In the recent years, a set of works have addressed inherent characteristics of the fading propagation channel in an information-theoretic framework oriented towards security. In particular, for cryptographic purposes, secure key bits can be extracted from reciprocal radio channels, seen as a shared source of randomness between any two entities. In this paper we intend to assess the impact of true radio channel features on the security performance, by quantizing the complex channel coefficients into discrete key bits. To this end, indoor channel measurements were performed and investigated in different scenarios, e.g. LOS/NLOS condition, narrowband (NB) as well as wide band (WB) targeting OFDM systems. Secret key robustness is firstly studied for the legitimate terminals in terms of key bit disagreement ratio and key randomness, and secondly by considering an eavesdropper in a wide set of positions around these terminals and by evaluating the difference between the generated keys. A simplified channel model is also analyzed in comparison with the measured channels, as regards the characteristics of generated key bits.


The design and performance of a continuously operated singly resonant synchronously pumped potassium titanyl phosphate optical parametric oscillator is described. With an all-solid-state pump source providing 2-ps pulses at 523 nm, we found that the oscillation threshold pump intensity was ~60 MW cm−2, in good agreement with design calculations. The output of the optical parametric oscillator provided transform-limited pulses of 1–2-ps duration at a 125-MHz repetition rate, continuously tunable over the range of 938–1184 nm, with tens of milliwatts of average power.


Background and Purpose: Fever is one of the most frequent disease symptoms and a common cause of emergency admissions in infants and children. Considering the alarming nature of fever and pivotal role of mothers in the management of this symptom in children, this study aimed to evaluate the ability of fever management among mothers in Sabzevar city, Iran. Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted on 340 mothers with children aged less than 10 years referring to the healthcare centers of Sabzevar city, Iran in 2014. Data were collected using prepared checklists to assess the performance and ability of mothers in the management of fever. Data analysis was performed in SPSS V.20 using descriptive statistics, Mann-Whitney U test, and Kruskal-Wallis test. Results: In this study, mean score of fever management was 4.65±1.64, and 20.9% of the mothers used antipyretic drugs at the body temperature of 38°C to control the fever of children. In addition, 83.7% of the mothers used antipyretics during the night by waking the children. Our findings were indicative of a significant association between fever management and maternal age (P=0.048), education level (P=0.002), employment status (P<0.001), and referring to community healthcare centers (P<0.001). Conclusion: According to the results of this study, mothers with low education levels required training to promote their performance and conceptions regarding fever in order for the effective management of this common symptom in children.


Segment-based classification is one of the popular approaches for object detection, where the performance of the classification task is sensitive to the accuracy of the output of the initial segmentation. Majority of the object detection systems directly use one of the generic segmentation algorithms, such as mean shift or k-means. However, depending on the problem domain, the properties of the regions such as size, color, texture, and shape, which are suitable for classification, may vary. Besides, fine tuning the segmentation parameters for a set of regions may not provide a globally acceptable solution in remote sensing domain, since the characteristic properties of a class in different regions may change due to the cultural and environmental factors. In this study, we propose a domain-specific segmentation method for building detection, which integrates information related to the building detection problem into the detection system during the segmentation step. Buildings in a remotely sensed image are distinguished from the highly cluttered background, mostly, by their rectangular shapes, roofing material and associated shadows. The proposed method fuses the information extracted from a set of unsupervised segmentation outputs together with this a priori information about the building object, called domain-specific information (DSI), during the segmentation process. Finally, the segmentation output is provided to a two-layer decision fusion algorithm for building detection. The advantage of domain-specific segmentation over the state-of-the-art methods is observed both quantitatively by measuring the segmentation and detection performances and qualitatively by visual inspection.


Objectives To compare mortality risks in patients with rheumatoid arthritis-associated interstitial lung disease (RA-ILD) and patients with RA without ILD. Design Matched cohort study. Setting The study was conducted in Denmark, using nationwide, prospectively collected data. Participants Among patients with RA diagnosed between 2004 and 2016, 679 patients with RA-ILD were matched for birth year, gender and age at RA diagnosis with 11 722 patients with RA but without ILD. Main outcome measures Mortality risks were assessed using Kaplan-Meier mortality curves, and hazard rate ratios (HRRs) for death were estimated using Cox proportional hazards regression models. Results The number of prevalent RA patients more than doubled from 15 352 to 35 362 individuals during the study period. RA-ILD was seen in 2.2% of incident RA patients. 34.0% of RA-ILD cases were diagnosed within 1 year prior to and 1 year after the RA diagnosis. One-year mortality was 13.9% (95% CI, 11.4% to 16.7%) in RA-ILD and 3.8% (95% CI, 3.5% to 4.2%) in non-ILD RA, 5-year mortality was 39.0% (34.4% to 43.5%) and 18.2% (17.3% to 19.1%) and 10-year mortality was 60.1% (52.9% to 66.5%) and 34.5% (32.8% to 36.1%), respectively. The HRRs for death were 2 to 10 times increased for RA-ILD compared with non-ILD RA, irrespective of follow-up period. Stratified analysis showed that the HRR for death was highest in the first months after the diagnosis of RA-ILD was made, especially in patients diagnosed with RA before diagnosis of ILD. HRR was higher in males and in patients without comorbidity as assessed by the Charlson Comorbidity Index. Conclusions ILD is a serious complication in RA, with a significantly increased mortality compared with a large matched cohort of RA comparisons without ILD.


Social institutions viewed from a Hayekian perspective closely match evolutionary and ecological perspectives in biology. All rely on the same systemic relationships of variation, selection, and inheritance. What Hayek called spontaneous orders are variations of a larger range of related phenomena. Concepts developed in one such field can enrich our understanding of analogous phenomena in others. Among the most important concepts explored here are individuals, organisms, species, and ecosystems. This integration carries important implications for how human societies can exist sustainably on the


This article is an effort to retell the story of the 1942 riot in the Bahamas. Although the riot was triggered by a labour dispute, it was the first sign of political awakening in the colony's Black community. It was the first in a series of tremors along the fault line that divided the rich White from the poorer Black Bahamians, and was arguably the start of a political movement that eventually led to majority rule and independence.


Four studies are reported that examine the status and potentials for local businesses to leverage the Gold Coast Honda Indy. The leveraging efforts of local businesses are identified in Study 1. Most local business managers fail to recognize the event as a leveraging opportunity. Tactics used by businesses that do attempt to leverage the event are examined in Study 2. Businesses that leverage the event obtain benefits through the use of standard promotional and theming tactics. Experts' views about leveraging the event are obtained in Study 3. The experts conclude that some coordination of local businesses' leveraging efforts would be advantageous. The views of local business leaders are solicited in Study 4. The business leaders favor leveraging but prefer that the coordination come from an existing business organization or association, rather than through government or a new bureaucracy. The studies suggest that the potentials for leveraging are largely unrealized and that some degree of inertia would n...


The formation and operation of dynamic and open virtual organisations is a central concern in business-to-business e-commerce. Virtual organisations enable partner companies to develop and manufacture customised products with low costs and rapid delivery. Agent-based architectures are an effective platform for such virtual organisations because they provide mechanisms to allow organisations to advertise their capabilities, exchange rich information, and synchronise workflows at a high-level of abstraction. In this paper, we examine the KRAFT architecture and its features for supporting virtual organisations. In particular, we focus upon KRAFT's use of constraints as a knowledge exchange medium, and show how constraint fusion supports the design of customised products.


This exploration of Henry's life and image, and the extraordinary reaction to his death, transforms our understanding of this exceptional prince and the time in which he lived. In November 1612, shortly before his nineteenth birthday, Henry, the eldest son of James I and Anne of Denmark, died of typhoid fever after a short illness. The nation was struck by grief at the loss of this most promising prince who, it was believed, would become a king to transform Britain. Unlike his father, Henry was seen as militaristic, ardently Protestant and fiercely moral; he was also a precocious patron of the arts, collecting paintings, sculpture and books, commissioning ambitious garden designs and architecture, and performing in elaborate court festivities. Furthermore, Henry took an active interest in the navy and exploration, sponsoring an expedition to find the North-West Passage and giving his name to new settlements in Virginia. Authors Catharine MacLeod, Malcolm Smuts and Timothy Wilks examine Henry's upbringing and education, his court and patronage, his collecting, and finally his illness, death and legacy, and question traditional assumptions about the prince. The book showcases some of the most important works of art and culture produced in the Jacobean period, including masque designs by Inigo Jones, portraiture by Robert Peake and Isaac Oliver, poetry by Ben Jonson and music by Thomas Tompkins and William Byrd. Also featured are exquisite inlaid armour made for Henry, garden designs, renaissance bronzes, old master paintings from his collection, books from his library, and a selection of manuscript letters and writing exercises in Henry's hand.


