High-level resistance to macrolide-lincosamide-streptogramin type B (MLS) antibiotics in Escherichia coli BM2570 is due to the presence on the conjugative plasmid pIP1527 of the MLS resistance determinant ermBC, which is almost identical to the erm genes previously described in plasmid pAM77 from Streptococcus sanguis (ermAM) and in transposon Tn917 from Enterococcus faecalis (ermB). This gene and its regulatory region are located downstream from the insertion sequence IS1. The 23S rRNA methylase encoded by pIP1527 differs by three and six amino acids from those encoded by Tn917 and pAM77, respectively. Unlike the streptococcal elements which confer the inducible MLS phenotype, the ermBC gene is expressed constitutively in E. coli and Bacillus subtilis, due to several mutations in the regulatory region. Transcription of the ermBC gene starts from three different sites following three overlapping promoters which function in both E. coli and B. subtilis. Promoters P2 and P3 are located within the region homologous to pAM77 and Tn917, and P1 is a hybrid promoter constituted by -35 and -10 sequences located at the end of IS15 and in the streptococcal region, respectively. These results constitute evidence for the recent in vivo transfer from Streptococcus spp. to E. coli. This transfer could have been mediated by transposons such as Tn917 or Tn1545 from Streptococcus pneumoniae, which also bears an MLS determinant that is homologous to ermB. We speculate that the insertion sequences IS15 and IS1 could have played a role in the expression and dissemination of ermBC, which has been found in numerous strains of enterobacteria.


The poverty percentage in today's Romania is large related to the EU context and compared to other former communist countries. Large differences can be observed in the cases of certain groups which are vulnerable to poverty and social exclusion. For these groups, the most important thing is the intervention of supportive social policies. Besides the higher incidence of poverty and vulnerability, the efficiency of the social transfers in reduction of the poverty (other than pensions) is three times lower in Romania compared to the European average. One of the explanations proposed in this paper refers to the philosophy of the social protection system focused mainly on categorical benefits offered to some large categories presumed to have certain pre-defined vulnerabilities. The rate of the benefits based on testing means is low and the rate of the benefits for supporting those in need of urgent intervention is extremely low. On the other hand, the rate of financial benefits is significantly higher comparing to social services (only 0.7% of GDP, four times lower than the European average). Wasting already insufficient resources by over-addressing certain categories affects those who need the most the support of the social protection system and perpetuates the lack of efficiency of this system in reducing poverty. The over-protection generates in certain cases major social inequities. The analysis starting from the profile of the vulnerable ones will oversee the efficiency and the adequacy/inadequacy of some social protection measures, related to the nature and severity of the identified needs.


Clinical evaluation of CNS injury patients before and after treatment is an essential step in gait rehabilitation. Medical care of gait disturbance for stroke patients is based on different treatments based on clinical and functional evalua-tions. Evaluation of gait aims at characterizing the motor performance to provide clinicians with information on the patient's organizational or performance status and to allow them to consider the most appropriate treatment options. A 3D instrumented gait analysis system allows quantification of several parameters at each instant of walking but does not represent gait in daily life conditions. The absence of devices usable in daily life situation constitutes a lack pointed out by clinical practitioners and is at the origin of this work. In the following are described the design and implementation of a wireless embedded system for the collection of spatiotemporal parameters of pathological gait in everyday life. Algorithms estimate joint angles, step length, and gait events and automatically partition data into gait cycles. Experiments have been carried out to accurately evaluate the joint angles, the precision of sensor synchronization, the precision of gait event detection, and the robustness in the case of pathological walk. Comparisons with references given by the 3D instrumented gait analysis system are detailed.


The purpose of this study is to compare the levels of MMP-1, 2, 8, 9 in tear fluids of people exposed to mustard gas in the war between Iraq and Iran who had the chronic dry-eye symptoms compared to the normal group. In this study, 25 of the patients who were exposed to mustard gas and had chronic dry eye symptoms were compared to 25 patients as control group; consisting of 25 people who had common chronic dry eye symptoms with blepharitis and 25 healthy people as normal group. The level of MMP-1, 2, 8, 9 in tear fluid of people of these three groups was assessed by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). The results for levels of MMP-1 (P=0.8) and MMP-2 (P=0.54) in tear fluid of patients in comparison with normal group do not indicate any significant difference. On the other hand, the calculated levels for MMP-8 (P=0.002) and MMP-9 (P=0.01) in tear fluid of patients in comparison with normal group shows a significant increase. The differences were considered statistically significant at p< 0.05. The effects of exposure to mustard gas on eyes of chemical-injured veterans destroy meibomian glands which paves the way for evaporative dry-eye. As a result, MMPs in tear fluid of these patients increase which eventually elevates the matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) levels in tear fluid and results in later eye-impairments.


Background: Several clinical trials regarding carotid endarterectomy for asymptomatic stenosis have been conducted in the past two decades. These research studies have not resolved the controversy regarding the optimal treatment of patients with this condition. Summary of review: We examine some of the reasons why there is persisting uncertainty regarding the value of carotid endarterectomy for asymptomatic stenosis. These include the sample size of earlier studies, the generalizability of these studies, and the clinical importance of the reported surgical benefits in some studies. We then review the rationale for another, larger clinical trial. Conclusions: The role of endarterectomy for asymptomatic stenosis remains an unsettled issue. A larger clinical trial may shed light on how to best identify which patients derive clinically significant benefits from prophylactic carotid artery surgery.


Feminist sport psychology encompasses many approaches and has many variations. The articles in this special issue reflect that variation but also reflect common themes outlined in this introductory article. The feminist framework
for this article begins with bell hooks' (2000) inclusive, action-oriented definition of feminism as "a movement to end sexism, sexist exploitation, and oppression" (p. viii). The following themes, drawn from feminist theory and
sport studies scholarship, provide the supporting structure: (a) gender is relational rather than categorical; (b) gender is inextricably linked with race/ethnicity, class, and other social identities; (c) gender and cultural relations
involve power and privilege: and (d) feminism demands action . Gender scholarship in sport psychology is reviewed noting recent moves toward feminist approaches and promising directions that incorporate cultural diversity and relational analyses to move toward feminist practice. The other articles in this issue reflect similar feminist themes and present unique contributions to guide us toward feminist sport psychology.


The main aim of the research presented in this Thesis was to investigate
'how can collaborative middleware based CWE (Collaborative Working
Environment), combined \\ith Bluetooth technology, enhance the
communications of mobile users.' The high level collaborative middleware
is a RTD (Research and Technology Development) challenge and one of
most desirable medium to long term research outputs for CWEs. This
research activity outlines a collaborative middleware that has been
developed on Smartphone technology and enables the creation of a
multi-user collaborative \\orking environment via a Bluetooth wireless
communications network. A Bluetooth network as a type of ad-hoc
network works on the mobile devices that have the ability to dynamically
form connections with each other to create a network, called MANET
(Mobile Ad-hoc Network). To achieve this aim, it started \\ith discussing
the ke\ design parameters, and then the design of collaborative
middleware with collaborative functionality; followed by the development
and iterative modification of the middleware and applications until fully
mature; ended by completed a SWOT (Strengths. Weaknesses,
Opportunities, and Threats) analysis and a comparison test with focus
group to determine the collaborative middleware's potential impact to
improve communications between users. The result of the evaluation
conclude that Bluetooth enabled collaborative middleware can improve the
communications of mobile ad-hoc networks. This research also provides
two key areas of contribution. Firstly it provides an evolutionary step for
the creation of new collaborative applications. Secondly, it has optimised
the use of Bluetooth beyond the functionality for which it was originally
designed.


Decomposing an arbitrary electron energy distribution into sums of Maxwellian and power law components is an efficient method to calculate synchrotron emission and absorption. We use this method to study the effect of non-thermal electrons on submm images and spectra of the Galactic center black hole, Sgr A*. We assume a spatially uniform functional form for the electron distribution function and use a semi-analytic radiatively inefficient accretion flow and a 2D general relativistic MHD snapshot as example models of the underlying accretion flow structure. We develop simple analytic models which allow us to generalize from the numerical examples. A high energy electron component containing a small fraction (few per cent) of the total internal energy (e.g. a "power law tail") can produce a diffuse halo of emission, which modifies the observed image size and structure. A population of hot electrons with a larger energy fraction (e.g. resulting from a diffusion in electron energy space) can dominate the emission, so that the observed images and spectra are well approximated by considering only a single thermal component for a suitable choice of the electron temperature. We discuss the implications of these results for estimating accretion flow or black hole parameters from images and spectra, and for the identification of the black hole "shadow" in future mm-VLBI data. In particular, the location of the first minimum in visibility profiles does not necessarily correspond to the shadow size as sometimes assumed.


The Performance of Structured High-Capacity Si Anodes for Lithium-Ion Batteries Juichin Fan Department of Chemical Engineering, BYU Master of Science This study sought to improve the performance of Si-based anodes through the use of hierarchically structured electrodes to provide the nanoscale framework needed to accommodate large volume changes while controlling the interfacial area – which affects solid-electrolyte interphase (SEI) formation. To accomplish this, electrodes were fabricated from vertically aligned carbon nanotubes (VACNT) infiltrated with silicon. On the nanoscale, these electrodes allowed us to adjust the surface area, tube diameter, and silicon layer thickness. On the micro-scale, we have the ability to control the electrode thickness and the incorporation of micro-sized features. Treatment of the interfacial area between the electrolyte and the electrode by encapsulating the electrode controls the stabilization and reduction of unstable SEI. Si-VACNT composite electrodes were prepared by first synthesizing VACNTs on Si wafers using photolithography for catalyst patterning, followed by aligned CNT growth. Nano-layers of silicon were then deposited on the aligned carbon nanotubes via LPCVD at 200mTorr and 535°C. A thin copper film was used as the current collector. Electrochemical testing was performed on the electrodes assembled in a CR2025 coin cell with a metallic Li foil as the counter electrode. The impact of the electrode structure on the capacity at various current densities was investigated. Experimental results demonstrated the importance of control over the superficial area between the electrolyte and the electrode on the performance of silicon-based electrodes for next generation lithium ion batteries. In addition, the results show that Si-VACNT height does not limit Li transport for the range of the conditions tested.


