An algorithm was developed which facilitates the search for similarities between newly determined amino acid sequences and sequences already available in databases. Because of the algorithm's efficiency on many microcomputers, sensitive protein database searches may now become a routine procedure for molecular biologists. The method efficiently identifies regions of similar sequence and then scores the aligned identical and differing residues in those regions by means of an amino acid replacability matrix. This matrix increases sensitivity by giving high scores to those amino acid replacements which occur frequently in evolution. The algorithm has been implemented in a computer program designed to search protein databases very rapidly. For example, comparison of a 200-amino-acid sequence to the 500,000 residues in the National Biomedical Research Foundation library would take less than 2 minutes on a minicomputer, and less than 10 minutes on a microcomputer (IBM PC).


Modern social work values and practice competencies establish the foundation from which social work educators teach future practitioners much needed knowledge and skills for competent practice. The profession's two major organizations provide the platform upon which this paper was crafted. The National Association of Social Workers (NASW) provides the profession's Code of Ethics, which presents the values and ethical principles guiding social work practice; the Council on Social Work Education (CSWE) provides the competency-based framework for social work education. Through the ages, the Bible has presented guidelines regarding: working with the poor and other vulnerable populations in their social context, addressing issues related to the inherent worth of human beings as created in God's image, and teaching individuals about the value of knowledge and wisdom that comes from studying the Holy Scriptures. These same values and principles inform today's social work practitioners and educators through promoting an understanding of, and value for, human life, dignity, and the individual experience in each complex social context. The objective of this paper is to provide an overview of how social work values and graduate practice competencies, even though presented in a secular context in their original sources, clearly align with timeless biblical principles. BIBLICAL PRINCIPLES IN MSW CURRICULUM 3


The need to improve access to land and strengthen women's land rights in Africa has elicited a lot of discussion with women's rights activists arguing for increased access and control over land and other productive resources. The paper examines inter-relations between women's land rights and socioeconomic development, peace and security and environmental sustainability in Africa. It goes on to highlight the impacts of the discrimination against women with regard to access, control and ownership of land and identifies promising practices related to strengthening women's land rights with possible benchmarks and indicators to track progress made in strengthening women's land rights in the context of the implementation of the AU Declaration on land. It concludes by providing concrete recommendations on how to further promote dialogue, advocacy, partnerships and capacity development in support of women's land rights in Africa. This paper is as a result of a study commissioned by AU-ECA-AfDB Land Policy Initiative (LPI) which is implementing a 5year Strategic Plan and Roadmap to assist member states in the implementation of the AU Declaration on land issues and challenges in Africa, in accordance with the Framework and Guidelines on Land Policy in Africa in order to achieve socio-economic development, peace and security, and environmental sustainability.


We have made new and improved measurements of the neutron capture and total cross sections for Sr-88 at the Oak Ridge Electron Linear Accelerator (ORELA). Improvements over previous measurements include a wider incident neutron energy range, better resolution, the use of metallic rather than carbonate samples, better background subtraction, reduced sensitivity to sample-dependent backgrounds, and better pulse-height weighting functions. Because of its small cross section, the Sr-88(n,gamma) reaction is an important bottleneck during s-process nucleosynthesis. Hence, an accurate determination of this rate is needed to better constrain the neutron exposure in s-process models and to better understand the recently discovered isotopic anomalies in certain meteorites. We performed an R-matrix analysis of our capture and transmission data to extract parameters for 101 resonances between 100 eV and 350 keV. In addition, we fitted our transmission data alone to extract parameters for 342 additional resonances between 350 and 950 keV. We used this information to calculate average properties of the Sr-88+ n system for comparison to previous work. Although previous data and resonance analyses were much less extensive, they are, in general, in good agreement with our results except that the average radiation widths as well as the p-wave correlation coefficients we determined are significantly smaller, and the s-wave correlation coefficient we determined has opposite sign from that reported in previous work. We used these resonance parameters together with a calculation of the small, but significant direct-capture contribution to determine the astrophysical reaction rate for the Sr-88(n,gamma) reaction to approximately 3 needed by s-process models. Our new rate is in good agreement with the results from a high-precision activation measurement at kT=25 keV, but it is approximately 9.5 nucleosynthesis calculations in the temperature range (kT=6-8 keV), where most of the neutron exposure occurs in current stellar models of the s process. We discuss the possible astrophysical impact of this new, lower rate.


Modern designers of graphical user interfaces, or GUIs, have obtained design patent protection for creative computer software displays, a realm previously limited to copyright. The difference in protection is important because design patents do not traditionally allow the same defenses — like fair use — associated with copyright. Apple's nearly billion dollar judgment against Samsung, which included such a GUI patent, brought this issue to the forefront.This article answers three emerging questions:1. Aren't GUIs something that should be protected by copyright only? Why should there be a patent? The answer is relatively simple: the law has, since 1870, contemplated dual protection. The article traces the history to explain why the law could have evolved differently, but simply did not.2. Display screens change, both before and after sale. How can someone patent an ephemeral screen design? It also turns out that ephemeral designs have been protected for some time. Even so, the article proposes some limitations on the protection of GUIs that should address the special nature of GUI design patents.3. There are many differences between Apple's patent and Samsung's product. How can Apple own the idea of square icons in a grid with a dock bar at the bottom? This last question is the most intractable: determining when a design is infringing, and the role that functionality should play in that consideration. The bulk of the article is dedicated to answering this question. To answer the third question, the article draws on lessons from prior copyright disputes about GUIs. It first suggests that courts must act as gatekeepers, rather than allowing juries to determine which elements to disregard as functional. It then develops economic factors that can help the court determine whether a design element is functional, and whether to allow reuse by a competing program.


Success in sperm competition, occurring whenever females mate with multiple males [1], is predicted to be influenced by variation in ejaculate quality and interactions among competing sperm [2]. Yet, apart from sperm number, relevant ejaculate characteristics and sperm-sperm interactions are poorly understood, particularly within a multivariate framework and the natural selective environment of the female reproductive tract. Here, we used isogenic lines of Drosophila melanogaster with distinguishable sperm to demonstrate and partition genetic variation in multiple sperm quality and performance traits. Next, by competing males from different lines, we show how rival sperm significantly influence each other's velocity and reveal that males with relatively slow and/or long sperm better displace rival sperm and resist displacement, thus avoiding ejection by the female from her reproductive tract. Finally, we establish fitness consequences of genetic variation in sperm quality and its role in securing a numerical advantage in storage by showing that offspring paternity is determined strictly by the representation of stored, competing sperm. These results provide novel insight into complex postcopulatory processes, illustrate that different ejaculate traits are critical at different biologically relevant time-points, and provide a critical foundation for elucidating the role of postcopulatory sexual selection in trait diversification and speciation.


To identify whether whole body heating alters arterial baroreflex control of muscle sympathetic nerve activity (MSNA), MSNA and beat-by-beat arterial blood pressure were recorded in seven healthy subjects during acute hypotensive and hypertensive stimuli in both normothermic and heat stress conditions. Whole body heating significantly increased sublingual temperature (P < 0.01), MSNA (P < 0.01), heart rate (P < 0.01), and skin blood flow (P < 0.001), whereas mean arterial blood pressure did not change significantly (P > 0.05). During both normothermic and heat stress conditions, MSNA increased and then decreased significantly when blood pressure was lowered and then raised via intravenous bolus infusions of sodium nitroprusside and phenylephrine HCl, respectively. The slope of the relationship between MSNA and diastolic blood pressure during heat stress (-128.3 +/- 13.9 U x beats(-1) x mmHg(-1)) was similar (P = 0.31) with normothermia (-140.6 +/- 21.1 U x beats(-1) x mmHg(-1)). Moreover, no significant change in the slope of the relationship between heart rate and systolic blood pressure was observed. These data suggest that arterial baroreflex modulation of MSNA and heart rate are not altered by whole body heating, with the exception of an upward shift of these baroreflex curves to accommodate changes in these variables that occur with whole body heating.


This revised and expanded second edition of Contract Law in Hong Kong is the most comprehensive contemporary textbook on Hong Kong contract law written primarily for law students. The 16 chapters of the book cover all basic contract concepts in a reader-friendly style and make ample use of case illustrations. The book deals with all the core areas of Contract Law. The first two chapters introduce the major themes and explain the multiple sources of law in Hong Kong. The subsequent thirteen chapters cover the formation of a valid contract, its contents, "vitiating" elements, the consequences of illegality, the termination of contracts and remedies for breach of contract. The book concludes with an explanation of the doctrine of privity and proposals for reform of the operation of privity in Hong Kong. Particular attention is given to what makes Hong Kong law different from other common law jurisdictions, and to the continuing significance of English case law in Hong Kong and the theoretical and practical reasons for this. The book is intended primarily as a readable but comprehensive and authoritative text for Hong Kong law students. Practising lawyers and professionals who need to acquire knowledge on the topic, however, will also find this book useful and accessible.


