The Upper Cretaceous successions of the Arabian Platform in Batman and surroundings (SE Turkey) comprise the Garzan and Lower Germav formations. Shallow water limestones of the Garzan Formation contain rich benthic foraminiferal assemblages. The conformably overlying LowerGermav Formation consists mostly of marls and includes planktonic foraminifera, which suggest a relatively deeper marine environment. Benthic and planktonic foraminiferal assemblages fromboth formations were studied in 28 samples collected from a 155-m-thickmeasured section. Diverse benthic foraminiferal assemblages are mainly dominated by Orbitoides megaloformis Papp and Küpper, O. media (d'Archiac), Omphalocyclus anatoliensis Ozcan, Dicyclina schlumbergeri Munier-Chalmas, Trochospira avnimelechi Hamaoui, Nezzazata simplex Omara, Nezzazatinella picardi (Henson), Antalyna korayi Farinacci and Koyluoglu, Fleuryana adriatica (DeCastro), Biconcava bentori Hamaoui, Cuneolina pavonia d'Orbigny,C. ketini Inan, Moncharmontia apenninica (DeCastro), M. compressa (De Castro), Fissoelphidium operculiferum Smout and Vandenbroekia munieri Marie. Themajority of Late Cretaceous taxa are long-ranging. Orbitoides media and O. megaloformis within this assemblage have been documented both in the upper Campanian and Maastrichtian strata from the Tethyan Province. The age of the Garzan Formation is determined to be Maastrichtian based on the presence of Antalyna korayi, C. ketini and Fleuryana adriaticia. The abundance of opportunist planktonic foraminifera (i.e., biserial heterohelicids and rugoglobigerinids) throughout the Lower Germav Formation shows that the environmentwas not very deep during the deposition of the unit. Maastrichtian taxa such as Globotruncanita conica (White) and Globotruncanella minuta Caron and Gonzales Donoso appear in the middle part of the Lower Germav Formation, but these are absent from the lower part of the formation.


The EU's power, through its control over the Office of the High Representative, to enact laws and remove elected officials in Bosnia is generally legitimate - and paradigmatic of the EU political order based on the concept of liberal international democracy - even though certain decisions and categories of decisions merit criticism. This article discusses the origins of the Bonn Powers and surveys the various criticisms that have been leveled against them. It then develops an overall analysis of all OHR decisions to date and provides a critique of those categories of decisions that appear inconsistent with the Dayton Agreement, which created the contemporary political structure in Bosnia. Moreover, it provides a focused assessment of a sample of the most problematic decisions, e.g. the removal of elected officials. Given the ongoing political problems in Bosnia, the OHR should retain the Bonn Powers, but with restraints, such that they are used only to preserve the peace, promote the democratic process, and protect human rights - objectives justified under the Dayton Agreement.


Abstract. All-sky direct aerosol radiative effects (DARE) play a significant
yet still uncertain role in climate. This is partly due to poorly quantified
radiative properties of aerosol above clouds (AAC). We compute global
estimates of shortwave top-of-atmosphere DARE over opaque water clouds
(OWCs), DAREOWC, using observation-based aerosol and cloud radiative
properties from a combination of A-Train satellite sensors and a radiative
transfer model. There are three major differences between our
DAREOWC calculations and previous studies: (1) we use the
depolarization ratio method (DR) on CALIOP (Cloud–Aerosol Lidar with
Orthogonal Polarization) Level 1 measurements to compute the AAC frequencies
of occurrence and the AAC aerosol optical depths (AODs), thus introducing
fewer uncertainties compared to using the CALIOP standard product; (2) we
apply our calculations globally, instead of focusing exclusively on regional
AAC "hotspots" such as the southeast Atlantic; and (3) instead of the
traditional look-up table approach, we use a combination of satellite-based
sensors to obtain AAC intensive radiative properties. Our results agree with
previous findings on the dominant locations of AAC (south and northeast
Pacific, tropical and southeast Atlantic, northern Indian Ocean and northwest Pacific), the season of maximum occurrence and aerosol optical depths (a
majority in the 0.01–0.02 range and that can exceed 0.2 at 532 nm) across the globe. We find positive averages of global seasonal DAREOWC between
0.13 and 0.26 W m−2 (i.e., a warming effect on climate). Regional
seasonal DAREOWC values range from −0.06 W m−2 in the
Indian Ocean offshore from western Australia (in March–April–May) to
2.87 W m−2 in the southeast Atlantic (in
September–October–November). High positive values are usually paired with
high aerosol optical depths (>0.1) and low single scattering albedos (<0.94), representative of, for example, biomass burning aerosols. Because we use
different spatial domains, temporal periods, satellite sensors, detection
methods and/or associated uncertainties, the DAREOWC estimates in
this study are not directly comparable to previous peer-reviewed results.
Despite these differences, we emphasize that the DAREOWC estimates
derived in this study are generally higher than previously reported. The
primary reasons for our higher estimates are (i) the possible underestimate
of the number of dust-dominated AAC cases in our study; (ii) our use of Level
1 CALIOP products (instead of CALIOP Level 2 products in previous studies)
for the detection and quantification of AAC aerosol optical depths, which
leads to larger estimates of AOD above OWC; and (iii) our use of gridded
4∘×5∘ seasonal means of aerosol and cloud properties in our
DAREOWC calculations instead of simultaneously derived aerosol and
cloud properties from a combination of A-Train satellite sensors. Each of
these areas is explored in depth with detailed discussions that explain both
the rationale for our specific approach and the subsequent ramifications for our
DARE calculations.


In this thesis, I report my findings in relation to the implications of a Workplace Closure Decision (WCD) for employment relationships. I adopt the Psychological Contract (PC) as a framework through which to analyse employment relationships and conduct an in-depth case study of an animal research laboratory (hereafter referred to as Tox Lab) that announced its intention to close in September 2006. Tox Lab was a subsidiary of a global agrichemical company (hereafter referred to as AgCo). As a former HR practitioner at Tox Lab, I observed and subsequently undertook preliminary research that indicated that the detrimental implications of the WCD were limited. This was surprising and contrary to the extant literature which suggests that a WCD will be perceived to be a Breach of the PC (PCB) which is likely to be interpreted as a Violation of the PC (PCV) with detrimental implications for the state and outcomes of the PC due to the norm of reciprocity.
I argued that the dominant conceptualisation of the PC as a single PC at the level of the individual was inappropriate for this case study due to the dominant role played by management in the context of a workplace closure and because the WCD constructed a division between the on-going organisation (AgCo) and the closing subsidiary workplace (Tox Lab). My proposal was that a broader conceptualisation of the PC at the level of the relationship between the organisation(s) and its employees with the possibility of multiple PCs was more appropriate for this case study. I conducted interviews with senior managers and employees in order to understand and explain their interpretations of the WCD and their perspectives on the implications of the WCD for the state and outcomes of the PC. I found that the implications of a WCD for the PC were complex and departed from PC theory because they were not necessarily entirely detrimental. My overall contribution is a framework for analysing the implications of a PCB for the PC which extends the existing theory by integrating the development and possible implications of PCV across multiple PCs from multiple perspectives.


Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to extend the growing body of literature on the impact of corporate governance on debt contracting by examining if better governance is associated with access to interest bearing debt. The paper aims to explore whether no-debt companies have governance structures that are qualitatively different to debt companies within a market with a distinct corporate finance structure, such as Australia. Design/methodology/approach - The analysis is portioned into two stages. The first stage focuses on univariate analysis which includes descriptive statistics and analysis of variance (ANOVA). The second stage introduces multivariate analysis, in the form of a probit regression model, to test the relationship between corporate governance and access to interest bearing debt. Findings - The results suggest that companies with higher levels of corporate governance are more likely to access interest bearing debt relative to no-debt companies. However, the unexpected finding is that only resource companies that implement higher governance are more likely to access interest bearing debt. The core driver is that resource companies with no-debt have systematically lower governance than all other companies. Research limitations/implications - The cross – sectional design of the study is limited in its ability to shed light on the question of causality. One potential avenue is to develop an event study around the timing of governance and debt access changes. Originality/value - The paper contributes to the extant literature by investigating the relationship between governance and access to interest bearing debt in the understudied Australian debt market.


This SAMs Therapy Educational Course will introduce participants to the tools recommended by TG 100 for use in the development of a risk-based Quality Management Program. The Course will start with an Overview of the background and rationale behind the TG 100 initiative, from which its charge was developed. After setting the scene, four 15 minute presentations will introduce the principal components of the soon to be published Report of TG 100. These are Process Mapping, Failure Modes and Effects Analysis, Fault Tree Analysis and the development of a QA/QM risk-based Program. There will be time for two short exercises based on Failure Modes and Effects Analysis and a Discussion before the SAMs questions which will conclude the session.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES
1. To appreciate the underlying philosophy of the TG 100 initiative. 2. To gain a brief overview of the principal risk-based tools recommended by TG 100. 3. In an informal workshop format, to explore, at an introductory level, the use of risk analysis as proposed by TG 100 as a prelude to the development of a Quality Management Program.


