The ability to design surfaces with reversible, high-affinity protein binding sites represents a significant step forward in the advancement of analytical methods for diverse biochemical and biomedical applications. Herein, we report a dynamic supramolecular strategy to directly assemble proteins on surfaces based on multivalent host-guest interactions. The host-guest interactions are achieved by one-step nanofabrication of a well-oriented β-cyclodextrin host-derived self-assembled monolayer on gold (β-CD-SAM) that forms specific inclusion complexes with hydrophobic amino acids located on the surface of the protein. Cytochrome c, insulin, α-chymotrypsin, and RNase A are used as model guest proteins. Surface plasmon resonance and static time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry studies demonstrate that all four proteins interact with the β-CD-SAM in a specific manner via the hydrophobic amino acids on the surface of the protein. The β-CD-SAMs bind the proteins with high nanomolar to single-digit micromolar dissociation constants ( KD). Importantly, while the proteins can be captured with high affinity, their release from the surface can be achieved under very mild conditions. Our results expose the great advantages of using a supramolecular approach for controlling protein immobilization, in which the strategy described herein provides unprecedented opportunities to create advanced bioanalytic and biosensor technologies.


In 1950s America, it was remarkably easy for police to arrest almost anyone for almost any reason. The criminal justice system — and especially the age-old law of vagrancy — served not only to maintain safety and order but also to enforce conventional standards of morality and propriety. A person could be arrested for sporting a beard, making a speech, or working too little. Yet by the end of the 1960s, vagrancy laws were discredited and American society was fundamentally transformed. What happened? Vagrant Nation answers that question by showing how constitutional challenges to vagrancy laws shaped the multiple movements that made "the 1960s." Vagrancy laws were so broad and flexible that they made it possible for the police to arrest anyone out of place: Beats and hippies; Communists and Vietnam War protestors; racial minorities and civil rights activists; gays, single women, and prostitutes. As hundreds of these "vagrants" and their lawyers challenged vagrancy laws in court, the laws became a flashpoint for debates about radically different visions of order and freedom. In describing those challenges, Vagrant Nation offers a new, integrated history of the civil rights, peace, gay rights, welfare rights, sexual, and cultural revolutions. It also demonstrates how ordinary people, with the help of lawyers and judges, can change the meaning of the Constitution. The Supreme Court's 1972 decision declaring vagrancy laws unconstitutional continues to shape conflicts between police power and constitutional rights, including clashes over stop-and-frisk, homelessness, sexual freedom, and public protests. Since the downfall of vagrancy law, battles over what, if anything, should replace it, like battles over the legacy of the sixties transformations themselves, are far from over.


James Crow enjoyed relating how he and the first issue of the journal Genetics were scheduled to arrive on the same day—18 January 1916—and how he was delivered on time, whereas the journal was delivered several weeks late. The coincidence was altogether fitting, as Crow became one of the leading geneticists of the twentieth century. Renowned as scholar, teacher, mentor, author and historian, he had a career in science that spanned 70 years, primarily at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Professor Crow's research was in theoretical and experimental population genetics, focusing on Drosophila as his model organism and extending his results to human genetics. He had further influence on the field of genetics as a writer and speaker and as a synthesizer and disseminator of knowledge, and he performed service to his colleagues in many different capacities.


This paper examines the problem of optimal tax mix analytically in a two-sector growth model with transitional dynamics. Tax revenue is required to provide a pure public good. The key problems are: over-consumption of leisure under labor income or consumption taxes; and under-investment in human and physical capital under income taxes. Without investment subsidies, consumption taxes do better than uniform income taxes, but can be improved on locally via positive taxation of physical capital income and a negative tax on labor income. With subsidies the first best can be achieved in a system where: (i) consumption and labor income taxes are either zero or of the same rate but opposite signs; (ii) physical capital income taxes are used either exclusively or more heavily than labor income taxes when their rates are below 100%; and (iii) investment subsidy rates equal income tax rates for both forms of capital, respectively. In any given circumstances, a range of alternative tax mixes may provide equivalent results. This result, combined with practical constraints, may help to explain the variety of tax mixes observed across countries.


Certain technologies bring out everyone's hidden geek, and iPhone did the moment it was released. Even though Apple created iPhone as a closed device, tens of thousands of developers bought them with the express purpose of designing and running third-party software. In this clear and concise book, veteran hacker Jonathan Zdziarski -- one of the original hackers of the iPhone -- explains the iPhone's native environment and how you can build software for this device using its Objective-C, C, and C++ development frameworks. iPhone Open Application Development walks you through the iPhone's native development environment, offers an overview of the Objective-C language you'll use with it, and supplies background for the iPhone operating system. You also get detailed recipes and working examples for everyone's favorite iPhone features -- graphics and audio programming, interfaces for adding multitouch functionality to games, the use of hardware sensors, and the device's vast user interface kit. This book explains: How to access the iPhone's underlying operating systemThe makeup of an iPhone applicationHow to get the open source tool chain running on your desktopThe iPhone's core user interface framework, which is heavily tied to major application-level functionsUsing the many touted iPhone features such as multitouch, hardware sensors, and gesturesIntercepting and handling event notifications for many iPhone-related eventsRaw video surfaces and 3D transformations that take you deeper into advanced graphics on the iPhoneHow to record and play simple sounds and intercept sound eventsAdvanced digital audio output using Apple's new Audio Toolbox frameworkAdvanced user interface components such as section lists, keyboards, and image manipulation The Appendix includes a compendium of miscellaneous code examples for cool application features, such as using the camera and creating a CoverFlow®-like album browser. This book is a true hacker's book, designed for the millions of users who have run third party applications on their iPhone, but its concepts and code examples have shown to be remarkably similar to Apple's official SDK, making this book a valuable resource for both camps. Any programmer can use this book to write applications with the same spectacular effects that made the device an immediate hit, and impress users just as much as the official iPhone software does. That programmer can easily be you.


In studying on-line communities, researchers must consider the unique environmental factors involved in order to minimize potential harm to human subjects. In particular, the often commented upon disinhibiting effect of computer-mediated communication can encourage people to agree to or even insist on a kind of public exposure by which they may eventually be harmed. On the Internet, where perceptions of interpersonal affect and effects may be obscured by the nature of the medium itself, care must be taken to guard against not only any increased tendency for researchers to objectify subjects, but also the tendency for subjects to underestimate the potential consequences of consent. The criteria for informed consent that may be sufficient in face-toface research environments are not necessarily so in a medium in which subjective experience is easily objectified and information is easily devalued.


Understanding inductive reasoning is a problem that has engaged mankind for thousands of years. This problem is relevant to a wide range of fields and is integral to the philosophy of science. It has been tackled by many great minds ranging from philosophers to scientists to mathematicians, and more recently computer scientists. In this article we argue the case for Solomonoff Induction, a formal inductive framework which combines algorithmic information theory with the Bayesian framework. Although it achieves excellent theoretical results and is based on solid philosophical foundations, the requisite technical knowledge necessary for understanding this framework has caused it to remain largely unknown and unappreciated in the wider scientific community. The main contribution of this article is to convey Solomonoff induction and its related concepts in a generally accessible form with the aim of bridging this current technical gap. In the process we examine the major historical contributions that have led to the formulation of Solomonoff Induction as well as criticisms of Solomonoff and induction in general. In particular we examine how Solomonoff induction addresses many issues that have plagued other inductive systems, such as the black ravens paradox and the confirmation problem, and compare this approach with other recent approaches.


There is evidence to suggest that the bending stiffness of footwear can be adapted to influence sprinting
performance. In addition, it has been suggested that to achieve maximal performance, the mechanical
properties of this footwear needs customising to an individual athlete. Due to a lack of detailed
biomechanical data, the influence of longitudinal bending stiffness on the dynamics of the lower extremity
during sprint running remains largely unexplained and is subject to considerable speculation. Thus, the
aim of this work is to develop functional sprint footwear in a range of different longitudinal bending
stiffnesses in order to explore the effects on measures of sprinting performance and lower extremity
dynamics.
Novel mechanical test procedures were developed and benchmark properties of current commercial sprint
spikes were ascertained. Bending stiffness data showed considerable variability amongst those sprint
spikes aimed at athletes of a higher competitive standard, which indicates that there is no consensus
regarding optimum stiffness. A kinematic analysis of barefoot and shod sprinting was undertaken to
investigate the influence of sprint footwear on lower extremity kinematics. Medial and lateral sagittal
plane data were collected at the start and in the acceleration (10 m) and maximal speed (50 m) phases of a
100 m distance. Metatarsophalangeal joint (MPJ) angular range and velocity were significantly reduced in
sprint spikes compared to barefoot conditions and the magnitude of the controlling affect was larger at
10 m compared to 50 m. Selective laser sintering of nylon was used to produce a number of sprint shoe
sole units each of different thickness. These were attached to standard uppers to produce a range of
longitudinal bending stiffnesses encompassing those already commercially available. The influence of
shoe stiffness on sprinting perfonnance was assessed using specific jump metrics that were selected for
use based on their high correlations with sprinting perfonnance during starting and maximal speed
sprinting. Results indicated that sprint shoe longitudinal bending stiffness influenced the dynamics of the
lower extremity during squat and bounce drop jumps. The relationship between maximal perfonnance and
shoe stiffness was specific to the jump metric; best performance was achieved in intermediate stiffness
shoes for the squat jumps and high stiffness for bounce drop jumps.
Six bespoke pairs of sprint shoes with bending stiffness spanning and exceeding that of current
commercial sprint spikes were developed. Results showed that MPJ and ankle joint dynamics were
affected by longitudinal bending stiffness during squat and bounce drop jumps. Angular velocities of the
MP and ankle joints were significantly reduced with increasing longitudinal bending stiffness. For the
squat jump, ankle joint moments increased with shoe longitudinal bending stiffness and reached an
individually optimal level within the stiffness range. This was also the case for ankle joint power and
mechanical energy. The bounce drop jump saw mechanical energy generation at the MPJ increase with
shoe longitudinal bending stiffness. Different levels of longitudinal bending stiffness were required for
maximal performance in each jump type. This infers that sprint shoe bending stiffness requirements may
vary according to the phase of the race. Furthermore, individual responses to different stiffnesses
highlighted the importance of personalising mechanical properties to the requirements of a particular
athlete for maximal performance.
This research has focused on the use of discrete jump metrics to assess performance and therefore future
work should aim to investigate the implications of different stiffness conditions using measures of actual
sprinting. Also, further detailed musculoskeletal explorations are required in order to fully understand the
precise mechanism by which longitudinal bending stiffness influences performance.


