This dissertation explores the problem of building a semantic network traffic analysis system and using it to investigate various aspects of network traffic. Semantic traffic analysis uncovers the application-layer semantics conveyed in packets so that one can examine the specific requests, responses, status messages, error codes, and data items embedded in a connection dialog. Analyzing these at the application layer, as opposed to the syntactic byte-string layer, opens up much greater insight into the nature and context of the exchange between two hosts. For this reason, semantic traffic analysis is a cornerstone for precise network intrusion detection and also has broad applications in measurements of networking systems.
This dissertation advances semantic traffic analysis in two aspects. First, we present tools and techniques for building traffic analyzers and creating shared traces, including design and implementation of (1) a declarative language, binpac, for writing application protocol parsers, and (2) a programming environment for packet trace transformation and anonymization. Second, we characterize two types of previously unstudied network traffic, Internet background radiation and enterprise internal traffic. Both studies focus on traffic semantics, aiming to understand the network applications that generate the traffic and to uncover underlying causes of network usage patterns.


Type 1diabetes (T1D), in contrast to type 2 diabetes, is an autoimmune disease rather than a lifestyle disease. However, diet and lifestyle factors such as nutrient density, glycemic load, fiber intake, and exercise do affect glycemic control, cardiovascular risk, and risk of complications in patients with type 1 diabetes. Patients with T1D may be able to reduce insulin requirements and achieve better glycemic control if practicing dietary methods to increase plant fibers and micronutrient density, and decrease glycemic load. We propose that anti-inflammatory effects of foods central to a nutrient-dense, plant-rich (NDPR) diet –vegetables, legumes, nuts and seeds, and lower-sugar fruits – may slow or prevent further destruction of beta cells if dietary intervention is initiated early enough. Herein, we present three cases of patients with T1D who have adopted a NDPR diet at varying times following T1D diagnosis. One patient who began a NDPR diet at age 3 immediately following diagnosis has not yet required insulin therapy nearly three years after diagnosis, and has experienced a steady decline in autoantibody levels. Another child who began a NDPR diet several months after diagnosis maintains a low dose of insulin, a favorable HbA1c, and more consistent blood glucose readings. A patient in his mid-40s who began a NDPR diet 13 years after T1D diagnosis, dramatically reduced insulin requirements and C-reactive protein and maintains favorable HbA1c and cardiovascular markers.


Naturally occurring antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) display the ability to eliminate a wide variety of bacteria, without toxicity to the host eukaryotic cells. Synthetic polymers containing moieties mimicking lysine and arginine components found in AMPs have been reported to show effectiveness against specific bacteria, with the mechanism of activity purported to depend on the nature of the amino acid mimic. In an attempt to incorporate the antimicrobial activity of both amino acids into a single water-soluble copolymer, a series of copolymers containing lysine mimicking aminopropyl methacrylamide (APMA) and arginine mimicking guanadinopropyl methacrylamide (GPMA) were prepared via aqueous RAFT polymerization. Copolymers were prepared with varying ratios of the comonomers, with degree of polymerization of 35-40 and narrow molecular weight distribution to simulate naturally occurring AMPs. Antimicrobial activity was determined against Gram-negative and Gram-positive bacteria under conditions with varying salt concentration. Toxicity to mammalian cells was assessed by hemolysis of red blood cells and MTT assays of MCF-7 cells. Antimicrobial activity was observed for APMA homopolymer and copolymers with low concentrations of GPMA against all bacteria tested, with low toxicity toward mammalian cells.


This paper discusses the fourth year of the "Sentiment Analysis in Twitter Task". SemEval-2016 Task 4 comprises five subtasks, three of which represent a significant departure from previous editions. The first two subtasks are reruns from prior years and ask to predict the overall sentiment, and the sentiment towards a topic in a tweet. The three new subtasks focus on two variants of the basic "sentiment classification in Twitter" task. The first variant adopts a five-point scale, which confers an ordinal character to the classification task. The second variant focuses on the correct estimation of the prevalence of each class of interest, a task which has been called quantification in the supervised learning literature. The task continues to be very popular, attracting a total of 43 teams.


One of the main challenges of Passive Optical Networks (PONs) is the resource (bandwidth and wavelength) management. Since it has been shown that access networks consume a significant part of the overall energy of the telecom networks, the resource management schemes should also consider energy minimization strategies. To sustain the increased bandwidth demand of emerging applications in the access section of the network, it is expected that next generation optical access networks will adopt the wavelength division/time division multiplexing (WDM/TDM) technique to increase PONs capacity. Compared with traditional PONs, the architecture of a WDM/TDM-PON requires more transceivers/receivers, hence they are expected to consume more energy. In this paper, we focus on the energy minimization in WDM/TDM-PONs and we propose an energy-efficient Dynamic Bandwidth and Wavelength Allocation mechanism whose objective is to turn off, whenever possible, the unnecessary upstream traffic receivers at the Optical Line Terminal (OLT). We evaluate our mechanism in different scenarios and show that the proper use of upstream channels leads to relevant energy savings. Our proposed energy-saving mechanism is able to save energy at the OLT while maintaining the introduced penalties in terms of packet delay and cycle time within an acceptable range. We might highlight the benefits of our proposal as a mechanism that maximizes the channel utilization. Detailed implementation of the proposed algorithm is presented, and simulation results are reported to quantify energy savings and effects on network performance on different network scenarios.


New technologies, sensors and techniques increase every day the human capabilities to monitoring the ecosystem and understanding the anthropogenic influence in its evolution. Particularly remote sensing, offering the possibility of covering large spatial area with a high temporal frequency, represents the ideal solution to environmental monitoring, but at the same time it is a challenge for any conventional computational resource due to the algorithms complexity and to the huge data volume to process. EOS satellites with their Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometers (MODIS) view the entire Earth's surface every days, acquiring data in 36 spectral bands. These data are used to make several products, i.e. Oceans Sea Surface Temperature Maps, essential for understanding a number of oceanographic and atmospheric phenomena. On coastal areas the SST product is unreliable requiring ad hoc processing and calibration. These requirements fit better on high performance computing and grid technologies that can provide powerful computational resources and efficient distributed data management. Several grid infrastructures have been proposed in literature for Earth observation projects (Fusco et al., 2006), however they report excellent performance but a too complex computing environment for non grid expert users. In this paper we present a grid portal for remote sensing data processing that allows scientists to access resources, execute and monitor data processing on grid technology using a simple Web browser interface. As an example of services that can be offered in this portal we implement services for producing calibrate coastal area SST maps and for combining these with standard product to obtain improved SST maps.


Objectives: To investigate the relation between perceived neighbourhood environment, social contact and support, and self efficacy, on the health of older people. Design: British cross sectional population survey of people aged 65 and over. Participants: 999 people aged 65 plus living at home in Britain. Results: Regression modelling showed that high self efficacy had a strong independent association with better self rated health status and physical functioning. Indicators of perceived neighbourhood environment that showed strong associations with both good health and functioning were: perceptions of good quality facilities in the area (social/leisure, facilities for people aged 65+, rubbish collection, health services, transport, closeness to shops, somewhere nice to walk), and high levels of neighbourliness (knows/trusts people). Perceptions of problems in the area (noise, crime, air quality, rubbish/litter, traffic, graffiti) were also predictive of poorer health. Measures of social contact and support did not show any independent associations with health or functioning. Conclusions: The unique value of this paper is in the simultaneous analysis of associations between perceived neighbourhood, social contact and support, self efficacy, and health. The consistent strength of older people's perceptions of the quality of facilities in their neighbourhoods shows that responsive reinforcement of local infrastructures might have wider health benefits. Also of interest was the strength of self efficacy as a predictor of self rated health and physical functioning. The results have implications for both neighbourhood level interventions and self management programmes in chronic illness.


The pursuit of multiple educational outcomes makes teaching a complex craft subject to potential conflicts and competing commitments. Using a data set in which teachers were randomly assigned to classes paired with videotaped lessons, we both document and unpack such a tradeoff. Upper-elementary teachers who excel at raising students' math test scores often are less successful at improving student-reported engagement in class (and vice versa). Furthermore, teaching practices that improve test scores (e.g., cognitively demanding content) can simultaneously decrease engagement. At the same time, paired quantitative and qualitative analyses reveal two areas of practice that support both outcomes: active mathematics with opportunities for hands-on participation, physical movement, and peer interaction; and established routines and procedures to proactively organize the classroom. In addition to guiding practice-based teacher education, our sequential, explanatory mixed-methods analysis can serve as a model for rigorously studying and identifying dimensions of "good" teaching that promote multidimensional student development.


In Illegible Will Hershini Bhana Young engages with the archive of South African and black diasporic performance to examine the absence of black women's will from that archive. Young argues for that will's illegibility, given the paucity of materials outlining the agency of black historical subjects. Drawing on court documents, novels, photographs, historical records, websites, and descriptions of music and dance, Young shows how black will can be conjured through critical imaginings done in concert with historical research. She critically imagines the will of familiar subjects such as Sarah Baartman and that of obscure figures such as the eighteenth-century slave Tryntjie of Madagascar, who was executed in 1713 for attempting to poison her mistress. She also investigates the presence of will in contemporary expressive culture, such as the Miss Landmine Angola beauty pageant, placing it in the long genealogy of the freak show. In these capacious case studies Young situates South African performance within African diasporic circuits of meaning throughout Africa, North America, and South Asia, demonstrating how performative engagement with archival absence can locate that which was never recorded.