Ubiquitination is an important process in the regulation of protein function and degradation and in the control of cell signaling. A sequence of events results in the modification of a protein with ubiquitin or ubiquitin-like proteins (UBLs) such as Nedd8 or the small ubiquitin-like modifier protein SUMO. The E1 ubiquitin-activating enzyme initiates ubiquitination by modifying ubiquitin (or a UBL) (through adenylation and thioesterification reactions) and then transferring it to the E2-conjugating enzyme (a process known as charging). E2 functions together with the ubiquitin ligase E3 to transfer ubiquitin to the target protein. The current paradigm states that within each species, single E1 enzymes are responsible for charging E2s with UBLs. In humans, this E1 is known as Ube1. Jin et al. performed a screen of the human genome for genes encoding proteins that contain a characteristic motif found in E1s and identified a previously uncharacterized protein, Uba6. Uba6 has 40% identity with Ube1, and orthologs of Uba6 are found in vertebrates and in the sea urchin but not in other organisms such as fungi and plants. Western blot analysis showed that Uba6 was as widely expressed as Ube1 in most human tissues and cell types. In vitro experiments with recombinant Uba6 and glutathione fusion proteins of UBLs demonstrated that Uba6 had similar ubiquitin activation properties as Ube1 but did not activate other UBLs. Lysates of 293T cells transfected with epitope-tagged Uba6 were analyzed by Western blotting and mass spectrometry, and Uba6 bound to ubiquitin but not to other UBLs. The authors then screened a panel of recombinant E2-conjugating enzymes for their ability to be charged in vitro by either Ube1 or Uba6 and found one previously uncharacterized E2 (Use1) that was charged by Uba6 but not by Ube1. Western blot analysis of lysates of transfected HeLa cells (which were treated with Ube1- or Uba6-specific siRNAs) confirmed that Use1 was charged by Uba6 but not Ube1. Taken together, these data demonstrate the existence of a previously unknown Ube1-independent mechanism for ubiquitin activation and charging of E2-conjugating enzymes such as Use1. Given that Ube1 and Uba6 are coexpressed in many tissues (although Ube1 is more abundant that Uba6), these two enzymes may act in concert or in sequence to affect various signaling pathways. J. Jin, X. Li, S. P. Gygi, J. W. Harper, Dual E1 activation systems for ubiquitin differentially regulate E2 enzyme charging. Nature 447, 1135-1138 (2007). [PubMed]


This paper reviews the service quality management control and upgrade as well as the communications and information technology enhancement. The purpose of this research is the control and improvement of the service quality management as well as the enhancement of the parent telecommunications network of I.R.Iran that finally, taking the specific conditions into consideration, the quality management service model of the telecommunications parent network of Iran will precisely be used as the whole in the format of the communications and information technology enhancement model after identifying and specifying the levels of the relationships existing among the models, and the standards of the communications and information technology management. The study shows developing such a model in the industry of ICT with emphasis and establishment in the parent telecommunications network of Iran, benefit of human capital with the latest technology and presenting modern services to the customers, the service quality management will be upgraded and will lead to the improvement in quality management in the field of ICT.


Source code summarization aims to generate natural language summaries from structured code snippets for better understanding code functionalities. However, automatic code summarization is challenging due to the complexity of the source code and the language gap between the source code and natural language summaries. Most previous approaches either rely on retrieval-based (which can take advantage of similar examples seen from the retrieval database, but have low generalization performance) or generation-based methods (which have better generalization performance, but cannot take advantage of similar examples). This paper proposes a novel retrieval-augmented mechanism to combine the benefits of both worlds. Furthermore, to mitigate the limitation of Graph Neural Networks (GNNs) on capturing global graph structure information of source code, we propose a novel attention-based dynamic graph to complement the static graph representation of the source code, and design a hybrid message passing GNN for capturing both the local and global structural information. To evaluate the proposed approach, we release a new challenging benchmark, crawled from diversified large-scale open-source C projects (total 95k+ unique functions in the dataset). Our method achieves the state-of-the-art performance, improving existing methods by 1.42, 2.44 and 1.29 in terms of BLEU-4, ROUGE-L and METEOR.


Aeration and rheology interact throughout the breadmaking process to create the distinctive and appealing structure of bread. Aeration during mixing provides oxygen for dough development and creates nuclei for the carbon dioxide produced by yeast during proving; the unique rheology of dough allows these bubbles to be retained to create a well risen dough piece that is set by baking. A wide range of methods have been applied to elucidate the origins of dough rheology and its outworking in relation to bread quality, and the mechanisms of aeration during mixing, moulding, proving and baking. This work has invigorated bread research and stimulated new scientific insights and industrial applications. These methods and insights, while continuing to improve bread quality, also have the potential to inform the improvement of the diverse range of bakery products.


Context. The origin of the short-term variability in Be stars remains a matter of controversy. Pulsations and rotational modulation are the components of the favored hypothesis. Aims. We present our analysis of CoRoT data of the B8IIIe star HD 175869 observed during the first short run in the center direction (SRC1). Methods. We review both the instrumental effects visible in the CoRoT light curve and the analysis methods used by the CoRoT Be team. We applied these methods to the CoRoT light curve of the star HD 175869. A search for line-profile variations in the spectroscopic data was also performed. We also searched for a magnetic field, by applying the LSD technique to spectropolarimetric data. Results. The light curve exhibits low-amplitude variations of the order of 300 μmag with a double wave shape. A frequency within the range determined for the rotational frequency and 6 of its harmonics are detected. The main frequency and its first harmonic exhibit amplitude variations of a few days. Other significant frequencies of low-amplitude from 25 to a few μmag are also found. The analysis of line profiles from ground-based spectroscopic data does not detect any variation. In addition, no Zeeman signature was found. Conclusions. Inhomogeneities caused by stellar activity in or just above the photosphere are proposed to produce the photometric variability detected by CoRoT in the Be star HD 175869. The hypothesis that non-radial pulsations are the origin of these variations cannot be excluded.


This review focuses on the behavior and pathogenesis of selected dermatologic and rheumatologic manifestations of inflammatory bowel disease. Erythema nodosum, the most common skin lesion, correlates with activity of the bowel disease but not with its duration or extent. Resolution occurs with therapy of inflammatory bowel disease. Pyoderma gangrenosum, the most severe skin lesion, bears little relationship to the activity or extent of the colitis. Therapy is usually supportive, but dapsone and steroids appear promising. Immune and vasculitic mechanisms have been postulated for both skin lesions. Peripheral arthritis usually has its onset with or after the development of colitic symptoms. It worsens with exacerbation of bowel inflammation and responds to treatment of the bowel disease. Immune mechanisms are likely. Spondyloarthropathy usually occurs before the onset of overt intestinal disease. Its course is unrelated to the bowel inflammation, it does not respond to treatment of bowel disease, and it is associated with HLA B27.


Having recalled the definition of the rite not only from the anthropological, but also from a psychoanalytical point of view and the articulation between these two aspects, the author of this article seeks, first in a general way, then by focusing more specifically on adolescent processes, to make a distinction between ritual and rite. He relates the first to conservation and unbinding, while placing the second on the side of depressiveness and subjectivation, with a call for progression in a temporal interval. The rite appears to belong essentially to the symbolic function, as a waiting solution, an area of reassurance which, from a dynamic point of view has a ludic dimension through a wish to break with repetitive mechanisms. The rite, at the crossroads of circular time and linear time appears as a « meta-stable » state which seeks not so much to make sense as to avoid a too sudden exit from the world of childhood.


This experimental research examined the effect of CO2 as a diluent on the laminar burning speed of propane–air mixtures. Combustion took place at various CO2 concentrations (0–80%), different equivalence ratios (0.7<ϕ<1.2) and over a range of temperatures (298–420 K) and pressures (0.5–6.2 atm). The experiments were performed in a cylindrical constant volume chamber with a Z-shaped Schlieren system, coupled with a high-speed CMOS camera to capture the propagation of the flames at speeds up to 4000 frames per second. The flame stability of these mixtures at different pressures, equivalence ratios, and CO2 concentrations was also studied. Only laminar, spherical, and smooth flames were considered in measuring laminar burning speed. Pressure rise data as a function of time during the flame propagation were the primary input of the multishell thermodynamic model for measuring the laminar burning speed of propane-CO2-air mixtures. The laminar burning speed of such blends was observed to decrease with the addition of CO2 and to increase with the gas temperature. It was also noted that the laminar burning speed decreases with increasing pressure. The collected experimental data were compared with simulation data obtained via a steady one-dimensional (1D) laminar premixed flame code from Cantera, using a detailed H2/CO/C1–C4 kinetics model encompassing 111 species and 784 reactions.


A user traffic multiplexing scheme for the downlink of an OFDM cellular system is proposed and evaluated. The scheme is based on the set of orthogonal time-frequency (T-F) patterns obtained from a generic Costas sequence. An intercell interference averaging method, based on a randomly variable cyclic time offsetting of the whole set of orthogonal T-F patterns, is also part of the scheme. The time offset is changed for each transmission time interval, according to a cell-specific multilevel pseudo-random sequence. Thus, the intercell OFDM interference becomes limited and noise-like, while no resource planning on the system level is required.


After the Justice and Development Party (AKP), that had been in office for almost ten years, presented the project of Kanal Istanbul, more commonly known as the 'crazy project' in the eve of 2011 general elections, a state of excess and delirium became visible in several segments of society such as mass media and business sector. With respect to its vision of changing the landscape in quite a radical fashion, the 'crazy project' is emblematic of the excessive and delirious state in the construction sector for the last five years or so in Turkey. This thesis focuses on the AKP's hegemony through its spatial practices and regulations of everyday life. In this research, the role of social fantasy is discussed regarding the ways in which the notions of architecture and construction are conceived. Accordingly, the issue of 'catching up with the West', which has been quite prevalent from the foundation of the republic, is re-problematized in the neoliberal context. Apart from the discursive aspect of the subject, the role of enjoyment (jouissance), that which escapes analysis, is taken into consideration by consulting Lacanian psychoanalysis and its pertinent concepts throughout this thesis.