AIM
To analyze the prognostic factors of 5-year survival and 10-year survival in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) patients, and to explore the reasons for long-term survival and provide choice of treatment modalities for HCC patients.

METHODS
From January 1990 to October 2012, 8450 HCC patients were included in a prospective database compiled by the Information Center after hospital admission. Long-term surviving patients were included in a 10-year survival group (520 patients) and a 5-year survival group (1516 patients) for analysis.The long-term survival of HCC patients was defined as the survival of 5 years or longer. Clinical and biologic variables were assessed using univariate and multivariate analyses. The survival of patients was evaluated by follow-up data.

RESULTS
The long-term survival of HCC patients was associated with the number of lesions, liver cirrhosis and Child-Pugh classification. It was not found to be associated with tumor diameter, histological stage, and pretreatment level of serum α-fetoprotein. The differences in clinical factors between the 5-year survival and the 10-year survival were found to be the number of lesions, liver cirrhosis, Child-Pugh classification, and time elapsed until first recurrence or metastasis. The survival period of different treatment modalities in the patients who survived for 5 years and 10 years showed significant differences: (in order of significance) surgery alone > surgery-transcatheter arterial chemoembolization (TACE) > TACE-radiofrequency ablation (RFA) > TACE alone > surgery-TACE-RFA. The 10-year survival of HCC patients was not associated with the choice of treatment modality.

CONCLUSION
This retrospective study elucidated survival outcomes, prognostic factors affecting survival and treatment modalities in HCC patients.


The mock trial is an important educational technique that has seldom been reported in the medical literature. In this paper we describe the evolution of mock trials as a regular component in the educational program for our multidisciplinary staff. The mock trial is not only an excellent strategy for teaching about the interface between psychiatry and the law, but also for teaching about malpractice, documentation, and medical reasoning. The most effective presentation used an actual case from our facility, practicing attorneys, and an experienced judge in a condensed version of a trial.


B16 melanoma-bearing mice were treated with anti-interleukin 4 antibody, indomethacin or its combination to evaluate the ability of the primary tumor to induce lung metastasis and the antitumor host response. Flow cytometry of tumor cells incubated with sera from tumor-bearing mice showed B16 melanoma to induce a significant antitumor humoral response (39.0 +/- 1.1% positive cells versus 1.8 +/- 0.9% in the control). The treatment of tumor-bearing mice with antimouse anti-interleukin 4 monoclonal antibody plus indomethacin significantly increased (P < .01) the mean value of lung metastasis (from 6.1 +/- 3.0 in the controls to 50.8 +/- 21.8). Also, a significant increase in natural cytotoxicity against tumor cells was observed when both peripheral blood mononuclear cells and splenocytes were used as effector cells. In contrast, an antibody-dependent cellular cytotoxicity decrease was found with effector cells from both normal and tumor-bearing mice. In the former, the antibody-dependent cellular cytotoxicity decrease was 49.4% and 58.4% (P < .05) for peripheral blood mononuclear cells and splenocytes, whereas in the second case the decrease was 40.7% (P < .05) and 29.1% (P < .01), respectively. These results suggest that an efficient antibody-dependent cellular cytotoxicity response might be necessary to secure an effective host antitumor immune response.


In bacterial circular chromosomes and most plasmids, the replication is known to be terminated when either of the following occurs: the forks progressing in opposite directions meet at the distal end of the chromosome or the replication forks become trapped by Tus proteins bound to Ter sites. Most bacterial genomes have various polarities in their genomic structures. The most notable feature is polar genomic compositional asymmetry of the bases G and C in the leading and lagging strands, called GC skew. This asymmetry is caused by replication-associated mutation bias, and this "footprint" of the replication machinery suggests that, in contrast to the two known mechanisms, replication termination occurs near the chromosome dimer resolution site dif. To understand this difference between the known replication machinery and genomic compositional bias, we undertook a simulation study of genomic mutations, and we report here how different replication termination models contribute to the generation of replication-related genomic compositional asymmetry. Contrary to naive expectations, our results show that a single finite termination site at dif or at the GC skew shift point is not sufficient to reconstruct the genomic compositional bias as observed in published sequences. The results also show that the known replication mechanisms are sufficient to explain the position of the GC skew shift point.


In the context of proposals to amend the Australian Constitution to recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, the Expert Panel established by the Australian Government recommended the insertion of a prohibition of racial discrimination. Canadian experiences may assist when exploring the potential implications of prohibiting discrimination in the Australian Constitution and when considering the various options that are available. With this in mind, in this article I discuss the constitutional ideas regarding equality and non-discrimination that have already begun migrating from Canada to Australia and could continue to inform Australian consideration of the numerous issues that may arise. I start with an appraisal of the perceived problems surrounding s 51(xxvi) of the Australian Constitution and the reform options that have already been identified, before considering what Canadian approaches could offer Australia, if anything. My view is that the utility of the transplantation of constitutional provisions depends on the starting point. Its usefulness may be less when the focus is a parochial issue. While it may be possible to draft a tighter prohibition, there could remain a risk that focusing on non-discrimination could overshadow the Aboriginal rights dimensions underlying many calls for recognition.


of a thesis at the University of Miami. Thesis supervised by Senior Lecturer Maria Estevanez. No. of pages in text. (273) This project serves as a component of the NOAA Habitat Blueprint Biscayne Bay Habitat Focus Area (BB HFA), a multidisciplinary collaborative effort encompassing research conducted by NOAA Florida Sea Grant, Miami Waterkeeper, and the University of Miami's Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, amongst many other institutions and organizations. Water quality in Biscayne Bay is of major concern to tourism, recreation, fisheries, and other regional economic activities. In recent years, environmental indicators such as harmful algal blooms have brought to light the threat human activity poses to Biscayne Bay resources. To ensure the conservation of Biscayne Bay species and ecosystem services, it is necessary to recognize the economic risks associated with water quality degradation. It is also important to understand industry perception of water quality and capacity to adapt to changing conditions. The purpose of the BB HFA Economic and Spatial Study was to economically characterize marine-related industries in Biscayne Bay. This Master's Thesis, part of the Economic and Spatial Study, focused specifically on commercial, recreational, and for-hire fisheries, as well as seafood wholesalers that source from the bay and recreational businesses that depend directly upon a healthy Biscayne Bay, such as SCUBA and snorkel operators. Data for the recreational fishing sector was collected via online surveys, distributed via email addresses provided by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. In-person, semi-structured interviews were conducted for all willing participants in the commercial and for-hire fishing sectors, fish wholesale industry, and recreational water operations industry. Participants were asked questions about personal demographics, resource use, economic expenditures related to resource use, and perceptions of water quality. Using survey and interview data, socioeconomic and resource use profiles were constructed for each focus industry. Current water quality conditions and changes in water quality as perceived by industry stakeholders were described, as well as stakeholder adaptation strategies in the face of changing water quality conditions. Finally, stakeholder perceptions of water quality were analyzed based on industry and tenure to determine if these factors influence stakeholder attitudes. In the face of threats such as harmful algal blooms and pollution from nuclear power plants, this information is critical to policymakers and industry participants alike. Aggregate results are publicly available in the mapping portal integrated into the study's website. The mapping portal produced from this research provides endless applications for Biscayne Bay research and policy. This project, in combination with data from the SECOORA Data Catalog, FWC data, and additional NOAA Habitat Blueprint studies, is designed to serve as a critical component in ensuring the longevity of Biscayne Bay fisheries and recreational water operations, as well as a swimmable, fishable, drinkable bay.


In recent decades, the world has experienced rates of urban growth unparalleled in any other period of history and this growth is shaping the environment in which an increasing proportion of us live. In this paper, we use a longitudinal dataset from Foursquare, a location-based social network, to analyse urban growth across 100 major cities worldwide. Initially, we explore how urban growth differs in cities across the world. We show that there exists a strong spatial correlation, with nearby pairs of cities more likely to share similar growth profiles than remote pairs of cities. Subsequently, we investigate how growth varies inside cities and demonstrate that, given the existing local density of places, higher-than-expected growth is highly localized while lower-than-expected growth is more diffuse. Finally, we attempt to use the dataset to characterize competition between new and existing venues. By defining a measure based on the change in throughput of a venue before and after the opening of a new nearby venue, we demonstrate which venue types have a positive effect on venues of the same type and which have a negative effect. For example, our analysis confirms the hypothesis that there is large degree of competition between bookstores, in the sense that existing bookstores normally experience a notable drop in footfall after a new bookstore opens nearby. Other place types, such as museums, are shown to have a cooperative effect and their presence fosters higher traffic volumes to nearby places of the same type.


