Previous studies suggest that choices are perceived as difficult as well as negatively emotion-laden when they tap into moral considerations. However, we propose that the involvement of moral issues and values can also facilitate decisions because people often insistently preclude them from trade-offs with other values. Because such values are treated as inviolable and absolute, they are called sacred values (e.g., Tetlock et al., 2000). Two experiments examined the influence of sacred values (measured by a recent self-report scale) and variation of trade-off type (taboo, tragic, routine trade-offs) on perceived decision difficulty and negative emotions. As hypothesized, decision difficulty and negative emotions show diverging patterns as a function of sacred values and trade-off types. When the decision situation involved two conflicting sacred values (i.e., tragic trade-off), people perceived the decision task as emotionally stressful and difficult. However, when the decision situation was associated with only one sacred value (i.e., taboo trade-off), people perceived the task as more negatively emotion-laden, but as easier to solve, compared to a situation not involving sacred values (i.e., routine trade-off). These findings suggest that reliance on sacred values may work as a heuristic.


RFID is an emerging auto identification technology that provides great features to ambient intelligence environments. It poses a number of research challenges such as interference decrease, security over the RF channel and throughput increase. When there are more than one
tag responding to a reader, a collision can occur decreasing system's throughput. That is called "the tag collision problem". This problem is going to be analyzed in order to optimize system throughput. Reducing the total number of collisions, average throughput can be improved, and power consumption decreased. Thus, main anti-collision algorithms are presented and analyzed.


Her hair fell across her face, as she tried to sip from the hot cup. --The Virgin and the Gipsy You will play with sex, will you! --"The Novel" It is the established opinion, since its publication in 1930, that The Virgin and the Gipsy is one of D. H. Lawrence's most successful albeit minor works of fiction. Representative praise of this novella ranges from the early and unqualified enthusiasm of F. R. Leavis, who deems it "one of Lawrence's finest things," to the more balanced and detailed considerations by H. M. Daleski, Keith Cushman, and Daniel Schneider. The various approaches of these critics all emphasize, in different ways, the work's anticipatory evocation of several coordinate preoccupations and patterns in a later novel, Lady Chatterley's Lover. In the earlier and shorter fiction's portrait of a cautious and deracinated male, a frustrated and vulnerable female, and a sensual connection between them that crosses class and culture--in short, in such crucial correspondence there remains much to ponder in the consistent development of Lawrence's doctrine and technique during the last few years of his life. With a similar inclination to link this novella to that more celebrated and explicit longer work, Julian Moynahan explains how The Virgin and the Gipsy superbly reflects Lawrence's view of the "aetiology of the diseased condition of life" (Moynahan 215); more recently, John Humma elaborates on the relevant themes of social pathology and instinctual malaise by isolating the trope of "inside and outside" in the tale, a metaphoric counterpoint used by Lawrence to chart a syndrome of maladjustment, repression, and failure that inhabits the claustrophobic Saywell home as well as the more sprawling anterooms of the decorous Chatterley estate (Humma 78). Often accompanying such praise and placement by critics of The Virgin and the Gipsy, however, is a defensive acknowledgment of the work's purportedly minor status--that is, of its relative lack of complexity, bulk, and interest next to the earlier major novels, and of its alleged transitional function merely as a prelude to the issues Lawrence would explore more memorably in Lady Chatterley's Lover. Indeed, Harry T. Moore grudgingly regards the work as a success but considers it "among the lowest of Lawrence's fictional achievements"; to this pioneering critic and biographer, it functions only as an unimportant diversion for Lawrence, a minor piece that both recalls "The Horse Dealer's Daughter" and prepares for the Sleeping Beauty motif that receives full development with Oliver Mellors and Connie Chatterley (Moore 333, 416). Similarly, another influential and early Lawrence scholar, Graham Hough, dismisses this novella with the condescending evaluation that is still the consensus judgment today; while he briefly compliments the work for its focus and consistency, he finally judges it "no more than a preliminary working over of Lady Chatterley material" (Hough 188). Even more suggestive is the continuing history of minimal concern by most critics with this fiction, with many, commentators, even in major and comprehensive studies of Lawrence, electing to scarcely even mention it.(1) It is certainly true that The Virgin and the Gipsy, viewed as either a short novel or a long tale, must lack the scope and ambition of Lawrence's longer fictions. It is also clear that this work provides a transparent and less intense treatment of several themes and metaphors that have central importance throughout Lawrence's career. As I attempt to demonstrate in this essay, it is precisely such transparency of artistic technique and fairy, tale starkness of theme that contribute to its significance in the Lawrence canon; these qualities of unencumbered philosophy and elemental design offer provocative and interrelated clues from 1925 about Lawrence's physical and spiritual condition, sexual confidence, and creative ability as he begins the last five years of his life. …


A major issue in electroencephalogram (EEG)-based brain–computer interfaces (BCIs) is the intrinsic nonstationarities in the brain waves, which may degrade the performance of the classifier, while transitioning from calibration to feedback generation phase. The nonstationary nature of the EEG data may cause its input probability distribution to vary over time, which often appear as a covariate shift. To adapt to the covariate shift, we had proposed an adaptive learning method in our previous work and tested it on offline standard datasets. This paper presents an online BCI system using previously developed covariate shift detection (CSD)-based adaptive classifier to discriminate between mental tasks and generate neurofeedback in the form of visual and exoskeleton motion. The CSD test helps prevent unnecessary retraining of the classifier. The feasibility of the developed online-BCI system was first tested on ten healthy individuals, and then on ten stroke patients having hand disability. A comparison of the proposed online CSD-based adaptive classifier with conventional nonadaptive classifier has shown a significantly ( ${p}$  < 0.01) higher classification accuracy in both the cases of healthy and patient groups. The results demonstrate that the online CSD-based adaptive BCI system is superior to the nonadaptive BCI system and it is feasible to be used for actuating hand exoskeleton for the stroke-rehabilitation applications.


While visiting Thailand, my desire to bring home the best shrimp paste led me to an elderly seller and to a young man who made the paste. Shrimp paste is a necessary binder used in innumerable seasoning pastes in Thai cooking, and these two people9s connection to shrimp paste had, in fact, become a crucial binder in their own lives. For the elderly seller, shrimp paste kept her linked with her family after her marriage. It helped her earn an income independent of her abusive wealthy husband. The shrimp paste maker married and thereby found a profession that he loves. Eventually, he became the sole maker of this ancient paste in his wife9s family, carrying on their 150-year-old tradition. Once made with care and pride only by families, today shrimp paste is mass-produced in factories. The change affects not only the quality and taste of Thai cooking, but also food-related tradition and culture. The elderly seller9s livelihood is waning, and the young man who is the elderly seller9s source, is now the last of a long line of makers of this ancient ingredient.


This thesis investigated perceptions of HIV/AIDS at the Walter Sisulu University (WSU), situated in the Eastern Cape, South Africa. The study focused on understanding opinions related to HIV/AIDS using data derived from interviews with twenty HIV/AIDS key role players from across the entire institution, and twenty students at the Institute for Advanced Tooling (IAT), a postgraduate section of the Mechanical Engineering Department in the
Faculty of Science, Engineering and Technology (FSET) in Chiselhurst, East London. A key concern of the study was to examine the way in which local cultural beliefs and practices may shape understandings in relation to HIV/AIDS and to help inform more sensitive prevention campaigns in the future.

The study, methodologically utilising Denzin's concept of interpretative interactionism,and Giddens' structuration theory, found that there was no single 'cultural belief' regarding health or related issues, but that cultural beliefs were always expressed in personal and contextual ways. The investigation into nutrition, health and general well-being and perceived causes of HIV/AIDS revealed that research informants subscribed to cultural beliefs for different reasons in personal constructs, and the study concluded that cultural issues surrounding these factors would need to be socially debated in intervention efforts.
Perceptions of gender, as the most significant factor, were highly contested, with differing beliefs expressed regarding female sexual agency. It was further stated by research informants that the ABC approach lacked contextual consideration of environmental factors. The thesis therefore argues that for effective preventative action, there is a necessity, firstly, for a health-enabling environment to be created that includes strategies
for alleviating nutritional deficiencies in a culturally contextual fashion. Second, based on the data, it was established that in relation to respondents' orientation towards cultural beliefs, social HIV/AIDS debate programmes should be introduced in conjunction with health officials, the community and traditional healers in a peer-oriented approach. It was thirdly established that this approach should include addressing contextual factors from a
'lived experience' perspective, and that social positioning by the WSU should occur towards certain social issues (for example, constructions of gender) identified within this
study.


Obesity, defined as a body mass index (BMI) ≥30 kg/m2, is an important clinical condition that affects many organ systems. In addition to the systematic effects, obesity can lead to complexity in the application of clinical anesthesia, such as regional anesthesia approaches. The use of ultrasound (US) may be necessary to ensure the success and reliability of neuraxial blocks, especially in patients with anatomical landmarks that are difficult to determine. Presently described is a case with a morbidly obese patient case for whom we had to determine the puncture point for a spinal needle using US due to pulmonary issues. In the preoperative evaluation of this 69-year old, 180 kg, 150 cm tall, female patient with a BMI of 75 kg/m2 who had a fracture of the left femoral diaphysis, it was observed that she presented with wheezy breathing and a cough. The physical examination found that end expiration was prolonged and wheezing was auscultated at the end of expiration. Spinal anesthesia was administered to the patient with US guidance as a result of the pulmonary issues. She was admitted to the intensive care unit with no observed problem and was discharged to the orthopedic clinic the following day.