As Rafaeli & Vilnai-Yavetz (2004) have shown, there is a relationship between physical artefacts and emotion and this emotion arises from three conceptually distinct aspects of the physical artefacts; instrumentality, aesthetics and symbolism.

Within this paper, furthering this line of research, I describe how organizational actors within three educational institutes, undergoing change to their physical and managerial environment, interpreted that built environment and the physical artefacts within it. This description was used to create a model, developed from Rafaeli & Vilnai-Yavetz (2004), and suggests that the emotion which is created as a result of interpreting physical artefacts is used to affirm/influence and/or create our workplace identities. Using Hatch, M.J. & Schultz, M., (2001) identity model as a base I examine how physical artefacts are using in the expressing, reflecting, mirroring and impressing processes, establishing whether or not each factor uses physical artifacts. I go on to suggest that our interpretation of physical artefacts, when meaning is constructed from physical symbolic artefacts, can be the basis of a language.

This work develops the constructs of workplace identity and image and uses them to link ideas for examining changing organizational relationships and the impact of the design of the organizational built environment on its occupants and stakeholders.

'If you are in a poorer position in relation to people who are the same grade as you then everyone thinks you have done something wrong. Why have you been given this workstation? We can't choose our own work area, sometimes there is a bit of negotiation but essentially it's allocated to us, so if we're allocated one for example with a position next to the printer then we are in a less favour able position, especially if someone who is essentially doing the same job has a better one. It also makes me wonder if I've done something wrong to be allocated a work station like this. Is something happening that I don't know about? Is something happening within my group?' (Faculty staff member, ABC, 2004)


This study investigated the effects of explicit, strategic intervention with iPad application practice on the multiplication fact performance and strategy use of elementary students with learning disabilities (LD) using a single-case, multiple probe design across participants. Four fifth-grade students with LD received 15 1:1 intervention sessions in multiplication facts. Results indicated that all students made significant growth in multiplication fact performance across the study and maintained the intervention gains 2 weeks following the intervention. Overall, students increased their use of a doubling strategy taught during intervention and were able to retrieve facts automatically after intervention sessions. Social validity interview results indicated that participants had positive perspectives about the intervention. Implications for practice and suggestions for future research are discussed.


Using a model of the environment and a value function, an agent can construct many estimates of a state's value, by unrolling the model for different lengths and bootstrapping with its value function. Our key insight is that one can treat this set of value estimates as a type of ensemble, which we call an \emph{implicit value ensemble} (IVE). Consequently, the discrepancy between these estimates can be used as a proxy for the agent's epistemic uncertainty; we term this signal \emph{model-value inconsistency} or \emph{self-inconsistency} for short. Unlike prior work which estimates uncertainty by training an ensemble of many models and/or value functions, this approach requires only the single model and value function which are already being learned in most model-based reinforcement learning algorithms. We provide empirical evidence in both tabular and function approximation settings from pixels that self-inconsistency is useful (i) as a signal for exploration, (ii) for acting safely under distribution shifts, and (iii) for robustifying value-based planning with a learned model.


Tax is one of the largest sources of revenue from the State Budget (APBN). Every year it is expected that the achievement will be in accordance with the targets set by the government. On the other hand for Taxpayers, tax is a burden that must be reduced because it affects the profits earned. Tax avoidance by taxpayers was called tax aggressiveness, where taxpayers try to minimize the tax burden in order to increase profits.This study aims to determine the effect simultaneously and partially between tax aggressiveness as the dependent variable with executive compensation, independent director and audit quality as an independent variable with leverage control variables that were proxied by a debt to asset ratio (DAR).The research method used quantitative research with descriptive objectives verification and had a type of causality. The analytical unit used a mining company that was consistently listed on the IDX, consistently publishes financial statements and did not experience losses during the study period of 2011-2017. Based on these criteria 8 samples of the company were obtained with a study period of 7 years, resulting in 56 research samples. The method of data analysis used descriptive statistical analysis and panel data regression analysis which was assisted by Microsoft Excel 2016 and E-Views 10 Student Version software.From the results of descriptive statistical analysis and panel data regression it was concluded that executive compensation, independent directors and audit quality had an effect on simultaneously on tax aggressiveness. Partially, executive compensation and independent directors had no effect on tax aggressiveness, while audit quality had a significant negative effect on tax aggressiveness. This shows that taxpayers must pay attention to the independent variable of audit quality because it could affect tax aggressiveness


Far-infrared laser vibration-rotation tunneling spectroscopy was used to measure an intermolecular vibration (81.19198 wave numbers) of the isolated water (D2O) pentamer. Rotational analysis supports the chiral, slightly puckered ring structure predicted by theory. The experimentally deduced interoxygen separations for the water clusters up to the pentamer showed exponential convergence toward the corresponding distance in bulk phase water.


The monograph is devoted to the development of mechanical systems with dynamic effects on processing media. A new approach and methodology is proposed, taking into account the influence of energy fields of physical and me-chanical effects, the transformation and inversion of types of energy exposure. The model of dispersed media under consideration in the range of the process of destruction, grinding and compaction is considered. The revealed changes in the parameters of subsystems: working media, mechanical systems, the process-es of their interaction are studied based on the consideration of their stress-strain state. The analysis of combinations and their influence on the intensity of phy-sical and mechanical processes is carried out. The intensification of physical and mechanical processes, methods and means of their creation are achieved by the formulated idea: systematization and complexity of approaches through a joint consideration of the mutual influence of the internal properties of the subsys-tems made it possible to identify the general laws of their changes and take them into account in the work process. The movement of the working media during high-speed and impact destruction with differentiation of the working area is de-scribed. Structuring of the shock process, the formation of entropy destruction, the use of self-organization and the evolution of geometric shapes are evaluated. The process of grinding materials by a vibratory jaw crusher is investigated and methods for determining the effective parameters and their operation modes are proposed. The process of compaction of the processing medium in the field of vibrations in the device with spatial vibrations is described. The laws of change in the device movement, taking into account interaction with the processing medium are established. As a research result, new properties of the behavior of discrete-continuous systems under power load are disclosed. For the first time, stresses and strains are taken into account as working bodies and media for creating energy-saving vibration systems for compaction of building materials. The conducted scientific study makes it possible to obtain the laws of change in the state of dispersed media under the action of power loads by mechanical sys-tems. Minimization of energy costs and increase the efficiency of work processes is proposed when implementing various technological processes.


For massive multiple input multiple output systems at millimeter wave (mmWave) bands, we consider an efficient hybrid array architecture, namely, overlapped subarray (OSA), and develop a Unified Low Rank Sparse (ULoRaS) recovery algorithm for hybrid beamforming in downlink multiuser scenarios. The ULoRaS scheme takes advantage of the transmit–receive coordinated beamforming procedure to achieve large array gains. It has no dimensionality constraint and can be applied to the generalized OSA architecture, including both the fully connected and the widely discussed non-OSA cases. It is shown that the proposed ULoRaS algorithm for the novel OSA design is a good compromise of the performance and the required hardware complexity.


In the diamond wire stone cutting process the objective is to remove a chip of material or a layer of uniform thickness from the entire length of the cut. The aim of this study is to correlate the cutting performance to the characteristics of the natural stone and subsequently to propose a method of classification strictly connected to stone workability. Hardness and micro-hardness tests are currently considered important methods for acquiring useful information about the workability of natural stones, but such gathered data alone do not give enough information to establish a satisfying classification. The concept of workability and stone machining has been, for the past thirty years, one of the main area of investigation in national and international researches. This study endorses a method for the prediction of stone-cutting tools interaction (mainly diamond wires) combining the micro-hardness and the UPV measurements, that better represent the mechanical, physical and petrographical stone properties. This paper studies eight different stones classified according to an "easy-to-cut" scale based on the historical company know-how (HIC - Historical Industrial Classification). This classification is based upon experience and not on explicit or really scientifically quantified parameters, nonetheless, it describes the stones workability completely. In previous works, however, criteria based on quantifiable parameters (SSC - Scientific Stone Classification) have been pursued and this led to a scientific correlation with the industrial classification. For each stone the following investigation techniques were performed: petrographic analysis, micro-hardness, Schmidt rebound, Ultrasound Pulse Velocity (UPV). Moreover UPV measures in indirect and direct method have been executed on stone blocks in the cutting plant and compared with those performed on slabs. The results of all the performed tests were analyzed and good correlations with the industrial classification were found. Introduction


This paper discusses features of the electrophysical properties of semiconductors as applied to their use as an optical medium for IR systems. It is shown that reliable information on the absorption coefficient in the IR region can be obtained from a collection of parameters: the conductivity type, resistivity, charge-carrier mobility, and band gap.


