Universities are under mounting pressure to partner with societal stakeholders and organizations to collaboratively create and implement sustainability-advancing knowledge, tools, and societal transformations. Simultaneously, an increasing number of societal organizations are reaching out to partner with universities to achieve organizational objectives and increase the effectiveness of strategies to further societal sustainability. Using a conceptual framework of "sustainability co-creation", this study empirically examines the historical and ongoing experiences of five organizations in Japan that actively partner with universities to enhance sustainability activities and strategies to transform society. We examine motivations for partnering with universities, innovative models of practice, factors hampering the co-creative potential of the university, and desired changes to overcome these. Our empirical study leads to the proposal of a typology that might assist in categorizing and understanding key attributes of differing types of sustainability co-creation. We build our typology from two perspectives: First, in terms of the primary objective of the co-creation (ranging from knowledge production to the transformation of society), and second, in terms of the approach taken (ranging from either socially or technologically-centered). We then reflect on the organizations' experiences to offer several strategies that could increase the effectiveness of the university when partnering with stakeholders in sustainability co-creation. We also highlight several factors effecting the university's capacity to move beyond knowledge production towards implementation measures to transform society with external stakeholders.


Recording the dynamics of unscripted human interactions in the wild is challenging due to the delicate trade-offs between several factors: participant privacy, ecological validity, data fidelity, and logistical overheads. To address these, following a 'datasets for the community by the community' ethos, we propose the Conference Living Lab (ConfLab): a new concept for multimodal multisensor data collection of in-the-wild free-standing social conversations. For the first instantiation of ConfLab described here, we organized a real-life professional networking event at a major international conference. Involving 48 conference attendees, the dataset captures a diverse mix of status, acquaintance, and networking motivations. Our capture setup improves upon the data fidelity of prior in-the-wild datasets while retaining privacy sensitivity: 8 videos (1920x1080, 60 fps) from a non-invasive overhead view, and custom wearable sensors with onboard recording of body motion (full 9-axis IMU), privacy-preserving low-frequency audio (1250 Hz), and Bluetooth-based proximity. Additionally, we developed custom solutions for distributed hardware synchronization at acquisition and time-efficient continuous annotation of body keypoints and actions at high sampling rates. Our benchmarks showcase some of the open research tasks related to in-the-wild privacy-preserving social data analysis: keypoints detection from overhead camera views, skeleton-based no-audio speaker detection, and F-formation detection.


Drug-induced kidney disease constitutes an important cause of acute renal failure and chronic kidney disease. Drug-induced nephrotoxicity refers to kidney damage induced by medication administered for the purpose of diagnosing or treating another medical disorder. It is more commonly recognized in dogs. And although druginduced nephrotoxicity may occur in dogs of any age, older dogs are more susceptible. The kidney is an organ susceptible to the injurious effects of the drugs because of its functional properties. Understanding the mechanisms of nephrotoxicity enables the planning of preventive strategies. Antibiotic associated renal failure is predominantly noted with the use of aminoglycoside antibiotics though it may also occur with beta-lactam, vancomycin, sulfonamides and antifungal antibiotics. Aminoglycosides are very often associated with nephrotoxicity, ototoxicity and neuromuscular blockage. An adverse drug reaction (ADR) is a serious concern for practicing veterinarians and other health professionals, and refers to an unintended, undesired and unexpected response to a drug that negatively affects the patient's health. It may be iatrogenic or genetically induced, and may result in death of the affected animal. So, in this prospective review, we attempt to bring forth the commonly occurring adverse drug reactions, antibiotics induced nephrotoxicity, underlying mechanism, and the treatment& prevention.


1. The administration of the caffein group, caffein, theobromin or theocin, to dogs in water balance results, not in diuresis but in a decrease in daily urine output, often to one-half the normal amount. The sodium chloride as well as water is decreased. Urea and total nitrogen are generally but not always lessened. If a single dose is given the diminished output is seen on the day of administration. If the administration is kept up through a number of days, the decrease persists through the period of administration.

2. The lessened output from the caffein group is not due to renal damage, since the kidney is able to eliminate added water, salt, urea and phenolsulphonephthalein in a normal manner.

3. During the period of lessened output the blood shows evidence of some concentration, in that the water content tends to fall and the hemoglobin to rise.

4. The explanation given for these effects is that there is a shift of water and salt from the circulating blood into the tissues. The action of the caffein group in bringing this about is to produce a dilatation and increased permeability of capillaries in the splanchnic organs and muscles. This action overshadows the kidney action in animals in water balance. The diuretic action appears when there is an excess of water in the body or when the tissues give off some of their stored water.


In an often-quoted remark, Henry Ford, the great captain of industry, said, "History is more or less bunk." As a general statement about history, this is perhaps not an assessment of compelling delicacy. And yet Henry Ford would have been right to think, if that is what he meant, that history could easily become "bunk" through motivated manipulation. This is especially so if the writing of history is manoeuvred to suit a slanted agenda in contemporary politics. There are organized attempts in our country, at this time, to do just that, with arbitrary augmentation of a narrowly sectarian view of India's past, along with undermining its magnificently multireligious and heterodox history. Among other distortions, there is also a systematic confounding here of mythology with history. An extraordinary example of this has been the interpretation of the Ramayana, not as a great epic, but as documentary history, which can be invoked to establish property rights over places and sites possessed and owned by others.1 The Ramayana, which Rabindranath Tagore had seen as a wonderful legend ("the story of the Ramayana" is to be interpreted, as Tagore put it, not as "a matter of historical fact" but "in the plane of ideas") and in fact as a marvellous parable of "reconciliation"2 is now made into a legally authentic account that gives some members of one community an alleged entitlement to particular sites and land, amounting to a license to tear down the religious places of other communities. Thomas de Quincey has an interesting essay called "Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts." Rewriting of history for bellicose use can also, presumably, be a very fine art. I note the contemporary confounding of historical studies in India as the starting point of this lecture, even though I shall not be directly


Diversification of agricultural systems is a standard suggestion for increasing the resilience of rain-fed subsistence farming to drought. However, grain crops share many physiological characteristics, potentially forming a plant functional type (PFT), a term ecologists apply to groups of species that respond in functionally similar ways to environmental variation. Here we test whether grain crops are a PFT, and whether diversification between grain crops, to other crops or livestock that feed on natural plants results in sufficient variation in water-use physiology to form a diversified agricultural portfolio. To this end, we simulated the response of crops and natural PFT's to rainfall variation using a simple plant growth model. We then predicted subsistence farmer allocation with a safety-first economic analysis and compared these to observed allocations at 78 sites across a rainfall gradient in South Africa. We demonstrate that there are shifts from crop to livestock farming with aridity, and that this is correlated with the extant natural PFT's. That is, as the simulated probability of crop failure diverges from that of the natural vegetation, there is a shift to livestock farming. Diversifying within grain crops would lead to little increase in resilience due to limited physiological variation – an indication that grain crops are one PFT – while other crops had some potential for greater diversification advantages, and livestock feeding on natural plants the greatest. Thus, a plant functional type approach is vital in understanding the developmental economics of subsistence farmer diversification with the goal of increasing resilience to drought.


Previous work in the study of coupled piano string behavior, e.g., by Weinreich and Nakamura, has focused analytically on the interaction of a pair of coupled modes, noting that the rest of the string modes couple similarly. The coupling of three or more modes, as occurs in sets of unison piano strings, is studied. Equivalent circuits (modeling a finite number of modes) of coupled piano strings can be written in state‐space form and their eigenvalues analyzed at various levels of detuning and coupling. Alternatively, the transfer functions of the system can often be written in a root‐locus analysis form, which lends a control‐theory perspective to the analysis. Often, an intuitive understanding of pole movement under variations in a single parameter, such as a single‐mode frequency or coupling coefficient, can be developed. Many effects, for example, two‐stage decay, can be understood in terms of system pole location. Three‐mode coupling is explored and interpreted, as is variation in coupling behavior at different string harmonics.


An improved two-stage model of colorimetric characterization for liquid crystal display (LCD) was proposed. The model included an S-shape nonlinear function with four coefficients for each channel to fit the tone reproduction curve (TRC), and a linear transfer matrix with black-level correction. To compare with the simple model (SM), gain-offset-gain (GOG), S-curve and three-one-dimensional look-up tables (3-1D LUTs) models, an identical LCD was characterized and the color differences were calculated and summarized using the set of 7*7*7 digital-to-analog converter (DAC) triplets as test data. The experimental results showed that the model was outperformed in comparison with the GOG and SM ones, and near to that of the S-curve model and 3-1D LUTs method.


Thermally-induced catastrophic optical breakdown is clearly of great importance for fiber-based laser-light delivery systems. Fiber core can be destroyed irreparably at rates of 1 m/s by breakdown that starts at a locally heated point and travels back towards the laser; that the damage tracks left behind are often elegantly uniform and periodic is only a slight recompense. Breakdown can occur at relatively modest intensities (we have recorded 2.8 mW/µm in a multimode fibre at blue/green wavelengths), and has been observed in many different fibres at both Ar+ and Nd:YAG laser wavelengths. We initiate the effect by heating the fibre with a small flame whilst the laser light is propagating within it. A solitary thermal shock-wave is created which propagates along the fibre towards the laser, leaving the core permanently damaged and unable to guide light. Associated with this shock-wave is a bright spot of side-scattered light which can be observed propagating along the fibre; for this reason we have named the effect the "fibre-fuse". Similar thermal shock-waves have previously been seen in gases ("laser-induced deflagration waves")


Although the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region has witnessed a long series of conflicts since the end of the Second World War, it is now in the unprecedented situation where nearly all MENA states are involved to a certain extent in ongoing conflict (e.g. in the Iraq–Syria area; Libya; Yemen). MENA states are involved to different degrees in these conflicts, ranging from direct involvement on the ground or in the air, to the arming and training of armed non-state actors. This report assesses the evolution of the armed forces, procurement and the defence industry in the countries of the MENA region, starting with the major regional powers, whose leverage extends across the region. Second, it looks at the middle regional powers, those who have some capacity for power projection but mostly at the sub-regional level. This is followed by analysis of the remaining states, those with little or no capacity for power projection. Finally, the report looks at those states on whose territory war is currently being waged, where governments and non-state actors are vying for control of the national territory. The report ends with a forecast for military development in the region.


