Sixteenth-century biblical translation was a site of extensive and closely reasoned argument about vernacular language and literature. These arguments emerged out of Reformation debates about biblical authority and the canon. Roman Catholics tended to interpret the Bible within a broader canon of received doctrine, while Reformers described scriptural language as intrinsically meaningful. More and Tyndale translate these opposite notions of biblical authority into a debate about English semantics: More argues that biblical English derives meaning from the usage current in the English church; Tyndale counters that biblical English should be dissociated from customary usage and assigned new meanings derived from etymology. These polemics offer a new context in which to consider the convergence of Refomation theology and linguistic and literary theory in sixteenth-century England.


We study the revenue maximization problem of a seller with n heterogeneous items for sale to a single buyer whose valuation function for sets of items is unknown and drawn from some distribution D. We show that if D is a distribution over subadditive valuations with independent items, then the better of pricing each item separately or pricing only the grand bundle achieves a constant-factor approximation to the revenue of the optimal mechanism. This includes buyers who are k-demand, additive up to a matroid constraint, or additive up to constraints of any downwards-closed set system (and whose values for the individual items are sampled independently), as well as buyers who are fractionally subadditive with item multipliers drawn independently. Our proof makes use of the core-tail decomposition framework developed in prior work showing similar results for the significantly simpler class of additive buyers [Li and Yao 2013; Babaioff et al.2014]. In the second part of the paper, we develop a connection between approximately optimal simple mechanisms and approximate revenue monotonicity with respect to buyers' valuations. Revenue non-monotonicity is the phenomenon that sometimes strictly increasing buyers' values for every set can strictly decrease the revenue of the optimal mechanism [Hart and Reny 2012]. Using our main result, we derive a bound on how bad this degradation can be (and dub such a bound a proof of approximate revenue monotonicity); we further show that better bounds on approximate monotonicity imply a better analysis of our simple mechanisms.


Adoption of Advanced Management Accounting Practices in Gulf Cooperation Council countries: Insights from institutional theory analysis

This study investigates the adoption of advanced Management Accounting Practices (MAPs) in GCC countries and helps fill the gap in understanding of developments in management accounting in that region. Drawing on (NIS), the study considers the impact of various factors on the decision to adopt advanced MAPs, the relationship between organizational characteristics and that decision, and the factors facilitating adoption. It used a questionnaire survey to collect data from 153 GCC listed companies. The data was analysed through the descriptive and explanatory methods of statistical analysis.
The findings indicate that the adoption level of advanced MAPs in GCC countries is relatively low, with almost 38% of the organizations surveyed implementing or trailing these practices. Of all the factors considered, the consultancy industry was found to have the most and a high level of influence on adoption decisions whilst other factors were moderately influential. Top management support was the highest facilitating role in advanced MAPs adoption, followed by the levels of employment of management consultants to facilitate implementation. Several organizational characteristics were found to have a significant relationship with advanced MAPs adoption, including being private sector and manufacturing companies, of large size, operating in international markets, facing high levels of marketing competition and having a strategic focus on innovation and production diversity.
This study provides further empirical evidence of the robustness and generalisability of NIS in explaining the reasons behind the adoption of change in MAPs. Specifically, it complements recent arguments for the primacy of the mimetic consultancy factor amongst all the institutional factors influencing advanced MAPs adoption. It contributes to the literature by studying the adoption of advanced MAPs in a GCC countries context and by comprehensively examining the factors influencing decisions and those facilitating adoption and implementation.


Chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection causes inflammation of the liver, which
can lead to fibrosis and cirrhosis over time. Whether liver damage is a
consequence of viral infection or is due to an immune mediated response is not
clear. Steatosis is a histopathological feature often found in HCV infected
patients. Steatosis is the accumulation of intracytoplasmic lipid droplets within
hepatocytes. It has been linked to the progression of fibrosis (Adinolfi et al.,
2001). Steatosis was found significantly more frequently in patients infected
with HCV genotype 3 than those infected with genotype 1 (Mihm et al., 1997).
Currently there is no cell-based method of investigating the life cycle of HCV
genotype 3 and transgenic mice studies have been restricted to genotype 1
proteins.
Three chimpanzees experimentally infected with HCV showed differential
regulation of genes encoding enzymes concerned with lipid metabolism.
Treatment of HCV genotype 1b replicon containing cells with cerulenin, which
inhibits fatty acid synthase, reduced replication of HCV RNA in a dose dependent
manner (Su et al., 2002).
Polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) have recently been shown to inhibit
replication of a genotype 1b sub-genomic replicon. PUFAs are essential and are
known to down regulate lipogenic gene expression. However, the inhibitory
effect of PUFAs on HCV RNA levels was thought to be independent of their
inhibitory effect on fatty acid biosynthesis (Kapadia et al., 2005).
To assess the effects of cerulenin and fatty acids on HCV genome replication we
measured replication by northern blot analysis of total HCV RNA and using a
replicon expressing luciferase. HCV protein production was measured by
western blot using an antibody to the NS5A protein. To examine the effect on
long chain fatty acid synthesis, we measured incorporation of 14C acetate into
total cellular lipids. Toxicity was assayed using mitochondrial enzyme activity
assays.
Treating genotype 1b replicon cells with 30 μM cerulenin led to inhibition of
fatty acid biosynthesis and a corresponding inhibition of HCV RNA replication.
However, at this level of cerulenin, only 60 % of cells were viable. Inhibition of
fatty acid biosynthesis was not observed at the lower non-toxic concentrations
of 10 μM and 3 μM, although HCV replication was inhibited. These experiments
were repeated using more frequent media changes and different suppliers of
cerulenin. However, similar results were obtained. When a genotype 2a
replicon expressing cell line (JFH1) was treated with cerulenin it was possible to
inhibit both HCV RNA levels and fatty acid biosynthesis in a dose dependant
manner. Furthermore cerulenin treatment of an alternative genotype 1b
expressing cell line led to an inhibition of fatty acid synthesis in a dose
dependent manner.
We have studied the effects of the PUFAs, docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) and
eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) on JFH1 replicon (genotype 2) replication using both
constitutive and transiently expressing systems. For a control, we used oleic
acid, a monounsaturated fatty acid. DHA and EPA administered from 3 to 100
μM concentration showed a dose responsive reduction in replication. Fatty acid
biosynthesis was also inhibited; however at the higher concentrations there were
reductions in cell viability. Oleic acid did not effectively inhibit JFH1 replication
even though, at higher concentrations, there was a small reduction in 14C
acetate incorporation. Initial immunofluorescence data indicated that NS5A foci
were not disrupted by treatment of cells with PUFAs and fluorescence recovery
after photobleaching data indicated that PUFAs did not increase ER membrane
fluidity.
A genotype 3 genome was amplified and sequenced using reverse-transcription
polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) from the serum of an HCV genotype 3ainfected
patient. A majority sequence was assembled and amplification
products were ligated into vectors, which were sequenced and mutated back to
the majority sequence. The genotype 3 genome was modified by the exclusion
of the structural genes and non-structural (NS) protein 2. A bicistronic replicon
was created in which the HCV internal ribosome entry site (IRES) controlled
expression of the selectable marker neomycin phosphotransferase and the
encephalomyocarditis virus IRES controlled expression of the NS proteins. RNA
replicons were transcribed and electroporated into HuH-7 cell lines. A
transiently expressing replicon was made by replacing the neomycin gene with a
firefly luciferase gene. Cells expressing neither the constitutively nor the
transiently genotype 3 replicon sustained viral replication.
In conclusion cerulenin inhibited HCV replication at levels, which did not inhibit
fatty acid biosynthesis and were not toxic. There was toxicity at cerulenin
concentrations, which inhibited fatty acid biosynthesis. Cerulenin inhibited
replication but by a mechanism other than inhibition of fatty acid biosynthesis.
Cells with different passage histories were shown to behave differently to each
other in their response to drugs.
The PUFAs, DHA and EPA exert an inhibitory effect on HCV replicon replication
and fatty acid biosynthesis at non-toxic levels. Oleic acid did not inhibit HCV
replication at equivalent concentrations. The mechanism behind PUFA inhibition
of HCV RNA levels is still unknown.
An attempt to create genotype 3 constitutively and transiently expressing
replicon HuH-7 cell lines failed.


This paper focuses on cross-laminated timber (CLT) and how it is affected by the dynamic properties of moisture during installation in the cold climate of Estonia. The moisture safety principles are designed using a case study of comparable activities with 4D principles and on-site water content monitoring. On-site water content monitoring was done on the CLT elements that were installed and a parallel polygon specimen. Polygon testing was arranged with reduced size CLT elements subject to different conditions, with some exposed to the climate, some protected from precipitation, and some covered with film.
The moisture content (MC) of the uncovered horizontal CLT element that was exposed to the climate reached over 25% after higher precipitation and the MC after prolonged direct exposure can reach up to 40% in a week, giving a clear signal of high risk areas for moisture safety. Installing a partly weather protected CLT element without a preliminary roof is a high-risk arrangement, but is essentially possible in a cold climate. Moisture safety pre-planning and a lean strategy must be applied with timber construction.


