Two basic approaches to drawing lines on raster devices are discussed and improved upon. The first is the recursive bisection algorithm, a method recently proposed by John Rankin, which uses a fractal approach to draw lines. The second is the double-step algorithm, a method proposed by Xiaolin Wu and Jon Rokne, which is based on the traditional Bresenham approach to drawing lines. Although a number of line drawing algorithms exist, the algorithms presented are of interest because the double-step algorithm is one of the fastest line drawing algorithms. Furthermore, since lines are self-similar and fractals have been found to be useful in drawing other self-similar objects such as coastlines, plants, and terrain, the investigation of such an approach appears to be a worthwhile endeavor. In addition, some of the ideas presented can be applied to other line drawing algorithms and related problems such as incremental linear interpolation.
Regarding the recursive bisection algorithm, modifications making it faster than the traditional Bresenham method while reducing the logarithmic space requirements to a constant are discussed. A more detailed examination of the error analysis is presented as well. A parallel version of the algorithm is also developed in which only two operations reducible to multiplication/division are required, equaling the lower bound and half the amount needed by the parallel Bresenham algorithm. In addition, the amount of logic needed is small.
In the second part, modifications to the double-step line drawing algorithm are presented that allow additional pixels to be determined during some of the loop iterations. It is then shown that the resulting algorithm reduces the number of iterations by up to 33% while keeping the same worst case performance, code complexity, and initialization costs as the double-step algorithm. Lastly, this approach is generalized and applied to one of the fastest incremental linear interpolation algorithms, giving similar results.


In a cognitive wireless mesh network, licensed users (primary users, PUs) may rent surplus spectrum to unlicensed users (secondary users, SUs) for getting some revenue. For such spectrumsharing paradigm, maximizing the revenue is the key objective of the PUs while that of the SUs is to meet their requirements. These complex contradicting objectives are embedded in our reinforcement learning (RL) model that is developed and implemented as shown in this paper. The objective function is defined as the net revenue gained by PUs from renting some of their spectrum. RL is used to extract the optimal control policy that maximizes the PUs' profit continuously over time. The extracted policy is used by PUs to manage renting the spectrum to SUs and it helps PUs to adapt to the changing network conditions. Performance evaluation of the proposed spectrum trading approach shows that it is able to find the optimal size and price of spectrum for each primary user under different conditions. Moreover, the approach constitutes a framework for studying, synthesizing and optimizing other schemes. Another contribution is proposing a new distributed algorithm to manage spectrum sharing among PUs. In our scheme, PUs exchange channels dynamically based on the availability of neighbor's idle channels. In our cooperative scheme, the objective of spectrum sharing is to maximize the total revenue and utilize spectrum efficiently. Compared to the poverty-line heuristic that does not consider the availability of unused spectrum, our scheme has the advantage of utilizing spectrum efficiently.


We demonstrate the use of plasmonic extraordinary transmission at IR wavelengths for surface-enhanced infrared absorption (SEIRA) spectroscopy in gas sensing. Gas detection was performed through non-dispersive infrared (NDIR) absorption. The sensitivity of SF6 gas detection is increased around ∼27 times with metal hole array (MHA) microstructures placed on the gas cell mirrors, as compared with non-structured mirrors; an absorption change of 2% per 100 ppm was obtained on a standard commercial pyroelectric detector. Down-sizing of IR-sensors to a sub-1 mm gas cell width, delivering ∼ 40 nM (or 1 ppm) of SF6 sensitivity, can be foreseen with a simple source-detector setup.


ABSTRACT What makes a simple wine, grown in a rather mediocre wine-growing region, one of the most famous and magical marketplace icons of today? How did champagne establish such a unique position, against all the odds, and become the global symbol of celebration? In seeking answers to these questions, this marketplace icon contribution elaborates on what 250 years of avant-garde champagne marketing can tell us about champagne's ever-shifting image and role in consumer culture. I argue that the "imperishable fame" of champagne stems primarily from four epic myth-making moments that not only came to shape a national identity but also modern consumption ideologies in important ways.


Wnt and TGF-β signaling are required for the development of Spemann's Organizer in the amphibian dorsal compartment. While transcription factors associated with each pathway translocate to the nucleus to induce specific gene expression in Xenopus, they have not previously been shown to interact with each other. Nishita et al. demonstrate that the expression of the Xtwn gene in Spemann's Organizer, known to be inducible by Lef-1 (an Xwnt-activated transcription factor), is also increased by other factors. The nucleotide sequence of the Xtwn promoter revealed four potential Smad4 binding sites. Injection of embryos with Xwnt8 mRNA revealed that Smad4 nuclear accumulation coincided with nuclear translocation of β-catenin, indicating that Wnt signaling may direct Smad4 into the nucleus. Through coexpression experiments, Nishita et al. determined that Lef-1 can exist in complexes with β-catenin and Smad4. Other experiments revealed that endogenous β-catenin-Smad4 complexes also occurred, as a result of Wnt-dependent increases in the amount of β-catenin. Interaction between β-catenin and Smad4 likely requires the presence of Lef-1, whose HMG box was shown to bind the Smad4 MH1 domain. Nishita, M., Hashimoto, M.K., Ogata, S., Laurent, M.N., Ueno, N., Shibuya, H., and Cho, K.W.Y. (2000) Interaction between Wnt and TGFβ signaling pathways during formation of Spemann's Organizer. Nature 403: 781-785. [Online Journal]


Mexico is among the most violent countries for journalism, with more than 100 journalists killed in the past two decades. Behind these murders, which have largely gone unpunished, are phenomena such as organized crime and corruption, as well as a lack of state presence in some regions. In this study, we focus on analysis of a relevant topic in the contemporary news agenda, namely journalistic coverage of organized crime. For this, we interviewed almost two dozen Mexican journalists who work in Mexico's main media outlets. Through journalists' responses, we observe the normalization of violence in their everyday work. Although the journalists interviewed recognize that they do not have, in general, specific knowledge of this type of coverage, their experience directs them to develop security protocols, including use of their media outlets' physical infrastructure and strategic use of social networks and the Internet.


How companies can gain strategic advantage by developing blockchain capabilities. Blockchain is far more than cryptocurrency. Regarded for a decade as complex and with limited application, blockchain has now matured to be on the verge of fully realizing its disruptive potential. In Enterprise Strategy for Blockchain, business strategy expert Ravi Sarathy shows how companies can gain competitive advantage by developing and deploying blockchain capabilities. Sarathy explains what makes blockchain unique, including its capacities to eliminate intermediaries, guard against hackers, decentralize, and protect privacy. Presenting examples drawn from such sectors as finance, supply chains, computer services, consumer products, and entertainment, he describes how executives can strategically assess blockchain's applicability to their business.
 After outlining blockchain's technological features—and its technological obstacles—Sarathy describes disruptive technologies already happening in the financial services market with the emergence of decentralized finance, or DeFi, arguing that a wave of innovation might be positioning DeFi as blockchain's "killer app." He also explores, among many other uses, a blockchain application that addresses chronic supply chain problems, pilot blockchain programs aimed at facilitating cross-border payments, and the use of NFTs (non-fungible tokens) that allow digital art to be collected and traded. And he outlines a path for organizations that includes establishing a business case for applying blockchain, evaluating enterprise cost-benefits, and preparing the organization to develop the requisite knowledge and people skills while overcoming resistance to change.Business leaders should invest, explore and experiment with blockchain now, positioning their organizations to be first in their fields, ahead of both rising startups and late-to-the game incumbent peers.


An attempt has been made to screen the phytochemicals, comparative superoxide radical scavenging and reducing potency of Solanum nigrum using various solvent extracts. The herbal powder obtained from plant part‑dry leaves were extracted with various solvents. The extracts were analysed for phytochemicals and antioxidants‑carotenoids, ascorbic acid, tocopherol, total phenol, proteins, reducing sugars and sterols. Free radical scavenging capacity was analysed in terms of superoxide radial scavenging assay and reducing power assay. Phytochemical characterization of the different extracts revealed the presence of the phytochemicals‑alkaloids, phenols, flavonoids, sterol, saponin glycosides, reducing sugars, proteins, cardio active aglycones and cardinolides. Excellent Superoxide Radical scavenging ability found in almost all extracts of S. nigrum. In the present study superoxide radical reduces nitro blue tetrazolium (NBT) to a blue coloured formazan that is measured at 560 nm. Antioxidant activity has been reported to be concomitant with development of reducing power. This shows that extracts might contain reductones like ascorbic acid, reducing sugar, thiol group containing protein which could react with free radicals to stabilize and terminate radical chain reaction. These findings suggest that the promising phytonutrients of the plant could be exploited against oxidative stress, cancer, ageing, Ischemic heart disease in dissolving thrombus, microbial infections and hormone replacement therapy (HRT) justifying their use in traditional medicine as nutraceuticals. Key words: Antimutagenic, phytosterols, poly phenolS, saponins, Solanum nigrum


During an economic crisis, increased competition in the market, declining manufacturing, and increased unemployment may encourage some entities to claim allocation of equipment and personnel for vocational education and training in an attempt to enter into or strengthen their position in the vocational education and training services market. They may use various means, including lobbying or even corrupt methods to acquire the right to provide such services and thus claim national budget funds or resources of the National Employment Fund. Formal vocational education and training may be exercised only with an appropriate license. The process of granting of these licenses should be regulated effectively. Procedures should be transparent, evaluation criteria should be well-defined, the indicators—measurable, and the evaluation—reliable and valid. The following issues were tackled in this study. Firstly, the authors analysed the anticorruption aspect of administrative legal regulation of the right to carry out formal vocational education and training. Secondly, we argued that the lack of ongoing anti-corruption evaluation of the administrative legal regulation and gaps in regulation constitute the preconditions for the rise of corruption. Thirdly, the study presents recommendations for the development of regulation and reducing of the risk of corruption.