Biological reuse of spent sulfidic caustic (SSC) originating from oil refineries is a promising method for the petrochemical industry because of low handling cost. SSC typically contains high concentrations of sulfur, with the most dominant sulfur compounds being sulfide (S(2-)). SSC is also characterized by a high pH and elevated alkalinity up to 5-15% by weight. Because of these characteristics, SSC can be used for denitrification of NO3(-)-N in the biological nitrogen removal process as both the electron donor and buffering agent in sulfur-utilizing autotrophic denitrification. In this study, two kinds of SSC (SSC I, SSC II) produced from two petrochemical companies were used for autotrophic denitrification in a field-scale wastewater treatment plant (WWTP). The effluent total nitrogen (TN) concentration in this process was about 10.5 mg/L without any external carbon sources and the nitrification efficiency was low, about 93.0%, because of alkalinity deficiency in the influent. The injection of SSC I, but not SSC II, promoted nitrification efficiency, which was attributed to the difference in the NaOH/S ratio between SSC I and II. SSC was injected based on sulfide concentration of SSC required to denitrify NO3(-)-N in the WWTP. SSC I had higher NaOH/S than SSC II and thus could supply more alkalinity for nitrification than SSC II. On the other hand, additional TN removal of about 9.0% was achieved with the injection of both SSCs. However, denitrification efficiency was not proportionally increased with increasing SSC injection because of NO3(-)-N deficiency in the anoxic tank due to the limited capacity of the recycling pump. For the same reason, sulfate concentration, which is the end product of sulfur-utilizing autotrophic denitrificaiton in the effluent, was also not increased with increasing SSC injection.


Did market failures cause the 2007-08 financial crisis? While economists have made substantial progress exploring this question, the answer remains unclear. The answer is important because financial regulation that does not address a specific market failure risks causing new inefficiencies and unintended consequences in the financial system and broader economy. To demonstrate how economic theory can be used to identify market failures and guide policy, this Economic Brief discusses a common market failure called a "pecuniary externality" and demonstrates the pitfalls of applying regulations in situations where the precise sources of market failures are not well-understood.


We present the first large-scale measurement study of cross-partisan discussions between liberals and conservatives on YouTube, based on a dataset of 274,241 political videos from 973 channels of US partisan media and 134M comments from 9.3M users over eight months in 2020. Contrary to a simple narrative of echo chambers, we find a surprising amount of cross-talk: most users with at least 10 comments posted at least once on both left-leaning and right-leaning YouTube channels. Cross-talk, however, was not symmetric. Based on the user leaning predicted by a hierarchical attention model, we find that conservatives were much more likely to comment on left-leaning videos than liberals on right-leaning videos. Secondly, YouTube's comment sorting algorithm made cross-partisan comments modestly less visible; for example, comments from conservatives made up 26.3% of all comments on left-leaning videos but just over 20% of the comments were in the top 20 positions. Lastly, using Perspective API's toxicity score as a measure of quality, we find that conservatives were not significantly more toxic than liberals when users directly commented on the content of videos. However, when users replied to comments from other users, we find that cross-partisan replies were more toxic than co-partisan replies on both left-leaning and right-leaning videos, with cross-partisan replies being especially toxic on the replier's home turf.


Humans learn compositional and causal abstraction, \ie, knowledge, in response to the structure of naturalistic tasks. When presented with a problem-solving task involving some objects, toddlers would first interact with these objects to reckon what they are and what can be done with them. Leveraging these concepts, they could understand the internal structure of this task, without seeing all of the problem instances. Remarkably, they further build cognitively executable strategies to \emph{rapidly} solve novel problems. To empower a learning agent with similar capability, we argue there shall be three levels of generalization in how an agent represents its knowledge: perceptual, conceptual, and algorithmic. In this paper, we devise the very first systematic benchmark that offers joint evaluation covering all three levels. This benchmark is centered around a novel task domain, HALMA, for visual concept development and rapid problem-solving. Uniquely, HALMA has a minimum yet complete concept space, upon which we introduce a novel paradigm to rigorously diagnose and dissect learning agents' capability in understanding and generalizing complex and structural concepts. We conduct extensive experiments on reinforcement learning agents with various inductive biases and carefully report their proficiency and weakness.


With young people among the big losers of the recent financial crisis, vocational education and training (VET) is often seen as the silver bullet to the problem of youth joblessness. This paper provides a better understanding of VET around the world, dealing with three types of vocational systems: school-based education, a dual system in which school-based education is combined with firm-based training, and informal training. We first explore the motivation for these different types of training, before summarizing the institutional evidence, highlighting the key elements of each training system and discussing its main implementation strengths and challenges. We subsequently review the evidence on the effectiveness of VET versus general education and between the three VET systems. There are clear indications that VET is a valued alternative beyond the core of general education, while the dual system tends to be more effective than school-based VET. Informal training is effective, however relatively little is known of its relative strengths compared with other forms of vocational education.


AEGSE Virtuoso Charting is an application that enables animated, real-time charting of telemetry streams of data from a rover. These automatically scaled charts are completely interactive, and allow users to choose the variables that they want to monitor. The charts can process data from streams with many variables. This application allows for the simultaneous viewing of up to four individually configured charts on a small touch-screen laptop. The charting application has been tested and found to be extremely robust during long operations. It was left running overnight, with incoming telemetry at 100 Hz, and it did not experience any signs of lost functionality or memory leaks. This robustness is critical for an application that will be used to support vital tests for the Mars Science Laboratory rover. The charting component also provides an interactive interface that allows the engineers to decide how many charts they want on their screen, and which attributes should be plotted on each chart. The application is optimized to make the charts on display take up as much of the available space as possible to maximize the use of the screen real estate. Engineers are also able to plot multiple attributes on the same chart, which enables them to observe the correlation between various attributes.


As ranking is one of the most important issues in data envelopment analysis (DEA), many researchers have comprehensive studies on the subject and presented different approaches. In some papers, DEA and Analytic hierarchy process (AHP) are integrated to rank the alternatives. AHP utilizes pairwise comparisons between criteria and units, assessed subjectively by the decision maker, to rank the units. In this paper, a nonlinear programming (NLP) model is introduced to derive the true weights for pairwise comparison matrices in AHP. Genetic algorithm (GA) is used in order to solve this model. We use MATLAB software to solve proposed model for ranking the alternatives in AHP. A numerical example is applied to illustrate the proposed model.


Detailed flow measurements are essential for analysing flow structures found in confined spaces, particularly in various automotive applications. These measurements will be extremely helpful in solving flow dependent complexities. Although considerable progress has been made in computational techniques for investigating such flows, experimental flow measurements are still very difficult to carry out therein. Flows mapped using an array of robust instruments like multi-hole pressure probes can provide significant insight into the flow field of such complex flows. Pressure probes can withstand the harsh environments found in such applications; however being intrusive devices significant interference in flow field can limit their applicability. This paper presents an investigation of three-dimensional interference caused by multi-hole pressure probes in an automotive wheel arch. It involves simulation of flow around a pressure probe inserted at various locations within the wheel/wheel arch gap. Pressure and velocity fields along longitudinal and lateral planes have been mapped and the extent of interference caused by the probe along three orthogonal axes has been presented. A three-dimensional ellipsoid of interference has been defined to assist in recommending optimal placement of probes and minimise the error due to interprobe interaction, thus enhancing the measurement accuracy of transient flow phenomena.


This study uses data (N = 3,088) from the first two waves of the National Survey of Families and Households to explore the effects of the transition to fatherhood and the addition of subsequent children on men's psychological and physical health, contacts with extended family, social interactions, and work behaviors. The results sugget that new children lead to changes in men's well-being and social participation, but the effects are conditioned by the structural context of fatherhood and men's initial fatherhood status. Overall, the evidence indicates that the transition to parenthood and the addition of subsequent children primarily transform the organization of men's lives, especially when they become coresident fathers. Men making the transition to parenthood are most likely to be affected. Fatherhood encourages men to increase intergenerational and extended family interactions, participation in service-oriented activities, and hours in paid labor—at the expense of spending time socializing.


Remote sensing image classification has proven to be attractive for extracting useful thematic information such as landcover. However, often for a given application, spectral information acquired by a remote sensing sensor may not be sufficient to derive accurate information. Incorporation of data from other sources such as a digital elevation model (DEM), and geophysical and geological data may assist in achieving more accurate land-cover classification from remote sensing images. Recently, support vector machines (SVM) have been proposed as an alternative for classification of remote sensing data, and the results are promising. In this paper, we employ the SVM algorithm to perform multisource classification. An IRS‐1C LISS III image along with normalized differenced vegetation index (NDVI) image and DEM are used to produce a land-cover classification for a region in the Himalayas. The accuracy of SVM-based multisource classification is compared with several other nonparametric algorithms namely a decision tree classifier, and back propagation and radial basis function neural network classifiers. The well-known kappa coefficient of agreement is used to assess classification accuracy. The differences in the kappa coefficient of classifiers have been statistically evaluated using a pairwise Z-test. The results show a significant increase in the accuracy of the SVM based classifier on incorporation of ancillary data over classification performed solely on the basis of spectral data from remote sensing sensors.


Abstract: Diabetes mellitus is a metabolic disorder and emerging pandemic of the 21st century. Piperine, the chief alkaloid present in Piper nigrum (black pepper), has a wide array of uses in alternative and complementary therapies. The effect of piperine on blood glucose level was studied in alloxan-induced diabetic mice in acute and subacute study models. Piperine was isolated from the fruits of Piper nigrum crude extract. Diabetes was induced using alloxan in albino mice which were then randomly divided into 5 groups (n = 6). In acute study, drugs were administered orally as: control (2% gum acacia, 10 mL/kg), standard (metformin 150 mg/kg), P10 (piperine 10 mg/kg), P20 (piperine 20 mg/kg) and P40 (piperine 40 mg/kg). Drug intervention for subacute study consisted of once daily oral administration for 14 days of 2% gum acacia 10 mL/kg, metformin 250 mg/kg, and piperine 5, 10 and 20 mg/kg, respectively, in the control, standard and P5, P10, P20 groups. Blood glucose levels were estimated before and at 1, 2, 3 and 4 h post dosing, respectively, in the acute study and on day 7 and 14 in the subacute study. Results of acute study showed that at 2 h post-dosing piperine at high dose of 40 mg/kg showed significant rise in blood glucose level (p < 0.05) in comparison to control group. In contrast, a significant blood glucose lowering effect was seen with piperine at dose of 20 mg/kg on day 14 (p < 0.05) in the subacute study. In summary, we suggest that subacute administration of piperine has statistically significant antihyperglycemic activity while acutely it raises blood glucose at high doses. Further investigations are needed to consider it as prospective anti-diabetic agent at appropriate dosage.


