REASONS FOR PERFORMING STUDY
Muscle biopsy is increasingly used in equine veterinary practice for investigating exertional, inflammatory or immune mediated myopathies and unexplained muscle atrophy. Although formalin-fixed samples are often used, for complete evaluation, fresh-frozen tissue is required. Freezing muscle in veterinary practice is impractical: samples sent to specialist laboratories for processing are therefore susceptible to delays, potentially leading to artefact and compromising histological interpretation.

HYPOTHESIS
Altered temperature, duration and hydration status influence the severity of storage-induced artefact in equine muscle.

METHODS
Skeletal muscle obtained immediately post euthanasia was divided into 6 independent samples from each of 8 horses. One sample per horse was frozen immediately in isopentane precooled in liquid nitrogen. Additional samples were stored in conditions designed to mimic possible situations encountered in practice, including increased storage times, temperature and hydration status. Following storage, stored samples were frozen as before. Cryosections were stained using haematoxylin and eosin and ranked for artefact on 2 occasions by 2 blinded observers. The best samples were processed subsequently with a panel of routine stains and immunolabelled for collagen V to enable the measurement of minimum fibre diameters.

RESULTS
Both prolonged storage and increased hydration resulted in more storage-associated artefact. Samples stored for 24 h chilled on dry gauze were ranked higher than those stored on damp gauze; however, a panel of routinely-used histochemical staining techniques was unaffected by chilled 24 h storage. There was no significant effect of storage on mean fibre diameter; however, both chilled dry and damp storage for 24 h caused a significant increase in fibre-size variability.

CONCLUSION AND POTENTIAL RELEVANCE
Caution should be exercised when interpreting fibre size profiles in shipped samples. Equine muscle biopsy samples are optimally shipped in dry gauze, sealed in plastic containers and shipped on ice packs to be processed within 24 h and can thus be interpreted by the receiving laboratory with minimal artefact.


This research provides three additional insights into the concept of tolerance. First, it provides empirical insights to the previous research, distinguishing between two dimensions of tolerance; political tolerance and social tolerance. Second, it investigates the extent these two dimensions of tolerance prevail in different civilizations in the world. Third, it shows how etiology of tolerance differs across civilizations. In short, this research shows that tolerance of national and religious groups differs from tolerance of social groups in both kind and degree and investigates to what extent the prevalence and etiology of these two dimensions of tolerance differ across civilizations. In this research time series evidence from subsequent rounds of the World Values Survey (WVS) for over seventy countries are analysed using Ordered


Photochromic textiles are of considerable interest for smart and functional textile applications due to their remarkable dynamic colour changing effect when irradiated with light of a certain wavelength. The use of resource efficient processes, such as digital inkjet printing and supercritical carbon dioxide (scCO2) dyeing techniques enables an economic production of those high-end functional products with high material costs. In this study, photochromic polyester fabric has been prepared by applying two commercially important photochromic dyes from spirooxazine (SO) and naphthopyran (NP) dye classes using scCO2-dyeing technique. The properties of scCO2 dyed photochromic fabrics were compared with the properties of the same dyes in a non-polar solvent, hexane. UV-Vis spectroscopy and a specially designed online colour measurement system capable of simultaneous UV irradiation and colour measurement were used to evaluate the photochromic colour behaviour. Both photochromic dye types embedded in textile as well as in solution showed significant reversible colour changing properties when exposed to UV light and revert to their original non-coloured form when the UV light is removed. The scCO2 dyed polyester fabrics exhibited similar trends of colour build-up as in solution, while contrasting behaviour was observed in terms of colour changing rates compared to their behaviour in solution.


The paper shows how ethnography specifically helps us to examine the relationship between discursive practices, conduct and identity-work, and the appearance and reappearance of stabilities. It explores how the creation and continuous rewriting of an ethnographic text draws upon many different registers of social life, including interactions over time and across many differently situated occasions. Using examples from the domain of medicine, the paper shows how by examining the conduct of nurses, doctors and patients as they occur across a variety of 'differently situated occasions', we can examine the multiplicity of discourses available for members to ground their moves. The paper illuminate a process of analysis and writing that helps elucidate how members, through enrolling what is available, become enrolled and align themselves within networks of interest. What we find is not just routines and repetitions, or even deviations from norms and infractions, the foundations of structural relations of power; nor do we find fluidity, an idea that anything goes. Rather what we find through a particular approach to ethnographic writing is 'motility': the ways in which participants switch discursive domains and move the world. By pressing attention to motility the different moves members make can be shown to help re-accomplish socio-cultural relations of power. The approach described thus could be called post-structural rather than post-modern ethnography.


We investigate the visual elements that will inhabit everyday environments after virtual reality becomes commonplace. Virtual forms have a richer, more flexible material than traditional metal, wood, and plastic. Both borrowing from traditional 2D techniques and inventing its own processes, VR enables artists and designers to push the envelope for physically constructed objects and redefine the visual space of film, video, and the interactive space of VR itself. We describe the contemporary edge of VR design tools. Then we look to potential forms of tomorrow.


Perceptual Analysis of Children's Adaptation to an Electropalatography Sensor Kasey Marie Duffield Department of Communication Disorders, BYU Master of Science The purpose of this study is to observe children's adaptation to an electropalatographic (EPG) sensor. Sound recordings of six children between the ages of 7;0 and 9;11 sampled at 30minute intervals over a two-hour period of wearing an EPG sensor were perceptually evaluated to quantify the children's adaptation over time. Twenty native speakers of American English evaluated the pronunciation of a series of words with embedded stops and fricatives produced with and without an EPG sensor in place. When collapsed over speaker and stimulus type, listener ratings decreased significantly after inserting the EPG sensor. Ratings then increased significantly after the sensor was in place for 30 minutes, and again after 60 minutes. No significant improvement in pronunciation was noted between the 60and 120-minute test intervals, and adaptation did not reach preplacement levels until the sensor was removed. Mixed results were found in how speakers adapted across the different stimulus types. Adaptation was most consistent across speakers for the conversation conditions, but occurred most rapidly for /s/ and /k/. Speakers showed the best overall adaptation for the phoneme /t/ by the end of testing. These results are similar to several adaptation studies with adults, and the two studies with children. Results from this study will help speech pathologists effectively use EPG technology to help children accurately pronounce speech sounds, and to generalize these pronunciations to their normal speech.


Unorthodox Oral Expressions in English Dictionaries, Corpora, Textbooks, and English Language Instructional Materials Khemlada Chittaladakorn Department of Linguistics and English Language, BYU Master of Arts The aim of this project is to provide useful data from published dictionaries, corpora, and instructional materials, as well as sample lessons, to promote the teaching of Unorthodox Oral Expressions (UOEs) to learners of English as a second/ foreign language. In the first chapter, the author reviews relevant literature, explains what UOEs are, and discusses the importance of incorporating UOEs in EFL or ESL classrooms. In the second chapter, a linguistic categorization of UOEs is given. In the third chapter, the results are given of an examination of 10 different dictionaries. The purpose of this examination was to find which of 56 target UOEs are included in each dictionary and what kind of definitions are given for them. The results show that many common UOEs are not included in most, or any, dictionaries. For the UOEs that are included in most dictionaries, the definitions do not always agree, and factors such as intonation are not taken into account. Moreover, the explanations on how the UOEs can be used are not complete. In the fourth chapter, three English language corpora are examined to discover which of the target 56 UOEs are the most frequently used. The results show some differences in UOE frequency between the corpora that include both spoken and written English text and the spoken English corpora. In the fifth chapter, the teaching of UOEs in ESL textbooks is analyzed. The results show that most of these books do not teach UOEs explicitly. In chapter six, experimental instructional units are provided. Results of piloting these lessons at Brigham Young University's English Language Center are discussed. In the last chapter, the author suggests possible future research involving UOEs.


We present new high-resolution methods for the problem of retrieving sinusoidal processes from noisy measurements. The approach taken is by use of the so-called principal-components method, which is a singular-value-decomposition-based approximate modeling method. The low-rank property and the algebraic structure of both the data matrix and the covariance matrix (under noise-free conditions) form the basis of exact modeling methods. In a noisy environment, however, the rank property is often perturbed, and singular-value decomposition is used to obtain a low-rank approximant in factored form. The underlying algebraic structure of these factors leads naturally to least-squares estimates of the state-space parameters of the sinusoidal process. This forms the basis of the Toeplitz approximation method, which offers a robust Pisarenko-like spectral estimate from the covariance sequence. Furthermore, the principle of Pisarenko's method is extended to harmonic retrieval directly from time-series data, which leads to a direct-data approximation method. Our simulation results indicate that favorable resolution capability (compared with existing methods) can be achieved by the above methods. The application of these principles to two-dimensional signals is also discussed.


AIMS
This study aims to document the adverse effects of drinkers in Australia on people other than the drinker.

DESIGN
Cross-sectional survey.

SETTING
In a national survey of Australia, respondents described the harmful effects they experienced from drinkers in their households, family and friendship networks, as well as work-place and community settings.

PARTICIPANTS
A randomly selected sample of 2,649 adult Australians.

MEASUREMENTS
Problems experienced because of others' drinking were ascertained via computer-assisted telephone interviews. Respondent and drinker socio-demographic and drinking pattern data were recorded.

