Traffic control devices (TCDs) play a critical role in delivering regulatory, warning, informational, and guidance information to drivers. Transportation agencies devote considerable resources to support TCD installation and maintenance. However, as connected vehicles develop and vehicle automation becomes a reality, the potential exists to replace or augment TCDs with a digital connection. This project investigated the development of a digital TCD (DTCD) data service, focusing on signs and pavement markings. To do so, the research team investigated emerging wireless communications capabilities, identified infrastructure information needs of automated vehicles, reviewed Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) current TCD practices, and surveyed existing data service systems. The results of the study led to the following conclusions: • Automated and connected vehicles will be most directly served with a comprehensive DTCD data service as opposed to deriving information from physical devices. • A portion of the data needed to populate a DTCD data service exists in VDOT database systems. • There is a need for a national standard for DTCD data services. • VDOT should conduct a prototype study to gain experience developing and operating a DTCD data service.


Cloud services are becoming an essential part of many organizations. Cloud providers have to adhere to security and privacy policies to ensure their users' data remains confidential and secure. Though there are some ongoing efforts on developing cloud security standards, most cloud providers are implementing a mish-mash of security and privacy controls. This has led to confusion among cloud consumers as to what security measures they should expect from the cloud services, and whether these measures would comply with their security and compliance requirements. We have conducted a comprehensive study to review the potential threats faced by cloud consumers and have determined the compliance models and security controls that should be in place to manage the risk. Based on this study, we have developed an ontology describing the cloud security controls, threats and compliances. We have also developed an application that classifies the security threats faced by cloud users and automatically determines the high level security and compliance policy controls that have to be activated for each threat. The application also displays existing cloud providers that support these security policies. Cloud consumers can use our system to formulate their security policies and find compliant providers even if they are not familiar with the underlying technology.


The nonlinear effects that limit the performance of the multi-frequency probe (MFP) based coherent optical time domain reflectometry (C-OTDR) are investigated. Based on theoretical analysis and experimental results, compared with conventional C-OTDR, when the probe pulse has power gradient within the pulse width, self-phase modulation (SPM) and cross-phase modulation (XPM) are strengthened in the new C-OTDR scheme. The generation of four-wave mixing (FWM) is dependent on SPM and XPM, and with modulation frequency of phase modulator higher than 40 MHz, the stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) threshold can be enhanced by more than 5 dB, which benefits the maximum dynamic range of the MFP C-OTDR.


A temperature-sensitive coating, based on hematite (iron III oxide), has been developed to measure surface temperature using spectral techniques. The hematite powder is added to a binder that allows the mixture to be painted on the surface of a test specimen. The coating dynamically changes its relative spectral makeup or color with changes in temperature. The color changes from a reddish-brown appearance at room temperature (25 C) to a black-gray appearance at temperatures around 600 C. The color change is reversible and repeatable with temperature cycling from low to high and back to low temperatures. Detection of the spectral changes can be recorded by different sensors, including spectrometers, photodiodes, and cameras. Using a-priori information obtained through calibration experiments in known thermal environments, the color change can then be calibrated to yield accurate quantitative temperature information. Temperature information can be obtained at a point, or over an entire surface, depending on the type of equipment used for data acquisition. Because this innovation uses spectrophotometry principles of operation, rather than the current methods, which use photoluminescence principles, white light can be used for illumination rather than high-intensity short wavelength excitation. The generation of high-intensity white (or potentially filtered long wavelength light) is much easier, and is used more prevalently for photography and video technologies. In outdoor tests, the Sun can be used for short durations as an illumination source as long as the amplitude remains relatively constant. The reflected light is also much higher in intensity than the emitted light from the inefficient current methods. Having a much brighter surface allows a wider array of detection schemes and devices. Because color change is the principle of operation, the development of high-quality, lower-cost digital cameras can be used for detection, as opposed to the high-cost imagers needed for intensity measurements with the current methods. Alternative methods of detection are possible to increase the measurement sensitivity. For example, a monochrome camera can be used with an appropriate filter and a radiometric measurement of normalized intensity change that is proportional to the change coating temperature. Using different spectral regions yields different sensitivities and calibration curves for converting intensity change to temperature units. Alternatively, using a color camera, a ratio of the standard red, green, and blue outputs can be used as a self-referenced change. The blue region (less than 500 nm) does not change nearly as much as the red region (greater than 575 nm), so a ratio of color intensities will yield a calibrated temperature image. The new temperature sensor coating is easy to apply, is inexpensive, can contour complex shape surfaces, and can be a global surface measurement system based on spectrophotometry. The color change, or relative intensity change, at different colors makes the optical detection under white light illumination, and associated interpretation, much easier to measure and interpret than in the detection systems of the current methods.


Most rubber articles are prepared from filler-elastomer compounds and dynamic mechanical data can give valuable insight into behavior of such systems. The aim of this study was to compare complex tensile modulus E* and complex shear modulus G* using seven types of vulcanized filled rubbers and two testing devices.

Carbon black and clay filled styrene butadiene rubber (SBR) compounds were tested. The E* value was measured using a dynamic mechanical analyzer (DMA DX04T from R.M.I.) and the G* value using a rubber process analyzer (RPA 2000 from Alpha Technologies) at 1 Hz, 30°C and at small deformation amplitudes common to both devices. For characterization of tested materials absolute values of complex modulus |E*| and |G*| were used together with values of loss factor tan δ.

The highest values of |E*|, |G*| and tan δ in tested carbon blacks were obtained for type N330. The highest values of |E*|, |G*| and tan δ in tested clay fillers were found for organoclay Cloisite 93A.

Maximum at the dependence tan δ/amplitude, obtained in a broader shear amplitude range, was found to be smaller for carbon black filled compounds than expected and maximum at this dependence for clay filled compounds was not observed.

The amplitude dependences of analogous dynamic mechanical characteristics from dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA) and rubber process analysis (RPA) measurements seem to be similar. Between the analogous dynamic mechanical characteristics from DMA and from RPA usually a linear relationship exists with high correlation coefficient.

Conclusions derived from DMA and RPA testing on the same series of rubber compounds seem to be the same. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


Abstract The threat of nuclear terrorism should not be underestimated because it can have catastrophic effects if and when realised. Nor should the subject matter be politicised beyond a certain point because of its strong espousal by the United States, which has raised suspicions about whether the issue could be used as yet another instrument for asserting American hegemony. Institutionalisation of multilateral actions must therefore be supported and nuclear summit meetings must become the forums for addressing the doubts and concerns relating to the international initiatives.


Complex couplings and feedback among climate, fire, and herbivory drive short- and long-term patterns of land cover change (LCC) in savanna ecosystems. However, understanding of spatial and temporal LCC patterns in these environments is limited, particularly for semi-arid regions transitional between arid and more mesic climates. Here, we use post-classification analysis of Landsat TM (1990), ETM+ (2003), and OLI (2013) satellite imagery to classify and assess net and gross LCC for the Chobe District, a 21,000 km2 area encompassing urban, peri-urban, rural, communally-managed (Chobe Enclave), and protected land (Chobe National Park, CNP, and six protected forest reserves). We then evaluate spatiotemporal patterns of LCC in relation to precipitation, fire detections (MCD14M, 2001–2013) from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS), and dry season elephant (Loxodonta africana) aerial survey data (2003, 2006, 2012, 2013). Woodland cover declined over the study period by 1514 km2 (16.2% of initial class total), accompanied by expansion of shrubland (1305 km2, 15.7%) and grassland (265 km2, 20.3%). Net LCC differed importantly in protected areas, with higher woodland losses observed in forest reserves compared to the CNP. Loss of woodland was also higher in communally-managed land for the study period, despite gains from 2003–2013. Gross (class) changes were characterized by extensive exchange between woodland and shrubland during both time steps, and a large expansion of shrubland into grassland and bare ground from 2003–2013. MODIS active fire detections were highly variable from year to year and among the different protected areas, ranging from 1.8 fires*year−1/km2 in the Chobe Forest Reserve to 7.1 fires*year−1/km2 in the Kasane Forest Reserve Extension. Clustering and timing of dry season fires suggests that ignitions were predominately from anthropogenic sources. Annual fire count was significantly related to total annual rainfall (p = 0.009, adj. R2 = 0.50), with a 41% increase in average fire occurrence in years when rainfall exceeded long-term mean annual precipitation (MAP). Loss of woodland was significantly associated with fire in locations experiencing 15 or more ignitions during the period 2001–2013 (p = 0.024). Although elephant-mediated damage is often cited as a major cause of woodland degradation in northern Botswana, we observed little evidence of unsustainable pressure on woodlands from growing elephant populations. Our data indicate broad-scale LCC processes in semi-arid savannas in Southern Africa are strongly coupled to environmental and anthropogenic forcings. Increased seasonal variability is likely to have important effects on the distribution of savanna plant communities due to climate-fire feedbacks. Long-term monitoring of LCC in these ecosystems is essential to improving land use planning and management strategies that protect biodiversity, as well as traditional cultures and livelihoods under future climate change scenarios for Southern Africa.


This contribution focuses on the Italian experience of the 'collective representation of regional interests through the State-Regions Conference and the other 'horizontal', interregional Conferences representing either the regional executive bodies (the Conference of the Regional Presidents, better known as "Conference of the Regions") or the legislative assemblies (the Conference of the Presidents of the Regional Councils). Although such Conferences have, over time, conquered a well-defined institutional position also in the stage consisting in the implementation of EU norms, the present analysis is centred on the role exercised by such bodies in the EU decision-making process. After a general overview of the main organisational and functional features characterising the activity of these bodies in EU affairs, the contribution focuses on the most relevant reforms which have affected the Italian legislation as regards the participation in the EU integration process. This diachronic analysis is critically assessed in the conclusions. It is argued that some challenges still remain open in the coordination of the functions of intergovernmental Conferences - also due to confusion of roles between the State-Regions Conference and the Conference of the Regions - and in the promotion of a reinforced synergy between these latter and the Conference of the Presidents of Regional Councils.