Installation of a wind farm exposes several problems such as site selection, placement of wind turbines in the site, and designing of cable infrastructure within the farm. The latter problem, called cable layout design, is the determination of cable connections among turbines and one or more transmitters such that energies generated by turbines will be sent through the cable routes, and eventually gathered at the transmitter(s). This problem is especially important for offshore wind farms where the featured and expensive cables are used. The main objective of the present study is to address the cable layout design problem of offshore wind farms to reduce cable costs in the design using optimization‐based approaches. The problem, firstly, is modelled as a mixed integer linear program (MIP) under a set of real‐life constraints such as different cable and transmitter types and non‐crossing connections between the turbines. Then, a novel mathematical model, which is a modification of the MIP model by imposing several heuristic rules, is proposed to solve the layout problem of large offshore wind farms. Experiments on a set of small‐ and moderate‐sized test instances reveal that the heuristic model, MIP_H, reduces the computer time nearly 55% compared to that of MIP model while the average cable costs generated by the models are close to each other. MIP_H, besides its efficiency, provides more cost‐effective layouts compared to MIP model for large‐sized real‐life examples. Additionally, a comparative study on MIP_H and existing methods in the literature shows that MIP_H is able to solve all instances of the real‐life examples providing less cable costs in average.


The continuous development of the Internet of Things (IoT) calls for innovative solutions and technologies to realize the IoT vision efficiently. One of the rising connectivity technologies that can potentially benefit the IoT deployment is Optical Wireless Communication (OWC) technology. In OWC, light beams from light sources are used to modulate information. The receiver demodulates the received light and processes the signal. The broad unlicensed spectrum of the OWC technology, along with its potential high bit-rate and increased physical link security, motivated researchers to consider OWC for IoT solutions. In this paper, we survey the existing literature related to using OWC technology in the IoT domain. We present the background and preliminaries of the IoT and OWC domains to understand how the OWC fits in the IoT architecture. Then we perform a comprehensive survey of literature related to the use of OWC technology in IoT applications. We highlight and summarize the major papers and experiments in the literature to provide researchers a jump-start to tap into the domain of OWC in IoT using the systemic and detailed survey presented in this paper.


The early identification of acute lymphoblastic leukemia symptoms in patients can greatly increase the probability of recovery. Nowadays the leukemia disease can be identified by automatic specific tests such as Cytogenetics and Immunophenotyping and morphological cell classification made by experienced operators observing blood/marrow microscope images. Those methods are not included into large screening programs and are applied only when typical symptoms appears in normal blood analysis. The Cytogenetics and Immunophenotyping diagnostic methods are currently preferred for their great accuracy with respect to the method of blood cell observation which presents undesirable drawbacks: slowness and it presents a not standardized accuracy since it depends on the operator's capabilities and tiredness. Conversely, the morphological analysis just requires an image -not a blood sample- and hence is suitable for low-cost and remote diagnostic systems. The presented paper shows the effectiveness of an automatic morphological method to identify the Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia by peripheral blood microscope images. The proposed system firstly individuates in the blood image the leucocytes from the others blood cells, then it selects the lymphocyte cells (the ones interested by acute leukemia), it evaluates morphological indexes from those cells and finally it classifies the presence of the leukemia.


Lie, swindle, steal. It's another day at work for the sales professionals of the mortgage industry. Amid the wreckage of the S&L scandal, a group of maverick entrepreneurs hatch a new money-making scheme: writing 'subprime' loans at exorbitant prices and bundling them into securities for eager Wall Street banks. In this stunning narrative, award-winning reporter Michael W. Hudson brings us inside the boiler rooms and banks that flooded the nation with high-risk, high-profit mortgages. At Ameriquest Mortgage, the nation's largest subprime lender, salesmen sniff out homeowners vulnerable to refinancing pitches, and use Wite-Out to doctor documents. At rival FAMCO, employees memorize 'The Monster', a high-pressure sales tactic crafted to obscure interest rates - and so unscrupulous that one loan officer calls his state attorney general. With support from Washington bureaucrats and Wall Street, subprime grows into a $1.5 trillion behemoth - devastating the lives of millions of homeowners and wounding the U.S. economy. Provocative and gripping, "The Moster" is a searing tale of a sales culture gone out of control and the bottom-feeding fraud and topdown greed that fuelled the financial collapse.


The Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence held its 1993 Fall Symposium Series on October 22-24 in Raleigh, North Carolina. This article contains summaries of the six symposia that were conducted: Automated Deduction in Nonstandard Logics; Games: Planning and Learning; Human-Computer Collaboration: Reconciling Theory, Synthesizing Practice; Instantiating Intelligent Agents; and Machine Learning and Computer Vision: What, Why, and How?


Although quercetin has suppressed bone resorption in several animal studies, its target cells and the mechanism of its action related to bone resorption has not been fully elucidated. We investigated the effect of quercetin on the differentiation and activation of osteoclasts. We used cocultures of mouse spleen cells and ST2 cells, and cultures of osteoclast progenitor cells [M-CSF-dependent (MD) cells from mouse bone marrow and murine monocytic RAW 264 (RAW) cells]. Quercetin dose-dependently inhibited osteoclast-like (OCL) cell formation at 2-5 microM concentration in both the coculture and MD cell culture. Quercetin inhibited the increase of tartrate-resistant acid phosphatase (TRAP) activity of mononuclear preosteoclasts (pOCs) induced by receptor activator of nuclear factor-kappaB (NF-kappaB) ligand (RANKL) in both MD and RAW cell cultures. Quercetin reversely induced the disruption of actin rings in OCLs. Quercetin also suppressed both pit formation induced by osteoclasts on dentine slices and PTH-stimulated (45)Ca release in mouse long bone cultures. These results suggest that osteoclast progenitors as well as mature osteoclasts, are quercetin's target cells in relation to bone resorption, and that quercetin's suppressive effect on bone resorption results from both its inhibitory effect on the differentiation of osteoclast progenitor cells into pOCs and from its disruptive effect on actin rings in mature osteoclasts.


There is already widespread change in the natural calendars (phenology) of plants and animals, as well as change in some species distributions. Now threshold change (sudden, fundamental change) in ecosystems is beginning to be observed in nature. At minimum, the natural world will experience an equal amount of warming to that which has already taken place. This all suggests a future with nature and ecosystems very much in flux with profound implications for epidemiology.


A key aspect of the condition of soil as a medium for growing plants is the soil physical environment under which germination, growth and establishment occur. Crucially this affects factors such as water content, oxygen availability and soil strength. The dynamics of soil physical properties, and in particular soil structure, of a range of soils and how they relate to plant establishment are considered in this thesis. By engineering a variety of seedbeds and contrasting soil structures using different cultivation techniques, from intensive (plough) to reduced (disc) strategies, significant differences in the physical properties of the soils in terms of volumetric water content, soil strength and bulk density and interactions with plant establishment were identified. A model for Soil Quality of Establishment (SQE) was developed to predict plant establishment based upon soil bulk density and cultivation practices which significantly accounted for c. 50% of the variation occurring across contrasting soil types and environmental conditions. It was hypothesized from this that the precise porous architecture (i.e. soil structure) plays a crucial role in plant establishment given soil bulk density was a significant factor in the SQE model. Utilizing X-ray Computed Tomography (CT) both at a macro (c.300μm) and meso (c.65μm) scale soil structure (in terms of: porosity, pore area and perimeter, elongation, nearest neighbour distance, ECD and pore distribution) were determined in a quantitative manner. Results showed significant decreases in plant populations with associated increases in the soil porosity, with strong links to the pore size, roughness and spatial distribution (accounting for soil-seed contact, water storage / flow and ease of plant / root movement within the soil). Preferred porosity conditions for establishment and yield occurred between 12 - 20 % porosity (at the meso scale). SQE prediction was significantly improved with the addition of structural properties accounting for c. 70 % variation in crop establishment across soil texture and seasonal variation. The further 30 % variation in crop establishment may be explained by unforeseen circumstances such as disease and weather but equally this may also be related to crop genetics, soil chemistry and or the biological activities within the soil.


Implantable medical devices (IMDs) continuously monitor the condition of a patient and directly apply treatments if considered necessary. Because IMDs are highly effective for patients who frequently visit hospitals (e.g., because of chronic illnesses such as diabetes and heart disease), their use is increasing significantly. However, related security concerns have also come to the fore. It has been demonstrated that IMDs can be hacked—the IMD power can be turned off remotely, and abnormally large doses of drugs can be injected into the body. Thus, IMDs may ultimately threaten a patient's life. In this paper, we propose an energy-efficient key-exchange protocol for securing IMDs. We utilize synchronous interpulse intervals (IPIs) as the source of a secret key. These IPIs enable IMDs to agree upon a secret key with an external programmer in an authenticated and transparent manner without any key material being exposed either before distribution or during initialization. We demonstrate that it is difficult for adversaries to guess the keys established using our method. In addition, we show that the reduced communication overhead of our method enhances battery life, making the proposed approach more energy-efficient than previous methods.