In APPLIED MATHEMATICS FOR THE MANAGERIAL, LIFE, AND SOCIAL SCIENCES, Soo T. Tan provides an accessible yet accurate presentation of mathematics combined with just the right balance of applications, pedagogy, and technology to help students succeed in the course. The new Third Edition includes highly interesting current applications and exercises to help stimulate student motivation. An exciting new array of supplements provides students with extensive learning support so instructors will have more time to focus on teaching the core concepts.


GRB 090926A was detected by both the Gamma-ray Burst Monitor and Large Area Telescope (LAT) instruments on board the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. Swift follow-up observations began ∼13 hr after the initial trigger. The optical afterglow was detected for nearly 23 days post trigger, placing it in the long-lived category. The afterglow is of particular interest due to its brightness at late times, as well as the presence of optical flares at T0+105 s and later, which may indicate late-time central engine activity. The LAT has detected a total of 16 gamma-ray bursts; nine of these bursts, including GRB 090926A, also have been observed by Swift. Of the nine Swift-observed LAT bursts, six were detected by UVOT, with five of the bursts having bright, long-lived optical afterglows. In comparison, Swift has been operating for five years and has detected nearly 500 bursts, but has only seen ∼30% of bursts with optical afterglows that live longer than 105 s. We have calculated the predicted gamma-ray fluence, as would have been seen by the Burst Alert Telescope (BAT) on board Swift, of the LAT bursts to determine whether this high percentage of long-lived optical afterglows is unique, when compared to BAT-triggered bursts. We find that, with the exception of the short burst GRB 090510A, the predicted BAT fluences indicate that the LAT bursts are more energetic than 88% of all Swift bursts and also have brighter than average X-ray and optical afterglows.


Using a national sample of health care claims data from the Health Care Cost Institute, we found that total spending per capita (not including premiums) on health services for enrollees in employer-sponsored insurance plans increased by 44 percent from 2007 through 2016 (average annual growth of 4.1 percent). Spending increased across all major categories of health services, although the increases were not uniform across years or categories. Growth rates for total per capita spending generally slowed after 2009 but increased between 2014 and 2016. Spending on outpatient services grew more quickly (average annual growth of 5.7 percent) compared to spending on the other types of services. However, the overall distribution of spending across categories remained largely unchanged. In the context of the dramatic economic and policy events that have taken place since 2007-including the Great Recession, the Affordable Care Act, and numerous medical innovations-this assessment of ten-year spending trends provides insights into how the largest insured population in the US contributes to health care spending growth.


abstract:In this study, I revisit the long-standing debate over the origin of the T'ongdosa ordination platform, drawing on Daoxuan's commentary on the sīmā (monastic boundary). I argue that the initial platform was far from the type of stone structure it is now, but rather was an exposed, leveled ground built on an elevated terrace at the northwest corner of the monastery proper. In combination with the ordination facility and the Buddhist pagoda, the initial ordination platform of T'ongdosa served as an important model for those subsequently built in Unified Silla and beyond.


The social environment is an important driver of developmental plasticity in juveniles and behavioural plasticity in adults. An individual's ability to accurately assess cues during development and predict its future social dynamics plays an important role in ensuring that its phenotype at adulthood will match their anticipated environment. However, because the overall plasticity of an individual is the result of a concomitant interaction between development, environment, and behaviour over the entire lifetime, constraints arising from development may hinder adult behaviour. My dissertation examines the influence of the developmental social environment on life-history traits and fitness-conferring adult behaviours to enhance our understanding of how these two life phases interact in the fall field cricket Gryllus pennsylvanicus. Through play-back experiments that altered the density of adult male acoustic signals, my findings reveal that male and female development time decreases and female residual mass at adulthood increases in higher perceived population densities. Contrary to my expectations, neither adult male aggressive nor mate attraction signalling were significantly influenced by developmental social environments. Adult female mate preference behaviour was influenced by developmental social environment, as females raised in social isolation were more responsive than females raised exposed to signals. Furthermore, the acoustic social environment experienced during development had significant indirect effects on all adult behaviours through constraints imposed on adult body size. Crickets reared in the high density environments developed faster, and a faster development time resulted in larger body sizes. Because body size significantly influenced male aggression and signalling behaviour, and female mate preference behaviour, the ability to express behavioural plasticity at adulthood may have been limited. However, my experiment that switched acoustic social environments between juvenile and adult stages showed that males who experienced a switched environment were able to adjust specific aspects of their signalling to match the unanticipated adult social dynamics. I also examined whether anthropogenic noise pollutes the bioacoustics network. Anthropogenic noise influenced male development time and signalling behaviour, and female residual mass and preference functions. Further, anthropogenic noise sometimes interacted with the acoustic social environment experienced during rearing, causing individuals to be mismatched with their social environment in adulthood.


Wound healing effect of crude neem ( A ZADIRACHTA INDICA Juss) oil, processed locally from the seed kernel was assessed on septic surgical wound in a one year old Uda ram. A wound approximately 7 cm in diameter created as a result of surgical drainage of abscess on the left caudal part of the elbow joint was flushed with the crude neem oil. A single application of the crude neem oil to the sutured wound resulted in a complete healing after seven days without systemic or topical application of antibiotics. Wound infection and dehiscence were not observed and the animal's appetite improved significantly after the intervention and treatment. Thus, the study reveals crude neem oil may act as a cheaper, more convenient and effective wound healing oil in animals, especially, in the rural areas where veterinary services and/or orthodox chemically-based animal medicaments may not be readily available.


Recently, the demand for high-rate wireless data service has increased enormously. To meet this growing demand,
many new techniques have been developed in wireless communications. Among them, techniques based on transmit and multiuser diversity have attracted much attention due to their ability to provide reliable high data rate services. This thesis is aimed at developing and analyzing advanced communication techniques making use of transmit and multiuser diversity.

In this thesis, we consider a cellular network where data transmissions are controlled and coordinated at the base station. We study a variety of special cases of this cellular network including point-to-point communication over the multiple-input and single-output channel, multiuser communication in the downlink from the base station to multiple mobile users, and cognitive communication in an unlicensed secondary network. In the first part of this thesis, we consider the case that a single user is scheduled and there are multiple antennas at the base station. We investigate the communication reliability in terms of the symbol error rate. In particular, we propose several techniques relying on
the transmit diversity including different combinations of transmit antenna selection, space-time coding and power allocation.
In the second part of this thesis, we study the opportunistic
scheduling scheme and determine the potential performance improvement provided by multiuser
diversity in terms of the symbol error rate (SER). Two scaling laws on the asymptotic behavior are
derived for this system. In the first regime of a large average signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) denoted by A and a fixed number of users K, a SER asymptotically proportional to A^{-K} can be achieved. In the second regime of a large number of users K and a fixed average SNR value A, the SER asymptotically decreases as fast as K^{-A}.
In the third part of this thesis, we focus on the underlay cognitive radio network and study
a cognitive broadcast scenario where one secondary transmitter and several
 secondary receivers share the same spectral resource with the primary users. We investigate the
opportunistic scheduling scheme at the secondary transmitter which takes advantage
of the multiuser diversity and meanwhile controls the interference at the primary
receiver. The sum capacity of such a system is computed and scaling laws
of the sum capacity are derived for two asymptotic regimes.
In the first asymptotic regime of a large number of secondary receivers (SRs) K and a fixed number of primary receivers (PRs) U, we show that the ergodic sum capacity C scales as lnln K.
In the second asymptotic regime, where we have a large number of U and a fixed number of K, we show that C decreases as a function of ln U and
asymptotically converges to a certain finite limit. Further,
we analyze the symbol error rate performance of this cognitive scenario.
Our study shows that the opportunistic scheduling scheme exploiting the multiuser diversity can significantly enhance
the performance of the secondary network while limiting the interference caused to the primary system.


This paper takes a full-information model-based approach to evaluate the link between investment-specific technology and the inverse of the relative price of investment. The two-sector model presented includes monopolistic competition where firms can vary the markup charged on their product depending on the number of firms competing. With these changes to the standard two-sector model, both total factor productivity as well as a series of non-technological shocks can impact the high-frequency volatility of the relative price of investment. Utilizing a Bayesian estimation approach to match the model to the data, we find that investment-specific technology can explain at most half of the growth rate of the relative price of investment. Last of all, we compare the benchmark model results with endogenous movement in the relative price of investment to a model where all movement in the relative price of investment is derived exogenously. This is done by allowing technologies across sectors to move together over time. Comparison of these two methods finds that the exogenous approach is incapable of capturing changes in the relative price of investment as found in the data. This paper adds to the growing list of research, like that of Fisher (2009) and Basu et al. (2013), that suggests that the quality-adjusted relative price of investment may be a poor indicator of investment-specific technology.


There has been significant research done on developing methods for improving robustness to distributional shift and uncertainty estimation. In contrast, only limited work has examined developing standard datasets and benchmarks for assessing these approaches. Additionally, most work on uncertainty estimation and robustness has developed new techniques based on small-scale regression or image classification tasks. However, many tasks of practical interest have different modalities, such as tabular data, audio, text, or sensor data, which offer significant challenges involving regression and discrete or continuous structured prediction. Thus, given the current state of the field, a standardized large-scale dataset of tasks across a range of modalities affected by distributional shifts is necessary. This will enable researchers to meaningfully evaluate the plethora of recently developed uncertainty quantification methods, as well as assessment criteria and state-of-the-art baselines. In this work, we propose the Shifts Dataset for evaluation of uncertainty estimates and robustness to distributional shift. The dataset, which has been collected from industrial sources and services, is composed of three tasks, with each corresponding to a particular data modality: tabular weather prediction, machine translation, and self-driving car (SDC) vehicle motion prediction. All of these data modalities and tasks are affected by real,"in-the-wild"distributional shifts and pose interesting challenges with respect to uncertainty estimation. In this work we provide a description of the dataset and baseline results for all tasks.