Intervention is a successful method for families and friends in which they encourage addicts to change their lifestyles together with a professional interventionist. This study is a qualitative investigation on how language was used in televised interventions from the documentary show "Intervention Canada". The focus of the study was to look into the intentional persuasion of the interventionist and trace patterns of the addict's emotional driven response by using conversation analysis. The findings revealed that the interventionists used empathic- tone and body language, strategic pauses before and after voicing important information, and powerful words in short sentences when talking. Thus, even though they shared strategies, each situation required them to be flexible. Additionally, similar reactions among the addicts' talk-in-interaction were indicated, where silence and ambiguous utterances were a sign of hesitation when responding the interventionist.


HD 199178 (V 1794 Cygni), a chromospherically active late-type giant with a high X-ray luminosity, was observed by the XMM-Newton space observatory. Series of lines of highly ionized Fe and several Lyman lines of hydrogen-like ions are visible in the reflection grating spectra, most notably from O and Ne. Analysis results suggest a scenario where the corona of HD 199178 is dominated by large magnetic structures similar in size to interconnecting loops between solar active regions but significantly hotter. The surface area coverage of these active regions may approach up to a 90%. An hypothesis is that the interaction of these structures themselves induces a flaring activity in a small scale not visible in the EPIC light curves that is responsible for heating HD 199178 plasma to coronal temperatures of $T \ge 10^{7}$ K. The intense X-ray activity of HD 199178 is related to its evolutionary position at the bottom of the red giant branch. It is anticipated that its rotation will spin-down in the future with the effect of decreasing its helicity related, dynamo driven activity and suppressing large scale magnetic structures in its corona.


This report documents the early observations from the Long-Term Pavement Performance (LTPP) Specific Pavement Studies (SPS) conducted as part of the LTPP Program Data Insight, which was conducted to identify initial findings from the test sections established for this program. Comparisons of performance trends were made to evaluate both the distinctions between the various rehabilitation treatments and the performance of the individual treatments themselves based on their condition prior to the treatment. Most of the rehabilitation strategies are still performing adequately after 3 to 4 years of service, as should be expected. Problems have been identified though that can definitely lead to early failures, such as mix design problems and reflective cracking problems. Even at this early point in the life of these rehabilitation strategies, differences in performance can be observed between treatments. With the continued monitoring of these sections, it is anticipated that the pavement community will continue to learn more and more about the performance of the various strategies and the effects of their design factors.


Abstract. Karstic aquifers are well known for their vulnerability to groundwater contamination. This is due to characteristics such as thin soils and point recharge in dolines, shafts, and swallow holes. In karstic areas, groundwater is often the only freshwater source. This is the case of the Apulia region (south-eastern Italy), where a large and deep carbonate aquifer, affected by karstic and fracturing phenomena, is located. Several methods (GOD, DRASTIC, SINTACS, EPIK, PI, and COP) for the assessment of the intrinsic vulnerability (Iv) were selected and applied to an Apulian test site, for which a complete data set was set up. The intrinsic vulnerability maps, produced using a GIS approach, show vulnerability from low to very high. The maximum vulnerability is always due to karstic features. A comparison approach of the maps is proposed. The advantages and disadvantages of each method are discussed. In general terms, three groups can be distinguished. The GOD method is useful for mapping large areas with high vulnerability contrasts. DRASTIC and SINTACS are "any-type aquifer" methods that have some limitations in applications to karstic aquifers, especially in the case of DRASTIC. EPIK, PI, and COP, which were designed to be applied to carbonate or karstic aquifers, supply affordable results, highly coherent with karstic and hydrogeological features, and reliable procedures, especially in the case of PI and COP. The latter appears simpler to apply and more flexible in considering the role of climatic parameters. If Iv of each method is considered, the highest variability is observed in cells in the neighbourhood of karstic features. In these spatial domains, additional efforts to define more reliable and global methods are required.


The main objective of this study was to determine the effectiveness of Washington's fee and fine system in recapturing the physical and resultant financial damage to pavements caused by overloaded vehicles, through the court and legal process. This was accomplished through interviews with weight enforcement officials and court personnel in addition to a detailed examination of over 8,000 citations from nine counties between September 1991 and August 1992. The results provide a complete examination of Washington's fee and fine system and help identify weaknesses in the system.


The connection between training deep neural networks (DNNs) and optimal control theory (OCT) has attracted considerable attention as a principled tool of algorithmic design. Despite few attempts being made, they have been limited to architectures where the layer propagation resembles a Markovian dynamical system. This casts doubts on their flexibility to modern networks that heavily rely on non-Markovian dependencies between layers (e.g. skip connections in residual networks). In this work, we propose a novel dynamic game perspective by viewing each layer as a player in a dynamic game characterized by the DNN itself. Through this lens, different classes of optimizers can be seen as matching different types of Nash equilibria, depending on the implicit information structure of each (p)layer. The resulting method, called Dynamic Game Theoretic Neural Optimizer (DGNOpt), not only generalizes OCT-inspired optimizers to richer network class; it also motivates a new training principle by solving a multi-player cooperative game. DGNOpt shows convergence improvements over existing methods on image classification datasets with residual and inception networks. Our work marries strengths from both OCT and game theory, paving ways to new algorithmic opportunities from robust optimal control and bandit-based optimization.


This work considers space-time channel coding for systems with multiple-transmit and a single-receive antenna, over space uncorrelated block-fading (quasi-static) channels. Analysis of the outage probability over such channels reveals the existence of a threshold phenomenon. The outage probability can be made arbitrary small by increasing the number of transmit antennas, only if the E/sub b//N/sub 0/ is above a threshold which depends on the coding rate. Furthermore, it is shown that when the number of transmit antennas is increased, the /spl epsi/-capacity of a block-fading Rayleigh channel tends to the Shannon capacity of an additive white Gaussian noise channel. This paper also presents space-time codes constructed as a serial concatenation of component convolutional codes separated by an interleaver. These schemes provide full transmit diversity and are suitable for iterative decoding. The rate of these schemes is less than 1 bit/s/Hz, but can be made arbitrary close to 1 bit/s/Hz by the use of Wyner-Ash codes as outer components. Comparison of these schemes with structures from literature shows that performance gains can be obtained at the expense of a small decrease in rate. Computer simulation results over block-fading Rayleigh channels show that the frame-error rate of several of these schemes is within 2-3 dB from the theoretical outage probability.


In this thesis we first investigate PBW deformations of Koszul, Calabi-Yau algebras, and we then study moduli spaces of representations of algebras defined by tilting bundles. These classes of algebras are generalisations of the skew group algebras appearing as noncommutative resolutions in the McKay correspondence, and the results we prove are motivated by corresponding results for skew group algebras. Koszul, Calabi-Yau algebras are Morita equivalent to path algebras with relations defined by superpotentials, and we classify which PBW deformations of these algebras still have relations defined by a superpotential and show that these deformations also retain the Calabi-Yau property. As an application of these results we show that symplectic reflection algebras are Calabi-Yau and can be interpreted as path algebras with relations defined by a superpotential. We then investigate when a variety with a tilting bundle can be produced as a moduli space of representations of an algebra defined by the tilting bundle. We find a set of conditions ensuring a variety and tilting bundle can be reconstructed in such a manner, and we show that these conditions hold in a large class of examples, which includes situations arising in the minimal model Program where the variety may be singular. As an example we show that the minimal resolution of a rational surface singularity can be produced as a moduli space for a noncommutative algebra such that the tautological bundle is a tilting bundle defining the noncommutative algebra.


In this work, we propose the construction of two-channel wavelet filter banks for analyzing functions defined on the vertices of any arbitrary finite weighted undirected graph. These graph based functions are referred to as graph-signals as we build a framework in which many concepts from the classical signal processing domain, such as Fourier decomposition, signal filtering and downsampling can be extended to graph domain. Especially, we observe a spectral folding phenomenon in bipartite graphs which occurs during downsampling of these graphs and produces aliasing in graph signals. This property of bipartite graphs, allows us to design critically sampled two-channel filter banks, and we propose quadrature mirror filters (referred to as graph-QMF) for bipartite graph which cancel aliasing and lead to perfect reconstruction. For arbitrary graphs we present a bipartite subgraph decomposition which produces an edge-disjoint collection of bipartite subgraphs. Graph-QMFs are then constructed on each bipartite subgraph leading to "multi-dimensional" separable wavelet filter banks on graphs. Our proposed filter banks are critically sampled and we state necessary and sufficient conditions for orthogonality, aliasing cancellation and perfect reconstruction. The filter banks are realized by Chebychev polynomial approximations.


The findings of this multi-site study emphasise the importance of Organisational
Culture for integrating clinical information systems into intensive care units. A novel
model, the Iterative Systems Integration Model, has two principle components, these
being Organisational Culture and the Actual Usefulness of the clinical information
system. The model is derived from empirical data collected in four intensive care sites
in England and Denmark, with one site being used to validate the model. The model
highlights clinical information systems as directly affecting the work processes of the
sites investigated, which in turn affect the Organisational Culture and Actual Usefulness
of the clinical information system used, and these features affect clinical information
system integration. This forms an iterative process of change as clinical information
systems are introduced and integrated.
Intensive care units are complex organisations, with complex needs and work
processes. The impact of clinical information systems on these work processes is
investigated in this thesis using Role Activity Diagrams. These diagrams are analysed to
show that although clinical work processes are consistent at each site, the information
processes differ. Intensive care information processes are found to have the potential to
be much simplified with the introduction of seamless clinical information systems.
Qualitative data collectio n methods were deployed, i. e., observations,
interviews, and shadowing of clinical staff, together with a questionnaire at each site for
further validation. Data were analysed using grounded theory to extract salient
variables, which informed the development of the model. These factors were indicative
of the Organisational Culture of the sites investigated and the Actual Useftilness of the
clinical information systems being used.
It was posited that clinical information systems that reconcile expectations of
both hospital management and clinical staff - and that have the potential to adapt to
their organisational environment - have a greater chance of surviving in complex
environments such as intensive care. Despite decades of Health Infon-flatics, no such
systems exist in their entirety; this research shows that 'ancient problems' of clinical
information systems integration are still prevalent, and presents the Iterative Systems
Integration Model, the application of which may assist with the integration of clinical
information systems in intensive care.