Compared to other non-human animals, dogs generally share a privileged relationship with humans. This 12-14,000-year-old union translates today into nearly 68 million domesticated dogs living in United States households. Dogs once had free reign to run through rural and even urban communities, but growing human populations and their similarly growing intolerance toward free-roaming dogs have initiated a government crackdown. Tethering dogs in yards has resulted in an unnatural state which studies indicate actually facilitates more humans receiving dog bites. Recent government trends have been to classify dogs "dangerous" to force "irresponsible owners" to better control their dogs. While some "owners" are undeniably irresponsible and deserve to be held accountable, a fair analysis of some of the factual situations underlying dangerous dog classifications indicates that too many local governments declare dogs dangerous who are not truly dangerous. The classifications are generally based upon political pressure and governments' fear of being legally held liable for any future attacks that might occur. Combined with media-inflamed reports of rare, vicious dog attacks, many local governments are classifying dogs "dangerous" for engaging in normal and harmless dog behaviors such as running up to and barking at people. With the United States human population now at more than 300 million, it is foreseeable that this trend is only going to continue as developable land decreases, forcing humans to live closer together and to come into greater contact with neighbors' dogs.


Problem. At the beginning of this century Islam was confined to some geographical areas in Asia, Africa, and Europe. Dr. Samuel Zwemer in his writings claimed that Islam was a dying religion because it had within it "the germs of death." This claim is no longer valid as Islam has experienced a resurgence and grown proportionately well in other parts of the world. Islam, along with animism, has gained roots in Africa, especially in North and West Africa. Both religions have grown tremendously among some of the people groups in North Ghana where Islam is mixed with hundreds of superstitions and traditions that have gripped the minds of the people for centuries. The Seventh-day Adventist Church The need to study and understand this development of Islam and folk religions in North Ghana is very important. Only when we understand this phenomenon can we devise a workable strategy for both the laity and the clergy to contextualize and use it in their witnessing for Christ. A strategy to win Dagomba Muslims in North Ghana has long remained elusive to Christian missions. This dissertation is a response to this problem so that the findings from this project and the suggested ideas and recommendations may serve as a manual for aspiring workers to North Ghana. Method. Orthodox Islam and folk customs have made the SDA Church work in North Ghana very hard. This is because the SDA Church has not studied the type of Islam that is practiced in North Ghana. SDA Church missionaries to North Ghana stereotyped this Tslam as the type that is practiced in the Middle East. This project has used field interviews to identify this unique Islam, its characteristics, and factors that hinder SDA Church growth. As a result of the survey, twelve strategies have been suggested for both the laity and the clergy. Results. After years of unsuccessful experimentation with man-made and quick-fix methods and plans, this project is calling the SDA Church in North Ghana back to the basics— to adopt Christ's methods of soul-winning and witnessing. This is the only divine blueprint for successful soul-winning in Muslim evangelism. The strategy is developed to encapsulate both the laity and the clergy so that they can work together in winning Muslims for Christ in North Ghana.


DNA barcoding is a useful tool for the identification and potential discovery of new species. In this study, DNA barcoding was employed by sequencing the mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase subunit I gene (COI) to characterize the genetic diversity of 12 shrimp species inhabiting Turkish coastal waters and, when possible, to compare with the genetic data available from different parts of the Mediterranean and eastern Atlantic. This study also comprises the first DNA barcoding study performed in the Turkish Seas using COI. A total of 40 shrimp specimens were collected and analyzed from 9 sites. Generally, the barcoding gap criterion was successful at identifying species; hence COI appeared to be a good marker of choice for DNA barcoding in this group. Out of the 12 species investigated, five were barcoded for the first time. In six species two intraspecific clades were retrieved after the analyses. The results suggest the presence of cryptic diversity in a genetically understudied marine area, Turkish coastal waters, and further investigation in these species using population genetics, taxonomic approaches and nuclear markers is likely to result in designation of new species.


Formal methods are successfully used in a wide range of applications — from hardware and software verification to formalizing mathematics and education. However their impact is limited and is very far from realizing the full potential of formal methods. Our investigation of these limitations shows that they can not be avoided by simply fine-tuning existing tools and methods. We demonstrate the need to concentrate on improving and extending the underlying theory and methodology of computer-aided formal reasoning. This thesis explores both practical and theoretical aspects of achieving these improvements; we present solutions for some of the outstanding problems and substantial improvements for others. In particular, we improve axiomatizations of the extant logics to make them more accessible to both users of the system and proof automating procedures. We also present methods for very significant speedup of the proof search process. Such additional speed means not only that the theorem prover will work faster, but also users can now take advantage of more advanced proof automation procedures that would have been prohibitively slow otherwise. This thesis also demonstrates how these wide ranging practical and theoretical results can be brought together in a more efficient and more generic tactic-based formal system. In particular, we present a generic derived rules mechanism and explain how such a mechanism can facilitate practical modularization of a formal system. We also present several approaches to establishing a generic layer of proof automation procedures (tactics) that apply to a wide variety of logical theories. Most of the ideas presented in this thesis were implemented in the MetaPRL logical framework taking advantage of an existing modular flexible design and making it even more modular and more flexible. After implementing these ideas in the MetaPRL logical framework, we use that system to improve a formalization of NuPRL intuitionistic type theory. In particular, we show how to mod-ularize an axiomatization of a quotient type thus creating a formalization capable of expressing important concepts that were impossible to express in the original monolithic axiomatization. We also show how to add a limited form of classical reasoning to an intuitionistic type theory in a way that preserves many constructive aspects of the theory. Several theorems in this thesis were formally proven in the MetaPRL system. Aleksey Nogin was born in 1976 in Moscow. In 1987 he started participating in the Evening Mathematical School classes at Moscow State Fifty-Seventh School and in 1989 he …


We describe the design of a system consisting of several state-of-the-art real-time audio and video processing components enabling multimodal stream manipulation (e.g., automatic online editing for multiparty videoconferencing applications) in open, unconstrained environments. The underlying algorithms are designed to allow multiple people to enter, interact, and leave the observable scene with no constraints. They comprise continuous localisation of audio objects and its application for spatial audio object coding, detection, and tracking of faces, estimation of head poses and visual focus of attention, detection and localisation of verbal and paralinguistic events, and the association and fusion of these different events. Combined all together, they represent multimodal streams with audio objects and semantic video objects and provide semantic information for stream manipulation systems (like a virtual director). Various experiments have been performed to evaluate the performance of the system. The obtained results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed design, the various algorithms, and the benefit of fusing different modalities in this scenario.


The work deals with a machinability of Inconel® 718 construction material (hereafter referred to as "INC 718"). This chromium-nickel alloy has an austenitic structure, which in conjunction with its low thermal conductivity is one of the causes of a worse machinability. The aim of the work was to increase the productivity of the roughing turning process. There are more ways to improve the machinability of the INC 718, starting from the heat treatment of the material and ending with the application of process fluids. This work is based on real requirements of a company and therefore the possibilities of elimination of the worse machinability were limited by economic and technological aspects. For this reason, the main tool for increasing the productivity of the machining process was changing the material of the cutting tool and fine-tuning of the cutting conditions. In another part of the work, an evaluation of the experimentally determined force ratios of the reference and newly designed technology, which is the basis for the stress-strain analysis, have been made. The conclusion of the research highlights the newly designed process in terms of machining times and the volume of material achieved per unit of the cutting edge durability.


Standard accident models are based on the expected utility framework and represent agents' beliefs about accident risk with a probability distribution. Consequently, they do not allow for Knightian uncertainty, or ambiguity, with respect to accident risk and cannot accommodate optimism (ambiguity loving) or pessimism (ambiguity aversion). This paper presents a unilateral accident model under ambiguity. To incorporate ambiguity, I adopt the Choquet expected utility framework and represent the injurer's beliefs with a neoadditive capacity. I show that neither strict liability nor negligence is generally efficient in the presence of ambiguity. In addition, I generally find that the injurer's level of care decreases (increases) with ambiguity if he is optimistic (pessimistic) and decreases (increases) with his degree of optimism (pessimism). The results suggest that negligence is more robust to ambiguity and, therefore, may be superior to strict liability in unilateral accident cases. Finally, I design an efficient ambiguity‐adjusted liability rule.


Abstract Tinnitus continues to challenge patients from all walks of life and clinicians from a variety of disciplines. The lack of an evidence base to support a specific treatment confounds efforts to provide consistent benefit to patients and in many instances creates in the patient the impression that nothing can be done to improve their situation. Part of the problem is that although patients rarely experience complete elimination of a tinnitus signal, they often experience relief when receiving effective counseling, specific coping strategies, and sound therapy. Although in most clinical activities the tinnitus remains (i.e., it is not cured), its influence may wane as the patient learns to manage their environment, activities, and ultimately their response to tinnitus. At the same time, several medical interventions target reduction of the tinnitus sound, an approach more consistent with what patients expect as a cure. Therefore, the majority of clinical activity directed at care for patients with tinnitus typically targets either elimination of the tinnitus sound (tinnitus treatment) or modification of the patient's response to the sound (tinnitus management). This review distinguishes and offers examples of both treatment and management programs employed clinically for patients with tinnitus.