FINDINGS
A total of 70% of respondents were affected by strangers' drinking and experienced nuisance, fear or abuse, and 30% reported that the drinking of someone close to them had negative effects, although only 11% were affected by such a person 'a lot'. Women were more affected by someone they knew in the household or family, while men were more affected by strangers, friends and co-workers. Young adults were consistently the most negatively affected across the majority of types of harm.

CONCLUSIONS
Substantial proportions of Australians are affected by other people's drinking, including that of their families, friends, co-workers and strangers. These harms range in magnitude from noise and fear to physical abuse, sexual coercion and social isolation.


The effectiveness and efficiency of investigative process in criminal proceedings depends on properly conducted activities aimed at collection of evidence. One of such significant activities is a line-up being an identification procedure involving traces left behind in human memory. Because a "memory trace" in itself is a subjective phenomenon, additionally characterized with great malleability and susceptibility to deformation, the procedure must meet some definite legal and forensic conditions for the line-up to be accurate and effective, and to have adequate evidential value. Thus, much importance must be given to appropriate methodology of the activity, as the use of a particular method makes possible adequate and reliable examination of a memory trace, which may enable identification of a given line-up member. Research shows how low the standard of administering line-ups by law enforcement agencies (most frequently by police, who are the main agency conducting preparatory proceedings) is, and consequently how many errors are made, which of course results in lowering the effectiveness of detection process and the diagnostic and evidential value. Although line-ups are of a rather low diagnostic value, it cannot be denied that, owing to its suggestiveness, a positive identification is usually highly valued by the court as a piece of evidence, very often being the only evidence against the suspect. Therefore, methodological strictness is, in case of positive identification, one of the most important safeguards of the case correctly settled by the court. Administration of line-ups requires law enforcement agencies to demonstrate much expertise and highly professional performance, and to act with extreme care. In view of court errors resulting from generally low standard of law enforcement performance as regards the discussed identification procedure, it seems necessary that the art. 173 of the code of criminal procedure should de lege ferenda incorporate a record limiting the competence of procedural agencies with a view to lineups being administered only by persons with proper specialist training or preferably by relevant experts rather than by persons with standard vocational training.


Detailed information of the underlying mechanisms of macromolecular disintegration processes is not always fully available from lab-based experiments and GPC. A powerful computer simulation technique was thus indispensable in this respect whilst saving time, labour and expense. This project aims to develop an interactive computer program to capture the behaviour of a complex reactor and offer the following functionality: mathematical calculations, graph/chart generation, processing simulation-experiment pertaining to user-given scission and environmental characteristics, data saving and re-loading etc, Windows-style menu-driven interfaces provide templates for easy implementation of complex mathematical algorithms -a new simulation technique (Slider interfaces) presented in the thesis, based on cellulose-ageing study in electrical transformers (Heywood, 2000). A novel statistical concept was introduced to significantly improve real-tune performance of mathematical calculations to simulate polymer chain fragmentation phenomena, enabling transformation of the simple iterative to a semi-iterative and instant calculation algorithm. Three new mathematical functions were constructed - (a) Monte Carlo Dynamic (Slider), (b) Algebraic Exact, (c) Markov Statistical models, initially using an arbitrary time scale for degradation. Real-time simulation was developed using three time model variants that included the interpretation of deviations in the order reaction rate from linearity to an exponential type function. The above transformation enhanced reproducibility and accuracy of degraded MWD curve sampling whilst then- graphical display & clarity via 'Cubic B-Spline' smoothing-algorithm. Complex models were created from a ranking ensemble of single scission mechanisms, structured with levels of probability constructs to effectively simulate GPC-like curve-deformities and side-shifts. The simulation results provided new information in the following key areas: the temporal shift patterns of MWD/PCLD under different ageing conditions graphical comparisons between simulated and observed Idnetic and scission parameters. the dominant types of scission strategy at different reactor conditions, the dependence of reaction behaviour on the polymer structural order. An alternative way of predicting life expectancy of an ageing polymer via relating time- temperature to the magnitude of intermediate MWD curve shifts that is independent on DP. The latter is an average value and subjected to errors. An equation was derived for this. Introduction of a binary tree "death time" algorithm for calculation of the life expectancy of different categories of polymer chain species. Non-iterative techniques developed here opens up new avenues of further research. The developed algorithms and computer program may provide ample scope for investigating the ageing of other industrially important polymers and can be utilised in other areas of polymer research with little modification where probability distribution is sought.


Understanding the behavior of urban
air pollution is important en route for sustainable urban development (SUD). Malaysia
is on its mission to be a developed country by year 2020 comprehends dealing with
air pollution is one of the indicators headed towards it. At present monitoring
and managing air pollution in urban areas encompasses sophisticated air quality
modeling and data acquisition. However, rapid developments in major cities
cause difficulties in acquiring the city geometries. The existing method in
acquiring city geometries data via ground or space measurement inspection such
as field survey, photogrammetry, laser scanning, remote sensing or using
architectural plans appears not to be practical because of its cost and
efforts. Moreover, air monitoring stations deployed are intended for regional
to global scale model whereby it is not accurate for urban areas with typical
resolution of less than 2 km. Furthermore in urban areas, the pollutant dispersion movements are
trapped between buildings initiating it to move vertically causing
visualization complications which imply the limitations of existing
visualization scheme
that is based on two-dimensional (2D) framework. Therefore this paper aims is
to perform groundwork assessment and discuss on the current scenario in
Malaysia in the aspect of current policies towards SUD, air quality monitoring
stations, scale model and detail discussion on air pollution dispersion model
used called the Operational Street Pollution Model (OSPM). This research
proposed the implementation of three-dimensional (3D) spatial city model as a
new physical data input for OSPM. The five Level of Details (LOD) of 3D spatial
city model shows the scale applicability for the dispersion model implementtation.
Subsequently 3D spatial city model data commonly available on the web, by
having a unified data model shows the advantages in easy data acquisition, 3D
visualization of air pollution dispersion and improves visual analysis of air
quality monitoring in urban areas.


Despite a large and growing literature on Hong Kong English (HKE), few studies have been conducted on its emerging language features, particularly its grammar or vocabulary. According to Gisborne (2009), studies on HKE to date have focused on language attitudes, code-switching, learner errors, and the local accent. A quick review of the research on vocabulary reveals that even those studies with a specific lexical focus have tended to be fairly limited in scope, focusing on borrowing, politicized expressions and localized vocabulary. Additionally, by their nature, these studies have tended to only cover vocabulary items that are unique and obviously have a different meaning in the local setting. In particular, there is a noticeable dearth of in-depth studies on semantic shift, in particular extensions or adaptations of meaning for simple words or phrases which are taken for granted as being at the common core of English varieties throughout the world. This kind of usage is more likely to cause comprehension difficulties than the more-often studied borrowings or coinages, simply because it might not be apparent to either a native speaker or a Hong Kong speaker that there is a difference in meaning when it comes to the Hong Kong terms used, and therefore there is a greater potential for misunderstanding.


This study investigates employees" perceptions of diversity and its impact on the workplace, as perceived by employees themselves. The focus will specifically be on external diversity factors such as culture, race and gender and to what extent these factors can possibly be linked to differences in perceptions of the influence of diversity in the workplace. We know that equality and diversity programmes should be aligned with an organisation"s core strategic objectives. Not only is this alignment critical to achieving equality and diversity goals, but it also enables organisations to benefit from the business opportunities that diversity offers. To better understand the role and importance of diversity and gain insight into social systems, quantitative measures of diversity were examined by means of questionnaires. A major consideration for managers is the wide scope of behaviours, attitudes, and values of the diverse staff across socio-cultural boundaries, which are bound to affect organisational processes. Thus, it is crucial for managers to distinguish how staff of different socio-cultural backgrounds could be interacting within the organisation, and identify how perceptual effects may be manifested in multicultural group relationships.


Deregulation of a broad range of protein kinases has been linked to the development and growth of cancer cells. Protein kinases are intracellular enzymes that regulate cell growth and proliferation as well as the triggering and regulation of immune responses. Protein kinases are important therapeutic targets in cancer because of their critical role in signalling mechanisms that drive malignant cell characteristics. Intensive efforts in drug research have been made in this area over the last two decades. The current study delves into the catalytic domain of a protein kinase as well as information transfer from the cell's membrane to internal targets. It also discusses the function of protein kinases in signal transduction and their cellular signalling pathways. Furthermore, it specifically outlines a systematic method to hybrid therapies to solve the issue of protein kinase resistance. The therapeutic use of nitric oxide, as well as other targets such as Phosphoinositide 3-kinases (PI3K), Protein Kinase B (Akt), serine/threonine protein kinase (mTOR), p38 mitogen-activated protein kinases (p38 MAPK), vascular endothelial growth factor receptors (VEGFR), epidermal growth factor receptors (EGFR), and anaplastic lymphoma (ALK) etc., According to the review article, selective therapy has shown high effectiveness in the treatment of advanced cancer, with protein kinase inhibitors being a main focus of the therapy. As a result, the latest review summarized that, the current state of science with the aim of identifying a novel protein kinase inhibitor that may be utilized in the treatment of advanced cancers.


BACKGROUND
Reduced circulating estrogen levels around the time of the menopause can induce unacceptable symptoms that affect the health and well-being of women. Hormone therapy (both unopposed estrogen and estrogen/progestogen combinations) is an effective treatment for these symptoms, but is associated with risk of harms. Guidelines recommend that hormone therapy be given at the lowest effective dose and treatment should be reviewed regularly. The aim of this review is to identify the minimum dose(s) of progestogen required to be added to estrogen so that the rate of endometrial hyperplasia is not increased compared to placebo.

