A metrology system is presented that measures internal three-dimensional (3-D) displacement fields. The system uses a stereo pair of flash x-ray heads and correlation analysis to measure the true deformation of a layer of x-ray-absorbent particles inside the specimen. The 3-D deformation field inside blocks of polyester was determined. The polyester blocks were impacted by a 9-mm steel ball bearing fired from a 9-mm-bore gas gun at a speed of 373.5 +/- 3.0 m s(-1). At a given time after impact, a short-duration (30 ns) flash x-ray pulse exposes the x-ray radiographs and freezes the events during impact. Thereafter, the x-ray radiographs are scanned into a personal computer and analyzed as in digital speckle photography.


This paper provides an update Justices on the Ballot by assessing what changes have occurred in patterns of state supreme court elections in the period 2010-16 compared to the previous six and a half decades. The paper examines patterns of campaign contributions and expenditures (starting in the 1980s or 1990s), contestation and competitiveness, partisanship, and television advertising (starting with the 1999-2000 election cycle). Even though the current decade began with the startling defeat of three Iowa justices in the 2010 retention election, there has been surprising little change in the current decade:
• Campaign contributions and expenditures have been stable (or possibly declined slightly). • Contestation and competition has, if anything, seen a very slight decline, with the exception that there has been an increase in the proportion of retention elections in which the incumbent has received less than a 55 percent yes-vote.
• The volume and tone of television advertising has been steady.
The one area of change is increasing patterns of partisanship in formally nonpartisan elections, both those using a contested format (two or more candidates) and those a retention format. . As one would expect, partisanship in elections conducted on a partisan basis has always been high and continues to be so. Before 2010 there was a pattern of increasing partisanship in the two states with a hybrid format, but that leveled off in the current decade. The change that has occurred has been an increase in partisan voting patterns in nonpartisan and retention elections, both of which are intended to be nonpartisan. The average correlation using county-level data between voting in nonpartisan judicial elections and gubernatorial elections more than doubled between the 1980s from .27 to .62 in the current decade. That correlation in retention elections increased about 50 percent from .27 to .42 during the same period.
The paper concludes with a discussion of the likely reasons for the increasing partisanship in elections intended to be nonpartisan, and thoughts on the implications of this increase for how state supreme court justices are selected and retained.


Lebanon electricity crisis continues to escalate. Rationing hours still apply across the country but with different rates. The capital Beirut is subjected to 3 hours cut while other cities, town and villages may endure 9 to 14 hours of power shortage. To mitigate this situation, private diesel generators distributed illegally all over the country are being used to bridge the gap in power supply. Almost each building in large cities has its own generator and individual villages may have more than one generator supplying their loads. These generators together with their private networks form incomplete and ill-designed and managed microgrids (MG) but can be further developed to become renewable energy-based MG operating in islandor gridconnected modes. This paper will analyze the potential of introducing MG to help resolve the energy crisis in Lebanon. It will investigate the usefulness of developing MG under the prevailing situation of existing private power supply service providers and in light of the developed national energy policy that supports renewable energy development. A case study on a distribution feeder in a rural area will be analyzed using HOMER software to demonstrate the usefulness of introducing photovoltaic (PV) arrays along the existing diesel generators for all the stakeholders; namely, the developers, the customers, the utility and the community at large. Policy recommendations regarding MG development in Lebanon will be presented on the basis of the accumulated experience in private generation and the privatization and public-private partnership laws. Keywords—Decentralized systems, microgrids, distributed generation, renewable energy.


Abstract Perfluoroalkyl compounds (PFCs) have attracted massive attention in recent years for their endocrine-disrupting potential. This review summarizes the underlying evidence on the primary fate and in vitro/vivo toxic effects of PFCs and their interactions and relationships with thyroid dysfunction and cancer induction in exposed groups, including the general population, occupationally exposed groups, highly exposed individuals, and prone subjects (pregnant women and neonates). The potential endocrine-disrupting mechanism of PFCs may include multiple processes of thyroid malfunction or hormonal imbalance. The increased level of thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH) was observed as the most consistent outcome of PFC exposure among generally exposed populations. Specifically, the levels of perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) and TSH were significantly correlated among pregnant women. In some instances, the maternal PFC level was negatively correlated with the neonatal thyroxine (T4) level in serum. The PFCs and thyroid malfunction or thyroid hormone (TH) levels also revealed a potential association among the population under high-level environmental exposure, albeit not always following a strict exposure-response relationship. Moreover, occupational exposure to perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) showed a probable link with TH (excluding TSH) alterations in serum. Importantly, no concrete and statistically significant evidence highlighted the risk of thyroid cancer in humans exposed to PFCs. Highlights The first robust review describing the effects of PFCs on thyroid dysfunctions. PFC exposure induces sex- and age-specific responses in the human thyroid system. Serum PFOS exposure is positively correlated with TSH in pregnant women. Maternal serum PFC levels are negatively correlated with the neonate's T4 levels. No statistical evidence supported a concrete association between PFCs and thyroid cancer.


The paper studies the determinants of international differences in household indebtedness, and inquires whether indebtedness is associated with increased "financial fragility", as measured by the sensitivity of household arrears and insolvencies to macroeconomic shocks. It also investigates whether financial fragility is affected by institutional factors, such as information sharing arrangements, judicial efficiency and individual bankruptcy regulation. We address these issues by tapping three data sets: (i) cross-country data on household indebtedness; (ii) European panel data for household lending and arrears; and (iii) time series data for household lending and insolvencies in the U.K., the U.S.A. and Germany. Overall, the analysis underscores the importance of institutional arrangements in determining the size and fragility of household credit markets.


Northeastern Pomo is one of seven mutually unintelligible Pomoan languages of California. It was the last Pomoan language identified by acadamia and the first to become extinct. No publications are devoted solely to it, and what little documentation exists is of varied quality. Scholars have nevertheless sought to determine the place of Northeastern Pomo within Pomoan for more than a century. This paper examines aspects of Northeastern Pomoan phonology and grammar and categorizes them as retentions from Proto Pomo, language-internal innovations, or contact-induced changes. On the basis of the large number of retentions and language-internal innovations, Northeastern Pomo is proposed to be a relictual speech community that separated from Proto Pomo earlier than its westernmost congeners


Young Estonia persists in Estonian cultural memory as a movement of renewal, among other factors through its impetus to the development of urban culture. This article undertakes to juxtapose Young Estonia's efforts at cultural renewal, its rhetoric of the future, and futurism as a cultural phenomenon. (As such, futurism was vitally engaged with contemporary urban culture, industry, and technology.) Four parameters serve as points of departure: (1) Young Estonia's rhetoric of the new and the future. Though specific about what they rejected, Young Estonia's texts do not outline a clear vision of the future. Frequently used key words for what they opposed included German- or Russian-mindedness, a people in servitude, the old, flat land, the lack of a unified whole, lack of style. (2) The place of the city in Young Estonia's texts. Though in earlier publications there were only a few passing references to urban culture, the problems of the city come to the fore in several programmatic texts and in the visual design of the fourth Young Estonia album in 1912. By then the core members of Young Estonia also had had real experience of a large metropolis. If their earlier attitude toward the city had been critical, then in these Young Estonian texts the city finds its positive face. (3) Industry and the proletariat. The Young Estonia movement received stimulus from such general phenomena as factories, technology, and industry. In their imagination working people and educated people seem to live in separate worlds, with different wishes and needs. However, the freedom of the educated would be impossible without political freedom. Although they believed that technological development was a precondition for the creation of urban culture, neither their own literary works nor their other aspirations bore this out. (4) Futurism and film. Young Estonia's later period coincided with the intensive use of term "futurism" in Estonian journalism. Young Estonia's own relations with futurism are contradictory. Young Estonians of the younger generations such as Johannes Semper and Johannes Barbarus were among the first serious popularizers of futurism, while older members of the movement maintained a skeptical distance, especially after the outbreak of the First World War. Few traces of film can be found in the entire decade of Young Estonia's activities: at that time in Estonia, film was not yet considered to belong to the realm of art. The Young Estonians' totally negative attitude toward film is significant for that very reason: for them film was a pejorative form of public amusement. The considerable internal diversity of views and tastes in the Young Estonia movement must also be kept in mind: Gustav Suits was interested in Marxism, but regarded culture as an autonomous sphere, not subjected to full economic determinism. Friedebert Tuglas and Bernhard Linde were fascinated by urban culture to some extent, but they do not go very far in that direction. Johannes Aavik's views seem to follow (perhaps unconsciously) a parallel trajectory to the development of early 20th century urban culture, including futurism and constructivism. Radical new developments are regarded most positively by the young writers Semper and Barbarus, who joined the movement at a later stage. Because of the youth of Estonian culture, The Young Estonians' rhetorical arsenal does not include full-fledged repertoire of cultural ridicule and rebellion: in such a fledgling culture, there is not yet much of anything to mock.


Actuaries must pass exams, but more than that: they must put knowledge into practice. This coherent book gives complete syllabus coverage for Exam C of the Society of Actuaries (SOA) while emphasizing the concepts and practical application of nonlife actuarial models. Ideal for those approaching their professional exams, it is also a class-tested textbook for undergraduate university courses in actuarial science. All the topics that students need to prepare for Exam C are here, including modeling of losses, risk and ruin theory, credibility theory and applications, and empirical implementation of loss models. The book also covers more recent topics, such as risk measures and bootstrapping. Readers are assumed to have studied statistical inference and probability at the introductory undergraduate level. Numerous examples and exercises are provided, with many exercises adapted from past Exam C questions. Computational notes on the use of Excel are included. Teaching slides are available for download.


