The purpose of this paper is to discuss two polarimetric parameters which are widely used in synthetic aperture radar (SAR) polarimetry, namely, target entropy and alpha angle. We propose alternative parameters based on our analysis on how they are connected to covariance matrix similarity invariants and how they can be physically interpreted in optical polarimetry. The proposed alternatives can be computed by a fairly simple algorithm and even by the use of software without complex mathematics abilities. As an example, a NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory Airborne SAR L-band image of the San Francisco Bay is used to compare the proposed parameter schemes with the original entropy and alpha. A coherent rationale for these alternative parameters is formulated in order to provide insight to polarimetric parameter interpretation.


Our main aim is to categorise the different uses teachers and students make of ICT as a teaching and learning tool in technology-rich classrooms. A questionnaire about possible uses was developed following the guidelines provided by the literature review. A sample of teachers (n=278) who teach in highly technological classrooms participated in the study. Four types of educational ICT use in the classroom turned out of the exploratory factor analysis: teachers' technology use of content, teachers' technology use of interaction, students' technology use of content, and students' technology use of interaction. Useful ideas for researchers and teachers are provided.


Randomised controlled trials (RCTs) have become a popular methodological choice for policy analysis in the developing world. Through a review of literature in multiple disciplines, this paper describes the various ethical and methodological considerations when choosing to adopt RCTs for policy decisions. Unlike previous critical analysis of RCTs, this paper contextualises its critique to India, a country that has been the site of well over a hundred RCTs. Through illustrations of recent Indian policy RCTs, on corruption, livelihoods, PDS and conflict etc, the paper raises concern about violation of ethical requirements like equipoise, informed consent, data harms, human costs to research participants and research staff. Following this, the paper discusses methodological limitations of RCTs for Indian policy making including heterogeneity, researcher effects, generalisability, policy-relevant unobserved mechanisms and other socio-political considerations. The paper ends with a description of alternative approaches and a simple checklist for practitioners, specifically policy makers, to assess the feasibility of RCTs for informing decision making in their context. Key Words: Randomised Controlled Trials, Research ethics, Methodology, Evaluations, Observational studies, Quasi-experimental research.


Many problems in neural computation and statistical learning involve optimizations with nonnegativity constraints. In this article, we study convex problems in quadratic programming where the optimization is confined to an axis-aligned region in the nonnegative orthant. For these problems, we derive multiplicative updates that improve the value of the objective function at each iteration and converge monotonically to the global minimum. The updates have a simple closed form and do not involve any heuristics or free parameters that must be tuned to ensure convergence. Despite their simplicity, they differ strikingly in form from other multiplicative updates used in machine learning. We provide complete proofs of convergence for these updates and describe their application to problems in signal processing and pattern recognition.


Minipigs are accepted models for a variety of drug preclinical and nonregulatory toxicology studies. Acute, subchronic and chronic studies are possible using all routes of administration. Minipigs have distinct size advantages over domestic pigs. There exist some minor limitations with minipigs, but for the most part they offer well correlated models to humans for dermal and systemic toxicology assessments. Phototoxicology and reproductive toxicology usage is expanding. Minipig size, anatomy, physiology, metabolism, and genetics generally correlate well to human factors. The minipig makes an appropriate model for toxicology. Curr. Protoc. Toxicol. 56:1.11.1‐1.11.19. © 2013 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.


In this contribution it is argued that grammaticalization and related types of change arise as a side-effect of strategic, rhetorical language use by speakers. The outcome of these processes is determined by the strategy for which the underlying lexical items are used, rather than by the lexical content of these items or by pre-set characteristics of types of change. This is illustrated with the three grammatical uses that derived from lexical bien in French: modal particle, concessive conjunction and discourse particle. This approach to grammaticalization and other changes is also shown to shed new light on high-level generalizations such as persistence, subjectification and pragmaticalization, which need to be complemented with lower-level generalizations about the rhetorical strategies that are driving them.


Purpose: In acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), multidrug resistance is often mediated by ATPase Binding Cassette (ABC) proteins, which principally involve ABCC1 (multidrug resistance protein 1, MRP1) and ABCB1 (multidrug resistance 1, MDR1). However, direct comparisons between the differential effects of ABCC1 and ABCB1 have been difficult, since identical cell lines with differential expression of these transporters have not been developed. Experimental Design: In this study, we developed and compared the biological profiles of Jurkat cell lines that selectively over-expressed ABCC1 and ABCB1. Vincristine (VCR) plays an important role in the treatment of T-lineage ALL (T-ALL), and is often the first drug given to newly-diagnosed patients. Because of its importance in treatment, we provide descalating, sub-lethal doses of VCR to Jurkat cells, and extended our observations to expression profiling of newly diagnosed patients with T-ALL. Results: We found that VCR-resistant cells over-expressed ABCC1 nearly 30-fold. The calcein AM assay confirmed that VCR-resistant cells actively extruded VCR, and that ABCC1-mediated drug resistance conferred a different spectrum of multidrug resistance than other T-ALL induction agents. siRNA experiments that blocked ABCC1 export confirmed that VCR resistance could be reversed in vitro. Analyses of T-lymphoblasts obtained from 100 newly diagnosed T-ALL patients treated on Children's Oncology Group Phase III studies 9404 and AALL0434 that induction failure could be could be partially explained by the over-expression of ABCC1 and ABCB1. Conclusions: Taken together, these results suggest that over-expression of ABC transporters plays a contributing role in mediating treatment failure in T-ALL, and underscore the need to employ alternate treatment approaches in patients for whom induction failed or for those with relapsed disease.


Neoliberalization processes have been reshaping the landscapes of urban development for more than three decades, but their forms and consequences continue to evolve through an eclectic blend of failure and crisis, regulatory experimentation, and policy transfer across places, territories and scales. The proliferation of familiar neoliberal discourses and policy formulations in the aftermath of the 2007-09 world financial crisis masks evidence of more deeply rooted transformations of policies, institutions and spaces that continue to combatively remake terrains of urban development. Accordingly, the critical intellectual project of deciphering the problematic of neoliberal urbanism must continue to evolve. This essay outlines some of the methodological and political challenges associated with (re)constructing a ′moving map′ of post-crisis neoliberalization processes. We affirm a form of critical urban theory that adopts a restlessly antagonistic stance towards orthodox urban formations and their dominant ideologies, institutional arrangements and societal effects, tracking their endemic policy failures and crisis tendencies while at the same time demarcating potential terrains for heterodox, radical and/or insurgent theories and practices of emancipatory social change.


Rapid eye movement sleep behavior disorder (RBD) is associated with neurodegenerative disease and particularly with the synucleinopathies. Convenience samples involving subjects with idiopathic RBD have suggested an increased risk of incident mild cognitive impairment (MCI), dementia (usually dementia with Lewy bodies), and Parkinson disease (PD). There are no data on such risks in a population‐based sample.


One of the main challenges in optical hydrogen sensing is the stability of the sensor material. We found and studied an optimized material combination for fast and reliable optical palladium-based hydrogen sensing devices. It consists of a palladium-nickel alloy that is buffered by calcium fluoride and capped with a very thin layer of platinum. Our system shows response times below 10 s and almost no short-term aging effects. Furthermore, we successfully incorporated this optimized material system into plasmonic nanostructures, laying the foundation for a stable and sensitive hydrogen detector.


• We analyzed the 25 available submissions on agriculture and adaptation as requested by SBSTA 40, and submitted to SBSTA 44. Major emerging findings are summarized. • Previous in-session agriculture workshops did not place enough emphasis on critical stakeholders such as small‐ scale food producers, food-insecure households and women. • Separating the social and environmental aspects of adaptation measures from those that pertain to productivity, food security and resilience creates risks. Effective adaptation approaches look at multiple elements at once and seek to achieve multiple objectives. • Gender relations and inequalities play a crucial role in structuring and differentiating vulnerabilities among women and men in the face of climate change. Women's agency should be recognized and supported through genderresponsive strategies. • Platforms for sharing knowledge, information and experiences can serve as channels for collaboration, capacity building and innovation, and as repositories for adaptation options. • SBSTA should establish a work program for determining how agriculture will fit into the new climate regime.


This work develops finite element methods with high order stabilization, and robust and efficient adaptive algorithms for Large Eddy Simulation of turbulent compressible flows. The equations are approximated by continuous piecewise linear functions in space, and the time discretization is done in implicit/explicit fashion: the second order Crank-Nicholson method and third/fourth order explicit Runge-Kutta methods. The full residual of the system and the entropy residual, are used in the construction of the stabilization terms. These methods are consistent for the exact solution, conserves all the quantities, such as mass, momentum and energy, is accurate and very simple to implement. We prove convergence of the method for scalar conservation laws in the case of an implicit scheme. The convergence analysis is based on showing that the approximation is uniformly bounded, weakly consistent with all entropy inequalities, and strongly consistent with the initial data. The convergence of the explicit schemes is tested in numerical examples in 1D, 2D and 3D. To resolve the small scales of the flow, such as turbulence fluctuations, shocks, discontinuities and acoustic waves, the simulation needs very fine meshes. In this thesis, a robust adjoint based adaptive algorithm is developed for the time-dependent compressible Euler/Navier-Stokes equations. The adaptation is driven by the minimization of the error in quantities of interest such as stresses, drag and lift forces, or the mean value of some quantity. The implementation and analysis are validated in computational tests, both with respect to the stabilization and the duality based adaptation.