OBJECTIVES
The objective of this review is to assess which hormone therapy regimens provide effective protection against the development of endometrial hyperplasia or carcinoma.

SEARCH METHODS
We searched the Cochrane Menstrual Disorders and Subfertility Group trials register (searched January 2012), The Cochrane Library (Issue 1, 2012), MEDLINE (1966 to January 2012), EMBASE (1980 to January 2012), Current Contents (1993 to May 2008), Biological Abstracts (1969 to 2008), Social Sciences Index (1980 to May 2008), PsycINFO (1972 to January 2012) and CINAHL (1982 to May 2008). Attempts were made to identify trials from citation lists of reviews and studies retrieved, and drug companies were contacted for unpublished data.

SELECTION CRITERIA
Randomised comparisons of unopposed estrogen therapy, combined continuous estrogen-progestogen therapy, sequential estrogen-progestogen therapy with each other or placebo, administered over a minimum period of 12 months. Incidence of endometrial hyperplasia/carcinoma assessed by a biopsy at the end of treatment was a required outcome. Data on adherence to therapy, rates of additional interventions, and withdrawals owing to adverse events were also extracted.

DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS
In this update, 46 studies were included. Odds ratios (ORs) were calculated for dichotomous outcomes. The small numbers of studies in each comparison and the clinical heterogeneity precluded meta-analysis for many outcomes.

MAIN RESULTS
Unopposed estrogen is associated with increased risk of endometrial hyperplasia at all doses, and durations of therapy between one and three years. For women with a uterus the risk of endometrial hyperplasia with hormone therapy comprising low-dose estrogen continuously combined with a minimum of 1 mg norethisterone acetate (NETA) or 1.5 mg medroxyprogesterone acetate (MPA) is not significantly different from placebo at two years (1 mg NETA: OR 0.04; 95% confidence interval (CI) 0 to 2.8; 1.5 mg MPA: no hyperplasia events).

AUTHORS' CONCLUSIONS
Hormone therapy for postmenopausal women with an intact uterus should comprise both estrogen and progestogen to reduce the risk of endometrial hyperplasia.


The ethics of tax evasion has been discussed sporadically in the theological and philosophical literature for at least 500 years. Martin Crowe wrote a doctoral thesis that reviewed much of that literature in 1944. The debate revolved around about 15 issues. Over the centuries, three main views evolved on the topic. But the business ethics literature has paid scant attention to this issue, perhaps because of the belief that tax evasion is always unethical. This paper reports the results of an empirical study of opinion in Utah. A survey of accounting and business students was conducted to determine the extent of their agreement or disagreement with the 15 main issues that Crowe (1944) identified plus three more recent issues. The arguments that have been made over the centuries to justify tax evasion were ranked to determine which arguments are strongest and which are weakest. Accounting student scores were compared to other business student scores to determine whether the responses were significantly different.


This paper brings the aid effectiveness debate to the sub-national level. We hypothesize the non-robust results regarding the effects of aid on development in the previous literature to arise due to the effects of aid being insufficiently large to measurably affect aggregate outcomes. Using geo-coded data for World Bank aid to a maximum of 2,221 first-level administrative regions (ADM1) and 54,167 second-level administrative regions (ADM2) in 130 countries over the 2000-2011 period, we test whether aid affects development, measured as nighttime light growth. Our preferred identification strategy exploits variation arising from interacting a variable that indicates whether or not a country has passed the threshold for receiving IDA's concessional aid with a recipient region's probability to receive aid, in a sample of 478 ADM1 regions and almost 8,400 ADM2 regions from 21 countries. Controlling for the levels of the interacted variables, the interaction provides a powerful and excludable instrument. Overall, we find significant correlations between aid and growth in ADM2 regions, but no causal effects.


1) Introduction 1. 50 years of Animal Behaviour. 2) The history of behavioural research 2. A textbook history of animal behaviour. 3. Behavioural Ecology: natural history as science 4. The transformation of behaviour field studies. 5. Too much natural history, or too little? 6. A history of Animal Behaviour by a partial, ignorant and prejudiced ethologist. . 3) Proximate mechanisms 7. Genes and social behaviour. 8. Control of behavioural strategies for capricious environments. 9. Costing reproduction. 4) Development 10. The promise of behavioural biology. 11. Making a decision by integrating socially and individually acquired information. 12. Behavioural processes affecting development: Tinbergen's fourth question comes of age. 13. The case for developmental ecology. 5) Adaptation 14. Beyond extra-pair paternity: individual constraints, fitness components, and social mating systems 15. Interplay between theory and empiricism in sexual selection. 16. Indirect selection and individual selection in sociobiology: my personal views on theories of social behaviour. 17. Honesty and deception in animal signals. 18. Fifty years of bird song research: a case study in animal behaviour. 19. Avian navigation: from historical to modern concepts. 6) Animal Welfare 20. Behaviour and animal welfare.


The Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction was adopted to protect children from the wrongful removal from their home countries and to establish procedures to ensure their prompt return. (1) A parent bringing an action for the wrongful removal of their child must prove that they had custody rights and that the removal of the child was in breach of those custody rights under the law of the home country. (2) In Villegas Duran v. Arribada Beaumont, (3) the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit considered whether a father established that he had rights of custody under Chilean law which would give the court jurisdiction to order the return of the child. (4) The court concluded that the father did not establish by a preponderance of the evidence that he had rights of custody under Chilean law, and therefore, the court could not order the child to be returned. (5) Hugo Villegas Duran (father) and Johanna Arribada Beaumont (mother), both Chilean citizens, were involved romantically but never married. (6) Their daughter was born in 2001 in Chile and lived with both parents until they separated in 2004. (7) After separating, both parents remained in Chile where the child lived with the mother and the father had visitation rights. (8) A final determination of sole custody for the child had not been determined by the Chilean court. (9) In 2005, the mother wanted to travel to the United States with the child; however, under Chilean law she could not remove the child from Chile without the father's consent. (10) Therefore, the mother petitioned the Eighth Minors' Court of Santiago, which issued an order authorizing her to travel to the United States with the child for three months. (11) Upon the expiration of the travel period and in violation of the Chilean court order, the mother did not return to Chile with the child. (12) In July 2006, the father filed a petition for the Return of Child and an Order to Show Cause in the Southern District of New York. (13) At trial, in addition to pointing to Chilean Civil Code Section 229's specific delegation of rights and duties to the parent without "personal care" of the minor, the father entered into evidence an affidavit from Chile's Central Authority. (14) The District Court found that it lacked jurisdiction to order the return of the child because the father did not prove he had rights of custody under Chilean law. (15) The Court focused closely on Second Circuit precedent in affirming the District Court's ruling that violating a ne exeat right is insufficient to qualify as a violation of custodial rights. (16) The United States Circuit Courts are inconsistent in applying a definition of rights of custody under the Hague Convention, which creates a problem in the effectiveness and application of the treaty. (17) Instead, the Circuit Courts have utilized conflicting approaches in determining whether a parent has rights of custody or rights of access. (18) Furthermore, recent court rulings have run counter to the precedent stating that a foreign government's interpretation of its own law merits considerable deference. (19) As a result, there is a range of interpretations of what constitutes rights of custody and rights of access. (20) Recently, the Eleventh Circuit, as well as various state courts, held that a ne exeat right creates rights of custody under the Hague Convention. (21) This view affirms the majority of foreign courts view that a ne exeat right coupled with a right of access creates a right to custody. (22) Specifically, these courts emphasize that the drafters defined custody rights as open-ended, favoring a broader interpretation of ne exeat rights under the Hague Convention. (23) The Eleventh Circuit, as well as a majority of international courts, have interpreted rights of custody in a broad, flexible manner in an attempt to follow the Hague Convention's own goal of maintaining uniform international interpretations of its terms and provisions. …


If you're a developer working with XML, you know there's a lot to know about XML, and the XML space is evolving almost moment by moment. But you don't need to commit every XML syntax, API, or XSLT transformation to memory; you only need to know where to find it. And if it's a detail that has to do with XML or its companion standards, you'll find it--clear, concise, useful, and well-organized--in the updated third edition of XML in a Nutshell. With XML in a Nutshell beside your keyboard, you'll be able to: Quick-reference syntax rules and usage examples for the core XML technologies, including XML, DTDs, Xpath, XSLT, SAX, and DOMDevelop an understanding of well-formed XML, DTDs, namespaces, Unicode, and W3C XML SchemaGain a working knowledge of key technologies used for narrative XML documents such as web pages, books, and articles technologies like XSLT, Xpath, Xlink, Xpointer, CSS, and XSL-FOBuild data-intensive XML applicationsUnderstand the tools and APIs necessary to build data-intensive XML applications and process XML documents, including the event-based Simple API for XML (SAX2) and the tree-oriented Document Object Model (DOM) This powerful new edition is the comprehensive XML reference. Serious users of XML will find coverage on just about everything they need, from fundamental syntax rules, to details of DTD and XML Schema creation, to XSLT transformations, to APIs used for processing XML documents. XML in a Nutshell also covers XML 1.1, as well as updates to SAX2 and DOM Level 3 coverage. If you need explanation of how a technology works, or just need to quickly find the precise syntax for a particular piece, XML in a Nutshell puts the information at your fingertips. Simply put, XML in a Nutshell is the critical, must-have reference for any XML developer.