Recently a body of literature has emerged from the United States that attempts to quantify and explain the role the media plays in the provision of financial information to share markets. This paper extends that line of enquiry by focusing on the implications for the accounting profession of various forms of alternative, frequently mediadriven, financial information providers. The paper briefly examines the demographic changes in the Australian share markets and adopts a 'value chain' approach in its analysis of the relationship between the media and the accounting profession. It highlights the growth in the media's provision of financial information, analysis and advice and examines the response of the accounting discipline to the changes in the 'financial information' market. Finally, the paper suggests that for the accounting profession to maintain its members' presence in the financial information market it will need to rigorously develop and differentiate its knowledge set to reinforce its value against the growing competition for financial advice coming from 'new' media. We suggest that to achieve this goal the discipline will need to develop and adopt a more holistic intradisciplinary 'evidence based' knowledge management system approach to maintaining and developing its knowledge set.


In this study we investigate the effects of the decision to adopt product diversification strategies on the technical efficiency of farm production. Our measure of efficiency is derived from estimated stochastic multiproduct, output-oriented distance function. The model is applied to a sample of 1892 Italian commercial farms producing maize. Results show that the distribution of efficiency scores is more concentrated in non-diversified rather than in diversified farms and that, at a low efficiency level, diversified farms present a negative gap compared to non-diversified farms. In addition, results exclude that the efficiency differential observed at a different education level is ascribable to differences in composition of the two groups of farms rather than to differences in the response associated with the characteristics observed. It is recommended that policies be formulated to assist farmers in coping with the increased complexity of their diversified farm business and, especially, in taking on new experience and knowledge outside the agricultural markets and products.


This paper replicates two spatial monopoly models by Takayama and Judge. The first one is a simple spatial monopoly model. The second model allows the activity of arbitrage between any pains of consumption regions if the price differential exceeds the corresponding unit transportation cost. With the additional constraints, the profit level must decrease unless the constraints are all redundant. The simulation of the Appalachian steamcoal market indicates that both models perform poorly either in terms of flow variables or in the case of consumption and production levels. This implies that the steamcoal market in our model is far from being either of the spatial monopoly models. The Appalachian steamcoal market, characterized by numerous coal mines as well as utility companies, simply cannot be modeled by the spatial monopoly models.


1. Splanchnic exchange of glucose, lactate, pyruvate, glycerol and individual plasma amino acids was determined in five clinically unaffected monozygotic twins of insulin-dependent diabetics and in a group of five age- and sex-matched controls. The studies were performed in the postabsorptive state and after stimulation of endogenous insulin secretion by the intravenous infusion of glucose at a rate of 2 mg/min per kg for 45 min. 2. In the basal state the mean splanchnic glucose output was 25% lower for the twins than for the controls while splanchnic uptake of glucose precursors was similar in the two groups. The concentration of circulating insulin (which rose by no more than 10–15 μunits/ml in either group) was lower during the infusion in the twins than in the controls. Despite the lower insulin concentrations, infusion of glucose resulted in a complete shut off of splanchnic glucose production in the twins, while in the controls only a 50% inhibition of basal glucose output was observed. In both the twins and controls estimated peripheral glucose utilization was unchanged during the glucose infusion. 3. It is concluded that: (a) in clinically unaffected identical twins of known diabetics basal splanchnic glucose production is reduced while uptake of glucose precursors is unchanged, suggesting a diminished contribution to basal glucose output from hepatic glycogenolytic processes; (b) in the twins as well as in controls, the liver is the primary site of action of small increments in endogenous insulin; (c) hepatic sensitivity to endogenous insulin is augmented in twins as compared with controls.


In the aftermath of the Fukushima nuclear accident, many of the post-disaster responses undertaken by the Japanese government sparked vivid debates and criticisms from the civil society. These concern emergency responses such as the revision of public exposure dose limit, designation of evacuation zones, distribution of iodine tablets, and risk communication as well as mid and long-term policies including radiation dose monitoring, decontamination, waste management, return of evacuees, and health and food monitoring. Convinced that such public agitation derived from their lack of scientific knowledge, the authorities undertook a strategy to enhance their communication on radiological risk and its health effects. In this paper, we attempt to challenge the traditional notion of "risk communication" which considers that the concerned risks have been clearly defined by the scientific community and that the problem simply remains in communicating them "rightly" to the population. We argue, in contrary, that risks cannot be properly defined without understanding the "real" concern of the population – what they consider as risks - nor taking into account existing scientific controversies and uncertainties. In such a context, what we need is not so much of risk communication but rather participatory risk assessment where risks are debated by multiple stakeholders and actors including counter- or independent experts and third parties such as NPOs, and are defined collectively rather than decided single-handedly by policymakers – the authorities and their affiliated experts. The paper is drawn from the preliminary results of the SHINRAI ('trust' in Japanese) project led by the French Institute for Radiological Protection and Nuclear Safety (IRSN), in collaboration with Sciences Po Paris and Tokyo Institute of Technology (Tokyo Tech). This research examines the relation between science, expertise, trust and decisions in the aftermath of the Fukushima nuclear accident by conducting an extensive field interviews in the affected areas of the Fukushima prefecture.


WTO, OECD with many others, suggest the trade in value-added would be a "better" measure to understand the impact of trade on employment, growth, production etc. when import content in exports is important. We use in this work an Input-Output table for 2008, to calculate the value-added exported by Brazilian states. We distinguish the value-added exported directly by the state itself or indirectly via other states. Then, we define the extent of vertical specialization among Brazilian states by using value-added indirectly exported. We calculate equally the import content in states' exports. If the share of import content in Brazilian exports is low, we show evidence that inter-state trade is quite high across some Brazilian states. Inter-state vertical specialization then operates at upstream stages of the value chain before the good be exported to foreign countries.


High-resolution N-body simulations of four popular cold dark matter cosmologies (LCDM, OCDM, QCDM, and tilted SCDM), each containing ~105 clusters of galaxies of mass M1.5 > 5 × 1013 h-1 M☉ in a Gpc3 volume, are used to determine the evolution of the cluster mass function from z = 3 to 0. The large volume and high resolution of these simulations allow an accurate measure of the evolution of cosmologically important (but rare) massive clusters at high redshift. The simulated mass function is presented for cluster masses within several radii typically used observationally (R = 0.5, 1.0, and 1.5 h-1 Mpc, both comoving and physical) in order to enable direct comparison with current and future observations. The simulated evolution is compared with current observations of massive clusters at redshifts 0.3 ≲ z ≲ 0.8. The Ωm = 1 tilted SCDM model, which exhibits very rapid evolution of the cluster abundance, produces too few clusters at z ≳ 0.3 and no massive clusters at z ≳ 0.5, in stark contradiction to observations. The Ωm = 0.3 models—LCDM, OCDM, and QCDM—all exhibit considerably weaker evolution and are consistent with current data. Among these low-density models, OCDM evolves the least. These trends are enhanced at high redshift and can be used to discriminate between flat and open low-density models. The simulated mass functions are compared with the Press-Schechter approximation. Standard Press-Schechter predicts too many low-mass clusters at z = 0, and too few clusters at higher redshift. We modify the approximation by a simple parameterization of the density contrast threshold for collapse, which has a redshift dependence. This modified Press-Schechter approximation provides a good fit to the simulated mass functions.


Abstract Potato is an important staple crop in East Africa. Most of the seed tubers are propagated in informal systems, whereby the tubers become deteriorated and contaminated, resulting in low crop yields. Potato breeding has not resulted in significantly improved varieties that overcome these constraints. Recently, true potato hybrid breeding technology has been developed, whereby diploid hybrids are generated by crossing between homozygous inbred parent lines. The first series of experimental hybrids were pre-screened in The Netherlands and ten representative hybrids were tested in East-Africa, whereby the yield of the best hybrid was 29 ton/ha. These results show the great potential of hybrid potato for East Africa.


Coworking spaces are shared office environments for independent professionals. Such spaces have been increasing rapidly throughout the world, and provide, in addition to basic business infrastructure, the opportunity for social interaction. This article explores social interaction in coworking spaces and reports the results of two studies. Study 1 (N = 69 coworkers) finds that social interaction in coworking spaces can take the form of social support. Study 2 further investigates social support among coworkers (N = 154 coworkers) and contrasts these results with those of social support among colleagues in traditional work organizations (N = 609). A moderated mediation model using time pressure and self-efficacy, based on the conservation of resources theory, is tested. Social support from both sources was positively related to performance satisfaction. Self-efficacy mediated this relationship in the employee sample, while in the coworking sample, self-efficacy only mediated the relationship between social support and performance satisfaction if time pressure was high. Thus, a mobilization of social support seems necessary in coworking spaces. We conclude that coworking spaces, as modern social work environments, should align flexible work infrastructure with well-constructed opportunities for social support.