An inquiry into the nature of metaphor, as it has evolved since Aristotle and particularly in the late twentieth century, allows fresh consideration of biblical texts. Using as a sample trope the ancient Near Eastern and biblical figure of the cosmic garden where humans live with the gods until they are exiled, the article works out the implications of the image, using prophetic texts and cognitive theory. Briefly and generally, then, three other texts are considered: Genesis 2-3, Deuteronomy, Song of Songs, where the figure is present but signifying differently. The article closes with a consideration of how moderns may be addressed by this biblical metaphor.


Human serum contains a complex array of proteolytically derived peptides (serum peptidome) that may provide a correlate of biological events occurring in the entire organism; for instance, as a diagnostic for solid tumors (Petricoin, E. F.; Ardekani, A. M.; Hitt, B. A.; Levine, P. J.; Fusaro, V. A.; Steinberg, S. M.; Mills, G. B.; Simone, C.; Fishman, D. A.; Kohn, E. C.; Liotta, L. Lancet 2002, 359, 572-577). Here, we describe a novel, automated technology platform for the simultaneous measurement of serum peptides that is simple, scalable, and generates highly reproducible patterns. Peptides are captured and concentrated using reversed-phase (RP) batch processing in a magnetic particle-based format, automated on a liquid handling robot, and followed by a MALDI TOF mass spectrometric readout. The protocol is based on a detailed investigation of serum handling, RP ligand and eluant selection, small-volume robotics design, an optimized spectral acquisition program, and consistent peak extraction plus binning across a study set. The improved sensitivity and resolution allowed detection of 400 polypeptides (0.8-15-kDa range) in a single droplet (approximately 50 microL) of serum, and almost 2000 unique peptides in larger sample sets, which can then be analyzed using common microarray data analysis software. A pilot study indicated that sera from brain tumor patients can be distinguished from controls based on a pattern of 274 peptide masses. This, in turn, served to create a learning algorithm that correctly predicted 96.4% of the samples as either normal or diseased.


BACKGROUND
Tinea imbricata is a chronic superficial mycosis caused exclusively by Trichophyton concentricum. The condition mainly affects individuals living in primitive and isolated environment in developing countries and is rarely seen in developed countries. Physicians in nonendemic areas might not be aware of this fungal infection.

OBJECTIVE
To familiarize physicians with the clinical manifestations, diagnosis, and treatment of tinea imbricata.

METHODS
A PubMed search was completed in Clinical Queries using the key terms "Tinea imbricata" and "Trichophyton concentricum". The search strategy included meta-analysis, randomized controlled trials, clinical trials, observational studies, reviews, and case reports. The information retrieved from the above search was used in the compilation of the present article.

RESULTS
The typical initial lesions of tinea imbricata consist of multiple, brownish red, scaly, pruritic papules. The papules then spread centrifugally to form annular and/or concentric rings that can extend to form serpinginous or polycyclic plaques with or without erythema. With time, multiple overlapping lesions develop, and the plaques become lamellar with abundant thick scales adhering to the interior of the lesion, giving rise to the appearance of overlapping roof tiles, lace, or fish scales. Lamellar detachment of the scales is common. The diagnosis is mainly clinical, based on the characteristic skin lesions. If necessary, the diagnosis can be confirmed by potassium hydroxide wet-mount examination of skin scrapings of the active border of the lesion which typically shows short septate hyphae, numerous chlamydoconidia, and no arthroconidia. Currently, oral terbinafine is the drug of choice for the treatment of tinea imbricata. Combined therapy of an oral antifungal agent with a topical antifungal and keratolytic agent may increase the cure rate.

CONCLUSION
In most cases, a spot diagnosis of tinea imbricata can be made based on the characteristic skin lesions consisting of scaly, concentric annular rings and overlapping plaques that are pruritic. Due to popularity of international travel, physicians involved in patient care should be aware of this fungal infection previously restricted to limited geographical areas.


National survey data from 884 families were used to examine the overall health of children and adults with fragile X syndrome. Results indicate the rate of obesity in adults with fragile X syndrome is similar to the general population (∼30%). Male children with fragile X syndrome, however, had higher rates of obesity (31%) when compared with typically developing same-aged peers (18%). Both males and females displayed food selectivity, especially with regard to texture. Physical activity levels for children were higher than for adults, but neither group met recommended levels. Several cognitive and behavioral characteristics, food selectivity, and physical activity were related to overall health and body mass index. Continued monitoring of the health status of individuals with fragile X syndrome is recommended.


The paper deals with a prey predator model with infection and refuge in prey. It is assumed that the 8 predator is predating on both susceptible and infected prey. We have considered two models, one without refuge 9 and another with refuge. We have studied local stability, bifurcation and permanence of both models. Further, the 10 dynamics of the system is studied numerically on the basis of interaction rate of prey - predator (β) and refuge 11 size (m). The study reveals that refuge sizes of susceptible and infected prey are key parameters that control the 12 dynamics of the system.


The multiscale morphology and device performance of printed semiconducting polymers are highly sensitive to the substrate/ink interfacial properties during solution coating. There is an urgent need for general design rules correlating the substrate properties and conjugated polymer (CP) morphology, which do not yet exist. Dynamic surfaces are particularly promising for templating highly crystalline and highly aligned conjugated polymer thin films and have been shown in recent studies. Herein, we implement the dynamic-templating method using a series of liquid-infused nanoporous substrates as a tool to study the impact of template reconfigurability and chemistry on the multiscale morphology of conjugated polymer thin films, using a high performing donor–acceptor polymer (DPP-BTz) as a model compound. By quantifying the enthalpy of adsorption, we demonstrate that the strength of template–CP interactions directly measures the effectiveness of dynamic surfaces in promoting conjugated polymer crystallization and alignment. We further show that the enthalpy of interactions increases by enhancing the template dynamics and is sensitively modulated by template chemistry. Specifically, increasing the template–CP interactions leads to a larger domain size and higher degree of crystallinity in templated conjugated polymer thin films prepared by meniscus-guided solution coating. This observation validates our hypothesis that dynamic templates function by promoting the nucleation of conjugated polymers. We also demonstrate that such dynamic-template-dependent morphology is independent of coating speed. Notably, the enhanced morphological properties modulate the charge carrier mobility in field-effect transistors (FETs) over an order of magnitude reaching a hole mobility of 2.8 cm2 V−1 s−1. This work is a significant step towards establishing general guidelines on how the substrate–ink interfacial properties influence morphology and performance of solution coated CP thin films.


A comprehensive analysis of the available data reveals that there is currently not enough
information for making informed management decisions regarding the seal-fishery conflict in
the Baltic Sea. Knowledge of hidden and visual damages is limited, which means that the
actual cost to the fishing industry from damages is not known. No research has been carried out
of the effects of culling seals, which has been one of the main conflict management strategies.
As rising seal numbers are probably going to lead to increased damages, then the other main
management tool – compensation payments, will not be a viable long-term strategy and does
not ensure that coastal fishing industry will survive. I argue that governments should instead
concentrate on technical innovations to reduce seal damages, as fish damaged in gear has
currently been the main concern for fishermen. In the second part of the thesis, integrated stepselection
function was successfully used to look at grey and ringed seal movements on a fine
scale, which shows that such a method can be used on marine mammal data to obtain novel
information for management. The results showed that both species select for deeper areas
compared to what is available within the range of a single step. Previous studies have only
shown that seals reside in shallower areas, but as iSSA defines availability more precisely, it
was possible to see that although seals are bound to shallower areas due to haul-out sites, they
seem to select for deeper water in those areas. Ringed seals had shorter step lengths in deeper
areas and when further from coast, whereas grey seals had longer step lengths in deeper areas
and away from coast. This might be explained by the difference in water depths that these
species use for movement and for feeding. Grey seals selected for steps that were closer to
coast and ringed seals selected for steps further from coast. Grey seals had shorter step lengths
and directional persistence when slope of the seafloor was steeper, which could show the areas
where grey seals prefer to feed and use for directional movement.


Introduction Current BTS guidelines recommend the utilisation of medical thoracoscopy (MT) for cytology negative, exudative pleural effusions. A large pleural cavity is required between the lung and chest wall for safe MT. The presence of little or no pleural fluid, despite there being pleural disease present, makes the procedure technically challenging with a higher potential for complications, bleeding and failure of the procedure. Objective We compare the safety and efficiency of MT performed in patients with small or absent pleural effusions, with patients with moderate or large effusions. Methods A retrospective review of case notes, radiology and pathology reports of patients who underwent MT between January 2010 and March 2012 was conducted. All procedures were performed or assisted by a level II thoracoscopist with the aid of live ultrasound scanning (USS). Pleural effusion size was estimated using chest x-ray and bedside USS. A small effusion was defined as blunting of the costophrenic angle only on chest x-ray and less than 100ml fluid estimation on USS. Patients were divided into two groups based on effusion size (absent or small effusion and moderate or large effusion). Data was collected and analysed for minor and major complications and diagnostic yield. Results 43 MT were performed during the period. 88% of patients were male (n=38). The mean patient age was 70.1 years (SD 8.69). 41.9% patients had absent/small effusions (n=18). There were no major complications documented in either group. The minor complication rate was 8% in the moderate/large effusions group (n=2) and 11% in the absent/small effusions group (n=2). The minor complications noted were trapped lung, surgical emphysema, wound infection and haematoma. The diagnostic yield was 96% in the moderate/large effusions group (n=24) and 94% in the absent/small effusions group (n=17). Conclusions Despite its technical challenges, MT can be performed safely and effectively with minimal minor complications and high diagnostic yield in patients with small pleural effusions and even when no fluid is present when performed by thoracoscopists with appropriate experience level.