"We do see market abuse - of which insider dealing is the highest profile aspect …[as] a financial crime - it may not attract the immediate moral outrage of a violent crime against a person but it is, in our view, and the view of the UK government, a serious white collar crime with potential sentences of up to 7 years imprisonment … We have not yet used our power to prosecute insider dealing as a criminal offence and we recognise that effective deterrence involves ensuring both that people fear being caught [and] they fear the consequences of being caught … but we also see the risk of criminal convictions and custodial penalties playing a real part in that." Margaret Cole, Director of Enforcement, FSA addressing the American Bar Association (October 4, 2007). This study seeks to provide an analysis of, the current legislative, institutional and regulatory structure in the United Kingdom (UK) for punishing those who are regarded to commit 'financial crime',1 and more broadly what is commonly referred to as 'white collar crime.' This paper will therefore focus on the approaches taken to define 'financial crime' in the English law context, including the legal attempts over the years to criminalise 'white collar crime.' It will also highlight the difficulty that authorities have faced in pinning down financial crimes over the years. Further, the study will also delve into the institutional framework that has been devised to combat 'financial crime' over the years. These include: the Crown Prosecution Service, the Serious Fraud Office, other statutory regulatory bodies such as the Financial Services Authority (FSA) and the Department of Trade and Industry which has since been renamed the Department of Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR). This commentary will demonstrate the challenges that these institutions have gone through in a bid to address financial crime and that the Government has prioritised addressing the problem of financial crime; hence the multiple legislative and institutional responses directed at alleviating the problem. The study will also examine the legislative framework that has been directed at fighting white collar crime and pinpoint the challenges in the development of the criminal law and sanctions dealing with white collar crimes. It alludes to the diverse approaches advocated by various scholars over the years to address white collar criminality. This study will analyse what impact the new Fraud Act 2006 may have on the fight against white collar crime in the UK. The paper is primarily focussed on the UK jurisdiction and may in certain instances examine the European and US practices regarding financial crime.


Finally, a book to guide you through the tasks of implementing XenDesktop for your company. Citrix XenDesktop Implementation is aimed to specifically address how to implement a Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) solution using Citrix XenDesktop. Experience with Citrix XenApp technologies is certainly beneficial, but not required. Aspects covered by this book include; Profile Virtualization, Application Virtualization, Disk Virtualization, Hypervisor integration, and lastly the Virtual Desktop Broker. Each chapter includes a Step-by-Step section, which gives you the ability to rapidly learn the skills required to implement a Citrix XenDesktop VDI solution. You will benefit from having all the information drawn together in a single, easy-to-follow instructional manual. Ideal one-stop handbook for implementing a Citrix XenDesktop virtual desktop solutionIncludes all technical details required for you to evaluate how Citrix XenDesktop would integrate into your existing environmentCovers integration with VMware ESX/vSphere, Microsoft Hyper-V including System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) and Citrix XenServer


Close to 90% of human genes are transcribed into pre-mRNA that undergoes alternative splicing, producing multiple mRNAs and proteins from single genes. This process is largely responsible for human proteome diversity, and about half of genetic disease-causing mutations affect splicing. Splice-switching oligonucleotides (SSOs) comprise an emerging class of antisense therapeutics that modify gene expression by directing pre-mRNA splice site usage. Bauman et al. investigated an SSO that up-regulated the expression of an anti-cancer splice variant while simultaneously eliminating an over-expressed cancer-causing splice variant. This was accomplished by targeting pre-mRNA of the apoptotic regulator Bcl-x, which is alternatively spliced to express anti- and pro-apoptotic splice variants Bcl-xL and Bcl-xS, respectively. High expression of Bcl-xL is a hallmark of many cancers and is considered a general mechanism used by cancer cells to evade apoptosis. Redirection of Bcl-x pre-mRNA splicing from Bcl-xL to -xS by SSO induced apoptotic and chemosensitizing effects in various cancer cell lines. Importantly, the paper shows that delivery of Bcl-x SSO using a lipid nanoparticle redirected Bcl-x splicing and reduced tumor burden in melanoma lung metastases. This was the first demonstration of SSO efficacy in tumors in vivo. SSOs are not limited to be solely potential anti-cancer drugs. SSOs were first applied to repair aberrant splicing in thalassemia, a genetic disease, they have been used to create novel proteins (e.g., ∆7TNFR1), and they have recently progressed to clinical trials for patients with Duchenne muscular dystrophy.


The data supplement for this Research paper that is labelled "eTables 1-7" contains some errors (BMJ 2014;348:g2272, doi:10.1136/bmj.g2272). This supplement shows details of world regions and countries used in the study, characteristics of data sources, and consumption levels of dietary fats and oils analysed. However, some of the rows in eTables 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 became mixed up when the file was converted from Excel to Word. Please see the linked data supplement in this correction for the correct versions of eTables 3-7 http://www.bmj.com/ content/350/bmj.h1702/related.


Perifanova-neMska, M., G. UzUnova, v. stoilova and D. Blazheva, 2014. antioxidant activity of Bulgarian cotton seed oil and soapstock against DPPh radical. Bulg. J. Agric. Sci., 20: 839-842 in the present study the antioxidant activities of oil from the seeds of a Bulgarian cotton variety and soapstock, obtained after the neutralization of the raw oil were investigated. as neutralizing agent were used 105, 117 and 129 g.dm-3 naoh solutions. after the treatment with 117 and 129 g.dm-3 naoh gossypol was found only in the soapstock. this was proven by the absence of antiradical activity against the DPPh radicals. Gossypol exhibited stronger antiradical activity against the DPPh radical, based on iC50, in comparison with Bha, ascorbic acid and Bht.


III-nitrides based devices are considered as outstanding options for a range of extremely relevant applications. These devices can significantly improve the efficiency of high-power switching appliations. They are predicted to dominate applications in the low carbon economy. In recent years, these devices have been steadily improved and each year new record performances have been reported. Regardless of the superior performance of III-nitrides based devices, and particularly AlGaN/GaN high electron mobility transistors (HEMTs), achieving reliability at the same time as the high performance that the device boasts is a factor that is holding back widespread commercial and industrial development. Recoverable degradation (e.g. current collapse and on-resistance) and unrecoverable degradation (e.g. access resistance of contacts, and gate leakage current) persist to be limiting reliability factors. The mechanisms contributing towards performance and reliability degradation of AlGaN/GaN HEMTs, namely self-heating, charge trapping and strain, are required to be minimised; an important step before large-scale deployment can be attained. The strong coupling of these degradation mechanisms, under normal device operation, makes the quantitative contribution of each mechanism indistinct due to the lack of standard characterisation techniques. In this Thesis, the impact of the source/drain (S/D) and gate terminals of an AlGaN/GaN HEMT on its thermal management was investigated. Using Infrascope measurements, a substantial increase in temperature and resistance at the inner ends of the S/D contacts was observed. High-resolution X-ray diffraction technique combined with drift-diffusion (DD) simulations showed that strain reduction at the vicinity of S/D contacts is the origin of temperature rise. The strain reduction was also observed below the metal gate. Through electro-thermal simulations, the electrical stress on Ohmic contacts was shown to reduce the strain; leading to the inverse/converse piezoelectric effect. A new parametric technique was developed to decouple the mechanisms constituting device degradation in AlGaN/GaN HEMTs under normal device operation, namely self-heating and charge trapping. Both source (IS) and drain (ID) transient currents were used under various biasing conditions to analyse charge trapping behaviour. Two types of charge trapping mechanisms have been identified: (i) bulk trapping occurring on a time scale of 1 ms. Through monitoring the difference between I_S and I_D, bulk trapping time constant is shown to be independent of V_DS and V_GS. Also, V_GS is found to have no effect on the bulk trap density. Surface trapping is found to have a much greater impact on slow degradation when compared to self-heating and bulk trapping. At a short time scale ( 1ms), the dynamic ON resistance degradation is limited mainly by surface trapping accumulation and redistribution. Using the understanding of the degradation mechanism behaviour and origins, optimisations to the Ohmic and Schottky contacts as well as a new AlGaN/GaN HEMT architecture were proposed. In an attempt to improve the thermal management of S/D contacts, an Ohmic contact recess process is proposed to reduce the access resistance and enhance DC/RF performance of AlGaN/GaN HEMTs with a high Al concentration. A contact resistance (RC) of ~0.3 Ω.mm was achieved via optimal recess conditions. Small RC was found to lead to a higher current density at the inner edges of the contact, which resulted in a large increase of channel temperature beneath the S/D contacts. A highly n-doped AlGaN overgrowth layer was proposed to reduce the current density, and thus channel temperature at the Ohmic contacts. Titanium Nitride (TiN) Schottky processing was implemented to minimise the observed strain reduction beneath the gate metal. The optimal Schottky contact is obtained for TiN thicknesses of < 10 nm, which preserves the strain within the AlGaN barrier layer. As a result, Schottky barrier of 1.06 eV, a leakage current of 6 nA and improved linearity of 1.6 was achieved. In addition, C – V and I – V characterisations revealed very low trapping density within the optimised device. Lastly, a new device architecture was proposed to increase the 2-dimentional electron gas (2DEG) density and mobility, without compromising the enhancements of our proposed S/D and gate optimisations. This structure consists of (i) step-graded AlGaN barrier layer to increase strain and (ii) implementing AlN as the interfacial spacer layer.