The graphics processing unit (GPU) has emerged as a computational accelerator that dramatically reduces the time to discovery in high-end computing (HEC). However, while today's state-of-the-art GPU can easily reduce the execution time of a parallel code by many orders of magnitude, it arguably comes at the expense of significant power and energy consumption. For example, the NVIDIA GTX 280 video card is rated at 236 watts, which is as much as the rest of a compute node, thus requiring a 500-W power supply. As a consequence, the GPU has been viewed as a "non-green" computing solution. This paper seeks to characterize, and perhaps debunk, the notion of a "power-hungry GPU" via an empirical study of the performance, power, and energy characteristics of GPUs for scientific computing. Specifically, we take an important biological code that runs in a traditional CPU environment and transform and map it to a hybrid CPU+GPU environment. The end result is that our hybrid CPU+GPU environment, hereafter referred to simply as GPU environment, delivers an energy-delay product that is multiple orders of magnitude better than a traditional CPU environment, whether unicore or multicore.


We report a measurement of the power spectrum of cosmic microwave background (CMB) lensing from two seasons of Atacama Cosmology Telescope polarimeter (ACTPol) CMB data. The CMB lensing power spectrum is extracted from both temperature and polarization data using quadratic estimators. We obtain results that are consistent with the expectation from the best-fit Planck ΛCDM model over a range of multipoles L=80–2100, with an amplitude of lensing Alens=1.06±0.15(stat)±0.06(sys) relative to Planck. Our measurement of the CMB lensing power spectrum gives σ8Ω
0.25
m=0.643±0.054; including baryon acoustic oscillation scale data, we constrain the amplitude of density fluctuations to be σ8=0.831±0.053. We also update constraints on the neutrino mass sum. We verify our lensing measurement with a number of null tests and systematic checks, finding no evidence of significant systematic errors. This measurement relies on a small fraction of the ACTPol data already taken; more precise lensing results can therefore be expected from the full ACTPol data set.


The ratio of the length of the second and fourth digits (2D:4D), a putative proxy of prenatal testosterone (PT), is correlated with measures of physical fitness. The relationship between the organizing effect of PT on physical fitness is likely to arise as a response to intrasexual male competition for females. Physical strength is also likely to be important in intrasexual conflict, but nothing is known concerning the relationship between 2D:4D and strength. The strength of an individual is strongly influenced by body size, and 2D:4D is strongly dependent on ethnicity. We present evidence that strength, as measured from hand‐grip strength, is related to 2D:4D in samples from two ethnic groups (52 Caucasian men from Germany, and 88 Oriental Mizos men from northeast India) which differed markedly in size. We found that 1) the German men were heavier and stronger, but had higher 2D:4D (lower PT) than the Mizos men; 2) a median split for grip strength into low (LGS) and high (HGS) groups showed that for right‐hand 2D:4D (but not left‐hand 2D:4D), the LGS men had higher 2D:4D than the HGS men; and 3) the relationships between right 2D:4D and grip strength were independent of ethnicity, age, height, and weight. Measures of grip strength correlate strongly with strength in other muscle groups, so we conclude that PT may have an early organizing effect on strength in men, and this is likely to be widespread in human groups. Am. J. Hum. Biol. 18:776–782, 2006. © 2006 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.


[1] Many estimates of nitrogen removal in streams and watersheds do not include or account for nitrate removal in deep sediments, particularly in gaining streams. We developed and tested a conceptual model for nitrate removal in deep sediments in a nitrogen-rich river network. The model predicts that oxic, nitrate-rich groundwater will become depleted in nitrate as groundwater upwelling through sediments encounters a zone that contains buried particulate organic carbon, which promotes redox conditions favorable for nitrate removal. We tested the model at eight sites in upwelling reaches of lotic ecosystems in the Waupaca River Watershed that varied by three orders of magnitude in groundwater nitrate concentration. We measured denitrification potential in sediment core sections to 30 cm and developed vertical nitrate profiles to a depth of about 1 m with peepers and piezometer nests. Denitrification potential was higher on average in shallower core sections. However, core sections deeper than 5 cm accounted for 70% on average of the depth-integrated denitrification potential. Denitrification potential increased linearly with groundwater nitrate concentration up to 2 mg NO3-N/L, but the relationship broke down at higher concentrations (>5 mg NO3-N/L), a pattern that suggests nitrate saturation. At most sites groundwater nitrate declined from high concentrations at depth to much lower concentrations prior to discharge into the surface water. The profiles suggested that nitrate removal occurred at sediment depths between 20 and 40 cm. Dissolved oxygen concentrations were much higher in deep sediments than in pore water at 5 cm sediment depth at most locations. The substantial denitrification potential in deep sediments coupled with the declines in nitrate and dissolved oxygen concentrations in upwelling groundwater suggest that our conceptual model for nitrate removal in deep sediments is applicable to this river network. Our results suggest that nitrate removal rates can be high in deep sediments of upwelling stream reaches, which may have implications for efforts to understand and quantify nitrogen transport and removal at larger scales.


Group B Streptococcus (GBS) is an important infectious organism in pregnant women and their neonates. Although excellent data are available from the developing world, little epidemiologic information is available from Latin America. To evaluate the prevalence of GBS colonization in a developing country, a prospective study was performed in Lima, Peru. We found a relatively low prevalence of GBS colonization of 6.0% in parturient women and 10.6% in nonpregnant women. No association of GBS colonization was made with previously identified risk factors such as age, parity, or birth control practices. We did find a positive association between GBS colonization and chlamydial carriage (P < 0.05). We also report an even distribution of GBS serotypes: Ia/c = 35%, IIc = 18%, III = 29%, and V = 18%. Our study provides evidence for a low prevalence of GBS maternal carriage in this urban Latin American population.


ABSTRACT Background: Extradural administration of local anaesthetics, opioids or a combination of both is now a well-established technique for managing postoperative pain following upper abdominal, pelvic and thoracic procedures or orthopaedic procedures on the lower extremities. There are two techniques of administration of drugs via epidural catheter—one is by continuous infusion and the other is by intermittent boluses. At present there is controversy in the literature regarding the analgesic effects of the techniques. Methods: This study was conducted in a prospective, randomised manner on 60 patients of either sex of ASA class I or II, scheduled to undergo elective renal surgery. The general anaesthetic technique was standardised. The patients were divided randomly into two groups of 30 each. The patients in group 1 received a continuous infusion of 0.166% bupivacaine, while the patients in group 2 received intermittent boluses through epidural catheter. The efficacy of postoperative analgesia was assessed using pulmonary function tests up to 12 hours. The generated data were analysed statistically. Results: There were no significant changes in pulse rate and arterial pressure at different time intervals from the preoperative values. Respiratory rates in both the groups were found to be significantly higher than the preoperative values in the two groups (p < 0.05). Forced vital capacity (FVC) and peak exploratory flow rate (PEFR) were significantly lower than the preoperative values at all points in time in both groups, but the drop was greater in group 2 and pain scores on movement were also found to be significantly higher than those in group 1 at the times when the effect of the bupivacaine bolus was wearing off (p < 0.05). Pain scores at rest were found to be comparable in both groups postoperatively. Conclusions: We conclude that continuous infusion of bupivacaine (8.3 mg/h) provides better analgesia at rest and on movement than intermittent boluses, and is not associated with fluctuations in the level of analgesia. Incidences of adverse effects are similar and not insignificant with both schedules.


In previous work we have used a two-dimensional finite element model to predict the strength of GFRP woven fabric double-lap joint bolted joints that fail in the net-tension mode. The failure criterion was based on a fracture mechanics approach, incorporated within a XFEM framework, developed and validated previously for open-hole failure. Results were compared with experimental data obtained from clamped joints. While agreement between model and experiment showed promise, there are features of the problem, in particular the effect of bolt clamp-up and the associated load transfer as a result of friction, which cannot necessarily be captured with the limits of a two-dimensional model. The present work has therefore developed a three-dimensional model and applied it to the same data set. The effect of clamp-up torque is incorporated by modelling the bolt and washers and introducing a bolt tension, which enables the influence on frictional load transfer and the in-plane stress distributions to be incorporated within the model. The predictions for joint strength were in good agreement with experimental data up to the values of w/d for which the failure mechanism was observed experimentally to change to the bearing failure mode. Copyright © (2012) Asian-Australasian Association for Composite Materials (AACM).


In this thesis I argue that there are qualities of literary writing which can illuminate human rights discourse and, specifically, its limit points. I focus on one such limit-point: the difficulty of fully possessing human rights. Rights are most likely to be securely guaranteed under the legal system of a nation-state. However, such rights – possessed on the basis of citizenship rather than through humanness – are not always considered human rights. The position of the nation-state, the possibility of legal enforcement and the category of the human are therefore ambiguities for the discourse. Literary texts from two countries which have been central to debates about human rights – Uganda and South Africa – will provide the focus for this study. Joseph Slaughter proposes that the plot of the Bildungsroman both resembles and promulgates the citizenship model of human rights-possession. However, in texts addressing the involvement of children in war in Uganda, I read experiments with the Bildungsroman form to indicate human rights discourse's preoccupation with merely human identity. Child soldier narratives appeal to a decontextualized, universal image of the child, while in the fiction of Goretti Kyomuhendo there is an excessive repetition of familial language and symbol which throws the traditional narrative arc of the Bildungsroman off course. Critics including Slaughter see literature as compensating for the ambivalence of human rights discourse about the possibility of its own enforcement through the law. Instead, I explore the ways in which certain texts, in the context of South Africa, enact their own irreducibility to legal categories. I make this argument through a discussion of the way the literature and the literary appear in the Report of South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission alongside readings of Antjie Krog's Begging to Be Black and Nadine Gordimer's Burger's Daughter and The House Gun.


