Using a recent result of Chudnovsky, Seymour, and Sullivan, we slightly improve two bounds related to the Caccetta-Haggkvist Conjecture. Namely, we show that if $\alpha\geq 0.35312$, then each $n$-vertex digraph $D$ with minimum outdegree at least $\alpha n$ has a directed $3$-cycle. If $\beta\geq 0.34564$, then every $n$-vertex digraph $D$ in which the outdegree and the indegree of each vertex is at least $\beta n$ has a directed $3$-cycle.


Consumption of resistant starch (RS) has been associated with various intestinal health benefits, but knowledge of its effects on global gene expression in the colon is limited. The main objective of the current study was to identify genes affected by RS in the proximal colon to infer which biologic pathways were modulated. Ten 17-wk-old male pigs, fitted with a cannula in the proximal colon for repeated collection of tissue biopsy samples and luminal content, were fed a digestible starch (DS) diet or a diet high in RS (34%) for 2 consecutive periods of 14 d in a crossover design. Analysis of the colonic transcriptome profiles revealed that, upon RS feeding, oxidative metabolic pathways, such as the tricarboxylic acid cycle and β-oxidation, were induced, whereas many immune response pathways, including adaptive and innate immune system, as well as cell division were suppressed. The nuclear receptor peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor γ was identified as a potential key upstream regulator. RS significantly (P < 0.05) increased the relative abundance of several butyrate-producing microbial groups, including the butyrate producers Faecalibacterium prausnitzii and Megasphaera elsdenii, and reduced the abundance of potentially pathogenic members of the genus Leptospira and the phylum Proteobacteria. Concentrations in carotid plasma of the 3 main short-chain fatty acids acetate, propionate, and butyrate were significantly higher with RS consumption compared with DS consumption. Overall, this study provides novel insights on effects of RS in proximal colon and contributes to our understanding of a healthy diet.


The mechanical behaviors of a series of two-dimensional (2-D) crystals X3M2 (X = S, Se; M = N, P, As) are explored through density functional theory (DFT) calculations. Two atomic structures exist for 2-D X3M2, namely α-heart and β-heart, which exhibit different out-of-plane Negative Poisson's Ratio (NPR) phenomena. For α-heart structures, a general out-of-plane NPR exists under in-plane tension in the y direction, while for β-heart type structures, a general NPR exists under in-plane tension in the x direction. Through DFT calculations, we revealed that a NPR is a general phenomenon for 2-D X3M2 with heart-shaped atomic structures, and the absolute value of the out-of-plane NPR for 2-D X3M2 is always one order of magnitude larger than other 2-D crystals reported before. At the same time, the in-plane NPR at certain angles around two in-plane principal axes also exists for 2-D X3M2 except for S3P2 due to the special heart-shaped structure. The coexistence of out-of-plane and in-plane NPRs for 2-D crystals has not been reported before and these special three-dimensional (3-D) auxetic properties in 2-D crystals may enormously enrich research studies on novel mechanical, electrical and chemical behaviors of 2-D crystals. This discovery will extend the family of 2-D crystals with a NPR and also provide new insights for designing novel negative Poisson's ratio materials.


The formation of a Government of National Unity (GNU) in Zimbabwe in 2009 has generally been assessed as a façade, with ZANU-PF retaining real power to serve its own ends. Whilst this may have been true of the key challenges facing Zimbabwe – ensuring democratic political competition and the rule of law, and (less clearly) economic stabilisation and growth – it was not true in all areas of public policy. With respect to social protection, the partial change of government resulted in significant reform. In the mid-2000s, social protection in Zimbabwe was for the most part limited to donor-funded and distributed emergency food aid. Under the GNU, ministers from the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) presided over more programmatic responses involving the state and donors working together, including on the country's first sustained experiments with cash transfers as well as innovative food aid programmes. The shift in policy was not due so much to clear policy preferences on the part of the MDC as to the transformed relations between MDC-controlled government ministries and donors and international agencies. The MDC opened the policy reform door to donors and agencies that were enthusiastic about cash transfer and reformed food aid programmes. The shift to cash transfers was also made possible by dollarisation and market liberalisation. Whereas Zimbabwe had been very anomalous in terms of its pro-poor policies in 2009, by 2013 its policies were far closer to those of its neighbours, although they remained constrained by poor public finances.


An academic consensus seems to be that investments in sports events can hardly ever be defended on economic grounds, and that the evidence for their contribution to the promotional objectives of the host cities is not solid. The aim of this thesis is to apply a methodology for evaluating major sports events to the European Football Championship 2000, in short Euro 2000. This event was organized by Belgium and the Netherlands, but this evaluation concerns only the Netherlands. The methodology is a synthesis of economic impact analysis and cost benefit analysis (CBA). The CBA by multiple accounts introduced in this thesis is intended as a structuring device for public discussion.Data was collected in three different ways: from visitors to this event by face-to-face interviews; from the population in five European countries by telephone interviews before and after the event; and from the Dutch population in the host cities and the rest of the country, also by telephone surveys. The net total sample consisted of 4,000 interviews.The methodology of multiple accounts establishes an explicit distinction between private and public benefits.The largest financial profit was made by Uefa, estimated at €81 million.For the Dutch business community as a whole, the benefits outweighed the costs. Some branches of industry experienced a local decline in demand, but this was probably compensated by other branches or regions. These results confirm the observation in the literature that there are substantial 'crowding-out' effects on visitor patterns in host cities during major sports events. Now, as a result of this present research, it can be added that a substantial part of these effects is on domestic visits and should be discounted as economic impact at the national level. Some branches experienced a boom or decline, which was notspecifically related to hosting Euro 2000, but is rather typical for any international football championship or sports event. The real winners were: the accommodation sector (especially the campsites), and catering (cafes, fast-food) sectors in the host cities. The results for the hotel sector are less unequivocal because of the crowding-out effects of Euro 2000 on foreign tourists.For the public sector (the aggregated accounts of central and local government), the financial benefits have outweighed the costs. For an evaluation of the public costs and benefits, the external effects are also of relevance. The most frequently-mentioned positive external benefit is the increased awareness of the Netherlands in other countries. Surveys on image and awareness in foreign countries have confirmed these effects, but only to a modest extent. Nevertheless, it was possible to establish a relationship between the effects in specific countries and the performance of their national team.It seems, therefore, that the earlier conclusions, derived from research on professional team sports in the United States, are sometimes too easily stretched to include major sports events. This misses two points. First, sports events might be undertaken at a low public cost. Such events might be organized using existing venues and thus would involve little public investment. Second, international sports events, by their very nature, bring additional expenditures to a city and country, whereas in the case of a sports franchise most of the economic effects are mainly of a switching nature.


We consider the problem of designing a scene-specific pedestrian detector in a scenario where we have zero instances of real pedestrian data (i.e., no labeled real data or unsupervised real data). This scenario may arise when a new surveillance system is installed in a novel location and a scene-specific pedestrian detector must be trained prior to any observations of pedestrians. The key idea of our approach is to infer the potential appearance of pedestrians using geometric scene data and a customizable database of virtual simulations of pedestrian motion. We propose an efficient discriminative learning method that generates a spatially-varying pedestrian appearance model that takes into the account the perspective geometry of the scene. As a result, our method is able to learn a unique pedestrian classifier customized for every possible location in the scene. Our experimental results show that our proposed approach outperforms classical pedestrian detection models and hybrid synthetic-real models. Our results also yield a surprising result, that our method using purely synthetic data is able to outperform models trained on real scene-specific data when data is limited.


The paper is an account of an ongoing research project
studying the links between learning style and learning media.
The particular focus of the paper is on online learning. For
centuries the lecture was the standard method of teaching in
higher education, but the widespread introduction of ICT into
Higher Education has led to dramatically increased
educational benefits for learners. These benefits can be
summarized as increased access to learning material and
increased learner control of that material, and this, in turn,
makes individual differences between learners an important
factor in the learning process. A series of studies are
reported using second year and third year psychology
undergraduates, whose detailed examination marks were
obtained in order to establish whether examination
performance was a function of teaching method. Results were
inconsistent, but there was evidence to suggest that lectures
were the least effective teaching medium. When learning
styles were measured using the Cognitive Style Index
(Allinson and Hayes, 1991), some effects of learning style
effects of learning style were apparent and a comparison
between learning style and marks from lecture-based and
online-based examination questions showed significant
interactions between learning style and teaching medium –
with web-based learning favouring the analytical learning
style and summarized material favouring the intuitive learning
style.


The research was conducted to evaluate the effect of ricebran steamed and
methionine hydroxy analogue supplementation in feed to nitrogen balance and
Protein Efficiency Ratio(PER)of male local sheep. It was done in 14 week from
Agustus 11
st
 until November 22
nd
 2010 in Department of Animal Science of
Agriculture Faculty of Sebelas Maret University located in Jatikuwung,
Gondangrejo,Karanganyar. Twelve (12) local male sheepsage 6 months with the
average weight about 10± 1,08kg were used in this research.
The research used Completely Randomized Design (CRD) one way
classification, with three treatments and four replications with each replication
consistedof one local male sheep. The feed consistedof king grass and ricebran
with comparison 60:40 ratio (% dry matter basis). The parameters were
consumption, averagedaily body weight, protein consumption, PERand nitrogen
balance. Data of dry matter consumption, protein consumption, PERand nitrogen
balance were analyzedwith analysisof variance, and averagedaily body weight
analyzed with analysisof covariance.
This research showed that average dry matter consumption for P0, P1 and
P2 were 1283.60;1137.86 and 1136.06 (g/head/day),protein consumption were
233.48; 206.97; 206.33 g/head/day,PER were 0.13; 0.21; 0.25, nitrogen balance
were 29.09; 29.03; 29.61 g/head/day. While average daily body weight were
30.07; 42.23; 52.36 g/head/day.
The result showed thatondry matter consumption,protein consumptionand
nitrogen balance werenot significantly different, and it gave significant effect on
PER. It can be concluded that ricebran steamed and methionine hydroxy analogue
supplementation in feed, did not influence nitrogen balance, but had influence
toward PER.
Key words: Local Male Sheep, Rice Bran Steamed, Methionine Hydroxy
Analogue, Nitrogen Balance, Protein Efficiency Ratio.