Bulk thermal alterations to chlorite schist occurring at temperatures above 450 °C are traditionally studied using X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy, or thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), but lower temperature changes that lead to structural and chemical alteration, including changes in oxidation state that are not followed by a crystalline modification, are not detectable using these techniques. In this paper we present the results of the first study to examine the application of fiber-optic reflection spectroscopy (FORS) for the detection and quantification of low-temperature thermal alterations in chlorite schist. Such changes have been observed during research on the thermal behavior of medieval (12th–13th centuries AD) chlorite cooking pots from the archaeological site of Merv, Turkmenistan. FORS was used to investigate these changes, testing the archaeological samples against a model data set of experimental reference specimens. The results demonstrate the potential of FORS for tracking low-temperature thermal alterations and offer the opportunity to examine temperatures attained by ancient chlorite vessels during their past use in cooking activities.


Abstract The evolution of powered flight has traditionally been associated with the origin of birds, the most successful clade of modern tetrapods, as exemplified by the nearly 10,000 species alive today. Flight requires a suite of morphological changes to skeletal anatomy to create a light yet resistant framework for an airfoil and advanced nervous motor control. Given the level of morphological integration necessary to create a suitable aerofoil, the origin of flight may be intuitively assumed to be coupled with high evolutionary rates of wing-related morphologies. Here we show that the origin of birds is associated with little or no evolutionary change to the skeletal anatomy of the forelimb, and thus Archaeopteryx is unlikely to be the "Rosetta Stone" for the origin of flight it was once believed to be. Using comparative statistics and time-series analyses on a data set constructed from all known forelimb skeletal anatomy of non-avian theropod dinosaurs and a diverse assemblage of early birds, we demonstrate three focused peaks of rapid forelimb evolution at Tetanurae, Eumaniraptora, and Ornithothoraces. The peaks are not associated with missing data and remain stable under multiple perturbations to the phylogenetic arrangements. Different regions of the forelimbs are demonstrated to have undergone asynchronous periods of evolutionary peaks and stasis. Our results evince a more complicated stepwise mode of forelimb evolution before and after the origin of Aves than previously supposed.


BACKGROUND
Traditional methods of measuring the impact and cost of influenza virus have focused on epidemic years and morbidity and mortality due to pneumonia and influenza.

METHODS
Annualized age-sex-race adjusted rates of hospitalization for pneumonia and influenza and other diagnoses among elderly Medicare beneficiaries during the epidemic influenza season of 1989 to 1990 and the nonepidemic season of 1990 to 1991 were compared with an interim period in 1990 without influenza virus circulation.

RESULTS
The rates of hospitalization for pneumonia and influenza, acute bronchitis, chronic respiratory disease, and congestive heart failure were significantly greater during each influenza period compared with the interim period. The highest rates were found in the epidemic season of 1989 to 1990. The amount reimbursed by Medicare to hospitals to 1990. The amount reimbursed by Medicare to hospitals for the treatment of excess hospitalizations during periods of influenza activity was more than $1 billion in 1989 to 1990 and almost $750 million in 1990 to 1991.

CONCLUSIONS
Measures of the impact and cost of influenza in elderly Americans should include all of the diagnoses listed above and should recognize that the impact of influenza virus is significant even in nonepidemic years. There are great opportunities for cost savings if effective control programs are implemented.


The basic idea behind the concept of a dry port is a more efficient seaport access, movement of the seaport's interface inland with the shift of flows from road to rail. The application of the concept results in a reduction of road transport to/from the seaport together with the associated broad social and environmental benefits. This paper examines the complex factors influencing the timeframes and location of close inland intermodal terminals with dry port characteristics - metropolitan intermodal terminals, as they are usually referred to - and their implementation, with a case study of the Sydney metropolitan region and Port Botany, Australia. The issues surrounding suburban freight terminals are a sub-set of the wider social and environmental problems of the interactions of seaports with their hinterland. Port Botany and its close inland intermodal terminals are very distinctive: there are very few ports in the world with such a well-developed network of close inland intermodal terminals. Nevertheless, the Moorebank terminal was first mooted in 2003 but the latest plans anticipate operations commencing in 2018. The paper illustrates some problematic aspects of long timeframes for the development of significant freight infrastructure.


textabstractThis chapter demonstrates the way in which an economic rationality of state support for the arts was developed in the 1970's and 80's by analyzing three crucial debates between economists of the arts and others. It is argued that the economists of the arts sought to provide a more solid foundation for specific state policies directed at the arts. But in the process of doing so they narrowed the grounds on which such support could be justified, and they had to sidestep the most crucial issues: what is excellence in the arts, and what is the moral status of consumer preferences in the case of the arts? Those critical of this economic rationality, and the economic approach to the arts more generally, argued for the fundamental difference between politics and the market, and individual preferences and social values. Overall the debates were characterized by mutual misunderstanding. The exception was the debate over the 'merit good', but it ultimately was an unsatisfactory argument for both sides. The economists were not convinced that it was really an economic argument, and the critics felt that the merit good did not capture the special role of the arts in a liberal society.


A detailed investigation was made to study the shear transfer between precast prestressed beams and in-situ concrete in a relatively new method of construction of continuous bridge decks where the ends of precast beams are
connected to an integral in-situ crosshead away from the supports.

Two series of tests were carried out. In the first series 1/3 scale models of the M. o. T, C&CA M-8 sections were used, and these were modified in the second series to study the effect of the beam's top flanges within the connection.
One of the most important mechanisms of shear transfer proved to be the top flanges of the precast beam.

For the precast beams with top flanges (first series), and with a 300mm beam embedment length, it was discovered that:

a) The shear force is transferred from a small length at the end of the beam.
b) The in-situ concrete nibs (concrete surrounding the web) can take this shear force without stirrups.
c) There is no need either to project all the bars from the precast into the in-situ concrete or to prestress the connection transversely as a means of improving shear transfer.
d) It was possible to transfer the whole shear force at the connection with a reduced embedment length of 100mm with nib stirrups.

For the precast beam without top flanges, the transfer of the shear force at the connection required other improving details. In this respect transverse prestressing and web shear connectors were utilized effectively. The effect of
projecting bars was also examined.

In the general behaviour of composite continuous beams subjected to shear a detailed comparison was made between different Code predictions for the web cracking shear and web crushing strength. A mathematical model is also
proposed to predict the stirrup stress according to shear span, effective depth and stirrup ratio when failure is controlled by web crushing. Stirrup stress measurement in the vicinity of continuous support made it possible to predict the enhanced shear strength and a design method is proposed for the continuous beams. A comparion is also made between different Code predictions in this respect.

To obtain more information about the strength of web shear connectors used in the secod series, a separate dowel shear specimen was designed. Different interface conditions including bond, dowel bar size and strength and the effect of shrinkage were examined. A design method is proposed together with a comparison with different Code predictions.


Commenting on the close relationship between technological and legal developments, Grant Gilmore once wrote: "The reason for the dramatic change in English law during the second half of the eighteenth century is not far to seek. We know it as the industrial revolution."1 His insight, although directed to trends in commercial law in eighteenth century England, is not limited to a particular legal discipline or a single historical epoch. Indeed, the many new activities and products stemming from recent technological innovations are provoking changes in American law comparable in magnitude to those experienced during the industrial revolution.


Recent progress in low-noise optical amplification and signal processing has raised prospects of practical devices operating below the conventional quantum limit. We review the basic principles, practical implementation, and performance of such devices. In particular, we focus on the operation and limitations of χ(3)-based nonlinear platforms, such as silica high-confinement fiber. Classified by the parametric process application, we discuss the use of low-noise parametric mixers as optical amplifiers, phase regenerators, wavelength converters, and signal multicasters.


The fundamental properties of discrete elliptic solitons (DESs) in the two-dimensional waveguide arrays were studied. The DESs show nontrivial spatial structures in their parameters space due to the introduction of the new freedom of ellipticity, and their stability is closely linked to their propagation directions in the transverse plane.


We demonstrate a promising method for fabrication of plastic microlens arrays (MLAs) with a controllable ellipticity and structure, by using the combination of multiple-exposure two-beam interference and plastic replication techniques. Multiple exposures of a two-beam interference pattern with a wavelength of 442 nm into a thick positive photoresist (AZ-4620) were used to form different two-dimensional periodic structures. Thanks to the developing effect of the positive photoresist, fabricated structures consisting of hemielliptical- or hemispherical-shaped concave holes were obtained. By controlling the rotation angle between different exposures, both the shape and structure of the holes varied. By adjusting the dosage ratio between different exposures, the shape of the holes was modified while the structure of the holes was unchanged. The photoresist concave microstructures were then transferred to plastic MLAs by employing replication and embossing techniques. The fabricated MLAs were characterized by a scanning electron microscope and atomic force microscope measurements. We show that the ellipticity of the microlenses can be well controlled from 0 (hemispherical) to 0.96 (hemielliptical) by changing the rotation angle or dosage ratio between the two exposures.


Several pigs expressing a polydactyl (extra toes) phenotype were identified in the ISU purebred Yorkshire herd. Sires, dams, and littermate sibs to the polydactyl pigs were retained in the herd and planned matings were designed to enlarge the population. In addition to creating 12 pigs with either extra toes or dewclaws, the population also had an extremely high number of stillborn and mummified pigs. Furthermore, this population also showed differences in growth and reproduction. Multiple genes have been implicated in causing extra digits in several other species. Using comparative genomics as a guide many of these genes were expected to map on pig chromosome 18. Pig chromosome 18 is the smallest pig autosome on which there has been limited research. Candidate genes on pig chromosome 18 were mapped to ensure their location using Iowa State University's Berkshire by Yorkshire resource population. Once chromosomal locations were confirmed for each candidate gene, genotypes were obtained for each gene on all pigs in the polydactyl population and were used by a complex statistical method (Elston-Stewart algorithm) to calculate the likelihood that the gene caused the polydactyl phenotype.