The Okavango Delta is situated within two major grabens, one containing the Panhandle and the other the Delta itself. The main graben is underlain by between 200 m and 300 m of largely unconsolidated medium to fine sand. The Delta is an alluvial fan, which is divided longitudinally into two by horsts which form Chief9s Island and the Duba Island cluster. Permanent swamp, sustained by base flow of the Okavango River, is developed in the Panhandle, upper fan, and portion of the fan to the east and northeast of Chief9s Island. Seasonal flood water enters the Panhandle via the Okavango River, but because of the permeable nature of channel margins and the elevated water surface in the channels, especially at the apex of the fan, it is rapidly leaked from the channels. Most of the seasonal flood water flows to the west of Chief9s Island where the bulk of the seasonal swamps are located. The extent of annual inundation is variable, and is strongly influenced by the magnitude of flood discharge and local rainfall, and to a lesser extent by antecedent conditions and evapotranspiration. Seasonal flooding has created a recharge mound beneath the Delta, but analysis of ground water chemistry and isotopic characteristics indicates that the Delta is essentially hydrologically closed, with no ground water outflow, and only limited surface water outflow. There is no large-scale lateral flow of ground water and water movements in the system are essentially vertical. Recharge occurs through the flood plains, and water is lost to the atmosphere by evaporation and especially by transpiration, particularly from islands. Soluble salts are accumulating in the deep ground water. This study has emphasized the need for more data on the aerial extent of seasonal flooding, on the ground water recharge, and on the contributions of evaporation and transpiration to water loss.


This paper takes issue with the widely held view that Europe has failed to govern the multiple crises it has been facing because of too little integration. Rather than a lack of authority, a growing "commitment-compliance gap" has exacerbated the regulatory deficits of EU governance in core areas of the European integration project. The failure of the Member States to put into practice the policies they agreed upon at the EU level has its cause in Euro-nationalists dominating the politicization of EU policies and institutions. They have been empowered by the way in which the Member States have sought to solve the Euro crisis. The growing contestation of and opposition to the EU and its policies per se is not the problem. Nor is it the return of nationalism in Europe or the lack of a European public sphere. Instead of an outright rejection of European integration, we see the mobilization of illiberal, nationalist ideas of Europe, which are exclusionary, xenophobic, and anti-Islam. This paper argues that Euro-nationalism undermines not only the legitimacy but also the effectiveness of EU governance. It has been fueled by the mix of Member State negotiation and competition in the shadow of supranational hierarchy. This has worked for the EU as a regulatory state but is not suitable for dealing with the redistributive issues that have come to dominate important areas of European integration. In fact, simply extending the EU's governance mix from regulatory to redistributive policies is likely to further undermine its effectiveness and legitimacy.


This paper presents a method for designing a semisupervised classifier for multi-component data such as web pages consisting of text and link information. The proposed method is based on a hybrid of generative and discriminative approaches to take advantage of both approaches. With our hybrid approach, for each component, we consider an individual generative model trained on labeled samples and a model introduced to reduce the effect of the bias that results when there are few labeled samples. Then, we construct a hybrid classifier by combining all the models based on the maximum entropy principle. In our experimental results using three test collections such as web pages and technical papers, we confirmed that our hybrid approach was effective in improving the generalization performance of multi-component data classification.


A number of approaches to solving the wave equation require approximations to square-root of (1-x 2 ). When x is very small, the Taylor series approximations are usually sufficient. When using the first two terms of the series, we get a parabolic equation that leads to the 15-degree approximation to the wave equation. Improved finite-difference solutions to very steep dips are found from rational functions that are often derived from continued fraction expansion. A very simplified description of continued fraction expansion is presented, starting with real numbers and progressing to functions.


TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction I. The Evolution of the Current Search and Review Strategies II. Technology Assisted Review: What it is and Why it Has Not Yet Been Universally Adopted III. Technology Assisted Review's Changing Landscape: Recent Court Decisions A. Moore v. Publicis Groupe B. Global Aerospace v. Landow Aviation C. Kleen Products v. Packaging Corporation of America D. In re Actos (Pioglitazone) Products Liability Litigation E. EORHB, Inc. v. HOA Holdings, LLC IV. Removing the Fear from Technology Assisted Review: Clarifying Best Practices and Guidelines Conclusion INTRODUCTION Technology assisted review (TAR), also known as predictive coding or computer-assisted review, has been a subject of serious debate in electronic discovery ("e-discovery") for the past several years. For years, proponents of TAR have refrained from using the technology and instead were waiting for a judicial decision that would permit its use. (1) Fortunately, that decision has now arrived. In the first few months of 2012 the use of TAR has been directly addressed in three cases: Moore v. Publicis Groupe (2) and Global Aerospace v. Landow Aviation (3) permitted TAR's use. In Kleen Products v. Packaging Corporation of America, (4) the parties and the court issued a stipulation and order in August of 2012 that set forth the parameters for electronic discovery, but did not mandate the use of predictive coding by the defendant. (5) While proponents of TAR view Moore and Global Aerospace as wins for the use of TAR, the debate surrounding when and how it should be used is far from over. In July 2012, In re Actos (6) also reaffirmed the use of TAR. Most recently, in October 2012, Vice Chancellor J. Travis Laster in Delaware Chancery Court required the parties in EORHB, Inc. v. HOA Holdings, LLC to use TAR from the same vendor. (7) TAR is an important next step in the development of e-discovery. The costs and inefficiencies resulting from the massive volumes of electronic data churned out by corporations on a daily basis have prohibited many businesses from truly litigating the substance of their disputes. Because discovery--and more importantly e-discovery--is a necessity of litigation in the United states, legal practitioners will need to rely on advances in technology to make discovery more manageable. TAR is one of these advances. By using TAR, parties will be able to cull and review data more quickly and at a fraction of the cost of linear review. (8) This promises to ease the burdens e-discovery places on the judicial process by reducing the number of discovery disputes on the court's dockets and thus allowing litigation to be resolved more efficiently and economically. (9) This article explores the recent precedent and commentary surrounding use of TAR. While TAR is technology that should be embraced by the legal community, determining when its use will be beneficial and how it should be carried out still needs further clarification. Determining when it should be used requires an evaluation of all aspects of a case: the costs, the parties, the amount and types of data, the time for completion, and the type of review anticipated. Even when its use would be beneficial, the standards for how to use TAR must be set forth clearly. By clarifying the standards and best practices that should be used, parties will be better able to evaluate their cases to determine when and how to use TAR and thus be able to take advantage of the benefits it offers. I. THE EVOLUTION OF THE CURRENT SEARCH AND REVIEW STRATEGIES searching for and reviewing documents has been a burdensome necessity of litigation for as long as modern day legal practice has been in existence. with corporations becoming larger and more complex, this burden has only increased. Data has become more varied and voluminous--beginning with paper and now largely electronically stored information (ESI). …


The primary objective of this research is to evaluate the feasibility of several WMA mixtures as potential asphalt paving mixtures for Nebraska pavements. To that end, three well-known WMA additives (i.e., Sasobit, Evotherm, and Advera synthetic zeolite) were evaluated. For a more realistic evaluation of the WMA approaches, trial pavement sections of the WMA mixtures and their HMA counterparts were implemented in Antelope County, Nebraska. More than one ton of field-mixed loose mixtures were collected at the time of paving and were transported to the NDOR and UNL laboratories to conduct comprehensive laboratory evaluations and pavement performance predictions of the individual mixtures involved. Various key laboratory tests were conducted to identify mixture properties and performance characteristics. These laboratory test results were then incorporated into other available data and the MEPDG software to predict the long-term field performance of the WMA and HMA trial sections. Pavement performance predictions from the MEPDG were also compared to two-year actual field performance data that have annually been monitored by the NDOR pavement management team. The WMA additives evaluated in this study did not significantly affect the viscoelastic stiffness characteristics of the asphalt mixtures. WMA mixtures generally presented better rut resistance than their HMA counterparts, and the WMA with Sasobit increased the rut resistance significantly, which is in good agreement with other similar studies. However, two laboratory tests—the AASHTO T283 test and semi-circular bend fracture test with moisture conditioning—to assess moisture damage susceptibility demonstrated identical results indicating greater moisture damage potential of WMA mixtures. MEPDG results simulating 20-year field performance presented insignificant pavement distresses with no major performance difference between WMA and HMA, which has been confirmed by actual field performance data. Although only two-year field performance is available to date, both the WMA and HMA have performed well. No cracking or other failure modes have been observed in the trial sections. The rut depth and the roughness of WMA and HMA sections were similar. i To all my beloved kiths and kins ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I would like to sincerely thank everyone who has helped me complete my thesis. First, I thank my academic advisor, Dr. Yong Rak Kim for his continuous support, encouragement and instruction during the last two years of my Master's degree. Dr. Kim was always giving me advice whenever I met problems in my research. From him, I learn how to be persistent to accomplish my research. I am also grateful …


Rare-Earth (RE) doped glasses are promising candidates for laser and other opto-electronic applications. The optical properties of the RE doped glasses depend on the symmetry and environment of the RE ion in the host glass and hence its structure. We have studied $Nd^3^+$ doped $3ONa_2O-(70-x)B_2O_3-xNd_2O_3$ glasses with various $Nd^3^+$ concentrations sx=0, 0.1, 0.5,1 mol%d using $^1^1B$ NMR. In this paper we have presented a method of estimating the crystal field splitting of the RE ion using 11B Nuclear Spin-Lattice Relaxation (NSLR) time measurements in these systems as a function of temperature in the range 100–4.2 K. Details of the magnetization recovery fit, theory of $^1^1B$ relaxation time are discussed in terms of possible relaxation mechanisms in the presence of a RE ion. We found that the relaxation can be explained using a two-level system (TLS) model for x=0 and the Orbach process for other samples. The magnetization recovery is observed to fit better to a single exponential model in all the samples as evident from the statistical analysis of the fit. The crystal field splitting sDd estimated from our studies are found to be around $100 cm^−^1$, in agreement with other $Nd^3^+$-doped systems reported in the literature.