The hereby submitted article deals with the Financial Arbiter (Ombudsman) and the payment systems regulation in the Czech Republic. The article focuses mainly on the proceeding before the Czech Financial Arbiter. However, the author also deals with the Financial Ombudsmen in Europe, especially those who are the members of FIN-NET (the Cross-Border Out-of-Court Complaints Network for Financial Services). The legal regulation this work describes covers up (between others) the Payment Systems Act and the Act on the Financial Arbiter, both effective from 1 January 2003. These acts were adopted by the Czech Parliament under the harmonization of the Czech law with the European Community law standards, e.g. with the European Community Directive No. 97/5/EC, on cross-boarder transfers, which requires the possibility for consumers to settle disputes in an efficient and appropriate manner with transfer institutions through out-of-court procedures.


Five new species of shore-eels in the genus Alabes are described from southern Australia: A. elongata (Western Australia); A. gibbosa (Western Australia); A. occidentalis (Western Australia); A. obtusirostris (Victoria and Western Australia); and A. scotti (New South Wales and Tasmania). The first three species inhabit shallow nearshore reef and/or weed areas, whereas the last two have been found only on soft bottoms in deeper coastal waters (24-65 m). This brings the total number of described species to nine (previously known species are A. dorsalis (Richardson), A. parvula (McCulloch), A. brevis Springer & Fraser, and A. hoesei Springer & Fraser). Two of the new species, A. elongata and A. occidentalis, appear to be western sister species of southeastern Australian forms ( A. dorsalis and A. parvula, respectively), whereas one new Western Australian species, A. gibbosa, is similar to another western form, A. brevis. The apparent relationships of the remaining two new species, A. obtusirostris and A. scotti, are obscure. The former is similar to A. dorsalis but lacks a rudimentary pelvic fin, whereas the latter shows some similarities to A. parvula but possesses a more pointed head and a unique coloration. A key to Alabes species is provided.


A method was developed to simplify the approach to obtaining a better quantitative representation (QR) of complex clay mineral assemblages by XRD analysis. The method has eight steps: 1) preparation of samples with preferred orientation; 2) qualitative identification of phases; 3) peak decomposition to obtain precise locations of individual peaks contained within broad diffraction bands; 4) creation of a library of theoretical XRD patterns by modeling of one-dimensional XRD patterns; 5) selection of experimental library patterns; 6) employing the LINEST function found in common spreadsheet software to fit library patterns to experimental patterns; 7) evaluation of results to determine needed improvements; 8) finetuning of results by manual adjustment to contribution coefficients. Results obtained from the Kenner, Schriever, Mahan, and Ruston soil series indicate that the method is capable of generating improved QR data. Duplicate results were typically within 10% RSD. Those components that did not replicate at better than 10% RSD were typically present at less than 10% by weight. Results show high percentages of mixed-layer clay minerals present in all samples; between 16% and 57% by weight of crystalline material. The most common mixedlayer clay mineral was illite/smectite followed by illite/vermiculite and illite/chlorite. Correlation to CEC and ECEC measurements indicate that the method is capable of generating plausible mineral assemblages, based on good agreement between calculated composite exchange capacity values and measured exchange capacity values, and is able to differentiate between dissimilar mineral assemblages, reasonably able to differentiate between similar mineral assemblages, and in many cases able to distinguish similar sections within the same profile from one another.


Several marine sponges sequester high concentrations of carotenoids in their tissues. The diversity of carotenoid compounds has been described in detail for a handful of species, but to date, little attention has been paid to natural variability in the concentration and constituency of carotenoid pools. Also lacking are experimental tests of some of the proposed adaptive benefits of carotenoids to the sponge. To address some of these deficits in our understanding of sponge ecology, we used a combination of analytic chemistry, field surveys, and manipulative experiments to determine what function these compounds might play. Attention was focused on the common, carotenoid-rich intertidal sponge Clathria (Microciona) prolifera from Chesapeake Bay, Virginia, USA. Surveys of pier pilings indicated that C. prolifera was most common towards the surface of the water, with an average depth of 1 m, and also occurred most frequently on pilings exposed to sunlight. Total carotenoid concentrations (as estimated from spectroscopy) were maximal when solar radiation was nearing its northern maximum. However, HPLC analysis of crude acetone extracts highlighted several instances where concentrations of individual putative carotenoids were maximal during thermal (not solar) maxima in Chesapeake Bay. Naturally occurring sponges growing in environments protected from direct sunlight were found to have significantly lower total carotenoid concentration. In a manipulative field experiment, sponges transplanted from exposed habitats to shaded habitats showed significant decreases in carotenoid concentrations. HPLC analysis demonstrated that concentrations for several of the pigmented compounds decreased under reduced light levels. Given that sponges do not produce carotenoids de novo, the ecological role that these compounds play in sponge physiology deserves greater attention. Our findings indicate that solar radiation is an important factor in shaping carotenoid profiles of C. prolifera. While the physiological role and ultimate source of these compounds remains unclear, our data point to an adaptive function and indicate that C. prolifera is a useful species to address these questions.


High precision measurements of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) anisotropies, as can be expected from the PLANCK satellite, will require high-accuracy theoretical predictions as well. One possible source of theoretical uncertainty is the numerical error in the output of the Boltzmann codes used to calculate angular power spectra. In this work, we carry out an extensive study of the numerical accuracy of the public Boltzmann code CAMB, and identify a set of parameters which determine the error of its output. We show that at the current default settings, the cosmological parameters extracted from data of future experiments like Planck can be biased by several tenths of a standard deviation for the six parameters of the standard ΛCDM model, and potentially more seriously for extended models. We perform an optimisation procedure that leads the code to achieve sufficient precision while at the same time keeping the computation time within reasonable limits. Our conclusion is that the contribution of numerical errors to the theoretical uncertainty of model predictions is well under control—the main challenges for more accurate calculations of CMB spectra will be of an astrophysical nature instead.


It is difficult to review a book written by a former student whom you have known and mentored for many years and who has become a good friend. It is even more difficult when he thanks you personally in his foreword to a magnum opus on a subject which has, over the years, been one of your own pet academic interests. However, when I was requested by the editor of this journal to review Professor Visser's book on unjustified enrichment, I accepted the mandate as an honour and privilege.


The populist narrative of welfare cheating in Australia is perpetuated, in part, through the reporting of overpayments identified via government initiatives such as data-matching. The Data-matching Program compares the income reported to Centrelink with data held by the Australian Taxation Office. This paper reports that at least half as many people may be missing out on government assistance as are receiving an over payment. The amount being missed is appreciably more than the government saves through recouping over payments. It is argued that data-matching should be used to find those people missing out on assistance, the number of which the government should also be quantifying.


E. ANTHONY ALLEN [*] Introduction This paper seeks to address the issue of emphasis, experience and needs in relation to health, faith and healing in the Caribbean context. I will seek to use a case study approach involving Jamaica. This approach should give an in-depth cross-sectional perspective that is largely typical of most Caribbean territories. Also, Jamaica is where the author has had most of his experience. Where social implosion meets "symbolic verbalism" The island society of the Caribbean is a place of paradox. While tourists enjoy her world famous sun, sand and sea, cricket, coffee, calypso and carnivals, most of her people experience a different reality. For example, one of her territories, Jamaica, can be said to be a society on the path to implosion. Here, almost every aspect of the social order is disintegrating. It is caught in a vice-like grip. One arm of the vice is the historical determinism of the old global mercantilism of colonialism and plantation slavery. The other arm is made up of the contemporary global mercantilism of borderless transnational conglomerates, an ever shifting money market, the structural adjustment of mega-loan banks, as well as satellite television and the Internet. The Caribbean, including Anglophone, Francophone and Latin peoples, has a population of 39.2 million people. [1] We are the only geographical entity in the world where entire societies were brought into being and sustained by the destruction of an indigenous population and the mass relocation, by force, of an ethnic group from its native land -- all this in order to achieve the commercial ends of outside metropolitan landlords. [2] Given the accompanying systematic efforts at eradication of family systems and cultural norms, this "Great Commercial Experiment" began a process of social disintegration. [3] In Jamaica, despite its black and poor majority, impressive physical health indices such as infant mortality, inoculation rate and life expectancy in this comparatively small population of 2.5 million, [4] have put us in a "second world" category. Nevertheless certain other indices of social wellbeing are pathetic. Over 70 percent of children are bom in homes without fathers. Close to 45 percent of Jamaican households are headed by women. [5] Most of them have no spouse or steady partner living with them. Approximately 30 percent of children leave the primary school system functionally illiterate. [6] The majority of our young men are unskilled. Since 1970, approximately 30 percent of the island's births are by teenagers, [7] many of whom are largely unemployed and undereducated. In the inner city, and increasingly in rural areas, the majority of these young men and women are seen by the "brown" (coloured), white and black upper and middle class elite as constituting the "subhuman masses". Police brutality an d killings keep us under the watchful eyes of human rights organizations such as Amnesty International. Our murder rate of over 800 persons, or 35 per 10,000,8 annually in recent years (1996-1999), places us among the highest per capita murder rates in the world.9 In the inner city, whole geographical areas, called "garrison" political constituencies, are run by alternative social orders of drug gangs fuelled by the patronage of competing politicians. The prevalence rate of HIV in the Caribbean is reported to be the second highest in the world. It is second to Sub-Saharan Africa, [10] a region which was destabilized by the uprooting of millions of our ancestors. Evidence of family decay, such as domestic murder-suicides, "barrel children", street children, and child abuse are on the increase in Jamaica. (Barrel children are those whose material and sole caregiver have migrated leaving them under inadequate supervision. The only parental link is often the regular barrel of designer clothes and other "goodies.") We have one of the highest rates of deforestation. …


The lifting of international nuclear-related sanctions on Iran in January 2016 was enthusiastically welcomed by the Islamic Republic's neighbours in the South Caucasus. Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia have hoped that Iran's rapprochement with the West and the unfreezing of some hundred billion dollars worth of assets abroad would lead Iran to step up its trade and investment activities in the Caucasus, especially in the energy and transport sectors. However, the anticipated benefits have been slow in coming, as Iran has shown reluctance to fund infrastructural projects in the Caucasus. On the other hand, there have been positive developments in trade and tourism flows and the power transmission sector. On the whole, although Iran is interested in closer economic cooperation with the South Caucasus, it relies on the region's countries to provide the momentum and secure the resources necessary to achieve this goal.


