In Streptomyces coelicolor A3(2) the whiB and whiG genes are essential for sporulation, their deduced products being a possible transcriptional activator and an RNA polymerase sigma factor, respectively. In a survey of DNA from diverse actinomycetes by Southern blotting, all samples tested hybridized with whiB, but only those representing genera capable of producing sporulating aerial mycelium hybridized with whiG. It is postulated that whiB may play a more intimate role in hyphal fragmentation processes (including sporulation) than whiG. The whiB and whiG homologues (whiB-Stv and whiG-Stv) of Streptoverticillium griseocarneum were cloned and sequenced, and subjected to functional tests in S. coelicolor whiB and whiC mutants. The genes were closely similar, but not identical, to their S. coelicolor counterparts at the DNA and deduced protein levels, and both Stv. griseocarnum gene products could function well in S. coelicolor. However, studies with hybrid transcription units suggested that the promoter region of whiB-Stv is somewhat inefficient in S. coelicolor.


BACKGROUND
There has been a continuing increase in the use of total ankle arthroplasty for the treatment of end-stage ankle arthritis. Our aim was to determine the clinical, radiographic, and functional outcomes of total ankle arthroplasties done with a prosthesis with a modular intramedullary stem and intramedullary referencing to align the tibia.

METHODS
A consecutive series of patients who underwent total ankle arthroplasty with the INBONE Total Ankle Replacement from June 2007 to December 2010 were enrolled in this study. Pain and patient-reported function were assessed with use of a visual analog scale (VAS) for pain, the American Orthopaedic Foot & Ankle Society (AOFAS) ankle-hindfoot score, the Short Musculoskeletal Function Assessment (SMFA), and the Short Form-36 (SF-36) Health Survey. Objective function was measured with assessment of walking speed, the Timed Up and Go (TUG) test, the Sit-to-Stand (STS) test, and the Four Square Step Test (4SST). Standardized weight-bearing radiographs obtained preoperatively and after total ankle arthroplasty were evaluated. We analyzed clinical, functional, and radiographic measurements with a series of repeated-measures analyses of variance (ANOVAs) with post-hoc testing to assess differences between preoperative, one-year postoperative, and most recent follow-up data. On the basis of the number of statistical comparisons, a Bonferroni correction was completed (alpha < 0.003).

RESULTS
We identified 194 primary INBONE total ankle arthroplasties with a mean duration of clinical follow-up of 3.7 years (range, 2.2 to 5.5 years). Patients demonstrated a significant improvement (p < 0.003) in VAS pain, AOFAS, SMFA, and SF-36 scores at the time of final follow-up, compared with preoperative values, and in walking speed, STS time, TUG time, and 4SST time at two years postoperatively, compared with preoperatively. The mean coronal tibiotalar angle for varus and valgus ankles significantly improved postoperatively and was maintained until the time of final follow-up. The prevalence of unstable subsidence leading to impending failure was 5%, and the prevalence of revision was 6%.

CONCLUSIONS
Patients who underwent total ankle arthroplasty with the INBONE Total Ankle Replacement demonstrated significant improvement in radiographic, functional, and patient-reported outcome scores at a mean of 3.7 years postoperatively. The overall implant survival rate was 89%.

LEVEL OF EVIDENCE
Therapeutic Level IV. See Instructions for Authors for a complete description of levels of evidence.


With the paradigm shift from a product-based to a process-based approach to ESL writing instruction came a necessary change in teachers' approaches to giving feedback on student compositions. One of the critical underpinnings of the process-based approach to ESL writing instruction is that focus on content and the organization of ideas should take precedence over a focus on more formal aspects of writing such as grammar and mechanics. Most of the studies over the last fifteen years have investigated student reactions to or preferences for various feedback techniques employed by ESL writing instructors, but have not systematically attempted to investigate which factors might be influencing the feedback preferences these students have. This study is an investigation with two main aims: (a) to determine what the feedback preferences of university-level ESL students are, and (b) to determine which selected factors have an influence on these preferences. To accomplish this, 185 ESL students at two Montreal universities were surveyed using two instruments. One instrument gathered information on students' feedback preferences and the other gathered data on personality traits. The results of the study indicated that students had a marked preference for form-focused feedback, that they preferred the use of symbols over error correction by the teacher, and that they were not convinced of the benefits of peer review. Factors such as age, gender, previous experience and personality were found to influence these preferences.


This thesis presents an historical ethnography of Club 47, a significant cultural icon of the folk music revival in the United States in the late 1950s and 1960s. Club 47 existed in Cambridge, Massachusetts, from 1958 to 1968 and was the best-known coffeehouse in New England. -- Club 47 was instrumental in helping to create a community and a market for commercial folk music by serving as both the principal breeding ground for new talent in the area, and as the showcase for the best performers and the many genres that the folksong revival had to offer. -- While it was the music aspect of the club that was best known, performers and audiences came together at the 47 as much for its social organization as for its music. A critical factor that distinguished Club 47 from other revival venues was its membership policy, instituted upon its incorporation as a nonprofit educational organization, which led to its communal ownership and governance. Throughout its evolution, Club 47 both influenced and reflected musical and social developments locally, regionally, and nationally, including the revival's eventual integration into mainstream musical forms and the 1960s counterculture. -- As a contribution to the field of folkloristics, this thesis considers the music culture of one group of people over a 10-year period and approaches Club 47 from its grassroots as a field work-based history. I seek to contextualize and synthesize the experiences and observations of the scene's diverse participants within the scholarly purviews of folksong and folk custom, as well as within folksong-revival and New England sociocultural history. -- My findings suggest that the revival helped to usher in a new American cultural period and, through appeals to tradition, functioned as social sanction for breaking old patterns and creating newer ones. As part of a cultural transformation, Club 47 participants, like their folksong revival counterparts in other scenes, were creators and innovators of new musical texts. These texts, when approved as art forms, alluded to continuity with the past and utilized the materials of the present to preserve and transmit their creations into ever-widening circles.


The exhibition Photographs Beyond Ruins focuses on a central Namibian town, Usakos. The town's history is linked to the development of the South African railway system in Namibia, which brought remarkable prosperity to Usakos in the 1940s and 1950s but which caused a major socio-economic decline in the early 1960s. During this time, the South African apartheid administration decided to transform the town according to racial segregation and apartheid urban planning by moving the African population out of their residential area into newly built, racially and ethnically segregated townships which were situated on the town's outskirts. The exhibition chooses a particular point in the history of colonialism and apartheid and of community building and forced removals. It places at its centre stage three private archives of photographic collections assembled over several decades by four women residents of Usakos. These photographs constitute personal albums, subjective narratives and aesthetic interventions in the course of a history that denied them visibility and voice as women, residents, citizens and human beings. Representing the social, cultural and aesthetic variety of life in the 'old location' ('ou lokasie'), the photographs inform the ways in which people relate to them today: with pride and a deep sense of nostalgia and loss. It is this reflection of the past in the present that characterises Paul Grendon's photographs and which complements the display of the Usakos old location albums. Here, Usakos' landscape emerges as a palimpsest of scar tissue: a place and space of colonial ruination, interwoven with histories and memories, silences and voices, absences and presences of those who lived and those who continue to make a living there.


In 1981, Congress passed the Economie Recovery Tax Act of 1981 (ERTA). One of the major provisions of ERTA is the Accelerated Cost Recovery System (ACRS) of depreciation. ACRS allows for a more rapid recovery of the cost of a depreciable asset than existed under prior law. At the federal level, this accelerated cost recovery is expected to result in substantial revenue loss. The benefit of the revenue loss is a hoped for stimulation to capital investment to spur economic recovery. During the deliberations leading to the enactment of ERTA, much attention was focused on this revenue loss at the federal level. Little attention, however, was directed toward the revenue impact on states whose tax base conformed to the federal tax base. This study examines the revenue impact of the ACRS provisions on the State of Florida corporate tax revenues for the years 1982-1985. The examination makes use of both state data and national data. First, a Florida /U.S. model is constructed by relating Florida taxable income to U.S. taxable income for each industry represented in the sample of Florida corporate tax returns. This model allows for the use of national investment information. At the national level, a determination is made of expected investment for each industry represented in the Florida /U.S. model, for the years 1982-1985. Depreciation calculations are made for this investment, by industry, under pre-ERTA law and under ACRS. The difference in depreciation, xi again by industry, is translated to the state level by use of the relationships established in the Florida / U.S. model. At the state level, the change in depreciation is multiplied by the 5% state corporate tax rate. The result of this procedure is the gross revenue impact to the State of Florida caused by the ACRS provisions. This gross revenue impact is reduced to a net figure for the years 1982-1984 by the emergency excise tax. The emergency excise tax was enacted by the Florida Legislature in an effort to negate the anticipated revenue loss from the ACRS provisions. This excise tax


In this study, we tried to reveal the presence of a cytokine that is regulated by weight, food intake, body fat, the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis, and corticosterone. The experiment group was given a high calorie diet and the control group was fed a normal calorie diet, and both groups were exposed to various stresses. The behavioral and hormonal change by the kinds and severity of stresses were measured via their immunologic aspect as well as their stress alleviation by voluntary high calorie food intake. After sacrificing the animal, the adrenal gland fat tissues were weighed, and the high calorie diet group showed heavier adrenal glands than those of the control group. In particular, the CVS A group had lighter adrenal gland weight than the Res B and CVS B groups, and the other groups had heavier adrenal glands. The comparison of plasma ACTH concentration to the corticosteroid secretion ratio showed that the CVS A group had decreased ACTH and an increased corticosteroid/ACTH ratio. This fact shows that the adrenal gland was highly active and, in spite of a normal corticosteroid concentration, induced too much negative feedback inhibition.