People derive meaning in life from a wide variety of sources, but little is known about how patterns of meaning making vary across individuals. The current study examined age and gender patterns in seven measures of meaning: sense of purpose, optimism, religious or spiritual involvement, family care, morals and ethical standards, self-oriented, and relationship-oriented meaning making. As far as we are aware, this study is one of the largest studies ever conducted on this topic, allowing us to explore curvilinear age patterns and interactions between age and gender. The sample comprised 2565 participants (63.9% females), including adolescents and adults, who were recruited from rural communities of 3 Southern U.S. states. Participants completed self-report measures assessing meaning-making strengths. Overall, analyses indicated that most meaning-making strengths increase across the lifespan, from adolescence to middle adulthood, except for self-oriented activities, which were highest during adolescence and then declined. Females reported higher scores in several types of meaning-making strengths than males, but males reported more optimism. Some curvilinear patterns in age were noted, suggesting turning points or plateaus in meaning making, which have not been previously identified. Prevention and intervention programs may benefit from consideration of turning points and other age and gender patterns in meaning making. For example, recognizing whether a population is likely to be more involved in identity development or family roles could help guide programming. Future research could continue to expand the types of meaning studied.


In many emergency management operations, an efficient evacuation strategy is of great importance because if it is successful, it has the ability to significantly reduce the loss of property and human life. This thesis develops a routing and scheduling optimization framework for large-scale vehicular evacuation. To guarantee high optimization efficiency, we consider the routing and scheduling optimization as a two-stage problem instead of optimizing them as a whole (i.e. using time-space network). In the first phase, a multiple-objective binary programming model, with the objectives of minimizing the network clearance time and total in-network time is proposed to find an optimal routing plan. In the second phase, a simulation-based scheduling Heuristic is proposed to dynamically generate the time-dependent departure rates. A real-world evacuation scenario in Eastern Shore of Maryland is studied by using the proposed optimization model. The calculation results indicate a good optimization capability and flexibility of the proposed model.


Formal analysis of decentralized decision making has become a thriving research area in recent years, producing a number of multi-agent extensions of Markov decision processes. While much of the work has focused on optimizing discounted cumulative reward, optimizing average reward is sometimes a more suitable criterion. We formalize a class of such problems and analyze its characteristics, showing that it is NP complete and that optimal policies are deterministic. Our analysis lays the foundation for designing two optimal algorithms. Experimental results with a standard problem from the literature illustrate the applicability of these solution techniques.


A highly enantioselective intramolecular Rauhut-Currier reaction catalyzed by a multifunctional chiral aminophosphine catalyst was reported. A series of hydro-2H-indole derivatives that bear an all-carbon quaternary center were obtained in high yields (up to 94%), and excellent diastereo- and enantioselectivities (up to >20 : 1 dr and >99% ee). And this reaction could be performed on a gram scale using 2 mol% catalyst loading.


We demonstrate superluminal propagation of optical pulses with amplification in optical fibers based on stimulated Brillouin scattering. A triple gain peak configuration is used for the generation of narrowband anomalous dispersion in 2 m tellurite glass fiber, where the group index change as much as -1.19 is achieved with 6.9 dB amplification in 34 ns Gaussian pulses, leading to the group index of 0.84.


Abstract. Atmospheric lidar measurements were carried out at Elandsfontein measurement station, on the eastern Highveld approximately 150 km east of Johannesburg in South Africa throughout 2010. The height of the planetary boundary layer (PBL) top was continuously measured using a Raman lidar, PollyXT (POrtabLe Lidar sYstem eXTended). High atmospheric variability together with a large surface temperature range and significant seasonal changes in precipitation were observed, which had an impact on the vertical mixing of particulate matter, and hence, on the PBL evolution. The results were compared to radiosondes, CALIOP (Cloud-Aerosol Lidar with Orthogonal Polarization) space-borne lidar measurements and three atmospheric models that followed different approaches to determine the PBL top height. These models included two weather forecast models operated by ECMWF (European Centre for Medium-range Weather Forecasts) and SAWS (South African Weather Service), and one mesoscale prognostic meteorological and air pollution regulatory model TAPM (The Air Pollution Model). The ground-based lidar used in this study was operational for 4935 h during 2010 (49% of the time). The PBL top height was detected 86% of the total measurement time (42% of the total time). Large seasonal and diurnal variations were observed between the different methods utilised. High variation was found when lidar measurements were compared to radiosonde measurements. This could be partially due to the distance between the lidar measurements and the radiosondes, which were 120 km apart. Comparison of lidar measurements to the models indicated that the ECMWF model agreed the best with mean relative difference of 15.4%, while the second best correlation was with the SAWS model with corresponding difference of 20.1%. TAPM was found to have a tendency to underestimate the PBL top height. The wind speeds in the SAWS and TAPM models were strongly underestimated which probably led to underestimation of the vertical wind and turbulence and thus underestimation of the PBL top height. Comparison between ground-based and satellite lidar shows good agreement with a correlation coefficient of 0.88. On average, the daily maximum PBL top height in October (spring) and June (winter) was 2260 m and 1480 m, respectively. To our knowledge, this study is the first long-term study of PBL top heights and PBL growth rates in South Africa.


More and more research is being done everyday in the world of e-commerce as consumers and merchants alike realize how powerful a selling tool the internet has become. Research shows that trust is key to the success of electronic commerce [14] [21] [87] [35]. However, the question of how trust is obtained and sustained online has yet to be answered. What is it that makes an online store trustworthy to consumers? A conceptual model for trustworthiness in online stores was developed from the current literature and then enhanced by an observational study of consumers making actual purchases. The conceptual model identified the situation needed for trustworthiness to be of issue when shopping online, the factors that affect the trustworthiness of an online store, and indicators or outcomes of consumers perceiving an online store to be trustworthy. A questionnaire was conducted and validated the conceptual model. The questionnaire focused on the trustor and trustee characteristics of the model, their relationships with each other, and the relative importance of trustee characteristics. This combination of both qualitative and quantitative data has provided insight into the online shopping experience, which can be built upon to create guidelines.


Background: Preclinical data suggest squamous cell tumors, such as SCCHN, are driven by epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) overexpression. However, many patients are refractory to anti-EGFR treatment due to intrinsic and acquired resistance. PI3K/AKT/mTOR pathway activation is a potential mechanism of resistance to EGFR-directed therapy. BYL719, a selective α-isoform PI3K inhibitor, enhances cetuximab (EGFR inhibitor) activity in SCCHN cell lines. A Phase Ib/II study combining BYL719 with cetuximab in patients with recurrent/metastatic SCCHN is testing this hypothesis (Razak et al, ASCO 2014, abst 6044; NCT01602315). Here, we outline the preclinical rationale for combining BYL719 with cetuximab in the setting of cetuximab-resistant squamous cell carcinoma, highlight Phase Ib safety and efficacy data in patients with SCCHN who have received prior cetuximab, and describe the design of the Phase II portion of the study, which is assessing both cetuximab-naive and -pretreated patients. Methods: The combination of BYL719 and cetuximab was tested in vivo in two xenograft models of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma: KYSE180 (cetuximab-sensitive model) and KYSE180_CR (cetuximab-resistant, induced by long-term in vivo treatment). In the Phase Ib study, BYL719 was administered once daily (QD) in 28-day cycles with standard weekly (QW) cetuximab (400 mg/m2 on Cycle 1 Day 1; 250 mg/m2 QW thereafter) to adults with histologically/cytologically confirmed recurrent/metastatic SCCHN resistant/intolerant to platinum-based chemotherapy (prior cetuximab therapy was allowed). Results: In the KYSE180 model, the addition of BYL719 to cetuximab demonstrated an additive effect leading to tumor regression; furthermore, in the KYSE180_CR model, adding BYL719 to cetuximab completely restored sensitivity and led to similar activity as seen in the cetuximab-sensitive model, suggesting that inhibiting PIK3CA signaling may overcome resistance to cetuximab. In the Phase Ib study, as of March 10, 2014, 37 patients were treated with BYL719 300 mg QD (n=32) or 400 mg QD (n=5) and cetuximab. Frequent adverse events (>30%; all-grade/Grade 3/4) were hyperglycemia (54/24), stomatitis (38/5), and dermatitis acneiform (35/3). Best overall response (BOR) per RECIST v1.1 in the full population (n=37) was 4 partial responses (PRs), 16 stable disease (SD; of which 5 were unconfirmed PRs), 10 unknown (UNK) responses, and 1 non-complete response/non-progressive disease (PD) at 300 mg or 400 mg. Six patients had PD as BOR. The overall response rate (ORR) in the full population was 4/37 (11%) and the disease control rate (DCR) was 20/37 (54%). Within this population, 7 patients had received prior cetuximab therapy (6 in the metastatic/recurrent setting and 1 curative; BOR: 4 SD, 1 PR, 1 PD, and 1 UNK). Of these 7 patients, 1 had a confirmed PR, 2 had unconfirmed PRs, 2 had SD, and 1 had PD with BYL719 and cetuximab. One patient with prior cetuximab therapy had an UNK response due to death from tumor lysis syndrome after 1 week in the study. The ORR among patients with prior cetuximab was 1/7 (14%) and DCR was 5/7 (71%). Phase II tests the combination of BYL719 at the recommended Phase II dose of 300 mg QD in two second-line SCCHN patient populations. Patients who are cetuximab-naive are randomized to cetuximab alone or to BYL719 in combination with cetuximab, while patients who have received cetuximab and platinum therapy in the first-line setting are enrolled in a single arm to receive BYL719 with cetuximab. Conclusion: Combined inhibition of PI3Kα and EGFR by BYL719 and cetuximab, respectively, overcame cetuximab resistance in the preclinical setting, was well tolerated, and demonstrated encouraging antitumor activity in both cetuximab-naive and -pretreated patients with SCCHN. The Phase II part of the study in both patient populations is ongoing. Citation Format: Pamela Munster, Moshe Elkabets, Jill Gilbert, Albiruni R Abdul Razak, Myung-Ju Ahn, Chia-Jui Yen, Se-Hoon Lee, Hung-Ming Wang, Carla van Herpen, Wan-Teck Lim, David Demanse, Rupam Ranjan Pal, Alan Huang, Qing Sheng, Chiara Lambertini, Malte Peters, Christina Coughlin, Maurizio Scaltriti, Jose Baselga, George Blumenschein. Inhibition of PIK3CA with BYL719 can overcome resistance to cetuximab in squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck (SCCHN). [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the AACR Special Conference: Targeting the PI3K-mTOR Network in Cancer; Sep 14-17, 2014; Philadelphia, PA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Mol Cancer Ther 2015;14(7 Suppl):Abstract nr A46.