Of all biomolecules, proteins are arguably the most important gears in our cellular machinery when it comes to biological function. Mass spectrometry (MS)-based proteomics has become the method of choice to study proteomic systems in a global and unbiased manner. Yet, it still trails 'next-generation' genomics and transcriptomics technology in terms of coverage, throughput and sensitivity. In this thesis, I present three MS acquisition strategies that break through longstanding technological limitations and facilitate comprehensive and high-throughput proteomics.
Isobaric labeling enables quantification of multiple samples in a single analysis and thereby increases throughput. In a first project, I established a tailored acquisition strategy for a new generation of isobaric labels termed EASI-tag. As opposed to previous technologies, the EASI-tag method is interference-free and therefore allows multiplexed and accurate quantification, also on widely used tandem mass spectrometers.
A core subject of my PhD was establishing ion mobility spectrometry as an additional dimension of separation in MS-based proteomics. This work builds on a high-resolution and high-speed quadrupole time-of-flight platform, which was equipped with a trapped ion mobility (TIMS) device. Making use of the sensitivity and flexibility of the TIMS device, we developed 'parallel accumulation – serial fragmentation' (PASEF), which effectively multiplies peptide sequencing speed and sensitivity by first storing all ions and then switching the quadrupole isolation window synchronously with ion mobility separation. The PASEF method has now become an integral part of a full-fledged commercial proteomics instrument.
The third method, termed BoxCar, addresses a fundamental limitation of Orbitrap mass analyzers, which are the main workhorses in proteomics laboratories worldwide. For reasons detailed in this thesis, in practice, less than 1% of all ions are used for mass analysis in full scans. BoxCar increases this fraction up to a factor of 10 by dividing the entire mass range into multiple narrow segments or 'boxes'. This thesis establishes an increase in dynamic range of the mass analysis of about one order of magnitude, which allowed detection of 10,000 proteins in 100 min from mouse brain tissue at the MS1-level. The method is particularly beneficial for analyses that are limited by a large protein abundance range, as is often the case in a clinical context. In our laboratory, BoxCar has already dramatically improved proteomics studies of human heart and plasma samples.
In summary, this PhD thesis provides the basis for next-generation MS acquisition methods that promise to elevate proteomics to the next level, closer to the ultimate goal of complete and ubiquitous proteomes. Importantly, the fundamental concepts and methods developed here are generic and can seamlessly be applied in other MS-based omics fields facing similar challenges, fox example metabolomics.


Abstract Purpose: The aim of the current study was twofold. The first aim was to investigate, from the aspects of gender, age and Body Mass Index, the prevalence of fear among individuals with osteoarthritis that their joints would be harmed if the performed physical activity. The second aim was to determine if a patient education programme might lessen this fear. Method: A total of 100 participants were enrolled in a randomised controlled study and completed measures on two occasions over the course of six months. The participants were randomised to either an intervention group or to a control group. Results: More than a quarter of the participants feared that their joints would be harmed if they performed physical activity. This was reported by significantly more men than women. Age and Body Mass Index did not seem to have any significant impact on the fear. The patient education programme for osteoarthritis reduced fear significantly (p = 0.010). Conclusions: A patient education programme appear to be one way of reducing the fear among individuals with osteoarthritis, that the joints would be harmed by physical activity.


Purpose. To investigate the capacity of isolated chick embryo photoreceptors to develop and maintain outer-segment processes in dissociated cell cultures, in the absence of pigment epithelial and glial cells. Methods. Cells were obtained from the retinas of embryonic day (ED) 17 chick embryos, after the onset of outer-segment formation in vivo. After a 5to 12-minute incubation in Caand Mgfree Hanks' balanced salt solution, neural retinas were freed from other optical tissues, including the pigment epithelium. Retinal cell suspensions were prepared by repeated pipeting after mild trypsinization and were grown in serum-containing medium on a polyornithine-coated substratum. Cell differentiation was evaluated using phase-contrast and transmission electron microscopes and by autoradiographic analysis of the uptake of putative amino acid neurotransmitters, lectin cytochemical analysis, and immunocytochemical analysis with rodand cone-specific antibodies. Cells isolated from ED 8 retinas, before the onset of outer-segment formation in vivo, were also studied. Results. At culture onset, ED 17 cells appeared morphologically undifferentiated and devoid of processes; differentiated features could be detected after 24 to 48 hours in vitro. Photoreceptor cells were the most abundant cell type after 6 days in vitro, followed by nonphotoreceptor multipolar neurons and morphologically undifferentiated cells. Autoradiographic analysis showed extensive Na-dependent uptake of {2,3,4-H}7-aminobutyric acid in nonphotoreceptor neurons, whereas photoreceptors were labeled predominantly with H-glutamate. Most of the photoreceptors were labeled with fluorescent peanut lectin and with a sheep polydonal antibody against bovine rhodopsin. Subsets of photoreceptors, on the other hand, were immunoreactive with coneor rod-specific monoclonal antibodies COS-1, OS-2, 50-1B11, or Rho4D2. Approximately 50% to 65% of the photoreceptors positive with these monoclonal antibodies showed a remarkable polarization of immunoreactive materials, which accumulated predominantly, or even exclusively, in an outersegment-like apical process. When viewed on the transmission electron microscope, these outersegment-like processes appeared as distal expansions of the photoreceptor cilium and contained disc-like membranous profiles. Outer-segment-like processes also could be detected using the electron microscope and by immunocytochemical analysis of cultures of ED 8 retinal cells. Conclusions. After undergoing morphologic dedifferentiation as a result of tissue dissociation, isolated retinal photoreceptors, grown in the absence of contact-mediated cell interactions and of pigment epithelial and glial cells, can regenerate and maintain a highly polarized pattern of structural and molecular organization, including the formation of outer-segmentlike processes. The cultures provide an experimental system for the investigation of cellular and molecular mechanisms regulating further development and maturation of these photoreceptor structures. Invest Ophthalmol Vis Sci. 1996; 37:561-573.


The academic and political debate over judicial activism has been based on the overriding but patently false assumption that the Supreme Court's performance can be measured by examining the results that it reaches in constitutional cases. When scholars and politicians equate judicial activism with judicial invalidation of the works of the political branches or the reversal of precedent, however, these commentators don't reveal anything different than would a pure descriptive account of the Court's decision and rationale. Moreover, the judicial activism debate is unhelpful because the ambiguous sources of constitutional interpretation cannot privilege fundamental baselines or generate consensus over correct or incorrect outcomes. Instead of arguing over how "activist" the Court acts, I suggest that we should instead focus on how transparently the Court writes its opinions and how honestly it deals with other positive law materials. To demonstrate that point, the article discusses a number of decisions where the Court's opinions threatened rule of law principles and violated minimum standards of judicial responsibility. I also use the jurisprudence of Justice Kennedy to distinguish between proper and improper Supreme Court opinions, and argue that focusing on how well the Court treats the past and the record in the case before it is more valuable in evaluating the Court than the endless back and forth of the judicial activism debate.


Electrical impedance tomography (EIT) is a fast and cost-effective technique to provide a tomographic conductivity image of a subject from boundary current–voltage data. This paper proposes a time and memory efficient method for solving a large scale 3D EIT inverse problem using a parallel conjugate gradient (CG) algorithm. The 3D EIT system with a large number of measurement data can produce a large size of Jacobian matrix; this could cause difficulties in computer storage and the inversion process. One of challenges in 3D EIT is to decrease the reconstruction time and memory usage, at the same time retaining the image quality. Firstly, a sparse matrix reduction technique is proposed using thresholding to set very small values of the Jacobian matrix to zero. By adjusting the Jacobian matrix into a sparse format, the element with zeros would be eliminated, which results in a saving of memory requirement. Secondly, a block-wise CG method for parallel reconstruction has been developed. The proposed method has been tested using simulated data as well as experimental test samples. Sparse Jacobian with a block-wise CG enables the large scale EIT problem to be solved efficiently. Image quality measures are presented to quantify the effect of sparse matrix reduction in reconstruction results.


Captive breeding programs are increasingly being used as a management option for threatened mammals. The greater bilby Macrotis lagotis, for example, is a vulnerable species which is maintained in captivity at several facilities in Australia. Non-invasive evaluation of stress hormones (cortisol in mammals) via excretory metabolites can be used to monitor physiological stress responses of captive individuals. In this study, we validated an enzyme-immunoassay (EIA) to measure cortisol metabolites in fresh faecal samples of adult male and female bilbies (n = 7) held in captivity at the Dreamworld Theme Park, Queensland, Australia. The faecal cortisol EIA was validated via parallelism and the recovery of exogenous cortisol added to pooled faecal extracts (>99% recovery). Female bilbies had higher average faecal cortisol metabolite concentrations and higher day-to-day variation than male bilbies; however, there was no relationship with bilby age. Cortisol metabolites for most individuals varied widely through time, with numerous peaks and troughs in response to long-term stressors (illnesses, injury and reproductive issues) and short-term stressors, such as use in shows at Dreamworld or public displays in local schools, manual restraint and short-term veterinary procedures (e.g. general anaesthesia). Overall, the higher mean cortisol metabolite concentrations of individuals suffering long-term stress was related to a greater response to short-term stressors. This suggests an interaction between responses to short-term and long-term stressors which is perhaps due to habituation and/or facilitation of long-term stressors. Non-invasive faecal monitoring of stress hormones could provide further information on the implications of captive breeding programs and the release of animals reared in captivity.


Abstract. The geodetic method is widely used for assessing changes in the mass balance of mountain glaciers. However, comparison of repeated digital elevation models only provides a glacier volume change that must be converted to a change in mass using a density assumption or model. This study investigates the use of a constant factor for the volume-to-mass conversion based on a firn compaction model applied to simplified glacier geometries with idealized climate forcing, and two glaciers with long-term mass balance series. It is shown that the "density" of geodetic volume change is not a constant factor and is systematically smaller than ice density in most cases. This is explained by the accretion/removal of low-density firn layers, and changes in the firn density profile with positive/negative mass balance. Assuming a value of 850 p 60 kg m−3 to convert volume change to mass change is appropriate for a wide range of conditions. For short time intervals (l3 yr), periods with limited volume change, and/or changing mass balance gradients, the conversion factor can however vary from 0–2000 kg m−3 and beyond, which requires caution when interpreting glacier mass changes based on geodetic surveys.