Nowadays, developing and commercialising know-how in oil, gas and petrochemical are vital. Hence it is necessary to investigate different ways of commercialising in the development process. Because of inherent risk at each stage of different ways of commercialisation, it is necessary to carry out risk assessment for all stages. Risk assessment at different stages of know-how commercialisation can reduce the technology development lead time and commercialisation lead time and creates competitive advantage for commercialisation. The present article proposes a model to assess risks of know-how commercialisation, based on comprehensive review of literature and personal experience of the authors. According to the model, understanding IP-related risks play an important role in determining the economic value of the organisation's IP.


This paper provides evidence from eight developing countries of an inverse relationship between poverty and city size. Poverty is both more widespread and deeper in very small and small towns than in large or very large cities. This basic pattern is generally robust to choice of poverty line. The paper shows, further, that for all eight countries, a majority of the urban poor live in medium, small, or very small towns. Moreover, it is shown that the greater incidence and severity of consumption poverty in smaller towns is generally compounded by similarly greater deprivation in terms of access to basic infrastructure services, such as electricity, heating gas, sewerage, and solid waste disposal. The authors illustrate for one country -- Morocco -- that inequality within large cities is not driven by a severe dichotomy between slum dwellers and others. The notion of a single cleavage between slum residents and well-to-do burghers as the driver of urban inequality in the developing world thus appears to be unsubstantiated -- at least in this case. Robustness checks are performed to assess whether the findings in the paper are driven by price variation across city-size categories, by the reliance on an income-based concept of well-being, and by the application of small-area estimation techniques for estimating poverty rates at the town and city level.


Objectives. To describe the characteristics of patients found to have cardiac arrest andto evaluate the characteristics predictive of survival after cardiac arrest in a paramedic first-responder model. Methods. All patients who suffered out-of-hospital cardiac arrest in the city of Reading, Ohio, from January 1998 to December 2003 were recorded in the Utstein style. The number andincidence rate of witnessed arrests, initial rhythms, rate of bystander cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), and30-day mortality rate were retrospectively collected. Demographics, time to hospital, andresponse times were evaluated as predictors of survival. Results. Of those patients initially found to be in cardiac arrest, 14.3% were discharged alive. Witnessed arrests were more likely to result in live discharge of the patient. Whether bystander CPR was performed was not found to affect survival, nor was initial rhythm, although no patients initially found in asystole were discharged alive. No demographic characteristics or response times were predictive of survival. Conclusion. The rates of survival in this paramedic first-response system are favorable compared with basic emergency medical technician first-response systems. Further study using direct comparison methodology is warranted to confirm these findings.


The study critically assessed the extent to which financial sector liberalization has affected bank performance in Nigeria. Panel data model was employed for data spanning a period of thirty four years (i.e. 1971-2011). Earnings per share (EPS), Returns on capital employed (ROCE) and Returns on equity (ROE) were used as proxies for bank performance (i.e the dependent variables) while interest rate, real financial savings and exchange rates were used as the proxies for financial sector liberalization (i.e. the independent variables). A number of diagnostic tests were also conducted on the residuals to evaluate the models; these include the Breuch-Godfrey serial correlation Lagrange Multiplier (LM) test, the Ramsey REST test of specification error (i.e. to test for omitted variables, incorrect functional form, correlation between exogenous variables and error term) and the Cumulative Sum (CUSUM ) tests of parametric stability, the LM test of serial correlation showed that there was an absence of first order serial correlation in the residuals and cumulative sum tests also showed that observations are more stable during Pre-SAP period than the post-SAP era. The result obtained showed that though the effect of financial sector liberalization on bank performance in Nigeria for the period of study has been significant, especially as measured by the proxies of Earnings per Share and Return on Equity, it has not been significant enough to transform the nations' economy to the desired level. Hence, the study suggests among other things that a precondition for the efficiency of a liberalized financial sector is a stable macroeconomic environment and it is essential to ensure that government fiscal policy is assigned to complement monetary policies not to work against monetary and fiscal policies and help restore domestic and international confidence in the Nigeria banking system.


Abstract It has become increasingly important for small to medium sized enterprise (SME) retailers to stand out in the current marketplace. Branding in SMEs is a growing area of academic interest, although the majority of studies have been based in the manufacturing sector. This study seeks to develop a framework of the characteristics, processes and dynamics of SME retailers. A qualitative research study was carried out with SME owner managers (OMs) over a period of 15 months. The findings extend the understanding of branding in SMEs in a number of ways. Firstly, it is found that SME retailers take a cautious approach to brand management, seeking to build loyalty, networks and relationships. Secondly, the holistic nature of SME retail branding presents a challenge to OMs who are resource-constrained. Thirdly, the soft, colloquial and intuitive approaches to brand equity appraisal are evident. Brand marketing is focused on word of mouth, which has implications for how OMs operationalise the brand around store experiences. Finally, the influence of the OM on branding decisions is clear. The key findings are discussed in relation to the retail context of the study, the centricity of the OMs in SME branding and entrepreneurial brand management.


Two methods for determining the distance between the lens of a plenoptic camera and the focal plane, known as the image distance, are presented and tested. The plenoptic camera is a form of light field imaging, which seeks to record both the spatial and angular information of the light within a volume. The plenoptic camera requires one calibration image to determine the location of the focal points of each microlens within the camera. The focal point method of calibration uses the location of these focal points to geometrically determine the image distance. The magnification method of calibration instead requires an additional calibration image of a ruler and uses the standard, well-studied imaging equations to back out this distance. This thesis seeks to analyze both methods of calibration for accuracy and robustness across a wide range of possible image distances. The magnification method is proven to provide a sound estimation for the image distance for all of the tested cases. Synthetic results show that the focal point method of calibration is mathematically sound, but experimental results show that the real application of the method is limited by several deficiencies, namely errors caused by assuming that a complex lens exhibits the same properties as a thin lens. Results show that the focal point method can provide comparable accuracy to the magnification method by applying a correction equation specific to each lens settings, but overall the magnification is more robust and much simpler for general experiments.


T-cell differentiation is known to take place in the thymus, but the precise mechanisms involved remain unresolved. In order to analyse the role of the thymic microenvironment in thymocyte maturation and generation of the T-cell repertoire, we have raised monoclonal antibodies (mAb) to thymic stromal cells, and with these can recognize, in the non-lymphoid component of the thymus, several antigenically distinct compartments. One mAb, MR6, binds to both the cortical epithelium and medullary macrophages/dendritic (M phi/DC) cells in sections of the human thymus. Recently, the molecule detected by MR6 has also been detected at low levels on the surface of T lymphocytes. We now report that this molecule has a relative molecular mass of 145,000 (p145-MR6) and that this appears to be the same for both thymic lymphocytes and stromal cells. Functional studies show that mAb MR6 inhibits both the antigen-specific and the IL-2-induced proliferative response of MHC class II-restricted cloned helper T cells and peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC). These results suggest that the molecule to which mAb MR6 binds could be responsible for the inhibition of T-cell proliferation to self-antigens, and hence may be involved in tolerance induction and MHC restriction.


Developmental psychologists assume that infants understand other persons' actions after and because they understand their own ("Like-me" perspective). However, there is another possibility as well, namely that infants come to understand their own actions after and because they understand other persons' actions ("Like-you" perspective). We reviewed infant research on the influence of perceived actions on self-performed actions as well as the reverse. Furthermore, we investigated the interplay between both aspects of action understanding by means of a sequence variation. The results show the impact of agentive experience for action understanding, but not the reverse. The question whether infants' perceived and to-be-produced actions share common representations of the perceptual and the motor system is discussed in relation to its implications for the social making of minds.


Estimation of tactile properties from vision, such as slipperiness or roughness, is important to effectively interact with the environment. These tactile properties help humans, as well as robots, decide which actions they should choose and how to perform them. We, therefore, propose a model to estimate the degree of tactile properties from visual perception alone (e.g., the level of slipperiness or roughness). Our method extends an encoder-decoder network, in which the latent variables are visual and tactile features. In contrast to previous works, our method does not require manual labeling, but only RGB images and the corresponding tactile sensor data. All our data is collected with a webcam and tactile sensor mounted on the end-effector of a robot, which strokes the material surfaces. We show that our model generalizes to materials not included in the training data.


The purpose of this study, conducted in collaboration with Kairos Alive! was to explore the importance of a creative arts dance and story-telling program for older adults living in senior congregate living facilities. This mixed-method study used a baseline-controlled semi-experimental design over a period of three months. The research questions were: (a) What is the experience of reminiscence and new memories in the arts-based program? and (b) What is the impact of the program on perceived overall quality of life? Quantitative tools included the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) and the SF-36 (physical and mental). Qualitative data was collected through semi-structured interviews. Out of the 34 participants tested at baseline, 14 completed the study and met the participation criterion for analysis. Descriptive statistics show that participants' MoCA scores were suggestive of mild cognitive impairment (MCI). Repeated-measures ANOVA revealed a significant improvement in memory scores (MoCA) following intervention, although the scores were still in the MCI range. Scores on the SF-36 did not result in clear improvements compared to baseline. The positive findings on memory show that a weekly arts-based program could improve memory in older adults who had scores suggestive of MCI. Qualitative results show that the program stimulated reminiscence and new memories, enhanced quality of life as well as fostered a feeling of community among residents. Creative Dance and Senior Housing


Longevity is a complex and multifactorial process in which the balance in redox state has an important role. The production of reactive oxygen/reactive nitrogen species (ROS/RNS) at low level is involved in physiological process as signaling molecules in various cellular and developmental processes. However, the increase in the production of these species and/or the decrease in the antioxidant capacity can lead to perturbation of the redox balance, causing oxidative/nitrosative stress which ultimately leads to cell death. The aging and neurodegenerative diseases are closely associated with the unbalance in the redox environment. This special issue contributes to the understanding of the impact of impairment in the balance of antioxidant defense and ROS/RNS generation as well as the mechanisms that are involved, which will lead to a better comprehension of several processes related to aging and neurodegeneration biology.