With more wind power integrated into grid, wind-gas coordinating power generation attracts extensive attention, and it's no longer appropriate to validate automatic generation control (AGC) algorithm for large scale wind-gas generation with a single tool. First, this paper proposes an AGC simulation architecture that combines Real Time Digital Simulator (RTDS) and other off-the-shelf devices to implement the hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) simulation. Then the concept of wind-gas coordinating equivalent power plant (WGPP) is adopted to participate in power system dispatching, and several AGC strategies are proposed accordingly. Case study validates the feasibility of the AGC simulation platform, and demonstrates the WGPP concept can improve the tie-line control.


Abstract. In coupled biogeochmical–ocean models, the choice of numerical schemes in the ocean circulation component can have a large influence on the distribution of the biological tracers. Biogeochemical models are traditionally coupled to ocean general circulation models (OGCMs), which are based on dynamical cores employing quasi-regular meshes, and therefore utilize limited spatial resolution in a global setting. An alternative approach is to use an unstructured-mesh ocean model, which allows variable mesh resolution. Here, we present initial results of a coupling between the Finite Element Sea Ice–Ocean Model (FESOM) and the biogeochemical model REcoM2 (Regulated Ecosystem Model 2), with special focus on the Southern Ocean. Surface fields of nutrients, chlorophyll a and net primary production (NPP) were compared to available data sets with a focus on spatial distribution and seasonal cycle. The model produces realistic spatial distributions, especially regarding NPP and chlorophyll a, whereas the iron concentration becomes too low in the Pacific Ocean. The modelled NPP is 32.5 Pg C yr−1 and the export production 6.1 Pg C yr−1, which is lower than satellite-based estimates, mainly due to excessive iron limitation in the Pacific along with too little coastal production. The model performs well in the Southern Ocean, though the assessment here is hindered by the lower availability of observations. The modelled NPP is 3.1 Pg C yr−1 in the Southern Ocean and the export production 1.1 Pg C yr−1. All in all, the combination of a circulation model on an unstructured grid with a biogeochemical–ocean model shows similar performance to other models at non-eddy-permitting resolution. It is well suited for studies of the Southern Ocean, but on the global scale deficiencies in the Pacific Ocean would have to be taken into account.


Capacitive deionization (CDI) is being progressed as an auspicious ion removal technique from brackish and seawater. Herein, we introduce a novel one-step facile chemical approach to fabricate tubular architectured composite electrodes made of both Titania and Multiwalled carbon nanotubes (TNTs/MWCNTs). The composites have been exploited, for the first time, as electrode materials for capacitive deionization. The composite electrodes were fully characterized via Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscopy (FESEM), Raman spectroscopy, X-ray Diffraction (XRD), X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS) techniques, and Nitrogen Sorption. The electrochemical response was investigated by using Cyclic Voltammetry (CV), Galvanostatic Charge and Discharge (GCD), and Potentio-Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy (PEIS) measurements. The fabricated composite electrodes containing 5 wt% TiO2 nanotubes showed remarkable specific capacitance, conductivity, reversibility, and durability compared to pristine MWCNTs and other MWCNT-based composite electrodes reported in the literature. The desalination capability of the composite electrode was investigated using batch mode operation. The electrosorption capacity of the composite electrode containing 5 wt% TiO2 nanotubes (13.2 mg g−1) is approximately two fold larger than that of pristine MWCNTs (7.7 mg g−1), indicating an improved desalination efficiency. Therefore, the fabricated TNT/MWCNT composite electrode is a promising candidate for CDI technology.


Finite model theory is a study of the logical properties of finite mathematical structures. This talk gives an overview of how finite model theory arose, and of some work that sprang from that. This includes:

1. Differences between the model theory of finite structures and infinite structures. Most of the classical theorems of logic fail for finite structures, which gives us a challenge to develop new concepts and tools, appropriate for finite structures.

2. The relationship between finite model theory and complexity theory. Surprisingly enough, it turns out that in some cases, we can characterize complexity classes (such as NP) in terms of logic, without using any notion of machine, computation, or time.

3. Zero-one laws. There is a remarkable phenomenon, which says that certain properties (such as those expressible in first-order logic) are either almost surely true or almost surely false.

4. Descriptive complexity. Here we consider how complex a formula must be to express a given property.

The goal of this talk is to introduce the audience to the fascinating area of finite model theory.


Article History: Received: 1 Jan. 2017 Accepted: 15 Mar. 2017 Moonpool is an opening in the floor or base of a hull ship which can be used to lower tools and vehicles into the sea in a protected area. In this paper, the effect of a rectangular cross section moonpool on the resistance force of a supply vessel was investigated both by experimental and numerical methods. For both methods a 1:37.2 scale of a surface vessel was used. Experiments were carried out at various Froude numbers in the range of 0.185-0.370 in the towing tank for cases with moonpool, i.e, when the entrance at the bottom of the ship was open and without moonpool, i.e, when the entrance was closed. A two phase flow CFD simulation based on volume of fluid (VOF) method was used to calculate the resistance coefficients of the vessel and to investigate fluid flow around the ship and inside the moonpool. The acquired numerical results showed fair agreement with the experimental results. The results showed that the resistance coefficient of the ship with moonpool was about 21 percent larger than that of the ship without moonpool.


Abstract. Clouds composed of both ice particles and supercooled liquid water droplets exist at temperatures above ~236 K. These mixed phase clouds, which strongly impact climate, are very sensitive to the presence of solid particles that can catalyse freezing. In this paper we describe experiments to determine the conditions at which the clay mineral kaolinite nucleates ice when immersed within water droplets. These are the first immersion mode experiments in which the ice nucleating ability of kaolinite has been determined as a function of clay surface area, cooling rate and also at constant temperatures. Water droplets containing a known amount of clay mineral were supported on a hydrophobic surface and cooled at rates of between 0.8 and 10 K min −1 or held at constant sub-zero temperatures. The time and temperature at which individual 10–50 μm diameter droplets froze were determined by optical microscopy. For a cooling rate of 10 K min −1 , the median nucleation temperature of 10–40 μm diameter droplets increased from close to the homogeneous nucleation limit (236 K) to 240.8 ± 0.6 K as the concentration of kaolinite in the droplets was increased from 0.005 wt% to 1 wt%. This data shows that the probability of freezing scales with surface area of the kaolinite inclusions. We also show that at a constant temperature the number of liquid droplets decreases exponentially as they freeze over time. The constant cooling rate experiments are consistent with the stochastic, singular and modified singular descriptions of heterogeneous nucleation; however, freezing during cooling and at constant temperature can be reconciled best with the stochastic approach. We report temperature dependent nucleation rate coefficients (nucleation events per unit time per unit area) for kaolinite and present a general parameterisation for immersion nucleation which may be suitable for cloud modelling once nucleation by other important ice nucleating species is quantified in the future.


Computer programming is a core area in computer science education that involves practical as well as conceptual learning goals. The literature in programming education reports however that novice students have great problems in their learning. These problems apply to concepts as well as to practise. The empirically based research presented in this thesis contributes to the body of knowledge on students' learning by investigating the relationship between conceptual and practical learning in novice student learning of programming. Previous research in programming education has focused either on students' practical or conceptual learning. The present research indicates however that students' problems with learning to program partly depend on a complex relationship and mutual dependence between the two. The most significant finding is that practise, in terms of activities at different levels of proficiency, and qualitatively different conceptual understandings, have dimensions of variation in common. An analytical model is suggested where the dimensions of variation relate both to concepts and activities. The implications of the model are several. With the dimensions of variation at the center of learning this implies that when students discern a dimension of variation, related conceptual understandings and the meaning embedded in related practises can be discerned. Activities as well as concepts can relate to more than one dimension. Activities at a higher level of proficiency, as well as qualitatively richer understandings of concepts, relate to more dimensions of variation. Concrete examples are given on how variation theory and patterns of variation can be applied in teaching programming. The results can be used by educators to help students discern dimensions of variation, and thus facilitate practical as well as conceptual learning.


Primate Evolution and Human Origins compiles, for the first time, the major ideas and publications that have shaped our current view of the evolutionary biology of the primates and the origin of the human line. Designed for freshmen-to-graduate students in anthropology, paleontology, and biology, the book is a unique collection of classic papers, culled from the past 20 years of research. It is also an important reference for academicians and researchers, as it covers the entire scope of primate and human evolution (with an emphasis on the fossil record). A comprehensive bibliography cites over 2000 significant articles not found in the main text.


Clarification of what partnering is and its practical implications may help the construction industry to achieve the full benefits of this concept. The purpose of this study is to shed more light on how the partnering concept as practiced in real-life projects compares with the way partnering is described in the literature by exploring the hard (formal/contractual) elements of this concept. By this, we aim to identify discrepancies between theory and practice and help clear up the confusion that results from conflicting definitions of partnering. This investigation is based on a literature study and 39 interviews with respondents from 44 construction projects classified as partnering projects. Findings reveal that the discrepancies between theory and practice are remarkable: either the practitioners have misunderstood what partnering entails or the minimum requirements are too stringent and do not reflect the real-life use of the concept. Observation from case projects shows that no partnering hard element is applied in all studied projects. Partnering projects may share the partnering label, but use different sets of hard elements. Partnering can be identified as being present through a range of features, characteristics and interaction behaviors. This concept should be studied as an enacting strategy that can be adopted by various contract models rather than simply as an alternative contract form.