Lane departure crashes are the single largest category of fatal and major injury crashes in Iowa. The Iowa Department of Transportation (DOT) estimates that 60 percent of roadway-related fatal crashes are lane departures and that 39 percent of Iowa's fatal crashes are single-vehicle run-off-road (SVROR) crashes. Addressing roadway departure was identified as one of the top eight program strategies for the Iowa DOT in their Comprehensive Highway Safety Plan (CHSP). The goal is to reduce lane departure crashes and their consequences through lane departure-related design standards and policies including paved shoulders, centerline and shoulder rumble strips, pavement markings, signs, and median barriers. Lane-Departure Safety Countermeasures: Strategic Action Plan for the Iowa Department of Transportation outlines roadway countermeasures that can be used to address lane departure crashes. This guidance report was prepared by the Institute for Transportation (InTrans) at Iowa State University for the Iowa DOT. The content reflects input from and multiple reviews by both a technical advisory committee and other knowledgeable individuals with the Iowa DOT.


ABSTRACT This paper presents the occurrence of 25 moss species on trunks of alien trees in Wrocław (without city forests), their species diversity, frequency, coverage in the plots, and preferences to the host-tree species. In general, 36% of the trees colonised by bryophytes in the city were of non-indigenous origin (11 taxa), and the most frequently occupied were Populus xcanadensis Moench., Acer negundo L. and Robinia pseudoacacia L. Research showed that alien trees hosted a large group of species rarely noted in the city, such as: Syntrichia virescens (De Not.) Ochyra, Orthodicranum tauricum (Sapjegin) Smirnova, Leskea polycarpa Hedw., Hypnum pallescens (Hedw.) P. Beauv. and Orthotrichum affine Schrad. ex Brid. But the most total coverage in the plots was occupied by two facultative epiphytes, Orthotrichum diaphanum Schrad. and Hypnum cupressiforme Hedw. Comparing the results of this study with data presenting bryoflora of Robinia pseudoacacia L. and Quercus rubra L. found in secondary woodlands, it appears that these phorophytes in the city are colonised by different bryophytes. Results of UPGMA classification of bryofloristic similarity of all phorophytes in the city are discussed in reference to the theory that alien species can facilitate the occurrence of native species, as formulated by Rodriguez (2006).


We extend color–magnitude relations for moderate-luminosity X-ray active galactic nucleus (AGN) hosts and non-AGN galaxies through the galaxy formation epoch (z ≈ 1–4) in the Chandra Deep Field-North and Chandra Deep Field-South (CDF-N and CDF-S, respectively; jointly CDFs) surveys. This study was enabled by the deepest available X-ray data from the 2 Ms CDF surveys as well as complementary ultradeep multiwavelength data in these regions. We utilized analyses of color–magnitude diagrams (CMDs) to assess the role of moderate-luminosity AGNs in galaxy evolution. First, we confirm some previous results and extend them to higher redshifts, finding, for example, that (1) there is no apparent color bimodality (i.e., the lack of an obvious red sequence and blue cloud) for AGN hosts from z ≈ 0to2, but non-AGN galaxy color bimodality exists up to z ≈ 3 and the relative fraction of red-sequence galaxies generally increases as the redshift decreases (consistent with a blue-to-red migration of galaxies), (2) most AGNs reside in massive hosts and the AGN fraction rises strongly toward higher stellar mass, up to z ≈ 2–3, and (3) the colors of both AGN hosts and non-AGN galaxies become redder as the stellar mass increases, up to z ≈ 2–3. Second, we point out that, in order to obtain a complete and reliable picture, it is critical to use mass-matched samples to examine color–magnitude relations of AGN hosts and non-AGN galaxies. We show that for mass-matched samples up to z ≈ 2–3, AGN hosts lie in the same region of the CMD as non-AGN galaxies; i.e., there is no specific clustering of AGN hosts in the CMD around the red sequence, the top of the blue cloud, or the green valley in between. The AGN fraction (≈ 10%) is mostly independent of host-galaxy color, providing an indication of the duty cycle of supermassive black hole growth in typical massive galaxies. These results are in contrast to those obtained with non-mass-matched samples where there is apparent AGN clustering in the CMD and the AGN fraction generally increases as the color becomes redder. We also find, for mass-matched samples, that the star formation rates of AGN hosts are typically a factor of ≈ 2–3 larger than those of non-AGN galaxies at z ≈ 0–1, whereas this difference diminishes at z ≈ 1–3. With mass-selection effects taken into account, we find that almost all of the results obtained in this work can reasonably be explained by two main ingredients, color–mass correlation (i.e., X-ray AGNs preferentially reside in massive galaxies that generally tend to be redder than less-massive galaxies) and passive or secular evolution of galaxies. Our results show that the presence of moderate-luminosity AGN activity does not have a significant effect on the colors of galaxies and thus tightly constrain any effects from moderate-luminosity AGN feedback upon color–magnitude properties over the ≈ 80% of cosmic time during which most of galaxy formation occurred.


The PLATE Exhibition (Product Lifetimes And The Environment) explored critical themes related to how long products last in contemporary society. The topic of product longevity was examined in innovative ways through prototypes, objects, artefacts, posters, photographs and films produced by designers, social businesses, artists, researchers, lecturers and students.

Featuring household products, furniture, lighting, fashion, jewellery and artworks, this collection of visual work embraced design for longevity, design for disassembly, repair and reuse, emotionally durable design, repurposing and upcycling, and the need to challenge planned obsolescence and the throwaway society.

The PLATE Exhibition ran alongside the PLATE Conference at Nottingham Trent University (17 – 19 June), the first international conference to address product lifetimes in the context of sustainability.

Curated by Rebecca Gamble, exhibitors included Frank Abbott; Christopher Barr; Paula Barton; Roger Bateman; Kay van Bellen; Sarah Bushell; Anja Claire Crabb; Alan Crisp; Laura Daniels; Katryn Furmston; Callum Field; Calum Gardner; Mark Golab; Jonathan Hamilton; Jan and David Hamilton; Sara Li-Chou Han; Maria Hanson; Bridget Harvey; Julian Hughes; Julia Keyte; Riddhi Lodhia; Angharad Mclaren; Shirley McLauchlan; Tracey McMaster; Tom Moulds; John Newling; Paul Nieuwenhuis; Eleanor Richards; Beata Rozycka; Daniel Scott; Tao Shen; Annalisa Simonella; Andrea Soler; Sarah Turner; Frieda Vanderpump; Nick Williams; Louise Winter; Janet Wootton and Gordon Young.


OBJECTIVE: To evaluate maternal complications (potentially life-threatening conditions, maternal near miss, and maternal death) that are mutually exclusive and severe maternal outcomes (maternal near miss or maternal death) associated with twin pregnancies. METHODS: We performed a secondary analysis of a cross-sectional World Health Organization Multicountry Survey, which was implemented in 29 countries. Data from 4,756 twin deliveries were compared with 308,111 singleton deliveries. Factors associated with maternal morbidity and twin pregnancies were reported with adjusted prevalence ratio (95% confidence interval). RESULTS: Potentially life-threatening conditions, maternal near miss, severe maternal outcomes, and maternal deaths were 2.14 (1.99–2.30), 3.03 (2.39–3.85), 3.19 (2.58–3.94), and 3.97 (2.47–6.38) times higher, respectively, among twin pregnancies. Maternal age older than 20 years, having a partner, multiparity, and elective cesarean delivery were associated with twin pregnancies. Postpartum hemorrhage and chronic hypertension were more frequently associated with severe maternal outcomes among twin pregnancies. Conditions indicating organ dysfunction (maternal near miss) were twofold to fivefold higher for twins. Poisson multiple regression analysis identified several factors independently associated with a severe maternal outcome, but not twin pregnancies. CONCLUSION: Twin pregnancy is associated with greater severe maternal morbidity and a higher rate of maternal death than singleton pregnancy.


Shortly after the breakdown of the Eastern Block and Yugoslavia in early 1990s, it became obvious to the international community that security sector actors and the armed forces in particular, pley an important role in the development and democratization of transitionstates. Defense reform concept emerged, and many Western states participated to assist transition-states. After the democratic changes in Serbia in 2000, Norway was among the first to recognize that external actors should have a significant role in Serbian defense reform. This thesis is about defense reform as a component in the broader Security Sector Reform (SSR) concept. It has a donor-state focus and deals with possible explanations for donor-states' engagement in defense reform processes. It explores the rationale behind Norway's engagement in Serbian defense reform, interpreted in the light of the IR theories of neorealism and neoliberalism. The research was directed to answer the following question: How can Norway's engagement in Serbian defense reform be explained? Thesis examines defense reform through one case study – Norway's engagement in Serbian defense reform. It concludes that Norway's engagement first at all can be explained through the lenses of neoliberalism, as it contributes to the expansion of Zone of liberal peace. However, there are also some effects that can justify that engagement from a neorealist standpoint.


During June 1997, bottom sediment samples were collected at 76 stations on a rectangular grid in a small port (Lirquen Harbor, south-central Chile) facing siltation problems. The spatial changes in grain-size parameters, analyzed by using three different methodologies to infer net sediment transport paths, are compared with the measured water circulation of the study area and sediment dispersal patterns on aerial photographs. A Geographical Information System (GIS) is used to determine the degree of similarity between the results of the three grain-size trend methodologies. The results of this study confirm that because of its formulation and underlying assumptions, the McLaren-Bowles methodology tends to confuse the space-scale of sediment transport processes. In this way, the obtained transport patterns are in poor correlation with the observed hydrodynamics and aerial photographs and they seem to represent a combination of the spatial macroscale and mesoscale sediment transport processes existing in Concepcion Bay and in Lirquen Harbor, respectively. On the contrary, because the results yielded by the Gao-Collins and Le Roux methodologies correlate well with these studies, it is suggested that both methodologies be applied in combination to allow a better representation of local net sediment transport patterns, especially in estuarine environments where multiple sediment sources exist. Spatial analysis suggests that transport pathways obtained through these two methodologies represent the mesoscale sediment circulation existing in Lirquen Harbor. This study also emphasizes the importance of applying a statistical test to the transport trend vectors obtained using the GSTA program of Gao (1996), as these may erroneously reflect sediment transport direction. Lastly, the analyzed data and the results of the models are combined to determine the sediment transport regime existing in Lirquen Harbor.


