Music transcription refers to extraction of a human readable and interpretable description from a recording of a music performance. The final goal is to implement a program that can automatically infer a musical notation that lists the pitch levels of notes and corresponding score positions in any arbitrary acoustical input. However, in this full generality, music transcription stays yet as a very hard problem and is arguably ``AI-complete'', i.e. requires simulation of a human level intelligence. On the other hand, under some realistic assumptions, a practical engineering solution is possible by an interplay of scientific knowledge from cognitive science, musicology, musical acoustics and computational techniques from artificial intelligence, machine learning and digital signal processing. In this context, the aim of this thesis is to integrate this vast amount of prior knowledge in a consistent and transparent computational framework and to demonstrate the feasibility of such an approach in moving us closer to a practical solution to music transcription. In this thesis, we approach music transcription as a statistical inference problem where given a signal, we search for a score that is consistent with the encoded music. In this context, we identify three subproblems: Rhythm Quantization, Tempo Tracking and Polyphonic Pitch Tracking. For each subproblem, we define a probabilistic generative model, that relates the observables (i.e. onsets or audio signal) with the underlying score. Conceptually, the transcription task is then to 'invert' this generative model by using the Bayes Theorem and recover back the original score


The collaborative filtering algorithm based on Restricted Boltzmann Machine (RBM) has the problem of heavy weight in the prediction of the "popular project" and poor discrimination of the "unpopular project", which results in reduced prediction accuracy of the model algorithm. In order to improve the personalization and accuracy of the model, this article integrates project tags into the prediction process based on the RBM model and uses the project tags to describe the user's own interest preference, which strengthens the individual needs of the user: First, it uses projects that the user has already graded to calculate the user's probability of rating the objective tag; Second, it uses the probability of the scoring to predict the probability of different scoring levels of the user's unprotected items; Then, RBM model training is used to predict the probability that the user will score different grades for items that are not scored; Finally, the two scoring probabilities are weighted to the RBM model prediction process to produce prediction results. Experimental results using Movielens datasets show that the accuracy of the proposed method is improved by 1.2% compared with the original algorithm.


Chiral sensing using fluorescent responses as output signals is an attractive technique for enantiodifferentiation in terms of its rapidity, high sensitivity, simplicity and high-throughput ability. However, because the reported sensors can only be applied to a limited type of chiral molecule (mainly compounds with a chiral center), it is still a great challenge to develop a powerful fluorescent sensor applicable to various types of chirality. Herein, we synthesized a novel chiral fluorescent sensor (Ce-3) containing a benzo[1,2-b:4,5-b′]dithiophene-based π-conjugated group as a fluorescent signaling unit through a two-step polymer reaction, including carbamoylation and cross-coupling reactions, using microcrystalline cellulose as a starting material. The enantioselective fluorescence response of this modified cellulose to aromatic nitro compounds was investigated in solution and in the solid state. Ce-3 exhibited enantioselective fluorescence quenching for a wide range of aromatic nitro compounds with central, axial and planar chirality. Visual chiral detection based on a change of the visible emission color was also achieved with Ce-3 in conjunction with anthracene as an achiral fluorescent dye. A corresponding model molecule did not show any marked sensing ability, suggesting that the regular higher-order structure of Ce-3 plays a key role in this efficient chiral sensing.


Neutral theory explains patterns of biodiversity based solely on speciation, demographic stochasticity, and dispersal limitation. The validation of this controversial theory depends on empirical support and it has been largely untested in marine communities. Coral assemblages have been repeatedly invoked as the animal communities most likely to conform to the assumptions of neutral theory. This thesis tested the hypothesis that neutral theory explains the macroecological structure of coral assemblages.

Firstly, I assessed whether neutral models can accurately characterise coral species abundance distributions across multiple scales. Simulation-based and analytical neutral models were fitted to a hierarchical dataset of coral species abundance distributions from across the Indo-Pacific gradient of biodiversity. The dataset has three replicate habitats (slope, crest and flat), and three spatial scales (site, island and region). Both models exhibit significant lack of fit to empirical data at the site and island scales, but not at the region scale. The neutral model consistently underestimates the number of rare species, and overestimates the number of common species. Additionally, the neutral model fits coral abundance distributions less accurately than the poison-lognormal at all scales. Using two formulations of neutral theory, and two goodness-of-fit tests, along with comparisons with the lognormal distribution, ensures that the inferences about coral assemblages and neutral dynamics are robust. Neutral model predictions are consistently and significantly different from observed coral species abundance distributions.

Secondly, I developed a novel test of neutral theory that examines variability between communities of species relative abundances. In neutral communities, species relative abundances are determined by demographic stochasticity or "ecological drift". Thus, communities diverge through time, and are expected to have low community similarity. In contrast, niche apportionment mechanisms have been invoked to argue that higher levels of community similarity should be observed under niche assembly than under neutral dynamics. These contrasting predictions provide an ideal opportunity to test neutral models against empirical data. Relative abundances of species across local communities differ markedly from neutral theory predictions: coral communities exhibit community similarity values that are far more variable, and lower on average, than neutral theory can predict. Surprisingly, empirical community similarities deviate from the neutral model in a direction opposite to that suggested in previous critiques of neutral theory. Instead, the results support spatio-temporal environmental stochasticity as a major driver of community structure at the macroecological scale.

Thirdly, I unveiled a coral local community species abundance distribution. Community structure patterns are notoriously sensitive to sampling issues, and aomprehensive characterization of such patterns requires extremely large sample sizes. Consequently, the fit of biodiversity models to species abundance distributions, and parameter estimates in particular may be sensitive to sample size. To address these questions, over 44,000 corals were counted and identified to species at an exposed crest in Lizard Island, Great Barrier Reef. A neutral model was fitted to the species abundance distribution of the total dataset, and to sub-samples of various sizes. Parameter estimates and fit of the neutral model at different sample sizes were compared. The unveiled species abundance distribution appears to be multimodal. Parameter estimates are not affected by sample size.

These results strongly indicate that the limited suite of ecological and evolutionary processes included in neutral theory do not suffice to explain diversity patterns in coral assemblages. In combination, the three approaches included in this thesis suggest that neutral theory is most useful as a null model for community structure. Furthermore, the thesis highlights differences in species' responses to environmental fluctuations as a potential major driver of species abundance patterns.


The evolution of the nanodomain pattern of the uniaxial relaxor ferroelectric strontium barium niobate doped with cerium was studied by piezoresponse force microscopy (PFM). The fractal-like nanodomains observed at room temperature decay on heating. At temperatures up to about 15 K above the Curie temperature, Tc = 320 K, areas of correlated polarization are still visible. On cooling from the paraelectric state to below Tc, a slow isothermal growth of nanodomain was found. The mean domain size increases according to a logarithmic law as predicted for the three-dimensional random field Ising model.


Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a developmental disorder characterized by core deficits in social, communication, and motor skills (CDC, 2013). Deficits in emotional processing have also been identified, especially with negative emotions and surprise. These behavioral deficits are reflected in differences in neural responses, specifically with the P1 and N170 event-related potential components. The current study explored how these neural differences in emotion processing are modified by autistic behaviors in a subclinical population using a task that varied both by facial features available and instructions intended to modify the type of processing occurring. The results supported previous findings that those with low levels of autistic behaviors have increased neural attention, as measured by P1 and N170 amplitude, to fearful stimuli, while those with high levels did not show higher amplitudes. Exploratory analyses using autistic behaviors as a continuous variable showed this same response pattern with surprise for P1 yet showed an increase in N170 amplitude in those with high levels of autistic behaviors. These findings maintained their significance when controlling for social anxiety-related behaviors. Additionally, the results demonstrated that, in those with high levels of autistic behaviors, less neural attention occurred in response to faces in which only the eye region was shown, contrasting the increase in neural attention in those with low levels of autistic behaviors when presented the eye region instead of a face. Together the findings indicate in a subclinical population that the impact of autistic behaviors on the processing of emotions varies by emotion as well as by the facial features available.


Socio-economic development in China's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) has significantly impacted Uyghur culture. Proponents of the Chinese Western Development initiatives claim improved quality of life and technological advancements, while critics cite that Han in-migration and assimilation has resulted in acculturation of Uyghur identity. As performing arts, especially dance, are essential components of Uyghur culture, Uyghur women employ dance as a reaction to reaffirm cultural identity. Through dance, women send messages of cultural survival, enabling them to negotiate positions of power for themselves. Their negotiation through dance has resulted in a unique form of self-empowerment, cultural revival and pride. This paper analyzes the dialectics of the dance revealed through interviews conducted with Uyghur women in the diaspora. These accounts illustrate Uyghur analysis of development processes while also providing a stage from which they reaffirm their cultural distinctiveness.


Most children in Africa start working from a very early age, helping the family or earning wages. Should this work be abolished, tolerated, or encouraged? Such questions are the subject of much debate. International and national organizations, employers, parents, and children often have diverse opinions and put pressure in different directions. The contributions in this book offer intensive fieldwork and careful analysis of children's activities, considering childhood and family, work and play, work in rural and urban contexts, paths to learning, work and school, and children's rights. (Series: Reports on African Studies / Beitrage zur Afrikaforschung - Vol. 52)


Optoelectronic integration technologies based on silicon-on-insulator (SOI) can bring revolutionary change to on-chip arrayed waveguide grating (AWG) demodulation systems. In this study, we present several ultrasmall 1 x N AWGs for an SOI-based AWG demodulation integration microsystem of different scales. The core sizes of the fabricated AWGs are smaller than 400 x 600 μm2. Experimental results match the simulation results, indicating that AWGs have a good transmission spectrum of low crosstalk below -20 dB and low insertion loss below -6.5 dB. The fabricated AWGs can be perfectly applied to improve the integration level and performance of the SOI-based AWG demodulation integration microsystem.