Collegiality is frequently portrayed as an inherent characteristic of professions, associated with normative expectations autonomously determined and regulated among peers. However, in advanced modernity other modes of governance responding to societal expectations and increasing state reliance on professional expertise often appear in tension with conditions of collegiality. This article argues that collegiality is not an immutable and inherent characteristic of the governance of professional work and organizations; rather, it is the result of the ability of a profession to operationalize the normative, relational, and structural requirements of collegiality at work. This article builds on different streams of scholarship to present a dynamic approach to collegiality based on political work by professionals to protect, maintain, and reformulate collegiality as a core set of principles governing work. Productive resistance and co-production are explored for their contribution to collegiality in this context, enabling accommodation between professions and organizations to achieve collective objectives and serving as a vector of change and adaptation of professional work in contemporary organizations. Engagement in co-production influences the ability to materialize collegiality at work, just as the maintenance and transformation of collegiality will operate in a context where professions participate and negotiate compromises with others legitimate modes of governance. Our arguments build on recent studies and hypotheses concerning the interface of professions and organizations to reveal the political work that underlies the affirmation and re-affirmation of collegiality as a mode of governance of work based on resistance and co-production.


Many data analysis problems involve an investigation of relationships between attributes in heterogeneous databases, where different prediction models can be more appropriate for different regions. We propose a technique of local rotation-based ensemble of weak classifiers. In order to determine rotation forests, we identify local regions having similar characteristics and then build local classification experts on each of these regions describing the relationship between the data characteristics and the target class. We performed a comparison with other well-known combining methods using weak classifiers as based learners, on standard benchmark datasets and we took better accuracy.


Parameterized frameworks for modified gravity are potentially useful tools for model-independent tests of General Relativity on cosmological scales. The toy model of an Einstein-de Sitter (EdS) universe provides a safe testbed in which to improve our understanding of their behaviour. We implement a mathematically consistent parameterization at the level of the field equations, and use this to calculate the evolution of perturbations in an EdS scenario. Our parameterization explicitly allows for new scalar degrees of freedom, and we compare this to theories in which the only degrees of freedom come from the metric and ordinary matter. The impact on the Integrated Sachs-Wolfe effect and canonically-conserved superhorizon perturbations is considered.


The essential need for new lithium-ion battery materials providing higher energy and power densities has triggered an exceptional increase in scientific and industrial research efforts in recent years. Regarding the anode side, the two major research directions to achieve improved energy densities have, so far, focused on materials which can host lithium either by alloying or by a conversion mechanism. Very recently, however, a new class of potential next generation anodes is gaining continuously increasing attention: conversion/alloying materials. Herein, we provide for the first time a comprehensive review on this new materials' class. Initially, we discuss the two possible approaches to realize a combined conversion and alloying mechanism in a single compound, starting either from pure conversion or pure alloying materials. Based on this overview we subsequently highlight the fundamental insights and their potential advantages, which shall provide scientists with some general considerations and principles for the development of new, further enhanced conversion/alloying materials.


In the literature of identifcation through autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity, Weber (2008) developed the structural constant conditional correlation (SCCC) model. Besides determining linear simultaneous in uences between several variables, this model considers interaction in the structural innovations. Even though this allows for common fundamental driving forces, these cannot explain time variation in correlations of observed variables, which still have to rely on causal transmission e ects. In this context, the present paper extends the analysis to structural dynamic conditional correlation (SDCC). The additional fexibility is shown to make an important contribution in the estimation of empirical real-data examples.


Background: Clinical and immunological characteristics of food allergies vary depending on geographic regions. Little is known about peanut allergy in China. The aim of this study was to investigate the peanut sensitization profile in China. Methods: Thirty-eight participants with immunoglobulin E (IgE)-positive responses to peanuts (peanut-sensitized) were included in our study, and clinical characteristics were evaluated. Total and specific IgE reactivity against peanuts, other plant-derived foods, pollens, and related allergen components were determined. Results: Eighteen patients were symptomatic when exposed to peanuts. The majority of them presented with systemic reactions. More than half of the peanut-sensitized subjects also suffered from mugwort pollinosis and peach allergy. In patients with both peanut and peach allergies, reactions to peanuts were the same as or severer than those to peaches. Positivity rates of IgE response to rAra h 1-3, 8, and 9 in the peanut allergy group were 5.6, 11.1, 5.6, 22.2, and 83.3%, respectively. 66.7% (12/18) of the peanut-allergic patients were monosensitized to rAra h 9. Anti-nArt v 3 [mugwort nonspecific lipid transfer protein (nsLTP)] IgE positivity in the peanut allergy group was significantly higher than that in the asymptomatic peanut-sensitized group. In Ara h 9 (peanut nsLTP)-sensitized patients with mugwort pollinosis, anti-nArt v 3 IgE levels were remarkably higher than anti-rAra h 9 (peanut nsLTP) IgE levels as well as anti-Pru p 3 (peach nsLTP) IgE levels. Conclusions: Ara h 9 was the major allergen of peanut, and Ara h 9 monosensitization was the most common peanut sensitization pattern in our population. Furthermore, there was a strong correlation between peanut sensitization and mugwort pollinosis, as well as peach allergy, in our country.


Although some studies have indicated that endometriosis may increase the risk of developing ovarian cancer, there are no data from epidemiologic studies in Japan. We prospectively analyzed all cases of ovarian endometrioma enrolled in the prefecture-wide Shizuoka Cohort Study on Endometriosis and Ovarian Cancer Programme, which was initiated in 1985. To evaluate the risk of ovarian cancer by time periods subsequent to ovarian endometrioma diagnosis, a cohort of 6,398 women with a clinically documented ovarian endometrioma in Shizuoka between 1985 and 1995 was identified from the Shizuoka Cancer Registry (SCR), with follow-up through 2002. Ovarian cancer incidence among cohort members was ascertained by linkage to the SCR using a unique person-identification number. Standardized incidence ratios (SIR) and their 95% confidence intervals (CI) were computed by a use of prefecture-wide rates of ovarian cancer, adjusted for age and calendar year. During follow-up of up to 17 years of the ovarian endometrioma cohort, 46 incident ovarian cancers were identified, yielding that the ovarian cancer risk was elevated significantly among patients with ovarian endometrioma (SIR = 8.95, 95% CI = 4.12–15.3). The SIR did not increase with increasing follow-up duration. The risk increased with increasing age at ovarian endometrioma diagnosis, with a SIR equal to 13.2 (95% CI = 6.90–20.9) in women above 50 years of age. Our findings for the first time support the hypothesis that ovarian endometrioma increases the subsequent risk of developing ovarian cancer in Shizuoka, Japan


ABSTRACT Mutations in components of the Wnt signaling pathway initiate colorectal carcinogenesis by deregulating the β-catenin transcriptional coactivator. β-Catenin activation of one target in particular, the c-Myc proto-oncogene, is required for colon cancer pathogenesis. β-Catenin is known to regulate c-Myc expression via sequences upstream of the transcription start site. Here, we report that a more robust β-catenin binding region localizes 1.4 kb downstream from the c-Myc transcriptional stop site. This site was discovered using a genome-wide method for identifying transcription factor binding sites termed serial analysis of chromatin occupancy. Chromatin immunoprecipitation-scanning assays demonstrate that the 5′ enhancer and the 3′ binding element are the only β-catenin and TCF4 binding regions across the c-Myc locus. When placed downstream of a simian virus 40-driven promoter-luciferase construct, the 3′ element activated luciferase transcription when introduced into HCT116 cells. c-Myc transcription is negligible in quiescent HCT116 cells but is induced when cells reenter the cell cycle after the addition of mitogens. Using these cells, we found that β-catenin and TCF4 occupancy at the 3′ enhancer precede occupancy at the 5′ enhancer. Association of c-Jun, β-catenin, and TCF4 specifically with the downstream enhancer underlies mitogen stimulation of c-Myc transcription. Our findings indicate that a downstream enhancer element provides the principal regulation of c-Myc expression.


Current status and the proposed criteria for artificial recharge of groundwater with reclaimed municipal wastewater are discussed with special reference to controlling microbial pathogens and trace organic contaminants. The draft criteria have been developed by the State of California Interagency Water Reclamation Coordinating Committee, followed by the Groundwater Recharge Committee of the Department of Health Services (DHS). The proposed criteria are in the final review process and are expected to be adopted in late 1992 by the DHS as a part of the revised, state-wide Wastewater Reclamation Criteria. The discussions and the draft criteria presented in this paper facilitate the approval of groundwater recharge projects by identifying the nature and characteristics of groundwater recharge projects that do not jeopardize the public water supply systems including use of groundwater for potable water supply. These criteria are intended to provide uniform state-wide application of regulations on which to regulate and design groundwater recharge projects using reclaimed municipal wastewater as a source of recharge water.


Current guidelines on secondary prevention of cardiovascular disease recommend nurse-coordinated care (NCC) as an effective intervention. However, NCC programmes differ widely and the efficacy of NCC components has not been studied. To investigate the efficacy of NCC and its components in secondary prevention of coronary heart disease by means of a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials. 18 randomised trials (11 195 patients in total) using 15 components of NCC met the predefined inclusion criteria. These components were placed into three main intervention strategies: (1) risk factor management (13 studies); (2) multidisciplinary consultation (11 studies) and (3) shared decision making (10 studies). Six trials combined NCC components from all three strategies. In total, 30 outcomes were observed. We summarised observed outcomes in four outcome categories: (1) risk factor levels (16 studies); (2) clinical events (7 studies); (3) patient-perceived health (7 studies) and (4) guideline adherence (3 studies). Compared with usual care, NCC lowered systolic blood pressure (weighted mean difference (WMD) 2.96 mm Hg; 95% CI 1.53 to 4.40 mm Hg) and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (WMD 0.23 mmol/L; 95% CI 0.10 to 0.36 mmol/L). NCC also improved smoking cessation rates by 25% (risk ratio 1.25; 95% CI 1.08 to 1.43). NCC demonstrated to have an effect on a small number of outcomes. NCC that incorporated blood pressure monitoring, cholesterol control and smoking cessation has an impact on the improvement of secondary prevention. Additionally, NCC is a heterogeneous concept. A shared definition of NCC may facilitate better comparisons of NCC content and outcomes.