This paper describes progress with the atlas of birds of Nigeria, from 7 March 2012 to 15 December 2019. The database of the project contained 658 records of 246 species submitted to the BirdPix section of the Virtual Museum. The BirdPix section of the Virtual Museum was launched in 2012 and is a supplementary data capture project for the African Bird Atlas. Over this period, for Nigeria, twelve citizen scientists contributed records to BirdPix. The most frequently recorded species were Laughing Dove Streptopelia senegalensis (769 records across its range, with 12 in Nigeria, from 12 grid cells), and Northern Red Bishop Euplectes franciscanus (30 records across the range, and recorded in 11 grid cells in Nigeria). At least two photographs of species range extensions had been submitted. This paper highlights the role of citizen science in biodiversity conservation and provides up-to-date information on the species distribution maps and lists of bird species recorded in the grid cells. Without a doubt, the BirdPix database will only be comprehensive if it contains the entire knowledge base of the species occurring within each grid cell. Data generated in the BirdPix project can be used for monitoring and modelling changes in species distributions over time. Increased awareness of the concept of citizen science and increased volunteer recruitment should be top priorities.


Recombinant mouse prion protein (recMoPrP) produced in Escherichia coli was polymerized into amyloid fibrils that represent a subset of β sheet–rich structures. Fibrils consisting of recMoPrP(89–230) were inoculated intracerebrally into transgenic (Tg) mice expressing MoPrP(89–231). The mice developed neurologic dysfunction between 380 and 660 days after inoculation. Brain extracts showed protease-resistant PrP by Western blotting; these extracts transmitted disease to wild-type FVB mice and Tg mice overexpressing PrP, with incubation times of 150 and 90 days, respectively. Neuropathological findings suggest that a novel prion strain was created. Our results provide compelling evidence that prions are infectious proteins.


Light, Sight, and Rainbows, the IBI prize-winning module, provides questions for exploring simple atmospheric phenomena. Only 28% of the U.S. adult population is considered scientifically literate. Although this is the second highest among 35 developed countries, a fact attributed to postsecondary science requirements (1), it should not be considered satisfactory, and improvement is critical to our future. A trend of many U.S. colleges and universities is to offer courses for nonmajors that cover a wide range of material via lectures, with few opportunities for students to engage in hands-on learning. This is particularly disturbing given that "a growing body of science educators has found that students' attitudes toward science, their motivation for learning, and their conceptual development … can all be enhanced by engagement in real scientific investigations" (2).


The dissertation investigates the decision making process utilised by main contractors when selecting subcontractors.
In Part 1 the types of subcontractor employed are defined, similarly the reasons why subcontractors are used, and the size and importance of this service to the construction industry.
The latest JCT Standard Form of Building Contract (1980) is reviewed with its implications to subcontracting.
The problems associated with the use of nominated or domestic subcontractors are defined in Section 1.6 along with the arguments by various parties supporting either faction.
Problems existed for main contractors in decision making and consequently the selection of domestic subcontractors. Problems which appeared to have considerable bearing on the ability of the main contractor to meet their commitments on site and to achieve a commercially acceptable return on their large capital outlay in this service.
Part 2 defines the decision making process and details the methods of decision making thought appropriate to the construction industry.
Part 3 describes the aims of the dissertation along with methods used in the literature search, the three major works on the subject, and details of the postal questionnaire and structured interview.
Part 4 analyses the results of interviews with ten contractors of varying size along with the 42 completed postal questionnaires, to establish contractors attitudes and constraints to the selection of domestic subcontractors.
Part 5 analyses the results of interviews with 3 leading subcontractors to gain a balanced view of the selection situation.
The conclusions in Part 6 suggest the constraints and influences to decision making, along with methods used and the contractors' attitudes to domestic subcontractor selection.


In this manuscript we review the main strategies for detecting changes in intracellular parameters with photoluminescent nanosensors. Examples of the detection of intracellular pH, ion concentration (Na+, Ca2+, Zn2+, Hg2+), reactive oxygen species (ROS, e.g. hydrogen peroxide), variations in temperature, changes in RNA levels and the detection of enzymatic activity are described in detail. The utilisation of nanomaterials such as quantum dots, silicon carbide nanoparticles, nanoscale metal–organic frameworks, upconverting nanoparticles, fluorescent nanoclusters, gold nanoparticles, nanodiamonds, dendrimers and polymeric nanoparticles in bioimaging is highlighted. When compared to molecular probes, nanosensors combine high sensitivity and selectivity with low toxicity, which are crucial parameters for sensing in live cells.


This dissertation compares cancer genetic counseling in China and Denmark using an anthropological perspective. It uses anthropological theory to argue how ideas of genetic responsibility and demands for responsibility investments may be understood as the products of everyday practices unfolding within local worlds. Finding very different forms of cancer genetic counseling in China and Denmark, it analytically argues that the local organization of health care provides a salient example of a local world. It uses an STS framework to analyze how differences in the organization of health care in China and Denmark, may be seen as promoting very different webs of everyday human and non-human actors, resulting in very different cancer genetic counseling practices, respectively. For professionels, patients and their families in China and Denmark, these differences lead to very different demands for patient- family collaboration and interdependence, and ultimately to very different local forms of genetic responsibility.


Is self-critical perfectionism an antecedent of depressive symptoms, a consequence of depressive symptoms, or both? In the present study, self-critical perfectionism (i.e., harsh criticism of one's actions, negative reactions to perceived failures, and extreme concerns over others' evaluations) and depressive symptoms were conceptualised as a unified, interlocking syndrome wherein self-critical perfectionism and depressive symptoms reciprocally influence each other over time. This reciprocal relations model was tested in 240 undergraduates studied using a four-wave, 4-week longitudinal design. As hypothesised, reciprocal relations were observed between self-critical perfectionism and depressive symptoms, with self-critical perfectionism predicting changes in depressive symptoms and vice versa. Results suggest persons high in self-critical perfectionism may find themselves entangled in an escalating pattern where self-critical perfectionism both leads to, and results from, depressive symptoms. Research focused exclusively on unidirectional relations between self-critical perfectionism and depressive symptoms may ignore information critical to accurately understanding self-critical perfectionism, depressive symptoms, and their interrelation. Instead of assuming unidirectional relations between self-critical perfectionism and depressive symptoms, researchers are encouraged to test for reciprocal relations between these two variables.


In an account of profits for breach of fiduciary duty, courts have understandably required some form of nexus between the breach and the gains to be disgorged, but have otherwise struggled to articulate a precise test. In the recent case of UVJ v UVH, the Singapore Court of Appeal broke new ground by requiring but-for causation, apparently branching off from the Anglo-Australian jurisprudence which advocates a more liberal approach to causation. While the but-for test is practically appealing as a technique well known to various areas of law, this article seeks to assess the normative justifications for such a bold move, in view of the attendant issues of deterrence, the unique policy of fiduciary law, and the juridical nature of an account of profits.


Stora Enso Skoghall bleached kraft pulp and CTMP. CTMP is an abbreviation for Chemo Thermo Mechanical Pulp. Stora Enso has invested in a new black liquor evaporation plant at Skoghall mill. Two evaporation effects for CTMP-effluent are integrated with the black liquor evaporation plant. Until now all of the CTMP-effluent was released to recipient after sedimentation and treatment in an aerated lagoon. Skoghall plans to evaporate one third of the total CTMP-effluent in order to decrease their pollution of oxygen demanding substances etc.

Evaporation is a new method for treatment of CTMP-effluent and is only implemented at a few mills nowadays. These mills have experienced problems with scaling resulting in a low availability. Scales from CTMP-evaporation differs from scales formed during black liquor evaporation being more organic. They are mainly composed of extractives (resin) and fragments of fibers.

The purpose of this thesis was to find operating conditions and, if necessary, find new solutions to obtain a high availability for the CTMP-evaporation at Skoghall. In the study, evaporation experiments were carried out in a new pilot evaporator. Two cases were compared, one with untreated CTMP-effluent and one with CTMP-effluent by adding white and green liquor. Previous studies have shown that alkalinisation decreases the scaling tendency. An important part of the experiments was to find washing procedures enabling scale removing.

The results are based on measurement data, liquor and scale analyses and observations during evaporation and washing. In a comparison between the two cases the alkalinised CTMP-effluent formed less scales. Scales from the alkalinized experiment where dark, hard and brittle and consisted mainly of calcium carbonate. The scales from the untreated experiment where slightly yellow, soft and sticky and consisted mainly of resin.

After the experiment with alkalinised CTMP-effluent, acid washing was performed with satisfying results. Washing with dispersing agent, after the untreated experiment, showed an excellent result even though the amount of scales where larger. Dispersing agents are normally used as additives in pulp mills to prevent resin scales. Adding dispersing agent continuously to untreated CTMP-effluent, before evaporation, is probably a better pre-treatment t hen alkalinisation in order to prevent scales.