Web 2.0 regards essentially the social issues about the new usage of web applications, but participative web and user generated contents induce a new way to think about the design of the web applications themselves. This is particularly true in the field of educational systems that are all web based applications. Many researchers are now devoted to study what is called e-learning 2.0 both as regards the technological issues in the field of computer science, and in relation to the impact of the web 2.0 social and psychological issues on the education process itself. One of the most crucial topics in e-learning 2.0 is the way to provide support to the teacher/tutor to avoid cognitive overload when he/she is monitoring the evolution group dynamics inside the class, and decides the proper strategies to ensure the pursuit of the learning goals. Map visualization is a good way to present information without cognitive overload. We present a map-based tool in support of the tutor that is an extension of our ITS called TutorJ. The tool allows a human tutor to have multiple map visualizations about the domain of the course, the social (forum-based) interaction between the students, and the amount of topics faced by each student. The paper reports a detailed description of the architecture of the tool, and a discussion about its relevance in the field of e-learning 2.0.


The June 2016 joint consultation on listing regulation arises out of a renewed concern to ensure the Hong Kong market remains fit for purpose in meeting current and emergent challenges and demands. This paper undertakes an analysis of the consultation applying a law and principles based approach. This approach requires the listing regime to be suitable not only in view of market conditions but also in view of internationally accepted practices and standards concerning regulatory oversight. While it is recognized that regulatory evolution requires progressive innovation, the two new SEHK sub-committees envisaged by the joint consultation give rise to several areas of concern. The reasons for implementing the changes proposed are not well explained in the consultation and no clear case is presented as to why the sub-committee structure would provide improvements. Putting the SFC into a frontline decision-making role is problematic under the current statutory framework, and is not necessarily a forward moving step toward a system of statutory listing regulation. It implements changes that bypass legislative intent and renders certain statutory laws meaningless, it may subject the SFC to corporate laws that would impact on its ability to act as an independent regulator, and it would diminish regulatory accountability and clarity. The risk that the changes could be regarded as legislation by regulation would weaken, not strengthen, the SFC's regulatory mandate over public listings. These problems run counter to the intent of the Proposal to improve listing regulation and carry the risk that Hong Kong's governance of listings, particularly the role of the statutory regulator in it, would be at odds with international best practices. The conclusion of this paper is that progressing with the sub-committee proposal would not be a positive development unless and until the issues identified in this paper are properly addressed and resolved. It is suggested that a more holistic view of market development needs to be adopted that extends beyond the decision making mechanisms of the dual filing regime and identifies more precisely the specific issues that are problematic. Doing so would permit more targeted and sustainable oversight mechanisms to be developed.


Immunotherapy entails treatments that stimulate, enhance or inhibit a patient's own im-mune system to challenge a specific disease. The immune system is capable of distinguishing between healthy and tumorigenic cells and the following treatments are aimed at those cells that become cancerous. There are three approaches employed in immunotherapy namely monoclonal antibody administration, immunotherapy making use of cytokines and vaccine-based immunotherapy. Artificially produced monoclonal antibodies are employed to target tumorigenic cells by exerting an antagonistic effect on growth factor receptors or to contrib-ute to the induction of antibody-dependent cell-mediated cytotoxicity. These actions result in the disruption of tumorigenic cells or improvement of the immune response directed against tumorigenic cells. Monoclonal antibodies blocking cytotoxic T-lymphocyte associated pro-tein 4 resulted in tumor regression. Several cytokines are responsible for the stimulation of immune responses directed against tumorigenic cells. Various cytokines also stimulate tumor necrosis factor family members for induction of apoptosis in tumorigenic cells. Vaccines en-tail an active immunotherapeutic approach in which an immune response is induced by the external administration of antigens. Three different cancer vaccines are currently in use namely vaccines preventing cancer recurrence of treated cancers, eradication of cancer cells not destroyed by previous treatment and targeting of cancer-causing viruses. However, it is clear that immunotherapy should be used in combination with other known treatments to have the optimal effect.


The United Kingdom is expected to begin the 2-year process of exiting the European Union by the end of March. U.K. researchers are now facing up to the prospect that they won9t be able to apply for EU funding or easily recruit postdocs and colleagues from the rest of Europe. To lessen the blow to research, scientists and bureaucrats are already brainstorming about new funding structures and international collaborations that could make up for the lost EU money and brainpower. They are also taking some comfort in a major boost to government R&D funding, detailed last week, aimed at building up research areas that could bolster domestic industries. Yet much uncertainty hangs on what are expected to be rancorous negotiations with the European Union, covering issues such as the right of foreign citizens to remain in the United Kingdom and a possible exit bill from Brussels.


The estuarine plume dynamics under a downwelling-favorable wind condition were examined in the windy dry season of the Pearl River Estuary (PRE) using the PRE primitive-equation Finite-Volume Community Ocean Model (FVCOM). The wind and tide-driven estuarine circulation had a significant influence on the plume dynamics on both local and remote scales. Specifically, the local effect of downwelling-favorable winds on the plume was similar to the theoretical descriptions of coastal plumes, narrowing the plume width, and setting up a vertically uniform downstream current at the plume edge. Tides tended to reduce these plume responses through local turbulent mixing and advection from upstream regions, resulting in an adjustment of the isohalines in the plume and a weakening of the vertically uniform downstream current. The remote effect of downwelling-favorable winds on the plume was due to the wind-induced estuarine sea surface height (SSH), which strengthened the estuarine circulation and enhanced the plume transport accordingly. Associated with these processes, tide-induced mixing tended to weaken the SSH gradient and thus the estuarine circulation over a remote influence scale. Overall, the typical features of downwelling-favorable wind-driven estuarine plumes revealed in this study enhanced our understanding of the estuarine plume dynamics under downwelling-favorable wind conditions.


Cellular hyper-proliferation, endothelial dysfunction and oxidative stress are hallmarks of the pathobiology of pulmonary hypertension. Indeed, pulmonary endothelial cells proliferation is susceptible to redox state modulation. Some studies suggest that superoxide stimulates endothelial cell proliferation while others have linked the proliferative response to an up-regulation of peroxynitrite in lungs under oxidative stress. Given the divergence of opinion on the subject, it is important to establish the agents mediating cellular hyper-proliferation under oxidative stress. Using the combination of xanthine and xanthine oxidase, the current study demonstrates that neither superoxide nor hydrogen peroxide stimulated pulmonary endothelial cell proliferation. Alone, low level superoxide (100 RLU/s) did not alter DNA synthesis in endothelial cell and high concentration (500 RLU/s) superoxide decreased DNA synthesis to 31.8±3%, 30.4±2%, and 53.8±5% control at 0.1, 0.5 and 2.5% basal growth stimulation, respectively. Nonetheless, the formation of peroxynitrite under this condition stimulated proliferation to 49.2±9%, 51.1±8% and 71.2±2%, respectively. Taken together, pulmonary endothelial cell proliferation occurred only under conditions producing nitric oxide and superoxide in concert. Keywords : Oxidative stress, superoxide, endothelial cells, peroxynitrite, proliferation


The hypothesis of ecohydrological separation (ES) proposes that the water contained in surface soils is not uniformly extracted by root water uptake nor uniformly displaced by infiltration. Rather vegetation selectively removes water held under tension, and water infiltrating wet soil will bypass much of the water‐filled pore space. Methodological differences across previous studies have contributed to disagreement concerning the prevalence of ES. We measured stable isotopes of O and H in precipitation, snowpack, canopy throughfall, and stream water over a period of 18 months in a temperate catchment. At six locations across a wetness gradient, we sampled bulk soil water isotopes weekly and xylem water of Eastern hemlock and American beech stems seasonally. We used these observations in a soil column model including StorAge Selection functions to estimate the isotopic composition and ages of groundwater recharge and ET. Our findings suggest ES may exist with spatial and temporal heterogeneity. Root water uptake ages possibly vary between Eastern hemlock and American beech, suggesting functional strategies for water uptake may control the presence of ES. Newly infiltrated water bypassing the shallow soil was the most likely explanation for bulk soil isotopic measurements made at upslope locations during the winter and summer seasons, whereas rapid displacement of stored soil water by infiltrated waters was the most likely during the spring and fall seasons. Future research incorporating high temporal frequency soil and plant xylem water isotopic measurements applied to StorAge Selection functions may provide a useful framework for understanding rooting zone isotope dynamics.


Objectives The aim of this study was to evaluate and compare the effects of radial extracorporeal shock wave therapy (rESWT) and supervised exercises with neuromuscular inhibition (NMI) technique in improving pain, function, and grip strength in the treatment of patients with lateral epicondylitis (LE). Patients and methods A total of 50 patients with LE (11 males, 30 females; median age: 46 years; range, 23 to 57 years) whose symptoms persisted for at least three months between February 2015 and August 2015 were included in the prospective, randomized-controlled, clinical study. The patients were divided into two groups as the rESWT group (n=25) receiving a total of three rESWT sessions (once per week with 1.8 bar pneumatic pressure, 10 Hz frequency, and with 2,000 pulses) and the exercise group (n=25) receiving supervised exercises with NMI (three times per week for three weeks). Pain and function were evaluated using Visual Analog Scale, the total Patient-Rated Tennis Elbow Evaluation, the Roles and Maudsley score, while the grip strength was evaluated using a hand dynamometer at one and three months after treatment compared to baseline. Results A significant improvement was observed in all outcome criteria at one and three months after treatment, compared to baseline, in both the rESWT and exercise groups (p<0.05). There was no significant difference in terms of the changes in the outcome criteria between the groups (p>0.05). Conclusion The rESWT seems to provide no significantly superior benefit than supervised exercises with NMI at least until the three months in the treatment of LE.