The story of the 1937 death of an eighteen-month-old girl named Wilhemina (Mina) Whitford in the care of her ni-Vanuatu nursemaid, Evelyn, frames this article. The Whitford's version of this story was heard in the course of fieldwork with descendants of settler families. They tie Mina's accidental death to an affair Evelyn was having with a male settler. What about Evelyn? How could she be located and her version of events recorded? More generally, how can the unwritten histories of women's experiences be recovered in a Pacific island context? How can indigenous women write their own histories of gender in the contexts of colonial experience? The article offers, first, a theoretically informed descriptive approach, which finds answers in the gendered and racialized content of contemporary descriptions of past experiences, such as the story of the child's death. A second way of finding Evelyn involves methodological detective work using the network of ni-Vanuatu women fieldworkers trained through the Vanuatu Cultural Centre. A 2001 workshop provided a forum for fieldworkers and women who had worked as housegirls in the colonial (pre-1980 ) period to discuss work, violence, gender, race, and history. During the workshop, a fieldworker brought Evelyn's story to light. Conclusions point to new ways of integrating indigenous and expatriate women's voices in historical and anthropological research in the contemporary Pacific.


OBJECTIVE
To evaluate students' attitude towards the clinical component of the Leipzig Programme of undergraduate Education in Gerodontology (LPEG).

BACKGROUND
Undergraduate student education has long been recognised as a mainstay of fostering the aims of gerodontology. Extramural clinical education with direct exposure to various groups of vulnerable elderly is known to contribute to the formation of positive attitudes. LPEG has been designed to include didactic components and six visits to a long-term care facility (LTC) spread over 4 of the 5 years of the dental course.

METHODS
A structured questionnaire with 10 items was administered to 230 students (60.9% female) on three occasions in 2004-05. Total return was 411 questionnaires. The mean age of respondents was 24.3 (SD 2.67) years. Students were asked to indicate the degree of their agreement with seven statements presented using a 5-point scale. A choice of responses which characterised the course was offered to mark all those deemed agreeable.

RESULTS
The vast majority of students responded positively. In the students perception there was no significant difference (Kruskal-Wallis p = 0.24) in the amount of knowledge acquired between subjects participating once, twice or three times. 'Interesting' and 'feel pity for patients' were the two items that received the most support. Respondents expressed the wish to accompany up to 10 patients during their course with a mean of 3.5 (SD 2.9) but 31 (7.5%) subjects did not wish to see any frail elderly patients at all.

CONCLUSION
The LPEG is well received by dental students. A complex subject including overarching social skills has been integrated seamlessly into the dental curriculum.


PTEN with cancer-associated mutations dimerizes with and inhibits wild-type PTEN. The tumor suppressor protein PTEN (phosphatase and tensin homolog deleted on chromosome 10) dephosphorylates phosphatidylinositol-3, 4, 5-trisphosphate (PIP3), thereby inhibiting activation of the oncogenic kinase AKT. Cancers from diverse tissues have reduced PTEN activity conferred by various mechanisms, such as missense or truncation mutations in PTEN (see Leslie and Hertog). Papa et al. found that mutant PTEN can dimerize with wild-type PTEN and suppress its activity. Biochemical approaches in vitro and in cultured cells using both overexpressed and endogenous proteins showed that PTEN homodimerizes using multiple interfaces and is catalytically active in its dimeric form. Mutation of phosphorylated residues in the C terminus of PTEN and analysis by gel filtration suggested that phosphorylation of PTEN inhibits its dimerization, consistent with the observation that PTEN activity is inhibited by phosphorylation. Forms of PTEN with the cancer-associated mutations C124S and G129E, which inhibit its lipid phosphatase activity, also homodimerized and heterodimerized with endogenous wild-type PTEN. In vitro dephosphorylation assays indicated that homodimeric wild-type PTEN was more active than PTEN-PTENC124S or PTEN-PTENG129E heterodimers. Mice heterozygous for PtenC124S (PtenC124S/+) or PtenG129E (PtenG129E/+) had accelerated the onset of hyperproliferation of lymphocytes and extramedullary hematopoiesis, and more of these mice had adrenal, thyroid, and gall bladder adenomas than mice with heterozygous knockout of Pten (Pten+/–). PtenC124S/+ mice developed lung adenomas, PtenG129E/+ mice developed liver adenomas, and both mutant mice developed large invasive mammary adenocarcinomas; none of these tumors were detected in Pten+/– mice. The amount of PIP3 and the phosphorylation of AKT and its downstream targets was greater in primary mouse embryonic fibroblasts stimulated with insulin or insulin-like growth factor and mammary epithelial cells from PtenC124S/+or PtenG129E/+ mice compared with those from Pten+/– mice. Unlike Pten+/– mice, the tumors of PtenC124S/+and PtenG129E/+ mice did not show loss of heterozygosity for the wild-type Pten allele. In human cancers, phosphorylation of AKT was increased in patients with heterozygous mutation of PTEN compared to those with heterozygous loss of PTEN. Thus, single-allele mutation of PTEN is more oncogenic than comparable loss of PTEN owing to the inhibition of protein encoded by the wild-type PTEN allele. A. Papa, L. Wan, M. Bonora, L. Salmena, M. S. Song, R. M. Hobbs, A. Lunardi, K. Webster, C. Ng, R. H. Newton, N. Knoblauch, J. Guarnerio, K. Ito, L. A. Turka, A. H. Beck, P. Pinton, R. T. Bronson, W. Wei, P. P. Pandolfi, Cancer-associated PTEN mutants act in a dominant-negative manner to suppress PTEN protein function. Cell 157, 595–610 (2014). [PubMed] N. R. Leslie, J. den Hertog, Mutant PTEN in cancer: Worse than nothing. Cell 157, 527–529 (2014). [PubMed]


Radiation therapy is an important component of cancer treatment. The favorable characteristics of proton radiation open the possibility of conforming the treatment dose to the target volumes and sparing of the surrounding healthy tissue. Pencil beam scanning is the current state of the art treatment method for delivering proton therapy. Accurate delivery of the prescribed radiation dose in a cancer patient, requires precisely calculated dose distributions. Commercial treatment planning systems (TPS) must compromise in the level of accuracy in order to compute the radiation plans in a reasonable amount of time. This trade-off can be considerable, especially in heterogeneous regions or in the case of metallic implants. Monte Carlo (MC) simulations are currently the gold standard in dose calculation. The FLUKA MC Code is a general purpose MC tool that enables recalculation of dose distributions and verification, in addition to more detailed studies not feasible in a TPS or other more specific MC codes. All treatment plan information is contained in a common format (DICOM), which must be adapted to be readable for most MC tools, including FLUKA. In this project, a tool that translates treatment plan information into data readable for the FLUKA code was developed. The tool includes several routines based on Python scripts. It enables reading of relevant treatment plan settings required to automatically generate a FLUKA simulation file for dose recalculation. Functions for data analysis and visualization, as well as comparison between the TPS and FLUKA results were also created. In addition, scripts for converting a FLUKA calculated dose distribution into DICOM format were created. The results in this work demonstrate the feasibility of FLUKA MC recalculation of TPS generated dose distributions through the developed software. Treatment plans for both water phantoms and for actual patients were successfully recalculated in FLUKA. The FLUKA doses were also exported to DICOM files and can be imported back into a TPS for dose evaluation. The results further stress the importance of detailed information and calibration to the specific beam line for obtaining clinical precision of the recalculation process. This developed and tested tool is a contribution to software that enables MC treatment plan verification and can further be implemented in proton and particle therapy TPSs. Furthermore, the tool enable detailed studies of the dose distributions, including linear energy transfer (LET) and secondary particle production. Such tools are essential in radiobiological modeling.


This thesis details the design and implementation of V OTEBOX, a new software platform for building and evaluating secure and reliable electronic voting machines. Current electronic voting systems have experienced many high-profile software, hardware, and usability failures in real elections. Recent research has revealed systemic flaws in commercial voting systems that can cause malfunctions, lose votes, and possibly even allow outsiders to influence the outcome of a national election. These failures and flaws cast doubt on the accuracy of elections conducted with electronic systems and threaten to undermine public trust in the electoral system.
While some consequently argue for total abandonment of electronic voting, VOTEBOX shows how a combination of security, distributed systems, and cryptographic principles can yield trustworthy and usable voting systems. It employs a pre-rendered user interface to reduce the size of the runtime system that must be absolutely trusted. VOTE BOX machines keep secure logs of essential election events, allowing credible audits during or after the election; they are connected using the Auditorium, a novel peer-to-peer network that replicates and intertwines secure logs in order to survive failure, attack, and poll worker error. While the election is ongoing, any voter may choose to challenge a VOTEB OX to immediately produce cryptographic proof that it will correctly and faithfully cast ballots.
This work uniquely demonstrates how these disparate approaches can be used in concert to increase assurance in a voting system; the resulting design also offers a number of pragmatic benefits that can help reduce the frequency and impact of poll worker or voter errors. VOTEBOX is a model for new implementations, but its component techniques can be practically applied to existing systems. VOTEBOX ideas should therefore find their way into commercial electronic voting machines as well as other problem domains in which tamper-evidence, robustness, and verifiability are crucial.


We describe a new way of reasoning about symmetric collisions for Multi-Agent Path Finding (MAPF) on 4-neighbor grids. We also introduce a symmetry-breaking constraint to resolve these conflicts. This specialized technique allows us to identify and eliminate, in a single step, all permutations of two currently assigned but incompatible paths. Each such permutation has exactly the same cost as a current path, and each one results in a new collision between the same two agents. We show that the addition of symmetry-breaking techniques can lead to an exponential reduction in the size of the search space of CBS, a popular framework for MAPF, and report significant improvements in both runtime and success rate versus CBSH and EPEA* – two recent and state-of-the-art MAPF algorithms.