PURPOSE/OBJECTIVES
To provide an integration and synthesis of literature on the definition and importance of the symptom cluster, theoretical frameworks to explain it, analysis strategies to identify it, interventions to alleviate it, and suggestions for future research.

DATA SOURCES
A literature review from 1995-2007 was conducted using MEDLINE. Clinical guidelines, descriptive research, intervention studies of multiple symptoms, and theoretical and conceptual articles were examined. Articles were reviewed if at least two of the four symptoms of interest were examined in relation to one or more other symptoms. Conceptual models were included if they explained or allowed for the notion of a symptom cluster.

DATA SYNTHESIS
Four symptoms were examined as a candidate symptom cluster for this analysis: fatigue, insomnia, pain, and depression. Symptom clusters were identified by expert opinion, group comparisons, shared variance among symptoms (including factor analysis and mediation analysis), identification of subgroups, influence of symptoms on patient outcomes, or the identification of a common underlying mechanism. Regardless of the method chosen for identifying a symptom cluster, the substantial evidence showed that various combinations of the target symptoms formed a symptom cluster.

CONCLUSIONS
Although the findings suggest that fatigue, insomnia, pain, and depression constitute a viable cluster for further study, more research is needed to define the cluster and describe its underlying mechanisms. Addressing multiple symptoms is beneficial in reducing negative patient outcomes; however, more work needs to be done to understand the efficacy of intervention for symptom clusters.

IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING
When conducting symptom assessment, healthcare providers should address the four symptoms (fatigue, insomnia, pain, and depression) targeted in this review because evidence of clustering exists. Guidelines provided by the National Comprehensive Cancer Network for fatigue and distress provide algorithms and decision trees for assessment and management.


We fabricated large-aperture axis-slant quasi-phase-matching (AS-QPM) device with 8 mm x 11 mm acceptable aperture size in 2-mm-thick Mg-doped LiNbO3 crystal at 65° slant angle with 75-µm surface period. The AS-QPM has a possibility of wafer-scale-aperture device, suitable for handling high power/energy lasers.


Tiering occurs when an institution does not participate directly in the central payment system but instead settles its payments through an agent. A high level of tiering can be a significant issue for payment system regulators because of the increased credit and concentration risk. This paper explores the impact of payment system design on institutions' incentives to tier using simulation analysis. Some evidence is found to support the hypothesis that the liquidity-saving mechanisms in Australia's real-time gross settlement (RTGS) system – the Reserve Bank Information and Transfer System (RITS) – reduce the liquidity cost of direct participation. This may have contributed to the low level of tiering in RITS relative to RTGS systems in other countries. We find no clear relationship between system design and the size of the substantial two-way exposures tiering creates between clients and their settlement banks. Our data suggest that more tiering would result in only small increases to the level of concentration in RITS.


In understanding and explaining the functioning of cities, contemporary urban and regional studies attribute great significance to relationships between cities. This book focuses on relationships between cities in polycentric urban regions (PURs), which are regions containing proximate but distinct cities that are rather similar in size. This book explores whether there are synergies between cities in PURs. In doing so, several widespread assumptions with respect to PURs are questioned. Do cities constituting a PUR increasingly complement each other? Does a PUR provide a similar critical mass for supporting amenities as a monocentric city region? Does a network model of spatial organisation describe the spatial-functional structure of PURs more accurately than a central place model? The author develops theories on synergy in PURs and clarifies related concepts such as complementarity, regional organising capacity and critical mass. Drawing on empirical evidence from PURs in North West Europe, particularly the Randstad, it appears that PURs are often far from being more than the sum of the parts.


Whenever she was in the presence of her husband, the newlywed Laura Coccapani was plagued by extraordinary woes, which witnesses attributed to demons. Conventional wisdom held that certain spells could cause people to be repulsed by their spouses, and many believed Valerio Trionfanti, a Franciscan with whom Coccapani once had a lengthy but unconsummated affair, had cast a spell. Launching an investigation in November 1628, the Inquisition of Modena arrested Trionfanti and found that he possessed several items, including some of the victim's pubic hairs, which were widely believed to be powerful instruments in magical spells. Trionfanti acknowledged the affair but emphatically denied having cast a spell, and the skeptical Congregation of the Inquisition in Rome acquitted him in February 1629. This case reflects the strong popular belief in love magic, its close resemblance to maleficia, and the Holy Office's efforts to discredit its alleged efficacy.


Heavy Metal Ions; Chitosan; Hydrogel; Sorption. Industrial and agricultural discharges have been shown as important sources for a wide range of contaminants like heavy metals. This study focused on the assessment of the toxic effect of heavy metals and illustrates some methods of eliminating or avoiding these contaminants. In certain methods, heavy metals (Cu, Zn, Cr, Ni, Pb, Hg, and Cd) are recovered, and range of absorbents are tested. A number of studies have reported the complex interaction of polymers with metal ions with the polymers for eliminating heavy metals (e.g. cellulose, chitosan, and chitin. Metal ions are absorbed by these polymers by the amine and hydroxyl groups. They have unique features that incorporate polyxysalt arrangement, capacity to frame films, optical underlying qualities, and chelates metal particles. Chemical bonds, pH, crystallinity, and deacetylation are controlling the mechanism and performance of the absorption. Some methods increase the efficiency, selectivity, and quality of chitosan: the first is through chemical modification employing grafting and crosslinking, and the second by physical modification, such as manufacturing gel granules and reducing crystallization. This study aims to investigate the removal of heavy metals from water by the sorption method and to study and analyze literature dealing with this topic using chitosan hydrogel. How to cite this article: M. A. Ali, S. A. Soud and A. H. Hameed, "Chitosan Hydrogel for Removing of Heavy Metal Ions from Water: A Review," Engineering and Technology Journal, Vol. 39, No. 07, pp. 1195-1205, 2021. DOI: https://doi.org/10.30684/etj.v39i7.2015 This is an open access article under the CC BY 4.0 license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0).


Value function approximation methods have been successfully used in many applications, but the prevailing techniques often lack useful a priori error bounds. We propose a new approximate bilinear programming formulation of value function approximation, which employs global optimization. The formulation provides strong a priori guarantees on both robust and expected policy loss by minimizing specific norms of the Bellman residual. Solving a bilinear program optimally is NP-hard, but this worst-case complexity is unavoidable because the Bellman-residual minimization itself is NP-hard. We describe and analyze the formulation as well as a simple approximate algorithm for solving bilinear programs. The analysis shows that this algorithm offers a convergent generalization of approximate policy iteration. We also briefly analyze the behavior of bilinear programming algorithms under incomplete samples. Finally, we demonstrate that the proposed approach can consistently minimize the Bellman residual on simple benchmark problems.


The development of a smarter electric grid will depend on increased deployments of information and communication technology (ICT) to support novel communication and control functions. Unfortunately, this additional dependency also expands the risk from cyber attacks. Designing systems with adequate cyber security depends heavily on the availability of representative environments, such as testbeds, where current issues and future ideas can be evaluated. This paper provides an overview of a smart grid security testbed, including the set of control, communication, and physical system components required to provide an accurate cyber-physical environment. It then identifies various testbed research applications and also identifies how various components support these applications. The PowerCyber testbed at Iowa State University is then introduced, including the architecture, applications, and novel capabilities, such as virtualization, Real Time Digital Simulators (RTDS), and ISEAGE WAN emulation. Finally, several attack scenarios are evaluated using the testbed to explore cyber-physical impacts. In particular, availability and integrity attacks are demonstrated with both isolated and coordinated approaches, these attacks are then evaluated based on the physical system's voltage and rotor angle stability.


This article is the Keynote Address given at the 4th International Integrative Psychotherapy Association Conference, April 17, 2009. In speaking to the conference theme of "Acute Trauma, Cumulative Neglect, and Chronic Stress" the article describes some of the principles of Relational Group Psychotherapy. The theory of methods is based on the concept that the healing of trauma, neglect and stress occurs through a contactful therapeutic relationship. Relational group psychotherapy draws from several developments in group therapy, particularly the cybernetic feedback and other-centered models. It emphasizes the healing power of relationships between group members and the importance of phenomenological inquiry, affective attunement, identification, and relational-needs. The leader's tasks are to stimulate the flow of contactful dialogue and to teach about human needs and healthy relationships.


This working paper examines faith-based organisations (FBOs) and their attempts to seek to influence debate and decision-making at the United Nations (UN). Increasing attention on FBOs in this context has followed what is widely understood as a widespread, post-Cold War 'religious resurgence', which characterises a novel 'postsecular' international environment. One aspect of the new postsecular environment is increasing focus on global public policy at the UN, from FBOs from various religious traditions, especially Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. The paper focuses on Christian, Muslim and Jewish FBOs at the UN because: (1) it is the largest intergovernmental organisation, with 193 member states, (2) it is the most important global public policy focus, and (3) hundreds of FBOs have an institutionalised presence at the UN, via official status with the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). Overall, the UN regularly engages with more than 3,000 non-governmental organisations afforded 'official' UN status. Around 10 per cent are classified as FBOs, implying that their activities and goals are significantly moulded by religious orientations and principles. This does not necessarily imply however that FBOs at the UN are 'religiously pure', that is, unwilling to work with non-religious entities, including both states and non-state actors. Many FBOs are willing to interact at the UN with both state and non-state entities which share their ideological although not religious proclivities. The paper conceptualises and examines two categories of FBO: 'conservative' and 'liberal', in the context of three separate issue areas: women's sexual and reproductive human rights; international development; and 'defamation of religions.'