The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) has developed radar and imaging technologies with potential applications in mine detection by the armed forces and other agencies involved in demining efforts. These new technologies use a patented ultra-wideband (impulse) radar technology that is compact, low-cost, and low power. Designated as Micropower Impulse Radar, these compact, self-contained radars can easily be assembled into arrays to form complete ground penetrating radar imaging systems. LLNL has also developed tomographic reconstruction and signal processing software capable of producing high-resolution 2-D and 3-D images of objects buried in materials like soil or concrete from radar data. Preliminary test results have shown that a radar imaging system using these technologies has the ability to image both metallic and plastic land mine surrogate targets buried in 5 to 10 cm of moist soil. In dry soil, the system can detect buried objects to a depth of 30 cm and more. This report describes LLNL's unique capabilities and technologies that can be applied to the demining problem. Work described here was performed under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Energy by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory under Contract No. W-7405-ENG-48.


It appears that most of Marriage and Family Therapy (MFT) literature is written for white therapists and their experiences with clients. This impacts the MFT educational experiences of students of color. When students of color are engaged in classrooms, internship experiences, and supervision groups not crafted for their unique experiences with clients as it pertains to race, power dynamics, and other differences highlighted in the therapy room, students are left to decide for themselves how to address these issues in therapy. Furthermore, the lack of literature and discussion in training programs, and the microaggressions that are left unattended and unprocessed may lead to alienation in education and fatigue among persons of color in the field. Surveys were sent to students in MFT graduate programs across the United States and Canada to discern whether and with whom they experienced racial microaggressions in their training programs. The results indicate that many MFT students of color and whites are aware of microaggressions and are impacted by them. Students have opinions about ways to make MFT training programs more inclusive by decreasing microaggression experiences for student therapists. DISPARITIES IN STUDENT OF COLOR EDUCATION AND RESULTING RACIAL MICROAGGRESSIONS: CAN MFT TRAINING PROGRAMS DO MORE? By Sarah Cort B.A., Villanova University, 2010 Syracuse University August 2016 Master's Thesis Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Marriage and Family Therapy Copyright © Sarah R. Cort 2016


Students on the Civil Engineering and Built Environment courses were randomly chosen to obtain their view on assessments currently being used. A sample of 46 students was chosen from undergraduate courses between levels 4 to level 6. Participation in the survey was entirely voluntary. An e-survey was carried out to improve the understanding of student perception of assessment methods currently used at in the School of Computing and Engineering at UWL. The study aims to get an insight on the students' perceptions of what types of assessment methods influence the generation of deeper, meaningful and sustainable learning methods when compared to surface learning. The challenge is to seek ways to design and implement curriculum and assessment methods to maximise student learning. Assessment methods contour how students learn and what they retain. The survey findings revealed that (47%) of the students expressed that they value a combination of traditional assessments comprising of time-controlled assignments and examinations supplemented by alternative modes of assessments such as projects and coursework, which encourage more of student-centred learning. A vast majority of students (67%) stated that they preferred assessments at shorter intervals than one longer end of term assessment. Students expressed that case-study style assignments had an impact on long-term retention of knowledge. Frequent in-class tests were found to be a preferred method of assessment in students' views. It needs to be further analysed how 'learning in smaller chunks' leading to surface learning could be avoided by adapting frequent in-class tests as an assessment method. This is because, assessment design and criteria orient student learning patterns. Rethinking and redesigning assessment methods can promote, influence and foster deeper and more productive learning without significant changes in teaching methods.


—In this contribution, we present an approach in enhancing 3D objects, which are automatically reconstructed from semantic media in a cloud-based ambient platform. Due to the automatic background process of 3D reconstruction, the objects contain artifacts from the reconstruction process and are not aligned and not positioned well for direct use in mobile augmented reality apps, such as our InfoGrid system. The goal is to automate the process of enhancing these 3D objects. In our approach, we monitor users' interactions with a Web-based 3D editor. From these interactions, we derive constraints and show, that for our scenario these parameters can be generalized and applied to other 3D objects, in order to process them automatically in the background. This continues previous work and extends the Network Environment for Multimedia Objects (NEMO), a Web-based framework used as the technical platform for our research project Ambient Learning Spaces (ALS). NEMO is the basis for ALS and among other features provides contextualized access and retrieval of semantic media. In various contexts of ALS, compared to still images or video, 3D renderings create higher states of immersion. We conclude this article with a discussion of our findings and with a summary and outlook.


Abstract:The escalating death tolls of migrants seeking to enter Europe are a dramatic testimony to the cynical, dehumanizing, and violent fortification of the European Union, whereby refugees and asylum seekers have become the emblematic figures of contemporary political exclusion. Rather than emerge as a peaceful, open, and postnational community, fortress Europe increasingly relies on a process of (re)walling, evoking the legacy of the camp and redrawing colonial boundaries. Europe's borders serve as expressions of "necropower" and contemporary biopolitical attempts at subjugating and distinguishing forms of "bare life," as they regulate forms of life, death, and living death. At the same time, these "necropolitics" remain hidden by the necrogeography of the borderscape. The author argues that this deathscape escalates bare life into bare death as a form of nonrelational death enabled by the constructed otherness of the Muslim refugee. Reading this politics of bare death against Sophocles's Antigone, this article considers how Europe's deathscape is mediated and challenged. The author examines the art collective Center for Political Beauty and its controversial project of transporting the bodies of deceased migrants from Italy to Berlin in order to give the dead "dignified burials." The author suggests that the artists engage a form of "corpse politics" using the ritual of the burial as a way to reintegrate the death of the other. This opening of the European soil enables a reimagining of European sovereignty, acknowledging the relations denied by bare death. The nomos of the earth is reinterpreted as a nomos of the soil, reenvisioning a Europe beyond borders and welcoming "difference" as the grounds for responsible politics.


Summary Multimode inversion of surface waves improves S-wave velocity estimations. In surface wave analysis, only vertical components of the P-SV wavefield have been conventionally used to extract multimode Rayleigh waves. In this study, horizontal components of the P-SV waves were analyzed to extract additional mode information of Rayleigh waves. First, we extracted Rayleigh waves from vertical and horizontal components of the numerically synthesized P-SV waves. Additional mode information of Rayleigh waves could be obtained from horizontal component data. We then estimated S-wave velocity structures by multimode inversion using a genetic algorithm. Inclusion of dispersion curves from horizontal component data improved the investigation depth of Swave velocity estimation. Next, multimode Rayleigh waves were extracted from three-component seismic data acquired in Alberta, Canada. By including dispersion curves from horizontal component data, which have different mode information from those from vertical component data, the inverted S-wave velocity structures agreed well with logging data for deeper layer. Therefore, inclusion of horizontal component data of the P-SV wavefield makes it possible to extract additional mode information of Rayleigh waves, thus eliminating ambiguity from S-wave velocity estimations in multimode inversions.


Water-Assisted Proton Diffusion Proton diffusion on metal oxide surfaces can play an important role in many catalytic processes. The presence of water is thought to accelerate proton diffusion. Merte et al. (p. 889) used high-speed, high-resolution scanning tunneling microscopy to study proton diffusion on an iron oxide. On oxygen-terminated FeO monolayer films formed on Pt, molecular water accelerated proton diffusion. Density function theory calculations implicated a H3O+ transition state in the diffusion process. The presence of adsorbed water enhances proton diffusion, likely through a hydronium ion transition state. The diffusion of hydrogen atoms across solid oxide surfaces is often assumed to be accelerated by the presence of water molecules. Here we present a high-resolution, high-speed scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) study of the diffusion of H atoms on an FeO thin film. STM movies directly reveal a water-mediated hydrogen diffusion mechanism on the oxide surface at temperatures between 100 and 300 kelvin. Density functional theory calculations and isotope-exchange experiments confirm the STM observations, and a proton-transfer mechanism that proceeds via an H3O+-like transition state is revealed. This mechanism differs from that observed previously for rutile TiO2(110), where water dissociation is a key step in proton diffusion.


