageviews, and indirectly result in over 21% of all pageviews. We study search queries themselves, and show that more than half of them contain direct references to some type of structured object; we characterize the types of objects that occur in these queries. We then revisit the relationship search and navigation specifically in the context of e-commerce, and consider how search aids users in online shopping tasks.


This paper presents the study called "Global Learning Community Network." The project promotes teaching language, culture, history and literacy through media production in teacher education. It focuses on: (1) examining cultural and linguistically responsive curriculum designed for K12 students who were in the US as heritage language learners; (2) multilingual tutoring and mentoring to K12 students about culture, language, and history of the US and Turkey using Web 2.0 technologies; (3) indentifying teacher candidates' reactions, discoveries, and experiences with the project; and (4) the process of developing learning objects such as digital storytelling projects focusing on across cultures throughout history.


This correspondence investigates projective reconstruction of geometric configurations seen in two or more perspective views, and the computation of projective invariants of these configurations from their images. A basic tool in this investigation is the fundamental matrix that describes the epipolar correspondence between image pairs. It is proven that once the epipolar geometry is known, the configurations of many geometric structures (for instance sets of points or lines) are determined up to a collineation of projective 3-space /spl Pscrsup 3/ by their projection in two independent images. This theorem is the key to a method for the computation of invariants of the geometry. Invariants of six points in /spl Pscrsup 3/ and of four lines in /spl Pscrsup 3/ are defined and discussed. An example with real images shows that they are effective in distinguishing different geometrical configurations. Since the fundamental matrix is a basic tool in the computation of these invariants, new methods of computing the fundamental matrix from seven-point correspondences in two images or six-point correspondences in three images are given. >


We consider the moduli space of stable torsion free sheaves of any rank on a
smooth projective threefold. The singularity set of a torsion free sheaf is the
locus where the sheaf is not locally free. On a threefold it has dimension
$\leq 1$. We consider the open subset of moduli space consisting of sheaves
with empty or 0-dimensional singularity set.
 For fixed Chern classes $c_1,c_2$ and summing over $c_3$, we show that the
generating function of topological Euler characteristics of these open subsets
equals a power of the MacMahon function times a Laurent polynomial. This
Laurent polynomial is invariant under $q \leftrightarrow q^{-1}$ (upon
replacing $c_1 \leftrightarrow -c_1$). For some choices of $c_1,c_2$ these open
subsets equal the entire moduli space.
 The proof involves wall-crossing from Quot schemes of a higher rank reflexive
sheaf to a sublocus of the space of Pandharipande-Thomas pairs. We interpret
this sublocus in terms of the singularities of the reflexive sheaf.

 Comment: 29 pages. Published version


Required reading in Italian schools since 1886, Cuore is the Huckleberry Finn of Italy - the most read classic in the country. Presented in the form of a diary, its subject is a young boy's life in Turin following Unification in 1870. The narrator, Enrico, writes vividly of school life and the bustling city of vegetable-sellers, chimney sweeps and carpenters all around him. Like Huck Finn or Dickens, Cuore has been adapted into just about every conceivable medium - there are films, major TV series, radio adaptations, plays and comic books. It is a set text on courses from University College London to Harvard and is even a cult classic in Japan in its incarnation as an anime film. From Henry Miller, who wrote a glowing monograph on the book, to world-famous tenor Andrea Bocelli, who wrote a song about it, this simple tale of childhood has inspired all kinds of people and continues to do so today.