In this paper we investigate the impacts of abolishing the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) for the post-2013 European Union (EU) financial perspective and the impacts of re-investing the released funds on research and development (R&D). We apply a linked system of models to analyze the impacts for the EU member states. The linked system consists of five land-use sector models (agriculture, forestry, urban area, tourism and transport infrastructure), which are connected to a macro-econometric model. Additionally, a land cover model is used to disaggregate land use countries to a 1 km² grid. Three scenarios are analysed. In the "baseline" currently decided policies are assumed to be continued until 2025. In the "tax rebate" scenario agricultural support (first pillar) is removed, and the member states' contributions to EU lowered. In the "R&D investments" scenario agricultural support is also removed, and the released funds are used to increase general R&D efforts in the EU. We find that in both liberalization scenarios, agricultural producer prices drop compared to the baseline. Agricultural production drops too, but less so in the "R&D investment" scenario due to productivity gains resulting from the increased R&D spending. In some countries, the productivity gains totally offset the negative impact of liberalisation on agricultural production. Smaller agricultural production implies less agricultural land use, and the more so in the "R&D Investment" scenario where productivity increases. The fall in agricultural production and prices negatively affects economic activity and households' purchasing power, but the reduced direct taxation compensates this effect and results in a GDP gain of 0.53% and 0.8 million additional jobs. In "R&D investment" GDP gain reaches 2.57% and yields 2.95 million additional jobs in EU in 2025. The GDP, consumption and employment gains in the "R&D Investment" scenario widely exceed the losses in the agriculture sectors. The analysis indicates that if no external effects of agriculture are considered, then the CAP is an inefficient use of tax money, and that a considerable contribution to reaching the goals of the Lisbon agenda would be achieved if the same amount of money was instead invested in R&D.


With the recent emergence of endocrine disrupting compounds as an important potable drinking water and reclaimed wastewater quality issue, the removal of two estrogenic compounds (17β-estradiol and fluoranthene) by nanofiltration and ultrafiltration membranes was investigated. A less hydrophobic organic compound model species [parachlorobenzoic acid (PCBA)] was tested. 17β-estradiol (E2), fluoranthene, and PCBA were applied to the membrane in the presence and absence of natural organic matter (NOM). Both batch adsorption and dead-end stirred-cell filtration experiments indicated that adsorption is an important mechanism for transport/removal of relatively hydrophobic compounds, and is related to the octanol-water partition coefficient (\iK\dO\dW) values. All filtration measurements were performed approximately the same permeate flow rate in order to minimize artifacts from concentration polarization varied with different hydrodynamic operating conditions at the membrane interface. The percent removal by dead-end stirred-cell filtration ranged from 10 to >95% depending upon membrane pore size/hydrophobicity and presence/absence of NOM at an initial concentration ranging from 0.1 to 0.5 μM. Additional batch adsorption experiments with radio-label (³H) E2 at lower concentrations ranging 0.025 to 5 nM showed that E2 removal due to adsorption was independent of its initial concentration. Adsorption occurs both on the membrane surface and interior membrane pore surfaces. However, adsorption was insignificant for PCBA (log \iK\dO\dW=2.7), but removal presumably occurred due to electrostatic exclusion. Partition coefficients (log \iK) of 0.44 to 4.86 measured in this study increased with log \iK\dO\dW and membrane pore size.


This thesis was submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the College of William and Mary for the degree of Master of Science in Social Work.


Integrated modelling approaches for whole river catchments require the coupling of di3erent types of models. As an example, river &ow and forecast models in oneand two-space dimensions are discussed. Usually, these models are based on the hyperbolic shallow water equations and require special discretizations like ENO or Godunov-type methods. The basic coupling mechanisms like coupling via source terms, via boundary conditions, via state variables and simulator coupling are introduced by examples. Their properties with respect to performance and accuracy requirements and implementation issues are presented. If coupling conditions are considered, additional algebraic equations arise. By the method of lines approach it is possible to translate the partial di3erential equations and the algebraic equations into a large system of di3erential algebraic equations (DAEs). The DAEs can e>ciently be solved if the special structure of the Jacobian of the coupled model components is taken into account. c © 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. MSC: 92.40.Fb; 02.60.Cb; 02.60.Lj; 02.70.Fj


Magnetoencephalography (MEG) is a new non-invasive technique for the
functional imaging of the human brain. It has been widely used in both
research and clinical applications, for it has several superior properties,
including a high-temporal resolution with no interference from the bone
or the head-like fluid to the signal spatial transformation.

In this thesis, we aim to develop a framework for MEG spatial-temporal
current course reconstruction by introducing classical methods from the
pattern recognition theory into medical imaging. These applications provide
a new angle for research in MEG source reconstruction with the solution
for source reconstruction at a single point, and improvements of the
reconstruction on spatially and temporally. The whole thesis is based on
three topics, which are designed to be parts of an integrated reconstruction
process, and each of them are interrelated, rather than independent from
each other.

We firstly introduce the source reconstructionmethod at a single time point
using the basis function extraction. In light of the assumption that the
Laplacian eigenvectors of mesh can be the analogous to the basis functions
that represent the cortex mesh; we build a new model to describe the
current source that is distributed on each mesh vertex. This model consists
of analogous basis functions and unknown weighted coefficients. In terms
of experiment results, this algorithm shows good reconstructed property
to the single stimulus, as well as the supercial stimulus on the cortical
surface.

Secondly, with respect to the spatial reconstructed sources by basis function
method from the last topic, we build a new solution for improving
the spatial-resolution of MEG source reconstruction at a single time point by introducing a classical method ( the Bayesian super-resolution
method) from the pattern recognition theory. Although the approach is designed based on the reconstruction from basis functions, it is also feasible
for other spatial reconstruction methods to improve the spatial-resolution.
From the numerical experiment results, it is apparent that the spatial resolution has been effectively improved.

Then, the MEG measurement system in the temporal field is assumed to
be a linear dynamic system where the classical methods, Kalman filter and
Kalman smoother, are applied as the solution for the estimation of source
in time course. The Kalman filter is used to estimate the dynamic state
while the Kalman smoother is applied for correcting the source distribution
of the hidden state with the EMalgorithm. This approach shows superior
performance to solve the inverse problem. It extends the improvement
in source reconstruction using the temporal field.

We construct the synthetic data as well as apply the realMEG data throughout
all the experimental test of my work.

In summary, this thesis builds three algorithms, which aim to reconstruct
the MEG source distribution on spatial and temporal field respectively
aided by methods from pattern recognition. This work provides a new
angle of using the pattern recognition theory for MEG source reconstruction.
Meanwhile, we also explore a new direction for applying the theory
of pattern recognition. This work not only provides a good integration
between these two fields, but also encourage future interactions.


Formation of extracellular polymeric substances (EPSs) by mucoid Pseudomonas aeruginosa was investigated using literature data from chemostat cultures. The data were used to calibrate a product formation regime allowing substrate sufficient and endogenous EPS formation. Yield coefficients for both formation conditions were elucidated based on metabolic pathway analysis. Growth and non-growth related specific formation rates of 0.18 g CEPS/g Ccell/h and 0.03 1/h were estimated, respectively. The exogenous and endogenous EPS yield was found to be 0.77 g CEPS/g Cglu and 0.79 g CEPS/g Ccell, respectively. Being structurally equivalent to comprehensive maintenance models, this model allows for non-growth related product formation, showing the same quality of fit as previous models restricted to exogenous EPS precursors.


The desire to better understand the transmission of infectious disease in the real world has motivated the representation of epidemic diffusion in the context of quantitative simulation. In recent decades, both individual-based models and aggregate models (such as System Dynamics) are widely used in epidemiological modeling. This paper compares the difference between aggregate models and individual-based models in the context of Tuberculosis (TB) transmission, considering smoking as a risk factor. The merits and impact of capturing individual heterogeneity is examined via representing Bacillus Calmette-Gurin vaccination and reactivation in both models. The simulation results of the two models exhibit distinct discrepancies in TB incidence rate and prevalence. Results also suggest that, at the level of practical application, individual-based models offer significantly greater accuracy and easier extension, especially when representing a decreasing reactivation rate, waning of immunity and heterogeneous individual attributes. Another experiment sought to evaluate the impact of network structure on TB diffusion. Simulations are conducted under three widely used network topologies, namely random, scale-free and small world. The results reveal large differences between results of individual-based models and aggregate models, which further give insights into the difference between these two model types in the context of practical decision-making.


This book provides an elementary introduction to the subject of quantum optics, the study of the quantum mechanical nature of light and its interaction with matter. The presentation is almost entirely concerned with the quantized electromagnetic field. Topics covered include single-mode field quantization in a cavity, quantization of multimode fields, quantum phase, coherent states, quasi-probability distribution in phase space, atom-field interactions, the Jaynes-Cummings model, quantum coherence theory, beam splitters and interferometers, dissipative interactions, nonclassical field states with squeezing etc., 'Schrodinger cat' states, tests of local realism with entangled photons from down-conversion, experimental realizations of cavity quantum electrodynamics, trapped ions, decoherence, and some applications to quantum information processing, particularly quantum cryptography. The book contains many homework problems and an extensive bibliography. This text is designed for upper-level undergraduates taking courses in quantum optics who have already taken a course in quantum mechanics, and for first and second year graduate students.