The conventional proportional odds (PO) model assumes that data are collected using simple random sampling by which each sampling unit has the equal probability of being selected from a population. However, when complex survey sampling designs are used, such as stratified sampling, clustered sampling or unequal selection probabilities, it is inappropriate to conduct ordinal logistic regression analyses without taking sampling design into account. Failing to do so may lead to biased estimates of parameters and incorrect corresponding variances. This study illustrates the use of PO models with complex survey data to predict mathematics proficiency levels using Stata and compare the results of PO models accommodating and not accommodating survey sampling features.


The debate surrounding police and judicial cooperation in the European Union can be criticised for focussing too much on certain forms of cooperation or on specific problems. As a result, a thorough overview of what has been achieved in this area since the Maastricht Treaty's entry into force in November 1993 is lacking. In contrast to the disjointed and mostly secret cooperation between police and judicial services in Europe prior to 1993, the current regime has established a coherent and transparent system within the EU that can only be described as revolutionary. This book discusses that peaceful revolution in light of the action programmes (the Brussels Programme, the Tampere Programme, the Hague Programme and the Stockholm Programme) which were drafted in concurrence with all major changes to the constitutional relations within the European Union: the Maastricht Treaty, the Amsterdam Treaty, the Nice Treaty, the Rome Treaty and the Lisbon Treaty. This programmatic approach makes it possible to present in a clear manner the imposing array of police and judicial agencies, facilities and networks (Europol, Schengen Information System, Eurojust, European Arrest Warrant, etc.) created through democratic processes with the aim of ensuring the security of the citizens of the European Union. In particular, the problems concerning the control of internal and external borders and with respect to the containment of terrorism demonstrate that this system urgently needs to be reinforced. It is ironic that the Brexit negotiations demonstrate the importance of the current system of police and judicial cooperation in the European Union: the United Kingdom would like to keep the great benefits of a number of its crucial components. CYRILLE FIJNAUT is a former Professor of Criminology and Criminal Law at Erasmus University Rotterdam, KU Leuven and Tilburg University. He is a leading expert on the transatlantic history of criminology, the containment of organised crime and terrorism, comparative criminal procedure and police law, and the history of policing in Europe and the Low Countries.


The Alkali-Silica Reaction (ASR) in concrete was first discovered in the 1940s and has since become a well documented problem in structures in Australia and around the world. The result of ASR can result in unexpected and premature deterioration of large and expensive buildings and pieces of infrastructure such as bridges and dams. The nature of ASR means that not only does it reduce the capacity of the concrete but also expose it to further deterioration. It is for this reason that it has become a serious concern for the owners of these structures and engineers alike. There have been many studies into the mechanisms that drive ASR, many of which have involved complex numerical and mathematical modelling as part of the study. Due to the complex nature of the reaction there are no models that are simple but effective enough to use on a practical basis. This thesis was designed to produce a macroscopic model of the alkali silica reaction using Finite Element Analysis (F.E.A.) software in order for engineers to use on a practical basis.

A simplified model operates by idealizing a scenario and focusing on producing fairly accurate results for a given set of parameters rather than try to model the process in its entirety. These models can be very useful when conducting preliminary assessments because they can model the behaviour of a system on a macro scale. Having a simplified model would potentially save a large number of man- hours and material costs when trying to repair these structures by giving the engineers a greater understanding of the current structural state and the extent to which they need to either repair or demolish and rebuild.

Last year, Tracy Knight simulated the growth of ASR in physical specimens, demonstrated the reduction in compressive strength of a sample and then showed that the compressive strength could be restored by using composite materials to create a confining pressure around the column. I intended to construct a simplified model of the ASR by using the Finite Element Modelling (FEM) software Strand7 and then check my model by replicating her compression test results. A test such as this where the model has to replicate certain known characteristics is a good method of validation, otherwise the model might predict erroneous behaviour.

Strand7 does not have the capability to model the crack initiation and propagation which is integral in the ASR process therefore an alternate way of replicating the reduction in compressive strength needed to be found. The tensile forces associated with the alkalai silica reaction will be replicated by way of elevated temperatures at the nodes. By encouraging expansion in the localised as a function of temperature it recreates the expansion characteristic of the ASR gel along with the tensile forces within the surrounding concrete matrix.

The development of this model started by reproducing the results of a simple compression test on a concrete cylinder to achieve a baseline for my results to be reflected against. Next the nature of the ASR would be replicated by way of a temperature being applied at various nodes to induce thermal expansion in the concrete and the patterns of cracking investigated. This is then refined in the next stage which involved applying both the temperature and compressive loading simultaneously to confirm that this process replicated the reduction in strength associated with ASR and this was verified using a three dimensional model. The modelling process had been planned to include a stage at the end where the three dimensional model would be confined with fibre composites in order to replicate Tracy Knight's thesis and restore the original strength to the concrete but the work load and time constraints did not allow for this to happen.

Many opportunities exist to extend the work I have begun. Not enough time has been devoted to refining the method of determining how many temperature nodes are required and what type of loading conditions various patterns will give. The ultimate goal of being able to replicate the results in Tracy Knights thesis is yet to be achieved. The results of the compressive testing will continue to be used to validate the models created.


This article is based on a research project studying political discussions in the Swedish LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bi-, Transsexual) community Qruiser. These discussions were very antagonistic and rude. The aim is therefore to understand what motivated participation in these heated discussions. The focus is on Qruiser political forum threads. The research is nethnographic through online interviews, participant observations in, and content analyses of, political discussions threads during the month of November 2012. By using framing theory as an analytical tool, the paper seeks to answer which frames attracted and mobilized participation and how this was done. In the article I find that polarizing frames of the left vs the right, the xenophobic vs the political correct, together with a truth and a game frame was used to motivated participation in the Qruiser forum threads.


Finding the skeleton of a 3D mesh is an essential task for many applications such as mesh animation, tracking, and 3D registeration. In recent years, new technologies in computer vision such as Microsoft Kinect have proven that a mesh skeleton can be useful such as in the case of human machine interactions. To calculate the 3D mesh skeleton, the mesh properties such as topology and its components relations are utilized. In this paper, we propose the usage of a novel algorithm that can efficiently calculate a vertex antipodal point. A vertex antipodal point is the diametrically opposite point that belongs to the same mesh. The set of centers of the connecting lines between each vertex and its antipodal point represents the 3D mesh desired skeleton. Post processing is completed for smoothing and fitting centers into optimized skeleton parts. The algorithm is tested on different classes of 3D objects and produced efficient results that are comparable with the literature. The algorithm has the advantages of producing high quality skeletons as it preserves details. This is suitable for applications where the mesh skeleton mapping is required to be kept as much as possible.


This paper studies the effects of a voluntary skill certification scheme in an online freelancing labour market. The paper show that obtaining skill certificates increases a worker's earnings. This effect is not driven by increased worker productivity but by decreased employer uncertainty. The increase in worker earnings is mostly realised through an increase in the value of the projects obtained (up to 10%) rather than an increase in the number of projects obtained (up to 0.03 projects). In addition, the paper finds evidence for negative selection to completing skill certificates, which suggests that the workers who complete more skill certificates are, on average, in a more disadvantaged position in the labour market. Finally, skill certificates are found to be an imperfect substitute to other types of standardised information. On the whole, the results suggest that certificates play a role in helping new workers break into the labour market, but are more valuable to workers with at least some work experience. More stringent skill certification tests could improve the benefits to new workers.


OBJECTIVE
Our objective was to characterize the data captured in all animal exposure calls reported to the National Poison Data System (NPDS), a national poison center reporting database, from 1 January 2000 through 31 December 2010 and identify Poison Center usage and needs in animal exposure calls.

DESIGN
We calculated descriptive statistics characterizing animal type, exposure substance, medical outcome, year and month of call, caller location, and specific state for all animal exposure call data in NPDS from 1 January 2000 to 31 December 2010. SAS version 9.2 was used for the analysis.

RESULTS
There were 1,371,095 animal exposure calls out of 28,925,496 (4.7%) total human and animal exposure calls in NPDS during the study period. The majority involved companion animal exposures with 88.0% canine exposures and 10.4% feline exposures. Pesticides were the most common exposure substance (n=360,375; 26.3%), followed by prescription drugs (n=261,543; 18.6%). The most common outcome reported was 'Not followed, judged as nontoxic exposure or minimal clinical effects possible' (n=803,491; 58.6%), followed by 'Not followed, judged potentially toxic exposure' (n=263,153; 19.2%). There were 5,388 deaths reported. Pesticide exposures were responsible for the greatest number of deaths (n=1,643; 30.4%).

CONCLUSIONS AND CLINICAL RELEVANCE
Approximately 1 in 20 calls to PCs are regarding potentially toxic exposures to animals, suggesting a need for veterinary expertise and resources at PCs. Pesticides are one of the greatest toxic exposure threats to animals, both in numbers of exposures and severity of clinical outcomes, and is an important area for education, prevention, and treatment.


Side-channel analysis and fault injection attacks are two typical threats to cryptographic implementations, especially in modern embedded devices. Thus there is an insistent demand for dual side-channel and fault injection protections. As it is known, masking is a kind of provable countermeasure against side-channel attacks. Recently, inner product masking (IPM) was proposed as a promising higher-order masking scheme against side-channel analysis, but not for fault injection attacks. In this paper, we devise a new masking scheme named IPM-FD. It is built on IPM, which enables fault detection. This novel masking scheme has three properties: the security orders in the word-level probing model, bit-level probing model, and the number of detected faults. IPM-FD is proven secure both in the word-level and in the bit-level probing models, and allows for end-to-end fault detection against fault injection attacks. Furthermore, we illustrate its security order by interpreting IPM-FD as a coding problem then linking it to one defining parameters of linear code, and show its implementation cost by applying IPM-FD to AES-128.


