This thesis investigates what it means to view disruptive innovation as a political problem. I take my point of departure in the tendency for controversial disruptions in heavily regulated sectors, such as electronic cigarettes or hydraulic fracturing, to open regulatory spaces by challenging established expectations about how they ought to be governed. In the wake of such disruption, policy actors with a stake in the matter engage in sensemaking and discursive contests to control the meaning of the innovations in order to close the regulatory spaces by aligning them with one set of laws instead of another. I study these contests in two recent legislative initiatives of the European Union to address the disruptive potential of e-cigarettes and fracking: the 2014 revision of the Tobacco Products Directive and the 2014 Commission recommendations on unconventional fossil fuels. The research draws on 51 interviews carried out with key policy actors during and after the policy debates. I bolster this with an analysis of policy documents, press releases and scientific studies, as well as a content and network analysis of position statements in newspaper articles. I find that the strategic use of rhetoric and framing plays an important part in creating, maintaining, and entrenching opposed coalitions in both policy debates. In both case studies, the policy solution is accompanied by deteriorating levels of trust among participants, leading coalitions to engage in strategies of venue-shopping to circumvent their opponents. This underscores the significant challenges there are for policymakers to address disruptions while maintaining legitimacy. The original contribution of the thesis lies in its novel conceptualization of disruptive innovation as a political problem, its application of micro-sociological approaches to the politics of expertise and European public policy, and its practical and theoretical suggestions for how to better study periods of disruption and govern through them.


The present research paper is an attempt to analyse the socio-economic problems faced by beggars and governmental helps received by them as well as recommended by the authors for upliftment of the socioeconomic standard of their life in Aligarh district of Uttar Pradesh. The study is based on primary source of data, collected through the field survey in the Aligarh district carried out during 2009. The analysis reveals that poverty, unemployment, lack of electricity, sanitation, potable water and proper housing, non availability of ration card, lack of money for marriage of their daughters, various diseases, etc. are the main problems faced by the beggars. The help received from the government by the beggars merely are voter identity cards and ration cards. This study demonstrates that this section of population is the most poor among the poorest who are still thriving for one of the traditional basic need, that is food, what may be predicted about the status of the other remaining needs (Clothing and shelter). The new additive modern needs (health, education and recreation) are the heavenly dreams to them.


In message-passing applications, the temporal or spatial distance between cause and symptom of a performance problem constitutes a major difficulty in deriving helpful conclusions from performance data. Just knowing the locations of wait states in the program is often insufficient to understand the reason for their occurrence.  We present a method for verifying hypotheses on causality between temporally or spatially distant performance phenomena in message-passing applications without altering the application itself. The verification is accomplished by modifying MPI event traces and using them to simulate the hypothetical message-passing behavior. By performing a parallel real-time reenactment of the communication to be simulated using the original execution configuration, we can achieve high scalability and good predictive accuracy in relation to the measured behavior.  Not relying on a potentially complex model of the message-passing subsystem, our method is also platform independent.


Everyday a large number of records of surfing internet are generated. In various situations when the authors are analysing internet data they do not know the cluster structure of the author's database of traffic features, such as when the border of cluster members is vague, and the clusters' partitions have different shapes, how to establish an algorithm to solve the clustering problem? Adaptive clustering algorithms can meet this challenge. Moreover, how to determinate the number of clusters when not only fuzzy cluster but also hard cluster are used? To address those problems, a new cluster validity index is proposed in this study. The proposed index focuses on the information of the geometrical structure of dataset by analysing the neighbourhood of data objects, which makes the index independent of the traditional fuzzy membership matrix. The new index consists of two parts, namely the `compactness' and `separation measure'. The compactness indicates the degree of the similarity among the data objects in the same cluster. The separation measure indicates the degree of dissimilarity among the data objects in different clusters. The performance of their proposed index is excellent underpinned by the outcomes from the experiments based on both artificial datasets and real world datasets.


This study was conducted to observe the changes in impact resistance of a denture base resin reinforced with five types of fiber. E-glass, polyester, rayon, nylon 6, and nylon 6/6 fibers were cut into 2, 4, and 6 mm lengths and added into the resin at a concentration of 3% by weight. Five test specimens for each formulation, as well as control specimens without fiber, were prepared using a mold including a V-shaped notch with 55 x 10 x10 mm dimensions. Impact tests were carried out using a Charpy-type tester. Additionally, surfaces of the impact sections were observed under a scanning electron microscope (SEM). Results indicated that impact energy tended to increase with fiber length, and that the highest value was recorded for rayon fiber-reinforced specimens of 6 mm length. E-glass fiber reinforcement produced relatively stable, high values for each length, whereby good interfacial strength between polymer matrix and glass fibers was confirmed by SEM analysis.


Analysing student interaction at an international university in Sweden, this article investigates how the transnational strategy of using English as a medium of instruction can be (re)constructed by students in a local context. The analysis focuses on students' expectations—or norms—for when it is appropriate to use English, and shows that English medium-instruction does not necessarily mean that students speak English all the time. The local language Swedish is used in connection to teaching and students establish local norms for when, how and with whom it is appropriate—or inappropriate—to speak English. A conclusion is that although language choice at the international university is influenced by global factors, it is still firmly a local construction.


This paper focuses on a hitherto unstudied segment of the broad 'third sector': organisations and groupings that aim to build bridges (that is, increase interpersonal contacts) between people of different faiths and/or ethnic groups. We draw on the findings of an empirical study, conducted in three diverse urban areas of England, of community-level projects with bridge building as an explicit aim. We describe the characteristics of bridge-building activities and the challenges they face; both the organisational challenges and those that arise from the nature of bridge building itself. We conclude by exploring the implications of our findings for an understanding of the third sector generally and for the potential role of the sector in responding to our diverse society.


A modified T-matrix method is presented to compute the scattered fields of various realistically shaped particles; then the radiation forces on the particles can be calculated via the Maxwell stress tensor integral. Numerical results of transverse trapping efficiencies of a focused Gaussian beam on ellipsoidal and spherical particles with the same volume are compared, which show that the shape and orientation of particles affect the maximal transverse trapping force and the displacement corresponding to the maximum. The effect of the polarization direction of the incident beam on the transverse trapping forces is also revealed.


This study was a qualitative action research project that involved focus groups of key stakeholders at an alternative education high school including: students, teaching staff, classified staff, supervisors, families, and collaborative partners. A semi-structured interview guide was used to discover their perceptions of a school culture and climate where students FLOURISH. The word FLOURISH is used in this research to describe the optimal experience of thriving and growing as well as an acronym that contains the elements that a literature review found to be important for such environments serving the most vulnerable student populations. This type of research is especially important in light of the recent transformation to educational planning and finance in California called LCFF (Local Control Funding Formula) and its creation of the Local Control Accountability Plans (LCAPs) with their mandate for stakeholder input. Finally, and most importantly, emerging research shows schools that improve their culture and climate can counter the "school to prison pipeline" effect so often experienced by vulnerable youth in the alternative education system. Both systematic analysis and a constructivist approach were used in coding and memoing to track the presence of existing themes from the literature review and to capture new ones emerging from the transcripts. Leadership, systems, equity and implementation implications were explored as secondary questions. Findings included the generation of a new model, coined The 5Rs Cycle – Resources, Regulation, Relationships, Relevance & Rigor, which captured the essential elements found in the literature review along with the myriad themes produced by the focus groups.


We present a novel electron detector and technique permitting orientation contrast images to be generated using back-scattered electron signals. The detector is a modification of the converter plate. It is unaffected by Infra-Red and light photons and invulnerable to the effects of heat. Consequently, the detector is removed as the temperature limiting factor in elevated temperature SEM grain observations. The detector has been successfully applied to an environmental SEM (ESEM) operating in high vacuum mode and has produced good quality video image sequences of hot metal specimens with frame rates between 1 per second and 1 per 30 seconds (largely material dependent). Temperatures attained were up to 850°C, limited by the capability of the hot stage. Although developed for the ESEM the technique is applicable to any SEM provided that adequate measures are taken to manage contamination and heat effects on other microscope components. We have produced images and short, accelerated video sequences of recrystallisation and grain growth phenomena in steel, aluminium, copper and gold by the new technique. The technique has also successfully imaged phase transformations and high temperature behaviour of microelectronic materials.


