Solid coatings for lubrication of mechanisms operating in space are widely used because of the rather severe operating conditions. These include the presence of an ultrahigh vacuum, a wide operating temperature range, an absent of gravity, a lack of oxygen, and ionising radiation. Currently, sputtered molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) is an established solid lubricant for space applications. However, diamond-like carbon coatings have been increasingly studied as potential candidates for preparation of wear resistant materials with low friction in vacuum conditions.
This thesis describes in-vacuum investigations made on a variety of formulations of diamond-like carbon (DLC) coatings for their suitability as a lubricant for application in mechanisms operating in space conditions. Specifically, high-hydrogenated siliconcontaining DLC coatings (a-CHSi or Si-DLC) were assessed. These coatings were produced by plasma-assisted chemical-vapour deposition (PACVD) by the supplier VITO, a Belgian research institute. Testing of the coatings was performed in a pin-on-disc machine at the European Space Tribology Laboratory (ESTL). The test conditions were a high vacuum (air pressure below 5 x 106 mbar) under a load of 5 Newton and at rotational speeds of 10rpm (0.01ms') and 200rpm (0.2 ms'). Tribological results arising from the tests showed that some of these coatings offer promising characteristics (low and stable friction coefficients, low wear rates and long life) for application in space mechanisms.
Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) technology was applied for post-test inspection of the specimens, and the effect that the deposition factors (precursor, bias voltage and hydrogen content) had on the resulting tribological characteristics was discussed.


The demise of Spanish colonialism in Central Africa has to be understood as part of the general process of African decolonization. In accepting the methodological framework proposed by some historians for studying the collapse of European domination in the continent, we can explain the independence of Equatorial Guinea, in 1968, as a result of the interaction between three different factors: international, metropolitan and colonial. This article delineates the decolonization of the only Spanish colony south of the Sahara, its main argument being that, in the case of Equatorial Guinea, the international factor – specifically, the role of the United Nations – is fundamental to the understanding of the timing, the actors' strategies and the results.


Standing supports for children with disabilities are widely used although the evidence of the benefits is limited. This paper describes the results of a questionnaire that was sent out to a purposive sample of seventy physiotherapists, designed to find out about current practice of the use of standing supports. The response rate was 80%. The most commonly prescribed standing support provided prone and upright postures. The results showed conflicting assessment criteria for the use of a prone standing position. All of the therapists agreed that the choice of standing support was based on an assessment but the criteria varied. The mean age to start using a standing support was 13.2 months (range 6-48 months). The reasons for using a standing support and what is hoped to be achieved were agreed by over 80% of the therapists i.e. increased bone mineral density, reduction of contractures, maintenance of muscle length, experience of 'normal' standing position, for social reasons, for physiological benefits and for development of the hip joint. However muscle strength was a priority for only 64% of physiotherapists when using this equipment. 55% of physiotherapists believed that current standing supports meets the needs of the user and 30% did not. The results indicated a need for more evidence to support the use of standing supports and guidelines for their provision and use.


We present an approach that uses a multi-camera system to train fine-grained detectors for keypoints that are prone to occlusion, such as the joints of a hand. We call this procedure multiview bootstrapping: first, an initial keypoint detector is used to produce noisy labels in multiple views of the hand. The noisy detections are then triangulated in 3D using multiview geometry or marked as outliers. Finally, the reprojected triangulations are used as new labeled training data to improve the detector. We repeat this process, generating more labeled data in each iteration. We derive a result analytically relating the minimum number of views to achieve target true and false positive rates for a given detector. The method is used to train a hand keypoint detector for single images. The resulting keypoint detector runs in realtime on RGB images and has accuracy comparable to methods that use depth sensors. The single view detector, triangulated over multiple views, enables 3D markerless hand motion capture with complex object interactions.


Whether artificial reefs installed in estuarine/marine waters function to produce more fish (enhancement) or simply to attract existing fish (attraction) is still under debate. Despite little resolution over this issue, artificial reefs are often considered for use as compensatory mitigation for damaged marine resources. We estimate the quantitative enhancement of fish production under 4 plausible scenarios: attraction, enhancement, enhancement with fishing, and attraction with fishing. Our intent is not to resolve the attraction-enhancement debate, but to quantify the uncertainty associ- ated with using artificial reefs as compensatory mitigation. Pertinent parameters for production calcu- lations (fish density by size class, length-frequency distributions, diets, behaviors, age-specific growth and mortality rates) were obtained from syntheses of findings from artificial reef studies conducted in coastal waters of the southeastern USA and from species life-history profiles. Year-round reef inhabitants were separated into 2 groups: those whose recruitment appears to be limited by available reef habitat (only 2 taxa) and those not augmented in recruitment but potentially enhanced in realized production by provision of refuges and reef-associated prey (15 taxa). Estimates of enhanced produc- tion in this latter group were discounted by an index of reef exclusivity in diet to give production credit in proportion to consumption of reef-associated prey. Estimates of annual production enhancement per 10 m 2 of artificial reef ranged from 0 kg under the attraction scenario to 6.45 kg wet weight under the assumption of enhancement plus protection from fishing. Application of fishing reduced the enhance- ment estimate by 32% to 4.44 kg 10 m -2 yr -1 . A 4th scenario of attraction with fishing may yield a net decline in production of a similar magnitude. In contrast to many natural structural habitats (seagrass meadows, oyster reefs, salt marshes, mangroves) that have dramatically decreased over past decades and are clearly important nursery grounds, evidence is weak that habitat provided by artificial reefs on the shallow continental shelf of the southeastern USA is currently limiting to fish production. Until con- vincing empirical evidence appears, high scientific uncertainty limits confidence in using artificial reefs as compensatory mitigation. Furthermore, even if augmented production were achieved, managing fishing impacts would be critical to achieving the expected production benefit.


Cloud computing technology is growing broadly day by day, using of cloud computing in precision agriculture is more helpful in development of India. In this modern era everything is getting centralized, it is the finest chance to utilize the data report of precision agriculture in centralized manner. Farmer have to do lots of toiling regarding Agriculture problems, and if they manage to collect the soil related data ultimately, they don't know what to do and how to do. This problem solved by Cloud Computing and IoT, with the help of Cloud Computing the farmer can send the soil related data which is related to the precision agriculture to the expert agriculture department. Different types of sensors like Moisture sensor, PIR sensor, Gas sensor, Humidity sensor, Fire sensor, UV sensor and Ph sensor makes the system more advanced and effective. We are using Node MCU ESP8266 to make cost efficient and power efficient model. Generally, Node MCU consumes less power than Arduino and Raspberry pi and equally it cost lesser than Arduino and Raspberry pi. The whole Framework is designed in such manner that the connection between the hardware as well as software works more efficiently and fluently and also this centralized framework is cost efficient. The combination of Cloud and IoT provide security also to the data and information. The big issue of security is also covered by this system. KeywordsCloud computing, IoT, IaaS, PaaS, SaaS, Irrigation, Sensors.


GENERALLY, AMERICANS like to keep their soldiers out of civilian business. Fearing the potential oppression of a standing army, in 1787 the Nation's founding fathers sought to constrain it in the Constitution. That attitude still resonates with many Americans today.1 They might occasionally vote former generals into public office, but the idea of an active duty officer forcibly inserting himself into civil affairs is abhorrent. Even in times of domestic calamity the U.S. Army has been expected to maintain a relative distance: It could intervene, but only after a request from civil authorities, and its efforts were to be secondary to those launched by civil authorities. In short, the Army was to subordinate itself unequivocally to civilian leadership. The 2005 hurricane season might have changed some of that thinking. The response to Hurricane Katrina caused President George W. Bush to wonder aloud about expanding the Army's role in domestic emergencies. But if that role is expanded, how might a still-skeptical public react? How should the Army comport itself to allay suspicion about its motives? For a few answers, we might consider Canada's Armed Forces. The Canadian military also responds to civil emergencies when asked-and sometimes when not asked. It, too, usually takes direction from civilian authorities. However, although the upper levels of the Canadian Government appear concerned about the military getting out of hand, the public is not.2 A brief review of responses by Canadian Forces (CF) to domestic problems suggests why. Accidents, Disasters, and Catastrophes The history of CF domestic intervention indicates that in an emergency Canada's military can look after its own needs as well as provide well-equipped, well-organized personnel to respond to accidents, disasters, or catastrophes. As a rule, accidents occur at a single location and end quickly; there is no continuing threat. An accident could be a train wreck, a building collapse, or a plane crash, and its cause could be anything from mechanical failure to human error. Accidents are at the low end of the crisis scale. By contrast, a disaster spreads destruction, injury, and death over a wide area. Roads could be blocked and communications disrupted or overloaded. At the high end of the scale are catastrophes, which are so destructive they damage one or more communities' abilities to respond. Injuries and deaths number in the thousands; destruction is horrific; the response effort must be massive. Canadian Forces have responded to all three kinds of crisis. They responded to * The 1985 Gander air crash, an accident in which 256 people, 248 of them from the 101 st Airborne (Air Assault) Division, were killed. * The 1998 ice storm in Eastern Canada that knocked out power to 15 percent of Canadian homes and forced scores of communities to declare states of emergency. * The 1917 Halifax catastrophe where an ammunition ship exploded, setting Halifax on fire, killing 1,963 people, and injuring 9,000 more. The response to the Gander air crash involved providing aid to another Federal department. The response to the ice storm came after a formal request for military assistance. The response in Halifax occurred because military personnel were among the victims. Gander air crash. When a U.S. charter aircraft carrying 101st Airborne troops crashed at Gander, Newfoundland, on 12 December 1985, Canadian Forces Base (CFB) Gander became involved immediately.3 Base personnel were part of the routine emergency response plan at the airport and were therefore ready to go. The airport was run by Transport Canada, a Federal Government department, and the crash occurred on government property. CFB Gander's base commander joined others at the secure command post at Gander airport and made personnel available to assist as required. His presence was expected. During an airport emergency, he was always notified, and he always responded. …