The tendency of modern education and teaching is that students should gain independency as much as possible through the process of acquiring knowledge. Learning is less focused on memorizing facts and data, and more on finding new information and skills that they interpret, judge, critically analyze, and find their practical application. "Improving Serbian language teaching in primary schools means the abandonment of obsolete lecturing and information procedures ,as well as, recognition of forms of learning that stress the uninhibited cognitive activity, independence and creativity of students" (Z. Јоcic, 2010: 247). In addition to what is done, taught or clarified, modern theories of teaching give more importance to how it is done.
The main objective of this study was to experimentally establish the effectiveness of learning through problem-solving in Serbian language grammar-teaching. This way of learning is influencing students to creatively and naturally develop their intellectual abilities and mental strength in the process of learning grammatical phenomena.
Theoretical framework was the starting point for defining key theoretical research ideas, and relevant basis for problem-oriented content modeling and problem-based methodical procedures in Serbian language grammar-teaching. It includes theoretical explanations of the concept of problem-oriented learning, theories of learning and teaching, modeling and creative problem solving.
The research approach is based on a constructivist educational paradigm, which is based on the view that learning is the activity of an individual, and one of the ways of achieving the research and creative approach in Serbian language grammar class. Based on the theoretical hypothesis, we conceptualized and applied experimental model of problem-oriented learning grammar in third and fourth grade of elementary school. Students of the control group dealt with former, traditional way of learning grammar, and the students of the experimental group were involved in problem-oriented model of learning. The means of gathering data included testing and poll-questioning, as well as organized, planned observing of classes in experimental and control groups with the goal of their analysis. Data was collected with the use of a number of tools: initial test, final test and surveys of students and teachers.
The study included 232 students of third and fourth grade who were tested twice – before and after the experimental part of the research. The results showed a positive effect of problem-oriented teaching on the quality of students' knowledge of grammar i.e. on the level of productive and reproductive grammatical knowledge. Besides that, our results showed that better results were obtained by students with higher grades and better overall success. We found that the problem-based grammar teaching can be made more interesting for teachers and students in lower grades of elementary school. Finally, we found that the ability to solve grammatical problems was the same among students of third and fourth grade.
When analyzing the answers of students we have found that problem-based model was not too difficult, that classes were interesting, that most of them would like to have such classes more often and that they believe lessons are better adopted using this method than using textbooks or listening to teachers' lectures.
The surveyed teachers are positive on the implementation of problem-based grammar teaching of Serbian language; they understand the importance and advantages of a creative approach to teaching grammar in the early grades.
This research showed that problem-based teaching, as a modern educational system and didactic-methodical strategy, allows a new, creative way of access to grammar of Serbian language by putting students in a position of a subject which critically and creatively approaches the presented problems, developing their curiosity and ability to learn through the process.


Expression of the bgl operon of Escherichia coli is regulated in vitro by phosphorylation and dephosphorylation of a positive regulatory protein, BglG, which functions in its nonphosphorylated state as a transcriptional antiterminator. The degree of phosphorylation of BglG in vivo was shown to be dependent on the cellular levels of BglF protein, which is both the BglG kinase and phosphatase. The degree of phosphorylation of BglG also depended on the presence or absence of a beta-glucoside, the inducer of operon expression. Addition of inducer to cells in growth medium resulted in rapid dephosphorylation of phosphorylated BglG. The bgl operon is thus regulated by a sensory system that modulates gene expression by protein phosphorylation and dephosphorylation in response to the external levels of inducer.


Background Anticipating poor recovery due to impaired self-management and appointment-keeping, clinicians may consider serious mental illness (SMI) a significant concern in organ transplantation. However, little empirical evidence exists regarding posttransplantation outcomes for patients with SMI. Methods This study analyzed health services data to evaluate posttransplantation 3-year survival by SMI status in a nationwide cohort of patients in the Veterans Health Administration (VHA). Results A total of 960 recipients of solid organ or bone marrow transplants were identified from Veterans Health Administration administrative data extracts for fiscal years 2006 to 2009. Of these, 164 (17%) had an SMI diagnosis before transplantation (schizophrenia, posttraumatic stress, major depressive, and bipolar disorders); 301 (31%) had some other mental illness diagnosis (such as anxiety, adjustment reactions, or substance abuse); and 495 (52%) had no mental health diagnosis. Twenty-two patients (2%) required retransplantation and 208 patients (22%) died during follow-up. Data on whether these were primary or repeat transplantations were unavailable. Rates of attendance at postoperative outpatient visits and number of months for which immunosuppressive drugs fills were recorded were similar among mental illness groups, as were rates of diagnosed immunological rejection. Three-year mortality was equivalent among mental health groups: no mental health (19%) versus other mental illness (23%) versus SMI (27%; &khgr;2 = 5.11; df = 2; P = .08). In adjusted survival models, no effect of mental health status was observed. Conclusions Serious mental illness diagnosis does not appear to be associated with adverse transplantation outcomes over the first 3 years; however, a potentially diverging survival curve may portend higher mortality at 5 years.


This comprehensive collection of skills instruction, comprised of fifty-three self-contained modules, is now presented in a full-color, single volume. Modules increase in complexity as students progress through the book. Flexible enough to meet the needs of any program, the book also has a self-instructional approach that is popular with faculty and students alike. With the demands on nursing faculties of increased student numbers and limited or no increase in faculty time available in the skills lab, the self-instructional approach is pertinent in today's market.


Title: An Evolutionary Approach to Farming Decision Making on Extensive Rangelands. Author: Gustavo Ferreira In more than 25 years, a simplistic model of farm decision making has been used to support agricultural policy, research and extension without considering socio economic and environmental sustainability. The basic assumptions of policy development were based on an "average farmer" and the marginal value of money completely ignoring the marginal social value. This research claims the need of a more holistic "model" of decision making at farm level, where i) behaviour diversity is recognised in farmers' populations and ii) the dynamic and evolutionary interrelationships between the farm, the farmer, the family and trusted people as a unit of resource allocation, are considered. The objectives of this work are to: i) improve the understanding of the decision making process at farm level ii) develop decision concepts for research and extension agencies and policy makers and iii) demonstrate that rural peoples' knowledge plays an important role in development. A selective review of the main approaches and of descriptive models used to analyse decision making, a survey and a case study analysis is undertaken in order to develop: i) a conceptual background for classifying decision making units into different behavioural Types and ii) to develop a general "model" of the structure of the farm decision making unit's "natural" decision support system actually used by farmers. Multivariate techniques were used to establish and validate the classification. Several implications for policy makers, information generators and data transmitters underlying the study were identified.


Estimation of ship self-propulsion is important for the selection of the propulsion system and the main engine so that the ship can move forward with the required speed. Resistance characteristics of the vessel or the open-water performance of a propeller only are not usually enough to assess the working conditions of the ship. Both in numerical simulations and in experiments; there is a need to treat the propulsion system and the hull as a whole for a better estimation of the self-propulsion parameters. In this study, the self-propulsion points of one submarine (DARPA Suboff) and two surface piercing vessels (KCS and DTC) were obtained with methods based on computational fluid dynamics (CFD) approach. The self-propulsion points were also calculated by a classical engineering approach that makes use of the empirical relations that may be found in the literature. The results were evaluated with respect to the experiments and numerical results generated by other researchers in this field. It was found that the self-propulsion points of traditional ship forms can be very closely approximated with a classical engineering approach, given the basic geometric and the hydrostatic properties of the hull and the propeller.


An important challenge for the next generation of high performance datacenters is to guarantee sufficient, reliable, green and cheap cooling of the server blades. Since this seems unrealistic with air cooling technologies due to the expected ever higher chip heat fluxes (in excess of 100 W/cm2), a novel more effective cooling system is required. Switching to two-phase on-chip cooling systems would decrease the energy consumption, enhance the thermal performance and allow the reuse of the extracted heat. However, the design of such systems seems nontrivial because of the lack of simulation tools able to reproduce their behavior. In this context, the present thesis describes the one-dimensional dynamic modeling of an on-chip two-phase liquid pump cooling system for multiple micro-processors. The simulation code includes state-of-the art two-phase flow methods, two-dimensional conduction in the heat sink, heat flux dependent mass flow rate distribution between parallel micro-evaporators, and micro-condenser and in-line liquid accumulator models. Three different scales of simulations, namely the heat sink, multiple parallel heat sinks and entire system scales, are presented. An experimental test bench with a cooling capacity of about 300W is used to validate the code. Mass flow rate distribution, energy oriented performance maps, chip temperature profile, heat flux disturbances under controlled conditions and charge influence are studied experimentally. The experimental data are satisfactorily reproduced by the simulations with, for example, 266 steady-state mean chip temperatures, obtained for balanced and unbalanced heat fluxes conditions, predicted within ± 2K. The most significant discrepancy between simulations and experiments is found to be the pressure transient prediction. The validated code is then used to simulate a compact two-phase on-chip cooling system designed for a real datacenter blade server. At the heat sink level, start-up and hot-spots are studied using 2D temperature maps and time-strip analysis. Furthermore, the flow distribution between the parallel micro-evaporators of the studied layout is shown to be unique and thermal-hydraulic maps are generated. The system start-up and operation under random and periodic heat load disturbances with different control strategies are then analyzed. Finally, the thermo-economic integration of a datacenter with a district heating network is investigated.


It is generally accepted that anatomical asymmetries in the temporal lobe language region of humans are associated with the asymmetrical representation of language function in the left hemisphere. Comparative measurements were taken of the length of the left and right Sylvian fissures of human, chimpanzee, and rhesus monkey brains. Measurements confirmed the findings of other studies that the human Sylvian fissure is longer on the left than on the right. The chimpanzee brains had a similar asymmetry but to a lesser degree than the human brains. The rhesus brains, however, showed no significant differences between left and right fissure lengths.


Physical computing covers the design and realization of interactive objects and instal- lations and allows students to develop concrete, tangible products of the real world, which arise from the learners' imagination. This can be used in computer science education to provide students with interesting and motivating access to the different topic areas of the subject in construction- ist and creative learning environments. To make many existing activities and examples of such project ideas available for classroom use and to expand the topic areas suitable for learning in such environments beyond introductory to programming, a physical computing syllabus for computer science courses in general education schools has been developed. In this paper the methods and different perspectives that were taken into account are presented. The resulting syllabus can be used to develop a constructionist computer science curriculum with physical computing.