The American College of Sports Medicine guidelines on post exercise fluid replacement are based on studies that used exercise to induce hypohydration( 1 ). However, other rapid weight loss practices such as fluid restriction are frequently adopted by athletes in weight-categorised sports to dehydrate prior to competition( 2 ). The aim of the present study was to assess whether the method of dehydration would affect subsequent post exercise rehydration.

Twelve recreationally active male subjects either remained euhydrated (EU), or reduced their body mass by 2.0% by 24 h fluid restriction (FR), or a combination of intermittent exercise in the heat (34 °C, 60% rh) followed by 13 h fluid restriction (FREX). 30 min post performance of a maximal exercise capacity test, they ingested 2428 (sd 561) ml (equivalent to 150% of their total body mass loss( 3 )) of a carbohydrate electrolyte drink (6% carbohydrate and 21 mM [Na+]) over a 60 min period. Blood and urine samples were collected prior to dehydration, pre and post exercise capacity test and every hour during the 60 min rehydration and 4 h recovery phase. Subject's completely emptied their bladders at each time point. Data were analysed using repeated measures ANOVA and are presented as mean (sd).

The calculated decrease in plasma volume prior to the start of drinking was greater in the FREX trial −6.8 (sd 3.5) % compared with the FR trial −2.8 (sd 4.9) %. Urinary potassium excretion during the recovery period was significantly greater in the FREX trial 35.1 (sd 22.5) mmol, compared with the FR trial 19.3 (sd 6.2) mmol. Serum osmolality and sodium concentration did not differ between the FR and FREX trials. Total urine volumes produced, overall drink retention and net fluid balance were significantly different in the EU trial compared with the FR and FREX trials, but did not differ between the FR and FREX trials.

In conclusion, hypohydration induced by two methods of dehydration resulted in differing body fluid and electrolyte losses during the dehydration and rehydration phases, but did not influence post-exercise retention of a carbohydrate electrolyte drink.


Accurate characterization of surface reflection is essential for retrieval of aerosols using downward-looking remote sensors. In this paper, observations from the Ground-based Multiangle SpectroPolarimetric Imager (GroundMSPI) are used to evaluate a surface polarized bidirectional reflectance distribution function (PBRDF) model. GroundMSPI is an eight-band spectropolarimetric camera mounted on a rotating gimbal to acquire pushbroom imagery of outdoor landscapes. The camera uses a very accurate photoelastic-modulator-based polarimetric imaging technique to acquire Stokes vector measurements in three of the instrument's bands (470, 660, and 865 nm). A description of the instrument is presented, and observations of selected targets within a scene acquired on 6 January 2010 are analyzed. Data collected during the course of the day as the Sun moved across the sky provided a range of illumination geometries that facilitated evaluation of the surface model, which is comprised of a volumetric reflection term represented by the modified Rahman-Pinty-Verstraete function plus a specular reflection term generated by a randomly oriented array of Fresnel-reflecting microfacets. While the model is fairly successful in predicting the polarized reflection from two grass targets in the scene, it does a poorer job for two manmade targets (a parking lot and a truck roof), possibly due to their greater degree of geometric organization. Several empirical adjustments to the model are explored and lead to improved fits to the data. For all targets, the data support the notion of spectral invariance in the angular shape of the unpolarized and polarized surface reflection. As noted by others, this behavior provides valuable constraints on the aerosol retrieval problem, and highlights the importance of multiangle observations.


Introduction: MRCP has achieved widespread success as a diagnostic tool for biliopancreatic cancer. Aim of the study: is to assess the diagnostic quality and overall accuracy of MRCP techniques for the evaluation of biliopancreatic cancer. Patients and Methods: from 266 patients (115 male, 151 female; mean age 50), 63 suspected for biliary tree or pancreatic diseases cancer and histopathologically confirmed, were enrolled in this study. MRCP protocols applied for imaging of biliary and pancreatic tree were; T2-weighted Fast spin echo (FSE) sequence on the axial plane, three-dimensional, fatsuppressed, heavily T2-weighted FSE sequence with multislab acquisition mode, two-dimensional thick single slab projectional images, three-dimensional reconstruction algorithms. Results: among the patients, jaundice and abdominal pain were the commonest clinical complaints. Three-dimensional, fat-suppressed, heavily T2-weighted FSE sequence with multislab acquisition mode shows a significant (p < 0.05) improvement in accuracy to from 88.1% to 92.9% compared to two-dimensional thick single slab projectional images. Moreover, there is a significant increase in sensitivity from 90.5% to 95.2% was seen; specificity, too, increased from 85.7% to 90.5%. Furthermore, Overall bile duct visualization with the 3D fat-suppressed, heavily T2 FSE with multislab acquisition technique was rated significantly higher (mean score = 4.7) versus 2D thick single slab projectional images (mean score = 4) (P < 0.05). Conclusion: MRCP plays a critical role in the differential diagnosis with significant improvement in the accuracy of the diagnosis of biliopancreatic cancer.


A method is presented for detection and identification of topological errors in online power system analysis. The method is based on a rule-based algorithm. The algorithm validates the changes in switch position using the information available in an energy management system (EMS). The temporal consistency of the analog measurements and switch positions is also used. The method has been tested in an actual EMS environment and has shown potential for use as a preprocessor or stand-alone method to be used in online power system analysis. >


Physiological requirements for mitochondrial respiration change during fetal and postnatal development of cardiac and skeletal muscle, particularly after the abrupt transition from the hypoxic fetal environment to the oxygen-rich milieu of the neonate. This study defines the pattern of expression of nuclear genes encoding the muscle-specific (H) and non-muscle-specific (L) isoforms of cytochrome oxidase (COX) subunit VIa during pre- and postnatal development of striated muscles in the mouse. In the early embryo, COX VIa-L was the predominant isoform expressed in all tissues. COX VIa-H mRNA was detectable as early as day 8 postcoitum (pc) in the heart, but not until gestational day 14 in skeletal myofibers of the tongue, diaphragm, and other skeletal muscles. At late fetal stages up until birth (days 16-18 pc), COX VIa-L and COX VIa-H were both expressed in striated myocytes, although the L form remained the dominant isoform. In postnatal animals, however, expression of COX VIa-H increased whereas COX VIa-L decreased in a reciprocal manner. Activation of the COX VIa-H gene also was observed during differentiation of nurine myogenic cells in culture and was followed by diminished expression of the COX VIa-L isoform in maturing myotubes, as in the intact animal. We conclude that regulation of nuclear genes encoding subunits of COX is a component of the developmental programs that govern cardiac and skeletal muscle differentiation and maturation in the mammalian fetus and neonate. COX VIa-L, the predominant isoform in all fetal tissues, is gradually replaced by the muscle-specific H isoform in both cardiac and skeletal muscles, although this transition is not complete until after birth.


Angiopoietin 2 (ANGPT2) is a proangiogenic cytokine whose expression is often upregulated by endothelial cells in tumors. Expression of its receptor, TIE2, defines a highly proangiogenic subpopulation of myeloid cells in circulation and tumors called TIE2-expressing monocytes/macrophages (TEMs). Genetic depletion of TEMs markedly reduces tumor angiogenesis in various tumor models, emphasizing their essential role in driving tumor progression. Previously, we demonstrated that ANGPT2 augments the expression of various proangiogenic genes, the potent immunosuppressive cytokine, IL-10, and a chemokine for regulatory T cells (Tregs), CCL17 by TEMs in vitro. We now show that TEMs also express higher levels of IL-10 than TIE2− macrophages in tumors and that ANGPT2-stimulated release of IL-10 by TEMs suppresses T cell proliferation, increases the ratio of CD4+ T cells to CD8+ T cells, and promotes the expansion of CD4+CD25highFOXP3+ Tregs. Furthermore, syngeneic murine tumors expressing high levels of ANGPT2 contained not only high numbers of TEMs but also increased numbers of Tregs, whereas genetic depletion of tumor TEMs resulted in a marked reduction in the frequency of Tregs in tumors. Taken together, our data suggest that ANGPT2-stimulated TEMs represent a novel, potent immunosuppressive force in tumors.


The vertebral column is composed of alternating vertebrae and intervertebral (IV) discs supported by robust spinal ligaments and muscles. All of these elements, bony, cartilaginous, ligamentous, and muscular, are essential to the structural integrity of the spine. The spine serves three vital functions: protecting the spinal cord and spinal nerves, transmitting the weight of the body, and providing a flexible axis for movements of the head and the torso. The vertebral column is capable of extension, flexion, lateral flexion (side to side), and rotation. However, the degree to which the spine is capable of these movements varies by region. These regions, including the cervical, the thoracic, the lumbar, and the sacrococcygeal spine, form four curvatures (Fig. 2.1). The thoracic and the sacrococcygeal curvatures are established in fetal development, while the cervical and the thoracic curvatures develop during infancy. The cervical curvature arises in response to holding the head upright, while the lumbar curvature develops as an infant begins to sit upright and walk. Congenital defects and degenerative diseases can result in exaggerated, abnormal curvatures. The most common of these include a thoracic kyphosis (or hunchback deformity), a lumbar lordosis (or swayback deformity), and scoliosis. Scoliosis involves a lateral curvature of greater than 10◦, often accompanied by a rotational defect. To appreciate the potential underlying causes of scoliosis, we need to understand the cellular and genetic basis of vertebral column and skeletal muscle development from somites. In this chapter, we will review the embryonic development of the spine and associated muscles and link them to the functional anatomy of these structures in the adult.