Psychotherapy, said one of its earliest clients, Anna O, is a "talking cure." It banishes or lessens mental illness and suffering not with medicine or surgery, but with words. This aspect of psychotherapy raises an interesting set of First Amendment questions. Is verbal communication between a therapist and her client protected by the First Amendment even though it is part of a healing process, or does government have the same authority to restrict this speech-based healing method as it does to restrict the use of pharmaceuticals or medical equipment? Must it show that therapists' statements about human psychology are false or harmful to the client? Or may it constitutionally bar even truthful therapist-client communications that raise little risk of harm to the client's physical or mental health, on the grounds that such verbal treatments promote values or behaviors at odds with those of the profession or of the larger society?These questions are challenging for First Amendment law largely because talk therapy is the kind of activity that straddles an important boundary line in First Amendment law and theory. As the Supreme Court noted in Lawrence v. Texas, the Constitution assumes that there will be certain "spaces" where "the State" is not a "dominant presence" and where sovereignty belongs to each individual, not those who exercise collective political power. Among such spaces is the First Amendment-secured realm of "thought, belief, [and] expression." 539 U.S. 558, 562 (2003). This constitutional line drawn by the Court in Lawrence mirrors that described by John Locke in A Letter Concerning Toleration: Locke argued that while state power extends to "civil interests" such as protection of "life, liberty, health" and other "outward" concerns, it does not extend to the "care of the soul," which remains under the control of the individual himself. The challenge presented by psychotherapy, I argue in this article, is that it falls partly within and partly outside this constitutional shielded sphere of mental and expressive autonomy. On the one hand, if there is any activity that belongs in the realm of constitutionally protected "thought, belief, [and] expression" it the self-exploration that individuals engage in as they try to understand their inner lives – whether it occurs in a private meditation or diary entry, or in a psychotherapist's office. When we use talk therapy, in part, to shape (or reshape) our conception of the good, or the perspective we should take on particular life events, the state should not be permitted to forcibly substitute its values for ours. On the other hand, while government is not supposed to interfere with our choices about what to say or think, or about what values to hold, it is charged with protecting our health and safety, and, in psychotherapy, such health and safety interests are very often at stake – for example, when individuals rely on therapists to make accurate diagnoses of possible mental illnesses (or rule them out), and suggest the proper treatment such conditions. The central question about talk therapy's First Amendment status then is what kind of First Amendment regime can best reconcile these two conflicting demands – to keep government interference out of the way we understand and shape our mental life through conversation, while letting it into medical practices with significant stakes for our mental health. How, in other words, can First Amendment law simultaneously allow the state to regulate the aspects of psychotherapy that are its business, while keeping it out of those aspects that are in the sphere of individual autonomy? This is also a question that is key to the debate about the First Amendment status of other "occupational speech" that occurs when we seek verbal guidance from other experts.


: The use of cell-based assays is essential in reducing the number of vertebrates used in the investigation of chemical toxicities and in regulatory toxicology assessment. An important factor in obtaining meaningful results which can be accurately extrapolated is the use of biologically appropriate cell lines. In this preliminary study, ATR-FTIR spectroscopy with multivariate analysis was used to assess the fundamental biomolecular differences between a commonly used cell line, MCF-7 cells, and an environmentally relevant cell line derived from Mallard ( Anas platyrhynchos ) dermal fibroblasts. To better understand differences in basic cell biochemistry, the cells were analysed in the untreated state or post-exposure to PCB and PBDE congeners. The main spectral peaks in spectra from both cell types were associated with cellular macromolecules, particularly proteins and lipids but the spectra also revealed some cell-specific differences. Spectra from untreated Mallard fibroblasts spectra contained a large peak associated with lipids. The cell-related differences in lipid and DNA were also identified as regions of spectral alteration induced by PBDE and PCB exposure. Although lipid alterations were observed in post-treatment spectra from both cell types, these may be of more significance to Mallard fibroblasts, which may be due to increased intracellular lipid as determined by Nile red staining. Untreated MCF-7 cell spectra contained unique peaks related to DNA and nucleic acids. DNA associated spectral regions were also identified as areas of considerable alteration in MCF-7 cells exposed to some congeners including PBDE 47 and PCB 153. The findings indicate that in their native state, MCF-7 and Mallard cells have unique biochemical differences, which can be identified using ATR-FTIR spectroscopy. Such differences in biochemical composition differences, which may influence cell susceptibility to environmental contaminants and therefore influence the choice of cell type used in toxicology experiments. This is the first study to analyse the biochemistry of a Mallard dermal fibroblast cell line and to use ATR-FTIR spectroscopy for this purpose. ATR-FTIR spectroscopy is demonstrated as a useful tool for exploration of biomolecular variation at the cellular level and with further development, it could be used as part of a panel of cell-based assays to indicate when different results might be seen in environmental species compared to currently used cell lines. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved


Ca2+ dependence of occluding junction structure and permeability, well documented in explanted or cultured epithelial sheets, presumably reflects inherent control mechanisms. As an approach to identification of these mechanisms, we induced disassembly of zonulae occludentes in confluent monolayers of mouse mammary epithelial cells by exposure to low concentrations of the chelators, EGTA or sodium citrate. Stages in disassembly were monitored during treatment by phase-contrast microscopy and prepared for transmission and scanning electron microscopy. Cellular response included several events affecting occluding junctions: (a) Centripetal cytoplasmic contraction created tension on junction membranes and displaced intramembrane strands along lines determined by the axis of tension. (b) Destabilization of junction position, probably through increased membrane fluidity, augmented tension-induced movement of strands, resulting in fragmentation of the junction belt. (c) Active ruffling and retraction of freed peripheral membranes remodeled cell borders to produce many filopodia, distally attached by occluding-junction fragments to neighboring cell membranes. Filopodia generally persisted until mechanically ruptured, when endocytosis of the junction and adhering cytoplasmic bleb ensued. Junction disassembly thus resulted from mechanical tensions generated by initial centripetal contraction and subsequent peripheral cytoskeletal activity, combined with destabilization of the junction's intramembrane strand pattern.


In recent years, sequential tests for detecting structural changes in time series have been adapted for deforestation monitoring using satellite data. The input time series of such sequential tests is typically a vegetation index (e.g., NDVI), which uses two or three bands and ignores all other bands. Being limited to a vegetation index will not benefit from the richer spectral information provided by newly launched satellites and will bring two bottle-necks for deforestation monitoring. Firstly, it is hard to select a suitable vegetation index a priori. Secondly, a single vegetation index is typically affected by seasonal signals, noise and other natural dynamics, which decrease its power for deforestation detection. A novel multispectral time series change monitoring method that combines dimension reduction methods with a sequential hypothesis test is proposed to address these limitations. For each location, the proposed method automatically chooses a "suitable" index for deforestation monitoring. To demonstrate our approach, we implemented it in two study areas: a dry tropical forest in Bolivia (time series length: 444) with strong seasonality and a moist tropical forest in Brazil (time series length: 225) with almost no seasonality. Our method significantly improves accuracy in the presence of strong seasonality, in particular the temporal lag between disturbance and its detection.