The global trend in the management of public school systems is systematic decentralisation of authority and responsibility to the school level. The local community, through their representatives in the school boards or committees, are mandated to make decisions on significant matters related to school operations. This devolution of authority and responsibility to school level decision-makers is intended to ensure transparency, accountability, ownership and provision of quality education. Although the public primary school boards have been in existence in Kenya since the 1980s, they became more prominent after the introduction of free primary education in 2003 and the determination to realise the education for all goal in the year 2015. In urban low socioeconomic settings such as Kibera slum, the boards operate under extremely difficult conditions. Most of the board members are low income earners with relatively low levels of education, and yet they are expected to provide effective and strategic leadership to the schools. Paradoxically, some schools within this setting have performed much better than schools in well-off settings. It is not clear, though, if the performance of such schools could be attributable in any way to their school boards. This study was necessitated by the paucity of literature on the efficacy of public primary school boards in developing nations and in urban low socioeconomic settings. Invitational Education Theory and Practice, Ecological System Theory, and Pragmatism provided the theoretical framework used to describe the operation and impact of public primary school boards in Kibera slum in Kenya. Kibera is the largest informal settlement in Sub-Saharan Africa and one of the five largest slums in the world. According to invitational theory, a school is considered inviting if the physical environment, people, processes, policies and programs are conducive to teaching and learning. Ecological systems theory posits that a child's development is affected by both family and ecological factors (social, political, biological and economic conditions). To explore how the public primary school boards are effective in assuring quality education is provided to slum children, despite the internal and external factors, this study adopted the pragmatic stance. There is a growing trend of school-based management movement towards model of corporate governance. Although several models of decentralisation existed their differences were based on where the locus of decision-making lies — administrative,


The Laetolil Beds in Tanzania, 20-30 miles south of Olduvai Gorge, have been extensively sampled by parties under the leadership of Mrs. Dr. Mary D. Leakey, who very kindly sent me Hipparion material collected in 1974, 1975, and 1976. In a restudy of proboscidean material from these beds described by Dietrich (1942), Maglio (1969) arrived at the conclusion that the Laetolil fauna represents two distinct horizons, one seemingly correlating best with Kanapoi, Yellow Sands (= Mursi Formation), Chemeron, and Kanam, and younger deposits correlating best with the later Omo Beds, possibly antedating Olduvai Bed I but only by a short time interval. This has been confirmed by radiometric dating: the Laetolil Beds with the older fauna are bracketed in time between 3.8 and 3.6 million years whereas the lava flows unconformably overlying them are dated at 2.4 million years. The younger deposits which are to be named Ndolanya Beds, therefore, have an age older than 2.4 million years, and have also produced fossils (Leakey et alii, 1976). The fossiliferous deposits in the Laetolil area have been subdivided into 26 localities from most of which I received Hipparion material, all collected in situ. Two localities, 7 East and 18, are in the Ndolanya Beds, while the others are in the Laetolil Beds (Mary Leakey, personal communication). The fossils found in situ are cream coloured or white, sometimes chalky in texture. Surface material also including brown, grey or black specimens, often rolled, has been excluded. It is among the surface material that Equus is represented. However, there is no evidence that the equid material from the Laetolil Beds proper includes any genus but Hipparion. I am most grateful to Mrs. Mary Leakey for entrusting this material to me; it comes from a critical time phase in the evolution of African hipparions as


Explanations for ASEAN's inability to more successfully influence Myanmar over the last decade have shifted from accusations that the organization does nothing to live up to its on-paper commitments to the belief that what it does is wholly ineffective. The reasons for this ineffectiveness are found in the normative and institutional architecture of ASEAN, specifically its lack of punitive sanction-based compliance mechanisms. Through focusing on ASEAN's use of public pronouncements to express interests and desires, this article takes issue with such assertions. Specifically, ASEAN has been engaged in a strategy of rhetorical action to promote compliance with regional standards. To date it has been unsuccessful in that attempt not because of a lack of courts and commissions, but because it has been incoherent in its political strategy. At crucial moments ASEAN and its members remained more concerned with creating a unified position against external pressure than on developing a single policy towards Myanmar. This reaction fatally undermined the ability of ASEAN to influence Myanmar as it ensures the regime the continued external political cover from pressure that animated its desire to join ASEAN in 1997. This article suggests that correcting this shortcoming through the development of greater coherence is achievable within the existing ASEAN approach to managing regional affairs.


Data integration in the Web of Data is not limited to the pairwise linking of entities but often requires to cluster entities of different sources, e. g., within knowledge graphs. Such entity clustering should not only be scalable to large data volumes and many sources but also be dynamic to deal with continuously changing sources and the ability to incorporate new sources. Previous entity clustering approaches are mostly static focusing on the one-time linking and clustering of entities from few sources. In this paper, we propose and evaluate new scalable approaches for incremental entity clustering that support the continuous addition of new entities and data sources. The implementation is based on the distributed processing framework Apache Flink. A detailed performance evaluation with real and synthetically customized datasets shows the effectiveness and scalability of the incremental clustering approaches.


In this paper an ex-post measurable definition of globalisation has been used, namely increasing trade openness and FDI. A general result is that the optimistic Heckscher-Ohlin/Stolper-Samuelson predictions do not apply, that is neither employment creation nor the decrease in within-country inequality are automatically assured by increasing trade and FDI.

The other main findings of the paper are that:

1) The employment effect can be very diverse in different areas of the world, giving raise to concentration and marginalisation phenomena;

2) Increasing trade and FDI do not emerge as the main culprits of increasing within-country income innequality in DCs, although some evidence emerges that import of capital goods may imply an increase in innequality via skill-biased technological change;

3) Increasing trade seems to foster economic growth and absolute poverty alleviation, although some important counter-examples emerge.


Energy efficiency is a primary concern for microprocessor designers. One very effective approach to improving processor energy efficiency is to lower its supply voltage to very near to the transistor threshold voltage. This reduces power consumption dramatically, improving energy efficiency by an order of magnitude. Low voltage operation, however, increases the effects of parameter variation resulting in significant frequency heterogeneity between (and within) otherwise identical cores. This heterogeneity severely limits the maximum frequency of the entire CMP. We present a combination of techniques aimed at reducing the effects of variation on the performance and energy efficiency of near-threshold, many-core CMPs. Dual Voltage Rail (DVR), mitigates core-to-core variation with a dual-rail power delivery system that allows post-manufacturing assignment of different supply voltages to individual cores. This speeds up slow cores by assigning them to a higher voltage and saves power on fast cores by assigning them to a lower voltage. Half-Speed Unit (HSU) mitigates within-core variation by halving the frequency of select functional blocks with the goal of boosting the frequency of individual cores, thus raising the frequency ceiling for the entire CMP. Together, these variation-reduction techniques result in almost 50% improvement in CMP performance for the same power consumption over a mix of workloads.


As new concepts of sending interstellar spacecraft to the nearest stars are now being investigated by various research teams, crucial questions about the timing of such a vast financial and labor investment arise. If humanity could build high-speed interstellar lightsails and reach the alpha Centauri system 20 yr after launch, would it be better to wait a few years, then take advantage of further technology improvements to increase the speed, and arrive earlier despite waiting? The risk of being overtaken by a future, faster probe has been described earlier as the incentive trap. Based on 211 yr of historical data, we find that the speed growth of human-made vehicles, from steam-driven locomotives to Voyager 1, is much faster than previously believed, about 4.72 % annually or a doubling every 15 yr. We derive the mathematical framework to calculate the minimum of the wait time (t) plus travel time (tau(t)) and extend two exponential growth law models into the relativistic regime. We show that the minimum of t+tau(t) disappears for nearby targets. There is no use of waiting for speed improvements once we can reach an object within about 20 yr of travel, irrespective of the actual speed. In terms of speed, the t+tau(t) minimum for a travel to alpha Centauri will occur once 19.6 % the speed of light (c) become available, in agreement with the 20 % c proposed by the Breakthrough Starshot Initiative. If interstellar travel at 20 % c can be obtained within 45 yr from today and if the kinetic energy could be increased at a rate consistent with the historical record, then humans can reach the ten most nearby stars within 100 yr from today.


The role of UML models in software development has changed considerably over the last years. While UML was used in its early days mostly as a notation for sketching ideas, developers more and more recognize now the value of a UML model as a formal document that can be processed by tools, e.g. in order to generate code and documentation. Precise software models, however, can usually not be expressed by the pure diagrammatic elements of UML. Instead, they are best captured by constraints written in OCL. Despite the primary importance of constraints within precise modeling, the tool support for OCL is still in a rudimentary stage and there is much room for improvements. In this paper, we describe the architecture and the functionality of our own OCL tool called RoclET. Currently, our tool supports the parsing of OCL assertions (invariants, pre-/post-conditions), their evaluation in given system snapshots (object diagrams) and refactoring, i.e. the automatic propagation of changes made in the underlying class diagram across annotated OCL constraints. RoclET is highly customizable and can handle different OCL dialects. Its functionality is mainly implemented in form of QVT transformation rules that can be adapted by the user. RoclET is realized in form of an Eclipse plugin.


ABSTRACTThis special issue is published in honor of Professor Chiu-sen Wang, founding editor of Aerosol and Air Quality Research, on the occasion of his 70th birthday.
Professor Wang dedicated his long professional career to teaching, research and service in the field of aerosol science and technology. From late 1960s to early 2000s, Professor Wang taught courses in aerosol technology, first at Syracuse University and then at National Taiwan University. His research was focused on applications of aerosol technology in environmental health. The problems he studied include coagulation, particle deposition in the respiratory tract, air filtration, ambient aerosols, aerosols at workplaces, and indoor aerosols. Since his retirement from National Taiwan University in 2003, Professor Wang has continued to devote himself to aerosol research.
In addition to being a distinguished teacher and researcher, Professor Wang has contributed unselfishly to the promotion of the field of aerosol science and technology. With colleagues he founded the Chinese Association for Aerosol Research in Taiwan (CAART) in 1993 and the peer-review research journal Aerosol and Air Quality Research in 1999. He also established the Chiu-sen Award to recognize outstanding young aerosol scientists in Taiwan. During his tenure as president of International Aerosol Research Assembly (IARA) from 2002 to 2006, Professor Wang worked passionately to promote scientific understanding in the field of aerosol research.