Fiscal multipliers appear to vary greatly over time and space. Based on VARs for a large number of countries, we document a strong correlation between wealth inequality and the magnitude of fiscal multipliers. In an attempt to account for this finding, we develop a life-cycle, overlapping-generations economy with uninsurable labor market risk. We calibrate our model to match key characteristics of a number of OECD economies, including the distribution of wages and wealth, social security, taxes, and government debt and study how a fiscal multiplier depends on various country characteristics. We find that the fiscal multiplier is highly sensitive to the fraction of the population who face binding credit constraints and also to the average wealth level in the economy. These findings together help us generate a cross-country pattern of multipliers that is quite similar to that in the data.


Inner product-based convolution has been the founding stone of convolutional neural networks (CNNs), enabling end-to-end learning of visual representation. By generalizing inner product with a bilinear matrix, we propose the neural similarity which serves as a learnable parametric similarity measure for CNNs. Neural similarity naturally generalizes the convolution and enhances flexibility. Further, we consider the neural similarity learning (NSL) in order to learn the neural similarity adaptively from training data. Specifically, we propose two different ways of learning the neural similarity: static NSL and dynamic NSL. Interestingly, dynamic neural similarity makes the CNN become a dynamic inference network. By regularizing the bilinear matrix, NSL can be viewed as learning the shape of kernel and the similarity measure simultaneously. We further justify the effectiveness of NSL with a theoretical viewpoint. Most importantly, NSL shows promising performance in visual recognition and few-shot learning, validating the superiority of NSL over the inner product-based convolution counterparts.


In June 1962, a group calling themselves Students for a Democratic Society gathered at a retreat in rural Michigan to discuss and revise their founding manifesto. The result of that meeting was the famous Port Huron Statement, a document that not only reflected their disenchantment with America's elite-controlled social and political institutions but also called for the creation of a "participatory democracy" in which all citizens engage in public life and share the responsibility of political decision making.This demand for participatory democracy characterized the New Left ethos and captured the imagination of a generation of radicals and political activists from the late 1950s to the close of the 1960s. So, why did participatory democracy fail to materialize in any recognizable form? Why was it forced to retreat from mainstream public discourse into the academy? Its fate, political scientist Robert Lacey asserts, was determined in large part by its intellectual origins.The idea of participatory democracy germinated in the philosophy of Charles Sanders Peirce and William James, founders of American pragmatism, and fully blossomed in the work of John Dewey, who argued that democracy should (and could) be a "way of life" for every person. Dewey rested his democratic faith on three pragmatist tenets: truth is probabilistic and socially determined; humans are malleable and educable; and humans, endowed with free will, can act collectively for their individual and social betterment.When the realities of modern life in the mid- to late-20th century posed serious challenges to these tenets, the very foundation of participatory democratic thought began to crumble. Yet, willfully disregarding the rubble, C. Wright Mills, Sheldon Wolin, Benjamin Barber, and other theorists have continued to support participatory democracy as a viable political idea. Today's participatory democrats have constructed a fragile theoretical enterprise that rests on questionable assumptions inherited from the pragmatist tradition about truth, human nature, and free will.Tracing the history of a salient idea in American political thought, Lacey elucidates the assumptions underlying participatory democracy, assesses both its usefulness and coherence, and ultimately reveals it to be less a theory than a faith - a faith that has largely failed to follow through on its promise.


This thesis describes the development of highly selective fiber optic sensors using molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) as recognition elements associated with fluorescence for detection. Additionally, we extended the study to the development of other MIP-based optical sensors and sensing methods. MIPs are synthetic biomimetic receptors possessing specific cavities designed for a target molecule. Produced by a templating process at the molecular level, MIPs are capable of recognizingand binding target molecules with selectivities and affinities comparable to those of natural receptors. Compared to biological recognition elements, MIPs are more stable, cheaper and easier to integrate into standard industrial fabrication processes. Hence, MIPs have become interesting alternatives to biomolecules as recognition elements for biosensing. In the first part of this thesis (Chapter 2), MIPs were synthesized by in-situ laser-induced photopolymerization in only a few seconds, as a micrometer-sized tip at the extremity of a telecommunication optical fiber. Photonic and physico-chemical parameters were optimized to tailor the properties of the polymer micro-objects. Gold nanoparticles were incorporated into the MIP microtip for signal enhancement. To prove the efficiency of the sensor, initial studies were performed with a MIP templated with N-carbobenzyloxy-L-phenylalanine (Z-L-Phe) and the fluorescent amino acid derivative dansyl-L-phenylalanine as analyte. The fluorescence was collected either externally at the tip level by an optical fiber connected to a spectrofluorimeter or by collection of the fluorescent signal re-emitted into the fiber through the second arm of a Y-shaped bifurcated fiber. The fluorescent analyte could be detected in the low nM concentrations. In order to monitor nonfluorescent analytes, a naphthalimide-based fluorescent monomer was incorporated into the MIP during its synthesis; fluorescence enhancement was observed when analyte binding occurs. Using this system, the sensor containing a MIP specific for the herbicide 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D), could detect and quantify this analyte at concentrations as low as 2.5 nM. The signaling MIP-based sensor was also applied to analytes of interest for food safety and biomedical applications, such as the mycotoxin citrinin and the sphingolipid, D-erythro-sphingosine-1-phosphate. In the second part of the thesis (Chapter 3), a different type of fiber optic sensor: cheap, fast and made for "single-use", was developed by using 4-cm long disposable polystyrene evanescent wave optical fiber waveguides. The coating of the MIP was either performed ex-situ, by dip-coating the fiber in a suspension of MIP particles synthesized beforehand, or in-situ by evanescent-wave photopolymerization directly on the fiber. The resulting fiber optic sensor could detect 2,4-D in the low nM range and demonstrated specific and selective recognition of the herbicide over its structural analogues and other non-related carboxyl-containing analytes. Additionally, we demonstrated the versatility of the system by applying the evanescent wave fiber optic sensor to detect citrinin, a mycotoxin, by simply coating the waveguide with a MIP specific for citrinin. This type of technology could possibly be extended to detect other carboxyl-containing analytes, as long as a specific MIP for the concerned analyte is available. In parallel, the technique of evanescent-wave photopolymerization was used for the synthesis of signaling MIP microdots on continuous and nanostructured gold films. This study lays the foundations for future development of plasmonic MIP nanosensors and microchips. In the last part of the thesis (Chapter 4), an innovative sensing method, based on the use of MIPs and analysis by fluorescence polarization, was developed in order to allow the fast and directquantification of analytes in food and environmental samples.


As arguments in favour of the notion that very slow convection in the highly viscous mantle is confined to the upper 700 km gradually weakened over the past 20 years, so geophysicists have increased their willingness to entertain the idea that significant horizontal variations in temperature and other structural parameters occur at all levels in the lower mantle. Concomitant density variations, including those caused by distortions in the shape of the core-mantle interface, would contribute substantially to long-wavelength features of the Earth's gravity held and also affect seismic travel times. The implied departures from axial symmetry in the thermal and mechanical boundary conditions thus imposed by deep mantle convection on the underlying low-viscosity liquid metallic core would affect not only spatial variations in the long-wavelength features of the main geomagnetic held (which is generated by dynamo action involving comparatively rapid chaotic magnetohydrodynamic how in the core) but also temporal variations on all relevant timescales, from decades and centuries characteristic of the geomagnetic secular variation to tens of millions of years characteristic of changes in the frequency of polarity reversals. Core motions should influence the rotation of the 'solid' Earth (mantle, crust and cryosphere), and in the absence of any quantitatively reasonable alternative line of attack, geophysicists have long supposed that irregular 'decade' fluctuations in the length of the day of about 5 x 10-3 s must be manifestations of angular momentum exchange between the core and mantle produced by time-varying torques at the core-mantle interface. The stresses responsible for these torques comprise (a) tangential stresses produced by viscous forces in the thin Ekman-Hartmann boundary layer just below the interface and also by Lorentz forces associated with the interaction of electric currents in the weakly conducting lower mantle with the magnetic held there, and (b) normal stresses produced largely by dynamical pressure forces acting on irregular interface topography (i.e. departures in shape from axial symmetry). The hypothesis that topographic stresses might provide the main contribution to the torque was introduced by the author in the 1960s and the present paper gives details of his recently proposed method for using Earth rotation and other geophysical data in a new test of the hypothesis. The method provides a scheme for investigating the consistency of the hypothesis with various combinations of 'models' of (a) motions in the outer reaches of the core based on geomagnetic secular variation data, and (b) core-mantle interface topography based on gravity and seismic data, thereby elucidating the validity of underlying assumptions about the dynamics and structure of the Earth's deep interior upon which the various 'models' are based. The scheme is now being applied in a complementary study carried out in collaboration with R. W. Clayton, B. H. Hager, M. A. Spieth and C. V. Voorhies.