Many fuel spray characterization studies to date have been conducted in quiescent environments with single-hole fuel injectors. However, in actuality, multi-hole injectors spray into direct injection engine cylinders where significant air swirling and tumbling exist to promote fuel atomization and air-fuel mixing, which result in more efficient combustion. For this reason, researchers have begun developing correlations for fuel sprays where a jet of air acts perpendicularly to the fuel spray, also known as a cross airflow or crossflow, so as to more realistically predict fuel spray characteristics in direct injection engines. Accordingly, there is a need for a foundation of experimental data reflecting the specific conditions of fuel spray in cross airflow which can then be used for model validation and future engine design and development. In this study, fuel sprays are characterized with a commercial 8-hole fuel injector in a wind tunnel enclosure capable of cross airflows upwards of 200m/s. Particle image velocimetry was used to measure air velocities and capture pulsed spray events of biodiesel, diesel, and biodiesel-diesel blend fuels. Spray images were processed and analyzed in LaVision's DaVis and in MATLAB to calculate spray penetration length and axis deflection angle under varying cross airflow velocities, fuel injection pressures, and fuel types. Results show that strong cross airflows can decrease spray penetration by up to 44% and deflect the spray axis by up to 10.5◦ when compared to the same spray in a quiescent environment. Additional experiments reveal that biodiesel experiences slower spray progression when compared with diesel, resulting in shorter spray penetrations in the early phase of the spray development (up to 0.7ms after the start of injection, or ASOI). The angle between the fuel injector axis and the air jet axis plays an important role in determining the resultant spray characteristics. This angle should be considered in future correlations.


The majority of the failures of trailbuilder hydraulic systems operating in the north are connected with the influence of low negative temperatures. Therefore there is a need to apply a prelaunch thermal preparation by means of the fluid drive. The requirement of power consumption minimization on the thermal preparation of the fluid drive is especially topical during independent operation of machines in conditions of low negative temperatures far from mechanization bases where there are no constant sources of thermal and electric energy, or warm rooms. Nearly all earlier systems of thermal preparation of the fluid drive involve the heating of oil which is in a hydraulic tank and the hydraulic line, moving in a small circle. Thus hydraulic engines do not stay heated-up and the oil, which is inside, is solidified, which considerably complicates the start of motion of the mobile elements in the sealing areas. It is necessary to reduce the degree of loading at the time of the first hydraulic engine start-up so reducing the intensity of wear and prolonging the service life of elements of the fluid drive. In order to study the hydraulic components at low temperatures in the Tyumen State Oil and Gas University in the Department of Transportation and Technological Systems under the leadership of Professor Sh. Merdanov, an experimental installation of the thermal preparation of hydraulic elements was developed. The research facility allows for all planned studies involving measurement of the static and dynamic characteristics of the hydraulic drive. The effect of the implementation of the proposed development is achieved by reducing fuel consumption by heating the hydraulic system, resulting in an increase in productivity, reducing the cost of repair and maintenance of the hydraulic system, and increasing its service life.


Occupational exposure Occupational exposure refers to exposure to potential blood-borne infections (HIV, HBV and HCV) that may occur in healthcare settings during performance of job duties. Post exposure prophylaxis (PEP) refers to comprehensive medical management to minimise the risk of infection among Health Care Personnel (HCP) following potential exposure to blood-borne pathogens (HIV, HBV, HCV). This includes counselling, risk assessment, relevant laboratory investigations based on informed consent of the source and exposed person, first aid and depending on the risk assessment, the provision of short term (four weeks) of antiretroviral drugs, with follow up and support.


Weed control is an important factor for the successful production of canola [Brassica napus (L.) and B. rapa (L.) ] on the Canadian prairies. Traditionally, various pre-and post-emergent herbicides have been used to achieve the required level of weed control. Recently, B. napus has been genetically engineered to express tolerance to the broad-spectrum, post-emergent herbicide, glufosinate-ammonium [2- amino-4-(hydroxymethylphosphinyl)butanoic acid]. This study was conducted to determine the genetics of glufosinate-ammonium tolerance in a series of Agrobacterium-mediated transgenic lines of B. napus carrying the phosphinothricin-acetyl transferase (pat) gene from Streptomyces viridochromogens (Krainsky) Waksman and Henrici. Twenty R₁:F₂ and 19 R₁:BCF₁ populations derived from 20 R₁ transformants were analyzed for the number of transgenic inserts on the basis of their segregation pattern for herbicide tolerance. Fifteen of the 20 transgenic lines had a single insertion of the pat gene which behaved in a Mendelian manner and five had insertions at two independent loci. Ten transgenics with single gene inserts crossed in a half-diallel fashion were used to establish allelic relationships of transformants. The results indicated that the insertions had occurred at different loci within the plant genome with a possibility of an association between inserts in one case. It was concluded that transformants should be analyzed for number of transgene inserts and for genetic stability before they may be used in breeding programs for the development of glufosinate-ammonium tolerant B. napus cultivars. Part of a thesis entitled "Performance of glufosinate-tolerant and susceptible near-isogenic lines of Brassica napus L.," Dep. of Crop Science and Plant Ecology, Univ. of Saskatchewan, 51 Campus Drive, Saskatoon, SK S7N 5 A8.


This research presents the DFrame, a modular and extensible distributed framework that simplifies and thus encourages the use of parallel processing, and that is especially targeted at the analysis and visualization of multi-dimensional bio-image datasets in high content screening applications. These applications typically apply pipelines of complex and time consuming algorithms to multiple bio-image dataset stream and it is highly desirable to use parallel resources to exploit the inherent concurrency, in order to achieve results in much reduced time scales.

The DFrame allows pluggable extension and reuse of models implementing parallelizing patterns, and similarly provides for application extensibility. This facilitates the composition of novel parallelized 3D image processing application. A client server architecture is adopted to support both batch and long running interactive sessions. The DFrame client provides functions to author applications as workflows, and mediates interaction with the server. The DFrame server runs as multiple cooperating distributed instances, that together orchestrate to execture tasks according to a workflow's implied order. An inversion of control paradigm is used to drive the loading and running of the models that themselves then coordinate to load and parallelize the running of each task specified in a workflow. The design opens up the opportunity to incorporate advanced management features, including parallel pattern selection based on application context, dynamic 'in application' resource allocation, and adaptable partitioning and composition strategies. Generic partitioning and composition mechanisms for supporting both task and data parallelism are provided, with specific implementation support applicable to the domain of 3D image processing.

Evaluations of the DFrame are conducted at the component levelm where specific parallelizing models are applied to discrete 3D image filtering and segmentation operators and to a ray tracing implementation. A complete integrated case study is then presented that composes component entities into multiple image processing pipeline to more fully demonstrate the power and utility of the DFrame, not only in terms of performance, but also to highlight the extensibility and adaptability that permeates through the design, and its applicability to the domain of multi-dimensional image processing. Results are discussed that evidence the utility of the approach, and avenues of future works are considered.


he popular model organism Caenorhabditis elegans is a tiny nematode worm with a largely invariant nervous system, consisting of exactly 302 neurons with known connectivity. Moreover, the behavioural roles of many of these neurons have been uncovered using experimental techniques including targeted cell killing and genetic mutations. The result is an organism in which the locomotion subsystem is mapped at cellular resolution. Despite its small size and the apparent simplicity of the underlying nervous system, the worm is capable of a surprisingly rich repertoire of behaviours including navigation and foraging, mating, learning, and even rudimentary social behaviour. Indeed, this humble worm provides us with the first tangible possibility of understanding the complex behaviours of an organism from the genetic level, right up to the system level. The focus of this thesis on the locomotion system is motivated at least in part by the fact that most, if not all, of the worm's behaviours are mediated by some form of locomotion. The main objective of this thesis is to help elucidate the mechanisms underlying C. elegans forward locomotion. In pursuit of this goal I apply an integrated methodology that emphasises collaboration between modellers like myself and experimentalists, ensuring that models are grounded in the biological reality and experiments are well designed and poignant.

In contrast to previous models of C. elegans forward locomotion, the starting point of this investigation is the realization that the ability of the worm to locomote through a variety of different physical environments can shed light on the mechanism of neural and neuromuscular control of this behaviour. This work therefore begins with the presentation of several stand-alone studies, both theoretical and experimental, aimed at answering a number of preliminary questions. These include the development of a suitable model of the worm's low Reynolds number physical environments; a preliminary study of the importance of body physics on the kinematics of locomotion; an electrophysiological modelling study of the worm's body wall muscles; and an experimental investigation of the worm's locomotion in different environments, ranging from liquid to dense gels. These results lead to a new perspective on the worm's locomotion. Indeed, the conventional wisdom is that two kinematically distinct C. elegans locomotion behaviours – swimming in liquids and crawling on dense gel-like media – correspond to distinct locomotory gaits. By analysing the worm's motion through these different media, we reveal a smooth modulation of the undulations from swimming to crawling, marked by a linear relationship between key locomotion metrics. These results point to a single locomotory gait, governed by the same underlying control mechanism.