The Dutch construction industry experienced a problem with collusion for five years ending in 2003. Innovative Dutch visionaries perceived a potential relationship between an inefficient, transaction laden, over-regulated low price award environment and supplier collusion. Kashiwagi and the Performance Based Studies Research Group (PBSRG) introduced the Construction Industry Structure (CIS) and best value Performance Information Procurement System to the Netherlands in 2004. Heijmans (third largest Dutch contractor) and the Rijkswaterstaat brought the PIPS technology into the Netherlands by signing licenses in 2006, Santema and Scenter/Delft University of Technology followed later in 2006, and became the first successful research group to build a PBSRG type research platform. In 2009, the Rijkswaterstaat utilized Scenter's expertise to deliver $800M of fast track infrastructure construction utilizing the best value PIPS concepts. The preliminary test results included the following: collusion problems may be caused by client delivery system, problem with construction industry performance is a process issue and not a technical issue, best value PIPS can solve Dutch construction problem issues and is a paradigm shift more than a legal issue, validation of the PBSRG model of simultaneous basic theoretical research, prototype testing, and implementation using industry funding may be the quickest way to change industry practices.


Abstract The Charlevoix, Quebec, earthquake of 20 October 1870 caused damage to several towns in Quebec and was felt throughout much of southeastern Canada and along the U.S. Atlantic seaboard from Maine to Maryland. Site‐specific damage and felt reports from Canadian and U.S. cities and towns were used in analyses of the location and magnitude of the earthquake. The macroseismic center of the earthquake was very close to Baie‐St‐Paul, where the greatest damage was reported, and the intensity magnitude M I was found to be 5.8, with a 95% probability range of 5.5–6.0. After corrections for epicentral‐distance differences are applied, the modified Mercalli intensity (MMI) data for the 1870 earthquake and for the moment magnitude M  6.2 Charlevoix earthquake of 1925 at common sites show that on average, the MMI readings are about 0.8 intensity units smaller for the 1870 earthquake than for the 1925 earthquake, suggesting that the 1870 earthquake was M I  5.7. A similar comparison of the MMI data for the 1870 earthquake with the corresponding data for the M  5.9 1988 Saguenay event suggests that the 1870 earthquake was M I  6.0. These analyses all suggest that the magnitude of the 1870 Charlevoix earthquake is between M I  5.5 and M I  6.0, with a best estimate of M I  5.8. Online Material: Earthquake catalogs with distance to assignment epicenter and modified Mercalli intensity estimates.


Chronic disease endured for a long period of time. They are only be controlled but cannot be cured completely. Most of the people in the world are affected by chronic disease. In foreign countries like U.S. most of the death happens due to chronic disease. Some of the chronic diseases are Allergy, Cancer, Asthma, Heart disease, Glaucoma, Obesity, viral diseases such as Hepatitis C and HIV/AIDS. Of all the diseases Diabetes is the most hazardous disease. Diabetes means that blood glucose (blood sugar is too high. It is categorized into two divisions: Diabetes of category 1 and diabetes of category 2. In category 1, the human body does not make insulin, people with type1 need to take insulin every day. In type 2 the glucose level is of very high in the blood, it is one of the most common forms of diabetes. In type 2 diabetes, need to do physical activity and should have proper diet. [8] The analysis on the data is performed using Big data analytics framework Hadoop. Hadoop framework is used to process large data sets. The analysis is done using map reduce algorithm.


The reintegrative shaming experiments (RISE) were conducted in Canberra, Australia, between 1995 and 2000. RISE compared the effects of standard court proceedings to restorative justice (RJ)–focused diversionary conferences (DCs) with juvenile, young adult, and adult offenders who had been arrested for personal property, shoplifting, violent, or drunk driving offenses. We evaluated, using observational data, the effect of RJ conferences on objective procedural justice. We find that the DCs produced significantly higher levels of offender engagement within the adjudicative process and higher levels of ethical treatment, and that, when compared with standard trials, conduct within the conferences was attuned to the reintegrative shaming (RIS) process. These results reinforce the previous RISE findings by providing evidence that the conferencing process, as delivered, was in keeping with the overall goals of RJ and supports the prior attribution of RISE's effectiveness to the RJ process.


The following study sets out to examine the salience of the cultural phenomenon of Friday the 13th among college students taking Introduction to Sociology at a large university in Ohio. The results are based on a sample of 881 students taking Introduction to Sociology from one of the authors in either the 1998/99 academic year or Fall 1999 semester. We found that 55% of students talk about the fact that it is Friday the 13th, while 31% of students would prefer not to take a sociology test on Friday the 13th. These and other results suggest that teachers should be aware of Friday the 13th during the academic calendar and may want to avoid scheduling such things as exams and term paper deadlines on those days. Introduction College and university students are very oriented to the calender. Early on they are instructed that the successful student is one who manages his or her time well. Their syllabi delineate time factors such as class meeting times, examinations, and term paper due dates. All this sets an orderly pattern for the college student. Talcott Parsons (1953) has argued that the calender plays an important part in maintaining the equilibrium of society as it cycles through instrumental and expressive phases. For example, the week is divided into instrumental time typically 8-5, Monday through Friday and expressive time typically the weekends. One can find similar patterns for the day and the year. Holidays are generally seen as expressive time. Most college students follow the general calender when it comes to instrumental and expressive holidays often adding a few wrinkles to the events as interpreted by the larger society, particularly expressive days. For example, St. Patrick's Day gives the college student the "right" to drink more than usual, while April Fools' Day allows the college campus the opportunity to be sillier than usual, particularly the student newspaper. In recent years the recognition of Friday the 13th has become a popular culture phenomenon. One sees media comment about it, usually in some light-hearted manner. Friday the 13th even has a phobia named after it called "paraskavedekatriaphobia", the fear of Friday the 13th. The origins of concern for Friday the 13th are obscure. One author Wagner (1894) suggests that it combines two customs: (1) hanging in Great Britain which tended, historically, to take place on Fridays, and (2) the Last Supper where Jesus dined with his twelve disciples making a total of 13. The first person to leave after dining begins will be the first person to die. Wagner (1894, 85) writes that this is believed by some because, "Judas who was the first to quit the Supper Table, hanged himself shortly afterwards." The most compelling presence of Friday the 13th in popular culture is in the body of work known as the "Friday the 13th" films. To date there have been nine. Most of the films involve innocents, often college aged people, killed in horrific ways by some form of a character named Jason. These films are fairly popular with college students. Beyond popular culture interest we wondered to what extent Friday the 13th is salient in the thoughts and behavior of students on a college campus, suggesting the following three questions: 1. To what extent do students show interest in Friday the 13th? 2. What are the demographic and educational performance characteristics of those students who do and do not show interest? 3. Is there any relationship between religiosity and the impact on students of Friday the 13th? Methods The data for this project were collected as part of a broader study of superstition and test-taking on a college campus. In our first paper we studied the relationship between superstitious practice and test taking based on data collected in the 1998/99 academic year. We found that nearly 70 percent of students indicated some level of test-related superstitious practice. …


Corresponding Author: Hamideh Ofoghi Department of Biotechnology, Iranian Research Organization for Science and Technology (IROST), Tehran, Iran. Phone: +98 2156276326-7 E-mail: firstname.lastname@example.com Abstract Background: The potential of plants, as a safe and eukaryotic system, is considered in the production of recombinant therapeutic human protein today; but the expression level of heterologous proteins is limited by the post-transcriptional gene silencing (PTGS) response in this new technology. The use of viral suppressors of gene silencing can prevent PTGS and improve transient expression level of foreign proteins. In this study, we investigated the effect of p19 silencing suppressor on recombinant human nerve growth factor expression in Nicotiana benthamiana. Materials and Methods: The p19 coding region was inserted in the pCAMBIA using NcoI and BstEII recognition sites. Also, the cloned synthesized recombinant human NGF (rhNGF) fragment was cloned directly into PVX vector by ClaI and SalI restriction enzymes. The co-agroinfiltration of rhNGF with p19 viral suppressor of gene silencing was evaluated by dot-blot and SDS-PAGE. The amount of expressed rhNGF protein was calculated by AlphaEaseFC software. Results: Co-agroinfiltration of hNGF with P19 suppressor showed about fortyfold increase (8% total soluble protein (TSP)) when compared to the absence of P19 suppressor (0.2%TSP). Conclusion: The results presented here confirmed that the use of P19 gene silencing suppressor derived from tomato bushy stunt virus (TBSV) could efficiently increase the transient expression of recombinant proteins in Nicotiana benthamiana manifold.


We have studied the prenuclear signal transduction pathway by which thyroid hormone potentiates the antiviral activity of human interferon-gamma (IFN-gamma) in HeLa cells, which are deficient in thyroid hormone receptor (TR). The action of thyroid hormone was compared with that of milrinone, which has structural homologies with thyroid hormone. L-Thyroxine (T4), 3,5,3'-L-triiodothyronine (T3), and milrinone enhanced the antiviral activity of IFN-gamma up to 100-fold, a potentiation blocked by cycloheximide. The 5'-deiodinase inhibitor 6-n-propyl-2-thiouracil did not block the T4 effect. 3,3',5,5'-Tetraiodothyroacetic acid prevented the effect of T4 but not of milrinone. The effects of T4 and milrinone were blocked by inhibitors of protein kinases C (PKC) and A (PKA) and restored by PKC and PKA agonists; only the effect of T4 was blocked by genistein, a tyrosine kinase inhibitor. In separate models, milrinone was shown not to interact with nuclear TR-beta. T4 potentiation of the antiviral activity of IFN-gamma requires PKC, PKA, and tyrosine kinase activities but not traditional TR.