IZA DP No. 12290 APRIL 2019 Opting out of Workers' Compensation: Non-Subscription in Texas and Its Effects* Texas is the only state that does not mandate that employers carry workers' compensation insurance (WC) coverage. We employ a quasi-experimental design paired with a novel machine learning approach to examine the effects of switching from traditional workers' compensation to a so-called non-subscription program in Texas. Specifically, we compare before and after effects of switching to non-subscription for employees in Texas to contemporaneously measured before and after differences for non-Texas-based employees. Importantly, we study large self-insured companies operating the same business in multiple states in the US; hence the non-Texas operations represent the control sites for the Texas treatment sites. The resulting difference-in-differences estimation technique allows us to control for any companywide factors that might be confounded with switching to nonsubscription. Our empirical approach also controls for injury characteristics, employment characteristics, industry, and individual characteristics such as gender, age, number of dependents, and marital status. Outcomes include number of claims reported, medical expenditures, indemnity payments, time to return to work, likelihood of having permanent disability, likelihood of claim denial, and likelihood of litigation. The data include 25 switcher companies between the years 2004 and 2016, yielding 846,376 injury incidents. Regression findings suggest that indemnity, medical payments, and work-loss fall substantially. Claim denials increase and litigation falls. JEL Classification: C54, C55, I13, J32, J38


The 100 km 2 Horse Creek anorthosite complex, which was emplaced between 1770 ± 3 and 1755 ± 2 Ma, is the older of two anorthosite complexes located in the southern Laramie Mountains, southeastern Wyoming. The complex is composed of four lithologic units, which are in order of decreasing age the Ragged Top granodiorite, Horse Creek granite, Horse Creek anorthosite, and Horse Creek monzonite. Nd, Sr, and Pb isotopic compositions of all units indicate that they are dominated by sources such as contemporary depleted mantle and crustal rocks with short crustal residence ages. However, the involvement of a small amount of Archean material is required by the Pb isotopic data. Both the Horse Creek anorthosite complex and the 1.43-Ga Laramie anorthosite complex were emplaced along the Cheyenne belt, which marks the suture between the Archean Wyoming province and Proterozoic Colorado province. The time of emplacement of the Horse Creek anorthosite complex coincides with late stages of the Medicine Bow orogeny, in which Proterozoic island arcs collided with the Wyoming province. The Horse Creek anorthosite complex was emplaced in a zone of local transtension formed as a result of oblique collision of the Colorado province along the southern margin of the Wyoming craton.


Objectives: To investigate the perception, knowledge and utilization of chiropractic profession by Durban University of Technology students. Methods: One thousand quantitative questionnaires were handed to students during lecture times. The sample was selected through representative sampling of all the Durban University of Technology students. The questionnaire was developed utilizing a Delphi process of focus group refinement and piloting. Data was entered on the spread sheet into the computer using SPSS version 15.0. Results: A response rate of 94,6% (946/1000) was obtained. There was a low level of knowledge, perception and utilization of chiropractic amongst Durban University of Technology students, only 37% had knowledge about chiropractic which most of them admitted to having a fair knowledge . White females had a higher knowledge about chiropractic than any other group. The perceptions about the suitability of chiropractic to treat different conditions were low. Low back pain was the condition for which respondents most commonly consulted a chiropractor, with 30% of participants being referred by a doctor and another 30% referred by family members. Conclusions: The overall knowledge of chiropractic in this population was relatively poor but a better perception of chiropractic existed in some ethnic groups which was not statistically significant. The results indicated that no statistic significance relationship exists between demographic factors and perception and knowledge of DUT students with respect to chiropractic.


This article describes a new approach to the generation of referring expressions. We propose to formalize a scene (consisting of a set of objects with various properties and relations) as a labeled directed graph and describe content selection (which properties to include in a referring expression) as a subgraph construction problem. Cost functions are used to guide the search process and to give preference to some solutions over others. The current approach has four main advantages: (1) Graph structures have been studied extensively, and by moving to a graph perspective we get direct access to the many theories and algorithms for dealing with graphs; (2) many existing generation algorithms can be reformulated in terms of graphs, and this enhances comparison and integration of the various approaches; (3) the graph perspective allows us to solve a number of problems that have plagued earlier algorithms for the generation of referring expressions; and (4) the combined use of graphs and cost functions paves the way for an integration of rule-based generation techniques with more recent stochastic approaches.


The rapid growth of E-business has greatly increased the demand for technology graduates with experience in server-side technology and has thus become an increasingly important area for educators. Server-side skills are in increasing demand and recognised to be of relatively greater value than comparable client-side aspects (Ehie, 2002; e-skills 2011). In response to this many educational organisations have developed E-business courses, but their approaches cannot generally be applied in the distance learning context. Here the design, development, and subsequent experiences of a scalable architecture for the provision of a set of server-side applications to a very large number of students are described. This infrastructure is intended to allow students to gain valuable experience of server side technology such as directory services, deployment, and management of Web services and other administrative applications. Whilst students can be supported in installing the server software used in courses on their own machines, it is not possible to guarantee that this type of sophisticated software will function on such a wide range of platforms and in the context of other conflicting software, without very prolonged intervention, which is not practical within the timescales of a course. To allow server side aspects to be included as a component of the course's assessment with some fairness it is necessary to guarantee students access to such facilities even if this is not possible on a student's own machine.


International workers are a growing category of employees in the hospitality industry of Northern Ireland (NI). The retention and skills shortages of the industry are significant factors in facilitating this increase. Thus, international workers could be an invaluable new source of labour for the hospitality industry, provided that they are properly looked after and managed. However, little is known about the number of people moving to Northern Ireland to take up work in the hospitality industry. This paper sets out to answer some of the 'unknowns' – including nationality, demographic characteristics, educational, employment and economic background. The paper draws on data collected through a survey of migrant workers in nine hotels in Northern Ireland and focus groups with migrant employees in all of the survey establishments. Issues of social integration within the workforce and the wider community as well as the future that migrant workers see for themselves are discussed from a human resource perspective.


Internet of Things (IoT) services for personal devices and smart homes provided by commercial solutions are typically proprietary and closed. These services provide little control to the end users, for instance to take ownership of their data and enabling services, which hinders these solutions' wider acceptance. In this demo paper, we argue for an approach to deploy professional IoT services on user-controlled infrastructure at the network edge. The users would benefit from the ability to choose the most suitable service from different IoT service offerings, like the one which satisfies their privacy requirements, and third-party service providers could offer more tailored IoT services at customer premises. We conduct the demonstration on microclouds, which have been built with the Cloudy platform in the Guifi.net community network. The demonstration is conducted from the perspective of end users, who wish to deploy professional IoT data management and analytics services in volunteer microclouds.


This study examines male-female wage determination and gender discrimination in Uganda. The study used the nationally representative household survey 2002/03 collected by Uganda bureau of statistics. It was found out that male-female wage gap is about 39%. Wages for both males and females are estimated by implementing a Heckman selection model. Heckman selection model was employed to correct for selectivity at the stage of entrance into the labour market. Estimations from the wage equations both for men and women with sample and sector selection highlight the relevance of human capital, demographic factors and regional labour market segmentation in wage determination. The results from the gender wage gap decomposition using Oaxaca (1973) and Neumark decomposition indicate larger wage differential attributed to discrimination and that the largest component of the unexplained wage gap stems from female disadvantage. The study recommends policies that reduce gender inequalities, particularly those policies that have a positive impact on the empowerment of women who suffer from discrimination like access to education, work environment that encourage equal treatment in labour market.


We achieved the first 10-GHz subpicosecond pulses in the 1000-nm band by employing the higher order soliton effect in a 190-m photonic crystal fiber (PCF). We obtained 0.5-ps pulses at 1063 nm by compressing 11-ps pulses from a harmonically mode-locked Yb fiber laser with a 10-GHz repetition rate, which was stabilized with phase-locked-loop technology. This light source is attractive in terms of realizing a hundreds-of-gigabits-per-second optical-time-division-multiplexing transmission over a low-loss PCF in the 1000-nm band


Bamboo forest ecosystem is the part of the forest ecosystem. The distribution area of bamboo forest is limited, but in somewhere, like south China, it has been cultivate for a long time with human management. As the climate change has been take great effect on forest carbon budget, many researchers pay attention to the carbon budget in bamboo forest. Moreover cultivative management had a significant impact on the bamboo forest carbon budget. In this study, we modified a terrestrial ecosystem model named Integrated Biosphere Simulator (IBIS) according the management of Lei bamboo forest. Some management, like fertilization, shoots harvesting and organic mulching in winter, had been incorporated into model. Then we had compared model results with the observation data from a Lei bamboo flux tower. The simulated and observed results had achieved good consistency. Our simulated Lei bamboo forest yearly net ecosystem productivity (NEP) was 0.41 kgC a-1 of carbon, which is very close to the observation data 0.45 kgC a-1 of carbon. And the monthly simulated results can take the change of carbon budget in each month, similar to the data we got from flux tower. It reflects that the modified IBIS model can characterize the growth of bamboo forest and perform the simulation well. And then two groups of simulations were set to evaluate effects of cultivative managements on Lei bamboo forests carbon budget. And results showed that both fertilization and organic mulching had taken positive effects on Lei bamboo forests carbon sequestration.


Advanced economies have a longer history of leveraging fiscal policy to address inequality relative to developing Asia. We examine the country experiences of the Nordic countries, France, Japan, and the US, to draw lessons for developing Asia in its relatively new quest to use fiscal policy to promote inclusive growth. Those experiences suggest that fiscal policy can indeed be an effective tool for inclusive growth as long as it does not compromise fiscal sustainability or economic growth.


Three design concepts, namely, WP#1, WP#2, and WP#3, for the low-Tc superconductor DEMO toroidal field coil was proposed in 2014. This paper is focused on the thermal-hydraulic analysis of all the designs using simplified models, which includes: 1) hydraulic analysis-calculation of the mass flow rates in each conductor at operating conditions during the dwell time; 2) heat removal analysis-calculation of the steady-state mass flow rates and temperature profiles in each conductor as functions of the nuclear heat deposition rate; and 3) estimation of the maximum quench temperature and pressure in each conductor assuming the extreme scenario for the maximum pressure. The detailed analysis of the WP#1 design in burn and in quench conditions using the THEA code was also carried out. It took into account the expected electromagnetic and heat load maps along each conductor and different quench initiation scenarios leading to the maximum hot spot temperature or to the maximum pressure. Our analysis shows that the temperature margin in the WP#1 and WP#3 conductors is sufficiently large, but it is too small in some WP#2 conductors. The hot spot temperatures in some WP#1 cables calculated with THEA are too high. These results provide information for further improvements of the conductors' design.