The government of Botswana through its National Policy on Culture (2001) and the National Ecotourism Strategy (2002) is committed to preserving national culture and historical heritage. The policy stipulates that valuable heritage must be preserved and developed in order to foster a sense of national identity, pride and unity. It is necessary to reformulate cultural values and valuing processes, in order to better understand the Setswana culture and its meaning in material objects. To this end, dress as one of the valuable material culture objects is essential for signifying and expressing subtle cultural value and social relationships. The intimate link between people and their traditional dress lies at the core of ethnic identity, and has assumed a higher level of significance among consumers and tourists who collect symbolic items. A specific emphasis on a national traditional dress seems to be lacking in Botswana. This paper argues that there is need to restore traditional dress in Botswana, which would serve as a symbol of national identity and cultural heritage. The paper is based on the findings of a study that explored the historical underpinnings of national dress in Botswana, and how national dress could be used to sustain culture.


Child marriages occur when one of the parties is below the age of eighteen. In Malawi, research has shown that most child marriages are a result of cultural practices. To comply with various international and regional instruments, Malawi has enacted different pieces of legislation that can be useful in addressing child marriage. The article, therefore, examines these different pieces of legislation and assesses Malawi's compliance with international standards in addressing child marriages. The authors highlight two imperative issues. First, these laws show evidence of using international children's rights standards as a tool in addressing child marriages. Secondly, they prescribe conflicting approaches that one can interpret as to encouraging child marriages linked to cultural practices. As a result, the article suggests possible recommendations on how Malawi can comply with international standards in addressing child marriages. These include amendment of laws, and more importantly, enactment of a specific law, for example, the Prohibition of Child Marriages Act, which, if enacted, should target all laws and cultural practices that lead to child marriages in


Throughout Britain's history, one factor above all others has determined the fate of the nation: its navy. N. A. M. Rodger's definitive account reveals how the political and social progress of Britain has been inextricably intertwined with the strength - and weakness - of its sea power, from the desperate early campaigns against the Vikings to the defeat of the great Spanish Armada. Covering policy, strategy, ships, recruitment and weapons, this is a superb tapestry of nearly 1,000 years of maritime history. 'No other historian has examined the subject in anything like the detail found here. The result is an outstanding example of narrative history' Barry Unsworth, Sunday Telegraph


Background: A number of studies have shown that proprioception training can reduce the risk of injuries in pivoting sports, but the mechanism is not clearly understood. Aim: To determine the contributing effects of propioception on knee joint position sense among team handball players. Study design: Prospective cohort study. Methods: Two professional female handball teams were followed prospectively for the 2005–6 season. 20 players in the intervention team followed a prescribed proprioceptive training programme while 19 players in the control team did not have a specific propioceptive training programme. The coaches recorded all exposures of the individual players. The location and nature of injuries were recorded. Joint position sense (JPS) was measured by a goniometer on both knees in three angle intervals, testing each angle five times. Assessments were performed before and after the season by the same examiner for both teams. In the intervention team a third assessment was also performed during the season. Complete data were obtained for 15 subjects in the intervention team and 16 in the control team. Absolute error score, error of variation score and SEM were calculated and the results of the intervention and control teams were compared. Results: The proprioception sensory function of the players in the intervention team was significantly improved between the assessments made at the start and the end of the season (mean (SD) absolute error 9.78–8.21° (7.19–6.08°) vs 3.61–4.04°(3.71–3.20°), p<0.05). No improvement was seen in the sensory function in the control team between the start and the end of the season (mean (SD) absolute error 6.31–6.22°(6.12–3.59°) vs 6.13–6.69°(7.46–6.49°), p>0.05). Conclusion: This is the first study to show that proprioception training improves the joint position sense in elite female handball players. This may explain the effect of neuromuscular training in reducing the injury rate.


Papua New Guinea (PNG) has the greatest diversity of dacine fruit fly species (Diptera: Tephritidae: Dacinae) in the world, many of which are significant agricultural pests. Although their taxonomy is relatively well known, there is limited research on their geographical and elevational distribution. We undertook a survey of PNG's fruit fly fauna along a complete elevational gradient on Mt Wilhelm (175–3700 m a.s.l.) to determine the elevational species distribution and turnover of fruit fly communities. Fruit flies were sampled using a selection of male parapheromone lures, including Zingerone, a new and promising male attractant. In total, we collected 10 700 fruit flies representing 77 species. The total abundance and species richness of fruit flies decreased with increasing elevation. Species richness was similarly high at 175 and 200 m a.s.l. (30 and 27 species) and at 700 and 1200 m a.s.l. (16 and 20 species, respectively) but dropped suddenly to only two species at 1700 m a.s.l. and to zero at all four sites above this elevation. There were no flies attracted exclusively to Zingerone. One species (Bactrocera recurrens) exhibited dramatic, temporal changes in abundance during the study period. Fruit fly assemblages were significantly influenced by both the lure type and elevation. Similarity of fruit fly communities decayed linearly with increasing elevational distance. We concluded that the upper limit of fruit fly distribution in PNG occurs between 1700 and 2200 m a.s.l. and the centre of diversity occurs between 0 and 700 m a.s.l.


Background Type 2 cytokines such as IL-13 and IL-5 are important drivers of pathophysiology and exacerbation in asthma. Defining how these type 2 cytokine responses are regulated is a research priority. Epithelial cells promote type 2 responses by releasing alarmins including IL-25, IL-33 and TSLP, but much less is known about inhibitory factors. Methods IL-13 release was measured from peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) cultured with Interleukin (IL)-2 for five days. Epithelial cell lines or human bronchial epithelial cells (HBEC) isolated from healthy or asthma donors were added to these PBMC cultured with IL-2 and release of IL-13 or IL-5 measured. To characterise the mechanisms, we assessed the effect of mechanical disruption of epithelial cells, addition of the COX inhibitor indomethacin and the G-protein inhibitor pertussis toxin. Results PBMC cultured with IL-2 secreted type 2 cytokines in a cell number and time dependent manner. Epithelial cell lines inhibited IL-13 and IL-5 release after co-culture with PBMC in the presence of IL-2, directly, across a transwell and using epithelial cell supernatant. Cells or supernatant from HBEC from healthy or asthma donors also inhibited the cytokine release. Trypsin treatment of conditioned media indicated that inhibitory factor(s) are trypsin insensitive. Mechanical disruption of epithelial cells or indomethacin treatment had no effect, but pertussis toxin reduced epithelial cell inhibition of IL-2 driven type 2 cytokine release. Conclusion Epithelial cells regulate cytokine release by soluble factor(s) and this could be an important immunoregulatory function of the airway epithelium.


We present a framework for building fail-safe hard real-time applications on top of an asynchronous distributed system subject to communication partitions, i.e. using processors and communication facilities whose real-time delays cannot be guaranteed. The basic assumption behind our approach is that each processor has a local hardware clock that proceeds within a linear envelope of real-time. This allows to compute an upper bound on the actual delays incurred by a particular processing sequence or message transmission. Services and applications can use these computed bounds to detect when they cannot guarantee all their properties because of excessive delays. This allows an application to detect when to switch to a fail-safe mode.


The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Forest Service, Forest Products Laboratory (FPL) and Headquarters Engineering Staff, in cooperation with the Midwest Roadside Safety Facility undertook the task of developing bridge railing systems for roads with low traffic volumes and low speeds. Two low-cost bridge railing systems were developed and successful full-scale crash tests were conducted for their use on timber bridge decks using longitudinal lumber laminations. A curb-type timber railing system was designed to redirect a 3/4-ton pickup truck hitting at a speed of 24 km/hr (15 mph) and an angle of 15 degrees. The curb-type rail system used square, trapezoidal, or rectangular rail shapes. A flexible railing system consisting of steel W-beam supported by breakaway timber posts was designed to redirect a 3/4-ton pickup truck hitting at a speed of 50 km/hr (31 mph) and an angle of 25 degrees. The flexible railing system was developed according to Test Level 1 of NCHRP Report 350, "Recommended Procedure for the Safety Performance Evaluation of Highway Features".


We propose a novel generative model that is able to reason jointly about the 3D scene layout as well as the 3D location and orientation of objects in the scene. In particular, we infer the scene topology, geometry as well as traffic activities from a short video sequence acquired with a single camera mounted on a moving car. Our generative model takes advantage of dynamic information in the form of vehicle tracklets as well as static information coming from semantic labels and geometry (i.e., vanishing points). Experiments show that our approach outperforms a discriminative baseline based on multiple kernel learning (MKL) which has access to the same image information. Furthermore, as we reason about objects in 3D, we are able to significantly increase the performance of state-of-the-art object detectors in their ability to estimate object orientation.


Michael Mitchell's Interpreting and Visualizing Regression Models Using Stata is a clear treatment of how to carefully present results from model-fitting in a wide variety of settings. It is a boon to anyone who has to present the tangible meaning of a complex model in a clear fashion, regardless of the audience. As an example, many experienced researchers start to squirm when asked to give a simple explanation of the practical meaning of interactions in nonlinear models such as logistic regression. The techniques presented in Mitchell's book make answering those questions easy. The overarching theme of the book is that graphs make interpreting even the most complicated models containing interaction terms, categorical variables, and other intricacies straightforward.