Background Little is known about the combined impacts of global environmental changes and ecological disturbances on ecosystem functioning, even though such combined impacts might play critical roles in shaping ecosystem processes that can in turn feed back to climate change, such as soil emissions of greenhouse gases. Methodology/Principal Findings We took advantage of an accidental, low-severity wildfire that burned part of a long-term global change experiment to investigate the interactive effects of a fire disturbance and increases in CO2 concentration, precipitation and nitrogen supply on soil nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions in a grassland ecosystem. We examined the responses of soil N2O emissions, as well as the responses of the two main microbial processes contributing to soil N2O production – nitrification and denitrification – and of their main drivers. We show that the fire disturbance greatly increased soil N2O emissions over a three-year period, and that elevated CO2 and enhanced nitrogen supply amplified fire effects on soil N2O emissions: emissions increased by a factor of two with fire alone and by a factor of six under the combined influence of fire, elevated CO2 and nitrogen. We also provide evidence that this response was caused by increased microbial denitrification, resulting from increased soil moisture and soil carbon and nitrogen availability in the burned and fertilized plots. Conclusions/Significance Our results indicate that the combined effects of fire and global environmental changes can exceed their effects in isolation, thereby creating unexpected feedbacks to soil greenhouse gas emissions. These findings highlight the need to further explore the impacts of ecological disturbances on ecosystem functioning in the context of global change if we wish to be able to model future soil greenhouse gas emissions with greater confidence.


This paper discusses an unusual structure in the English of a trilingual child acquiring English, Italian and Scottish Gaelic. The child uses a structure where it appears that an object DP is "dou-bled" by a pronoun for an extended period of time (10 months): (1) He don't like it dinosaur (2) He forget it the teddy In Italian, sentences that contain old information take two possible structures: they might contain a left dislocated topic resumed by a clitic: (3) Il libro, l'ho letto the book it-have.1SG read 'The book, I have read it' These are called Clitic Left Dislocation (CLLD) structures in the literature. Alternatively, the topic (the given information) can be introduced as a right dislocated element, again linked to a clitic: (4) L'ho letto, il libro It-have.1SG read the book 'I have read it, the book' These are called clitic right dislocation (CLRD) structures. The structures produced in English by the subject of this study seem to be similar in some fundamental ways to this second kind of topi-calisation strategy. We suggest that this reflects a "deep: transfer of CLRD structures from Italian, even though at the stage when the "doubling" structures occur, there is no evidence of overt clitics in the child's Italian. Our paper contributes to the debate in the literature concerning the existence or not of some form of transfer in multilingual acquisition This working paper is available in University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics: http://repository.upenn.edu/pwpl/


Background and purpose: Elevated CO2 rate in a building affect the health of occupant. This document presents results of an experimental analysis conducted in 50 offices located in 12 buildings with different layer in Cameroon (Yaounde). This study took place in 2012, during the dry and the rainy seasons. The main goal is to show the influence of the building structure, the ventilation and the number of occupants on the CO2 concentration in buildings. The areas chosen were ventilated at 60%. Materials and Methods: A questionnaire was distributed to occupants. The different values in terms of temperature, air speed, humidity, CO2 concentration and luminosity rate were measured simultaneously during working hours and without the occupants. The measurement took place while offices were naturally ventilated. Values obtained were analyzed and integrated. Results: Painted buildings with glasses were more pollutant than those made with soil and wood. A mechanically controlled area was more comfortable but more pollutant than a naturally ventilated area. Conclusion: The CO2 concentration changes exponentially when the number of people in a hall increased especially when there are smokers. For temperature ranged from 20.5°C to 28.8°C and the CO2 from 350ppm to 1450ppm, the average consumption of O2 by person varied between 0.0097cfm and 0.0162 cfm.


In this study, we attempted to fill an important gap that literature has yet to investigate: the characteristics of the Asian Innovation Networks. This paper depicts the characteristics of the Asian Innovation Networks for four main emerging technologies: 3D printing technology, big data technology, integrated circuit technology and carbon nanotubes and graphene technology. The networks' characteristics are presented by calculating the different network centrality indicators. In order to show these characteristics intuitively, the visualization method was also used. Both methods are based on an analysis of patents and patent data are collected from the European Patent Office (EPO) database. The results indicate that Japan ranks first in betweenness centrality, while China has the highest degree centrality among nearly all the emerging technologies. In the carbon nanotubes and graphene technology innovation network, India has tight interactions with South Korea, and Iran is closely related to Malaysia. Thailand plays an important role in the big data technology innovation network. The centrality trend for Asian countries in innovation networks has gradually decreased. This could be useful for developing Asian countries to make international scientific and technological collaboration strategies and policies in the future.


The Internet of Things (IoT) is rapidly gaining ground in our daily life. There is a trend that the number of devices and data increases rapidly in the future. Meanwhile, IoT platforms are emerging to enable people conveniently deal with the IoT and these huge amount of data and devices. Therefore, the goal in this paper is to perform a quantitative evaluation on Microsoft Azure, one of the IoT platform, about its advantages and disadvantages under press to determine if Azure IoT is fit for future IoT. In order to reach this goal, Azure IoT Hub is used as a bridge to connect and manage lots of IoT devices which send and receive huge amount of data. .NET is used to simulate devices and connect them to the IoT Hub. The two-way communication from sensor to cloud and from cloud to actuator is implemented through MQTT protocol. This paper makes measurements on three metrics including response time from sensor sending messages to actuator receiving messages, scalability and cost and analyzes them in detail. Besides, the analysis is also made in a specific scenario which has high demand on sensor update to see how Azure IoT performs. Finally, conclusion is made on Microsoft Azure IoT's advantages and disadvantages under stress.


Background This experiment was performed to compare the effects of Phenytoin (PHT) and Hypericin (HP) cream on healing of burn wounds in rats. Material/Methods Twenty rats were divided into 3 groups and second-degree burn wounds were created. The burn wounds in the first, second, and third groups were covered twice daily with PHT cream, HP cream, and saline (control), respectively. At the end of days 3, 7, 14, and 21, full-thickness skin biopsies were done for histopathologic and immunohistochemical analyses. Results Histopathologic evaluations at the 14th day showed that re-epithelialization scores were greater in the HP group than the PHT group, but on day 21, re-epithelialization scores were higher in the PHT group than the HP group. Collagen content on days 3 and 14 in the PHT group was found to be higher than in the HP group. Well-vascularized granulation tissue on day 7 in the PHT group was higher than in other groups. HP and PHT groups had a significant increase in VEGF and TGF-β expression in burn wound healing area compared to the control group on all days. Conclusions Topical application of HP can promote re-epithelialization in burn wounds to shorten the wound healing time for superficial burns. Phenytoin, on the other hand, contributes to healing by increasing vascularized granulation tissue and collagen synthesis through re-epithelialization. The increased VEGF and TGF-β expression following PHT and HP treatment strongly indicate that PHT and HP treatment promotes VEGF and TGF-β production and action in the burn wound area.


Archers long for equipment that meets their personal needs. Here are detailed, step-by-step instructions to enable them to equip themselves with personal finger guards, belt pouches, tension springs, string holders, and ten types of quivers. Learn to make bowstrings, targets (from simple to imaginative), and fittings, and gain information to make arrows especially crafted to meet an archer's individual needs, including shafts and feathering. Over 600 color photos illustrate the instructions. Fourteen experienced archers have developed this instructive text from their own practice and testing. Together, they provide information necessary to make their own archery equipment with leather, wood, antler, and bone.