Background This study investigates if intergenerational equality of opportunity is linked to mortality in 30 European countries. Equality of opportunity may lead to greater returns on health investments and, consequently, improved health outcomes. In turn, a perceived lack of fairness in the distribution of life chances and limited possibilities for upward intergenerational mobility can cause anxiety among individuals and gradually compromise their health. Methods We used information on 163 467 individuals' and their parents' Socio-Economic Index of Occupational Status from a large survey data set—the European Social Survey—to generate three complementary measures of equality of opportunity. We then linked these to administrative data on total, gender-specific and cause-specific mortality rates assembled by Eurostat from the national statistical offices. Results We found that lower equality of opportunity, measured by the attainment of individuals from the lowest and highest quartiles of socioeconomic status and by the overall intergenerational correlation in socioeconomic status, was related to higher mortality rates, particularly in relation to diseases of the nervous system and the sense organs, diseases of the respiratory system and external causes of mortality. Our measures of equality of opportunity were more consistently linked with mortality of men than women. Conclusion Equality of opportunity may be an important explanation of mortality that warrants further research. Measures that aim at facilitating intergenerational social mobility can be justified not only via normative considerations of equality of opportunity but also in terms of individuals' chances to enjoy healthy lives.


Dissolution kinetics of the (110) face of salicylic acid in aqueous solution is determined by hopping intermittent contact-scanning electrochemical microscopy (HIC-SECM) using a 2.5 μm diameter platinum ultramicroelectrode (UME). The method operates by translating the probe UME towards the surface at a series of positions across the crystal and inducing dissolution via the reduction of protons to hydrogen, which titrates the weak acid and promotes the dissolution reaction, but only when the UME is close to the crystal. Most importantly, as dissolution is only briefly and transiently induced at each location, the initial dissolution kinetics of an as-grown single crystal surface can be measured, rather than a surface which has undergone significant dissolution (pitting), as in other techniques. Mass transport and kinetics in the system are modelled using finite element method simulations which allows dissolution rate constants to be evaluated. It is found that the kinetics of an 'as-grown' crystal are much slower than for a surface that has undergone partial bulk dissolution (mimicking conventional techniques), which can be attributed to a dramatic change in surface morphology as identified by atomic force microscopy (AFM). The 'as-grown' (110) surface presents extended terrace structures to the solution which evidently dissolve slowly, whereas a partially dissolved surface has extensive etch features and step sites which greatly enhance dissolution kinetics. This means that crystals such as salicylic acid will show time-dependent dissolution kinetics (fluxes) that are strongly dependent on crystal history, and this needs to be taken into account to fully understand dissolution.


Evaluation of Exposures to Diesel Particulate Matter Utilizing Ambient Air Monitoring and Urinary Biomarkers Among Pedestrian Commuters who Cross the U.S.-Mexico Border at San Ysidro, CA. Vanessa Eileen Galaviz Chair of the Supervisory Committee: Professor Michael G. Yost Department of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences Background: Walk-in-line pedestrians crossing the U.S.-Mexico border northbound at the San Ysidro Port of Entry (SYPOE), referred to as "Border Commuters," may be at an increased risk of experiencing elevated traffic-related air pollution, including diesel exhaust (DE). DE exposure has been associated with numerous adverse health effects, particularly cardiovascular and respiratory problems, including lung cancer. "Border Commuters" wait in line for extended periods and stand within 10 feet of highly concentrated traffic, particularly to diesel buses. Understanding the magnitude of traffic-related exposures is important for this vulnerable population. It was hypothesized that "Border Commuters" who reside in Tijuana, Baja California, Mexico and cross SYPOE northbound as a pedestrian will experience higher exposure to traffic-related pollutants than "Non-Border Commuters" defined as those who live and work or go to school in or near San Ysidro, California, U.S.A. and do not cross into Mexico. Methods: Ninety-one participants were enrolled for this study; 80% were "Border Commuters" and 20% were "Non-Border Commuters." Questionnaires, time activity diaries, and urine samples were collected from all participants. Of the "Border Commuters", 56 personal 24-hour PM2.5, 1-nitropyrene (1-NP) a marker for diesel exhaust – and carbon monoxide (CO) samples were collected. There were 22 at-home indoor and 14 at-home outdoor 1-NP samples collected. Additionally, area samples collected at the border included 35 days of 1-NP, black carbon (BC), CO, fine particulate matter (PM2.5) and ultrafine particulate matter (UFP). Of the "Non-Border Commuters", 15 personal 24-hour PM2.5, 1-NP, and CO samples were collected. Additionally, 3 at-home indoor and outdoor 24-hour 1-NP samples were collected. Results: Personal exposure to PM2.5 was nearly 2-fold higher among "Border Commuters" compared to "Non-Border Commuters" (39 ± 30 vs 21 ± 11 μg/m 3 , p<0.01 Mann-Whitney), while personal exposure to 1NP was more than 8-fold higher among the "Border Commuters"(1.7 ± 2.3 vs 0.22 ± 0.21 pg/m 3 , p<0.01 Mann-Whitney). "Border Commuters" had a 3-fold increase exposure to CO than "Non-Border Commuters" (2.8 ± 1.8 vs 0.22 ± 0.21 ppm, p<0.01 Mann-Whitney). Two metabolites of 1-NP were readily detected in urine samples, the most abundant of which was 8hydroxy-1-nitropyrene (8-OHNP) followed by 8-hydroxy-N-acetly-1-aminopyrene (8OHNAAP). "Border Commuters" had greater than a 2-fold higher concentration of 8-OHNP (0.071 ± 0.066 vs 0.032 ± 0.021 pg/mL, p=0.05 Mann-Whitney) and a 3-fold higher concentration of 8-OHNAAP (0.063 ± 0.11 vs 0.021 ± 0.013 pg/mL, p=0.11 Mann-Whitney) as compared to "Non-Border Commuters". Home indoor concentrations of 1-NP were 30-60% of home outdoor concentrations with "Border Commuters" having higher concentrations both indoors (0.64 ± 0.81 vs 0.078 ± 0.075 pg/m 3 , p=0.04 Mann-Whitney) and outdoors (1.0 ± 0.93 vs 0.27 ± 0.24 pg/m 3 , p=0.11 Mann-Whitney) compared to "Non-Border Commuters". Border concentrations of 1-NP weighted by the time spent at the border, total travel given season, and season were all predictors of personal exposure to 1-NP among "Border Commuters". However, when placed in a multivariate linear regression model total travel given season was the only predictor variable to remain significant. Season was the only predictor for personal exposure to PM2.5 while total travel was the only predictor for 8-OHNP among "Border Commuters." Median values (interquartile range; IQR) of daily averages for fixed-site measurements made at the border were as follows: 40,000 (24,000-52,000) UFP/cm 3 , 5 (3-6) ppm CO, 1.3 (0.5-2.6) pg/m 3 1-NP, 4 (3-11) μg/m 3 BC, 41 (23-57) μg/m 3 real-time PM2.5, and 15 (13-22) μg/m 3 gravimetric PM2.5. Wind speed was a predictor of gravimetric PM2.5 at the border explaining 22% of the variance. Relative humidity and vehicle delay were both predictors of UFP measured at the border, explaining 13% and 21% of the variance, respectively. However, when modeled together none remained significant. There were no predictors for 1-NP measurements at the border. Conclusions: This is the first quantitative study characterizing traffic-related exposure to a vulnerable population, indicating that this vulnerable population is indeed at high risk for exposure. "Border Commuters" experience higher exposure to 1-NP and PM2.5 as compared to "Non-Border Commuters", as determined by both personal and at-home measurements. In addition, traffic-related air pollution exposure among "Border Commuters" within 10 feet of highly concentrated traffic is of great public health concern as concentrations at the border are similar to near-roadway studies that link exposure to adverse health effects. Interventions to reduce border wait times would significantly reduce traffic pollutant exposures in this vulnerable population. However, further work needs to be done to understand the spatial heterogeneity of athome exposures between the two study groups.


The migratory phenomenon has been familiar with different realities, where less expectable regions can win or lose its population density influenced by factors whose compression can help to rethinking the forms of urban structure. The numerous studies on population trends and migratory flow the densification of urban centers and related to aspects such as social security, land productivity, life quality, employment and accessibility to socials services that can cause changes in the way population is scattered by territory. This reality is evident in developing countries who face mobility of its labor force in search of better opportunities in the more urbanized locations, leaving marks on economic or in regions that lose population, as well as those who earn. Therefore, realizing the real impact of employment in population distribution, in order to understand the impact that particular activity exercises can be an economic development strategy and ensuring the welfare for many countries in sub-Saharan Africa where 60 percents of the urban population are ?in Slum conditions'. And, Angola is in this reality not only for its geographical context, but, by the existence of numerous factors that systematically attract the population from rural to per-urban areas, increasing the population density of urban centers at the same rate that degrades the life quality. Surprisingly this evidence, few studies have devoted attention to understand the dynamics of population flow and its implications. Around this problematic the problem is: what policies or governance measures can redirect the current urban densification? Has a certain economic factors and urban restructuring impact in the population sprinkling? Or, will the jobs associated with basic services such as education and health, influence in the population grouping to the point of creating new intermediate centers? Or own population density is that it tends to attract these jobs? Considering to these questions, the study aims to estimate the impact of the allocation of public services (education and health) in population distribution, and seeks to understand the interaction between public services and spatial distribution of population. Using a spatial interaction model developed in MatLab, we formulate up five study scenarios of jobs distribution and analyzed data through, of Angola National Development Plan 2013 -2017,. The results are not only a management tool in the urbanization process that is required in locations rapidly growing, as in the case of Huambo city. That as the country's environment of fruit watching a rural exodus that could collapse the sustainability of existing urban scepters, more like also the results are very suggestive to understand the causes of migration and the constraints to the development of centralities.