Large-scale Internet applications can benefit from an ability to predict round-trip times to other hosts without having to contact them first. Explicit measurements are often unattractive because the cost of measurement can outweigh the benefits of exploiting proximity information. Vivaldi is a simple, light-weight algorithm that assigns synthetic coordinates to hosts such that the distance between the coordinates of two hosts accurately predicts the communication latency between the hosts. Vivaldi is fully distributed, requiring no fixed network infrastructure and no distinguished hosts. It is also efficient: a new host can compute good coordinates for itself after collecting latency information from only a few other hosts. Because it requires little com-munication, Vivaldi can piggy-back on the communication patterns of the application using it and scale to a large number of hosts. An evaluation of Vivaldi using a simulated network whose latencies are based on measurements among 1740 Internet hosts shows that a 2-dimensional Euclidean model with height vectors embeds these hosts with low error (the median relative error in round-trip time prediction is 11 percent).


Radial transport of ions during co- and counter-neutral beam heating in the PLT tokamak has been studied, using molybdenum and scandium ions as tracer elements. The time evolution of the radial profiles of several ionization stages of both elements, injected by laser blowoff during the neutral beam heating, were measured under three significantly different beam-plasma combinations. No noticeable differences in the radial profiles attributable to the beam direction were observed. However, a given injected amount resulted in considerably larger interior concentrations of the tracer element in the counter-beam heating cases, suggesting larger penetration of the plasma periphery. Computer simulation with the MIST code suggests a net inward drift of the order 10/sup 3/ cm/sec superposed to a diffusion coefficient of the order 10/sup 4/ cm/sup 2//sec for both scandium and molybdenum ions. Injection of larger amounts of the tracer element, sufficient to cause measurable central electron temperature changes, resulted in dramatic changes in ion-state distributions, making some appear peaked in the center while others disappeared. This effect could be produced with both co- and counter-beam heating, but with lesser amounts in the latter case. It is interpreted as rearrangement of the ionization balance, rather than any preferential accumulation of themore » injected element.« less


In plants, undifferentiated meristem tissue provides stem cells to produce roots and shoots. The root meristem contains a few of these stem cells in a region called the quiescent center. Ortega-Martínez et al. studied Arabidopsis plants with a defect in a gene that controls ethylene biosynthesis and found that it produced more of the gaseous hormone ethylene. The quiescent center cells in these mutants went through more cell divisions than normal, resulting in extra stem cells in the root meristem. Adding exogenous ethylene also increased quiescent cell division, and blocking its synthesis in the mutants prevented extra divisions. O. Ortega-Martínez, M. Pernas, R. J. Carol, L. Dolan, Ethylene modulates stem cell division in the Arabidopsis thaliana root. Science 317, 507-510 (2007). [Abstract] [Full Text]


Modem scholarship on corporate bankruptcy works from the premise that investors are willing to expend resources identifying and saving insolvent firms that can continue efficiently. In this Article, Professor Adler argues that this premise may be faulty, at least for multiple-creditor firms. Viewed properly, from an er ante perspective, investors may wish to design initial capital structures that will produce few insolvent but viable firms. Consequently, in a world of umimpeded contractual choice investors might forgo any collective insolvency process directed primarily at the preservation of going concerns. Professor Adler argues, accordingly, that corporate bankruptcy law and proposals for its replacement may be ill-advised for large firms, not because thesefirms could efficiently continue post insolvency without bankruptcy reorganization or some substitut but because it may be appropriate that these firms not continue. In the process of making this argutment, Professor Adler offers new interpretations of three puzzling phenomena: asset-based finance; the failure of investors to contractually avoid the seemingly expensive American bankruptcy reorganization process, and common equity's residual interest in a firm that fails to pay dividends on preferred stock.


Previous analysis of equilibrium asset prices often ignore the effects of delegated portfolio management and those of delegated portfolio management problems often ignore information and equilibrium asset prices. This paper develops a dynamic model that simultaneously considers optimal contracting and equilibrium asset prices under differential information. We consider a case in which investors can contract on various signals as well as a case in which investors constrain the contract form to be of a linear function of the terminal value of their portfolios. Optimal contracts and equilibrium asset prices are characterized in both cases. We examine the impact of portfolio delegation and risk sharing on portfolio managers' trading behavior, the autocorrelation in stock returns, and the persistence of fund performance. We find that due to the less optimal risk sharing contract, the risk premium on the stock as well as the autocorrelations in both stock and fund returns are substantially higher in case 1 than in case 2. In particular, we find that under certain conditions, the autocorrelations in fund returns are positive, suggesting the persistence of fund performance. The presence of differential information among funds reduces autocorrelations in stock and fund returns, but the costs associated with managing the portfolio enhance them.


In the many decades since Charles Baudelaire's death, critics have been seeking to understand the relationship between Baudelaire's extensive art critical writings and his poetic project. One of the recurrent themes in studies of Baudelaire's art criticism is the at times problematic relationship between his aesthetic theories and the art he was actually judging. The art critical writings contain many contradictions and paradoxes especially when read against the context of the Salons of the 1840s and 1850s. Baudelaire's emphasis on images that are completely new, on the primacy of imagination over any kind of "imitation," and his critique of overt references in painting to past art or even to literary texts does not easily correspond to the artists he most admired. (1) I have examined elsewhere how Baudelaire's art critical texts maneuver to hide and cloak these paradoxes. I argue that his art criticism restores the images that appeal to him and makes the art of the period new by hiding or displacing what was old. (2) In other words, Baudelaire does not simply privilege the new in his art critical writings; he creates a kind of absolute originality through his writings that is not actually present in the art of the period in the way that he theorizes. This argument has led me to wonder if the cloaking and manipulation of the image have some kind of corollary in the poetry. If Baudelaire's aesthetic theories are not logical or consistent, (3) if the art criticism does not contain some kind of ideal theory of the relationship between the literary and plastic arts that is then put into practice in Les Fleurs du Mal, then what is the relationship between the art critical writings and the poems? What I will propose is that one exemplary relationship is a vocabulary interface involving vision and light between Baudelaire's poetry and art criticism that not only connects the aesthetic writings to the poems but also relates to how Baudelaire negotiates, transforms and deflects the art of his time. In Baudelaire's Salon writings, as the critic pronounces judgment on what he sees from exhibition to exhibition, there emerges a vocabulary of praise and critique that comes to signal to the reader either satisfaction or scorn. What appears before the eye is transformed into a kind of prose in which the critic not only tells the reader which paintings he likes or dislikes, but also lets a recurring set of terms signify valorized aspects of particular works. Common to the genre of art criticism, these kinds of terms allow for the identification of traits that for the critic are indicative of well-executed art. For Baudelaire, one of the major sets of vocabulary for describing a successful image involves different kinds of light. In the Salon de 1846, Baudelaire claims that the Ingres school has not been effective in landscape painting because "la ligne et le style ne remplacent pas la lumiere, 1'ombre, les reflets et ratmosphere colorante." (4) This goes beyond Baudelaire's usual privileging of color over line (in fact, color is last on his list) and favors the interplay of light, dark, and reflection. The words that return again and again across Baudelaire's Salon writings to praise and commend invoke a pure, clear light: lumineux, transparent, limpide, clair, illuminer, briller. (5) The poem "La Beaute" is frequently associated with the frustration of the poet faced with the enigmatic figure of Beauty. (6) Although the poem implies frustration and anguish in front of Beauty's mysterious nature, it also contains a valorization of that enigmatic allure that connects to Baudelaire's discussions of sculpture in the art criticism; more specifically, "La Beaute" relates to how Baudelaire transforms sculpture into another medium, painting, through his writing. How Baudelaire manipulates sculpture is what connects the art criticism to the poetry through the willful construction of two mirrors that can only reflect one another, along with the aid of light and eyes that cannot see. …


This PhD thesis presents a technique based on the grazing incidence crystal truncation rod (GI-CTR) X-ray diffraction method used to solve the crystal structure of substrate induced fiber structured organic thin films. The crystal structures of pentacene thin films grown on technologically relevant gate dielectric substrates are reported.