This paper presents a numerical and experimental study on the mechanical behavior of plasma shocked rock. The dynamic tensile behavior of plasma shock treated Balmoral Red granite was studied under dynamic loading using the Brazilian disc test and the Split Hopkinson Pressure Bar device. Different heat shocks were produced on the Brazilian disc samples by moving the plasma gun over the sample at different speeds. Microscopy clearly showed that as the duration of the thermal shock increases, the number of the surface cracks and their complexity increases (quantified here as the fractal dimension of the crack patterns) and the area of the damaged surface grows larger as well. At the highest thermal shock duration of 0.80 seconds the tensile strength of the Brazilian disc sample drops by approximately 20%. In the numerical simulations of the dynamic Brazilian disc test, this decrease in tensile strength was reproduced by modeling the plasma shock induced damage using the embedded discontinuity finite element method. The damage caused by the plasma shock was modeled by two methods, namely by pre-embedded discontinuity populations with zero strength and by assuming that the rock strength is lowered and conform to the Weibull distribution. This paper presents a quantitative assessment of the effects of the heat shock, the surface microstructure and mechanical behavior of the studied rock, and a promising numerical model to account for the pre-existing crack distributions in a rock material.


You described the past decade as "freaky," as all countries grew. Can you place the progress of the BRIG countries into global perspective? In the last decade, what we saw was that virtually every single emerging market did well. It was captured in the peak year, 2007, when only three countries recorded a negative GDP growth rate: Fiji, Zimbabwe, and Congo. That was really the peak of the emerging market boom of the past decade. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] What caused this exceptional decade was a combination of many factors. The 1990s was a very poor period for emerging markets so there was scope for catch-up. Many emerging markets experienced crises during the 1990s--East Asia, Russia, Mexico--which is why the growth rates of emerging markets in the 1990s were rather low, at only 3 percent or so. The other reason was that from 2003 onward a liquidity rush started from the United States. We've spoken about how the liquidity led to a housing bubble in the United States and in Europe, but not enough analysis has been given to how the very low cost of capital and high liquidity also led to these exceptionally strong growth rates in emerging markets. The average growth rate of emerging markets from 2003 onwards jumped to more than 7 percent. These were the exceptional circumstances, but what we are seeing now especially in the last couple of years is that the growth rates of many of these emerging markets are falling back. Brazil has not been able to grow faster than 3 percent. Russia is back to growing at 3 percent. India's growth rate has slipped back to about 6 percent from being at 8 percent. As liquidity becomes tighter in the global market place and people become more risk averse, we are seeing that growth rates of many emerging markets are falling back. And we're going back to the old pattern, which is that there is much greater distinction [between countries]. Just because you're an emerging market doesn't mean that you're destined to grow much faster than the developed world. My entire theme of the book is about differentiation; that you've got to treat emerging markets individually. This term is still too loosely applied. You have argued that Indonesia approaches economic policy differently--that there is a rare caution in Indonesia, which distinguishes it from other emerging markets. Based on my travels to Indonesia and elsewhere, Indonesia seems to have used the commodity windfall better compared to the likes of Brazil and Russia. And one big factor is that the investment of the share of GDP in Indonesia has been steadily rising over the last 10 to 15 years--standing now at about 32 percent of the economy. That to me is a fairly positive factor compared to Russia and Brazil, who have not utilized the commodity boom well, and the investment of the share of GDP remains very low at barely 20 percent or so. Also, some of the banks in Indonesia still remember the '97-'98 crises, which keeps them from doing something that is too out of control. If you look at the credit growth in Brazil, over the last five years it has been rapid; this is causing problems in the banking sector with some of the auto loans going sour and some of the credit quality metrics deteriorating quite significantly. But in the case of Indonesia we've seen that banks have been a bit more cautious. So do you think Indonesia should not be focusing on increasing commodity exports? Is it really domestic investment that is putting it at an advantage? Yes that is my view. Indonesia should be looking to increase its exports because exports as a share of GDP is relatively low. Indonesia has to assume that the benefits over the past decade from high commodity prices are over. That's what Indonesia needs to be careful about. The other breakout nations that you mentioned are South Korea, Poland, and the Philippines. What similarities do you see between these countries and Indonesia? …


Decades of research has suggested that women are much more religious than men. Yet our survey of 107 women and 362 men who are alumni of the White House Fellows program finds that elite women are less likely than elite men to report religion as being important to their lives. When focusing on the fellows who are women, we find that obtaining a graduate degree from a top university, being highly committed to one's work, and being recognized for success are all associated with a lower likelihood of rating religion as important. We elucidate some of these findings with analyses of indepth interviews. We suggest that aspiring women may not benefit from religion the same way men do and that religion often fails to provide similar levels of support for elite women as for elite men. We conclude by arguing for finer-grained measures of professional accomplishment and social standing to better understand gender differences in religion.


T cells are essential mediators of the adaptive immune system, which constantly patrol the body in search for invading pathogens. During an infection, T cells that recognise the pathogen are recruited, expand and differentiate into subtypes tailored to the infection. In addition, they differentiate into subsets required for short and long-term control of the pathogen, i.e., effector or memory. T cells have a remarkable degree of plasticity and heterogeneity in their response, however, their overall response to a given infection is consistent and robust. Much research has focused on how individual T cells are activated and programmed. However, in order to achieve a critical level of population-wide reproducibility and robustness, neighbouring cells and surrounding tissues have to provide or amplify relevant signals to tune the overall response accordingly. The characteristics of the immune response—stochastic on the individual cell level, robust on the global level—necessitate coordinated responses on a system-wide level, which facilitates the control of pathogens, while maintaining self-tolerance. This global coordination can only be achieved by constant cellular communication between responding cells, and faults in this intercellular crosstalk can potentially lead to immunopathology or autoimmunity. In this review, we will discuss how T cells mount a global, collective response, by describing the modes of T cell-T cell (T-T) communication they use and highlighting their physiological relevance in programming and controlling the T cell response.


This work develops change-point methods for statistics of high-frequency data. The main interest is the volatility of an ItE†o semi-martingale, which is discretely observed over a fixed time horizon. We construct a minimax-optimal test to discriminate different smoothness classes of the underlying stochastic volatility process. In a high-frequency framework we prove weak convergence of the test statistic under the hypothesis to an extreme value distribution. As a key example, under extremely mild smoothness assumptions on the stochastic volatility we thereby derive a consistent test for volatility jumps. A simulation study demonstrates the practical value in finite-sample applications.


Patent examiners are under increasing pressure to quickly and accurately evaluate incoming patent applications within large databases. For each incoming patent application, they first extract a subset of possibly relevant patents through keyword-based search queries. These results are summarized in long lists, which provide only minimal information on each patent. To immediately determine whether a patent is possibly relevant or not, each patent needs closer examination by opening it and scanning through its content, including drawings. For large result lists, this is a time consuming and strenuous job in the current user interface. In this work, we explore the applicability of novel information visualization techniques and the use of touch-based interactions. Our findings are included in the prototype application TouchPat, a touch-based zoomable user interface for exploring large patent collections. TouchPat provides an overview of a patent collection up to 1000 patents, and allows examiners to use multi-touch interactions to explore and process it. To summarize the information, each patent is visualized with a symbolic thumbnail representation. We use semantic zooming to adapt the amount of meta information for each zooming level and make optimal use of the available space. This thesis describes the design and development approach of the TouchPat prototype application, the individual visualization and interaction techniques used and its evaluation with the patent experts. TouchPat is well received with patent experts, and its user interface experience encourages further improvement in the speed and accuracy of the patent examination process.


Conspiracy Thinking and the Culture of Fear During the Twelve Year's Truce: The Character Assassination of Johan van Oldenbarnevelt (1617-1619)

 A remarkable public attack was launched against John of Oldenbarnevelt during the Dutch Truce Conflicts of 1609-1619, which culminated in his execution in May 1619. This article analyses the genesis and effectiveness of this early modern 'character assassination' of a leader of state. It argues that this attack derived its power from a carefully nourished, international, protestant culture of fear, in which the preservation of the Dutch Republic was deemed essential to the survival of protestantism as a whole. Two interconnected elements of this culture of fear played into the hands of Oldenbarnevelt's opponents: the steady stream of international news to the Dutch Republic due to its new infrastructure of news, and the dominant conspiratorial mindset amongst the elite and the wider public alike.


Riboswitch Revealed Short regulatory regions—riboswitches—are found in the messenger RNAs of many bacteria, plants, and fungi. They bind to small-molecule metabolites and, through switching between alternate RNA secondary structures, regulate the expression of the linked RNA. Lee et al. (p. 845) have identified a c-di-GMP (cyclic di-guanosyl-5′-monophosphate)–binding riboswitch in the bacterium Clostridium difficile that regulates the splicing of a group I self-splicing ribozyme. Binding of c-di-GMP to the riboswitch favors a conformation of the ribozyme that promotes splicing in the presence of guanosine triphosphate (as is typical for this class of ribozymes). Concomitantly, splicing promotes the formation of a ribosome binding site, thereby stimulating protein production from the downstream pathogenesis-related gene. This regulatory region may thus constitute a two-input gene-control system that reads the concentration of both GTP and c-di-GMP. Thus, not all group I self-splicing ribozymes represent selfish genetic elements. A metabolite-sensing riboswitch regulates the splicing of a "selfish" group I self-splicing ribozyme. Group I self-splicing ribozymes commonly function as components of selfish mobile genetic elements. We identified an allosteric group I ribozyme, wherein self-splicing is regulated by a distinct riboswitch class that senses the bacterial second messenger c-di-GMP. The tandem RNA sensory system resides in the 5′ untranslated region of the messenger RNA for a putative virulence gene in the pathogenic bacterium Clostridium difficile. c-di-GMP binding by the riboswitch induces folding changes at atypical splice site junctions to modulate alternative RNA processing. Our findings indicate that some self-splicing ribozymes are not selfish elements but are harnessed by cells as metabolite sensors and genetic regulators.