The core of this thesis is an integrated neuromechancial model of C. elegans forward locomotion. This model incorporates the results of the preliminary investigation of muscle, body and locomotion properties. The neural circuitry is grounded in the literature but simplified to a set of repeating units. Neuronal properties are modelled at different levels of abstraction, with a proof-of-concept continuous model that is used to ground assumptions in physiological data, and a simplified binary model that is then used to study the locomotion control in detail. A key property of the motor neurons in both these models is their bistable response, inspired by a recent publication demonstrating such properties in other motor neurons. Interestingly, the model is quite different to any that have come before, both in terms of its underlying neural dynamics and the behaviours that it addresses. The key achievement of this model is its ability to qualitatively and quantitatively account for locomotion across a range of media from water to agar, as well as in more complex (heterogeneous) environments. One particularly interesting result is the demonstration that a proprioceptive oscillatory mechanisms can account not only for the generation of the body undulation, but also the observed modulation in response to the changing physical environments. Indeed, this model lacks any form of centrally generated nervous system control.

Finally, the model makes a number of important predictions about neuronal functions, synaptic functions and the proprioceptive response to different physical environments. A number of experiments and experimental designs are suggested to test these predictions. Preliminary experimental results are then presented to address each of these predictions. To date, these results all appear to validate the model and uncover new information about the locomotion system, hence demonstrating the power of the holistic, integrated methodology of this work. Specifically I address the role of the inhibitory D-class neurons and find evidence suggesting that they are part of the core circuit for forward locomotion, but that the phenotype associated with their removal only manifests strongly in less resistive (more fluid) media. Furthermore, I shed light on the relative roles of neural and muscle inhibition and suggest that it may be an absence of neural inhibition that underlies the forward locomotion defect of GABA defective worms.


Early Paleozoic geography and sedimentation in the Rocky Mountain Basin were influenced by the positive element, Montania, first noted by Willis, and later described and named by Walcott the "Montana Island."

A southern Waucobian sea entered the Great Basin and transgressed northeastward over Utah while a northern sea advanced over southwestern Alberta and southeastern British Columbia. Cascadia was united with Laurentia by Montania which formed a barrier 550 miles in width across the Cordilleran geosyncline.

At the beginning of the Albertan the Cordilleran waters invaded the northern and southern parts of Montania from Canada and the Great Basin. The two seas united in northern Idaho and northeastern Washington forming the Idaho strait, and in northern Montana in the Eastern Rocky Mountain Basin. In Middle Cambrian, Montania was a low island whose apex lay in the region of Glacier National Park.

The western part of Montania was elevated before the opening of the Croixan when a sea lay to the east in central-western Montana and extended northwest across southern Alberta into the deeper part of the Cordilleran geosyncline in southeastern British Columbia.

Montania was elevated slightly before the Ordovician and remained above water until Middle or Late Devonian. Consequently, Middle or Upper Devonian limestone rests nearly conformably upon eroded Middle Cambrian dolomite in northwestern Montana.

The climate was warm, humid and uniform throughout the region during most of the Cambrian, but local aridity and possibly lower temperatures may have prevailed during the Croixan.


In this paper we propose a semi-supervised neural network algorithm to identify unusual load patterns in hourly electricity demand time series. In spite of several modeling and forecasting methodologies that have been proposed, there have been limited advancements in monitoring and automatically identifying outlying patterns in such series. This becomes more important considering the difficulty and the cost associated with manual exploration of such data, due to the vast number of observations. The proposed network learns from both labeled and unlabeled patterns, adapting automatically as more data become available. This drastically limits the cost and effort associated with exploring and labeling such data. We compare the proposed method with conventional supervised and unsupervised approaches, demonstrating higher accuracy, robustness and efficacy on empirical electricity load data.


We report the results of a randomized controlled trial testing whether incentivizing physical exercise improves the academic performance of college students. As expected, the intervention increases physical activity. The main result is that it generates a strong and significant improvement in academic performance, particularly for students who struggled at the baseline in terms of lifestyle habits. We also provide evidence on the underlying mechanisms: Students who were incentivized to exercise have a healthier life style and improved self-control. Overall, the study demonstrates that incentivizing students to exercise can be an important tool in improving educational achievements.


Non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) has recently been proposed for dual-hop cooperative relaying power line communication (PLC) systems. Unlike conventional NOMA-PLC schemes which deploy NOMA only at the relay, this paper proposes to enhance the performance of such systems by implementing the principle of NOMA at both the source and relaying modems. The system performance is evaluated in terms of the average sum capacity for which analytical expressions are derived for both the improved and conventional NOMA-PLC systems. Throughout our analysis, the PLC channel is assumed narrow-band modeled with log-normal amplitude distribution and the total PLC noise consists of both background and impulsive noise. Monte Carlo simulations are provided to corroborate the accuracy of our theoretical analysis. The derived expressions are utilized to examine the impact of various system parameters on the average capacity performance; this includes: impulsive noise probability, network branching, power allocation coefficients, and transmit power. The optimization problem of the power allocation coefficients is also addressed for both NOMA-PLC systems under consideration. Results reveal that significant gains in the average capacity can be attained with the improved NOMA-PLC approach compared to the conventional system. In addition, the improved system is able to meet a given performance requirement with smaller transmit power offering more relaxed electromagnetic compatibility issues associated with PLCs. Finally, it is demonstrated that optimizing the power allocation coefficients at both the source and relay modems is crucial to maximize performance.


Background: During the past two years, 5% of patients admitted to the Medical Intensive Care Unit (MICU) of Hamad General Hospital (HGH) had severe acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) with a PaO2/FiO2 ratio less than 100 mmHg. The risks associated with this condition include ventilator associated lung injury, over distension of lungs, and poor gas exchange which results in increased morbidity and mortality. With quality improvement initiatives like prone positioning, the mortality and morbidity associated with severe acute respiratory syndrome1 can be reduced by improving hypoxemia2 with a significant enhancement in PaO2/FiO2 ratios while reducing injurious ventilation. Also, prone positioning can help prevent invasive interventions such as placing patients on extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) therapy.3 Methods: We evaluated the safety of prone positioning for improving hypoxemia in critically ill patients with PaO2/FiO2 ratio < 100 mmHg to PaO2/FiO2 ratio < 200 mmHg from 1st January 2017 to 31st December 2018, without major complications. Data collected included the PaO2/FiO2 ratios based on arterial blood gases of mechanically ventilated patients before and after prone positioning. We were able to facilitate prone positioning in 72 out of 110 patients with severe ARDS having a total average PaO2/FiO2 ratio of 84.4 ± 30 mmHg. The patients were proned for a maximum of 16 hours in each session where up to three sessions were incorporated. No major complications were encountered during the proning sessions. This was thought to be accomplished through the coordination of a dedicated multidisciplinary team, education and simulation classes for physicians, nurses, and respiratory therapists, following appropriate inclusion and exclusion criteria for prone positioning, and implementing quality measures through Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) cycles as represented in Figure 1. Results: The total average PaO2/FiO2 ratio before proning for 65% of patients (n = 72) with severe acute respiratory distress syndrome4 was 84.4 ± 30 mmHg and after one hour of 16 hours proning, it improved to 180.3 ± 78 mmHg. The remaining 35% of patients either had traumatic fractures, unstable spinal injury, severe hemodynamic instability, or morbid obesity together with ARDS which made them unfavorable for prone positioning. Out of those who were proned, 11 (12.5%) patients did not have improvement in oxygenation after proning due to non-recruitable lungs and were put on ECMO. The PaO2/FiO2 ratios before and after one hour of implementing the prone position technique in each quarter of 2017 and 2018 are represented in Figure 2. Conclusion: In patients with severe ARDS, prone positioning proves to be a safe practice and leads to improvement in hypoxemia without major complications. Our future prospects with respect to prone positioning include the following: • Sustaining and standardizing the accomplished work of data collection. • Implementing the prone positioning technique across other critical care units of Hamad Medical Corporation. • Keeping a record of minor complications associated with prone positioning and resolving them in further sessions. • Documenting cases with contraindications to prone positioning.


Chiral nanostructures have been attracting extensive interest in recent years primarily because of the unique materials properties that can be exploited for diverse applications. In this study, gold Janus nanoparticles, with hexanethiolates and 3-mercapto-1,2-propanediol segregated on the two hemispheres of the metal cores (dia. 2.7 ± 0.4 nm), self-assembled into vesicle-like, hollow nanostructures in both water and organic media, and exhibited apparent plasmonic circular dichroism (PCD) absorption in the visible range. This was in contrast to individual Janus nanoparticles, bulk-exchange nanoparticles where the two ligands were homogeneously mixed on the nanoparticle surface, or nanoparticles capped with only one kind of ligand. The PCD signals were found to become intensified with increasing coverage of the 3-mercapto-1,2-propanediol ligands on the nanoparticle surface. This was accounted for by the dipolar property of the structurally asymmetrical Janus nanoparticles, and theoretical simulations based on first principles calculations showed that when the nanoparticle dipoles self-assembled onto the surface of a hollow sphere, a vertex was formed which gave rise to the unique chiral characteristics. The resulting chiral nanoparticle vesicles could be exploited for the separation of optical enantiomers, as manifested in the selective identification and separation of d-alanine from the l-isomer.


Jamming has long been a problem in wireless communication systems. Traditionally, defense techniques have looked to raise the cost of mounting an equally effective jamming attack. One technique to raise the cost of jamming is direct sequence spread spectrum (DSSS) which spreads data over a wider bandwidth and has built-in error correction. To work around this, attackers have developed intelligent jamming techniques to minimize the cost of mounting attacks on these systems. To lower the cost of attacking a DSSS system, an attacker can use periodic jamming which alternates between an attacking and sleeping state. Previously, a digital filter has been used to mitigate a periodic jamming attack at the center frequency of the attacker. In this work, we expand this previous attack model by allowing an attacker to jam at any frequency and even to move to different frequencies in the channel. To defend against the more general attack, we propose the use of an adaptive filter selection technique. This technique monitors packet delivery ratio (PDR) at the receiver and uses this information to infer whether it is being attacked. If the receivers PDR is low, it activates a filter from a pre-defined filter bank and tests if performance improves. This process continues by activating different filters from the filter bank until adequate PDR performance is achieved. We show that this approach can search through a small set of filters and recover over 90% of packets with a search time of less than 3 seconds on average for an attacker who randomly chooses its center frequency.