In homological algebra, to understand commutative rings R, one studies R-modules, chain complexes of R-modules and their monoids, the differential graded R-algebras. The category of R-modules has a rich structure, but too rigid to efficiently work with homological invariants and homotopy invariant properties. It appears more appropriate to operate in the derived category D(R), which is the homotopy category of differential graded R-modules. Algebra of symmetric spectra offers a generalization of homological algebra. In this frame, spectra are objects that take the place of abelian groups; in particular, the analogue of the initial ring Z is the sphere spectrum S. Tensoring over S endows the category of spectra with a symmetric monoidal smash product, analogous to the tensor product of abelian groups. Thus, spectra are S-modules, and ring spectra, which extend the notion of rings, are the S-algebras. To any discrete ring R, one can associate the Eilenberg-Mac Lane ring spectrum HR, which is commutative if R is.


During his lifetime Hyman Minsky made a seminal contribution to the development of financial Keynesianism. In this book, leading academics celebrate his work and explore his economic legacy. Special attention is paid to his work on contemporary economic method, the Great Depression, the European single currency and the global financial system and recent banking and financial crises – in particular the crisis in Asia. An attempt is made to categorise Minsky's brand of post Keynesianism and to compare his work with the Keynesian and Marxian traditions.


Social sustainability, as an independent perspective of sustainable development, has gained some acknowledgement, becoming an important aspect in sustainable urban planning internationally. However, limited research aiming at promoting social sustainability within urban areas exists within the South African context. This is mainly due to the different perspectives of sustainable development (e.g., Environmental, Economic, and Social) not being equally prioritized by policy makers and supported by implementation strategies, guidelines, and planning frameworks. The enhancement of social sustainability within urban areas relies on urban dweller satisfaction and the quality of urban life. Inclusive cities with high-quality public spaces are proposed within this research through implementing the third place theory. Third places are introduced as any place other than our homes (first place) and work (second place) and have become an integrated part of sustainable urban planning. As Third Places consist of every place 'in between', the approach has taken on a large role of the everyday life of city residents, and the importance of planning for such places can only be measured through identifying and highlighting the social sustainability benefits thereof. The aim of this research paper is to introduce third place planning within the urban area to ultimately enhance social sustainability. Selected background planning approaches influencing the planning of third places will briefly be touched on, as the focus will be placed on the social sustainability benefits provided through third place planning within an urban setting. The study will commence by defining and introducing the concept of third places within urban areas as well as a discussion on social sustainability, acting as one of the three perspectives of sustainable development. This will gain the researcher an improved understanding on social sustainability in order for the study to flow into an integrated discussion of the benefits Third places provide in terms of social sustainability and the impact it has on improved quality of life within urban areas. Finally, a visual case study comparison of local and international examples of third places identified will be illustrated. These international case studies will contribute towards the conclusion of this study where a local gap analysis will be formulated, based on local third place evidence and international best practices in order to formulate a strategic planning framework on improving social sustainability through third place planning within the local South African context. Keywords—Planning benefits, social sustainability, third places, urban area. E. J. Cilliers is a Professor and Z. Goosen is a PhD student at the North West University, Unit for Environmental Sciences and Management, Urban and Regional Planning, Potchestroom, 2531, South Africa (e-mail: firstname.lastname@example.com, email@example.com). This research (or parts thereof) was made possible by the financial contribution from the USEM NWU (North West University) South Africa. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and therefore the USEM NWU does not accept any liability in regard thereto.


Nowadays, there is an explosive growth of screen contents due to the wide application of screen sharing, remote cooperation, and online education. To match the limited terminal bandwidth, high-resolution (HR) screen contents may be downsampled and compressed. At the receiver side, the super-resolution (SR) of low-resolution (LR) screen content images (SCIs) is highly demanded by the HR display or by the users to zoom in for detail observation. However, image SR methods mostly designed for natural images do not generalize well for SCIs due to the very different image characteristics as well as the requirement of SCI browsing at arbitrary scales. To this end, we propose a novel Implicit Transformer Super-Resolution Network (ITSRN) for SCISR. For high-quality continuous SR at arbitrary ratios, pixel values at query coordinates are inferred from image features at key coordinates by the proposed implicit transformer and an implicit position encoding scheme is proposed to aggregate similar neighboring pixel values to the query one. We construct benchmark SCI1K and SCI1K-compression datasets with LR and HR SCI pairs. Extensive experiments show that the proposed ITSRN significantly outperforms several competitive continuous and discrete SR methods for both compressed and uncompressed SCIs.


Human perception is largely non-retinotopic. A bike passes by; we perceive the reflectors on its wheels rotating on a circular orbit. However, the "real" motion is truly different, namely cycloidal. The real, retinotopic motion is invisible because the bike motion is subtracted from the reflector trajectory. Thus, the bike creates a non-retinotopic reference frame within which the reflector motion is perceived. Almost nothing is known about how this feat is achieved. Here, we acquired high-resolution 7T fMRI data while participants viewed a Ternus-Pikler display, where we pitted retinotopic vs. non-retinotopic motion processing. Three checkerboards moved horizontally back and forth. The checkerboards either did or did not alternate in contrast polarity with each frame. Because of the non-retinotopic reference frame, the percept was inverted such that the non-alternating checkerboards were perceived to alternate and vice versa. In V1, V2, and V3, the BOLD signal reflected retinotopic processing. In hMT+, activity correlated with the non-retinotopic percept. We propose that the motion of the reference frame (bike, checkerboards) is first detected in hMT+ and immediately subtracted from the motion of its parts, in line with our EEG results reflecting non-retinotopic processing from  120 ms on.


To investigate the modulatory effect of oolong tea polyphenols (OTP) on intestinal microbiota, OTP was prepared by column chromatography and its influence on the gut flora structure was analyzed by high-throughput sequencing with a human flora-associated high fat diet (HFD) induced obesity mouse model. We observed a robust increase in bacterial biodiversity and the abundance of genera known to be butyrate- and acetate-producing bacteria. A large increase in Bacteroidetes with a decrease in Firmicutes was observed after the administration of OTP for 4 weeks, and the corresponding decrease in the Firmicutes/Bacteroidetes ratio reflected the positive modulatory effect of OTP on the intestinal microbiota. In addition, KEGG pathways for the biosynthesis of amino acids, carbon metabolism, and the ribosome were among the most differentially expressed genes after OTP intervention. The current study revealed that OTP rich in tea catechins, especially O-methylated derivatives, may have prebiotic-like activity and can be used as a functional food component with potential therapeutic utility to prevent obesity-related metabolic disorders by manipulating the intestinal microbiota.

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Purpose: Basal cell carcinoma (BCC), the most common type of skin cancer in humans, rarely progresses to locally advanced or metastatic BCC. The size, extent, and location of the lesion should be carefully considered when selecting a treatment option for patients with BCC.
Methods: Moreover, clinicians should review the potential for significant deformity and anticipated morbidity, when considering radiation therapy and surgery for treatment. Vismodegib, the first approved oral therapy for advanced BCC, is a treatment option that clinicians might consider for patients with BCC lesions that exhibit the clinical characteristics as described above.
Results: In this manuscript, we reviewed the mechanism of action, clinical efficacy, and safety of vismodegib and consider the possible causes for a lack of response to the drug.
Conclusion: The therapeutic response to these tumors may be limited by the challenge of acquired resistance against smoothened antagonists.


Background: Abnormalities of the nail unit are common in patients with connective tissue diseases. Clinical examination of the nail unit, coupled with biopsy of proximal nail fold offers an additional advantage in the diagnosis. Purpose: Our aim was to record clinical changes of the nail unit in connective tissue diseases and to study the histopathological (both H and E and periodic acid Schiff and direct immunofluorescence (DIF) findings of nail-fold biopsy. Materials and Methods: Thirty-eight confirmed cases connective tissue diseases attending skin OPD were enrolled in the study. After detailed clinical examination of the nail unit, a crescentric biopsy was taken from the proximal nail fold (PNF). Histopathological and DIF studies were was carried out. Findings: Nail changes could be demonstrated in 65% connective tissue diseases. Specific histopathological (H and E) and immunofluorescence findings were also encountered in many patients. Conclusion: Clinical examination of the nail unit offers additional clue in the diagnosis of connective tissue diseases. Though DIF of PNF biopsy is useful in the diagnosis, it is not an ideal site for H and E study, as the yield is very low. Limitations: Lack of adequate comparison group and non-utilization of capillary microscopy for the detection of nail fold capillary abnormalities.


The paper addresses road traffic monitoring using a compact microphone array. More precisely, estimation of both speed and wheelbase distance of detected vehicles is performed. The detection algorithm is based on the comparison between theoretical and measured correlation time series using the two dimensional Bravais-Pearson correlation coefficient. The tracking step is conducted with a particle filter specifically designed to model the position-variant bimodal sound source nature of the vehicles, i.e. taking into account the sound emitted by both vehicle axles. Sensitivity and performance studies using simulations and real measurements show that the bimodal approach reduces the tracking failure risk in harsh conditions when vehicles are tracked, at the same time, in opposite directions.