Depth Completion deals with the problem of converting a sparse depth map to a dense one, given the corresponding color image. Convolutional spatial propagation network (CSPN) is one of the state-of-the-art (SoTA) methods of depth completion, which recovers structural details of the scene. In this paper, we propose CSPN++, which further improves its effectiveness and efficiency by learning adaptive convolutional kernel sizes and the number of iterations for the propagation, thus the context and computational resources needed at each pixel could be dynamically assigned upon requests. Specifically, we formulate the learning of the two hyper-parameters as an architecture selection problem where various configurations of kernel sizes and numbers of iterations are first defined, and then a set of soft weighting parameters are trained to either properly assemble or select from the pre-defined configurations at each pixel. In our experiments, we find weighted assembling can lead to significant accuracy improvements, which we referred to as "context-aware CSPN", while weighted selection, "resource-aware CSPN" can reduce the computational resource significantly with similar or better accuracy. Besides, the resource needed for CSPN++ can be adjusted w.r.t. the computational budget automatically. Finally, to avoid the side effects of noise or inaccurate sparse depths, we embed a gated network inside CSPN++, which further improves the performance. We demonstrate the effectiveness of CSPN++on the KITTI depth completion benchmark, where it significantly improves over CSPN and other SoTA methods.


In today's business environment of relentless change, the topic of how one should proceed with understanding the reasons for change and alternative strategic options, has received much attention by researchers and practitioners alike. This paper considers the relation between goal-oriented business process modeling and organizational change and addresses the question "how can we reason about organizational change using a goal-driven approach?" To this end, it describes a systematic way-of-working for modeling organizational change and presents empirical results and observations from applying this approach in a large industrial application in the domain of utility deregulation. The purpose of this paper is twofold. Firstly, to demonstrate and assess the applicability of the proposed methodology on a nontrivial application and secondly to illustrate a number of challenging issues that need to be addressed by goal-driven methodologies in order to effectively support the process of change.


Governments and enterprises strongly rely on incentives to generate favorable outcomes from social and strategic interactions between individuals, for example climate or environmental friendly actions. The incentives are usually modeled by payoffs in strategical games, such as the prisoner's dilemma or the harmony game. Adjusting the incentives by changing the payoff parameters e.g. through tax schemes can favor cooperation (harmony) over defection (prisoner's dilemma). Here, we show that if individuals engage in strategic interactions in multiple domains, incentives can fail and the final outcome, cooperation or defection, is dominated by the initial state of the system. Our findings highlight the importance to take the multilayer structure of human interactions into account and emphasize the importance to rethink payoff-based incentives.


Many institutions of higher education are designing spaces to facilitate learning. Libraries have created information or learning commons to support this activity. This article draws from the literature and best practices to explore this new direction. Academic libraries have focused on student learning and the teaching of skills and strategies that develop information literacy competency. Although there is an assumption that learning commons facilitate student learning, there is a need to more closely connect this new environment with information literacy and pedagogy and to demonstrate its merits in enhancing learning. A basic premise is that each learning commons that is planned well will be unique. This is because a key component of the planning process is to understand the campus perspective, student learning styles and preferences, and the role of the campus library. The combination of those factors will result in a learning commons that supports its own institutional priorities and profile in a specialized manner. This article is in the form of a panel discussion that explores possible relationships between the learning commons and student learning, pedagogy, and information literacy. The "panel members" are the authors who represent three different perspectives that should be interrelated when planning learning commons. These perspectives are (1) the scholarly perspective that provides an empirical foundation for decision-making, (2) the perspective of a library administrator who builds the relationships needed for successful external collaboration, and (3) the perspective of a librarian who implements the vision for a learning commons. The panelists discuss a number of topics including (1) the scholarly basis for a learning commons as a focal point for enhancing student learning, pedagogy, and information literacy, (2) how a library administrator can create and communicate a vision that focuses on information literacy and student learning, (3) how a practicing librarian can promote information literacy, pedagogy, and student learning through a learning commons, and (4) engaging all stakeholders to promote consideration of pedagogical approaches through the learning commons. Finally, there are recommendations for research and practice about the learning commons and information literacy.


BACKGROUND The prevalence of onychomycosis, the most frequent cause of nail disease, ranges from 2% to 13%. Standard treatments include debridement, topical medications, and systemic therapies. This study assesses the efficacy and tolerability of topical application of 1% clotrimazole solution compared with that of 100% Melaleuca alternifolia (tea tree) oil for the treatment of toenail onychomycosis. METHODS A double-blind, multicenter, randomized controlled trial was performed at two primary care health and residency training centers and one private podiatrist's office. The participants included 117 patients with distal subungual onychomycosis proven by culture. Patients received twice-daily application of either 1% clotrimazole (CL) solution or 100% tea tree (TT) oil for 6 months. Debridement and clinical assessment were performed at 0, 1, 3, and 6 months. Cultures were obtained at 0 and 6 months. Each patient's subjective assessment was also obtained 3 months after the conclusion of therapy. RESULTS The baseline characteristics of the treatment groups did not differ significantly. After 6 months of therapy, the two treatment groups were comparable based on culture cure (CL = 11%, TT = 18%) and clinical assessment documenting partial or full resolution (CL = 61%, TT = 60%). Three months later, about one half of each group reported continued improvement or resolution (CL = 55%; TT = 56%). CONCLUSIONS All current therapies have high recurrence rates. Oral therapy has the added disadvantages of high cost and potentially serious adverse effects. Topical therapy, including the two preparations presented in this paper, provide improvement in nail appearance and symptomatology. The use of a topical preparation in conjunction with debridement is an appropriate initial treatment strategy.


An intercomparison of four low-resolution remotely sensed ice-drift products in the Arctic Ocean is presented. The purpose of the study is to examine the uncertainty in space and time of these different drift products. The comparison is based on monthly mean ice drifts from October 2002 to December 2006. The ice drifts were also compared with available buoy data. The result shows that the differences of the drift vectors are not spatially uniform, but are covariant with ice concentration and thickness. In high (low) ice-concentration areas, the differences are small (large), and in thick (thin) ice-thickness areas, the differences are small (large). A comparison with the drift deduced from buoys reveals that the error of the drift speed depends on the magnitude of the drift speed: larger drift speeds have larger errors. Based on the intercomparison of the products and comparison with buoy data, uncertainties of the monthly mean drift are estimated. The estimated uncertainty maps reasonably reflect the difference between the products in relation to ice concentration and the bias from the buoy drift in relation to drift speed. Examinations of distinctive features of Arctic sea ice motion demonstrate that the transpolar drift speed differs among the products by 13% (0.32 cm s−1) on average, and ice drift curl in the Amerasian Basin differs by up to 24% (3.3 × 104 m2 s−1). These uncertainties should be taken into account if these products are used, particularly for model validation and data assimilation within the Arctic.


Many segments of the transportation industry will benefit from an automatic vehicle tracking and monitoring system. Such a system automatically reports the position of a number of vehicles (groundborne, seaborne and airborne) to a central location. Dispatchers, such as police, bus or taxi, could more efficiently use their resources if they could track the location of the vehicles they are controlling. Ships on a seaway could be more efficiently scheduled into docks or locks if their position and speed were being tracked. Trucking companies could more effectively protect their cargos from theft or hi-jacking if they could monitor the location of the trucks.

A few automatic vehicle tracking systems have been implemented. As an example the Chicago Metropolitan Bus System has been evaluating a system. The Urban Mass Transportation Administration of the Department of Transportation is conducting a program to determine the best system for "Automatic Vehicle Monitoring". Tests have been conducted of at least four RF positioning systems to determine which of these technologies meet DOT/UMTA requirements. The next phase will be a trial implementation of one of these tested systems.

This paper summarizes the stated user requirements as determined by DOT/UMTA, St. Lawrence Seaway Authority, Forestry Service, Railroads and others. These user requirements include positioning accuracy, number of vehicles to be handled simultaneously, coverage area and implementation and operating costs. A comparison of several technologies is then presented. A very brief description of each system, including Loran–C, Differential Omega, RF trilateration, sign-post and dead reckoning is presented with a comparison of the advantages and disadvantages in view of the user requirements.

A cost comparison is presented which compares the implementation and operating costs of the different systems. Overall efficiency is compared; i.e. cost per user, rf spectrum efficiency, etc.

A summary of this comparison concludes that a Loran–C Automatic Tracking System is the most efficient alternative to the requirement for an automatic vehicle positioning system. A description of a Loran–C System then follows, which briefly describes the major system components. Implementation and operating costs are presented. The solution to the two prime problems of a Loran AVM System are described—namely a low-cost receiver and the availability of relatively low-cost, small, Loran–C chains presently in production.


Hardware virtualisation is the provision of an isolated virtual environment that represents real physical hardware. It enables operating systems, or other systemlevel software (the guest), to run unmodified in a "container" (the virtual machine) that is isolated from the real machine (the host). There are many use-cases for hardware virtualisation that span a wide-range of end-users. For example, home-users wanting to run multiple operating systems side-by-side (such as running a Windows® operating system inside an OS X environment) will use virtualisation to accomplish this. In research and development environments, developers building experimental software and hardware want to prototype their designs quickly, and so will virtualise the platform they are targeting to isolate it from their development workstation. Large-scale computing environments employ virtualisation to consolidate hardware, enforce application isolation, migrate existing servers or provision new servers. However, the majority of these use-cases call for same-architecture virtualisation, where the architecture of the guest and the host machines match—a situation that can be accelerated by the hardware-assisted virtualisation extensions present on modern processors. But, there is significant interest in virtualising the hardware of different architectures on a host machine, especially in the architectural research and development worlds. Typically, the instruction set architecture of a guest platform will be different to the host machine, e.g. an ARM guest on an x86 host will use an ARM instruction set, whereas the host will be using the x86 instruction set. Therefore, to enable this cross-architecture virtualisation, each guest instruction must be emulated by the host CPU—a potentially costly operation. This thesis presents a range of techniques for accelerating this instruction emulation, improving over a state-of-the art instruction set simulator by 2.64×. But, emulation of the guest platform's instruction set is not enough for full hardware virtualisation. In fact, this is just one challenge in a range of issues that must be considered. Specifically, another challenge is efficiently handling the way external interrupts are managed by the virtualisation system. This thesis shows that when employing efficient instruction emulation techniques, it is not feasible to arbitrarily divert control-flow without consideration being given to the state of the emulated processor. Furthermore, it is shown that it is possible for the virtualisation environment to behave incorrectly if particular care is not given to the point at which control-flow is allowed to diverge. To solve this, a technique is developed that maintains efficient instruction emulation, and correctly handles external interrupt sources. Finally, modern processors have built-in support for hardware virtualisation in the form of instruction set extensions that enable the creation of an abstract computing environment, indistinguishable from real hardware. These extensions enable guest operating systems to run directly on the physical processor, with minimal supervision from a hypervisor. However, these extensions are geared towards same-architecture virtualisation, and as such are not immediately well-suited for cross-architecture virtualisation. This thesis presents a technique for exploiting these existing extensions, and using them in a crossarchitecture virtualisation setting, improving the performance of a novel crossarchitecture virtualisation hypervisor over state-of-the-art by 2.5×.