Key ecological resources in arid and semi-arid lands are often characterized by small patches of seasonal grazing and important water points that lend critical support to entire production systems. When key resources are degraded or lost, production systems can be badly compromised. The Baringo District of north-central Kenya is well known for enduring decades of environmental degradation and food relief. As an initial part of an effort to map and characterize key ecological resources at risk in Baringo, we interviewed 136 resident leaders from pastoral and agro-pastoral areas. We asked them to identify and rank their most vulnerable ecological resources, clarify why these resources have become compromised, and propose ideas for resource rehabilitation. Overall, pastoralists and agro-pastoralists ranked vulnerable resources differently. Climate and human factors were mentioned as being responsible for resource-related problems. When solutions to problems were discussed, respondents noted that government must play the critical role in resource rehabilitation. In contrast, they rarely proposed solutions based on their own initiative, and we interpreted this to suggest that the population in general has become overly dependent on outside forces to affect change. Resource rehabilitation efforts would require strong partnerships between government and resource users to be sustainable. How to forge and sustain such partnerships should be a focus of future research and development efforts. Community Perceptions Concerning Key Ecological Resources at Risk in Baringo District, Kenya


Nabucco natural gas pipeline, initiated by a group of European energy companies, was intended to connect the broad gas-rich region of the Middle East and Central Asia to Europe for the first time, which would diversify supply sources. At the same time, an Italian-Russian consortium announced South Stream natural gas pipeline, which would diversify transport routes for the delivery of Russian gas to Europe. To win support, backers of Nabucco and South Stream insisted that their projects were aimed at fulfilling goals of the energy policy of the EU (reduction of use of fossil fuels to combat climate change and guaranteed physical availability and affordability of imported fossil fuels). But, as the case demonstrates, both projects progressed slowly, encountering many technological and commercial challenges, which, however, were eclipsed by the extreme politicization of Nabucco and South Stream: pipelines became a factor in domestic politics of several European nations and figured prominently in relations between the EU, EU states, Russia, Turkey, former Soviet republics in Caucasus and Central Asia, and the United States. Although they would comprise only a small part in the overall architecture of Europe's energy security, the case of Nabucco and South Stream reveals the limits of the ambitious energy policy of the EU.Learning Objective: To analyze the political, economic, and managerial implications of the natural gas trade between Russia and Europe; to explore alternate pipeline routes for the delivery of Russian natural gas.


Semiconductors exhibit large optical nonlinearities near the band edge because of resonance enhancement. Optical bistability occurs when the optical nonlinearities are coupled with feedback. In bulk GaAs and GaAs–AlGaAs multiple-quantum-well superlattices, the nonlinearity arising from the presence of the free-exciton resonance has produced room-temperature optical bistability with a few milliwatts of power. The formation of biexcitons in CuCl, the saturation of the bound exciton on CdS, and band-filling effects in InSb, InAs, and HgCdTe lead to observation of bistability in these materials. A bistable etalon can be operated in an optical-gate mode to generate optical analogs of electronic gates such as and, or, and nor. It has been demonstrated that a GaAs optical NOR gate responds in ∼1 psec, using only ≲3 pJ of energy. However, because of the carrier lifetime of a few nanoseconds, the repetition rate of the NOR gate is now limited to a few hundred megahertz.


This article argues that a father's biological connection to a child is constitutionally significant principally because it evidences the consent of the biological mother to the father's parental relationship with the child. The biological mother's consent is critical because she is the initial "constitutional parent." Her constitutional parental rights arise from her role nourishing the child in her womb and enduring the pain and danger of childbirth. This labor gives her a constitutionally protected voice in the child's upbringing including a right to decide generally who else shall be allowed to develop a parental relationship with the child. Only if the father himself sufficiently labors in developing a functional parental relationship with the child prior to the mother's withdrawal of her consent to his co-parenting, will the Constitution protect his relationship with the child. This "labor-with-consent" theory of constitutional parental rights also should be applied to the claims for constitutional protection of parental rights by functional parents, egg donors, gestational surrogate mothers, and intended parents.


This research was aimed at examining the effect of picture series on students' reading comprehension. Thus, the experiment (XI IPA3) and control groups (XI IPA 2) were created: the experiment group was taught by Picture Series while the control group was PowerPoint. The total sample of this research are 60 students of science High School 1 Ulakan Tapakis, West Sumatera,who were enrolled in two classes of grade XI IPA 3 and grade XI IPA 2 in 2015/2016 academic years. This research was experimental design, the instruments were observation sheet and reading test. The result showed that from mean score of experimental class 87.87 and mean score of control class 84.67. The data were analyzed by using SPSS program for windows version 18. The result of readings score showed that 2,42 >1,68 or sig 0,003 < 0,05. It showed that teaching reading by using Picture Series was accepted statistically. It can be concluded that Picture Series gave significant effect on students' reading comprehension at grade XI High School 1 Ulakan Tapakis
Keywords: Picture Series, Reading comprehension, Analytical Exposition Text


(No paper) The availability of imported Colorado River water to the Phoenix area in 1986 prompted the need for storage of the unused portion of each municipality's contracted allocation. No surface storage was available for this purpose and their construction would be a prolonged and costly process. The only timely and cost-effective alternative would be to develop underground storage projects with sufficient capacity to accept the surplus water being delivered from the Colorado river by the recently completed Central Arizona (CAP) Aquduct. A joint venture was created between the Arizona Municipal Water Users Association (AMWUA), representing all the municipalities of the Salt River Valley, and the Salt River Project (SRP), the largest purveyor of water for the nation's fastest growing metropolitan area. SRP was given the lead to plan, design, permit, construct and operate a large water-spreading groundwater recharge facility that would accommodate the unused CAP water volumes for long term storage. A very favorable site, with excellent geohydrologic characteristics, no environmental restrictions and with proximal accessibility to water delivery systems for CAP and SRP water was selected. This site is located in the channel of the Salt River within the lands of the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community. After a slow process of permitting and land negotiations, the underground storage facility was constructed and commenced its operation in May of 1994. Water is delivered by gravity from the SRP canal system to four basins occupying 175 acres that have an infiltration rate that exceeds 2.5 feet/day. The Granite Reef Underground Storage site, which did not include a pilot phase, allows a recharge rate in excess of 10,000 acre-feet/month. The successful operations of GRUSP as an integral part of the water resources management system of the Phoenix Metropolitan area from 1994 to 1998 has prompted plans for its expansion.


Geranium is one of the most popular ornamental plants in México. In December 2012, rust symptoms were observed on leaves of common geranium (Pelargonium × hortorum L. H. Bailey) growing in pots in garden landscapes in Morelia, Michoacán. Dark brown pustules with chlorotic halos appeared on the lower leaf surface. A center pustule surrounded by one or more partial-to-complete concentric circles of smaller pustules was observed in each lesion. Urediniospores were globose or subglobose to ovoid, light brown, echinulated, thin-walled with two more or less conspicuous subequatorial pores, and 21 to 29 × 18 to 24 μm (25.5 × 22.8 μm average). Teliospores were not observed. Based on these characters, the rust was identified as Puccinia pelargonii-zonalis Doidge (1,2). Pathogenicity tests were conducted on three healthy P. × hortorum plants that were sprayed with water droplets containing urediniospores. The inoculated plants were covered with a plastic bag and placed in a screened house. The bags were removed after 24 h. Afterwards, the plants were maintained outside the screened house in full sun at ambient temperature (24 to 30°C in the day and 5 to 10°C at night). Initial symptoms were observed 15 to 17 days post inoculation. Symptoms appeared as small light yellow spots on the upper surface of mature leaves. Urediniospores production on the lower surface of the leaves was evident 22 to 25 days post inoculation. To our knowledge, this is the first report of P. pelargonii-zonalis in the state of Michoacán, México. Geranium rust has been previously reported only in the state of Guanajuato (2). References: (1) E. M. Doidge. Bothalia 2:1, 1926. (2) H. L. Gallegos and G. B. Cummings. Uredinales (royas) de México. Vol. 1. Culiacán, Sinaloa, México, SARH, 1981.


Many cities face a series of so-calledcity diseasessuch as traffic jam, housing problems and environmental pollution as economy has developed and cities have expanded rapidly. In this paper, based on the discussion on the theory of restoration ecology and landscape ecology of urban green space system planning, according to the need of economic development and the results of the above research, the framework and measures of urban green space system planning was proposed. Based on the complexity characteristics of urban ecosystem, the systematical theory and ecology, assessment and planning of urban ecosystem were developed. Thisstudy has been helpful to develop ecosystem modeling based on complexity theory and further improve cognition to the development law of urban ecosystem. Moreover, the complexity theory could more accurately and effectively account for the complex behaviors of urban ecosystem, and promote the sustainable development of urban ecosystem more effectively.


Dome lavas from the 2004 eruption of Mount St. Helens show elevated Li contents in plagioclase phenocrysts at the onset of dome growth in October 2004. These cannot be explained by variations in plagioclase-melt partitioning, but require elevated Li contents in coexisting melt, a fact confirmed by measurements of Li contents as high as 207 µg/g in coexisting melt inclusions. Similar Li enrichment has been observed in material erupted prior to and during the climactic May 1980 eruption, and is likewise best explained via pre-eruptive transfer of an exsolved alkali-rich vapor phase derived from deeper within the magma transport system. Unlike 1980, however, high Li samples from 2004 show no evidence of excess (210Pb)/(226Ra), implying that measurable Li enrichments may occur despite significant differences in the timing and/or extent of magmatic degassing.

Diffusion modeling shows that Li enrichment occurred within ∼1 yr before eruption, and that magma remained Li enriched until immediately before eruption and cooling. This short flux time and the very high Li contents in ash produced by phreatomagmatic activity prior to the onset of dome extrusion suggest that vapor transfer and accumulation were associated with initiation of the current eruption. Overall, observation of a high Li signature in both 1980 and 2004 dacites indicates that Li enrichment may be a relatively common phenomenon, and may prove useful for petrologic monitoring of Mount St. Helens and other silicic volcanoes. Lithium diffusion is also sufficiently rapid to constrain vapor transfer on similar time scales to short-lived radionuclides.