Three review articles are focused on Alzheimer's disease. D. Luque-Contreras et al. reviewed the role of extracellular β-amyloid, tau, and apoE, three main proteins associated with the development of Alzheimer's disease, in the generation of oxidative stress as well as the mitochondrial alterations induced by extracellular β-amyloid and its relationship with vascular damage. Moreover, P. Carrillo-Mora et al. mentioned that although there is a lot of information of the possible mechanisms that may be involved in the role of β-amyloid, its participation in the pathophysiology of Alzheimer's disease is not fully understood. The authors described both toxic (excitotoxicity, mitochondrial alterations, synaptic dysfunction, and altered calcium homeostasis) and some neuroprotective mechanisms of β-amyloid in vitro and in vivo, which may contribute to the understanding of the processes in which this protein is present and lead to the design of future therapeutic interventions. Additionally, M. A. Meraz-Rios and coworkers provide a review of the mutations present in APP, PS1, and PS2 observed in patients with familial Alzheimer's disease and its association with oxidative stress.

M. Luca and coworkers describe the importance of nitrooxidative stress as an important factor in the aging and neurodegeneration and as a link of all these factors with major depression and also the authors correlated these factors with cell functioning, gene expression, and proteins folding.

The research article by S. Gonzalez-Reyes and coworkers shows the protective effect of curcumin against hemin-induced damage in primary cultures of cerebellar granule neurons. Specifically, the mechanisms by which curcumin can show its benefic properties are through Nrf2 modulation and the induction of antioxidant response. In the same context, the original article of M. Otero-Losada and coworkers demonstrates that an antioxidant supplementation with alpha-tocopherol, β-carotene, and vitamin C improved the biochemical profile associated with oxidative metabolism in elderly cardiovascular patients. These original articles represent excellent evidence in which the modulation of antioxidants response can be seen as a fertile line to explore both experimental and clinical studies in which the oxidative stress is an important factor.

Also the review of N. Cardenas-Rodriguez and coworkers describes how the antiepileptic drugs as valproic acid, oxcarbazepine, and topiramate modulate antioxidant status by modifying the activity of antioxidant enzymes both in human and animals models and these effects can be also independent of their principal mechanism of action.

D. Silva-Adaya and coworkers introduced for us an interesting review that focuses on thioredoxin system (thioredoxin, thioredoxin reductase, and NADPH) expression into the central nervous system. The authors also described the conditions that modulate the thioredoxin system in both animal models and the postmortem brains of human patients associated with the most common neurodegenerative disorders, in which this system could play an important role.

On the other hand, J. R. Ocampo and coworkers discuss the redox properties of kynurenine pathway metabolites which have been involved in many brain diseases and aging. They also describe the effect of these kynurenines under different conditions since the environment can modify their activity. Additionally, the authors reviewed the changes in the levels of these metabolites during the age and some brain disorders; the review also takes the evidence in the literature and explains the possible impact that these kynurenines levels alteration can have on the NAD+ production.

In the review article of S. Montes and coworkers was summarized updated information regarding copper and copper proteins in Parkinson's disease. Some evidences have revealed that transition metals play important roles in the setup and development of neurodegenerative diseases; copper is a special case, since its physiological actions influence other metals, such as iron. The specific reports regarding Parkinson's disease (and experimental models) and copper-related proteins, ceruloplasmin, superoxide dismutase, and metallothionein, are reviewed in detail. The participation of copper transporters and the relationship of this transition metal and Parkinson's disease-related proteins such as alpha synuclein are also reviewed. Evidence suggests that antioxidant function of copper proteins could be an interesting experimental strategy to test neuronal death in Parkinson's disease.

The original article by A. Diaz-Ruiz and coworkers shows the metallothionein-II capability to inhibit lipid peroxidation and to improve functional recovery after transient brain ischemia and reperfusion in an experimental model in rats using biochemical, functional, and histological evaluations. Their results suggest that MT-II may be a neuroprotective treatment to prevent tissue damage after cerebral ischemia.

Thyroid hormones are related to oxidative stress not only by their stimulation of metabolism but also by their effects on antioxidant mechanisms. I. Villanueva and coworkers analyzed the participation of thyroid hormones on ROS production and oxidative stress and the way the changes in thyroid status in aging are involved in neurodegenerative diseases.

Together all the papers of this special issue provide a better understanding of the mechanisms involved during the process of aging and brain diseases, which could be potential therapeutic targets in the future.


Recent reports of As concentrations in certain food and drinks have garnered public concern and led to a lowering of the US guideline maximum concentration for inorganic As in apple juice and proposed limits for As in rice products. In contrast Se is an essential micro-nutrient that can be limiting when Se-poor soils yield Se-poor food crops. Rare earth element (REE) doubly charged interferences on As and Se can be significant even when initial ICP-MS tuning minimizes doubly charged formation. We analyzed NIST 1547 (peach leaves) and 1515 (apple leaves), which contain high levels of REEs, by quadrupole ICP-MS with (He) collision mode, H2 reaction mode or triple quadrupole ICP-MS (ICP-QQQ) in mass-shift mode (O2 and O2/H2). Analysis by collision cell ICP-MS significantly over-estimated As and Se concentration due to REE doubly charged formation; mathematical correction increased the accuracy of analysis but is prone to error when analyte concentration and sensitivity is low and interferent is high. For Se, H2 reaction mode was effective in suppressing Gd2+ leading to accurate determination of Se in both SRMs without the need for mathematical correction. ICP-QQQ using mass-shift mode for As+ from m/z 75 to AsO+ at m/z 91 and Se+ from m/z 78 to SeO+ at m/z 94 alleviated doubly charged effects and resulted in accurate determination of As and Se in both SRMs without the need for correction equations. Zr and Mo isobars at 91 and 94 were shown to be effectively rejected by the MS/MS capability of the ICP-QQQ.


E-health, telehealth and telemedicine all describe the use of telecommunica tion and electronic information technology for the provision of health care at a distance. Interest in telemedicine has been heightened recently due to technological advances making equipment more effective and accessible, and increasing healthcare costs and client expectations creating pressures to find alternative modes of healthcare delivery. Although telemedicine suffers from a lack of conclusive evidence regarding its clinical effectiveness, primarily because it has not been adequately evaluated, its popularity and acceptance, particularly amongst lay persons, continues to increase. With the rapid increase in internet use, email, an electronic communication medium, has the potential to radically alter the culture of health-care. Despite a number of logistical issues related to its use, there is high consumer demand for email consultations, yet only 2% of clinicians currently offer them. As issues surrounding security, workflow, liability and workflow are resolved, email will impact increasingly of clinical service delivery.


In this study, we carry out robust optimal design for the machining operations, one key process in wafer polishing in chip manufacturing, aiming to avoid the peculiar regenerative chatter and maximize the material removal rate (MRR) considering the inherent material and process uncertainty. More specifically, we characterize the cutting tool dynamics using a delay differential equation (DDE) and enlist temporal finite element method (TFEM) to derive its approximate solution and stability index given process settings or design variables. To further quantify the inherent uncertainty, replications of TFEM under different realizations of random uncontrollable variables are performed, which however incurs extra computational burden. To eschew the deployment of such a crude Monte Carlo (MC) approach at each design setting, we integrate the stochastic TFEM with a stochastic surrogate model, stochastic kriging, in an active learning framework to sequentially approximate the stability boundary. The numerical result suggests that the nominal stability boundary attained from this method is on par with that from the crude MC, but only demanding a fraction of the computational overhead. To further ensure the robustness of process stability, we adopt another surrogate, Gaussian process, to predict the variance of stability index at unexplored design points and identify the robust stability boundary per the conditional value at risk (CVaR) criterion. Therefrom, optimal design in the robust stable region that maximizes the MRR can be identified.


We propose an adversarial learning approach for generating multi-turn dialogue responses. Our proposed framework, hredGAN, is based on conditional generative adversarial networks (GANs). The GAN's generator is a modified hierarchical recurrent encoder-decoder network (HRED) and the discriminator is a word-level bidirectional RNN that shares context and word embeddings with the generator. During inference, noise samples conditioned on the dialogue history are used to perturb the generator's latent space to generate several possible responses. The final response is the one ranked best by the discriminator. The hredGAN shows improved performance over existing methods: (1) it generalizes better than networks trained using only the log-likelihood criterion, and (2) it generates longer, more informative and more diverse responses with high utterance and topic relevance even with limited training data. This performance improvement is demonstrated on the Movie triples and Ubuntu dialogue datasets with both the automatic and human evaluations.


Corruption is a term used by criminology, but the new Hungarian Criminal Code included it as a concept of substantial criminal law since it bribery and the related criminal acts are discussed under the title of crimes of corruption.In case of bribery two actions are required and confronted, meaning that it has at least two subjects: an active and a passive briber. The active briber is the one for whom a decision is important. The passive briber is the one who has the right to pass the decision. The active briber gives or promises a kind of advantage or price and in exchange therefore this person expects the passive briber to pass a decision as it was required by the active briber. The bribed person accepts this advantage and usually decides according to the expectations of the active briber. This process is like a business agreement, and unfortunately is almost as usual in the everyday life of Hungary, Europe and China as well.