Here, we explore the nature of small-scale jet-like structures and their possible relation to explosive events and other known transient features, like spicules and macrospicules, using high-resolution spectroscopy obtained with the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory/Solar Ultraviolet Measurements of Emitted Radiation instrument. We present a highly resolved spectroscopic analysis and line parameter study of time-series data for jets occurring on-disk and off-limb in both a northern and a southern coronal hole. The analysis reveals many small-scale transients which rapidly propagate between the mid-transition region (N iv 765 Å line formation: 140,000 K) and the lower corona (Ne viii 770 Å line formation: 630,000 K). In one example, a strong jet-like event is associated with a cool feature not present in the Ne viii 770 Å line radiance or Doppler velocity maps. Another similar event is observed, but with a hot component, which could be perceived as a blinker. Our data reveal fast, repetitive plasma outflows with blueshift velocities of ≈145 km s−1 in the lower solar atmosphere. The data suggest a strong role for smaller jets (spicules), as a precursor to macrospicule formation, which may have a common origin with explosive events.


This book is a comprehensive work of reference on minority shareholders' remedies in England and Australia. It deals with the history of each remedy and indicates future trends in the law. Unlike other texts in this field it contains information essential to practitioners advising on the formation of a company on how to prevent common problems arising by appropriate drafting of the corporate constitution and shareholders' agreements. It also analyses the development of the statutory remedy against oppressive or unfairly prejudicial conduct and its relationship with the rule in Foss v Harbottle and the winding-up remedy, within a practical structure which applies legal principles to specific shareholder complaints. Summaries and tables of contents at the beginning of each chapter provide the necessary overview and context for readers wishing to focus on specific areas. Also unique is the coverage of activism by institutional shareholders and the influence on corporate governance of the Cadbury and Bosch Committees. Much useful information on the activities of institutional shareholders was obtained during interviews and correspondence with the organizations involved. This book is intended for lawyers in private practice in company law; company lawyers students of company law; postgraduate and undergraduate students; institutional shareholders and individual shareholders; company secretaries and businesses.


The research in the topic of industrial districts has been focused on the identification of which industries are forming industrial districts and on the causes behind the development of the clusters. As well as there are historical and efficiency reasons that are behind the current configuration of the industrial districts, up to now it seemed not crucial to clarify how different public policies affect the structure and relationships between the enterprises that are included in the clusters. With the use of an agent-based model we can analyze and forecast how each enterprise will change in stochastic terms. Moreover, it make feasible to predict changes in the size and structure of clusters and possible spillovers. ABMs are based on the assumption in which the economy fluctuates according to the behaviour of agents, which react in a proactive way. This difference makes ABMs an accurate tool for forecasting during crisis taking into account both changes in expectations and in policy instruments. In conventional models interactions are indirect, but agent-based modeling (ABM) allow simulating a plenty of shifts in agents' behaviour through imitation or in their strategies according to the behaviour of the majority. These capabilities applied to firms permit to modify many not explicit assumptions incorporated into the majority of conventional models with the objective of predicting changes in the size and structure of industrial districts. Moreover, ABM allow making simulations changing parameters included in one or several public policies and obtaining the effects of these policies on clusters, accordingly to their own characteristics. The starting point is the building, trough statistical matching techniques making use of microdata sources, of a general database that replicates the attributes and location of all individuals and companies located in a specific spatial context. Then, behaviours are established for both companies and individuals who are interacting according to their preferences and endowments. In addition to these agents we include a raster of locations, built through downscaling techniques and display the current situation of different policies, in order to measure properly the changes introduced for making simulations. Finally, it would be possible to identify with high accuracy each cluster and its different characteristics. This permits to forecast and simulate the impact of changes in public policies on clusters structure and performance in stochastic terms thus enabling a better assessment of policy outcomes taking into account the robustness of the effect, related to the stochastic nature of the aggregated results. That is, ABM will allow us a better assessment of both policy outcomes and the certainty about the results. JEL: L52, R12, R58 Key words: Agent-based model, policy evaluation, industrial districts


This paper describes the development of a computer model to model performance of ultracapacitor arrays in hybrid electric vehicles. A Power-Based Model (PBM) was created and the results were compared with data from the University of Idaho's ultracapacitor hybrid Future Truck. The PBM accurately predicts vehicle fuel economy and allows quick simulation speed. This model includes a derived Internal Combustion (IC) engine fuel map with interpolation function and a random capacitance generator for balancing circuit implementation. Experimental data showed that the Future Truck averaged 15.9 mpg operating non-hybrid whereas the PBM predicted 16.8 mpg for a non-hybrid set-up over the same drive cycle, a 5% difference. PBM as shown can accurately predict the vehicle performance including the added benefits from implementing an ultracapacitor array and balancing circuits. Using PBM, it is seen that ultracapacitors are a viable energy storage solution for hybrid electric vehicles.


Wind power in Sweden is expanding in response to the government's decision that 49% of Sweden's power should originate from renewable energy sources by the year 2020. Problems with noise and sound emissions related to wind turbines are a constant argument against the wind power expansion and this paper means to examine if vertical axis wind turbines might be a viable alternative to the conventional horizontal design for noise sensitive areas. In order to determine factors like difference in frequency, noise propagation and noise emission level, measurements of both horizontal and vertical axis wind turbines have been completed and the data analyzed with MATLAB. It is shown that there is a difference in how the noise from the two types of turbines propagates due to avariation in the frequency spectra of the emitted sound. It is also shown that vertical axis wind turbines generate a lower sound emission with less intensity inthe lower frequencies.


The debate about whether to use psychopharmacology or psychotherapy has shifted from an "either / or" debate to a rational discussion of combination therapy or sequential therapy. This paper discusses the reasons for this academic shift. The implications of this scientific debate are the choice of modality in a particular clinical condition, augmentation effects, prevention of relapse and recurrence with continuation treatment, the sequential application of psychotherapy and pharmacotherapy, improvement of compliance. Major depression is used as an example of a disorder where the combination of psychotherapy and pharmacotherapy offer great advantages. The evidence for the efficacy of this combination reviewed and discussed. The studies looking at the neurobiological effects of psychotherapy is reviewed and discussed. The practical aspects of combination therapy are presented and problems inherent are indicated and the effectiveness presented. Finally the Canadian Psychiatric Association's comprehensive evidence based clinical guideline for the treatment of depressive disorders is discussed as it relates to combination treatment. The conclusion is that an expanding body of evidence in the use of psychotherapy and psychopharmacology in combination is guiding us. As further studies are done, clearer guidelines will emerge leading to improve evidence-based practice of these modalities.


The author proposes a class of exact tests of the null hypothesis of exchangeable forecast errors and, hence, of the hypothesis of no difference in the unconditional accuracy of two competing forecasts. The class includes analogues of the well-known Diebold and Mariano (1995) parametric and non-parametric test statistics. The forecast errors can be non-normal and contemporaneously correlated, and general forms of the loss function are admitted. The nonparametric distribution-free property of these new tests makes them robust to the presence of conditional heteroscedasticity, heavy tails, and outliers in the loss-differential series. These tests are used with a randomization or "Monte Carlo" resampling technique, which yields an exact and computationally inexpensive inference procedure. Simulations confirm the reliability of the new test procedure, and its power is found to be comparable with that of the size-corrected parametric Diebold-Mariano test. The test procedure is illustrated with an application to the term structure of interest rates. The application shows that exchangeable forecast errors can be found empirically even when comparing forecasts from estimated models.


Screening potential anticancer agents to find ones promising enough to make human clinical trials worthwhile has not been as straightforward as researchers would like. Not only have very few of the drugs that showed anticancer activity in animals carrying transplanted human tumors--known as xenografts--made it into the clinic, but a recent study conducted at the National Cancer Institute suggests that the tests are also missing drugs that do work in humans, possibly because animals and humans do not handle the drugs exactly the same way. And attempts to use human cells in culture don9t seem to be faring any better, partly because cell culture provides no information about whether a drug will make it to the tumor site. To create better models of cancer development in humans, investigators are now drawing on knowledge of human cancer-related gene mutations to genetically alter mice so that they carry the same kinds of changes that lead to cancer in humans. The hope is that the mice will develop tumors that behave the same way the human tumors do.


This article aims to explore the scope of a Situated and Embodied Social Psychology (ESP). At first sight, social cognition seems embodied cognition par excellence. Social cognition is first and foremost a supra-individual, interactive, and dynamic process (Semin & Smith, 2013). Radical approaches in Situated/Embodied Cognitive Science (Enactivism) claim that social cognition consists in an emergent pattern of interaction between a continuously coupled organism and the (social) environment; it rejects representationalist accounts of cognition (Hutto & Myin, 2013). However, mainstream ESP (Barsalou, 1999, 2008) still takes a rather representation-friendly approach that construes embodiment in terms of specific bodily formatted representations used (activated) in social cognition. We argue that mainstream ESP suffers from vestiges of theoretical solipsism, which may be resolved by going beyond internalistic spirit that haunts mainstream ESP today.