A literature search indicates that Data, Information and Knowledge continue to be placed into a hierarchical construct where it is considered that information is more valuable than data and that information can be processed into becoming precious knowledge. Wisdom continues to be added to the model to further confuse the issue. This model constrains our ability to think more logically about how and why we develop knowledge management systems to support and enhance knowledge- intensive processes, tasks or projects. This paper seeks to summarise development of the Data-Information-Knowledge-Wisdom hierarchy, explore the extensive criticism of it and present a more logical (and accurate) construct for the elements of intellectual capital when developing and managing Knowledge Management Systems.


Courts and commentators are increasingly concerned about police misconduct — searches and seizures that fail to comply with Fourth Amendment protections. Current doctrine attempts to deter such misconduct with the threat of excluding unlawfully seized evidence. The remedy of exclusion is weak, however, in large part because judges only see cases in which the defendant obviously is guilty. Despite years of proposals, the alternative of money damages is largely unavailable. The problem is exacerbated because Fourth Amendment law is notoriously uncertain. The combination of these three factors results in ineffective deterrence of Fourth Amendment violations. We propose to replace the failed deterrence model with a stringent ex ante warrant requirement. We make a novel case for warrants based on findings from the social sciences. The Court, rather than continuously weakening the warrant requirement, should reverse course and set warrants as the centerpiece of the Fourth Amendment.


All-optical switching has been proposed to overcome the limitations of electronic switches in terms of scalability, speed, footprint, and power consumption. A key passive optical component to bypass electronic processing limitations is the arrayed waveguide grating (AWG). Switch architectures combining wavelength converters and fiber delay lines provide tunable routing and contention resolution when used with AWGs. An AWG passively routes either single or multiple input port wavelengths to its output ports. A single wavelength per port strategy reduces crosstalk within the AWG, but drastically increases the dimensionality of the device. Physical constraints on AWG design limit the port number for the foreseeable future to under 100. To scale optical switches to emerging network requirements, we can use multiple wavelengths per port. In this paper we examine one multiple wavelength per port architecture and quantify the physical layer impairments due not only to the AWG crosstalk, but also Q-factor degradation due to multiple wavelength conversions, and as a function of the number of recirculations in the contention resolution delay lines. While previous work has addressed this issue in terms of accumulated loss, we focus on accumulated relative intensity noise and amplified spontaneous emission.


Background: The BREAST-Q Reduction module evaluates outcomes in reduction mammaplasty. However, there are currently no published normative scores, limiting the interpretation of BREAST-Q data. Methods: The BREAST-Q Reduction module was administered via the Army of Women, an online community of women (with and without breast cancer) engaged in breast-cancer related research. Normative data were generated from women aged 18 years and older, without a history of breast cancer or breast surgery. Data analysis was performed using descriptive statistics and a linear multivariate regression. Generated normative data were compared to published BREAST-Q Reduction findings. Results: The preoperative version of the BREAST-Q Reduction module was completed by 1206 women. Participant mean age was 55 ± 13 years, mean body mass index was 27 ± 6 kg/m2, and 40 percent (n = 481) had a bra cup size ≥ D. Mean normative scores were as follows: Satisfaction with Breasts, 57 ± 16; Psychosocial Well-being, 68 ± 19; Sexual Well-being, 55 ± 19; and Physical Well-being, 76 ± 11. Normative scores were lower in women with body mass index ≥ 30 and bra cup size ≥ D. In comparison to normative Army of Women scores, published BREAST-Q scores for women undergoing reduction mammaplasty were lower (worse) for preoperative patients and higher (better) for postoperative patients. Conclusion: These new Army of Women normative data provide insights into breast-related satisfaction and well-being in women not pursuing breast reduction, giving new clinical context to better understand the health burden of macromastia, and to demonstrate the value of reduction mammaplasty in certain patients.


A small proportion of the antibodies to Group A streptococcal carbohydrate (A-CHO) elicited in BALB/c mice by immunization with Group A streptococci, has idiotypic determinants in common with the BALB/c myeloma protein S117 which has specificity for N-acetyl-glucosamine, the major antigenic determinant of A-CHO. The expression of these idiotypic determinants is under the control of a gene which is linked to the Ig-1a+ allotype locus in strain BALB/c and in other strains carrying the same Ig-1 haplotype. This gene (S117+) segregates in breeding experiments as if it were an allele to the gene A5A+ which controls the expression of the A5A idiotype in association with antibodies to A-CHO in strain A/J and which is linked to the Ig-1e allotype locus. Another possible allele, linked to the Ig-1c allotype locus, controls the expression of both S117 and A5A cross-reactive determinants (S117cr, A5Acr). The distribution of these idiotypic determinants in various lines that carry recombinant Ig-1 haplotypes suggests that the A5A and S117 loci are nonallelic and map at different positions in the Ig-1 region. The data suggest complex pseudollelic relationships between different Ig-1 haplotypes that allow the expression of the same genes in allelic and in nonallelic fashion.


BACKGROUND
The impact of correction of pectus excavatum (PE) on adolescents' health-related quality of life (HRQL) has only been investigated in prospective designs using disease-specific measures and without controls. The aim of this prospective study was to evaluate the HRQL before and after surgical correction of PE using a generic HRQL measure, and to compare the reported level of HRQL before surgery with an age-comparable control group.

METHODS
Patients (n=107) and one of their parents (n=106) completed the generic HRQL measure: the Child Health Questionnaire before, 3 months, and 6 months after correction for PE. A control group (n=183) consisting of school children comparable in age completed the same measure on one occasion.

RESULTS
The patients' level of HRQL before surgery was comparable to the level of the controls except for physical functioning; here boys reported impaired function compared to controls (P<0.0001, d=0.72). Both patients and parents reported improved emotional wellbeing and self-esteem, as well as an increase in physical and social activities from pre- to post-surgery. These improvements were statistically significant (P≤0.001-0.03) and yielded moderate to high effect sizes (ƞ2=0.04-0.22).

CONCLUSIONS
The improvement of physical and psychosocial HRQL reported by both patients and their parents as proxy indicates the psychological implications of the deformity. Patients reported impaired physical function compared to controls. Further, pre-surgery differences in HRQL between the patients and the controls were lacking. However, the improvement in the patients' HRQL following surgery may justify the correction of pectus excavatum. The effect of the deformity on patients wellbeing compared with controls' needs to be addressed in further studies.


Objective: The aim of this study is to determine the activity of an Indonesian herbal formulation, which is specific for respiratory disorders and contains a combination of Curcuma xanthorrhiza rhizome, Vitex trifolia leaves, Zingiber officinale rhizome, Citrus fruit, and Echinacea purpurea herb, as an immunomodulator in mice. Materials and Methods: Thirty male Balb/c mice were divided into five groups as follows: negative control, E. purpurea for reference, and three doses of herbal formula. The samples were administered daily for 14 days, and immune response was induced by hepatitis B vaccine on days 7 and 14. On day 18, blood was collected via the retro-orbital plexus. Macrophage phagocytosis and lymphocyte proliferation assay and measurement of immunoglobulin G (IgG) antibody titers were carried out on day 20. Results: The herbal formula can significantly increase the phagocytic index compared with the negative control. Interestingly, the herbal formula showed higher activity compared with E. purpurea-only treatment. This indicates the possible synergistic effects of the herbal components in the formula. This synergistic pattern was also observed in the production of IgG antibody. The herbal formula can significantly increase IgG titer compared with the negative control group (P < 0.05). However, the increase was nonsignificant compared with E. purpurea-only treatment. On the other hand, the herbal formula showed less effect on the induction of lymphocyte proliferation compared with E. purpurea-only treatment. Low-dose treatments showed suppressive effects. Conclusions: The herbal formula showed more immunostimulatory activity on nonspecific responses than specific immune ones. Other herbal components may contribute to the overall immunomodulatory effect of the studied herbal formula. Abbreviations used: BW: Body weight; CMC: Cell-mediated cytotoxicity; CMC-Na: Carboxymethyl chitosan in Na-salt form; ELISA: Enzyme-linked immunosorbent; HBsAg: Hepatitis B surface antigen; IgG: Immunoglobulin G; OD: Optical density; PBS: Phosphate-buffered saline; RPMI: Roswell park memorial institute; PI: Phagocytic index; MTT: 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide.


Abstract In 2006 preliminary plans were made public showing that Gazprom intended to construct a pipeline through the Altai republic (Russia, south-west Siberia). Unfortunately, there was almost no attention to integrating the conservation of cultural heritage (both archaeological and landscape) into the planning of the pipeline, though the Altai is well-known for its rich cultural heritage. Hitherto, no assessment has been made of the potential impact of the project, nor did Gazprom release detailed information about the exact course of the route. The present article aims to illustrate the potential impact of the pipeline based on a detailed study of a small segment of the route, using remote sensing images and data gathered during fieldwork. This assessment underlines the need for a well-thought-out strategy, which is required if sustainable integration of heritage conservation into the construction plan is to be realized. If such a balance is not found, thousands of archaeological monuments could disappear, which would result in a huge cultural and scientific loss. As a possible solution, an integrative strategy founded on a desk-based study of remote sensing images and a well-directed field survey is suggested.