Do Christian missionaries who exhibit good person-job fit, ('aligned' with host nation colleagues and 'in harmony' with expatriate colleagues), experience more positive work attitudes? Personjob fit was conceptualized in terms of competencies. Perspectives on what competencies the role of missionary requires were obtained from 3 groups of subject matter experts: host nation colleagues, missionaries, and mission agency leaders. In Study I, subject matter experts (host nation colleagues, n=22, missionaries, n=25, and agency leaders, n=23) rated the 'Universal Competency Framework' (SHL) 20-level competencies. Host nation colleagues differed significantly on 3 of the competencies, suggesting that in this sample, the perspective of expatriates on the role of a missionary was not fully aligned with that of host nation colleagues. In Study 2, a sample of 130 current overseas missionaries self-assessed their performance and provided their own ratings of the importance of the competencies used in Study 1. Measures of Person-Job fit (Demands-Abilities fit, Supplies-Values fit and Perceived Performance) were regressed against outcome variables (job satisfaction, work engagement and satisfaction with life). Results indicated that a person's fit with the job as described by both host nation colleagues (Alignment) and other expatriates (Harmonization) is positively associated with job satisfaction, work engagement and satisfaction with life. These results offer support for competencies as an effective method of describing missionary roles. Possible implications for enhancing the effectiveness and well-being of missionaries, and other aid and development workers, are discussed. Person-Job Fit of Missionaries 3


One of the most prominent trends in OECD countries over the last 30 years has been the sharp increase in incidence of early retirement, and in particular the permanent take-up of disability benefits. In this paper we construct a theoretical model that shows how occupational choices, in terms of the associated health risks, made by the young can be affected by the expected provision of publicly funded disability benefits in later life. We find that because individuals are risk-averse, they take insufficient risks in the absence of insurance. Disability benefits lead to riskier aggregate behaviour, which in turn increases output and welfare at low levels of benefits, but will lead to excessive risk taking at high benefit levels to the detriment of output and welfare. We also show that the full impact of changes to the generosity of disability benefits in terms of increasing the take-up of such benefits is not immediate, but may take many years to realise because the previous career choices are largely irreversible. This time lag is consistent with the experiences of a number of countries over the last 30 years.


HCV infection disproportionately affects individuals in correctional institutions, which include jails (short-stay facilities that typically house persons for sentences of up to 1 year) and prisons (long-term facilities for persons with a felony conviction). A 2003 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) survey based on data derived from 8 states estimated that 16% to 41% of US inmates had serological evidence of prior HCV exposure and 12% to 35% had chronic infection (Allen, 2003); (Weinbaum, 2003). More recent analyses suggest that the seroprevalence of HCV infection in incarcerated populations ranges from 17.4% to 23.1% (Varan, 2014); (Edlin, 2015). However, HCV prevalence in correctional populations is not geographically uniform and can vary by state and region (Varan, 2014). These estimates far exceed the 1.0% HCV prevalence in the general population (Denniston, 2014). Injection drug use is the most common risk factor for HCV transmission in correctional settings (Ruiz, 1999); (Spaulding, 2006). HCV-associated liver disease is a frequent cause of death in inmates and has recently surpassed death from HIV (Spaulding, 2011); (Spaulding, 2015).


Cost-effective transmission expansion planning (TEP) is a major challenge of the power system optimization problems. The main purpose of TEP problem is to determine the optimal expansion plan of the electrical transmission system. Furthermore, TEP should specify the new circuits that have to be added to an existing network to guarantee adequate operation for a specified planning horizon. Usually, TEP can be categorized as static or dynamic (multistage) planning according to the study period. Static planning involves a single planning horizon, whereas dynamic planning is a derived generalization that considers the separation of the planning horizon into multiple stages. In the past few years, various evolutionary algorithms, heuristic or metaheuristic algorithms are being applied for expansion planning. Differential evolutionary algorithm (DEA) has been used to solve a wide range of power system problems such as static TEP, short-term scheduling of hydrothermal power systems, power system planning etc. In a number of cases, DEA is proven to be reliable providing optimal solutions with acceptable computational effort. In this paper DEA is proposed to solve the TEP, based on AC-OPF problem, using AC model. In practical scenario, the load/generator is not in a single type. In this paper TEP is approaches to be carried out with generator model and various load models. In order to optimize the transmission network topology by minimizing the objective function, this paper deals with selection of new circuits which should be added to the existing transmission network. It is, however subjected to operating conditions for generating units and transmission network. KeywordsAC-OPF, Differential Evolution Algorithm, Frequency Control, Generator Model, Load Models, Transmission Expansion Planning.


Humans reason with concepts and metaconcepts: we recognize red and blue from visual input; we also understand that they are colors, i.e., red is an instance of color. In this paper, we propose the visual concept-metaconcept learner (VCML) for joint learning of concepts and metaconcepts from images and associated question-answer pairs. The key is to exploit the bidirectional connection between visual concepts and metaconcepts. Visual representations provide grounding cues for predicting relations between unseen pairs of concepts. Knowing that red and blue are instances of color, we generalize to the fact that green is also an instance of color since they all categorize the hue of objects. Meanwhile, knowledge about metaconcepts empowers visual concept learning from limited, noisy, and even biased data. From just a few examples of purple cubes we can understand a new color purple, which resembles the hue of the cubes instead of the shape of them. Evaluation on both synthetic and real-world datasets validates our claims.


Deciphering the three-dimensional (3d) cytoarchitecture of neuronal tissue is an important step towards understanding the connection between tissue function and structure and determining relevant changes in neurodegenerative diseases. The gold standard in pathology is histology, in which the tissue is examined under a light microscope after serial sectioning and subsequent staining. It is an invasive and labor-intensive technique which is prone to artifacts due to the slicing procedure. While it provides excellent results on the 2d slices, the 3d anatomy can only be determined after aligning the individual sections, leading to a non-isotropic resolution within the tissue.

X-ray computed tomography (CT) offers a promising alternative due to its potential resolution and large penetration depth which allows for non-invasive imaging of the sample's 3d density distribution. In classical CT, contrast formation is based on absorption of the x-rays as they pass through the sample. However, weakly absorbing samples like soft tissue from the central nervous system give nearly no contrast. By exploiting the much stronger phase shifts for contrast formation, which the sample induces in a (partially) coherent wavefront, it can be substantially increased. During free-space propagation behind the sample, these phase shifts are converted to a measurable intensity image by interference of the disturbed wave fronts.

In this thesis, 3d virtual histology is performed by means of propagation-based x-ray phase-contrast tomography on tissue from the central nervous system of humans and mice. A combination of synchrotron-based and laboratory setups is used to visualize the 3d density distribution on varying lengths scales from the whole organ down to single cells. By comparing and optimizing different preparation techniques and phase-retrieval approaches, even sub-cellular resolution can be reached in mm-sized tissue blocks. The development of an automatic cell segmentation workflow provides access to the 3d cellular distribution within the tissue, enabling the quantification of the cellular arrangement and allowing for extensive statistical analysis based on several thousands to millions of cells. This paves the way for biomedical studies aimed at changes in cellular distribution, e.g., in the course of neurodegenerative diseases such as multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer's disease or ischemic stroke.


This article focuses on a left-libertarian response to neo-liberalism that emerged in the 1990s. In particular, it examines the work of Hilary Wainwright, founding editor of Red Pepper magazine. To Wainwright, the popularity and resurgence of a 'neo-liberal' or 'new' right could, in part, be explained by its libertarian and anti-statist outlook—themes, she argued, that had been neglected by the left. Wainwright used the arguments of the right-wing thinker Friedrich Hayek as a springboard for her own, very different, arguments for a left-libertarian, movement-based form of participatory democracy. There are parallels in her work with older, pluralist arguments. However, Wainwright's pluralism faces many of the same challenges—particularly concerning the relationship between group and state—that earlier pluralist thinkers struggled to resolve.


The KEAP1/NRF2/ARE pathway is at the forefront of cellular defense. Induction of this pathway is protective against various conditions of stress such as oxidative stress and exposure to electrophiles. Conversely, failure to upregulate the pathway leads to increased disease susceptibility and accelerated pathogenesis. Under basal conditions, transcription factor nuclear factor erythroid 2 p45-related factor 2 (NRF2) is targeted for ubiquitination and proteasomal degradation by a repressor protein Kelch-like (ECH)-associated protein (KEAP1), a substrate adaptor for Cullin 3-based E3 ubiquitin ligase. Inducers of the pathway chemically modify specific cysteines within KEAP1, leading to loss of repressor function, NRF2 accumulation and enhanced transcription of genes encoding a large network of cytoprotective proteins. The cyanoenones are the most potent NRF2 activators known. Cyanoenones bind to KEAP1 covalently and reversibly, and are suitable for chronic in vivo administration. However, the cysteine sensor for these compounds is unknown. Among the cysteine sensors of KEAP1, C151 in the BTB domain and C273 and C288 in the intervening region, are best characterized. In this study using KEAP1-knockout mouse embryonic fibroblasts (MEFs) rescued with wild-type (WT) KEAP1 or cysteine mutants, we tested a series of cyanoenones for their ability to modify specific cysteine sensors in KEAP1. We discovered that remarkably, all compounds of this class specifically target C151 regardless of their molecular shape or size. In addition, primary peritoneal macrophages (PMφ) derived from KEAP1 knock-in mice generated using the CRISPR/Cas9 technology, had higher LPS-induced inflammatory responses than cells from WT animals. Furthermore, at nanomolar concentrations, the tricyclic cyanoenone TBE-31 strongly suppresses LPSinduced inflammatory responses in primary PMφ cells, suggesting the potential for therapeutic use in inflammatory diseases. Another cytoprotective response is the heat shock response (HSR) which is activated when cells are exposed to stressors such as elevated temperatures, heavy metals and cytotoxic compounds. The HSR, mainly mediated by Heat Shock Factor 1 (HSF1), protects the integrity of the cellular proteome through the upregulation of a battery of genes involved in ameliorating proteotoxicity. Several small molecule activators of the KEAP1/NRF2/ARE pathway have been shown to activate HSR through the activation of HSF1. Work in this thesis focused on one such dual activator, the dietary agent phenethyl isothiocyanate (PEITC). We found that PEITC reacts with KEAP1 C151 to stabilize NRF2, and that it is able to activate the HSR by activating HSF1 through the inhibition of heat shock protein 90, the main negative regulator of HSF1. We further showed that PEITC activates p38 mitogen-activated protein kinases (MAPKs). In vitro, all members of the p38 MAPK family rapidly and stoichiometrically catalyze the phosphorylation of HSF1 on S326, a hallmark of HSF1 activation. The use of stable knockdown cell lines and inhibitors indicated that among the p38 MAPK, p38γ is the principal isoform responsible for the phosphorylation of HSF1 at S326 in cells. A protease-mass spectrometry approach confirmed S326 phosphorylation, and unexpectedly, revealed that p38 MAPKs also catalyze the phosphorylation of HSF1 at S303/307, previously known repressive posttranslational modifications. Thus, we identified p38 MAPKs as highly efficient catalysts for the phosphorylation of HSF1. Furthermore, our findings suggest that the magnitude and persistence of activation of p38 MAPKs are important determinants of the extent and duration of the HSR. In order to investigate the physiological significance of HSF1 phosphorylation at S326, we used immunofluorescence and western blotting techniques. We found that mitotic cells have high levels of HSF1 pS326 compared to interphase cells. Interestingly, our studies revealed that phosphorylated HSF1 at S326 is concentrated at the midbody of telophase cells, suggesting a potential role for HSF1 during the late-stage of cell division. Further studies are needed to define the role(s) of the HSF1 pS326 during the cell cycle. Section 1: Introduction Chapter A NRF2, KEAP1 and their interaction