Current research in Natural Language Processing (NLP) tends to exploit corpus resources as a way of overcoming the problem of knowledge acquisition. Statistical analysis of corpora can reveal trends and probabilities of occurrence, which have proved to be helpful in various ways. Machine Translation (MT) is no exception to this trend. Many MT researchers have attempted to extract knowledge from parallel bilingual corpora. The MT problem is generally decomposed into two sub-problems: lexical selection and reordering of the selected words. This research addresses the problem of lexical selection of open-class lexical items in the framework of MT. The work reported in this thesis investigates different methodologies to handle this problem, using a corpus-based approach. The current framework can be applied to any language pair, but we focus on Arabic and English. This is because Arabic words are hugely ambiguous and thus pose a challenge for the current task of lexical selection. We use a challenging Arabic-English parallel corpus, containing many long passages with no punctuation marks to denote sentence boundaries. This points to the robustness of the adopted approach. In our attempt to extract lexical equivalents from the parallel corpus we focus on the co-occurrence relations between words. The current framework adopts a lexicon-free approach towards the selection of lexical equivalents. This has the double advantage of investigating the effectiveness of different techniques without being distracted by the properties of the lexicon and at the same time saving much time and effort, since constructing a lexicon is time-consuming and labour-intensive. Thus, we use as little, if any, hand-coded information as possible. The accuracy score could be improved by adding hand-coded information. The point of the work reported here is to see how well one can do without any such manual intervention. With this goal in mind, we carry out a number of preprocessing steps in our framework. First, we build a lexicon-free Part-of-Speech (POS) tagger for Arabic. This POS tagger uses a combination of rule-based, transformation-based learning (TBL) and probabilistic techniques. Similarly, we use a lexicon-free POS tagger for English. We use the two POS taggers to tag the bi-texts. Second, we develop lexicon-free shallow parsers for Arabic and English. The two parsers are then used to label the parallel corpus with dependency relations (DRs) for some critical constructions. Third, we develop stemmers for Arabic and English, adopting the same knowledge -free approach. These preprocessing steps pave the way for the main system (or proposer) whose task is to extract translational equivalents from the parallel corpus. The framework starts with automatically extracting a bilingual lexicon using unsupervised statistical techniques which exploit the notion of co-occurrence patterns in the parallel corpus. We then choose the target word that has the highest frequency of occurrence from among a number of translational candidates in the extracted lexicon in order to aid the selection of the contextually correct translational equivalent. These experiments are carried out on either raw or POS-tagged texts. Having labelled the bi-texts with DRs, we use them to extract a number of translation seeds to start a number of bootstrapping techniques to improve the proposer. These seeds are used as anchor points to resegment the parallel corpus and start the selection process once again. The final F-score for the selection process is 0.701. We have also written an algorithm for detecting ambiguous words in a translation lexicon and obtained a precision score of 0.89.


Realistic body images (avatars) have been long utilized in virtual reality applications, and they are becoming increasingly used in Neuroscience and Neuroprosthetics fields. To elucidate monkeys' perception of avatars, we have measured reaction of two naive rhesus monkeys when confronted to realistic 3D monkey avatars with different facial expressions and different levels of realism. We have compared it with their reaction to images of real monkeys with similar facial expressions. Monkeys were initially overtrained in reaching task in which they manipulated a joystick to reach toward circular targets with a computer cursor. We then replaced every 15th target with a randomly selected image of either a real monkey face, an avatar face or a sphere (i.e., control image), and we measured the average speed to reach each of these images. We also tested two different facial expressions: an aggressive bared teeth face and a friendly face. Showing the face images significantly altered the kinematics of reaching movements. These results indicated that monkeys interacted with the realistic avatar as if it was a conspecific. This effect was absent if the avatar was not textured. The two way Anova showed that the interaction of texture and facial expression was a significant factor for monkeys' speed of reaching (p 0.8), suggesting that the texture is more important than spatial realism for Monkeys to consider an avatar as a conspesific. These effects should be taken into account when using avatars in primate neuroprosthetic research.


The response of the global climate-carbon cycle system to an extremely large Northern Hemisphere mid-latitude volcanic eruption is investigated using ensemble integrations with the comprehensive Earth System Model MPI-ESM. The model includes dynamical compartments of the atmosphere and ocean and interactive modules of the terrestrial biosphere as well as ocean biogeochemistry. The MPI-ESM was forced with anomalies of aerosol optical depth and effective radius of aerosol particles corresponding to a super eruption of the Yellowstone volcanic system. The model experiment consists of an ensemble of fifteen model integrations that are started at different pre-ENSO states of a control experiment and run for 200 years after the volcanic eruption. The climate response to the volcanic eruption is a maximum global monthly mean surface air temperature cooling of 3.8 K for the ensemble mean and from 3.3 K to 4.3 K for individual ensemble members. Atmospheric p CO 2 decreases by a maximum of 5 ppm for the ensemble mean and by 3 ppm to 7 ppm for individual ensemble members approximately 6 years after the eruption. The atmospheric carbon content only very slowly returns to near pre-eruption level at year 200 after the eruption. The ocean takes up carbon shortly after the eruption in response to the cooling, changed wind fields and ice cover. This physics-driven uptake is weakly counteracted by a reduction of the biological export production mainly in the tropical Pacific. The land vegetation pool shows a decrease by 4 GtC due to reduced short-wave radiation that has not been present in a smaller scale eruption. The gain of the soil carbon pool determines the amplitude of the CO 2 perturbation and the long-term behaviour of the overall system: an initial gain caused by reduced soil respiration is followed by a rather slow return towards pre-eruption levels. During this phase, the ocean compensates partly for the reduced atmospheric carbon content in response to the land's gain. In summary, we find that the volcanic eruption has long-lasting effects on the carbon cycle: After 200 years, the ocean and the land carbon pools are still different from the pre-eruption state by 3 GtC and 4 GtC, respectively, and the land carbon pools (vegetation and soil) show some long-lasting local anomalies that are only partly visible in the global signal.


I. INTRODUCTION It is for me a great privilege to have been invited to participate in this Symposium in remembrance of Louis B. Sohn. This kind invitation by the organizers of this prestigious event can, I believe, be explained in at least two ways. First of all, I happened to be Louis's LL.M. student at the University of Georgia during the 1982-1983 academic year. I did not only attend his Law of the Sea course. Louis was also the promoter of my LL.M. thesis on a law of the sea issue comparing the positions of the United States and the former Soviet Union on a few selected topics.1 This latter capacity allowed me to make use of his private library, located right next to his office, where a wealth of information could be found. Besides books and certain journal issues, this library also contained personal notes of Louis, many of which concerned the law of the sea. For a European post-graduate law student this felt like striking gold. If the main and law libraries of the University of Georgia could already be qualified as exceptionally rich in content when compared to the average European university library standard, having access to this additional source of information was simply fabulous. One could spend as much time inside this wonderland as one wished. There was only one caveat: under no condition was any item to leave the room. Even heaven thus seemed to have its own prohibitive rules. I remember Louis as a very dedicated scholar possessing an incredible active knowledge of international law in general, and law of the sea, in particular. Students writing papers under his guidance were to report at regular intervals on the progress they were making. I will never forget my first such meeting with Louis. Having turned all the above-mentioned libraries upside down on a very specific and limited law of the sea topic, I believed to have drawn the full picture in preparation for that meeting. But Louis would simply, on the spot, indicate that this and that international case were still missing, or that I had overlooked that particular author whose opinion on the issue in question was of quintessential importance to correctly understand the issue involved. In short, a chapter that I had thought almost to be finished needed to be redrafted all over again. At a time that word processing applications had not yet reached the average student's desk, this turned out to be a rather hard fact of life. As a teacher and promoter, Louis was also always available to his students. That is to say, to be perfectly honest-almost all of the time. I say "almost" because once I dropped into his office when I was heading for his Law of the Sea lecture. Though by then the image of a charming and friendly man-be it a very demanding one as I had found outhad firmly crystallized in my mind, I was thunderstruck when he told me it was improper timing for me to come running into his office. "Can't you see I am preparing for class?" he rhetorically queried. When I left the room I was totally puzzled by these words. I really had no clue why a man of his posture still needed to prepare for class. But, now that I have been in the teaching business for more than fifteen years myself, I have fully come to understand exacdy how precious those five last minutes before class really are. The second reason which springs to mind in order to explain my presence here at this Symposium, is that Louis received a doctor honoris causa from the Law Faculty of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel on March 23, 1990. I had just obtained my Ph.D.2 from that University and started teaching there. I, therefore, had the privilege on that occasion of participating in a conference hosted by the Center for International Law in honor of Louis' presence at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel on the compulsory jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice.3 Louis most certainly had a fundamental influence on my career, as my interest in the law of the sea has since only grown. …


In October 2003, in-situ, living benthic marine diatoms were recovered from sandy
sediments from 67 m to 191 m depth in Onslow Bay, North Carolina, by a remotely operated
vehicle tethered to the R/V Cape Hatteras. Fourteen stations were sampled, with surface
incident irradiance flux ranging from 3.740% of the surface irradiance at the shallowest station to
0.028% at the deepest. Attenuation coefficients fluctuated with depth, averaging between 0.0443
(4.43% loss per meter) and 0.0842 (8.42% loss per meter). Bottom temperatures decreased with
depth from 25.3 °C to 14.9°C. One hundred twenty-six species of 29 genera were identified
from cleaned sediments from all 14 stations. Eleven live species from six genera were
documented as live and identified from the shallowest and deepest of the fourteen stations
(Actinoptychus splendens, Amphora coffeaformis, Cocconeis disculus, Cocconeis distans,
Cocconeis placentula, Diploneis chersonensis, Navicula Sp. a, Navicula digitoconvergens,
Nitschia frustulum, Nitschia pellucida, and Nitschia panduriformis), and analyzed
morphometrically based on apical and transapical axis lengths, degree of frustal ornamentation,
and surface area to volume ratios. These data were then compared to those for shallow water
samples previously collected from intertidal marsh sediments on Masonboro Island, North
Carolina. Though apical axis lengths were significantly larger in the shallow water samples
(p = 8.6 x 10-6), transapical axis lengths and degree of ornamentation did not differ significantly
between deepwater and shallow water regions. Surface area to volume ratios of three out of five
live species found in both shallow water and deepwater were significantly lower in the deepwater
stations (p = 0.00045 to 0.0088), indicating that differences in shape may affect the efficiency of
light collection. The results of this study indicate taxonomic diversity and variety of frustal morphology of benthic marine diatoms are greater shallow water; however, the presence of these
microalgae in the deeper sediments of Onslow Bay may have far-reaching impacts on nutrient
cycling and food web dynamics on the shelf and upper slope.


