Purpose - This paper aims to examine how and why management accounting practices are linked to an organization's identity and identity discrepancies. Design/methodology/approach - A qualitative field study of a one-year change project in a large manufacturing company is used as the basis for the analysis. Findings - The empirical study reveals how discrepancies between organizational members' perceived identity and their construed external (and desired future) image both influence and are influenced by emergent accounting practices. Empirical evidence suggests such a reciprocal relationship between accounting and identity, since accounting practices are an important means of (de)legitimizing an organization's current self-perception. Research limitations/implications - The uncovered reciprocal relationship between management accounting practices and organizational identity (discrepancies) have implications for a broader literature, including the works on how different forms of control interact as a "control package" and the discourse on potential sources of organizational identity change. Originality/value - Although it has previously been suggested that management accounting may be an important means for, as well as an outcome of, processes of identity (re)constructions in organizations, this study suggests a more complex interplay than has previously been noted in the literature. Specifically, it was found that organizational identity may for a considerable time work as a highly influential and largely unquestioned categorical imperative, signifying the boundaries of appropriate organizational action. At times, however, accounting practices may spark (re)constructions of identity discrepancies through: providing identity-inconsistent evidence; and using (new) measures in a "feed-forward" manner to explore possible ways to close such perceived discrepancies.


Abstract New high-quality high-resolution seismic data along the western slope of the Great Bahama Bank reveals a present-day channel–levee complex developed in a pure carbonate setting. This complex grew over two buried complexes separated by erosion surfaces, suggesting both the continuity of downslope gravity-driven processes along this carbonate slope, and channel migration through avulsion, processes similar to what happens along siliciclastic slopes. Complex morphology and geometry are similar to analogs described in siliciclastic systems, but the size of the presented carbonate complex is smaller by a factor of ten. Integrating high-resolution seismic and core studies shows that this complex was built by the stacking of gravity-flow deposits, including turbidites. It presently is inactive and buried by deposits from hemipelagic fallout or low-energy density processes channeled by the gully network; Recent sediments are reworked by along-slope bottom currents dominated by internal tides. The discovery of these channel–levee complexes has implications both on the conceptual models describing the behavior of carbonate slope systems and on hydrocarbon exploration by enhancing the reservoir-bearing potential of carbonate slopes.


As mass-market video game controllers have become more advanced, there has been a recent increase in interest for using these as intuitive and inexpensive control devices. In this paper we examine position control for a robot using a wiimote game controller. We show that human motion models can be used to achieve better precision than traditional tracking approaches, sufficient for simpler tasks. We also present an experiment that shows that very intuitive control can be achieved, as novice subjects can control a robot arm through simple tasks after just a few minutes of practice and minimal instructions.


A new species of Barrussus, Barrussus telescopus sp. nov., is described from the Bolkar Mountains in southern Turkey. Males have an extremely elongated and bar-shaped ocular tubercule extended anteriorly between their eyes, which is the longest projecting ocular tubercule among all known males of Barrussus. The ocular tubercule of females has a short conical projection. Cheliceral movable fingers of type specimens have 5 anteriorly situated small teeth. Males have club-shaped ctenidia on the 4th and blunt-ended tubular ctenidia on the 5th opisthosomal sternites. The female has no ctenidia on its 4th opisthosomal sternite, with ctenidia on the 5th opisthosomal sternite similar to that in males. Ctenidia of the 5th opisthosomal sternite are pointed apically in the female, blunt in the male. The female possesses a hump-like projection on the metapeltidium, which is only known from females of B. telescopus sp. nov. within all known females of Barrussus. The new species is differentiated from B. pentheri (Werner, 1905) and B. furcichelis Roewer, 1928.


English writers and enthusiasts on the arts that existed prior to the eighteenth-century have largely come to be identified in modern scholarship as virtuosi, those who had little or no separate aesthetic appreciation for works of art, but an insatiable curiosity for all manner of natural and mechanical wonders. This thesis examines English literature on painting from the period, and contests the idea that it was only in the eighteenth century that English authors began to write critically about the pictorial arts. Printed literature in fact reveals a sustained interest in the judgement and value of painting from the mid-seventeenth century onwards, authored by, and addressed to, the more specialised lover of art.
The chapters that make up this thesis are subsequently built around close readings of varying forms of literature through six case studies of texts published between 1658 and 1706: Chapter One examines William Sanderson's Graphice (1658) which combines material drawn from earlier literature with original observations and ideas. Chapter Two explores John Evelyn's translation of Roland Freart de Chambray's Idee de la Perfection de la Peinture (1662) as An Idea of the Perfection of Painting (1668), and William Aglionby's Painting Illustrated in Three Dialogues (1685) based on the work of French critic Charles Alphonse Dufresnoy, in relation to both authors' time spent abroad and their simultaneous celebration of the primacy of Italian painters and history painting. Chapter Three focuses on the most commercially successful literary work on the visual arts of the period, Polygraphice. Authored by the quack empiric William Salmon, the text went through eight editions between 1672 and 1701, each edition growing as its contents were expanded and added to with a diversity of material. Chapter Four compares Richard Graham's 'Short Account of the most Eminent Painters both Ancient and Modern, Continu'd down to the Present Times According to the Order of their Succession' (1695) which presents an inaugural literary national art history presented within a pan-European context, and Bainbrigg Buckeridge's 'Essay Towards an English School, With the Lives and Characters of above 100 Painters' (1706) presenting an alternative account of English taste and practice in painting in the seventeenth century.