This dissertation investigates the function of images in the production of supposed common knowledge and the emergence of cliched images about the Netherlands and the Dutch in the long nineteenth century. It explains which images communicated an idea of "Dutchness" and why they were able of doing so. To this end, the author analyzes images of various popular visual media that circulated widely at that time: illustrated magazines, illustrations in guide books, brochures for tourists, cartes de visite, series of etches, catchpenny prints, perspective prints, advertising trade cards, stereoscopic photographs, magic lantern slide sets, picture postcards and films of early cinema. The analysis are accompanied by detailed background information on these historical media as well as on the technical and epistemological preconditions for a realist depiction of people and places in terms of nationality. The analysis focus on three aspects. Firstly, the author presents a visual analysis of the images. Secondly, the meaning that is ascribed to the images is investigated by taking captions and other forms of written comment into account. Thirdly, these image-text-combinations are explained within the broader context of discourses that aim to produce and circulate knowledge about the Netherlands and the Dutch, i.e. popularized anthropological discourse, popularized geographic discourse and tourist discourse. Through the analysis of images in the three discourses, the author can identify recurring motifs in combination with recurring categories and rhetoric strategies of the written comment that, together, enabled the formation of national cliches. She first traces the emergence of categories in terms of the national in descriptions of realist images of people and places. This combination of a history of iconography with a history of its meaning can account not only for the construction of what was said, and imaged, to be "typically Dutch", but also the premises on which such statements could be uttered at all. This dissertation demonstrates that the meaning of an image largely depends on the line of reasoning of the respective discourse: the same motif can be used for various communicative aims. The meaning of an image is thus the result of performative signifying practices and not inherent to the image itself. This observation underlines the necessity to look with more nuance into the broader discursive context when investigating the meaning of an image. Another remarkable finding is that publications before c. 1880 use a more varied repertoire of images to illustrate the category "The Dutch"; only after that did the repertoire of motifs become more and more limited; an image of Volendammers only became a cliched image of the Dutch only after c. 1880.


We tested the hypothesis that changing the gut microbiota using pectic oligosaccharides (POS) or inulin (INU) differently modulates the progression of leukemia and related metabolic disorders. Mice were transplanted with Bcr-Abl-transfected proB lymphocytes mimicking leukemia and received either POS or INU in their diet (5%) for 2 weeks. Combination of pyrosequencing, PCR-DGGE and qPCR analyses of the 16S rRNA gene revealed that POS decreased microbial diversity and richness of caecal microbiota whereas it increased Bifidobacterium spp., Roseburia spp. and Bacteroides spp. (affecting specifically B. dorei) to a higher extent than INU. INU supplementation increased the portal SCFA propionate and butyrate, and decreased cancer cell invasion in the liver. POS treatment did not affect hepatic cancer cell invasion, but was more efficient than INU to decrease the metabolic alterations. Indeed, POS better than INU delayed anorexia linked to cancer progression. In addition, POS treatment increased acetate in the caecal content, changed the fatty acid profile inside adipose tissue and counteracted the induction of markers controlling β-oxidation, thereby hampering fat mass loss. Non digestible carbohydrates with prebiotic properties may constitute a new nutritional strategy to modulate gut microbiota with positive consequences on cancer progression and associated cachexia.


The paper is about an approach to logic that differs from the standard first-order logic and other known approaches. It should be a new approach the author has created proposing to obtain a general and unifying approach to logic and a faithful model of human mathematical deductive process. We list the most relevant features of the system. In first-order logic there exist two different concepts of
term and formula, in place of these two concepts in our approach we have just one notion of expression. The set-builder notation is enclosed as an expression-building pattern. In our system we can easily express second-order and all-order conditions (the set to which a quantifier refers is explicitly written in the expression). The meaning of a sentence will depend solely on the meaning
of the symbols it contains, it will not depend on external 'structures'. Our deductive system is based on a very simple definition of proof and provides a good model of human mathematical deductive process. The soundness and consistency of the system are proved, as well as the fact that our system is not affected by the most known types of paradox. The paper provides both the theoretical material and two fully documented examples of deduction. The author believes his aims have been achieved, obviously the reader is free to examine the system and get his own opinion about it.


This paper updates and extends Friedman's (1972) evidence on the lag between monetary policy actions and the response of inflation. Our evidence is based on UK and US data for the period 1953–2001 on money growth rates, inflation, and interest rates, as well as annual data on money growth and inflation. We reaffirm Friedman's result that it takes over a year before monetary policy actions have their peak effect on inflation. This result has persisted despite numerous changes in monetary policy arrangements in both countries. Similarly, advances in information processing and in financial market sophistication do not appear to have substantially shortened the lag. The empirical evaluation of dynamic general equilibrium models needs to be extended to include an assessment of these models' ability to account for the monetary transmission lags found in the data.


Cereal grains form a major source of dietary nutrients for all people, particularly those in the developing countries. However, the nutritional quality of cereal grains and sensory properties of their products are inferior due to lower protein content, deficiency of certain essential amino acids, lower protein and starch availabilities, presence of certain antinutrients, and the coarse nature of the grains. The consumption of sprouted cereals is becoming popular in various parts of the world. Sprouting of grains for a limited period causes increased activities of hydrolytic enzymes, improvement in the contents of certain essential amino acids, total sugars, and B‐group vitamins, and a decrease in dry matter, starch, and antinutrients. The digestibilities of storage proteins and starch are improved due to their partial hydrolysis during sprouting. The magnitude of the nutritional improvement is, however, influenced by the type of cereal, seed quality, sprouting conditions, and it is not large enough to acc...


Introduction: Anatomy was one of the first established biomedical sciences and enjoyed a tremendous growth since its inception as a science in the early sixteenth century until its peak in the early twentieth century. Then, anatomy begins to lose academic influence, both from the perspective of medical education, and the number and impact of research studies connected with it, hence the title "Dissecting the Crisis of Anatomy". Development: The reflection in this article tries to show the different elements that make up the crisis, such as the reduction of the number of hours of anatomy lectures within the curriculum of medicine, the loss of academic influence of anatomy within the medical profession, the decrease in the number of articles on this subject reflected in their diminished influence and the low impact factor of publications devoted exclusively to anatomy, as well as the growing resistance to conventional techniques for teaching it, specifically the subject of dissecting corpses. It is intended to evidence which elements have emerged and how the established paradigms are changing, thus allowing to reshape the role of anatomy within the basic medical sciences and teaching new health professionals. Conclusions: Although the way anatomy is being studied, researched and taught is in a crisis, elements have emerged that have led to rediscover the humanist roots of this science, producing new approaches in the pedagogical and ethical aspects and issues of medical professionalism within anatomy itself.


This new adaptation of Arfken and Weber's bestselling Mathematical Methods for Physicists, Fifth Edition, is the most comprehensive, modern, and accessible text for using mathematics to solve physics problems. Additional explanations and examples make it student-friendly and more adaptable to a course syllabus.

 KEY FEATURES:
 · This is a more accessible version of Arfken and Weber's blockbuster reference, Mathematical Methods for Physicists, 5th Edition
 · Many more detailed, worked-out examples illustrate how to use and apply mathematical techniques to solve physics problems
 · More frequent and thorough explanations help readers understand, recall, and apply the theory
 · New introductions and review material provide context and extra support for key ideas
 · Many more routine problems reinforce basic concepts and computations


Abstract Different forms of linear and non-linear field equations, so-called 'phase-field' equations, are studied in relation to the de Broglie–Bohm double-solution program. This defines a framework in which elementary particles are described by localised non-linear wave solutions moving by the guidance of a pilot wave, defined by the solution of a Schrödinger-type equation. First, we consider the phase-field order parameter as the phase for the linear pilot wave, second as the pilot wave itself, and third as a moving soliton interpreted as a massive particle. In the last case, we introduce the equation for a superwave, the amplitude of which can be considered as a particle moving in accordance to the de Broglie–Bohm theory. Lax pairs for the coupled problems are constructed in order to discover possible non-linear equations that can describe the moving particle and to propose a framework for investigating coupled solutions. Finally, doublons in 1 + 1 dimensions are constructed as self-similar solutions of a non-linear phase-field equation forming a finite space object. Vacuum quantum oscillations within the doublon determine the evolution of the coupled system. Applying a conservation constraint and using general symmetry considerations, the doublons are arranged as a network in 1 + 1 + 2 dimensions, where nodes are interpreted as elementary particles. A canonical procedure is proposed to treat charge and electromagnetic exchange.


Terrorist attacks on computer centers, electronic fraud on international funds transfer networks, viruses and worms in our software, corporate espionage on business networks, and crackers breaking into systems on the Internet...Computer criminals are becoming ever more technically sophisticated, and it's an increasing challenge to keep up with their methods."Computer Crime: A Crimefighter's Handbook" is for anyone who needs to know what today's computer crimes look like, how to prevent them, and how to detect, investigate, and prosecute them if they do occur. It contains basic computer security information as well as guidelines for investigators, law enforcement, and computer system managers and administrators.Part I of the book contains a discussion of computer crimes, the computer criminal, and computer crime laws. It describes the various categories of computer crimes and profiles the computer criminal (using techniques developed for the FBI and other law enforcement agencies). Part II outlines the the risks to computer systems and personnel, operational, physical, and communications measures that can be taken to prevent computer crimes. Part III discusses how to plan for, investigate, and prosecute computer crimes, ranging from the supplies needed for criminal investigation, to the detection and audit tools used in investigation, to the presentation of evidence to a jury.Part IV of the book contains a compendium of the computer-related U.S. federal statutes and all of the statutes of the individual states, as well as representative international laws. Part V contains a resource summary, detailed papers on computer crime, and a sample search warrant for a computer crime.


The functionalisation of silsesquioxanes results in materials with novel physical properties. A series of compounds has been coupled with silsesquioxanes [HSiO3/2]8 and [SiO3/2]8 [OSi(CH3)2H]8 and the properties of the products investigated. Typically, coupling reactions involved hydrosilylation with H2PtCl6 or [Pt{(η-ViMe2Si)2O}(PtBu3)].
 Mesogenic compounds have been shown to undergo a change in the liquid crystalline phase produced, once attached to the silsesquioxane core. A more ordered phase was observed due to the tethering of the mesogen to the cage. The silsesquioxanes core was considered to have been deformed in the production of this phase. Silsesquioxanes capable of complexing metal atoms have also been studied. Polyether derivatised cages were prepared and preliminary studies indicate potential for potassium complexation. Vinyl functionalised silsesquioxanes have also been shown to complex platinum, in an exchange reaction with [Pt{(η-ViMe2Si)2O}(PtBu3)].
 Investigations into the hydrosilylation reaction have involved coupling triethylsilane, triethoxysilane and the silsesquioxanes with a variety of vinyl, allyl and alkenic compounds. The proportions of α and β adducts were considered. Particular substituents were found to encourage α addition, with species having an oxygen or phenyl group at the allylic position producing the α-regioisomer as well as the typical β product. It is suggested that such substitution affects the mode of cis ligand insertion in the Chalk Harrod mechanism. A preference for the α-regioisomer was also observed for the hydrosilylations of vinyl silsesquioxane compounds.