Life at the Permian-Triassic boundary (ca. 251 Ma) underwent the largest disruption in Earth's history. Paleoclimatic data indicate that Earth was significantly warmer than present and that much of the ocean was anoxic or euxinic for an extended period of time. We present results from the first fully coupled comprehensive climate model using paleo- geography for this time period. The coupled climate system model simulates warm high- latitude surface air temperatures related to elevated carbon dioxide levels and a stagnate global ocean circulation in concert with paleodata indicating low oxygen levels at ocean depth. This is the first climate simulation that captures these observed features of this time period.


Is Bethany Baptist Academy God's choice? Ask the fundamentalist Christians who teach there or whose children attend the academy, and their answer will be a yes as unequivocal as their claim that the Bible is God's inerrant, absolute word. Is this truth or arrogance? In "God's Choice," Alan Peshkin offers readers the opportunity to consider this question in depth. Given the outsider's rare chance to observe such a school firsthand, Peshkin spent eighteen months studying Bethany's high school-interviewing students, parents, and educators, living in the home of Bethany Baptist Church members, and participating fully in the church's activities. From this intimate research he has fashioned a rich account of Christian schooling and an informed analysis of a clear alternative to public education.


Developing an effective and a integrity-centered management education system represents a priority. In fact, in an era of relentless change and increasing complexity, the importance of creating a fruitful context for the development of managerial education is increasingly being interpreted as crucial. Our contribution aims at analyzing the main trends and features that characterize the Italian management education system, interpreting them in the light of the prevailing theoretical dimensions debated in the international community and related to the concept of integrity and ethic.In our contribution, firstly, we go back to the concept of managerial work in order to grasp its relationship with management education: our analysis stems from the consideration that analysis of the content of the managerial tasks and its relationship with management education are, undoubtedly, one of the most interesting and debated issues in the organization studies literature.The second main section is focused on the analysis of the concept of management education practices between traditional and critical studies: by this way, we try to provide a wide perspective on the richness and heterogeneity of theoretical contributions that study the concept of management education.Finally, we sketch out the Italian situation, identifying the main peculiarities of management education initiatives. It emerges an interesting and articulated landscape where different typologies of initiatives cohabit , adopting different perspectives (ranging from international and global to extremely country-specific). We conclude underlying the risk that also in Italy we face to a sort of com-modification of knowledge. In fact, there is an attempt made by firms to acquire some sort of control over the system of professional knowledge, transforming knowledge into a specialist commodity characterized by a defined price.


As corporations reach into the far corners of the
world, they can not only spread prosperity but also
awareness of, and respect for, core international
human rights norms.
In this scholarly monograph, Dr. Chambers identifies
the gaps in traditional approaches (which rely on
popular organisational change management or formal
regulatory frameworks), identifies how and why these
can ultimately fail, and explores how multinational
corporations can play a key role in human rights
education and implementation.
In a case study of a single corporation operating in
South East Asia, she examines current practices, with
all their complexities and challenges, and finds
among them the key roles and processes for a new
implementation model, one that will be invaluable for
any commercial organisation seeking to enhance human
rights in its field of influence.
An interdisciplinary approach and in-depth empirical
research makes this study both highly readable and a
rich resource for all those interested in human
rights education and corporate responsibility,
whether from a management, academic or practical
perspective.


Human, Organisation and Technology (HOT) are all important components of IS. However,
organisations look to technology as the main tool of change that can help them achieve their goals.
This change usually concerns the needs of the organisation, and not the needs of its human
resources, despite it being the latter that is the principal actor that any organisation depends upon to
achieve its goals. The aim of this research is to develop an IT tool that itself can satisfy the
workforce humanistic needs.
In order to develop this IT tool, a theoretical investigation and practical experimentations were
conducted in a series of case studies involving government organisations in Qatar. Based on the
theoretical investigation, an approach was proposed based on Socio-Technical Theory (STT),
supported by learning from the ETHICS application of STT concepts and Client-Led Information
systems Creation (CLIC) application of Soft System Methodology (SSM) principles. This approach
was used to guide the development of the IT tool which was then used in actual organisational work
environments to assess its impact on the Qatari workforce's motivation and capabilities.
Empirical results from this research show that an IT itself cannot be used to improve workforce
motivation and capabilities in the case of Qatar. However, IT can do this by supporting a work
environment enabled by necessary managerial practises and work environment requirements. Based
on the proposed approach, this requires firstly, an understanding of the needs of the social
subsystem of the organisation to improve workforce motivation and capability; then these needs
should be developed into functions that are enabled by the work environment and supported by the
IT tool. Lastly, the new IT tool needs to be integrated into the existing technical subsystem of the
organisation.
These findings have both theoretical and practical implications. They contribute to a better
understanding of the role of IT in improving the workforce's motivation and capabilities. They
extend the application of STT principles in the area of developing human-focused IS by finding an
alternative to the participatory approach via learning from SSM principles. They also provide
specific understanding of how to develop an IT tool as well as what the work environment needs to
provide to enable the application of the IT tool, to improve workforce motivation and capabilities.
This PhD research also has social implications for the way IT is utilised in organisations. It can
affect areas of IS utilisation and workforce well-being, as well as the role of leadership in
maximising the value of IS from a human-focused perspective and the area of utilising IT in a
virtual team to consider their humanistic needs.


Food safety requires the development of reliable techniques that ensure the origin of animal fats. In the present work, we try to verify the efficacy of using the polymorphic features of fats for discriminating animal-fat origins. We use Raman spectroscopy to collect the structural information of fat crystals. It is shown that a single Raman band at 1417 cm−1 successfully differentiates pork fats from beef fats. This band is known to be characteristic of the β'-polymorph of fats. Pork fats show this band because they contain the β'-polymorph after rapid cooling to 0 °C. In beef–pork-fat mixtures, this band is not detected even in the presence of 50% pork fat; an addition of beef fat to pork fat is likely to produce a mixed fat with a completely different polymorphic behavior. This method seems to have the potential to detect beef products contaminated with pork-adipose tissue.


This thesis examines the physical effects of human emotion and the mind through selected texts written by the Shelley circle, including P. B. Shelley, Mary Shelley, and Lord Byron. Emotion is a significant variable that dominates human existence. For this reason, the concept of emotion continues to intrigue numerous scientists working today in the fields of neuroscience, psychology, biology, and even robotics. With the rise of neuroscientific or cognitive approaches, the materiality of the mind has also been increasingly discussed in literary studies. Critics, including Alan Richardson, Noel Jackson, and Richard Holmes, revisit the mind and English Romanticism drawing on various scientific perspectives. Other critics, such as Adela Pinch, Thomas Pfau, and Richard C. Sha, have also reflected on emotional studies and Romanticism. Finding affinities with this kind of approach, recently defined as 'cognitive historicism', my thesis explores the legacy of eighteenth-century mental philosophy and science in the Shelley circle, 1812-1821. I argue that the Shelley circle's scientific understanding of the mind and emotion is influenced by the materialism, empiricism, and aesthetics prevalent in the eighteenth century, which come into their own in the Romantic period to prefigure our current scientific understanding of emotion.
Chapter One surveys the Shelley circle's preoccupation with emotion and science and how this is manifest, to varying degrees, in a wide range of critical responses to Frankenstein and writings of other members of the group during this period. During the course of this critical survey I develop the concept of the 'materiality of emotion', which is used in subsequent chapters to re-examine the Shelley circle's scientific philosophy and how it is represented in literary texts written by the group. Chapter Two argues that Shelley develops his views of the mind through his atheistic and materialist reasoning. This materialist thinking of the mind in Queen Mab exerts a seminal influence on how the Shelley circle thought about the workings of human emotion. Chapter Three focuses on Mary Shelley and contemporary eighteenth- and nineteenth-century scientific debates to suggest that the representation of the mechanism of the body in Frankenstein points to the intricate relations between the mechanisms of the mind and emotion and offers a means to heal the schism between French materialism and vitalism. Chapter Four investigates the depiction of emotional effects on the mind in Byron's Manfred and Shelley's Alastor. Both poets draw on scientific reasoning and imagination to come to terms with grief, the failure of love, and the loss of ideals. Chapter Five claims that Shelley's Frankenstein meditates on the effects of physiological elements of the beautiful and the ugly, as well as emotional responses to the sublime science. My final chapter draws on cultural history and gender theory to interpret Byron's Don Juan (Canto One) and Shelley's Epipsychidion in an attempt to reaffirm the beautiful and the sublime in their materialist concept of love or sexuality.


Hawkes processes are powerful tools for modeling the mutual-excitation phenomena commonly observed in event data from a variety of domains, such as social networks, quantitative finance and healthcare records. The intensity function of a Hawkes process is typically assumed to be linear in the sum of triggering kernels, rendering it inadequate to capture nonlinear effects present in real-world data. To address this shortcoming, we propose an Isotonic-Hawkes process whose intensity function is modulated by an additional nonlinear link function. We also developed a novel iterative algorithm which learns both the nonlinear link function and other parameters provably. We showed that Isotonic-Hawkes processes can fit a variety of nonlinear patterns which cannot be captured by conventional Hawkes processes, and achieve superior empirical performance in real world applications.