Many U.S. corporations have frozen defined benefit (DB) pension plans, replacing new DB promises with contributions to defined contribution (DC) plans. We estimate expected DB accruals from the age-service and salary distributions of a large sample of U.S. corporate pension plans with more than 1,000 employees. Comparing the counterfactual DB accruals to the actual increase in 401(k) and other DC contributions for firms that freeze, we find only partial compensation to employees for the lost DB accruals. Net of the increase in total DC contributions, firms save 2.7-3.6% of payroll per year, and over a 10-year horizon they save 3.1% of total firm assets. Workers would have to value the structure, choice, flexibility, or portability of DC plans by at least this much more to experience welfare gains from freezes. The forgone accruals and net cost effects are initially largest for older employees but over time become largest for middle-aged employees who plan to stay with the firms until retirement. Furthermore, the probability that a firm freezes a pension plan is positively related to the value of new accruals as a share of firm assets. While there are differences in the age-service distributions of firms that freeze versus those that do not, we find that the differential accrual effect is largely driven by differences in benefit factors and the relative importance of labor in the freeze firm's production function. The results overall support the hypothesis that pension freezes affect overall compensation and therefore that they change compensation costs relative to a worker's marginal product.


Parsley has been claimed in folk medicine to possess laxative properties attributed to the presence therein of some volatile oils that are more concentrated in seeds than in stems or leaves. The advocated physiological effect of parsley, does not have, however, any proven scientific background and relies mainly on simple observations and empirical information. This work aims at providing the scientific evidence that would confirm or reject the claimed laxative role of parsley, and at determining its mechanism of action if present. A perfusion technique was used to measure the net fluid absorption from the rat colon. The addition of an aqueous extract of parsley seeds to the perfusion buffer, and the omission of sodium, both reduced significantly net water absorption from the colon, as compared to the control. Parsley, added to a sodium-free buffer did not lead to any further significant change in water absorption as compared to parsley alone inferring that with parsley sodium absorption was already inhibited. Since K+ and Cl- secretion depends on the activity of the NaKCl2 transporter, the latter was inhibited with furosemide which increased significantly net water absorption. When parsley and furosemide were added together, net water absorption was significantly higher than with parsley alone and significantly lower than with furosemide alone. In addition, parsley extract was shown to inhibit the in vitro activity of the Na+-K+ATPase in a colon homogenate and the activity of a partially purified dog kidney ATPase. The results suggest that parsley acts by, inhibiting sodium and consequently water absorption through an inhibition of the Na+-K+ pump, and by stimulating the NaKCl, transporter and increasing electrolyte and water secretion.


The wider adoption of a post-modern understanding of truth and knowledge, an acceptance of the prevalence of Orientalism inherent in much Western research, and the diminished significance of the `local' within the rhetoric of globalization have all combined to constrain comparative and transnational research under the weight of theoretical and methodological concerns. Transnational and Comparative Research in Sport addresses these difficulties in the context of sport studies, with the aim of developing typology which can be adopted to help re-establish meaningful transnational and comparative research. The book covers theoretical and substantive contexts and introduces a four-fold typology of approaches to comparative research, each supported by case studies and full discussion. .


The ability to detect failures and to analyze their causes is one of the preconditions of truly autonomous mobile robots. Especially online failure detection is a complex task, since the effects of failures are typically difficult to model and often resemble the noisy system behavior in a fault-free operational mode. The extremely low a priori likelihood of failures poses additional challenges for detection algorithms. In this paper, we present an approach that applies Gaussian process classification and regression techniques for learning highly effective proposal distributions of a particle filter that is applied to track the state of the system. As a result, the efficiency and robustness of the state estimation process is substantially improved. In practical experiments carried out with a real robot we demonstrate that our system is capable of detecting collisions with unseen obstacles while at the same time estimating the changing point of contact with the obstacle.


Focal segmental glomerulosclerosis (FSGS) is a well-defined pattern of glomerular injury identifiable on renal biopsy using light microscopy. FSGS is not a single entity and much information is needed to make a proper evaluation in each subject with the condition to identify the cause, prognosticate, and inform treatment choices. Categories of information required include: clinical presentation, responsiveness to steroids, pathological subtype, genetic background, and evidence for other adaptive, viral, and toxic causes. Primary FSGS describes a cohort of conditions identified by exclusion of known contributory causes, but does not represent a single entity. Clinical manifestations and outcomes of FSGS vary widely; they include asymptomatic proteinuria, cases of spontaneous remission, steroid-sensitive nephrotic syndrome, and nephrotic syndrome resistant to immune modulating therapy progressing to end-stage renal disease with recurrence after transplantation. Although immune modulating therapy (based notably on corticosteroids and calcineurin inhibitors) are widely used in primary FSGS, robust evidence of their efficacy remains scant.


This paper focuses on one of the most controversial areas of advertising, namely advertising to children. Two important issues underline the analysis we propose: on the one hand, the fact that children represent a category of consumers extremely vulnerable to advertising messages; on the other hand, children are a preferred target of advertising and marketing strategies, because they are a category of consumers with growing financial power. Our approach seeks to address from an ethical perspective the practice of advertising to children, emphasizing the necessity both of a balanced relationship between the regulation and the self-regulation of specific activities and of the development of media education and skills. At the same time, the analysis highlights the idea that in order to better approach the practice of advertising to children, we must take into account the specific conditions of postmodern society, where the impact of advertising is increasingly complex and where the advertising communication model has penetrated important social spheres.


Motivation Clustering analysis is essential for understanding complex biological data. In widely used methods such as hierarchical clustering (HC) and consensus clustering (CC), expression profiles of all genes are often used to assess similarity between samples for clustering. These methods output sample clusters, but are not able to provide information about which gene sets (functions) contribute most to the clustering. So interpretability of their results is limited. We hypothesized that integrating prior knowledge of annotated biological processes would not only achieve satisfying clustering performance but also, more importantly, enable potential biological interpretation of clusters. Results Here we report ClusterMine, a novel approach that identifies clusters by assessing functional similarity between samples through integrating known annotated gene sets, e.g., in Gene Ontology. In addition to outputting cluster membership of each sample as conventional approaches do, it outputs gene sets that are most likely to contribute to the clustering, a feature facilitating biological interpretation. Using three cancer datasets, two single cell RNA-sequencing based cell differentiation datasets, one cell cycle dataset and two datasets of cells of different tissue origins, we found that ClusterMine achieved similar or better clustering performance and that top-scored gene sets prioritized by ClusterMine are biologically relevant. Implementation and availability ClusterMine is implemented as an R package and is freely available at: www.genemine.org/clustermine.php Contact firstname.lastname@example.com Supplementary Information Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.


While the Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) standard is commonly being used for energy-efficient mid-range data transmission and localization where distances of several meters are to be covered, its signal characteristics also reveals stable and deterministic behavior in the ultra-short range with significant higher signal strengths compared to distant placements, which potentially qualifies BLE as a substitute technology for Near Field Communication (NFC) for the purpose of identifying objects at very short distances. This paper investigates the signal strength behavior of BLE at a few centimeters distance between transmitter and receiver, points out strengths and weaknesses in terms of antenna alignments, shielding issues and interfering signals and presents potential application areas for ultra-short range object identification with a transmission technology that is not designed for that purpose.


Abstract. The growing field of ocean acidification research is concerned with the investigation of organism responses to increasing pCO2 values. One important approach in this context is culture work using seawater with adjusted CO2 levels. As aqueous pCO2 is difficult to measure directly in small-scale experiments, it is generally calculated from two other measured parameters of the carbonate system (often AT, CT or pH). Unfortunately, the overall uncertainties of measured and subsequently calculated values are often unknown. Especially under high pCO2, this can become a severe problem with respect to the interpretation of physiological and ecological data. In the few datasets from ocean acidification research where all three of these parameters were measured, pCO2 values calculated from AT and CT are typically about 30% lower (i.e. ~300 μatm at a target pCO2 of 1000 μatm) than those calculated from AT and pH or CT and pH. This study presents and discusses these discrepancies as well as likely consequences for the ocean acidification community. Until this problem is solved, one has to consider that calculated parameters of the carbonate system (e.g. pCO2, calcite saturation state) may not be comparable between studies, and that this may have important implications for the interpretation of CO2 perturbation experiments.


The Northern Territory (NT) in Australia has been perceived by many as a frontier for future agricultural development that could serve as a future food bowl for Australia. However, such development is likely to require the conversion of large areas of relatively intact savanna forests, woodlands and grasslands into other land uses, resulting in the release of large amounts of greenhouse gases. With the evolution of international carbon markets, new livelihood opportunities are arising from the management of carbon in landscapes, to enhance sequestration as a means of combating climate change. In order for land owners and governments to realise these opportunities, it is necessary to gain a better understanding of the potential carbon stocks that can occur across different ecosystems throughout the NT. This article assesses the utility of the National Carbon Accounting Toolbox (NCAT) for estimating and mapping carbon stocks in the NT. The NCAT modelling estimates that the NT environments hold approximately 21.5billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalents. The estimates of carbon vary from 5 to 235tonnes of carbon per ha, decreasing from the north, where the highest estimates are for north-east Arnhem Land and the Tiwi Islands, to the arid lands of the south. They are thought to be the lowest in the Spinifex grasslands east of Alice Springs and west of Tennant Creek. Estimates of potential emissions from clearing and burning of native vegetation range from 27 to 439tonnes of carbon dioxide per ha, depending on the initial vegetation type. The NCAT estimates are already being used for land-clearing assessments in the NT and demonstrate that Indigenous lands hold high levels of carbon. The performance of NCAT will depend strongly on the quality of the data on which predictions are based and the robustness of model parameterisation. We suggest that further work on soils, fire, grasslands, wetlands and woody debris is needed to improve the validity of the NCAT estimates for carbon in north Australian environments.