Context. Stellar activity induces apparent radial velocity (RV) variations in late-type main-sequence stars that may hamper the detection of low-mass planets and the measurement of their mass. Aims. We use simultaneous measurements of the active planet host star HD 189733 with high-precision optical photometry by the MOST satellite and high-resolution spectra by SOPHIE. We apply on this unique dataset a spot model to predict the activity-induced RV variations and compare them with the observed ones. Methods. The model is based on the rotational modulation of the stellar flux. A maximum entropy regularization is applied to find a unique and stable solution for the distribution of the active regions versus stellar longitude. The RV variations are synthesized considering the effects on the line profiles of the brightness perturbations due to dark spots and bright faculae and the reduction of the convective blueshifts in the active regions. Results. The synthesized RV time series shows a remarkably good agreement with the observed one although variations on timescales shorter than 4‐5 days cannot be reproduced by our model. Persistent active longitudes are revealed by the spot modelling. They rotate with slightly different periods yielding a minimum relative amplitude of the differential rotation of ΔΩ/ Ω= 0.23 ± 0.10. Moreover, several active regions with an evolution timescale of 2‐5 days and an area of 0.1‐0.3 percent of the stellar disc are detected. Conclusions. The method proves capable of reducing the power of the activity-induced RV variations by a factor from 2 to 10 at the rotation frequency and its harmonics up to the third. Thanks to the high-precision space-borne photometry delivered by CoRoT, Kepler, or later PLATO, it is possible to map the longitudinal distribution of active regions in late-type stars and apply the method presented in this paper to reduce remarkably the impact of stellar activity on their RV jitter allowing us to confirm the detection of low-mass planets or refine the measurement of their mass.


We examine whether economic downturns are beneficial to health outcomes of newborn infants in developed countries. For this we use merged population-wide registers on health and economic and demographic variables, including the national medical birth register and intergenerational link registers from Sweden covering 1992–2004. We take a rigorous econometric approach that exploits regional variation in unemployment and compares babies born to the same parents so as to deal with possible selective fertility based on labor market conditions. We find that downturns are beneficial; for example, a one-percentage-point increase in the unemployment rate during pregnancy reduces the probability of having a birth weight less than 1,500 grams or of dying within 28 days of birth by 10–15%. Effects are larger in low socio-economic status households. Health improvements cannot be attributed to the parents' own employment status. The results suggest pathways through stress and air pollution.


Acknowledgments About the Authors 1. Introduction to the Achievement Gap and the "Literacy Gaps Model" Demographic Patterns Language Spoken and Socioeconomic Factors ELL Achievement Standard English Learners The National Literacy Panel The Literacy Gaps Model Overview of Book Chapters Summary 2. Decoding: Word Recognition Strategies and Fluency Introduction The Gap Between the Student and the Text Decoding and Readability of Text Decoding English Language Development Background Knowledge Summary 3. Background Knowledge and Experiences Schema Fit: Becoming a Text Participant Context: Becoming a Text User (Active Participant) Linkages: Becoming a Text Analyst (Reading Critically) Summary 4. Comprehension Comprehension Gap Academic Language Passage Comprehension Summary 5. English Language Development and Academic English Specialized Language Needs of ELLs Needs of Standard English Learners Academic Language Development Lesson Plan Summary 6. Perceptions and Expectations Were Called on Less Frequently and Were Provided Less Time to Respond Were Given the Answer Rather Than Helped to Solve the Problem Themselves Were Criticized More Often, and Praised Less Were Paid Less Positive Attention, but Disciplined More Strictly 7. Cultural Differences Connecting the Literacy Domains in Second Language Acquisition Parental Involvement and the Literacy Domains Culturally Responsive Teaching Comprehensive Education Multidimensional Approaches Empowerment Transformative Learning Emancipatory Education Summary 8. Socioeconomic Differences Implicit and Explicit Codes Discourse Patterns Interactional Styles Written Language Codes Resource Access Summary 9. Language Variables Academic Language Competence Summary 10. Grouping Strategies Micro Structures That Bridge Language Proficiency Gaps Macro Structures That Bridge Language Proficiency Gaps Summary 11. Beyond the Gap/Envisioning the Future The Literacy Gaps Model Summary Glossary Index


The purpose of this study was to determine if the use of structured self-reflection in community dance classes would influence achievement goal orientations, levels of intrinsic motivation, or perceived dance performance. The Task and Ego Orientation in Sport Questionnaire (TEOSQ) and the Intrinsic Motivation Inventory (IMI) were modified slightly to reflect involvement in salsa dancing rather than sport and then were administered to 139 Latin dance students at the beginning and end of an 11-week term. The dance classes were divided into control and intervention groups, balanced in terms of sample size and level of instruction. The intervention group completed a salsa self-reflection form during or after class for 9 weeks. At the posttest all students rated their salsa performance and the intervention group evaluated the self-reflection process. Results indicate that although achievement goal orientations were not affected, structured self-reflection is perceived to be a positive tool and may be a useful technique to enhance perceived performance and maintain effort and perceived importance. The participants' perceptions of the self-reflection process were positive, with no negative effects of engaging in the process reported.


Participatory development seeks to actively engage local people and communities in development
efforts, from problem identification to evaluation. The concept is, however, vaguely defined and
can in reality manifest itself in many different ways, with varying success in creating a sustained
impact. There are also a wide range of challenges involved due to the collaborative nature of the
approach. This thesis is a qualitative case study exploring the Nnindye project, a participatory
agricultural development project that is being carried out in Uganda. The overarching aim is to
explore the challenges involved in implementing the Nnindye project which can affect its capacity
to generate sustained agricultural development, and what lessons can be learned that might be
applicable to future projects in similar settings. To help answer this question, research questions
were developed focusing particularly on 1) the kind of participation the project enables, 2)
emerging issues that are important to address, 3) the relationship between farmers and "outsiders"
involved, 4) gender dimensions and 5) reasons not to participate. Literature from the fields of
participatory development and research, particularly experiences from Uganda, helped guide the
development of these research questions.
To address these research questions, semi-structured interviews were carried out with 80 farmers
in Nnindye parish (both participants and non-participants), sampled through a non-probability
sampling method. Additionally, 5 agricultural researchers familiar with using farmer participatory
approaches in other projects in Uganda were sampled through convenience sampling, and their
experiences and views were explored through semi-structured interviews. At the end of the study,
a final interview was carried out with one of the Nnindye project implementers.
As it turns out, participation in the project cannot be categorized. Respondents mainly identified
material benefits but also learning and other less tangible benefits. One's contribution was most
often seen as practical input, usually labor. Influence in the project was similarly commonly
perceived in practical terms rather than "political". This material or pragmatic nature of
participation seen among some participants may suggest that more efforts are needed to
strengthen the learning process and community building capacity, but also tangible benefits can be
of great value in both short and long term. Luckily, one doesn't have to exclude the other.
Participant ownership of the process is something that is viewed by the project implementors as
central, and participants on numerous occasions expressed negative opinions towards past topdown
approaches. However, "ownership" must not mean lack of support. Dissatisfaction with the
group leadership and unfair distribution of benefits among the project members was discovered
and there is a need for more systematic monitoring and facilitation. The results overall show an
overwhelmingly positive attitude towards scientists and extension staff among the farmers, who
stated that they view these as very knowledgeable. This seemingly positive relationship is an asset
but it must be remembered that it is not static – negative experiences can jeopardize both the
current project and attitudes towards collaborative efforts and development in general. Gender
dimensions are important to consider in practically all aspects of a project, and gender awareness
is required among the implementers to ensure that the project benefits women and men alike. In
general, parallels could be drawn from the Nnindye project to the experiences of the researchers,
speaking for the usefulness of these findings to other academics and development practitioners.


Historically, environmental research associated with Appalachian coal surface mines focused on acid mine drainage and reclamation. Recent studies suggest that electrical conductivity (EC) levels above 500 μS cm -1 can impair Appalachian streams, shifting the focus towards limiting release of total dissolved solids (TDS) and associated elements of concern. Previous column studies utilized an unsaturated bi-weekly leaching design to evaluate the behavior of overburden with respect to TDS, pH, and trace metals. The objective of this study was to determine the effects of column saturation, leaching solution chemistry, and leaching cycle on the release of TDS and associated elements from an unweathered sandstone. Treatments evaluating potential saturation, leaching solution pH, and leaching cycle included saturated, standard method, vacuum, and standpipe fitted columns; simulated acid rain, de-ionized water, and CaCO3 leaching solutions; and 2x week -1 , 1x week -1 , 2x month -1 , and 1x day -1 leaching cycles. Saturation level in the column significantly impacted leachate pH, EC level, and the release of sulfate, bicarbonate, and associated cations by potentially affecting trace sulfide oxidation and carbonate dissolution reactions. Little evidence of saturation was noted with the standard method. Leaching solution bulk chemistry did not alter leachate chemistry. Longer times between dosing cycles corresponded to higher EC, bicarbonate, and associated cation levels, especially over time. Sulfate, Ca, and Se exhibited the greatest percent release based on total mass losses during peak elution. For managing TDS, time between precipitation events and saturation level can strongly affect short and long-term EC level, its major contributors, and elements of concern.