Love, personified in Piers Plowman, presents the reader with a contradiction. On the one hand, love never appears as a beggar (B.15: 227), never pretends, for example, to be disabled, when he might actually go to work (B.7: 90-93).(1) On the other, such beggars are no doubt scarcely literate--preliterate perhaps. They are lewed, "ignorant." It is exactly the lewed, however, who are justified before God, not by anything like their best attempts to support themselves, but by their faith: "sola fides sufficit to save with lewed peple." Moreover, in the view of Langland's personified love, this sufficiency is true not only for the unlettered, but for scribes themselves: Wherfore I am afered of folk of Holy Kirke, Lest thei overhuppen, as oothere doon, in Office and in Houres. Ac if thei overhuppe--as I hope noght--our bileve suffiseth; As clerkes in Corpus Christi feeste syngen and reden That sola fides sufficit to save lewed peple. (15: 383-88) This issue--whether humans are justified for Langland in the light of eternity by their own efforts to be good (for example, to labor so far as they are physically able) or whether by their belief in God's love for them despite any failure in effort on their part--can be examined in the notoriously difficult scene that personified love introduces. The Tree of Charity scene aptly illustrates the bone of contention between readers of the poem who identify Langland as semi-Pelagian and those who identify him as neo-Augustinian. The former are represented by Robert Adams, who introduces his discussion of the scene as follows: ... Langland believed fervently in man's obligation to do his very best (facere quod in se est) and in its guaranteed complement, divine acceptation.... Evidence from Piers Plowman to support this assertion is cogent both positively and negatively. There are any number of important episodes and statements concerning man's relationship to God in the poem which make better sense when understood within this theological framework. Without it, some become either mysterious, shallow, or repugnant. (Adams, "Piers's Pardon" 377) Adams and those in agreement with him argue that Langland presents human merit as inviting the grace God, acceptance by God being guaranteed by one's best efforts. Neo-Augustinians, however, claim that Langland stands on the side of sola fideism, faith in Christ's atoning death for human sins being sufficient and necessary for one's acceptance by God. Good works are not rejected by neo-Augustinians, who see them as following the conversion of the worker rather than preceding it.(2) The episode of the Tree of Charity offers a significant challenge to a neo-Augustinian reading of the poem because of the determined activity of Piers in protecting the fruit, an act that seems to call forth the involvement of God on his behalf: Ac whan the fend and the flessh forth with the world Manacen bihynde me, my fruyt for to fecche, Thanne Liberum Arbitrium laccheth the thridde planke And palleth adoun the pouke pureliche thorugh grace And help of the Holy Goost--and thus have I the maistrie. (48-52) Having already fought the world and the flesh (27-39), Piers gains the victory as the Holy Spirit, operating through Liberum Arbitrium, overcomes the devil. The disagreement between semi-Pelagian and neo-Augustinian critics rests not on whether Piers needs help in defending the fruit, but on his meriting help because of his previous efforts. Thus the semi-Pelagian argument: Piers's efforts may not be enough to save the fruit (when the fruit is shaken from the tree [in death ], Satan carries it away), but his efforts are not lacking; he has done his part (facere quod in se est), and he is accepted by God, as is evidenced by the help God gives him. Because semi-Pelagianism rejects the more radical positions of a fully Pelagian approach, some critics claim it as an appropriate point of view from which to examine Langland's intent in describing the Tree of Charity. …


Amitriptyline and lymphoedema Sir: f have been treating a 58-year-old woman who had a modified radical mastectomy 18 months ago for an infiltrating ductal carcinoma. There was fairly advanced involvement of the axillary nodes. In March, 1982, she became extremely depressed over family problems and was particularly troubled by lymphoedema of the arm . After discussing the problems with her, I prescribed amitriptyline, 50 mg, at night. She returned one week later and mentioned that her lymphoedema was less marked. The circumference of her upper arm (measured around the biceps and triceps) was 42 cm. The dose of amitriptyline was increased to 75 mg, at night. After six weeks, her arm was much improved. Although the area from the axilla to the wrist had previously felt hard and "woody", it had become softer and more mobile. The improvement .was dramatic. By mid-May, the circumference of her arm was reduced to 40 cm. I feel that this is a genuine improvement in the lymphoedema, and not simply an improvement in her state of mind, which has naturally coincided. I am interested whether other practitioners have noticed a similar effect. I have not yet tried amitriptyline on other patients with lymphoedema.