Abstract. The diet of the European red fox (Vulpes vulpes) was investigated through analysis of 1185 scats collected between 2010 and 2014 from coastal south-east Queensland, Australia. By both frequency of occurrence and volume, its diet was dominated by terrestrial arthropods, marine arthropods, vegetation and birds, although the remains of the short-tailed shearwater (Ardenna tenuirostris) consumed as carrion dominated the latter. Terrestrial arthropods, primarily insects of the order Coleoptera, were eaten all year (61% frequency of occurrence, FO) but varied seasonally (35–67%FO), mostly due to the consumption of large numbers of Christmas beetles (Anoplognathus spp.) in the summer months. Marine arthropods consisted almost entirely of ghost crabs (Ocypode spp.) and seasonal variation in consumption was evident (33–72%FO) and likely correlated with ghost crab abundance. Fruit and berries were an important food item for foxes all year but also varied seasonally (30–65%FO). The opportunistic diet of this fox population is discussed in the context of dietary differences, but common opportunism, reported in other Australian and overseas studies.


The identification of literary works in the Pentateuch and the Former Prophets is a hallmark of the modern historical-critical interpretation of the Hebrew Bible. The theories of a Tetrateuch, a Hexateuch, or a Deuteronomistic History have played a central role in recovering the literary history of the Pentateuch and the Former Prophets. The breakdown of these methodologies in recent research has forced scholars to reevaluate the criteria for identifying literary works in the formation of the Hebrew Bible. The present volume explores anew, without presupposition or exclusion, the criteria by which interpreters identify literary works in these books as a resource for recovering the composition history of the literature. It also brings North American and European approaches to the topic into a common discussion.


Universal Design provides practitioners, graduate students, and other professionals interested in obtaining practical advice on how to effectively create and re-create interiors of academic libraries for teaching, learning, and research. The academic library ?as place? continues to evolve around the idea that the existing environment can have multiple uses. Partnerships with other college and university agencies, such as centers for teaching excellence and writing centers have compatible missions with those of academic libraries. Established within the building-proper these facilities will better serve students and faculty. The book fills the need for current information about how to effectively design and re-design academic library spaces to meet the ever-changing needs for today?s and tomorrow?s students, faculty, and researchers.

 Provides practical advice that can be applied immediately

 Includes brief and to-the-point explanations and information for the time-crunched reader

 Easy-to-locate references are provided if the reader seeks additional information


declared a work of the Government and copyright States. ABSTRACT This paper describes a planar or two-dimensional model to examine the gross motions of rail cars in a generalized train derailment. Three coupled, second-order differential equations are derived from Newton's Laws to calculate rigid-body car motions with time. Car motions are defined with respect to a right-handed and fixed (i.e., non-rotating) reference frame. The rail cars are translating and rotating but not deforming. Moreover, the differential equations are considered as stiff, requiring relatively small time steps in the numerical solution, which is carried out using a FORTRAN computer code. Sensitivity studies are conducted using the purpose-built model to examine the relative effect of different factors on the derailment outcome. These factors include the number of cars in the train makeup, car mass, initial translational and rotational velocities, and coefficients of friction. Derailment outcomes include the number of derailed cars, maximum closing velocities (i.e., relative velocities between impacting cars), and peak coupler forces. Results from the purpose-built model are also compared to those from a model for derailment dynamics developed using commercial software for rigid-body dynamics called Automatic Dynamic Analysis of Mechanical Systems Moreover, the purpose-built and the ADAMS models produce nearly identical results, which suggest that the dynamics are being calculated correctly in both models.


Objective To explore the factors that influence recovery from serious injuries sustained in motor vehicle crashes, particularly differences between those with compensable and non-compensable injuries. Design and setting Qualitative study using grounded theory and focus group methods within the trauma service of a university teaching hospital. Participants 34 subjects (27 male, 7 female), of whom 21 were participants with a compensation claim and 13 were not. Each had sustained injuries in motor vehicle crashes between two and seven years previously. Main outcome measure Themes identified from transcripts of the focus groups. Results The themes identified from participants claiming compensation were a strong sense of entitlement and injustice, a difficult claims and settlement process, an inability to move on with life during the claims process, an extreme dislike of medico-legal assessments, the necessity of legal representation to assist with the claims process, and a perceived lack of trust about having to prove an injury or disability. The themes common to all participants were the significance of the trauma experience, the importance of family and social support, and, if self-employed, financial hardship and difficult experiences in returning to work. Conclusions The injury recovery experience was difficult for all subjects, but it was particularly stressful for those claiming compensation. Based on this study, the claims process, particularly medico-legal examinations, and other factors that could impact on injury recovery, are targets for further research, possible policy review, or legislative change.


Strong correlations between seasonal energy input and methane (CH4) bubbling (ebullition) in northern lakes suggest that energy proxies might provide a constraint on the magnitude of future CH4 emissions. Ebullition is a major pathway for transporting anaerobically produced CH4 from lake sediments to the atmosphere and represents a large unquantified CH4 source. In high‐latitude, postglacial lakes during the ice‐free season, solar shortwave energy input can constrain CH4 productivity via control of sediment temperature. Utilizing long‐term climatic predictors, we calculate CH4 ebullition from three subarctic lakes in northern Sweden over the period of 1916–2079. Using observed energy trends, the seasonal average lake CH4 ebullition is predicted to increase by 80% between the 1916–1926 decade and the 2040–2079 period. Present‐day seasonal average methane ebullition is estimated to have already increased 24% since the 1916–1926 decade.


In this study, we use a unique dataset covering all higher education institutions, public research Institutions and private companies that have applied for funding to the European Framework Programs for Research and Innovation in the period 2007–2017. The first aim of this study is to show the composition of R&D performing actors per country, which to the best of our knowledge has never been done before. The second aim of this study is to compare country profiles in R&D composition, so that we may analyse whether the countries differ in concentration of R&D performing institutions. The third aim of this study is to investigate whether different R&D country profiles are associated with how the R&D systems perform, i.e. whether the profiles are associated with Research and Innovation performance indicators. Our study shows that the concentration of R&D actors at countrylevel and within the sectors differ across European countries, with the general conclusion being that countries that can be characterized as well-performing on citation and innovation indicators seem to combine (a) high shares of Gross Domestic Expenditure on R&D as percentage of GDP with (b) a highly skewed R&D system, where a small part of the R&D performing actors account for a very high share of the national R&D performance. This indicates a dual R&D system which combines a few large R&D performing institutions with a very large number of small actors.


We present the results of a hierarchical N-body simulation on DEGIMA, a cluster of PCs with 576 graphic processing units (GPUs) and using an InfiniBand interconnect. DEGIMA stands for DEstination for GPU Intensive MAchine, and is located at Nagasaki Advanced Computing Center (NACC), Nagasaki University. In this work, we have upgraded DEGIMA_s interconnect using InfiniBand. DEGIMA is composed by 144 nodes with 576 GT200 GPUs. An astrophysical N-body simulation with 3,278,982,596 particles using a treecode algorithm shows a sustained performance of 190.5 Tflops on DEGIMA. The overall cost of the hardware was $411,921 dollars. The maximum corrected performance is 104.8 Tflops for the simulation, resulting in a cost performance of 254.4 MFlops/$. This corrections is performed by counting the FLOPS based on the most efficient CPU algorithm. Any extra FLOPS that arise from the GPU implementation and parameter differences are not included in the 254.4 MFLOPS/$.


: Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) is a new technology utilizing extensible markup language (XML) sent over the Internet via the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP). SOAP was used to implement a tool to elicit user feedback on a prototype web service developed at the Lister Hill National Center for Biomedical Communications, an R&D division of the National Library of Medicine (NLM). The service, called MyMorph, allows an end user to convert files in more than fifty different formats to the Portable Document Format (PDF). The MyMorph service uses client software running on the user's computer to send files via SOAP to a computer system at NLM called DocMorph, which converts them to PDF and returns the results to the user's computer. MyMorph can support document delivery, as well as file migration for electronic document preservation. To help determine its usefulness, the MyMorph software included an optional user survey that allowed users to provide feedback to the developers via SOAP. This paper describes how the SOAP-based survey was implemented, and analyzes the survey results.


Animals benefit from phenotypic plasticity in changing environments, but this can come at a cost. Colour change, used for camouflage, communication, thermoregulation and UV protection, represents one of the most common plastic traits in nature and is categorised as morphological or physiological depending on the mechanism and speed of the change. Colour change has been assumed to carry physiological costs, but current knowledge has not advanced beyond this basic assumption. The costs of changing colour will shape the evolution of colour change in animals, yet no coherent research has been conducted in this area, leaving a gap in our understanding. Therefore, in this Review, we examine the direct and indirect evidence of the physiological cost of colour change from the cellular to the population level, in animals that utilise chromatophores in colour change. Our Review concludes that the physiological costs result from either one or a combination of the processes of (i) production, (ii) translocation and (iii) maintenance of pigments within the colour-containing cells (chromatophores). In addition, both types of colour change (morphological and physiological) pose costs as they require energy for hormone production and neural signalling. Moreover, our Review upholds the hypothesis that, if repetitively used, rapid colour change (i.e. seconds-minutes) is more costly than slow colour change (days-weeks) given that rapidly colour-changing animals show mitigations, such as avoiding colour change when possible. We discuss the potential implications of this cost on colour change, behaviour and evolution of colour-changing animals, generating testable hypotheses and emphasising the need for future work to address this gap.