Gillnet fishing makes up a substantial part of the inland fisheries in Cambodia, which are important to food security and to the national economy. The Tonle Sap ecosystem is one of the most productive in the world. Although little studied, its productivity is generally attributed to the pulsed flooding and the specific vegetation of the huge floodplain. Major habitat types are identified in the floodplain of the Tonle Sap based on macrophyte vegetation and flooding characteristics. These habitats are described in limnological terms and seasonal variation in water quality. This results in the definition of ecologically significant phases of flooding. Their impact on fishes and productivity of the lake are analysed. The second part describes the fisheries of the Tonle Sap ecosystem and their management. Gillnet fishing in the different habitats of the ecosystem is studied and catches and productivity are compared. Data on biology and ecology of eight fishes of economic importance are presented. The final part describes the aquaculture of the Tonle Sap ecosystem.


A beacon of creativity with boundless energy, Chase Jarvis is well known as a visionary photographer, director, and social artist. In The Best Camera Is The One Thats With You, Chase reimagines, examines, and redefines the intersection of art and popular culture through images shot with his iPhone.The pictures in the book, all taken with Chases iPhone, make up a visual notebooka photographic journalfrom the past year of his life. The book is full of visually-rich iPhone photos and peppered with inspiring anecdotes.Two megapixels at a time, these images have been gathered and bound into a book that represents a stake in the ground. With it, Chase underscores the idea that an image can come from any camera, even a mobile phone. As Chase writes, Inherently, we all know that an image isnt measured by its resolution, dynamic range, or anything technical. Its measured by the simplesometimes profound, other times absurd or humorous or whimsicaleffect that it can have upon us. If you can see it, it can move you.This book is geared to inspire everyone, regardless of their level of photography knowledge, that you can capture moments and share them with our friends, families, loved ones, or the world at the press of a button.Readers of The Best Camera Is The One Thats With You will also enjoy the iPhone application Chase Jarvis created in conjunction with this book, appropriately named Best Camera. Best Camera has a unique set of filters and effects that can be applied at the touch of a button. Stack them. Mix them. Remix them. Best Camera also allows you to share directly to a host of social marketing sites via www.thebestcamera.com, a new online community that allows you to contribution to a living, breathing gallery of the best iPhone photography from around the globe.Together, the book, app, and website, represent a first-of-its-kind ecosystem dedicated to encouraging creativity through picture taking with the camera that you already have. The Best Camera Is The One Thats With Youshoot!


The risks of alternating current (AC) corrosion and overprotection increasingly demand new criteria for cathodically protected pipelines. To assess the risk of AC corrosion, new cathodic protection (CP) criteria have been proposed based on DC/AC current densities measurements using coupons. The monitoring system designed for this project was based on the instant-off method, with steel coupons simulating coating defects on a buried pipeline. The problems associated with the instantaneous off-potential measurements have been attributed to a non-sufficient time resolution. In present study, it has been possible to determine the de-polarisation of steel coupon within a few milliseconds after disconnecting the coupon from the DC/AC power source, by increasing data acquisition rate. For this, a monitoring system was developed in order to measure the IR-free potential together with the DC/AC current densities. The monitoring system was utilized for both laboratory experiments and site survey to study the mechanism and the condition of AC corrosion, its mitigation and more importantly to define new CP criteria.


In analog computation there is a tendency not only to strive for the highest possible accuracy, but very often the ciiterion for accepting an analog scheme also requires minimizing the number of computer components and the duration of the problem preparation time. On the other hand, in analog or hybrid computation every sophistication intended to improve accuracy usually calls for more computer equipment, and every sophistication introduced to reduce comptuter equipment usually requires more time for problem preparation. Having this in mind, the method of Bessel function generation, discussed in Bingulac and Humol (Reference 5 in Hausner's paper), may be considered as the first degree of sophistication, since in developing this method the only criterion was to reduce the complexity of the analog computer scheme, thereby decreasing the number of computer components. Van Remoartere's method, 2 however, represents the second degree of sophistication because a) it divides the whole range of the independent vatiable into two subintervals, and b) in the first subinterval it approximates the solution by a Taylor series. This of course improves the accuracy but on the other hand, the number of analog computer components increases.


This thesis proposes and describes a curriculum plan featuring archaeology as a discrete subject for Year 11 and 12 students in the public education system of South Australia in particular, but also for Australia in general.  It seeks to demonstrate the wider value of archaeology, justifies its inclusion in the school curriculum and presents an archaeology curriculum that reflects developments in modern teaching methods.  This is achieved through addressing two basic questions: whether archaeology should be included as a discrete part of the senior secondary curriculum, particularly in South Australian public schools; and whether an archaeology curriculum can be constructed along the lines of particular pedagogical or organisational styles. Opening chapters present historical and social outlines of archaeology, demonstrating archaeology's long history of relevance to society, how it has developed an extensive philosophy and system of theory, and why it represents a valuable addition to the curriculum as an area of study in its own right.  The archaeology and anthropology of Australia is presented with a substantial historical underpinning deriving from the wider world situation. Knowledge and concepts deriving from Australian archaeology are shown to be of great current social relevance, making archaeology and anthropology particularly valuable subjects of study.  The concept of heritage is considered together with its impact on society and any educational factors. Having established archaeology as a worthwhile learning area, the second research question, concerning particular pedagogical or organisational styles, is the subject of later chapters.  The idea of balance with respect to curriculums, in this case taken to mean the relationship between the aims and intentions of the teacher, as against the result in terms of not only what has been learned, but whether the knowledge acquired is useful to the learner, is examined in some detail.  Educational philosophies are taken as starting points, establishing archaeology as a valid domain of learning, possessing exterior tests of truth and veracity, and also contributing to the growth of the rational mind. Middle chapters demonstrate that archaeology has a theoretical basis and research methodolgy that seems particularly suited to Problem-Based Learning (PBL) as an appropriate and effective pedagogy.  This teaching approach is examined in detail and an example is followed through to illustrate the principle.  Possibilities for cross-curricular treatment for archaeology are explored.  Principles and possibilities of outcomes-directed assessment methods are considered for their own value and for their possible correspondence with structuralist learning approaches. The penultimate chapter of the thesis presents a curriculum document describing a course of archaeology intended for a Stage I South Australian Certificate of Education subject. It is modelled along more or less conventional lines and brings together the findings of the bulk of the thesis. Finally, some conclusions and recommendations in respect to findings of the thesis are set down, in particular highlighting the shortage of Australian learning material, especially the web-based material so valuable to the PBL approach.   Â


A regulatory agency's arsenal often contains multiple weapons. Occasionally, however, an agency has the power to completely obliterate its regulatory targets or to make major waves in society by using a "regulatory nuke." A regulatory nuke is a tool with two primary characteristics. First, it packs power sufficient to profoundly impact individual regulatory targets or significantly affect important aspects of society or the economy. Second, from the perspective of the regulatory agency, it is politically unavailable in all but the most extreme situations. They are found in many corners of the federal bureaucracy. This Article illustrates that even when individual regulatory nukes get our attention, we often think about these weapons in unproductive ways. Typically, regulatory nukes are approached in a bipolar way. On the one hand, they may be seen as regulatory anomalies with little relevance to most regulated entities. On the other hand, particularly if an agency has launched its regulatory nuke, the launch becomes part of agency lore and the story is of the destruction left in its wake.Drawing on the Nobel Prize–winning game theory developed by Thomas Schelling, this Article moves beyond the dud/mushroom cloud dichotomy and recasts the regulatory nuke as an important factor that influences the calculus of regulation. This analysis suggests that agencies often get mileage out of regulatory nukes by pointing their weapons rather than firing them: the power of the tool is often leverage in regulatory diplomacy — for threats, posturing, and coercion. Although this Article is based on game theory, it also provides a wealth of examples that work to illustrate the real-world importance of the theory to many aspects of the administrative state..


Abstract. This study investigated the air pollution characteristics of synoptic-scale circulation in the Beijing megacity, and provided quantitative evaluation of the impacts of circulation patterns on air quality during the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics. Nine weather circulation types (CTs) were objectively identified over the North China region during 2000–2009, using obliquely rotated T-mode principal component analysis (PCA). The resulting CTs were examined in relation to the local meteorology, regional transport pathways, and air quality parameters, respectively. The FLEXPART-WRF model was used to calculate 48-h backward plume trajectories for each CT. Each CT was characterized with distinct local meteorology and air mass origin. CT 1 (high pressure to the west with a strong pressure gradient) was characterized by a northwestern air mass origin, with the smallest local and southeasterly air mass sources, and CT 6 (high pressure to the northwest) had air mass sources mostly from the north and east. On the contrary, CTs 5, 8, and 9 (weak pressure field, high pressure to the east, and low pressure to the northwest, respectively) were characterized by southern and southeastern trajectories, which indicated a greater influence of high pollutant emission sources. In turn, poor air quality in Beijing (high loadings of PM10, BC, SO2, NO2, NOx, O3, AOD, and low visibility) was associated with these CTs. Good air quality in Beijing was associated with CTs 1 and 6. The average visibilities (with ±1σ) in Beijing for CTs 1 and 6 during 2000–2009 were 18.5 ± 8.3 km and 14.3 ± 8.5 km, respectively. In contrast, low visibility values of 6.0 ± 3.5 km, 6.6 ± 3.7 km, and 6.7 ± 3.6 km were found in CTs 5, 8, and 9, respectively. The mean concentrations of PM10 for CTs 1, 6, 5, 8, and 9 during 2005–2009 were 90.3 ± 76.3 μg m−3, 111.7 ± 89.6 μg m−3, 173.4 ± 105.8 μg m−3, 158.4 ± 90.0 μg m−3, and 151.2 ± 93.1 μg m−3, respectively. Analysis of the relationship between circulation pattern and air quality during the emission control period suggests that CTs are the primary drivers of day-to-day variations in pollutant concentrations over Beijing and its vicinity. During the Olympics period, the frequency of CT 6 was twice that of the mean in August from 2000 to 2009. This CT had northerly transport pathways and favorable meteorological conditions (e.g. frequent precipitation) for clean air during the Olympics. Assuming that relationships between CTs and air quality parameters in the same season are fixed in different years, the relative contributions of synoptic circulation to decreases in PM10, BC, SO2, NO2, NOx, CO, and horizontal light extinction during the Olympics were estimated as 19 ± 14%, 18 ± 13%, 41 ± 36%, 12 ± 7%, 10 ± 5%, 19 ± 11%, and 54 ± 25%, respectively.