Recent changes in forest technology and market influences may impede the practice of uneven-aged (LEA) silviculture. For example, the use of tree-length systems with mechanized harvesters can unacceptably reduce the density of advancedregeneration, making it difficult to maintain the desired size class distribution. Changes to tree utilization standards, limited competition control options, and regulatory and insurance constraints have contributed to practices that further impact the ability to recruit submerchantable stems. We provide suggestions that should improve the application of UEA silviculture in loblolly pine-dominated stands in the Midsouth, even though some significant changes to harvest operations and the regulatory environment may need to happen first.


A solo exhibition at Wilfried Lentz, Rotterdam

At the heart of Vlatka Horvat's exhibition Means and Ends is a sprawling installation conceived especially for the second floor gallery, which takes its clues from the space itself – mirroring, mimicking and extending some of its architectural elements.

Emanating from the central rectangle marked by the room's four pillars, and extending outward towards the walls and edges of the room, Horvat's ad hoc construction of wooden sticks and planks buffered, jammed or held in place with softer materials and objects (foam strips, cushions, folded fabric) connects different points in the space with a crisscrossing network of ramps, bars and diagonals. These makeshift bridges, which cut the space at different heights and at different angles, join the pillars to the walls, the floor and the windows, creating a jumbled field of upward-downward lines, energies and movements – evoking a playground on the one hand, and on another, staging a set of apparently arbitrary divisions, barriers and obstacles that direct and obstruct movement in the space.

Horvat's interest here – as with much of her practice in sculptural installation – is in the relation between built space and the kinds of performative and transformational human processes which might be enacted on and in it, her interventions reconfiguring both the possibilities of the space itself and of the spatial and social relations at play in it. Frequently focused on re-drawing borders, physical and representational frames, Horvat's installations tend to animate the dynamic relation between the centre of a space, object, or an image on the one side, and its edges or peripheral areas on the other. The work – through its gestures of spatial mimicry, impromptu division, temporary construction and improvised connection – draws attention to both the existing space and a set of unrealized possibilities within it, creating an environment which challenges our journey inside it as well as our ability to figure its purpose and its constraints.

Employing the most elementary and temporary gestures of building – leaning, balancing, trapping, stacking, wedging, folding, piling – Horvat makes a 3-dimensional drawing in the space, which both imaginatively extends and materially compromises its utility. In responding to the space in this way, Horvat's meandering construction of endless unstable rises and falls, ascents and descents brings to the fore questions of mobility and stuckness, balance and stability – performing the conflicting human desire to be grounded, and at the same time, to be lifted; our wanting to connect to the solid limits of space and also wanting to escape them.

The exhibition also includes a number of new 2 and 3 dimensional works, shown on the third floor galleries.