It has been shown from various functional neuroimaging studies that sparsity-regularized dictionary learning could achieve superior performance in decomposing comprehensive and neuroscientifically meaningful functional networks from massive fMRI signals. However, the computational cost for solving the dictionary learning problem has been known to be very demanding, especially when dealing with large-scale data sets. Thus in this work, we propose a novel distributed rank-1 dictionary learning (D-r1DL) model and apply it for fMRI big data analysis. The model estimates one rank-1 basis vector with sparsity constraint on its loading coefficient from the input data at each learning step through alternating least squares updates. By iteratively learning the rank-1 basis and deflating the input data at each step, the model is then capable of decomposing the whole set of functional networks. We implement and parallelize the rank-1 dictionary learning algorithm using Spark engine and deployed the resilient distributed dataset (RDDs) abstracts for the data distribution and operations. Experimental results from applying the model on the Human Connectome Project (HCP) data show that the proposed D-r1DL model is efficient and scalable towards fMRI big data analytics, thus enabling data-driven neuroscientific discovery from massive fMRI big data in the future.


We relate the late Holocene northern San Andreas fault (NSAF) paleo- seismic history developed using marine sediment cores along the northern California continental margin to a similar dataset of cores collected along the Cascadia margin, including channels from Barclay Canyon off Vancouver Island to just north of Mon- terey Bay. Stratigraphic correlation and evidence of synchronous triggering imply earthquake origin, and both temporal records are compatible with onshore paleoseis- mic data. In order to make comparisons between the temporal earthquake records from the NSAF and Cascadia, we refine correlations of southern Cascadia great earth- quakes, including the land paleoseismic record. Along the NSAF during the last ∼2800 yr, 15 turbidites, including one likely from the great 1906 earthquake, establish an average repeat time of ∼200 yr, similar to the onshore value of ∼240 yr. The combined land and marine paleoseismic record from the southern Cascadia subduction zone includes a similar number of events during the same period. While the average recurrence interval for full-margin Cascadia events is ∼520 yr, the southern Cascadia margin has a repeat time of ∼220 yr, similar to that of the NSAF. Thirteen of the 15 NSAF events were preceded by Cascadia events by ∼0-80 yr, averaging 25-45 yr (as compared to ∼80-400 yr by which Cascadia events follow the NSAF). Based on the temporal association, we model the coseismic and cumulative post- seismic deformation from great Cascadia megathrust events and compute related stress changes along the NSAF in order to test the possibility that Cascadia earth- quakes triggered the penultimate, and perhaps other, NSAF events. The Coulomb fail- ure stress (CFS) resulting from viscous deformation related to a Cascadia earthquake over ∼60 yr does not contribute significantly to the total CFS on the NSAF. However, the coseismic deformation increases CFS on the northern San Andreas fault (NSAF )b y up to about 9 bars offshore of Point Delgada, most likely enough to trigger that fault to fail in north-to-south propagating ruptures.


The Vietnam war continues to be the focus of intense controversy. While most people - liberals, conservatives, Democrats, Republicans, historians, pundits, and citizens alike - agree that the United States did not win the war, a vocal minority argue the opposite or debate why victory never came, attributing the quagmire to everything from domestic politics to the press. The military never lost a battle; how then did it not win the war? Stepping back from this overheated fray, bestselling author John Prados takes a fresh look at both the war and the debates about it to produce a much-needed and long-overdue reassessment of one of our nation's most tragic episodes. Drawing upon several decades of research - including recently declassified documents, newly available presidential tapes, and a wide range of Vietnamese and other international sources - Prados' magisterial account weaves together multiple perspectives across an epic-sized canvas where domestic politics, ideologies, nations, and militaries all collide. Prados patiently pieces back together the events and moments, from the end of World War II until our dispiriting departure from Vietnam in 1975, that reveal a war that now appears to have been truly unwinnable - due to opportunities lost, missed, ignored, or refused. He shows how - from the Truman through the Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon administrations - American leaders consistently ignored or misunderstood the realities in Southeast Asia and passed up every opportunity to avoid war in the first place or avoid becoming ever more mired in it after it began. Highlighting especially Ike's seminal and long-lasting influence on our Vietnam policy, Prados demonstrates how and why our range of choices narrowed with each passing year, while our decision-making continued to be distorted by Cold War politics and fundamental misperceptions about the culture, psychology, goals, and abilities of both our enemies and our allies in Vietnam. By turns engaging narrative history, compelling analytic treatise, and moving personal account, Prados' magnum opus challenges previous authors and should rightfully take its place as the most comprehensive, up-to-date, and accurate one-volume account of a war that - judging by the frequent analogies to the current war in Iraq - has not yet really ended for any of us.


We review and clarify the sufficient conditions for uniquely defining the generalized weak value as the weak limit of a conditioned average using the contextual values formalism introduced in Dressel, Agarwal and Jordan (2010 Phys. Rev. Lett. 104 240401). We also respond to criticism of our work by Parrott (arXiv:1105.4188v1) concerning a proposed counter-example to the uniqueness of the definition of the generalized weak value. The counter-example does not satisfy our prescription in the case of an underspecified measurement context. We show that when the contextual values formalism is properly applied to this example, a natural interpretation of the measurement emerges and the unique definition in the weak limit holds. We also prove a theorem regarding the uniqueness of the definition under our sufficient conditions for the general case. Finally, a second proposed counter-example by Parrott (arXiv:1105.4188v6) is shown not to satisfy the sufficiency conditions for the provided theorem.


This thesis examines four historical lighthouses in North Carolina that are operated as
historic sites. These four lighthouses are Bald Head, Cape Hatteras, Ocracoke, and Bodie Island.
Bald Head is owned by a non-profit organization, while Cape Hatteras, Ocracoke, and Bodie
Island are all owned by the National Park Service as part of Cape Hatteras National Seashore.
Each of these lighthouses has undergone some amount of preservation, is open to visitors in
some context, and offers some form of educational interpretation. These historic lighthouses
have made decent attempts at offering interpretation to their visitors but each of the sites could
improve.
One of the main problems historic lighthouses face is that lighthouses have been heavily
romanticized over time. Interpreters often get caught up in this romanticized history and neglect
to acknowledge their complex history. By excluding these important components historic
lighthouses today perpetuate the idea of these structures as romantic places. These four
lighthouses need to be more inclusive in their interpretation. Part of the reason that these sites
have insufficient interpretation is because they were all preserved for unclear reasons. The
reasons why historic sites are preserved should be a starting point for the interpretation of the
site. In order to understand what is currently going on at historic lighthouses today and what
should be included in their interpretation it is necessary to know the administrative and
technological history of lighthouses, the specific history of these four sites, the history of
preservation and lighthouse preservation in the United States, and how each of these sites has
been preserved.


JEMDSA undoubtedly has the potential to publish top papers in the field of endocrinology, metabolism and diabetes. The fact that it is independently peer-reviewed, accredited for research output, eligible for a Department of Education subsidy, and boasts an open-access website, will undoubtedly pave the way for it to become the undisputed local leader in the field. JEMDSA aims to eventually be indexed in larger data bases such as Copernicus, EMBASE, Medline and ISI, but we are fully aware that this is a long and arduous task that lies ahead.


Abstract:This article situates early twentieth-century Latinx fiction within the inter-twined histories of public health and border surveillance along the Rio Grande to reveal a "borderland biopolitics" unique to the US-Mexico border region. Drawing on three early twentieth-century novels—Daniel Venegas's Adventures of Don Chipote, Américo Paredes's George Washington Gómez, and Jovita González and Eve Raleigh's Caballero—it adds another layer of historical nuance to studies of Latinx literature by demonstrating the profound, pervasive influence that epidemiological science and public health policy have had in shaping national identity politics in the borderlands. Because militarized border control evolves from public health efforts, reframing analyses of Latinx fiction to read for public health provides fresh insight into institutionalized forms of discrimination and social injustice that continue to condition Latinx lives in the US-Mexico borderlands.


An important molecular mechanism involved in cognition has been unraveled. More than one-third of all people are estimated to experience mild to severe cognitive impairment as they age. Acetylcholine (ACh) levels in the brain diminish with aging, and nicotinic ACh receptor (nAChR) stimulation is known to enhance cognitive performance. The prefrontal cortex (PFC) is involved in a range of cognitive functions and is thought to mediate attentional focus. We found that mice carrying nAChR β2-subunit deletions have impaired attention performance. Efficient lentiviral vector–mediated reexpression of functional β2-subunit–containing nAChRs in PFC neurons of the prelimbic area (PrL) completely restored the attentional deficit but did not affect impulsive and motivational behavior. Our findings show that β2-subunit expression in the PrL PFC is sufficient for endogenous nAChR-mediated cholinergic regulation of attentional performance.


As applications and services migrate to the cloud, testing will follow the same trend. Therefore, organizations must understand the dynamics of cloud-based testing. This article presents interviews with eight organizations that use cloud computing. The results suggest that cloud computing can make testing faster and enhance the delivery of testing services. Cloud computing also highlights important aspects of testing that require attention, such as integration and interoperability. This article includes a Web extra that provides additional references for further study.


In Windsor, Ontario there is a historic community known as Sandwich Towne that is currently being destroyed by a single man: Matty Moroun. He owns the Ambassador Bridge, the busiest border crossing in North America, as well as a stretch of more than 110 abandoned houses running parallel to the bridge. Moroun plans to knock houses down and building a second bridge to Detroit, despite the fact that the Canadian government is already building their own span. All We Are is All We Were: the Bridge and Blight of Sandwich Towne is a creative nonfiction exploration of this community stricken with urban blight. Through using a combination of prose and comics storytelling, the work not only serves to tell the tale of walking through and talking to residents in Sandwich, but also embodies the conflict between objective and subjective telling of "truth" in a work of creative nonfiction.