Stem cells have the intrinsic ability to divide to form a stem cell daughter, while also retaining the ability to self-renew. These qualities are critical, as improper stem cell maintenance is implicit in aging and provokes diseases such as cancer. We previously revealed that during Drosophila oogenesis, transcriptional silencing mediated by polar granule component (pgc) alters the germ line cell cycle to promote germ line stem cell (GSC) differentiation. Our work with pgc suggested that cell cycle regulation might be an important general mechanism to facilitate division GSCs into daughter stem cells (or cystoblast, CBs), and differentiation of the CB into a mature egg. Consequentially, we aimed to the test the hypothesis that differences in global gene expression occur in each phase of the cell cycle in both GSCs and CBs to promote a stem cell or CB fate, respectively. We marked and quantified the number of GSCs and CBs in each phase of the cell cycle by harnessing the fluorescence ubiquitination cell cycle indicator system (FUCCI) to label cells. Additionally, we successfully isolated FUCCI-labeled single cells for subsequent separation by fluorescence activated cell sorting (FACS). Moreover, we endeavored to isolate both GSCs and CBs in each phase of the cell cycle by FACS. Once separated, we will perform genomic analyses on each cell type by RNA-seq to generate a database of the cell cycle-dependent transcriptional landscape of differentiation. Thus, our work provides an invaluable tool for future investigations that examine the mechanisms that regulate stem cell fate. Maternal deposition of mRNAs to the developing egg is critical to establish the future generation's developmental program. However, how these RNAs remain under strict translational regulation remains elusive. Therefore, we asked how maternal RNAs are continually repressed, using polar granule component (pgc) as a model system. Preliminary results from our lab reveal that the pgc 5'UTR is required but not sufficient for suppressing Pgc expression in the GSCs. On the other hand, pgc 3'UTR is required and sufficient to suppress its translation throughout oogenesis. To determine cis and trans-acting factors that control pgc translation, we previously carried out a phylogenetic analysis of its 3'UTR and identified conserved binding sites for translational repressor Pumilio (Pum). We found that Pum binds to the 3'UTR of pgc and together with its binding partners Nanos and Twin (CCR4 de-adenylase), represses pgc translation only in GSCs. Here, we show that the NOT complex, recruited by CCR4, also regulates Pgc expression in the GSCs and later stages of differentiation. Interestingly, previous studies have shown that Me31B interacts with the CCR4-NOT complex in the 3' end and cap proteins in the 5' end to suppress translation. As a result, we investigated if Me31B is also regulating Pgc expression in the GSCs via this complex. Remarkably, we found that loss of me31b in the germline upregulates Pgc expression in the GSCs and that pgc mRNA associates with Me31b. Altogether our data elucidates that an intricate protein complex in the GSCs bridges pgc's 5' and 3'UTR ends, masking it from translational machinery. We are currently identifying if there is a network of germline mRNAs that could be similarly regulated during Drosophila development.


An overexpressed gene found at the scene of a variety of tumors is implicated in the development of two types of malignant brain cancer in a paper by researchers at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center to be published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The paper will be posted online at the PNAS web site the week of July 2, 2007. "Just because a gene is associated with cancer doesn't mean that it's actually causing cancer. In this paper we show for the first time that insulin-like growth factor binding protein 2 (IGFBP2) connects with two other proteins to fuel development and progression of brain tumors," says senior author Wei Zhang, Ph.D., professor in M. D. Anderson's Department of Pathology. Using a gene transfer delivery system in a mouse model, a team led by Zhang and Professor of Pathology Gregory Fuller, M.D., Ph.D., shows that IGFBP2 plays an active role in the tumorigenesis of astrocytoma and oligodendroglioma. Both cancers are forms of glioma, cancers that develop in the glial cells - which normally support and nourish neurons - that are highly resistant to treatment. "This makes IGFBP2 an important candidate for development of targeted therapy to treat gliomas," Zhang says. Gliomas kill about 13,000 people in the United States annually. The possibilities are not limited to brain cancer, Fuller notes, "because of the pervasive overexpression of IGFBP2 documented in other cancer types." The gene is expressed only at low levels in normal cells, which would potentially reduce side effects caused by a treatment that targeted the gene or its protein product. Fuller and Zhang first associated overexpression of the gene with brain cancer in 1999. Other researchers have since found it to be overexpressed in prostate, ovarian, breast and colorectal cancers, some leukemias, and also in drug-resistant tumors. Overabundance of IGFBP2 has since been shown to be an indicator of poor prognosis for glioma patients. The PNAS paper takes it beyond this biomarker status. Zhang, Fuller and colleagues employed a viral gene transfer delivery agent known as RCAS, which is loaded with the gene, or genes, of interest and injected into the mouse brain. The viral particles infect only glial cells, where the genes are expressed. This system allows the researchers to observe whether a gene identified in a correlation study plays an active role in tumorigenesis. It also permits the delivery and study of combinations of genes. They found that a combination of IGFBP2 and another known oncogene called K-Ras leads to development of astrocytomas - a glioma named for the star-like shape of its constituent cells. A combination of K-Ras and a third gene, Akt, previously had been shown to develop astrocytomas. Activation of Akt fuels cell growth and survival. None of the three genes caused brain cancer formation when delivered alone. The researchers tried a combination of Akt and IGFBP2 and no tumor formed, suggesting that the two genes lie in the same molecular pathway and have a similar effect. For oligodendroglioma, the researchers found that IGFBP2 combined with platelet-derived growth factor beta (PDGFB) results in a higher-grade form of the cancer than that caused by PDGFB alone. The high-grade tumors formed by the combination were indistinguishable in their shape and brain-invasive behavior from human oligodendrogliomas. The combination also activated the Akt pathway, which PDGFB does not induce by itself. Combined with their earlier findings, this led the team to hypothesize that IGFBP2 activates the Akt pathway, which they confirmed in subsequent lab experiments. In a final experiment, they treated IGFBP2-PDGFB infected cells in culture with a known Akt inhibitor, which killed more of the combination cells than those infected only with platelet-derived growth factor. This connection to Akt, the researchers note, makes the presence of IGFBP2 in blood serum a potential biomarker that would indicate an active role for Akt in a patient's cancer and thus a role for Akt inhibitors in their treatment. "The survival of the most advanced stage of glioma, gliobastoma, has not significantly improved for decades," note Zhang and Fuller. "We hope IGFBP2 will provide an effective target for treatment of this devastating disease." Sarah Dunlap, a student in the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences jointly operated by M. D. Anderson and The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, is the report's first author. Other Fuller and Zhang team members include Joseph Celestino, department of gynecological oncology and Hua Wang, department of gastrointestinal oncology, both of M. D. Anderson; Rongcai Jiang, of Tianjin Medical University; and Eric Holland, of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center Department of Neurosurgery. Research was funded by the National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health, and Dunlap's fellowship by the Keck Center Pharmacoinformatics Training Program of the Gulf Coast Consortia and the American Legion Auxiliary of Texas.


A retrospective study was conducted in 2008 on 681 in Eastern Morocco in order to estimate the incidence of cervical and breast cancer, and to determine the social determinants and risk factors associated with these two types of cancer. Another goal of the study was to give health decision makers evidence of the necessity for early diagnosis and treatment. A questionnaire was used before the clinical gynecological examination and sampling cell for the Pap smear. Any woman with a Pap smear suspect had to do a biopsy at the reference centre. Physicians, obstetricians and midwives in the consultation process did gynecological examination and breast palpation. Patients with a suspicious nodule underwent ultrasound and mammography by radiologists on site. Gynecological samples were carried out systematically to all ever-married women to detect cancer of the cervix. Software Excel and SPSS 17 were used for data processing. Patients with high social status were more susceptible to develop breast cancer whereas women with cervical cancer were poor, belonging to a class with a low marital status of widowed or divorced having been married at an early age. The majority of women were married (81%), poor (80%) and illiterate (66%). Breastfeeding women were less affected by breast cancer than women not breastfeeding. For cervical cancer, the difference was not statistically significant. Women using contraceptives were vulnerable to both breast and cervical cancer. For cervical cancer, over 15% of women with a family history were screened positive. No relationship was found between breast cancer and family history. Taking into account regional particularities, we stress the importance of social determinants and risk factors and show that our results are consistent with those published by other researchers. Breast and cervical cancers constitute a real challenge in Morocco. Their socioeconomic burden can be reduced by early detection and treatment. The delayed diagnosis complicates the task both in terms of survival and cost of treatment. Consequently, Moroccan health authorities are urged to adopt preventive and cost effective strategies.