The use of games for ?serious? purposes is one of many issues receiving growing attention in research. Games are changing society in new ways, and the birth of the modern video game has spurred its own highly dynamic global industry and emerging field of research with increasing interest among academics. Play is a natural instinct of man, and work a natural element of modern society. The two seem to have opposed each other in recent history, but the distinctions between the two are now becoming less clear. Games have a unique ability to engage and immerse the players, and play and game elements seem to represent a significant opportunity for improving productivity and well-being in a broad spectrum of organizations, and hence perhaps the next step in the evolution of work. This study is a specific contribution to understanding the preference of game elements to improve the work experience in organizations. The research questions address what game elements are preferred by players, and what the relationships are between player attributes and game elements. A quantitative research design was used to answer these questions, specifically consisting of statistical analyses of 779 responses of a self-completion questionnaire distributed at The Gathering, the largest annual event dedicated to communal play and gaming in Norway. The analyses show that players have clear preferences for game elements, and that there is a strong relationship between player attributes and player preference for game elements. Especially the player?s level of experience and type of motivation are related to an increased preference for several game elements, implicating the importance of determining these player attributes to enhance the game experience. Implications for theory and management are given based on the research findings. For theory, the MDANC framework of game elements, and components for player motivation compatible with the framework, are proposed. In addition, theoretical implications from player preferences and relationships between player attributes and game elements are given. For management, implications regard the main applications of game elements in organizations, including use for improved work experience, motivation, learning, and innovation, and how these elements might be implemented.


Vanopolis proposes a new bridge across Vancouver's False Creek, connecting Yaletown to the north with Fairview Slopes to the south. Several viaducts already span the False Creek Inlet, namely the Burrard, Granville, and Cambie Bridges. The project builds on the language of these crossings to propose a pedestrian bridge supported by housing. 80% of the land on which the False Creek South neighbourhood sits is owned by the City of Vancouver. With leases set to expire in the next decade, concerned parties are keen to know what lies ahead — especially as the area is under pressure to intensify. The proposed pedestrian bridge across False Creek represents a bold approach to accommodating additional density and blurs the boundaries between architecture, infrastructure, and urban design. Using the housing to support the bridge, will enable False Creek South to transform from a low-density enclave to a thriving, connected community.


Primate lentiviruses are typically apathogenic in their evolutionarily coadapted host species but can be lethal when transferred to new host species. Why such infections are pathogenic in humans and rhesus macaques (RMs) but not in sooty mangabeys (SMs), a natural host, remains unclear. Studies of chronically infected animals point to the importance of diminished immune activation in response to the infection in SMs. In this study, we sought the causes and timing of the differences in immune activation in a comparative study of acute SIV infection in RMs and SMs. Surprisingly, we show that in acute infection immune activation is comparable in SMs and RMs but thereafter, SMs quickly resolve immune activation, whereas RMs did not. Early resolution of immune activation in SMs correlated with increased expression of PD-1 and with preservation of CD4 (cid:1) T cell counts and lymphatic tissue architecture. These findings point to early control of immune activation by host immunoregulatory mechanisms as a major determinant of the different disease outcomes in SIV infection of natural vs non-natural hosts. The Journal of Immunology, 2008, 180: 6798–6807.


A consequence of the fragmented and siloed healthcare landscape is that patient care (and data) is split along multitude of different facilities and computer systems and enabling interoperability between these systems is hard. The lack interoperability not only hinders continuity of care and burdens providers, but also hinders effective application of Machine Learning (ML) algorithms. Thus, most current ML algorithms, designed to understand patient care and facilitate clinical decision-support, are trained on limited datasets. This approach is analogous to the Newtonian paradigm of Reductionism in which a system is broken down into elementary components and a description of the whole is formed by understanding those components individually. A key limitation of the reductionist approach is that it ignores the component-component interactions and dynamics within the system which are often of prime significance in understanding the overall behaviour of complex adaptive systems (CAS). Healthcare is a CAS.
Though the application of ML on health data have shown incremental improvements for clinical decision support, ML has a much a broader potential to restructure care delivery as a whole and maximize care value. However, this ML potential remains largely untapped: primarily due to functional limitations of Electronic Health Records (EHR) and the inability to see the healthcare system as a whole. This viewpoint (i) articulates the healthcare as a complex system which has a biological and an organizational perspective, (ii) motivates with examples, the need of a system's approach when addressing healthcare challenges via ML and, (iii) emphasizes to unleash EHR functionality - while duly respecting all ethical and legal concerns - to reap full benefits of ML.


Diabetes mellitus is a metabolic disease characterized by an increase in blood sugar levels that cause vascular complications and circulatory disorders. Hot and cold water soaking in the feet can increase blood flow and blood vessel pumping. Objective: to assess the effect of hot and cold water soaking in the foot blood circulation in patients with diabetes mellitus. Methods: A quasi-experimental was conducted with pre-test and post-test approach with control. Respondents were 35 people per group by consecutive sampling. Data were analysed using Wilcoxon signed ranks test and the Mann Whitney Test. Result: there was a significant effect between the average value of Ankle Brachial Index before 0.823 (SD 0.025) and after treatment 0.95 (SD 0.95), p-value = 0.00. The mean difference was obtained p = 0.00, if the p value <0.05, there was a significant difference in the difference in the mean value. Conclusion: it was found that the leg blood circulation was getting better after the hot cold water soaking. It is recommended for nurses to make hot and cold water immersion into one of the independent nursing interventions in providing nursing care to diabetes mellitus patients.


Abstract This article uses the case of Denmark to critically discuss key assumptions in the theoretical literature on dual citizenship. When Denmark surprisingly accepted dual citizenship in 2015, the decision reflected two distinct lines of argument: first, accepting dual citizenship would allow Danes living abroad to keep their Danish citizenship; second, because it is considered illegitimate to make people stateless, allowing dual citizenship would simultaneously allow for citizenship revocation of dual citizens who engage in or support acts of terror. This rationale stands in striking contrast to how dual citizenship has been previously theorised. The gradual acceptance of dual citizenship in Western countries since the early 1990s has been seen either as a symptom of a post-national era or as a pragmatic adjustment to the transnational realities of international migration. By contrast, the case of Denmark shows that dual citizenship may serve as a lever to protect the political community of the nation-state from terrorism and, as such, function as a tool of securitisation.


During the Cambodian Genocide (1975–79), about 12,272 to 20,000 people were jailed in the infamous Tuol Sleng (S-21) prison. Only a handful survived. This study focuses on how former S21 perpetrators relate today to their role in the genocide. Through a vast network of fear and torture, the Khmer Rouge instituted a program of "thought reform" in order to accomplish total obedience. Based on court testimonies, archival material, and semi-structured interviews with surviving S-21 guards and interrogators, this study shows how the former S-21 personnel manifest a lingering obedience orientation toward authority, limited reflection about the past, and little empathy toward their victims. The study demonstrates the long-lasting implications of the mindset that was established by the Khmer Rouge. More needs to be done to face the past and to "remove the guards from their prisons" in Cambodia.


We report results from an experiment that compares precautionary savings behavior with retirement savings behavior. We find that more than 30% of precautionary savings behavior can be categorized as optimal or near optimal, while virtually all of this behavior disappears in favor of simple decision rules that specify constant consumption in each period when retirement savings is added as a motive. We discuss the the costs and benefits of these rules, which make a complex decision-making environment manageable. Our experiment is the first to identify how decision-making changes when agents are required to save for retirement.


Myanmar's Government is leading the process of national education reform. It is estimated that over one million children are still out of school in Myanmar due to poverty, geographical remoteness, disability, language conflict and other barriers. The purpose of this study is to determine education development in 4 townships of Meiktila District and to illustrate how GIS can be used in addressing the educational planning problems through a case study of educational facilities. In this article, 31 criteria are described to determine the ranking of educational development level of four townships; Meiktila, Mahlaing, Thazi and Wundwin in Mandalay Division, Myanmar. The ranking results are compared by using two methods of AHP and SAW. Ranking results and the most important criteria are generated in GIS environment to show how GIS platform can analyze educational development problems. GIS is well known to the planners, decision makers and other actors of planning as a Decision Support System (DSS) tool. As the future work, the analysis of the regional distribution of educational facilities, evaluation of spatial accessibility to the facilities and demographic data will be used in demand analysis for various educational services within the country.


Recent spatially resolved observations of galaxies at z ∼ 0.6–3 reveal that high-redshift galaxies show complex kinematics and a broad distribution of gas-phase metallicity gradients. To understand these results, we use a suite of high-resolution cosmological zoom-in simulations from the Feedback in Realistic Environments project, which include physically motivated models of the multiphase interstellar medium, star formation and stellar feedback. Our simulations reproduce the observed diversity of kinematic properties and metallicity gradients, broadly consistent with observations at z ∼ 0–3. Strong negative metallicity gradients only appear in galaxies with a rotating disc, but not all rotationally supported galaxies have significant gradients. Strongly perturbed galaxies with little rotation always have flat gradients. The kinematic properties and metallicity gradient of a high-redshift galaxy can vary significantly on short time-scales, associated with starburst episodes. Feedback from a starburst can destroy the gas disc, drive strong outflows and flatten a pre-existing negative metallicity gradient. The time variability of a single galaxy is statistically similar to the entire simulated sample, indicating that the observed metallicity gradients in high-redshift galaxies reflect the instantaneous state of the galaxy rather than the accretion and growth history on cosmological time-scales. We find weak dependence of metallicity gradient on stellar mass and specific star formation rate (sSFR). Low-mass galaxies and galaxies with high sSFR tend to have flat gradients, likely due to the fact that feedback is more efficient in these galaxies. We argue that it is important to resolve feedback on small scales in order to produce the diverse metallicity gradients observed.