Type One Diabetes Mellitus (T1DM) is one of the most significantly impacting health conditions around the world and requires daily insulin administration to manage. Research has highlighted the impact on mental health but in particular there are elevated levels of eating disorders (ED) within T1DM. The current review aimed to systematically draw together the existing research that has explored the impact of psychological treatment within this population specifically focusing on adaptations made and the impact on insulin omission. A total of 95 papers were found and 10 were included in review. The papers ranged in methodology and rigour making comparisons difficult. The review concludes that an individualised intervention addressing both ED and T1DM difficulties appears to be the most effective. There is a lack of reporting on insulin omission within the literature and more research on the function of this behaviour is needed.


Calpastatin (CAST) gene is well known as an inhibitor of muscle protein degradation and relates to muscle growth and meat tenderness. The objective of this study was to determine the association of CAST gene with growth traits and carcass characteristics in Bali cattle. A number of data from 35 Bali bulls were collected from BPTU Bali Cattle to obtain growth traits, carcass characteristics, and blood samples. Polymorphism of CAST gene in Bali bulls was analyzed by using PCR-RFLP and DNA sequencing. The association of CAST gene with growth traits and carcass characteristics were analyzed by using General Linear Model (GLM). The result showed that there were two genotypes (GG and AG) of CAST gene with allele frequencies of 0.857 and 0.143, respectively, for G and A. Notably, mutation A to G occurred in 253 bp CAST fragment gene in Bali Cattle. Genotypes GG and AG of CAST gene significantly affected (P<0.05) the back-fat thickness and longissimus dorsi without a significant effect on the growth traits. It could be concluded that CAST gene had a potency as a marker gene for carcass quality in Bali cattle. Key words: Bali cattle, CAST gene, PCR-RFLP, polymorphism


I attribute the Cretaceous pulse of Pacific oceanic crust formation to a global plate reorganization associated with the breakup of Pangea and rapid growth and reorganization of the Pacific plate. The Cretaceous was characterized by widespread rifting, continental breakup, rapid spreading, and global magmatism. Tomography shows that the upper mantle of the Pacific and Indian oceans is hot. These large low-velocity regions contain most of the world's hotspots and ridges and were the sites of extensive plateau and continental flood-basalt magmatism. The formation and rapid expansion of the Pacific and Indian ocean plates took place in these regions that are hot because they have not been cooled or displaced by cold oceanic lithosphere for more than 200 m.y. Plumes are not required to explain such mantle. The Pacific hemisphere is isolated from the supercontinent hemisphere by a band of cool mantle over which continents collect and into which subduction preferentially occurs.


During 1993 and 1994, the United States debated but did not enact major health care reform. Although the reform efforts focused on providing health coverage for the uninsured and controlling acute care costs, many proposals included substantial long-term care initiatives. President Clinton proposed creating a large home-care program for severely disabled people of all ages and all income groups, among several other initiatives. By stressing non-means-tested public programs, the president's plan was a major departure from the Medicaid-dominated financing system for long-term care. In designing the long-term care component, the Clinton administration addressed many of the basic policy choices that must be decided in all reform efforts, including whether initiatives should be limited to older people or cover people of any age, how to balance institutional and noninstitutional care, whether to rely on government programs or on the private sector, and how to control costs. Analyzing the political and intellectual history of long-term care during the health reform debate provides lessons for future reform.


Today more and more of our focus in Antarctica and the rest of the world are turning towards how we, theinhabitants, leave footprints on our planet. Scientists have found trace of humans all over the world evenin Antarctica's fauna and flora. To be able to do research and understand our planet's development andproblems, we must try to make as small impact on Antarctica as possible today and leave a pristinecontinent to the coming generations. One way to manage this is to not release untreated waste water. The aim of this thesis was to investigate different techniques for cleaning grey water for the SwedishAntarctic Summer Station Wasa. A survey on waste water treatment on almost all Antarctic researchstations has been carried out in order to find a suitable treatment method for the grey water released fromWasa. The survey showed that all twenty eight member states that operate research stations was includedand the survey covered 41 permanent stations, 26 summer stations and 4 field stations. The study showedthat 26 permanent stations and 8 summer stations had some kind of treatment for their waste water. Themost common treatment method at the permanent stations are biological treatment (8 stations) followed bysecondary treatment and maceration (4 stations per method). The results are based upon analyses from thesurvey answers and information from COMNAP's homepage about members' stations. One treatment system using chemical precipitate is currently under evaluation for Wasa. The system willbe tested in Sweden before the planned installation at Wasa during season 2006/2007.


ABSTRACT This Article assesses the role of law and lawyering in time of war by examining how lawyers responded to and were affected by the Civil War and Reconstruction. Although the modern legal profession has its roots in the same time period (legal formalism, education in law schools rather than apprenticeships, Socratic instruction, bar associations, large firm practice, and a distinct brand of constitutional conservatism all emerge in the 1870s), historians of the legal profession have largely ignored the relationship between professional organization and lawyers' experience of the Civil War and Reconstruction. Before the war period, many elite lawyers were committed to an ideal of professionalism that demanded direct engagement with matters of public concern. Lawyers who embraced the ideal were, as Joseph Story put it, "public sentinels," obliged not just to represent clients, but to defend the Constitution and the nation from lawlessness by helping to shape public opinion. Lawyers fulfilled this obligation not just by lauding the Constitution and rule of law values in public oratory, though this was a common practice, but by creating and disseminating a discourse that placed the authority of law at the center of pressing social questions. During the Civil War and Reconstruction this professional ideal came to grief as legal discourse degenerated into a war of ideas over the constitutional contradictions opened by secession, unprecedented assertions of executive branch war powers, and often violent southern resistance to Reconstruction after Appomattox. Story's "public sentinels" set upon each other, threatening professional authority by exposing deep rifts in the profession about the legal status of events on the ground. Chastened and exhausted by this intraprofessional strife, elite lawyers gradually converged on a conservative view of the Reconstruction Amendments stressing constitutional continuity with respect to federalism principles and the irrelevance of federal law to the condition of blacks in the South. Central to this convergence was the development of organizational structures that provided collective, less directly political, venues in which to vindicate professional ideals and secure professional authority. TABLE OF CONTENTS I. INTER ARMA SILENT LEGES ("IN WAR, THE LAW IS SILENT") II. ELIDING THE WAR AND RECONSTRUCTION EXPERIENCE A. Whiggish Accounts B. Neo-Marxist Accounts III. PROFESSIONALISM IN THE AGE OF JACKSONIAN DEMOCRACY IV. THE FAILURE OF LAW A. Constitutional Stalemate B. Rupture C. Constitutional Antimonies 1. Force/Consent: Secession or Lawless Rebellion? 2. Order/Liberty: The Doctrine of Necessity 3. Restoration or Reconstruction? 4. The Desire for Consensus V. PROFESSIONAL ORGANIZATION AND REDEMPTION CONCLUSION I. INTER ARMA SILENT LEGES ("IN WAR, THE LAW IS SILENT") During the late wicked Rebellion, the temper of the times did not allow that calmness in deliberation and discussion so necessary to a correct conclusion of a purely judicial question. Then, considerations of safety were mingled with the exercise of power; and feelings and interests prevailed which are happily terminated. Now that the public safety is assured, this question, as well as all others, can be discussed and decided without passion or the admixture of any element not required to form a legal judgment. We approach the investigation of this case, fully sensible of the magnitude of the inquiry and the necessity of full and cautious deliberation. (1) This is Justice Davis writing for the majority in Ex parte Milligan just after the Civil War. Embedded in the paragraph are carefully placed assertions about the conditions necessary for reaching correct legal conclusions, and certain assumptions about what legal reasoning is and what it is not. …


Nigeria's debt at independent was put at about N488.8 million which was mainly long-term development soft loans. The world economic recession and fall in price of oil in 1982 were identified as major factors that led many countries to debt crisis. Nigeria's debt accumulated due to gross mismanagement of resources and loans contracted as well as failure of governments to keep-up with repayment schedules. This paper assesses the management of Nigeria's debt. It examined the role of International Financial Institutions (IFIs) in discussing the politics of Nigeria's debt management vis-a-vis motivational factor behind consideration for loans, disbursement and at what rate? The paper employed both primary and secondary sources of data. Primary data was sourced from Debt Management Office, National Bureau of Statistics, Central Bank of Nigeria and National Institute for Social and Economic Research while secondary data was sourced from journals, books, official government gazettes and internet. Data was analyzed using descriptive method. The result of the analyses revealed that 79% of the respondents agreed that Nigeria's oil contributed to its huge debt accumulation and denied it debt cancellation. Also 65% believed that government has been prudent in managing the nation's debt with every action taking in the interest of the people even when it failed to keep up with repayment schedules. The dependency theory formed the basis of discussion and analyses in this work. It concluded that, oil was a major factor behind the granting of loans to Nigeria as well as responsible for fiscal irresponsibility on part of the government which led to the failure of efficient management of such loans. This paper recommended that there should be prudent management of the economy while all forms of corruption must be eradicated to bring about real development


In 1919 the NAACP organized a voting bloc powerful enough to compel the city of Atlanta to budget $1.5 million for the construction of schools for black students. This victory would have been remarkable in any era, but in the context of the Jim Crow South it was revolutionary. Schooling Jim Crow tells the story of this little-known campaign, which happened less than thirteen years after the Atlanta race riot of 1906 and just weeks before a wave of anti-black violence swept the nation in the summer after the end of World War I. Despite the constant threat of violence, Atlanta's black voters were able to force the city to build five black grammar schools and Booker T. Washington High School, the city's first publicly funded black high school. Schooling Jim Crow reveals how they did it and why it matters. In this pathbreaking book, Jay Driskell explores the changes in black political consciousness that made the NAACP's grassroots campaign possible at a time when most black southerners could not vote, let alone demand schools. He reveals how black Atlantans transformed a reactionary politics of respectability into a militant force for change. Contributing to this militancy were understandings of class and gender transformed by decades of racially segregated urban development, the 1906 Atlanta race riot, Georgia's disfranchisement campaign of 1908, and the upheavals of World War I. On this cultural foundation, black Atlantans built a new urban black politics that would become the model for the NAACP's political strategy well into the twentieth century.