Field studies have shown a wide array of responses of vascular epiphyte diversity to human disturbance-assem- blages of disturbed habitats range from largely unchanged to severely impoverished when compared with intact forest. This variability is not well understood. We explored the hypothesis that the relative impoverishment of disturbed-habitat epiphyte assemblages is a function of local climate, by analyzing the available literature on epiphyte diversity on isolated trees as a model system. We found that assemblages of moist and moderately seasonal areas experience considerably stronger impov- erishment than those of aseasonally wet or distinctly dry areas. We argue that the integrity of the vertical microclimatic gradient is more crucial for the maintenance of epiphyte diversity in moderately seasonal forests than in distinctly dry or aseasonally wet forests.


Neurodegenerative diseases share the unifying features of insoluble protein aggregates and irreversible neuron loss. Parkinson's disease (PD) is defined by proteinaceous Lewy bodies—which contain α-synuclein—and loss of dopamine neurons leading to motor dysfunction. Growing evidence implicates α-synuclein aggregation as a causal driver of neurodegeneration in certain forms of PD. However, the precise mechanism(s) by which the process or products of α-synuclein aggregation drive neuron death remains unknown. Better understanding of this key question might further development of neuroprotective therapies for PD and related disorders. To address this gap, we reviewed how the native conformation of α-synuclein relates to its physiological function and roles in pathology. We also examined how the mouse brain proteome and phosphoproteome change in response to α-synuclein aggregation using quantitative proteomics. This revealed that proteomic changes were not widespread, but instead were enriched within certain functional areas. For the first time, we found that the immunoproteasome is induced during aggregation, providing a new tunable target for studying α-synuclein aggregation and its connection to toxicity. We also employed nordihydroguaiaretic acid (NDGA) and analogs to study the chemistry and products of phenolic inhibitors of α-synuclein aggregation. We discovered that oxidation-dependent cyclization is required for NDGA analogs to inhibit α-synuclein aggregation and that this inhibition is caused by modification of α-synuclein monomers that retain their conformational dynamics and lipid interactions. Further, we found that these NDGA analogmodified monomers exert a dominant negative effect on aggregation of untreated α-synuclein, exposing a novel mechanism for inhibiting α-synuclein aggregation. Using transgenic Caenorhabditis elegans, we showed that cyclized NDGA can prevent neurodegeneration driven by α-synuclein. These findings outline a novel paradigm for small molecule inhibition of α-synuclein aggregation wherein they act by stabilizing dynamic αsynuclein monomers, preventing aggregation. This in turn prevents aggregation of untreated α-synuclein and reduces neurodegeneration. Together this work underscores the importance of α-synuclein's native structural dynamics and provides several novel tools for future use in untangling the relationship between α-synuclein aggregation and neuron loss in PD and related disorders. Degree Type Dissertation Degree Name Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Graduate Group Pharmacology First Advisor Harry Ischiropoulos


Ecosystem services (ES) can be defined as the goods and services that ecosystems provide to the society for its well-being. The importance of ES in different fields of environmental sciences, ecology and land planning has been highlighted in recent years. The relevance of spatial aspects of the data describing ecosystems has driven the use of several spatial analysis techniques and methods for ES assessment. However, the extended use of Land Use/Land Cover maps may lead to uncertainty and bias due to oversimplification and generalization of the study area and associated elements. Ecosystem services and the ecological processes that generate them are strongly related. These processes are not constant at all spatial scales and display high levels of spatial and temporal heterogeneity. Thus, appropriate selection of the data sources and analytical methods used to characterize the ecosystems is essential for development of accurate models and minimization of potential bias in the assessments. The general objective of this research was to carry out a multi-scale analysis of the spatial pattern of ES supply and the distribution of some ecosystems that provide the ES. Different data sources were used to characterize agricultural and forest landscapes in the NW Iberian Peninsula. Forests are major components of the landscape in the area, and several authors have highlighted the wide range of ES that these ecosystems provide. We first characterized the ecosystems in order to identify the areas where the main forest tree species in the area are growing. Quercus robur L. and Castanea sativa Mill. forests are mainly located in zones below 500 m where low temperatures do not usually occur. By contrast, Quercus petraea (Matt.) Liebl. and Fagus sylvatica L. forests are associated with lower temperature zones at higher elevations. We then used digital soil cover data to analyze the pattern of supply of six ES (provision of food, materials and energy, regulation of climate and erosion, and cultural services) by spatial statistical methods. We used the lacunarity metric to analyze the regularity of the no supply areas at multiple spatial scales. We found some divergence in the thresholds of spatial clustering of the ES and obtained higher values for food and materials provision. We also identified the spatial scales (extensions) at which the probability of supply of each ES is maximized. In addition, we used a functional approach to analyze the pattern of supply of a similar set of ES. We developed spatial models of these ES on the basis of Net Primary Production, calculated for a phenological year from Landsat 5-TM data and using the ?NDVI index. The index was then combined with some socio-environmental variables. We used two multi-scale metrics (lacunarity and four term local quadrat variance) to analyze the observed patterns. The analysis revealed clustered patterns for provisioning services and a more extended distribution for regulating services, with different characteristic spatial scales for each type. Finally, we used a high resolution forest thematic map to assess the potential supply of some ES from forest ecosystems. We thus explored the spatial relationships between these ES and found some differences between the ES associated with native forests and those supplied by forest plantations of exotic species. We also determined the zones with a high density of elements involved in ES supply at different spatial scales. This enabled us to identify the locations of the most important areas for some ecosystems in relation to the supply of different ES in the NW Iberian Peninsula. Finally, we also analyzed the most characteristic spatial scales and the effect of different types of data sources on ES assessment.


Welcome to a world of uncertainties!

This report presents the materials, analyses and conclusions produced during the Seven Shocks and Finland project, an activity of IIASA Exploratory Projects in June -December 2011. The primary objective of the project was to investigate the nature of the uncertainties and the resilience requirements that emerge from the complexity of the global social, political, economic and social systems. The shocks ( which were created at IIASA) presented in this document were the instruments to serve that purpose, and should not be seen as fully-developed, stand-alone research cases.

Our ambition was to examine resilience requirements from a decision makers' perspective, and to define concrete actions and examples to improve national resilience. We wish to extend a special thanks to the six ministries, five government agencies and public sector operators, four industrial federations and three Finnish companies that provided both intellectual and financial support for this study. We are also very pleased to acknowledge the virtual contributions of nearly 300 experts, especially in providing the critical and creative input for the November 24-25 analysis session at IIASA. This input was crucial to the success of the project.

From the methodological perspective, the project was extremely successful. We hope that the policy principles and concrete actions and examples presented in this report are useful as raw material for resilience planning, both at the national and the organizational level.


The principles of narrative therapy imply that autobiographical diaries written by patients in treatment will not only facilitate but also elucidate progress. The relationship between the linguistic content of diaries and progress in treatment was examined in this study. Complete sets of daily diaries of 'significant events' written by 16 patients receiving treatment for drug, alcohol and food addictions at a residential centre, using the 12-step approach of the Anonymous fellowships, were typed up for analysis. Three forms of socio-linguistic enquiry were employed: narrative characterization; evaluative statement coding and computer analysis of word strategies. Results indicated that success in treatment as rated by counselling and psychiatric staff was associated with the following characteristics of diary narratives. They are (a) focused on individual progress, whether adopting a 'positive interpretative' or 'negative reactive' style; (b) less critical of self over time and more positive about others external to the treatment centre; (c) both positive about the treatment programme and critical of self; (d) using words indicative of 'insight' and 'negativity' as assessed by Pennebaker's LIWC programme. It is concluded that autobiographical material can usefully be employed to assess progress in treatment, and that its intrinsic value in effecting change should be further explored.


The injection of 20 ng of mouse interleukin-12 (IL-12) protects mice from a lethal infection with encephalomyocarditis virus. In vitro, an anti-gamma interferon (anti-IFN-gamma) monoclonal antibody but not an anti-IL-12 monoclonal antibody neutralizes the antiviral activity present in the supernatants of splenocytes stimulated with IL-12. Finally, IL-12 fails to protect 129 Sv/Ev IFN-gamma R0/0 mice against encephalomyocarditis virus infection. These results demonstrate that IL-12 exerts its antiviral activity through the induction of endogenous IFN-gamma.