Introduction: Tissue engineered heart valves offer a promising alternative for the replacement of diseased heart valves avoiding the limitations faced with currently available bioprosthetic and mechanical heart valves. The aim of the tissue engineering is producing living heart valves that can be used to replace those affected by congenital and acquired disease, especially in younger patients. The central challenge of any tissue engineering project is to replicate the three dimensional architecture, physical and cellular function of the tissue to be replaced. Aortic valve function critically depends on the geometry and interaction between its component parts. The three dimensional design contributes several important functions to the valves; these include optimal hemodynamic performance, smooth opening and closing characteristics, passive dynamism, influence in ventricular function and coronary flow. Current prosthetic stented valves have the disadvantage of presenting high transvalvular gradients, incomplete regression of left ventricular hypertrophy and the rigid stent produces a residual obstruction in transaortic flow and reduces effective orifice area. This leads to a negative effect on ventricular function after aortic valve replacement and long-term survival. Recent advances in computed tomography scan, image processing and rapid prototyping offer the unique opportunity to recreate the phenotypic geometric relationship of the aortic root. Therefore it offers the possibility to produce a tissue engineered stentless valve with better hemodynamic performance with improved left ventricular function. Methods: Computed tomography scans were obtained via a Siemens Definition Flash with a slice thickness of 0.6 mm and a slice increment of 0.3 mm. DICOM were imported into Mimics (Materialise, Leuven, Belgium) for three dimensional reconstructions of the blood volumes. The processed files were exported as STL files into 3-matic (Materialise, Leuven, Belgium) to create various images showing the cross sections and models of interest. These STL files were used as the basis for the molds with suitable modification for 3D printing and the spraying process. The molds were three dimensionally printed (Objet 260 Connex, Stratasys, US) in three longitudinal segments each including the sinus, the adjoining aortic wall and the cusp. These were used to produce a scaffold which has the same physiological shape as a normal aortic root. The stentless valve scaffold was fabricated by using a custom made jet spraying device (Design RT, UK) to form anisotropic nanofibrillar poly ϵ-Caprolactone scaffold. The custom made device was developed with a computer controlled spray head with x, y, z, and angular movement to follow any complex shape. Results: Computed tomography scanned images were processed to form various models for three dimensional printing. The printed models were adjusted to produce various sleeves and molds for jet spraying. The resulting three dimensional nanofibrillar scaffold was an exact replica of the aortic root as defined by the computed tomography scan images and is being developed as a stentless tissue engineered heart valve. Conclusion: It is concluded that the use of computed tomography scan based model of the normal aortic root can reproduce a 3D scaffold with the same geometry. This is an important step towards personalized tissue engineered heart valves. Further studies are required to characterise the functional implications of this method.


Fuel ethanol can be produced from pretreated spruce wood through enzymatic hydrolysis and fermentation. Processed spruce wood samples (acid-catalyzed steam hydrolysis followed by enzymatic hydrolysis and fermentation) were fractionated into water-soluble products and residual solids. The dioxane/water soluble portions of the solids were fractionated by liquid-liquid extraction. A substantial portion of the processed wood (20-70 %) was insoluble in both water and dioxane/water. An almost pure lignin fraction, corresponding to about 20 % of the total lignin of the wood, was isolated. Examinations by 1H NMR spectroscopy showed that the processes led to extensive cleavage of arylglycerol b-aryl ethers in the lignin. The lignin content of other fractions could be estimated very roughly by IR spectroscopy. Purified lignin from SO2-catalyzed steam hydrolysis contained approx. 0.2 % sulphur.


Springfield, Massachusetts, the Bay State's third largest city, suffered staggering manufacturing job loss over the last thirty years of the twentieth century. In 2004, the financial impact of job loss, coupled with dubious fiscal management, plunged the city into near bankruptcy. In response, state government passed legislation appointing a Finance Control Board to manage city business. Wage freezes for City workers were continued and cuts in numerous essential services occurred to deal with the debt. But the question remains, can a Control Board approach grow a large stock of well paying jobs — large enough to grow the city's and the Connecticut River Valley's economies?


We identify a phenomenon, which we refer to as multi-model forgetting, that occurs when sequentially training multiple deep networks with partially-shared parameters; the performance of previously-trained models degrades as one optimizes a subsequent one, due to the overwriting of shared parameters. To overcome this, we introduce a statistically-justified weight plasticity loss that regularizes the learning of a model's shared parameters according to their importance for the previous models, and demonstrate its effectiveness when training two models sequentially and for neural architecture search. Adding weight plasticity in neural architecture search preserves the best models to the end of the search and yields improved results in both natural language processing and computer vision tasks.


Protein resources are severely short around the world, especially for the requirement of animal production. How to solve this problem has become more and more important. The production of high-quality protein stuffs from the low-quality unconventional protein resources by microbial fermentation is the main research direction all over the world. In this study, the low-quality protein stuffs such as cottonseed, blood and feather meals were fermented by Aspergillus oryzae (A. oryzae), which was isolated from bovine rumen and identified by 26S rDNA. The orthogonal experiment and single factor analysis of variance method was used to select the optimal fermentation nutrient media and conditions. The results showed that the optimum medium compositions of raw materials for replacing soybean meal were 30% blood meal, 26% cottonseed meal, 4% feather meal, 35% wheat bran, 5% corn flour; the best fermentation conditions were initial pH 6, 40% moisture, 2% fungal inoculation volume, and 60 h fermentation. Under the best conditions of solid-state fermentation (SSF), the soluble protein content, amino nitrogen content, crude protein content, free amino acids in the fermented products were 173.72 mg/g, 34.75 mg/g, 48.97%, 100.95 mg/g, which were increased by 82.68%, 379.97%, 12.91%, 570.00%, compared with the unfermented product, respectively (P<0.05). The activities of protease, amylase and cellulase in the fermented products were 2341.83 U/g, 36780.8 U/g and 6835.43 U/g, respectively. It can be concluded that the unconventional protein resources can be significantly improved by using the method of SSF of A. oryzae. The experiment result will provide an important theoretical basis for solving current shortage of protein feed resources.


The purpose of this research is to analyze the impact of tax avoidance and board diversity on corporate performance in the perspective of corporate governance. The research was conducted for non-financial firms listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange period 2010 to 2013.In this research, tax avoidance is measured by Cash Effective Tax Rate (CETR), board diversity is measured by 3 proxies, i.e. age, educational background and tenure of the board of directors, and the performance of the company is measured by the Tobin's Q ratio. Analysis of panel data with fixed effects model was used to analyze the influence of independent variables and the dependent variable. The results of this study indicate that the tax avoidance negatively affects the corporate performance and board diversity not affects the corporate performance.


To improve the oxidative stress tolerance of maize (Zea mays L.), doubled-haploid (DH) plants were regenerated from in vitro selected microspores exposed to paraquat. The efficiency of in vitro selection was tested by physiological and biochemical investigations, in which the tolerance to paraquat-mediated oxidative damage and antioxidant capacity of the second generation of fertile microspore-selected lines (DH2) were determined. In the leaves of paraquat-selected DH2 lines, reduced accumulation of reactive oxygen species, lower rates of chlorophyll bleaching, protein breakdown and membrane damage, but higher photosynthetic activity were detected on exposure to paraquat stress than either in the leaves of nonselected DH2 lines or in the original hybrid used as controls. The tolerant DH2 plants showed elevated activities of antioxidant enzymes such as super-oxide dismutase, ascorbate peroxidase, glutathione reductase, glutathione S-transferase, and catalase as compared to both controls. These results suggest that elevated antioxidant capacity may contribute to the paraquat tolerance of the paraquat-selected DH2 lines and that in vitro microspore selection represents a potential way to improve oxidative stress tolerance in maize.


Small-radius microring resonators with large free spectral range (FSR) are of great interest for optical communication and optical interconnect applications. The resonator loss of a waveguide-coupled ring resonator, if the gap width between the microring and the bus waveguide is extremely small, can be significantly influenced by the coupling loss which corresponds to the microring operated in a strong coupling regime. This effect is particularly prominent for small radius microrings. We have studied the coupling loss with respect to the gap width on a waveguide-coupled microring both experimentally and theoretically, using two-dimensional (2D) finite difference time domain (FDTD) and effective index method (EIM).The coupling loss was confirmed by measuring transmission spectra of Si microring filters fabricated on silicon-on-insulator (SOI) wafers. Our experimental data show that the ring loss increases rapidly as the coupling gap decreases to less than 200 nm. The measured results show that the ring loss of a silicon microring with a radius of 2.75 μm is around 0.01382 dB/circumference as the gap width is greater than 325 nm, referred to as the intrinsic ring loss. However, for a smaller gap of 150 nm, the loss of the microring increases to 0.07084dB/circumference. The added ring loss is attributed to the coupling loss at small coupling gap for small radius ring.


The current era of worsening hypercompetition in biomedical research has drawn attention to the possibility of decreasing marginal returns from research funding. Recent work has described decreasing marginal returns as a function of annual dollars granted to individual scientists. However, different fields of research incur varying cost structures. Therefore, we developed a Grant Support Index (GSI) that focuses on grant activity code, as opposed to field of study or cost. In a cohort of over 71,000 unique scientists funded by NIH between 1996 and 2014 we analyzed the association of grant support (as measured by annual GSI) with 3 bibliometric outcomes, maximum Relative Citation Ratio (which arguably reflects a scientist's most influential work), median Relative Citation Ratio, and annual weighted Relative Citation Ratio (which is more dependent on publication counts). We found that for all 3 measures marginal returns decline as annual GSI increases. Thus, we confirm prior findings of decreasing marginal returns with higher levels of research funding support.