The General Purpose 2D Electromagnetic Tool, GP2DET, at Voith Siemens Hydro Power Generation GmbH is a tool developed for simulation and calculation of electrical parameters in large hydro power machines. In this tool, the stator windings have been modelled as massive conductor blocks, and current has been impressed on these conductors as current density for load situations. The scope for the work in this thesis has been to implement an automated procedure for a detailed modelling of the stator windings, testing of the procedure and analyses of losses from eddy currents and circulating currents. A group of macros was written in ANSYS APDL for the reworking of existing simulation models. The macros automatically rework models created in GP2DET, and replaces massive stator conductors with detailed stranded conductors. 17 alternatives for which conductors that shall be replaced were implemented. Bar- and coil windings are supported, and bar windings can be modelled with Roebel-transposition. Some detailing alternatives allow replacement of coils or coil groups. For these alternatives, automatic connection of each strand in the stranded coil sides is carried out. All strands are connected uniquely within a coil, and can be connected blockwise between coils and coil groups if desired. Transposition is available within a coil, between coils, and between coil groups. One type of transposition was implemented. The 17 detailing alternatives were tested on three different machines; two with bar windings and one with coil windings. For these machines the procedure executed faultlessly.


This chapter summarizes recent research on the biology of reactive oxygen species (ROS). The chapter is focused on the bimodal actions of ROS, which can be summarized as both beneficial and negative. The beneficial aspects of ROS are related to their effects on the redox state of cells and the important role that some ROS play in signaling cascade. The detrimental effects of ROS are related excess amounts of these chemical moieties, which are caused by excessive production and/or insufficient actions of endogenous antioxi -dants. The generation of these species is also discussed.


Glycogen synthase kinase 3 (GSK3) has long been known as a signaling component in insulin regulation of metabolism and, more recently, as a key part of the Wnt signaling pathway regulating cell proliferation, cell fate, and other processes during development. Unlike most other kinases, GSK3 is constitutively active and is regulated by inhibition. Full expression of this constitutive activity in the mammalian enzyme appears to require phosphorylation of a tyrosine residue in the activation loop of GSK3, which the enzyme accomplishes by intramolecular autophosphorylation, even though the kinase phosphorylates strictly serine and threonine residues on its exogenous substrates. Lochhead et al. explored the mechanism by which this switch in residue specificity is possible. Tagged GSK-3β synthesized in a rabbit reticulocyte lysate translation system showed rapid autophosphorylation that was inhibited by inhibitors of the molecular chaperone protein Hsp90. This chaperone-assisted tyrosine kinase activity was specific for tyrosine, as substitution of serine or threonine for the tyrosine in the activation loop reduced the extent of autophosphorylation. The tyrosine kinase activity was also insensitive to inhibitors or GSK-3β's serine-threonine kinase activity toward its substrates. Attention is focused on the potential therapeutic value of inhibition of GSK-3β activity in a number of disease states, and the authors note that the auto-activation mechanism provides a possible target, with distinct specificity for inhibition from the serine-threonine kinase enzymatic activity of the mature enzyme. P. A. Lochhead, R. Kinstrie, G. Sibbet, T. Rawjee, N. Morrice, V. Cleghon, A chaperone-dependent GSK3β transitional intermediate mediates activation-loop autophosphorylation. Mol. Cell 24, 627-633 (2006). [Online Journal]


Identifying, comparing, and matching watermarks in pre-machine-made papers has occupied scholars of prints and drawings for some time. One popular but arduous approach is to overlay, either manually or digitally, an image of the watermark in question with its presumed match from a known source. For example, a newly discovered watermark in a Rembrandt print might be compared to a similar one reproduced in Erik Hinterding's Rembrandt as an Etcher (2006). Such an overlay can confirm the pair as identical, i.e., as moldmates, or reveal their differences. But creating an accurate overlay for two images with different scales, orientations, or resolutions using standard image-manipulation tools can be time consuming and, ultimately, unsuccessful. Part One of this article describes advances in the emerging field of computational art history, specifically the development of digital image processing software, that can be used to semi-automatically create a reliable animated overlay of two watermarks, regardless of their relative "comparability." Watermarks found in the prints of Rembrandt van Rijn (1606–1669) are used in three case studies to demonstrate the efficacy of user-generated overlay videos. Part Two discusses how searching for identical watermarks, i.e., moldmates, can be enhanced through the application of a new suite of software programs that exploit the data calculated during the creation of user-generated animated overlays. This novel watermark identification procedure allows for rapid, confident watermark searches with minimal user effort, given the existence of a pre-marked library of watermarks. Using a pre-marked library of Foolscap with Five-Pointed Collar watermarks, four case studies present different categories of previously undocumented matches 1) among Rembrandt's prints; 2) between prints by Rembrandt and another artist, in this case Jan Gillisz van Vliet (1600/10–1668); and 3) between selected Rembrandt prints and contemporaneous Dutch historical documents.


A number of journals (including Lab on a Chip - Ed) provide space to upload image and movie data alongside publications on the web. However, the print publication must also contain sufficient illustrations to facilitate the understanding of the content without reference to such files. This tip demonstrates the use of a low cost image analysis system which may be used to facilitate data presentation of poor quality video images for use in paper-based publications. This is especially important in the field of miniaturisation and microfluidics, where video data is often the most convenient format (sometimes the only format) in which to record results.


Event cameras are revolutionary sensors that work radically differently from standard cameras. Instead of capturing intensity images at a fixed rate, event cameras measure changes of intensity asynchronously, in the form of a stream of events, which encode per-pixel brightness changes. In the last few years, their outstanding properties (asynchronous sensing, no motion blur, high dynamic range) have led to exciting vision applications, with very low-latency and high robustness. However, these sensors are still scarce and expensive to get, slowing down progress of the research community. To address these issues, there is a huge demand for cheap, high-quality synthetic, labeled event for algorithm prototyping, deep learning and algorithm benchmarking. The development of such a simulator, however, is not trivial since event cameras work fundamentally differently from framebased cameras. We present the first event camera simulator that can generate a large amount of reliable event data. The key component of our simulator is a theoretically sound, adaptive rendering scheme that only samples frames when necessary, through a tight coupling between the rendering engine and the event simulator. We release an open source implementation of our simulator. Posted at the Zurich Open Repository and Archive, University of Zurich ZORA URL: https://doi.org/10.5167/uzh-175993 Conference or Workshop Item Published Version Originally published at: Rebecq, Henri; Gehrig, Daniel; Scaramuzza, Davide (2018). ESIM: an Open Event Camera Simulator. In: Conference on Robot Learning (CoRL), Zurich, 2018., Zurich, 1 October 2018 5 October 2018. ESIM: an Open Event Camera Simulator Henri Rebecq, Daniel Gehrig, Davide Scaramuzza Robotics and Perception Group Depts. Informatics and Neuroinformatics University of Zurich and ETH Zurich Abstract: Event cameras are revolutionary sensors that work radically differently from standard cameras. Instead of capturing intensity images at a fixed rate, event cameras measure changes of intensity asynchronously, in the form of a stream of events, which encode per-pixel brightness changes. In the last few years, their outstanding properties (asynchronous sensing, no motion blur, high dynamic range) have led to exciting vision applications, with very low-latency and high robustness. However, these sensors are still scarce and expensive to get, slowing down progress of the research community. To address these issues, there is a huge demand for cheap, high-quality synthetic, labeled event for algorithm prototyping, deep learning and algorithm benchmarking. The development of such a simulator, however, is not trivial since event cameras work fundamentally differently from framebased cameras. We present the first event camera simulator that can generate a large amount of reliable event data. The key component of our simulator is a theoretically sound, adaptive rendering scheme that only samples frames when necessary, through a tight coupling between the rendering engine and the event simulator. We release an open source implementation of our simulator. Event cameras are revolutionary sensors that work radically differently from standard cameras. Instead of capturing intensity images at a fixed rate, event cameras measure changes of intensity asynchronously, in the form of a stream of events, which encode per-pixel brightness changes. In the last few years, their outstanding properties (asynchronous sensing, no motion blur, high dynamic range) have led to exciting vision applications, with very low-latency and high robustness. However, these sensors are still scarce and expensive to get, slowing down progress of the research community. To address these issues, there is a huge demand for cheap, high-quality synthetic, labeled event for algorithm prototyping, deep learning and algorithm benchmarking. The development of such a simulator, however, is not trivial since event cameras work fundamentally differently from framebased cameras. We present the first event camera simulator that can generate a large amount of reliable event data. The key component of our simulator is a theoretically sound, adaptive rendering scheme that only samples frames when necessary, through a tight coupling between the rendering engine and the event simulator. We release an open source implementation of our simulator. We release ESIM as open source: http://rpg.ifi.uzh.ch/esim.