Very many goods and services are traded freely among most economies. The recent proliferation of preferential trading arrangements (PTAs) demonstrates that most economies are willing to eliminate border barriers against substantially all products from almost any other economy. At the same time, the recent proliferation of PTAs also demonstrates the political power of producer interests in a few heavily protected sectors, which remain in all economies. The same sensitive products, which are proving hard to liberalise in the Doha Development Agenda of the WTO, or among APEC economies, are also routinely exempted from free trade deals. Any marginal liberalisation of border barriers to these products tends to be negated by product-specific rules of origin and by retaining the right to impose less transparent forms of protection, such as anti-dumping actions. It will take a long time, in any forum, to reduce the number of products that are already sensitive and, hence, heavily protected by border barriers or other less transparent forms of contingent protection, such as anti-dumping.Therefore, it is desirable to prevent the emergence of new sensitive products. This paper proposes collective action by APEC governments to immunise new products against trade policy distortions. It was possible to do so for information technology (IT) products in the 1990s. Following leadership from APEC governments, there is a WTO-wide agreement that such products should remain freely traded. That agreement has already helped a growing share of products to remain duty free. The integrity of that agreement has been challenged by some who are seeking to narrow the definition of IT products. APEC governments are looking for ways to preserve the spirit of the Information Technology Agreement (ITA). In addition to this defensive reaction, APEC governments could also consider a proactive option. It should be possible to build on the IT precedent to cover more, or even all, newly invented products. The new products to be immunised against trade policy barriers would be those whose intellectual property rights (IPRs) are acknowledged. Immunisation would need to involve more than agreeing to set zero tariffs. It would also be essential to prevent future recourse to other less visible means of protection which discriminate between domestic and international sources of competition. Such immunisation should be politically feasible. At the time of the invention of new products, the comparative advantage they had for their producers was created by the intellectual property embedded in the new products. Therefore, producers are anxious to protect their IPRs. In the longer term, such initial advantage can be eroded. For example, close substitutes may be invented, using genuinely different ideas or technology.In that case, comparative advantage would come to depend on relative prices in different economies. As products mature, there will be growing pressure for protection against international competition, risking the future emergence of more sensitive sectors. This potential problem could be avoided if producers or marketers of new products were required to make a choice between protection of IPRs, or protection by means of trade-distorting measures aimed specifically at international competition. The short-term costs should be negligible, since no existing jobs or profits would be threatened, while the long-term gains will become significant as the share of new products continues to expand. To implement this proposal, a group of forward-looking governments could agree that newly invented products could be protected by intellectual property rights, but will not receive protection from future border barriers, or any other trade-distorting policies. Ideally, such a principle could be adopted WTO-wide, but that cannot be expected at the outset.However, an immunisation initiative could be pioneered by a smaller group of governments which formed an open club that provided incentives for others to join. A group of Asia Pacific economies could lead the way, as a pathfinder initiative for progress towards APECs agreed Bogor goals. Such an initiative should be launched by as many APEC governments as possible, as part of an effort to accelerate progress towards free and open trade and investment. In time, the policy could be adopted APEC-wide. That would set the stage for a multilateral protocol among many WTO economies that agree to immunise new products against trade policy distortions.


Animals that are familiar with their environment have been reported to have greater survivorship for a number of reasons related to their knowledge of the terrain, which they recall from memory. In an initial experiment rainbowfish significantly improved their escape response towards a novel trawl apparatus over a sequence of five runs. Escape latencies were still low during a subsequent exposure 11 months after the initial exposure. While part of the improvement in escape success was certainly due to learning associated with the location of the escape route, it is likely that this was aided by habituation to the tank environment and the experimental protocol. In a follow-up experiment, fish that had been kept in the experimental tank for 3 weeks prior to testing, and had become familiar with the test tank, showed significantly lower escape latencies and escaped more often than fish that were not familiar with the test environment. It is suspected that familiarity with the testing arena decreased stress and enabled individuals to detect novel stimuli and devote more attention to them. These findings have significant implications for experimenters studying aspects of animal cognition, such as learning and memory, in laboratory situations.


This article examines social transformation and mobility dynamics in Caracaraí, a rural frontier town in the State of Roraima, Brazil, from the 1950s to the 1990s. During this short period, we observe a rapid diversification of migration in Caracaraí: from nonmigratory mobility tied to the micro-scale extraction of local products to more-permanent settlement in town, rapid shifts in the direction of internal migration patterns and back to non-migratory mobility patterns again. Drawing from frontier migration studies and mobility transition theories, this paper adopts a social transformation perspective to explore the relation between social change and these mobility transitions. The changing role of the state, from a promoter of infrastructure to a provider of services and public employment, the restructuring of the local economic fabric and its reorientation towards more secondary and tertiary activities, and inhabitants' imaginaries of the development potential of Caracaraí all explain the shift in migration processes. Investigating these processes, we observe that (i) the state promoted new opportunities, leading to a decline in traditional circular mobility, alongside the growth of temporal workers and spontaneous migrants; (ii) infrastructure advancements encouraged non-migratory mobility patterns between Caracaraí and Boa Vista, the capital city of the State of Roraima; (iii) the provision of public employment intensified internal rural-urban and urban-rural migration patterns, from communities in the interior of the State of Roraima to Caracaraí and vice versa, and (iv) development imaginaries – the perception of how Caracaraí should and could be in the near future – prevented voluminous emigration, during periods of socio-economic slowdown. This research highlights the meaningful role of the state in altering livelihoods and migration decision-making processes. In particular, it shows how state expansion framed cultural imaginaries of the 'good life', favouring the desire to stay put in periods of high economic uncertainty, even when life aspirations were not being met by local opportunities.