This chapter explores the role of member states in European integration. It first looks at the idea of member statehood, exploring its ambiguities and arguing for a more sophisticated understanding of what it means to be a 'member state' of the EU. The chapter considers in detail the role played by member states in the EU, highlighting in particular the centrality of member state governments and their power to EU policy-making and its institutions. At the same time it notes the relative absence of member state publics. The chapter ends with a reflection on whether there is a return of the nation-state, with its associated trends of nationalism and inter-state rivalry.


The nonsense mediated decay (NMD) pathway degrades mRNAs bearing premature translation termination codons. In mammals, SMG-8 has been implicated in the NMD pathway, in part by its association with SMG-1 kinase. Here we use four independent assays to show that C. elegans smg-8 is not required to degrade nonsense-containing mRNAs. We examine the genetic requirement for smg-8 to destabilize the endogenous, natural NMD targets produced by alternative splicing of rpl-7a and rpl-12. We test smg-8 for degradation of the endogenous, NMD target generated by unc-54(r293), which lacks a normal polyadenylation site. We probe the effect of smg-8 on the exogenous NMD target produced by myo-3::GFP, which carries a long 3′ untranslated region that destabilizes mRNAs. None of these known NMD targets is influenced by smg-8 mutations. In addition, smg-8 animals lack classical Smg mutant phenotypes such as a reduced brood size or abnormal vulva. We conclude that smg-8 is unlikely to encode a component critical for NMD.


Although major constituents of the thick filaments of vertebrate striated muscles, the myosin binding proteins (MyBP-C and MyBP-H) are still of uncertain function. Distributed in the cross-bridge bearing zone of the A-bands of myofibrils, in a series of transverse 43 nm stripes, the proteins are constructed of a tandem series of small globular domains, each composed of approximately 90-100 amino acids, which have sequence similarities to either the C2-set of immunoglobulins (IgC2) and the fibronectin type III (FnIII) motifs. MyBP-C is composed of ten globular domains ( approximately 130 kDa) whereas MyBP-H is smaller ( approximately 58 kDa) and consists of a unique N-terminal segment followed by four globular domains, the order of which is identical to that of MyBP-C (FnIII-IgC2-FnIII-IgC2). To improve our understanding of this protein family we have characterized the domains in each of these two proteins which are required for targeting the proteins to their native site(s) in the sarcomere during myogenesis. Cultures of skeletal muscle myoblasts were transfected with expression plasmids encoding mutant constructs of the MyBPs bearing an N-terminal myc epitope, and their localization to the A-band examined by immunofluorescence microscopy. Based on the clarity and intensity of the myc A-band signals we concluded that constructs encoding the four C-terminal motifs of MyBP-C and MyBP-H ( approximately 360 amino acids) were all that was necessary to efficiently localize each of these peptides to the A-band. Truncation mutants lacking one of these 4 domains were less efficiently targeted to the C-zone of the sarcomere. Deletion of the last C-terminal motif of MyBP-H, its myosin binding domain, abolished all localization to the A-band. A chimeric construct, HU-3C10, in which the C-terminal motif of MyBP-H was replaced by the myosin binding domain of MyBP-C, efficiently localized to the A-band. Taken together, these observations indicate that MyBP-C and MyBP-H are localized to the A-band by the same C-terminal domain, composed of two IgC2 and two FnIII motifs. A model has been proposed for the interaction and positioning of the MyBPs in the thick filament through a ternary complex of the four C-terminal motifs with the myosin rods and titin.


A well-documented empirical result is that market expectations extracted from futures contracts on the federal funds rate are among the best predictors for the future course of monetary policy. We show how this information can be exploited to produce accurate forecasts of bond excess returns and to construct profitable investment strategies in bond markets. We use an exponential tilting method for incorporating market expectations into forecasts from a standard term-structure model and then derive the implied forecasts for bond excess returns. We find that the method delivers substantial improvements in out-of-sample accuracy relative to a number of benchmarks. The accuracy improvements are both statistically and economically significant for bond maturities of up to two years and forecast horizons less than one year, and would have allowed an investor to obtain positive cumulative excess returns from simple "riding the yield curve" investment strategies over the past ten years. For long forecast horizons and bond maturities of four or five years, the preferred forecast is instead one implied by a simple autoregressive model.


The behavior of following the most in vogue and admired styles of dressing has been there since the ancient times. With time, people have moved on with the rapid change in the surroundings. Both the genders acknowledge fashion. Fashion is an extension of regular clothing. This paper investigates the role of economical players which includes per capita income and inflations in shaping up the various trends/ fashion trends/ trends in clothing and their consumptions for Pakistan, India, United States and Australia. The findings of this paper confirms that the outline economical players do matter for various popular trends of Pakistan, India and United States, while the same economical players they don't really matter for shaping up the fashion trends in Australia, this suggest that these nations have different socio economical conditions along with the various different modes of lifestyles which are mattered for various categories of reasons.


Compared with other Central Asian countries, Kyrgyzstan, from an early stage, seemed to embrace most openly the recommendations of multilateral institutions to liberalize its economy, promote privatization and move from a planned to a market economy. Heavily dependent in the past on the Soviet Union market for exports and for its purchases of capital inputs, Kyrgyzstan embarked upon a fundamental restructuring of its economy. By 1995 it was one of the few countries in the region enjoying a positive growth rate, albeit equal only to 1 percent. Yet, despite this improvement in macroeconomic performance, the process of transition has taken a heavy toll on production, trade and social welfare provision, leading to declining standards of living and to new forms of poverty. This article considers the effects of the transition to a market economy on children in Kyrgyzstan. In doing so, the article seeks to counterbalance the tendency for analyses of transition to focus both on the aggregate (at the expense of particular groups such as children, women, farmers or workers) and on the macroeconomic level (thus neglecting the local). It thus attempts not only to draw attention to specific effects on children, who tend to be underrepresented in the literature on transition, but also on the regional diversity of such effects.(1) The article begins by providing an overview of the economic changes in Kyrgyzstan since it gained political independence in 1991. The impact of the crisis is then explored in three different economic contexts, namely the urban, the agricultural and the agro-pastoral. The next section focuses on the impact of transition on children in poor households, drawing attention not only to aspects of health and education, but also to the psychological consequences of rapid impoverishment. This article is based on secondary sources as well as fieldwork carried out in the two southern regions of Osh and Djalalabad in Kyrgyzstan in the autumn of 1994.(2) In order to capture the regional variation in the effects of transition on children, the fieldwork was located in agro-pastoral, agricultural and urban areas.(3) Further insights were gleaned through interviews with local government officials, representatives of nongovernmental organizations and village leaders. In order to capture children's perceptions of the crisis, children in village schools were asked to write an account of their daily lives.(4) BACKGROUND TO TRANSITION The dissolution of the Soviet Union in December 1991 marked a watershed in the history of the Central Asian republics.(5) It not only paved the way for long-awaited independence but also undermined the fragile basis of their economies. As former Leninist parties were replaced by purportedly more democratic organizations in Uzbekistan, Kazakstan and Kyrgyzstan, the ability of new leaders to steer a course through the crisis differed considerably. As inter-republic trade collapsed and numerous subsidies and transfers from Moscow to the Central Asian states abruptly ended, industrial output and GDP growth rates plummeted, in turn affecting government revenue and expenditure. The Kyrgyz economy suffered a sharp fall in production, as factories could no longer secure inputs and find markets for their products. Between 1992 and 1993, gross domestic product fell by 16.4 percent.(6) In 1995 output was still 45 percent below its 1991 level.(7) As enterprises began to incur losses and reduce or stop production, working hours were shortened and workers sent home on unpaid leave. By the end of June 1993, 100,000 workers had been affected in this way.(8) In the worst instances, enterprises were forced to lay off employees. In the first six months of 1994, 12 percent of industrial enterprises stopped production and 19,000 people were laid off, more than twice the number in the previous year.(9) This breakdown of the economy, along with price liberalization and high inflation, resulted in a decline in living standards. …


OBJECTIVES
To evaluate the effects of switching from multiple daily injection (MDI) therapy to insulin pump therapy, also called continuous subcutaneous insulin infusion (CSII), on antidiabetic drug and healthcare resource utilization.

STUDY DESIGN
This study was a retrospective analysis of administrative claims data from a large geographically diverse health plan in the United States from January 1, 2005, through April 30, 2008.