Akin Adesokan. Postcolonial Artists and Global Aesthetics. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2011. xix + 230 pp. Film stills. Bibliography. Index. $24.95. Paper.Akin Adesokan's Postcolonial Artists and Global Aesthetics is very much a book for postcolonial studies scholars to think with. Unlike scholars of decoloniality such as Walter Mignolo, who are engaged in a project of updating the oppositionality of decolonization by defining alternative, critical epistemologies located in Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean, Adesokan provides a systematic way of thinking about the deep structural links that unite globalization and decolonization, as world-historical social formations, in the work of artists from what was once called the "Third World." Borrowing from network theory, Adesokan demonstrates how we might create new cognitive maps of the postcolonial "Third World" based on links and ties across geographic space and in relationship to the metropoles, an approach that justifies his own pairing of African, Caribbean, and South Asian artists and thinkers.For Adesokan it is precisely the tension between modernity and coloniality, in their globalized iteration, that characterizes the work of contemporary artists. This is a tension not easily collapsed into smooth neologisms such as the "glocal." Rather, Postcolonial Artists rests on the idea that what is postpostmodern and post-postcolonial are artistic modes of production that are neither simply oppositional nor simply co-opted but are rather complexly intertwined with global capitalism. These are the aesthetic effects of a cultural and economic complex Adesokan describes as the "crossroads of capital," that is, an idea of the marketplace as a socioeconomic formation where competing interests and forces of the local and the global not only meet but also intertwine and, at times, find an uneasy reconciliation. Adesokan affirms the indebtedness of such figures as C. L. R.James, Ousmane Sembene, and even to some extent Tunde Kelani to midcentury visions of pan-Africanism and tricontinentalism that allow these artists to maintain a separateness from "First World" values and understandings of the world, and an emphasis on more "local" beliefs, value systems, symbolic orders, and ways of understanding the local in the global. In the work of Jean-Pierre Bekolo, Caryl Phillips, and Arundhati Roy, by contrast, metropolitan locations and funding sources complicate these artists' efforts, and intent, to articulate an oppositional aesthetic politics. …


We report a mutation (Y99C) in guanylate cyclase activator 1A (GUCA1A), the gene for guanylate cyclase activating protein (GCAP1), in a family with autosomal dominant cone dystrophy. Linkage analysis excluded all the known cone and cone-rod dystrophy loci, except the chromosome 6p21.1 region. This is known to contain the RDS gene, which is associated with dominant cone-rod dystrophy. Screening of the RDS gene by heteroduplex analysis and direct sequencing failed to demonstrate sequence changes in the coding region of this gene. The gene for GCAP1, a calcium binding protein which is highly expressed in photoreceptor outer segments, is also located in 6p21.1. It was screened for mutations, and all affected individuals showed a single base pair missense mutation (A-->G) at codon 99 in exon 2 of this gene generating a tyrosine-to-cysteine change in the GCAP1 protein. This change was absent from 206 unrelated normal controls. We propose that this change would at least disrupt the EF3handof GCAP1 thereby preventing calcium binding and consequently interfere with activation. The resulting effect on cGMP production would predictably modify the number of open cGMP gated cation channels, and could explain the ultimate demise of cone photoreceptor cells.


Future data centers will require novel, scalable memory architectures capable of sustaining high bandwidths while still achieving low memory access latencies. Electronic interconnects cannot meet the challenges presented by the need for multi-terabit off-chip memory data paths. In this work, the electronic bus between main memory and its host processor is replaced with a circuit-switched optical interconnection network. We investigate the impact of our optically connected memory system on large-scale architectures and experimentally validate the protocol using field-programmable gate array based processor nodes and a custom-designed memory controller. The processor communicates all-optically with multiple synchronous dynamic random access memory nodes using 4 × 2.5-Gb/s wavelength-striped payloads, operating error free with bit-error rates less than 10-12.


The article deals with the areal distribution of morphosyntactic variants in Swiss German dialects. The Zurich project "Syntaktischer Atlas der deutschen Schweiz" (SADS) has provided a lot of evidence for the existence of syntactic isoglosses within the German-speaking regions of Switzerland. In the following, we will discuss several types of variant distribution. There are syntactic variables showing a division of Western and Eastern Swiss German dialects, a division well known from phonology and lexis. In addition, we find few archaic variants restricted to southern Highest Alemannic, again in line with other linguistic levels. Most interesting are some variants showing up in quite small – and differing – regions. These regions usually do not only show these specific variants but variation with a more common variant. This leads to a discussion of the implications of variation. Variation is not only seen as an indication of an ongoing change, but it is argued that there is evidence for a long lasting variational situation and largely stable variation respectively. Several possible types of comparison with older data and between age groups (apparent time analysis) within the data are presented. There are relatively few cases where we can show larger shifts between two regional variants and there seem to be only some rare cases of syntactic influence by Standard German introducing new variants. With respect to the old question of morphosyntactic borrowing, Swiss German dialects show cases of resistance as well as cases of interference, the latter concerning loan translation and semantic adaptation if the structure favors it.


In this study, the effect of friction in limiting dome height test was investigated numerically and experimentally. Ultra-low-carbon galvanized steel sheets were used as a test material. The thickness of the material was 1.2 mm. Limiting dome height tests were carried out by using three different lubricants, and the test was modeled with the finite-element method. Simulations were done using various friction coefficients to show the effect of friction on the limiting dome height test. It has been observed that necking/fracture area is decreasing and necking/fracture location moves toward the pole side of the material with the decline of the friction coefficient. Similar results were also obtained in the experiments.


Users of optical see-through head-mounted displays (OHMD) perceive color as a blend of the display color and the background. Color-blending is a major usability challenge as it leads to loss of color encodings and poor text legibility. Color correction aims at mitigating color blending by producing an alternative color which, when blended with the background, more closely approaches the color originally intended. To date, approaches to color correction do not yield optimal results or do not work in real-time. This paper makes two contributions. First, we present QuickCorrection, a realtime color correction algorithm based on display profiles. We describe the algorithm, measure its accuracy and analyze two implementations for the OpenGL graphics pipeline. Second, we present SmartColor, a middleware for color management of userinterface components in OHMD. SmartColor uses color correction to provide three management strategies: correction, contrast, and show-up-on-contrast. Correction determines the alternate color which best preserves the original color. Contrast determines the color which best warranties text legibility while preserving as much of the original hue. Show-up-on-contrast makes a component visible when a related component does not have enough contrast to be legible. We describe the SmartColor's architecture and illustrate the color strategies for various types of display content.


The early history of pipe organs in New Zealand, and the music which was played on them, has long been of interest to organists and domestic organ builders alike. The primary focus of this exegesis is the performers themselves and the repertoire they chose to present to the public through the medium of the organ recital during a fifty-year period from 1870–1920. A case study approach is adopted, where two centres, one metropolitan and one provincial, have been selected from each of the two main island of New Zealand. Using primary source materials, including contemporary newspapers and concert programmes, details of a significant selection of organ recitals held in Wellington, Christchurch, Southland, and Hawke's Bay can be tabulated. This allows for some discernment of trends in musical preferences.  New Zealand was no exception to the world wide practice by organists of utilising in their performances works not originally written for their instrument. In a wider Australasian context, organ recitals were conduits for the dissemination of symphonic, operatic and chamber music, particularly on larger instruments. The balance between transcriptions and works for the organ in these recitals is one of the study's areas of investigation. This also requires some discussion of the instruments themselves. Another is the extent to which music was considered a formative social influence, particularly since most nineteenth-century recitals were played in churches, rather than civic (secular) auditoria, and were considered to take on the character of the venue.  The research also uncovers details about the origins and career paths of the performers. Some were private teachers, choral and/or instrumental conductors or accompanists. Still others had regular employment as schoolteachers or purveyors of instruments and sheet music, and a third group found primary employment outside the musical sphere either as civil servants or in private enterprise.  Analysis of the wealth of surviving information (concerning organists and their performances) demonstrates that the organ recital was a ubiquitous and popular event in New Zealand prior to World War I. Alongside other musical activities these programmes play a role in the development of society's musical life, both in its own right and as the accompanying instrument for various choral societies (before the development of fully-fledged orchestral groups). Society was changed with the advent of hostilities; after they ended, there were new norms and expectations.  Outside the main text, the collations of raw data are provided on an accompanying CD, along with biographical details of those who made small contributions to the recital scene, or were present in New Zealand for only a limited time.


Can effective international governance for artificial intelligence remain fragmented, or is there a need for a centralised international organisation for AI? We draw on the history of other international regimes to identify advantages and disadvantages in centralising AI governance. Some considerations, such as efficiency and political power, speak in favour of centralisation. Conversely, the risk of creating a slow and brittle institution speaks against it, as does the difficulty in securing participation while creating stringent rules. Other considerations depend on the specific design of a centralised institution. A well-designed body may be able to deter forum shopping and ensure policy coordination. However, forum shopping can be beneficial and a fragmented landscape of institutions can be self-organising. Centralisation entails trade-offs and the details matter. We conclude with two core recommendations. First, the outcome will depend on the exact design of a central institution. A well-designed centralised regime covering a set of coherent issues could be beneficial. But locking-in an inadequate structure may pose a fate worse than fragmentation. Second, for now fragmentation will likely persist. This should be closely monitored to see if it is self-organising or simply inadequate.