Abstract Van Morrison's live version of his song 'Cyprus Avenue' on the 1974 album It's Too Late to Stop Now provides an example of the authority of the singer's voice and of how it leads and demands submission from musicians, songs, and audience. Morrison's voice constantly suggests that it is reflecting important experience and can be understood both as an attempt to capture something and as a post-hoc witnessing or testimony. Through the example of Morrison's work, and of It's Too Late to Stop Now in particular, this article explores the location of the voice in terms of the body and of particular places and histories. It then proceeds to a reflection on the relationship between the performing voice as producer of sound, noise, and music and the poetic voice that provides the words and visions upon which the performing voice goes to work. It concludes by focusing on a moment within 'Cyprus Avenue' where Morrison performs the act of being tongue-tied, discussing this as an example of 'aesthetic stutter'. Throughout, attention is also paid to how other voices (particularly those of rock critics) connect to Morrison's voice by attempting to describe it, re-perform it, or explain it.


Ioncell-F, a recently developed process for the production of man-made cellulosic fibers from ionic liquid solutions by dry-jet wet spinning, is presented as an alternative to the viscose and N-methylmorpholine N-oxide (NMMO)-based Lyocell processes. The ionic liquid 1,5-diazabicyclo[4.3.0]non-5-ene acetate was identified as excellent cellulose solvent allowing for a rapid dissolution at moderate temperatures and subsequent shaping into continuous filaments. The highly oriented cellulose fibers obtained upon coagulation in cold water exhibited superior tenacity, exceeding that of commercial viscose and NMMO-based Lyocell (Tencel®) fibers. The respective staple fibers, which have been converted into two-ply yarn by ring spinning technology, presented very high tenacity. Furthermore, the Ioncell yarn showed very good behavior during the knitting and weaving processes, reflecting the quality of the produced yarn. The successfully knitted and woven garments from the Ioncell yarn demonstrate the suitability of this particular ionic liquid for the production of man-made cellulosic fibers and thus give a promising outlook for the future of the Ioncell-F process.


The publication of the Ecomodernist Manifesto in 2015 marked a high point for post-environmentalism, a set of ideas that reject limits and instead advocate urbanization, industrialization, agricultural intensification, and nuclear power to protect the environment. Where, how, and why did post-environmentalism come about? Might it influence developments in the future? We trace the origins of post-environmentalism to the mid-2000s in the San Francisco Bay Area and show how it emerged as a response to perceived failures of U.S. environmentalism. Through a discourse analysis of key texts produced by the primary actors of post-environmentalism, namely the Oakland, California-based Breakthrough Institute and its cofounders Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger, we show how the theory behind post-environmentalism mixes a deconstructionist trope familiar to political ecologists with a modernization core from liberal economics. We discuss the contradictions of post-environmentalist discourse and argue that despite its flaws, post-environmentalism can hold considerable sway because its politics align with powerful interests who benefit from arguing that accelerating capitalist modernization will save the environment. We conclude that political ecology has a much more nuanced take on the contradictions post-environmentalists stumble upon, disagreeing with those political ecologists who are choosing to ally with the agenda of the Manifesto. Keywords : ecomodernism; ecological modernization; discourse analysis; environmental politics


Due to limitations of laboratory test rigs to reproduce some of the more extreme operating conditions (such as a tire rolling over large obstacles), not all the tire parameters and characteristics can be derived using tire dynamic tests. However, most tire dynamic responses and vibration properties can be virtually simulated using Finite Element analysis which has long been recognized as a significant simulation tool for tire characteristics investigation. The objective of this study is to determine the rolling resistance of a tire rolling on an uneven road by simulating the energy loss in the tire and the longitudinal force. The tire model was developed with detailed geometry and material definition, and satisfactory results were obtained by validation of the transient dynamic response of the tire rolling over obstacles. For simulating a tire rolling on an uneven road, the road unevenness was generated using the Inverse Discrete Fourier Transform method. Finally, the effects of different kinds of road unevenness and different travelling velocities on rolling resistance were investigated.


Online child sexual abuse (OCSA) is a pervasive problem facilitated by the anonymity afforded to offenders online. From a largely social constructionist perspective, this thesis explores linguistic expressions of identity by participants across a range of OCSA interactions, including offenders and suspected offenders, victims, and undercover police officers. The thesis is structured around three individual studies, each involving a different abusive interaction type. Each study employs Swales' (1981; 1990) move analysis framework, exploring how participants use rhetorical moves as a resource for identity performance. Study 1 concerns a convicted offender who strategically cycled through numerous adopted personas when interacting with victims online. It considers his performance of various identity positions through his use of rhetorical moves across different personas. One persona is found to diverge significantly from the rest, and is identified as a possible reflection of the offender's 'home identity'. Study 2 considers interactions between suspected offenders and undercover police officers posing as offenders. It compares the participants' move use and explores linguistic realisations of supportive exchanges, finding that aside a few notable differences, undercover officers perform the offender identity similarly to genuine suspected offenders. Study 3 explores dark web forum posts authored by 'newbies' attempting to join existing online communities of suspected offenders. It examines the identity positions performed in the posts and considers how positions of competence and expertise contribute to the persuasive process of seeking membership into online offending communities. Taking findings from these studies, the thesis discusses the possible contributions of move analysis to OCSA research and how rhetorical moves are used as a resource for identity performance, and offers an approach to identity analysis based on rhetorical moves. It concludes by arguing for move analysis as a useful goal-centred approach to identity investigation and describes potential implications of this work for law-enforcement, education and research.


Online self-presentation is of increasing importance in modern life, from establishing and maintaining personal relationships to forging professional identities. Academic scholars are no exception, and a host of social networking platforms designed specifically for scholars abound. This study used Amazon's Mechanical Turk service to code 10,500 profile pictures used by scholars on three platforms — Mendeley, Microsoft Academic Search, and Google Scholar — in order to determine how academics are presenting themselves to their colleagues and to the public at large and how they are perceived — particularly in relation to professionalism and attractiveness. The majority of the individuals on Mendeley, Microsoft Academic Search, and Google Scholar were Caucasian, male, and perceived to be over the age of 35. Females and younger individuals were perceived as less professional than male and older individuals, while women were more likely to be perceived as "attractive." In addition, the Mechanical Turk coders were susceptible to framing; the individuals in the profile pictures were considered more "professional" if they were identified as "scholars" rather than merely as "individuals." The results have far-reaching implications for self-presentation and framing, both for scholars and for other professionals. In the academic realm, there are serious implications for hiring and the allocation of resources and rewards.


The low selectivity of chemotherapy is an ongoing problem in the treatment of cancer. Prodrugs that are activated in vivo provide a therapeutic advantage for selective cytotoxicity. Here we have designed redox-active compounds that are electrochemically reduced in hypoxic (poorly oxygenated) tissue, resulting in release of a nitrogen mustard cytotoxin. This thesis describes the synthesis of novel macrocyclic N-mustard drugs and the development of their Cu(II) complexes as hypoxia-selective prodrugs. (Fig. 3736A)

The (2-trimethylsilyl)ethanesulfonyl (SES) protecting group is very versatile. It is removed under mild conditions using fluoride. The published synthesis of the sulfonyl chloride A gave variable yield and purity, but we have improved the conditions to give consistently pure material in high yield (70-86% overall) (Scheme 1). (Fig. 3736B)

Triamines with carbon bridges longer than three are difficult to prepare, often requiring multistep syntheses. A route was developed to synthesise linear triamines, using the SES-amide B. This route produces these triamines in relatively high yields (60-80% overall), via simple reactions with little purification necessary (Scheme 2).

A variation on the Richman-Atkins synthesis has been exploited to reach known an novel triazamacrocyclic compounds D (Scheme 3), in order to explore their structure-activity relationship as N-mustard drugs E (made as shown in Scheme 4). Eight novel macrocyclic N-mustards E were found to be potent DNA cross-linking agents (nM range) by Prof. John Hartley at University College London. Three of the novel triazamacrocycles D were assessed in vitro for anti-parasitic activity by Dr. Michael Barrett at the University of Glasgow. They showed moderate activity against Leishmania mexicana and Trypanosoma brucei. (Fig. 3736C)

Water soluble Cu(II) complexes of cytotoxic macrocyclic nitrogen mustards have been prepared and their structures have been determined using X-ray crystallography by Dr. Louis Farrugia in this department. The redox behaviour and reduction potentials (Cu[II] to Cu[I] of the complexes in phosphate buffer were assessed using cyclic voltammetry. The thermodynamic stabilities of the Cu(II) complexes in aqueous solution were analysed qualitatively using UV-Vis spectroscopy. The mustard complexes F and G showed irreversible redox behaviour and low thermodynamic stability, and were not hypoxia-selective but behaved as typical mustard drugs. The cyclen-based mustard complex H showed reversible redox behaviour and had high thermodynamic stability under aqueous conditions. H exhibited excellent hypoxia selectivity (the best so far in the lung tumour cell line tested) and is an attractive lead compound for further development of this novel approach to cancer chemotherapy. (Fig. 3736D)


Diabetic Retinopathy is one of the complicated diseases and it is caused by the changes in the blood vessels of the retina. Extraction of retina image through Fundus camera sometimes produces poor contrast and noises; detection of blood vessels in the retina is very complicated. So preprocessing is needed, in this paper a novel algorithm is implemented to remove the noisy pixel in the retina image. The proposed algorithm is Extended Median Filter and it is applied to green channel of the retina, because green channel vessels are brighter than the background. Proposed extended median filter is compared with the existing standard median filter by performance metrics such as Peak Signal-to-Noise Ratio, Mean Square Error and Root Mean Square Error. Experimental results show that the proposed Extended Median Filter algorithm gives better result than the existing standard median filter in terms of noise suppression and detail preservation.