We consider a statistical database in which a trusted administrator introduces noise to the query responses with the goal of maintaining privacy of individual database entries. In such a database, a query consists of a pair (S, f) where S is a set of rows in the database and f is a function mapping database rows to {0, 1}. The true answer is ΣiεS f(di), and a noisy version is released as the response to the query. Results of Dinur, Dwork, and Nissim show that a strong form of privacy can be maintained using a surprisingly small amount of noise -- much less than the sampling error -- provided the total number of queries is sublinear in the number of database rows. We call this query and (slightly) noisy reply the SuLQ (Sub-Linear Queries) primitive. The assumption of sublinearity becomes reasonable as databases grow increasingly large.We extend this work in two ways. First, we modify the privacy analysis to real-valued functions f and arbitrary row types, as a consequence greatly improving the bounds on noise required for privacy. Second, we examine the computational power of the SuLQ primitive. We show that it is very powerful indeed, in that slightly noisy versions of the following computations can be carried out with very few invocations of the primitive: principal component analysis, k means clustering, the Perceptron Algorithm, the ID3 algorithm, and (apparently!) all algorithms that operate in the in the statistical query learning model [11].


Ascocoryne sarcoides is an endophytic filamentous fungus isolated from Northern Patagonia that can produce petroleum-like fuel compounds directly from cellulose (Strobel et al., 2008). The aim of this project was to study volatile organic compound production by A. sarcoides. The project is different from many other cellulosic biofuel projects that explore alcohol production from pre-treated biomass fermentation. It focuses on the ability of A. sarcoides to convert cellulose and related simple sugars to fuel-related hydrocarbons. The influence of environmental conditions on the growth characteristics and compounds produced from normal metabolic processes was explored. Quantification of volatile production from growth on glucose showed the major compounds were ethanol and acetaldehyde, with the remainder of volatiles near 2 ppm from a continuously aerated culture. These volatiles included compounds of fuel-interest such as benzaldehyde, nonanal, 1-octen-3-ol and 1-butanol, 3-methyl-. Notable compounds with fuel related properties included isopentane, d-limonene, and cyclopropane, propyl-. These compounds all have octane ratings greater than 90 and enthalpies of combustion greater than 3200 kJ mol -1 . Oxygen availability influenced the type and number of volatile compounds produced. For example, growth on a soluble cellulose substrate produced greater numbers of volatile compounds at oxygen limited concentrations and more alcohols, alkanes, aromatics, ketones, and esters were identified from mass spectrometry data. In addition, the oxygen availability influenced growth characteristics with a starting oxygen concentration of 7% was low enough to greatly inhibit growth. The growth substrate had a marked influence on the volatile compounds produced. A. sarcoides growth on microcrystalline cellulose produced a greater variety of hydrocarbon compounds compared to growth on glucose, and the highest yield of volatile organics was estimated at 105 mg (g biomass) -1 from the cellulose substrate. The fungus A. sarcoides demonstrated production of valuable fuel compounds on multiple carbon sources. Further work should carry on the analysis of culturing conditions and include evaluation of hydrocarbon yields on pre-treated cellulosic biomass. Studies of this nature should continue to advance knowledge of fungal biological potential for industrial processes.


In the period following the end of World War II, Western
European countries have experienced rapid economic growth. In the second half of the fifties, labour shortages emerged,
obliging developed countries to have recourse to foreign labour
in order to maintain high growth rates. During the sixties,
bilateral agreements between European industralised countries
(West Germany, France, Sweden, Belgium ...
) and less developed
Mediterranean countries (Spain, Portugal, Greece, Yugoslavia,
Turkey ...
) produced large-scale migration in Western Europe.
The main bulk of Greek emigration has been directed towards West
Germany, reaching a peak in 1971, while the reverse flow of
returning migrants exceeded emigration from 1974 up to 1981.
Data concerning these two flows, from 1960 to 1982, give us the
opportunity to test the determinants of both outward and return
migration using models based on the Neo-classical, the Keynesian
and the Human Capital theories. Under the Neo-classical assumptions
about labour and product markets, migration of labour is explained
by income differentials prevailing between two regions. The
Keynesian model adds unemployment as a cause of migration.
Because of the static framework concerning the above models, expectations
about future income resulting from migration have been introduced
to make the model dynamic. Under the Human Capital theory,
migration will occur if the present value of the expected benefits
exceeds the present value of the expected costs resulting from
migration. Empirical tests of the above model's using OLS or other
methods attempting to overcome econometric problems, are presented.
Logarithmic forms of emigration equations present the best results.
The logarithmic form implicitly assumes that emigration is of a
Cobb-Douglas type function. Because of the weaknesses concerning
Cobb-Douglas type functions, a translog type emigration function is
determined and tests are applied in order to find the best estimation
provided by the two functions. Next, we consider migration decisionmaking
at the level of an individual who seeks to maximise his welfare
in conditions of uncertainty. Introducing utility functions and
risk coefficients, the maximisation of welfare yields a stochastic migration function. Furthermore, we examine the migration
decision in a binary choice model context. The potential migrant
has to decide whether to migrate or not, and an application of the
binary logit probability model enables us to estimate the
probability that an individual drawn at random from the population
will choose to migrate.
Finally, we estimate emigration and return migration functions
together with employment (or unemployment) and wages functions in a
simultaneous equations system in order to avoid simultaneous bias
resulting from interdependence between migration and other variables
used as explanatory in the previous models.


If you're up on the latest Java technologies, then you know that Enterprise JavaBeans (EJB) 3.0 is the hottest news in Java this year. In fact, EJB 3.0 is being hailed as the new standard of server-side business logic programming. And O'Reilly's award-winning book on EJB has been refreshed just in time to capitalize on the technology's latest rise in popularity.This fifth edition, written by Bill Burke and Richard Monson-Haefel, has been updated to capture the very latest need-to-know Java technologies in the same award-winning fashion that drove the success of the previous four strong-selling editions. Bill Burke, Chief Architect at JBoss, Inc., represents the company on the EJB 3.0 and Java EE 5 specification committees. Richard Monson-Haefel is one of the world's leading experts on Enterprise Java.Enterprise JavaBeans 3.0, 5th Edition is organized into two parts: the technical manuscript followed by the JBoss workbook. The technical manuscript explains what EJB is, how it works, and when to use it. The JBoss workbook provides step-by-step instructions for installing, configuring, and running the examples from the manuscript on the JBoss 4.0 Application Server.Although EJB makes application development much simpler, it's still a complex and ambitious technology that requires a great deal of time to study and master. But now, thanks to Enterprise JavaBeans 3.0, 5th Edition, you can overcome the complexities of EJBs and learn from hundreds of practical examples that are large enough to test key concepts but small enough to be taken apart and explained in the detail that you need. Now you can harness the complexity of EJB with just a single resource by your side.


Although, Chinese and Spanish are two of the most spoken languages in the world, not much research has been done in machine translation for this language pair. This paper focuses on investigating the state-of-the-art of Chinese-to-Spanish statistical machine translation (SMT), which nowadays is one of the most popular approaches to machine translation. For this purpose, we report details of the available parallel corpus which are Basic Traveller Expressions Corpus (BTEC), Holy Bible and United Nations (UN). Additionally, we conduct experimental work with the largest of these three corpora to explore alternative Smt strategies by means of using a pivot language. Three alternatives are considered for pivoting: cascading, pseudo-corpus and triangulation. As pivot language, we use either English, Arabic or French. Results show that, for a phrase-based Smt system, English is the best pivot language between Chinese and Spanish. We propose a system output combination using the pivot strategies which is capable of outperforming the direct translation strategy. The main objective of this work is motivating and involving the research community to work in this important pair of languages given their demographic impact.


Aspects of bird song have been shown to correlate with morphological and ecological features, including beak and body size, and habitat. Here we study evolution of song length and song frequency among 30 species belonging to the Cettiidae. Frequency is negatively correlated with body size, and song length increases with latitude. Although migration distance correlates with latitude, the association of song length with latitude is only present within the non-migratory species, implying the association is not a consequence of migration. We place these correlations in a historical framework to show that the body size-frequency association arose early in the group, but the latitude-song length association is more evolutionarily labile. We suggest that latitudinal correlates of song length may reflect increased importance of sexual selection by female choice.