When making decisions, individuals must often compensate for cognitive limitations, particularly in the face of advanced age. Recent findings suggest that age-related variability in striatal activity may increase financial risk-taking mistakes in older adults. In two studies, we sought to further characterize neural contributions to optimal financial risk taking and to determine whether decision aids could improve financial risk taking. In Study 1, neuroimaging analyses revealed that individuals whose mesolimbic activation correlated with the expected value estimates of a rational actor made more optimal financial decisions. In Study 2, presentation of expected value information improved decision making in both younger and older adults, but the addition of a distracting secondary task had little impact on decision quality. Remarkably, provision of expected value information improved the performance of older adults to match that of younger adults at baseline. These findings are consistent with the notion that mesolimbic circuits play a critical role in optimal choice, and imply that providing simplified information about expected value may improve financial risk taking across the adult life span.


Modeling and simulation strategies for radar cross section (RCS) prediction are reviewed, and a novel FDTD-based virtual RCS prediction tool is introduced in this two-part paper. Part 1 is reserved for a tutorial review. Concepts and definitions related to RCS modeling are outlined. Analytical approaches, i.e., high-frequency asymptotics (HFA), as well as powerful time- and frequency-domain numerical methods, are given. Canonical examples using the finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) Method, the method of moments (MoM), and physical optics (PO) are presented.


The clinical and biochemical parameters of patients with oral galvanosiswere studied. A comprehensive examination of patients with galvanosis, which included an assessment of dental and somatic status, as well as a study of the content of lowand mediummolecular-weight substances (LMMWSs) in plasma, erythrocytes and mixed saliva was held.Patients with galvanosis who were also likely to have diseases of the digestive system, diseases of the circulatory system, diseases of the nervous system prevail among comorbidities. Consequently, the course of the underlying disease in the examined patients is complicated by concomitant somatic pathology due to the observed polymorbidity.The absolute values of the current value recorded in the oral cavity do not correlate with the subjective and objective manifestations ofgalvanosis. A positive average correlation was found between the severity of the development of galvanosis and the level of impedance in the oral cavity(r=0.573, p<0.001).The high level of LMMWSs in the blood (22.12±0.77c.u.) and mixed saliva (29.88±0.62c.u.) in patients with galvanosis indicates endogenous intoxication resulting from the impairment of many organs and systems, which is confirmed by the history and examination data. The placement of dental material into the oral cavity increases the degree of toxic load and has a negative impact on the surrounding tissues and the body as a whole.


Building software-defined network controllers is an exercise in software development and, as such, likely to introduce bugs. We present Cocoon, a framework for SDN development that facilitates both the design and verification of complex networks using stepwise refinement to move from a high-level specification to the final network implementation. A Cocoon user specifies intermediate design levels in a hierarchical design process that delineates the modularity in complicated network forwarding and makes verification extremely efficient. For example, an enterprise network, equipped with VLANs, ACLs, and Level 2 and Level 3 Routing, can be decomposed cleanly into abstractions for each mechanism, and the resulting stepwise verification is over 200x faster than verifying the final implementation. Cocoon further separates static network design from its dynamically changing configuration. The former is verified at design time, while the latter is checked at run time using statically defined invariants. We present six different SDN use cases including B4 and F10. Our performance evaluation demonstrates that Cocoon is not only faster than existing verification tools but can also find many bugs statically before the network design has been fully specified.


Individual user profiles and interaction histories play a significant role in providing customized experiences in real-world applications such as chatbots, social media, retail, and education. Adaptive user representation learning by utilizing user personalized information has be-come increasingly challenging due to ever-growing his-tory data. In this work, we propose an incremental user embedding modeling approach, in which embeddings of user's recent interaction histories are dynamically integrated into the accumulated history vectors via a trans-former encoder. This modeling paradigm allows us to create generalized user representations in a consecutive manner and also alleviate the challenges of data management. We demonstrate the effectiveness of this approach by applying it to a personalized multi-class classification task based on the Reddit dataset, and achieve 9% and 30% relative improvement on prediction accuracy over a baseline system for two experiment settings through appropriate comment history encoding and task modeling.


We introduce a new language for deploying analytic models into products, services and operational systems called the Portable Format for Analytics (PFA). PFA is an example of what is sometimes called a model interchange format, a language for describing analytic models that is independent of specific tools, applications or systems. Model interchange formats allow one application (the model producer) to export models and another application (the model consumer or scoring engine) to import models. The core idea behind PFA is to support the safe execution of statistical functions, mathematical functions, and machine learning algorithms and their compositions within a safe execution environment. With this approach, the common analytic models used in data science can be implemented, as well as the data transformations and data aggregations required for pre- and post-processing data. PFA compliant scoring engines can be extended by adding new user defined functions described in PFA. We describe the design of PFA. A Data Mining Group (DMG) Working Group is developing the PFA standard. The current version is 0.8.1 and contains many of the commonly used statistical and machine learning models, including regression, clustering, support vector machines, neural networks, etc. We also describe two implementations of Hadrian, one in Scala and one in Python. We discuss four case studies that use PFA and Hadrian to specify analytic models, including two that are deployed in operations at client sites.


With the recent advancement and phenomenal progress in the field of wireless communication technology, there is an ever increasing demand for high data rates and improved quality of service for the end users. In recent times various designs of super wideband antennas (SWB) fulfilling diverse objectives have been proposed for modern wireless networks. Design of compact and wideband antenna for high speed, high capacity, and secure wireless communications presents a challenging task for designers of fixed and mobile wireless communication systems. In this paper, a comprehensive review concerning antenna structures and the technologies adopted for design and analysis of SWB antennas for wireless application is reported. Comparative parameters in terms of electrical dimension, bandwidth, Fractional bandwidth (FB) and Bandwidth Dimension Ratio (BDR) are presented which introduces the researchers to the technical challenges in the design of a compact wideband antenna. This paper contributes to present existing novel approaches along with its adequacy in the design techniques. This review exercise will assist the researchers with valuable support for further research and to achieve better impedance matching, wide bandwidth, high gain and good efficiency along with well directive radiation characteristics.


Abstract English as a global contact language has been conceptualised as (1) geo-localised Englishes, (2) English similects, and (3) transcultural multi-lingua franca. Although taking a simplified and reified approach, the first framework of geo-localised Englishes has contributed to raising awareness of global diversity in English use and corresponding innovative classroom practices. Meanwhile, the second framework of English similects has taken a lingua franca approach between different first-language (L1) users, and provided insight into omnipresent multilingualism across interactants beyond particular speech communities. However, from a complexity theory perspective, geo-local communities and interactants' L1s are just among many complex social systems, and thus neither the first nor the second framework is capable of fully explaining what emerges from communication through the language in question. The third framework of transcultural multi-lingua franca seeks to comprehend the full range of multilingualism, or broadly conceptualised translanguaging with multiple 'languages', which emerges across individuals, time and space. It also takes notice of both the border-transgressing nature of culture and the possible transience of salient cultural categories in global communication. Furthermore, this last framework suggests that English language education in the 21st century take a multilingual, transcultural and post-normative turn.


CONTEXT
Nephrotic syndrome is one of the commonest renal problem encountered in children. It is difficult to predict at onset, the clinical course in terms of steroid responsiveness or resistance. Angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE) gene insertion/deletion (I/D) polymorphism has been studied as a predictor of clinical course in common multi-factorial diseases including focal segmental glomerulosclerosis. There is no study available from our country till date to find out any correlation of the steroid response in idiopathic nephrotic syndrome and ACE gene polymorphism.

AIM
To study distribution and correlation of ACE gene I/D polymorphism in idiopathic steroid sensitive nephrotic syndrome.

SETTINGS & DESIGN
Case-control retrospective study.

SUBJECTS & METHODS
We studied ACE gene polymorphism in 90 consecutive patients (82% males, 18% females) with steroid sensitive idiopathic nephrotic syndrome and 300 normal controls (NC).

STATISTICAL ANALYSIS
Chi-square test and Fisher's exact test (for cases with insufficient expected cell frequencies).

RESULTS
The mean age of onset was 5.3 +/- 4 years. Steroid sensitive (SS) patients showed II (SS-48%, NC-26%) genotype was more frequent than normal controls (p=0.002). There was no significant difference in genotype frequencies among steroid SS subgroups.

CONCLUSIONS
In our study II genotype was more frequent in steroid sensitive nephrotic syndrome children in comparison to normal controls. Further functional studies with large number of children are required to investigate the role of II genotype in steroid sensitive nephrotic syndrome. Comparison of the genotypic frequency with steroid resistant patients may provide information, which might be useful in clinical practice.


A number of recent global tomographic studies have modeled three dimensional variations in the parameters of radial anisotropy. As yet there is limited agreement among such studies, suggesting significant uncertainties in the models, which could lead to divergent geodynamical interpretations. In this study we assess the robustness of lateral variations in radial anisotropy globally in the upper mantle and in the transition zone to determine the extent to which anisotropic parameters are constrained by a data set of over 10,000,000 fundamental and higher mode surface wave dispersion measurements. We carry out inversions for isotropic and radially anisotropic shear wave velocity, systematically changing regularization and using three different crustal models to remove the effects of the crust on the data. Using crustal corrections from different crustal models has an impact on the data fit comparable or larger than that obtained by including lateral variations of radial anisotropy in the modeling. Moreover, the use of crustal corrections from different a priori crustal models may lead to different images of radial anisotropy suggesting divergent geodynamical interpretations. This work suggests that the three‐dimensional determination of global radial anisotropy in the Earth's mantle using surface wave dispersion data is still an ongoing experiment.