Cytotoxic T Lymphocyte Antigen-4 (CTLA-4) is a key inhibitory regulator of T-cell function. Its expression is predominantly intracellular however, many theories surrounding it's inhibitory action do not account for its endocytic behaviour. Recent reports have suggested a process of trans-endocytosis through which CTLA-4 internalises the ligand (CD80/CD86) from antigen presenting cells and prevents ligand binding to its stimulatory homologue CD28. The endocytic pathway of CTLA-4 is currently ill-defined and has a central role in this novel theory. Previous evidence suggests CTLA-4 is internalised via clathrin-dependent endocytosis (CDE). However observations in a transfected CHO cell model have suggested internalisation independent of this pathway. In this study CTLA-4 showed the same endocytic recycling behaviour when transfected into a HeLa cell line. Immunostaining showed a strong degree of co-localisation between internalising CTLA-4 and the transferrin receptor (which is classically associated with CDE). Co-localisation with Adaptor-Protein 1 suggested exocytosis from the trans-Golgi network to the plasma membrane was also clathrindependent, however, no association was observed with clathrin directly. Little CTLA-4 colocalisation to a lysosomal marker suggests that only a small proportion of the cytosolic receptor is targeted for degradation. CDE was inhibited by transfection of shRNA for Adaptor Protein 2 (AP-2). In CTLA-4 + CHO cells knock down of AP-2 resulted in decreased intracellular CTLA-4 but this was not statistically significant. This data supports but does not confirm that CTLA-4 can internalise independent of CDE.


Under collective agreements, employees have the psychological benefit of feeling 'safety in numbers' by knowing that they are getting no less or no more than their co-workers. With the advent of the WorkChoices legislation, employers are now free to directly approach employees to negotiate individualised conditions and entitlements and formulate an Australian workplace agreement (AWA). This industrial freedom gives rise to the need for employees to engage in a negotiation process beyond what most have previously experienced. This paper examines the difficulties of negotiation from the employee perspective using theories of formal and personal power, as well as emotional dissonance associated with challenging the employer during negotiations. It also identifies the types of resources employees draw upon during their negotiations. An auto-ethnographic methodology is used in this paper. Auto-ethnographies sit within an interpretative research philosophy and involve the researcher in evaluating their own experience to develop a further understanding of a research problem. Whilst it is an atypical methodology, one of the values of such a method is that it documents tactic knowledge and corporate memory, which otherwise tends to be lost as people move from job to job (Hannabus 2000). In this paper, the author, who has a human resource practitioner background, gives an account of her experience in negotiating the terms of her employment for a lecturing position at an Australian university. This experience saw her negotiating from the employee's perspective instead of the usual management position that had formed part of her previous HR positions. It provides the reader with a personal account of the challenges and emotional unrest involved in contract negotiations with her employer when the terms of the contract were disputed. This paper highlights that if an industrial relations savvy employee experienced difficulty in negotiating an employment contract, we can anticipate that people without the benefit of such knowledge may well be stressed by their AWA negotiations.


In recent years, the application of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) databases has enabled architects/engineers to quantify the environmental impact of building materials for whole building analysis and comparative analyses of design alternatives. The application of building information modeling (BIM) has facilitated this process by providing designers and engineers with the detailed bill of materials required for LCA. However three limitations exist: First, LCA assessments have been limited to the design phase of a project delivery or post completion phase. Consequently, it does not help incentivize the choice of suppliers and delivery strategies that minimize the cradle-to-site impacts. Second, majority LCA tools ignore the impact of construction means and methods during the construction phase. Third, there is a lack of metrics and visualization tools that assess environmental impacts of decisions made during preconstruction and construction phase. As a result, little incentive exists for suppliers to provide embodied carbon footprint rates, and similarly, for contractors to balance project costs, schedule objectives with the corresponding environmental impact. To address these challenges, we propose and develop a new framework that applies BIM for reliable, effective benchmarking, monitoring, and visualization of embodied carbon footprint of construction projects. It comprises of a benchmarking module, and a monitoring and visualization module. In the experiments, this framework is implemented on concrete placement activities during the construction of the Center for the Arts facility at Virginia Tech. The developed framework can revolutionize construction by a) a rapid assessment and visualization of the deviations between expected and released carbon footprint, b) incentivizing contractors to request that manufacturers and suppliers gauge and share their carbon footprints as a part of contractor submittal process and c) incentivizing those construction firms that can complete their project with an overall carbon footprint rate lower than what is budgeted during the pre-construction or compared to the values from the design phase, while documenting and using the performance results as a benchmark for future similar projects.


Small round holes, Oichnus Bromley, are a locally common feature of crinoid pluricolumnals in the Mississippian of the British Isles. Numerous examples have been found from mudrocks in the Brigantian (Mississippian) Blackhall Limestone, Lower Limestone Formation, at Trearne Quarry, near Beith, north Ayrshire, all assigned to Oichnus simplex Bromley. These trace fossils are typically associated with growth deformities of the pluricolumnals, which are commonly swollen and more rarely grew a lip around the pit. Oichnus simplex is commonly centred on a columnal latus and adjacent sutures between columnals are deflected towards it. More rarely, pits are centred on the sutures between columnals. The O. simplex borings are interpreted as domiciles developed in live crinoids by an indeterminate, unmineralized invertebrate. The pluricolumnals are similar and are presumed to be derived from a single species, perhaps the poteriocrinine cladid Ureocrinus bockshii (Geinitz), the only nominal crinoid recorded from this site.


Two pressure-controlled inlets (PCI) have been designed and integrated into the Aerodyne Aerosol Mass Spectrometer (AMS) inlet system containing an aerodynamic aerosol lens system for use in airborne measurements. Laboratory experiments show that size calibration and mass flow rate into the AMS are not affected by changes in upstream pressure (P 0 ) of the PCI as long as the pressure within the PCI chamber (P PCI ) is controlled to values lower than P 0 . Numerous experiments were conducted at different P PCI , P 0 , and AMS lens pressures (P Lens ) to determine particle transmission efficiency into the AMS. Based on the results, optimum operating conditions were selected which allow for constant pressure sampling with close to 100% transmission efficiency of particles in the size range of ∼ 100–700 nm vacuum aerodynamic diameter (d va ) at altitudes up to ∼ 6.5 km. Data from an airborne field study are presented for illustration.


n this work we present the main features of a new multiparametric station able to jointly detect self-potential and seismometric signals in a seismic active area of Southern Italy. The new station has been designed and installed at the Tito Laboratories of National Research Council (Italy) that are located in the Southern Apennines, one of the most tectonically active areas of the whole Mediterranean. It combines advanced technologies for data acquisition with robust statistical techniques to pick out extreme events from self-potential recordings. The completely automatic station is equipped with electrical and seismometric sensors (16 channels, A/D 24 bit, sampling rate of 0.25 Hz, range dynamics of 133 dB). After a preliminary filtering procedure, mainly devoted to removing any influence of meteo-climatic conditions and/or cultural electrical noise, we evaluated the performance of the new monitoring station investigating the possible correlation between anomalous patterns of the self-potential signals and local seismic activity. Objective criteria and robust statistical tools have been applied to identify extreme events in electrical measurements and to select the earthquakes that may be responsible for strain effects at the measuring point. The short period of the measuring activity does not allow us to give firm conclusions, however the first results encourage us to continue the monitoring activity by increasing the number of remote stations and improving the use of statistical packages for data processing. We identified a well based monitoring strategy that in the near future could be useful to better understand the possible correlation between anomalous self-potential signals and local seismic activity.


In this paper, I outlined a framework for understanding how and why future related biases took root in the human mind, and made some suggestions about possible ways we might be able to mitigate their effect in the context of the strategic foresight practice. My primary research methods consisted of a broad literature review covering pertinent areas of cognitive science, evolutionary psychology, management science, and future studies, as well as expert interviews with experts representing these fields. I concluded the paper with suggestions about how to integrate the findings from fields that scientifically investigate human foresight and decision making under uncertainty with the practice of strategic foresight.


This chapter proposes a study of novel power electronic converters for small scale wind energy conversion systems. In this chapter major topologies of power electronic convert‐ ers that used in wind energy converter systems have been analysed. Various topologies of DC/AC single stage converters such as high boost Z-source inverters (ZSI) have been investigated. New proposed schemes for inverters such as multilevel and Z-source inver‐ ters have been studied in this proposed chapter. Multilevel converters are categorized in‐ to three major groups according to their topologies which are diode clamped multilevel converters (DCM), cascade multilevel converters (CMC) with multiple isolated dc voltage sources and flying capacitor based multilevel converters (FCMC). Z-source inverters are divided to ZSI, qZSI and trans-ZSI types. Trans-ZSI is mostly used for high step-up single stage conversions.


The innovation systems (IS) approach—developed by Richard Nelson, Christopher Freeman and Bengt-Ake Lundvall, amongst others—has become perhaps the dominant approach in the academic literature for the study of innovation. It has also exerted considerable influence on policy. This paper examines both the theory underpinning the IS approach, which bears considerable affinities with Austrian economics, and also its policy implications. It is argued that the work of Friedrich Hayek and Elinor Ostrom in particular can be used to draw attention to some potential difficulties with the way in which the IS approach is often used to guide policy. Ideas drawn from Austrian economics, as well as the work of Elinor Ostrom, are used to help develop and improve the IS approach, both theoretically and in terms of its approach to policy.


Since the end of the Cold War, human rights has become a central focus of international relationships, especially the relationship bem:een developed countries ' (the West) and developing countries (the Rest). Burma is one of the developing countries whose relationship with Western governments is premised on the issue of human rights. In the pursuit of human rights enforcement, the United States and the European Union employ economic sanctions against Burma. While economic sanctions are designed to encourage a transition to democratic rule and a greater respect for human rights, studies show that little attention has been paid to the effectiveness of such measurements. In this study, a literature review and a field research are carried out as an effort to assess the effectiveness of economic sanctions in Burma.