Following an extensive period of drafting, consultation, negotiation, and re-drafting the new European Legislation came into effect in July this year. The new measures will be the biggest change to medicines legislation since the creation of the current European system in 1995. The background to the forthcoming changes dates back to 2003 when the European Commission decided to undertake an assessment of the pharmacovigilance system. Independent review and public consultation followed, as well as further work at the Commission, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) and EU member states, resulting in the publication of Regulation (EC) 1235/2010 and Directive 2010/84/EC on 31 December 2010. The overriding purpose of the new package is to strengthen the public health system through better pharmacovigilance. All areas of post-marketing activities are subject to revision from ADR reporting, signal management, Periodic Safety Update Reports (PSURs), Risk Management Plans (RMPs) and Post Authorization Safety Studies (PASS). As well as the public health angle the new legislation also seeks to improve efficiency by having improved decision-making processes, reducing duplication and making better use of IT through the use of centralized systems and standards. However, not all of the new measures will come into effect immediately and a period of transition will apply in a number of areas. Marketing Authorization Holders (MAHs) and other stakeholders should refer to the EC Implementing Measures and the Good Vigilance Practice Modules produced by the EMA and member states. This article hopes to highlight areas of interest to medical writers, identifying what the major changes are and when they come into play. Implementing Regulation


Just as some banks or insurance companies may be viewed as "too big to fail," are there some mass harms that are simply "too big to remedy"? This article examines that question using the lens of claims arising from the history of slavery and the "Jim Crow" system of racial segregation. Slavery and Jim Crow inflicted horrific harms on Blacks in America. Official silence aggravated that harm, as neither victims nor their descendants received any monetary restitution, nor even (until very recently) any official apology. Reparations advocates have repeatedly called for compensation to slave descendants. But how exactly does society compensate for slavery? Of course, compensation for mass injustice is always difficult to calculate and administer. Slavery puts the normal concerns of mass compensation into sharp relief and adds a whole new set of unique concerns for courts, legislators, and scholars.This article uses slavery and Jim Crow harms as a case study to examine some of the difficult questions that arise in mass restitution cases. The article argues that some reparative action is needed in the case of slavery and Jim Crow; the longstanding lack of response only reinscribes injury. However, traditional tort compensation is inadequate. Victims cannot be truly compensated. Only symbolic restitution is possible.Ultimately, slavery and Jim Crow seem "too big to remedy" under the legal system. Because true restitution is impossible, we must consider other options based on our ideas of justice. Thus, responding to slavery challenges us to rethink both the goals of restitution and our underlying conceptions of justice. Reparative measures, while they cannot make victims whole, can play important roles in society and benefit victims in other ways. The article examines how the goals of restitution can be advanced though various non-tort or otherwise non-traditional approaches, including restorative justice and atonement, microreparations and apology, storytelling, and the traditional Hawaiian remedy of ho'oponopono.


PURPOSE: To determine the acute blood pressure response of aquatic treadmill (AT) exercise compared to land treadmill (LT) exercise. METHODS: 11 Subjects (6 male; 23 ± 2 years; 70 ± 1 inches; 164 ± 32 pounds) completed 3 to 5, 5-minute graded exercise stages (~20, 26, 32 ml-1·kg-1·min-1 for stages 1, 2, and 3, respectively) up to 85% age predicted maximal heart rate on AT. Blood pressure (BP) was measured manually at the conclusion of each stage while subjects straddled the treadmill belt for 20-30 seconds. Heart rate (HR) and oxygen consumption (VO2) were measured continuously. Within 3-5 days, subjects completed an equivalent exercise bout on LT with stages matched for VO2. Resting BP and HR was measured with an automated BP cuff following 10 minutes of seated rest before exercise and every 3 minutes for 30 minutes during recovery. Pre-exercise BP was also measured manually following 5 minutes of standing on AT and LT immediately before exercise. A paired sample t-test was used to compare seated resting and pre-exercise standing measures between modes. Since all subjects completed at least 3 matched stages on each mode, a 3 (stage) x 2 (mode) ANOVA was used to analyze the dependent variables: VO2, HR, SBP, diastolic BP (DBP), mean BP (MAP), pulse pressure (PP), rate pressure product (RPP), and oxygen pulse (OP). SBP, DBP, MAP, and HR during seated recovery were analyzed by an 11 (time) x 2 (mode) ANOVA. All values presented as mean ± SE. RESULTS: Seated resting measures prior to exercise did not differ between modes. Pre-exercise standing SBP was greater (AT: 118 ± 9; LT: 113 ± 8; p = 0.05) and HR was lower (AT: 64 ± 10; LT: 77 ± 12; p < 0.05) for AT relative to LT. During exercise, significant main effects for mode were found for DBP (AT: 65 ± 2; LT: 71 ± 2) and PP (AT: 81 ± 4; LT: 62 ± 4) with a trend toward significance in SBP (AT: 146 ± 4; LT: 135 ± 4; p = 0.057). Main effects for stage were significant for VO2, HR, RPP, and OP. No interactions were significant. During recovery, main effects for mode were observed only for HR (AT: 87 ± 1; LT: 78 ± 1), while there was a main effect for time for DBP, MAP, and HR. CONCLUSION: Hydrostatic pressure from AT increases exercise SBP and may lower HR.


Social question-answering services such as Yahoo! Answers (YA) are becoming highly prominent venues for online information seeking. While their immense popularity indicates their success, there is a need to measure how effective these services are and how satisfactory information they provide to the information seekers. To study these questions of effectiveness and user satisfaction, we collected a large amount of data from YA. For operationalizing these two constructs, we considered the amount of time lapsed between a question being asked and answered, and the asker choosing an answer to be satisfying, respectively. Using data mining, we show that the majority of the questions on YA get at least one answer within a few minutes, however, it takes longer to receive an answer that satisfies the asker. We also demonstrate that the sooner an answer appears for a question, the higher chances it has being selected as the best answer by the asker.


In light of continuing trends of globalization, media scholars are increasingly examining and comparing transnational issues. This study argues that although such research is timely and necessary, it requires a more structured approach. By analyzing existing cross-national framing studies, this study exposes gaps in the literature that a new model of approach proposed here could help fill. This transnational comparative framing model provides a framing pool for collecting generic, domestic, and issue-specific frames and proposes a three-dimensional framing matrix as a systematic framing codebook. Discussion of the model centers on its possible application to the analyzed cross-national framing studies to illustrate its ability to provide a more unified approach in this emerging area of research.


IMPORTANCE
Orbital lymphangiomas, congenital hamartomas of the lymphovascular tissue, are often associated with significant ocular complications and can be challenging to treat. To date, therapeutic approaches have demonstrated variable results and have significant ocular and systemic risks. We present 2 cases of pediatric orbital lymphangioma that responded to treatment with oral sildenafil.

OBSERVATIONS
This is a report of a series of 2 patients at the University of California-Davis Medical Center treated between March 2011 and October 2012. The first patient was a 12-month-old male infant whose extensive orbital and facial lymphangioma responded to sildenafil after repeated sclerosing and drainage procedures failed to achieve remission. The second patient was a 12-year-old boy whose orbital lymphangioma and associated ocular pain improved with sildenafil, making enucleation unnecessary.

CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE
These reported cases demonstrate promise for sildenafil as a noninvasive therapy for pediatric lymphangioma. Larger clinical trials are needed to clarify the optimal length of treatment, use as monotherapy, and long-term adverse effects.


This Forum examines the research assessment systems (RASs) that affect professional human geography, and offers perspectives on the whole idea of formal research assessment. The Forum aims to assist professional geographers in their reflections on present and future research assessment in their own countries. It comprises two parts. The first offers highly succinct and detailed descriptions of the RASs currently in place in a range of countries -be they highly centralized, standardized and formal systems, or devolved and relatively informal ones. Many professional geographers know little about the assessment procedures outside their own countries and the first part allows a comparative understanding to be developed. The second part ('Whither research assessment?') offers reflections on the whole notion of research assessment beyond the 'normal' assessment offered by peer review of papers, books and chapters; considers whether actually existing systems of research assessment in one or more countries embody the values conducive to an 'appropriate' form of research assessment; and it also considers the actual or probable impacts on the content and form of geographical knowledge of real or possible RASs.


This present work was aimed at fabrication of porous brushite crystals using oil-in-water
high internal phase emulsion stabilized by synthesized palm-based nonionic surfactant
as a reaction medium. This research work was divided into four categories. The first part
of the work involved synthesizing palm-based nonionic surfactants. Palm oil derivatives,
lauryl, palmityl and stearyl alcohols as renewable resources, were ethoxylated with an
average of three, six (or eight or nine) and 100 moles of ethylene oxide. The critical
micelle concentration of the synthesized surfactants was found to decrease with
increasing ethylene oxide head groups due to intertwist amongst the head groups. This
phenomenon enhances surfactant-surfactant interaction rather than surfactant-solvent
interaction which increases the rate of micellization as proven by the Gibbs energy. The
increase in the surfactant tail length had minimal effect on micellization. The second
part of the work was to stabilize the high internal phase emulsion using the synthesized
surfactants. The oil phase was vegetable oil, namely olive and olein oils. These UPLOAD emulsions, with dispersed phase of more than 75 wt%, were easily prepared by one-pot
homogenization. Due to the high oil volume fraction, the oil droplets were no longer
spherical but were squeezed to take the shape of polyhedral. Light scattering results
showed that the droplet size increased with increasing ethylene oxide chain length. The
rheology of the emulsions was governed by droplet size and oil volume fraction. The
emulsions exhibited high stability as indicated by the rheological measurements even
after storage at 40oC for three months. The third part of the work was on the fabrication
of brushite crystals with high degree of porosity using the high internal phase emulsion
as a reaction medium. The porosity of the crystals was manifested by precursor
concentration, surfactant concentration, oil volume fraction, mixing method, mixing
time, aging temperature, precursor type, mode of recovery and surfactant head group.
Pore size of the brushite crystals was less than 5 μm. The mechanism for the formation
of porous brushite crystals was postulated schematically based on the small angle x-ray
scattering analysis. The fourth and final part of this work was related to the application
of the porous brushite crystals as drug delivery devices. Prior to the controlled release
study, the crystals were subjected to cytotoxicity test to ensure their compatibility with
synoviocytes, which are cells that line the knee joints of rabbits. The crystals were found
to enable cell growth for up to five days. Sodium ampicillin, a wide spectrum antibiotic,
was successfully loaded into the pores of the crystals and subsequently released in vitro
for 14 days. This work underlines the simplicity of using highly stable high internal
phase emulsion as a reaction medium for the fabrication of porous brushite crystals, in
which when loaded with drug, exhibited potential as localized bone treatment
demonstrated by the promising controlled release rate.