Metacognition is defined most simply as "thinking about thinking." Metacognition consists of two components: knowledge and regulation. Metacognitive knowledge includes knowledge about oneself as a learner and the factors that might impact performance, knowledge about strategies, and knowledge about when and why to use strategies. Metacognitive regulation is the monitoring of one's cognition and includes planning activities, awareness of comprehension and task performance, and evaluation of the efficacy of monitoring processes and strategies. Recent research suggests that young children are capable of rudimentary forms of metacognitive thought, particularly after the age of 3. Although individual developmental models vary, most postulate massive improvements in metacognition during the first 6 years of life. Metacognition also improves with appropriate instruction, with empirical evidence supporting the notion that students can be taught to reflect on their own thinking. Assessment of metacognition is challenging for a number of reasons: (a) metacognition is a complex construct; (b) it is not directly observable; (c) it may be confounded with both verbal ability and working memory capacity; and (d) existing measures tend to be narrow in focus and decontextualized from inschool learning. Recommendations for teaching and assessing metacognition are made.


The Lusitanian toadfish, Halobatrachus didactylus, like other batrachoidids, is a benthic fish species with nesting behaviour during the breeding season. During this prolonged period it engages in mating activities and remains in the nest providing parental care. It is not known whether males feed while providing parental care but it is likely that their limited mobility may restrict their diet and influence their fitness. As a consequence, egg cannibalism could occur as a life-history strategy. The aim of the present study is to ascertain the feeding behaviour of nesting males, in comparison to mature non-nesting males, and to identify potential life-history traits related to egg cannibalism. Nest-holders were sampled from artificial nests placed in an intertidal area of the Tagus estuary, only exposed during spring low tides. The diet of nest-holders was compared with that of non-nesting mature males from the same area, captured by otter trawl. The present study demonstrates that despite their constrained mobility nest-holders feed during the breeding season, although in a more opportunistic fashion than non-nesting males. Nest-holders showed a generalist feeding behaviour, with a more heterogeneous diet. Egg cannibalism was not related to male condition, paternity or brood size but showed a higher incidence early in the season when water temperatures were lower. The results suggest a possible seasonal trade-off strategy between care and energy recovery, triggered by environmental factors, where under unfavourable conditions to sustain viable eggs the male may recover energy by eating eggs, thus benefiting future reproductive success, later in the season.


Acid sulphate (AS) soils cover extensive areas of the coastal plains in western Finland. These soils constitute an environmental hazard due to their ability to release acidity when exposed to atmospheric oxygen. Acidification of soil and water can be reduced or prevented if the factors influencing the release and transport of acidity in AS soils are known. The objective of this study was to develop mathematical models describing the acidity load from AS soils, thus providing tools for accurate soil and water management in the affected areas. The work resulted in a static and a dynamic model for predicting the runoff acidity from catchments containing AS soils. The main features of the models are described in the paper. Both models require significant catchment characteristics and hydrological monitoring results as input data, but no ion balance information is needed. Model applications showed that the static model is able to give good estimates of the mean acidity level to be expected during specific flood periods in the studied river, while the dynamic model, after calibration, is capable of predicting the daily acidity with appreciable accuracy. The information provided by the models can be used to assess adequate mitigration strategies for the watercourses affected by AS soils.


It is well known that attention can facilitate performance by top-down biasing processing of task-relevant information in advance. Recent findings from behavioral studies suggest that distractor inhibition is not under similar direct control but strongly dependent on expectations derived from previous experience. Yet, how expectations about distracting information influence distractor inhibition at the neural level remains unclear. The current study addressed this outstanding question in three experiments in which search displays with repeating distractor or target locations across trials allowed human observers (male and female) to learn which location to selectively suppress or boost. Behavioral findings demonstrated that both distractor and target location learning resulted in more efficient search, as indexed by faster response times. Crucially, distractor learning benefits were observed without target location foreknowledge, unaffected by the number of possible target locations, and could not be explained by priming alone. To determine how distractor location expectations facilitated performance, we applied a spatial encoding model to EEG data to reconstruct activity in neural populations tuned to distractor or target locations. Target location learning increased neural tuning to target locations in advance, indicative of preparatory biasing. This sensitivity increased after target presentation. By contrast, distractor expectations did not change preparatory spatial tuning. Instead, distractor expectations reduced distractor-specific processing, as reflected in the disappearance of the Pd event-related potential component, a neural marker of distractor inhibition, and decreased decoding accuracy. These findings suggest that the brain may no longer process expected distractors as distractors, once it has learned they can safely be ignored. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT We constantly try hard to ignore conspicuous events that distract us from our current goals. Surprisingly, and in contrast to dominant attention theories, ignoring distracting, but irrelevant, events does not seem to be as flexible as is focusing our attention on those same aspects. Instead, distractor suppression appears to strongly rely on learned, context-dependent expectations. Here, we investigated how learning about upcoming distractors changes distractor processing and directly contrasted the underlying neural dynamics to target learning. We show that, while target learning enhanced anticipatory sensory tuning, distractor learning only modulated reactive suppressive processing. These results suggest that expected distractors may no longer be considered distractors by the brain once it has learned that they can safely be ignored.


Brushing is an operation found in many data visualization systems. It is a mechanism for interactively selecting subsets of the data so that they may be highlighted, deleted, or masked. Traditionally, brushes have been defined in screen space via methods such as painting and rubberband rectangles. In this paper we describe the design of N-dimensional brushes which are defined in data space rather than screen space, and show how they have been integrated into XmdvTool, a visualization package for displaying multivariate data. Depending on the data display technique in use, brushes may be specified and manipulated via direct or indirect methods, and the specification may be demand-driven or data-driven. Various brush operations such as highlighting, linking, masking, moving average, and quantitative display have been developed to apply to the selected data. In addition, we have explored several new brush concepts, such as non-discrete brush boundaries, simultaneous display of multiple brushes, and creating composite brushes via logical operators. Preliminary experimental evaluation with test subjects supports the usefulness of N-dimensional brushes in data exploration tasks.


ENGLISH This doctoral thesis investigated the complex relationship between diabetes and the risk of dementia, Alzheimer's disease (AD) and vascular dementia (VaD), and examined the effect of borderline diabetes on the risk of dementia and AD. The data of this thesis were derived from the Kungsholmen Project (Studies I, II, and III) and from the HARMONY Study (Study IV). The Kungsholmen Project is a community-based prospective study on aging and dementia in people aged ≥75 years in Stockholm, Sweden. The HARMONY Study is a study on dementia in a population-based Swedish twin cohort aged ≥65 years. The major findings are summarized below. Study I. The relationship between diabetes and dementia, AD and VaD was investigated using 6-year follow-up data. Diabetes was associated with hazard ratios (HRs) of 1.5 (95% CI, 1.0-2.1) for dementia, 2.6 (95% CI, 1.2-6.1) for VaD, and 1.3 (95% CI, 0.9-2.1) for AD after adjustment for vascular disease and other potential confounders. There were joint effects of diabetes and severe systolic hypertension (SBP ≥180 mm Hg) on AD and VaD, and of diabetes and heart disease on VaD. Study II. The hypothesis that borderline diabetes may increase the risk of dementia and AD was verified using 9-year follow-up data. Borderline diabetes (random blood glucose: 7.8-11.0 mmol/l) was associated with an increased risk of dementia (HR 1.7; 95% CI, 1.0-2.7) and AD (HR 1.8; 95% CI, 1.1-2.9); the risk effect was independent of vascular disease and future development of diabetes. Borderline diabetes may interact with severe systolic hypertension to multiply the risk of AD. Study III. The relation of diabetes to AD was clarified by examining the role of glycemic control and vascular comorbidities. Diabetes in general was only related to VaD (HR 3.2; 95% CI, 1.2-8.6), but undiagnosed diabetes led to HRs of 3.4 (95% CI, 1.5-7.7) for dementia, and 3.3 (95% CI, 1.2-9.0) for AD. Borderline and undiagnosed diabetes were further related to pure AD. Diabetic patients with random blood glucose level <11.0 mmol/l showed no increased dementia risk. Study IV. The association between diabetes and an increased risk of dementia, AD and VaD was confirmed in twins. Diabetes was associated with adjusted ORs (odds ratios) of 1.9 (95% CI, 1.5-2.4) for dementia, 1.7 (95% CI, 1.2-2.4) for AD, and 2.2 (95% CI, 1.4-3.5) for VaD. The risk effect was stronger in patients with diabetes onset at midlife than in patients with diabetes onset in late life. Paired analysis showed that genetic and environmental factors in early life might account for the association between late life diabetes and dementia, but could not explain the midlife diabetes-dementia association. Conclusions. Diabetes increases the risk of dementia, AD and VaD in the elderly. The risk of dementia is very high when diabetes occurs together with severe systolic hypertension and heart disease. Even borderline diabetes is associated with an increased risk of dementia and AD. The risk of dementia is stronger when diabetes occurs in midlife rather than late life. However, good control of blood glucose may reduce the risk of dementia due to diabetes. These findings support the growing evidence of a link between glucose dysregulation and vascular damage and neurodegenerative changes in the brain. Finally, genetic and early life environmental factors, and adulthood environments may be implicated in the development of the diabetes-dementia association.


We propose an image-coding algorithm which combines the discrete cosine transform (DCT) and the singular value decomposition (SVD). The DCT is used to transform those blocks in the source image that exhibit a high correlation, while blocks with greater high-frequency content are transformed using the SVD. A simple criterion is used to decide which transform should be used on each block. Simulation results show that the new hybrid algorithm provides good distortion, bit rate, and image quality-especially in images which are less spatially correlated.