For the retrieval of the vertical distribution of ozone in the atmosphere the Ozone ProfilE Retrieval Algorithm (OPERA) has been further developed. The new version (1.26) of OPERA is capable of retrieving ozone profiles from UV–VIS observations of most nadir-looking satellite instruments like GOME, SCIAMACHY, OMI and GOME-2. The setup of OPERA is described and results are presented for GOME and GOME-2 observations. The retrieved ozone profiles are globally compared to ozone sondes for the years 1997 and 2008. Relative differences between GOME/GOME-2 and ozone sondes are within the limits as specified by the user requirements from the Climate Change Initiative (CCI) programme of ESA (20%in the troposphere, 15% in the stratosphere). To demonstrate the performance of the algorithm under extreme circumstances, the 2009 Antarctic ozone hole season was investigated in more detail using GOME-2 ozone profiles and lidar data, which showed an unusual persistence of the vortex over the Rio Gallegos observing station (51 S, 69.3 W). By applying OPERA to multiple instruments, a time series of ozone profiles from 1996 to 2013 from a single robust algorithm can be created


Abstract Age is the dominant risk factor for infectious diseases, but the mechanisms linking the two are incompletely understood1,2. Age-related mosaic chromosomal alterations (mCAs) detected from blood-derived DNA genotyping, are structural somatic variants associated with aberrant leukocyte cell counts, hematological malignancy, and mortality3-11. Whether mCAs represent independent risk factors for infection is unknown. Here we use genome-wide genotyping of blood DNA to show that mCAs predispose to diverse infectious diseases. We analyzed mCAs from 767,891 individuals without hematological cancer at DNA acquisition across four countries. Expanded mCA (cell fraction >10%) prevalence approached 4% by 60 years of age and was associated with diverse incident infections, including sepsis, pneumonia, and coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) hospitalization. A genome-wide association study of expanded mCAs identified 63 significant loci. Germline genetic alleles associated with expanded mCAs were enriched at transcriptional regulatory sites for immune cells. Our results link mCAs with impaired immunity and predisposition to infections. Furthermore, these findings may also have important implications for the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, particularly in prioritizing individual preventive strategies and evaluating immunization responses.


For all that has been learned about SARS in the past 10 years, mysteries still endure. What happened at the Metropole Hotel in Hong Kong the night of 21 February 2003? How did SARS spread at the Amoy Gardens, a high-rise apartment building complex? And how do "superspreaders" emerge?


The beginning of the twenty-first century has seen mass immigration from the Global South to the Global North. Unfortunately, the geopolitical and racial dynamics of this migration flow often lead to a purported nexus between immigration and criminality. In immigrant-receiving nations, this is especially the case, where sometimes the government, the media, and even the population support a xenophobic perspective based on the interconnection between immigration and criminality. Spain serves as an interesting case study for understanding how cultural productions reflect and/or critique that tendency because between 2000 and 2010 it had the world's second largest net immigration rate. The large demographic shift that immigration has produced in Spain over the past three decades ultimately created a laboratory for the creation of a multiracial and multicultural nation. This special issue provides a more nuanced understanding regarding the criminalization of immigrant communities in Spanish fiction. The authors that form this special issue demonstrate how the staging of this criminalization is reworked in genres like novels, short stories, theater, and cinema to expose and problematize the purported nexus between criminality and immigration. By bringing together crime fiction and immigration studies scholars, this issue seeks to reformulate and reconsider what has been traditionally thought of as the "immigrant problem" and its relation to crime in contemporary Spanish fiction.


Objective: There have been substantial changes in workforce and employment patterns in Australia over the past 50 years as a result of economic globalisation. This has resulted in substantial reduction in employment in the manufacturing industry often with large-scale job losses in concentrated sectors and communities. Large-scale job loss events receive significant community attention. To what extent these mass unemployment events contribute to increased psychological distress, mental illness and suicide in affected individuals warrants further consideration. Methods: Here we undertake a narrative review of published job loss literature. We discuss the impact that large-scale job loss events in the manufacturing sector may have on population mental health, with particular reference to contemporary trends in the Australian economy. We also provide a commentary on the expected outcomes of future job loss events in this context and the implications for Australian public mental health care services. Results and conclusion: Job loss due to plant closure results in a doubling of psychological distress that peaks 9 months following the unemployment event. The link between job loss and increased rates of mental illness and suicide is less clear. The threat of impending job loss and the social context in which job loss occurs has a significant bearing on psychological outcomes. The implications for Australian public mental health services are discussed.


Drawing on the transcripts of 47 semi-structured interviews with HR practitioners in local government in the English Midlands, this thesis explores what Beech (2008) calls the 'route to meaning construction of the self' of HR practitioners as they navigate discourses of HRM and public sector reform in the pursuit of 'professional' identity and organizational legitimacy. Through the use of discourse analysis, the study makes three key contributions: firstly, it challenges the dichotomous characterisation of a 'modernising' public sector and identifies a discursive pragmatism, whereby public sector employees craft a workable identity reconciling 'old' public sector talk with a tempered public sector 'reform' discourse to forge 'third way' discourses. Secondly, it challenges the notion of 'strategic' legitimacy as the only means by which a plausible organizational identity might be constructed for the HR function, with the denigrated 'administrative' HR role rewritten as a problem solving and pragmatic orientation. Finally, it concludes that HR legitimacy will remain elusive whilst HR's identity, particularly in relation to line management, is constructed through gendered and sexualised discourses. The title of the thesis, drawing on the words of interviewees, represents alternative conceptions of the HR function: legitimated through recourse to 'professionalism' and partnership talk, or managerial cipher, in thrall to public sector managerialization, particularly through the construction of HR's role and identity in gendered and sexualised terms.


This article analyzes the distressed corporate debt cycle from the perspective of a hedge fund investor rather than a hedge fund manager. The authors find that the distressed cycle has an element of memory (repeatability) and can be categorized into three distinct states within a cycle. The authors also find that the Distressed Ratio, which measures the available supply of distressed debt within the high-yield universe, serves as the key factor in predicting distressed hedge fund manager returns. Furthermore, evidence is presented that indicates that regime-switching analytical techniques can be useful in identifying trigger (or inflection) points that lead to state transitions within the cycle. The authors conclude that investors can improve their odds of enhancing return expectations by tactically adjusting their exposure to the strategy based on an understanding of the opportunities and risks afforded by each state within the cycle.


ABSTRACT Proline is converted to glutamate in two successive steps by the proline utilization A (PutA) flavoenzyme in gram-negative bacteria. PutA contains a proline dehydrogenase domain that catalyzes the flavin adenine dinucleotide (FAD)-dependent oxidation of proline to Δ1-pyrroline-5-carboxylate (P5C) and a P5C dehydrogenase domain that catalyzes the NAD+-dependent oxidation of P5C to glutamate. Here, we characterize PutA from Helicobacter hepaticus (PutAHh) and Helicobacter pylori (PutAHp) to provide new insights into proline metabolism in these gastrointestinal pathogens. Both PutAHh and PutAHp lack DNA binding activity, in contrast to PutA from Escherichia coli (PutAEc), which both regulates and catalyzes proline utilization. PutAHh and PutAHp display catalytic activities similar to that of PutAEc but have higher oxygen reactivity. PutAHh and PutAHp exhibit 100-fold-higher turnover numbers (∼30 min−1) than PutAEc (<0. 3 min−1) using oxygen as an electron acceptor during catalytic turnover with proline. Consistent with increased oxygen reactivity, PutAHh forms a reversible FAD-sulfite adduct. The significance of increased oxygen reactivity in PutAHh and PutAHp was probed by oxidative stress studies in E. coli. Expression of PutAEc and PutA from Bradyrhizobium japonicum, which exhibit low oxygen reactivity, does not diminish stress survival rates of E. coli cell cultures. In contrast, PutAHp and PutAHh expression dramatically reduces E. coli cell survival and is correlated with relatively lower proline levels and increased hydrogen peroxide formation. The discovery of reduced oxygen species formation by PutA suggests that proline catabolism may influence redox homeostasis in the ecological niches of these Helicobacter species.


The growing use of brain imaging technology to explore the causes of morally, socially, and legally relevant behavior is the subject of much discussion and controversy in both scholarly and popular circles. From the efforts of cognitive neuroscientists in the courtroom and the public square, the contours of a project to transform capital sentencing both in principle and in practice have emerged. In the short term, these scientists seek to play a role in the process of capital sentencing by serving as mitigation experts for defendants, invoking neuroimaging research on the roots of criminal violence to support their arguments. Over the long term, these same experts (and their like-minded colleagues) hope to appeal to the recent findings of their discipline to embarrass, discredit, and ultimately overthrow retributive justice as a principle of punishment. Taken as a whole, these short- and long-term efforts are ultimately meant to usher in a more compassionate and humane regime for capital defendants. This Article seeks to articulate, analyze, and provide a critique of this project according to the metric of its own humanitarian aspirations. It proceeds by exploring the implications of the project in light of the mechanics of capital sentencing and the heterogeneous array of competing doctrinal rationales in which they are rooted. The Article concludes that the project as currently conceived is internally inconsistent and would, if implemented, result in ironic and tragic consequences, producing a death penalty regime that is even more draconian and less humane than the deeply flawed framework currently in place.


This paper examines how teens understand privacy in highly public networked environments like Facebook and Twitter. We describe both teens' practices, their privacy strategies, and the structural conditions in which they are embedded, highlighting the ways in which privacy, as it plays out in everyday life, is related more to agency and the ability to control a social situation than particular properties of information. Finally, we discuss the implications of teens' practices and strategies, revealing the importance of social norms as a regulatory force.(This paper was presented at Oxford Internet Institute's "A Decade in Internet Time: Symposium on the Dynamics of the Internet and Society" on September 22, 2011.)


The 1990s emerging-markets crises were characterized by sudden reversals in inflows of foreign capital followed by unusually large declines in current account deficits, private expenditures, production, and prices of nontradable goods relative to tradables. This paper shows that these Sudden Stops can be the outcome of the equilibrium dynamics of a flexible-price economy with imperfect credit markets. Foreign debt is denominated in units of tradables and a liquidity constraint links credit-market access to the income generated in the nontradables sector and the relative price of nontradables. Sudden Stops occur when real shocks of foreign or domestic origin, or policy-induced shocks make this constraint binding. Sudden Stops are not reflected in long-run business cycle statistics but still they entail nontrivial welfare costs. These results question crises-management policies seeking to impose direct controls on private capital flows and favor those that work to weaken credit frictions.