Uniaxially patterned (UAP) dielectric layers have an optical anisotropy that can be externally controlled. This paper examines the effects of patterning the cladding or the core layer of a three-layer optical waveguide on the polarization properties of propagating radiation. Particular attention is paid to the case when the core material is a semiconductor with optical gain. A number of devices are discussed based on incorporating a UAP layer in the structure design, such as a polarization-insensitive amplifier, a polarizer, an optically controlled polarization switch, and an optically controlled modal coupler


Laser research facilities, with their typically severe EMI environment and attendant need for minimum length data links, represent an ideal application for a distributed microcomputer-based control system. This paper presents the conceptual design of a distributed control system for the High Energy Gas Laser Facility (Figure 1). Third in a series of experimental CO2 laser fusion systems at Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory in New Mexico, the HEGLF is aimed at exploring the use of lasers in thermonuclear research for power generation. As presently conceived, the system will contain multiple microcomputers, each with its own executive, performing dedicated functions under supervision of a central minicomputer. It will monitor six power amplifiers, the high-voltage pulse-power system, the laser preamplifiers, and the target systems, as well as automatically align the laser beams onto the target. System components, which will be distributed throughout the facility, will be interconnected via fiber-optics cables so as to combat the electromagnetic noise environment when the laser is fired.


We present a compact planar coupler connecting two optical waveguides with highly different widths. The coupler consists of various nonperiodic waveguide sections, whose dimensions are determined using a genetic optimization algorithm. Efficiencies that exceed those of the more conventional designs with similar lengths, like gradual linear tapers, were obtained in silicon-on-insulator using 248-nm-deep ultraviolet lithography.


As the prices of solar panels continue to decline, energy production from solar farms is skyrocketing, leading to a situation where, at certain times, solar farms produce more energy than can be consumed. Today, the only control over this excess electricity generation is curtailment, meaning excess power is wasted. A source of control that is often overlooked is the choice of orientation of fixed (non-tracking) solar panels: panels oriented towards the east, for example, produce more electricity earlier in the day and less later in the day, compared to similar panels oriented south. While this results in an overall reduction in generation, it matches solar generation with electrical grid load better, thus reducing curtailment. We use optimization to study the degree to which non-tracking panel orientation can be used to meet each of four possible grid requirements: load following, peak reduction, reduction in operation cost, and ramp reduction. Assuming complete control over the orientation of all panels, we find that, in the three jurisdictions we studied, i.e., Ontario, British Columbia, and Texas, orientation can be very useful in reducing ramps (reducing them up to 30%) but does not appear to be useful for reducing net load peaks.


[1] Crevasses form in response to tensile stresses in glaciers and ice sheets. It has been widely assumed that crevasses initiate at, or near, the surface of the ice, from starter cracks up to a few centimeters long. If the tensile stress is sufficient, these cracks propagate downward into the ice to form a crevasse, until the weight-induced lithostatic stress prevents them penetrating deeper. We present ground-penetrating radar data acquired on the Rutford Ice Stream, Antarctica, which indicate that crevasses occur at depths of several meters beneath the ice surface and were formed in areas where surface crevassing is absent. The data support the hypothesis that these are examples of subsurface crevasse formation. Using linear elastic fracture mechanics (LEFM), we investigate the feasibility of crevasse initiation at depth. We consider the initiation of an isolated crevasse from a subsurface crack, subject to a "dynamic tensile stress'' which results from deformation associated with ice movement and a weight-induced lithostatic stress. The LEFM approach allows us to estimate a(init), the minimum length a crack must be before crack propagation will occur. In earlier models of crevasse formation, it was assumed that the dynamic tensile stress is constant with depth. We consider a more realistic scenario, where the dynamic tensile stress varies with depth, in such a way that the tensile strain rate remains constant. We show that in this scenario, crevasse initiation from centimeter-scale starter cracks is feasible at depths of 10-30 m, as well as at the surface. At present, the formulation of a reliable predictive model is limited by an incomplete knowledge of the mechanical properties of firn. In previous studies, the depth of buried crevasses has been used to estimate the time elapsed since ice was exposed to higher stresses and different flow regimes. In the light of the results presented here, those estimates may need to be reviewed.


In this paper we investigate how the color of a pigmented polymer is affected by reduction of the reflectance at the air-polymer interface. Both theoretical and experimental investigations show modified diffuse-direct reflectance spectra when the reflectance of the surface is lowered. Specifically it is found that the color change is manifested as an increase in chroma, leading to a clearer color experience. The experimental implementation is done using random tapered surface structures replicated in polymer from silicon masters using hot embossing.


Despite an increasing interest from industry (e.g., DO333 standard [1]), formal verification is still not widely used in production for safety critical systems. This has been recognized for a while and various causes have been identified, one of them being the lack for scalable and cost effective tools. Many such tools exist for formal verification, but few of them are userfriendly: using formal verification generally still requires such an effort that the time spent on the tool prevents the integration of the method in an industrial setting. This paper presents a tool prototype aiming at supporting non-experts in using formal verification. The tooling approach is meant to be cost effective and change-supportive: user-friendliness is designed not only for the non-expert, but also to require minimum effort so that formal verification is triggered even for the non-enthusiast who is not willing to push a button. To do so, we trigger, in a background task, pre-defined formal verification checks at (almost) every change of the model. We only display error messages in case of problem: the user is not disturbed if no problem is detected. To prevent checks to be triggered all the time, we decide to consider only local analyses (i.e., only checks which do not require knowledge of elements in a remote position in the model). This restricts the sort of formal verification that we support, but this is a conscious choice: our motto is "Let us first make basic techniques very user-friendly; more powerful ones will be considered only when at least the basic techniques have proven to be accepted."


Light emanating from ac arcs operating on 60-Hz power exhibits a 120-Hz modulation of intensity. Although time-averaged spectra of such arcs are usually reported, the instantaneous light spectrum and its dependence on the oscillating plasma temperature is a more valuable source of spectroscopic information. An experimental technique is described for scanning the spectrum of an ac discharge at any fixed phase in the arc operating cycle. Spectra were recorded at phases corresponding to maximum and minimum light output for a pure Hg arc, a Hg–Na, Sc, Th metal-iodide arc, a Hg high-pressure Na arc, and a Hg–SnI2 arc. Intensity ratios Imax/Imin of spectral lines generally increased with increasing upper-state energy. Many of the dominant lines also exhibited sizable changes of line profile with variations of phase. In the Hg–Na, Sc, Th metal-iodide arc, the intensity variations of optically thin lines were used to obtain estimates of upper-state energies and relative gA values of some Th lines for which these quantities were previously unknown.


The goal of this paper is to evaluate commonly held criticisms of the practice of ability tracking in high school mathematics. To do so, I employ data from the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988 and follow-ups to model classroom selection and education production. This paper will focus only on the causes and effects of tracking on students who were tracked as low-ability in eighth grade. From this, we can see how many students, if any, switched out of the low-ability track by tenth grade and how various switches have affected their test scores in mathematics. I find that students exercise mobility between ability-tracks as late as tenth grade and that ability-track placement is largely determined by test scores. In addition, I find evidence that there would be minimal, if any, test score improvement among low-ability students if they were all moved to a class of heterogeneous ability.


The graft copolymerization of acrylamide, N-vinyl-2-pyrralidone and N, N'-methylene-bis-acrylamide was carried out to modify the sisal fiber to improve its mechanical and thermal stability. The grafting of poly-(acrylamide-co-N-vinyl-2-pyrrolidone) on sisal fiber surfaces facilitated the loading of Ag(I) ions and Ag(0) nanoparticles. Surface microstructure of the surface modified sisal fiber confirmed the grafting of the copolymer. The XRD and FTIR graphs also showed changes on grafting and on Ag(I) ions and the loading of Ag(0) nanoparticles. It is evident from the DSC curves that the initial thermal stability was improved by delaying the hemicellulose decomposition on grafting and silver ion loading.


Despite Alfred Marshall's early recognition of the importance of mothering, human capital theory scarcely reflects the role of the home environment as a factor influencing the production of human capital. This paper looks deeply into the earliest phase of child development to understand its implications for human capital theory. Recently, important noneconomic research has revealed the growth of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) among young children and how this impairs their brain functioning. Accordingly, this paper explores the role of ACEs for understanding the growth of poverty and inequality. In contrast to other socio-economic theories explaining the growth of inequality of academic achievement, this paper focuses on the magnitude and growth of ACEs and poor parenting within the lower socio-economic class. Other theories no doubt have some validity, but if they leave out ACEs, they are missing a crucial causal factor. The implications of this theory for remedies to ACEs are explored. These remedies involve different ways to build human capital during the early childhood so that children will arrive at school with their brains unimpaired. The caring work of making human capital investments works better if they are part of a caring economy and part of a sensible human capital strategy.


Purpose: The epidermal growth factor receptor family member HER3 is overexpressed in diverse human cancers and has been associated with poor prognosis in breast, lung, and ovarian cancer. However, the relevance of HER3 with regard to its prognostic significance and function in primary melanoma and metastases remains largely elusive. Experimental Design: HER3 protein expression was analyzed immunohistochemically using tissue microarrays of 130 primary melanoma and 87 metastases relative to established clinical variables. The possibility of an influence of HER3 on melanoma cell proliferation, migration, invasion, and chemotherapy-induced apoptosis was studied in human melanoma cell lines. Results: We show that HER3 is frequently expressed in malignant melanoma and metastases at elevated levels. High HER3 expression may serve as a prognostic marker because it correlates with cell proliferation, tumor progression, and reduced patient survival. Suppression of HER3 expression by RNA interference reduces melanoma cell proliferation, migration, and invasion in vitro. In addition, down-regulation of HER3 synergistically enhances dacarbazine-induced apoptosis. Moreover, monoclonal antibodies specific for the extracellular portion of HER3 efficiently block heregulin-induced proliferation, migration, and invasion of melanoma cell lines. Conclusion: Our results provide novel insights into the role of HER3 in melanoma and point out new possibilities for therapeutic intervention.