One of the many legacies of colonialism in Africa is the multiplicity of river basins shared by two or more – and often far more – countries. Since changing national boundaries is not an option, African governments have no choice but to develop transnational institutions for developing shared water resources. Therefore, one finds a plethora of bilateral and multilateral committees, commissions, and authorities intended to facilitate agreements for infrastructural investments, management of water flows (quantity and quality), and response to disasters, especially floods. These efforts are supported by – indeed often, at least behind the scenes, driven by – western and international development partners. With few exceptions, the results to date are not impressive, as governments drag their feet on ratifying or implementing agreements and investing in creating the necessary institutional infrastructure, and donors' funds go unspent because such agreements are conditions precedent for investment. Despite the work done by many international and local non‐government organisations (NGOs) as well as some governments, hardly any of the residents of African river basins are aware of these commissions. All of them are based on organisational models derived from western experiences and governing principles and are created by inter‐governmental agreements. The citizens residing in the basin are rarely consulted. In some cases, powerful national hydraulic bureaucracies seek to control the process in an effort to gain leverage over infrastructural investments. There is a body of literature seeking to explain the ineffectiveness of transnational river basin management to date, largely based on political science, sociology and economics. Some but not all observers are concerned with the degree of democracy in the political process. This paper addresses a dimension that has received very little attention and therefore complements the existing literature. It explores the hypothesis that transnational river basin management institutions will achieve a higher degree of legitimacy and effectiveness in the long run if they are based on African institutional models rather than pursuing the current approach of imposing external models. This assumes the existence of local African indigenous models or principles that can be adapted to such large‐scale hydraulic institutions. The paper argues this may indeed be the case though more detailed research is needed to document them, and a creative consultative political process would be needed to build on these foundations.


Abstract. The Gimballed Limb Observer for Radiance Imaging of the Atmosphere (GLORIA)
was operated on board the German High Altitude and Long Range Research
Aircraft (HALO) during the PGS (POLSTRACC/GW-LCYCLE/SALSA) aircraft campaigns
in the Arctic winter 2015/2016. Research flights were conducted from 17
December 2015 until 18 March 2016 within 25–87∘ N,
80∘ W–30∘ E. From the GLORIA infrared limb-emission
measurements, two-dimensional cross sections of temperature, HNO3,
O3, ClONO2, H2O and CFC-12 are retrieved. During 15
scientific flights of the PGS campaigns the GLORIA instrument measured
more than 15 000 atmospheric profiles at high spectral resolution. Dependent on flight altitude and
tropospheric cloud cover, the profiles retrieved from the measurements typically range between 5 and
14 km, and vertical resolutions between 400 and 1000 m are achieved. The estimated total (random and
systematic) 1σ errors are in the range of 1 to 2 K for temperature and 10 % to 20 % relative
error for the discussed trace gases. Comparisons to in situ instruments deployed on board HALO have been
performed. Over all flights of this campaign the median differences and median absolute deviations between
in situ and GLORIA observations are -0.75K±0.88 K for temperature, -0.03ppbv±0.85 ppbv for
HNO3, -3.5ppbv±116.8 ppbv for O3, -15.4pptv±102.8 pptv for ClONO2, -0.13ppmv±0.63 ppmv for H2O and -19.8pptv±46.9 pptv for CFC-12. Seventy-three percent of these differences are
within twice the combined estimated errors of the cross-compared instruments.
Events with larger deviations are explained by atmospheric variability and
different sampling characteristics of the instruments. Additionally,
comparisons of GLORIA HNO3 and O3 with measurements of the
Aura Microwave Limb Sounder (MLS) instrument show highly consistent
structures in trace gas distributions and illustrate the potential of the
high-spectral-resolution limb-imaging GLORIA observations for resolving
narrow mesoscale structures in the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere
(UTLS).


Extracted from text ... EDITORIAL
June 2006 Vol.24 No.6 CME 293
The development of X-ray technology has come a long way since the late 19th
century, when X-rays were first developed. The idea of seeing inside the body in
a non-invasive way has great appeal, both to doctors and to patients. However,
as with all investigations, it can be used inappropriately and unnecessarily. X-rays
are a form of radiation and, as such, do have dangers under certain circumstances
and if used too freely. Patients, however, are often not aware of this, and
are all too happy to have yet another X-ray, in the ..


In this paper, the logic structure of a universal VLSI chip called the symbol-slice Reed-Solomon (RS) encoder chip is presented. An RS encoder can be constructed by cascading and properly interconnecting a group of such VLSI chips. As a design example, it is shown that a (255,223) RS encoder requiring around 40 discrete CMOS IC ' s may be replaced by an RS encoder consisting of four identical interconnected VLSI RS encoder chips. Besides the size advantage , the VLSI RS encoder also has the potential advantages of requiring less power and having a higher reliability.


The microwave imaging system is one of the most attractive techniques for detecting a tumour embedded in the breast tissue using an electromagnetic signal. The effect of a radio frequency wave interaction between the electromagnetic signal and the breast tissue using an array or an antenna has been found highly remarkable and significant. This study focuses on the effect of the electromagnetic wave interaction between the transmitting device and the breast tissue. The ultra-wide band antenna radiates the breast tissue with an electromagnetic signal having a wide bandwidth of 4.284-13.628 GHz. The power absorbed and the Specific Absorption Rate (SAR) for average masses of 1 g and 10 g of the breast tissue are presented at varying frequency, distance and size of the tumour. It is found that the power absorbed and the SAR value of the tissue increase with the increase in the frequency and size of the tumour. On the other hand, power absorbed and the SAR value of the tissue decreases with the distance between the transmitter and the breast. An SAR for a mass of 1 g of the tissue can also detect the location of the tumour in the breast tissue.


We describe an application of AI search and information visualization techniques to the problem of school redistricting, in which students are assigned to home schools within a county or school district. This is a multicriteria optimization problem in which competing objectives, such as school capacity, busing costs, and socioeconomic distribution, must be considered. Because of the complexity of the decision-making problem, tools are needed to help end users generate, evaluate, and compare alternative school assignment plans. A key goal of our research is to aid users in finding multiple qualitatively different redistricting plans that represent different trade-offs in the decision space. We present heuristic search methods that can be used to find a set of qualitatively different plans, and give empirical results of these search methods on population data from the school district of Howard County, Maryland. We show the resulting plans using novel visualization methods that we have developed for summarizing and comparing alternative plans.


Most pure public goods like lighthouses, dams, or national defense provide utility mainly by insuring against hazardous events. Our paper focuses on this insurance character of public goods. As for private actions against hazardous events, one can distinguish between self-insurance (SI) and self-protection (SP) also in the context of public goods. For both cases of SI and SP we analyze efficient public provision levels as well as provision levels resulting from Nash behavior in a private provision game. An interesting aspect of considering public goods as insurance devices is the interaction with market insurance. It turns out that the availability of market insurance reduces the provision level of the public good for both, the public and the private provision, regardless of whether we consider SI or SP. Moreover, we show that Nash behavior has always a larger impact than the availability of market insurance.


Solar energy is one of the important sources of renewable energy which can be a feasible alternative to fossil fuels. There are many works has been done in order to incorporate solar energy to everyday transportation including tricycle. However, most of the tricycle develops are expensive and not feasible for developing countries. In this study, a cheaper solar tricycle with more capability of utilizing the solar energy is designed for developing countries. The main content of the tricycle is Solar PV panel, Brushless PMDC motor, controller, and battery. The power transmission of the solar tricycle is also simple. It is found that tricycle serves 24% back up for running, by the solar panel. Also, the total construction cost of the tricycle is only 240$ with near about zero impact on the environment. This paper highlights the advantages of the dual mode of charging, including the economic and environmental feasibility of the tricycle.


A dynamic web of global interconnectedness has expanded the engagement and political efficacy of citizens in the 21st century. The acceleration of knowledge creation, the dynamics of electronic communication and the resulting availability of global perspectives are changing the nature of public discourse and action. As more and more people gain access to information and interact with individuals and communities across the planet, they acquire new worldminded ways of learning, debating, and creating which in turn expand the scope of civic consciousness and responsibilities beyond national borders. In this article we look at ways in which teachers in Hong Kong, Japan and the United States are preparing young people to become worldminded citizens.


In our paper we summarise the findings of an empirical study in which a sample of 346 journals in economics and business studies were examined. We regard both the extent and the quality of journals' data policies, which should facilitate replications of published empirical research. The paper presents some characteristics of journals equipped with data policies and gives some recommendations for suitable data policies in economics and business sciences journals. In addition, we also evaluate the journals' data archives to roughly estimate whether these journals really enforce data availability. Our key finding is that we are currently not able to determine a new publishing paradigm for journals in economic sciences.


The hydraulic model EPANET was applied and calibrated for the water distribution system (WDS) of La Sirena, Colombia. The Parameter ESTimator (PEST) was used for parameter optimization and sensitivity analysis. Observation data included levels at water storage tanks and pressures at monitoring nodes. Adjustable parameters were grouped into different classes according to two different scenarios identified as constrained and unconstrained. These scenarios were established to evaluate the effect of parameter space size and compensating errors over the calibration process. Results from the unconstrained scenario, where 723 adjustable parameters were declared, showed that considerable compensating errors are introduced into the optimization process if all parameters were open to adjustment. The constrained scenario on the other hand, represented a more properly discretized scheme as parameters were grouped into classes of similar characteristics and insensitive parameters were fixed. This had a profound impact on the parameter space as adjustable parameters were reduced to 24. The constrained solution, even when it is valid only for the system's normal operating conditions, clearly demonstrates that Parallel PEST (PPEST) has the potential to be used in the calibration of WDS models. Nevertheless, further investigation is needed to determine PPEST's performance in complex WDS models.


