The River Brahmaputra is one of the largest rivers, ranking ninth in terms of mean annual discharge (19, 800 m3s-1). The river has a multi-channel, braided/anastomosed planform that changes frequently and exhibits rapid transformations in channel morphology. This research was set in the context of the River Brahmaputra near Majuli Island, Assam, India. Morphologically, this part of the river is very volatile, increased braiding intensity of the river is believed by many to be responsible for severe erosion in the southern part of Majuli Island. Therefore in this research, a medium-term morphological evolution and change are investigated, in a study reach of 40 km near southern part of Majuli Island, Assam. There is a limited number of morphological models that can model the landscape evolution of braided rivers. Beside this, there is high cost and difficulty in collecting the hydrological, hydraulic, morphometric and sediment data needed to run a 2D, physics-based model in a very large, complex braided river, particularly as data for such rivers is often sensitive and therefore classified. Therefore the best alternative for modelling complex, braided rivers with limited data availability is to use a form of simplified morphological model which is known as a reduced complexity model or RCM. The rcm model CAESAR-Lisflood was used in this research to model medium term channel evolution. New indices were developed to validate the rcm model which quantify lateral shifting of the thalweg (Thalweg Migration Index, TMI), braiding intensity (Modified Plan Form Index, MPFI), cross-sectional disposition of anabranch channels (Modified Flow Geometry Index, MFGI) and change in bar area (Bar Deformation Index, BDI). Trends and changes in the four braiding indices that were forecast by the C-L + models indicated that the Brahmaputra in the study reach is likely to remain volatile morphologically for the next two decades. Deposition in this reach is very likely to continue to exceed erosion, with net deposition increasing through time due to increased sediment inputs associated with greater monsoon runoff. The River Brahmaputra may widen its primary channel in response to increased runoff and net deposition and therefore the braiding intensity will most probably intensify. The thalweg channel may remain shifting northwards towards Majuli Island. The number of sandbars is likely to increase and rates at which sandbars are formed and deformed are likely to rise. The bank erosion and loss of floodplain may become more severe, especially in the southern part of Majuli Island.


Taiwan's new MMM legislative electoral system first implemented in 2008 was a sharp departure from the half-century long SNTV system. This paper examines effects of knowledge of the new electoral system on citizens' decisions to vote or not to vote.Existing literature on voting either assumes that voters are fully aware of the electoral system and thus ignores the effect of knowledge or at best assumes it is an exogenous factor. This study distinguishes itself from other related works in three respects. First, we do not assume that voters are fully aware of the new two-ballot electoral system and make their voting choices accordingly. Instead, we design a set of four survey questions to measure the degree to which citizens understand the new electoral rule. Secondly, instead of summing up the number of correct answers to these survey questions (i.e. the traditional "raw score" approach) , we use a two-parameter item response model to estimate item loadings and then construct a continuous measure of latent knowledge. Thirdly, instead of assuming knowledge is exogenous, we build a two-equation simultaneous probit model to account for the effect of electoral system knowledge on voter turnout. This model is meticulously specified so that it allows for knowledge to be endogenous. We find that knowledge of electoral system is indeed endogenous and, in both SMD and PR ballot voting, higher knowledge of the new MMM system stimulates higher probability of voting after taking into account the endogeneity of knowledge.


The notion that sexually transmitted infections (STIs) can be acquired through non-sexual means is a well-established meme in the public consciousness. The public toilet seat is the most commonly blamed vector. This is despite the lack of evidence for acquisition of STIs from toilet seats, and the ready availability of reputable advice to this effect.1

While the 'toilet seat hypothesis' is not currently regarded as supported by data, other modes of non-sexual acquisition of STIs, though rare, have been reported. Examples include pharyngeal gonorrhoea by sharing of confectionery,2 transmission of urogenital (UGT) gonorrhoea by sharing of a sex doll,3 and transmission of Trichomonas vaginalis via the fingers of a traditional healer in west Africa.4 This provides credibility to the notion that STI detection in UGT specimens from young children is not always a consequence of 'conventional' sexual contact or, for very young children, vertical transmission. Estreich and Forster5 reviewed relevant evidence and concluded that inferring the cause of an STI in a young child is a 'complex subject', with vertical transmission, child sexual abuse and accidental/fomite transmission all conceivable mechanisms. This begs the question that is critical to service providers: How strongly does the presence of an STI in a young child indicate sexual abuse? This dilemma remains a challenge.6 In individual cases, potential modes of non-sexual transmission may be invoked, and the plausibility of these can impact child protection and/or justice system responses. Incorrect interpretation has the potential for a child remaining in an unsafe environment, or conversely leading to a false conclusion that a crime has taken place, resulting in initiation of an investigation. The strong imperatives to avoid either of these errors can create instability in institutional responses, and inappropriate management …


Ottoman settlements have nature and human originated concepts, both physically and socially. The smallest unit of the Ottoman urban settlement is the quarter which has an organic texture. It can also be defined as an administrative and social unit. The houses of the rich and the poor were located next to each other and dwellings of a neighbourhood had always had the responsibility of helping and protecting each other with close neighbourhood relations. The existence of public participation in social organizations including humanistic values can be realised. The feeling of belonging had raised the environmental quality both physically and socially. The rapid and dense growth of cities and socio-cultural transformation of the society from traditional to modern have destroyed the neighbourhood order. As the dwellers of them have no common backgrounds and cultures, the relations get weakened. People who live in these modern settlements have not felt themselves belonging to the place and neighbourhood relations have weakened, and as the responsibility of protecting and watching each other has disappeared the crime rate at the common spaces of the settlements has increased. The neighbourhoods of the rich and the poor have been entirely separated. Some of them are designed using the traditional forms which cannot be defined as sustainability of traditional socio-cultural values which are independent from changing life styles. Sustainable aspects of traditional Ottoman neighborhoods in modern Turkish settlements with their physical and socio-cultural environmental features will be examined in this paper.


The issue of bullying is of growing concern in developed countries. Considerable effort has been carried out to understand the problem and implementation programs have been launched to deal with this issue. In this paper we aim to define the concept of bullying and to present some data in relation to causes of bullying which have been highlighted by different researchers around the world. We aim to shed some light on the question of how to fight against bullying. Our conclusions stress the difficulties in conceptualising and researching bullying derived from cultural/social factors and from factors that relate to adolescence as a transitional and vulnerable period in life.


Reputation in any field is an elusive phenomenon: part notoriety, part honor, part fame, part critical assessment. Even in legal scholarship it has an uneven, unpredictable quality. It is hard to imagine a book by a law professor that has had more immediate impact on world leaders than Philip Bobbitt's 'The Shield of Achilles'. Much of the national-security strategy devised by the U.S. administration after the September 11 attacks expresses ideas Bobbitt conceived long before; and from a different point on the political spectrum is the Archbishop of Canterbury, whose televised nationwide address in January explicitly took the book as its text. The British Foreign Secretary, the E.U. Commissioner for External Relations, and the international security advisor to the Secretary General of the E.U. have all made speeches that draw on Bobbitt's ideas. In January of 2003, the Guardian newspaper stated that "among [the] powerful, one book has become required reading." This established British liberal voice echoed the suggestion by the American conservative National Review that "[t]his book - with its masterly reappraisal of modern history and subtle elucidation of today's geopolitics - should be on every desk in the State Department," and its conservative companion the Weekly Standard recommended that it "should become required reading not only in the academy but for the military and civilian decision-makers of the industrialized world." For all this, Bobbitt's book is likelier to have more influence than renown; as with his earlier works, which have reshaped a number of fields, he remains, in the U.S. at least, the most influential person of whom you have never heard.


In the winters of 1993/94 and 1994/95 the daily energy expenditure (DEE) of Great Cormorants Phalacrocorax carbo sinensis was measured using the doubly labelled water technique (DLW). This was the first time the method has been used on a Phalacrocoracid species. DLW trials were carried out on 5 caged birds and on 5 free-ranging wild birds at Lake Chiemsee. The mean body mass of the captive birds (2079 g) was not significantly different from and that of wild birds (2122 g). There was no significant difference in the total body water (TBW) of the two Cormorant groups (55.9% in captive birds and 56.7% in free-ranging birds). Estimated DEE (+/- SD) averaged 1325 +/- 130 kJ day(-1) (n = 5) in the caged birds and 2094 +/- 174 kJ day(-1) (n = 5) in the free-ranging ones, a highly signficant difference. To match their DEE, it was calculated that the Cormorants had to consume 341 g of fish per day under aviary conditions and 539 g in the wild.