An exploration of the implications of developments in artificial intelligence for social scientific research, which builds on the theoretical and methodological insights provided by "Simulating societies".; This book is intended for worldwide library market for social science subjects such as sociology, political science, geography, archaeology/anthropology, and significant appeal within computer science, particularly artificial intelligence. Also personal reference for researchers.


About 2.5 billion adults, just over half the world's adult population, lack bank accounts. If we are to realize the goal of extending banking and other financial services to this vast "unbanked" population, we need to consider not only such product innovations as microfinance and mobile banking but also issues of data accuracy, impact assessment, risk mitigation, technology adaptation, financial literacy, and local context. In Banking the World, experts take up these topics, reporting on new research that will guide both policy makers and scholars in a broader push to extend financial markets. The contributors consider such topics as the complexity of surveying people about their use of financial services; evidence of the impact of financial services on income; the occasional negative effects of financial services on poor households, including disincentives to work and overindebtedness; and tools for improving access such as nontraditional credit scores, financial incentives for banking, and identification technologies that can dramatically reduce loan default rates.


AIM: To assess the functional and cosmetic outcome of displaced supracondylar fractures in children treated by closed reduction and plaster backslab.
METHOD: We retrospectively reviewed 53 patients with Gartland type II and type III fractures that were treated by closed reduction (Blount's technique) and immobilisation in a collar and cuff and above-elbow plaster backslab between December 2011 and May 2012. The mean age was 6.6 years. The mean follow-up time was 12 weeks (range, 6-20). All open injuries and undisplaced fractures were excluded from the study. Flynn's criteria were used to assess functional and cosmetic outcome.
RESULTS: The median loss of motion was 10 degrees and the median change in carrying angle was 4 degrees. Fifty-one patients (96.2%) had satisfactory results, with 87% graded as excellent or good according to the Flynn's criteria for grading of the carrying angle. A range of motion of 100 degrees was achieved in 92.5% of patients at 12 weeks.
CONCLUSION: This method appears to produce less satisfactory results in comparison to closed reduction and fixation with Kirschner wires (K-wires), but it does provide satisfactory results according to Flynn criteria with regard to cosmetic deformity and range of motion at short-term follow-up. It is an acceptable and safe option with which to treat displaced supracondylar fractures.


The effects of climate variability, drain spacing, and growing season operational strategy on annual drain flow and crop yield were studied for a hypothetical drainage water management (DWM) system at Purdue University's Water Quality Field Station using the DRAINMOD model. Drainage water management showed potential for reducing annual average (1915–2006) drain flow from all drain spacings (10–35 m) regardless of the growing season operational strategy, with reductions varying between 52 and 55% for the drain spacings considered. Approximately 81 to 99% of the annual drain flow reduction occurred during the non‐growing season, depending on the operational strategy. Fixed DWM operational strategies led to an increase in mean predicted yield for narrower spacings compared with conventional drainage systems. Maximum yield was achieved with no control for drain spacings wider than 20 m in 50% of the years. Overall, the height of control had more influence on relative yield than the date of initiation of control. The greatest positive impacts of DWM on relative yield (1.2%) occurred in cool, dry years, while the greatest average negative impacts (−0.2%) occurred in cool, wet years. On average, with the best‐case operation selected for annual weather conditions, DWM increased relative yield by approximately 0.8, 0.4, and 0.2% for the 10‐, 20‐, and 30‐m drain spacing, respectively. Accumulated growing degree days and antecedent precipitation index show promise for identifying appropriate operational strategies for DWM.


My review of the past thirty years of narrative scholarship returns to the work of Harvey Sacks and Erving Goffman, situated in Dell Hymes' ethnography of communication, to examine where their interactive model for understanding narrative has taken us. Although in some disciplines, narrative research is used as empirical evidence of how people interpret their experiences, Sacks' work points more to the ways that personal narrative destabilizes the relationship between narrative and experience. Current work focuses on narrative at its limits, including the study of fragmented, rather than coherent, selves; multiply voiced, rather than monologic, points of view; and compromised, rather than easily empathetic, relations of understanding. This work builds on, rather than departs from, research on narrative thirty years ago. In this essay, I suggest a connection between early research on entitlement and contemporary research on the ethics of narrative, and I focus in particular on the problem of empathy.


Over the past twenty years, a range of radical developments has revolutionized musicology, leading certain practitioners to describe their discipline as "New." What has happened to ethnomusicology during this period? Have its theories, methodologies, and values remain rooted in the 1970s and 1980s or have they also transformed? What directions might or should it take in the new millennium? The New (Ethno)musicologies seeks to answer these questions by addressing and critically examining key issues in contemporary ethnomusicology. Set in two parts, the volume explores ethnomusicology's shifting relationship to other disciplines and to its own "mythic" histories and plots a range of potential developments for its future. It attempts to address how ethnomusicology might be viewed by those working both inside and outside the discipline and what its broader contribution and relevance might be within and beyond the academy. Henry Stobart has collected essays from key figures in ethnomusicology and musicology, including Caroline Bithell, Martin Clayton, Fabian Holt, Jim Samson, and Abigail Wood, as well as Europea series editors, Martin Stokes and Philip V. Bohlman. The engaging result presents a range of perspectives, reflecting on disciplinary change, methodological developments, and the broader sphere of music scholarship in a fresh and unique way, and will be a key source for students and scholars.


HISTORY Judith A. Carney and Richard Nicholas Rosomoff . In the Shadow of Slavery: Africa's Botanical Legacy in the Atlantic World. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009. 296 pp. Maps. Illustrations. Notes. Selected Bibliography. Index. $50.00/f34.95. Cloth. Judith A. Carney and Richard Nicholas Rosomoff s In the Shadow of Slavery: Africa's Botanical Legacy in the Atlantic World situates Africa as the origin of food crops, plants, and animals that spread from the continent through die Adantic slave trade into the New World. This work stretches beyond die boundaries of initial contact between Europeans and Africans in the coastal slave ports deep into the interior farming communities of West Africa and the Americas, revealing the degree to which the slave trade embroiled indigenous populations and diaspora communities of the New World. These scholars disprove notions of the African continent as botanically deficient and historically plagued with chronic food shortages. Their examination of precolonial Africa's history of agriculture and the domestication of plants and animals highlights the expertise that African farmers developed from experimentation and adaptation to die ecological complexity of microregional conditions. They trace the journey of African plants, livestock, and pasture grasses, from the subsistence fields of Africa onto slave ships, to ports of call in the Americas and Caribbean, into slave plots and plantation fields in die New World. Accordingly, African foods fed crew and slaves on the ships throughout the Middle Passage and personnel in the colonial trading posts. African crops cultivated on New World plantation fields were profitable export commodities. African-cultivated food and plants provided the foundation on which the Adantic economy flourished and profited. These scholars celebrate the contributions of smallholder subsistence African farmers to the transference process. They unravel die intricate details of human and botanical movement from Africa to the Americas, uncovering patterns otherwise overlooked. Recounting the multilayered story of African agriculture illuminates the role of subsistence farmers in the history of the global food chain. One of this work's main strengths is its reconceptualization of the Adantic slave trade and slavery, which clearly demonstrates the importance of African agricultural knowledge for the trade and the development of New World plantation economies. Considering the need for food opens a window to the inner workings of the slave trade. The micro-assessment of trading and exchanging food magnifies relations between Europeans and Africans. …


The enhanced local fields around plasmonic structures can lead to enhancement of the excitation and modification of the emission quantum yield of fluorophores. So far, high enhancement of fluorescence intensity from dye molecules was demonstrated using bow-tie gap antenna made by e-beam lithography. However, the high manufacturing cost and the fact that currently there are no effective ways to place fluorophores only at the gap prevent the use of these structures for enhancing fluorescence-based biochemical assays. We report on the simultaneous modification of fluorescence intensity and lifetime of dye-labeled DNA in the presence of aggregated silver nanoparticles. The nanoparticle aggregates act as efficient plasmonic antennas, leading to more than 2 orders of magnitude enhancement of the average fluorescence. This is comparable to the best-reported fluorescence enhancement for a single molecule but here applies to the average signal detected from all fluorophores in the system. This highlights the remarkable efficiency of this system for surface-enhanced fluorescence. Moreover, we show that the fluorescence intensity enhancement varies with the plasmon resonance position and measure a significant reduction (300×) of the fluorescence lifetime. Both observations are shown to be in agreement with the electromagnetic model of surface-enhanced fluorescence.