Global biodiversity is increasingly found in fragmented landscapes and populations due to altered human land use. Expansion of agricultural land and changed agricultural practices to the detriment of natural and semi-natural habitats are the most important drivers of this process, caused by the rocketing human demand for agricultural products. Ensuring the persistence of biodiversity and the services it provides to humanity (management of biodiversity and ecosystem services) will require a sound understanding about how biological communities and ecological processes in fragmented landscapes are affected by potentially interacting factors at different spatial scales. However, it remains unclear how properties of fragmented landscapes (landscape composition, landscape configuration, local habitat quality) interact across spatial scales in shaping community structure and ecological processes.
In this thesis I assess the relative role of landscape composition, landscape configuration and local habitat quality at different spatial scales for the conservation of biodiversity and ecosystem processes in fragmented human modified landscapes. My research had two geographical foci: In the first part, I capitalized on the well-known fauna and flora of a traditional, highly fragmented central European agro-ecosystem, to investigate general and trait-mediated patterns across a wide taxonomic range. In the second and third part, I studied bird communities and animal-mediated pollination in the tropics of Central America, which are highly biodiverse but currently suffer an intensive period of human modification.
In the first paper of this study (chapter 2), I used small calcareous grasslands in Germany as our model system, a highly biodiverse, but threatened habitat. Using a large dataset with more than 600 species of nine taxa (bees, butterflies, grasshoppers, hoverflies, leafhoppers, rove beetles, spiders, true bugs, and plants), I tested the separate effects of habitat connectivity, landscape complexity and local management across taxa. In particular, we assessed species richness, community composition and universal, trait-mediated responses. While a high proportion of arable land resulted in a 29% loss of species richness, increasing connectivity generally enhanced species richness across taxa. Only the large species per taxon, assumed to be more dispersive, profited from increased connectivity. While all three management types led to distinct communities, prolonged grazing reduced species richness and abundance, in particular so for red-listed species. In conclusion, we suggest a strategy of alternating mowing and short-term abandonment, focusing on connected sites in diverse landscapes for the conservation of small calcareous grasslands.
The second paper (chapter 3) focuses on the effect of habitat configuration on animal-mediated pollination in tropical fragmented forest landscapes. In Costa Rica, I combined manipulative experiments and field observations to test if narrow woody strips (living fencerows and narrow riparian strips) enhanced pollinator movement, pollen transfer, pollinator availability and pollination success. Using experimental flowers and live plants, I show that such corridors consistently enhance functional connectivity for forest-associated hummingbirds, and in turn pollen transfer between neighboring forest fragments. Corridors drastically increased forest-associated pollinator availability in small fragments, which approached zero in equally sized patches lacking such connections. In parallel, corridors not only substantially increased pollination success of an ornithophilous keystone herb, but averted complete pollination breakdown in small forest fragments. Overall, these results suggest that simple corridors elements can maintain pollination mutualisms and plant gene in tropical forest fragments through increased functional connectivity and pollinator availability.
In the third paper (chapter 4), I evaluated the effect of landscape composition (landscape wide amount and type of forest) and configuration (fragment size and edge proximity) on bird communities, disentangling the effect of old growth forest from secondary forest in a human-modified landscape of southern Costa Rica. I characterized the entire bird community in 49 forest fragments, representing independent variation of patch size and landscape wide forest amount, and found that α-diversity and abundance at the plot scale varied little between fragments. In contrast, α - diversity and abundance of forest birds at the plot scale, in particular insectivores, was nearly halved in edges and secondary forest compared to core areas of primary forest. The same was found in small fragments, but only below a critical threshold of old growth forest within the landscape (22.6%). Similarly, β - diversity of the entire bird community was strongly reduced among small fragments, but only at low landscape-level percentage of oldgrowth forest. Finally, bird communities were similar to primary forest only in fragments surrounded by a high proportion of old growth forest. Overall, the minimum local area (fragment size) required to support substantial levels of α - and β - diversity is lowered in landscapes with a high proportion of old growth forest. Thus, the benefits of old growth not only manifest locally but extend into the landscape scale - not the local fragment area, but the percentage of oldgrowth forest within a landscape drives biodiversity conservation success. Given that human land use is driving landscape structure, there is a need to keep a minimum amount of primary forest - thus, the conservation of old growth forest should remain a key conservation priority.
In conclusion, the results of my dissertation show that biodiversity patterns are shaped by local habitat characteristics, and habitat composition and configuration at the landscape scale. Landscape configuration (corridors) strongly influenced movement between fragments, which in turn affected an ecosystem process (pollination). While small fragments can contribute significantly to conservation in the tropics, there is a need to keep old growth forest above a critical landscape-level threshold. My results emphasize that future conservation of biodiversity and ecosystem services in fragmented landscapes should not only aim to improve local habitat quality, but additionally improve habitat quality and configuration at an appropriate landscape scale. Conservation schemes lacking such a landscape perspective will likely fail to achieve an optimum conservation outcome and thus waste the limited resources available.


You never thought you'd be shooting a corporate training video as part of your job as HR manager, but, well here you are--with a camcorder, a directive, and not a clue how to begin! You--and the many people who find themselves in similar situations--need this volume! Realizing that you're expected to provide professional results regardless, the authors of this volume dig deep into every phase of the DV production process: from capturing images and sound to editing, post-processing, adding special effects, and distributing the final product. Special emphasis is placed on the industrial-strength techniques that will get you up to speed quickly on the hardware and software advances that have occurred since the last edition. You'll find new sections on shooting and post-processing film-look (24p) and HDTV video, as well as special coverage of the latest eye-popping special effects. A companion DVD includes demo video clips, award-winning short films, interviews with DV pros, and lots more goodies.


Summary

1. The response of bird abundance to the proportional availability of un-cropped land (i.e. land that could be cultivated, such as fallows, grass–flower or wild bird areas) is under-studied but of considerable significance for managing declining populations on farmland in western Europe.

2. In this study, bird abundance was examined at a scale consistent with many national monitoring schemes. Birds were counted on 28 farm sites of c. 100 ha, representing cereal-based and organic rotations. Sites were surveyed in summer, from 2007 to 2010, to assess the effect of the percentage cover and spatial arrangement of un-cropped land on bird abundance, with data analysed at the whole-farm (not patch) scale.

3. Un-cropped land area had significant effects on the abundance of key species (those with a high dependency on farmland) when controlling for effects of semi-natural habitats and management. On farms with 10% area of un-cropped land.

4. Positive, significant effects of the percentage area of un-cropped land were detected for lapwing, skylark, linnet and yellowhammer and for all highly farmland-dependent species combined. The relationship between un-cropped land and bird abundance was stronger on conventional compared with organic farms, suggesting a greater importance of un-cropped land on conventional farms.

5. Un-cropped land patch arrangement was significant for skylark and linnet abundance but generally weak amongst species compared with the availability of un-cropped land. Skylarks were positively associated with a larger relative edge effect amongst patches, whereas linnets were more associated with larger blocks of contiguous habitat.

6. Synthesis and applications. This study provides important evidence for a proportionate effect of habitat provision on farmland bird abundance. The relative area of un-cropped land had the strongest effect on bird abundance. Sites with <3% (and, to a lesser extent, <5%) un-cropped land were highly under-populated. A two-fold increase in the area of un-cropped land was associated with an average 16–53% increase in the relative abundance of key species, which has implications for the contribution of un-cropped areas towards population stabilization amongst farmland birds in Europe.


Identified only in 1986, the Nahuatl Holy Week play is the earliest known dramatic script in any Native American language. In Holy Wednesday, Louise Burkhart presents side-by-side English translations of the Nahuatl play and its Spanish source. An accompanying commentary analyzes the differences between the two versions to reveal how the native author altered the Spanish text to fit his own aesthetic sensibility and the broader discursive universe of the Nahua church. A richly detailed introduction places both works and their creators within the cultural and political contexts of late sixteenth-century Mexico and Spain.


Teachers everywhere are constantly working hard to invest in technological innovations to improve the educational standards and create new models and strategies of teaching and learning. One of these models that seems to rely heavily on technology is the "flipped learning or flipped classroom" model. This model is gaining attention among edu¬cators from all levels and fields around the world. The present study aimed to investigate the perceptions of EFL teachers of the flipped classroom model in the Palestinian context in addition to identifying the effect of gender, qualification, and experience on teachers' perceptions. The sample of the study consisted of 79 EFL teachers attended in Teacher Education Improvement Project (TEIP)-Additional Financing. The quantitative results showed that the total degree of teachers' responses was (3.85) which suggested a high level of perceptions and there were no statistical significant differences at (α ≤ 0.05) on the total degree of perceptions between teachers due to gender, qualification and experience. The qualitative results revealed three major themes with regard to teachers' perceptions and that teachers were somehow divided into two groups. The first group was in favor of using the flipped learning model but with mature students and after providing the required infrastructure. The second group was not in favor of using the flipped learning model because it might add more responsibilities and tasks to the overloaded teachers and it might distract students as well. In light of the results of the present study, the researchers offered some recommendations.