Background The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) concluded that the rates of Adverse Events Following Injections (AEFIs) for the human papillomavirus recombinant vaccine (qHPV) Gardasil were not greater than background rates. They also acknowledge limitations in the reporting system that could compromise this conclusion. On record as of 1/31/2010 were 15,829 AEFI reports including 49 deaths. Methodology 39 respondents who experienced AEFIs following Gardasil injections self-selected to complete an on-line National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC) questionnaire. Respondents checked symptoms experienced prior to and following consecutive qHPV injections. Additional data were gathered and analyzed and an exact test was performed regarding 6 cases of death. Principal Findings The data re ect a two to four fold increase in occurrence, type and severity of symptoms with additional exposure to Gardasil for all respondents. Chronic fatigue and headache or dizziness were pervasive and compounded over time. Additional concurrent symptoms and frequency reported were: numbness, muscle pain, nausea and muscle weakness, 60 70%; joint pain, chest pain, skin disorders and concentration problems, more than 50%; menstrual problems, 40%; post-vaccine heart disorders, 33%; seizures, 13% 20%. Time intervals from inoculation to onset of symptoms were mostly within 30 days. Cause of death was undetermined for ve cases; one autopsy is pending. Five of the six deaths occurred after the third injection. This diverges from expectations if the deaths were coincidental. There was statistical evidence at the 5% level, with a p-value of 0.0434, that the hypothesis that Gardasil is not related to any of the reported deaths is not tenable. Conclusion Data analyzed suggest a dose-response and temporal relationship to Gardasil. Data may be biased toward reports of severe adverse reactions. However, a vaccine can have a low rate of AEFIs while still indicating strong evidence that the small numbers of events that do occur are related to the vaccine.


Negative cognitive structure (particularly for interpersonal content) has been shown in some research to persist past a current episode of depression and potentially to be a stable marker of vulnerability for depression (D. J. A. Dozois, 2007; D. J. A. Dozois & K. S. Dobson, 2001a). Given that cognitive therapy (CT) is highly effective for treating the acute phase of a depressive episode and that this treatment also reduces the risk of relapse and recurrence, it is possible that CT may alter these stable cognitive structures. In the current study, patients were randomly assigned to CT+ pharmacotherapy (n = 21) or to pharmacotherapy alone (n = 21). Both groups evidenced significant and similar reductions in level of depression (as measured with the Beck Depression Inventory-II and the Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression), as well as automatic thoughts and dysfunctional attitudes. However, group differences were found on cognitive organization in favor of individuals who received the combination of CT+ pharmacotherapy. The implications of these results for understanding mechanisms of change in therapy and the prophylactic nature of CT are discussed.


Since 2008 increasing pirate activities in Somalia, the Gulf of Aden, and the Indian Ocean have once again drawn the international community's attention to piracy and armed robbery at sea. States are resolved to repress these impediments to the free flow of trade and navigation. To this end a number of multinational counter-piracy missions have been deployed to the region.

This book describes the enforcement powers that States may rely upon in their quest to repress piracy in the larger Gulf of Aden region. The piracy rules of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea
(UNCLOS) and the legal safeguards applicable to maritime interception operations are scrutinized before the analysis turns to the criminal prosecution of pirates and armed robbers at sea. The discussion includes so-called shiprider agreements, the transfers of alleged offenders to regional states, the jurisdictional bases for prosecuting pirates, and the feasibility of an international(ized) venue for their trial. In addressing a range of relevant issues, this book presents a detailed and comprehensive up-to-date analysis of the legal issues pertaining to the repression of piracy and armed robbery at sea and assesses whether the currently existing legal regime is still adequate to effectively counter piracy in the 21st century.


A computational procedure and associated computer program were developed for the analysis and design of P/C continuous beams with variable depth. Using this program, continuous girders with non-prismatic cross-sections and non-symmetric configuration can be analyzed when subjected to various external loads including the AASHTO live loads, and different design options can be readily investigated and easily compared to select the optimum design. By studying a three-span continuous bridge and for the same live load, the required prestressing force and the number of steel tendons are reduced if the beam depth increases towards the support. When the tendon profile varies parabolically, the straight haunches are the most efficient.


A novel adaptive algorithm for an array using directional elements called a hybrid smart antenna system is proposed. The algorithm controls the element patterns on the basis of an objective function composed of eigenvalues of a covariance matrix. A high and stable array output signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio is achieved by improving both the received powers and the spatial correlation coefficient between incident waves, without prior knowledge such as directions-of-arrival, channel state information or training signals. The characteristics of the proposed algorithm are theoretically and numerically clarified for a simple case involving two incident waves. Convergence with least mean squares algorithm is found to be as fast as that with recursive least squares algorithm in this system. Also, simulation for statistical performance evaluation is carried out in comparison with a conventional system. Furthermore, a method to implement the proposed eigenspace control algorithm without having to solve the eigenvalue problem is shown.


Faculty of Technology Software Technology Research Laboratory Doctor of Philosophy In recent years program transformation technology has matured into a practical solution for many software reengineering and migration tasks. FermaT, an industrial strength program transformation system, has demonstrated that legacy systems can be successfully transformed into efficient and maintainable structured C or COBOL code. Its core, a transformation engine, is based on mathematically proven program transformations and ensures that transformed programs are semantically equivalent to its original state. Its engine facilitates a Wide Spectrum Language (WSL), with low-level as well as high-level constructs, to capture as much information as possible during transformation steps. FermaT's methodology and technique lack in provision of concurrent migration and analysis. This provision is crucial if the transformation process is to be further automated. As the constraint based program migration theory has demonstrated, it is inefficient and time consuming, trying to satisfy the enormous computation of the generated transformation sequence search-space and its constraints. With the objective to solve the above problems and to extend the operating range of the FermaT transformation system, this thesis proposes a Parallel Transformations Framework which makes parallel transformations processing within the FermaT environment not only possible but also beneficial for its migration process. During a migration process, many thousands of program transformations have to be applied. For example a 1 million line of assembler to C migration takes over 21 hours to be processed on a single PC. Various approaches of search, prediction techniques and a constraint-based approach to address the presented issues already exist but they solve them unsatisfactorily. To remedy this situation, this dissertation proposes a framework to extend transformation processing systems with parallel processing capabilities. The parallel system can analyse specified parallel transformation tasks and produce appropriate parallel transformations processing outlines. To underpin an automated objective, a formal language is introduced. This language can be utilised to describe and outline parallel transformation tasks whereas parallel processing constraints underpin the parallel objective.


Roughly half of U.S. states allow labor unions and public-sector employers to establish "agency shop" arrangements that cover state and local government workplaces. These arrangements require employees to pay agency fees to cover their local union's collective-bargaining costs, regardless of whether the employee joins the union. Agency shop supporters justify these arrangements as a means of preventing non-union members from free-riding off the union's bargaining efforts, while opponents contend that agency shop arrangements violate the First Amendment rights of non-union members forced to pay the agency fee. Although the Supreme Court permitted agency fees over First Amendment objections in Abood v. Detroit Board of Education (1977), the Court will reconsider that ruling in Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association in early 2016. Many observers predict the Court may use Friedrichs as an opportunity to overrule Abood, with the consequence that public-sector unions will lose the ability to deter free-riding by nonmembers.We take no position on whether Abood will, or ought to, survive. Instead, we present a novel alternative mechanism to address the free-rider problem in public-sector workplaces — a mechanism that could be utilized even if Abood is overturned. We suggest that if a public-sector employer wants to make sure that a labor union is compensated for the cost of representing nonmembers, the employer can reimburse the union for those expenses directly. To offset the cost of this direct payment, the employer can reduce each employee's salary by the employee's pro rata share of the union's bargaining expenses, while also freeing employees from the obligation to pay agency fees. This "direct payment alternative" would seem to accomplish the same objective as existing agency shop arrangements: it would prevent non-union members from reaping the benefits of union representation without sharing the costs. And while the wages of public-sector employees would be reduced by their pro rata share of their union's bargaining costs, existing agency shop arrangements already reduce wages by that amount, because employees must pay their pro rata share in the form of union dues or agency fees.In fact, our direct payment alternative might leave public-sector employers and employees better off than existing agency shop arrangements. First, the direct payment alternative eases the First Amendment concerns raised in Friedrichs: a direct payment to the union would likely qualify as "government speech," and would thus be subject to less stringent scrutiny under present First Amendment doctrine. Second, the direct payment alternative would bring with it favorable federal tax consequences for state and local government employees. An employee's pro rata share of union bargaining expenses would not be included in gross pay for purposes of Social Security and Medicare taxes, and would not be included in adjusted gross income for purposes of personal federal income taxes. Most public-sector employees would fare better on an after-tax basis if their employers adopted the direct payment alternative instead of the agency shop arrangement.In this short essay, we compare and contrast the basic features of the agency shop and the direct payment alternative, considering the constitutional, economic, and political factors that might lead state and local governments and public-sector unions to choose one approach over the other. We present several hypotheses drawn from behavioral economics and political psychology — and, in particular, from the emerging literature on the "salience" of taxes and fees — that might explain why employers and unions have thus far opted for agency shops. We close by considering the practical consequences of a possible Supreme Court decision overruling Abood. We conclude that while Abood is not entirely irrelevant, the availability of the direct payment alternative suggests that the impact of overruling Abood may be muted.


Sleep is one of the most crucial components for optimal physical and mental health, and it plays a large role in ongoing bodily repair. However, despite the importance of sleep, an estimated 40 million people in the United States alone have some form of chronic sleep disorder annually [16]. Our product is designed to track a person's biometrics through a wearable armband for night use that will be able to detect the stages of sleep indirectly. The biofeedback from the device would then activate an electrical muscular stimulator that would release a current to force muscle contractions in order to wake a person up based off of inputted time set by the user and begin electrical stimulation as close to the input time as possible without going over a no later than time. The device acts as a non-invasive analyzer, and the device will detect a person's sleep cycle through skin resistance, muscle tension, and temperature. Despite the impressive advancements of wearable technology, there is no completely reliable, non-invasive commercial technology that is able detect the human sleep cycle. Our device would be a completely novel idea in this field of study.