EXECUTIVE SUMMARY * A defined benefit plan must meet its funding target. To determine the funding target at the beginning of each plan year, a defined benefit plan's funded level is measured by comparing the value of benefits earned as of that date to plan assets. Divide the assets by the value of benefits earned to determine a funded percentage, called the funding target attainment percentage (FTAP). * A defined benefit plan that experiences losses must contribute the normal contribution or "target normal cost" plus an amount to make up the losses over the next seven years. If these plans are converted to cash balance defined benefit plans, lump-sum distributions may be limited or, in many cases, not available. All cash balance plans require actuarial certification and an FTAP calculation that must be completed by Oct. 1, or the plan will be "deemed" to be underfunded, preventing lumpsum distributions. * IRC [section] 412(e)(3) exempts a plan from the minimum funding rules under the Pension Protection Act of 2006 and the Worker, Retiree, and Employer Recovery Act of 2008 provided the plan's assets are in certain investments such as annuity contracts that have guaranteed returns. * Modern portfolio theory dictates that a mix of equities and bonds will perform better than a portfolio comprised exclusively of one or the other. Diversification can be accomplished by incorporating a profit sharing plan along with the pension plan, or adding a pension plan to a profit sharing plan. * When paired with a 412(e)(3) plan, most existing 401(k) plans will need to be modified. If the plan is a match plan or safe harbor plan, the plan needs to be converted to a 401(k) profit sharing plan because the employer contributions for safe harbor or match cannot be used to satisfy IRC [section] 401 (a)(4) in a cross-tested plan with a defined benefit plan. * The PPA allows 6% of pay to be placed into a profit sharing plan and deducted along with the pension plan if the plan is not covered by the PBGC. Non-PBGC plans allow up to $14,700 to be placed into the profit sharing plan in 2009 along with an additional $16,500 in elective deferrals for a total of $31,200 in 2009. If the pension plan is covered under the PBGC, the plan sponsor may deduct the entire contribution to the 401(k) profit sharing plan (up to $49,000 in 2009) and the entire contribution to the 412(e)(3) pension plan, which in some cases can be as high as $300,000 per participant. ********** [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Many traditional defined benefit pension plans are underfunded due to market declines. As a result, barring congressional action, they could face future excise taxes ranging from 10% to 100% of the underfunded amounts as mandated by the Pension Protection Act of 2006 (PPA). Funding liabilities are especially difficult for smaller plans whose sponsors typically have fewer options to make up shortfalls caused by rapid declines in plan assets. This article reviews key laws and regulations impacting defined benefit plans and explores options available to plan sponsors and their advisers. MINIMUM FUNDING STANDARDS A plan must fully fund its funding target, although not in one year. The funding target is the present value of accrued benefits determined under IRS rules. To determine the funding percentage at the beginning of each plan year, a defined benefit plan's funded level is measured by comparing the value of benefits earned as of that date with plan assets. Divide the assets by the value of benefits earned to determine a funded percentage, which is called the funding target attainment percentage (FTAP). Example 1: Market Value of Trust Investments = $2,000,000 Present Value of Accrued Benefits = $2,000,000 $2,000,000/$2,000,000 = 1 or an FTAP of 100% In 2008, the S&P 500 lost 37%. If a 40% loss is applied to the assets in Example 1, the calculation becomes $1,200,000/ $2,000,000 = 0. …


Summary Alien species are a driver of biodiversity loss, with impacts of different aliens on native species varying considerably. Identifying the contributions of alien species to native species declines could help target management efforts. Globally, seabirds breeding on islands have proven to be highly susceptible to alien species. The breeding colonies of the pink-footed shearwater (Ardenna creatopus) are threatened by the negative impacts of alien mammals. We combined breeding monitoring data with a hierarchical model to separate the effects of different alien mammal assemblages on the burrow occupancy and hatching success of the pink-footed shearwater in the Juan Fernández Archipelago, Chile. We show that alien mammals affected the rates of burrow occupancy, but had little effect on hatching success. Rabbits produced the highest negative impacts on burrow occupancy, whereas the effects of other alien mammals were more uncertain. In addition, we found differences in burrow occupancy between islands regardless of their alien mammal assemblages. Managing rabbits will improve the reproductive performance of this shearwater, but research is needed to clarify the mechanisms by which alien mammals affect the shearwaters and to explain why burrow occupancy varies between islands.


The Must-Have Promotion Guide for Every App and Hardware Developer! Developing your product took lots of hard work over months, nights, and weekends filled with blood, sweat, and tears. Dont abandon it now. Shower your app with the quality promotion it deserves! Erica Sadun and Steve Sande help you earn strong app reviews that can transform sales from lackluster to blockbuster. As leading tech bloggers, they know exactly what reviewers are looking for. Now, they deliver simple step-by-step advice to position your product, build key relationships, and sell your story. Packed with real case studies from their overflowing inboxes, they reveal where developers can go wrong and when theyve gotten it right. Great tech promotion doesnt need to cost a lot. You can do it yourself, even if youve never marketed anything before. It just takes a little time, thought, and the skills you learn in this book. Peek behind the curtain to learn how web review sites really work Get your product into shape and ready for your marketing push Craft great pitches that sell your excitement and explain your products key features and appeal Lead reviewers by the hand with simple, succinct language Avoid common mistakes that kill your chances for a review Create the essential PR support material your product needs Respond productively to both good and negative coverage Keep bloggers in the loop about what youll be doing next Includes exclusive worksheets and checklists for: Profiling potential customers Evaluating competitors Estimating market size Writing and checking your pitch Tracking and targeting bloggers


New presidents have no honeymoon when it comes to foreign policy. Less than three months into his presidency, for example, John F. Kennedy authorized the disastrous effort to overthrow Fidel Castro at the Bay of Pigs. More recently, George W. Bush had been in office for less than eight months when he was faced with the attacks of September 11. How should an incoming president prepare for the foreign policy challenges that lie immediately ahead? That's the question Kurt Campbell and James Steinberg tackle in this compelling book. Drawing on their decades of government service --in the corridors of Capitol Hill, the intimate confines of the White House, the State Department, and the bare-knuckles Pentagon bureaucracy --Campbell and Steinberg identify the major foreign policy pitfalls that face a new presidential administration. They explain clearly and concisely what it takes to get foreign policy right from the start. The authors set the scene with a historical overview of presidential transitions and foreign policy including case studies of such prominent episodes as the "Black Hawk Down" tragedy in Somalia that shook the Clinton administration in its first year and the Bush administration's handling of the collision between a U.S. reconnaissance plane and a Chinese fighter jet in the spring of 2001. They pinpoint the leading causes of foreign policy fiascos, including the tendency to write off the policies of the outgoing administration and the failure to appreciate the differences between campaign promises and policy realities. Most important, they provide a road map to help the new administration steer clear of the land mines ahead. America's next president will confront critical foreign policy decisions from day one. Dif ficult Transitions pr ovides essential guidance for getting those choices right.


The deep-sea holothurian Irpa abyssicola (Elpidiidae) has been re-discovered in the Norwegian-Greenland Basin after a period of more than 100 years. The remotely operated vehicle Victor 6000 was used to collect specimens and to make observations on the biology (density, distribution and behaviour) of the benthic megafauna during a dive to the Hayes Deep (maximum depth Ca 3700 r m). The specimens of Irpa abyssicola were in exceptionally good condition, allowing a re-description of the species. The original description of the holothurian was found to lack many significant morphological details. In particular, it is clear from the new specimens that three pairs of dorsal papillae fuse to form a velum in an anterior third of the body. There are no separate dorsal papillae, as described originally.


Interactive narratives have long been advocated as having the potential to create more immersive and transformative experiences for audiences by adding the pleasure of agency. In practice, however, finding the balance between sufficient interactivity for agency and narrative structure has been difficult. This article proposed a model of interactive narrative, which encased interactivity within a strong narrative structure, as the best model to increase audience entertainment. In order to test the hypothesis that such a model would out perform its linear counterpart in terms of audience entertainment, two separate audience studies were conducted. The first study tested an interactive drama for television and the second tested two interactive narrative-based advertisements. When analyzing the two studies, there was a surprising result: in each case audience empathy was consistently and significantly increased by the addition of interactivity. This discovery suggests links between empathy and interactivity, and has exciting implications on the role of empathic stress and structure in the creation of future models of interactive narratives.


Most analyses of the Kyoto flexibility mechanisms focus on the cost effectiveness of "where" flexibility (e.g. by showing that mitigation costs are lower in a global permit market than in regional markets or in permit markets confined to Annex 1 countries). Less attention has been devoted to "when" flexibility, i.e. to the benefits of allowing emission permit traders to bank their permits for future use. In the model presented in this paper, banking of carbon allowances in a global permit market is fully endogenised, i.e. agents may decide to bank permits by taking into account their present and future needs and the present and future decisions of all the other agents. It is therefore possible to identify under what conditions traders find it optimal to bank permits, when banking is socially optimal, and what are the implications for present and future permit prices. We can also explain why the equilibrium rate of growth of permit prices is likely to be larger than the equilibrium interest rate. Most importantly, this paper analyses the efficiency and distributional consequences of allowing markets to optimally allocate emission permits across regions and over time. The welfare and distributional effects of an optimal intertemporal emission trading scheme are assessed for different initial allocation rules. Finally, the impact of banking on carbon emissions, technological progress, and optimal investment decisions is quantified and the incentives that banking provides to accelerate technological innovation and diffusion are also discussed. Among the many results, we show that not only does banking reduce abatement costs, but it also increases the amount of GHG emissions abated in the short-term. It should therefore belong to all emission trading schemes under construction.