Fuzzy clustering has emerged as a fundamental technique of information granulation. In this study, we introduce and discuss multivariable encoding and decoding mechanisms (referred altogether as a reconstruction problem) expressed in the language of fuzzy sets and fuzzy relations. The underlying performance index associated with the problem helps quantify a reconstruction error that arises when transforming a numeric datum through fuzzy sets (relations) and then reconstructing it into an original numeric format. The clustering platform considered in this study concerns the well-known algorithm of Fuzzy C-Means (FCM). The main design aspects deal with the relationships between the number of clusters versus the reconstruction properties and the resulting reconstruction error. The impact of the fuzzification coefficient on the reconstruction quality is investigated. This finding is of interest, given the fact that predominantly all applications involving FCM use the value of the fuzzification coefficient equal to 2. In light of the completed experiments, we demonstrate that this selection may not be experimentally legitimate. We also carry out a comparative analysis of the reconstruction properties of the Boolean decoding that is induced by the fuzzy partition. Experimental investigations involve selected machine learning data.


Sudan grass (Sorghum x drummondii) is commonly grown for the production of animal fodder in the UAE. Cyperus conglomeratus (locally termed 'Thenda') is a sedge native to the UAE, and one of the very few plants that colonize soils of shifting desert dunes. The native plant is grazed by camels, and may thus have a potential for animal feed production. While Sudan grass is a mycotrophic plant that normally lives in symbiosis with arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi for facilitation of nutrient uptake, C. conglomeratus is a non-host to these root symbionts. In the desert sedges rhizosheaths comprising of dense coats of root hairs and entangled soil particles seem to constitute an alternative strategy to support nutrient acquisition. One objective of this study was to compare nutrient uptake from soils of the UAE between Sudan grass and C. conglomeratus. Another aim was to investigate how removal of biomass and presence of soil salinity, alone or in combination, would affect the development and functioning of arbuscular mycorrhizal symbioses in Sudan grass grown on a sandy soil of the UAE. In a field experiment, Sudan grass and C. conglomeratus were either sole cropped or intercropped under two different irrigation regimes. After 7 months of cultivation, C. conglomeratus plants had produced more biomass, and had taken up larger quantities of nutritional elements compared with Sudan grass, even though these plants had received smaller amounts of fertilizers. Neither Sudan grass nor C. conglomeratus growth differed depending on whether plants were soleor intercropped. This may suggest that the two plant species under investigation utilized different pools of nutritional elements, and thus competed only little for nutrient uptake. There was no effect of the water supply level on the growth of intercropped or sole cropped plants, possibly because the water supply level was in a sufficient range even for the plots of the lower water supply treatment. Results of a pot experiment where Sudan grass and C. conglomeratus were grown with approximately half of their root systems sharing the same soil volume, confirm the hypothesis that the two plant species under investigation do not compete for the same pools of phosphate (P). However, C. conglomeratus growth and nutrient uptake was negatively affected by the presence of a mycorrhiza fungal colonized root system. This confirms the results of the previous pot experiments that reported a direct negative effect of mycorrhizal root systems on the growth of the neighboring non-hosts. The majority of agricultural soils in the UAE viii are prone to salinization. It was hypothesized that on saline soil, arbuscular mycorrhiza fungal root colonization and plant mechanisms of adaptation to a saline environment would compete for photoassimilates. Such competitive effects would aggravate upon removal of photosynthetic tissues, and lead to a decline in the development and functioning of mycorrhizae. The null or alternative hypothesis, results indicated that neither salinity nor severe leaf pruning, alone or in combination, had an effect on the relative contribution of arbuscular mycorrhiza fungal symbiosis to plant growth and nutrient uptake. There was also no effect of leaf removal or salinity on the extent by which roots were colonized by endomycorrhizal fungi at the time of harvest. These results suggest that contributions of arbuscular mycorrhiza fungal root colonization to plant performance are relatively robust, and may persist under a wide range of environmental conditions and agricultural practices. Future studies should further shed light into mechanisms by which C. conglomeratus mobilizes nutritional elements. As the plant seems to have a great potential to increase nutrient utilization efficiency in agricultural systems of the UAE, its value for animal feed production should be further assessed. Given the superiority of C. conglomeratus over Sudan grass in terms of growth and nutrient uptake, it seems unlikely that introduced mycotrophic grasses have the potential to outcompete native dune sedges when released into UAE plant ecosystems.


Scholarship on 1950s American science fiction cinema has tended to explore the relationship between these films and their domestic contexts of production and reception. They are often characterised as reflections of US anxieties about communism and nuclear technology. However, many such films were exported to Britain where these concerns were articulated and understood differently. The ways in which this different national context of reception shaped British interpretations of American science fiction cinema of this era has not yet been accounted for. Similarly, although some research has addressed 1950s British science fiction, this scholarship has been comparatively concise and has left gaps in our knowledge about the domestic reception of these films. Unable to draw on a British reception history of domestic and US 1950s science fiction cinema, debates about the genre have sometimes been underpinned by the presumption that western audiences responded to these films in a uniform manner. This thesis seeks to complicate our understanding of the genre by suggesting the specificity of the British reception history of science fiction cinema during the 1950s. The paucity of documentary evidence of British responses to 1950s science fiction films makes an audience study impossible. Within the intellectual framework of the New Film History, this thesis instead employs a contextually- activated approach to reception. Making extensive use of archival sources, newsreels, newspapers, magazines and other such documentary evidence, it explores some of the different contexts in which 1950s science fiction cinema was received in Britain and suggests how these factors might have shaped the interpretation of the genre. The thesis examines the interplay between American and British 1950s science fiction cinema and the British public understanding of communism, immigration, nuclear technology and scientific advancement. It contributes to our knowledge of these films by demonstrating that Britons did not necessarily understand 1950s science fiction cinema in the same way as Americans because they were party to a differently inflected series of public debates. It exposes the flexibility of the metaphors utilised by the genre during this period and their susceptibility to reinterpretation in different national contexts. This research makes visible, in a more extensive manner than has yet been accomplished, the specificity of the British reception history of 1950s science fiction cinema, and thereby provides a means to resist assumptions about the similarity of western audiences during this decade. Its conclusions call for further research into other national reception histories of these films, so that they too are not overshadowed by the better known American history of the genre, and into the possibility that the British reception history of other genres might similarly have been obscured.


Aims. The purpose of this work is to evaluate how several elements produced by different nucleosynthesis processes behave with stellar age and provide empirical relations to derive stellar ages from chemical abundances.
Methods. We derived different sets of ages using Padova and Yonsei–Yale isochrones and HIPPARCOS and Gaia parallaxes for a sample of more than 1000 FGK dwarf stars for which he have high-resolution (R ~ 115 000) and high-quality spectra from the HARPS-GTO program. We analyzed the temporal evolution of different abundance ratios to find the best chemical clocks. We applied multivariable linear regressions to our sample of stars with a small uncertainty on age to obtain empirical relations of age as a function of stellar parameters and different chemical clocks.
Results. We find that [α/Fe] ratio (average of Mg, Si, and Ti), [O/Fe] and [Zn/Fe] are good age proxies with a lower dispersion than the age-metallicity dispersion. Several abundance ratios present a significant correlation with age for chemically separated thin disk stars (i.e., low-α) but in the case of the chemically defined thick disk stars (i.e., high-α) only the elements Mg, Si, Ca, and Ti II show a clear correlation with age. We find that the thick disk stars are more enriched in light-s elements than thin disk stars of similar age. The maximum enrichment of s-process elements in the thin disk occurs in the youngest stars which in turn have solar metallicity. The slopes of the [X/Fe]-age relations are quite constant for O, Mg, Si, Ti, Zn, Sr, and Eu regardless of the metallicity. However, this is not the case for Al, Ca, Cu and most of the s-process elements, which display very different trends depending on the metallicity. This demonstrates the limitations of using simple linear relations based on certain abundance ratios to obtain ages for stars of different metallicities. Finally, we show that by using 3D relations with a chemical clock and two stellar parameters (either Teff, [Fe/H] or stellar mass) we can explain up to 89% of age variance in a star. A similar result is obtained when using 2D relations with a chemical clock and one stellar parameter, explaining up to a 87% of the variance.
Conclusions. The complete understanding of how the chemical elements were produced and evolved in the Galaxy requires the knowledge of stellar ages and precise chemical abundances. We show how the temporal evolution of some chemical species change with metallicity, with remarkable variations at super-solar metallicities, which will help to better constrain the yields of different nucleosynthesis processes along the history of the Galaxy.


The NHS will face a funding crisis by November 2011 unless it acts swiftly, a leading health policy expert has warned.

Nick Bosanquet of Imperial College, London, told a seminar on 27 October that "a gathering storm" of events could find trusts without funds this time next year. The flat funding settlement announced by the chancellor would combine with rising costs—such as bills for private finance initiative hospitals coming through, rising patient demand, and the costs of creating new posts as the numbers of new medical graduates rise—to provoke a crisis.

Similar events had happened before, he said, when periods of rising funding came to an abrupt end, citing 1950-51, 1966-67, 1976-77 and 1987-88. "If the NHS were a very flexible system, it would be OK," he said. "But the NHS is not very flexible."