This correspondence presents a matching algorithm for obtaining feature point correspondences across images containing rigid objects undergoing different motions. First point features are detected using newly developed feature detectors. Then a variety of constraints are applied starting with simplest and following with more informed ones. First, an intensity-based matching algorithm is applied to the feature points to obtain unique point correspondences. This is followed by the application of a sequence of newly developed heuristic tests involving geometry, rigidity, and disparity. The geometric tests match two-dimensional geometrical relationships among the feature points, the rigidity test enforces the three dimensional rigidity of the object, and the disparity test ensures that no matched feature point in an image could be rematched with another feature, if reassigned another disparity value associated with another matched pair or an assumed match on the epipolar line. The computational complexity is proportional to the numbers of detected feature points in the two images. Experimental results with indoor and outdoor images are presented, which show that the algorithm yields only correct matches for scenes containing rigid objects. >


The paper investigates the link between the sub-national variation of political regimes in a (at the federal level) non-democratic country and the appointments of federal officials in the sub-national provinces. In particular, we look at the appointment of the chief federal inspectors to the regions in Putin's Russia in 2000–2012. Our main research question is whether appointment patterns can be explained by top-down concerns of the central government willing to keep control over the most unruly regions or by bottom-up self-selection of bureaucrats belonging to influential groups into more attractive positions more suitable for rent-seeking. The advantage of our case is that data we have at hand allow us to distinguish these two logics. Our results indicate that for the Russian chief federal inspectors in 2000–2012 bottom-up self-selection appears to be the more plausible explanation of the link between sub-national political regimes and appointment patterns.


An important challenge to e ective data delivery in wide area environments is maintaining the data freshness of objects using solutions that can scale to a large number of clients without incurring signi cant server overhead. Policies for maintaining data freshness are traditionally either push-based or pull-based. Push-based policies involve pushing data updates by servers; they may not scale to a large number of clients. Pull-based policies require clients to contact servers to check for updates; their e ectiveness is limited by the diAEculty of predicting updates. Models to predict updates generally rely on some knowledge of past updates. Their accuracy of prediction may vary and determining the most appropriate model is non-trivial. In this paper, we present an adaptive pull-based solution to this challenge. We rst present several techniques that use update history to estimate the freshness of cached objects, and identify update patterns for which each technique is most e ective. We then introduce adaptive policies that can (automatically) choose a policy for an object based on its observed update patterns. Our proposed policies improve the freshness of cached data and reduce costly contacts with remote servers without incurring the large server overhead of push-based policies, and can scale to a large number of clients. Using trace data from a data-intensive website as well as two email logs, we show that our adaptive policies can adapt to diverse update patterns and provide signi cant improvement compared to a single policy.


This book contains papers presented at the 2014 MICCAI Workshop on Computational Diffusion MRI, CDMRI14. Detailing new computational methods applied to diffusion magnetic resonance imaging data, it offers readers a snapshot of the current state of the art and covers a wide range of topics from fundamental theoretical work on mathematical modeling to the development and evaluation of robust algorithms and applications in neuroscientific studies and clinical practice.Inside, readers will find information on brain network analysis, mathematical modeling for clinical applications, tissue microstructure imaging, super-resolution methods, signal reconstruction, visualization, and more. Contributions include both careful mathematical derivations and a large number of rich full-color visualizations.Computational techniques are key to the continued success and development of diffusion MRI and to its widespread transfer into the clinic. This volume will offer a valuable starting point for anyone interested in learning computational diffusion MRI. It also offers new perspectives and insights on current research challenges for those currently in the field. The book will be of interest to researchers and practitioners in computer science, MR physics, and applied mathematics.


BACKGROUND
The protective effects of antioxidant vitamins on hearing loss are well established in animal studies but in few human studies. Recent animal studies suggest that magnesium intake along with antioxidants may act in synergy to prevent hearing loss.

OBJECTIVE
We examined associations between intake of antioxidant vitamins (daily β-carotene and vitamins C and E) and magnesium and hearing thresholds and explored their joint effects in US adults.

DESIGN
We analyzed cross-sectional data from 2592 participants aged 20-69 y from NHANES 2001-2004. Hearing thresholds as pure tone averages (PTAs) at speech (0.5, 1, 2, and 4 kHz) and high frequencies (3, 4, and 6 kHz) were computed.

RESULTS
When examined individually, modeled as quartiles, and after adjustment for potential confounders, higher intakes of β-carotene, vitamin C, and magnesium were associated with lower (better) PTAs at both speech and high frequencies. High intakes of β-carotene or vitamin C combined with high magnesium compared with low intakes of both nutrients were significantly associated with lower (better) PTAs at high frequencies (-14.82%; 95% CI: -20.50% to -8.74% for β-carotene + magnesium and -10.72%; 95% CI: -16.57% to -4.45% for vitamin C + magnesium). The estimated joint effects were borderline significantly larger than the sums of the individual effects [high β-carotene/low magnesium (-4.98%) and low β-carotene/high magnesium (-0.80%), P-interaction = 0.08; high vitamin C/low magnesium (-1.33%) and low vitamin C/high magnesium (2.13%), P-interaction = 0.09].

CONCLUSION
Dietary intakes of antioxidants and magnesium are associated with lower risks of hearing loss.


Brillouin scattering from transverse-acoustic modes of SrTiO3 is observed, while the frequencies of the soft polar modes are remeasured with hyper-Raman scattering. It is shown that an anomalous decrease of sound velocities at low temperatures results from the.coupling of the strain with the gradient of the electrical polarization fluctuations. The corresponding anomaly in the acoustic width indicates an inhomogeneous broadening of the soft polar mode.


Each year a considerable amount of money is spent in the production of several national and international University rankings that may deeply influence the students' enrollment. However, all such rankings are based almost exclusively on numerical indicators weakly related to the quality of the learning process and do not consider the perceptions of the "end users", i.e. the learners. Recently, as part of the activity promoted by the ASLERD (Association for Smart Learning Ecosystems and Regional Development), we have developed an alternative approach to benchmark learning ecosystems. Such novel approach is based on: a) the detection of the degree of satisfaction related to the levels of the Maslow's Pyramid of needs, and b) the detection of indicators related with the achievement of the state of "flow" by the actors involved in the learning processes. In this paper we report on the first implementation of such benchmarking approach that involved six European Campuses and more than 700 students. The critical analysis of the outcomes allowed us to identify: a) the set of the most relevant indicators; b) a "smartness" axis in the plan of the first two principal components derived by applying a Principal Component Analysis (PCA) to the spaces of the selected indicators.


The inelastic scattering of neutrons from adsorbed H2 is an effective and highly sensitive method for obtaining molecular level information on the type and nature of H2 binding sites in porous materials. While these inelastic neutron scattering (INS) spectra of the hindered rotational and translational excitations on the adsorbed H2 contain a significant amount of information, much of this can only be reliably extracted by means of a detailed analysis of the spectra through the utilization of models and theoretical calculations. For instance, the rotational tunneling transitions observed in the INS spectra can be related to a value for the barrier to rotation for the adsorbed H2 with the use of a simple phenomenological model. Since such an analysis is dependent on the model, it is far more desirable to use theoretical methods to compute a potential energy surface (PES), from which the rotational barriers for H2 adsorbed at a particular site can be determined. Rotational energy levels and transitions for the hindered rotor can be obtained by quantum dynamics calculations and compared directly with experiment with an accuracy subject only to the quality of the theoretical PES. In this paper, we review some of the quantum and classical mechanical calculations that have been performed on H2 adsorbed in various porous materials, such as clathrate hydrates, zeolites, and metal-organic frameworks (MOFs). The principal aims of these calculations have been the interpretation of the INS spectra for adsorbed H2 along with the extraction of atomic level details of its interaction with the host. We describe calculations of the PES used for two-dimensional quantum rotation as well as rigorous five-dimensional quantum coupled translation-rotation dynamics, and demonstrate that the combination of INS measurements and computational modeling can provide important and detailed insights into the molecular mechanism of H2 adsorption in porous materials.


The aim of this study was to identify the blood flow pattern during a handgrip exercise test, and hence when blood flow results in the highest shear rate on the vessel walls. It was hypothesized that shear rate increased linearly with increased workload in forearm muscle work and up to 80% of maximal work and that it plateaued from there onwards. It was also hypothesized that peak measurements of shear rate and blood velocity would provide more valid results compared to average measurements of the same parameters. Peak and average shear rate, blood velocity and diameter was measured with ultrasound Doppler in the brachial artery of the non-dominant arm during incremental handgrip exercise to exhaustion in 21 healthy sedentary men. Peak shear rate and blood velocity was found to increase significantly (p<0.05) up to 80% of maximal effort, and plateau from there onwards. Peak diameter, average shear rate and average blood velocity was not found to increase significantly. It was concluded that the plateau in shear rate and blood velocity at 80% of maximal effort might be a consequence of a limitation in the forearm muscles ability to accept the amount of blood flow needed to maintain peak exercise intensities.