The Saturated World: Aesthetic Meaning, Intimate Objects, Women's Lives, 1890-1940. By Beverly Gordon. (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2006. Pp. xii + 274, acknowledgments, introduction, photographs, illustrations, notes, bibliography, index. $38.00 cloth) Beverly Gordon's new book is about "the way American women in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries enriched and added meaning to their lives through their 'domestic amusements'-leisure pursuits that took place in and were largely focused on the home" ( 1 ). For anyone familiar with Gordon's writings, it is no surprise that she has provided this clear and concise overview in the book's first sentence, or that the rest of the book maintains this clarity and focus, supported by impeccable scholarship and elegant prose. Folklorists may well ask if a book that describes the practices of making paper-doll houses, planning elaborate parties, and dressing up and making costumes is useful for our field. My response would be that it depends on how we define our work. If we assume that the white, middle-class (broadly defined) women who participated in these activities do not constitute the kind of "group" that interests us; if we exclude these pursuits because they were promoted through books and magazines, incorporated commercially available materials (such as crepe paper), and functioned as "popular" culture of a past era; or if we look at the ephemeral nature of the resulting "products," then we might conclude that there's nothing here of interest. However, Gordon uses popular genres to illustrate a larger concept, which she calls "saturation." Expanding the word's meaning from its application to color intensity, she describes saturation as "a kind of heightened experience (state, reality) that was aesthetically and sensually charged and full" (1). This concept, it seems to me, is central for any scholar who seeks to understand why people create, embellish, or perform. For Gordon, the interrelated characteristics of the saturated world include the stimulation of multiple senses, various aspects of embodiment, childlike playfulness and expressiveness, a connectedness with other people, an intimacy with objects, and the value of process over product (3). Folklorists have explored similar qualities in the work of folk artists, particularly outsider artists who, by definition, explore idiosyncratic directions, but Gordon encourages us to look at the largely communal activities of ordinary women. "These women created self-contained, enchanted 'worlds' that helped feed or sustain them, usually by elaborating on their everyday tasks and responsibilities, 'making them special' and transforming them into something playful and socially and emotionally satisfying" (1). A chapter called "Collecting" offers a demonstration of gender differences in the motivations of men and women. Beginning with a brief but cogent overview of the explosive growth of collecting as a hobby at the turn of the twentieth century, Gordon surveys popular literature and biography along with surviving collections. Male collectors, both children and adults, tended to be more concerned with classification, the acquisition of complete sets, and the perceived value of collections. …


A Wireless Sensor Network(WSN) contains short range energy limited terminals/nodes in which multiple nodes participates one by one to transfer data from source node to Base station. Each node appends some amount of delay which degrades the network performance as the jittered behaviour of network may not be allowed in some applications. Again the faulty nature of tandem nodes may create some severe routing scenarios.  Concept of Broad Area Sensor Network (BASN) incorporates a real time communication between sensor node and Base station, which helps to optimize the Quality of Service (QoS). Our goal is to do extensive simulation on performance analysis of such sensor networks and its optimization. Keywords -  WSN ,energy limited terminals, jitter, Quality of service(QoS)


Ionized calcium (Ca 2+ ) has long been known to be a major controller of cell function including pancreatic acinar cell secretion; in fact, research on pancreatic acinar cells in the 1980's was instrumental in establishing the mechanisms by which sequestered calcium is released into the cytoplasm to act as an intracellular messenger in response to hormones and neurotransmitters (1). In acinar cells this signaling consists of transient Ca 2+ elevations in the apical pole of the cell that triggers exocytosis of zymogen granules (2). Hyperstimulation of acinar cells especially by CCK led to a large single peak of Ca 2+ followed by a plateau of elevated calcium. Since hyperstimulation by the CCK analog cerulein has long been known to induce experimental pancreatitis (3), it was a logical step forward to show using isolated pancreatic acini that a high level of intracellular Ca 2+ was associated with and probably caused premature trypsin activation, cell vacuolization, and necrosis which are considered the in vitro equivalent of acute pancreatitis (AP) (4-6).


We consider a compositional method for the verification of component-based systems described in a subset of the BIP language encompassing multi-party interactions. The method is based on the use of two kinds of invariants. Component invariants are over-approximations of components' reach ability sets. Interaction invariants are constraints on the states of components involved in interactions. In this paper we propose fixed point characterization for computing interaction invariants. We also propose a new technique that takes the incremental design of the system into account. In many situations, the technique will help to avoid redoing all the verification process each time an interaction is added in the design. Our two techniques have been implemented as extension of the D-Finder toolset. The result has been applied to check deadlock-freedom on several case studies. Our experiments show that our new methodology is generally much faster than existing ones.


Analysis and Evaluation of Single Piles in Laterally Spreading Soil Christopher McGann Co-Chairs of the Supervisory Committee: Associate Professor Pedro Arduino Civil and Environmental Engineering Research Assistant Professor Peter Mackenzie–Helnwein Civil and Environmental Engineering Liquefaction–induced lateral spreading is an important load case for pile–founded bridges and port facilities located in seismically active regions. This work presents a kinematic analysis of the effects of lateral spreading on a single pile embedded in a layered soil profile and discusses the applicability of conventional analysis methods to the lateral spreading problem. A series of three–dimensional finite element models are created and analyzed using the OpenSees finite element analysis platform developed at the Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research (PEER) Center. The developed FEA considers a single pile (modeled using beam elements) embedded in a soil continuum (modeled using brick elements). Beam–Solid contact elements are utilized to define the interface between the pile and soil elements. Three distinct reinforced concrete pile designs are considered in the models. Elastoplastic behavior is considered in both the pile and the soil through the use of fiber sections and a Drucker–Prager constitutive model, respectively. Each individual component in the model is validated through a series of simple analyses, ensuring that the desired behavior is captured. Force density–displacement (p – y) curves are extracted from the finite element models and compared to several conventional methods for establishing these curves. The characteristic parameters used in this comparison are initial stiffness and ultimate resistance. Additional, one–dimensional models are created which utilize the same beam elements and consider the soil response through the use of p – y curves generated using both the FEA results and conventional means. The results for the lateral spreading models show that elastoplastic soil behavior must be considered in order to determine appropriate maximum moment demands for piles. Through the extraction of p – y curves from the 3D models, it is determined that the kinematics of the pile greatly influence the extracted curves. A rigid pile undergoing a uniform displacement with depth is the most suitable method for obtaining sensible p – y curves from the models. It is shown that the methods commonly used to establish the characteristic parameters for p – y curves at large overburden pressure (greater depth) estimate values which are in excess of those returned by the finite element models, especially for large pile diameters. In the one– dimensional models, the extracted p – y curves produce moment–curvature demands in piles which are similar to the results of the three–dimensional simulations, while the conventional curves produce demands which do not correlate well with the 3D modeling effort. It is determined that the conventionally–used methods are most applicable for moderately–sized piles subject to loads applied at or above the ground surface, but misrepresent a deeper event such as lateral spreading.


Expeditions to the Gaoligong Mountains and Biluo Snow Mountains in western Yunnan Province, China have uncovered new taxonomic information about the species of Gaultheria series Trichophyllae (Ericaceae) that are known to occur in these ranges. Based on these data, we describe two species as new to science ( G. ciliisepala and G. stenophylla ) and elevate four varieties ( Chiogenes suborbicularis var. albiflorus , G. sinensis vars. crassifolia and major , and G. trichophylla var. obovata ) to the species level (as G. albiflora , G. crassifolia , G. major , and G. obovata , respectively). We provide a lectotype and a revised description for G. eciliata because the type was discovered to also include individuals of G. albiflora . Similarly, we provide a lectotype and a revised description for G. sinensis because the type was discovered to also include an individual of G. crassifolia ; moreover, the protologue of G. sinensis includes paratypes of three other species. Illustrations and photographic images of living plants in the field are included for all species. Our additions and changes raise the number of species recognized in G. series Trichophyllae from 10 to 16, with more to be expected as the Himalaya-Hengduan Mountains are further surveyed for these plants.


The prevailing model of structure formation that describes how matter is distributed throughout the Universe is known as the ⇤ cold dark matter paradigm. A key component of this paradigm is dark matter, which has so far gone undetected in laboratory experiments but is inferred from a wide variety of astrophysical observations. Although the cold dark matter paradigm is extremely successful on large scales, there are significant di↵erences between what computer simulations predict and what we observe on galaxy scales. The purpose of the work presented in this Dissertation is to address some of the issues surrounding the current structure formation paradigm and further develop some tools for investigating small scale structure. An issue that has caused recent controversy is known as the Planes of Dwarf Galaxies problem which describes the curious alignment of the Milky Way's dwarf galaxies into a thin planar structure. We have investigated this structure through time by integrating their orbits using the latest proper motion data as well as compared the distribution with current cosmological simulations and found no significant di↵erence between the Milky Way distribution and simulations. Through analysis of observations of the disturbances in the extended neutral hydrogen disks of spiral galaxies, one can characterize dark matter substructure and the dark matter halo of a host galaxy. This process is called Tidal Analysis. Using a simple test particle code to model satellite interactions with a gas disk, we have developed a scaling relation to relate the observed density response of the disk to the mass and pericenter of a satellite. With this relation, observers can now immediately infer the recent interaction history of a spiral galaxy from neutral hydrogen studies. Changing gears to observational studies of small scale structure, we report observations of Cepheid variables in a putative dwarf galaxy located along the line of sight of the galactic plane that was first predicted through the use of Tidal Analysis. Observations are still ongoing; however, preliminary results indicate that the Cepheids are part of structure that is moving independently of the Milky Way. Finally, in an e↵ort to use Tidal Analysis on other galaxies to constrain substructure, we have begun a 21-cm radio observing campaign of a set of spiral galaxies at redshift z ⇠ 0.1 to obtain their total mass in neutral hydrogen. This unique set of galaxies also act as strong gravitational lenses, thus allowing us to use both Tidal Analysis and gravitational lensing together for the first time. We report a secure detection and mass measurement for one of our sources and six upper mass limits.


A comprehensive operational system for selecting members within the general environment of the Integrated Civil Engineering System (ICES) and Structural Design Language (STRUDL) is described. Member design or selection commands that are a natural adjunct to the analyses afforded by large scale systems such as STRUDL and its precursor, STRESS (Structural Engineering Systems Solver) are described. Both member selection and checking can be done for truss members, beams, and columns, subjected to a variety of axial, shear, moment, biaxial bending and axial loads. Structural types such as plane trusses, frames, grids, space trusses and frames are all handled by identical commands. A general purpose constraint checker is incorporated to allow specification of structural, architectural, or fabrication requirements. The member selection commands are designed for both steel and concrete members, though only steel selection/checking procedures and the AISC code have been developed to date.