Members of the Src familiy of protein kinases contribute to signals emanating from various receptors on the cell membrane, but the mechanisms by which the receptors modulate kinase activity is unclear. Members of the Src family show interactions between protein domains that are thought to control kinase activity. In fact, the SH3 (Src homology 3) domain binds to a linker region within the protein and this binding favors an inactive conformation of the kinase. However, the sequence that is bound is actually not an optimal SH3-binding motif, so other higher affinity SH3-binding targets can potentially compete for binding and relieve this inhibition. In fact, activation of the Src family member Lck by the receptors CD28 or CD2 appears to be mediated by binding of an SH3 ligand in the receptor to the SH3 domain of the kinase. Now Cen et al. have discovered a new activator of Src-like kinases, Unc119, that appears to work in a similar manner. Unc119 interacts with the interleukin 5 (IL-5) receptor in a two hybrid screen and in vivo in human eosinophils. Unc119 contains both SH2- and SH3-binding motifs and interacts with the tyrosine kinase Lyn through these domains. Such binding of Unc119 to Lyn increased kinase activity or the enzyme. IL-5 signals through Lyn to promote survival of eosinophils. Eosinophils that took up Unc119 that had been modified to contain nuclear localization signals and a retroviral gp41 fusion domain showed increased activity of Lyn and prolonged survival. On the contrary, when cells took up antibody to Unc119 in similar experiments, Il-5-induced survival was reduced. Thus, Unc119 may represent a new class of regulatory protein for Src family kinases. O. Cen, M. M. Gorska, S. J. Stafford, S. Sur, R. Alam, Identification of Unc119 as a novel activator of SCR-type tyrosine kinases. J. Biol. Chem. 278, 8837-8845 (2003). [Abstract] [Full Text]


Objectives:In a climate of scarce research funds, cost-effective exposure assessment becomes more critical. There is a long-acknowledged tradeoff between precision and cost of exposure assessment methods (Winkel and Mathiassen, 1994) that is seldom quantified.The purpose of this study was to compare different sampling strategies for observed trunk posture and determinewhich is the most cost-effective.Knowing the price-performance tradeoffs of observational exposure assessment can help researchers make the most of limited funds.Methods(maximum 150 words)Trunk posture data was observed by trained experts during full work shifts on 126 workers in heavy industry, with repeated measures on 76% of workers. The observed percentage of time spent with trunk flexed more than 60 degrees was recorded and summarized for each work day using the Back-EST sampling method (Village et al 2009). A cost model was developed using previously published cost data (Trask et al 2007) to account for the costs of recruiting companies, workers, and making a full-shift observation of trunk posture. Precision was described in terms of the standard error of the group mean (SEM), using equations from Samuels (1985) that account for multiple measures within companies and workers. Changes in cost efficiency were calculated for sampling strategies employing different combinations of the following: 1-4 companies, 1-12 workers, and 1-4 measures per worker. The case of one recruited company is highlighted here as an example.Results:(maximum 100 words)The SEM declines steeply for the first few additional subjects, while further subjects increase costs considerably with no substantial improvements in precision. Adding repeated measures generally increased costs with smaller gains in precision. In a single-company example, measuring 6 subjects twice (12 measurements total) yields SEM = 0.76 and costs $3929. The same number of measurements can cost up to $4505 with 12 subjects and no repeats, improving the SEM to 0.75. However, increased cost does not always deliver gains in precision; an SEM of 0.76 can cost up to $5545 when 5 subjects are measured 4 times.Conclusions(maximum 100 words)The total number of measurements has been used as a metric for cost optimization in previous investigations (Lemasters et al 1996). However, an equal number of measurements can have different costs depending on how they are allocated due to recruitment costs. Such cost-efficiency information allows researchers to make informed decisions on the use of limited resources when designing ergonomic studies; either determining the maximum precision level that can be achieved for a given cost, or the minimum cost for a given level of precision.


Municipal bylaws are routinely contested in court on the grounds that they are "ultra vires" or beyond the legal authority of the municipality. Many of these challenges allege that the municipal exercise of power infringes on federal or provincial powers as assigned by ss. 91 and 92 of the British North America Act, 1867. These conflicts have not been systematically studied and we address this lacuna by surveying the reported cases of municipal-federal and municipal-provincial conflicts in the LawSource database of Canadian judgments. Our preliminary finding—that challenges on federal grounds are much more likely to succeed than those on provincial grounds—requires an explanation. After factoring some disparities in the case sets (including a disproportionate number of zoning cases in the provincial context), we argue that the persistent difference in win-rates is due to a greater acceptance of municipal autonomy in the provincial context (despite their origins as "creatures of the province," a number of provincial statutes have granted broad authority to many municipalities) whereas the federal conflicts run more clearly against constitutionally-defined interests. We conclude by considering this asymmetry and its significance for Canadian multi-level governance.


We present a new approach to the engineering of collective analog computing systems that emphasizes the role of currents as an appropriate signal representation and the need for low-power dissipation and simplicity in the basic functional circuits. The design methodology and implementation style that we describe are inspired by the functional and organizational principles of neuronal circuits in living systems. We have implemented synthetic neurons and synapses in analog CMOS VLSI that are suitable for building associative memories and self-organizing feature maps.


Privatization of a riot: "Second life" of the early Soviet montage. This paper deals with montage in the broad sense of the term: it is discussed not as a principle of film editing, but as an aesthetic method based on the contrasting combination of elements; in the case of literary narrative, montage can be defined as a contrasting parataxis. Being understood in that sense, montage became an international "grand style" of the post-WWI epoch. In the Soviet Union this new method had many ideological connotations. It represented history (the historical process as such) as creative and cruel violence. Otherwise, art montage was a method of designing the utopian vision. The following development of montage in Russian culture could be defined as a change of its semantic. It was expelled from the Socialist Realism mainstream (excluding poster graphics), but survived in unofficial art of the 1940s and became postutopian. During the "Thaw" period (the late 1950s to the early 1960s) montage methods could indicate the connection of an author with the Soviet or Western European avant-garde of the 1920s. The reconsideration of those methods followed two different ways: imitation of the "resurrection of revolutionary impulses" or deconstruction of Soviet historical and social imagination – also with the tools of montage. This very intensive dialogue with the aesthetic tradition of the 1920s came to an end at the beginning of the 1970s. The authors of uncensored art and literature in that period polemicized not with the 1920s, but with the 1960s. The "living" translation of the early Soviet montage aesthetics has been settled.


This Thesis examines the role and limitations of voice biometrics in the contexts of security and
for crime reduction. The main thrust of the Thesis is that despite the technical and non-technical hurdles that this research has identified and sought to overcome, voice can be an effective and sustainable biometric if used in the manner proposed here. It is contended that focused and continuous evaluation of the strength of systems within a solid framework is essential to the development and application of voice biometrics and that special attention needs to be paid to human dimensions in system design and prior to deployment.

Through an interdisciplinary approach towards the theme reflected in the title several scenarios
are presented of the use of voice in security / crime reduction, crime investigation, forensics and surveillance contexts together with issues surrounding their development and implementation.
With a greater emphasis on security-oriented voice verification (due to the diversity of the usage scenarios and prospect of use) a new framework is presented for analysis of the reliability and security of voice verification.

This research calls not only for a standard evaluation scheme and analytical framework but also takes active steps to evaluate the prototype system within the framework under various conditions. Spoof attacks, noises, coding, distance and channel effects are among the factors that are studied. Moreover, an additional under-researched area, the detection of counterfeit signals, is also explored.

While numerous technical and design contributions made in this project are summarised in chapter 2, the research mainly aims to provide solid answers to the high-level strategic questions. The Thesis culminates in a synthesis chapter in which realistic expectations, design requirements and technical limitations of the use of voice for criminological and security applications are
outlined and areas for further research are defined.


This is the tenth year since the Great Ruaha River (GRR) dried up in December 1993 for about a month, in the Ruaha National Park, within a stretch of about 75 Km between the Ihefu swamp and the Mtera dam. This has raised a lot of domestic and international concerns from politicians, economists and environmentalists. Since then there has been several direct institutional responses towards the same, and the indirect or coincidental institutional development that have also been linked with the drying up of the Great Ruaha River. This paper gives an overview of the Great Ruaha River, background to the drying up, and the institutional responses . The paper focuses on the organizational and legislative development and local institutional responses their effects in water management at large. The paper specifically reviews the gate closure program, water managers' meeting, introduction of water user fees and linking the fees with water rights as well as a series of key policies and acts that have been revised and/ or enacted during or after the drying up of the Great Ruaha River. Finally, the paper asks some fundamental questions regarding the objectives of water management in the GRR and recommends a way forward for institutional and legal responses.


This five-page essay responds to Henry Smith's article, "Intellectual Property as Property: Delineating Entitlements in Information."A virtual cottage industry of intellectual property (IP) models has sprung up in recent years. To the mix, Professor Smith adds modularity, in which there are intense interactions within, and few interactions between, components.Before displacing more traditional explanations, however, the theory faces substantial obstacles. This essay articulates six such challenges: (1) explaining why modularity should be IP's defining feature, (2) accounting for the roles played by IP statutes and doctrine, (3) specifying clear boundaries for innately imprecise patents and copyrights, (4) justifying discerned differences between patent and copyright, (5) rationalizing the enhanced injunctive relief suggested by the model, and (6) proving the game is worth a new empirical candle.