John Jasper (1812-1901), a major if misunderstood figure in post-Civil War African American culture, exemplifies a preaching tradition that used biblical ideas of covenant and apocalypse to orient the faithful in the furnace of the post-Reconstruction South. Jasper's sermons, usually titled "The Sun Do Move" and "The Stone Cut Out of the Mountain Without Hands," are among the works that make him, in Ralph Ellison's words, one of the "eloquent and heroic Negroes" whose "spirit still moves us through the contributions they made to the flexibility, music and idealism of the American language" ("Remembering" 668). Recent scholarship has taken Jasper as being significant because of the disregard for natural law signaled in the "Sun" sermon's conventional rifle, which implies "God's ability to alter the natural order," and so belies Southern assumptions that "slavery and race domination are inherent" in that order (Roberts 139). Scholars note too that "[a]lthough the sermon is titled 'The Sun Do Move,' Jasper's real purpose is to demonstrate the truthfulness and reliability of the power of God" (LaRue 33). Despite their insights, these views reflect over-reliance on the best-known but truncated and misleading version of this sermon, remain unaware of its emphasis on the God of Exodus, and fail to relate it to others, such as "The Stone Cut Out of the Mountain." Fuller reconstruction and contextualization place the two works centrally in the biblical covenant and apocalyptic traditions, with their assumption that God providentially directs history toward salvation of the covenant people. Not incidentally, this reconsideration also helps undermine the cliche that religious faith encourages acceptance of injustice. Jasper was born July 4, 1812, in Fluvanna County, Virginia, and remained a slave until emancipation. Converted in 1839, he began preaching the next year and built a reputation over many years largely on the funeral circuit (Randolph 10). (1) Following the Civil War, he was a minister in Petersburg, Virginia, helped organize Baptist churches in Weldon, North Carolina, and Richmond, and eventually founded Richmond's Sixth Mt. Zion Baptist Church (Randolph 28-33), remaining pastor until his death. Jasper is today known almost entirely for the "Sun" sermon, though in his lifetime and immediately after he was famed for others as well (see, e.g., Brawley 84-85). He is first known to have preached the sermon in early 1878 and he repeated it hundreds of times, often before white audiences. The title is not Jasper's, and is used here only for convenience. (2) The sermon has come down to us as a biblically based argument for a geocentric, flat-earth view of the universe, and yet is arguably about Exodus, covenant, and apocalypse as much as it is about the sun. The sermon's seemingly central concern with the sun is indeed partly an artifact of its being known, even today, almost exclusively in a shortened version excluding other material. This version was published (1908) seven years after Jasper's death by a white Baptist minister and admirer, William E. Hatcher, and this reconstructed excerpt represents the appropriation and celebration of only a part of the sermon's content. An earlier and more reliable biography of Jasper (1884), by Edwin Archer Randolph, the first African American law graduate of Yale, gives a better idea of the sermon's focus but is today almost unknown. (3) Further, since Jasper composed orally, accounts of his sermons are based on newspaper reports, including both summaries and purported dialect transcriptions. (4) Both the sermon and its author long held different meanings in African American and white traditions. Among whites of his day, Jasper was a figure of some renown. Though his was an African American congregation, white guests frequently attended and were received with unfailing courtesy (Hatcher 124-26), and a syndicate sent Jasper on tour to Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and elsewhere in mid-1878 (Randolph 36; Hatcher 129-31). …


This article focuses on a number of cases of men and women prosecuted for adultery and concubinage by the ecclesiastical Court of the diocese of Monreale, in Sicily. Against the view that in the wake of the Council of Trent these forms of extramarital relations were the targets of a campaign of moralization, the Sicilian sources show the strong impact of neighbourhood dynamics on the decision of the Court to prosecute. Neighbours "judged" concubines and adulterous according to a different moral code than the one prescribed by the Catholic Church and used their own way to chastise, or to support, wrongdoers. For instance, spouses who entered in a relation with another man in order to acquire means of support for the family that the husband did not provide were not disapproved. By examining the motives that brought concubines and adulterous to Court we can explore the system of values of peasants and artisans of rural Sicily and the complex interaction between the community and the institutions. Rather than enforcing its strict view on the legitimate uses of sexuality the Bishop's Court appears to mediate among the conflicts that occurred in the community.


In applying microfinance as a strategy to create wealth and reduce poverty, developing countries have had to contend with individual and spatial dimensions of interventions. This paper contributes to the debate on spatial and socio-economic dimensions by examining the backgrounds of clients and nonclients of microfinance institutions in Ghana. Data were collected from 1,628 client households from 17 microfinance institutions and 1,104 non-client households in the three ecological zones of the country. Using the non-clients as control, the Microfinance Poverty Assessment Tool was adopted to analyze the background of clients and outreach of the selected institutions. Two regions of high well-being are ringed by relatively well-off areas, with the highest levels of poverty found in the northern parts of the country. While at the national level institutions served more poor clients in the less well-off areas, within region comparison showed higher reach of non-poor even in those poor areas. Outreach by gender was minimal, and clients in self-employed agriculture tended to be in the lowest quintiles compared to those in non-farm activities. While targeting less well-off areas at the national level will automatically lead to supporting the poor, it is necessary to address within-area variability. Genderbased strategies are needed to target more females in the lowest quintiles and policies need to focus on clients in agriculture who tend to dominate in the low quintiles. This is particularly important in a country whose economy is agriculture-based.


The New Life is the masterpiece of Dante's youth, an account of his love for Beatrice, the girl who was to become his lifelong muse, and of her tragic early death. An allegory of the soul's crisis and growth, combining prose and poetry, narrative and meditation, dreams and songs and prayers, this work of crystalline beauty and fascinating complexity has long taken its place as one of the supreme revelations in the literature of love. The New Life is published here in the beautiful translation by the English poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti, an inspired poetic re-creation comparable to Edward Fitzgerald's Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam and a classic in its own right.


Abstract : It is incumbent upon the state to gain support for national objectives. Employment of instruments of power is designed to influence other nations and organizations to respond favorably. Therefore, impacting the decision making process is the underlying principle for IOP power projection and highlights the psychological element. During a period of declining resources and increased world competition, the United States must find new ways to reach out and promote American interests. In order to maximize the impact and exploit the influence events create, joint planning and interagency coordination of psychological operations are critical. The current ad hoc interagency coordination and joint planning process do not maximize the psychological factors impact and fully exploit its asymmetrical influence on a target audience audience's decision making process. Traditional views towards concepts, particularly military PSYOP, do not lead to the innovative solutions demanded by an environment of declining funds and resources. This study recognizes the multidimensional aspect of military PSYOP and calls for redefining an area of operations that has changed little over the years. Additionally, the establishment of an organization responsible for the development of a national marketing strategy integrating all IOPs to achieve objectives beyond the tactical level is advocated. Reviewing subject matter literature from the last forty years provided the project's basis for concepts relating to PSYOP and the Soviet missile gap deception case study. Internet searches, interviews, and recent literature brought current issues to light and developed a picture of U.S. organizations involved in influencing target audiences.


We studied the seasonal distribution of dimethylsulfoniopropionate (DMSP) among ses- ton, dissolved matter and zooplankton along a transect in eastern Long Island Sound. The seston DMSP concentration (1 to 52 nM) was comparable to that reported for some estuaries. Most of the ses- ton DMSP was derived from particles <10 µm. Seston DMSP concentration did not correlate with water temperature or salinity. Most of the seston DMSP appeared to have originated from phyto- plankton. Both dissolved DMSP and dimethyl sulfide (DMS) concentrations remained low (<3 nM) and were highly correlated to each other (r = 0.83, p < 0.01). Assuming a steady state condition, the conversion efficiency from dissolved DMSP to DMS was estimated to be 76%. On the other hand, ses- ton DMSP concentration did not correlate with dissolved DMSP, implying that the accumulation of seston DMSP and dissolved DMSP were uncoupled. Four types of copepods plus several other types of zooplankters contained DMSP. The copepod Temora longicornis contained 2.8 nmol DMSP per individual, the highest among the zooplankters. For most of the year, zooplankton were a negligible component of particulate DMSP in the water column. However, in months when T. longicornis appeared in high abundance, zooplankton represented 14 to 72% of the total particulate DMSP. Esti- mated copepod body DMSP concentrations were orders of magnitude higher than seston and dis- solved DMSP concentrations; thus, copepod bodies represent a sparse, but highly concentrated source of particulate DMSP.