Abstract The systemic autoinflammatory diseases are disorders of the innate immune system distinguished by severe inflammation resulting from dysregulation of the innate immune system. Hereditary fever syndromes, such as FMF, TNF receptor-associated periodic syndrome, cryopyrin-associated periodic syndromes and mevalonate kinase deficiency, were the first group of systemic autoinflammatory diseases for which a genetic basis was established, between 1999 and 2001. Currently according to the latest report of the international union of immunological societies, 37 separate monogenic disorders were classified as autoinflammatory. In addition to the abovementioned monogenic conditions, we describe Schnitzler's syndrome, a well-defined, acquired autoinflammatory condition without a clear genetic basis. For the purposes of this review, we discuss several conditions defined by the latest consensus process as systemic autoinflammatory diseases. We focus on those disorders where recent studies have contributed to further phenotypic characterization or had an impact on clinical management.


Background & aims Musculoskeletal pain, the most common cause of disability globally, is most frequently managed in primary care. People with musculoskeletal pain in different body regions share similar characteristics, prognosis, and may respond to similar treatments. This overview aims to summarise current best evidence on currently available treatment options for the five most common musculoskeletal pain presentations (back, neck, shoulder, knee and multi-site pain) in primary care. Methods A systematic search was conducted. Initial searches identified clinical guidelines, clinical pathways and systematic reviews. Additional searches found recently published trials and those addressing gaps in the evidence base. Data on study populations, interventions, and outcomes of intervention on pain and function were extracted. Quality of systematic reviews was assessed using AMSTAR, and strength of evidence rated using a modified GRADE approach. Results Moderate to strong evidence suggests that exercise therapy and psychosocial interventions are effective for relieving pain and improving function for musculoskeletal pain. NSAIDs and opioids reduce pain in the short-term, but the effect size is modest and the potential for adverse effects need careful consideration. Corticosteroid injections were found to be beneficial for short-term pain relief among patients with knee and shoulder pain. However, current evidence remains equivocal on optimal dose, intensity and frequency, or mode of application for most treatment options. Conclusion This review presents a comprehensive summary and critical assessment of current evidence for the treatment of pain presentations in primary care. The evidence synthesis of interventions for common musculoskeletal pain presentations shows moderate-strong evidence for exercise therapy and psychosocial interventions, with short-term benefits only from pharmacological treatments. Future research into optimal dose and application of the most promising treatments is needed.


While classical kernel-based classifiers are based on a single kernel, in practice it is often desirable to base classifiers on combinations of multiple kernels. Lanckriet et al. (2004) considered conic combinations of kernel matrices for the support vector machine (SVM), and showed that the optimization of the coefficients of such a combination reduces to a convex optimization problem known as a quadratically-constrained quadratic program (QCQP). Unfortunately, current convex optimization toolboxes can solve this problem only for a small number of kernels and a small number of data points; moreover, the sequential minimal optimization (SMO) techniques that are essential in large-scale implementations of the SVM cannot be applied because the cost function is non-differentiable. We propose a novel dual formulation of the QCQP as a second-order cone programming problem, and show how to exploit the technique of Moreau-Yosida regularization to yield a formulation to which SMO techniques can be applied. We present experimental results that show that our SMO-based algorithm is significantly more efficient than the general-purpose interior point methods available in current optimization toolboxes.


In this thesis we examine the class of cocyclic subshifts. First, we give a method of modeling the zeros of Diophantine equations in the multiplication of matrices. This yields many examples, and a proof that there is no algorithm than can decide if two cocyclic subshifts are equal. Next, we use the theory of finite dimensional algebras to give an algebraic technique for finding connecting orbits between topologically transitive components of a given cocyclic subshift. This gives a very complete picture of the structure of the dynamical system associated to the cocyclic subshift. Last, we characterize the languages of cocyclic subshifts via cocyclic automata, in an analogous manner to the characterization of the languages of sofic subshifts which have languages accepted by finite automata. Our automaton definition is closely related to definitions in the field of quantum computation.


Malawi is popularly regarded as a paradigm of African capitalism, having pursued an export-orientated, agriculturally-based development strategy in accordance with the dictates of international comparative advantage. Until the late 1970s, when the economy was derailed by
exogenous shocks and poor policy response, the reward was almost two decades of rapid economic growth. Madagascar is often cited as an example of failed African socialism.
Capital-intensive import-substituting industrialisation, nationalisation, a distorted incentive regime and over-extension of the state's economic apparatus contributed to three decades of declining per capita income in the post-independence period. Also by way of contrast, Malawi
has pursued over a decade of largely uninterrupted stabilisation and structural adjustment programmes under the auspices of the IMF and World Bank, whilst Madagascar has been slow to respond to the macro-economic crisis facing many low-income LDCs in the 1980s. This book review article assesses two books on the economic experience of these two contrasting African economies.


ABSTRACT Cleavage of eukaryotic translation initiation factor 4GI (eIF4GI) by viral 2A protease (2Apro) has been proposed to cause severe translation inhibition in poliovirus-infected cells. However, infections containing 1 mM guanidine-HCl result in eIF4GI cleavage but only partial translation shutoff, indicating eIF4GI cleavage is insufficient for drastic translation inhibition. Viral 3C protease (3Cpro) cleaves poly(A)-binding protein (PABP) and removes the C-terminal domain (CTD) that interacts with several translation factors. In HeLa cell translation extracts that exhibit cap-poly(A) synergy, partial cleavage of PABP by 3Cpro inhibited translation of endogenous mRNAs and reporter RNA as effectively as complete cleavage of eIF4GI and eIF4GII by 2Apro. 3Cpro-mediated translation inhibition was poly(A) dependent, and addition of PABP to extracts restored translation. Expression of 3Cpro in HeLa cells resulted in partial PABP cleavage and similar inhibition of translation. PABP cleavage did not affect eIF4GI-PABP interactions, and the results of kinetics experiments suggest that 3Cpro might inhibit late steps in translation or ribosome recycling. The data illustrate the importance of the CTD of PABP in poly(A)-dependent translation in mammalian cells. We propose that enteroviruses use a dual strategy for host translation shutoff, requiring cleavage of PABP by 3Cpro and of eIF4G by 2Apro.


This paper reports two efficient quadtree-based algorithms for variable-size block matching (VSBM) motion estimation. The schemes allow the dimensions of blocks to adapt to local activity within the image, and the total number of blocks in any frame can be varied while still accurately representing true motion. This permits adaptive bit allocation between the representation of displacement and residual data, and also the variation of the overall bit-rate on a frame-by-frame basis. The first algorithm computes the optimal selection of variable-sized blocks to provide the best-achievable prediction error under the fixed number of blocks for a quadtree-based VSBM technique. The algorithm employs an efficient dynamic programming technique utilizing the special structure of a quadtree. Although this algorithm is computationally intensive, it does provide a yardstick by which the performance of other more practical VSBM techniques can be measured. The second algorithm adopts a heuristic way to select variable-sized square blocks. It relies more on local motion information than on global error optimization. Experiments suggest that the effective use of local information contributes to minimizing the overall error. The result is a more computationally efficient VSBM technique than the optimal algorithm, but with a comparable prediction error.


We present an analytic theory of timing jitter in dispersion-managed light-wave systems that is based on the moment method and the assumption of a chirped Gaussian pulse. We apply the theory to a soliton system and show that 50% postcompensation of the accumulated dispersion can reduce the jitter by a factor of 2. We also apply the theory to a low-power light-wave system employing the return-to-zero format and find that timing jitter can be minimized along the fiber link for an optimal choice of precompensation and postcompensation.


The trend toward increased wage and income inequality that emerged in the 1980s—with "the rich getting richer and the poor poorer"—has attracted a great deal of attention and concern. One aspect of this phenomenon has been the growing premium for education, with the disparity between the wage and salary earnings of the least and best educated rising since 1979. A related observation involves the increased earnings inequality among similar workers, which occurred in the 1970s as well as the 1980s.> This exploratory article seeks to broaden the discussion by asking whether the rising cost of employer-provided health insurance and employer payments for FICA taxes has contributed to the growth in observed and actual inequality among workers over this period. The author examines published and unpublished data from the Current Population Survey for men working full-time and year round. She finds that the decreased availability of jobs with health benefits has had a particularly severe impact on less-skilled workers. As a result, the compensation of full-time male workers has actually become substantially more unequal since 1979 than the traditional measure based on wages alone indicates.


In the current scenario of climate change, global agricultural systems are facing remarkable challenges in order to increase production, while reducing the negative environmental impact. Nano-enabled technologies have the potential to revolutionise farming practices by increasing the efficiency of inputs and minimising losses, as well as contributing to sustainable agriculture. Two promising applications of nanotechnology in agriculture are nanobiosensors and nanoformulations (NFs). Nanobiosensors can help detect biotic and abiotic stresses in plants before they affect plant production, while NFs can make agrochemicals, more efficient and less polluting. NFs are becoming new-age materials with a wide variety of nanoparticle-based formulations such as fertilisers, herbicides, insecticides, and fungicides. They facilitate the site-targeted controlled delivery of agrochemicals enhancing their efficiency and reducing dosages. Smart farming aims to monitor and detect parameters related to plant health and environmental conditions in order to help sustainable agriculture. Nanobiosensors can provide real-time analytical data, including detection of nutrient levels, metabolites, pesticides, presence of pathogens, soil moisture, and temperature, aiding in precision farming practices, and optimising resource usage. In this review, we summarise recent innovative uses of NFs and nanobiosensors in agriculture that may boost crop protection and production, as well as reducing the negative environmental impact of agricultural activities. However, successful implementation of these smart technologies would require two special considerations: (i) educating farmers about appropriate use of nanotechnology, (ii) conducting field trials to ensure effectiveness under real conditions.