This short Essay explores several potential teaching moments in which one might raise issues concerning the micro-politics of socioeconomic class status. I discuss cases found in popular casebooks for three course areas in which I teach: torts, employment, and employment discrimination law. I show how analysis of dynamics related to socioeconomic class in discussing case outcomes can help expose assumptions about the naturalness or inevitability of the law's withholding of dignity rights to persons of low socioeconomic status. Law can reinforce ideas that such subordination is natural to the workplace and market, when in fact those ideas are subject to potential challenge through law just as they are reinforced through it. I thus use case analysis to raise for classroom discussion the following question: Just as law can construct and enforce status hierarchies, might the notion of dignitary rights potentially be made to do positive work in law by disrupting the reinforcement of status hierarchies?


Evidence from family, adoption and twin studies indicates that genetic variation contributes to the risk for developing addiction to alcohol, tobacco and illicit drugs and to the comorbidity of addictions with other psychiatric disorders. For instance, it is estimated that 50–60% of the variation in risk for alcoholism is accounted for by genetic factors. Genetic influences are implicated in multiple aspects of substance involvement, including predispositions to drug-seeking behaviour and development of physiological dependence. These influences likely occur through multiple mechanisms, ranging from cellular processes (e.g. metabolic, pharmacologic) to psychological (e.g. personality traits). Environmental factors are also key – individuals' psychosocial histories may outweigh their genetic predispositions or can combine with genetic factors to magnify or decrease risk for developing addictions.

Key Concepts

Substance abuse and addiction run in families.
Genetic epidemiology uses family, adoption and twin studies to address whether the familiality of addiction is due to environmental factors, genetic transmission or a combination of both.
For both men and women, 50–60% of the risk for developing alcoholism is familial and virtually all of this is due to genetic factors.
Experimenting with tobacco is primarily environmentally influenced, but genetic factors influence who develops addiction.
Addiction to illicit substances also appears to have a genetic component for males; fewer studies have been conducted in females.
The available research is based on samples of European ancestry; genetic and environmental estimates could differ for other populations.

Keywords:

genetic epidemiology;
drug abuse;
twin studies;
adoption studies;
alcoholism


"The objective of this paper is to review the agricultural trade and domestic policies of the Philippines and to provide an assessment of the types and levels of domestic support relative to the rules of the World Trade Organization (WTO). Changes in trade protection and support in the Philippines, including tariff structure, quantitative restrictions, and domestic support, are discussed and analyzed. The paper also discusses the pattern of public expenditure on agriculture in the Philippines, including major agricultural productivity-enhancing programs. The present structure of protection and support favors the agricultural sector. Trade protection is higher in agriculture relative to manufacturing. There is a quantitative restriction on rice imports and a tariff rate quota in several agricultural commodities. The green box payments and the special and differential treatment constitute the major domestic support for agriculture. These support payments are relatively substantial and will continue to be sizable in the future to support the government's food sufficiency policy. However, the trade-distorting market price support for rice and corn is significantly below the de minimis limit that applies to the Philippines under the WTO Uruguay Round Agreement on Agriculture." from author's abstract


This paper presents findings from case studies of the introduction of the Intel® Teach Essentials Course—a professional development program focused on integrating information and communication technologies (ICT) into project-based learning—into six schools in Chile, India, and Turkey. We describe four common dimensions of change in learning environments that emerged across the countries: changes in teachers' knowledge, beliefs, and attitudes; changes in how students engage with content; changes in relationships among students, teachers, and parents; and changes in the use of ICT tools to promote students' learning. Three of these dimensions relate to shifts in pedagogical paradigms that appear to be prerequisites to effectively using ICT to support students' learning. Our findings indicate that these shifts must not just occur at the teacher level, but must take hold throughout the educational system and must accompany sustained investment in infrastructure, human resources, curricular frameworks, and assessment.


This study examines the extent to
which local retail vacancy rates are influenced by vacancy
rates in surrounding communities versus the overall
national vacancy rate in the retail sector. Consistent
with prior research, our simultaneous spatial autoregressive analyses of pooled retail market vacancy rates
suggests that there is considerable spatial correlation in
vacancy rates among neighboring metropolitan areas.
There is also evidence of substantial temporal correlation
in local vacancy rates. While spatial correlation dominates
the national vacancy rate in explaining variation
in the level of vacancy rates, changes in the national vacancy
rate explain a statistically significant portion of
the variation in the changes in local vacancy rates. The
nature and extent to which changes in national rates affect
local rates is found to differ markedly across MSAs.


The effects of residual NaNO3 on the modification of Cu/ZnO-Al2O3 catalysts have been extensively documented, but the modification mechanism is so far unclear. This work studies in detail the influence of the residual sodium nitrate present in the hydroxycarbonate precursors on their decomposition during calcination and how it affects to the formation and configuration of the final active sites of the Cu/ZnO-Al2O3 catalysts. Different samples with varying sodium content after washing (from 0.01 to 7.3 wt%) were prepared and studied in detail after calcination and reduction steps. The results of this work demonstrated that NaNO3 affects the decomposition mechanism of the hydroxycarbonate precursors during calcination and produces its decarbonation at low temperature. The enhancement of the decarbonation by NaNO3 leads to segregation and crystallization of CuO and ZnO with loss of mesostructure and surface area in the calcined catalysts. The loss of mesostructure in calcined catalysts affects the subsequent reduction step, decreasing the reducibility and damaging the nanostructure of the reduced catalysts forming large Cu particles in poor contact with ZnOx that results in a significant decrease in the intrinsic activity of the copper active sites for methanol synthesis.


Abstract. During the last decade the use of airborne multi camera systems increased significantly. The development in digital camera technology allows mounting several mid- or small-format cameras efficiently onto one platform and thus enables image capture under different angles. Those oblique images turn out to be interesting for a number of applications since lateral parts of elevated objects, like buildings or trees, are visible. However, occlusion or illumination differences might challenge image processing. From an image orientation point of view those multi-camera systems bring the advantage of a better ray intersection geometry compared to nadir-only image blocks. On the other hand, varying scale, occlusion and atmospheric influences which are difficult to model impose problems to the image matching and bundle adjustment tasks. In order to understand current limitations of image orientation approaches and the influence of different parameters such as image overlap or GCP distribution, a commonly available dataset was released. The originally captured data comprises of a state-of-the-art image block with very high overlap, but in the first stage of the so-called ISPRS/EUROSDR benchmark on multi-platform photogrammetry only a reduced set of images was released. In this paper some first results obtained with this dataset are presented. They refer to different aspects like tie point matching across the viewing directions, influence of the oblique images onto the bundle adjustment, the role of image overlap and GCP distribution. As far as the tie point matching is concerned we observed that matching of overlapping images pointing to the same cardinal direction, or between nadir and oblique views in general is quite successful. Due to the quite different perspective between images of different viewing directions the standard tie point matching, for instance based on interest points does not work well. How to address occlusion and ambiguities due to different views onto objects is clearly a non-solved research problem so far. In our experiments we also confirm that the obtainable height accuracy is better when all images are used in bundle block adjustment. This was also shown in other research before and is confirmed here. Not surprisingly, the large overlap of 80/80% provides much better object space accuracy – random errors seem to be about 2-3fold smaller compared to the 60/60% overlap. A comparison of different software approaches shows that newly emerged commercial packages, initially intended to work with small frame image blocks, do perform very well.


A novel approach to performing unsupervised mobility assessment tests in domestic environments is presented. As a part of the aTUG concept the approach is based on the idea to segment assessment tests into components made up of recurring movement patterns which are measured independently by use of ambient sensor technologies. Quality criteria are defined which compute a score of eligibility for usage of sensor data to assess a certain test component. Valid component measurements are recombined to complete assessment tests according to a technical assessment test description defining the flow of segments and their constraints. An experiment has been conducted within a field trial with five elderly people aged 64-84 years over five weeks. The flats of all people were equipped with home automation (HA) sensors. A laser range scanner (LRS) was placed in one flat. Results from the fully-equipped flat show that the presented quality criteria are suitable to select LRS measurements according to their eligibility to assess a certain component. HA sensors and the LRS were used to compute a self-selected gait velocity of 0.71m/s unsupervised at home. TUG using the aTUG apparatus and a stopwatch was used as clinical reference data yielding a mean gait velocity of 1.18m/s. For the described setting a difference of 0.47m/s between capacity and performance in gait velocity was found.