BACKGROUND: Diagnosis-related group (DRG) based reimbursement creates incentives for reduction in hospital length of stay (LOS). Such reductions might be accomplished by lesser incidences of discharges to home. However, we previously reported that, while controlling for DRG, each 1-day decrease in hospital median LOS was associated with lesser odds of transfer to a postacute care facility (P = .0008). The result, though, was limited to elective admissions, 15 common surgical DRGs, and the 2013 US National Readmission Database. METHODS: We studied the same potential relationship between decreased LOS and postacute care using different methodology and over 2 different years. The observational study was performed using summary measures from the 2008 and 2014 US National Inpatient Sample, with 3 types of categories (strata): (1) Clinical Classifications Software's classes of procedures (CCS), (2) DRGs including a major operating room procedure during hospitalization, or (3) CCS limiting patients to those with US Medicare as the primary payer. RESULTS: Greater reductions in the mean LOS were associated with smaller percentages of patients with disposition to postacute care. Analyzed using 72 different CCSs, 174 DRGs, or 70 CCSs limited to Medicare patients, each pairwise reduction in the mean LOS by 1 day was associated with an estimated 2.6% ± 0.4%, 2.3% ± 0.3%, or 2.4% ± 0.3% (absolute) pairwise reduction in the mean incidence of use of postacute care, respectively. These 3 results obtained using bivariate weighted least squares linear regression were all P < .0001, as were the corresponding results obtained using unweighted linear regression or the Spearman rank correlation. CONCLUSIONS: In the United States, reductions in hospital LOS, averaged over many surgical procedures, are not accomplished through a greater incidence of use of postacute care.


A novel layout parameterization technique for multi-chip module design optimizations is presented. This technique is based on a quasi-static method of moments and multi-dimensional interpolation, which can reduce a 12-minute electromagnetic layout simulation to 5.3 seconds. Excellent CDMA power amplifier (PA) module performance is achieved based on this technique.


Sustainable development of small-scale horticulture farming is very much determined by how these farmings develop and organized into an integrated agriculture cluster area which aims at fulfilling human needs, equitable distribution of economic benefits, and participation of farmers and rural people in the dynamics of development.  Indonesia has adopted it as policy but with limited evidence of successful implementation because of the ecosystem for agriculture cluster area development not yet existed. Despite the ecosystem not yet developed, small-scale farmers continue to manage their farming to support their livelihood.  In this context, there is a need to develop an alternative enabling framework based on an understanding of the dynamics of horticulture farming. The objectives of this research are to understand the dynamics of the red onion horticulture farming, assessing key factors affecting farming management, and identify elements of a framework for developing integrated small-scale red onion farming cluster area based on the key factors identified. A mix research method was applied: an in-depth interview and survey. The results of the research indicated that the following key factors affecting the dynamics of small-scale red onion farming: (1) market, product distribution, and price fluctuation; (2) provision of agriculture extension services and consideration to use inputs; (3) existence and functionality of farmers' group (organization); (4) source of capital and the used of financial service industry; (5) supports from government program; (6) infrastructures to support farming activities (in term of farms access road and water); (7) mutually beneficial synergy and partnership among the stakeholders; and (8) digital platform to facilitate interaction among stakeholders. These key factors would form the basis to develop an alternative framework for integrated agriculture are development.


Web-based social media sites are increasingly being used by the public to find and share health information. Public health organizations, including state health departments (SHDs), have begun adopting social media to disseminate health information to consumers. The purpose of this study was to examine adoption patterns and characteristics associated with social media adoption in SHDs across the U.S. In early 2012, we used web searches to identify which SHDs had adopted Facebook or Twitter and the adoption date. Adoption of social media has grown steadily since 2008, with 28 SHDs using Facebook and 41 using Twitter as of February 2012. We used 2010 profile data from the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials to compare characteristics of adopters and non-adopters. While there were few significant differences, trends showed that adopting SHDs tended to be in more populated states with more urban residents and higher levels of internet access than non-adopters. Adopting health departments tended to have higher per capita health department expenditures, more educated health department leadership, more staff, and younger staff than non-adopters. SHDs adopting Facebook/Twitter early may be good partners in developing and disseminating social media public health strategies. More evidence is needed regarding current and effective uses of social media for public health practice.


Background: Hereditary transthyretin-mediated (hATTR) amyloidosis is a rapidly progressive, multisystem disease that presents with cardiomyopathy or polyneuropathy. The APOLLO study assessed the efficacy and tolerability of patisiran in patients with hATTR amyloidosis. The effects of patisiran on cardiac structure and function in a prespecified subpopulation of patients with evidence of cardiac amyloid involvement at baseline were assessed. Methods: APOLLO was an international, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled phase 3 trial in patients with hATTR amyloidosis. Patients were randomized 2:1 to receive 0.3 mg/kg patisiran or placebo via intravenous infusion once every 3 weeks for 18 months. The prespecified cardiac subpopulation comprised patients with a baseline left ventricular wall thickness ≥13 mm and no history of hypertension or aortic valve disease. Prespecified exploratory cardiac end points included mean left ventricular wall thickness, global longitudinal strain, and N-terminal prohormone of brain natriuretic peptide. Cardiac parameters in the overall APOLLO patient population were also evaluated. A composite end point of cardiac hospitalizations and all-cause mortality was assessed in a post hoc analysis. Results: In the cardiac subpopulation (n=126; 56% of total population), patisiran reduced mean left ventricular wall thickness (least-squares mean difference ± SEM: –0.9±0.4 mm, P=0.017), interventricular septal wall thickness, posterior wall thickness, and relative wall thickness at month 18 compared with placebo. Patisiran also led to increased end-diastolic volume (8.3±3.9 mL, P=0.036), decreased global longitudinal strain (–1.4±0.6%, P=0.015), and increased cardiac output (0.38±0.19 L/min, P=0.044) compared with placebo at month 18. Patisiran lowered N-terminal prohormone of brain natriuretic peptide at 9 and 18 months (at 18 months, ratio of fold-change patisiran/placebo 0.45, P<0.001). A consistent effect on N-terminal prohormone of brain natriuretic peptide at 18 months was observed in the overall APOLLO patient population (n=225). Median follow-up duration was 18.7 months. The exposure-adjusted rates of cardiac hospitalizations and all-cause death were 18.7 and 10.1 per 100 patient-years in the placebo and patisiran groups, respectively (Andersen–Gill hazard ratio, 0.54; 95% CI, 0.28–1.01). Conclusions: Patisiran decreased mean left ventricular wall thickness, global longitudinal strain, N-terminal prohormone of brain natriuretic peptide, and adverse cardiac outcomes compared with placebo at month 18, suggesting that patisiran may halt or reverse the progression of the cardiac manifestations of hATTR amyloidosis. Clinical Trial Registration: URL: https://www.clinicaltrials.gov. Unique identifier: NCT01960348.


The generalization ability of Convolutional neural networks (CNNs) for biometrics drops greatly due to the adverse effects of various occlusions. To this end, we propose a novel unified framework integrated the merits of both CNNs and graphical models to learn dynamic graph representations for occlusion problems in biometrics, called Dynamic Graph Representation (DGR). Convolutional features onto certain regions are re-crafted by a graph generator to establish the connections among the spatial parts of biometrics and build Feature Graphs based on these node representations. Each node of Feature Graphs corresponds to a specific part of the input image and the edges express the spatial relationships between parts. By analyzing the similarities between the nodes, the framework is able to adaptively remove the nodes representing the occluded parts. During dynamic graph matching, we propose a novel strategy to measure the distances of both nodes and adjacent matrixes. In this way, the proposed method is more convincing than CNNs-based methods because the dynamic graph method implies a more illustrative and reasonable inference of the biometrics decision. Experiments conducted on iris and face demonstrate the superiority of the proposed framework, which boosts the accuracy of occluded biometrics recognition by a large margin comparing with baseline methods.


Antibiotics have revolutionized survival from central nervous system (CNS) infections. Sixty years after the death of Sir Hugh Cairns, we present archive material of historical interest from the Radcliffe Infirmary in Oxford from the time of his first trials of penicillin for CNS infection. We discuss Cairns' important wartime and subsequent contributions to antibiosis in CNS infection and include drawings by Audrey Arnott illustrating the surgical techniques used to treat abscesses at the time.


As Transfer Learning from large-scale pre-trained models becomes more prevalent in Natural Language Processing (NLP), operating these large models in on-the-edge and/or under constrained computational training or inference budgets remains challenging. In this work, we propose a method to pre-train a smaller general-purpose language representation model, called DistilBERT, which can then be fine-tuned with good performances on a wide range of tasks like its larger counterparts. While most prior work investigated the use of distillation for building task-specific models, we leverage knowledge distillation during the pre-training phase and show that it is possible to reduce the size of a BERT model by 40%, while retaining 97% of its language understanding capabilities and being 60% faster. To leverage the inductive biases learned by larger models during pre-training, we introduce a triple loss combining language modeling, distillation and cosine-distance losses. Our smaller, faster and lighter model is cheaper to pre-train and we demonstrate its capabilities for on-device computations in a proof-of-concept experiment and a comparative on-device study.


Graphite oxide (GO) has received extensive interest as a precursor for the bulk production of graphene‐based materials. Here, the highly energetic nature of GO, noted from the self‐propagating thermal deoxygenating reaction observed in solid state, is explored. Although the resulting graphene product is quite stable against combustion even in a natural gas flame, its thermal stability is significantly reduced when contaminated with potassium salt by‐products left from GO synthesis. In particular, the contaminated GO becomes highly flammable. A gentle touch with a hot soldering iron can trigger violent, catastrophic, total combustion of such GO films, which poses a serious fire hazard. This highlights the need for efficient sample purification methods. Typically, purification of GO is hindered by its tendency to gelate as the pH value increases during rinsing. A two‐step, acid–acetone washing procedure is found to be effective for suppressing gelation and thus facilitating purification. Salt‐induced flammability is alarming for the fire safety of large‐scale manufacturing, processing, and storage of GO materials. However, the energy released from the deoxygenation of GO can also be harnessed to drive new reactions for creating graphene‐based hybrid materials. Through such domino‐like reactions, graphene sheets decorated with metal and metal oxide particles are synthesized using GO as the in situ power source. Enhanced electrochemical capacitance is observed for graphene sheets loaded with RuO2 nanoparticles.