Excerpt] Cigar smoking is once again in vogue. While no longer at "fad" levels (Freccia, Jacobsen, and Kilby 2003), imports of quality hand-made cigars rose at almost double-digit rates during 2002 (Savona 2003) following several years of basically flat sales. The continuing strong demand for high-quality cigars appears to fly in the face of an anti-smoking, health-conscious society. Cigar consumption has persistently occupied the attention of high-profile individuals ranging from members of the entertainment industry to the political arena to the corner bar. Cigar smoking is again in fashion. Why has this happened? What does this mean? What do cigars symbolize in the lives of the consumer (both men and women)? This paper seeks to provide some preliminary insights and first steps into the understanding of this continuing phenomenon. Through the use of existing literature and supplemental qualitative probing techniques, proposed theory is provided concerning the cigar smoking experience. The focus of the work is to build an initial "plat-form" for reflective thought on the direction of needed future research. The paper proceeds as follows. First, a review of the current cigar phenomenon is put into perspective given the vast historical context and the meaning of the cigar as a cultural icon. Second, literature and preliminary qualitative data supporting the interactionalist viewpoint of product symbolism is integrated to under gird theoretical models. The first theoretical model will represent the "internal/external symbolism" of cigar consumption. The second theoretical model will provide an overview of the internal hedonistic experiential elements of the cigar consumption experience.


Hematologic changes in acute and convalescent uncomplicated Plasmodium falciparum malaria have not been well studied, particularly in young children in Africa. Hematologic data were obtained for 3,044 children less than five years of age in seven randomized controlled trials at 14 sites. Using paired analysis between day 28 and baseline in patients without parasitologic failure as a proxy for malaria-induced effects, we found a statistically significant but clinically modest increase in leukocyte counts (5%) resulting from a larger increase in neutrophils (43%) than the decrease in lymphocytes counts (-16%); levels of hemoglobin and platelets decreased (-13% and -49%, respectively). Multivariate random effects analysis showed trends during follow-up (increased levels of hemoglobin, platelets and lymphocytes, and decreased levels of leukocytes and neutrophils) and identified explanatory variables. The risk of neutropenia increased with follow-up time independent of treatment outcome, and was lower with age, higher baseline parasitemia, and artemisinin combination treatment. These analyses provides information on hematologic variations caused by malaria.


Different remote sensing techniques were employed to study benthic habitats in La Parguera, Puerto Rico. These include the comparison of two sensors with different spatial and spectral resolution, IKONOS (1 m, 4 bands) and Hyperion (30 m, 220 bands). Image processing of IKONOS included atmospheric, sun glint, water column corrections, and supervised classifications for the characterization of sea grass, sand and coral. Hyperion data analysis included destriping, atmospheric correction, sun glint correction and classifications. Field data collection was performed by the establishment of three transects with ten quadrants for each habitat class. The best results for image classification in Ikonos imagery were obtained after deglinting of the image with 84 % accuracy and the best result with Hyperion were obtained with the spectral subset in the visible range with an accuracy of 75 %. These results showed that IKONOS had the best results with some limitations on the characterization of the composition of the benthic communities. Hyperspectral shows promise, but the coarse spatial resolution and poor signal to noise of the Hyperion instrument resulted in lower classification accuracy compared to IKONOS.


From classical mechanics to general relativity, the key principles in all areas of physics are surveyed in this one handy volume. Here Alan Tribble addresses the needs of students and practicing physicists alike. He starts with a review of mathematical methods and then summarizes the most widely used concepts in physics, detailing derivations and applications. With its mix of theory, application, and solved problems, Advanced Physics enables a student to grasp quickly the fundamentals of the field while providing physicists, engineers, and mathematicians with an ideal reference for locating critical formulas or reviewing mathematical details.One of Tribble's goals is to help students, particularly those preparing for comprehensive examinations, to develop and retain a broad base of knowledge and an in-depth understanding of the fundamental physical principles. Until now, reaching this goal has been a time-consuming and difficult task for the student, partly because so many texts have omitted key steps in crucial derivations or have assigned these derivations as exercises. By gathering widespread information into one highly accessible format, Advanced Physics will become an invaluable study aid, will serve readily as a text in a review course or as a supplemental text in higher-level courses, and will make for an indispensable reference for professionals throughout their careers.


The article analyzes the problems of realization of the state policy of power cleaning in the countries of Central-Eastern Europe (Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary, Baltic countries), and in particular in Ukraine. It has been found that in various countries this step in the public administration was taken since the fall of the communist regime. However, everywhere it was carried out by its own rules. The attention is drawn to the fact that the power cleaning through lustration should be ensured in the light of a wide range of threats that pertain to the human rights sphere and the principle of the presumption of innocence. This was relevant for every state that embarked on the path of transformational change to the implementation of a state policy of power cleaning. None of the countries that have taken such a political step in the public administration system went this route easily (there were both claims to the laws with subsequent legislative initiatives to amend them, and suits to courts of various instances to restore human and citizen's rights and freedoms). However, there were also positive consequences, which resulted in the cleaning of the authorities of the respective countries from the influences of interested pro-communist political forces, which hindered democratic transformations in the states. Regarding the characteristics of the state policy of power cleaning by lustration in Ukraine, which began only in 2014, we drew attention to the fact that it had a different meaning: it was not aimed at combating the communist past, but at overthrowing the current political regime of "Yanukovych times". There were some problems, which reflected the emergence of relevant issues in such events of the public administration system, which caused criticism from a number of external international human rights organizations (for example, the Venice Commission), and led to massive claims to courts of various instances aimed to restore of claimants' rights. Also the article draws attention to the fact that lustration, as a mechanism of power cleaning, is an appropriate political step on the way to democratization of society and overcoming the negative consequences of the activity of undemocratic political regimes. However, its implementation requires a prudent approach to defining the principles of legal regulation, the establishment of appropriate institutions to ensure the implementation of lustration and guaranteeing the protection of human and citizen's rights and freedoms from political persecution.


Summary This study linked the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectrometer and USDA Forest Service, Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) data through empirical models established using high-resolution Landsat Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus observations to estimate aboveground biomass (AGB) in three Lake States in the north-central USA. While means obtained from larger sample sizes in FIA datasets can be used as reference numbers over large scales, remote sensing (RS)-based observations have the ability to refl ect spatial variation of properties of interest within a given area. Thus, combining two national on-going datasets may improve our ability to accurately estimate ecological properties across large scales. Using standard and consistent data sources can reduce uncertainty and provide more comparable results at both temporal and spatial dimensions. We estimated total forest AGB in the region was 1479 T g (10 12 g, dry weight) in 2001 with mean AGB value of 95 mg ha − 1 ranging from 4 to 411 mg ha − 1 (within 95 per cent percentiles). Mixed forests featured 66 per cent of the total AGB while deciduous and evergreen forests contained 32 and 2 per cent of the total AGB, respectively, at 1-km pixel resolution. Spatially, AGB values increased from north-west to south-east in general. The RS-based estimates indicated a greater range in AGB variations than the FIA data. Deciduous forests were more variable (both in absolute and relative terms) than evergreen forests. The standard deviation of AGB for deciduous forests was 137 mg ha − 1 , or a coeffi cient of variation of 92 per cent, that for evergreen forests was 24 mg ha − 1 , or a coeffi cient of variation of 37 per cent.


Hand gesture is becoming an increasingly popular means of interacting with consumer electronic devices, such as mobile phones, tablets and laptops. In this paper, we present AudioGest, a device-free gesture recognition system that can accurately sense the hand in-air movement around user's devices. Compared to the state-of-the-art, AudioGest is superior in using only one pair of built-in speaker and microphone, without any extra hardware or infrastructure support and with no training, to achieve fine-grained hand detection. Our system is able to accurately recognize various hand gestures, estimate the hand in-air time, as well as average moving speed and waving range. We achieve this by transforming the device into an active sonar system that transmits inaudible audio signal and decodes the echoes of hand at its microphone. We address various challenges including cleaning the noisy reflected sound signal, interpreting the echo spectrogram into hand gestures, decoding the Doppler frequency shifts into the hand waving speed and range, as well as being robust to the environmental motion and signal drifting. We implement the proof-of-concept prototype in three different electronic devices and extensively evaluate the system in four real-world scenarios using 3,900 hand gestures that collected by five users for more than two weeks. Our results show that AudioGest can detect six hand gestures with an accuracy up to 96%, and by distinguishing the gesture attributions, it can provide up to 162 control commands for various applications.


Since the 1970s, litigation concerning the dangers of asbestos in the workplace has transformed from a few workers' compensation claims to hundreds of thousands of lawsuits against companies in nearly every industry. While the typical plaintiff in these claims is an employee injured while handling asbestos at the worksite, a new class of "peripheral plaintiffs" has recently emerged. These plaintiffs consist of family members who are exposed to asbestos after inhaling the dust that saturates an employee's person and clothing. The family members then bring claims against the employers and the owners of the premises claiming that they were negligent in allowing the workers to carry asbestos home when the danger of asbestos was well known. The highest courts of six states stand divided on whether an employer or premises owner owes a duty to these third-party plaintiffs to protect them from asbestos-related harm. Two states have relied heavily on the foreseeability of the harm to hold that landowners and employers do owe a duty to third-party plaintiffs. On the other hand, four states have focused on a range of factors, like the lack of a relationship between the parties and the need to constrain asbestos litigation, to hold that landowners and employers do not owe a duty to third-party plaintiffs. This Note examines the interstate conflict and concludes that all six courts have engaged in an unclear and unnecessarily fact-specific analysis of duty. It argues that the Third Restatement's method of determining duty represents a clearer approach, because it sends factual questions to the jury and encourages courts to take "no duty" decisions more seriously.