We consider a spectrum-sharing system, where the primary terminal operates in a time-slotted fashion and is active only when it has a packet to send. The secondary terminal uses spectrum sensing results and the primary automatic repeat request (ARQ) feedback to access the channel probabilistically. To enhance the primary's system performance, the secondary user (SU) acts as a relay for the primary user (PU) in the event of transmission failure on the direct link of the latter. Closed-form expressions for the primary and secondary throughputs are obtained for the described scheme. The optimal medium access probabilities are then obtained by maximizing the secondary throughput subject to constraints that guarantee the stability of the considered queues, a minimum primary throughput, and a maximum primary queueing delay. The results clearly indicate the benefits of cognitive relaying in enhancing the throughput performance for both the PU and SU. Furthermore, by guaranteeing minimum rate and maximum delay requirements, our scheme is shown to provide a definitive notion of protection for the licensed users of the network.


In the Seventeenth Annual Justice William J. Brennan, Jr. Lecture on State Courts and Social Justice, Paul J. De Muniz, Chief Justice of the Oregon Supreme Court, discusses the challenges confronting state judiciaries in the face of economic crises and corresponding state budget cuts. Chief Justice De Muniz urges state court leaders to adopt the concept of reengineering to overhaul antiquated court management processes in favor of more efficient alternatives. Drawing from the Oregon state judiciary's own efforts, Chief Justice De Muniz identifies court governance structures, case administration, essential court functions, and leadership as key targets in any successful reengineering endeavor.


The control of the magnetization in ferromagnetic layers via electric fields is a hot topic in view of applications to the next generation of spintronic devices, where writing the magnetic information through current lines could be replaced by electric writing. Mixed valence manganites are good candidates for such a purpose because they present an intriguing coupling between ferromagnetism and charge ordering/doping which can be tuned by the application of an electric field. Here we present results on the near-room temperature control of the magnetization of optimally doped La0.67Sr0.33MnO3 ultrathin films in vertical field effect devices, where they act as top or bottom electrodes. In the latter case a slight decrease in the Curie temperature (∼5 K) is observed after application of 5×107 V/m, i.e., the maximum field preventing electric breakdown, compatible with the induced variation in the charge density and mixed valence within the Thomas Fermi screening length. These results indicate that electric fie...


Purpose: We aimed to measure lamina cribrosa thickness (LCT), lamina cribrosa depth (LCD) and retinal nerve fi ber layer (RNFL) thickness in multiple sclerosis (MS) patients and compare the results with eyes of healthy subjects. Materials and Methods: The eyes of multiple sclerosis patients were compared with the eyes of a healthy control group. A full ophthalmologic examination was conducted for both groups. Optic coherence tomography (OCT) was used to measure LCT, LCD, and RNFL thickness values. Correlation analysis was conducted between the Expanded Disability Status Scale (EDSS) score and disease duration of the MS patients and the LCT, LCD, and RNFL thicknesses. Results: Mean LCT values were 171.86±62.81 μm in the MS group and 230.1±66.84 μm in the control group. LCT was statistically signifi cantly lower in the MS group than the control group (p<0.001). Mean LCD value was 300.9±100.5 μm in the MS group and 279.68±99.78 μm in the control group with no statistically signifi cant difference (p˃0.05). Mean RNFL thickness was 96 μm in MS group and 100 μm in the control group and was statistically signifi cantly lower in the MS group (p<0.05). A statistically signifi cantly moderate relationship was found between disease duration and EDSS score in the MS group with Spearman correlation analysis (r=0.468, p<0.01). A statistically signifi cantly moderate relationship was found between the RNFL thickness and both disease duration and EDSS score (r=-0.574, r=-0.601, respectively, p<0.001). Conclusion: The intraocular nerve fi ber layer was affected in multiple sclerosis patients. The LCT and RNFL thickness were thinner in MS patients than in the control group but there was no difference in terms of LCD values.


Reconciling registration and use as mechanisms by which rights can be acquired in a trade mark is inherently difficult. The federal Australian registered trade mark system is built around a hybrid of a registration-based and a use-based model of protection. While it is perfectly possible to defend such a dual model, the two means of acquiring trade mark rights rest on very different logics. In the event of a conflict between a registered mark and a mark that has been used for some time the question of which should take precedence is not necessarily capable of being determined a priori. The relationship between registration and use is mediated by a number of provisions of the Trade Marks Act 1995 (Cth). In this article we focus on one such provision, s 58A, a relatively recent addition to the legal landscape. Through a close analysis of s 58A, focusing on court decisions and decisions of the Trade Marks Office that have applied this provision, we demonstrate that s 58A has the potential to operate in an entirely unsatisfactory manner. We then use problems with s 58A as a vehicle to explore the relationship between use-based and registration-based rights generally, suggesting a new conceptual framework that might serve to guide future discussion of how the relationship between registration and use ought to be mediated.


In India, the out-of-pocket health expenditure by households accounts for around 70 percent of the total expenditure on health. Large out-of-pocket payments may reduce consumption expenditure on other goods and services and push households into poverty. Recently, health insurance has been considered as one of the possible instruments in reducing impoverishing effects of large out-of-pocket health expenditure. In India, health insurance has limited coverage and the present paper studies whether it has been effective so far. Literature defines out-of-pocket health expenditure as catastrophic if its share in the household budget is more than some arbitrary threshold level. In the present paper, we argue that for households below poverty line any expenditure on health is catastrophic as they are unable to attain the subsistence level of consumption. Thus, we take zero percent as a threshold level to define catastrophic health expenditure and examine the impact of health insurance on probability of incurring catastrophic health expenditure.


This essay examines the surviving documentation for Shakespeare's purchase of New Place in May 1597 and links its unusual nature (an exemplification of a final concord) to the circumstances of its purchase from William Underhill, a man not only under suspicion for his recusancy but also facing financial difficulties and several lawsuits (including a suit filed by the Stratford-upon-Avon Corporation for nonpayment of rent). Bearman argues that Shakespeare would have known about the state of Underhill's affairs through regular contact with fellow Stratford citizen Richard Quiney. The unusual documentation surrounding the sale may indicate that Shakespeare felt the need to move quickly in his business dealings with a man of suspect integrity. The essay also explores whether Shakespeare had a specific reason for pushing through with the sale when he did. Particularly relevant is the issue of possible damage to properties in Henley Street, the site of the Shakespeare family homestead, during the fires of 1594/95. These fires and the subsequent damage would have made the rehousing of Shakespeare's dependents, perhaps including siblings and parents, a priority.


This Essay builds on the framework of Daniel Herz-Roiphe and David Singh Grewal for overcoming political paralysis with timing rules as set forth in their recent article, "Make Me Democratic, But Not Yet: Sunrise Lawmaking and Democratic Constitutionalism." They suggest that delayed implementation of controversial policies with sunrise rules increases the likelihood that those policies will become law. Lawmakers may not agree to a difficult reform that takes effect today, but they may agree to a difficult reform that takes effect tomorrow. In addition to sunrise rules, I suggest that a different species of timing rule can help overcome gridlock, i.e. stabilization rules. Stabilization rules facilitate agreements differently from sunrises in one important respect: instead of expanding the space for agreement by leveraging time, they do so by creating multiple versions of the same policy that apply conditionally. For example, suppose that climatologists desire a carbon tax and that skeptics oppose it. Setting aside who has the better evidence, climatologists and skeptics both justify their positions on the basis of scientific claims. To facilitate compromise, lawmakers can counterintuitively ignore the evidence altogether and instead create a stabilization rule. That rule implements a tax only when a conditional event occurs, say, when average annual temperature is increased by 1.2 degrees from pre-industrial levels or some other threshold. Otherwise, the tax is not placed into effect. This form of lawmaking recognizes that a current generation may be willing to reduce consumption for a future one, so long as it is certain that its reduction will achieve its desired effect. By expanding the space for sacrifice, stabilization rules can satisfy the normative framework of Herz-Roiphe and Grewal and its deep connection with Kantian principles of guardianship.The Essay examines federal budget law along the same lines and offers some comments on Herz-Roiphe and Grewal's discussion of using sunrise amendments to reform the Electoral College and representation in the Senate.


Post Project Reviews (PPR) are a rich source of knowledge and information for organisations if they have the time and resources to analyse them. Too often such reports are stored, unread by many who can benefit from them. PPRs attempt to document the project experience – both good and bad. If these reports were analysed collectively, they may expose important detail, perhaps repeated between projects. However, because most companies do not have the resources to examine these PPR, either individually or collectively, important insights are missed thereby leading to a missed opportunity to learn from previous projects. Hidden knowledge and experiences can be captured by using knowledge discovery and text mining to uncover patterns, associations, and trends in data. The results might then be used to enhance processes, improve customer relationships, and identify specific problem areas to address. This paper outlines an ongoing research project that investigates the use of knowledge discovery and text mining on Post Project Reviews. An illustrative example will be presented using case studies from the construction sector. The PPR processes of two construction companies were mapped with the aim of understanding the context, format, terminologies used and key knowledge areas suitable for text mining. The textual examination of the PPR reports was complemented by semi-structured interviews and workshops to understand the production and content of the reports. Preliminary results highlight that although organisations have publicised, standard processes for PPR, there is a variance in how these are conducted and produced on a regional basis. These variances provide a number of challenges for organisations from a corporate perspective. Also, there is an over-reliance on key individuals with little attempt to make some of their knowledge more explicit and therefore easier to disseminate between project team members. This paper summarises the challenges in identifying the type of knowledge to be text mined, the format of PPR reports and the process of conducting PPR. It will also highlights the development of suitable


This paper presents a novel secure, anonymous and practical payment protocol for Peer-to-peer commerce transactions, designed to enable every user to both buy and sell items. The protocol uses electronic cash for payment transactions. This new protocol provides consumers with full anonymity since it prevents the user from providing his/her credit card number and personal data. It is suitable for micro-payments (under 1 Euro) as well as macro-payments using cutting edge technologies in security algorithms.