Regression analysis, a common method of attempting to demonstrate racial and gender discrimination in hiring and other contexts, suffers from a number of shortcomings that invariably cast doubt on any incriminating results it produces. Most notably, regression models may fail to account for variables which correlate both with legitimate goals of a decisionmaker and with race/ gender categories. In this article, Professors Ayres and Waldfogel offer an alternative method of measuring discrimination that overcomes the limitations of traditional regression tests. The authors present a market-based test of unjustiBed disparate impact using data from the bail bond market in New Haven, Connecticut, to demonstrate that New Haven courts systematically "overdeter" black and male Hispanic defendants fromjleeing after release on bail by setting bail at seemingly unjustified high levels for these groups. Professors Ayres and Waldfogel discuss the validity of the assumptions underlying their model, and of possible nondiscriminatory explanations for their finding of disparate impact. They also offer suggestions for application of their methodology in contexts other than bail setting.


Many real-world applications run on untrusted servers or are run on servers that are subject to strong insider attacks. Although we cannot prevent an untrusted server from modifying or deleting data, with tamper-evident data structures, we can discover when this has occurred. If an untrusted server knows that a particular reply will not be checked for correctness, it is free to lie. Auditing for correctness is thus a frequent but overlooked operation. In my thesis, I present and evaluate new efficient data structures for tamper-evident logging and tamper-evident storage of changing data on untrusted servers, focussing on the costs of the entire system.
The first data structure is a new tamper-evident log design. I propose new semantics of tamper-evident logs in terms of the auditing process, required to detect misbehavior. To accomplish efficient auditing, I describe and benchmark a new tree-based data structure that can generate such proofs with logarithmic size and space, significantly improving over previous linear constructions while also offering a flexible query mechanism with authenticated results.
The remaining data structures are designs for a persistent authenticated dictionary (PAD) that allows users to send lookup requests to an untrusted server and get authenticated answers, signed by a trusted author, for both the current and historical versions of the dataset. Improving on prior constructions that require logarithmic storage and time, I present new classes of efficient PAD algorithms offering constant-sized authenticated answers or constant storage per update. I implement 21 different versions of PAD algorithms and perform a comprehensive evaluation using contemporary cloud-computing prices for computing and bandwidth to determine the most monetarily cost-effective designs.


During the 1990s, Congress amended the Immigration and Nationality Act ("INA") to create forms of immigration relief for previously neglected vulnerable groups. One such group—survivors of domestic violence—was aided through the Violence Against Women Act ("VAWA"), which amended the INA to allow abused spouses, children, and parents of U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents to self-petition for family-based immigration benefits without the abuser's knowledge. Both abused female and male spouses are able to receive immigration benefits under VAWA, as well as spouses in same-sex marriages.
Despite protections in immigration law for survivors of domestic violence, two other acts—the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act ("PRWORA") and the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act ("IIRIRA")—which also passed in the 1990s fundamentally changed immigration policy and made it more difficult for members of these vulnerable groups to access public benefits.
This Article will focus on the "unintended consequences" that both of these Acts created by excluding vulnerable groups from access to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program ("SNAP"). By comparing public benefits access for categories of immigrants, such as survivors of domestic violence, trafficking, and those who obtained asylum protection, this Article will advocate for reforms at the federal, state, and local level to increase access to food security for vulnerable groups.


Background In multiple sclerosis, grey matter (GM) damage appears more clinically relevant than either white matter damage or lesion load. Objective We investigated if normal-appearing white matter (NAWM) and grey matter tissue changes assessed by magnetization transfer ratio were associated with long-term disability. Methods Sixty-nine people were assessed 20 years after presentation with a clinically isolated syndrome (CIS) [28 still CIS, 31 relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis, 10 secondary progressive multiple sclerosis], along with 19 healthy subjects. Mean magnetization transfer ratio, peak height (PH) and peak location of the normalized magnetization transfer ratio histograms were determined in NAWM and grey matter, as well as, white matter and GM Fraction (GMF) and T2-weighted lesion load. Results Median expanded disability status scale for multiple sclerosis patients was 2.5 (range 1–8). GM-PH, and less so, NAWM mean and peak location, were lower in multiple sclerosis patients (P = 0.009) versus controls, relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis versus CIS (P = 0.008) and secondary progressive multiple sclerosis versus relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis (P = 0.002). GM-PH (as well as GMF) correlated with expanded disability status scale (r s = −0.49; P = 0.001) and multiple sclerosis functional score (r s = 0.51; P = 0.001). GM-PH independently predicted disability with similar strength to the associations of GMF with clinical measures. Conclusion Grey matter damage was related to long-term disability in multiple sclerosis cohort with a relatively low median expanded disability status scale. Markers of intrinsic grey matter damage (magnetization transfer ratio) and tissue loss offer clinically relevant information in multiple sclerosis.


We propose an inter-domain path routing algorithm for multi domain photonic networks. The proposed algorithm introduces a step-wise weighting technique and utilizes averaged link load information of each domain. Numerical experiments demonstrate that the proposed algorithm matches the blocking probability achieved without domain segmentation.


Atmospheric correction is of great importance in quantitative remote sensing studies. However, many of the atmospheric correction algorithms proposed in the literature are not easily applicable in real cases. In order to develop a practical atmospheric correction algorithm, Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) imagery is employed to obtain aerosol optical depth and the total atmospheric water vapour content, which are used to compute the transmittances in a dark object subtraction (DOS) model. An improved DOS atmospheric correction method combining MODIS imagery with the conventional DOS technique is proposed. A Landsat 7 Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+) image acquired on 21 October 2001 in Wuyi mountain, south-eastern China, and a CBERS 02 CCD image acquired on 24 August 2005 in Dunhuang, north-western China, were atmospherically corrected with this new approach. Various tests are performed, from spectral signature analysis, to vegetation index spatial profile and image information content comparisons, and by direct comparison with ground-measured reflectances, to evaluate the performance of the improved DOS model. The evaluation shows it can generally achieve a good atmospheric correction result.


Neuropsychological research in Canada, set in motion by the mid-century work of a handful of Canadian pioneers, has continued and indeed flourished over the past five decades. From Donald O. Hebb's 1949 seminal book, Organization of Behavior, to today's rich and diverse investigations of brain-behaviour relationships, Canadians have repeatedly been at the forefront of human neuropsychological research. Our review of human neuropsychological research in Canada in the 1990s will serve to illustrate the depth and breadth of these investigations and demonstrate this country's pivotal role in a scientific discipline that continues to grow in an exponential manner.Our aim is to review the research activity in human neuropsychology that has taken place in Canada during the decade of the 1990s, and to examine major trends in research focus that have occurred over the past three decades. This work represents the third review in a series that began in 1981, when Rourke, Fisk, Strang, and Gates published their review of Canadian human neuropsychology research for the 1970s. Fuerst and Rourke (1995) conducted a similar review for the decade of the 1980s. First, a brief description of the method used to collect the research of the 1990s is reviewed, followed by summaries of work that has been conducted in Canada over this decade. Next, specific predictions regarding research and service delivery in human neuropsychology in the 1990s that were generated by Rourke (1991a) are evaluated using the information collected through this method. In the final section, other major trends in human neuropsychology in the 1990s are examined.To collect the information, a list of over 200 Canadian neuropsychologists was compiled from the membership rosters of the Canadian Psychological Association, Division 1 (Brain and Behaviour) and Division 23 (Clinical Neuropsychology), the International Neuropsychological Society, and the National Academy of Neuropsychology, as well as from the previous two reviews. Each psychologist was sent a letter describing the project and requesting reprints or lists of their research in human neuropsychology that had been published between 1990 and 1999, inclusive. The response rate was approximately 32% (i.e., 81 neuropsychologists) and resulted in the collection of over 1,100 references to articles, chapters, and books. Although less than half of the neuropsychologists contacted for this survey responded with lists of relevant publications, it should be noted that in a 1994 survey, Putnam, Deluca, and Anderson found that approximately 15% of clinical neuropsychologists in North America had produced 84% of the existing neuropsychology publications. Therefore, the works collected for the present review are probably a reasonably representative sample of neuropsychological research in the last decade in Canada.Before proceeding with the review, its scope and limitations will be briefly described. Fuerst and Rourke (1995) reported that the extraordinary volume of research conducted in Canada during the 1980s necessitated limiting their review to selected investigations generated by prominent researchers in major centres across the country. Given the further growth in neuropsychological activity during the last decade, we also regret that it was impossible to review all of the research conducted during this time period. Whereas the production of such an immense amount of research over a 10-year period is a clear indication of this country's continued leadership in this field, this also made it impossible to include much work that deserved attention.For the current study, we focused primarily on a self-selected pool of Canadian neuropsychologists as stated above but we attempted to include the work of as many respondents as possible and sought material from various prominent Canadian researchers not belonging to the aforementioned professional groups. At times, space limitations forced us to include only the work of researchers who had published multiple and/or seminal pieces of work during this time period. …


In this paper, we present an application for recognizing currency bills using computer vision techniques, that can run on a low-end smartphone. The application runs on the device without the need for any remote server. It is intended for robust, practical use by the visually impaired. Though we use the paper bills of Indian National Rupee (I) as a working example, our method is generic and scalable to multiple domains including those beyond the currency bills. Our solution uses a visual Bag of Words (BoW) based method for recognition. To enable robust recognition in a cluttered environment, we first segment the bill from the background using an algorithm based on iterative graph cuts. We formulate the recognition problem as an instance retrieval task. This is an example of fine-grained instance retrieval that can run on mobile devices. We evaluate the performance on a set of images captured in diverse natural environments, and report an accuracy of 96.7% on 2584 images.


We report what are to our knowledge the first coherent images recovered in the laboratory from measurements made with a Shack-Hartmann wave-front sensor of the phase and amplitude of a laser speckle wave front. We discuss the design of our wave-front sensor, which can obtain the phase and amplitude of an optical field with a single intensity measurement, and we point out a particular type of phase jump that cannot be detected by the Shack-Hartmann sensor. We also discuss implementations of this technique that may permit near-diffraction-limited imaging through turbulent media.