It is widely recognized, that the intrinsic charge transport properties in organic thin film transistors (OTFTs) depend strongly on the crystal structure of the organic semiconductor layer. Pentacene, showing one of the highest charge carrier mobilities among organic semiconductors, is known to crystallize in at least four polymorphs, which can be distinguished by their layer periodicity d(001). Only two polymorphs (14.4 A and 14.1 A), grow as single crystals and their detailed crystal structure has been solved with standard crystallography techniques. The substrate induced 15.4 A polymorph, the so called pentacene thin-film phase, is the most relevant for OTFT applications, since it grows at room temperature on technologically relevant gate dielectrics. However, the crystal structure of the pentacene thin-film phase has remained incomplete as it only grows as a fiber structured thin film. In this thesis, the GI-CTR X-ray diffraction technique is extended to fiber structured thin films. The X-ray diffraction experiments were carried out at the synchrotron source beamline W1 at HASYLAB in Hamburg, in order to obtain enough diffraction data for the determination of the crystal structure as pentacene thin films only grow as ultra thin films with crystal grains as small as 0.4μm. Pentacene thin films are also known to be sensitive to environmental conditions, such as light and oxygen. For this reason, the X-ray synchrotron measurements were performed in-situ. A portable ultra high vacuum growth chamber equipped with a rotatable sample holder and a beryllium window was built in order to perform X-ray measurements of up to four samples right after the thin film growth process without breaking the vacuum. Parallel to this, a versatile software package coded with Matlab in order to simulate, analyze and fit the complex data measured at the synchrotron source was developed. The complete crystal structure of the 15.4 A pentacene thin-film polymorph grown on four model types of gate dielectric materials, amorphous silicon dioxide (a−SiO2), octadecyltrichlorosilane-treated a−SiO2 (OTS), Topas ("thermoplastic olefin polymer of amorphous structure") and polystyrene films, was solved. It was found, that the unit cell parameters are identical within measurement precision on all measured substrates. The crystal structure belongs to the space group P-1 and was found to be triclinic with the following lattice parameters: a = 5.958 ± 0.005 A, b = 7.596 ± 0.008 A, c = 15.61 ± 0.01 A, alpha = 81.25 ± 0.04°, beta = 86.56 ± 0.04° and 2 gamma = 89.80 ± 0.10°. The unit cell volume V = 697 A^3 is the largest of all pentacene polymorphs reported so far. However, the molecular arrangement within the unit cell was found to be substrate dependent. Here, the following parameters are reported: The herringbone angle is 54.3°, 55.8°, 59.4° and 55.1° for a−SiO2, OTS, Topas and polystyrene, respectively. The tilts of the two molecular axes (theta_A, theta_B) are (5.6°, 6.0°), (6.4°,6.8°), (5.6°, 6.3°) and (5.7°, 6.0°) for a−SiO2, OTS, Topas and polystyrene, respectively.

To conclude, it was shown that the molecular orientation in the unit cell differs among substrates while the unit cell dimensions of the 15.4 A pentacene polymorph are identical. This indicates that substrate effects have to be included if one aims on understanding the molecular structure of the thin-film phase in detail. The crystal structures reported here provide a basis to apply techniques such as density functional methods to investigate intrinsic charge transport properties and optical properties of organic thin film devices on a molecular level. In previous studies it was observed that different substrates vary the charge carrier mobility in OTFTs. The substrate dependent crystal structures observed here could be one reason for this variation. This topic may lead ultimatively to a controlled finetuning of intrinsic charge transport properties. The experimental approach to determine the crystal structure developed here can be easily applied to a wide range of organic thin film systems used in organic electronic devices.


Abstract The finite difference approach poses a major problem of keeping the exact values of material zone areas and volumes in any geometric simulation for transport calculations. When this requirement is not thoroughly fulfilled, updating density values may be necessary to conserve material zone masses. A method is described that conserves the mass of geometrically complex material zones simulated on both Cartesian and cylindrical mesh grids and its implementation in BOT3P5.0, which is the latest version of the BOT3P code package, publicly and freely available from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development/Nuclear Energy Agency Data Bank. BOT3P5.0 lets users optionally require as refined a computation as desired of the possible area and volume error of material zones due to the stair-cased geometry representation and automatically corrects material densities to globally conserve masses. BOT3P5.0 optionally stores on binary outputs the detailed material zone distribution map inside each cell of the mesh grid according to a submesh grid refinement defined in input by the user and the area and volume fraction distribution of the different material zones contained in meshes at zone interfaces. That also allows a local (per-cell) density correction as an alternative to the approach of a uniform density correction on the whole zone domain and makes it possible to perform material zone homogenization locally and transport analyses more accurately.


In the last 60 years, the use of the notion of category has led to a remarkable unification and simplification of mathematics. Conceptual Mathematics, Second Edition, introduces the concept of 'category' for the learning, development, and use of mathematics, to both beginning students and general readers, and to practicing mathematical scientists. The treatment does not presuppose knowledge of specific fields, but rather develops, from basic definitions, such elementary categories as discrete dynamical systems and directed graphs; the fundamental ideas are then illuminated by examples in these categories.


Background Health systems are currently subject to unprecedented financial strains. Inappropriate test use wastes finite health resources (overuse) and delays diagnoses and treatment (underuse). As most patient care is provided in primary care, it represents an ideal setting to mitigate waste. Objective To identify overuse and underuse of diagnostic tests in primary care. Design Systematic review and meta-analysis. Data sources and eligibility criteria We searched MEDLINE and Embase from January 1999 to October 2017 for studies that measured the inappropriateness of any diagnostic test (measured against a national or international guideline) ordered for adult patients in primary care. Results We included 357 171 patients from 63 studies in 15 countries. We extracted 103 measures of inappropriateness (41 underuse and 62 overuse) from included studies for 47 different diagnostic tests. The overall rate of inappropriate diagnostic test ordering varied substantially (0.2%–100%)%). 17 tests were underused >50% of the time. Of these, echocardiography (n=4 measures) was consistently underused (between 54% and 89%, n=4). There was large variation in the rate of inappropriate underuse of pulmonary function tests (38%–78%, n=8). Eleven tests were inappropriately overused >50% of the time. Echocardiography was consistently overused (77%–92%), whereas inappropriate overuse of urinary cultures, upper endoscopy and colonoscopy varied widely, from 36% to 77% (n=3), 10%–54% (n=10) and 8%–52% (n=2), respectively. Conclusions There is marked variation in the appropriate use of diagnostic tests in primary care. Specifically, the use of echocardiography (both underuse and overuse) is consistently poor. There is substantial variation in the rate of inappropriate underuse of pulmonary function tests and the overuse of upper endoscopy, urinary cultures and colonoscopy. PROSPERO registration number CRD42016048832.


Anthropogenic climate change has been presented as the archetypal global problem, identified by the slow work of assembling a global knowledge infrastructure, and demanding a concertedly global political response. But this 'global' knowledge has distinctive geographies, shaped by histories of exploration and colonialism, by diverse epistemic and material cultures of knowledge-making, and by the often messy processes of linking scientific knowledge to decision-making within different polities. We suggest that understanding of the knowledge politics of climate change may benefit from engagement with literature on the geographies of science. We review work from across the social sciences which resonates with geographers' interests in the spatialities of scientific knowledge, to build a picture of what we call the epistemic geographies of climate change. Moving from the field site and the computer model to the conference room and international political negotiations, we examine the spatialities of the interactional co-production of knowledge and social order. In so doing, we aim to proffer a new approach to the intersections of space, knowledge and power which can enrich geography's engagements with the politics of a changing climate.


Objective: No specific pharmacological approach to behavioral disorders in patients with severe intellectual disabilities associated with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) exists. Neuroleptics are known to be epileptogenic, and benzodiazepines have an adverse effect on their already limited cognitive capabilities. The possibility of managing behavioral disorders in persons with ASD via antidepressants, namely venlafaxine, could provide a substantial improvement in their overall condition and quality of life and could contribute to the definition of a specific pharmacological indication.

Method: The present case report describes the effect of venlafaxine at low doses (18.75 mg/j) in an 18-year-old patient with ASD, severe intellectual disabilities and behavioral disorders. Based on the records kept by the patient's mother and our clinical observations, we describe the evolution of this young man from birth to 18 years of age.

Results: Since the introduction of venlafaxine, the patient's behavioral troubles improved greatly. There was major progress in attention, and the patient became calm and appeased, able to obey to simple commands and to control his hunger. He became notably less aggressive with himself and others, he became better at managing relationships, and he was more conciliatory and accepting of being touched. Today, this young man continues his apprenticeship of everyday life. He is quieter and has learned simple actions performed in an everyday context. He can smile and lend attention to the environment and to other persons. Some problems remain unresolved, such as movement and double incontinence.

Conclusion: The improvement of our patient is challenging behavior shows encouraging progress in the treatment of ASD's typical behavior disorders. The use of antidepressants represents a substantial improvement in the care of patients with intellectual disabilities, ASD and severe behavioral disorders. These results are evidence of a new pharmaceutical strategy for the improvement of the quality of life of these patients.


In this work, the mathematical model of linear induction motor (LIM) has been described and the dynamic behaviors have been simulated taking into account the end effects. Firstly, the validity of the LIM model is verified by considering its open loop characteristics; where both no-load and load changed are included. Secondly, a scalar control has been suggested and its robustness against variation of parameters is examined. Finally, the vector control with indirect field oriented control has been included and its simulated results are compared to those of scalar control to show the effectiveness of both control schemes on the robustness measure of LIM behavior. The sophistication and complexity of speed controller is beyond the scope of the work, therefore, a conventional controller based on Proportional Integral (PI) action is sufficient for the present work. The LIM responses such as thrust force, velocity, currents and voltages are simulated and outputted using MATLAB/SIMULINK package (R2010a).


Purpose: Dysregulation of the phosphoinositide 3-kinase (PI3K)/AKT/mTOR signaling pathway frequently accounts for the tumorigenesis inheadandneck cancer. Todevelop anew treatment,we investigated the effect of a novel dual PI3K/mTOR inhibitor, NVP-BGT226 (BGT226), in head and neck cancer cells. Experimental Design: The in vitro antitumor effect of BGT226 was determined in various cancer cell lines. Animal models were also applied to examine drug potency. The inhibitory ability of BGT226 on the PI3K/AKT/mTOR signaling pathway was analyzed. Results: The growth inhibition assay revealed that BGT226 was active against all tested cancer cell lines. Cross-resistance was not observed in the cisplatin-resistant cell line. The activation of the AKT/mTOR signal cascade was suppressed by BGT226 in a concentrationand time-dependent manner. Flow cytometric analysis revealed an accumulation of cells in the G0–G1 phase with concomitant loss in the S-phase. Results of the terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase–mediated dUTP nick end labeling (TUNEL) assay and the analysis of caspase 3/7 and PARP indicated that BGT226 induced cancer cell death through an apoptosisindependent pathway. BGT226 induced autophagy as indicated by the aggregation and upregulation of the microtubule-associated protein light chain 3B-II, and p62 degradation. Gene silencing of Beclin1 or cotreatment of the autophagosome inhibitor, 3-methyladenine, inhibited the BGT226-induced autophagy and led to the retrieval of colony survival. In a xenografted animal model, BGT226 significantly delayed tumor growth in a dose-dependent manner, along with suppressed cytoplasmic expression of p-p70 S6 kinase and the presence of autophagosome formation. Conclusions: These data indicate that BGT226 is a potential drug in the treatment of head and neck cancer. Clin Cancer Res; 17(22); 7116–26. 2011 AACR.