METHODS
Changes in antidiabetic drug use, antidiabetic drug switching and augmentation, and healthcare utilization during the baseline period and after CSII initiation were assessed using paired t test.

RESULTS
There were 3649 possible subjects, of whom 943 met the criteria for analysis. The mean number of antidiabetic drugs used decreased by 46% after CSII initiation, and the mean reduction in antidiabetic drug utilization was 0.67; both were statistically significant. More than one-third of subjects who were taking antidiabetic drugs before CSII initiation discontinued oral therapy after CSII initiation. The number of subjects using multiple antidiabetic drugs significantly decreased after CSII initiation by 58%, and rates of switching or augmenting significantly decreased from 42% at baseline to 25% after CSII initiation.The rates of emergency department visits and inpatient admissions significantly decreased, and the rate of ambulatory visits significantly increased.

CONCLUSIONS
CSII was associated with significant decreases in antidiabetic drug and healthcare resource utilization, contributing to stability of care. The evidence from this study indicates that CSII should be considered as an option for patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus who are using MDI and are experiencing a high degree of antidiabetic drug and healthcare resource utilization.


ABSTRACT Cadmium has been considered a risk factor for humans as it accumulates in body tissues, such as the liver, lungs, kidneys, bones, and reproductive organs. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the effect of Irvingia gabonensis (IG) against cadmium (Cd)- induced nephrotoxicity. The study was performed on twenty (20) male rats divided into four groups: control group, cadmium group (4 mg/kg/day, intraperitoneally), cadmium + extract (200 mg/kg body weight by oral gavage) and cadmium + extract (400 mg/kg body weight by oral gavage). Changes in the kidney biochemical markers, namely glutathione (GSH), superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase (CAT), aminotransferase (ALT), aspartate aminotransferase (AST) activities and levels of malondialdehyde (MDA), urea, and creatinine were determined in serum. Histological examinations were monitored. Exposure to Cd lowered the activities of kidney antioxidants, while it increased LPO levels. Levels of all disrupted parameters were alleviated by co-administration of IG extract. The malondialdehyde concentration of the rats treated with 200 and 400 mg/kg body weight of the extract significantly decreased (p<0.05) compared with the untreated cadmium rats. Yet the creatinine concentration decreased significantly (p<0.05) when the cadmium animals treated with 200 and 400 mg/kg body weight of the extract were compared with the cadmium control. Furthermore, histological alterations in the kidney were observed in cadmium untreated rats and these were ameliorated in cadmium treated rats by co-administration of IG extract. IG showed apparent protective and curative effect on Cd-induced nephrotoxicity


Since the 1990s, there has been a global proliferation of transnational organized crime (TOC). Turkey, as a transit site between the East and the West, has been one of the routes through which organized crime groups transport illicit goods in collaboration with other networks of crime. This paper investigates TOC in Turkey and maps out Turkey's role as a transit country in smuggling and trafficking. The paper also deals with Turkey's contribution to international efforts in combating TOC in light of its EU membership process. The European Commission's annual reports on Turkey's progress towards EU membership that highlight the achievements as well as the shortcomings of Turkey in combating TOC are presented. The paper argues that Turkey has introduced successful reforms and expanded its institutional capacities due to the progress it has achieved in the specific area of combating TOC, as evidenced by the EU progress reports.


Abstract The article offers a fresh, empirically grounded look at the spatialities of crisis-triggered employment forms?a largely overlooked issue in contemporary critical geography literature. Specifically, it discusses the interconnection between investment flows from manufacturing to the built environment (capital switching) and underemployment in urban metropolitan regions to substantiate its impact on emerging spatial fixities. The article, which is based on an empirical analysis informed by a radical political economy, investigates changing fixed capital formations in Greece over an extended period prior to and during the recession, from 1995 to 2012. It traces the evolution of part-time waged work in the capital metropolitan region of Attica (Athens) vis-a-vis the rest of the country's regional labour markets, focusing on the polarized 2005?2012 period and the demise of the construction industry. The article highlights that ?disrupted? capital switching that occurred in Greece, closely associated with recalibrated sectoral priorities and institutional interventions, resulted in the uneven sprawling of underemployment. Our findings offer insight into how the dismantling of spatial fixes within core metropolitan regions of the southern European Union (and beyond) are connected to labour surplus and successive slumps in manufacturing and construction. The article closes by calling for new theorizations of contemporary urban regional unevenness and its spatiotemporal fixities, which account for the role of changes in labour turnover time.


As spatial grammars have proven successful and efficient to deliver LOD3 models, the next challenge is their extension to indoor applications, leading to LOD4 models. Therefore, a combined indoor grammar for the automatic generation of indoor models from erroneous and incomplete observation data is presented. In building interiors where inaccurate observation data is available, the grammar can be used to make the reconstruction process robust, and verify the reconstructed geometries. In unobserved building interiors, the grammar can generate hypotheses about possible indoor geometries matching the style of the rest of the building. The grammar combines concepts from L-systems and split grammars. It is designed in such way that it can be derived from observation data fully automatically. Thus, manual predefinitions of the grammar rules usually required to tune the grammar to a specific building style, become obsolete. The potential benefit of using our grammar as support for indoor modeling is evaluated based on an example where the grammar has been applied to automatically generate an indoor model from erroneous and incomplete traces gathered by foot-mounted MEMS/IMU positioning systems.


In this paper, we provide a simple but powerful module to generate entangled qudits. This module, assisted with cross-Kerr nonlinearity, is flexible for generation of entangled qudits with arbitrary dimensions. Since the generation is still probabilistic, we modify the simple module in order to increase efficiency and save resources. With the modified module, the input independent qudits could be transformed into different entangled forms, which include the possible maximal entangled form and the less entangled forms. The corresponding total success probability could reach 1.


This study aimed at designing, prototyping and testing the effectiveness of a solar disinfection system for improved rural household water treatment. The system was constructed using local materials. The effectiveness and efficiency of the system to kill microorganisms were determined by using contaminated raw water samples collected from rural areas. The prototype raised the bottle water temperature from 24.3 to 66 °C. After 3 hours of exposure to intense sunlight, the water samples registered no total and faecal coliform counts in line with allowable drinking water limits by Malawi Standards and the World Health Organization. When loaded with 12 L of the contaminated water, the system scored a 10.2 % efficiency. The prototype reached disinfecting temperature faster (80 minutes) under intense sunlight conditions and worked effectively well with water of low turbidity levels. The prototype was cost-effective and easy to use, hence to be promoted for improved rural household water treatment.


Following the publication of initial and 3-month data from a prospective cluster randomised comparative trial [Copello, A., Templeton, L., Orford, J., Velleman, R., Patel, A., Moore, L., … , Godfrey, C. (2009). The relative efficacy of two levels of a primary care intervention for family members affected by the addiction problem of a close relative: A randomised trial. Addiction, 104, 49–58.], an opportunistic 12-month follow-up was undertaken. The trial compared two brief interventions for use by primary health care professionals with family members (FMs) affected by the problematic substance use of a close relative. Ninety out of 143 (63%) FMs in the trial were followed up at 12 months. Three validated self-completion questionnaires were re-administered: Symptom Rating Test, Coping Questionnaire and Family Member Impact Scale. At 12 months there were still no significant differences between FMs depending on which of the two brief interventions received. The initial improvements at 12 weeks on all of the measures (symptoms, coping and impact) were maintained, and further improved (FMs reported that their symptoms, their coping behaviours and the impact on them of their relatives' substance misuse problem all continued to reduce). These improvements were unrelated to a range of demographic variables. FMs also reported a gradual improvement in their relatives' misusing behaviour over the three time periods. In conclusion, following a brief intervention for affected FMs, either delivered in full via professional intervention or via a self-help manual following a brief introduction from a professional, both groups improve equally; there are significant and positive changes which are both maintained and further increased over a 12-month period, without any further formal delivery of the intervention.


Space-time is a profound concept in physics. This concept was shown to be useful for dimensionality reduction. We present basic definitions with interesting counter-intuitions. We give theoretical propositions to show that space-time is a more powerful representation than Euclidean space. We apply this concept to manifold learning for preserving local information. Empirical results on non-metric datasets show that more information can be preserved in space-time.


Background: Hepatic lipidosis or fatty liver disease is a major metabolic disorder of high-producing dairy cows that compromises animal performance and, hence, causes heavy economic losses worldwide. This syndrome, occurring during the critical transition from gestation to early lactation, leads to an impaired health status, decreased milk yield, reduced fertility and shortened lifetime. Because the prevailing clinical chemistry parameters indicate advanced liver damage independently of the underlying disease, currently, hepatic lipidosis can only be ascertained by liver biopsy. We hypothesized that the condition of fatty liver disease may be accompanied by an altered profile of endogenous metabolites in the blood of affected animals. Results: To identify potential small-molecule biomarkers as a novel diagnostic alternative, the serum samples of diseased dairy cows were subjected to a targeted metabolomics screen by triple quadrupole mass spectrometry. A subsequent multivariate test involving principal component and linear discriminant analyses yielded 29 metabolites (amino acids, phosphatidylcholines and sphingomyelines) that, in conjunction, were able to distinguish between dairy cows with no hepatic lipidosis and those displaying different stages of the disorder. Conclusions: This proof-of-concept study indicates that metabolomic profiles, including both amino acids and lipids, distinguish hepatic lipidosis from other peripartal disorders and, hence, provide a promising new tool for the diagnosis of hepatic lipidosis. By generating insights into the molecular pathogenesis of hepatic lipidosis, metabolomics studies may also facilitate the prevention of this syndrome.