In E-commerce, advertising is essential for merchants to reach their target users. The typical objective is to maximize the advertiser's cumulative revenue over a period of time under a budget constraint. In real applications, an advertisement (ad) usually needs to be exposed to the same user multiple times until the user finally contributes revenue (e.g., places an order). However, existing advertising systems mainly focus on the immediate revenue with single ad exposures, ignoring the contribution of each exposure to the final conversion, thus usually falls into suboptimal solutions. In this paper, we formulate the sequential advertising strategy optimization as a dynamic knapsack problem. We propose a theoretically guaranteed bilevel optimization framework, which significantly reduces the solution space of the original optimization space while ensuring the solution quality. To improve the exploration efficiency of reinforcement learning, we also devise an effective action space reduction approach. Extensive offline and online experiments show the superior performance of our approaches over state-of-the-art baselines in terms of cumulative revenue.


Dominant-negative mutations in the homopentameric extracellular matrix glycoprotein cartilage oligomeric matrix protein (COMP) result in inappropriate intracellular retention of misfolded COMP in the rough endoplasmic reticulum of chondrocytes, causing chondrocyte cell death, which leads to two skeletal dysplasias: pseudoachondroplasia (PSACH) and multiple epiphyseal dysplasia (EDM1). COMP null mice show no adverse effects on normal bone development and growth, suggesting a possible therapy involving removal of COMP mRNA. The goal of this study was to assess the ability of a hammerhead ribozyme (Ribo56, designed against the D469del mutation) to reduce COMP mRNA expression. In COS7 cells transfected with plasmids that overexpress wild-type or mutant COMP mRNA and Ribo56, the ribozyme reduced overexpressed normal COMP mRNA by 46% and mutant COMP mRNA by 56% in a dose-dependent manner. Surprisingly, the use of recombinant adenoviruses to deliver wild-type or mutant COMP mRNA and Ribo56 simultaneously into COS7 cells proved problematic for the activity of the ribozyme to reduce COMP expression. However, in normal human costochondral cells (hCCCs) infected only with adenoviruses expressing Ribo56, expression of endogenous wild-type COMP mRNA was reduced in a dose-dependent manner by 50%. In chondrocytes that contain heterozygous COMP mutations (D469del, G427E and D511Y) that cause PSACH, Ribo56 was more effective at reducing COMP mRNA (up to 70%). These results indicate that Ribo56 is effective at reducing mutant and wild-type COMP levels in cells and suggests a possible mode of therapy to reduce the mutant protein load.


The American Right of Publicity has been developed and applied differently in the states of the U.S. for several decades and still several questions remain regarding the nature of the right. In Europe, many countries seem to follow the American development or have a similar right protecting the commercial value of a person's identity emerging in their legal system. With the constant globalization and increase in interaction of the sports and entertainment markets in the world, harmonization of the different rules protecting this commercial interest in a persona is necessary to grant sufficient protection. This work is a comparative study of the rules and developments in the U.S. and in several countries in the European Union. If enough common traits can be found in these countries, there may be a way to start harmonization within the member countries of the European Union. By looking at the current status and history of development in all of these countries, this work aims at establishing whether or not there could be a harmonized European right protecting the commercial value of a persona and what the appropriate elements of such a right would be. INDEX WORDS: Right of Privacy, Right of Publicity, Intellectual Property, Trademark, Copyright, European Union, Harmonization, Persona PROTECTION OF "PERSONA" IN THE EU AND IN THE U.S. : A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS


LORD BROWNE-WILKINSON^ It is the fate of those who see difficulties to be cast as opponents. I am in favor of incorporating the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR) into the domestic law of the United Kingdom so as to form a Bill of Rights, but I foresee some problems. As a result, I have, yet again, been asked to present the case against a Bill of Rights. I do not share the views of the out-and-out opponent, most of whose arguments seem to be mistaken.1 I will therefore concentrate on the points which to me carry weight, most of which come down to the central position which Parliament, and in particular, the House of Commons, enjoy in our constitutional settlement. It is impossible to understand the case against a Bill of Rights in the United Kingdom without an understanding of its present constitution. First, and most important, the United Kingdom has no written constitution. Although it is said to have an unwritten constitution, most of the rules of this constitution are based not on rules of law but on constitutional conventions observed as a matter of practice but not as a legal requirement. There are two great constitutional documents, the Magna Carta and the Bill of Rights 1688,2 but (with limited exceptions3) they provide constitutional guidelines rather than black letter law. For present purposes, the important conventions are: (1) that the former sovereign power, the monarch as an individual, has surrendered virtually all his powers and is bound to act in accordance with the advice of his Ministers; (2) that the executive powers of the state are vested in the Crown, as a concept, and are exercisable through the Ministers of the Crown; (3) the executive, through its Ministers, is accountable on a daily basis to the House of Commons for the conduct of the affairs of state by the executive; and (4) in consequence, a Government cannot remain in power unless for the time being it can command a majority in Parliament on crucial issues. I stress these points in order to demonstrate that to talk of the "sovereignty of Parliament" simply in terms of Parliament being the legislature is to misunderstand the role of Parliament in the system which the United Kingdom has, for better or worse, adopted. Parliament, or more accurately the House of Commons, is not only the supreme legislature; it ultimately controls the exercise of the powers of the executive because the executive is answerable to it. The relationship between Parliament and the judiciary accords a similar supremacy to Parliament. Provided that a statute has been passed by both Houses of Parliament and received the Royal Assent (which is a formality), the courts are bound to enforce the law so enacted. A handful of judicial activists have expressed the tentative view that the courts would not be bound to enforce legislation inconsistent with the basic concepts of a democratic state.4 But the overwhelming body of opinion still adheres to the basic concept that the validity of an Act of Parliament cannot be challenged on the grounds that it is unconstitutional or infringes upon fundamental human rights. As between the private citizen and the executive, the preservation of liberty and fundamental human rights in the United Kingdom depends not upon the individual having rights against the executive but upon the executive having no rights against the individual save to the extent that power to interfere with individual freedom is conferred either by common law or by statute5. The individual citizen enjoys no legal rights as against the legislature, save the democratic right to vote out the Government which passed the offending legislation so as to procure its repeal. Since 1945, the United Kingdom has superimposed on this internal constitutional settlement two treaty obligations which impinge upon it: first, those relating to the European Union6 and second, the ECHR. This paper is only directly concerned with the latter; but there is a tendency in the United Kingdom to blend them together and, since they are fundamentally different, it is essential to differentiate sharply between them. …


Coalescence of binary supermassive black holes (SBHs) would constitute the strongest sources of gravitational waves to be observed by LISA. While the formation of binary SBHs during galaxy mergers is almost inevitable, coalescence requires that the separation between binary components first drop by a few orders of magnitude, due presumably to interaction of the binary with stars and gas in a galactic nucleus. This article reviews the observational evidence for binary SBHs and discusses how they would evolve. No completely convincing case of a bound, binary SBH has yet been found, although a handful of systems (e.g. interacting galaxies; remnants of galaxy mergers) are now believed to contain two SBHs at projected separations of <~ 1kpc. N-body studies of binary evolution in gas-free galaxies have reached large enough particle numbers to reproduce the slow, "diffusive" refilling of the binary's loss cone that is believed to characterize binary evolution in real galactic nuclei. While some of the results of these simulations - e.g. the binary hardening rate and eccentricity evolution - are strongly N-dependent, others - e.g. the "damage" inflicted by the binary on the nucleus - are not. Luminous early-type galaxies often exhibit depleted cores with masses of ~ 1-2 times the mass of their nuclear SBHs, consistent with the predictions of the binary model. Studies of the interaction of massive binaries with gas are still in their infancy, although much progress is expected in the near future. Binary coalescence has a large influence on the spins of SBHs, even for mass ratios as extreme as 10:1, and evidence of spin-flips may have been observed.


Visual markers are graphic symbols designed to be easily recognised by machines. They are traditionally used to track goods, but there is increasing interest in their application to mobile human-computer interaction (HCI). By scanning a visual marker through a camera phone, users can retrieve localised information and access mobile services. In particular the dissertation examines the application of visual markers to physical tagging: practices of association of digital information with physical items. One missed opportunity in current visual marker systems is that the markers themselves cannot be visually designed; they are not expressive to humans, and thus fail to convey information before being scanned. To address this limitation, this dissertation introduces the idea of designable markers, visual markers that are both machine-readable and visually communicative to humans, and presents an investigation of the ways in which they can support mobile human-computer interaction. The application of designable visual markers to the creation of mobile interfaces is explored through a variety of methods: through formal usability experiments, through the creation and analysis of example designs, as well as through the qualitative analysis of two field trials. All three approaches were enabled by the engineering and development of d-touch, an actual recognition system that supports designable visual markers and by its integration in a variety of applications and experimental probes. D-touch is based on image topology, and its markers are defined in terms of constraints on the nesting of dark and light regions. The constraints imposed by d-touch are flexible enough to allow novice users to create markers which are visually expressive and at the same time machine readable. A user study demonstrates how such system enables people to design their own functional visual markers, determining their aesthetic qualities and what they visually communicate to others. A desktop application to support users in the creation of valid markers, the d-touch analyser, is presented and its usefulness is demonstrated through the same study. A formal usability experiment comparing five variations of marker-based interfaces on keypad and touch-screen phones shows that all of them allow users to reliably select targets within, on average, less than 4 seconds. Participants of the experiment reported a strong preference for interfaces that involve only marker scanning, compared to those that require a combination of marker scanning and key-presses or touch selections. Example designs of mobile interface generated by the author as well as others are presented to expose how the d-touch recognition system can be integrated in mobile applications. The examples illustrate a variety of ways in which markers can be used to augment printed materials such as cards, books and product packages, adding to them interactive capabilities. The examples show also different approaches to marker design, ranging from simple and recognisable iconic design, to symbols that integrate cues about the interactive functionality, to making them invisible by hiding them in existing graphics. Finally, the dissertation reports and analyses two field trials conducted to study what practices of physical tagging can emerge from, and be supported by, the use of markers. The trials were centred around the use of uWiki, a functional prototype based on d-touch, that allows users to associate digital content to markers printed on physical tags that can be affixed to objects or buildings. Observations show that a variety of practices emerge around the use of this technology, indicating that they provide a rich medium that has potential to attract the interest of real users. Though the results of this work are preliminary, they serve to demonstrate the range of potential for the future of such systems.