Bayesian belief networks can be used to represent and to reason about complex systems with uncertain or incomplete information. Bayesian networks are graphs capable of encoding and quantifying probabilistic dependence and conditional independence among variables. Diagnostic reasoning, also referred to as abductive inference, determining the most probable explanation (MPE), or finding the maximum a posteriori instantiation (MAP), involves determining the global most probable system description given the values of any subset of variables. In some cases abductive inference can be performed with exact algorithms using distributed network computations, but the problem is NP-hard, and complexity increases significantly with the presence of undirected cycles, the number of discrete states per variable, and the number of variables in the network. This paper describes an approximate method composed of a graph-based evolutionary algorithm that uses nonbinary alphabets, graphs instead of strings, and graph operators to perform abductive inference on multiply connected networks for which systematic search methods are not feasible. The motivation, basis, and adequacy of the method are discussed, and experimental results are presented.


Many influential industrial players are currently pursuing the development of new protocols for federated identity management. The security assertion markup language (SAML) is an important standardized example of this new protocol class and will be widely used in business-to-business scenarios to reduce user-management costs. SAML utilizes a constraint-based specification that is a popular design technique of this protocol class. It does not include a general security analysis, but provides an attack-by-attack list of countermeasures as security consideration. We present a security analysis of the SAML single sign-on browser/artifact profile, which is the first one for such a protocol standard. Our analysis of the protocol design reveals several flaws in the specification that can lead to vulnerable implementations. To demonstrate their impact, we exploit some of these flaws to mount attacks on the protocol.


The coastal wet areas of Praia da Vitória (Terceira, Azores) were investigated to describe the ground and aerial (herbaceous and canopy) arthropod communities by comparing patterns of species composition, abundance and diversity. Three wet areas were studied: Paul da Praia da Vitória (PPV), Paul do Belo Jardim (PBJ) and Paul da Pedreira do Cabo da Praia (PPCP). A standardized protocol (based on the COBRA protocol) was performed with day and night sampling of arthropods with a total of 56 samples per site. Common diversity metrics (Hill series) were calculated and abundance patterns were investigated using species abundance distributions (SAD). All investigated communities were dominated by native non-endemic and exotic species; only seven out of the 132 endemic arthropod species and subspecies existing in Terceira Island were found in the area. The logseries described well the communities, with a prevalence of rare species. The three sites seem to work as a complementary network of wet areas with specific arthropod communities possibly related to their specific features. However, Paul do Belo Jardim (PBJ) performed better for many of the investigated indicators, and two IUCN endangered species, the true weevil Drouetius oceanicus oceanicus and the Azorean cone-head grasshopper (Conocephalus chavesi) are relatively abundant there. Due to habitat changes that occurred between 2006 and 2010 in PPV, only one of the three most abundant ground-beetles recorded in 1991-1993 and 2003 was found but only after some additional sampling in a small remnant of the original habitat.


Purpose: To study associations between single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) in Ribonuclease L (RNASEL), a gene implicated in inflammation and prostate cancer risk, and outcomes after radiation therapy. Experimental Design: We followed participants in the prospective US Health Professionals Follow-Up Study treated with radiation therapy for early-stage prostate cancer. Three SNPs were genotyped based on previously determined functional and biological significance. We used multivariable Cox proportional hazards models to assess per-allele associations with the primary outcome defined as time to a composite endpoint including development of lethal prostate cancer or biochemical recurrence. Results: We followed 434 patients treated with radiation therapy for a median of 9 years. On multivariate analysis, the rs12757998 variant allele was associated with significantly decreased risk of the composite endpoint [HR: 0.65; 95% confidence interval (CI), 0.45–0.94%; P = 0.02] driven by decreased biochemical recurrence (HR: 0.60; 95% CI, 0.40–0.89%; P = 0.01) and men treated with external beam (HR: 0.58; 95% CI, 0.36–0.93%; P = 0.02). In contrast, in 516 men from the same cohort treated with radical prostatectomy, we found no significant impact of this variant on outcome. Furthermore, the rs12757998 variant allele significantly modified the association between androgen deprivation therapy and outcomes after radiation therapy (p-interaction = 0.02). Conclusion: We show an association between RNASEL SNP rs12757998 and outcome after radiation therapy for prostate cancer. This SNP is associated with increased circulating C-reactive protein and interleukin-6, suggesting a potential role for inflammation in the response to radiation. If validated, genetic predictors of outcome may help inform prostate cancer management. Clin Cancer Res; 19(6); 1612–9. ©2013 AACR.


Background: This study examined the bidirectional nature of mother-infant positive and negative emotional displays during social interactions across multiple tasks among postpartum women accounting for childhood maltreatment severity. Additionally, effects of maternal postpartum psychopathology on maternal affect and effects of task and emotional valence on dyadic emotional displays were evaluated. Sampling and Methods: A total of 192 mother-infant dyads (51% male infants) were videotaped during free play and the Still-Face paradigm at 6 months postpartum. Mothers reported on trauma history and postpartum depression and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms. Reliable, masked coders scored maternal and infant positive and negative affect from the videotaped interactions. Results: Three path models evaluated whether dyadic affective displays were primarily mother driven, infant driven, or bidirectional in nature, adjusting for mothers' maltreatment severity and postpartum psychopathology. The bidirectional model had the best fit. Child maltreatment severity predicted depression and PTSD symptoms, and maternal symptoms predicted affective displays (both positive and negative), but the pattern differed for depressive symptoms compared to PTSD symptoms. Emotional valence and task altered the nature of bidirectional affective displays. Conclusions: The results add to our understanding of dyadic affective exchanges in the context of maternal risk (childhood maltreatment history, postpartum symptoms of depression and PTSD). Findings highlight postpartum depression symptoms as one mechanism of risk transmission from maternal maltreatment history to impacted parent-child interactions. Limitations include reliance on self-reported psychological symptoms and that the sample size prohibited testing of moderation analyses. Developmental and clinical implications are discussed.


The island of Malta is highly reliant on fossil fuels for its power (99%), and due to climate mitigation policies implemented by EU the Maltese government is required to have 10% of its power generation from renewables by 2020. To achieve these energy goals, the Maltese government has expressed interest in investing on a Hexicon platform to produce 9% of the Maltese energy demand. The Hexicon platform is a floating structure capable of carrying a wide range of renewable energy generators. The Hexicon platform proposed for Malta is meant to have a rated capacity of 54MW distributed by vertical and horizontal wind energy converters. Nevertheless, due to the irregular nature of wind the Hexicon platform would still use diesel generators on-board as backup power; this inherently defeats the purpose of the Maltese investment, and therefore a Hydrogen backup system was proposed and investigated for its technical and economic viability.A literature study was carried out on renewable hydrogen system in order to familiarise with the type of markets and the best way to apply the technology to the scenario at hand. Four markets were established, small-scale, transportation, stand-alone power systems, and large buffering systems; the large buffering system is the most appropriate for the study, and taking this type of system into account, the most appropriate hydrogen generation and utilisation system were then identified. It was established that the system is composed of three parts, electrolyser, storage tanks and fuel cells stacks. However, an additional water purification system is necessary; this is due to the fact that the Hexicon platform will be located offshore, and salt water is not appropriate for the electrolyser. A literature study was then performed to identify the most appropriate equipment for each stage of the process; it was established that a Reverse Osmosis (RO) system will be used to purify the water, an alkaline electrolyser will be used to generate the Hydrogen, the Hydrogen will then be stored in pressure vessels (at 30bar), thus also requiring compressors, and the recovery of energy will be performed by a proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cell (FC) stack.A study was carried out to establish the models to use for each equipment, and based on the hourly demand for Malta, as well as the hourly winds, a first estimate of the size of each equipment was established. The system model was developed in the HOMER software, which unfortunately did not model the desalination plant.The Hexicon (in the design considered in this study) is not able to provide Malta with 9% of the energy demand; this was mainly due to the low wind conditions. In addition to this, it was understood from the literature study that a hydrogen system backup system, i.e. a buffering system, would not be applicable to the scenario initially proposed in this thesis due to the low renewable energy penetration, and also due to the fact that the Hexicon would be connected to the grid, rendering such a system defunct. A micro-grid scenario was assumed and developed. This scenario tried to assess how low the demand would need to be in order to make a hydrogen project feasible. Different percentages were tried and the only one that met the constraints was one with 1.1% of the Maltese demand.The system would consist of a 3MW Fuel Cell, a 4.5MW electrolyser, and hydrogen storage for 10.5tonnes. The NPC of this system would be approx. 130 Million €, with an initial investment of approx. 71 Million €, LCOE of 0.257€.kWh-1, and a Hydrogen cost of approx. 20€.kg-1. While other economic indicators show viability, for example, a short payback time of 3.5 years based on the revenue from the excess electricity, the cost of hydrogen suggests that it is too expensive.


The behavior of two types of gain-clamped semiconductor optical amplifiers under small-signal optical modulation is analyzed both numerically and experimentally. The small-signal gain as well as the crosstalk is investigated in two different injecting schemes. Dependence on mean input power and signal frequency is studied. The study reveals a strong dependence of the small-signal gain on the direction of the data signal as compared to the pump signal. The biggest difference between both amplifier types is found in the co-propagation scheme where the RF gain shows a clear resonance in the case the gain clamping is achieved by a longitudinal laser field which results in a decrease of the small-signal gain around the resonance frequency. The behavior of the crosstalk is similar in both cases, however still showing differences due to the origin of the gain clamping, which will be discussed. The experiments confirm the results found in the numerical study in all cases.