In this study, a series of waterborne biodegradable polyurethanes with antibacterial and biocompatible properties were developed. To obtain these polyurethanes, lysine-derivative gemini quaternary ammonium salt (GQAS) chain extenders with different hydrophobic alkyl chain lengths (named EGn, where n = 8, 12, 16; the hydrophobic alkyl chain length of GQAS) were designed and synthesized. Then, waterborne biodegradable polyurethanes (PCLPUn) were prepared using isophorone diisocyanate (IPDI), poly(e-caprolactone) (PCL), poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG), L-lysine and EGn. The antibacterial activities of these EGn and PCLPUn emulsions were evaluated by a minimal inhibitory concentration (MIC) method, and the antibacterial and antifouling functionalities of the PCLPUn film surfaces were confirmed by a contact-active antibacterial and culture-based method using both Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria. The in vitro degradation and cytotoxicity of these obtained polyurethanes were also systematically investigated. These results indicated that the PCLPUn films possessed good antibacterial and antifouling abilities, biodegradability, and good biocompatibility. Notably, PCLPU12 shows the best antibacterial activity and cytocompatibility. Such antibacterial materials could be degraded to non-toxic components, and potentially be widely used in medical and environmental applications, especially as biodegradable coatings of surgical equipment and medical implants.


Abstract Hybrid poplars are currently used in North America primarily for the production of pulp fibre and in the manufacture of engineered solid wood products. Recently, the deployment of poplars as a short-rotation fibre crop has been of interest to mitigate the increasing amount of plantation-grown short fibre resources (hardwoods) derived from the Southern Hemisphere, as well as in the context of global climate change, both as a means to rapidly sequester carbon and as a feedstock for potential bioenergy production. Knowledge on the utility of hybrid poplars in the value-added secondary wood-processing sector, however, is very limited. To improve this situation, the variation in kiln-drying quality of five hybrid poplar genotypes of similar age, harvested from a common site in British Columbia, Canada, was evaluated for three different kiln-drying schedules. The results clearly demonstrate that the drying schedule has a greater effect on grade recovery and the degree of deformation than the hybrid poplar genotype. Furthermore, it was shown that many of the deformations inherently associated with wood derived from fast-grown trees can be reduced or removed with drying, in particular with an aggressive drying schedule.


ABSTRACT South Korea is threatened by its troubled relationship with North Korea. North Korea possesses a large cache of missiles as well as chemical and biological weapons, and the future potential to mount nuclear weapons on its missiles. The United States is also challenged because of its defense commitments to Seoul. As a countermeasure, the United States and South Korea decided to deploy Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile defenses in South Korea. However, China has objected. Chinese scholars believe the THAAD radar would be able to track Chinese inter-continental ballistic missiles, thereby weakening their deterrent. A technical analysis does not support this assertion. However, it is vital for South Korea, given its proximity and economic interdependence, to reassure China. South Korea should highlight that THAAD will be deployed by the United States Forces Korea and is not a commitment by Seoul to become part of U.S.-led missile defenses in the Asia-Pacific.


This article presents P4Q, a fully decentralized gossip-based protocol to personalize query processing in social tagging systems. P4Q dynamically associates each user with social acquaintances sharing similar tagging behaviors. Queries are gossiped among such acquaintances, computed on-the-fly in a collaborative, yet partitioned manner, and results are iteratively refined and returned to the querier. Analytical and experimental evaluations convey the scalability of P4Q for top-k query processing, as well its inherent ability to cope with users updating profiles and departing.