Bacillithiol (BSH), an α-anomeric glycoside of l-cysteinyl-d-glucosaminyl-l-malate, is a major low-molecular-mass thiol found in bacteria such as Bacillus sp., Staphylococcus aureus and Deinococcus radiodurans. Like other low-molecular-mass thiols such as glutathione and mycothiol, BSH is likely to be involved in protection against environmental toxins including thiol-reactive antibiotics. We report here a BSH-dependent detoxification mechanism in S. aureus. When S. aureus Newman strain was treated with monobromobimane and monochlorobimane, the cellular BSH was converted to the fluorescent S-conjugate BS-bimane. A bacillithiol conjugate amidase activity acted upon the BS-bimane to produce Cys-bimane, which was then acetylated by an N-acetyltransferase to generate N-acetyl-Cys-bimane, a mercapturic acid. An S. aureus mutant lacking BSH did not produce mercapturic acid when treated with monobromobimane and monochlorobimane, confirming the involvement of bacillithiol. Furthermore, treatment of S. aureus Newman with rifamycin, the parent compound of the first-line anti-tuberculosis drug, rifampicin, indicated that this thiol-reactive antibiotic is also detoxified in a BSH-dependent manner, since mercapturic acids of rifamycin were observed in the culture medium. These data indicate that toxins and thiol-reactive antibiotics are detoxified to less potent mercapturic acids in a BSH-dependent manner and then exported out of the cell in S. aureus.


This study is focused on the use of feng shui in business establishments located in shophouses within the Chinatown districts of the cities of Kuala Lumpur, Manila, and Singapore. These cities are strategic in Island Southeast Asia as centers of migration of Chinese nationals who controlled the regional trade in the region during the colonial period. These migrants came as merchants, resident traders, and/or coolie laborers for the tin mines of the peninsula. Moreover, these cities were entrepots of trade and the centers of the traffic of goods along the route between the China Sea, the Indian Ocean, and the Pacific Ocean. Hence, the colonial powers, specifically the Spanish and the British, carved Chinatowns in Kuala Lumpur, Manila, and Singapore from portions of the colonial real estate to sustain this extremely profitable partnership generated in the region by the Chinese merchants, traders, and coolie laborers. Events in China and the battering suffered by the country in the hands of the colonial powers in the 19th century altered the character of the migration process: The existing Chinatowns populated by resident merchant families and their business activities became havens for Chinese intellectuals, scholars, and political exiles. Furthermore, challenges posed by ethnicity issues within the plural and multi-racial societies of Malaysia, the Philippines, and Singapore further strengthened and entrenched Chinese traditional values and culture within these enclaves. Today, these Chinatowns embody the culture and values of the homeland reflecting the tradition of strong family ties, the humanism of Confucianism, the harmony between man and nature of Taoist philosophy and geomancy, the spirituality of Buddhism, and the importance given to industry and a productivity-oriented work ethic. This study documented and established the dominant use of feng shui, a cultural practice that traces its origins in early Chinese history, among the owners of business establishments located in shophouses within the Chinatowns of Kuala Lumpur, Manila, and Singapore. Using descriptive research, the data gathering process started with an ocular survey of selected businesses located in shophouses within the catchment areas of the three Chinatowns to determine whether feng shui was used in these establishments. In the second phase, surveys and interviews were conducted with owners as key informants to determine why feng shui was used in their business establishments. The study documented the fact that like typical business establishments and homes in the homeland, feng shui was used by business establishment owners in the Chinatowns of Kuala Lumpur, Manila, and Singapore to bring good health, prosperity, and harmonious family relations.


Worldwide Tuberculosis (TB) is a major public health concern. The Directly Observed Treatment Strategy (DOTS) has been used widely internationally and in South Africa (SA) to control the disease yet defaulting on treatment has still not achieved its World Health Organization (WHO) guideline of 5.0%. The eThekwini Municipality reported a defaulter rate of 18.9% in 2007 even with the adoption of DOTS in 1996. This study aimed to investigate the predictors of default amongst informal dwellers of eThekwini and to evaluate the implementation and the efficiency of the DOTS programme within the eThekwini Municipality, KwaZulu-Natal (KZN), and SA. The study population comprised of 102 defaulters from informal settlement, 16 nurses and 5 health personnel that are involved in TB management and control. The study was a mixed method cross sectional descriptive study that generated both quantitative and qualitative data. The Cyril Zulu Communicable Disease Centre (CDC) Electronic TB Register was used to trace the defaulters from the informal settlements that were interviewed. Non-defaulters were matched from the CDC Electronic TB Register but could not be traced due to accessibility and financial issues. Due to the low response from nurses 16(53%), semi structured qualitative interviews were conducted with health personnel. The three sets of data generated were analysed using descriptive statistics and content analysis. Multivariate logistic regression models found smoking, drinking and having a family member with TB as statistical significant predictors of default. Based on the multivariate model with a 95% confidence interval (CI), smoking (OR: 11.23, CI: 5.79, 21.78; p<0.005), alcohol consumption (OR: 15.22; CI: 7.66, 30.25; p<0.005) and had family member with TB (OR: 4.60, CI: 2.34, 9.04; p<0.005) were all significantly associated with defaulting. It was apparent that DOTS implementation was partly implemented due to lack of human resources. Tracing of defaulters, DOTS supporters, DOTS sites and incentives to patients and volunteers were major challenges hindering the iv effective implementation of the DOTS programme in eThekwini. Defaulting occurs as a result of an association between patient and health care characteristics. This study provides useful information specific to predictors of default amongst informal dwellers and the implementation and efficiency of the DOTS programme specific to informal settlements. The results from this study could be used to improve TB control and management specifically in informal settlements addressing factors that predict default and tracing and supporting patients to ensure adherence to TB treatment.


Acute pancreatitis is a painful, life-threatening disorder of the pancreas whose etiology is often multi-factorial. It is of great importance to understand the interplay between factors that predispose patients to develop the disease. One such factor is an excessive elevation in pancreatic acinar cell Ca2+. These aberrant Ca2+ elevations are triggered by release of Ca2+ from apical Ca2+ pools that are gated by the inositol 1,4,5-trisphosphate receptor (IP3R) types 2 and 3. In this study, we examined the role of IP3R type 2 (IP3R2) using mice deficient in this Ca2+ release channel (IP3R2−/−). Using live acinar cell Ca2+ imaging we found that loss of IP3R2 reduced the amplitude of the apical Ca2+ signal and caused a delay in its initiation. This was associated with a reduction in carbachol-stimulated amylase release and an accumulation of zymogen granules (ZGs). Specifically, there was a 2-fold increase in the number of ZGs (P<0.05) and an expansion of the ZG pool area within the cell. There was also a 1.6- and 2.6-fold increase in cellular amylase and trypsinogen, respectively. However, the mice did not have evidence of pancreatic injury at baseline, other than an elevated serum amylase level. Further, pancreatitis outcomes using a mild caerulein hyperstimulation model were similar between IP3R2−/− and wild type mice. In summary, IP3R2 modulates apical acinar cell Ca2+ signals and pancreatic enzyme secretion. IP3R-deficient acinar cells accumulate ZGs, but the mice do not succumb to pancreatic damage or worse pancreatitis outcomes.


Localization microscopy achieves nanoscale spatial resolution by iterative localization of sparsely activated molecules, which generally leads to a long acquisition time. By implementing advanced algorithms to treat overlapping point spread functions (PSFs), imaging of densely activated molecules can improve the limited temporal resolution, as has been well demonstrated in two-dimensional imaging. However, three-dimensional (3D) localization of high-density data remains challenging since PSFs are far more similar along the axial dimension than the lateral dimensions. Here, we present a new, high-density 3D imaging system and algorithm. The hybrid system is implemented by combining astigmatic and biplane imaging. The proposed 3D reconstruction algorithm is extended from our state-of-the art 2D high-density localization algorithm. Using mutual coherence analysis of model PSFs, we validated that the hybrid system is more suitable than astigmatic or biplane imaging alone for 3D localization of high-density data. The efficacy of the proposed method was confirmed via simulation and real data of microtubules. Furthermore, we also successfully demonstrated fluorescent-protein-based live cell 3D localization microscopy with a temporal resolution of just 3 seconds, capturing fast dynamics of the endoplasmic recticulum.


Gendered and sexualized abuse and other forms of violence are visibly present in the culture of the third millennium. Especially bodies that are gendered as female are – both dead and alive – objects of multiple forms of abuse and violence in the texts and imageries of contemporary culture. Men, on the other hand, are often represented as abusive towards women and as the violent gender or, as targets of other men's violence. Structural violence has also an impact on many areas of everyday life, and it is materialized in, for example discrimination and inequality. Gender and Violence: The Ethics and Politics of Reading scrutinizes gendered violence as a complex phenomenon of contemporary culture. The authors study the ways in which ways representations of violence can be read, viewed and received. They also discuss what kind of politics the violent representations implement and actualize, and how they affect their audience. Gender and Violence takes a critical stance on the intersections of gender, power, and violence in literature, film, television and the internet. The analysis focuses on, for example, sci-fi, Nordic Noir and North American comedy series, poems, young adult literature (YA) and nationalist blog texts. The book presents both Finnish and international academic discussions, in which researchers in the fields of gender studies, arts and literature, and cultural studies challenge contemporary English abstract 279 understanding of gender, sexuality, power, and violence. Moreover, Gender and Violence provides tools for critical discussions on violence and in-depth scrutiny about its cost on all of us. Gender and Violence is an anthology of academic research articles. It works well as an academic textbook, but it also provides timely and new knowledge for everyone interested in questions of gender and violence – phenomena that touch upon all of us.


The KM3NeT research infrastructure being built at the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea will host water-Cherenkov telescopes for the detection of cosmic neutrinos. The neutrino telescopes will consist of large volume three-dimensional grids of optical modules to detect the Cherenkov light from charged particles produced by neutrino-induced interactions. Each optical module houses 31 3-inch photomultiplier tubes, instrumentation for calibration of the photomultiplier signal and positioning of the optical module and all associated electronics boards. By design, the total electrical power consumption of an optical module has been capped at seven watts. This paper presents an overview of the front-end and readout electronics system inside the optical module, which has been designed for a 1~ns synchronization between the clocks of all optical modules in the grid during a life time of at least 20 years.