Biofertilizers may be a better eco-friendly option to maintain soil fertility. The study was conducted to investigate the effect of Azotobacter and Trichoderma on the vegetative growth of maize ( Zea mays L.) plants. The experiment was carried out in medium sized pots, at IAAS, Lamjung (Feb 2017 - May 2017) in completely randomized design (CRD), consisting eight treatments and three replications. Treatments were namely T1 (control), T2 ( Azotobacter ), T3 ( Trichoderma ), T4 ( Azotobacter + Trichoderma ), T5 (NPK), T6 ( Azotobacter + Trichoderma + FYM), T7 ( Azotobacter + Trichoderma + FYM + NPK), T8 (FYM). Azotobacter showed a positive increase in plant height, stem girth, dry shoot weight, root length and width, and root weight while Trichoderma displayed either negative or minimal impact. Effect of FYM was lower than Azotobacter but considerably higher than Trichoderma . Trichoderma seriously inhibited the expression of Azotobacter when used together. Trichoderma even suppressed the outcome (except shoot weight) of FYM when used together. Root length was the longest in Azotobacter inoculation. The highest number of leaves was in T7 followed by Azotobacter (T2) and NPK (T5). Unlike leaf width, Azotobacter showed a negligible increase in leaves length while Trichoderma wherever present showed the negative impact. Minimum chlorophyll content was found in Azotobacter or Trichoderma after 73 days. Azotobacter treatment showed early tasseling than Trichoderma . The association of Azotobacter and Trichoderma increased the biomass. Azotobacter has significant effects on growth parameters of maize and can supplement chemical fertilizer, while Trichoderma was found to inhibit most of the growth parameters.


Only a generation ago, UK investment markets were regulated by self-governing exchanges. Though independent exchanges still exist, investment markets have become regulated in ever more detailed ways by statutory bodies such as the Financial Services Authority. These bodies have no clear lines of accountability, nor do they have incentives to develop appropriate systems of regulation. This monograph shows that the arguments in favour of statutory regulation are unconvincing and have weakened as the potential for international competition between exchanges has developed. The history of sophisticated self-regulating investment markets is an astonishing success story. Experience shows that statutory regulation of investment markets is unnecessary and has the potential to abuse important principles of the 'rule of law'. Given this, statutory financial regulators should be abolished. Some of their functions could be given to other government bodies, but one of their most important functions - that of regulating investment markets - should be handled by private bodies.


Objectives: To describe the self-care abilities and associated factors in chronic heart failure (CHF) patients.
Methods: Participant characteristics, illness-related information, and self-care ability were investigated using self-report questionnaires and patient records for 91 CHF patients in Nantong University Affiliated Hospital, China.
Results: On average, patients had medium- to low-level self-care abilities. Comprehensive self-care ability was positively influenced by higher education level, employment status, and income level. Patients who received health education and had sound heart function had better self-care abilities. Regression analysis showed that the factors influencing self-care ability included average monthly income, education level, and heart function grading.
Conclusions: Self-care ability in CHF patients is, in general, in medium to low ranges, indicating that medical workers need to enhance self-care education for CHF patients to help them better understand their condition and help them gain the necessary skills for self-care. We conclude that, when conducting self-care education for patients, medical workers should tailor their approach based on the individual characteristics of the patient. Doing so would effectively promote patient knowledge, mobility, and treatment compliance.


Evolutionary ecologists have long debated the extent to which communities in similar environments but different geographic regions exhibit convergence. On the one hand, if species' adaptations and community structure are determined by environmental features, convergence would be expected. However, if historical contingencies have long-lasting effects convergence would be unlikely. Most studies to date have emphasized the differences between communities in similar environments and little quantitative evidence for convergence exists. The application of comparative phylogenetic methods to ecological studies provides an opportunity to further investigate hypotheses of convergence. We compared the evolutionary patterns of structural ecology and morphology of 42 species of iguanian lizards from deserts of Australia and North America. Using a comparative approach, we found that evolutionary convergence of ecology and morphology occurs both in overall, community-wide patterns and in terms of pairs of highly similar intercontinental pairs of species. This result indicates that in these desert lizards, deterministic adaptive evolution shapes community patterns and overrides the historical contingencies unique to particular lineages.


Archaeologically, marine sites can be just as significant as those on land. Until recently, however, they were not protected in the UK to the same degree, leading to degradation of sites; the difficulty of investigating such sites still makes it problematic and expensive to properly describe, schedule and monitor them. Use of conventional high-resolution survey tools in an archaeological context is changing the economic structure of such investigations however, and it is now possible to remotely but routinely monitor the state of submerged cultural artifacts. Use of such data to optimize expenditure of expensive and rare assets (e.g., divers and on-bottom dive time) is an added bonus. We present here the results of an investigation into methods for monitoring of marine heritage sites, using the remains of the Imperial German Navy (scuttled 1919) in Scapa Flow, Orkney as a case study. Using a baseline bathymetric survey in 2001 and a repeat bathymetric and volumetric survey in 2006, we illustrate the requirements for such surveys over and above normal hydrographic protocols and outline strategies for effective imaging of large wrecks. Suggested methods for manipulation of such data (including processing and visualization) are outlined, and we draw the distinction between products for scientific investigation and those for outreach and education, which have very different requirements. We then describe the use of backscatter and volumetric acoustic data in the investigation of wrecks, focusing on the extra information to be gained from them that is not evident in the traditional bathymetric DTM models or sounding point-cloud representations of data. Finally, we consider the utility of high-resolution survey as part of an integrated site management policy, with particular reference to the economics of marine heritage monitoring and preservation.


Abstract. We have performed incubation experiments in order to examine the behaviour of soil-derived branched glycerol dialkyl glycerol tetraether (brGDGT) membrane lipids upon entering an aquatic environment and to evaluate the processes that potentially take place during their fluvial transport from land to sea. We incubated a soil from the Rakaia River catchment on the South Island of New Zealand using Rakaia River water and ocean water collected near the river mouth as inocula for a period of up to 152 days. The concentrations, as well as the relative distribution of brGDGTs derived from intact polar ("living"; IPL) lipids and core ("fossil"; CL) lipids remained unaltered over the course of the experiment. Although the stability of the brGDGTs may be a consequence of the higher than natural soil : water ratio used in the laboratory experiment, the substantial increase (27–72%) in the total pool of isoprenoid GDGTs (isoGDGTs) in all incubation setups, including the control using distilled water, indicates that entering an aquatic environment does influence the behaviour of soil-derived GDGTs. However, the availability of water appears to be more important than its properties. As a consequence of increasing isoGDGT concentrations, a decrease in Branched and Isoprenoid Tetraether (BIT) index values – a proxy for the relative input of fluvially discharged soil material into a marine system – became evident after an incubation period of 30 days, with a maximum final decrease of 0.88 to 0.74 in the experiment with river water. The relative distribution within the isoGDGT pool shows changes with time, suggesting that isoGDGT producers may either have different rates of membrane adaptation or production/degradation, or that preferential release from the soil matrix or a shift in source organism(s) may take place. While the apparent stability of soil brGDGTs during this incubation experiment reinforces their potential as tracers for land–sea transport of soil organic carbon and their use in paleoclimate reconstructions, the distributional differences between GDGTs in river water and nearby soil, as well as in river and ocean water, indicate that further research is needed to pinpoint the sources of GDGTs that are ultimately discharged to the oceans and are subsequently archived in continental margin sediments.


Polar sciences are a modern branch of the natural
sciences involving large groups of researchers, and
sophisticated instrumentation contributing indispensable
data for a better understanding of the polar regions and
their impact on the global environment. The fact that a lot
of the necessary data can only be collected by dedicated
research vessels, from permanently manned stations, or
during expeditions involving many different disciplines
and substantial logistic efforts, has resulted in complex
and expensive interdisciplinary experiments. These can
only be effectively coordinated within the framework of
close international cooperation.
The ERICON Science Perspective addresses the
entire polar marine scientific community that requires a
research vessel for carrying out their field and sea work
throughout all seasons of the year. It also addresses the
community that needs a deep-sea drilling facility, which
would use the research platform, mainly during the summer
months, to study the structure and properties of the
oceanic crust and the history of the oceanic depositional
environments in polar regions. Deep-sea drilling has only
been done once in the ice-infested waters of the central
Arctic during the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program
(IODP) 302, aka, ACEX Coring Expedition. Around
Antarctica substantial progress has been achieved by
using the drilling platforms of the Deep-Sea Drilling
Project (DSDP), the Ocean Drilling Program (ODP), and
the IODP, during the ice-free seasons, and by using a
drill rig from the land fast sea ice very close to shore on
the Cape Roberts Project (CRP), and from the ice shelf
in the ANtarctic geological DRILLing project (ANDRILL).
However, in Antarctica, neither the CRP-tools nor the
conventional drilling vessels, which cannot enter iceinfested
waters, are able to cover all desirable drilling
locations. So far, mainly due to the lack of a suitable
ice-capable drilling platform, it has not been possible
to investigate many of these locations. These scientific
targets will now receive renewed attention in this report
(cf. Chapters 3 and 4).
The ERICON scientific program focuses on the
research disciplines and activities that require a platform
with the unique capability of year-round operations in
the central Arctic and Antarctic ice infested waters. This
document is organized in six chapters. Chapters 1 to 5
are dedicated to five major Scientific Core Topics, each
encompassing a number of high-priority key questions
embracing the most important scientific challenges that
should be targeted in the next fifteen years. Chapter 6
focuses on the technological requirements needed to
successfully answer these scientific questions.
The managerial, financial, and organizational structures
for building and managing the vessel, as well as
the technical designs of the research platform, are not
included in the present document, but they have been
elaborated on within the EU FP7 funded EUROPEAN
ICEBREAKER CONSORTIUM "AURORA BOREALIS"
(ERICON-AB) project, of which this Science Perspective
is a component.
The five research topics, around which this Science
Perspective is structured, provide an umbrella under
which technological and scientific research needs and
strategies can be identified. The key questions proposed
in each of the chapters have been intentionally
kept general and of a nature that will require a strong
effort to fulfil, while allowing shorter-term studies to be
undertaken on more specific issues. The research topics
targeted in this Science Perspective are:
• The Changing Polar Oceans, Ice and Atmosphere
• The Polar Marine Biosphere
• The Polar Ocean's Geological History
• Polar Paleoclimate and Marine Paleoenvironments
• Seafloor Processes and Natural Hazards
A dedicated platform for polar research with drilling
capacities will allow scientists of all polar disciplines to
address the five research topics by establishing interdisciplinary
campaigns with common goals.