We propose a new type of weighted support vector regression (SVR), motivated by modeling local dependencies in time and space in prediction of house prices. The classic weights of the weighted SVR are added to the slack variables in the objective function (OF‐weights). This procedure directly shrinks the coefficient of each observation in the estimated functions; thus, it is widely used for minimizing influence of outliers. We propose to additionally add weights to the slack variables in the constraints (CF‐weights) and call the combination of weights the doubly weighted SVR. We illustrate the differences and similarities of the two types of weights by demonstrating the connection between the Least Absolute Shrinkage and Selection Operator (LASSO) and the SVR. We show that an SVR problem can be transformed to a LASSO problem plus a linear constraint and a box constraint. We demonstrate the capabilities of the doubly weighted approach through an example of prediction of house prices. The weight functions in the house pricing model depend on the geographical distance to the house of interest and the difference in time of sale (CF‐weights) as well as the differences lying in variables (OF‐weights), such as house size and number of floors. The results illustrate that the combination of the two types of weights describes the relative importance of observations very well and lowers the influence of possible outliers. Therefore, it enables the SVR models to have good performance. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


The worldwide abortion rate was essentially stable between 2003 and 2008, after having declined during the previous eight years, a new analysis indicates. (1) About 44 million abortions were performed in 2008, which translates to 28 per 1,000 women of reproductive age, a rate only slightly lower than that five years earlier (29 per 1,000). More than four-fifths of these abortions took place in developing countries, where more than half (56%) of abortions were unsafe. The new study was a sequel to prior analyses that estimated worldwide abortion statistics for 1995 and 2003. The researchers estimated numbers and rates of abortion by country and region, and compared the findings to those for the earlier years. They obtained data from a variety of sources, assessed its quality and made adjustments as needed to compensate for shortcomings. As in the prior analyses, the researchers generally considered abortions unsafe if they were performed in a country with highly restrictive abortion laws, or if they were done in a country with less restrictive laws but did not meet the country's legal requirements. Safe abortions were those that. met legal requirements in a country where abortion was allowed on request or on socioeconomic grounds, or where, if laws were interpreted liberally, abortion was legal to preserve a woman's physical or mental health. However, the researchers deviated from these classifications when called for by empirical evidence; for example, although abortion is broadly legal in India, many pregnancies are terminated by unauthorized providers and categorized as unsafe. In two-thirds of the countries with liberal abortion laws, formal abortion statistics were available. These data were used unaltered if experts familiar with the country considered the statistics at least 95% complete; if the data did not meet this threshold, the number of abortions was increased by 5-154% (mean, 26%) to yield a more accurate estimate. Similarly, adjustments for underreporting were made to data from countries whose only abortion estimates were from national surveys. If no official statistics, survey data or estimates were available, the investigators assigned estimated rates on the basis of the country's fertility and contraceptive rates and other factors. For countries with restrictive abortion laws, the investigators used data from official sources, nongovernmental organizations, databases and experts, giving preference to estimates published in peer-reviewed journals. In some cases, numbers and rates were estimated using data on the number of women who received medical treatment for abortion complications and the estimated proportion of abortion recipients who required treatment for complications. In other cases, survey-based data were used and adjusted for under-reporting. For some countries (most of them small), the investigators generated national estimates by extrapolating from subnational data, or by assuming that rates mirrored those of countries that were nearby or had similar abortion laws, fertility rates and levels of contraceptive use. Overall, an estimated 44 million abortions were performed in 2008, slightly more than in 2003 (42 million) but fewer than in 1995 (46 million). …


To the Editor: Malaria rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs) have been used for the diagnosis of malaria in Limpopo Province since 2001. A key determinant of the effectiveness of malaria RDTs is end-user proficiency. Since this had not previously been assessed in the area, we undertook a cross-sectional survey among randomly selected end-users of RDTs at primary health care settings in January 2007. Only 9% of participants checked the expiry date of RDTs, 32% did not add the correct volume of buffer, 24% did not wait for at least 15 minutes before reading the test result, and 24% were unable to read the test correctly. The percentage of participants who correctly interpreted RDT positive results was 85% (177/200), and the percentage who correctly interpreted RDT negative results was 96% (24/25). To achieve the full potential of RDTs as a tool for diagnosis of malaria, end-user proficiency must be improved.


Magnetar power is believed to be at the origin of numerous super-luminous supernovae (SNe) of Type Ic, arising from compact, hydrogen-deficient, Wolf-Rayet type stars. Here, we investigate the properties that magnetar power would have on standard-energy SNe associated with 15–20 M⊙ supergiant stars, either red (RSG; extended) or blue (BSG; more compact). We have used a combination of Eulerian gray radiation-hydrodynamics and non-LTE steady-state radiative transfer to study their dynamical, photometric, and spectroscopic properties. Adopting magnetar fields of 1, 3.5, 7 × 1014 G and rotational energies of 0.4, 1, and 3 × 1051 erg, we produce bolometric light curves with a broad maximum covering 50–150 d and a magnitude of 1043–1044 erg s−1. The spectra at maximum light are analogous to those of standard SNe II-P but bluer. Although the magnetar energy is channelled in equal proportion between SN kinetic energy and SN luminosity, the latter may be boosted by a factor of 10–100 compared to a standard SN II. This influence breaks the observed relation between brightness and ejecta expansion rate of standard Type II SNe. Magnetar energy injection also delays recombination and may even cause re-ionization, with a reversal in photospheric temperature and velocity. Depositing the magnetar energy in a narrow mass shell at the ejecta base leads to the formation of a dense shell at a few 1000 km s−1, which causes a light-curve bump at the end of the photospheric phase. Depositing this energy over a broad range of mass in the inner ejecta, to mimic the effect of multi-dimensional fluid instabilities, prevents the formation of a dense shell and produces an earlier-rising and smoother light curve. The magnetar influence on the SN radiation is generally not visible prior to 20–30 d, during which one may discern a BSG from a RSG progenitor. We propose a magnetar model for the super-luminous Type II SN OGLE-SN14-073.Key words: radiation: dynamics / radiative transfer / supernovae: general / supernova: individual: OGLE-SN2014-073


We describe an image processing system which we have developed to align autofluorescence and high-magnification images taken with a laser scanning ophthalmoscope. The low signal to noise ratio of these images makes pattern recognition a non-trivial task. However, once n images are aligned and averaged, the noise levels drop by a factor of n and the image quality is improved. We include examples of autofluorescence images and images of the cone photoreceptor mosaic obtained using this system.


To reduce environmental burdens from the food system, a shift towards environmentally sustainable diets is needed. In this study, the environmental impacts of the Swedish diet were benchmarked relative to global environmental boundaries suggested by the EAT-Lancet Commission. To identify local environmental concerns not captured by the global boundaries, relationships between the global EAT-Lancet variables and the national Swedish Environmental Objectives (SEOs) were analysed and additional indicators for missing aspects were identified. The results showed that the environmental impacts caused by the average Swedish diet exceeded the global boundaries for greenhouse gas emissions, cropland use and application of nutrients by two- to more than four-fold when the boundaries were scaled to per capita level. With regard to biodiversity, the impacts caused by the Swedish diet transgressed the boundary by six-fold. For freshwater use, the diet performed well within the boundary. Comparison of global and local indicators revealed that the EAT-Lancet variables covered many aspects included in the SEOs, but that these global indicators are not always of sufficiently fine resolution to capture local aspects of environmental sustainability, such as eutrophication impacts. To consider aspects and impact categories included in the SEO but not currently covered by the EAT-Lancet variables, such as chemical pollution and acidification, additional indicators and boundaries are needed. This requires better inventory data on e.g., pesticide use and improved traceability for imported foods.


Categorical quantum mechanics places finite-dimensional quantum theory in the context of compact closed categories, with an emphasis on diagrammatic reasoning. In this framework, two equational diagrammatic calculi have been proposed for pure-state qubit quantum computing: the ZW calculus, developed by Coecke, Kissinger and the first author for the purpose of qubit entanglement classification, and the ZX calculus, introduced by Coecke and Duncan to give an abstract description of complementary observables. Neither calculus, however, provided a complete axiomatisation of their model. In this paper, we present extended versions of ZW and ZX, and show their completeness for pure-state qubit theory, thus solving two major open problems in categorical quantum mechanics. First, we extend the original ZW calculus to represent states and linear maps with coefficients in an arbitrary commutative ring, and prove completeness by a strategy that rewrites all diagrams into a normal form. We then extend the language and axioms of the original ZX calculus, and show their completeness for pure-state qubit theory through a translation between ZX and ZW specialised to the field of complex numbers. This translation expands the one used by Jeandel, Perdrix, and Vilmart to derive an axiomatisation of the approximately universal Clifford+T fragment; restricting the field of complex numbers to a suitable subring, we obtain an alternative axiomatisation of the same theory.


Habitual routine behaviors and their subsequent conditioned response behaviors are two very powerful determinants of future human behavior. This study conceptualizes the habits or routines that people engage in with technology as being distinct and apart from automatic IS use behaviors. Automatic IS use behaviors — of which people are often unaware of the behavior until reflecting backward upon it — are hypothesized to be a result of a person's interaction with certain technology features which act as stimulus and reward mechanisms. Additionally, the roles of habit and a person's perception of sunk costs are hypothesized to play an important role in the development of automatic IS use behaviors. An international study of 177 individuals using a wide range of technologies provides support for the proposed relationships. The findings of the study, the limitations, and directions for future research are also discussed.