The study of community structure in wastewater biofilms is made difficult by the slow growth rates and high environmental sensitivities of autotrophic nitrifiers. Simulations of such films can generate data quickly and without susceptibility to random environmental perturbation. This study uses a 2D cellular automaton model to compare the community structures of biofilms grown under top-down and membrane aeration conditions. This study found dramatic differences in community structure between the two approaches, most notably the emergence of a niche at the solid–biofilm interface that facilitates the growth of nitrite oxidizing bacteria.


The Nordic educational welfare model was implemented to support social justice and equal opportunities for all. After the fall of the Berlin wall the welfare model is weakened due to influences from international and global trends. It is found that with the introduction of new public management steering of public welfare and the decentralization of responsibilities from state to municipalities, local authorities are left to their own devices to solve disparities between, for example, a decreasing population and a shrinking economy. The article looks closer at the disparities between the structure of new public management steering and context-related variables of diversity. Arguing for diversity as cultural variation, the article draws on empirical data based on focus-group interviews with teachers of three multi-grade schools in rural Norway. To support the analysis, Bourdieu's theories on structure and agency (habitus and field) as well as cultural, social and symbolic capital are utilized. The results give examples of the cultural socialization of individuals/groups – and how they pursue their valued resources and pursue their interest in practice. In reference to new public management and the steering of education, the findings indicate resistance and complexity concerning contingent social and cultural influences, and dispositions in the educational field investigated.


Penetration of wood preservatives into the wood cell is believed to be important to protect the wood from biodegradation especially fungal degradation. preservatives effectiveness depends on the amount of uptake or retention as well as its uniform
distribution within the wood cells. Interest on organotin(IV) complexes both mono- and disubstituted organotin(IV) is increasing due to their interesting
structural features, biocidal properties and environmentally friendly. The microdistribution of tin-based preservative in tropical woods was examined using
Scanning Electron Microscope-Energy Dispersive X-ray (SEM-EDX) analyzer. Bulk specimens of 1% organotin(IV)-treated cubes were used to examine the microdistribution of tin in Alstonia scholaris, Macaranga triloba and
Hevea brasiliensis woods. Conventional SEM-EDX was able to detect spatial distribution of tin in wood microstructure. The SEM-EDX distribution maps and linescan analyses showed that the deposition of tin were uneven with respect to cell microstructure in all woods studied with relatively higher tin accumulation in the
ray cells and middle lamella than in the fibre cell wall. The results indicated that ray as the penetration pathway of organotin(IV) solution into the wood microstructure
capable of penetrating the cell wall.


Applications of high-strength steel products in civil engineering have been limited by elastic local buckling, by the perceived lack of ductility, and by the perceived difficulties of welding such steels. This article proposes a new column (i.e. high-strength steel plate–concrete-filled fiber-reinforced polymer tube) consisting of an outer fiber-reinforced polymer tube, concrete infill, and encased high-strength steel plates that are connected to each other by bolted angle brackets at discrete elevations. The column offers an ideal opportunity for the use of high-strength steel plates in construction, with their high yield stresses being fully utilized and without welding (and without welding residual stresses). The rationale for the column form and its expected advantages are explained and demonstrated through laboratory tests. Prefabricated glass fiber-reinforced polymer tubes of 1.5 and 3.0 mm thick and 203 mm diameter were infilled with concrete having a nominal strength of 32 MPa, with most specimens encasing steel plates of various configurations and yield stresses ranging from 290 to 455 MPa. Results from concentric and eccentric compression tests involving 13 specimens are presented to confirm the expected structural advantages. The results demonstrated that the concrete in the tested specimens was very effectively confined, and that buckling of all the steel plates was prevented by the encasing concrete up to and beyond the rupture of the fiber-reinforced polymer tubes, leading to full structural utilization of the construction materials and very ductile column responses under concentric and eccentric loadings. The needs for future research on high-strength steel plate–concrete-filled fiber-reinforced polymer tube columns are also discussed.


AIM
To investigate the expression of dipeptidyl peptidase (DPP) 8 and DPP9 in lymphocytes and various models of liver fibrosis.

METHODS
DPP8 and DPP9 expression were measured in mouse splenic CD4⁺ T-cells, CD8⁺ T-cells and B-cells (B220⁺), human lymphoma cell lines and mouse splenocytes stimulated with pokeweed mitogen (PWM) or lipopolysaccharide (LPS), and in dithiothreitol (DTT) and mitomycin-C treated Raji cells. DPP8 and DPP9 expression were measured in epidermal growth factor (EGF) treated Huh7 hepatoma cells, in fibrotic liver samples from mice treated with carbon tetrachloride (CCl₄) and from multidrug resistance gene 2 (Mdr2/Abcb4) gene knockout (gko) mice with biliary fibrosis, and in human end stage primary biliary cirrhosis (PBC).

RESULTS
All three lymphocyte subsets expressed DPP8 and DPP9 mRNA. DPP8 and DPP9 expression were upregulated in both PWM and LPS stimulated mouse splenocytes and in both Jurkat T- and Raji B-cell lines. DPP8 and DPP9 were downregulated in DTT treated and upregulated in mitomycin-C treated Raji cells. DPP9-transfected Raji cells exhibited more annexin V⁺ cells and associated apoptosis. DPP8 and DPP9 mRNA were upregulated in CCl₄ induced fibrotic livers but not in the lymphocytes isolated from such livers, while DPP9 was upregulated in EGF stimulated Huh7 cells. In contrast, intrahepatic DPP8 and DPP9 mRNA expression levels were low in the Mdr2 gko mouse and in human PBC compared to non-diseased livers.

CONCLUSION
These expression patterns point to biological roles for DPP8 and DPP9 in lymphocyte activation and apoptosis and in hepatocytes during liver disease pathogenesis.


Abstract
Crossdocking is a logistic strategy used to improve the effectiveness of goods distribution by aiming to decrease inventory and transportation costs. A distribution network is an integrated set of suppliers, distribution platforms and customers where strategic, tactical and operating decisions related to a single player could produce effects on some (or many) others. The state of the art on crossdocking logistic strategy highlights a mismatch between the description of a crossdocking platform and its mathematical formulation. Unloading, loading, sorting, consolidating, storing, labelling and handling are the activities performed within a crossdocking platform which are not included in the modelling part.
Generally the authors include just the storing activity. These activities could be relevant for some problems such as scheduling, layout and distribution whereas they could be considered irrelevant for some other problems which do not reach the detail level on the internal functioning of the platform such as the location problems. Among these problems, the PhD dissertation deals with the distribution flow problem which consists in determining how to send products from suppliers to customers through crossdocking platforms. The activities performed at the platforms are associated to costs and capacity constraints for the available resources. For this reason a crossdocking platform cannot be represented by a single transshipment node. In order to take into account these features, the crossdocking platform is modelled with a transshipment nodes network: a receiving node which stands for the activities performed on the incoming products, a storing node, which stands for the inventory activity and a shipping node standing for the activities performed on the outgoing products. The literature review on distribution flow problems for the crossdocking strategy underlines another mismatch: the lack of a specific constraint for the transportation efficiency. A model is proposed to fill these gaps. The main idea is that the crossdocking, with appropriate differences, can be formulated as a Fixed Charge Network Flow Problem, well-known NP-hard problem. Two exact approaches, a Branch and Bound and a Branch and Cut algorithm, have been developed in order to solve the problem. These two procedures are customized on the network features and they are different from the default procedures embedded within the most diffused optimization software: Xpress and Cplex. Some pseudo-random instances have been generated with the aim to test the developed model and procedures. For the large instances, the obtained results have been compared with those obtained by the optimization software. The obtained results demonstrate the effectiveness of the developed procedures as well as of the crossdocking strategy in terms of average level of inventory.
The second part of this PhD thesis deals with an application: the case of the distribution process through container terminal. A new model is proposed, extension of the previous one, which allows to take into account the specific features associated a container terminal. Once again, the model is formulated, with appropriate differences, as a Fixed Charge Network Flow Problem. In this case the model is validated with a real instance extracted by the current functioning of the container terminal of Naples (Italy), which represents the case study. Like the previous model, the obtained results validate the crossdocking strategy for the management of the terminal yard. This strategy, in fact, allows to drastically cut the average inventory time.


Despite the growing research on usability in the pre-development phase, we know little about post-deployment usability activities. To characterize these activities, we surveyed 333 full-time usability professionals and consultants working in large and small corporations from a wide range of industries. Our results show that, as a whole, usability professionals are currently not playing a substantial role in the post-deployment phase compared to other phases of user-centered design, but when they do, practitioners find their interactions quite valuable. We highlight opportunities in HCI research and practice to bridge this gap by working more closely with software support and maintenance teams. We also raise the need to understand what might be called 'usability maintenance,' that is, the process and procedures, by which usability is maintained after deployment.


This letter presents a CMOS-compatible photodetector displaying direct light-to-time conversion and intrinsic charge integration with a very low dark current. This device is particularly adapted for applications requiring high sensitivity such as bioluminescence detection. The effects of the physical structure, the process parameters, and the bias conditions on the device are discussed with the support of TCAD simulations and experimental measurements. The photodetector and its readout circuit are designed and implemented in standard 0.18-μm CMOS process. The experimental study shows promising tunability and sensitivity characteristics.


This paper attempts to provide an overview of sexual harassment in the work place in the Pakistani context. It will also report results of a case study of an incident of sexual harassment reported by a group of women working in a multi-national organization.