Background: Head-out aquatic exercises became one of the most popular physical activities within the health primarily and thirdly prevention system. Music is seen as one of the most important aspects when conducting head-out aquatic exercise sessions. Research question: Is there any relationship between musical cadence and the kinematic behaviour when performing aerobic head-out aquatic exercises? It was hypothesized that an increase in music cadence will would impose a decrease of the segment range of motion. Type of study: Experimental, prospective. Methods: Six young and clinically healthy women with at least one year of experience conducting head-out aquatic classes were videotaped in the frontal plane, with a pair of cameras providing a double projection (above and below the water surface). Subjects performed an incremental protocol of five bouts (120b.min-1, 135b.min-1, 150b.min-1, 165b.min-1 and 180b.min-1) with 16 full cycles of the "side kick" exercise. Data processing and calculation of segmental (i.e. hands and feet) and anatomical landmark (i.e. centre of mass) were performed using the software Ariel Performance Analysis System and applying the DLT algorithm. Results: There was a decrease in the cycle period during the incremental protocol. The relationships between the segmental lateral and vertical displacements with the musical cadence were not significant. The segmental velocities on the lateral and vertical components showed significant increases throughout the incremental protocol. Conclusions: The data suggest that segmental velocity increases with increasing cadence, reducing the cycle period and maintaining the segmental displacements.


Bone and joint erosion and fragility fractures are associated with osteoarthritis and osteoporosis, and represent a major unmet clinical problem. In health, the balance between chondrocytes, osteoblasts and osteoclasts is a dynamic process under tight regulation. In disease, regulation is uncontrolled resulting in overt skeletal dysfunction and bone loss. NF-κB (nuclear factor κ-light-chain-enhancer of activated B cells) is a master regulator of cellular function and is an essential element in the development and homeostasis of the skeletal system. As such it is a critical controller of chondrocyte, osteoblast and osteoclast differentiation and function. Bcl-3 (B-cell lymphoma 3-encoded protein) is an atypical IκB protein and via its selective interaction with p50 and p52 homodimers of NF-κB is a regulator of cellular function. As a regulator of NF-κB, the role of Bcl-3 was hypothesised to be critical in affecting skeletal health.
With the aim of defining the role of Bcl-3 in the skeleton, mice deficient in Bcl-3 (Bcl-3-/-) were compared to wild-type (Wt) mice. Ex vivo phenotypic analysis of Bcl-3-/- mice and in vitro cellular differentiation assays of Bcl-3-/- chondrocytes, osteoblasts and osteoclasts were performed. In neonatal Bcl-3-/- mice, multiple phenotypes were discovered, including dwarfism and increased mineral density. Morphometric analysis of developing and adult mice showed that 20-week Bcl-3-/- mice had a profoundly divergent phenotype from Wt. Male 20-week Bcl-3-/- mice had increased bone density in the trabecular and cortical regions and increased biomechanical strength, compared to Wt, implicating increased bone formation. Female 20-week Bcl-3-/- mice did not differ from Wt in the trabecular region; however, they possessed decreased bone area in cortical bone. Bone turnover rates of 20-week Bcl-3-/- males were lower than in Wt, implicating an accelerated rate of bone resorption, following peak bone density.
While no differences in chondrocyte differentiation were found, Bcl-3-/- osteoblasts were found to have accelerated osteogenesis. Complementarily, simulated overexpression with Bcl-3 mimetic peptide restricted osteoblast differentiation. An expression repertoire of marker genes and miRNAs reflected increased RUNX2 (Runt-related transcription factor 2) activity in early-differentiating Bcl-3-/- osteoblasts. Compared to Wt, Bcl-3-/- osteoblasts had an altered whole-transcriptomic profile in early osteogenesis, with multiple NF-κB-driven osteogenic gene clusters identified. Osteoblasts increased expression of RANKL (RANK ligand) and decreased OPG (osteoprotegerin) expression, involved in signalling cross-talk with osteoclasts. Bcl-3-/- osteoclasts had increased intrinsic osteoclastogenesis and resorption, while treatment with Bcl-3 peptide restricted osteoclast differentiation and function.
The ex vivo phenotypic results were complementary to in vitro assays, showing increased bone turnover. The lack of Bcl-3 in both, osteoblasts and osteoclasts, increased their differentiation and activities. Thus, Bcl-3 functions as an inhibitor of NF-κB-driven early osteogenesis and osteoclastogenesis. These findings help identify Bcl-3 as a novel target for the treatment of diseases involving skeletal pathology.


Firefly luciferase (FL) was entrapped in sol-gel-derived silica containing precursors based on covalent linkage of d-gluconolactone or d-maltonolactone to (aminopropyl)triethoxysilane to form N-(3-triethoxysilylpropyl)gluconamide or N-(3-triethoxysilylpropyl)maltonamide. The enzyme was active and stable in this material and showed catalytic constants close to those in solution. As little as 20 amol ATP could be detected with the entrapped FL, and the entrapped enzyme could be used over several cycles.


Postgenderism is an extrapolation of ways that technology is eroding the biological, psychological and social role of gender, and an argument for why the erosion of binary gender will be liberatory. Postgenderists argue that gender is an arbitrary and unnecessary limitation on human potential, and foresee the elimination of involuntary biological and psychological gendering in the human species through the application of neurotechnology, biotechnology and reproductive technologies. Postgenderists contend that dyadic gender roles and sexual dimorphisms are generally to the detriment of individuals and society. Assisted reproduction will make it possible for individuals of any sex to reproduce in any combinations they choose, with or without "mothers" and "fathers," and artificial wombs will make biological wombs unnecessary for reproduction. Greater biological fluidity and psychological androgyny will allow future persons to explore both masculine and feminine aspects of personality. Postgenderists do not call for the end of all gender traits, or universal androgyny, but rather that those traits become a matter of choice. Bodies and personalities in our postgender future will no longer be constrained and circumscribed by gendered traits, but enriched by their use in the palette of diverse self-expression.


This Essay employs a variation of the "interest convergence" concept to examine the competing interests at stake in downsizing imprisonment in the United States. In the last few decades, the country has become the world leader in both incarceration rates and number of inmates. Reversing these trends is a common goal of multiple parties, who advocate prison reform under different rationales. Some advocate less imprisonment as a means of tempering the disparate effects of imprisonment on individual offenders and the communities to which they return. Others support downsizing based on conservative values that favor reduced government size, spending, and interference in the lives of citizens. Still others see downsizing primarily as a means of reducing fiscal spending and balancing budgets; with some state correctional systems having morphed into a multi-billion dollar a year commitment, punishment has become a great financial drain. Of these competing rationales, interest convergence theory suggests that economic interests will be a driving force of prison reform. If the last few years are indicative, legislatures, courts, and executive officials will continue to take cost into increasing consideration in creating law and policy, and ultimately the need to save money will rein in the criminal justice system. This Essay contends that downsizing imprisonment in the name of saving money may not be the most principled basis for reform, but it should nonetheless be welcomed by prison reformers of all stripes. As unfortunate as it may be, for the bedraggled communities and neighborhoods burdened by the collateral costs of mass imprisonment, any means will suffice.


Saponins and flavonoids are the main bioactive ingredients in Camellia oleifera Abel. In this study, the fragmentation pathways of triterpene saponins in Camellia oleifera were investigated and confirmed by electrospray ionization linear ion trap-orbitrap (LTQ-orbitrap), and a new strategy for rapid characterization of saponins by ultra-high-pressure liquid chromatography with LTQ-orbitrap mass spectrometry (UHPLC-LTQ-orbitrap-MSn) was developed. Based on the summarized fragmentation rules, 36 triterpene saponins from the testa of C. oleifera extracted by n-butanol were found, 23 of which were completely and tentatively characterized. Besides, 35 saponins were identified as novel saponins. Additionally, 8 flavonol-O-glycosides were separated from C. oleifera, with 7 being tentatively characterized but one unambiguously identified, and one of the 7 flavonol-O-glycosides is reported for the first time in genus Camellia. This study provides a systematic strategy for the identification of saponins by the UPLC-MSn method in genus Camellia and summarized essential data for phytochemical studies of C. oleifera.


We report on an economic experiment that compares outcomes in electricity markets subject to carbon-tax and cap-and-trade policies. Under conditions of uncertainty, price-based and quantity-based policy instruments cannot be truly equivalent, so we compared three matched carbon-tax/cap-and-trade pairs with equivalent emissions targets, mean emissions, and mean carbon prices, respectively. Across these matched pairs, the cap-and-trade mechanism produced much higher wholesale electricity prices (38.5% to 52.6% higher) and lower total electricity production (2.5% to 4.0% lower) than the "equivalent" carbon tax, without any lower carbon emissions. Market participants who forecast a lower price of carbon in the cap-and-trade games ran their units more than those who forecast a higher price of carbon, which caused emissions from the dirtiest generating units (Coal and Gas Peakers) to be significantly higher (15.2% to 33.0%) than in the carbon tax games. These merit order "mistakes" in the cap-and-trade games suggest an important advantage of the carbon tax as policy: namely, that the cost of carbon can treated by firms as a known input to production.