What are the variety and scope of administrative challenges faced by large bureaucratic structures when they implement system-wide change? Specifically, when decision making about priorities for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) prevention programs was decentralized by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and delegated to state and local departments of health, what were the implications for public health infrastructure, work force training, resource distribution, and policy development? Using a previously developed model of effective change management, Ronald O. Valdiserri describes, from a federal agency perspective, the variety of actions that were necessary to implement and sustain system-wide changes in the planning and priority setting of CDC's publicly funded HIV prevention programs. All citizens have a stake in improving HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) prevention efforts in terms of reducing the societal costs of this epidemic and mitigating its profound toll in human suffering. Administrators of publicly funded HIV prevention programs are especially interested in mounting and sustaining efforts that will have the greatest impact on preventing infection while making the best use of scarce public resources. It is not surprising, then, thee discussions of HIV prevention, whether in academic forums or practice settings, often center on the question of "What works?" In one of its last reports to the American public, the National Commission on AIDS (acquired immune deficiency syndrome) addressed the topic of behavioral and social sciences and the HIV epidemic. Although the commission affirmed that these disciplines "should be a major component of the U.S. effort to control the HIV/AIDS epidemic," their report concluded that "to a very disturbing extent, the potential contributions they could make have not been utilized in the fight against AIDS" (National Commission on AIDS, 1993; 1). Several important reasons were identified to explain this situation, including inadequate research, a tendency to favor "technologic fixes" over behavior-oriented primary prevention strategies, political interference, and improperly designed and poorly implemented HIV prevention programs. Published discussions of the behavioral and social science content of HIV/AIDS prevention programs often focus on important gaps in the research science base as major determinants of less than adequate program quality (Choi and Coates, 1994; Kelly et al., 1993) and consequentially imply that increased research will translate into better programs. However, the impact of scientific innovation on HIV prevention programs is neither guaranteed nor automatic. Administrators of publicly funded HIV prevention programs at all levels of government are challenged to develop processes and systems that will facilitate the incorporation of new scientific findings into ongoing HIV prevention programs. Organizational capacity to put into operation and to implement the scientific innovation, consumer and broader community attitudes about the innovation, and management's ability to identify new resources (or shift existing ones) to support implementation can all influence programmatic adoption of new scientific findings. Undoubtedly, sound science is essential to the development of effective HIV prevention strategies, whether biomedical or behavioral, but good science is not the only necessary ingredient for program success. Holtgrave and his colleagues, in summarizing the published literature on the subject, identified the following as general characteristics of successful HIV prevention programs: a basis in real, specific needs and community planning; cultural competency; clearly defined audiences, objectives, and interventions; a basis in behavioral and social science theory and research; quality monitoring and adherence to plans; use of evaluation findings and mid-course corrections; and sufficient resources (1995; 135-136). …


We update the capabilities of the open-knowledge software instrument Modules for Experiments in Stellar Astrophysics (MESA). RSP is a new functionality in MESAstar that models the nonlinear radial stellar pulsations that characterize RR Lyrae, Cepheids, and other classes of variable stars. We significantly enhance numerical energy conservation capabilities, including during mass changes. For example, this enables calculations through the He flash that conserve energy to better than 0.001%. To improve the modeling of rotating stars in MESA, we introduce a new approach to modifying the pressure and temperature equations of stellar structure, as well as a formulation of the projection effects of gravity darkening. A new scheme for tracking convective boundaries yields reliable values of the convective core mass and allows the natural emergence of adiabatic semiconvection regions during both core hydrogen- and helium-burning phases. We quantify the parallel performance of MESA on current-generation multicore architectures and demonstrate improvements in the computational efficiency of radiative levitation. We report updates to the equation of state and nuclear reaction physics modules. We briefly discuss the current treatment of fallback in core-collapse supernova models and the thermodynamic evolution of supernova explosions. We close by discussing the new MESA Testhub software infrastructure to enhance source code development.


BACKGROUND: Despite an increase in scholarly and policy interest regarding the impacts of environmental change on migration, empirical knowledge in the field remains varied, patchy, and limited. Generalised discourse on environmental migration frequently oversimplifies the complex channels through which environmental change influences the migration process.

OBJECTIVE: This paper aims to systematise the existing empirical evidence on migration influenced by environmental change with a focus on Africa, the continent most vulnerable to climate change.

METHODS: We select 53 qualitative and quantitative studies on the influence of environmental change on migration from the comprehensive Climig database and systematically analyse the literature considering the multidimensional drivers of migration.

RESULTS: Environmental change influences migration in Africa in an indirect way by affecting other drivers of migration, including sociodemographic, economic, and political factors. How and in what direction environmental change influences migration depends on socioeconomic and geographical contexts, demographic characteristics, and the type and duration of migration.

CONCLUSIONS: The contextually contingent nature of Migration-environment relationships prevents us from drawing a universal conclusion, whether environmental change will increase or suppress migration in Africa. However, this study unravels the complex interactions between the nature and duration of the environmental pressure, the livelihood of the populations, the role of kinship ties and the role of demographic differentials on migration response.

Contribution: The review provides an initial systematic and comprehensive summary of empirical evidence on the environmental drivers of migration in Africa. It also discusses the implications of the scale, materials, and methods used in the 53 studies.


Obesity is disorder in a foremost nutritional health it's developed with countries developing. Also is known as increasingin fat accumulation that lead toproblem in health, besidesmay coin one of the reasons lead toloss of life,the obesity not effect on adults just but effect onoffspringand juveniles. In some ofinhabitants the incidence of obesity is superior in female than in male; on the other hand, the variation degree of the between the genderdifferby country.Obesity is generally measured by body mass index and waist circumference, Obesity are classified according to body mass index into:Pre obesity sort 1 : (25 29.9) kg/m2, Obesity sort 2 : (30 34.9 kg/m2) and extreme obesity sort 3: (40 kg/m2) or greater. Obesity is described by a pathologic condition with augmented overall of cholesterol, triglycerides, LDL cholesterol while reduced of HDL levels.There are many hormones causes pathophysiology of fatness such as adipokines, gutcorrelated hormones and ghrelin, numerous studies have revealed that the association among fatness and the metabolic sickness such as Insulin resistance, activity of lipoprotein lipase in muscle reduction and free fatty acids increasing. Conclusion: Obesity and overweight different between men am women according to quality of life in different population and countries.


Research into the Deed of Foundation of Tihany Abbey (1055) has definitely been flourishing these days: several studies and two monographs (Zelliger 2005, 20112, Hoffmann 2010) have recently been published to commemorate the 950th anniversary of its formulation. Inquiries have produced significant new results primarily for the history of the Hungarian language and historical name studies in connection with the toponyms in the Deed; the personal names in this charter have not, however, provoked much research interest so far. A series of studies introduced by the present paper is going to be devoted to personal names. – This paper deals with theonyms appearing in medieval Hungarian charters, including the Deed of Foundation of Tihany Abbey. Not every aspect of this survey is connected directly to the text of the Deed; still, all are needed to cast light on the characteristics of the use of other name types in its text. – The main conclusions of the paper: 1. Theonyms are consistently inserted into the texts of the observed charters in Latin. 2. Their instances are Latin until they become separated semantically and functionally from their original denotata. 3. The mere functional separation often leads to translation into Latin in name use, which, consequently, is "back-translation" with respect to theonyms. 4. These tendencies become important factors in determining the systematic linguistic relations which, among other things, strictly link medieval ecclesiastic and official name use together. The paper also discusses the connection between ecclesiastic liturgy and patrociny naming.


Surface treatment and bonding oxygen species represent a practical method for strongly enhancing the ballistic characteristic of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) because the electrical properties strongly depend on the surface states. In this work, oxygen plasma was introduced onto the CNTs to remove the remaining defects, leading to a 44.8% improvement in the graphite-like sp2 bonding, which represents the graphite level of the CNTs. Moreover, oxygen species were bonded onto each individual CNT, as seen from the AES analysis. The conductive characteristics, such as resistivity, electron concentration, and electron mobility, for individual treated CNTs were optimized significantly under 20 s oxygen plasma treatment, giving values of 1.23 × 102 μΩ cm, 6.36 × 1018 cm−3, and 8002.23 cm2 V−1 s−1, respectively. Furthermore, we demonstrated an experimental approach to grow aligned CNTs by substrate clamping configurations without a bias voltage or porous substrate, which simplifies the complexity of procedure preparation and enhances the opportunity for extracting individually treated CNTs to investigate their specific conductive characteristics.