Ejan Mackaay offers a comprehensive look at the essential points of economic reasoning, the Coase Theorem, and legal institutions such as intellectual property, extra-contractual civil liability and contracts. The book's structure mirrors the way law is taught in civil law countries, with structured presentations, references to civil code articles paired with non-technical explanations, and limited reliance on graphs. This English-language version builds on the success of the author's 2008 French-language textbook on law and economics from a civil law perspective.


TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION I. CURRENT LAW AND PROPOSED SOLUTIONS A. Supreme Court Student Speech Cases 1. Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District 2. Bethel School District No. 403 v. Fraser 3. Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier 4. Morse v. Frederick B. Academic Proposals 1. The On-/Off- Dichotomy a. Objective Intent of the Speaker b. Additional Intent-Based Approaches c. Scope of a Student 2. Regulatable vs. Protected Off-Campus Speech a. Speech that Interferes with the Rights of Others b. Speech that Impedes Learning 3. Highlighting the Need for Simplicity 4. Combining Key Elements II. LOWER COURT CASES AND PROPOSED FRAMEWORK A. Proposed Framework B. Threatening Speech 1. J.S. ex rel. H.S. v. Bethlehem Area School District 2. Wisniewski ex rel. Wisniewski v. Board of Education of the Weedsport Central School District 3. LaVine v. Blaine School District C. Student Speech About Other Students 1. Kowalski v. Berkeley County Schools 2. Emmett v. Kent School District No. 415 3. J.C. ex rel. R.C. v. Beverly Hills Unified School District D. Student Speech About Teachers 1. Evans v. Bayer and Fenton v. Stear E. Student Speech About Administrators 1. Voluntary Competition Exception 2. School Principals 3. Clarifying the On-/Off- Prong Through Speech About Administrators and School Infrastructure F. Summary of Proposed Framework III. CRITICISMS A. Too Restrictive of Student Speech B. Too Much Power to Administrators C. Threatening Speech and Fighting Words Are Not Necessarily "True Threats" D. Too Protective of Speech About Teachers and Administrators CONCLUSION INTRODUCTION "You are a bad person and everybody hates you. Have a shitty rest of your life. The world would be a better place without you." (1) Online messages like this one, which prompted Megan Meier to kill herself in 2006, (2) are shockingly common among adolescent and teen students. (3) Over half have been bullied online, more than one-third have been threatened online, and over fourteen percent have considered or attempted suicide as a result. (4) Off-campus student speech, especially that which occurs online, has become a sharpened tool for bullying, (5) can cause severe and substantial disruptions of the school environment, (6) and can even foreshadow fatal incidents both on and off campus. (7) Yet currently no uniform standard for regulating off-campus speech exists. (8) Off-campus student speech has been a contested topic since the Supreme Court held in Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District that on-campus student speech may be regulated if it might reasonably cause a substantial disruption of school activities. (9) Since then, lower courts have struggled to apply the Tinker standard to speech that occurs off campus and, since the advent of the Internet, online. (10) The resulting decisions have led to several variations on the Supreme Court's standards. (11) In determining whether the speech can be regulated, lower courts have considered factors such as foreseeability of a substantial school disruption, (12) foreseeability that the speech would reach campus, (13) the actual place of the speech's reception, (14) and the intent of the speaker. (15) Likewise, legal scholars and law students have suggested myriad tests for determining if off-campus student speech can be regulated. These tests include abandonment of the Tinker test in off-campus speech cases, (16) application of the Tinker test with additional restrictions, (17) various methods of determining the speaker's intended place of dissemination, (18) and frameworks for determining what types of off-campus speech may be regulated under restrictions for on-campus speech. …


ABSTRACT This paper introduces an experimental method for the evaluation of dynamic transfer matrices using only pressure transducers. The discharge fluctuations are evaluated from the fluctuation of the pressure difference at different streamwise locations. The transfer matrices of the resistance, the inertance and the compliance elements are determined by using simple flow configurations. This method is then validated by comparing the transfer matrix components to theoretical values. The results show that the direct measurement of the transfer matrices produces good results below the first structural eigenfrequency of the system. Furthermore, a deviation from the mass continuity in the amplitude ratio of the fluctuating upstream and downstream discharges is investigated. This behaviour can be explained with a simple model taking into account the compliance in the system.


This is a review essay of Professor Lawrence Professor Cunningham's book Contracts in the Real World: Stories of Popular Contracts and Why They Matter (Cambridge 2012). As implied by the title, the book discusses contract law through the lens of well-known cases and celebrities. Along the way, readers will meet intellectuals such as poet Maya Angelou and the late Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., as well as celebrities known for controversy, like Paris Hilton, Donald Trump, and Charlie Sheen. Professor Cunningham also deftly analyzes some of the notable contract law issues arising from the global financial crisis and the Bernie Madoff scandal.Overall, my review concludes that Contracts in the Real World is worthwhile reading for anyone interested in gaining a more complete understanding of contract law doctrine. First year law students will find insights in the book's inspired treatment of classic cases, and they will also learn how those classic cases can be applied to modern disputes. The book manages to be entertaining without simplifying the issues being discussed. The only aspect of debate is whether the book's positive treatment of the state of current contract doctrine is warranted in light of recent developments in online contracting. I explore some of my thoughts on this topic within the review.


Abstract. Historic districts are a special type of cultural heritage, as living cultural heritage, the utilization and development of historical districts is an inevitable issue. How to accurately position the protection and utilization of districts and achieve its healthy and sustainable development is the key work in the protection of districts. In this paper, the Internet data including Tencent's location big data are employed to study some Chinese historic and cultural streets, establish protection and development index system for historic and cultural streets, carry out in-depth study of ten core indicators, and sum up the positioning and development direction for the protection and use of districts. Historic district, as a special type of cultural heritage, is the birthplace and supporting zone of urban context, and also the place for the daily life of the general public. It boasts profound historic and humanistic background and the characteristics of a living form. As the living cultural heritage, its use and development are necessary, and attention shall also be paid to static protection and dynamic comprehensive management. But judging from the current practice, protection and use of historic districts face a host of challenges. Some districts are devoid of popularity and vitality and become cold galleries. Some districts suffer excessive development for tourism and commercialism, and lose its "original" cultural characteristics. In addition, throngs of tourists exert a negative impact on the life of the local people and the protection of immovable cultural relics. Disorderly business format and increasingly similar landscape go against the presentation of local characteristics. We should regard historic district as a dynamic urban heritage, and achieve dynamic development and protection in accordance with its inherent development laws and the principle of "step by step" through the "organic update" mode, with emphasis on the continuous comprehensive management of material space environment and cultural society. Therefore, how to make accurate positioning of the protection and utilization of districts and achieve its healthy and sustainable development is the key work in the protection of districts.


Emerging markets for small-diameter roundwood along with a renewed interest in forest biomass for energy have created a need for estimates of merchantable biomass above the minimum sawlog top diameter for timber species in the national forest inventory of the United States. The Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) program of the USDA Forest Service recently adopted the component ratio method for estimation of aboveground live tree component biomass, which incorporates regionally specific volume models by species and species group. The merchantable bole component is the biomass of sound wood from a 1.0-ft stump height to a minimum 4.0-in. top diameter. Minimum sawlog top diameters for softwoods and hardwoods in the FIA program are substantially larger than the merchantable bole top diameter, leaving additional bole biomass potentially available for utilization. This article describes a method for estimating merchantable bole biomass for the sawlog component and the component above the minimum sawlog top diameter for timber species in the FIA program.


The form of commemoration offered by Remembrance Day ceremonies works to produce a sense of nationalist patriotism. The 'public history' of the nation, as a mode of self-representation, presents a particular narrative of limited scope, occluding all elements that do not fit its ideological framework. Remembrance Day simultaneously invokes and educates Canadian collective memory and public history, mediated through the contemporary power/knowledge discourse on war. The values, structure, and 'tendencies of a society' become evident in collective memory and this cultural heritage of society becomes a site at which it is 'visible to itself'.