Predicting human motion behavior in a crowd is important for many applications, ranging from the natural navigation of autonomous vehicles to intelligent security systems of video surveillance. All the previous works model and predict the trajectory with a single resolution, which is relatively ineffective and difficult to simultaneously exploit the long-range information (e.g., the destination of the trajectory), and the short-range information (e.g., the walking direction and speed at a certain time) of the motion behavior. In this paper, we propose a temporal pyramid network for pedestrian trajectory prediction through a squeeze modulation and a dilation modulation. Our hierarchical framework builds a feature pyramid with increasingly richer temporal information from top to bottom, which can better capture the motion behavior at various tempos. Furthermore, we propose a coarse-to-fine fusion strategy with multi-supervision. By progressively merging the top coarse features of global context to the bottom fine features of rich local context, our method can fully exploit both the long-range and short-range information of the trajectory. Experimental results on two benchmarks demonstrate the superiority of our method. Our code and models will be available upon acceptance.


After W.D. Miller proved a causal relationship between microbes and dental caries and periodontitis, the repair and replacement of damaged or lost teeth resulting from microbial activity dominated 20th century dental practice. In this study, I predict that in the 21st century dental practice will shift to the treatment of those dental diseases not caused by microbes. As dentists already treat some nonmicrobial diseases, I will focus on craniofacial malformations, the group of nonmicrobial diseases usually called birth defects. Some examples include dental dysplasias, cleft lip and palate, and malocclusion. In this study, I introduce the word "dysmorphogenesis" (to replace the term birth defect) as it more appropriately ascribes this subset of nonmicrobial diseases results to mistakes during the formation of craniofacial structures. As dysmorphogenic diseases occur during gestation, their diagnosis and especially their treatment require intervention during embryogenesis. Fortunately, decades of research have shown that mutations are involved in malformations during amelogenesis, palatogenesis, and odontogenesis. Knowledge of which genes are involved, together with recent breakthroughs in Crispr gene editing, make interventions during gestation possible. Those dentists performing gene editing procedures I have previously called Biodontists, because creating the Biodontics specialty will take time. The dental profession including dental educators, dental practitioners, and dental manufacturers should begin discussions now on how best to proceed.


This paper defines and explores a somewhat different type of genetic algorithm (GA)-a messy genetic algorithm (mGA). Messy GAs process variable-length strings that may be either under- or overspecified with respect to the problem being solved. As nature has formed its genotypes by progressing from simple to more complex life forms, messy GAs solve problems by combining relatively short, well-tested building blocks to form longer, more complex strings that increasingly cover all features of a problem. This approach stands in contrast to the usual fixed-length, fixed-coding genetic algorithm, where the existence of the requisite tight linkage is taken for granted or ignored altogether. To compare the two approaches, a 30-bit, order-three-deceptive problem is searched using a simple GA and a messy GA. Using a random but fixed ordering of the bits, the simple GA makes errors at roughly three-quarters of its positions; under a worst-case ordering, the simple GA errs at all positions. In contrast to the simple GA results, the messy GA repeatedly solves the same problem to optimality. Prior to this time, no GA had ever solved a provably difficult problem to optimality without prior knowledge of good string arrangements. The mGA presented herein repeatedly achieves globally optimal results without such knowledge, and it does so at the very first generation in which strings are long enough to cover the problem. The solution of a difficult nonlinear problem to optimality suggests that messy GAs can solve more difficult problems than has been possible to date with other genetic algorithms. The ramifications of these techniques in search and machine learning are explored, including the possibility of messy floating-point codes, messy permutations, and messy classifiers.


India's colonial legacy and linguistic diversity give English an important role in its economy, and this role has expanded due to globalization in recent decades. It is widely believed that there are sizable economic returns to English-language skills in India, but the extent of these returns is unknown due to lack of a microdata set containing measures of both earnings and English ability. In this paper, we use a newly available data set–the India Human Development Survey, 2005–to quantify the effects of English-speaking ability on wages. We find that being fluent in English (compared to not speaking any English) increases hourly wages of men by 34%, which is as much as the return to completing secondary school and half as much as the return to completing a Bachelor's degree. Being able to speak a little English significantly increases male hourly wages 13%. There is considerable heterogeneity in returns to English. More experienced and more educated workers receive higher returns to English. The complementarity between English skills and education appears to have strengthened over time. Only the more educated among young workers earn a premium for English skill, whereas older workers across all education groups do. JEL Classification: J31, J24, O15