Scientific communication has become global and almost instantaneous, and as the Editor in Chief, I feel that it is my duty to present you with the BJBMS as one of the main platforms highlighting the increasing advancements in the basic medicine. The BJBMS aims to cover the broadness of basic medical science and also make the link between the basic research and clinical studies and vice versa. In this we fully depend on you, as potential authors submitting manuscripts to our Journal. But the mainstay of the Journal is top-quality original science. Which studies receive the highest priority? This obviously strongly depends on novelty, the relevance of the research question, and on the strength of the design and data. We also feature strong cell biology and animal studies, which provide the scientific basis of the clinical sciences. As many of you know, we love novel technology, so new molecular methods, imaging and proof-of-concept therapy receive relatively high priority in our Journal. The BJBMS reaches out to you through the web, at www.bjbms.org and of course in its printed form, which arrives on your doors every three months. We were pleasantly surprised to find that the electronic BJBMS has about 1500 visits per month! It's twice more than in the same time last year. The largest number of visitors is from Bosnia & Herzegovina, USA, Serbia, Turkey, India, Croatia, etc. We will continue to make a positive selection of the best papers, which at the time being means we accept one in five/six submitted manuscripts. Based on the above, we will adjust our 2007 instructions to authors at our journal. This is based on the uniform requirements for manuscripts submitted to biomedical journals 1 . Please read it, because it is meant to assist you in getting your manuscripts up to the currently advocated international quality standards. All this illustrates a delightful balance between dynamics and innovation on the one hand, and consistency and experience on the other. This is the way we like it; this is our BJBMS .


Tasmania's Franklin - Lower Gordon Wild Rivers National
Park, together with the other Western Tasmanian Wilderness
Parks, was entered onto the United Nations World Heritage
List in 1982. Encompassing one of the largest south
temperate wilderness areas in the world, these three
contiguous parks provide opportunities for a range of
recreation activities from vehicle-based sightseeing to
extended wilderness white-water rafting.
Recreational pressures on all of the parks are increasing
and they are now being seen, not only as reserves of major
biological and ecological importance, but also as important
components of an increasingly tourist based economy.
Both development within the parks to support recreational
use and their general management have been intuitively based
and until recently the acquisition of visitor data for
planning purposes has been a very low priority. It is
contended that, in the face of increasingly scarce resources
and the need to provide a recreation environment that will
allow maximum visitor satisfaction consistent with the
conservation of the parks, the planning process must take
due account of the nature of the recreation experience and
the objectives of participants.
The purpose of this study is to provide management
information for use in that process and the approach is
based upon the premise that individuals choose to
participate in recreation activities within selected
physical, social, and managerial environments for the
purpose of attaining pre-determined satisfactions or
outcomes. It further presupposes that the focus of the
management effort should be the provision of opportunities
for the pursuit of such satisfactions. Successful management
therefore requires an understanding of the satisfactions or
outcomes that participants associate with the opportunities
provided and the implementation of management prescriptions
that contribute to the attainement of those satisfactions
consistent with the overall policies of the agency.
The immediate objective of the study was to determine the
use and user profiles of the wilderness parks with an
emphasis on the newest, the Franklin - Lower Gordon Wild
Rivers National Park; to determine the nature of the
satisfactions associated by visitors with the opportunities
afforded by the parks and with particular defined activity -
setting complexes; to investigate the existence of
differences between selected subgroups of rafters and their responses to selected management options; and to examine the relationship between the satisfactions and valued outcomes
of current participants and their views on appropriate
management directions.
The research instrument selected was the self-administered
questionnaire completed by a total of 1969 participants from
all of the parks. A further 1028 participants completed a
more lengthy form which included a section consisting of 62
attitudinal scales reflecting possible outcomes associated
with participation. Of these 633 were rafters on the
Franklin - Lower Gordon Wild Rivers.
Analysis undertaken on the basis of the park where contact
was made revealed that, with the exception of the Franklin
-Lower Gordon, the patterns of use and visitor
characteristics were essentially similar with the dominant
use being vehicle-based, short-duration activities centred
around the visitor service areas. Again with the same
exception, the opportunities and outcomes associated with
each of the parks were essentially similar with those
satisfactions arising out of exposure to natural
environments rating most highly followed by those arising
from in-group social interaction and physical exercise. The
Franklin - Lower Gordon Wild Rivers National Park differed
in that outcomes associated with achievement and risk taking
figured more prominently.
Six broadly defined activity settings were established on
the basis of visit duration, activity, and maximum possible
penetration into the parks. These were labelled:
sightseeing, picnicking, daywalking, developed area camping,
bushwalking and rafting. On the basis of participant scoring
of the outcome scales, only three clearly distinguishable
activity settings emerged, each with an identifiably
different pattern of valued outcomes associated with it:
rafting, bushwalking, and a single remaining group of
activity setting complexes the locus of which is confined to
the immediate proximity of the visitor service areas - the
sightseeing, picnicking, daywalking, and developed area
camping.
While managerial presence and policy are an integral part of
the resultant setting, the links between the value placed by
participants on the experience outcomes and their views on
management direction are few and weak and do not provide any
clear indication to management of any broadly shared
perception that selected management directions would either
enhance or detract from future availability of opportunities
to pursue particular experiences.
Differences in outcome profiles occurred among subgroups of
rafters with differences showing up between those in
commercially organised parties and others; first time
participants and those with previous expereience; and between males and females. In terms of future management
options, there was a clear perception on the part of rafters
that controls on user numbers would be appropriate as would
controls on other aspects of rafters' behavior including the
use of fuel stoves, axes and saws. There was also a clear
preference for such controls to be exercised prior to entry
into the park.
Three indices of management presence and control were
developed from participants' scoring of possible management
prescriptions and the relationship between participants
scores on these indices and their outcome scores examined.
The results demonstrate again that outcome scores are not
strong predictors of participant views on future management
direction in this environment.


This dissertation considers certain issues in support vector machines (SVMs), including a description of their construction, aspects of certain exponential kernels used in some SVMs, and a presentation of an algorithm that computes the necessary elements of their operation with proof of convergence. In its first section, this dissertation provides a reasonably complete description of SVMs and their theoretical basis, along with a few motivating examples and counterexamples. This section may be used as an accessible, stand-alone introduction to the subject of SVMs for the advanced undergraduate. Its second section provides a proof of the positive-definiteness of a certain useful function here called E and dened as follows: Let V be a complex inner product space. Let N be a function that maps a vector from V to its norm. Let p be a real number between 0 and 2 inclusive and for any in V , let ( be N() raised to the p-th power. Finally, let a be a positive real number. Then E() is exp(()). Although the result is not new (other proofs are known but involve deep properties of stochastic processes) this proof is accessible to advanced undergraduates with a decent grasp of linear algebra. Its final section presents an algorithm by Dr. Kallman (preprint), based on earlier Russian work by B.F. Mitchell, V.F Demyanov, and V.N. Malozemov, and proves its convergence. The section also discusses briefly architectural features of the algorithm expected to result in practical speed increases.


Aerobic anoxygenic photosynthesis providing additional ATP for a photoheterotrophic lifestyle is characteristic for several representatives of the marine Roseobacter clade. The patchy distribution of photosynthesis gene clusters (PGCs) within this lineage probably results from horizontal transfers and this explanation is supported by two cases of plasmid-located PGCs. In this study sequencing of the three Sulfitobacter guttiformis plasmids (pSG4, pSG53, pSG118) was initiated with the objective to analyse the 118 kb-sized photosynthetic replicon, but our annotation revealed several additional important traits including key genes of the primary metabolism. The comparison of the two photosynthesis plasmids from S. guttiformis and Roseobacter litoralis showed that their replication modules are located at precisely the same position within the 45 kb-sized PGC. However, comprehensive phylogenetic analyses of the non-homologous replicases (RepB-III, DnaA-like I) and the two ParAB partitioning proteins unequivocally document an independent origin of their extrachromosomal replicons. The analogous positioning within the two photosynthesis super-operons can be explained by a two-step recombination scenario and seems to be the ultimate result of stabilizing selection. Our exemplary analyses of 'pink' plasmids document that chromosomal outsourcing is a common phenomenon in the Roseobacter clade and subsequent horizontal exchanges offer rapid access to the marine pan-genome.


The primary aim of this study is to explore women offenders' experiences of, contact with, and
delivery of, community-based health and social care services. Women offenders represent a
particularly disadvantaged and silent group in society whose views have largely been
disregarded in previous studies. More specifically, there has been a general lack of attention to
their experiences of trying to meet their welfare needs before and after they encounter the
Criminal Justice System (CJS). This research sought to provide a more informed
understanding of what participants wanted to convey about their lived realities, the meaning of
their experiences of help-seeking and their perceptions of appropriate responses to their
welfare needs.
The study was local, purposive and applied. It was underpinned by feminist epistemology and
qualitative, heuristic and collaborative methodology. Reflexive dimensions were an integral
part of the whole research process. It was also strengthened by a wish to change policy and
practice as a direct consequence of hearing and taking account of service users' standpoints
on experiencing those policies and practices. Of central importance was a desire to view
women offenders not as research 'subjects' but as 'participants' in a process which would put
their views and perspectives at the centre of the study. Therefore, before embarking on the
study, I set up a research advisory group as a means of collaborating with women who had
direct and personal experience of the CJS as 'expert advisers', to help guide and develop the
research. I also sought ways of working collaboratively with research participants, for example,
by utilising research methods such as participant observation and semi-structured interviews
and asking participants to provide feedback on how I had written up my interactions with them.
I also incorporated participant and gatekeeper evaluation methods to seek their views on their
experiences of the research.
The original contributions to the body of knowledge and understanding that this research
makes are in the identification of characteristics of a service generic model of communitybased
welfare provision. This relates particularly to the attitudes and behaviours of and
delivery by service providers and individual practitioners. It is also framed in the context of
participants' shared experience of domestic violence and its impact on their help-seeking from
welfare services which was previously hidden and unknown. In addition, the study adds to
feminist social research methodology through the development of a feminist and heuristic
approach to collaborative research that seeks to involve the 'knowers' in an innovative way,
that is, as 'expert advisers', throughout the research process. The profound and lasting impact
is the clarity of its core findings: what emerge from women who participated in this work are
appeals for service providers, individual practitioners (and researchers) to be in relationship
with them. Hence, there is a call for the reduction of destructive boundaries in relationships
and the integration of reflexive practice, in both the provision of community-based welfare
services and approaches to conducting research of this kind.