New paradigms for parallel programming have been devised to simplify software development on multi-core processors and many-core graphical processing units (GPU). Despite their obvious benefits, the parallelisation of existing computer programs is not an easy task. In this work, the use of the Open Multiprocessing (OpenMP) and Open Computing Language (OpenCL) frameworks is considered for the parallelisation of the model-based iterative reconstruction algorithm DIRA with the aim to significantly shorten the code's execution time. Selected routines were parallelised using OpenMP and OpenCL libraries; some routines were converted from MATLAB to C and optimised. Parallelisation of the code with the OpenMP was easy and resulted in an overall speedup of 15 on a 16-core computer. Parallelisation with OpenCL was more difficult owing to differences between the central processing unit and GPU architectures. The resulting speedup was substantially lower than the theoretical peak performance of the GPU; the cause was explained.


A WARM WATCHFUL EYE: PARENTAL EMOTIONAL SUPPORT AND MONITORING IN MULTISYSTEM THERAPY FOR YOUTH WITH DIABETES by DANA MAY AUGUST 2012 Advisor: Dr. Annmarie Cano Major: Clinical Psychology Degree: Master of Arts The purpose of this study was to examine the extent to which changes in parenting behaviors, in particular monitoring diabetes care completion and providing emotional support to the youth, improve health care status within participants in a Multisystemic psychotherapeutic intervention (MST). RM-ANOVAs were used to determine the relationship of parental involvement in the treatment and telephone support group over time. Change score correlations were used to examine changes in parental involvement relationship to changes in diabetes care behaviors. All participants in the study increased in parental monitoring over time, with no differences between the MST group and the telephone support group. Changes in types of parental monitoring were related to changes in adherence. Emotional support showed no change and was not related to diabetes outcomes. This research suggests parental involvement alone does not change diabetes behaviors but may be an important contributor and should be studied further to understand how to assist youth with diabetes.


Our study aims at providing new insight on firm value effects stressing on ownership structure monitoring role, in addition to the disciplinary role of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) reporting to provide high-quality information thereby enhancing equity value. We rely on a sample of financial listed firms in three emerging markets, namely, Morocco, South Africa and Turkey. A panel regression for random effects specification is used to control for IFRS effect and non-monotonic effects of ownership structure on firm value. Our findings support the forcefulness of IFRS standards in reducing information asymmetries between "more" informed and "less" informed investors. In addition, unlike institutions and blockholders, institutional blockholders exhibit a non-monotonic influence on firm value. This finding is consistent with the claim that corporate shareholders' identities and ownership sizes are likely to differentially influence firm valuation.


This thesis is interested in improving the operation of a parabolic trough technology based solar thermal power plant by means of automatic control. One of the challenging issues in a solar thermal power plant, from the control point of view, is to maintain the thermal process variables close to their desired levels. In contrast to a conventional power plant where fuel is used as the manipulated variable, in a solar thermal power plant, solar radiation cannot be manipulated and in fact it ironically acts as a disturbance due to its change on a daily and seasonal basis.

The research facility ACUREX is used as a test bed in this thesis. ACUREX is a typical parabolic trough technology based solar thermal power plant and belongs to the largest research centre in Europe for concentrating solar technologies, namely the Plataforma Solar de Almeria (PSA) in south-east Spain. The plant exhibits nonlinearities as well as resonance characteristics that lie well within the desired control bandwidth. Failure to adequately capture the resonance characteristics of the plant results in an undesired oscillatory control performance. Moreover, measured disturbances are an integral part of the plant and while some of the measured disturbances do not have a significant impact on the operation of the plant, others do.

Hence, with the aim of handling the plant nonlinearities and capturing the plant resonance characteristics, while taking explicit account of the measured disturbances, in this thesis a gain scheduling feedforward predictive control strategy is proposed. The control strategy is based upon a family of local linear time-invariant state space models that are estimated around a number of operating points. The locally estimated linear time-invariant state space models have the key novelty of being able to capture the resonance characteristics of the plant with the minimal number of states and hence, simple analysis and control design.

Moreover, while simple classical, series and parallel, feedforward configurations have been proposed and used extensively in the literature to mitigate the impact of the measured disturbances of the ACUREX plant, the proposed control strategy incorporates a feedforward systematically by including the effects of the measured disturbances of the ACUREX plant into the predictions of future outputs.

In addition, a target (set point) for a control strategy is normally set at the ACUREX plant by the plant operator. However, in this thesis it is argued that, in parallel, the operator must choose between potentially ambitious and perhaps unreachable targets and safer targets. Ambitious targets can lead to actuator saturation and safer targets imply electricity production losses.

Hence, in this thesis a novel two-layer hierarchical control structure is proposed with the gain scheduling feedforward predictive control strategy being deployed in a lower layer and an adequate reachable reference temperature being generated from an upper layer. The generated reference temperature drives the plant near optimal operating conditions, while satisfying the plant safety constraints, without any help from the plant operator and without adding cost.

The proposed two-layer hierarchical control strategy has the potential benefits of: (i) maximising electricity production; (ii) reducing the risk of actuator saturation; (iii) extending the life span of various elements of the plant (e.g. synthetic oil, pump and valves) and (iv) limiting the role of the plant operator.

The efficacy of the proposed two-layer hierarchical control strategy is evaluated using a nonlinear simulation model that approximates the dynamic behaviour of the ACUREX plant. The nonlinear simulation model is constructed in this thesis and validated in the time and frequency domain.


We studied the fluorescence properties of fulvic acids isolated from streams and rivers receiving predominantly terrestrial sources of organic material and from lakes with microbial sources of organic material. Microbially derived fulvic acids have fluorophores with a more sharply defined emission peak occurring at lower wavelengths than fluorophores in terrestrially derived fulvic acids. We show that the ratio of the emission intensity at a wavelength of 450 nm to that at 500 nm, obtained with an excitation of 370 nm, can serve as a simple index to distinguish sources of isolated aquatic fulvic acids. In our study, this index has a value of ~1.9 for microbially derived fulvic acids and a value of ~1.4 for terrestrially derived fulvic acids. Fulvic acids isolated from four large rivers in the United States have fluorescence index values of 1.4–1.5, consistent with predominantly terrestrial sources. For fulvic acid samples isolated from a river, lakes, and groundwaters in a forested watershed, the fluorescence index varied in a manner suggesting different sources for the seepage and streamfed lakes. Furthermore, we identified these distinctive fluorophores in filtered whole water samples from lakes in a desert oasis in Antarctica and in filtered whole water samples collected during snowmelt from a Rocky Mountain stream. The fluorescence index measurement in filtered whole water samples in field studies may augment the interpretation of dissolved organic carbon sources for understanding carbon cycling in aquatic ecosystems.


Miniaturized potentials near the surface of atom chips can be used as flexible and versatile tools for the manipulation of ultracold atoms on a microscale. The full scope of possibilities is only accessible if atom‐surface distances can be reduced to microns. We discuss experiments in this regime and potential obstacles and solutions. We show that appropriate fabrication techniques lead to a reduction of disorder potentials so that one‐dimensional condensates can be prepared. We demonstrate how electrostatic potentials can be used to modify magnetic trapping potentials and how they can be used to study condensate formation in situations of different dimensionality.


The AAAI conference instantly became the preeminent artificial intelligence conference in the United States. This success was directly attributable to the need that AAAI filled by providing an annual conference when the field was blossoming. Raj Reddy's impetus crystallized the formation of AAAI, and this banding together spread throughout the AI community to the program committe and the authors and speakers of the first conference. Everyone in the community wanted to make this conference (and through it AAAI) a success -- and through their shared good will and effort, they did. My reflections conclude with a forensic examination of Raj's legendary Hug.


In order to investigate the historical trends, epidemiological profile, and spatial distribution of hospital admissions and deaths from schistosomiasis in the State of Pernambuco, Brazil, an analysis was conducted of data from the Hospital Information System and Mortality Information System from 1992 to 2000. The results showed a reduction in hospital admissions and mortality, while identifying more admissions and deaths among males. There was a lower percentage of deaths and admissions from schistosomiasis in individuals under 30 years of age. However, schistosomiasis is still of relevant magnitude, as evidenced by the number of deaths from this cause and the number of patients admitted to the hospital system in Pernambuco. A spatial analysis of the endemic's distribution in the State showed that although from 1995 to 1999 there was a greater spread of admissions due to schistosomiasis in the municipalities (counties) of the Sertão (backlands) and São Francisco river valley, the number of municipalities with hospitalizations due to schistosomiasis decreased from 1995 to 1998, followed by an increase in 1999 and 2000.


Grinding - thenal machining process of a workpiece - requires large amounts of cuttinguids for the lubrication, cooling and removal of chips. Theseuids are highly aggressive to the environment. With the technological advances of recent years, the worldwide trend is to produce increasingly sophisticated components with very strict geometric and dimensional tolerances, good surfacenish, at low costs, and particularly without damaging the environment. The latter requirement can be achieved by recycling cuttinguids, which is a costly solution, or by drastically reducing the amount of cutting �uids employed in the grinding process. This alternative was investigated here by varying the plunge velocity in the plunge cylindrical grinding of ABNT D6 steel, rationalizing the application of two cuttinguids and using a superabrasive CBN (cubic boron nitride) grinding wheel with vitried binder to evaluate the output parameters of tangential cutting force, acoustic emission, roughness, roundness, tool wear, residual stress and surface integrity, using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) to examine the test specimens. The performance of the cuttinguid, grinding wheel and plunge velocity were analyzed to identify the best machining conditions which allowed for a reduction of the cuttinguid volume, reducing the machining time without impairing the geometric and dimensional parameters, and the surfacenish and integrity of the machined components.