This study demonstrates the implementation and advantages in utilizing the Matlab programming environment for general-purpose simulations of constrained planar dynamic and kinematic multibody mechanical systems. Many currently available tools have a focus and can have limited flexibility through difficulty in data entry, limited access to source code, analysis of data or use of programming languages not readily taught. A Matlab source code is created, which includes the use of Microsoft Excel and GUI's created in GUIDE that allow a user to construct, simulate and analyze multibody systems in Matlab. This technique allows the user to utilize any of Matlab toolboxes for unique problems or integrate the base program into a Simulink environment. An overview of the general code structure and multibody kinematics and dynamics equations used are shown in this paper. For kinematic simulations, the system's Cartesian coordinates are found by finding the roots of the constraints vector at each time step. For the dynamic systems, the solver uses a numerical integration scheme with augmented form of the constrained equations of motion to solve for the system's accelerations. Examples are presented demonstrating the benefits of using the Matlab environment and the flexibility to easily expand the code to simulate unique problems. These examples include an Ackermann steering for automotive applications and a double pendulum at the influence of gravity. The last example shows how a custom function can be created to inject forces into the dynamic solver in order to simulate a structural beam at the influence of a heavy pendulum.Copyright © 2015 by ASME


Competing orders in strongly correlated systems lead to rich phase diagrams comprising many electronic phases, such as superconductivity, charge/spin density wave, charge order, or bad metallicity. These phases are generically sensitive to a variety of parameters, for example temperature, magnetic field, dimensionality, presence of disorder, geometrical frustration. In this thesis, we employ electronic transport measurements under high pressure on few model compounds to gain insight into the complex physics of strongly correlated compounds. The transport coefficients, resistivity and thermoelectric power, shed light onto conduction processes and the thermodynamics. The pressure is a perfect tool to investigate competition of different ground states: by modifying the lattice parameters, it can tune the interactions without introducing disorder. Several representative compounds were chosen for this study. In the first part, we focus on the transport properties of the quasi-one dimensional BaVS3. The main characteristic of this 3d1 system is the coexistence of a broad one-dimensional dz2 electronic band and a narrow isotropic eg band at the Fermi level. The suppression of the insulating phase by high pressure leads to a non-Fermi liquid phase. We showed that magnetic field does not recover the Fermi liquid behavior, and that the disorder pushes the system further into non-Fermi liquid state. This is at variance with what has been observed in other non-Fermi liquid compounds, and confirms the novelty of the mechanism for non-Fermi liquid behavior in BaVS3. To achieve better understanding of the role of the localized electrons, we investigated systematically the influence of disorder. In addition, we studied the properties of the BaVSe3, which due to the reinforced interchain interactions may be considered as the high-pressure counterpart of BaVS3. The system is a metallic ferromagnet, in which the strong interaction of dz2 and eg electrons dictates the behavior of transport coefficients. In the following part we studied the rich physics of quasi-one dimensional β-vanadium bronzes. In the stoichiometric β-SrV6O15, we followed the pressure dependence of the semiconductor-insulator transition by resistivity and thermopower. We found evidence suggesting that the ground state is charge ordered. Under pressure, the changing character of the transport coefficients implied a competition of different ground states. Moreover, we observed resistive switching in the insulating phase. When strontium doping is decreased, in SrxV6O15 and x < 1, the disorder starts governing the physics of the system. The off-stoichiometric compounds are characterized by the absence of phase transition, absence of resistive switching, and possibly by the presence of polarons. We also found resistive switching in another charge ordered transition-metal oxide, Fe2OBO3. This system shows an interplay of commensurate and incommensurate charge order. The switching is restricted to the incommensurate phase, whose origin probably lies in the geometrical frustration of the interactions between iron atoms. With pressure we enhance the Coulomb repulsion, and the incommensurate phase shrinks in temperature. In the final part, we address the high-pressure transport of a superconductor on a geometrically frustrated pyrochlore lattice, ΚOs2O6. The potassium atoms are enclosed in oversized cages and their rattling motion introduces a localized low-energy mode. The transport coefficients in this compound are highly anomalous: the resistivity shows no saturation at low temperatures, and the scythe-shaped thermoelectric power is reminiscent of the one observed in cuprates. We were able to reproduce the temperature and pressure dependence of the transport coefficients within a simple model of the density of states.


In Latin American countries, political instability is not uncommon: in particular, the transfer of power is not always subject to normal terms of election. In these circumstances, market expectations must not only take into account the commitment of the present government, but also incorporate future decisions of its potential successor. This could increase country risk even when the incumbent government is fully committed to a pegged exchange rate, particularly if the successor government is known to be considering devaluation and strategic default.

We develop a model suitable for situations of political instability and substantial dollarisation --- both pervasive factors in emerging markets. The former has been studied by Alesina et al. (1996), who defines political instability as the tendency of a government to collapse (Using a sample of 113 countries for the period 1950 through 1982 they find that in periods of such instability growth is significantly lower than otherwise.); and Annett (2001) has shown how political instability in emerging markets is linked to racial and religion divisions. "Dollarization, defined as the holding by residents of foreign currency and foreign currency-denominated deposits at domestic banks'' has been at the centre of the debate on "original sin'' (Eichengreen & Hausmann 1999). Dollarisation may appear an attractive monetary regime for checking inflation, but if a country has an exchange rate misalignment, the possibility of a financial crisis becomes an issue (Calvo, 2002).

In the present model it is assumed that the country under analysis has two possible governments with different ideologies and policy preferences: the existing government, who is fully committed to maintaining the peg, and the successor government which has a low cost of switching to float. Market expectations of a change of government can undermine the effectiveness of the most committed policy-maker: and sovereign spreads can rise even when a currency board is fully supported by the current administration. This paper provides an explicit pricing of such risk when political instability is given exogenously.

The Argentinean crisis is used to illustrate the argument. Argentina had a fixed exchange regime and the contractual structure was very much dollarised (Galiani, Heymann & Tommasi 2002), with 2/3 of commercial debt in dollars (IADB, 2004) (Calvo, Izquierdo & Talvi 2003). This left Argentina very vulnerable to a sudden stop. Argentina in 2001 was in a fixed exchange rate regime with a completely committed and fully credible policy-maker to maintain it: Mr Cavallo. Nevertheless, during 2001 the country suffered high country risk and a deep financial crisis, see Figure 1. Hence the issue: why high country risk, even if the current government was fully committed to maintain the peg?

The confused nature of the transfer of power in the Argentine case is underlined by the fact that there were 5 presidents in 10 days: and that President Duhalde was only regarded as a care-taker, precluded from running for office when the next round of elections were held in 2003 (Bruno, 2004). Lack of political legitimacy, coming after capital flight had stripped off the central bank of its dollar reserves, could help to explain the chaotic end to convertibility. These could prove interesting extensions to the political economy approach adopted here.


Government safety nets in the United States and abroad focus, anachronistically, on problems of banks and other financial institutions, largely ignoring financial markets which have become major credit sources for consumers and companies. Besides failing to protect these markets, this narrow focus encourages morally hazardous behavior by large institutions, like AIG and Citigroup, that are "too big to fail." This paper examines how a safety net should be recast to protect financial markets and also explains why that safety net would mitigate moral hazard and help resolve the too-big-to-fail dilemma.


This paper studies the tensile strength of steel fibrous concrete, four different percentage of fibers where used to find out the effect of the addition of steel fibers on the tensile strength of concrete using the splitting, flexural, and compressive strength of concrete. Test results from this study and earlier published data were used in a regression analysis to derive empirical equations for tensile strength of SFC. The following relationships were derived; splitting strength and the compressive strength of fiber and normal concrete, the relationship between the flexural and compressive strength of SFC and compressive strength of normal concrete, and the splitting cylinder strength and the flexural strength of SFC.


This paper describes the survival study of
extreme record of athletics performance. Two
area of statistics are used to model and check the
best model for the athletics data. We make use
of the extreme value theory for minima and
utilized the facility provided by the Kaplan-Meier
to develop new goodness-of-fit test
method via graphical approaches.


In the presence of a catalytic amount of Cu(OTf)(2)-chiral diamine 3e complex, N-acylimino esters reacted with silyl enol ethers to afford the corresponding Mannich-type adducts in high yields with high enantioselectivities. A wide variety of silyl enol ethers derived from ketones, as well as esters and thioesters, reacted smoothly. In the reactions of alpha-substituted silyl enol ethers (alpha-methyl or benzyloxy), the desired syn-adducts were obtained in high yields with high diastereo- and enantioselectivities. Several intermediates for the synthesis of biologically important compounds were prepared using this novel catalytic asymmetric Mannich-type reaction, and at the same time, absolute and relative stereochemical assignments were made. In addition, it has been revealed that alkyl vinyl ethers reacted with N-acylimino esters in the presence of a catalytic amount of the Cu(II) catalyst to give the corresponding Mannich-type adducts in high yields with high enantioselectivities. This is the first example of catalytic asymmetric Mannich-type reactions with alkyl vinyl ethers. The reaction mechanism, structure of chiral catalyst-electrophile complexes, and transition states of these catalytic asymmetric reactions were assumed based on X-ray crystallographic analysis of the Cu(II)-chiral amine complex, PM3 calculations, and FT-IR analyses, etc. Finally, (1R,3R)-N-(3-hydroxy-1-hydroxymethyl-3-phenylpropyl)dodecanamide (HPA-12, 1), a new inhibitor of ceramide trafficking from endoplasmic reticulum to the site of sphingomyerin (SM) synthesis, has been synthesized efficiently using the present Mannich-type reaction as a key step. The synthesis involved three steps (two-pot), and total yield was 82.9%.


The influence of the atmosphere on a frequency-modulated electromagnetic wave traversing the ionosphere is becoming increasingly important for recent and upcoming low-frequency and wide-bandwidth spaceborne synthetic aperture radar (SAR) systems. The ionized ionosphere induces Faraday rotation (FR) at these frequencies that affects radar polarimetry and causes signal path delays resulting in a reduced range resolution. The work at hand introduces a simulation model of SAR signals passing through the atmosphere, including both frequency-dependent FR and path delays. Based on simulation results from this model [proven with real Advanced Land Observing Satellite Phased Array L-band Synthetic Aperture Radar (PALSAR) data], estimation of FR in quad-polarized SAR data using the given approach is shown for raw, range-compressed, and focused radar images. Path delays and signal chirp bandwidth effects are considered. Investigations discuss the suitability of raw and compressed data versus combination of total electron content maps with the Earth's magnetic field for FR estimation and deduced from a large number of analyzed PALSAR data sets.