The internet has transformed the idea of home for Indians and Indian Americans. In Virtual Homelands: Indian Immigrants and Online Cultures in the United States, Madhavi Mallapragada analyzes home pages and other online communities organized by diasporic and immigrant Indians from the late 1990s through the social media period. Engaging the shifting aspects of belonging, immigrant politics, and cultural citizenship by linking the home page, household, and homeland as key sites, Mallapragada illuminates the contours of belonging and reveals how Indian American struggles over it trace back to the web's active mediation in representing, negotiating, and reimagining "home." As Mallapragada shows, ideologies around family and citizenship shift to fit the transnational contexts of the online world and immigration. At the same time, the tactical use of the home page to make gender, racial, and class struggles visible and create new modes for belonging implicates the web within complex political and cultural terrain. On e-commerce, community, and activist sites, the recasting of home and homeland online points to intrusion by public agents such as the state, the law, and immigration systems in the domestic, the private, and the familial. Mallapragada reveals that the home page may mobilize to reproduce conservative narratives of Indian immigrants' familial and citizenship cultures, but the reach of a website extends beyond the textual and discursive to encompass the institutions shaping it, as the web unmakes and remakes ideas of "India" and "America."


Current innovations in the automotive industry evolve mainly in the electronics and software domain. This leads to an increasing integration of additional software subsystems into already existing electronic control units (ECUs) to cope with the raised amount and complexity of present ECUs in modern high-end vehicles. This paper discusses different approaches which are required to integrate such add-on software subsystems in an isolated memory domain, and considers particularly the special needs of small embedded systems-including the limited hardware support. Special focus is brought to the efficient detection of malicious memory accesses, as well as the benefits of a thereupon possible and adaptable failure-handling strategy. All investigations are based on a developed memory-protection framework which has been tailored to the special needs of a sample vehicle dynamics control system. Its usage allows the combination of. integrating additional subsystems without reducing the main application's availability


In recent years, large river floodplains have received attention because of their importance in water quality amelioration and biodiversity support. However, few studies have addressed the effects of the extensive anthropogenic modification of floodplains caused by levee construction. To assess the effects of levees on soil properties, we measured microbial activities (electron transport system and extracellular enzyme activities), soil properties (organic matter, pH, ions, soil texture, etc.), coarse woody debris and litter accumulations in a section of the Wisconsin River floodplain in 1999 and 2000, where levees were constructed more than 100 years ago. No significant differences in the amount of organic matter or coarse woody debris were observed outside the levee compared to areas inside the levee. However, significantly higher microbial activities (dehydrogenase, β‐glucosidase, phosphatase) per gram organic matter were found for soils inside the levee. These changes were attributed to (1) modified hydrology, which caused differences in water availability and soil chemistry, and (2) tree species composition (e.g. higher number of oaks outside the levee), which caused differences in substrate quality. These results suggest that modification of the hydrologic regime by levees may alter not only the structure of plant communities but also the organic matter dynamics of floodplain. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


We propose a new routing technique called Security-Aware ad hoc Routing (SAR) that incorporates security attributes as parameters into ad hoc route discovery. SAR enables the use of security as a negotiable metric to improve the relevance of the routes discovered by ad hoc routing protocols. We develop a two-tier classification of routing protocol security metrics, and propose a framework to measure and enforce security attributes on ad hoc routing paths. Our framework enables applications to adapt their behavior according to the level of protection available on communicating nodes in an ad hoc network.


Abstract. Mercury release by coal combustion has been significantly increased in India. Mercury content in coal has been analyzed to 0.272 ppm by Central Pollution Control Board. Toxicological effects of elemental Hg (Hg0) exposure include respiratory and renal failures, cardiac arrest, and cerebral oedema, while subclinical exposure may induce kidney, behavioral, and cognitive dysfunctions. The present work is focused on dispersion pattern and inter-phase exchange phenomena of ambient mercury between air-particulate matter evaluations of alongwith dominance of various major routes of human exposure-dose response using regression analysis around an integrated steel plant in central India. Source-downwind type stratified random sampling plan using longitudinal study design has been adopted for ambient monitoring of total mercury, while representative sampling plant has been adopted for persona exposure-dose response study In space-time framework. Control sites and subjects have been chosen from uncontaminated area (100 km away from any industrial activities). 06 ambient air monitoring stations and 17 subjects from workers, non-workers but local residents' categories and from controlled sites have been chosen for the study. Samples of mercury biomarkers (blood, breast milk and urine) have also been collected from same subjects in each month during sampling period. The sampling period was March 2005 to February 2006 . Samples of 30% acidified KMnO4 for air-Hg absorption, PM10, RPM and biological samples were analyzed for total mercury by ICP-AES using standard methods. Local soils and ground water were also monitored for total mercury content during the sampling period. Results have shown that mercury concentration is very high compared to prescribed limits in all receptors. Results of exchange phenomenon have shown the higher transfer of mercury from air to particulate during combustion in steel plant environment due to presence of huge amount of iron particles, in contrast to results obtained in other industrial locations earlier. Plant workers have shown 1.5 to 2.5 times higher personal RPM-Hg levels compared to Category 2 and 20–30 times higher than Category 3. All biomarkers have shown higher Hg presence compared to prescribed standards. Regression analysis between exposure routes and bio-receptors has been investigated. Dominance status of selected routes of bio-accumulation has been varied from category to category.


ABSTRACT The presence of single and also of married British women in overseas colonies, especially those employed by or married to men in the Colonial Service in the later colonial period, has been the subject of scholarly enquiry. Their lives, roles and values and their distinctive contribution, if any, to the development of empire and of its ending have been debated. Their gendered roles were usually subordinate in a masculine culture of empire, and especially as wives they are commonly regarded as marginalised. The archived records left by Lady Margaret Field reveal her commitment as a single woman to a colonial mission and her sense of achievement as a school teacher and educational administrator, while also acknowledging the independence and career satisfactions she subsequently lost when she married a senior Colonial Service officer who rose to be a governor. But it is also apparent that, though incorporated and subordinate as a governor's wife to her husband's career, she was not marginalised to a separate sphere. As is evident from this case study, governors' wives had important and demanding political duties, and such responsibilities need to be acknowledged.


Taking as its point of departure a systematic presentation of the various types of misunderstandings, ranging from the most banal and benign to the most perverse and pernicious, this text principally examines the ways in which they can pave the way for disagreement. While it is possible that a rational examination of motives and sources pertaining to a misunderstanding may help to minimize its undesirable effects upon communication, a misunderstanding may also signal the incontrovertible and irresolvable nature of a disagreement. This paper, therefore—while basically Habermasian in its orientation—also questions the validity of Jürgen Habermas's premises regarding the ethics of communication: the scope given to speculative reason and the effectiveness of an explicative metadiscourse for clarifying misunderstanding or resolving conflicts; the possibility of authentic discourse in certain conflict situations; consensus as the ultimate goal of dialogue. Although Habermas stipulates that the expectation of validity is incumbent upon any authentic exchange, this paper underscores instead the expectation of satisfaction, which compels all individuals seeking to communicate. Through this comparison, the paper attempts to show that even the most tenacious disagreement originates in this affective nexus, and to show as well how we may construct ethical practices that are contingent upon disagreement.


We resume our series of articles that look at the possibilities for play and learning inherent in certain popular and common early years resources and materials – this month, we look explore writing.


The growth of medium density fiberboard (MDF) in North America has experienced robust growth over the past 20 years and is projected to increase by another 60 percent in the next 8 years. compounding this increase in demand for MDF is a raw material that is ever-increasingly lower in density and higher in juvenility. the dichotomous concept of increased demand witha poorer raw material requires a more fundamental understanding of the mechanisms involved in fiber-to-fiber stress transfer to better engineer a structural wood fiber-based composit. Our laboratory has been investigating several of the most important factors in the mechanics of MDF structural formation. This paper will present some background information on the effect of raw material juvenility on individual fiber and MDF panel stiffness ands strength. Addittional information will also be presented regarding the effect of refining pressures on fiber and panel properties. Quantitative fiber surface morphology as ascertained by scanning electron microscopy and atomic force microscopy will also be presented. This information will be vital to discuss resin behavior on individual fibers during application and pressing. The main focus of this paper is the resin-fiber interaction. Specifically, a low, medium, and high viscosity UF resin was applied to various fiber types to determine the difference in resin distribution for blowline-blended and labratory drum-blended fibers. Panels were also dissected to study the effect of pressing variables on resin flow. A qualitative analysis of resin flow on the fiver surfaces as well as penetration into the cell wall and lumen will be discussed. there will also be a discussion of future work that will quantify the effect of viscosity on resin distribution and flow for various viscosity resins related to fiber juvenility and refiner pressures.