A global climatology of the dissolved oxygen anomaly (the excess over saturation) is created with monthly resolution in the upper 500 m of the ocean. The climatology is based on dissolved oxygen, temperature and salinity data archived at the National Oceanographic Data Center. Examination of this climatology reveals statistically significant annual cycles throughout the upper 500 m of the World Ocean, though seasonal variations are most coherent in the North Atlantic, where data density is greatest. Vertical trends in the phase and amplitude of the annual cycle are noted. The cycle in surface waters is characterized by a summer maximum and a winter minimum, consistent with warming and high rates of photosynthesis during the summer, and cooling and entrainment of oxygen-depleted water during the winter. In low and middle latitudes, the amplitude increases with depth and the maximum occurs later in the year, a trend consistent with the seasonal accumulation of oxygen associated with the shallow oxygen maximum. At a depth that varies between about 30 and 130 m, the phase of the annual cycle undergoes an abrupt shift. We call this depth the oxygen nodal depth. Below the nodal depth, the annual cycle is characterized by an early-spring maximum and a late-fall minimum, consistent with a cycle dominated by respiration during the spring and summer and replenishment of oxygen from the atmosphere by ventilation during the fall and winter. Below the nodal depth, the amplitude of the annual cycle generally decreases with depth, indicative of decreasing respiration and ventilation rates, or less seasonality in both processes. We postulate that the nodal depth in middle and high latitudes corresponds closely to the summertime compensation depth, where photosynthesis and net community respiration are equal. With this interpretation of the nodal depth and a simple model of the penetration of light in the water column, a compensation light intensity of 1 W m -2 (4 μE m -2 s -1 ) is deduced, at the low end of independent estimates. Horizontal trends in the phase and amplitude of the annual cycle are also noted. We find that the nodal depth decreases toward the poles in both hemispheres and is generally greater in the Southern Hemisphere, patterns found to be consistent with light-based estimates of the compensation depth. The amplitude of the annual cycle in the oxygen anomaly increases monotonically with latitude, and higher latitudes lag lower latitudes. In the North Atlantic and North Pacific, the amplitude of the annual cycle tends to increase from east to west at all depths and latitudes, as expected considering that physical forcing has greater seasonal variability in the west. The tropics and the North Indian Ocean have features that distinguish them from other regions. Below about 75 m, these waters have pronounced annual cycles of the oxygen anomaly that are shown to be caused mainly by wind-driven adiabatic displacements of the thermocline. A semiannual cycle of the oxygen anomaly is found in the surface waters of the North Indian Ocean, consistent with the known semiannual cycle of surface heat flux in this region.


Studies in recent literature indicate that professional development programs for teachers addressing Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) are either inefficient or far from being productive. The reasons behind the inefficiency of such professional development activities are considered as the incompatibility between the level of training and teachers' ICT skills, and the lack of active use of ICTs by teachers in the teaching and learning processes. Bearing this problem in mind, the current study aims at proposing a framework for organizing professional development activities for Turkish teachers regarding ICTs with an emphasis on teachers' ICT-related needs, competencies and levels of technology use. Within the framework, it is suggested that teachers' levels and categories of technology use be determined in the first place, which will be followed by a four-stage professional development structure leading to teachers' effective ICT use and integration of ICTs in teaching-learning processes.


NORTH AMERICA Hip Hop Desis: South Asian Americans, Blackness, and a Global Race Consciousness. By Nitasha Tamar Sharma. (Refiguring American Music.) Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2010. [xiv, 351 p. ISBN 9780822347415 (hardcover), $84.95; ISBN 9780822347606 (paperback), $23.95.] Illustrations, bibliography, index. Hip Hop Desis is an exceptional book; it is the first ethnography of an atypical subgroup of South Asian Americans who have made hip hop an integral part of their lives through their work as MCs, DJs, lyricists, and journalists. Sharma illuminates why and how these extraordinary desis (South Asians) choose to assimilate "downwards" by modeling the racial pride of America's black minority instead of adopting the racial silence of their own "model minority." Eschewing traditional analyses of relations between Asian and African Americans, Sharma convincingly shows how desis' embrace of hip hop disrupts existing social divisions, and generates new possibilities for envisioning a "global race consciousness." Chapter 1 focuses on the construction of what Sharma calls "hegemonic desiness," or notions of ethnic authenticity that collegegoing desis impose on co-ethnics to create "communities of sameness." Sharma challenges ethnicity as a productive response to immigrant exclusion by pointing to the irony of its anti-black racism and the problem this poses to hip hop desis, who are sometimes derided as "rotten coconuts" (brown on the outside and black on the inside). This intolerance for difference in the ethnic community is partly what draws some desis to the anti-racist messages of hip hop. However, instead of rejecting their desiness and mimicking blackness, hip hop desis dialogically craft alternatives to hegemonic desiness through what Sharma terms "ethnic hip hop," or hip hop that is neither ethnically exclusive (because it uses a recognizable form of black popular culture), nor fully assimilated or "Americanized" (because it uses South Asian languages, sounds and themes addressed to the ethnic community) (p. 85). Though insightful for the way it exposes the workings of ethnic authenticity inherited from the first generation, Sharma's notion of hegemonic desiness fails to illuminate how the conception of authenticity for the second generation might differ from that of the first. Second-generation desis are shown as simply "replicating ethnic, class, religious, gender, and sexual divisions from the subcontinent" (p. 50, my emphasis); they "graft first-generation ideas onto their social worlds, thereby re-creating reified notions of ethnicity around which they formed their social cliques and politics" (p. 58, my emphasis). But just as desis can be criticized for being too black, they can also be criticized for being too ethnic ; the term "f.o.b." or "fresh off the boat" comes to mind (see Karen Pyke and Tran Dang's " 'FOB' and 'Whitewashed': Identity and Internalized Racism among Second Generation Asian Americans," Qualitative Sociology 26, no. 2 [ June 2003]: 147-72). This is where a discussion of hip hop would have been useful-not just as a politically progressive alternative to ethnic authenticity (pp. 41-42), but as a mainstream form of popular culture that second generation youth use to assess the "fitness" and belonging of desis in America. Although Sharma discusses hip hop's appeal for mainstream desis in later chapters, here hip hop is discussed only in relation to the criticism it receives for being inauthentic (p. 64). Just as hip hop desis craft alternatives to ethnic authenticity, they also "make race," the subject of chapter 2. Utilizing the ambiguity of their racialization in the white-black dynamic of the United States, hip hop desis "take on the identities that signify a group seemingly unlike themselves" (p. 111), or engage in what George Lipsitz has described as "strategic antiessentialim" (Dangerous Crossroads: Popular Music, Postmodernism, and the Poetics of Place [London: Verso, 1994]). …


East African states in the 21st century face the challenge of some of the highest rates of urban growth the world has ever seen. Cities are expanding despite low levels of industrialisation and formal employment, in contexts where states often struggle to fulfil basic functions. This thesis aims to bridge a gap between the literature on cities and urban development and scholarship pertaining to the role of
the state in developing countries, to explain why responses to the urban challenge are producing widely diverging outcomes in the region. Through a comparative case study analysis of Kampala, Uganda and Kigali, Rwanda, it analyses why attempts to implement certain urban policies and regulations have been much more effective in the latter than the former. It explores this divergence in relation to four critical aspects of urban transformation: physical development (urban planning and development regulation), livelihoods in the informal economy (with a particular
focus on petty trade), urban public transport, and urban local taxation. Most explanations for poor state performance focus on capacity, usually defined as bureaucratic competence. This study argues that this is inadequate, and that state effectiveness is highly dependent on the political context and the incentives for enforcement and compliance affecting state actors and urban social groups
respectively. Through a process-tracing analysis drawing on six months of fieldwork, it highlights the importance of the credibility of government commitments, the sources of state legitimacy, the autonomy of different components of the state vis-a-vis social forces, and ingrained social power relations. It argues that these factors affect the degree to which formal state institutions are supported by (rather than conflicting with) informal norms. These state-society dynamics proved far more important than bureaucratic capacity in accounting for divergent state effectiveness with regard to implementing urban policy in the two cities under consideration.


The effects of living in domestic violence upon its victims' ability to make choices have been documented in various legal areas. For instance 'learned helplessness' and the other disempowering effects of domestic violence are now well recognized in the criminal law relating to murder and provocation. Evidence showing how victims' choice-making may become constrained thus affecting their capacity to leave the violent relationship has been deemed as relevant in a number of cases. But battered woman's syndrome, or what is perhaps better described as 'battered woman's reality,' has had only patchy acceptance in case law outside of homicide. A recent Administrative Appeals Tribunal decision suggests though that it may now be achieving acceptance in social security law.