In 1990's the government of Tanzania introduced Community Forest management (CBFM) as a solution towards sustainable forest management with the main objectives of improving forest condition and the livelihoods of the forest dependent communities. However in many cases the most emphasis has been on the improvement of the forest condition and less focus on the livelihood impact of CBFM to local communities. Livelihood aspect of forest management remains poorly defined and little awareness has been created so far. This study was carried out in Kilwa district from June-August 2011 under the umbrella of the CCIAM (Climate Change, Adaptation and Mitigation Measures) project entitled "Comparative Study of Incentive Options for Forest Based Emissions Reduction, Biodiversity Conservation and Livelihood Improvement; Case of Kilwa and Lindi Districts." The main aim of this study was to cover the knowledge gap that exists by examining the livelihood impact of CBFM on the forest fringe communities. The study was done by comparing CBFM and non CBFM villages. The Sustainable livelihood and stakeholders' analysis were used as a guide to understand the phenomenon. This study used qualitative approach in collection and analysis of both primary and secondary data.The results of the study show that CBFM potentially can contribute to improve rural livelihoods and poverty alleviation. Although it was less than 10 years since CBFM project was initiated in the studied villages, members had already started to receive a number of benefits such as improved environmental services, forest products for sale and for subsistence, secured forest ownership, improved village infrastructure and social services. However, most of the benefits seemed to be accrued at the community level from commercial timber harvesting, users' fees, and revenues from forest related products. At the household level the issue of gender, economic status and age were indicated to affect the way the benefits were distributed. The needs and interests of the poorest, women, elderly and youth groups were still continued to be neglected even under the introduction of CBFM project. The study also indicates other challenges in the implementation of CBFM include lack of financial resources; lack of enough support from the district council in the establishment of the VLFRs and a delay in signing and approving the forest management plans; and also human wildlife conflict as a result of improved forest condition. Despite the challenges the study indicates that most of the village members were positive with CBFM project. Village members had more expectations to benefits with their forest in the future through sustainable forest management compared to non CBFM villages.


Over the years, critics have attached multiple equivalences to the title character in Herman Melville9s "Bartleby, the Scrivener" (1853). Bartleby has become metaphor as readers have found a variety of matches for the condition of alienation and rejection implicit in his tragic story, a well-known example of which is interpreting Bartleby as an artist who refuses to produce the type of literature that is commercially successful in his society. The central contention of this study is that the scholarship written on "Bartleby" to date has not identified the vehicle for the tenor we uncover in Bartleby9s situation. Melville in effect programs diversity of interpretation into his story by depicting the scrivener as a figurative leper. We arrive at such a reading of Bartleby9s character not only by examining a biblical allusion that Melville scholars have not yet discussed, but also by noting the extent to which the medieval ritual for sequestering the leper from mainstream society figures into the story-a ritual that Melville clearly knew, as evidenced years later in Clarel (1876). Reading "Bartleby" within a context of figurative leprosy results in an interpretation that unites what initially seem like disparate elements in the text: reclusion, illness and a related fear of infection, the mixture of corpse and Christ imagery surrounding the scrivener, Bartleby9s "dead-wall reveries," and the role of touch. This reading also sheds new light on the interdependence of the narrator and his copyist. Once we recognize Bartleby as a figurative leper, we realize that the narrator faces a challenge of Christ-ness in his interaction with the scrivener: he has the opportunity to imitate Christ and heal the illness of alienation that afflicts Bartleby by choosing to go against the prevailing norms of his society.


Two correlates of outcome processing in the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) have been proposed in the literature: One hypothesis suggests that the lateral/medial division relates to representation of outcome valence (negative vs. positive), and the other suggests that the medial OFC maintains steady stimulus-outcome associations, whereas the lateral OFC represents changing (unsteady) outcomes to prepare for response shifts. These two hypotheses were contrasted by comparing the original with the inverted version of the Iowa Gambling Task in an event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging experiment. Results showed (1) that (caudo) lateral OFC was indeed sensitive to the steadiness of the outcomes and not merely to outcome valence and (2) that the original and the inverted tasks, although both designed to measure sensitivity for future outcomes, were not equivalent as they enacted different behaviors and brain activation patterns. Results are interpreted in terms of Kahneman and Tversky's prospect theory suggesting that cognitions and decisions are biased differentially when probabilistic future rewards are weighed against consistent punishments relative to the opposite scenario [Kahneman, D., & Tversky, A. Choices, values, and frames. American Psychologist, 39, 341350, 1984]. Specialized processing of unsteady rewards (involving caudolateral OFC) may have developed during evolution in support of goal-related thinking, prospective planning, and problem solving.

http://www.bio.psy.rub.de/papers/Windmann J Cogn Neurosci orbitofrontal 2006.pdf


Microbiota from humans of all cultures are needed to ensure the health of future generations Since World War II, there have been dramatic increases in metabolic, immune, and cognitive diseases, including obesity, diabetes, asthma, allergies, inflammatory bowel disease, and autism. Their incidence has risen, first in the industrialized world and more recently in developing countries (1). In addition to the health effects, there are enormous costs of these diseases: Obesity costs $2.0 trillion and diabetes costs $1.3 trillion per year globally (1–3). As these diseases advance in developing countries, the problem is worsening rapidly. The cost, to health and economies, is becoming unsustainable, with care of chronically ill adults competing with the proper care for the next generation. Are all these distinct diseases independent, or is there a common underlying factor? We believe that changes in the human microbiota occurring concomitantly with industrialization may be the underlying factor. The changes involve the loss of our ancestral microbial heritage to which we were exposed through millions of years of evolution.


This document presents a framework discussing the role of various
protocols and mechanisms that could be considered candidates for
supporting Emergency Telecommunication Services (ETS) within a single
administrative domain. Comments about their potential usage as well as
their current deployment are provided to the reader. Specific
solutions are not presented. This memo provides information for the
Internet community.


Association rules consist of the discovery of association between mining transaction items. This is one of the most important information mining jobs. It has been integrated into many commercial data mining software and has a wide variety of applications on a number of domains. So, computing the prediction rules in top rank data set is very difficult task. Finding the pattern in large data set require memory computational power high rate of I/O. and it is possible only on high computational machine. In this paper, selection of parameter which is used to compute is chosen based on minimum support and minimum confidence value. In this paper proposed a new algorithm which generates the association rule for the input parameters to finding the pattern in large data set. The algorithm starts searching the rules. As soon as a rule is found, it is added to the list of order rules list by support. The list is used so far to maintain top N rules found. Once valid rules are found, the minimum support for the internal minsup variable list is raised to support the rule. When the Minsup value is raised, the search space is robbed while searching for more rules. Then, every time a valid rule is found, the list is inserted into the list, the lists that are not listed in the list are excluded from the list and the minsup is raised for the price of the least fun rules in the list. Result shows that new method is efficient technique to mine data set from standard data with minimum configuration system.


Ilmenite-bearing symplectite, typically ilmenite-clinopyroxene, occurs in rare mantle xenoliths from kimberlite and other alkaline rocks. Two major hypotheses have been proposed for their origin: (1) exolution from high-pressure pyroxene or garnet; and (2) cotectic or eutectic co-precipitation from evolved "proto-kimberlite" melt, producing megacrysts. Here we present new findings about these ilmenite-clinopyroxene symplectites in the Miocene picrobasalts and Pleistocene basanites of the Vitim volcanic field, central Siberia. For comparison, we have described unusual ilmenite-clinopyroxene symplectites from Yakutian kimberlites: the Mary pipe (Kuoisk field) and the Mir pipe (Malo-Botuobinsk field). Symplectite clinopyroxene from Vitim alkaline basalts corresponds to the low-Mg end of the clinopyroxene megacryst trend. They have an Mg# of 70-72 and contain 1.5-2.0 wt% TiO2. Ilmenites from Vitim symplectites are Cr-poor and contain 5.3-6.3 wt% MgO, whereas ilmenites from kimberlite symplectites contain 0.1-1.4 wt% Cr2O3 and 8-13 wt.% MgO. However, trace-element patterns of symplectitic clinopyroxene in both kimberlites and alkaline basalts are similar. Clinopyroxenes from Vitim symplectites have more evolved trace-element patterns (Lan = 3.1-3.8, normalized to primitive mantle) relative to the majority of megacrysts (Lan = 1.0-3.8). Modeling of fractional crystallization of clinopyroxene from alkaline basaltic melt indicates that clinopyroxenes from symplectites correspond to the residual melt fraction of 20-40%, which is high for eutectic crystallization. Symplectites from the Mary pipe can be divided into Cr-rich (Cr2O3 cpx = 0.20-0.39 wt.% and Cr2O3 ilm = 0.7-1.3 wt%) and Cr poor (Cr2O3 cpx = 0.04-0.16 wt.% and Cr2O3 ilm = 0.1-0.4 wt.%) subgroups. However trace-element patterns in clinopyroxenes from both groups of symplectites are similar. This may indicate a symplectite origin from different pulses of magma. Cr-enrichment in the Cr-rich group can be related to contamination by adjacent peridotites. Compositional and textural variations in symplectites from both the alkaline basalts and kimberlites reveal similarities in genesis and a clear connection with megacryst assemblages. We suggest that ilmenite-clinopyroxene symplectites characterize the initial stage of simultaneous precipitation of ilmenite and clinopyroxene. They crystallize after the majority of the clinopyroxene megacrysts and before normal Ilm-Cpx intergrowths and ilmenite megacrysts. This indicates a possible cotectic rather than eutectic precipitation of ilmenite and clinopyroxene in symplectites. Pressure and temperature estimations indicate that Ilm-Cpx symplectites from the Mir and Mary kimberlite pipes formed at pressures of 40-50 kbar, whereas those from Vitim basalts formed at lower pressures of 12-17 kbar. Coexisting Fe-Ti oxides in Vitim ilmenites from symplectites and megacrysts suggest equilibration temperatures of 690-1025°C at fO2 = 0.22-1.88 log units below the QFM buffer. This redox state is similar to that of spinel peridotites in the same localities.