Although previous funding crises had been managed by cutting capital spending, this time round he advised trust chief executives to be realistic about funding, to cut costs …


This research investigates how companies operating in emerging markets and investing in latest IT solutions can be supported in developing maturity in business-IT alignment faster than their predecessors in developed countries. It follows up the consultant perspective through documenting ex-post the participant's observations, reflected through participant objectivation, to analyze the activities conducted, the obstacles faced and the success reached while trying to mature business-IT alignment in selected companies operating in the Arab World. From the five cases included in the sample, evidence was found that specific consultant's interceptions can indeed "fast-track" the needed improvement in business-IT alignment, especially when the sense of crisis in the company creates a readiness to embrace the change and the subsequent benefits are obvious enough to those involved to sustain the newly reached maturity level. However, the personality and behavior of the CEO, the attitude of middle management, and the corporate culture as a whole may obstruct all efforts of "fast-tracking" any time, especially when the actors involved adhere to traits deeply rooted in the region's autocratic traditions.


Upper Klamath Lake, a very large, shallow lake in south-central Oregon,
has a history of nuisance blue-green algae blooms, predominantly
Aphanizomenon flos-aquae. Lake water and sediment interstitial water chemistry were monitored during 1968 and 1969, and for a short time
in 1970. Nutrient concentrations in interstitital water of sediment exposed to direct agricultural drainage were several orders of magnitude
greater than in cases where sediments were not so located. Nutrient
concentrations showed considerable seasonal variation in both interstitial
Nutrient
and lake waters. Variations in lake and intersitital waters frequently,
but not always, exhibited inverse relationships. The larger fluctuations
appeared to correlate with density of A. flos-aquae. Although strong evidence of biological uptake of sedimentary nutrients
was found, dredging of the lake would probably not be effective as
a restorative measure because of the high nutrient concentrations
present at depth in the sediment.


The need to redress the skewed ownership of productive assets has given rise to the process of indigenisation and economic empowerment processes in many previously colonized countries. Countries such as Zambia, Brazil, South Africa and lately Zimbabwe have embarked on indigenisation or economic empowerment initiatives, to varying degrees. The common aim of these initiatives is to increase the role played by the previously marginalized population groups in the mainstream economy and to correct imbalances in resource ownerships construed as a major cause of vulnerability and obstacle to economic growth and development. This paper seeks to analyze Zimbabwe's indigenisation policy. The controversial Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment policy in Zimbabwe has been dismissed by many as a statutory instrument designed to suit the interests of politicians contrary to assurances that it seeks to empower ordinary citizens. There are arguments that the indigenisation policy was only used to position individuals in political spheres to allow them to penetrate the countries' resources and it is not about the majority's benefit. The indigenisation policy has been used and continues to be used by the elite in order to commit or justify acts of economic banditry, expropriation and unfair practices. The paper discusses whether the indigenisation policy has provided the stated benefits to the majority of Zimbabweans. Secondly the paper also seeks to evaluate whether the indigenisation policy has achieved or on the right track towards achieving its intended objectives and also looks at the constraining factors in the implementation of indigenisation policies in Zimbabwe.


The Further Education and Training (FET) sector in general and the public Further Education colleges specifically are in a state of perpetual transition. The merger as an attempt at restructuring and transfonning public Further Education and Training colleges presents many challenges to its educators. This narrative inquiry explores four educators' subjective experiences of the merging process with a view to attempting to understand the effect this process may have had on their identity development and! or the renegotiation of their social identities. The researcher who is also the quality manager at a FET college, is presented with the opportunity to reflect critically on her own experiences and identity development while actively engaging with other participants' narratives about their experiences of the merging process. A strong perception of the college as an oppressive environment emerged from the findings. The merger was evidently a catalyst for the different levels of awareness, introspection and renegotiation of participants' identities.


Recent writings have claimed that fisheries management can be improved through joint regulation by government bodies and resource users, and through partial devolution of management authority from government to fishers' organizations. The Philippines appears to provide an optimal institutional setting for the emergence of fisheries co-management. The government has enacted legislation to assist fishers' organizations in taking on a larger management role and there has been a proliferation of fishers' organizations interested in taking on increased responsibility for resource management. The case of San Miguel Bay shows a situation in which two parallel modes of co-management have emerged. The formal mode draws largely on government initiative and is pluralistic. The informal mode draws on the initiative of fishers' organizations and civilian action, and is oriented to the interests of small-scale fishers. Effective long-term co-management requires above all addressing gear conflict and the marginalization...


Climate change is affecting the growing environment for spring wheat (Triticum aestivum L. em. Thell) in the northern Great Plains, challenging breeders to identify traits and genes that will allow reliable grain yield under drought and heat stress conditions. The first objective of this study was to evaluate the genetic basis of productive tiller number (PTN) and its relationship to economic traits under a wide range of environments. Correlation of PTN with economic traits was determined using three recombinant inbred line populations. Quantitative trait loci (QTL) analysis was conducted with a mapping population generated from a cross between Reeder and Conan. Our results showed a consistent positive correlation between PTN and grain yield under drought and heat stress conditions as well as well-watered conditions across three spring wheat populations. The major stable QTL, QTn.mst-6B, was consistent across environments and populations, and the positive allele from Reeder increased grain yield. The second objective of this study was to evaluate the genetic basis of green leaf duration (GLDAH) which has been reported as a drought and heat stress resistant trait in several crops. Additionally, the relationship of GLDAH to agronomic traits and a root trait was assessed using the Reeder/Conan population. Correlation analysis showed a positive relationship between GLDAH and test weight, seed weight, seed diameter under heat and drought stress conditions but not cool, well-watered conditions. In contrast, GLDAH had a neutral relationship with grain yield under the stress conditions, but showed negative correlation under well-watered conditions. Major QTL QGfd.mst-4A had a consistent effect under hot, dry conditions for the populations. The Reeder allele of QGfd.mst-4A resulted in longer GLDAH and also increased the amount of xylem exudate, indicating higher root mass and/or activity. These results suggested that i) QTn.mst-6B may be useful for improvement of spring wheat production under a wide range of environment and ii) QGfd.mst-4A may contribute to heat and drought stress resistance potentially through root function, but may negatively affect grain yield under well-watered conditions in the northern Great Plains of North America and similar environments.


Native herbivores can establish novel interactions with alien plants after invasion. Nevertheless, it is unclear whether these new associations are quantitatively significant compared to the assemblages with native flora under natural conditions. Herbivores associated with two exotic plants, namely Senecio inaequidens and S. pterophorus, and two coexisting natives, namely S. vulgaris and S. lividus, were surveyed in a replicated long‐term field study to ascertain whether the plant–herbivore assemblages in mixed communities are related to plant novelty and insect diet breadth. Native herbivores used exotic Senecio as their host plants. Of the 19 species of Lepidoptera, Diptera, and Hemiptera found in this survey, 14 were associated with the exotic Senecio plants. Most of these species were polyphagous, yet we found a higher number of individuals with a narrow diet breadth, which is contrary to the assumption that host switching mainly occurs in generalist herbivores. The Senecio specialist Sphenella marginata (Diptera: Tephritidae) was the most abundant and widely distributed insect species (ca. 80% of the identified specimens). Sphenella was associated with S. lividus, S. vulgaris and S. inaequidens and was not found on S. pterophorus. The presence of native plant congeners in the invaded community did not ensure an instantaneous ecological fitting between insects and alien plants. We conclude that novel associations between native herbivores and introduced Senecio plants are common under natural conditions. Plant novelty is, however, not the only predictor of herbivore abundance due to the complexity of natural conditions.


Implanted materials that enter the body first interact with proteins in body fluids, and cells then perceive and respond to the foreign implant through this layer of adsorbed proteins. Thus, spatially specific regulation of protein adsorption on an implant surface is pivotal for mediating subsequent cellular behaviors. Unlike the surface modulation strategy for traditional biomaterials, in this research, materials with a nonuniform spatial distribution of surface charges were designed to achieve site-selective protein adsorption and further influence cell behavior by charge regulation. Spatially varying microdomains with different levels of piezoelectricity were generated via a focus laser beam-induced phase transition. In addition, after polarization, the zones with different levels of piezoelectricity showed significant differences in surface charge density. The results of scanning Kelvin probe force microscopy (SKPM) showed that the surface charge on the material exhibits a nonuniform spatial distribution after laser irradiation and polarization. Site-specific charge-mediated selective protein adsorption was demonstrated through a protein adsorption experiment. Cell behavior analysis showed that the increase in charge density was conducive to promoting cell adhesion and the formation of filopodia while the nonuniform spatial distribution of charge promoted an oriented arrangement of cells; both features accelerated cell migration. This study provides a new method for spatially regulating protein adsorption through surface charges to further influence cell behaviors.


Maximizing the precision in estimating parameters in a quantum system subject to instrumentation constraints is cast as a convex optimization problem. We account for prior knowledge about the parameter range by developing a worst-case and average case objective for optimizing the precision. Focusing on the single parameter case, we show that the optimization problems are {\em linear programs}. For the average case the solution to the linear program can be expressed analytically and involves a simple search: finding the largest element in a list. An example is presented which compares what is possible under constraints against the ideal with no constraints, the Quantum Fisher Information.


This paper derives a structural relationship between the nominal exchange rate, national price levels, and observed yields on long maturity inflation - indexed bonds. This relationship can be interpreted as defining the fair value of the exchange rate that will prevail in any model or real world economy in which inflation indexed bonds are traded. An advantage of our derivation is that it does not require restrictive assumptions on financial market equilibrium to be operational. We take our theory to a dataset spanning the period January 2001 - February 2011 and study a daily , real time decompositions of pound, euro, and yen exchange rates into their fair value and risk premium components. The relative importance of these two factors varies depending on the sub sample studied. However, sub samples in which we find correlations of 0.30 to 0.60 between daily exchange rate changes and daily changes in fair value are not uncommon. We also show empirically and justify theoretically that a 1 percent rise in the foreign currency risk premium is on average contemporaneously associated with a 50 basis point rise in the inflation indexed bond return differential in favor of the foreign country and an 50 basis point appreciation of the dollar