Context: Software cost and effort estimation are important activities for planning and estimation of software projects. One major player for cost and effort estimation is functional size of software which can be measured in variety of methods. Having several methods for measuring one entity, converting outputs of these methods becomes important. Objectives: In this study we investigate different techniques that have been proposed for conversion between different Functional Size Measurement (FSM) techniques. We addressed conceptual similarities and differences between methods, empirical approaches proposed for conversion, evaluation of the proposed approaches and improvement opportunities that are available for current approaches. Finally, we proposed a new conversion model based on accumulated data. Methods: We conducted a systematic literature review for investigating the similarities and differences between FSM methods and proposed approaches for conversion. We also identified some improvement opportunities for the current conversion approaches. Sources for articles were IEEE Xplore, Engineering Village, Science Direct, ISI, and Scopus. We also performed snowball sampling to decrease chance of missing any relevant papers. We also evaluated the existing models for conversion after merging the data from publicly available datasets. By bringing suggestions for improvement, we developed a new model and then validated it. Results: Conceptual similarities and differences between methods are presented along with all methods and models that exist for conversion between different FSM methods. We also came with three major contributions for existing empirical methods; for one existing method (piecewise linear regression) we used a systematic and rigorous way of finding discontinuity point. We also evaluated several existing models to test their reliability based on a merged dataset, and finally we accumulated all data from literature in order to find the nature of relation between IFPUG and COSMIC using LOESS regression technique. Conclusions: We concluded that many concepts used by different FSM methods are common which enable conversion. In addition statistical results show that the proposed approach to enhance piecewise linear regression model slightly increases model's test results. Even this small improvement can affect projects' cost largely. Results of evaluation of models show that it is not possible to say which method can predict unseen data better than others and it depends on the concerns of practitioner that which model should be used. And finally accumulated data confirms that empirical relation between IFPUG and COSMIC is not linear and can be presented by two separate lines better than other models. Also we noted that unlike COSMIC manual's claim that discontinuity point should be around 200 FP, in merged dataset discontinuity point is around 300 to 400. Finally we proposed a new conversion approach using systematic approach and piecewise linear regression. By testing on new data, this model shows improvement in MMRE and Pred(25).


The development of efficient catalysts to overcome the significant overpotential of the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) is the key bottleneck in the large-scale production of pure hydrogen. In the present work, we describe a simple approach for the fabrication of CoS2–TiO2 hybrid catalysts by the heat treatment of a cobalt thiourea complex in the presence of TiO2. We show the CoS2–TiO2 hybrid as a bi-functional electrocatalyst for overall water splitting in alkaline electrolyte membrane water electrolyzers. The optimal CoS2–TiO2 hybrid offered low overpotentials of 231 and 198 mV for the OER and HER, respectively. Fundamental studies pertaining to the role of TiO2 in enhancing the catalytic activity of the materials using optical and electrochemical band gap measurements of the CoS2–TiO2 hybrids were carried out. Additionally, the constructed MEA using the CoS2–TiO2 hybrid showed higher performance with an approximately 234 mA cm−2 current density at a cell voltage of 1.9 V and exhibited extended durable operation over 200 h, as compared to the MEA constructed with state-of-the-art all-noble-metal electrodes.


Isotopic data for Swaziland Precambrian gneissic rocks, with Rb-Sr whole-rock ages in the range from 3,400 to 3,100 m.y., lie on a steep initial 87 Sr/ 86 Sr ratio versus time development line that intersects the basalt development line (or region) at about 3500 m.y. B.P. The preferred interpretation is that, locally, extensive sialic crust did not begin forming much before 3,500 m.y. ago and that the various gneissic rocks defining this steep development line attained their present state by repeated metamorphism and Sr isotopic homogenization within this early sialic crust. Constraints are noted for alternative models that involve much older separation of sialic material. At ∼3000 m.y. B.P., large-scale granite formation took place, and there is evidence that this event effectively stabilized the crust. Younger granites, intruding the earlier gneissic rocks, have initial 87 Sr/ 86 Sr ratios lying mainly outside the basalt field. The isotopic data may be interpreted in terms of a two-stage model as a first approximation to the mode of evolution of the crust.


Tramadol is a synthetic opioid analgesic used for moderate-to-severe pain structurally related to codeine and morphine, where their analgesic mechanism is a result of opioid and non-opioid mechanisms. This study was designed to evaluate the effects of Moringa oleifera leaves extract (MLE) on tramadol-induced testicular toxicity, sperm changes, testicular damage, and oxidative stress in male rats. Forty male albino rats were divided into four groups and treated for 4 weeks (group 1, as control; group 2, MLE; group 3, tramadol; group 4, MLE + tramadol). The relative body weight, relative testes weight, serum total testosterone, luteinizing hormone, follicle-stimulating hormone, sperm counts, vitality, total sperm motility, catalase, and superoxide dismutase activities were significantly decreased in tramadol-treated group when compared with the control group. In contrast, sperm abnormality, immotile sperm percent, testicular injury, and TBARS concentration in testes were significantly increased in the tramadol-treated group. In addition, histopathological examination for the tramadol-treated group has shown incomplete spermatogenesis, moderate degeneration in some seminiferous tubules with a significant decrease in the number of spermatogenic cells and depletion of Leydig cells. The administration of MLE with tramadol ameliorates the testicular toxicity, injury, sperm count, abnormalities, and oxidative stress induced by tramadol.


As recent researches show, creativity is very important in art, technology, science, education, management and etc. Also, preschool ages are a golden time for developing motor creativity. So, it's necessary to enhance creativity of preschoolers. Many scholars have studied cognitional-emotional aspects of creativity. Some, have focused on the creativity process and creativity techniques. But, the relation between creativity and physical environment have been rarely studied. The goal of this research, is exploring design patterns which may help architects to design suitable spaces to enhance kids' creativity. The question is "which architectural variables affect kids' creativity positively". Survey research method is used to gathering questionnaires of kindergarten mentors, architects, psychologist and preschoolers. Factor analysis showed the effective variables (factors) that were known and labeled. Creativity variables were "imagination", "curiosity" and "cooperative play". The variables of physical environment were "flexibility" and "variety". To find the relation between three creativity variables and two architecture variables, the path analysis method was used. The correlation of creativity variables and architectural ones was significantly positive. Then, 72 architects and psychologists were tested with an open end test. Design patterns were extracted from architects and psychologists suggestions. The results were discussed in a session with 20 children to explore kids taste about them. The outcome was design patterns such as: a) Design of modular wide open plan with several corners; b) Design puzzled Shadow maker partitions; c) Using light modular furniture such as light cubes that kids could move and rearrange them to make new furniture/walls; d) Using incomplete paintings, on the wall or on the ground; e) Design vast planting areas that kids could plant in groups.


After joining the EU, micro, small and medium enterprises came to the focus of attention in
Hun
gary for their grandiose role in both employment and producing added value. Due to their
flexibility, creativity and adaptability SMEs find new market opportunities easier. Also, SMEs
can find their way and seize appearing opportunities more quickly under
rapidly changing,
insecure and high
-
risk circumstances.
When analysing the sector, besides the investigation of the external environment, it is also
important to focus on internal factors. The success of businesses is not only influenced by their
access t
o financial resources, but also by their internal organisational structure and the standard
of their organisational culture. In the present phase of world economy, when transports are
delayed, credits are harder to obtain and companies downsize, leaders ha
ve to make careful and
considerate management and operational decisions. Thus financial decisions have considerable
short and long
-
term effects on the success of business operation.
This research paper aims at a comprehensive study of the present situatio
n of the Hungarian
SME sector, some of its financing opportunities, as well as factors that hinder its development.
Another purpose of the present writing is to lay the theoretical foundations for questionnaire
primary research exploring the financing char
acteristics of SMEs in Hungary.


Typhonium flagelliforme from the family Araceae is locally known as rodent
tuber. It is being used traditionally in Malaysia to treat cancer. The major aim of this
study was to investigate the effect of Typhonium flagelliforme crude extract on
hepatocarcinogenesis in rats induced by diethylnitrosamine (DEN) and 2-
acetylaminofluorene (AAF). Besides the in vivo study, the plant's nutrient and non-nutrient
composition, and its antioxidant activity were also determined. Typhonium
flagelliforme has carbohydrate (0.5% in leaves-stalks and 27.5% in tubers-roots) as its
main constituent. It has high content of vitamin C (106.5 mg/100g in leaves-stalks and
11.6 mg/100g in tubers-roots) and potassium (1276.8 mg/100g in leaves-stalks and
534 mg/100g in tubers-roots). Alkaloid (0.4 mg/100g in leaves-stalks and 0.9 mg/100g in tubers-roots) and catechin (1.5% in leaves-stalks and 0.7% in tubers-roots) were
found in this plant. The phytochemicals of Typhonium flagelliforme showed a greater
antioxidant activity than vitamin E.


Accepted: 15.12.2012 This article draws on a case study of one facilitator with eight postgraduate students who uses online resources in teaching a Curriculum module at one of the universities in South Africa. The facilitator uses an online chat, discussion forum, blogs and Facebook to learn with his students in a form of blended learning. This article does not only give this facilitator and his students a voice but it also encourages them to reflect from their experiences in the teaching and learning of this module. The facilitator claimed to be using these online resources in promoting active students because his students had to learn with these online resources as opposed to learning from these online resources. A guided analysis theory was used as a framework for data production and this produced four themes for presenting the findings, while this article itself is framed by Entertainment Education theory. Online document analysis, observation and semi-structured interviews were used for data generation. This article prioritises the facilitator's claim that students should learn with resources. The article concludes that Coincidental Learning was utilised for this module. Therefore, the article is proposing the utilisation of Awareness Learning in the teaching and learning of this Curriculum module.