Abstract Embedding mesenchymal stromal cells (MSCs) in biomaterial is a subject of increasing interest in the field of Regenerative Medicine. Speeding up the clinical use of MSCs is dependent on the use of non-syngeneic models in accordance with Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) requirements and on costs. To this end, in this study, we analyzed the in vivo host immune response following local injection of silanized hydroxypropyl methylcellulose (Si-HPMC)-embedded human MSCs in a rat model developing colorectal damage induced by ionizing radiation. Plasma and lymphocytes from mesenteric lymph nodes were harvested in addition to colonic tissue. We set up tests, using flow cytometry and a live imaging system, to highlight the response to specific antibodies and measure the cytotoxicity of lymphocytes against injected MSCs. We demonstrated that Si-HPMC protects MSCs from specific antibodies production and from apoptosis by lymphocytes. We also observed that Si-HPMC does not modify innate immune response infiltrate in vivo, and that in vitro co-culture of Si-HPMC-embedded MSCs impacts macrophage inflammatory response depending on the microenvironment but, more importantly, increases the macrophage regenerative response through Wnt-family and VEGF gene expression. This study furthers our understanding of the mechanisms involved, with a view to improving the therapeutic benefits of biomaterial-assisted cell therapy by modulating the host immune response. The decrease in specific immune response against injected MSCs protected by Si-HPMC also opens up new possibilities for allogeneic clinical use.


Two degree-of-freedom (2-DOF) closed spatial linkages can be useful in the design of robotic devices for spatial rigid-body guidance or manipulation. One of the simplest linkages of this type, without any passive DOF on its links, is the revolute-spherical-revolute-spherical (RSRS) four-bar spatial linkage. Although the RSRS topology has been used in some robotics applications, the kinematics study of this basic linkage has unexpectedly received little attention in the literature over the years. Counteracting this historical tendency, this work presents the derivation of the general implicit equation of the surface generated by a point on the coupler link of the general RSRS spatial mechanism. Since the derived surface equation expresses the Cartesian coordinates of the coupler point as a function only of known geometric parameters of the linkage, the equation can be useful, for instance, in the process of synthesizing new devices. The steps for generating the coupler surface, which is computed from a distance-based parametrization of the mechanism and is algebraic of order twelve, are detailed and a web link where the interested reader can download the full equation for further study is provided. It is also shown how the celebrated sextic curve of the planar four-bar linkage is obtained from this RSRS dodecic.


A good design of ventilation system for a mine should supply adequate air flow for all workings. One of the objectives of the ventilation planning is to select optimum operating points for the fan and its combinations to achieve the required air flow rate. It will improve the safety conditions and minimise the total air power consumption. The objective of this study is to increase ventilation quantity with low operating pressure and effective utilisation of the main mechanical ventilator. Ventilation simulator and CFD modelling studies were conducted with different combinations of fans. Operating parallel fans with the same capacity and blade angle at the return air shaft is the best possible solution for achieving this objective. A detailed case study of the pressure survey of the ventilation network and the simulation results is presented.


Analytical expressions are obtained for energy and angular distributions of ejected electrons at the barrier-suppression and tunneling ionization of complex atoms and atomic ions by low-frequency strong electromagnetic radiation. The results reduce to previously known expressions in the case of the ground state of the hydrogen atom. Both linear and circular polarizations of the electromagnetic field are considered. The ionization rates are found by integration over angles and energies of the ejected electron in the case of barrier-suppression ionization of complex atoms and atomic ions. The barrier-suppression results reduce correctly to the tunneling results of the Ammosov–Delone–Krainov approach in the limit of weak fields compared with the barrier-suppression fields.


This simulation research was conducted in order to develop a large-fire risk assessment system for the contiguous land area of the United States. The modeling system was applied to each of 134 Fire Planning Units (FPUs) to estimate burn probabilities and fire size distributions. To obtain stable estimates of these quantities, fire ignition and growth was simulated for 10,000 to 50,000 ''years'' of artificial weather. The fire growth simulations, when run repeatedly with different weather and ignition locations, produce burn probabilities and fire behavior distributions at each landscape location (e.g., number of times a ''cell'' burns at a given intensity divided by the total years). The artificial weather was generated for each land unit using (1) a fire danger rating index known as the Energy Release Component (ERC) which is a proxy for fuel moisture contents, (2) a time-series analysis of ERC to represent daily and seasonal variability, and (3) distributions of wind speed and direction from weather records. Large fire occurrence was stochastically modeled based on historical relationships to ERC. The simulations also required spatial data on fuel structure and topography which were acquired from the LANDFIRE project (http://www.landfire.gov). Fire suppression effects were represented by a statistical model that yields a probability of fire containment based on independent predictors of fire growth rates and fuel type. The simulated burn probabilities were comparable to observed patterns across the U.S. over the range of four orders of magnitude, generally falling within a factor of 3 or 4 of historical estimates. Close agreement between simulated and historical fire size distributions suggest that fire sizes are determined by the joint distributions of spatial opportunities for fire growth (dependent on fuels and ignition location) and the temporal opportunities produced by conducive weather sequences. The research demonstrates a practical approach to using fire simulations at very broad scales for purposes of operational planning and perhaps ecological research.


Shiga toxin (ST) and the Escherichia coli Shiga-like toxins (SLTs) are type 11 ribosome inactivating proteins (RIPs). All members of this group exhibit specific RNA N-glycosidase activity, the prototype being the plant toxin ricin. ST and the SL Ts are bipartite toxins composed of a catalytic A subunit and a pentamer of cell binding B subunits. These toxins show overall structural similarities to ricin, which is also a bipartite toxin with a catalytic A chain and a single cell binding B chain. The A chains of ST and SL T 1 show homology to ricin A chain, particularly in the active site region, and appear identical in their enzymatic mechanism. The respective B chains however are structurally very different and interact with quite different cellular components.

In this study, the role of intracellular proteolytic activation of SLT 1 is addressed using a molecular biological approach. The biological characteristics of several mutant SL Ts has been investigated both in vitro, by addition of exogenous protease, and in vivo by comparing the relative cytotoxicities of mutant and wild type proteins in Vero cells. The intracellular processing of these mutant toxins has also been examined. In parallel, the biological properties of a ricin A chain SL T 1 chimeric protein has been investigated. The ultimate aim of this study was to extend our knowledge of the proteolytic processing requirements of SL T 1 and it has led to the conclusion that proteolytic removal ofthe A2 portion of SL T 1 is not an essential prerequisite for intoxication of Vero cells with SLT 1.


This paper challenged many of the conventional views of industry regarding the relationship between tourism and the environment based on the extensive field of impact research by tourism scholars. Attendees were challenged to consider some realities about tourism and impacts, including the absence of a baseline to establish impacts arising from tourism activity, that it is often hard to prove a cause and effect relationship exists, that many impacts are cumulative and the change takes place over long time periods. The paper also set out the position that when it comes to impacts and relationship between tourism and environment it is not a numbers problem but rather a problem of how one effective manages the numbers. The keynote concluded with a number of sensible supply and demand approaches that are commonly used, and that a toolkit of approaches are now well established to assist managers.


Context. In August 2008, the accreting milli-second X-ray pulsar (AMXP), IGR J00291+5934, underwent an outburst lasting ∼100 days, the first since its discovery in 2004. Aims. We present data from the 2008 double-peaked outburst of IGR J00291+5934 from Faulkes Telescope North, the Isaac Newton Telescope, the Keck Telescope, PAIRITEL, the Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope and the Swift, XMM-Newton and RXTE X-ray missions. We study the outburst's evolution at various wavelengths, allowing us to probe accretion physics in this AMXP. Methods. We study the light curve morphology, presenting the first radio-X-ray spectral energy Distributions (SEDs) for this source and the most detailed UV-IR SEDs for any outbursting AMXP. We show simple models that attempt to identify the emission mechanisms responsible for the SEDs. We analyse short-timescale optical variability, and compare a medium resolution optical spectrum with those from 2004. Results. The outburst morphology is unusual for an AMXP, comprising two peaks, the second containing a "plateau" of ∼10 days at maximum brightness within 30 days of the initial activity. This has implications on duty cycles of short-period X-ray transients. The X-ray spectrum can be fitted by a single, hard power-law. We detect optical variability of ∼0.05 mag, on timescales of minutes, but find no periodic modulation. In the optical, the SEDs contain a blue component, indicative of an irradiated disc, and a transient near-infrared (NIR) excess. This excess is consistent with a simple model of an optically thick synchrotron jet (as seen in other outbursting AMXPs), however we discuss other potential origins. The optical spectrum shows a double-peaked Hα profile, a diagnostic of an accretion disc, but we do not clearly see other lines (e.g. He I, II) that were reported in 2004. Conclusions. Optical/IR observations of AMXPs appear to be excellent for studying the evolution of both the outer accretion disc and the inner jet, and may eventually provide us with tight constraints to model disc-jet coupling in accreting neutron stars.