This book offers an authoritative overview of the history of evangelicalism as a global movement, from its origins in Europe and North America in the first half of the eighteenth century to its present-day dynamic growth in Africa, Asia, Latin America and Oceania. Starting with a definition of the movement within the context of the history of Protestantism, it follows the history of evangelicalism from its early North Atlantic revivals to the great expansion in the Victorian era, through to its fracturing and reorientation in response to the stresses of modernity and total war in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It describes the movement's indigenisation and expansion towards becoming a multi-centered and diverse movement at home in the non-Western world that nevertheless retains continuity with its historic roots. The book concludes with an analysis of contemporary worldwide evangelicalism's current trajectory and the movement's adaptability to changing historical and geographical circumstances.


Lysyl oxidase like‐2 (LOXL2) plays a central role in fibrogenesis and is elevated in the serum and liver of patients with primary sclerosing cholangitis (PSC). We evaluated the safety and efficacy of simtuzumab, a monoclonal antibody directed against LOXL2, in patients with PSC. Patients with compensated liver disease caused by PSC were randomized 1:1:1 to receive weekly subcutaneous injections of simtuzumab 75 mg, simtuzumab 125 mg, or placebo for 96 weeks. The primary efficacy endpoint was mean change in hepatic collagen content assessed by morphometry between baseline and week 96. Additional endpoints included change in Ishak fibrosis stage and the frequency of PSC‐related clinical events. Overall, 234 patients were randomized and started treatment. At week 96, the mean change from baseline in hepatic collagen content was –0.5% for patients receiving simtuzumab 75 mg (P = 0.73 versus placebo), +0.5% for patients receiving simtuzumab 125 mg (P = 0.33 versus placebo), and 0.0 for patients receiving placebo. Compared with placebo, neither dose of simtuzumab led to significant reductions in Ishak fibrosis stage, progression to cirrhosis, or frequency of clinical events. Overall, 80 (34%) patients had fibrosis progression and 47 (20%) experienced PSC‐related clinical events. In a multivariate model of baseline factors, PSC‐related clinical events were more frequent in patients with advanced fibrosis (hazard ratio [HR], 2.03; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.02‐4.06; P = 0.045), higher alkaline phosphatase (HR per 10 U/L, 1.01; 95% CI, 1.00‐1.02; P = 0.015), and higher enhanced liver fibrosis score (HR per unit, 1.26; 95% CI, 0.98‐1.61; P = 0.073). Overall, rates of adverse events and laboratory abnormalities were similar between groups. Conclusion: Treatment with the LOXL2 inhibitor simtuzumab for 96 weeks did not provide clinical benefit in patients with PSC.


This chapter deals with major endemic and emerging fungal diseases of citrus as well as with exotic fungal pathogens potentially harmful for citrus industry in the Mediterranean region, with particular emphasis on diseases reported in Italy and Maghreb countries. The aim is to provide an update of both the taxonomy of the causal agents and their ecology based on a molecular approach, as a preliminary step towards developing or upgrading integrated and sustainable disease management strategies. Potential or actual problems related to the intensification of new plantings, introduction of new citrus cul - tivars and substitution of sour orange with other rootstocks, globalization of commerce and climate changes are discussed. Fungal pathogens causing vascular, foliar, fruit, trunk and root diseases in commercial citrus orchards are reported, including Plenodomus tracheiphilus , Colletotrichum spp., Alternaria spp., Mycosphaerellaceae, Botryosphaeriaceae, Guignardia citricarpa and lignicolous basidiomycetes. Diseases caused by Phytophthora spp. (oomycetes) are also included as these pathogens have many biological, ecological and epidemiological features in common with the true fungi (eumycetes). citricarpa , Basidiomycetes, Phytophthora spp


Controversy over the aggregate impact of foreign aid has focused on reduced form estimates of the aid-growth link. The causal chain, through which aid affects developmental outcomes including growth, has received much less attention. We address this gap by: (i) specifying a structural model of the main relationships; (ii) estimating the impact of aid on a range of final and intermediate outcomes; and (iii) quantifying a simplied representation of the full structural form, where aid impacts on growth through key intermediate outcomes. A coherent picture emerges: aid stimulates growth and reduces poverty through physical capital investment and improvements in health.


This chapter discusses some of the elements of human sociality that serve as the social and cognitive infrastructure or preconditions for the use of requests and other kinds of recruitments in interaction. The notion of an agent with goals is a canonical starting point, though importantly agency tends not to be wholly located in individuals, but rather is socially distributed. This is well illustrated in the case of requests, in which the person or group that has a certain goal is not necessarily the one who carries out the behavior towards that goal. The chapter focuses on the role of semiotic (mostly linguistic) resources in negotiating the distribution of agency with request-like actions, with examples from video-recorded interaction in Lao, a language spoken in Laos and nearby countries. The examples illustrate five hallmarks of requesting in human interaction, which show some ways in which our 'manipulation' of other people is quite unlike our manipulation of tools: (1) that even though B is being manipulated, B wants to help, (2) that while A is manipulating B now, A may be manipulated in return later; (3) that the goal of the behavior may be shared between A and B, (4) that B may not comply, or may comply differently than requested, due to actual or potential contingencies, and (5) that A and B are accountable to one another; reasons may be asked for, and/or given, for the request. These hallmarks of requesting are grounded in a prosocial framework of human agency.


A simple, sensitive, rapid and economic high performance thin layer chromatographic method has been developed for determination of Esomeprazole magnesium in human plasma by liquid-liquid extraction. The plasma sample was extracted using chloroform. A concentration range from 200-700 ng/spot of Esomeprazole magnesium was used for calibration curve. The percent recovery of Esomeprazole magnesium was found 101.61 percent. The mobile phase constitute of ethyl acetate: methanol: ammonia (32%) (9:1: 0.5 v/v). Densiometric analysis was carried out at wavelength 301 nm. The Rf value for Esomeprazole magnesium was found 0.54 ± 0.05. The stability of Esomeprazole magnesium in human plasma was confirmed during freeze thaw cycles at -30°C, on bench top during 24 h at room temperature and post preparative for 48 h. The proposed method was validated statistically by performing recovery study for determination of Esomeprazole magnesium in human plasma by liquid-liquid extraction.


We investigate a recently proposed scheme for differential detection of the magneto-optical rotation effect and its application to electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) atomic clocks [Opt. Lett.40, 3703 (2015)OPLEDP0146-959210.1364/OL.40.003703]. This scheme utilizes a linearly polarized bichromatic laser field that is EIT-resonant with alkali atoms. The results of our study reveal that the suppression of the laser noise can substantially improve the signal-to-noise ratio in EIT atomic clocks. Our preliminary results demonstrate an order of magnitude improvement in clock stability under some conditions when incorporating the differential detection scheme.


Anti-suit injunctions are one of the most heavily criticized remedies that parties can have recourse to in situations of jurisdictional conflicts. Arbitral tribunals generally have power to order anti-suit injunctions, though there are different views on its nature and legal bases for granting. The appropriateness of this remedy is more questionable since it interferes with principles of international law and coordinative rules devised for handling parallel proceedings. Although anti-suit injunction is an offensive tool and should be avoided, nevertheless in the absence of viable alternatives it may be permitted under restrictive conditions. In order to ensure that anti-suit injunction is an adequate solution in a particular case, arbitral tribunals should consider a number of factors, including an apparent risk of conflicting decisions, abusive behaviour of the party, and the practical value of the injunction.


Coupled with biaffine decoders, transformers have been effectively adapted to text-to-graph transduction and achieved state-of-the-art performance on AMR parsing. Many prior works, however, rely on the biaffine decoder for either or both arc and label predictions although most features used by the decoder may be learned by the transformer already. This paper presents a novel approach to AMR parsing by combining heterogeneous data (tokens, concepts, labels) as one input to a transformer to learn attention, and use only attention matrices from the transformer to predict all elements in AMR graphs (concepts, arcs, labels). Although our models use significantly fewer parameters than the previous state-of-the-art graph parser, they show similar or better accuracy on AMR 2.0 and 3.0.


In the Christian Church the Gospel of Matthew has been considered the most important portrait of Jesus' life and message. Containing Jesus' Sermon on the Mount and a uniquely rich collection of parables, among many other things, Matthew has made a major contribution to the church throughout the centuries, and it still has much to say to the church today.
 This superb commentary in the Pillar series explores the meaning and relevance of Matthew in an eminently straightforward fashion. Leon Morris writes for readers who use commentaries to discover further what the Bible means. Throughout, he makes clear what he considers to be the meaning of the Greek text that Matthew has bequeathed to the church. A perceptive introduction precedes Morris's warmhearted verse-by-verse exposition of Matthew, an exposition based on his own literal translation of the text. Now a standard reference work on the Gospel of Matthew, this mature, evangelically oriented commentary will continue to meet the needs of students, pastor, and general readers alike.