In this paper, we study the problem of learning probabilistic logical rules for inductive and interpretable link prediction. Despite the importance of inductive link prediction, most previous works focused on transductive link prediction and cannot manage previously unseen entities. Moreover, they are black-box models that are not easily explainable for humans. We propose DRUM, a scalable and differentiable approach for mining first-order logical rules from knowledge graphs that resolves these problems. We motivate our method by making a connection between learning confidence scores for each rule and low-rank tensor approximation. DRUM uses bidirectional RNNs to share useful information across the tasks of learning rules for different relations. We also empirically demonstrate the efficiency of DRUM over existing rule mining methods for inductive link prediction on a variety of benchmark datasets.


The role of occupational therapy in prevention has received much discussion but relatively little empirical testing and model building. Because of the evidence linking stress and illness, the life stress process has become a popular area of investigation. More importantly, a role strain model can provide a theoretical guide to occupational therapy practice due to the central importance of adaptive behavior and social competence. To illustrate, the maternal stress study is presented as an example of prevention research that examines the relationship between maternal stress and child psychopathology. Risk factors are identified as the first step in reliable case finding and the design of preventive interventions. Such model building can help occupational therapists develop prevention services for vulnerable populations.


Nineteenth-century liberalism has traditionally occupied a prominent place in the study of Russian intellectual and political history. Presently there is an extensive historiography on Russian liberalism, but the specialist's attentive gaze will easily discover yawning gaps, foremost of which is the early stage in the development of Russian liberalism, the 1850s. Research into any historical phenomenon, including intellectual history, compels the scholar to address the problem of origins. When and how did the formative process of the liberal tradition in Russia take place? What was the first variant of Russian liberalism? The answers to these questions, in my estimation, are to be found in the history of mid-19th-century Russian socio-political thought. Tradition demands that we should give liberalism's "firstborn" a name, to show that this was the initial period in the history of Russian liberalism. This circumstance alone should cause us to adopt a term in universal and familiar scholarly use-"early liberalism." Identifying early Russian liberalism as an independent stage will help us in constructing a periodization for the entire history of Russian liberalism, whose initial pages remain to be written. This approach will also help us come to terms with Russian liberalism by separating it from mid-19th-century Russian radicalism and conservatism. Interest in mid-19th-century Russian liberalism arose, most likely, in connection with the study of concrete historical topics such as the well-known Westernizer--Slavophile debate, the Great Reforms (1860s-70s), and the liberal zemstvo movement. Yet early Russian liberalism has hardly been considered as an independent intellectual phenomenon for very long. The genesis of Russian liberalism has often been tied either to Westernism or to so-called gentry liberalism and zemstvo activity. Westernism was a platform for heterogeneous ideological elements, however, primarily of a radical and liberal bent. Westernizers included A. I. Herzen, V. G. Belinskii, T. N. Granovskii, K. D. Kavelin, and other thinkers who laid the foundations in the 1840s of both the radical and the liberal traditions. Meanwhile, the concept of "gentry" liberalism-centered around estate identity and devoid of precise meaning-has acquired little currency among intellectual historians, while the zemstvo liberal movement did not appear until the 1860s. By contrast, the 1850s remain an understudied period. Thus, early Russian liberalism continues to be a topic of discussion in the scholarly community. The goal of this article is to study the fundamental scholarly approaches to early Russian liberalism in both Russian and Western historiography. In Russian historiography, two phases are evident in the study of Russian liberalism's beginning stage. In the Soviet phase, which extended from the mid-1950s to the early 1990s, it was commonplace to acknowledge the mid-1850s as the formative years when Russian liberalism became a "significant social trend." (1) The earliest works devoted to the genesis of a liberal tradition in Russia emphasized that "the further formation of Russian liberal ideology and its political program took place" after Emperor Alexander II (1855-81) had ascended the throne in "a time of heightened social tension." (2) The membership of the "liberal family" in the 1850s was also established: in addition to K. D. Kavelin and B. N. Chicherin, V. P. Botkin, A. V. Druzhinin, and P. V. Annenkov were added to the liberal roster. (3) At the same time, various facts entered into historiographical circulation that subsequently gained universal acceptance among specialists. In particular, gentry intelligentsia circles in the two capitals were identified as the most important centers of the liberal movement that was forming in the mid-19th century-the Moscow circle of A. B. Stankevich and K. D. Kavelin's group in St. Petersburg 4 Additionally, the appearance of manuscript literature and its publication abroad in a series of articles in Golosa iz Rossii was acknowledged as an important event and is usually referred to as "Russian liberals' first public pronouncement. …


The presence of irrelevant features in training data is a significant obstacle for many machine learning tasks, since it can decrease accuracy, make it harder to understand the
learned model and increase computational and memory requirements. One approach to this problem is to extract appropriate features. General approaches such as Principal
Components Analysis (PCA) are successful for a variety of applications, however they can be improved upon by targeting feature extraction towards more specific problems.
More recent work has been more focused and considers sparser formulations which potentially have improved generalisation. However, sparsity is not always efficiently implemented and frequently requires complex optimisation routines. Furthermore, one often does not have a direct control on the sparsity of the solution. In this thesis, we address
some of these problems, first by proposing a general framework for feature extraction which possesses a number of useful properties. The framework is based on Partial Least
Squares (PLS), and one can choose a user defined criterion to compute projection directions. It draws together a number of existing results and provides additional insights into several popular feature extraction methods. More specific feature extraction is considered for three objectives: matrix approximation, supervised feature extraction and
learning the semantics of two-viewed data. Computational and memory efficiency is prioritised, as well as sparsity in a direct manner and simple implementations. For the matrix approximation case, an analysis of different orthogonalisation methods is presented in terms of the optimal choice of projection direction. The analysis results in a new derivation for Kernel Feature Analysis (KFA) and the formation of two novel matrix approximation methods based on PLS. In the supervised case, we apply the general feature extraction framework to derive two new methods based on maximising covariance
and alignment respectively. Finally, we outline a novel sparse variant of Kernel Canonical Correlation Analysis (KCCA) which approximates a cardinality constrained optimisation. This method, as well as a variant which performs feature selection in one view, is applied to an enzyme function prediction case study.


Helminth parasites represent a significant threat to wild, domesticated, and research animal health. Pseudocapillaria tomentosa is a common intestinal nematode parasite and an important source of infection in zebrafish. Symptoms of the infection vary widely from no clinical signs to sever emaciation and mortality, however, the reasons underpinning these disparate outcomes are unclear. Components of the microbiome may interact with parasites to influence their success in the gut while parasite infections are also known to influence the composition of the gut microbiome. In this study we evaluated the longitudinal changes in the gut microbiome structure and gut physiology during experimental P. tomentosa infection in adult 5D line zebrafish. We observed less severe signs of infection and less mortality in these fish than previously described in AB line fish. However, inflammation and epithelial hyperplasia in the intestine was still observed in infected 5D line fish. The composition of the microbiome changed rapidly during the infection and these changes were associated with parasite stage of development and burden. Individual taxa covaried with parasite abundance in the intestine intimating the gut microbiome may influence parasite burden. Associations between taxa and parasite abundance in some cases appeared to be phylogenetically patterned. Strong positive associations were observed between OTUs phylotyped to Proteobacteria and abundance of adult parasites and parasite eggs. Together these experiments demonstrate that P. tomentosa infection results in a rapid and temporally dynamic disruption of the zebrafish gut microbiome and clarify how interactions between the gut microbiome and intestinal parasites may impact fish populations.


Publication of student work has been considered a mainstay of the writer's workshop since the early days of the 'children as authors' movement (Graves, 1983). However, this philosophy, which stipulates students should share their work with peers, may not be one that always benefits students.  This case study utilizes the concept of literacy-in-action (Brandt & Clinton, 2002), to look at the manner in which one local rendition of writer's workshop both enhanced and displaced student literacy practices.  The guiding question asks: How are focal students, Sara, Ally and Nigel, engaging in the practice of publication of their writing and how are those publications, as literacy objects, mediating their practice of literacy in the writer's workshop? The examination of writer's workshop first presents the way publication of student writing found its way into Sara and Nigel's classroom and the kinds of investments accumulated in it as it made its way into their practice of classroom writing.  It then presents the agentful activity engaged in by these students in their classroom literacy practice of writing for publication.  Through the analysis, the ways an assessment-focused writer's workshop worked to enhance and displace individual student's literacy practices are brought out.


We explore how firms frame catastrophic innovation failure for external audiences. Failure events may lead external audiences to doubt the firm's ultimate chances of success. Because it is difficult for those audiences to ascertain whether the failure occurred due to the uncertainty inherent to innovation (experimentation uncertainty) or due to managerial or organizational shortcomings (execution uncertainty), a firm's own framing of the failure may critically influence external audiences' interpretations. We analyze three cases of catastrophic innovation failure at two firms in the private space industry — SpaceX and Virgin Galactic — using market-facing communications, including social media, blogs, corporate websites, press releases, and news articles. We find that firms frame catastrophic innovation failure considering (1) the extent to which they incorporated the notion of failure into their external narrative prior to the failure, and (2) the nature of the catastrophic event itself. We identify a tension inherent to the crafting of organizational narratives for innovating firms, between promising success (which elicits external audiences' support) and acknowledging the possibility of failure (which may deter them). Our findings indicate a need for innovating firms to weave a sense of 'optimal promise' into their external narratives, balancing the zeal of success with the possibility of failure.