Diane Arbus's startling photographic images of dwarfs, twins, transvestites, and freaks seemed from the first to redefine both the normal and the abnormal in our lives; they were already becoming part of the iconography of the age when Arbus committed suicide in 1971. Arbus herself remained an enigma until the publication of this first full biography. Patricia Bosworth examines the life behind the eerie, mesmerizing photographs: Diane's pampered childhood; her passionate marriage to Allan Arbus and their work together as fashion photographers during the fifties; the emotional upheaval surrounding the end of that marriage; and the radically dark, liberating, and ultimately tragic turn Diane's art took during the sixties. Bosworth's engrossing book is a compassionate portrait of the woman behind some of the most powerful photographs of our time.


We propose a bootstrap-based test of the null hypothesis of equality of two firms' conditional risk measures (RMs) at a single point in time. The test can be applied to a wide class of conditional risk measures issued from parametric or semiparametric models. Our iterative testing procedure produces a grouped ranking of the RMs, which has direct application for systemic risk analysis. Firms within a group are statistically indistinguishable from each other, but significantly more risky than the firms belonging to lower ranked groups. A Monte Carlo simulation demonstrates that our test has good size and power properties. We apply the procedure to a sample of 94 U.S. financial institutions using ΔCoVaR, MES, and %SRISK. We find that for some periods and RMs, we cannot statistically distinguish the 40 most risky firms due to estimation uncertainty.


This newsletter presents short reports on Old World nautical and maritime projects and excavations. Some of these projects involve underwater work; others are on dry land. Some discuss sites other than shipwrecks. Harbors, cargoes, and maritime landscapes reported here reflect the significant contributions of nautical and maritime archaeology to the study of all aspects of humanity's interaction with the marine environment.


The tissues of the gastrointestinal tract play a major role in the metabolism of protein and amino acids in growing animals. Intestinal tissue has a high rate of protein metabolism, which is directly linked to the high rates of proliferation, protein secretion, cell death and desquamation of various epithelial and lymphoid cells within the mucosa. Because the small intestine is the first tissue exposed to the diet, it has a key regulatory role in the digestion, absorption, metabolism and availability of dietary protein and amino acids for growth. The major oxidative fuels for the intestine are glutamate, glutamine, aspartate and glucose; however, some essential amino acids are also oxidized, such as lysine, leucine and phenylalanine. Among the essential amino acids, threonine utilization is particularly high, and may be critical for normal intestinal function. Intestinal protein and amino acid metabolism is primarily regulated by the modality (enteral versus parenteral) and quantity of nutrient intake, and to a lesser extent by the composition of nutrients.


In this paper, we present a novel systolic architecture for high-throughput computation of 3-dimensional (3-D) discrete wavelet transform (DWT). The entire 3-D DWT computation is decomposed into three distinct stages and implemented concurrently in a linear array of fully pipelined processing elements (PE). The proposed structure for 3-D DWT provides higher throughput than the existing architecture; and involves nearly half or less the number of multipliers and adders; and less on-chip memory (when normalized for unit throughput rate) than the other. Most importantly, the proposed one does not require any frame buffer unlike the other to perform inter-frame DWT computation. The proposed structure has a small latency and can perform 3-D DWT computation with 100% hardware unitization efficiency.


The high dimensionality of image‐based dataset can be a drawback for classification accuracy. In this study, we propose the application of fuzzy c‐means clustering, cluster validity indices and the notation of a joint‐feature‐clustering matrix to find redundancies of image‐features. The introduced matrix indicates how frequently features are grouped in a mutual cluster. The resulting information can be used to find data‐derived feature prototypes with a common biological meaning, reduce data storage as well as computation times and improve the classification accuracy.