The operative concept of remix translates into a renewed tension in the contemporary journalistic field by means of a complex and not pacific coexistence of a read/write and a read/only culture. This ambivalence has also been designated as a convergence or mash-up culture. Beyond its modern structural elements (overseas delegations, staff correspondents, special assignments, freelancers, stringers, fixers, translators), the overall framework of international news reporting is being remixed and challenged by the emergence of a renewed confederacy of correspondences supported by online digital networks. The combination of technology particularly the Internet and its graphical interface, the World Wide Web with the emergence of nonconventional journalists is transforming previous meanings and implications of eyewitnessing as a journalistic keyword. Traditional foreign correspondents no longer exercise hegemony over international news. This article, based on a comprehensive literature review, addresses the state of flux in international journalism signalling the emerging typologies and confronting those with the previous standard model of correspondence.


We propose a new approach to demodulate a single fringe pattern with closed fringes by using Local Adaptable Quadrature Filters (LAQF). Quadrature filters have been widely used to demodulate complete image interferograms with carrier frequency. However, in this paper, we propose the use of quadrature filters locally, assuming that the phase is locally quasimonochromatic, since quadrature filters are not capable to demodulate image interferograms with closed fringes. The idea, in this paper, is to demodulate the fringe pattern with closed fringes sequentially, using a fringe following scanning strategy. In particular we use linear robust quadrature filters to obtain a fast and robust demodulation method for single fringe pattern images with closed fringes. The proposed LAQF method does not require a previous fringe pattern normalization. Some tests with experimental interferograms are shown to see the performance of the method along with comparisons to its closest competitor, which is the Regularized Phase Tracker (RPT), and we will see that this method is tolerant to higher levels of noise.


In order to explore the influence in temperature field change on the cladding quality and substrate deformation during laser cladding, adopt the APDL parametrization design language in ANSYS finite element analysis software to establish the laser cladding process model and the cladding process. The dynamic simulation and the temperature field distribution during the simulation cooling process were carried out, and the experimental verification and comparison were carried out under the same process parameters. The results showed that the single-pass cladding layer has the best shape under the process parameters that laser power of 1800w, powder feeding capacity of 20g/min and scanning speed of 8mm/s. During the cladding simulation process, the temperature of the molten pool and the peak temperature of the time-course curve are basically constant, and the temperature field distribution takes on a steady-state distribution. After the cladding, the temperature of cladding layer diffuses to the both ends, the temperature field changes gradually decrease during the cooling process, and the temperature is in an unsteady state. As the cooling time increases, the temperature drop gradient gradually decreases. The temperature field cooling analysis is carried out under the same process parameters. The error between the experimental results and the simulation results is less than 10%, which is very consistent and has guiding significance for practical experiments.


Steel manufacturing plants are large water consumers that use a tremendous amount of water in their production process. As a result of the increasing demand in resource sustainability, high quality process water and stringent discharge compliance, the U.S. steel industry has faced tough challenges in smart water management to survive today's global economic environment. The challenge is compounded by the complexity of the contamination of wastewater characterized by their high concentrations in dissolved solids, suspended particles, toxic metals, difficult-to-treat chemicals and complex organic compounds. Recent studies have revealed the significance of proper waste stream segregation, coupled with proper membrane filtration, to achieve maximum water quality and reuse at minimal capital and operating cost. This presentation shall identify the various wastewater sources of concern and assess the associated technical challenges that need to be recognized and overcome by the industry. The discussion will present exploration of the conceptual approaches and treatment alternatives via a pilot test program along with a full scale system case study. The case study will depict the design, engineering, and operations details of a Tubular Membrane/Reverse Osmosis (RO) wastewater recycle plant installed in a large mid-west US high speed steel plating mill as the replacement of a conventional system to meet the NPDES (National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System) permit requirements and the company's longterm water resource management objectives.


How can an agent bootstrap up from a low-level representation to autonomously learn high-level states and actions using only domain-general knowledge? In this paper, we assume that the learning agent has a set of continuous variables describing the environment. There exist methods for learning models of the environment, and there also exist methods for planning. However, for autonomous learning, these methods have been used almost exclusively in discrete environments. We propose attacking the problem of learning high-level states and actions in continuous environments by using a qualitative representation to bridge the gap between continuous and discrete variable representations. In this approach, the agent begins with a broad discretization and initially can only tell if the value of each variable is increasing, decreasing, or remaining steady. The agent then simultaneously learns a qualitative representation (discretization) and a set of predictive models of the environment. These models are converted into plans to perform actions. The agent then uses those learned actions to explore the environment. The method is evaluated using a simulated robot with realistic physics. The robot is sitting at a table that contains a block and other distractor objects that are out of reach. The agent autonomously explores the environment without being given a task. After learning, the agent is given various tasks to determine if it learned the necessary states and actions to complete them. The results show that the agent was able to use this method to autonomously learn to perform the tasks.


Introduction Infliximab (Remicade, Centocor, Inc., Malvern, PA), a chimeric monoclonal antibody derived from both murine and human antibody sequences and directed against TNF-α, is one of the disease modifying anti-rheumatic drugs (DMARDs) used in the treatment of psoriatic arthritis and other autoimmune inflammatory conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis, ankylosing spondylitis, and Crohn's disease. It is commonly used in combination with methotrexate for increased efficacy and reduction of the development of anti-infliximab antibodies. A concerning feature of infliximab therapy is its association with an increased risk of infection or reactivation of diseases that can cause pulmonary complications, most notably tuberculosis and fungal infections. Additionally, there are a number of patients who have developed non-infectious interstitial lung disease following treatment with infliximab. These events usually occur after the second to third infusions and can be preceded by a course of methotrexate. In the setting of prior methotrexate therapy, it is suggested that infliximab may potentiate the manifestations of pulmonary toxicity due to methotrexate, specifically methotrexate pneumonia.1 In the following case report, we cite an example of the development of interstitial lung disease after infliximab therapy in a patient with psoriatic arthritis.


Background Consultations in the emergency department (ED) are infrequently studied. This study quantifies the contribution of consultations to ED length of stay (LOS) and examines patient and consultation characteristics associated with prolonged ED LOS. Methods Prospective cohort study of a convenience sample of shifts by volunteering emergency physicians (EP) at two urban tertiary care Canadian EDs. EPs completed standardised forms on all patients for whom a consultation was requested. Medical chart reviews and secondary analyses of administrative databases were also performed. Factors associated with longer LOS were determined through linear regression modelling. Results 1180 patients received at least one consultation during study shifts and EPs completed data collection on 841 (71%) of these. Median patient age was 54 years, 53.3% were male, and 2.9% had documented dementia. Admitted patients receiving consultations had a longer overall LOS compared to discharged patients. Median time from triage to consultation request accounted for approximately 28% of the total median LOS in admitted patients compared to 46% for discharged patients. Consultation decision time accounted for 33% and 54% of the LOS for admitted and discharged patients, respectively. Linear regression modelling revealed that advanced age, longer latency between arrival and first consultation request, history of dementia and multiple consultations were significantly associated with longer LOS. Conversely, undergoing procedures while in the ED was associated with a shorter LOS. Conclusions Consultation decision time contributes significantly to ED LOS. Further efforts are needed to validate these results in other ED settings and improve this aspect of ED throughput.


A total of 143 species belonging to Amphipoda were found at the depths between the supralittoral zone and 200 m along the Levantine coast of Turkey. Ten species (Ampelisca spinifer, Cheiriphotis mediterranea, Deutella shieckei, Ericthonius argenteus, Gammaropsis crenulata, Gammaropsis sophiae, Isaea montagui, Ischyrocerus inexpectatus, Liropus elongatus, and Melita bulla) were recorded for the first time in Turkey, while 69 species were new for the Levantine coast of Turkey. Platorchestia platensis was the only species observed out of water (supralittoral). The other encountered species showed distribution in various depths of between 0 and 200 m. The biogeographical categories of determined species were Mediterranean-Atlantic (69.2%), Mediterranean endemics (20.3%), cosmopolitans (8.4%), and Indo-Pacific immigrants (2.1%), including Elasmopus pectenicrus, Gammaropsis togoensis, and Stenothoe gallensis.


Home Energy Management System (HEMS), which makes the residential consumers, contribute to the demand response is attracting attention in recent years. An aim of HEMS is to minimize their electricity cost by controlling the use of their appliances according to electricity price. The use of appliances in HEMS may be affected by some conditions such as external temperature and electricity price. Therefore, the user's usage pattern of appliances should be modeled according to the external conditions, and the resultant usage pattern is related to the user's comfortability on use of each appliances. This paper proposes a methodology to model the usage pattern based on the historical data with the copula function. Through copula function, the usage range of each appliance can be obtained and is able to satisfy the appropriate user's comfort according to the external conditions for next day. Within the usage range, an optimal scheduling for appliances would be conducted so as to minimize an electricity cost with considering user's comfort. Among the home appliance, electric heater (EH) is a representative appliance, which is affected by the external temperature. In this paper, an optimal scheduling algorithm for an electric heater (EH) is addressed based on the method of branch and bound. As a result, scenarios for the EH usage are obtained according to user's comfort levels and then the residential consumer would select the best scenario. The case study shows the effects of the proposed algorithm compared with the traditional operation of the EH, and it represents impacts of the comfort level on the scheduling result. Keywords—Load scheduling, usage pattern, user's comfort, copula function, branch, bound, electric heater.