Millions of tons of plasticized poly(vinyl chloride) (PVC) materials are disposed every year. A biologically sustainable and green method for removal of toxic plasticizers from polymer systems after disposal is highly desired since plasticizers can leach out into the environment over decades. Here we compare the surface and bulk structural changes of DEHP-plasticized PVC after two treatments intended to degrade bis-2-ethylhexyl phthalate (DEHP) in PVC plastic: short wave (254 nm) UV with and without the addition of 35 wt % H2O2. Sum frequency generation vibrational spectroscopy (SFG) reveals the addition of aqueous H2O2 decreases CH3 signals on the surface of the films up to 8 h, due to increased molecular disorder and the removal of alkyl chains. Secondary ion mass spectrometry demonstrates that the degradation of DEHP after 8 h of reaction is similar with and without the use of H2O2. However, FTIR results reveal that the introduction of H2O2 reduces bulk DEHP degradation and leads to competing radical chain scission reactions with PVC. Therefore, simple short wave UV exposure may be an effective means to degrade DEHP within and on PVC plastic and the addition of H2O2 is only beneficial if additional degradation of PVC is needed. V C 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2014, 131, 40649.


The present studies have been undertaken on the ethanolic extract of fresh fruit coatings of Azadirachta indica A. Juss, (Neen) following a bioassay guided isolation in the light of our observation that (i) the coatings extract exhibited a larger degree of efficacy on houseflies and mosquitoes as compared to that of seeds and (ii) azadirachtin, the most potent naturally occurring pesticide found in neem is not present in the extract of coatings in any detectable amounts.

The pesticidal activity guided isolation against 4th instar larvae of mosquito, Anopheles stephensi (Orangi Town wild strain), a carrier of malarial parasite, led to the isolation of sixteen triterpenoids, including six new and ten known compounds as listed below. Two of the new constituents, namely meliacinin and azadironic acid represent the skeleton of biogenetic interest. Twelve of these were investigated for the aforementioned biological activity.

Beside these, several other constituents have also been identified (listed below) from the non-polar and less polar fractions showing considerable pesticidal activities. These compounds including sixteen hydrocarbons, one monoterpene, one sesquiterpene, three aromatics, three benzopyranoids and tree fatty acide esters were identified using GC-FID and GC-MS. Their identifies were also supported by other spectroscopic techniques.

Hydrolysis of the major component of neem i.e. azadiradione (2), was attempted under Zemplin conditions to deacetylate C-7 and relate the pesticidal activity with the structure. Fair amounts of required products (44) was obtained along with another product (45). Their pesticidal activity was also performed to extend the structure pesticidal activity relationship.

The structures of the new compounds have been elucidated through sophisticated modern spectroscopic methods including UV, IR, MS, 1H-NMR and 13C-NMR, 2D-NMR experiments and chemical transformations. The known compounds have been identified through comparison of their physical and spectral data with those reported for the corresponding compounds in literature.

Altogehter forty-five compounds are reported in the present thesis, sixteen of which were isolated and teir structures elucidated, whereas twenty-seven compounds were identified through GC-FID and GC-MS. Two analogues were obtained through hydrolysis of Azadirdione. The isolated compounds included six newa,b,c and ten previously reported constituents. The compounds identified through GC, included eight compounds, identified for the first time from fruit coatings, which are marked with the superscript AƒÂƒA'¢AƒÂ'A'€AƒÂ'A'˜f and fifteen compounds hitherto unreported from any part of neem prior to these studies, which are marked with the superscript AƒÂƒA'¢AƒÂ'A'€AƒÂ'A'˜gAƒÂƒA'¢AƒÂ'A'€AƒÂ'A'™. The LC50 against An. Stephensi of isolated compounds and of the fractions subjected to GC is given in parenthesis.c,d,e A discussion of the presticidal activity with reference to chemical structures has also been made.


We injected three retrograde tracers, Fast Blue, Diamidino Yellow (FB)and Cholera toxin subunit B conjugated to Alexa Fluor 488 or 594 (CTB-488/-594), into medial entorhinal cortex (MEC), presubiculum (PrS) and postrhinal cortex (POR) and looked at the distribution of retrogradely labeled cells in the retrosplenial cortex (RSC). In one out of a total of six cases we had successful injections of CTB-594 and DY in MEC and PrS, respectively, a partially successful injection of FB in POR. In this case we saw extensive areal overlap of CTB-594 positive and DY-positive neurons in RSC, and also observed some cases of neurons positive for both of those tracers in RSC area 29ab. Meager overlap between all three kinds of labeled neurons was seen in area 30 of RSC. These findings might shed new light on the position of the RSC in the network dealing with spatial navigation and memory.


The electrical energy one of most important basics of modern lifeand the demand on this energy increase consciously. Which make some challenges to operators to increase the generation to feed the growing demand. This growth lead to extend the centralized plant to provide distribution network by required energy also lead them to develop transmission system. This method is so costly where it is required money to extend the power system. An appearance of distributed generation DG is considered a solution for these problems and can reduce the cost where it provides the load by electricity in customer side without passing through transmission system. While the aim target from DG is supporting the grid and improve power quality, voltage profile, reduction of power losses and reliability. In this paper will discuss sizing and siting the distributed generation in the grid. In this work introduced hybrid method where it is used 2/3 rule and harmony search algorithm to find optimum location and sizing respectively. This work is done under several loading cases up to 250 % from normal load also compared with other researches in this filed used the same model (IEEE 33 bus redial distribution system ) that used in this paper. MTLAB software used to complete this research. Keywords— harmony search algorithm, distributed generation and 2/3 rule.


The effects of three stimulus durations on spectral sensitivity of the electroretinogram were examined under moderate light adaptation. The durations were 11, 42, and 109 msec. At a low criterion amplitude of response, the 11-msec duration showed lower sensitivity in the green and blue regions of the spectrum than the two longer durations. At the red end of the spectrum all curves showed elevated sensitivity of approximately equal amounts. For a moderate criterion amplitude, the curves for the various durations retained their relative positions at the shorter wavelengths. At the red end of the spectrum, sensitivity decreased for all durations, but to a greater amount for the two longer durations. For a high criterion response, the 11-msec duration became more sensitive throughout the spectrum; however, it retained a form similar to that for the two longer durations. The curves were presumed to include at least two components: a scotopic process and a red-sensitive process. Possible interpretations of the duration effects on the spectral curves included the Bunsen–Roscoe law and the summation of on- and off-responses.


The growth of polycrystalline diamond films on molybdenum dental burs using a new hot filament Chemical Vapour Deposition (CVD) system has been investigated. A negative d.c. bias voltage relative to the filament was applied to the molybdenum substrate prior to deposition and showed improved film adhesion and increased diamond nucleation density. The CVD coated molybdenum dental bur was found to give much improved performance and lifetime compared to the conventional sintered diamond burs. This paper describes the performance of diamond coated molybdenum dental burs machining orthodontic bridge such as cobalt-chromium alloys, and also portrays an interesting picture of how these alloys react to machining with diamond using a finite element method.


This thesis is about the design of high-performance fault-tolerant computer systems. More specifically, it focuses on how to develop database systems that behave correctly and with good performance even in the event of failures. Both performance and dependability can be improved by means of the same technique, namely replication. If several database replicas are available, performance can be improved by distributing the load among them. Moreover, if one of the replicas cannot be accessed due to failures, users can still rely on the other ones. However, providing the interface of a single database system out of several replicas is not an easy task since one has to ensure they are always consistent with each other. Allowing replicas to diverge would easily break the illusion of having a single high-performance fault-tolerant database system. Although we would like to have replicas as independent of each other as possible for performance and dependability reasons, we must keep them synchronized if we want to provide a consistent interface to users. In this work, we study how we can balance this trade-off to provide good performance and fault-tolerance without compromising consistency. Our basis is a widely used technique for database replication known as the deferred update technique. In this technique, transactions are initially executed in a single replica. Passive transactions, which do not change the state of the database, can commit locally to the replica they execute. Active transactions, which change the database state, must be synchronized with the transactions running on other replicas. This thesis makes four major contributions. First, we introduce an abstract specification that generalizes the deferred update technique. This specification provides a strong model to prove lower bounds on replication algorithms, design new correct-by-construction protocols tailor-made for specific settings, and prove existing protocols correct more easily, in a standard way. Using this model, we show that the problem of termination of active transactions in deferred-update protocols is highly related to the problem of sequence agreement among a set of processes. In this context, we study the problem of implementing latency-optimal fault-tolerant solutions to sequence agreement and present a novel, highly-dynamic, algorithm that can quickly adapt to system changes in order to preserve its optimal latency. Our algorithm is based on a new agreement problem we introduce that seems to be more suitable to solve problems like sequence agreement than previously used abstractions. Our last two contributions are in the context of specific deferred-update algorithms, where we present two new fault-tolerant protocols derived from our general abstraction. The first algorithm uses no extra assumptions about database replicas. Yet, it has very little overhead associated with the termination of active transactions, propagating only strictly necessary information to replicas. Our second protocol uses strong assumptions about the concurrency control mechanism used by database replicas to reduce even more the latency and the burden associated with transaction termination. These algorithms are good examples of how our general abstraction can be extended to create new protocols and prove them correct.


A high wavelength fluorescent probe, Nile Red, was added to four proteins, viz., bovine albumin, alpha 1-acid glycoprotein, beta-lactoglobulin and ovomucoid. Nile Red showed an enhancement in fluorescence and a shift in emission wavelength, suggesting it was bonding hydrophobically to these proteins. Drug displacement of Nile Red from alpha 1-acid glycoprotein was achieved with both D,L-propranolol and flufenamic acid, showing that the binding site is less electrostatic and more hydrophobic in nature. In order to monitor these interactions, a simple spectrofluorimeter was constructed from solid-state components; the sensitivity of this instrument compared well with that of standard laboratory spectrofluorimeters.