In the past two decades, the field of proteomics has seen explosive growth, largely due to the development of tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS). With a complex biological sample as input, a typical MS/MS experiment quickly produces a large (often numbering in the hundreds-of-thousands) collection of spectra representative of the proteins present in the original complex sample. A majority of widely used methods to search and identify MS/MS spectra use scoring functions which rely on static, hand-selected parameters rather than affording the ability to learn parameters and adapt to the widely varying characteristics of MS/MS data. In this talk, we discuss recent work utilizing dynamic Bayesian networks (DBNs) to identify MS/MS spectra. In particular, we discuss a recently proposed DBN for Rapid Identification of Peptides (DRIP) which, in contrast to popular scoring functions, allows efficient generative and discriminative learning of parameters to achieve state-of-theart spectrum-identification accuracy. Furthermore, facilitated by DRIP's generative nature, we present current innovations leveraging DBNs to significantly enhance many other aspects of MS/MS analysis, such as improving downstream discriminative classification via detailed feature extraction and speeding up identification runtime using trellises and approximate inference.


The publication presents an evaluation of the ecological role of abandoned agricultural lands which exist around the seven landscape parks in the Łodź Voivodeship. In thirty-nine land abandonment study plots, arranged into thirteen groups, agrophysical and agrochemical analyses were conducted as well as phytosociological and mycological inventorying, in order to determine the relationships between the vegetation and macromycetes fungi and the abiotic features of the natural environment. The role of geocomplex potential, the influence of adjacent urbanised areas and the development of touristic functions in rural areas were demonstrated in the spatial pattern of abandoned lands. The research revealed a high diversity of vegetation, flora and macromycetes fungi, vulnerability to the impact from the neighbouring habitats and the importance of abandoned lands as refugia of species which enrich the biodiversity. At the same time, attention was drawn to invasive plant species of non-native origin, which may pose a threat to the natural phytocoenoses of protected areas.


In this paper we investigate the effects of delinquency and arrest on school leaving using information on males from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997. We use a multivariate mixed proportional hazard framework in order to account for common unobserved confounders and reverse causality. Our key finding is that delinquency as well as arrest leads to early school leaving. Further investigation reveals that the effect of delinquency is largely driven by income generating crimes, and the effect of both income generating crime and arrest are greater when onset occurs at younger ages. These findings are consistent with a criminal capital accumulation mechanism. On the basis of our sample, we show that taking into account the proportion of young men affected by delinquency and arrest, that the overall reduction in education due to delinquency is at least as large as the reduction due to arrest. This highlights the need for crime prevention efforts to extend beyond youth who come into contact with the justice system.


In the 40 years since the introduction of universal public health insurance in Australia, there has been an ongoing political debate about the design of the Australian health care system, particularly about the appropriate role of the private sector in the funding and provision of health services. Australian governments have erected a regulatory framework that encourages Australians to purchase private health insurance (PHI). This framework is based on the belief that PHI is an essential element of a balanced two-tier health care system that is funded and provided by public and private actors. This article has three aims: (1) to critically examine the complex regulatory framework that has been created to encourage Australians to purchase PHI, (2) to critically examine some of the impacts of this regulatory framework, and (3) to provide information for other countries about the costs and consequences of government promoting PHI. Reviews have indicated concerns as to whether the framework achieves its stated ends, about acceptability to purchasers, and about whether the system as it currently stands is sustainable. This analysis indicates some of the issues in respect of the regulation of PHI that will have implications for countries contemplating intervening in PHI markets.


Whilst the classification of buildings for the purpose of meeting Building Regulation A3 (Reducing the sensitivity of buildings to disproportionate collapse in the event of an accident) was introduced in Approved Document A in December 2004 in the UK, no supporting guidance on Class 3 buildings, including multi-storey buildings, large buildings such as sports stadia, railway stations and retained facade projects, has been published to accompany the Approved Document. It is a recommendation that Class 3 buildings be assessed for disproportionate collapse using 'risk assessment' methods, therefore such guidance is urgently needed. This paper discusses the issues and proposes a means of applying a holistic, risk assessed approach. It aims to encourage discussion with a view to reaching a consensus on how this category of building may be be tackled.


The American economy has had the fastest and most dramatic development of all the world's major economies. Four hundred years ago, the economic output of the area that became the United States was negligible by world standards. Yet only 250 years later, the U.S. economy had become the largest in the world, surpassing all other countries, including those that had a head start of thousands of years, such as China and Britain. And since that milestone in the mid-1800s, the U.S. economy has grown by about 50 times, remaining well ahead of economies such as Japan and Germany that at times appeared to be closing the gap. This is too long and consistent a record to be a matter of happenstance. Nor can it be explained, as some have suggested, by the fact that the United States has had a rich endowment of natural resources. Americans have made good use of what nature has provided--the deep topsoil of Iowa, for example--but large areas of the West (witness Wyoming) do not receive enough rain to grow anything other than sagebrush. And the areas that Americans have now made useful are comparable newcomers. For thousands of years they lay idle, because people did not know how to put them to work. These resources became productive only within the broader pattern of human energy and ingenuity that was driving the entire economy. The critical factor that explains America's exceptional growth is human creativity. The only force that could have enabled people to find productive uses for resources that had previously lain idle is knowledge. And knowledge has to be created by people--people known, in this role, as entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs are the specialists who focus on innovation, developing new products and services and expanding the supply of resources that people can use to produce more of what they value. Much of this effort is incremental and thus not obvious, but it can cumulate into huge increases over time. Innovation is seldom a Eureka experience in which the new product appears full blown. More typically, success requires the entrepreneur to work through several iterations in an effort to smooth out the multiple connections that innovations almost always require. All these steps require numerous trials, and the output at each point along the way has to be adjusted to other components in the process. In fact, the organization that will deliver the new product or service may itself have to be reshaped. The automobile, for example, required gas pumps, service hoists, and the stores, each of which dictated new retail outlets. Everyone assumes that entrepreneurs are motivated by money, and of course the prospect of making money does provide an important incentive. But other motives are also important. Innovators also enjoy creating productive solutions that provide better services for others. They enjoy solving problems and creating new organizations, within which they and their associates often establish something akin to family relationships. Interests of this sort help to explain the large amount of successful innovation that occurs in nonprofit firms, the arts, and other sectors where participants do not expect to earn much income, even in return for important advances. The motivation of entrepreneurs is often misjudged in another respect as well. One familiar characterization of entrepreneurs is that they are risk takers--people who thrive on big projects and uncertain outcomes that most folks cannot stomach. But it is a mistake to view entrepreneurs as flat-out gamblers who just throw the dice. Most entrepreneurs assume no more risk in launching their initiatives than an average person does in the course of everyday routines. This point becomes clear when we look closely at how entrepreneurs work. Risk is a result of what you know and control. Most of us would consider jumping out of an airplane in flight to be very risky, but skydivers who understand parachutes and jump procedures consider the activity fun--they pay to do it. …


This article analyses the situation of legal regulation of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) in Lithuania. It is concluded that our system of the legal regulation of the medical practice is tolerant, because such CAM practices as acupuncture, reflexology, manual therapy, homeopathy, physiotherapy, the massage therapy are part of this system. Their inclusion into the list of licensed ambulatory health care services emphasizes the careful view of the government to the methods put in practice. Fees for consultations with naturopathy, homeopathy, acupuncture, manual therapy practitioners are not reimbursed by the national healthcare insurance system. It shows the incredulous rating of their effect to the patient's health. The author observes that in Lithuania the phytotherapy and the anthroposophy medicines is acknowledged too, because anthroposophic medicinal products, traditional herbal remedies, food supplements are the object of the national legal regulation. The law of the EU conferred a big trigger on it. The special legal regulation comprehends only a very small part of aspects, which are associated with the CAM services and products. Only licensing of already above mentioned health care services, registration of homeopathic and antroposophic medicines, the notification of the food supplements imported from third (none-EU) countries, also some aspects of the labeling and advertising of those products are used. The remaining big sector of the CAM has no legal requirements. Therefore many practical problems exists, for example, unqualified (or poorly qualified) practitioners; inadequate, misleading information about the CAM services, methods and products to patient /consumer; liability for damage to patient / consumer health; ineffectiveness and the unsafeness of CAM products presented as medicines and etc. These problems require the scientific legal evaluation and some changes of national law.


ABSTRACT Following the rise of the Islamic State in 2014, the Atlantic Alliance engaged in an ambitious political revision of its policies towards the Middle East, which led to the creation of the NATO Strategic Direction South Hub. However, this new policy was only marginally the product of a threat-driven strategy; rather it was the result of two factors. Specifically, it responded to a political need in NATO Headquarters and the capitals of member states, particularly in Southern Europe countries, to acknowledge the latest security challenges in the Middle East and to offer a policy more balanced between NATO missions to the East, namely vis-à-vis Russia's policies in its neighbourhood, and those in the South. The Hub also provided the Joint Forces Command – Naples with a strong mission within the NATO bureaucracy. Nevertheless, the limitations of the project with respect to the Alliance's other political priorities indicate that this institutionalisation of a new organisation within NATO did not overcome the ambiguities of the Alliance's posture towards the region, but rather reflected them.