The submission and commentary document an original and significant contribution to knowledge about the history, praxis and methods of how women have found their voice in community radio through participation at structural and symbolic levels; that is, by setting up their own radio station structures and programming, using community radio as a place to contest identity and produce new media narratives for themselves beyond male discourses. The submission finds that women's community radio can be a place for individual empowerment, representation and creativity, as well as a space for resistance – including collective and transnational feminist campaigning and activism. The submission documents historical and contemporary case studies of feminist interventions and women's radio programming in multiple global contexts. It demonstrates how this work has been instrumental in establishing the field of radio studies and within that, the sub-theme of women's community radio practice.
Discussion of methodologies of critical educational pedagogy runs throughout the commentary and demonstrates that specific, holistic, women-centred approaches to radio training and production can enable more women to access and participate in radio, thus raising the status of their on-air 'voice'. It demonstrates that adoption and adaptation of the methodology of ethnographic and participatory action research in partnerships between community radio stations, women´s projects and voluntary organisations have developed new ways of understanding how women participate in and engage with radio and radio production.
The submission is situated in the context of its intervention in current and recent debates about women´s public voice and the representation of women in media industries. It makes a significant contribution to knowledge about women's community radio as part of radical and alternative cultural production and offers new directions for women´s radio practice, education and training.


Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM) is perhaps the most fundamental problem to solve in robotics in order to build truly autonomous mobile robots. The sensors have a large impact on the algorithm used for SLAM. In this work a novel method, called Filtered Inverse Depth Delayed (FIDD) Initialization which is intended for initializing new features in Bearing-Only SLAM systems. Unlike range sensors which provide range and angular information, a bearing sensor (e.g. cameras) measures only the bearing (angular information) of features. Therefore depth information (range) cannot be obtained in a single step. This fact has propitiated the emergence of a new family of SLAM algorithms: the Bearing-Only SLAM methods, which mainly rely in especial techniques for features system-initialization in order to enable the use of bearing sensors (as cameras) in SLAM systems. The proposed approach is based in an inverse depth parameterization and delayed initialization scheme. The main idea is to incorporate to the SLAM process, an extra uncorrelated filter, which progressively incorporates the new bearing measurements needed to estimate the full state of each new feature. Several simulations are given in order to show the performance of the proposed approach.


In mammals, a single gene encodes the receptor for the steroid reproductive hormone progesterone, but the protein exists in two forms, progesterone receptor-A (PR-A) and PR-B, that result from alternative starting points for transcription and translation. Mulac-Jericevic et al. describe mice in which a mutation selectively prevents expression of PR-A. Acting alone, PR-B regulated only a subset of known progesterone-responsive genes in the uterus. Progesterone normally antagonizes estrogen-induced proliferation in the uterine epithelium, yet interactions with PR-B promoted proliferation. The separation of distinct physiological functions for PR-A and PR-B raises the possibility that selective modulators of the PR isoforms could provide more specific therapeutic effects. Mulac-Jericevic, B., Mullinax, R.A., DeMayo, F.J., Lydon, J.P., and Conneely, O.M. (2000) Subgroup of reproductive functions of progesterone mediated by progesterone receptor-B isoform. Science 289: 1751-1754. [Abstract] [Full Text]


Intravenous (IV) Paracetamol is an excellent post operative analgesic and antipyretic in children. Efficacy and tolerability of IV Propacetamol have been established in pediatric practice. It is believed that paracetamol works by inhibiting cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) enzymes. Studies bring to light that therapeutic doses of IV acetaminophen are effective and tolerable in children with least chances of hepatotoxicity. However, overdose toxicity has been reported in children and drug induced hypotension in febrile critically ill patients. Therapeutic doses according to body weight of neonates and children can be administered in hospital settings. Special education of health care staff regarding precise dose and solution is necessary to assess the role of IV paracetamol preparation in pediatric practice.


Although the most recent manifestation of conflict in Rakhine can be traced to the coordinated attack on Myanmar security forces in August 2017 by Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (hereafter ARSA), it goes without saying that the problem has a longer history. For this paper a corpus of official Myanmar government sources was examined qualitatively using the critical discourse analysis (CDA) method. Within the official pronouncements of the Myanmar state since August 2017 we can discern the discursive strategies deployed to balance the competing pressures of national and international legitimation of the Myanmar government. In name and through action, Myanmar has marginalized the Rohingyas. However, beyond this obvious imperative additional and more subtle strategies have been deployed in Myanmar's official discourse, which attempts to position the Myanmar state as a neutral arbiter in a subnational dispute and one that seeks to distance itself from previous political arrangements. The paper focuses on these other discursive strategies which evince conformity to undercurrents of socio-cultural pressures from grassroots extremist Buddhist actors within Myanmar. Ultimately, there is no escaping Official Myanmar's responsibility for the status and plight of the Rohingya. The prognosis for external pressure to exert any normative influence on Myanmar will be limited. The official discourse betrays the ongoing attempts by the new government to balance these competing pressures at the expense of genuine neutrality and its responsibilities.


The Framework This paper is based on data about Indian Muslims collated from the Rajinder Sachar Committee Report SCR) as well as from the 2001 Census and other recent materials to relate the themes of marginality, human security and discrimination on the basis of religion. There are three crucial dimensions of social exclusion of Muslims: backwardness, margin-alization and discrimi-nation. What also appears troubling is the relationship between ethnic violence and socio-economic achievements. Within this framework, concerns regarding affirmative action also become relevant. Backwardness The literacy and educational status of Muslims is particularly low. The literacy rate among them is far below the national average and this gap is greater in urban areas and for women. Never-theless, regional differences do also emerge. In Kerala, for instance, the difference between literacy rates of socio-religious communities is minimal. On the whole, Muslims are doing better in this respect in the southern and in the western regions of the country. There is a significant disparity between the educational status of Muslims and that of other socio-religious categories (except SCs and STs). Both Mean Years of Schooling (MYS) and attendance levels of Muslims are low in absolute numbers as well as in comparison with other socio-religious groups. Again, there are regional variations. The MYS of Muslims is lowest in states such as West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, Assam and Uttaranchal. However, Muslim children have more years of schooling than SCs and STs in Kerala, Bihar, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat. Muslim enrolment rates are showing steady increase in recent years. In 1999-2000, Muslims had the lowest enrolment rate among all the socio-religious groups. However, in 2004-05, the Muslim enrolment rate had improved significant-ly. It was still lower than the average, but was now slightly higher than that of the OBCs. In higher education, the differences between Muslims and others stand out even more sharply. The disparity in graduation attainment levels has been widening between Muslims and all others in both rural and urban areas since the 1970s. In the initial phases of planning, Muslims had a higher Graduate Attainment Rate than SCs and STs. That has now changed and the latter has overtaken the Muslims. Muslim disadvantage must be related to a number of factors including, of course, their economic status and generally low education levels. But the latter may be in part also due to the lack of employment opportunities. This is partially supported by the data, which shows that the unemployment rate among Muslim graduates is the highest among socio-religious communities, both poor and not poor. It must also be read in light of the fact that Muslims do not see education as necessarily translating into formal employment. They are badly represented in formal employment and there is, moreover, a perception that they will be discriminated against, as Muslims, in securing salaried jobs. Thus, the low perceived returns from education do not help the cause of retention of Muslims in the education system. The other striking supporting data comes from the very high concentration of Muslims in self-employment activities, as revealed in every survey. The probability of Muslims, SCs and STs completing graduation is lower than in the case of all other socio-religious groups, especially in urban areas and for men. However, the pool of eligible population for higher education is increasing faster among SCs and STs than among Muslims. This must be related partly to affirmative action and the higher perceived returns from education for these groups. In premier colleges, only one out of 25 undergraduate students and one out of 50 postgraduate students is a Muslim. Being a Muslim, reduces the chance of achieving education at the secondary and at higher levels. …


One of the most challenging problems in real-time operation of power system is the prediction of transient stability. Fast and accurate techniques are imperative to achieve on-line transient stability assessment (TSA). This problem has been approached by various machine learning algorithms, however they find a class decision estimate rather than a probabilistic confidence of the class distribution. To counter the shortcoming of common machine learning methods, a novel machine learning technique, i.e. 'relevance vector machine' (RVM), for TSA is presented in this paper. RVM is based on a probabilistic Bayesian learning framework, and as a feature it can yield a decision function that depends on only a very fewer number of so-called relevance vectors. The proposed method is tested on New England power system, and compared with a state-of-the-art 'support vector machine' (SVM) classifier. The classification performance is evaluated using false discriminate rate (FDR). It is demonstrated that the RVM classifier can yield a decision function that is much sparser than the SVM classifier while providing higher classification accuracy. Consequently, the RVM classifier greatly reduces the computational complexity, making it more suitable for real-time implementation.


This article reports on the findings of a study of foreign children accommodated in the care system in the Western Cape, based on fieldwork conducted in child and youth care centres. The objectives of the study were firstly to map and quantify the number and demographics of foreign children placed in all CYCCs across the Western Cape. Secondly, the study aimed to analyse the reasons for children's migration and the circumstances around their placement in residential care institutions in order to establish whether family reunification was possible or desirable. Thirdly, the study explores the sufficiency of efforts made to trace and reunify the children with their families, whether in South Africa or across borders, as the institutional placement of children should not only be a last resort but it should preferably be temporary whilst family-based solutions are sought. Lastly, the documentation status of the children in the study was examined. Recommendations emanating from the research conclude the study.