We investigate a possible definition of expectation and conditional expectation for random variables with values in a local field such as the $p$-adic numbers. We define the expectation by analogy with the observation that for real-valued random variables in $L^2$ the expected value is the orthogonal projection onto the constants. Previous work has shown that the local field version of $L^\infty$ is the appropriate counterpart of $L^2$, and so the expected value of a local field-valued random variable is defined to be its ``projection'' in $L^\infty$ onto the constants.  Unlike the real case, the resulting projection is not typically a single constant, but rather a ball in the metric on the local field.  However, many properties of this expectation operation and the corresponding conditional expectation mirror those familiar from the real-valued case; for example, conditional expectation is, in a suitable sense, a contraction on $L^\infty$ and the tower property holds. We also define the corresponding notion of martingale, show that several standard examples of martingales (for example, sums or products of suitable independent random variables or ``harmonic'' functions composed with Markov chains) have local field analogues, and obtain versions of the optional sampling and martingale convergence theorems.


Tablet division is applied where tablets of higher strength are split in half, or quarters, to provide the patient with a lower dose. The exercise is considered compounding by the pharmacist and is mostly used to make the titration of the required dose possible, as well as to save cost where tablets in a product range are flat-priced. Studies showed that medication cost can be reduced substantially by implementing tablet splitting. Cost of tablet splitters and additional dispensing fees may however reduce savings somewhat, as may possible additional outpatient facility visits, especially in the initial few weeks after introducing tablet division to a medical scheme population. Splitting scored tablets is approved by the FDA as efficacious and safe, but studies show that the half tablet weights of divided scored tablets often do not pass the dose content uniformity tests. Furthermore, in a recent study the drug content of half tablets, as determined by chemical assay, was not within the USP specifications for nearly 25% of products tested. In these studies, the physical characteristics like scoring and shape did not seem to predict which products would pass the uniformity test. Certain types of tablets are generally not suitable for splitting, for example extended-release formulations and film or enteric-coated tablets, but there may be exceptions. Tablet size and shape may also play a role in the decision to split a tablet or not. Tablets containing drugs with a wide therapeutic index and long half-life may be more suitable candidates for division. Therefore, some tablets used for depression, hypertension and hyperlipidaemia may be considered for splitting, provided that product and patient characteristics are taken into account. Elderly patients, or those with impaired eyesight, cognition and/or dexterity may find it difficult to split tablets and take them correctly. Tablet splitting carries a risk of errors due to misinterpretation of the prescription or label instructions by the pharmacist or patient, respectively. Nevertheless, where implemented carefully and with the appropriate counselling, tablet splitting does not compromise patient adherence and satisfaction or clinical outcomes negatively, and this was especially proven for statins.


Abstract. There are strong indications that particles containing secondary organic aerosol (SOA) exhibit amorphous solid or semi-solid phase states in the atmosphere. This may facilitate heterogeneous ice nucleation and thus influence cloud properties. However, experimental ice nucleation studies of biogenic SOA are scarce. Here, we investigated the ice nucleation ability of viscous SOA particles. The SOA particles were produced from the ozone initiated oxidation of α-pinene in an aerosol chamber at temperatures in the range from −38 to −10 °C at 5–15 % relative humidity with respect to water to ensure their formation in a highly viscous phase state, i.e. semi-solid or glassy. The ice nucleation ability of SOA particles with different sizes was investigated with a new continuous flow diffusion chamber. For the first time, we observed heterogeneous ice nucleation of viscous α-pinene SOA for ice saturation ratios between 1.3 and 1.4 significantly below the homogeneous freezing limit. The maximum frozen fractions found at temperatures between −39.0 and −37.2 °C ranged from 6 to 20 % and did not depend on the particle surface area. Global modelling of monoterpene SOA particles suggests that viscous biogenic SOA particles are indeed present in regions where cirrus cloud formation takes place. Hence, they could make up an important contribution to the global ice nucleating particle budget.


This paper studies the impact of NAFTA on informality and real wages in Mexico. Using a dynamic industry model with firm heterogeneity, it is predicted that import tariff elimination could reduce the incidence of informality by making more profitable to some firms to enter the formal sector, forcing the less productive informal firms to exit the industry, and inducing the most productive formal firms to engage in trade. The model also predicts market share reallocations towards the most productive firms, and an increase in real wages due to the increased labour demand by these firms. Using data on Mexican and U.S. import tariffs together with the Mexican National Survey of Urban Labour (ENEU), I find that reductions in the Mexican import tariffs are significantly related to reductions in the likelihood of informality in the tradable industries. I also find that informality decreases less in industries with higher levels of import penetration, while it decreases more in industries that are relatively more export oriented. Finally, I confirm that the elimination of the Mexican import tariffs is related to an increase in real wages, and that the elimination of the U.S. import tariff has contributed to the expansion of the formal-informal wage differentials.


Standardization is a very complex process in which many different factors need to be mediated and harmonized in order to create tools based on the consensus of the parties involved: standards are the result of a negotiation process where different perspectives and approaches compete, in a domain populated by different stakeholders. As such, they may well be qualified as social constructions. However, the widespread technocratic attitude tends to hide their very human nature, overstressing the technical aspects and presenting them as neutral instruments to get to some objectives. Archival standards are based on consensus, but the level and quality of such consensus is rarely investigated: as a matter of fact, the creation of international archival standards has been committed to groups of people representing a well-iden-tifiable geographical and cultural portion of the whole world; nonetheless, they are assumed to serve archival communities all over the world. More-over, standardization may be seen as a process of codification of professional knowledge – as such, it is a biased and historically determined process. The language, the interpretation of objects and actions, the nature of professional functions, the definitions of terms and concepts: all standards rely on these ever-changing factors. Last but not least, digital memory relies on the use of technical standards in order to be managed, accessed and preserved; therefore, it is fundamental to investigate the nature of technical standards along with their biases, in order to understand how they affect digital memory and its representation, since memory is malleable, continuously reinterpreted and represented on the basis of the cultural milieu and available tools. We cannot escape unneutrality but we can raise awareness of the discretional factors affecting digital memory if we really want to serve our role of professional mediators between objects and users.


In due diligence, lawyers are tasked with reviewing a large set of legal documents to identify documents and portions thereof that may be problematic for a merger or acquisition. In an effort to aid users to review more efficiently, we sought to determine how document-level clustering may help users of a due diligence system during their workflow. Following an iterative design methodology, we conducted several user studies with different versions of a document-level clustering feature consisting of three distinct phases and 27 users. We found that the interface should adapt to a user's understanding of what "similar documents" means so that trust can be established in the feature. Furthermore, the ability to negotiate with the underlying algorithm is facilitated by the establishment of trust. Finally, while the usage of this feature may be influenced by a user's role, it remains primarily a project management tool.


Graph Neural Networks (GNNs) have achieved great success in various tasks, but their performance highly relies on a large number of labeled nodes, which typically requires considerable human effort. GNN-based Active Learning (AL) methods are proposed to improve the labeling efficiency by selecting the most valuable nodes to label. Existing methods assume an oracle can correctly categorize all the selected nodes and thus just focus on the node selection. However, such an exact labeling task is costly, especially when the categorization is out of the domain of individual expert (oracle). The paper goes further, presenting a soft-label approach to AL on GNNs. Our key innovations are: i) relaxed queries where a domain expert (oracle) only judges the correctness of the predicted labels (a binary question) rather than identifying the exact class (a multi-class question), and ii) new criteria of maximizing information gain propagation for active learner with relaxed queries and soft labels. Empirical studies on public datasets demonstrate that our method significantly outperforms the state-of-the-art GNN-based AL methods in terms of both accuracy and labeling cost.


Single-pass polarizer–surface-analyzer null ellipsometry (PSA-NE) can be used to characterize film–substrate systems, provided that the film thickness lies within one of a set of permissible-thickness bands (PTB). For a transparent film on a transparent or absorbing substrate, the PTB structure consists of a small number of finite-bandwidth bands followed by a continuum band that extends from a film thickness of about half the wavelength of light to infinity. We show that this band structure is a direct consequence of the periodicity of the ellipsometric function ρ (the ratio Rp/Rs of the complex amplitude-reflection coefficients for the p and s polarizations) with film thickness. The PTB for the SiO2-Si film–substrate system at He–Ne laser and mercury spectral lines are calculated. The angles of incidence for PSA-NE on a film-substrate system with known film thickness are easily predicted with the help of a graphical construction in the angle of incidence-vs-thickness ϕd plane. PSA-NE is generally applicable to the determination of both film thickness and optical properties of a film-substrate system. The procedure for its application to the special, but important, case of film-thickness measurement alone, when the optical properties are known, is given and is checked experimentally by the determination of the oxide-film thickness on Si wafers. In an automated form, PSA-NE can be a serious competitor for interferometric reflectance methods.


The Mexican Crisis meant the loss of confidence of the foreign investors in the emerging markets. The growth of the Mexican economy was fueled by large infusions of foreign funds following the liberalization and opening up of its markets. Initially, Mexico possessed enough foreign reserves to keep inflation at bay. More importantly, this period of abundance tolerated the increasing trade and current account deficits. Signs of imminent danger were ignored; the availability of cheap imports continued to widen the trade gap between Mexico and its wealthier trading partners which, in turn, drained Mexico's international reserves. As long as short-term capital acts as the backbone of an economy, the latter can never withstand the volatility of both the domestic and the international market. As the Philippines is currently in a state that is very similar to Mexico before the Crisis, the Philippine economy can very well follow the track of the Mexican economy; as long as the government sees no urgency and refuses to recognize this connection, believing instead that there can be growth under its present development paradigm, the Philippines can soon become another Mexico.