The regional political ecology approach entails attention to chains of explanation both up and down scale while acknowledging both the similarities and distinctiveness between and among local level patterns and processes. In this paper, I apply the regional political ecology approach to the study of the rural-urban interface. The rural-urban interface is the site of multi-dimensional (environmental, economic, sociocultural) change as shifts in landscapes and lifestyles iteratively influence land use/management and the cultural context of places in flux. In Calaveras County, California (USA), situated in the Sierra Nevada foothills, certain features of and activities on the landscape are being mobilized by a variety of actors, in different ways, and at cross-purposes. In two cases in particular, specific resources (water) and activities (backyard agriculture) became powerful symbolic figures in increasingly heated public policy debates revolving around the use and value of various landscapes in the area. Using mixed, though mainly ethnographic, methods, I examine these instances of environmental conflict, one revolving around a sheep ranch turned golf course and another focused on the proper place of chickens, along the rural-urban interface. After analyzing the processes of change driving these contested ecologies, I describe the challenges of negotiating what is "acceptable" in the context of place-based change and differently situated actors. I conclude by offering some comments on the difficulties of managing competing expectations of use and function in rural places and arguing the significance of pursuing a particularly regional political ecology. Keywords: rural-urban interface; (regional) political ecology; land and environmental management; contested ecologies; environmental conflict.


Objective: The objective of this study was to investigate the effects of socio demographic and clinical characteristics of pregnant women on their physical activity. Methods: An observational quantitative cross sectional design was carried out in the delivery ward and paediatrics clinic of king Khalid University Hospital, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The study subjects included all women who had delivered in the last three months, during the study period between 2013- 2014. The sample size was 336. Data collection included socio-demographic variables, pregnancy related variables and the physical activity by using validated pregnancy physical activity questionnaire.
Results: The mean (standard deviation) total physical activity score of all the study subjects was 197.39(72.1). The physical activity scores are statistically significantly higher in younger women, graduation education level, and among those who were employed. The physical activity scores were statistically significantly higher in women who had normal delivery, did not have any illness and those who had followed the advice to perform physical activity. Conclusion: The levels of physical activity along with their socio demographic and clinical characteristic were assessed among the pregnant women. The study found low pursuance of physical activity during pregnancy. Any kind of illness suffered during pregnancy further reduced the physical activity levels. It was only the young and educated pregnant women who held onto regular physical activity as advised during their pregnancy.


For over a decade, net neutrality has dominated telecommunications policy. Advocates targeted broadband networks because of their strategic position as the gateway to consumers, which potentially positions them to shape the flow of information online. Yet as former the Federal Communications Commission ("FCC" or the "Commission") Chairman Julius Genachowski noted, these broadband providers are merely the "onramps" to the Internet— the last mile of a system that brings over 35,000 networks together to move information packets from origin to destination.
Interconnection agreements stitch these networks together. These arms' length transactions define the terms by which networks exchange traffic with one another. But like all contracts, interconnection agreements can be subject to dispute. If not resolved, these disputes can expose fault lines between networks that shatter the consumer's illusion of a seamless Internet experience. Partly in recognition of its lack of familiarity with this market and partly to avoid allegations of "regulating the Internet," the Commission has waded slowly into these waters and has refrained from asserting plenary authority over interconnection agreements. The early interconnection scholarship largely reflects the network architecture of its period and does not take into account revolutionary changes in modern interconnection markets. This Article attempts to close that gap and offer a model for interconnection regulation in the modern era.


The reaction of benzotriazole carbaldehyde with 5-(4-chloro-phenyl)-[1,3,4] thiadiazol-2-ylamine, and 5-(3-bromo-phenyl)- [1,3,4]thiadiazol-2-ylamine resulted in the formation of new tridentate ligands; benzotriazol-1- ylmethylene-[5-(4-chloro-phenyl)-[1,3,4]thiadiazol- 2-yl]-amine L1 and benzotriazol-1-ylmethylene-[5- (3-bromo-phenyl)-[1,3,4]thiadiazol-2-yl]-amine L2, respectively.Monomeric complexes of general formulae [M(Ln)Cl] (where;M= Co(II),Ni(II), Zn(II)) were obtained fromthe reaction of these ligandswith Co(II), Ni(II) and Zn(II) metal ions. The mode of bonding and overall geometry of the complexeswere determined through IR, UV-Vis, NMR, magnetic propermoment measurements, elemental analysis, metal content, chloride content and conductance. The IR data revealed that the nitrogens of the Schiff-base and that of triazole moiety are coordinated to metal ion, in a tridentate fashion. The physico-chemical studies revealed the formation of four-coordinate complexes with distorted square planar for Co(II), and Ni(II) and five coordinate complex with Zn(II).


As CMOS feature size scales down to 65nm and below, challenges for device and circuit manufacturability are emerging. As commonly seen in real designs, devices with distorted gate shapes and rough line-edges are manufactured despite the applications of aggressive resolution enhancement techniques (RET). It has been shown that such irregular gates could introduce significant extra leakage current. Existing tools and device models cannot handle non-rectangular geometries. Therefore, it is critical that a modeling flow capable of handling such irregular devices is developed and smoothly integrated into the post-lithography delay and leakage circuit analysis process. Previously proposed methods either model an irregular transistor as two different rectangular devices, one for on and the other for off state analyses; or they are difficult to be implemented. In this paper, we propose a new modeling approach that serves as a fast and simple solution to this problem and overcomes these drawbacks. We found that by adjusting both gate length and width of the equivalent device, a single equivalent rectangular device can be determined. Through TCAD and SPICE simulation experiments, we demonstrate that our model can accurately capture both on and off currents of the modeled nonrectangular gate device. The average error of our modeling approach is 1.6% for Ion and 7.5% for Ioff.


This paper follows a line of research opened up by a series of authors who use a marketing approach for the study of retail service productivity. Without departing from the line of reasoning established by these authors, the main purpose of this paper is to detect possible differences in marketing productivity within and between different types of retailing services, using a research model that includes both the firm's effort and that of the customer. The two services selected for this purpose are grocery outlets and petrol stations.


This Research Topic addresses research in genomics and biotechnology to improve the growth and quality of forest trees for wood, pulp, biorefineries and carbon capture.
Forests are the world's greatest repository of terrestrial biomass and biodiversity. Forests serve critical ecological services, supporting the preservation of fauna and flora, and water resources. Planted forests also offer a renewable source of timber, for pulp and paper production, and the biorefinery. Despite their fundamental role for society, thousands of hectares of forests are lost annually due to deforestation, pests and pathogens and urban development. As a consequence, there is an increasing need to develop trees that are more productive under lower inputs, while understanding how they adapt to the environment and respond to biotic and abiotic stress.
Forest genomics and biotechnology, disciplines that study the genetic composition of trees and the methods required to modify them, began over a quarter of a century ago with the development of the first genetic maps and establishment of early methods of genetic transformation. Since then, genomics and biotechnology have impacted all research areas of forestry. Genome analyses of tree populations have uncovered genes involved in adaptation and response to biotic and abiotic stress. Genes that regulate growth and development have been identified, and in many cases their mechanisms of action have been described. Genetic transformation is now widely used to understand the roles of genes and to develop germplasm that is more suitable for commercial tree plantations. However, in contrast to many annual crops that have benefited from centuries of domestication and extensive genomic and biotechnology research, in forestry the field is still in its infancy. Thus, tremendous opportunities remain unexplored.
This Research Topic aims to briefly summarize recent findings, to discuss long-term goals and to think ahead about future developments and how this can be applied to improve growth and quality of forest trees. Mini-review articles are sought in forest genomics and biotechnology, with a focus on future directions applied to (1) genetic engineering, (2) adaptation, (3) genomics of conifers and hardwoods, (4) cell wall and wood formation, (5) development (6) metabolic engineering (7) biotic and abiotic resistance and (8) the biorefinery.


Understanding a species' feeding ecology is essential for successful management and conservation, because food abundance can influence body mass, survival, reproductive success, movements, and habitat use. We describe annual and seasonal variations in the diet of brown bears Ursus arctos in southcentral Sweden, based on analysis of 527 fecal samples from 1994–1996 and 2000–2001. There was distinct seasonal variation in most of the 26 food items we documented. Ungulates, predominantly moose Alces alces, and insects comprised most of the estimated dietary energy content in spring and summer. Insects were represented almost entirely by ants, of which Formica spp. and Camponotus herculeanus were the most common. During autumn, berries dominated the diet. The most important berry species were bilberry Vaccinium myrtillus, crowberry Empetrum hermaphoditum and lingonberry V. vitis-idaea. We determined berry availability by inventorying 308 random plots three times for two consecutive years. These three berries occurred with great spatial, seasonal and annual variation in abundance. The bears showed the strongest positive preference for bilberries, a lesser positive preference for crowberries, but no preference for lingonberries. The proportion of berries in the autmn diet was stable between years, but the relative importance of the species changed, indicating that bears switched to crowberries when bilberries were less abundant. The effects of predicted future climatic change might have severe effects on the availability of the berries, which is the only important food available for fat acquisition prior to hibernation.


Sensitivity of Resistivity Measurements on Concrete Bridge Decks to Operator-Controlled and Concrete Material Variables Natasha Christine Barrus Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering Master of Science The objectives of this research were to investigate the sensitivity of two-prong and fourprong resistivity measurements to certain operator-controlled variables and to conduct a direct comparison of the sensitivity of two-prong and four-prong resistivity measurements to certain concrete material variables. Four full-factorial experiments were designed for this research. In the experimentation on operator-controlled variables with two-prong resistivity testing, main effects that are both statistically significant and practically important include hole depth and surface water. In the experimentation on operator-controlled variables with four-prong resistivity testing, probe position, surface water, and prong spacing are all neither statistically significant nor practically important. This high degree of unexplained variation may be of concern to practitioners. In the experimentation on concrete material variables with two-prong and four-prong resistivity testing, main effects that are both statistically significant and practically important include chloride concentration and temperature, both of which exhibit inverse relationships with resistivity. These research findings support several important recommendations for resistivity testing. Operators of the two-prong resistivity device should use an accurately positioned drill stop to ensure that the prepared holes are consistently the correct depth, and they should expect to obtain different values depending on the presence of surface water on the deck surface. Operators considering use of the four-prong resistivity device should not expect the measurements to be sensitive to probe position with respect to rebar, presence of surface water, or prong spacing for conditions similar to those investigated in this research. Operators interested in monitoring resistivity values over time to ascertain material changes in a bridge deck should develop protocols for measuring concrete temperature in the field and subsequently normalizing resistivity measurements to a standard temperature.