The importance of underwater photosynthesis and the use of reserve-carbohydrates were assessed in submerged Scirpus maritimus L. during spring growth. Submerged plants were grown in outdoor ponds (90 cm deep) using different initial tuber sizes (mean 8.9 and 16.2 g f. wt) and different light treatments (0, 40, 50 and 100 % of full daylight). After shoot emergence the recovery from shading and darkness was studied. The period of submerged growth lasted 9 wk. During this period the mean relative growth rate (RGR) was independently affected by shading and tuber size. At the end of this period dry weight of plants grown in darkness was only 50 % of that of plants grown in full daylight or shade (70 or 40 % of full daylight), whereas that of plants from small tubers was only 67 % of that from large ones. As a result plants grown from small tubers in darkness had only 33 % of the dry weight of those grown from large tubers in full daylight or shade. Despite these large differences in total dry weight at the end of the submerged period, shoot length remained unaffected by shading and tuber size. Shoots grown in darkness were strongly etiolated, with a slower rate of leaf appearance, but with longer leaves, than those grown in full daylight or shade. Only after emergence was shoot length as well as dry matter production greater in plants grown previously in full daylight or shade than in darkness, and greater in plants grown from large than from small tubers. During the submerged period, the relative depletion rate of reserve-carbohydrates increased with time, but remained unaffected by shading and tuber size. The reserve-carbohydrates were replenished after plants emerged. It was concluded that both underwater photosynthesis and tuber size had a large impact on total dry matter production in S. maritimus. They did not, however, affect the ability of S. maritimus to emerge from 90 cm deep water. [KEYWORDS: Emergent macrophytes; maximum water depth; submerged growth; reserve carbohydrates; photosynthesis Trin ex steudel; phragmites-australis; typha-angustifolia; aquatic plants; macrophytes; latifolia; carbon; anaerobiosis; metabolism; resistance]


Background: To evaluate the left atrial (LA) volume, and LA systolic (contractile) and diastolic (expansion) functions in different stages of hypertension with or without atrial fibrillation (AF), as well as the effects of good blood pressure control. Methods: A prospective observational study. Individuals including 22 normotensive controls, 23 patients with mild hypertension, 20 with severe hypertension, and 17 with hypertension and paroxysmal AF were recruited for paired echocardiography studies at baseline and 6 months after control of hypertension. Results: With increasing severity of hypertension, left ventricular (LV) diastolic function deteriorated with decreasing LV septal E′/A′ and increasing E/E′ ratios. LA expansion index was reduced in parallel. LA expansion index was correlated positively with LV E′/A′ (r = 0.43, p = 0.022) and inversely with LV E/E′ (r = 0.49, p = 0.009). Significant improvement of LV diastolic function and LA expansion index preceded the reduction of LA volume after blood pressure control. In patients with paroxysmal AF, LA volume reduction was more evident in patients receiving angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors or angiotensin II type 1 receptor blockers. Conclusions: With progressive LV diastolic dysfunction in hypertension, there was a corresponding deterioration in LA diastolic function. Effective blood pressure control for 6 months improved LA diastolic function.


Purpose of review Metastatic melanoma is the most aggressive skin cancer and despite tremendous efforts and considerable progress in clinical treatment of melanoma patients within recent years, it remains a deadly disease. Current treatments affect melanoma cells indiscriminately, while accumulating evidence suggests that melanoma might be a disease of stem cells. This review aims to summarize the important accomplishments in the field and to emphasize the common molecular and cellular mechanisms regulating self-renewal of neural crest stem cells (NCSCs) and melanoma cells. Recent findings A growing number of publications highlight the existence of phenotypic and functional similarities between embryonic NCSCs and melanoma cells. These studies provide compelling evidence that the propagation of melanoma cells critically depends on genes instrumental in neural crest development. The example of Sox10 and Rac1 genes provides detailed illustration of how interfering with these important genes for neural crest development can prevent melanoma formation. Summary The development of new therapies, targeting RAF-MEK-ERK pathway, provided major improvements in outcomes for patients with metastatic melanoma; however, acquired resistance followed by tumor recurrence represents a major clinical challenge. The striking parallels between embryonic NCSCs (eNCSCs) and melanoma cells might lead to the development of new targeted therapeutics selectively eliminating cell populations accountable for tumor initiation, progression and relapse.


This paper examines why many older people living in remote parts of northern Australia are unable to access appropriate, or in some cases, any care services to support ageing in place. Several major factors are identified from the research literature as impacting on what appears to be a neglect of support for ageing in northern regions of Australia. The first is geographical and population related challenges. The second is the Australian Government's adoption of neoliberal market models in structuring its aged care service organisation and provision. The third factor is the dearth of model design fit-for-purpose to the needs of remote communities. An alternative grounded or 'bottom up' approach is proposed, based on evidence from a broad range of relevant research into remote communities, as well as local case studies in northern Australia. Findings from a case study are presented that further illuminate areas of neglect in supporting ageing in remote communities. A key argument based on these findings is for a more flexible funding base that approaches the design and management of services at a community rather than an individual level. Important themes emerging from this discussion include the uniqueness of need in each remote community; the critical importance of drawing on local understanding of the kind of resource needs that exist in a community before 'rolling' out support services, and finally; the capacity of local community members through volunteering, to stretch and adapt resources to solve practical problems associated with ageing in remote places.


In a recent paper, Mundlak assumes that the price-taking, risk-neutral and profit-maximizing entrepreneur makes his decisions on the basis of a planning model that maximizes expected profit using expected prices. In the same paper, the author asserts that when there is no sample price variation across competitive firms, it is impossible to estimate the supply and factor demand functions from cross-section data using a dual approach. In a famous paper, titled "To Dual or not to Dual," Pope asserted a similar opinion. This paper shows that, using Mundlak's assumption about planning decisions based upon expected profit, it is possible to use a dual estimator to estimate supply and factor demand functions. This objective is achieved by using Mundlak's assumption about the individuality of the firm's expectation process. A two-phase procedure is suggested to obtain consistent estimates of the expected quantities and prices which are then used, in phase II, in a nonlinear seemingly unrelated equations problem to obtain efficient estimates of the technological parameters.


In the de Abstinentia book I chapters 7–12 Porphyry gives an account of the views of Hermarchus, the Epicurean, on abstinence from animal food. This account, which is presumably derived from Hermarchus' work on Empedocles, would seem to preserve his actual words, for in chapter 9 (p. 91, 22) the word γωγε is used where it must refer to Hermarchus. It would be exceedingly careless of Porphyry, if he were merely summarizing or paraphrasing, to leave this word as it stands. (On the view here maintained see the Additional Note at the end.)


Reconstructions of ice sheet fluctuations during the Holocene, which encompassed cooler and warmer conditions than those that are captured in the historic record, help to elucidate ice margin sensitivity to climate change. We used amino acid geochronology to constrain the history of the western Greenland Ice Sheet margin during intervals of relative warmth in the middle Holocene. We measured the extent of amino acid racemization in 251 ice sheet–reworked marine bivalve shells from three locations spanning western Greenland. A significant relationship between shell age and the ratio of aspartic acid (Asp) isomers (Asp D/L) was revealed using Bayesian model fitting on 20 radiocarbon-dated shell fragments. The range of Asp-inferred bivalve ages at each site corresponds well with independent records of early Holocene ice retreat and late Holocene ice advance. Furthermore, the frequency of Asp-inferred bivalve ages from the three widely separated locations is nearly identical, with most ages between 5 and 3 ka, coinciding with optimum oceanic conditions. Because ice margin changes in western Greenland are tightly linked with oceanographic conditions, the distribution of reworked bivalve ages provides important information about relative ice margin position during smaller-than-present ice sheet configurations. This approach adds a new chronometer to our toolkit for constraining smaller-than-present ice sheet configurations and may have wide applicability around Greenland.


The MPS format (and its various extensions) is the de facto standard for handling data of an LP problem. The MPS format is widely used despite of its well known disadvantages, simply because there is no other widely agreed way of handling LP problem data and solution. However, for any real-life application when a sequence of modified LP problems is solved, preparing data (and their modifications) using the MPS format is both inefficient and cumbersome. Therefore the need for an efficient alternative is widely recognized. It is hardly possible to propose an alternative that could be commonly accepted unless the alternative is efficient and easy to incorporate into existing software. Therefore instead of considering another format of data, one should rather agree on a set of data structures and functions that can be used in a way similar to usage of standard libraries. Restricting a specification to the data structures and functions makes it possible to hide internal data structures and implementations of functions.

LP-DIT is an attempt to contribute to the creation of such an alternative. LP-DIT serves two purposes: First, to propose a data structure and declarations of functions that can easily provide efficient data processing commonly needed for interchange of LP problem data between different software modules. Second, to provide a public domain tool (fairly easy to implement and efficient to use) which allows for LP problem data interchange. In other words, LP-DIT provides an alternative for using the MPS format to access and modification of LP problem data. Additionally, LP-DIT provides efficient and flexible functions for a full definition (which includes information contained both in the NIPS format and in a specification files) of an LP problem, its modifications and solutions.

The current version of LP-DIT is the result of several applications made for different problems (i.e. using different problem generators and LP solvers). However, it is still a prototype and therefore, criticism and suggestions will be appreciated.