Eukaryotic viruses have devised numerous strategies to downregulate activity of the interferon-induced, double-stranded (dsRNA)-activated protein kinase (referred to as p68 on the basis of its Mr of 68,000 in human cells). Viruses must exert this control to avoid extensive phosphorylation of the alpha subunit of eukaryotic initiation factor 2 (eIF-2) by p68 and the resultant negative effects on protein synthesis initiation. To begin to define the molecular mechanisms underlying this regulation, we optimized expression of p68 in an in vitro transcription-translation system utilizing the full-length cDNA clone. The in vitro-expressed kinase was autophosphorylated in response to dsRNAs and heparin in a manner similar to that for the native p68 provided that the kinase inhibitor, 2-aminopurine, was present during the in vitro translation reaction. Further, the activated kinase efficiently phosphorylated its natural substrate, the alpha subunit of eIF-2. Binding experiments revealed that the expressed kinase complexed with the dsRNA activator, reovirus dsRNA, as well as the adenovirus-encoded inhibitor, VAI RNA. Interestingly, both the reovirus RNAs and VAI RNA also complexed with protein kinase molecules that lacked the carboxyl terminus and all catalytic domains. Deletion analysis confirmed that the p68 amino terminus contained critical determinants for reovirus dsRNA and VAI RNA binding. Further, reovirus dsRNA efficiently bound to, but failed to activate, p68 kinase molecules containing a single amino acid substitution in the invariant lysine 295 present in catalytic domain II. Taken together, these data demonstrate that this expression system permits a detailed mutagenic analysis of the regions of p68 required for interaction with virus-encoded activators and repressors.


Ashfall from Mount St. Helens' May 18, 1980 eruption covered eggs and nests of two species of colonial, ground-nesting gulls. While some members of both species excavated their eggs from beneath the ash, most eggs and nests remained buried. One year after the ashfall, habitats known to contain pre-ashfall nests were transected and the ash layer was measured and removed. Eggs, nests, and associated materials were counted. Entire hollow eggshells and eggshell fragments were found, as well as rodent bones and teeth, bird bones, beetle carapaces, and vegetation. No fetal bones were found with eggs. Fossilization potential for nests and eggs was related to intra- and interspecific behavioral differences among parents, as well as to temporal and spatial environmental factors. Gulls and other ground-nesting birds are implicated as accumulators of biological material for potential fossilization.


This paper presents a systemic design of induction cooker with convex bottom Chinese wok for commercial applications. The significant impacts of high-power commercial induction cooker to the global environments are first examined. On the basis of analyzing the coil characteristics and performance requirements, the overall power structure of the induction cooker is designed with underlying operation principle explained. In addition, the associated control algorithms for the power regulation are studied in detail. The feasibility of applying each control scheme for the high power induction cooker system is also analyzed. In particular, the loss analysis of switches facilitates comparing the obtained results by adopting different control methods. In order to achieve high electrical and thermal performances, this research proposes an optimized hybrid power regulation strategy. The block diagram of the control strategy is given, with simulation conducted to evaluate the achievable performance of the proposed solution. Finally, comprehensive experiments including thermal pattern examination tests, efficiency tests, as well as electromagnetic interference tests are carried out. The experimental results sufficiently verify the validity and reliability of the presented commercial induction cooker.


Forwarding decisions in routing protocols rely on information about the destination nodes provided by routing table states. When paths to a destination change, corresponding states become invalid and need to be refreshed with control messages for resilient routing. In large and highly dynamic networks, this overhead can crowd out the capacity for data traffic. For such networks, we propose the concept of weak state, which is interpreted as a probabilistic hint, not as absolute truth. Weak state can remain valid without explicit messages by systematically reducing the confidence in its accuracy. Weak State Routing (WSR) is a novel routing protocol that uses weak state along with random directional walks for forwarding packets. When a packet reaches a node that contains a weak state about the destination with higher confidence than that held by the packet, the walk direction is biased. The packet reaches the destination via a sequence of directional walks, punctuated by biasing decisions. WSR also uses random directional walks for disseminating routing state and provides mechanisms for aggregating weak state. Our simulation results show that WSR offers a very high packet delivery ratio ( ≥ 98%). Control traffic overhead scales as O(N), and the state complexity is Θ(N3/2), where N is the number of nodes. Packets follow longer paths compared to prior protocols (OLSR , GLS-GPSR , ), but the average path length is asymptotically efficient and scales as O(√N). Despite longer paths, WSR's end-to-end packet delivery delay is much smaller due to the dramatic reduction in protocol overhead.