Fish in dryland rivers must cope with extreme variability in hydrology, temperature and other environmental factors that ultimately have a major influence on their patterns of distribution and abundance at the landscape scale. Given that fish persist in these systems under conditions of high environmental variability, dryland rivers represent ideal systems to investigate the processes contributing to and sustaining fish biodiversity and recruitment in variable environments. Hence, spatial and temporal variation in fish assemblage structure was examined in 15 waterholes of the Warrego River between October 2001 and May 2003. Fish assemblages in isolated waterholes were differentiated at the end of the dry 2001 winter but were relatively similar following high summer flows in January 2002 as a consequence of high hydrological connectivity among waterholes. Small, shallow waterholes supported more species and higher abundances than large-deep waterholes. Large, deep waterholes provided important refuge for large-bodied fish species such as adult yellowbelly, Macquaria ambigua, and the eel-tailed catfish, Tandanus tandanus. Recruitment patterns of bony bream (Nematalosa erebi), Hyrtl's tandan (Neosilurus hyrtlii) and yellowbelly were associated with high flow events and backwater inundation; however recruitment of yellowbelly and bony bream was also evident following a zero-flow period. Departures from typical flood-induced seasonal spawning patterns may reflect opportunistic spawning behaviours appropriate to the erratic patterns of flooding and dry spells in dryland rivers.


Bayesian nonparametric approaches have been recently introduced in system identification scenario where the impulse response is modeled as the realization of a zero-mean Gaussian process whose covariance (kernel) has to be estimated from data. In this scheme, quality of the estimates crucially depends on the parametrization of the covariance of the Gaussian process. A family of kernels that have been shown to be particularly effective in the system identification framework is the family of Diagonal/Correlated (DC) kernels. Maximum entropy properties of a related family of kernels, the Tuned/Correlated (TC) kernels, have been recently pointed out in the literature. In this technical note, we show that maximum entropy properties indeed extend to the whole family of DC kernels. The maximum entropy interpretation can be exploited in conjunction with results on matrix completion problems in the graphical models literature to shed light on the structure of the DC kernel. In particular, we prove that the DC kernel admits a closed-form factorization, inverse, and determinant. These results can be exploited both to improve the numerical stability and to reduce the computational complexity associated with the computation of the DC estimator.


The first hint in the late 1970s that aspirin blocks intestinal tumors helped spur a wave of research in animals and clinical trials that established that aspirin and other nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs protect against colon cancer. And now, decades later, aspirin is generating new excitement among cancer researchers. A series of studies from the United Kingdom in the last 2 years has offered the first evidence from placebo-controlled clinical trials that regularly taking low doses of aspirin wards off other types of cancer as well.


Most existing neural network models for music generation explore how to generate music bars, then directly splice the music bars into a song. However, these methods do not explore the relationship between the bars, and the connected song as a whole has no musical form structure and sense of musical direction. To address this issue, we propose a Multi-model Multi-task Hierarchical Conditional VAE-GAN (Variational Autoencoder-Generative adversarial networks) networks, named MIDI-Sandwich, which combines musical knowledge, such as musical form, tonic, and melodic motion. The MIDI-Sandwich has two submodels: Hierarchical Conditional Variational Autoencoder (HCVAE) and Hierarchical Conditional Generative Adversarial Network (HCGAN). The HCVAE uses hierarchical structure. The underlying layer of HCVAE uses Local Conditional Variational Autoencoder (L-CVAE) to generate a music bar which is pre-specified by the First and Last Notes (FLN). The upper layer of HCVAE uses Global Variational Autoencoder(G-VAE) to analyze the latent vector sequence generated by the L-CVAE encoder, to explore the musical relationship between the bars, and to produce the song pieced together by multiple music bars generated by the L-CVAE decoder, which makes the song both have musical structure and sense of direction. At the same time, the HCVAE shares a part of itself with the HCGAN to further improve the performance of the generated music. The MIDI-Sandwich is validated on the Nottingham dataset and is able to generate a single-track melody sequence (17x8 beats), which is superior to the length of most of the generated models (8 to 32 beats). Meanwhile, by referring to the experimental methods of many classical kinds of literature, the quality evaluation of the generated music is performed. The above experiments prove the validity of the model.


Educators, learners and parents/caregivers should be held accountable for instilling learner discipline through clear guidelines and limitations to achieve security at public schools. Two previously identified education challenges are sustaining welldisciplined education systems and ensuring that educators are attentive to legal parameters in making decisions and dealing with discipline. This article adds a third challenge: convincing educators, learners and parents/caregivers of their accountability concerning creating/maintaining safe learning environments. Five subordinate legislation documents relevant to legal accountability are scrutinized, as well as relevant case law. The article follows a documentary comparative perspective using a secondary analysis method: appraising legal guidelines and asking questions to draw conclusions and make pragmatic action-oriented suggestions.


In the world of economics the words "Energy Management" carry different conno- tations for different groups of people. From the point of view of producers, they mean the scheme of optimization of all the different factors costing productions of different types of energy such that the total amount of revenue is maximized and the total cost of operation is minimized. They attempt to achieve both. But they must achieve at least one of these primary objectives. From the point of view of consumers, "Energy Management" means use of all different types of energy to sustain life and health most economically. Often both producers and consumers fail to understand what environmentalists mean by "Energy Management." To this group energy management must be done in such a way, so that all factors needed for production and usage of all forms of energy must meet all the strin- gent criteria to control pollutants released into the atmosphere by all agents of production and consumption of energy. Unfortunately, companies who are in the business of production, look into how to manage energy by considering different forms of energy production in order to make their investment most profitable. However, they are bound by the rules of the department of energy and they must follow the guidelines of the Environ- mental Protection Agency (EPA) and other mandates of federal, state and local governments. This topic is energy management in production control and it has a strong impact on the global economy. In this article energy management is studied applying mathematical methods of optimization. The model is quite general and the solution is quite simple which may be done using the calculator. The model predicts how many units of types of energy must be produced to maximize the revenue which depends on the demands for those types of energy in the market and the protocol and policies that the company plans to adopt for production. Thus the method developed in this article is to be applied at the planning stage for optimization of the economics of energy management. A model illustration has been used in the text explaining the step- by-step application of the theory.


Frequently dismissed as a 'nature poet' and an 'Indian Princess' E. Pauline Johnson (1861-1913) was not only an accomplished thinker and writer but a contentious and passionate personality who 'talked back' to Euro-Canadian culture. "Paddling Her Own Canoe" is the only major scholarly study that examines Johnson's diverse roles as a First Nations champion, New Woman, serious writer and performer, and Canadian nationalist.A Native advocate of part-Mohawk ancestry, Johnson was also an independent, self-supporting, unmarried woman during the period of first-wave feminism. Her versatile writings range from extraordinarily erotic poetry to polemical statements about the rights of First Nations. Based on thorough research into archival and published sources, this volume probes the meaning of Johnson's energetic career and addresses the complexities of her social, racial, and cultural position. While situating Johnson in the context of turn-of-the-century Canada, the authors also use current feminist and post-colonial perspectives to reframe her contribution. Included is the first full chronology ever compiled of Johnson's writing.Pauline Johnson was an extraordinary woman who crossed the racial and gendered lines of her time, and thereby confounded Canadian society. This study reclaims both her writings and her larger significance.Winner of the Raymond Klibansky Prize, awarded by the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences


The development of automatic speech recognition (ASR) technology makes the human-computer interaction possible. Considering the deficiencies currently in the English pronunciation teaching, this paper employs relevant principles of speech recognition, proposes the design of an automatic English pronunciation grading system in the English teaching field, describes in detail the system structure, functions and processes and introduces the key technologies and steps to implement the system: dynamic time warping algorithm, establishment of corpuses, consonant/vowel (C/V) segmentation technology and grading standards. Results of a small-scale test show that the system is useful to testing the English pronunciation of international students.


A key challenge in condensed matter research is the optimization of topological insulator (TI) compounds for the study and future application of their unique surface states. Truly insulating bulk states would allow the exploitation of predicted surface state properties, such as protection from backscattering, dissipationless spin-polarized currents, and the emergence of novel particles. Towards this end, major progress was recently made with the introduction of highly resistive Bi2Te2Se, in which surface state conductance and quantum oscillations are observed at low temperatures. Nevertheless, an unresolved and pivotal question remains: while room temperature ARPES studies reveal clear evidence of TI surface states, their observation in transport experiments is limited to low temperatures. A better understanding of this surface state suppression at elevated temperatures is of fundamental interest, and crucial for pushing the boundary of device applications towards room-temperature operation. In this work, we simultaneously measure TI bulk and surface states via temperature dependent optical spectroscopy, in conjunction with transport and ARPES measurements. We find evidence of coherent surface state transport at low temperatures, and propose that phonon mediated coupling between bulk and surface states suppresses surface conductance as temperature rises.


Nowadays, products are expected to have features such as more innovative, multi functional, high quality, and low price because of the changing of consumers' purchasing behavior. This phenomenon forces manufacturing industries to lower their cost, shorten innovation time, and collaborate with companies in their supply chain. However, it is difficult to collaborate among supply chain companies because of the wide distribution and limitations of companies. Due to the characteristics of agents, such as autonomous ability, social ability (communicative), applying multi-agent system (MAS) to supply chain collaboration has been demonstrated with fascinating results. Furthermore, supply chain collaboration problem can be regarded as a distributed constraints satisfaction problem (DCSP) since constraints are diverted in supply chain echelons. Therefore, incorporating DCSP techniques into MAS will form the basis for achieving better decision among supply chain collaboration. However, related research is lack and to be wanting. Hence, this paper develops a DCSP algorithm that can be appropriately applied for manufacturing (OEM) supply chain collaboration. Our research finds that using a suitable DCSP algorithm, time and cost can be reduced in manufacturing supply chain and better effectiveness can be achieved for future competition.