This report was mainly concerned with investigating the private hire trade within the greater London area. A database of minicab private hire and taxi operators was set up using addresses taken from the yellow pages and thomson local directories for greater London. This was used as a basic list of private hire operators. The study was conducted in three stages: a) a street survey in 16 locations in greater London, where an exhaustive search was carried out to find how and where minicab operators advertised. This was to ascertain how comprehensive the intitial database was; b) a telephone survey to all identified minicab operators. This was designed to provide information on the size, distribution, and structure of the minicab trade. A census of all private hire operators was also attempted; and c) fifty five qualitative in depth interviews with respondents contacted in the telephone survey. This was designed to provide information on the size, distribution and structure of the minicab trade in more detail, and to investigate the types of minicab users and their journeys, and to relate minicabs to public transport. Details about operators relationship with other companies in the same business, and their attitudes to possible further regulation were also recorded.


How the banking business model in Latvia changes? What are the main forces determining these changes? What group of banks in the retail banking sector has had more intensive changes during the last three to five years? Are banks feeling competition from the FinTech companies and realising a more flexible and focused policy or are they continuing to believe on traditional banks' domination?This paper explores this process by analysing banking products and services in Latvia. How advancements in technology continue to transform the lives of banking customers? The study shows that digitalization guarantees the development of banks. Banks are looking at new avenues such as mobile application and mobile marketing to provide value-added services to customers and increase revenues by charging nominal fees for the services. Latvian banks are getting more flexible in customer services and banking products like crediting and financial resources transferring.We divided Latvian commercial banks into two significant groups: banks more specialized in international customers servicing and banks more specialized in domestic customers servicing. Financial indexes have been compared in conformity to these two groups. The CIR, ROA, ROE estimates point out the profitability and efficiency of commercial banks. LIQUIDITY shows that banks in Latvia have an adequate stock of unencumbered high-quality liquid assets that can be converted easily and immediately into cash.The profitability and efficiency indicators are more predictable and stable in banks servicing domestic customers. Banks servicing international customers specialize in focused retail, but banks servicing domestic customers provide a wider range of products and services. As a result, banks servicing domestic customers are more flexible.


In November 2013, the Jordan Food and Drug Administration, in partnership with the Center for Medicine in the Public Interest, held a seminar entitled, "Advancing the Safe Use of Drugs: Enhancing Regulatory Quality Control." Attendees included members of the JFDA leadership as well as representatives of Jordan's healthcare community (hospitals, pharmacists, pharmaceutical manufacturers, academics). The seminar began a strategic thinking process aimed at enhancing a regulatory environment that values pharmaceutical manufacturing quality, the importance of stakeholder involvement, the urgent role of pharmacovigilance, and greater harmonization with advanced regulatory practices.  The goal was to develop realistic recommendations that can be implemented within existing authorities and resources; that serve the Jordanian public health; and enhance the stature and reputation of the JFDA as a regional reference and a global leader.


Method and Madness The political, literary, and social history of Hungary at the turn of the century just past has been amply investigated in general works and in monographs. An example of a general study would be the Academy of Science's ponderous, multi-volume history; the segment dealing with the years 1890 to 1918, the final stages of the Dual Monarchy, alone takes up one thousand, four hundred pages.(1) Another study, hard to classify because, unlike most historical works, it is lucid, penetrating and eloquent at the same time, would be John Lukacs's quasi-bestseller, Budapest 1900.(2) An example of a pertinent monograph is Janos Mazsu's Social History of the Hungarian Intelligentsia in the Half Century Before World War I,(3) which I had the privilege of translating recently. It provides quantitative data on Hungarian society, well beyond that social conglomeration called the intelligentsia. In this monograph Mazsu argues that "historical works include many statements and stereotypes regarding the social background of the Hungarian intelligentsia that are based largely on the uncritical acceptance of characters in literature."(4) In other words, his research and statistical analysis is intended to correct the picture presented in literary works. I have reversed that process: in this essay I have used literary works to verify the validity of the statistics and the conclusions presented by Mazsu and in other historical works. What prompted Mazsu to write a corrective to the impressionistic portrait of Hungarian society found in novels and short stories? In Hungary, as in much of East-central Europe, literary works are taken seriously. I, for one, had obtained my picture of Hungarian society around the turn of the century from contemporary literature. If I may indulge in a bit of autobiography, one of the very first books my father -- a literary figure in his own right -- made me read, at age five or six, right after Sandor Petofi's Hary Janos and Janos Arany's Toldi (part 1), was Kalman Mikszgth's St. Peter's Umbrella.(5) The next book, if I remember correctly, was Ferenc Molnar's popular adventure story for children, The Paul Street Boys.(6) In other words, I (and many others, I am sure) was brought up on the same classics my father educated himself on, before he became part of the so-called "Nyugat generation," except that they had not yet attained the rank of classics at his time. What I propose to do, then, is to sketch, in a tentative manner, a vision of Hungarian society around the time of the "millennium" of 1896 (or 1900, if we prefer) that is not quantitative and statistical, yet perhaps more insightful and perceptive: society as seen through the eyes of the great writers of the pre-Nyugat generation, whose names may well be unfamiliar even to the most sophisticated American reader: Kalman Mikszath, Zoltdn Ambrus, Gyula Krudy, Sandor Brody, Ferenc Molnar, Jeno Heltai, Ferenc Herczeg, Geza Gardonyi, etc. -- all of whom were still writing, or already writing, around 1900. They are part of what John Lukacs calls, in deference to Spain's "generacion del noventa-y-ocho," the generation of 1900. Indeed, their works reveal the workings of society better than any historical or sociological monograph; after all, in the words of Vladimir Lenin, who understood the power of fiction as well as any sociologist of literature, a great writer is nothing less than a scientific observer, "a ruthless observer."(7) Or, for those of us who prefer our politics in a less activist mold, there is the straightforward language of the literary sociologist Lucien Goldmann: "Any important work ... has a scope and exercises an influence on the behavior of members of the group..."(8) The following comments are based on a somewhat random collection of masterpieces and lesser works, published anywhere between 1895 and 1967. Generally speaking, novels, stories, plays are conceived or experienced long before they get published. …


Electric reliability is an important concern for the utility companies. Weather related outages have a significant impact on it. There are many regression based models to estimate outages from weather factors in overhead distribution system. This paper proposes the use of committee machines composed of multiple neural networks to estimate outages. A major challenge for using a committee machine is to properly combine predictions from multiple networks, since the performance of individual networks is input dependent due to mapping misrepresentation. This paper presents a new method in which the individual network predictions are combined dynamically. The error minimization is performed using the mean field annealing theory. Results obtained for the study area in Kansas are compared with observed outages to evaluate the performance of the model for estimating these outages. The results are also compared with previously studied regression and neural network models to determine an appropriate model to represent effects of wind and lightning on outages.


The analysis, based on register data for Norwegian cohorts born 1950, 1955, and 1960, shows that the intergenerational earnings mobility is high. Using quantile regression, mobility is found to be lower at the lower end of the earnings distribution than at the upper end. The findings also indicate that mobility increases over time and that the increase seems to be somewhat higher for lower earnings. Finally, we find that the increase in earnings mobility over time has been larger for women than for men.


Megachurches are thriving in religious markets at a time when Americans are asserting their ability as consumers of religious products to engage in religious switching. The apparent success of megachurches, which often provide a low cost and low commitment path by which religious refugees may join the church, seems to challenge Iannocconne's theory that high commitment churches will thrive while low commitment churches will atrophy. This paper employs a signaling model to illustrate the strategy and organizational forms megachurches employ to indicate a match between what the church produces and the religious refugee wishes to consume in an effort to increase their membership. The model illustrates that megachurches expect little in regard to financial or time commitment of new attendees. However, once the attendees perceive a good fit with the church, the megachurch increases its expectation of commitment. Data from the FACT2000 survey provide evidence in support of the model's predictions.


In 2011, Programming and Computer Science standards were made available as part of NCEA in New Zealand high schools. Because little guidance and professional development was available initially, teachers have found it challenging to present the content effectively to their students. In response to this, several resources and professional development opportunities have been made available, including the widely used Computer Science Field Guide for Computer Science, and several programming resources specific to the new standards. In this paper we outline the deployment of the new standards and supporting material, and look at the uptake of the new standards over the first three years that they were phased in. This reveals increasing participation at schools, and higher enrolments at university as a flow-on effect. The introduction of Computer Science has also helped to address perception and stereotypes about the industry, with high achievement by female students, although participation rates are not ideal.