With moves towards improving sustainability within the retail sector and a growing requirement to conform to existing and emerging legislation, retailers from ostensibly disparate sectors face the common challenge of encouraging the reduced consumption of saleable products, while simultaneously maintaining their prosperity. Project TRANSFER was initiated to investigate how efforts to promote sustainable consumption within retail is received and responded to by consumers. Consumers and partners in the retail sector were engaged with throughout the research which culminated in three consumer facing outputs; a workshop (Put a Better Foot Forward, The Moor retail destination, Sheffield, UK), installation (Making in Real, pop-up T-Shirt factory, Trinity Shopping Centre, Leeds, UK) and animated short film (Nothing to Wear? available via YouTube and launched at the Sheffield Shorts film screening, Sheffield, UK). Each of the outputs were designed to allow consumers to reflect on their shopping and consumption habits in an engaging, stimulating environment. The key aim was to promote mindfulness and engage consumers in discussion and debate. All the output events were free for the general public to attend / participate in. This paper will discuss the role of engaging the consumer in sustainable fashion research and the impact of consumer facing outputs in education and awareness of sustainable issues in shopping and consumption.


The current study addresses determination of occurrence optimal thresholds of predictive models of plant species distribution in Nir rangelands of Yazd province. Accordingly, after determination of homogeneous units using digital elevation model and geology maps with scale 1:25000, vegetation sampling was carried out using random systematic method via plots which establishment across 3-5 transects with 300-500 m lengths. In order to sample the soil at each habitat, eight holes was drilled and samples were taken from 0-30 and 30-80 cm depths. Measured soil properties included gravel, texture, available moisture, saturation moisture, organic matter, lime, gypsum, pH, electrical conductivity and soluble ions. Plant distribution modeling was conducted using LR, the MaxEnt and ANN. After preparation of predictive maps of plant species habitat, an occurrence optimal threshold was determined using sensitivity-specificity equality approach and Kappa maximization approach for each plant species. Then, the compliance of classified maps with real maps cover was measured using the kappa coefficient. Based on obtained results, accuracy of predictive maps derived from different methods is different from each other. Among derived maps from LR, MaxEnt and ANN methods, the highest compliance belonged to the C. monacantha (κ= 0.9), R. ribes-A. sieberi (κ= 0.93) and S. rosmarinus (κ= 0.93), respectively. These results indicate that due to differences in the discriminatory ability of the model to classification of the presence or absence, occurrence optimal thresholds of plant species is different in various species, therefore, in order to determination of occurrence optimal thresholds, quality of predictive models should be considered in addition to the research objective and abundance of studied species.


"A Man Without A Country" is Kurt Vonnegut's hilariously funny and razor-sharp look at life, art, politics, himself and the condition of the soul of America today. Written over the last five years in the form of a loose memoir, with the examples of Mark Twain, Jesus Christ, Abraham Lincoln, and a saintly doctor named Ignaz Semmelweis powerfully in mind, "A Man without a Country" is an intimate and tender communication from one individual to his fellow humans - sometimes kidding, at other times despairing, always searching. It is illustrated throughout with Vonnegut's trademark artwork.


2 ABSTRACT: The resources especially energy in wireless sensor networks (WSNs) are quite limited. Since sensor nodes are usually much dense, data sampled by sensor nodes have much redundancy, data aggregation becomes an effective method to eliminate redundancy, minimize the number of transmission, and then to save energy. Many applications can be deployed in WSNs and various sensors are embedded in nodes, the packets generated by heterogenous sensors or different applications have different attributes. The packets from different applications cannot be aggregated. Otherwise, most data aggregation schemes employ static routing protocols, which cannot dynamically or intentionally forward packets according to network state or packet types. The spatial isolation caused by static routing protocol is unfavorable to data aggregation. To make data aggregation more efficient, in this paper, we introduce the concept of packet attribute, defined as the identifier of the data sampled by different kinds of sensors or applications, and then propose an attribute-aware data aggregation (ADA) scheme consisting of a packet-driven timing algorithm and a special dynamic routing protocol. Inspired by the concept of potential in physics and pheromone in ant colony, a potential-based dynamic routing is elaborated to support an ADA strategy. The performance evaluation results in series of scenarios verify that the ADA scheme can make the packets with the same attribute spatially convergent as much as possible and therefore improve the efficiency of data aggregation. Furthermore, the ADA scheme also offers other properties, such as scalable with respect to network size and adaptable for tracking mobile events.


An organisation's fate hinges on its CEO--right? Not according to the authors of Senior Leadership Teams. They argue that in today's world of neck-snapping change, demands on leaders in top roles are rapidly outdistancing the capabilities of any one person - no matter how talented. Result? Chief executives are turning to their enterprise's senior leaders for help. Yet many CEOs stumble when creatinga leadership team. One major challenge is that senior executives often focus more on their individual roles than on the top team's shared work. Without the CEO's careful attention to setting the team up correctly, these high-powered managers often have difficulty pulling together to move their organisation forward. Sometimes they don't even agree about what constitutes the right path forward.The authors explain how to determine whether your organisation needs a senior leadership team. Then, drawing on their study of 100+ top teams from around the world, they explain how to create a clear and compelling purpose for your team, get the right people on it, provide structure and support, and sharpen team members' competencies - and your own. Timely and practical, this book enables you to create and sustain a leadership team whose members learn from one another while collaborating to pursue your company's objectives.


We propose a new generic method ROPES (Regularized Optimization for Prediction and Estimation with Sparse data) for decomposing, smoothing and forecasting two-dimensional sparse data. In some ways, ROPES is similar to Ridge Regression, the LASSO, Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and Maximum-Margin Matrix Factorisation (MMMF). Using this new approach, we propose a practical method of forecasting mortality rates, as well as a new method for interpolating and extrapolating sparse longitudinal data. We also show how to calculate prediction intervals for the resulting estimates.


We investigate how liability rules and property rules affect the incentives to invest in research tools. We argue that it is hard to deter infringement under any of the enforcement regimes available. However, counterintuitively, a credible threat of infringement can actually be beneficial to the patentholder. We compare the two doctrines of damages under the liability rule, namely, lost profit (lost royalty) and unjust enrichment, and argue that unjust enrichment protects the patentholder better than lost royalty. Both can be superior to a property rule (the right to enjoin infringement), depending on how much delay is permitted before infringement is enjoined. We also show that, for patents on end-user products, the ranking of liability doctrines is reversed: unjust enrichment is inferior to lost profits.


Nowadays, new methods are required to take advantage of the rich and extensive gold mine of data given the vast content of data particularly created by educational systems. Data mining algorithms have been used in educational systems especially e-learning systems due to the broad usage of these systems. Providing a model to predict final student results in educational course is a reason for using data mining in educational systems. In this paper, we propose a novel rule-based classification method, called S3PSO (Students' Performance Prediction based on Particle Swarm Optimization), to extract the hidden rules, which could be used to predict students' final outcome. The proposed S3PSO method is based on Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) algorithm in discrete space. The S3PSO particles encoding inducts more interpretable even for normal users like instructors. In S3PSO, Support, Confidence, and Comprehensibility criteria are used to calculate the fitness of each rule. Comparing the obtained results from S3PSO with other rule-based classification methods such as CART, C4.5, and ID3 reveals that S3PSO improves 31 % of the value of fitness measurement for Moodle data set. Additionally, comparing the obtained results from S3PSO with other classification methods such as SVM, KNN, Naive Bayes, Neural Network and APSO reveals that S3PSO improves 9 % of the value of accuracy for Moodle data set and yields promising results for predicting students' final outcome.


Excavators are heavy construction equipment consisting of a boom, dipper (or stick), bucket and cab on a rotating platform known as the "house". In this paper the hydraulic shovel excavator is analyzed through the D-H method. The shovel working device with the bucket capacity of 36m3 is optimized. The determination of the objective function, variables and constraints are described in detail. The position of optimized shovel is achieved. Also Bucket trajectory and envelope drawing are designed. These are carried on the analysis and comparison. Optimum design is proved rationality.


A virtual organization is a temporary network of companies, which implies the potential opportunity to learn and share abundant sources of complementary and compatible knowledge possessed by members. Learning in a virtual organization is the key to achieve agility of a virtual organization; however, few studies are focused on this dimension. Therefore, this research attempts to bring insights of learning in a virtual organization by developing a framework of transactive networks system including five software components as matchmaking manager, skills-based manager, contribution manager, context manager, and social network manager. With the proposed multiagent-based system, this study illustrates how it can be of help to connect both knowledge requesters and appropriate knowledge contributors to augment and retain the social networks in fostering virtual organizational learning. The contributions of this research can be viewed in two dimensions: knowledge management technologies, and knowledge sharing and learning in virtual organizations.


closed kinematic chains and 1 2 ) as a force constrainad mechanical system working on the samo object simultaneously. based on a feedback linearization and simultaneous output docoupling technique. Applying a nonli ear faodback and a nonlinear coordinate transformation, the complicated model of the multiple robot arms in either formulation is converted into a linear and output decoupled system. controllers in the task space. The first formulation has the advantage of automatically handlinq the coordination and load distribution among the robot arms. In the second formulation, by choosing a general output equation we could superimpose the pornition and velocity error reedback with tho force-torque error feedback in the task space simultaneously. mltiple coordinated robot a m s h y considrring the arma (1) as