For nearly three decades, the total fertility rate in England and Wales has remained high relative to other European countries, and stable at about 1.7 births per woman. In this chapter, we examine trends in both period and cohort fertility throughout the twentieth century, and demonstrate some important differences across demographic and social groups in the timing and quantum of fertility. Breaking with a market-oriented and laissez-faire approach to work and family issues, the last 10 years have seen the introduction of new social and economic policies aimed at providing greater support to families with children. However, the effect of the changes is likely to be limited to families on the lower end of the income scale. Rather than facilitating work and parenthood, some policies create incentives for a traditional gendered division of labour. Fertility appears to have remained stable despite, rather than because of, government actions.


Three kinds of SiO-based electrodes and one graphite electrode were fabricated using styrene butadiene rubber (SBR) and carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC) as binders. The cycling results showed that the more amount of SiO in the electrodes was, the faster the capacity of the electrode dropped and the lower coulombic efficiency of the electrode performed. Thus, it was the fading of SiO resulted in the SiO-based anodes reversible capacity dropping. In order to analyze the fading mechanism of the SiO-based anodes, SiO electrode was done 10% capacity lithiation/delithiation cycling, during which the volume change of the electrode should be negligible. The results showed that the voltage difference between the maximum and minimum values of the SiO anode cell kept increasing, which indicated that the SiO anode fading happened. The SEM images of SiO anodes illustrated that before cycling, the surface of SiO particles were smooth and tidy, and the SiO particles' edge was sharp, while the surface of SiO particles became roughness, the edge was blurry, and there were fewer conductive additives on the SiO particles' surface after cycling, which implied that electronic conductivity of the electrode became worse after cycling. It can be concluded that electronic conductivity played an important role in the electrode. We believe that boosting the electronic conductivity of the SiO-based electrode is one of the important methods to improve the cell cycle performance.


Class actions are vital to protecting investors. Without class certification, individual damages may be de minimis, and investors would be unlikely to bring a securities fraud suit. This underenforcement allows those who defraud investors to skate liability and impugn the integrity of the marketplace. Presumptions of reliance facilitate classwide resolution of securities fraud claims. Under Rule 10b-5 for securities fraud the Supreme Court has presumed reliance to facilitate class actions where there is an omission in the face of a duty to disclose or where there is a fraud on the secondary market. The new frontier is whether federal courts should likewise presume reliance where fraud occurs on the primary market, giving rise to the fraud-created-the-market theory. Although some federal courts embraced the theory decades ago, a sharp conflict has arisen in the wake of the Court's decision in Stoneridge Investment Partners v. Scientific-Atlanta, and the Third and Ninth Circuits have set the pace for rejecting the theory. In this Article, however, we show that the fraud-created-the-market theory is consistent with the fundamental bases for all presumptions in the law, comports with the Supreme Court's interpretations of the federal securities laws as properly understood, and serves the investor-protection and market-integrity design of securities regulation. We undertake a comprehensive definition and defense of the fraud-created-the-market theory and show why critics' concerns regarding the presumption are unfounded. Properly understood, the fraud-created-the-market theory is about materiality and scienter - defendants should be held liable under the securities laws for committing fraud that is so material, without it, the securities never would have made it to market. In this regard, we show that a presumption of reliance for newly issued securities and the primary market is consistent with the Supreme Court's collapsing the elements of securities fraud into a single inquiry whether the omission or misrepresentation was material. We build upon Professor Donald C. Langevoort's fresh interpretation of the fraud-on-the-market presumption and his interpretation of Stoneridge, to show that the fraud-created-the-market presumption is grounded in the Court's jurisprudence. We also find support for a judicially crafted presumption in the context of new issues in the securities laws themselves and in the common-law bases for presumptions. There is a pressing need for an answer to whether federal courts should adopt the fraud-created-the-market theory. The fraud-created-the-market theory will play an increasingly important role in actions against those involved in fraud relating to the issuance of subprime mortgage-backed securities.


Increased cyclic adenosine monophosphate-phosphodiesterase activity in atopic leukocytes correlates with abnormal inflammatory and immune cell function in atopic dermatitis. The increased phosphodiesterase activity may affect many pathways of cell regulation and thus could be an important therapeutic target for management of cutaneous and respiratory inflammation. The increased PDE activities in atopic monocytes and lymphocytes reflect isoforms with increased maximum rate of metabolism but first order rate constant similar to that of the enzyme in normal cells. Both isoforms can be classed into the phosphodiesterase IV group with sensitivity to the inhibitor Ro 20-1724. In this study we used an in vitro assay to assess the effects of various phosphodiesterase inhibitors on enzyme isoforms in mononuclear leukocytes and purified leukocyte subpopulations from patients with atopic dermatitis and normal subjects. The atopic isoenzyme was found to be consistently more sensitive to a number of phosphodiesterase inhibitors. The descending order of potency for mononuclear leukocytes was rolipram, Ro 20-1724, nitraquazone, isobutyl methyl xanthine, and theophylline. Nitraquazone showed greater inhibitory effect on atopic T cells than did Ro 20-1724. Cyclic adenosine monophosphate levels increased in atopic mononuclear leukocytes incubated with Ro 20-1724 but not in normal cells. We also measured inhibitor effects on intact cells and cell homogenates, allowing discrimination of inhibitor capacity to enter intact cells. The differential inhibitor effect on various leukocyte subpopulations was demonstrated by a greater sensitivity of atopic lymphocytes and T cells for nitraquazone than for Ro 20-1724. In contrast, the latter inhibitor was a more potent inhibitor of mononuclear leukocyte and monocyte phosphodiesterase activity.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)


The following paper is concerned with information structure in the Ob-Ugric languages and its manifestation in reference tracking and its mechanisms. We will show how both knowledge on information structure and on reference tracking mechanisms can be used to develop a system for a (semi-)automatic annotation of syntactic, semantic and pragmatic functions. We assume that the principles of information structure, i.e., the balancing of the content of an utterance, are indicated by the use of anaphoric devices to mark participants in an on-going discourse. This process in which participants are encoded by the speaker and decoded by the hearer is called reference tracking. Our model distinguishes four important factors that play a role in reference tracking: inherent (linguistic) features of a referent, information structure, referential devices and referential strategies. The interaction between these factors we call reference tracking mechanisms. Here, the passive voice and the dative shift are used to exemplify this complex interaction system. Drawing conclusions from this, rules are developed to annotate both syntactic, semantic and pragmatic roles of discourse participants (semi-)automatically.


We report on the recent development of multicore fiber amplifiers suitable for amplifying space division multiplexed signals. We designed and constructed 7-core amplifiers, where the cores could be pumped individually or simultaneously through the cladding and studied the amplification and noise properties of these amplifiers. In the core-pumped amplifier, the net average gain was 25 dB, and noise figure was less than 4 dB. Using side-coupled cladding pumping, gain over 25 dB was obtained in each of the cores over a 40-nm bandwidth covering the C-band. We present results of numerical simulation that shows ways of further improvement of amplifier performance, including gain, noise figure, and power conversion efficiency (PCE) through optimization of fiber design.


Background The Simulated Interprofessional Team Training programme, SPRinT, a validated in-situ simulation programme delivers point-of-care team-training to >180 staff annually. In-situ simulation provides an authentic learning experience, key to translation into real clinical practice. Benefits include system testing and improvement, latent threat identification and mitigation, and team-work training of real teams. Description of innovation To facilitate delivery of in-situ simulation throughout the hospital, (clinical areas in separate buildings), we decided to devise a mobile solution to minimise cost and set up time while maximising learning opportunities. Weinstock et al .1 highlighted the usefulness of a self-contained mobile cart in their paediatric unit. We have thus developed the bespoke SPRinT trolley enabling delivery of in-situ simulations to multiple sites throughout the hospital. Trolley cost = £ 2250. The secure compact design maximises portability and equipment safety. It offers elevated monitor facilities and a lockable full size CPU cupboard with earth bonded power. Outcomes/improvements Since introducing the SPRinT trolley, we have undertaken 95 SPRinT courses, training 711 members of hospital staff in 13 separate clinical locations including paediatric ICU/HDU/wards, adult ICU/HDU, outpatient clinics, theatres and recovery, catheter labs. 51 latent threats identified, resulting in 36 system quality improvements, 7 translated trust wide. Courses rated highly effective by >80% of participants. Take home message Using the SPRinT trolley, we have delivered the benefits of in-situ simulation-based team-training to more areas and staff than traditional simulation centre model oftraining, improving team performance and patient safety. Our trolley is cost effective, half We in stock trolley cost. Availability of new wireless manikins means some of our trolley features are being redesigned to keep pace with this innovative technology. The newly designed trolley aims to be reproducible and cost effective so that all hospitals will be able to transform their delivery of simulation based education and training. Reference Weinstock PH, et al. Simulation at the point of care: reduced-cost, in situ training via a mobile cart. Pediatr Crit Care Med. 2009;10(2):176–181


ABSTRACT Schedel, J.R., Jr. and Schedel, A.L., 2018. Analysis of variance of flood events on the U.S. East Coast: The impact of sea-level rise on flood event severity and frequency. This is an investigation to quantify the severity and frequency of coastal flood events on the U.S. East Coast. Flood events are defined as instances during which the water level exceeds a predetermined threshold. An examination of monthly water-level data from 13 locations on the U.S. East Coast shows an increasing mean sea-level trend. Analysis of variance was used to compare the frequency of flood events. At all 13 locations, flood events were compared to established moderate and minor flood stages in the pre-1990 and post-1990 time frames. Flood stages are defined as water-level heights associated with various levels of flooding. For all locations, compared to absolute water heights based on a fixed datum, these flood stages were exceeded more frequently today than in the past. However, when the effects of sea-level rise were negated, flood events were shown to occur at similar rates today as in the past. Flood events that were significantly higher than the mean sea level occurred with the same frequency over the past century. Based on absolute water levels, flood events are more severe and more frequent than in the past. However, if the effects of sea-level rise are negated, flood events show little to no change in severity or frequency. Coastal flood events are starting from a higher baseline height because of sea-level rise. Thus, the same severity of a flood event today reaches a greater absolute height than an identical flood would have reached 50 or 100 years ago.