Employing photoelectron emission microscopy (PEEM) as a spatially resolving method the catalytic reduction of NO with CO and H2 has been investigated on microstructured composite surfaces in the 10–6 and 10–5 mbar range. By deposition of Ti and Rh onto a Pt(100) surface, domains of varying size and geometry are created in which the Pt is either surrounded by an inert Ti/TiO2 layer or by a reactive Rh layer. For the NO + CO reaction the behaviour of pulses in circular and ring-shaped geometries is studied. It is shown that the pattern forming properties of the Pt(100) substrate are significantly altered by size restrictions. In the NO + H2 reaction, which was investigated on Pt(100)/Rh microstructures, a strong diffusional coupling between the two metallic substrates occurs. This strong coupling presumably originates from highly mobile adsorbed hydrogen. Pattern formation and front nucleation take place preferentially at the Pt/Rh interface thus suggesting that this region exhibits a particularly high catalytic activity.


Metallic nanowire networks represent a promising solution for a new generation of transparent and flexible devices, including touch screens, solar cells and transparent heaters. They, however, lack stability under thermal and electrical stresses, often leading to the degradation of nanowires, which results in the loss of electrical percolation paths. We propose a comprehensive description of the degradation mechanism in a metallic nanowire network subjected to electrical stress. The nanowire network degradation is ascribed, at a very local scale, to the hot-spot formation and the subsequent propagation of a spatially correlated disruptive crack. We compare the behaviour of actual networks under electrical and thermal stresses to dynamic simulations of randomly deposited sticks on a 2D surface, and a thermal phenomenon simulated in a metal thin film. On one hand, such comparison allows us to deduce an average junction resistance between nanowires. On the other hand, we observed that initial flaws in a discrete network result in a local current density increase in the surrounding area, further leading to an amplified Joule effect. This phenomenon promotes the spatial correlation in the damage of the percolating network. Such non-reversible failure of the transparent electrode is in good agreement with experimental observations.


Current account imbalances have in recent years become a concern of policy makers and public opinion in a number of countries. It is often argued that budget imbalances of the public sector are at the root of the current account imbalances. The aim of this paper is to provide a suitable framework for investigating the determinants of the current account and to use this framework to study the relationship between budget- and current-account imbalances. It is concluded that reactions of the private sector to goverment policies may partially, fully, or even more than fully offset the effects on the current account of budget consolidation efforts depending on the way in which fiscal policy is altered to achieve a reduction in the public sector's borrowing requirement. Simple correlations between fiscal deficits and the current account may be misleading, not only due to the presence of other shocks, but also because it matters how the deficit is changed.


The Kramers-Kronig (KK) relations provide a mathematical relation between the real and imaginary part of a complex function that is analytic in the upper half plane and tends to zero as the argument tends to infinity. The magnetic susceptibility may satisfy the KK relations, but not in all cases. In cases where the susceptibility does not satisfy the usual KK relations, the analogous Modified Kramers-Kronig (MKK) relations were defined. The MKK relations provided a connection between the real and imaginary part of the magnetic permeability. It is the behavior of the permeability for low and high frequencies that determines if the MKK relations are satisfied. The behavior of the magnetic permeability as a function of the frequency was studied, for a general metamaterial. From causality, the permeability was found to behave only as unity, 1/frequency or 1/frequency^2 when the frequency approached zero. The same result were obtained when the frequency approached infinity. This lead to 3^2=9 different possibilities of how the permeability could behave. The nine different possibilities show that the permeability may behave in ways not characterized by the usual KK relations. Thus, causality was found to be less restrictive than the KK relations. Some of the nine possibilities would satisfy the MKK relations directly. However, for other possibilities, a slight modification of the input function was needed. These modifications were found, and based on the nine different possibilities, six different functions of the permeability were found to satisfy the MKK relations. Passive transmission line metamaterials were also studied specifically. Their magnetic permeability permeability were found to generally satisfy the MKK relations, given that their circuit topology consisted of solely serial and parallel circuits with loss.


Bodhidharma, its first patriarch, reputedly said that Zen Buddhism represents "a special transmission outside the teaching/Without reliance on words and letters." This saying, along with the often perplexing use of language (and silence) by Zen masters, gave rise to the notion that Zen is a "lived religion," based strictly on non-linguistic practice and lacking a substantial canon of sacred texts. Even those who recognize the importance of Zen texts commonly limit their focus to a few select texts without recognizing the wide variety of Zen literature. This collection of previously unpublished essays argues that Zen actually has a rich and varied literary heritage. Among the most significant textual genres are hagiographic accounts and recorded sayings of individual Zen masters, koan collections and commentaries, and rules for monastic life. During times of political turmoil in China and Japan, these texts were crucial to the survival and success of Zen, and they have for centuries been valued by practitioners as vital expressions of the truth of Zen. This volume offers learned yet accessible studies of some of the most important classical Zen texts, including some that have received little scholarly attention (and many of which are accessible only to specialists). Each essay provides historical, literary, and philosophical commentary on a particular text or genre. Together, they offer a critique of the "de facto canon" that has been created by the limited approach of Western scholarship, and demonstrate that literature is a diverse and essential part of Zen Buddhism.


Understanding the impacts of disturbances in forest ecosystems is essential for long-term biodiversity conservation. Many studies have evaluated wildlife responses to various disturbances but most generally do not use changes in microclimate features or microhabitat structure to explain these responses. We examined lizard responses to two common forest management practices (prescribed burning and thinning) in pine-hardwood forests of the Bankhead National Forest, Alabama, USA. Over 4 years, we captured 719 individual lizards representing seven species. Lizards exhibited species-specific responses to forest management: eastern fence lizard (Sceloporus undulatus) captures were positively associated with an increasing forest disturbance gradient and were greatest in thin with burn treatments, whereas little brown skink (Scincella lateralis) captures were positively associated with increasing litter depth and were greatest in control sites during the first year posttreatment. Green anole (Anolis carolinensis) captures increased in forest stands with concomitant increases in air temperature, whereas common five-lined skink (Plestiodon fasciatus) captures were related to coarse woody debris cover during posttreatment sampling. We were unable to detect a treatment response or microhabitat/microclimate associations for broad-headed skinks (Plestiodon laticeps). Through an information-theoretic approach, we were able to identify treatment effects along with changes in microclimate and microhabitat features potentially responsible for driving responses of southeastern lizard species to forest management.


Small-eared shrews (Mammalia, Soricidae) of the New World genus Cryptotis are distributed from eastern North America to the northern Andes of South America. One well-defined clade in this genus is the Central American Cryptotis mexicana group, whose members are set off from other species in the genus by their variably broader fore feet and more elongate and broadened fore claws. Two species in the C. mexicana group, Cryptotis goodwini Jackson and Cryptotis griseoventris Jackson, inhabit highlands in Guatemala and southern Mexico and are presumed to be sister species whose primary distinguishing feature is the larger body size of C. goodwini. To better characterize these species and confirm the identification of recently-collected specimens, we obtained digital X-ray images of the manus from large series of dried skins of both species. Measurements of the metacarpals and phalanges successfully separated most specimens of C. goodwini and C. griseoventris. These measurements also show that the fore feet of C. griseoventris from Chiapas, Mexico, are morphologically distinct from those of members of the species inhabiting Guatemala. Univariate, bivariate, and multivariate analyses indicate that fore foot characters are more conservative within species of the C. mexicana group than are cranio-mandibular characters. Patterns of evolution of fore foot characters that superficially appear to be linear gradations are actually more complex, illustrating individual evolutionary trajectories. No claim to original US government works. Journal compilation © 2010 The Linnean Society of London, Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2010, 99, 118–134.


Most research on patients with chronic medical conditions, including Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) have focussed on the negative impact of living with these conditions. More recent research has highlighted that some people experience Positive Psychological Change (PPC) in response to traumatic or adverse events or conditions, but very few studies have looked at PPC in relation to people with RA. The aim of this study was to investigate if people with RA experience PPC and to explore the psychosocial, physical and demographic factors associated with its occurrence. A survey study was conducted to investigate the likelihood and extent of PPC, and the psychosocial, physical and demographic factors that are associated with and which may influence the development of PPC within this population. This study is based on a sample of British individuals with RA who were recruited from the University of Salford Rehabilitation Research Group's Arthritis Research Panel and from the National Rheumatoid Arthritis Society. The data was collected using a pack of eight reliable and valid questionnaires that were mailed to the eligible individuals. Out of 338 invitation packs 228 (67%) questionnaires were returned and completed of which 210 were screened to comprise the final sample. The mean participant age was 62, they were mostly female, (79%) and the majority had the disease for more than 10 years (53.3%). The Silver Lining Questionnaire (SLQ-38) was used as the criterion for PPC and the mean score was 95.09 (SD ± 26.09). In this sample SLQ scores were distributed normally. The criterion for the occurrence of PPC was set at one SD over the SLQ mean (121). Nearly 34% of the current participants reported PPC, and the higher scores were associated with: age; disease duration; psychological well-being; coping strategy; lower fatigue, social support and sense of coherence and resilience. The findings reveal that distancing was the most favourably used coping strategy however, the PPC positively correlated with the cognitive reframing subscale. Implications of this study for the application of psychological principles in Rheumatology services were examined. Limitations of the research along with further direction for the future studies were discussed.


In this paper, I criticize the notion of incommensurability between scientific theories proposed by Kuhn and I put forward a form of comparability based on what I call technified observations as a way to avoid the problem of theory-laddenness produced by untranslatability between theories. I develop three criticisms to the notion of translation that underlies the kuhnian project and to the use of the term incommensurability to refer to this form of lack of isomorphism. I also suggest a way in which progress in science is possible. Finally, I point out some consequences this proposal has for the philosophy, history and sociology of science and for some issues in general epistemology.