In this paper, we study an (n-k+1)-out-of-n system by adopting their components to be statistically independent though nonidentically distributed. By assuming that at least m components at a fixed time have failed while the system is still working, we obtain the mixture representation of survival function for a quantity called the conditional inactivity time of failed components in the system. Moreover, this quantity for (n-k+1)-out-of-n system, in one sample with respect to k and m and in two samples, are stochastically compared.


This paper explores the role of Troy in the space-time continuum of Jean Racine's (1639-1699) two most widely known, secular tragedies "Iphigenia" (1667) and "Andromache" (1674). The tragic space-time continuum and its effect on the image of Troy is analysed according to the theory of operative devices. Stephane Lojkine adapted this theory to the analysis of the space created by fictional texts. In the first section, the paper gives a brief overview of the history of the theory of operative devices and the principles and primary concepts involved, then describes the space-time of Racine's tragedy as an operative device, which functions because the tensions created between the different zones and levels of space-time are mediated on a scopic level (i.e. the character's viewpoints). The second section takes a closer look at how the images of the Trojan War that are created shift and change within these zones, depending on whether the events of war take place in the present or the future vis-a-vis the events of the tragedy.  In "Andromache", Troy has already been destroyed. One of the Greek commanders, King Pyrrhus, is driven by sentimentality and wishes to restore it "within the walls" of his kingdom. However, in "Iphigenia", the characters are only just making preparations for war and their main desire is to be free of the curse of the gods that has rendered the waterway leading under the walls of Troy impenetrable. The male protagonists of both tragedies wish to bring Troy into their own, present space-time continuum. The conflicts in both tragedies revolve around a character who is the "key" to Troy: in "Andromache", it is Astyanax, the son of Hector, the dead king of Troy, and in "Iphigenia", it is the main character's double, Eriphyle, the daughter of beautiful Helen and Theseus. The delusional city in "Andromache" materializes when Pyrrhus places the crown on Andromaque's head, thereby ensuring Astyanax's survival. In "Iphigenia", Eriphyle's suicide in the last scene of the tragedy makes the illusive Troy accessible by lifting the curse and thereby opening the waterway. As the action continues, Troy moves through both space and time: it moves from the far-away, off-stage space into the on-stage space; from imaginary fiction into reality; from the past or future into the present. And, yet, death lurks within the walls of Troy and Troy demands that there be death, which makes it both dangerous and fascinating at the same time.


Raphael is a dumpsite boy. He spends his days wading through mountains of steaming trash, sifting it, sorting it, breathing it, sleeping next to it. Then one unlucky-lucky day, Raphael's world turns upside down. A small leather bag falls into his hands. It's a bag of clues. It's a bag of hope. It's a bag that will change everything. Soon Raphael and his friends Gardo and Rat are running for their lives. Wanted by the police, it takes all their quick-thinking and fast-talking to stay ahead. As the net tightens, they uncover a dead man's mission to put right a terrible wrong. And now it's three street boys against the world...


Since 1992, traffic signals in Oakland County and a portion of Macomb and Wayne Counties of Michigan have been converted to the Sydney Coordinated Adaptive Traffic System (SCATS). County traffic engineers have been adjusting various SCATS parameters to improve its effectiveness in terms of delay, traffic flow, queue length, and crash and injury occurrences. In 2008, a study was conducted to evaluate the performance of the SCATS system on M-59, between Pontiac Lake East to Pontiac lake West in Waterford Township, Michigan, in terms of delay, flow, queue length and Fuel consumption and Emission. As a part of this study various performance parameters of SCATS system were compared with the Pre-timed signal system. Performance of the SCATS system was found to be superior for several of the performance measures during each Peak period. When compared to Pre-Timed signal, installation and maintenance cost of SCATS system is almost two times greater. Therefore, there is a need to determine the added related benefits of SCATS system. In this context, determination of crash benefit of SCATS can play a significant role. If we can combine congestion and crash related benefits, then it is most likely combined benefits will overweigh the cost. Crash data from 1999 to 2008 of two corridors, one controlled by the SCATS and other by the Pre-timed signal system were examined to determine the effectiveness of SCATS system. In order to evaluate the effectiveness of SCATS signal system, intersections as well as segment crash data before and after the installation of SCATS signal were compared. In addition, a series of statistical tests were performed to compare safety performance of SCATS and pre-timed signal systems. It was observed that there was shift in severity types A and B to C, which is noteworthy. However, statistical tests were not able to identify any difference of significant at 95 percent confidence level. Finally, cost related information for both SCATS as well as pre-timed was also computed and compared.


OBJECTIVE To study the absorption rate of rapid-acting insulin from subcutaneous injection sites in nonobese and obese non-insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus (NIDDM) patients. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS Ten nonobese and 10 obese NIDDM patients (body mass indexes 24.1 ± 0.4 and 31.4 ± 0.8 kg/m2, respectively) received four subcutaneous injections of 125I-labeled rapid-acting insulin (Actrapid Human, 5 U): three in the abdominal wall above, lateral to, and below the umbilicus; and one in the thigh. The depth of the subcutaneous fat layer was measured using ultrasound techniques. The residual radioactivity was monitored externally for 270 min. RESULTS The disappearance half-life of 125I-insulin was between 4 and 6 h from all injection sites, with the exception of the upper abdominal area in the nonobese subjects, where it measured ∼ 3 h. The residual radioactivity did not differ between nonobese and obese patients measured from any of the sites. In the nonobese group, the most rapid absorption of 125I-insulin was found from the upper abdominal area and the slowest from the thigh. In the obese group, the absorption rates did not differ between sites. No correlation was found between the depth of the fat layer and the residual radioactivity when measured at any site. CONCLUSIONS Our results indicate that the absorption of rapid-acting insulin is markedly slow in both obese and nonobese NIDDM patients compared with IDDM patients and healthy subjects studied previously. In the nonobese group, the most rapid absorption of 125I-insulin is obtained after injection into the upper abdominal area. Inter- and intraregional differences are small in the obese patients. Consequently the choice of injection site is of little importance in this group.


In dipping, water-drive reservoirs, substantial incremental oil can be produced using gravity-assisted gas injection improved recovery processes. These processes include the Double Displacement Process (DDP) and the Second-Contact Water Displacement (SCWD). The efficiency of these processes depends, in part, on phase distribution in the pore space after gas injection which in turn depends on interfacial and surface tensions (IFT) of the phases involved. The research described here-in pertains to experimental work performed to investigate various aspects of the DDP and the SCWD in both homogenous and heterogeneous rock types with dead oil/nitrogen and recombined-oil/methane fluid systems. Additional work was performed with transparent cells in order to visualize mobilization and displacement of residual oil. Measurements of interfacial tension were also performed to predict phase distribution within the pore space. Based on experimental investigation, the DDP and SCWD processes were found to be efficient methods of incremental oil recovery. Transparent cell experiments provided insight into the mechanisms of the DDP and SCWD processes. These experiments support the presumption of film flow of water displacement residual oil. Existing IFT measurement techniques were adapted to provide rapid and convenient measurement at high-pressure and high-temperature conditions. The interfacial and surface tension properties of several fluid systems were investigated under reservoir conditions with different injection gases. The relative convenience of these IFT measurements opens the way to the development of an empirical screening criteria needed in the selection of reservoirs suitable for DDP and SCWD processes.


When Africa was colonised in the 1890s by the British, French and the Portuguese, they quickly introduced various media such as films and theatre to Africans that justified conquest and with the ultimate aim of projecting the Europeans as a superior and God's chosen race. The colonisers aim was to undermine African confidence in themselves in African cultural achievements, religion and way of life. After seeing these films and theatrical performances, for instance, Africans were supposed to renounce their traditional values in favour of the new values of Christian individualism or European culture as propounded by the modernisation theory of development. Thus, through various media, European colonial governments managed to reshape, control and dominate the minds of Africans so that they would become compliant with colonial 'exploitative' economic interests. In order to move out of this colonial mindset or to emancipate African minds from mental slavery or historical traumas caused by colonialism, this paper argues that decolonisation of the African mind, as Ngugi (1987) puts it is inevitable. It is therefore the aim of this article to demonstrate the importance of decolonial epistemology in the decolonisation of the African mind by not totally or completely rejecting modernity, but by only becoming masters of their destiny through theatre. Driskill (2003) highlighted that the colonisation of Africa culminated in 'kinesthetic wounding' and the only way that these wounds can be healed or reversed is through decolonisation which is a 'kinesthetic healing'. Thus, the ultimate argument of this article is that since most African people still carry the wounds of the past in their bodies; it is only through the incorporation of the 'decolonial' epistemic perspectives or thoughts in theatre that a 'reclamation of individual and communal body, memory and story' (Butterwick and Selman 2003) of Africans will be achieved, thus, enabling a continuance of African oral traditions and imaginations of new stories for a decolonised future. In other words, if theatre is to powerfully connect mind, body and emotions or to deconstruct oppressive relations or mindsets imbued in African people's mindsets during colonialism it has to transform these African audiences through various decolonisation strategies which are incorporated within the decolonial epistemology or epistemic perspectives.