Two hexanuclear 3d-4f Ni-Eu and Cu-Eu complexes [Eu(4)Ni(2)L(2)(OAc)(12)(EtOH)(2)] (1) and [Eu(4)Cu(2)L(2)(OAc)(12)]·2H(2)O (2) are reported which are formed from the salen type Schiff-base ligand H(2)L (H(2)L = N,N'-bis(3-methoxysalicylidene)butane-1,4-diamine). In both complexes, four Eu(3+) cations are bridged by eight OAc(-) groups and the chain is terminated at each end by two ML (M = Ni and Cu) units. The structures of 1 and 2 were determined by single crystal X-ray crystallographic studies and the luminescence properties of the free ligand and metal complexes in solution were measured.


We develop a new algorithm to cluster sparse unweighted graphs - i.e. partition the nodes into disjoint clusters so that there is higher density within clusters, and low across clusters. By sparsity we mean the setting where both the in-cluster and across cluster edge densities are very small, possibly vanishing in the size of the graph. Sparsity makes the problem noisier, and hence more difficult to solve.

Any clustering involves a tradeoff between minimizing two kinds of errors: missing edges within clusters and present edges across clusters. Our insight is that in the sparse case, these must be penalized differently. We analyze our algorithm's performance on the natural, classical and widely studied "planted partition" model (also called the stochastic block model); we show that our algorithm can cluster sparser graphs, and with smaller clusters, than all previous methods. This is seen empirically as well.


IZA DP No. 14251 APRIL 2021 Teacher Shortage in India: Myth or Reality? The Fiscal Cost of Surplus Teachers, Fake Enrolment and Absences This paper examines the widespread perception in India that the country has an acute teacher shortage of about one million teachers in public elementary schools, a view repeated in India's National Education Policy 2020. Using official DISE data, we show that there is hardly any net teacher deficit in the country since there is roughly the same number of surplus teachers as the number of teacher vacancies. Secondly, we show that measuring teacher requirements after removing the estimated fake students from enrolment data greatly reduces the required number of teachers and increases the number of surplus teachers, yielding an estimated net surplus of about 342,000 teachers. Thirdly, we show that if we both remove fake enrolment and also make a suggested hypothetical change to the teacher allocation rule to adjust for the phenomenon of emptying public schools (which has slashed the national median public-school size to a mere 64 students), the estimated net teacher surplus is about 764,000 teachers. Fourthly, we highlight that if government does fresh recruitment to fill the supposed nearly one-million vacancies, the already modest national mean pupil-teacher-ratio (PTR) of 22.8 would fall to 15.9, at a permanent fiscal cost of nearly Rupees 48,000 crore (USD 6.6 billion) per year in 2017-18 prices, which is higher than the individual GDPs of 56 countries in that year. The paper also highlights the volume of schools with extreme PTRs, and estimates the cost of teacher absence, pupil absence and fake enrolments. Overall, the paper highlights the major economic efficiencies that can result from an evidence-based approach to education policy making. JEL Classification: I20, I21


The article examines the essence of social entrepreneurship as a new type of business. The state's interest in the development of social entrepreneurship through the existing organizational and economic mechanism is substantiated. An analysis of the activities of social enterprises in Ukraine was carried out. It has been proven that the goal of social entrepreneurship should be directly dependent on the possibility of measuring the social impact on society. Considered problems of the development of social entrepreneurship in Ukraine. On the basis of the identified problems, the structure was determined and the peculiarities of the interaction of the components of the organizational and economic mechanism of ensuring the development of a social enterprise were identified. It has been established that a feature of the structural construction of the organizational and economic mechanism of the development of a social enterprise is the objectification of managerial needs in the wide use of tools for the institutionalization of relevant connections and relations between stakeholders of a social enterprise in achieving the stated mission of a social enterprise.


The satellite requires the support of a robust sub system. On Board Data Handling (OBDH) is the core function of the satellite subsystem and has to be error free in managing the operation of the satellite. It should withstand the harsh environmental conditions in space that has a lot of hazards caused by radiations. In view of these two conditions, the OBDH design should be able to manage the operation and overcome the hazards of radiation. In order to manage the operation Real Time Operating System (RTOS) was applied. RTOS was able to manage the task efficiently and effectively. In the aerospace domain, RTOS has become popular because of its strength in managing the operating system. Error Detection and Correction System (EDAC) system was applied to make OBDH more robust. This paper discusses the implementation of the EDAC system in tandem with the RTOS behaviour to manage the operation and increase the robustness of the system. The findings show that OBDH can be programmed successfully using RTOS to handle critical and robust operations.


Abstract Purpose: This study aimed to ascertain the role organizational climate could play in galvanizing the employees of commercial banks in southeast Nigeria for better performance through exhibiting greater engagement to their jobs and organizations. Research methodology: Survey Research Design was employed for the study. The study population consisted of 988 employees of 50 randomly selected commercial banks in the region studied. Data were elicited through a structured questionnaire while the analysis was carried out using Simple Regression Analysis and hypothesis tested at a 5% level of significance. Results: The findings showed that there is a statistically significant relationship between Distributive Justice Climate and Job Satisfaction in Microfinance Banks in South-East Nigeria (r = .962; R-Square = .926; F = 5865.689; p-value<.05) and that there is a statistically significant relationship existing between Open Communication Climate and Positive Meaning in Microfinance Banks in South-East Nigeria (r = .982; R-Square = .965; F = 13000.304; p-value<.05). Limitations: Because of the concentration of commercial banks in Anambra state, most of the banks selected for the study through a random method were from Anambra State. This could affect the generalizability of the findings. Contribution: This study contributed to the already existing body of knowledge on Organizational Climate and Employee Engagement. The study also revealed empirical results of the relationship between the variables of the study, specifically in commercial banks in South-East Nigeria.


I use sports betting markets as a laboratory to test behavioral theories of cross-sectional asset pricing anomalies. Two unique features of these markets provide a distinguishing test of behavioral theories: 1) the bets are completely idiosyncratic and therefore not confounded by rational theories; 2) the contracts have a known and short termination date where uncertainty is resolved that allows any mispricing to be detected. Analyzing more than a hundred thousand contracts spanning two decades across four major professional sports (NBA, NFL, MLB, and NHL), I find momentum and value effects that move betting prices from the open to the close of betting, that are then completely reversed by the game outcome. These findings are consistent with delayed overreaction theories of asset pricing. In addition, a novel implication of overreaction uncovered in sports betting markets is shown to also predict momentum and value returns in financial markets. Finally, momentum and value effects in betting markets appear smaller than in financial markets and are not large enough to overcome trading costs, limiting the ability to arbitrage them away.


Abstract. Owing to the dynamic imaging system, the trajectory model plays a very important role in the geometric processing of high resolution satellite imagery. However, establishing a trajectory model is difficult when only discrete and noisy data are available. In this manuscript, we proposed a general robust trajectory model, the penalized spline model, which could fit trajectory data well and smooth noise. The penalized parameter λ controlling the smooth and fitting accuracy could be estimated by generalized cross-validation. Five other trajectory models, including third-order polynomials, Chebyshev polynomials, linear interpolation, Lagrange interpolation and cubic spline, are compared with the penalized spline model. Both the sophisticated ephemeris and on-board ephemeris are used to compare the orbit models. The penalized spline model could smooth part of noise, and accuracy would decrease as the orbit length increases. The band-to-band misregistration of ZiYuan-3 Dengfeng and Faizabad multispectral images is used to evaluate the proposed method. With the Dengfeng dataset, the third-order polynomials and Chebyshev approximation could not model the oscillation, and introduce misregistration of 0.57 pixels misregistration in across-track direction and 0.33 pixels in along-track direction. With the Faizabad dataset, the linear interpolation, Lagrange interpolation and cubic spline model suffer from noise, introducing larger misregistration than the approximation models. Experimental results suggest the penalized spline model could model the oscillation and smooth noise.


This article offers an alternative to twentieth-century theories of property, which have eviscerated the concept of property and thereby undermined the policy foundations of property doctrines ranging from eminent domain to intellectual property. The result is that legislators and judges lack the ability to define properly the purpose or the boundaries of the legal doctrines that they are enacting into law or ruling on from the bench. The complaints are omnipresent - from the expansion of legal entitlements afforded to owners of intellectual property to the indeterminacy that plagues the takings jurisprudence. As a solution, this article advances an "integrated" theory that combines the exclusive rights to acquire, use and dispose of one's possessions into a broad concept of property. The integrated theory of property provides a descriptive account of past and present property doctrines, and justifies or critiques the evolution of these doctrines into the twenty-first century.