This paper models how internet platforms decide whether to introduce virtual currencies. Since platforms operate two-sided markets, virtual currencies may attract users who buy goods/services as well as external firms who accept virtual currency as payment. We find that platform incentives to introduce virtual currencies depend on the distribution of wages across the population of users as well as the distribution of preferences for online activities ("digital" preferences). We use Luxembourg data from the EU Survey on Information and Communication Technologies to test model predictions on user time allocation. In particular, we identify various individual socio-economic characteristics linked to time spent on social networks. Then, we use the user net income distribution (conditional on digital preferences) to evaluate conditions determining the platform's choice of virtual currency design.


This article examines the institutional origins of the prevalent failures of Chinese public hospitals to treat indigent patients from the perspective of changes in the demand and supply of affordable health care. On the demand side, the breakdown of the Maoist health insurance system and insufficient incentive and neglect of the post-Mao regime to rebuild an effective health safety net, together with the collapse of the triage in the reform period, have contributed to an enormous growth of the demand for affordable health care. On the supply side, a weakening of government financial commitment to the health sector since the mid-1980s has undermined the motivation and capacity of public hospitals to provide affordable health services, as many hospitals run on commercial lines and physicians act like entrepreneurs. The article further argues that these changes in the demand and supply of affordable health care illustrate the shrinkage of the post-Mao government's responsibility for welfare provision to the general public.


ABSTRACT DOK1 regulates platelet-derived growth factor (PDGF)-BB-stimulated glioma cell motility. Mechanisms regulating tumour cell motility are essential for invasion and metastasis. We report here that PDGF-BB-mediated glioma cell invasion and migration are dependent on the adaptor protein downstream of kinase 1 (DOK1). DOK1 is expressed in several glioma cell lines and in tumour biopsies from high-grade gliomas. DOK1 becomes tyrosine phosphorylated upon PDGF-BB stimulation of human glioma cells. Knockdown of DOK1 or expression of a DOK1 mutant (DOK1FF) containing Phe in place of Tyr at residues 362 and 398, resulted in inhibition of both the PDGF-BB-induced tyrosine phosphorylation of p130Cas (also known as BCAR1) and the activation of Rap1 (also known as TERF2IP). DOK1 colocalises with tyrosine phosphorylated p130Cas at the cell membrane of PDGF-BB-treated cells. Expression of a non-tyrosine-phosphorylatable substrate domain mutant of p130Cas (p130Cas15F) inhibited PDGF-BB-mediated Rap1 activation. Knockdown of DOK1 and Rap1 inhibited PDGF-BB-induced chemotactic cell migration, and knockdown of DOK1 and Rap1 and expression of DOK1FF inhibited PDGF-mediated three-dimensional (3D) spheroid invasion. These data show a crucial role for DOK1 in the regulation of PDGF-BB-mediated tumour cell motility through a p130Cas–Rap1 signalling pathway.


Optimization of energy consumption in future intelligent energy networks (or Smart Grids) will be based on grid-integrated near-real-time communications between various grid elements in generation, transmission, distribution and loads. This paper discusses some of the challenges and opportunities of communications research in the areas of smart grid and smart metering. In particular, we focus on some of the key communications challenges for realizing interoperable and future-proof smart grid/metering networks, smart grid security and privacy, and how some of the existing networking technologies can be applied to energy management. Finally, we also discuss the coordinated standardization efforts in Europe to harmonize communications standards and protocols.


Necrotic enteritis (NE) or poultry clostridiosis is a disease which poses enormous health problems and makes tremendous economic losses to intensive poultry production worldwide. Despite having been targeted in extensive research for decades, a number of aspects of its pathogenesis remain unknown. For more than 30 years alfa-toxin has been considered to be the main virulence factor of the causative agent, but experimental research using a mutant Clostridium perfringens strain lacking the gene coding for this confirmed that alpha-toxin is not necessary for pathogenesis. Since the 1980s, NetB toxin has been the main suspected virulence factor. However, recently it has been discovered that the large clostridial cytotoxin named TpeL also contributes to the pathogenesis of NE. In spite of that, the prevalence of the genes which code for these toxins vary between the isolates of C. perfringens from the intestines of diseased poultry, which made clear that further investigation into their roles is necessary. It has been agreed that specific intestinal environmental conditions, which favour the growth and multiplication of C. perfringens, are key factors to the emergence of disease. Given that a battery of non-specific factors contributes to pathogenesis, as well as that it is impossible to eliminate them in intensive poultry production, not much hope remains that NE can be controlled. In this short review, the current knowledge on the pathogenesis of NE has been summarized.


Deepwater oil and gas development activities have increased significantly in the last few
decades to meet the global demand for energy. One of the key components of these
developments is the oil and gas transportation pipeline. Deepwater pipelines are often laid on the
seabed and may vertically penetrate into the seabed sediment (primarily clay) or remain
suspended in the case of uneven seabed profiles. Partially embedded pipelines might displace
laterally during operation due to changes in internal pressure and temperature. The displacement
of the pipeline depends on soil resistance, which is also related to the initial embedment. The
suspended pipelines might also be impacted by soil blocks moving out from submarine
landslides. Moreover, in deepwater, steel catenary risers (SCR)—a long pipe of 150–600 mm
typical diameter—are often used to transport hydrocarbon from the seabed production system to
floating production facilities. The interaction between soil, water and pipes (partially embedded,
suspended or SCR) involves significant large deformations, which cannot be modeled properly
using traditional Lagrangian-based finite element (FE) techniques and therefore improved
numerical modeling is required for safe and economic design.
In the present study, simulations of the large deformation behaviour of deepwater pipelines
and SCRs are performed using two numerical approaches. First, simulation is performed using
the Coupled Eulerian-Lagrangian (CEL) approach available in the Abaqus FE software. In CEL,
the soil is modeled as an Eulerian material that flows through the fixed mesh and therefore
numerical issues related to mesh distortion at large displacements are avoided. Simulations are
performed for undrained loading conditions implementing a strain-rate and strain-softening
dependent undrained shear strength model for clay in Abaqus CEL through user subroutines. For
partially embedded pipelines, numerical simulations are performed for vertical penetration and subsequent lateral displacements. In addition, dynamic penetration of the pipeline into a
deepwater soft clay seabed is simulated. The penetration and lateral resistances are compared
with the results of previous physical model tests, and numerical and analytical solutions.
Recognizing the limitations of Abaqus CEL and other FE modeling techniques to simulate
the role of water, ANSYS CFX—a finite volume software—is used in the second approach for
numerical modeling. A technique is developed to implement strain-rate and strain-softening
dependent undrained shear strength of clay in ANSYS CFX. The comparison between
penetration resistances obtained from CEL and CFX shows that the latter approach can simulate
the effect of water in the cavity formed behind the pipe when it penetrates to a sufficiently large
depth into the clay seabed, with a transition between shallow and deep failure mechanisms.
In the SCR–seabed–water interaction modeling, in addition to undrained remoulding, the
reduction of undrained shear strength due to other factors such as water entrainment is
considered using "shear wetting". Cyclic degradation of penetration and uplift resistance,
development of suction under the riser during uplift, and the formation of a trench are
successfully simulated for a large number of cyclic motions near the seabed, where a significant
shear strength reduction occurs, as reported from physical model tests.
The impact force on suspended offshore pipelines by submarine landsides is also simulated
using both Abaqus CEL and ANSYS CFX. The development of forces on the pipe with its
penetration into the soil block shows that the trapped water behind the pipe influences the failure
mechanisms and magnitude of force. The suction in the trapped water and flow of free water
through the channel formed behind the pipe is simulated using ANSYS CFX. Based on a
comprehensive parametric study with calibration against a series of centrifuge test results, a set
of empirical equations are proposed to calculate the impact force on suspended pipelines.


The rapid growth of the global human population has led to an urgent need for affordable safe food. Since poultry meat can help satisfy this need the global poultry industry has experienced significant growth in recent years. Pathogenic avian viruses represent a major threat to the industry. Although a large number of viruses infect poultry, some avian viruses cause inapparent infections while others cause severe diseases with economically devastating consequences. In addition some avian viruses are zoonotic thus capable of infecting humans. For example, the highly pathogenic avian influenza virus subtype H5N1 can infect humans, often having fatal outcomes. This comprehensive book provides a timely update on all of the most important avian viruses: avian influenza virus, infectious bronchitis virus, Newcastle disease virus, infectious bursal disease virus, chicken anemia virus, infectious laryngotracheitis virus, avian adenovirus, Marek's disease virus, avian reovirus, avian pox virus, avian leukosis virus, avian metapneumovirus, and avian paramyxoviruses. The chapters are written by internationally recognized experts from all over the world who have made seminal contributions to their respective field of avian virus research. Each chapter covers the current knowledge on the history, genome organization, viral proteins, genetics, epizootiology, pathogenesis, immunity, diagnosis, prevention and control, and future challenges of these viruses. The book closes with a fascinating chapter that reviews the recent advances on avian immune responses to virus infection. This book is an invaluable reference source of timely information for students, virologists, immunologists, veterinarians, and scientists working on avian diseases. It is also highly recommended for all veterinary school and university libraries.