A comparison is reported between the dynamical response of a single-mode fiber optic and resistive strain gages in the frequency range 25-250 Hz. The integral phase change of the laser light propagation into the vibrating fiber optic is evaluated. A mechanical system was designed to exactly delimitate the put of the optical fiber which is subjected to vibration. The frequency spectrum of the phase change signal and the resistive strain gage signal show equivalent behavior. This result is in good agreement with the theoretically expected shares and confirms the validity of the analysis performed.


This chapter argues that the adoption of the United Nations Convention against Corruption (UNCAC) in 2004 and its subsequent ratification by more than 180 parties indicates universal agreement on the norms of quality of government, putting an end to moral relativist arguments. While UNCAC does not define corruption, it defines good governance and sets ethical universalism as its key benchmark. The chapter then follows the intellectual history of this concept and its remarkable success, with the norm of equal, fair, and nondiscriminatory treatment of every citizen present in every current constitutional contract. Ratification does not necessarily mean implementation when corruption is concerned, and the chapter surveys limitations to the practice of ethical universalism in governance and existing approaches to narrow the gap between norm and practice.


The shielding of low-frequency magnetic fields from "sensible" domains (e.g., in hospital areas or in control rooms in industrial environments) is usually achieved using ferromagnetic walls (passive shielding) or suitably designed coils, fed with appropriate currents (active shielding). Anyway, when disturbing fields are not known in advance, and weight or cost issues prevent passive shielding, general-purpose active shielding coils could be used, provided that their design is flexible enough to counteract a large class of fields and an adequate disturbing field detection system is present. This paper proposes a procedure able to perform the active shielding for a large class of disturbing fields. The procedure includes an identification step through a suitable measurement system and a current design step, based on the design of shimming coils specialized to cancel single "eigenfunctions" of the Laplace operator in the sensible domain.


Organic coatings are frequently applied to metals, often in circumstances where there is a need to protect the substrate from corrosion or to improve the aesthetic quality of a product. Increasingly, coatings are also expected to provide additional functionality, such as anti-bacterial properties. Concurrent with the need to satisfy ever more demanding specifications, coating formulators are being obliged to comply with stringent environmental legislation. A research area which may benefit the development of coating formulations is that of nanocomposite synthesis, in which the composite additives have at least one dimension in the nanometre size range.

The current research has sought to modify a waterborne organic coating primer with two types of nano-sized additives: layered clays and titanium dioxide nanoparticles. Dispersion of the particles at loadings up to 5% w/w was achieved by ball milling and the modified coatings were subjected to numerous tests to ascertain the effect of the additives. Titanium dioxide was found to improve the tribological properties and corrosion resistance of the coatings, while the addition of magnesium aluminium hydroxycarbonate (hydrotalcite) layered clay had a deleterious effect. Some coatings exhibited a cracked morphology, although no correlation between particle loading and the presence of cracks could be determined.

A preliminary investigation into substrate preparation was also conducted. This ensured that the degree of cleanliness of the hot-dip galvanized substrates was both satisfactory and consistent.


We present an approach to schedulability analysis for the synthesis of multi-cluster distributed embedded systems consisting of time-triggered and event-triggered clusters, interconnected via gateways. We have also proposed a buffer size and worst case queuing delay analysis for the gateways, responsible for routing inter-cluster traffic. Optimization heuristics for the priority assignment and synthesis of bus access parameters, aimed at producing a schedulable system with minimal buffer needs, have been proposed. Extensive experiments and a real-life example show the efficiency of our approaches.


A series of coordination complexes of Cu(II), Co(II), Ni(II), Zn(II),Cd (II),and Hg(II) with the Schiff base, (E)-N-[(6-bromo-2-hydroxyquinoline -3-yl)methylene)]-3-chlorobenzo [b] thiophene-2-carbohydrazide have been synthesized and characterized by elemental analyses, electrical conductance, IR spectra, H1NMR, thermal, electronic spectra, ESR spectra and magnetic susceptibility measurement. The Schiff base behaves as tridentate ONO donor ligand and forms the complexes of the type ML (metal – ligand). All the complex are colored and non-electrolytes. It is found that Cu(II), Co(II), Ni(II), Zn(II), Cd(II) and Hg(II) complexes have exhibited octahedral geometry. The ligand and their metal complexes have been screened for their antimicrobial activity against E.coli and S.aureus. Antifungal activity against, A.niger and C.albicans.


Questions
Is there any theoretical model enabling predictions of the optimal tree size distribution in tropical communities? Can we use such a theoretical framework for quantifying the degree of disturbance?

Location
Reserve of Yangambi, northeast region of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Methods
We applied an allometric model based on the assumption that a virtually undisturbed forest uses all available resources. In this condition, the forest structure (e.g. the tree size distribution) is theoretically predictable from the scaling of the tree crown with tree height at an individual level. The degree of disturbance can be assessed through comparing the slopes of the tree size distribution curves in the observed and predicted conditions. We tested this tool in forest stands subjected to different degrees of disturbance. We inventoried trees >1.3 m in height by measuring the DBH in three plots of 1 ha each, and measured tree height, crown radius and crown length in a sub-sample of trees.

Results
All tree species, independently of the site, shared the same exponents of allometric relationships: tree height vs tree diameter, crown radius vs tree height, crown length vs tree height and consequently crown volume vs tree height, suggesting that similar trajectories of biomass allocation have evolved irrespective of species. The observed tree size distributions appeared to be power laws (excluding the finite size effect) and, as predicted, the slope was steeper in the less disturbed forest (−2.34) compared to the most disturbed (−1.99). The difference in the slope compared to the theoretical fully functional forest (−2.65) represents the metric for assessing the degree of disturbance.

Conclusions
We developed a simple tool for operationalizing the concept of 'disturbance' in tropical forests. This approach is species-independent, needs minimal theoretical assumptions, the measurement of only a few structural traits and requires a low investment in equipment, time and computer skills. Its simple implementation opens new perspectives for effectively addressing initiatives of forest protection and/or restoration.


There is little in vivo data concerning the fate of ingested TiO2 nanoparticles (nano-TiO2). We report here experiments aimed at assessing if ingested nano-TiO2 accumulates in the digestive gland epithelium or are internalized elsewhere in the body of the terrestrial isopod crustaceans. The animals (Porcellio scaber, Isopoda, Crustacea) fed for 3, 7, or 14 days on food dosed with 100 or 1000 µg nano-TiO2 showed no evidence of internalization of Ti measured by microparticle-induced X-ray emission method. The effect of ingested nanoparticles was measured by conventional toxicity measures such as feeding rate, weight change, andmortality and did not indicate any toxicity. However, cell membrane of digestive glands, measured with a modified method for assessing cell membrane stability, was affected already after 3 days of exposure to 1000 µg nano-TiO2 per gram dry weight of food indicating cytotoxic potential of ingested nanoparticles. Our results confirmed hypothesis on low toxic potential and no internalization of consumed TiO2 nanoparticles by a model invertebrate organism. However, cytological marker unequivocally indicated adverse effect of ingested nano-TiO2. We conclude that the isopod model system could be used for studying the fate and effect of ingested nanoparticles.


How do we make meaning of the experiences and lives of our students, and how do questions of meaning relate to scholarship? This article expresses a concern about language and whether we as professionals examine the language we use. It explores a concern about the deafening silence on our campuses and in our professional organizations, about allies who do not speak out for the "other." And it ponders how we learned what we know about marginalization of populations on our campuses; or, more accurately, what we don't know. This article then briefly explores eight areas within student affairs, specifically for sexual orientation and gender identity content: Curriculum, Staff and Administrator Training, Mentoring, Research, Development, Leadership, Service, and Balance and Renewal. It is a completely biased, onesided view as seen through the eyes, heart, and scholarship of one university's professional gay-for-pay.


Abstract Sexual and relationship needs of people with psychosis are generally overlooked despite established psychosocial benefits and reduced risk of relapse. Despite mental health professionals' reluctance to initiate conversations about sexuality and intimacy with service-users, people with psychosis and their support networks have indicated their desire for professionals to address intimate topics. Clinical psychologists are specifically trained to address complex psychological issues; however, no research to date has explored their views around discussing sexuality and intimacy. Q-methodology was used to explore clinical psychologists' personal and professional views about discussing sexuality and intimacy with people with psychosis. 27 clinical psychologists completed Q-sorts. Varimax rotation revealed three factors with distinct views; a majority perspective that highlighted the normality of sexuality and intimacy for people with psychosis and the acceptability of such conversations in clinical work for practitioners, a view focused on concerns about the appropriateness of discussing sexuality and the possibility that conversations could lead to increased risk, and a view that related to concerns about competency in addressing intimate subjects. The practical and clinical implications are discussed in terms of training need and limited access to sexual health services.


A geometrical multiscale model for blood flow through an ideal left ventricle and the main arteries is presented. The blood flow in the three-dimensional idealized left ventricle is solved through a monolithic fluid-structure interaction solver. To account for the interaction between the heart and the circulatory system the heart flow is coupled through an ideal valve with a network of viscoelastic one-dimensional models representing the arterial network. The geometrical multiscale approach used in this work is based on the exchange of averaged/integrated quantities between the fluid problems. The peripheral circulation is modelled by zero-dimensional windkessel terminals. We demonstrate that the geometrical multiscale model is (i) highly modular in that component models can be easily replaced with higher-fidelity ones whenever the user has a specific interest in modelling a particular part of the system, (ii) passive in that it reaches a stable limit cycle of flow rate and pressure in a few heartbeat cycles when driven by a periodic force acting on the epicardium, and (iii) capable of operating at physiological regimes.