Multilevel approaches provide a powerful way to assess simultaneously the contribution of message differences and individual differences to prediction of memory for media content. Many questions about memory legitimately invite investigation of not only factors that describe people but also variables describing messages as well as potential interactions between those two levels. This article introduces an example of how multilevel modeling techniques can be applied to avoid basic pitfalls and to predict memory for electronic media content. Using data from a sample of U.S. adolescents and data regarding the content and prevalence of nationally available health campaign advertisements, this study illustrates main effects and cross-level interactions relevant to an array of communication scholars and professionals.


Coral reefs are formed by the growth and calcification of primary coral framework and secondary encrusting organisms. Future scenarios of reef health predict global declines in coral cover and an increase in the relative importance of encrusting organisms to gross reef calcification. Numerous coral growth studies are available; however, there are few quantitative estimates of secondary carbonate production on reefs. The present study used vertically orientated PVC pipe to generate rates of carbonate production (g cm–2 year–1) by encruster communities on Vabbinfaru reef platform, Maldives (4°18′35″N, 73°25′26″E). Maximum carbonate production by encrusters was 0.112 g cm–2 year–1 (mean ± s.d.: 0.047 ± 0.019 g cm–2 year–1). Encruster community composition was dominated by non-geniculate coralline algae (mean ± s.d.: 76 ± 14.2%), with other encrusting taxa being quantitatively unimportant to total substrate cover (mean ± s.d.: 9 ± 16.7%). Rates of encruster calcification at Vabbinfaru fell within the range of values reported for other reef-building provinces. There is a particular need for more quantitative field-based measurements of reef-organism calcification rates because such values strengthen regional and global estimates of gross carbonate production and have direct implications for net reef accretion and the development of reef sedimentary environments.


This thesis attempts to understand the intellectual milieu of Maori society in the early colonial period through the medium of Maori-language sources of information dating from that time. A base in Maori documentary allows Maori history to exist under the same disciplines as that of other literate peoples. The thesis argues that the imposition of English meanings on Maori language has shaded Maori meanings. It offers a rereading of documents including the Treaty of Waitangi in order to restore their Maori historicity. Maori society has also been misrepresented historiographically by the creation of false distance between metropolitan and indigenous culture, including the failure to sufficiently consider the shaping force of literacy on Maori perceptions of citizenship and on the politics of sovereignty that developed at mid-century. The thesis argues that land sales were the main Maori experience of government, and that the government's ability to define the terms of the market reconstrued society in ways which destroyed its former political structure.This turned it into a land-owning collective, in which power lay not in human consequence, as formerly, but in the size of the cultivations to which an owner could prove a right in terms constructed by officials. All members of the kin-group were constutued land owners, and the status of the chief was reduced to the size of the lands to which he could prove ownership. By 1865, when the Native Land Court was instituted, power within Maoridom lay in the land itself: te mana o te whenua. This position was written into culture, and endures into the present. The premise of the thesis is that change towards western norms is the proper frame of study of colonial Maori society, but that the magnitude of change has been obscured, both by the politicisation of the past on presentist premises and by the transformation of colonial models into what is now assumed to be 'traditional Maori society'. In order to separate the colonial from the traditional the thesis looks at precontact society custom regarding authority over land and fisheries. The thesis underscores the magnitude of change when tapu disappeared as the support of chiefs' civil governance, which was played out in the migration of mana (personal power) from chiefs to, modern, land. The disappearance of tapu also, however, aided the rise of Maori civil society within the colony on the basis of the desire for modernity which kept Maori engaged with the government and therefore still governed. This is studied through letters that detail the operation of civil life in Taranaki and among Ngati Kahungunu, with special reference to the experience of Wiermu Kingi and Renata Kawepo.


Background: The aim of the present study was to assess the relationship between serum levels of Alkaline Phosphatase (ALP) and cognitive impairments in patients with Subcortical Ischemic Vascular Disease (SIVD).
Methods: This study included 235 patients who were assigned to a mild-cognitive-impairment group or a vascular-dementia group according to the severity of their cognitive impairments. The incidences of multiple lacunar infarctions and leukoaraiosis were confirmed using Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scans. Serum ALP was measured with an enzymatic method; the Mini-mental State Examination (MMSE) and the Cambridge Cognitive Examination-Chinese version (CAMCOG-C) were used to assess neuropsychological status; and a logistic regression was performed to explore the associations between ALP levels and cognitive impairments.
Results: ALP levels were higher in the vascular-dementia group than in the control group (82.7 ± 15.06 vs. 68.4 ± 14.8, respectively), and scores on the MMSE and CAMCOG-C were significantly lower in the vascular-dementia than in the mild-cognitive-impairment group. Additionally, ALP levels were negatively correlated with MMSE and CAMCOG-C scores (r=-0.364 and r=-0.297, respectively). The incidences of lacunar infarction and leukoaraiosis were higher in the vascular-dementia group than in the mild-cognitive-impairment group (73.9% vs. 60.0% and 80.0% vs. 64.2%, respectively), and the logistic regression revealed that ALP levels were positively associated with cognitive impairments after adjusting for potential confounding factors (Odds Ratio (OR): 1.57, 95% Confidence Interval (CI): 1.14-2.17). Furthermore, the risk of cognitive impairments increased by 57% per unit of ALP change.


The open problem of how singular current structures form in line-tied, three-dimensional magnetic fields is addressed. A Lagrangian magneto-frictional relaxation method is employed to model the field evolution toward the final near-singular state. Our starting point is an exact force-free solution of the governing magnetohydrodynamic equations that is sufficiently general to allow for topological features like magnetic nulls to be inside or outside the computational domain, depending on a simple set of parameters. Quasi-separatrix layers (QSLs) are present in these structures and, together with the magnetic nulls, they significantly influence the accumulation of current. It is shown that perturbations affecting the lateral boundaries of the configuration lead not only to collapse around the magnetic null but also to significant QSL currents. Our results show that once a magnetic null is present, the developing currents are always attracted to that specific location and show a much stronger scaling with resolution than the currents that form along the QSL. In particular, the null-point scalings can be consistent with models of "fast" reconnection. The QSL currents also appear to be unbounded but give rise to weaker singularities, independent of the perturbation amplitude.


The critical biological roles of microRNAs (miRNAs) have been well recognized. However, knowledge on the regulatory activities of miRNA*s is limited. Although several studies point to the capacity of this small RNA species to repress target genes in animals, few related analyses were performed in plants. Here, we set out to uncover the repressive effects of miRNA*s on their targets in both Arabidopsis and rice. Systemic identification of miRNA*s was performed through secondary structure-based prediction and expression level-based verification. The targets of the miRNA*s were predicted and further filtered based on degradome sequencing data, resulting in comprehensive miRNA*—target lists with high reliability. Comprehensive miRNA—target lists were also obtained. The phenomenon that one transcript was targeted by two or more miRNA(*)s was observed, which was defined as co-regulation. Finally, comprehensive miRNA- and miRNA*-mediated regulatory networks were constructed. Further investigation of some specific subnetworks implied the utility of these networks for biologists. This study could broaden the current understanding of miRNA-mediated regulation in plants.


p27(Kip1) (p27) has been shown to inhibit several cyclin-dependent kinase molecules and to play a central role in regulating entry into the cell cycle. Once hair cells in the cochlea are formed, p27 is expressed in non-sensory cells of the organ of Corti and prevents their re-entry into the cell cycle. In one line of p27 deficient mice (p27(-/-)), cell division in the organ of Corti continues past its normal embryonic time, leading to continual production of cells in the organ of Corti. Here we report on the structure and function of the inner ear in another line of p27 deficient mice originating from the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. The deficiency in p27 expression of these mice is incomplete, as they retain expression of amino acids 52-197. We determined that mice homozygote for this mutation had severe hearing loss and their organ of Corti exhibited an increase in the number of inner and outer hair cells. There also was a marked increase in the number of supporting cells, with severe pathologies in pillar cells. These data show similarities between this p27(Kip1) mutation and another, previously reported null allele of this gene, and suggest that reducing the inhibition on the cell cycle in the organ of Corti leads to pathology and dysfunction. Manipulations to regulate the time and place of p27 inhibition will be necessary for inducing functionally useful hair cell regeneration.


The parametric quadratic nonlinear interaction is considered within three-dimensional photonic crystals. A theoretical model that includes the full three-dimensional aspect of such nonlinear interaction is developed. Results from the study prove that second-order processes are possible in centrosymmetric three-dimensional photonic crystals and that the contribution to this nonlinear interaction is localized at the interfaces separating the two materials of the photonic lattice. In fact, such structures provide an independent solution to some of the most basic requirements for an efficient second-order nonlinear interaction: a nonvanishing interaction in the dipole approximation, a phase-matching mechanism, and a high nonlinear susceptibility not linked to the specific properties of the crystalline structure. Numerical results show that efficient parametric processes are achievable by use of short three-dimensional photonic crystals when realistic parameters for such nonlinear structures are used.