Implantable cardiac devices like pacemakers and defibrillators are life-saving medical devices. To verify their functionality, there is a need for heart models that can simulate interesting phenomena and are relatively computationally tractable. In this benchmark we implement a model of the electrical activity in excitable cardiac tissue as a network of nonlinear hybrid automata. The model has previously been shown to simulate fast arrhythmias. The hybrid automata are arranged in a square n-by-n grid and communicate via their voltages. Our Matlab implementation allows the user to specify any size of model $n$, thus rendering it ideal for benchmarking purposes since we can study tool efficiency as a function of size. We expect the model to be used to analyze parameter ranges and network connectivity that lead to dangerous heart conditions. It can also be connected to device models for device verification. Disciplines Computer Engineering | Electrical and Computer Engineering This working paper is available at ScholarlyCommons: http://repository.upenn.edu/mlab_papers/90 Benchmark: Nonlinear Hybrid Automata Model of Excitable Cardiac Tissue Houssam Abbas, Kuk Jin Jang, Rahul Mangharam∗


The northern North Atlantic Ocean and its adjacent shelf seas, are influenced by several large-scale physical processes which can be described by various climate indices. Although the signal of these indices on the upper ocean has been investigated, the potential effects on vulnerable benthic ecosystems remains unknown. In this study, we examine the relationship between pertinent climate indices and bottom conditions across the northern North Atlantic region for the first time. Changes are assessed using a composite approach over a 50 year period. We use an objectively-analyzed observational dataset to investigate changes in bottom salinity and potential temperature, and output from a high-resolution ocean model to examine changes in bottom kinetic energy. Statistically significant, and spatially coherent, changes in bottom potential temperature and salinity are seen for the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), Atlantic Multi-decadal Oscillation (AMO), and Subpolar Gyre (SPG); with statistically significant changes in bottom kinetic energy seen in the subpolar boundary currents for the NAO and AMOC. As the climate indices have multi-annual timescales, changes in bottom conditions may persist for several years exposing sessile benthic ecosystems to sustained changes. Variations in baseline conditions will also alter the likelihood of extreme events such as marine heatwaves, and will modify any longer-term trends. A thorough understanding of natural variability and its effect on benthic conditions is thus essential for the evaluation of future scenarios and management frameworks.


We introduce #opt, a new inference task for graphical models which calls for counting the number of optimal solutions of the model. We describe a novel variable elimination based approach for solving this task, as well as a depth-first branch and bound algorithm that traverses the AND/OR search space of the model. The key feature of the proposed algorithms is that their complexity is exponential in the induced width of the model only. It does not depend on the actual number of optimal solutions. Our empirical evaluation on various benchmarks demonstrates the effectiveness of the proposed algorithms compared with existing depth-first and best-first search based approaches that enumerate explicitly the optimal solutions.


Abstract
This study aims at finding the losses incurred in translating media terminologies in Arabic and English with regard to weaponry in military discourse. The analysis highlights two categories into discourse analysis: the ideology and the equivalence effect on translation media terminologies. For the purpose of the study, the researcher quoted and analyzed eleven reports from English media, and another seven reports from Arabic. The Arabic media uses the term (المحرم دوليا) meaning (Internationally Forbidden), while the English media uses the term (Internationally Banned) meaning (المحظور دوليا), hence the truthfulness of news is affected. The study concludes that we have two different languages (Arabic and English) with two different cultures which have diverse affect on the used terms in media. The ideological perspectives and the equivalence approach have good effect on the selected terms in both languages, as a result loss in translating media terminologies may occur. The study recommends that translators and terminologists have to exert all of their efforts and co-operate to find such a solution for such problem, which, at least, helps in sending the true information of news and avoids the loss which occurs in translating between Arabic and English.


One of the main problems in poultry houses in Brazil is the lesser mealworm, Alphitobius diaperinus Panzer. This insect inhabits the litter, manure and soil of poultry houses, feeding on bird manure, cadavers and spilt feed. The lesser mealworm serves as a reservoir of many animal pathogens. Chickens also feed readily on the beetles in infested litter and this sometimes causes nutritional problems and affects weight gain. Current control measures are generally unsatisfactory and microbial control may be a promising strategy to control A. diaperinus. Natural occurrence of entomopathogens is very important for the natural control of insect pests and this paper records the occurrence of Beauveria bassiana (Bals.) Vuill. on the lesser mealworm in commercial poultry houses, in Brazil. The evaluation was carried out weekly for six months (September/2002 to February/2003). The soil around the poultry house was collected and transferred to Zoology Laboratory from Unioeste, at Cascavel, PR. Infected larvae and adults were always present, but infected pupae were registered twice. Larvae were more susceptible than pupae and adults (incidence ranging from 49% to 100%, mean 74%, 33% to 50%, mean 6.9%; 0.9% to 100%, mean 40.7%, respectively). The pathogenicity of the fungus was confirmed under laboratory conditions following procedures outlined in Koch's postulates.


Throughout his works, but especially in Gravity's Rainbow and Vineland , Pynchon is concerned with the ability of individuals and groups to resist forces of domination and control. In Gravity's Rainbow , the preterite must struggle against those who see them as little more than human resources subject to cybernetic manipulation. Resistance finds expression in the actions of the Counterforce, but the dialectic that eventually evolves between the Counterforce and the anonymous forces of control characterized as Them is clearly worrisome.


A small hand held, battery operated imaging infrared spectrometer, Sherlock, has been developed by Pacific Advanced Technology. The Sherlock spectral imaging camera has been designed for remote gas leak detection, however, the architecture of the camera is versatile enough that it can be applied to numerous other applications such as homeland security, chemical/biological agent detection, medical and pharmaceutical applications, as well as standard research and development. This paper describes the Sherlock camera, theory of operation, shows current applications and touches on potential future applications for the camera. The Sherlock has an embedded Power PC and performs real-time-image processing function in an embedded FPGA. It has several I/O ports, Ethernet, FireWire, RS232 and thus can be easily controlled from a remote location. In addition, software upgrades can be performed over the Ethernet eliminating the need to send the camera back to the factory for a retrofit. Using the USB port a mouse and key board can be connected and the camera can be used in a laboratory environment as a stand alone imaging spectrometer.


This chapter examines the rates of poverty and inequality in Israel over time and in comparison with other OECD countries. It looks at two main groups: those aged 59 and under and those aged 66 and over. In the age 59 and under population, Israel's poverty and inequality rates are among the highest relative to other developed countries in both market income (household income from work, occupational pensions and capital, before taxes) and gross disposable income (including transfer payments) minus taxes. From 2002-2011, employment rates among the population in Israel rose, leading to a reduction in market income inequality (though this was not accompanied by a substantial decline in poverty rates). Disposable income inequality rates rose until 2006 and have since stabilized, while poverty rates have increased fairly consistently, especially among Arab Israelis and Haredim. Among the retirement-age population, disposable income poverty rates are substantially higher than in OECD countries. Nevertheless, the overall resources (public and private pension arrangements) that are available to the elderly, place Israel in a relatively good position among the developed countries. That is, the level of public and private pensions is not low compared to the rest of the world, but its distribution among the elderly is not equitable. The relative tax revenues in Israel are among the lowest in the Western world, and this is one of the reasons that the average overall public expenditure is relatively low. This inseparable relationship between tax revenues and public expenditure has critical implications for the closing of poverty gaps.


Due to their high conversion efficiency and low cost of production, dye-sensitized solar cells based on organic dyes have attracted considerable attention. By utilizing various heterocycles as construction blocks for organic dyes, the performance of solar cells was optimized to exhibit good light-harvesting features and suppress interfacial recombinations. The aim of this review is to highlight recent progress in the molecular design of heterocyclic-functionalized organic dyes for efficient dye-sensitized solar cells, and special attention has been paid to the relationship between chemical structure and the photovoltaic performance of dye-sensitized solar cells based on these dyes.


Standard of living reflects the objective dimension of how well the basic needs of life are met, while quality of life is the patient's own subjective view of well-being and satisfaction with her/his life. Sixty-one schizophrenic out-patients completed self-report inventories and participated in interviews about quality of life and standard of living. When living standards were met by a well functioning social service system, patients' perceptions of their quality of life and their standard of living appeared to be independent. Subsequent analyses revealed that 'inner experiences' was one quality-of-life domain frequently reported as unsatisfactory. Moreover, differences in quality of life were found across patients' age, education, and work status.


We describe generalized nonlinear envelope equation modeling of sub-cycle dynamics on the underlying electric field carrier during one-dimensional propagation in fused silica. Generalized envelope equation simulations are shown to be in excellent quantitative agreement with the numerical integration of Maxwell's equations, even in the presence of shock dynamics and carrier steepening on a sub-50 attosecond timescale. In addition, by separating the effects of self-phase modulation and third harmonic generation, we examine the relative contribution of these effects in supercontinuum generation in fused silica nanowire waveguides.


The observed rapid loss of thick multiyear sea ice over the last 7 years and the September 2012 Arctic sea ice extent reduction of 49% relative to the 1979–2000 climatology are inconsistent with projections of a nearly sea ice‐free summer Arctic from model estimates of 2070 and beyond made just a few years ago. Three recent approaches to predictions in the scientific literature are as follows: (1) extrapolation of sea ice volume data, (2) assuming several more rapid loss events such as 2007 and 2012, and (3) climate model projections. Time horizons for a nearly sea ice‐free summer for these three approaches are roughly 2020 or earlier, 2030 ± 10 years, and 2040 or later. Loss estimates from models are based on a subset of the most rapid ensemble members. It is not possible to clearly choose one approach over another as this depends on the relative weights given to data versus models. Observations and citations support the conclusion that most global climate model results in the CMIP5 archive are too conservative in their sea ice projections. Recent data and expert opinion should be considered in addition to model results to advance the very likely timing for future sea ice loss to the first half of the 21st century, with a possibility of major loss within a decade or two.