In modern democracies elections are considered the central mechanism for people to control their political representatives. Yet, an effective control requires both knowledge of incumbents' past per-formance and visibility of alternative party options in electoral contests. This paper evaluates how the media system contributes to these premises. By means of cross-national and multilevel analysis, we test whether well-balanced and critical media coverage mobilizes voters and levels out the impact of individual prerequisites for political participation. Our results indicate, first, that ideological-ly biased press systems lead to higher turnout and reduce the importance of personal resources and characteristics. Second, we find that the more often newspapers cover improper behavior by officials, the less likely voters are to cast a vote.


Lubricated pin-on-disk sliding wear tests were performed on applied to Al-0.1Mg-0.35Ni-Si Alloy by using the spray coating method has been investigated. Different loads were 5, 10, and 15 N at a sliding velocity, 1.32 m/s at room temperature and 60% relative humidity. The surfaces were analyzed by using X-ray diffraction the residual (XRD), energy dispersive (EDS), scanning of (SEM) and (AFM), respectively. The results have showed that the thickness of Cr2O3 coating was significantly related under the identical cold spray condition. These methods have contributed much of the understanding of quality and properties of surfaces. The (Cr2O3) coating has great potential as a wear-resistant. The hardness increased from 102 ± 5 HV to 116.4 ± 2.5 HV at coating thickness 45 μm and friction coefficient reduced from 0.29 to 0.24; and the wear rate was about 2.11X10-13 m3N-1m-1 while hardness was increased from 102 ± 5 HV to 108 ± 3.5 HV at coating thickness 15 μm. The friction reduced from 0.31 to 0.29 at same coating thickness alloys, and the wear rate was about 2.73X10-13 m3N-1m-1. The tribological properties of Cr2O3 coating have exhibited low friction and beneficial to improve the adhesion which was clear on worn surfaces of Cr2O3 coating. Crack, powder flocculation and powder formation are caused by the wear mode of the surface. Brittle fracture was found; while, adhesion and oxidation are the main mechanism of wear during the test.


Procedural and substantive constraints on the ability of ordinary people to access the civil justice system have become all too commonplace. The "justice gap" owes much to cuts in funding for legal aid and court administration, heightened pleading standards, ever-rising costs of discovery, increasingly restrictive views on standing to sue, and the co-opting of small claims court by businesses seeking to collect debts, among other obstacles in the path to the courthouse. But the most consequential impediment, surely, is the enforcement of mandatory arbitration clauses with class action bans, which bar consumers and employees from bringing or being represented in any form of collective litigation. This Article, written for a colloquium dedicated to the persistent problems of representation and access, explores the politics of regaining citizens' rights to aggregate litigation in the wake of the Supreme Court's broad endorsement of these class-ban provisions in AT&T Mobility LLC v. Concepcion. Given the political climate in Washington, D.C., it is a safe bet that federal legislation will not overrule Concepcion anytime soon. Meanwhile, state legislation constraining class-banning arbitration clauses faces the unremitting threat of FAA preemption. But scholars and access-to-justice advocates have begun to focus on a third avenue for overcoming claims— suppressing class action bans, referred to in this Article as "concerted state/private enforcement solutions." Concerted state/private enforcement can take several forms—whether it's state Attorneys General engaging private counsel to pursue parens patriae damages cases under the AG's direction, utilizing a qui tam model, or creating a regime where government enforcers obtain liability verdicts that private parties can use as conclusive proof in individual arbitrations. Each holds its own promises and poses its own challenges. But unlike head-on state legislation, the concerted state/private options are all viable as a legal matter. The question of political


Objective:
The purpose of this qualitative study was to obtain a better understanding of
nurse manager's recognition behavior. Methods: This study, consisting of
semi-structured interviews, was conducted in five hospitals with 100 beds or
more in the Kanto, Kansai, and Kyushu regions of Japan. Fifteen nurse managers,
who each had more than one year of professional work experience as a nurse
manager, participated in this study. Results: We extracted four categories and
fourteen subcategories as the factors related to the recognition behaviors in
nurse managers. The first category is the basis of the recognition behaviors, which
were divided into the following four subcategories: recognition behaviors that
they received, perception of recognition behaviors, construction of confidential
relationships with staff nurses, and the organizational climate. The second
category is the issues that make recognition behaviors difficult, which were
classified into the following three subcategories: multiple duties, number of
staff nurses, and characteristics of the recent staff nurses. The third
category is the factors regarding the staff nurses that must be considered,
which consist of the following two subcategories: the characteristics and
motivation of staff nurses and recognition behaviors that the staff nurses
expect. The forth category is the methods of the recognition behaviors, which
consist of the following five categories: watching over and consideration of
individuals, evaluation of routine work, development as a professional, opinion
sharing and delegating work, and promotion of work-life balance. Conclusions:
The recognition behavior by nurse managers is influenced by their own
experience, and nurse managers practice recognition behaviors in response to
the characteristics of their staff nurses in a busy
environment. Our results suggest that nurse managers need expertise in
management for them to identity appropriate recognition behavior.


The control of complex dynamic systems, both in their behavior and in their mission, goes through the implementation of multi-loop control architectures based on information about the system internal state and from the environment, as well as on the mission plan state. This results in systems that are becoming increasingly autonomous, for which requirements in terms of safety and reliability, as well as expected performance, are increasingly high. Research works developed at ONERA in the field of control for autonomous systems cover all levels of the control architectures, which are basically structured with respect to temporal aspects, as well as the level of abstraction that they entail for the system dynamic. We will consider them in this paper by increasing level. We will discuss the advances achieved recently in the robust control techniques of uncertain dynamic systems generally implemented at the lower control level and we will discuss their extensions to consider input and output constraints, as well as the hybrid nature of most of the systems considered. To design "task" level control primitives that take place just above the previous control loops, we will introduce sensor-based robust and non-linear control techniques. These are based on information on the environment extracted from exteroceptive sensors, to adapt system behavior to uncertainties and perturbations. Multi-sensor and/or multi-objective controls will be discussed in this particular context. We will also present several recent results in the field of trajectory tracking based on visual navigation techniques in complex environments, which combine objectives and constraints within the same control architecture. We will discuss how model predictive control (MPC) techniques and advanced optimization techniques can be used for solving the resulting control problems. In addition, we will discuss several ongoing developments of these methods by exploiting distributed model predictive control techniques (DMPC) and predictive control of hybrid systems. Finally, integration with the control architectures at the upper level of reactive, predictive and distributed planning capabilities will be proposed to accommodate time constraints and uncertainties in decision.


Nucleotide sugars are the key precursors for all glycosylation reactions and are required both for oligo- and polysaccharides synthesis and protein and lipid glycosylation. Among all nucleotide sugars, UDP-sugars are the most important precursors for biomass production in nature (e.g., synthesis of cellulose, hemicellulose, and pectins for cell wall production). Several recent studies have already suggested a potential role for UDP-Glc in plant growth and development, and UDP-Glc has also been suggested as a signaling molecule, in addition to its precursor function. In this review, we will cover primary mechanisms of formation of UDP-sugars, by focusing on UDP-sugar metabolizing pyrophosphorylases. The pyrophosphorylases can be divided into three families: UDP-Glc pyrophosphorylase (UGPase), UDP-sugar pyrophosphorylase (USPase), and UDP-N-acetyl glucosamine pyrophosphorylase (UAGPase), which can be distinguished both by their amino acid sequences and by differences in substrate specificity. Substrate specificities of these enzymes are discussed, along with structure-function relationships, based on their crystal structures and homology modeling. Earlier studies with transgenic plants have revealed that each of the pyrophosphorylases is essential for plant survival, and their loss or a decrease in activity results in reproductive impairment. This constitutes a problem when studying exact in vivo roles of the enzymes using classical reverse genetics approaches. Thus, strategies involving the use of specific inhibitors (reverse chemical genetics) are also discussed. Further characterization of the properties/roles of pyrophosphorylases should address fundamental questions dealing with mechanisms and control of carbohydrate synthesis and may allow to identify targets for manipulation of biomass production in plants.


The eXtensible Markup Language (XML) is regarded generally as having promise of becoming established as the general purpose framework for enabling transfer of data amongst heterogeneous environments. It is of interest therefore to analyse how suitable it may be once details of applications requirements and constraints are taken into account. One important requirement is for the security of documents in transit. Closely associated with XML is the eXtensible Stylesheet Language (XSL), whose document transformation component (XSLT) may well have sufficient functionality to perform all reasonable cryptographic transformations to deliver a desired level of document security. We examine this question by describing a real world XML application whose security requirements are more complex than for a simple document transfer between just two parties; proposing a document transfer architecture into which XSLT can be plugged-in; and identifying those features of XSLT which must be applied to meet the application requirements. We conclude that XSLT is only just adequate in the proposed scenario; and then only by making use of its " extension functions " capability.


Industrial diversification is considered crucial for economies to prosper. Recent studies have shown that regional economies tend to diversify into sectors that are related to those already present in the region. However, no study yet has investigated the impact of regional institutions. The objective of the paper is to bring together the literatures on related diversification and institutions by analyzing how formal and informal institutions influence regional diversification. Analyzing 118 European regions in the period 2004 and 2012, we find evidence that institutions matter for regions to diversify into new industries. Bridging social capital is a key driver of regional diversification, in addition to relatedness, in contrast to quality of government in regions. Bonding social capital has a negative impact in regions with a low quality of government. This suggests that regional institutions relevant for structural change in regions are predominantly informal in character rather than formal, and bridging rather than bonding.