Singapore is an open economy that is critically dependent on leveraging external resources to achieve its economic growth. To achieve that objective, the government is strongly committed to maintaining a free and competitive economy. In the case of service liberalisation, however, there are a number of restrictions on foreign labour in the service sectors under review that may have an adverse impact on the service sectors. Nonetheless, Singapore is ready to integrate fully into the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Economic Community (AEC) with most of the service sectors meeting or exceeding the requirements set forth by ASEAN Member States (AMSs), even in the financial, banking, and telecommunication sectors. On Standards and Conformance, there has been some progress for the five sectors under review. However, the progress is described as slow due to sluggish process undertaken by other AMSs. Singapore's approach is to adopt and directly use international standards and technical standards for most sectors, which puts it in a good position to align itself with the agreed ASEAN standards.. With regard to the five sectors under review, Singapore has transposed most ASEAN guidelines on Standards and Conformance into national legislation. A considerable progress has been observed in architectural and engineering services as the implementation mechanisms and processes at both regional and national levels have been established. Regarding this sector, Singapore has generally maintained a liberal immigration policy on professional mobility until recent years. In future, this liberal policy on professional mobility might be adjusted due to increasing domestic political pressure to restrict the inflow of foreign labour. While substantial progress has been made, there is still room to accelerate efforts towards regional integration and facilitation of professional service mobility by prioritisingand establishing a template for other designated professions. On Non-Tariff Measures (NTMs), Singapore is ranked highly as a liberalised trading economy, as there were no divergences between the agreed regulations on non-tariff measures and the actual practice in Singapore, nor is there any bottleneck in implementing non-tariff measures. There is a prevalent understanding and impression that the NTMs are centred on technical barriers to trade, rather than sanitary and phytosanitary measures or non-automatic licensing, quotas, prohibition. On the ASEAN Comprehensive Investment Agreement (ACIA), the Singapore government has been quite positive in its public statements. In drafting the Reservation List, the government looked to its existing national rules and regulations as its basis. As such, Singapore's Exclusive List document extensively cited the sources of legislation.. It is noted in the study that Singapore does not experience any problems in implementing the ACIA agreement as its Reservation List is one of the shortest amongstthose submitted by AMSs.


The general characteristics of the flow field in a submerged air inlet are investigated by theoretical, wind-tunnel, and visual-flow studies. Equations are developed for calculating the laminar and turbulent boundary-layer growth along the ramp floor for parallel, divergent, and convergent ramp walls, and a general equation is derived relating the boundary-layer pressure losses to the boundary-layer thickness. It is demonstrated that the growth of the boundary layer on the floor of the divergent-ramp inlet is retarded and that a vortex pair is generated in such an inlet. Functional relationships are established between the pressure losses in the vortices and the geometry of the inlet. A general discussion of the boundary layer and vortex formations is included, in which variations of the various losses and of the incremental external drag with mass-flow ratio are considered. Effects of compressibility are also discussed.


In many high-dimensional learning problems, only some parts of an observation are important to the prediction task; for example, the cues to correctly categorizing a document may lie in a handful of its sentences. We introduce a learning algorithm that exploits this intuition by encoding it in a regularizer. Specifically, we apply the sparse overlapping group lasso with one group for every bundle of features occurring together in a training-data sentence, leading to thousands to millions of overlapping groups. We show how to efficiently solve the resulting optimization challenge using the alternating directions method of multipliers. We find that the resulting method significantly outperforms competitive baselines (standard ridge, lasso, and elastic net regularizers) on a suite of real-world text categorization problems.


Although Franz Boas--one of the most influential anthropologists of the twentieth century--is best known for his voluminous writings on cultural, physical, and linguistic anthropology, he is also recognized for breaking new ground in the study of so-called primitive art. His writings on art have major historical value because they embody a profound change in art history. Nineteenth-century scholars assumed that all art lay on a continuum from primitive to advanced: artworks of all nonliterate peoples were therefore examples of early stages of development. But Boas's case studies from his own fieldwork in the Pacific Northwest demonstrated different tenets: the variety of history, the influence of diffusion, the symbolic and stylistic variation in art styles found among groups and sometimes within one group, and the role of imagination and creativity on the part of the artist. This volume presents Boas's most significant writings on art (dated 1889-1916), many originally published in obscure sources now difficult to locate. The original illustrations and an extensive, combined bibliography are included. Aldona Jonaitis's careful compilation of articles and the thorough historical and theoretical framework in which she casts them in her introductory and concluding essays make this volume a valuable reference for students of art history and Northwest anthropology, and a special delight for admirers of Boas.


Abstract. The algorithms for quantitative estimates of various structural and functional parameters of forest ecosystems, particularly boreal forests, on high resolution remote sensing data are actively developing since the mid-2000s. For monitoring of forest ecosystems located at the Northern limit of distribution, effective not only lidar data but also the optical data obtained by unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV's) with ultra-low altitude photography and derived products resulting from modern algorithms for the photogrammetric processing.High-detail remote sensing from UAV's is a key level of monitoring of Northern forests at a large-scale level, ensuring the correct transition from sub - satellite ground-based studies to thematic products obtained from multi-time Hyper-and multispectral data of medium and relatively high resolution (MODIS, LANDSAT, Sentinel-2).When planning and conducting specific case studies based on UAV data, special attention should be paid to the justification of the survey methodology. In particular, the choice of a strictly defined high-altitude echelon of the survey determines the recognition of the objects of study and the possibility of reliable determination of its properties and features. To study the parameters of forest ecosystems at the level of individual trees and at the level of forest plantations, we selected two different-height echelons of survey from ultra-low altitudes: from 50 m, which allowed us to obtain ultra-high-detailed data for each sample area provided by detailed ground-based studies with sub-tree account, and from 100 m-to obtain derived characteristics of forest communities within the area equivalent to 3 pixels of thematic MODIS products with a spatial resolution of 250 m. The data of optical survey with UAV were obtained in July 2018 for 22 plots located in the central part of the Kola Peninsula and representative of different types of North taiga stands and their dynamics under climate change.At the stage of preprocessing images were obtained dense point clouds, characterizing both vertical and horizontal structure of stands. Digital terrain and terrain models and tree canopy models were obtained after cloud filtering and classification. Algorithms of automated segmentation and classification have been developed and tested to obtain such characteristics of stands as the height of individual trees, the area of crown projections, the projective cover of the tree-shrub layer. The obtained characteristics are aggregated by cells of a regular network with the dimension corresponding to the spatial resolution of Sentinel-2 and Landsat-8 data.The main results of the works are digital spatial datasets for 22 sample plots: raw data with very high resolution imagery (optical images with very high resolution, dense point clouds, RGB-orthophoto) and create based on a thematic derivative products (digital terrain model, topography, tree canopy cover; map of the heights and projections of the crowns of trees, percent cover of tree and shrub vegetation).


Background. Perineal pressure due to bicycle riding has been associated with erectile dysfunction. We developed a novel method to measure the occlusive force exerted over the perineal arteries and determined perineal artery occlusion by a variety of seat designs. Methods. Doppler ultrasonography facilitated perineal artery localization and determination of the force required for perineal artery occlusion in 20 healthy men. Flexiforce® sensors were affixed over the proximal and distal aspects of the perineal arteries bilaterally. Individuals completed bicycle rides in the road- and stationary-settings with six distinct seat designs, including those with and without an anterior "nose." Results. The occlusion time proportion of the total ride time was calculated for each trial. The overall occlusion time proportion was 0.59 (95% CI [0.45–0.73]) across all seats and settings. The "no-nose" bicycle seat and the stationary-setting demonstrated significantly lower occlusion proportion times than the traditional nose bicycle seat and road-setting, respectively. However, all bicycle seats yielded an occlusion time proportion of 0.41 or greater. Discussion. Our method of real-time, non-invasive force measurement localized to the perineal arteries may be used to validate future bicycle seat design. It also underscores the significant risk of perineal artery insufficiency in men who are avid bicyclists. This risk may be minimized by using newer "no-nose" bicycle seats.


Perceived shortcomings in the quality of American education at the elementary and secondary school levels have drawn much public attention recently. In particular, concern with the composition of the teacher force has been prominent. Informed assessment of the various proposals for increasing the quality of the teaching force is possible only if we can forecast the extent to which these proposals, if enacted, would influence the occupational choice decisions of high ability young adults. Until now,there has been no basis for making such forecasts.The research reported here examines the relationships between academic ability, earnings, and the decision to become a teacher through analysis of data from a national sample of college graduates. Inspection of the data reveals that the frequency of choice of teaching as an occupation is inversely- related to academic ability. Conditioning on sex and academic ability, the earnings of teachers are much lower, on average, than those of other working college graduates. Conditioning on sex, the earnings of teachers tend to rise only slightly, if at all, with academic ability. An econometric analysis suggests that in the absence of a minimum ability standard, increases in teacher earnings would yield substantial growth in the size of the teaching force but minimal improvement in the average academic ability of teachers. If teacher salaries are not increased, institution of a minimum ability standard would improve the average ability of the teaching force but reduce its size. The average ability of the teaching force can be improved and the size of the teaching force maintained if minimum ability standards are combined with sufficient salary increases. It appears that the average academic ability of teachers can be raised to the average of all college graduates if a minimum SAT score (verbal +math) of 800 is required for teacher certification and teacher salaries are raised by about ten percent over their present levels.


Numerous studies have investigated the benefits of teaching young children that the
equals sign means "is the same as" and presenting a variety of statement forms such
as a+b=b+a and c=a+b. However, an important and overlooked aspect of
equivalence relations is that of replacing one term with another, which implies a
"can be substituted for" meaning of the equals sign. I report a trial with a pair of
primary pupils working on a computer-based task that requires viewing equality
statements in terms of both numerical balance and notational substitution. I present
screenshots and transcript excerpts to illustrate how they articulated and coordinated
balance and substitution in order to achieve the task goals.


Philosophers have largely abandoned the claim that the special sciences will ultimately reduce to microphysics in favour of the view that the special sciences trade in functional explanations. However, a careful examination of scientific practice reveals that the explanatory strategy of the special sciences is neither reductionist nor functionalist, but mechanistic. Mechanistic explanations appeal to active material entities organized so as to produce the target phenomena. We claim that phenomenal consciousness will also succumb to mechanistic explanation: it will turn out to be the activity of specific neural mechanisms in the brain. In this chapter we explore the implications of this perspective for the ontology of consciousness, arguing that it has a complex structural essence.