Conventional imaging techniques are often unreliable in distinguishing between radiation necrosis and recurrent glioma in patients who are symptomatic after high-dose radiotherapy. We performed dual-isotope single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) with the use of thallium-201 (201TI) and the perfusion agent 99mTc-hexamethyl-propyleneamine oxime (HMPAO) to aid in this differentiation in 15 patients with glioma prior to biopsy. We found that dual-isotope SPECT scanning correlated with the pathologic findings in 14 of the 15 cases. All patients with high 201TI uptake in their treated tumor beds had local tumor recurrence, and all patients with low 201TI uptake showed only radiation changes without evidence of solid tumor. In patients with an intermediate level of 201TI concentration in their tumor bed, 99mTc-HMPAO uptake differentiated those patients with active tumor from those without; three of four patients with preserved or increased perfusion had pathologic evidence of solid tumor, whereas none of the four patients with decreased perfusion to the tumor bed had evidence of local recurrence. We believe that dual-isotope SPECT with 201TI and 99mTc-HMPAO may be useful in differentiating sites of likely tumor growth from nonspecific radiation changes in patients treated for malignant glioma.


For the last two decades, the world has seen the rise of China. With its rise, unfortunately, has come the fall, retreat, and demise of some animals and animal species. China is often singled out for special attention in terms of animal destruction and endangerment. With an increasingly globalized economy and world, we now have a globalized wildlife crisis. This essay focuses on the exploitation of wild animals in China. It argues that the plight of wildlife in China stems from an underlying position in Chinese culture that animals are instruments for human benefits, and such an instrumentalist approach has always dominated the Chinese landscape. This is the case despite the fact that animals and humans are considered to be organically connected in the moral universe in Chinese traditional philosophy in contrast to the segregated approach to humans and non-humans in Western philosophical traditions. It is suggested that to achieve substantive progress in the protection of wildlife and other animals in China, a fundamental change of thinking and acting toward animals by the Chinese to recognize the intrinsic value of animals would be imperative.


The new decade of the 21st century (2020) started with the emergence of novel coronavirus known as SARS-CoV-2 that caused an epidemic of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Wuhan, China. It is the third highly pathogenic and transmissible coronavirus after severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV) and Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) emerged in humans. The source of origin, transmission to humans and mechanisms associated with the pathogenicity of SARS-CoV-2 are not clear yet, however, its resemblance with SARS-CoV and several other bat coronaviruses was recently confirmed through genome sequencing related studies. The development of therapeutic strategies is necessary in order to prevent further epidemics and cure infected people. In this Review, we summarize current information about the emergence, origin, diversity, and epidemiology of three pathogenic coronaviruses with a specific focus on the current outbreak in Wuhan, China. Furthermore, we discuss the clinical features and potential therapeutic options that may be effective against SARS-CoV-2.


Volume II contains entries on the major schools of economic thought and analysis. These schools differ with regard to their 'vision' of the working of the economic system, the major forces and interactions that shape its path, and the policy recommendations proposed. At any moment of time, several such schools typically compete with one another, striving for dominance within the economic and political discourse. Each Handbook can be read individually and acts as a self-contained volume in its own right. It can be purchased separately or as part of a three-volume set.


This study aimed at determination of vitamin (A, E, C, b-carotene, and lycopene), phenolic, and flavonoid contents in apricots at different stages of ripening using high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). The effect of ripening in terms of phytochemical contents was investigated. Early period apricots showed 2.5 to three times higher level of vitamins (A, E, C, and b-carotene, and lycopene) in all types of apricots than others (P < 0.05). Early-ripened cultivar, Boccuia, showed the highest level of vitamins, although a higher level of vitamin C was measured in late-ripened cultivar Levent (P < 0.05). No lycopenes were determined in late-period apricots in contrary to early- and middle-period apricots. Levels of phenolics and flavonoids were measured in all types (3-B-Q-D, procyanidin B1, B2, B3, caffeic acid, gallic acid, p-coumaric acid, epigallocatechine, catechine, epictechine, chlorogenic acid, ferrulic acid, and routine) and statistical deviation of all types was noted (P < 0.05). Among all, the cultivar Ozal showed the highest level of chlorogenic acid (45,843.00 mg·g L1 dry matter) in all ripening periods, where middle-ripened cultivar Adilcevaz showed the lowest level of p-coumaric acid (7.93 mg·g L1 dry matter content base).


A line loss approximation via parametrization is developed to improve performance of the simplified Baran and Wu DistFlow method, while maintaining a linear set of equations. The approach is evaluated on thousands of training feeders that are created to determine a numerically optimal setting for the parameterization. Feeders are generated using recent advances in synthetic network test case generation. The problem is formulated with the same structure as the simplified DistFlow, yet is more accurate given that line losses are explicitly expressed and quantified. The single-phase methodology is extended to multiphase systems by formulating matrix-vector equations that maintain an analogy to their single-phase counterpart. Results with approximated line losses are shown to also improve the accuracy of multiphase distribution system calculations.


Abstract Students in rural China are dropping out of secondary school at troubling rates. While there is considerable quantitative research on this issue, no systematic effort has been made to assess the deeper reasons behind student decision making through a mixed-methods approach. This article seeks to explore the prevalence, correlates and potential reasons for rural dropout throughout the secondary education process. It brings together results from eight large-scale survey studies covering 24,931 rural secondary students across four provinces, as well as analysis of extensive interviews with 52 students from these same study sites. The results show that the cumulative dropout rate across all windows of secondary education may be as high as 63 per cent. Dropping out is significantly correlated with low academic performance, high opportunity cost, low socio-economic status and poor mental health. A model is developed to suggest that rural dropout is primarily driven by two mechanisms: rational cost-benefit analysis or impulsive, stress-induced decision making. 摘要 中国农村地区的中学生辍学率正处在一个令人不安的高度。尽管大量的定量研究关注过这一议题, 但还没有研究利用混合方法系统地分析学生选择辍学的深层次原因。本文旨在探索农村中学阶段学生辍学现状、相关因素以及潜在的原因。为此, 基于八次大规模调研收集的来自四个省 24931 名农村中学生的数据, 以及与 52 名来 自样本地区的农村学生的深入访谈, 我们发现, 农村地区整个中学阶段的累计辍学率高达 63%。而辍学与学习成绩差、机会成本高、社会经济地位低, 以及心理健康问题有着显著的相关性。分析结果显示, 农村地区中学阶段的辍学主要是受两种机制的影响: 理性的成本−收益分析, 和一时冲动的压力胁迫下的决策。


BACKGROUND
The most effective therapy for non-typhoid Salmonella enterocolitis is still unknown. Traditionally, unless extraintestinal complications are present, antimicrobial drugs are not recommended, since earlier trials have shown that antibiotics such as ampicillin, chloramphenicol, or co-trimoxazole, do not shorten the duration of diarrhea and may even prolong convalescent fecal carriage of the bacteria. However, the recently-developed third generation cephalosporin ceftriaxone has been used successfully in the treatment of typhoid fever and other systemic salmonellosis. A controlled, pilot study was therefore undertaken to evaluate the efficacy of intravenous ceftriaxone in the treatment of children with non-typhoid Salmonella enterocolitis.

METHODS
Fifteen children with Salmonella enterocolitis and bacteremia who were eligible for antibiotic therapy were given ceftriaxone intravenously for 7 days and 15 children with enterocolitis but without bacteremia who were admitted for supportive treatment during the study period were selected as the control group. Available stool samples collected on days, 7, 14, and 30 after the completion of the drug therapy were checked for the presence of the bacteria using polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and culture methods.

RESULTS
The result showed that the duration of diarrhea was not significantly affected by ceftriaxone treatment. However, the difference in the rate of clearance of Salmonella from stools, as defined by negative stool cultures and PCR, was statistically significant between the two groups on posttreatment days 7 and 14. Only one patient given ceftriaxone was shown to have recrudescence of the bacteria in feces on day 14. One month after therapy, PCR was positive in two of the ten cases tested and one of these two experienced a relapse of diarrhea, whereas bacterial carriage was maintained in 63% of the control patients.

CONCLUSION
A prompt eradication of Salmonella in feces was observed in most of the patients treated with ceftriaxone in this study. If further studies confirm the efficacy of this therapy and the risk of inducing drug resistance is minimal, the epidemiologic problem created by convalescent fecal bacterial carriage may justify a short-course of ceftriaxone therapy for children with Salmonella enterocolitis.


This paper proposes a parsing algorithm for scene understanding which includes four aspects: computing 3D scene layout, detecting 3D objects (e.g. furniture), detecting 2D faces (windows, doors etc.), and segmenting background. In contrast to previous scene labeling work that applied discriminative classifiers to pixels (or super-pixels), we use a generative Stochastic Scene Grammar (SSG). This grammar represents the compositional structures of visual entities from scene categories, 3D foreground/background, 2D faces, to 1D lines. The grammar includes three types of production rules and two types of contextual relations. Production rules: (i) AND rules represent the decomposition of an entity into sub-parts; (ii) OR rules represent the switching among sub-types of an entity; (iii) SET rules represent an ensemble of visual entities. Contextual relations: (i) Cooperative "+" relations represent positive links between binding entities, such as hinged faces of a object or aligned boxes; (ii) Competitive "-" relations represents negative links between competing entities, such as mutually exclusive boxes. We design an efficient MCMC inference algorithm, namely Hierarchical cluster sampling, to search in the large solution space of scene configurations. The algorithm has two stages: (i) Clustering: It forms all possible higher-level structures (clusters) from lower-level entities by production rules and contextual relations. (ii) Sampling: It jumps between alternative structures (clusters) in each layer of the hierarchy to find the most probable configuration (represented by a parse tree). In our experiment, we demonstrate the superiority of our algorithm over existing methods on public dataset. In addition, our approach achieves richer structures in the parse tree.