The feature correlation layer serves as a key neural network module in numerous computer vision problems that involve dense correspondences between image pairs. It predicts a correspondence volume by evaluating dense scalar products between feature vectors extracted from pairs of locations in two images. However, this point-to-point feature comparison is insufficient when disambiguating multiple similar regions in an image, severely affecting the performance of the end task. We propose GOCor, a fully differentiable dense matching module, acting as a direct replacement to the feature correlation layer. The correspondence volume generated by our module is the result of an internal optimization procedure that explicitly accounts for similar regions in the scene. Moreover, our approach is capable of effectively learning spatial matching priors to resolve further matching ambiguities. We analyze our GOCor module in extensive ablative experiments. When integrated into state-of-the-art networks, our approach significantly outperforms the feature correlation layer for the tasks of geometric matching, optical flow, and dense semantic matching. The code and trained models will be made available at this http URL.


Abstract The official statistics framework is based on internationally agreed standards, taking into account the core principles of impartiality, objectivity, professional independence, cost effectiveness, statistical confidentiality, minimisation of the reporting burden and high output quality. Since the latest 2007 global economic crisis, a growing demand for more, better and timelier data under limited resources for compilers and reporting agents has been observed. The concept of experimental statistics becomes more relevant, despite the lower quality in terms of coverage, data sources and harmonised definitions. The main aim of this paper is to present the methodological development of the residential property price index in Croatia from experimental to official statistics, as well as to show corresponding changes in time, which occurred due to the changes in methodological framework, institutional responsibility for compilation, coverage and data sources. A general conclusion of the paper is that publication of non-harmonized experimental statistics results, together with explanatory metadata, is better from the point of view of users than having nothing produced by official statistics.


Optimization of a typical crude oil atmospheric distillation unit and reduction of energy conservation were carried out through modifying the implementation and change in the flash zone of the tower. A conventional procedure in such units involves the combination of liquid and vapor product of the prefractionation train surge drum upon introduction to the tower. However, it is theoretically illustrated and represented by simulation means that introducing the vapor feed into the upper stages of the distillation column separately can lead to an energy saving of 12.6 % in the condenser duty, an increased liquid-to-gas flow (L/G) at certain points of the column, and hence to a reduction in diameter and investment costs of new tower designs of approximately US$ 0.7 million a–1. The proposal can be put into practice without the need of additional equipments or additional cost of difficult rerouting the streams. An industrial case study of a steady-state crude oil distillation unit is given by simulation provision of AspenHysys™.


The aim of the present study was to design a solar reactor and analyze its performance for removal of methyl violet dye (MV) from water with titanium dioxide as the photocatalyst. The solar reactor was made up of a flat-plate colorless glass of dimensions 1000 x 750 x 4 mm. The base of the reactor was made of aluminum. Various operating parameters were studied to investigate the behavior of the designed reactor like initial dye concentration (CMV=10-50 mg/L), loading of catalyst (CTiO2=200-800 mg/L), suspension flow rate (QL=0.3-2 L/min), pH of suspension (5-10), and H2O2 concentration (CH2O2=200-1000 mg/L). The operating parameters were optimized to give higher efficiency to the reactor performance. The designed reactor when operating at optimum conditions offered a degradation of MV up to 95.27% within one hours of operation time, while a conversion of 99.95% was obtained in three hours. The effluent from the photocatalytic reactor was fed to a LPRO separation system which produced a permeat of turbidity value of 0.09NTU. The product water was analyized using UVspectrophotometer and FTIR. The analysis results confirmed that the water from the Hybrid-system could be safely recycled and reuse. It was found that the kinetics of dye degradation was first order with respect to dye concentration and could be well described by Langmuir-Hinshelwood model.


We present a novel bandwidth measurement scheme for multimode optical fibers. Amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) radiation was utilized for a source of intrinsically modulated light with a wide modulation bandwidth. In our measurement scheme, the continuous-wave (CW) ASE light that passed through a multimode fiber (MMF) under test was analyzed by the fourth-order power with a high-speed photodetector and an electric spectrum analyzer. The modulation transfer function of the multimode fiber could be directly measured with the photoelectric spectra in the modulation frequency domain. The measurement result of our method was experimentally compared to that of the conventional measurement scheme based on the impulse response measurement. It has been found that our scheme provides a stable measurement means of MMF characterization that is suitable for the field testing due to the simplicity of the system.


We study online social group dynamics based on how group members diverge in their online discussions. Previous studies mostly focused on the link structure to characterize social group dynamics, whereas the group behavior of content generation in discussions is not well understood. Particularly, we use Jensen-Shannon (JS) divergence to measure the divergence of topics in user-generated contents, and how it progresses over time. We study Twitter messages (tweets) in multiple real-world events (natural disasters and social activism) with different times and demographics. We also model structural and user features with guidance from two socio-psychological theories, social cohesion and social identity, to learn their implications on group discussion divergence. Those features show significant correlation with group discussion divergence. By leveraging them we are able to construct a classifier to predict the future increase or decrease in group discussion divergence, which achieves an area under the curve (AUC) of 0.84 and an F-1 score (harmonic mean of precision and recall) of 0.8. Our approach allows to systematically study collective diverging group behavior independent of group formation design. It can help to prioritize whom to engage with in communities for specific topics of needs during disaster response coordination, and for specific concerns and advocacy in the brand management.


Mobile TV has been on the research agenda and promoted by Telecom operators as the killer app for their services for a long time. However with the emergence of Over The Top providers (OTT's) mobile Internet offers the opportunity to fulfil this unmet promise. In this paper we discuss the results of an empirical research collected in the trial phase of a mobile OTP services made available via smartphones and tablets. The data is based on log-data and secondary analyses of five surveys. In this paper we only present preliminary results. Our main findings show that users have to pass a threshold in order to make mobile TV a part of their daily life. Differences are found between active and background use of mobile TV. Active viewing correlates most strongly with overall satisfaction with the mobile TV application. Reinforcement effects for sports and news content are also linked to satisfaction.


In this paper we discuss what is known so far about diagonal acts of monoids. The first results that will be discussed comprise an overview of some work done on determining whether or not the diagonal act can be finitely generated or cyclic when looking at specific classes of monoids. This has been a topic of interest to a handful of semigroup theorists over the past seven years. We then move on to discuss some results pertaining to flatness properties of diagonal acts. The theory of flatness properties of acts over monoids has been of major interest over the past two decades, but so far there are no papers published on this subject that relate specifically to diagonal acts. We attempt to shed some light on this topic as well as present some new problems.


Abstract As advanced reactor concepts challenge the accuracy of current modeling technologies, a higher-fidelity depletion calculation is necessary to model time-dependent core reactivity properly for accurate cycle length and safety margin determinations. The recent integration of CINDER90 into the MCNPX Monte Carlo radiation transport code provides a completely self-contained Monte Carlo-linked depletion capability. Two advances have been made in the latest MCNPX capability based on problems observed in prereleased versions: continuous-energy collision density tracking and adequate fission yield selection. Prereleased versions of the MCNPX depletion code calculated the reaction rates for (n,2n), (n,3n), (n,p), and (n,α) by matching the MCNPX steady-state 63-group flux with 63-group cross sections inherent in the CINDER90 library and then collapsing to one-group collision densities for the depletion calculation. The accuracy of this procedure is therefore dictated by the adequacy of the 63-group energy structure of the cross-section set to accurately capture the spectrum of a specific model. Different types of models would therefore require different types of cross-section energy group structure. MCNPX 2.6.A eliminates this dependency by using the continuous-energy reaction rates determined during the MCNPX steady-state calculation to calculate energy-integrated collision rates to be used by CINDER90. MCNPX 2.6.A now also determines the proper fission yield to be used by the CINDER90 code for the depletion calculation. The CINDER90 code offers a thermal, fast, and high-energy fission yield for each fissile isotope contained in the CINDER90 data file. MCNPX 2.6.A determines which fission yield to use for a specified problem by calculating the integral fission rate for the defined energy boundaries (thermal, fast, and high energy), determining which energy range contains the majority of fissions, and then selecting the appropriate fission yield for the energy range containing the majority of fissions. The MCNPX depletion capability enables complete, relatively easy-to-use depletion calculations in a single Monte Carlo code. This study focuses on the methodology development of the two improvements described here. Further improvements are under development to enhance the usefulness of this new capability.


Taking a close look at the debate about the replacement of Frank Castorf as director of the Volksbuhne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz in Berlin, I will comment on different aspects of the legacy and potentials of institutional theatre. The relation between representational politics of institutions and the claim for a revolutionary attitude will be discussed as two important but very different demands that could be directed towards arts institutions. Finally, I argue why a reflection on the relations of production from an aesthetic perspective might be a way to sustain the political legitimacy of a theatre company.


Bayesian networks (BNs) are probabilistic graphical models which are widely used for knowledge representation and decision making tasks, especially in the presence of uncertainty. Finding or learning the structure of BNs from data is an NP-hard problem. Evolutionary algorithms (EAs) have been extensively used to automate the learning process. In this paper, we consider the use of the Gene-Pool Optimal Mixing Evolutionary Algorithm (GOMEA). GOMEA is a relatively new type of EA that belongs to the class of model-based EAs. The model used in GOMEA is aimed at modeling the dependency structure between problem variables, so as to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of variation. This paper shows that the excellent performance of GOMEA transfers from well-known academic benchmark problems to the specific case of learning BNs from data due to its model-building capacities and the potential to compute partial evaluations when learning BNs. On commonly-used datasets of varying size, we find that GOMEA outperforms standard algorithms such as Order-based search (OBS), as well as other EAs, such as Genetic Algorithms (GAs) and Estimation of Distribution algorithms (EDAs), even when efficient local search techniques are added.