State-of-the-art studies have demonstrated the superiority of joint modeling over pipeline implementation for medical named entity recognition and normalization due to the mutual benefits between the two processes. To exploit these benefits in a more sophisticated way, we propose a novel deep neural multi-task learning framework with explicit feedback strategies to jointly model recognition and normalization. On one hand, our method benefits from the general representations of both tasks provided by multi-task learning. On the other hand, our method successfully converts hierarchical tasks into a parallel multi-task setting while maintaining the mutual supports between tasks. Both of these aspects improve the model performance. Experimental results demonstrate that our method performs significantly better than state-of-theart approaches on two publicly available medical literature datasets.


The k-traveling salesman problem, or k-TSP is: given a graph with edge weights and an integer k, find a simple cycle of minimum weight visiting exactly k nodes. To obtain lower bounds for the traveling salesman problem the 2-matching relaxation and the 1-tree relaxation can be used. We generalize these two relaxations for the k-TSP.


This title offers practical guidance and comprehensive coverage on all aspects of federal court jurisdiction and litigation procedure, as well as the relationship between the state and federal courts. Text reviews the federal judicial system; judicial power of the United States; diversity of citizenship; venue; law applied in federal courts; pleadings, trials, and judgments; and appellate court and Supreme Court jurisdiction.


The foremost attempts to neuromuscular re-education in infantile cerebral hemiplegia are critically evaluated. They are: Phelps' method of 'confused motion', Kabat's and Knott's method of direct resisted motion and also of complex primitive pattern movement, Fay's method of defensive reflexes, and the still widely adapted faradic treatment. Attention is drawn to the presence of spasmodic synkineses in infantile cerebral hemiplegia. It is maintained that they can be used to elicit volitional contractions of zero-cerebral or weak cerebral muscles. It is further shown that resistance to muscular contraction on the healthy side is the main reinforcing factor for these synkineses. Neck, optic and labyrinthine reflexes are of less importance. Finally a theoretical foundation of the synkinetic treatment is offered.


Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is a chronic and degenerative disease of the central nervous cells that upon onset of symptoms makes family faces with serious and disturbing challenges; so that experience of sudden exposure to MS leads to an unpleasant experience. The present study was conducted aims to explain exposure experiences of families with MS patients. This study was conducted by a descriptive phenomenology method in 2015. Sampling was done targeted to information saturation from 14 families of patients with MS admitted to Ayatollah Kashani Hospital. The method of the study was deep unstructured interviews. The findings from interviews were analyzed by the seven-step Colaizzi. 375 first level code, 13 second level code and 4 main concerns theme due to the unknown disease, permanent stress tolerance, confusion and family conflict and diagnosis bow were obtained from the explanations and experiences of participants including 14 people (10 women and 4 men) 19-55 years old with the education of fifth elementary to bachelor. The findings indicate that families have low awareness about the disease at early diagnosis and it leads to their severe stress and confusion about treatment, conflict, concern and family conflicts. It is hoped that findings of this research could play a leading role in the manner of families in time of exposure to the disease challenges.


The fast photopolymerization of different multifunctionalacrylates was analyzed by means of photorheology.The materials studied included a penta/hexaacrylatemonomer and two different acrylated hyperbranchedpolymers. The sensitivity of the commercial rheometer wasimproved several-fold, by a combination of an adaptive filteralgorithm and improved data treatment, using powerfuloversampling acquisition hardware. The novel set-up wascapable of monitoring up to a five orders of magnitudeincrease in shear modulus within short experiment timescales(about 10 s). The improvement in sensitivity and acquisitionrate enabled the induction time, gelation, and vitrification ofthe multifunctional acrylates to be determined. In addition,the influence of UV intensity on stiffness build-up withinthese materials was studied. In the case of the penta/hexaacrylatesystem, gelation and vitrification were detected asdistinct events, in contrast to the second-generation hyperbranchedpolyester, for which vitrification could not beidentified. These findings are related to the difference in theglass transition temperature of the cured networks. Absolute value of the complex shear modulus as a function of time for different acrylate monomers during UV curing.


Developing e-Government interoperability in the government context is a complex task. As interoperability in government context is associated and hindered by many challenges and barriers connected to government nature of complexity. Interoperability is generally defined as the ability for two (or more) systems to exchange information and to use the information that has been exchanged. In this paper, we focus on computing systems interoperability across government ministries to achieve interoperable e-Government IT based solutions. In order to achieve e-Government interoperability in an organised and efficient way, this paper establishes a step-by-step e-Government Interoperability Driven Methodology. This contribution is motivated by the limitations of the traditional software engineering methodologies in terms of analysis, design and development frameworks to a point that they can hardly cope with the growing issues of e-Government services interoperability.


ABSTRACT This article discusses dilemmas of global civic activism from a neo-Gramscian perspective as both subordinated and a potential challenge to hegemonic neoliberal order. With the investigational focus on the People's Global Action on Migration, Development and Human Rights (PGA) event, the space for civic activism relating to the intergovernmental Global Forum on Migration and Development (GFMD) and its associated Civil Society Days and Common Space is analysed. The article asks how the future of PGA activism may be influenced by its formalized representation within the GFMD. It posits that the PGA has landed at a crossroad between becoming a global activist counterhegemonic movement to a dominant neoliberal migration policy and being captured in a tokenist subordinated inclusion within a truncated 'invited space' for interchange. This ambiguous position jeopardizes its impact on global migration governance, discussed with reference to theories of transversal politics and issues of counterhegemonic alliance-building.


Introduction: The need for physiotherapy intervention in the treatment of mandibular condyle fractures has been highlighted in international research but no such study has been conducted in South Africa.
Aims and objectives: To perform a needs analysis amongst academically affiliated maxillo-facial surgeons and physiotherapists in South Africa regarding their perceived need for a post-operative physiotherapy intervention program for patients who sustained mandibular condyle fractures.
Design: Quantitative, non-experimental study, by means of a needs analysis questionnaire.
Methods: The questionnaire was distributed to qualified experts: one physiotherapist and one maxillo-facial surgeon from each of the South African training institutions. A convenience sampling method was used to select appropriately trained participants.
Results: The sample of participants was unanimous in confirming that there was a definite need for a physiotherapy intervention for mandibular condyle fracture patients whilst 85.7 % of respondents indicated that the patients should receive hospital physiotherapy.
Conclusions: Experts in the field recommended that physiotherapists should provide post-operative rehabilitative therapy to patients who had sustained mandibular condyle fractures to enhance the rehabilitation process. The data obtained from the needs analysis will be applied, using the Delphi method to develop a post-operative functional exercise programme for patients who had sustained these fractures.


The paper investigates some aspects of language policies and local identities in the Russian-Nordic borderlands. It focuses on the interplay between identification strategies of local groups and linguistic environment of the multicultural region. The concept of language policy used in the study encompasses a wide range of practices, attitudes, beliefs as well as management strategies that are connected to linguistic codes used by borderland inhabitants. The primary data was sourced from the in-depth anthropological interviews collected during the fieldwork in the north-west of Karelia and the west of Murmansk Oblast. Due to the nature of the material, the analysis in the article is limited to the Russian side of the region. One of the findings of the study is that good command of a Nordic language (Finnish for Karelia, Norwegian for Murmansk Oblast) is not common on the Russian side of the borderlands and associated with particular life scenarios. Another observation worth mentioning is that Finnish and Norwegian are represented differently in local identity narratives as well as in linguistic landscapes and educational practices. Besides, linguistic and cultural heterogeneity uniquely reflects the social life of the each of the two Russian borderland territories. Overall, the study contributes to the discussion on the multilingual and multicultural environment of the Russian-Nordic borderlands.


Human-Data Interaction (HDI) is an emerging field which studies how humans make sense of large and complex data. Visual analytics tools are a central component of this sensemaking process. However, the growth of big data has affected their performance, resulting in latency in interactivity or long query-response times, both of which degrade one's ability to do knowledge discovery. To address these challenges, a new paradigm of data exploration has appeared in which a rapid but inaccurate result is followed by a succession of gradually more accurate answers. As the primary objective of this thesis, we investigated how this incremental latency affects the quantity and quality of knowledge discovery in an HDI system. We have developed a big data visualization tool and studied 40 participants in a think-aloud experiment, using this tool to explore a large and high-dimensional data. Our findings indicate that although incremental latency reduces the rate of discovery generation, it does not affect one's chance of making a discovery per each generated visualization, and it does not affect the correctness of those discoveries. However, in the presence of latency, utilizing contextual layers such as a map result in fewer mistakes while exploring higher-dimensional visualizations lead to more incorrect discoveries. As the secondary objective, we investigated what strategies improved a subject's performance. Our observations suggest that successful participants explore the data methodically, by first examining simple and familiar concepts and then gradually adding complexity to the visualizations, until they build a correct mental model of the inner workings of the tool. With this model, they generate several discovery patterns, each acting as a blueprint for forming new insights. Ultimately, some participants combined their discovery patterns to create multifaceted data-driven stories. Based on these observations, we propose design guidelines for developing HDI platforms for large and high-dimensional data.