Maps can tell much about a place that traditional histories fail to communicate. This lavishly illustrated book features 80 maps which have been selected for the particular stories they reveal about different political, commercial and social aspects of Scotland's largest city. The maps featured provide fascinating insights into topics such as: the development of the Clyde and its shipbuilding industry, the villages which were gradually subsumed into the city, how the city was policed, what lies underneath the city streets, the growth of Glasgow during the Industrial Revolution, the development of transport, the city's green spaces, the health of Glasgow, Glasgow as a tourist destination, the city as a wartime target, and its regeneration in the 1980s as the host city of one of the UK's five National Garden Festivals. Together, they present a fascinating insight into how Glasgow has changed and developed over the last 500 years, and will appeal to all those with an interest in Glasgow and Scottish history, as well as those interested in urban history, architectural history, town planning and the history of maps.


This compelling ethnography of women working in Bulgaria's popular sea and ski resorts challenges the idea that women have consistently fared worse than men in Eastern Europe's transition from socialism to a market economy. For decades western European tourists have flocked to Bulgaria's beautiful beaches and mountains; tourism is today one of the few successful—and expanding—sectors of the country's economy. Even at the highest levels of management, employment in the tourism industry has long been dominated by women. Kristen Ghodsee explains why this is and how women working in the industry have successfully negotiated their way through Bulgaria's capitalist transformation while the fortunes of most of the population have plummeted. She highlights how, prior to 1989, the communist planners sought to create full employment for all at the same time that they steered women into the service sector. The women given jobs in tourism obtained higher educations, foreign language skills, and experiences working with Westerners, all of which positioned them to take advantage of the institutional changes eventually brought about by privatization.

Interspersed throughout The Red Riviera are vivid examinations of the lives of Bulgarian women, including a waitress, a tour operator, a chef, a maid, a receptionist, and a travel agent. Through these women's stories, Ghodsee describes their employment prior to 1989 and after. She considers the postsocialist forces that have shaped the tourist industry over the past fifteen years: the emergence of a new democratic state, the small but increasing interest of foreign investors and transnational corporations, and the proliferation of ngos. Ghodsee suggests that many of the ngos, by insisting that Bulgarian women are necessarily disenfranchised, ignore their significant professional successes.


GodViews is a provocative and insightful look at the divisions within the church. The author is a notable conservative Presbyterian whose thinking and writing style has many fans on the liberal end as well. Here, Jack Haberer discusses five different concerns of Christians: preservation of truth, promotion of intimacy with God, unity in the church, caring for victims, and welcoming the marginalized.


Twice in the last two years the Supreme Court of Canada, in the absence of legislative guidance from Parliament, has been called upon to resolve fundamental conflicts in applying the provisions of the Patent Act to unique characteristics of biotechnological innovations, particularly in relation to higher life forms. The result in each case has been a bare 5-4 majority. The lack of a strong majority on basic issues of patent law such as the statutory definitions of "composition of matter" and "use" is not surprising. The very nature of patentability as protection for innovation means that the interpretation of the Patent Act can never be finalized or definitive; protection of innovation requires an inherently indeterminate text in relation to key terms. This presumptively open-ended framework, however, is not particularly well-suited to the task of dealing with innovation involving life itself. Complex and controversial issues of innovation, knowledge management and ethics are being decided, with much uncertainty and unpredictability, by bare majorities. The time has long since come to recognize that the drafters of the Patent Act did not anticipate inventions that could reproduce themselves, and for Parliament to enact amendments accordingly.


The invasion of SE Australia by the exotic New Zealand screwshell Maoricolpus roseus has sparked concern over its potential impact on native soft-sediment assemblages and, in particular, on commercially harvested molluscs. Here we quantify the impact of both live and dead and empty M. roseus shells on the growth, condition and survival of juvenile commercial scallops Pecten fumatus. In a manipulative experiment, P. fumatus juveniles exhibited up to 27% slower linear shell growth, 5% lighter shells (dry weight), 12% less somatic tissue (ash-free dry weight) and 17% poorer condition when caged with live M. roseus. Dead and empty screwshells also reduced scallop growth and condition relative to controls but only at low scallop densities. Scallop mortality did not differ between treatments. The level of impact observed was also dependent on the density of P. fumatus. At low scallop densities, the effects of the invasive M. roseus are largely due to competition for space, as the results from treatments containing live screwshells and those containing dead and empty screwshells were comparable. However, at higher scallop densities, the significant difference between the treatments indicates competition for both space and food. Moreover, comparison between the different scallop densities provides evidence of a combination of both inter- and intraspecific effects. Given the widespread distribution of M. roseus and its occurrence at high densities across large areas of seafloor in SE Australia, impacts on scallop growth and condition have the potential to greatly affect both commercial and recreational scallop fisheries in SE Australia.


As the number and variety of sources for political information increase, it can become difficult to attend to the complexities of political issues. This difficulty lies not only in understanding what is being said, i.e. the content of an issue, but also how it is being said, i.e., the framing of the issue. This paper presents a prototype visualization tool designed to encourage attention to, and critical reflection about, the ways in which a political issue is framed. The tool visually presents linguistic analysis of documents about the issue of cap and trade. Results show that tool use interacted with participants' prior views in affecting their ability to suggest novel framings of the issue, one potential indicator of frame reflection. Tool use also mediated participants' exposure to different viewpoints. These findings help provide insights on how the design of tools for civic participation can help promote thoughtful, reflective political engagement.


High relief is often endowed with a 'structural grain' of topographic highs and lows obtained by selective erosion of tectonic and structural lineaments. Rock-mass fracture patterns exert a major influence on slope stability both at the surface and at various depths beneath it. This paper discusses some of the endogenous causes of deep-seated gravitational deformations and relates them to morphostructure and lithological weaknesses produced by tectonics. Using examples from peninsular Italy, it examines the structural and tectonic setting of deep (and associated shallow) slope movements on an anticline, at a mountain front, and on the rim of an overthrust syncline. All of the movements occur in sedimentary material of varied coherence and resistance to erosion. Lastly, a simple conceptual model is proposed to relate deep-seated gravitational deformations to shallow slope movements. It is concluded that morphotectonic conditions must often be studied before deep-seated slope movements can be understood, but the subtle interplay of forces between deep and shallow mass movements leads to an equifinality that complicates the explanation of both phenomena and obscures their relationship with crustal stresses.


Based on the studies of influence of YAG laser heating conditions for Al alloy melt and steel on wettability, the mechanics of the laser overlap braze welding of 6056 Al and XC18 steel sheet has been investigated. Under the temperature range which is above the melting point of the Al alloy and below the melting point of the steel, two dissimilar metals can be joined by means of laser braze welding. There is no crack observed in the joining area, i.e. Al-Fe intermetallic phase (Fe3Al/FeAl/FeAl3/Fe2Al5) layer formed by solution and diffusion between liquid-solid interface. The temperature range can be defined as the process temperatures of laser braze welding of Al-Fe materials. Selecting a higher laser heating temperature can improve the wettability of Al melt to steel surface, but the intermetallic phase layer is also thicker. When the laser heating temperature is so high that the joining surface of steel is melted, there is a crack trend in the joining area.


THERE CAN BE few other forage plants which have stimulated a greater volume of research work than lucerne. Although part of the reason for this sustained interest may be its great antiquity as a fodder plant, for lucerne has a documented history of over 2,000 years, of greater importance has undoubtedly been its ability to produce high yields of good quality forage, especially under dry conditions. Despite this considerable amount of attention, there are very many aspects of this plant which continue to challenge the scientist and which to the farmer. The management oF ose serious problems lucerne for optimum yield is probably the most important of these partially solved questions, largely because of the almost infinite number of ways in which soil, climate, cutting and grazing intensity and frequency can interact. In view of this enormous variability it would be devise simple and unalterable recipes uite impossible to 9 or lucerne farming. What is more rewarding and of greater lasting value is to understand how this plant grows and how best to use its advantages and minimize its deficiencies, based on a firm knowledge of the principles involved. This paper will therefore trace the life-history of lucerne, and then attempt to draw from it conclusions which can be applied to management in the field.


This article confronts archival documents of the end of slavery in the region of Kayes (Mali) with local memories of villages which were founded by slaves between 1895 and 1935 following slave revolts against the nobility. The colonial administration was never willing to recognize the legacy of slavery in the region and remained therefore relatively silent regarding slave revolts and the foundation of these villages. The local memories of the "rebel" villages reveal complex processes of emancipation on the margins or outside of the official colonial channels of abolition. Moreover, while one could have expected that these revolts become milestones of the regional history, some of these villages are currently becoming "places of forgetting" as the regional and national public space has never been responsive to the transmission of these memories.


Existing literature on distributed development in software engineering, and other fields discusses various challenges, including cultural barriers, expertise transfer difficulties, and communication and coordination overhead. Conventional wisdom, in fact, holds that distributed software development is riskier and more challenging than collocated development. We revisit this belief, empirically studying the overall development of Windows Vista and comparing the post-release failures of components that were developed in a distributed fashion with those that were developed by collocated teams. We found a negligible difference in failures. This difference becomes even less significant when controlling for the number of developers working on a binary. Furthermore, we also found that component characteristics (such as code churn, complexity, dependency information, and test code coverage) differ very little between distributed and collocated components. Finally, we examine the software process used during the Vista development cycle and examine how it may have mitigated some of the difficulties of distributed development introduced in prior work in this area.