Electrochemical properties of Si/Ni/Cu film electrodes were investigated with different Ni film thicknesses (50–600 nm) and annealing temperatures (200–500 °C). The morphology of amorphous Si film was considerably affected by surface features of the Ni under-layer. The best cycle performance of 90.2% retention after 70 cycles was obtained from Si/Ni/Cu film with 300 nm thick Ni film and after 400 °C annealing. For the annealed Si/Ni/Cu electrode, the surface morphology (protrusions) and the formation of compounds among Si, Ni and Cu prohibited the volume expansion of Si during the charge–discharge process and enhanced adhesion between films and substrate, respectively.


This thesis examines civil society, political space, and peacebuilding in post-war Burundi by critically engaging with international discourses and considering the extent to which they reflect the experiences and perspectives of activists on the ground. It is based on qualitative research with civil society groups and the individuals that work for them in Burundi. Fieldwork took place over five months between July 2014 and April 2015. This was a period of crisis in which civil society faced mounting restrictions, from the introduction of legislation that banned public gatherings, to the harassment and intimidation of prominent activists. The thesis analyses the extent to which civil society groups were able to navigate these constraints to create and maintain spaces for peace that transform dominant social norms which produce violence and repression. It also considers the factors that frustrated these efforts, from the sustained influence of past violence and trauma, to the climate of fear and uncertainty that emerged following the 2015 elections, and the divisive elite politics that continues to disrupt everyday peace in Burundi. It finds that emerging policy discourses on political space fail to engage with the historical, political, and discursive nature of government restrictions in Burundi, and the temporal and relational dimensions of violence, especially the ways in which it shapes the everyday lives of activists and their ability to challenge the institutions and structures within which violence is reproduced. The research situates these experiences in historical context – a process that enables it to consider broader questions about the evolution of civil society and the extent to which it becomes embedded in post-conflict contexts once international funding and attention decreases and external peacebuilding activities conclude. Civil society groups in Burundi received significant support from the international community in the post-war years, yet increasing restrictions suggest that the Burundian government has not accepted the presence of certain organisations which it views as a threat to its political authority and legitimacy. This leads the thesis to argue that curbs on civil society should be seen as part of a broader pattern of resistance to international peacebuilding in Burundi.


Antioxidant chemistry is playing an important role in meeting the longer-life and higher temperature performance criteria of modern generation turbine lubricants. Oxidative life assessment is therefore an important parameter as part of today's turbine oil diagnostic services, where methods such as RPVOT, FTIR, and RULER are being applied. With this paper, we will discuss how RPVOT (per ASTM D 2272) testing of turbine lubricants with single antioxidant systems have much better reproducibility and repeatability than comparable RPVOT testing of oils with complex, synergistic mixtures of antioxidants. Both new and used turbine oils obtained from gas and steam turbines were used to assess the effects of antioxidant chemistry on the RPVOT results. In the first part of this research program, we present the analytical results for the residues remaining at the completion of the RPVOT tests of single component antioxidant oils. The RULER, varnish potential index (VPI), FTIR, AN, and viscosity analyses of the residues are very similar indicating that the residues contain no remaining antioxidants and have elevated levels of VPI, AN, viscosity, and FTIR oxidation, i.e., all of the RPVOT residues of the single antioxidant oils are highly oxidized when the test is ended based on oxygen uptake. In the second part, we present the analytical results for the RPVOT residues of complex mixture antioxidant oils. In contrast to the single antioxidant oils, the analytical tests of the complex antioxidant RPVOT residues indicate that the concentration of antioxidant and the level of oxidation varies with antioxidant formulation when the test is ended based on oxygen uptake. The results presented in this paper indicate that the effects of antioxidant chemistry on the residue content of RPVOT tests help explain the poor reproducibility of the RPVOT tests for turbine oils containing different types of antioxidant systems. Consequently, RULER analyses to characterize the antioxidant systems of the turbine oils before and after RPVOT testing would be very valuable in interpreting the RPVOT results and in improving the reproducibility of the RPVOT technique for making oxidative life assessments of modern generation turbine lubricants. VPI assessments of the turbine oils would further improve the oil diagnostic services of turbine lubricants by providing insight into the capability of the lubricants to solubilize the oxidation products of the antioxidants and the highly-refined base-oil.