Tracheobronchial foreign body is a potentially life threatening emergency which usually presents with sudden onset of cough, dyspnoea, wheeze and cyanosis. Timely recognition and retrieval is important to save life. Aspiration of foreign body is rare in adults with sound mentation. Foreign body aspiration very rarely presents with chronic cough mimicking other chronic diseases. Here we report the case of a 58 year old male with chronic cough and occasional haemoptysis who was initially diagnosed to have bronchogenic carcinoma on computed tomography which later turned out to be a very benign condition i.e. impacted arecanut on rigid bronchoscopy highlighting the importance of performing an endoscopy in a suspected case of foreign body aspiration.


Adaptive Inverse Filter (AIF) is the standard, tracking,control technique or method which has provided an extensive range of uses and applications for the last several years. This research paper deals with the adaptive inverse Filter(AIF) structure which is being utilized for the stabilized or stable linear systems. Also closed loop features of the AIF are similar as that of the low pass adaptive filtering. Hence, it reduces the consequences of disturbance and the noise. The simulation outcomes for the Linear Minimum phase system or plants are presented to validate the worth of the proposed scheme. AIF has displayed enhanced results in terms of the tracking output.


BACKGROUND
There is emerging evidence of serotonergic dysfunction in patients with seasonal affective disorder (SAD). We examined central serotonergic function in female patients with SAD (fall-winter pattern) by means of neuroendocrine and subjective responses to the postsynaptic serotonin receptor agonist m-chlorophenylpiperazine.

METHODS
Using a double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled design, we assessed neuroendocrine and subjective responses to m-chlorophenylpiperazine (0.1 mg/kg intravenously) and placebo in 14 unmedicated female patients with SAD in the depressed state and 15 female normal controls. All testing was done in the fall-winter months and during the follicular phase of the menstrual cycle. Plasma prolactin and cortisol levels were used as neuroendocrine measures, while subjective responses were assessed by means of visual analog scales of 10 mood states.

RESULTS
On the basis of net responses to m-chlorophenylpiperazine (placebo effects subtracted from drug effects), patients with SAD exhibited blunted prolactin responses and less sadness than normal controls in response to the drug. When order of presentation of drug and placebo was taken into consideration, altered "calm" and "high" responses were also found in the patient group.

CONCLUSION
Evidence of dysfunction at or downstream to central serotonergic receptors in female patients with SAD confirms and extends findings from previous research.


The study was carried out to evaluate the use of seaweed as biomonitoring in Kish
Island, Iran. Seaweed, sediment and seawater samples were collected bimonthly
from June 1999 to April 2000 at 5 different sites. Seaweed samples were collected,
identified and biomass recorded for 4 seasons from April 1999 to March 2000.
Diversity and biomass differed within sites and seasons. The highest seaweed
biomass were recorded from northwest and west sides of study area.
The status of selected heavy metals (Cd, Cu, Ni, Pb, V and Zn) were determined in
seawater, sediment and 10 dominant seaweed species. Metals level in seawater
ranged from 0.02-0.10,0.09-1.22,0.11-0.18,0.27-2.04 and 0.17-0.27 µg l⁻¹ for Cd,
Cu, Ni, Pb and Zn, respectively, the metals concentrations were higher during cold
seasons compared to the warm seasons. Metal concentrations in sediments ranged
from 0.18-0.39, 2.39-4.55, 2.30-11.92, 2.92-5.92, 1.69-4.76, 4.04-9.51 µg g⁻¹ dry
weight for Cd, Cu, Ni, Pb, V and Zn, respectively. Higher variations in metal
concentrations were observed at sites Symorgh and Darakht-e-Sabz compared to
other sites. Metal levels in seaweeds showed considerable variations ranging from 0.44-1.74,
0.76-3.42,0.37-2.23, 0.96-4.47, 0.53-2.16 and 3.44-10.23 f.1g got dry weight for Cd,
Cu, Ni, Pb, V and Zn, respectively. Cadmium was lower in Chlorophyta than the
other groups. Chlorophyta accumulated more Zn, V, Pb, Ni and Cu than other
groups. In addition, variations in metals contents between species were obvious
from the same habitat and in several cases within the same taxonomic groups.
Generally, heavy metals level in this study were relatively lower than the other parts
of the world and in some cases lower than the other parts of the Persian Gulf.
Toxicity test experiments were carried out usmg Cystoseira myrica from Kish
Island, Iran and Sargassum ilicifolium species from Port Dickson, Malaysia. All
selected concentrations of Cd and V and Cu concentrations at above 0.01 mg l⁻¹
showed toxic effects to both species. The toxic effects ofNi and Zn on the C. myrica
and S. ilicifolium were at higher concentrations than the other metals and in addition
Cu and V appeared to be more toxic than the other elements.
Using both species bioconcentration factors of Pb, Zn and Cu were higher than the
other metals. This could be related to their electronegativity values. Elements uptake
by different parts of S. ilicifolium during light period decreased in the following
order: fronds> receptacles> stipes, whereas during dark period, accumulation of
Cd, Cu, V and Ni exhibited similar trend to the above order, but Zn and Pb were
higher in receptacles followed by fronds and stipes.


Due to the difficulty in obtaining samples, the systematics of the Hemigalinae civets has not been fully resolved. The aim of this study was to clarify the relationships of the species and the intraspecific diversity within this subfamily, and to explore the environmental factors that might have affected its evolution. Using two mitochondrial and two nuclear markers, we confirmed that the Hemigalinae comprises Owston's civet, the otter civet, Hose's civet and the banded civet, but also the Sulawesi palm civet (formerly included in the Paradoxurinae). Our study showed that the banded and Owston's civets are sister species, and suggested that Hose's civet is sister to these two. Within the banded civet, we observed a high divergence between individuals from the Mentawai Islands and those from Sumatra and Borneo (while the latter two were not strongly divergent), likely due to the deep sea channel between the Mentawai Islands and Sumatra. Unexpectedly, the Sumatran and Peninsular Malaysian individuals were not closely related, despite the fact that these two regions have repeatedly been connected during the last glaciations. No high polymorphism was found within Owston's civet, although three groups were obtained: southern China, northern Vietnam and central Vietnam, which might be related to Pleistocene climatic fluctuations.


The application of nitrogen (N) fertilisers to crops grown on tile-drained fields is required to sustain most modern crop production, but it poses a risk to the aquatic environment since tile drains facilitate rapid transport pathways with no significant reduction in nitrate. To maintain the water quality of the aquatic environment and the provision of food from highly efficient agriculture in line with the EU's Water Framework Directive and Nitrates Directive, field-scale knowledge is essential for introducing water management actions on-field or off-field and producing an optimal differentiated N-regulation in future. This study strives to provide such knowledge by evaluating on 11 years of nitrate-N concentration measurements in drainage from three subsurface-drained clayey till fields (1.3–2.3 ha) representing approximately 71 % of the surface sediments in Denmark dominated by clay. The fields differ in their inherent hydrogeological field settings (e.g. soil-type, geology, climate, drainage and groundwater table) and the agricultural management of the fields (e.g. crop type, type of N fertilisers and agricultural practices). The evaluation revealed three types of clayey till fields characterised by: (i) low net precipitation, high concentration of nitrate-N, and short-term low intensity drainage at air temperatures often below 5 °C; (ii) medium net precipitation, medium concentration of nitrate-N, and short-term medium-intensity drainage at air temperatures often above 5 °C; and (iii) high net precipitation, low concentration of nitrate-N and long-term high intensity drainage at air temperatures above 5 °C. For each type, on-field water management actions, such as the selection of crop types and introduction of catch crops, appeared relevant, whereas off-field actions only seemed relevant for the latter two field types given the temperature-dependent reduction potential of nitrate off-field. This initial well-documented field-scale knowledge from fields that are representative of large areas in Denmark is a first step towards establishing a differentiated N-regulation for clayey till areas. Additionally, it provides a unique starting point by identifying important parameters for future mapping of catchment-scale variations in nitrate concentrations and fluxes.


The vision of cooperative, connected and automated mobility (CCAM) across Europe can only be realized when harmonized solutions that support cross-border traffic exist. The possibility of providing CCAM services along different countries when vehicles drive across various national borders has a huge innovative business potential. However, the seamless provision of connectivity and the uninterrupted delivery of services along borders also poses interesting technical challenges. The situation is particularly innovative given the multi-country, multi-operator, multi-telco-vendor, and multi-car-manufacturer scenario of any cross-border layout. This paper introduces the challenges associated to a cross-border deployment of communication technologies through the analysis of three use cases: tele-operated driving, high-definition map generation and distribution for autonomous vehicles, and anticipated cooperative collision avoidance. Furthermore, a set of 5G solutions have been identified to ensure that CCAM services can be supported efficiently in cross-border scenarios. Faster handover of a data connection from one operator to another, generalized inter-mobile edge computing (MEC) coordination, and quality of service (QoS) prediction are some of the solutions that have been introduced to reduce the uncertainties of a real 5G cross-border deployment.