A nutrient film technique (NFT) culture system was developed to allow nursery production of arbuscular mycorrhizal horticultural crops. This would benefit horticultural production and allow for uncomplicated production of mycorrhizal hyphae. Roots of lettuce (Lactuca sativa var. capitata) plants were highly colonized by the arbuscular mycorrhizal fungus, Glomus mosseae (BEG 107) after 4 weeks in the NFT system, following an initial phase of five weeks in inoculated in Perlite substrate. In the NFT system, a thin layer of glass beads was used to provide solid support for plant and fungus growth and nutrient solution was supplied intermittently (15 min, six times per day). A modified nutrient solution (80 μM P) was used and was replaced with fresh solution every 3 days. A significantly higher dry weight was found for the mycorrhizal versus the nonmycorrhizal lettuce plants in Perlite during the precolonization period. The root colonization rate was also high at rates up to 80 μM P supply. On the NFT system, growth differences between mycorrhizal and nonmycorrhizal plants were less than in Perlite. However, root colonization rate was not reduced during the NFT culture period. In this system, high amounts of fungal biomass were produced. This would allow the determination of metal and other nutrient concentrations in fungal hyphae. Furthermore, we found large amounts of external fungal hyphae surrounding the root surface. As much as 130 mg fungal biomass were collected per culture plate (three plants). Therefore, we suggest that this modified NFT culture system would be suitable for fungal biomass production on a large scale with a view to additional aeration by intermittent nutrient supply, optimum Psupply, and a use of glass beads as support materials. Furthermore, bulk inoculum composition with a mixture of spores, colonized roots, and hyphae grown in soilless media by the modified NFT system might be a useful way to mass-produce mycorrhizal crops and inoculum for commercial horticultural purposes.


Data heterogeneity has been identified as one of the key features in federated learning but often overlooked in the lens of robustness to adversarial attacks. This paper focuses on characterizing and understanding its impact on backdooring attacks in federated learning through comprehensive experiments using synthetic and the LEAF benchmarks. The initial impression driven by our experimental results suggests that data heterogeneity is the dominant factor in the effectiveness of attacks and it may be a redemption for defending against backdooring as it makes the attack less efficient, more challenging to design effective attack strategies, and the attack result also becomes less predictable. However, with further investigations, we found data heterogeneity is more of a curse than a redemption as the attack effectiveness can be significantly boosted by simply adjusting the client-side backdooring timing. More importantly, data heterogeneity may result in overfitting at the local training of benign clients, which can be utilized by attackers to disguise themselves and fool skewed-feature based defenses. In addition, effective attack strategies can be made by adjusting attack data distribution. Finally, we discuss the potential directions of defending the curses brought by data heterogeneity. The results and lessons learned from our extensive experiments and analysis offer new insights for designing robust federated learning methods and systems.


The article analyzes the development undergone by the
Tax Law and
the differences in
teaching it in European universities.
Thus it addresses the growing importance of case law as opposed to the increasingly
less effective codes,
causednot only by the rapid succession of national legislation but
also by the introduction of European regulation.
It includes especially the divi
sion of Europe in terms of
teaching Tax Law in the
university curriculum, focused on Southern Europe from a theoretical point of view
and the preparation of judicial personnel and the North from a practical point of view
and consultancy and business


This study is centred on the premise that knowledge is personalised information which can be enriched through the process of learning, then shared and applied to practical situations to attain value. To highlight the complex nature of knowledge management (KM) as a set of practices and aimed to enhance collaboration, the concept of a Collaborative Leaning Ecosystem (CLES) is presented as holistic approach toward improving practical learning environments. In view of the pressing need for better KM in small-to-medium (SME) enterprises, the CLES framework is used to examine the KM positions of two Australian SMEs. Viewing each case as an 'organisational ecosystem', the holistic assessment of each SME exposes certain KM inefficiencies unique to the firm, which are addressed through a set of actionable KM strategies for improving the relationships among the components interacting within each organisational ecosystem.


Abstract: The manifestations of indoor mold-related disease (IMRD) include irritant effects, such as conjunctivitis and rhinitis; nonspecific respiratory complaints, such as cough and wheeze; hypersensitivity pneumonitis; allergic fungal sinusitis; and mycotoxicosis. The diagnosis of IMRD depends on eliciting an accurate history and excluding preexisting pathology that would account for the patient's symptoms. Laboratory tests, imaging studies, and spirometry can play an important role in ruling out other diagnoses, such as allergic or nonallergic rhinitis, asthma, and pneumonia. The diagnosis of IMRD also involves integrating the results of immunologic, physiologic, and imaging studies with the results of indoor air-quality studies. (J Respir Dis. 2005;26(12):520-525)


We study the impact of different central bank communication practices on the trading behavior and profitability of fast and slow traders in the foreign exchange market. We focus, in particular, on how the Bank of Japan's practice of introducing some randomness to the time at which it releases its monetary policy statement affects the behavior and profitability of high-frequency traders, and how that differs from the impact of the fixed release time used by the Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank. We also analyze the relative impact on fast and slow trader behavior of central bank press conferences and statement releases. We relate our findings to the broader discussion of how information asymmetry affects fast and slow traders in a market in which they coexist, and how market quality is affected by their interaction.


The so called resource curse, the fact that countries rich in natural resources often show lower rates of economic growth compared to resource-poor countries, is commonly attributed to the low quality of governance in resource-rich countries. The Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) was founded in 2003 to address this problem through increasing the quality of the public financial management of resource flows. By joining this initiative, governments show their willingness to reform and to improve their governance. As the quality of governance is an important factor for investors in deciding where to invest, this signal has the potential to improve a country's appeal for foreign direct investment (FDI). This study shows in a panel of 81 countries that joining the EITI increases the ratio of FDI inflows to GDP on average by around two percentage points. This is a remarkable increase given that the average ratio of FDI inflows to GDP in the sample is five percent. The results are robust when controlling for selection bias due to the voluntary decision to join the initiative and possible endogeneity of the candidate variable.


The Thesis is about an architecture model for a Distributed Virtualization System, which could expand a virtual execution environment from a single physical machine to several nodes of a cluster. With current virtualization technologies, computing power and resource usage of Virtual Machines (or Containers) are limited to the physical machine where they run. To deliver high levels of performance and scalability, cloud applications are usually partitioned in several Virtual Machines (or Containers) located on different nodes of a virtualization cluster. Developers often use that processing model because the same instance of the operating system is not available on each node where their components run. The proposed architecture model is suitable for new trends in software development because it is inherently distributed. It combines and integrates Virtualization and Distributed Operating Systems technologies with the benefits of both worlds, providing the same isolated instance of a Virtual Operating System on each cluster node. Although it requires the introduction of changes in existing operating systems, thousands of legacy applications would not require modifications to obtain their benefits. A Distributed Virtualization System is suitable to deliver high-performance cloud services with provider-class features, such as high-availability, replication, migration, and load balancing. Furthermore, it is able to concurrently run several isolated instances of different guest Virtual Operating Systems, allocating a subset of nodes for each instance and sharing nodes between them. Currently, a prototype is running on a cluster of commodity hardware provided with two kinds of Virtual Operating Systems tailored for internet services (web server) as a proof of concept.


Driving under the influence of alcohol is prohibited or restricted in almost every country on the planet. In Canada, a Blood Alcohol Content (BAC) of 0.08 g dL results in a Criminal Code offense and vehicle impoundment. Critical to this charge and its associated consequences is the technology assessing alcoholic content. Modern police forces use handheld or stationary breath analysis tools to evaluate alcohol ingestion. In order for punitive measures to be enforced, the reliability and accuracy of breathalyzers must go without question. However, methods employed to improve the reliability of modern sensors waste significant energy to control the test environment; namely humidity and temperature of the test cell. Through a more thorough investigation of the parameters which govern an ethanol fuel cell sensor (FCS) response, we can design a testing cell itself which is insensitive to its environment while improving the specificity. Modern FCS are based on acid-soaked poly-vinyl chloride (PVC) with a platinum on carbon catalyst hot-pressed directly to the membrane interface. More recently, Nafion by Dupont has been investigated as an alternative, strongly conductive and stable membrane material. Both of these fall prey to water loss, limiting their response to varied environmental conditions and requiring frequent calibration. This project designs and tests engineered nanocomposite membranes to enhance the reliability of the FCS response. Increasing the thickness of Nafion nanocomposite membranes correlated with improved sensor responses. Integration of 5 wt% 1:1 ratio of sulfonic-acid functionalized nanoporous silicon dioxide to functionalized graphene oxide in Nafion best enhanced a FCS response in low humidity, showing stability even at 100 days in a low humidity environment.


A photo-responsive bio-inspired adhesive consisting of a zwitterionic polymer, poly(sulfobetaine methacrylate) (pSBMA), DOPA (3,4-dihydroxyphenylalanine), and a photocleavable nitrobenzyloxycarbonyl containing crosslinker was synthesized by thermally-initiated free radical polymerization. The main component, pSBMA, is a highly hydrophilic zwitterionic polymer with a high potential for biomedical application. The DOPA functionality, an extensively studied major component of the adhesion properties in mussels, is known to universally enhance polymeric adhesion properties even in the presence of water. The third component, a nitrobenzyl-containing dimethacrylate crosslinker, is efficiently cleaved upon UV irradiation. Proton NMR analysis of the crosslinker, 2-nitro-1,3-benzenedimethanol dimethacrylate (NBDM), demonstrates that photocleavage of the o-nitrobenzyl ester occurs rapidly for 30 minutes, then gradually continues for another 3 hours. The same patterns of photocleavage were observed in a terpolymer adhesive containing the nitrobenzyl crosslinker, poly(N-methacryloyl-3,4-dihydroxyl-L-phenylalanine-co-sulfobetaine methacrylate-co-2-nitro-1,3-benzenedimethanol dimethacrylate), poly(MDOPA-co-SBMA-co-NBDM). The terpolymer adhesive demonstrated a reduction in adhesion properties over the course of irradiation corresponding to the cleavage rate observed by 1H NMR analysis of NBDM. After 30 minutes of UV irradiation the original adhesion strength, 341 kPa, was decreased to 223 kPa, corresponding to a 35% reduction. The adhesion strength continued to decrease to 150 kPa at the 3 hours mark, a 56% reduction compared to the original adhesion strength.