Opportunistic networks are constructed by devices carried by people and vehicles. The devices use short range radio to communicate. Since the network is mobile and often sparse in terms of node contacts, nodes store messages in their buffers, carrying them, and forwarding them upon node encounters. This form of communication leads to a set of challenging issues that we investigate: congestion, transfer ordering, and resilience.Congestion occurs in opportunistic networks when a node's buffers becomes full. To be able to receive new messages, old messages have to be evicted. We show that buffer eviction strategies based on replication statistics perform better than strategies that evict messages based on the content of the message.We show that transfer ordering has a significant impact on the dissemination of messages during time limited contacts. We find that transfer strategies satisfying global requests yield a higher delivery ratio but a longer delay for the most requested data compared to satisfying the neighboring node's requests.Finally, we assess the resilience of opportunistic networks by simulating different types of attacks. Instead of enumerating all possible attack combinations, which would lead to exhaustive evaluations, we introduce a method that use heuristics to approximate the extreme outcomes an attack can have. The method yields a lower and upper bound for the evaluated metric over the different realizations of the attack. We show that some types of attacks are harder to predict the outcome of and other attacks may vary in the impact of the attack due to the properties of the attack, the forwarding protocol, and the mobility pattern.


Manufacturing high throughput in vitro models resembling the tissue microenvironment is highly demanded for studying bone regeneration. Tissues such as bone have complex multiscale architectures inside which cells reside. To this end, engineering a microfluidic platform incorporated with three-dimensional (3D) microscaffolds and submicron/nanoscale topographies can provide a promising model for 3D cell cultures. There are, however, certain challenges associated with this goal, such as the need to decorate large surfaces area with high-fidelity 3D submicron structures. Here, we succeeded in fabricating a microfluidic platform embedded with a large area (mm range) of reproducible submicron pillar-based topographies. Using the two-photon polymerization (2PP) as a 3D printing technique based on direct laser writing, uniform submicron patterns were created through optimization of the process parameters and writing strategy. To demonstrate the multiscale fabrication capabilities of this approach, submicron pillars of various heights were integrated onto the surfaces of a 3D microscaffold in a single-step 2PP process. The created submicron topography was also found to improve the hydrophilicity of the surface while being able to withstand flow rates of up to 8 mL/min. The material (IP-Dip resin) used for patterning did not have cytotoxic effects against human mesenchymal stromal cells after 3 days of dynamic culture in the microfluidic device. This proof-of-principle study, therefore, marks a significant step forward in manufacturing submicron structure-on-a-chip models for bone regeneration studies.


The literature on ranking from ordinal data is vast, and there are several ways to aggregate overall preferences from pairwise comparisons between objects. In particular, it is well known that any Nash equilibrium of the zero sum game induced by the preference matrix defines a natural solution concept (winning distribution over objects) known as a von Neumann winner. Many real-world problems, however, are inevitably multi-criteria, with different pairwise preferences governing the different criteria. In this work, we generalize the notion of a von Neumann winner to the multi-criteria setting by taking inspiration from Blackwell's approachability. Our framework allows for non-linear aggregation of preferences across criteria, and generalizes the linearization-based approach from multi-objective optimization. From a theoretical standpoint, we show that the Blackwell winner of a multi-criteria problem instance can be computed as the solution to a convex optimization problem. Furthermore, given random samples of pairwise comparisons, we show that a simple plug-in estimator achieves near-optimal minimax sample complexity. Finally, we showcase the practical utility of our framework in a user study on autonomous driving, where we find that the Blackwell winner outperforms the von Neumann winner for the overall preferences.


Experimental investigations and numerical modeling with the objective to study the effects that surface discharge plasmas can provoke on aerodynamic flow situations, including high speed flows present in aero-engines, are undertaken at EPFL. The actuator's potential to influence the flow under realistic flight and engine operating conditions, largely depends on its geometric configuration and the power supply. Initially, a long-life (more than 12 hours) surface discharge actuator was designed at EPFL and proven to survive transonic flow speeds on typical compressor blades. This was the first time that such a long-term, continuously operating actuator was applied successfully. However, with AC voltage applied to the electrodes, the effects on the shock waves did not appear to be significant [1, 2]. Recent experiments conducted at EPFL focused on fast rise voltage pulse driven dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) actuators and the development of a power supply that could provide the required voltage pulses. A generic DBD actuator with two electrodes in asymmetric configuration, separated by a dielectric was chosen. High speed imaging was applied to investigate the spatial and temporal discharge development. In order to study the influence of voltage and current on the plasma, several power supply configurations were examined by varying voltage rise and fall time, maximum voltage, peak current and pulse width. Two discharge periods were observed on the positive and the negative edge of the voltage pulse. It was observed that the characteristics of the plasma differ considerably between these two periods. Furthermore, the light emission intensity and the propagation speed of the plasma along the surface of the dielectric increased with the maximum voltage and peak current. A similar effect was observed when the voltage rise time was decreased. In a next step, a technique similar to synthetic schlieren was applied to examine the interaction of the DBD actuator with air under atmospheric pressure. A micro shock wave that propagates from the electrode edge normal to the surface was observed, which agrees well with numerical results gained during a parallel investigation. In addition, the impact on the flow structure of maximum voltage and frequency is currently examined. First results suggest that the intensity of the micro shock wave increases with the voltage whereas the frequency primarily provokes electrode heating. With the objective to investigate the modelling of the fast rise pulse driven DBD discharge, a numerical tool was developed that applies emission spectroscopy to determine the electron energy distribution function (EEDF) by comparing the relative intensity of bands, as described by several authors [3-5]. The EEDF is then used to infer populations present in the gas through electron impact ionization, excitation or dissociation cross sections data [6]. Contrary to previous studies, this approach employs two naturally occurring transitions in atmospheric plasmas in conjunction with recent data on collisional quenching [7], which makes the method more reliable and does not require the adjunction of other species such as Helium. References: 1. Pavon S., Dorier J.L., Hollenstein C., Ott P., Leyland P., "Effects of high-speed airflows on a surface dielectric barrier discharge", J. Phys. D: Appl. Phys. 40. No 6.2 1733-1741, 2007. 2. Pavon S., Sublet A., Dorier J.L., Hollenstein C., Ott P., Leyland P., "Long Lifetime system for the generation of Surface Plasmas", International Patent no: P1883PC00/13-71, PCT/IB2009/050489, 2008. 3. Bibinov N. K., Kokh D.B., Kolokolov N.B., Kostenko V.A., Meyer D., Vinogradov I.P., Wiesemann K., "A comparative study of the electron dis-tribution function in the positive columns in N2 and N2/ He dc glow dis-charges by optical spectroscopy and probes", Plasma Sources Science and Technology, 298-309,1998. 4. Behringer K., Fantz U., "Spectroscopic diagnostics of glow discharge plasmas with non-maxwellian electron energy distributions", Journal of Applied Physics D, 2128-2135, 1994. 5. Isola L.M., Gomez B.J., Guerra V., "Determination of the electron tem-perature and density in the negative glow of a nitrogen pulsed discharge using optical emission spectroscopy", Journal of Applied Physics D, 015202, 2010. 6. Itikawa Y., "Cross sections for electron collisions with nitrogen mole-cules", Journal of Physical and Chemical Reference Data, 31-53, 2006. 7. Dilecce G., Ambrico P.F., Benedictis S., "On the collision quenching of N2plus by N2 and O2 and its influence on the measurement of E over N by intensity ratio of nitrogen spectral bands", Journal of Applied Physics D, 195201, 2010.


Externships offer a tantalizing experiential option for law schools. Students are hungry for the real-world experience, the networking potential, and the chance to take the skills they have learned in the classroom to the next level. Administrators love externships because of their high enrollment, low cost nature: externships leverage small amounts of resources from hundreds of outside organizations. Faculty appreciate these programs because they provide students with context and skills, inspire them in the doctrinal classroom, and require little diversion of resources from the more traditional faculty ranks. However, the danger of grasping too tightly to externships as the experiential solution is the temptation to avoid thinking carefully about connecting the external experience to the doctrinal and skills training that law schools are charged to deliver. It is possible to leverage students' real world excitement into deeper reflection and enhanced skills, but it requires us to confront the black hole of most externship programs: the seminar.While it is tempting, we are not free to abandon the externship seminar altogether; indeed I will argue that we have heightened obligations under the American Bar Association's Standards to be more attentive to rigor and assessment in the externship context. Yet, well-established models from either doctrinal or clinical courses are poor fits for externship seminars, in which enrolled students are working at many different sites and constrained by confidentiality. So, we need a unique pedagogy of externship; that is what this article proposes. The Legal Skills Learning Taxonomy – based on Bloom's taxonomy in the psychomotor domain – describes the competencies that mark a student's legal skills development. Students engaged in different substantive work can use this tool to assess their initial proficiency, set meaningful and aggressive goals, reflect on their performance feedback, target their learning in the seminar and develop a depiction of their own progress by the end of the semester.


Software updates in embedded systems are typically performed by bringing the system to stop, replacing the software and restarting the system. This process can in certain cases be very time consuming and costly, which leads to less frequent software updates. In order to establish both long uptime and up-to-date software, the software must be updated during runtime. This paper presents a runtime updating framework for embedded systems capable of replacing parts of software without stopping the system. The framework is based on FreeRTOS and mechanisms have been added to dynamically link and re-link FreeRTOS tasks to the system during runtime. Our framework enables the programmer to easily create updatable software with simple annotations to the program. Experiments demonstrate the benefits of updating software during runtime with an acceptable overhead when transferring the application state.