On 15 September, 2018, volunteers and partners worldwide came together to clean the beaches, rivers, forests, and streets of our planet from litter and mismanaged waste. In total, 17 million people from 158 countries participated. The 'Let's Do it' (LDI) movement was born 10 years ago in Estonia, when 4% of the population joined together to clean the entire country from illegally dumped waste. This captured the imaginations of people worldwide, and led to the idea of cleaning up the entire world. This article describes how the global bottom-up civic movement, Let's Do It! World, has grown to be the biggest of its kind in the world, and the way it contributes to addressing some of major environmental issues of today, such as marine litter and shifting to a Circular Economy. The structure of the movement, and the expected effect of main messages is discussed – see it, map it, bag it, move it, learn.
Any kind of waste clean-up action is one-time event. As such, it's not a final solution in itself. The ultimate goal would be contributing to long-term effects and solutions. In this respect, the key benefit of cleanups is 3-fold: it helps fighting the "trash blindness", making people aware of the problem; it feeds into "Citizen Science", i.e. science that builds on data and info gathered by ordinary people: during cleanups and related mapping of trash points, not only do we pick litter, but also we collect valuable information on most common type of litter, related dynamics of dispersion, typology of materials that need targeted policies and practice in order to prevent dispersion and promote better management; and it keeps the issue high on the agenda for media and policy, thereby drawing attention by all concerned actors, as governmental institutions, communities, businesses and industry, civil society and individuals. This is the best precondition in order to define a concerted "roadmap" so as to have the issues around trash and litter sorted out, for good.
To achieve that, the Knowledge Team of LDI developed a Keep It Clean Plan, whose key message is to implement strategies, inspired by the "Zero Waste" vision and approach, for sustainable management of resources and discarded materials, harnessing the power of redesigning materials and systems, so as to connect to Circular Economy and prevent waste from being dispersed into the environment.


Streaming motions of galaxies and clusters provide the only method for probing the distribution of mass, as opposed to light, on scales of 20 - 100 h(^-1)Mpc. This thesis presents a new survey of the local peculiar velocity field, based upon Fundamental Plane (FP) distances for an all-sky sample of 56 clusters to cz = 12000 km s(^-1). Central velocity dispersions have been determined from new spectroscopic data for 429 galaxies. From new R-band imaging data the FP photometric parameters (effective diameter and effective surface brightness) have been measured for 324 galaxies. The new spectroscopic and photometric data have been carefully combined with an extensive body of measurements compiled from the literature, to yield a closely homogeneous catalogue of FP data for 725 early type galaxies. Fitting the inverse FP relation to the merged catalogue yields distance estimates with a scatter of 22% per galaxy, resulting in cluster distance errors of 2-13%. The distances are consistent, on a cluster-by-cluster basis, with those determined from Tully-Fisher-Fisher studies and from earlier FP determinations. The distances are marginally inconsistent with distance estimates based on brightest cluster galaxies, but this disagreement can be traced to a few highly discrepant clusters. The resulting peculiar velocity field is dominated by a bulk streaming component, with amplitude of 810 ± 180km s(^-1) (directed towards l = 260 ,b = -5 ), a result which is robust against a range of potential systematic effects. The flow direction is ~35 from the CMB dipole and ~15 from the X-ray cluster dipole direction. Two prominent superclusters (the Shapley Concentration and the Horologium-Reticulum Supercluster) may contribute significantly to the generation of this flow. More locally, there is no far- side infall into the 'Great Attractor' (GA), apparently due to the opposing pull of the Shapley Concentration. A simple model of the flow in this direction suggests that the GA region generates no more than ~60% of the Local Group's motion in this direction. Contrary to some previous studies, the Perseus-Pisces supercluster is found to exhibit no net streaming motion. On small scales the velocity field is extremely quiet, with an rms cluster peculiar velocity of < 270 km s(^-1) in the frame defined by the bulk-flow. The results of this survey suggest that very distant mass concentrations contribute significantly to the local peculiar velocity field. This result is difficult to accommodate within currently popular cosmological models, which have too little large-scale power to generate the observed flow. The results may instead favour models with excess fluctuation power on 60-150h(^-1)Mpc scales.


The North Cascades orogen (northwestern USA) provides an exceptional natural laboratory with which to evaluate potential temporal and kinematic links between processes operating at a wide range of crustal levels during collapse of a continental arc, and particularly the compatibility of strain between the upper and lower crust. This magmatic arc reached a crustal thickness of ≥55 km in the mid-Cretaceous. Eocene collapse of the arc during regional transtension was marked by magmatism, migmatization, ductile flow, and exhumation of deep crustal (8–12 kbar) rocks in the Cascades crystalline core coeval with subsidence and rapid deposition in nonmarine basins adjacent to the core, and intrusion of dike complexes. The Skagit Gneiss Complex is the larger of two regions of exhumed deep crust with Eocene cooling ages in the Cascades core, and it consists primarily of tonalitic orthogneiss emplaced mainly in two episodes of ca. 73–59 Ma and 50–45 Ma. Metamorphism, melt crystallization, and ductile deformation of migmatitic metapelite overlap the orthogneiss emplacement, occurring (possibly intermittently) from ca. 71 to 53 Ma; the youngest orthogneisses overlap 40 Ar/ 39 Ar biotite dates, compatible with rapid cooling. Gently to moderately dipping foliation, subhorizontal orogen-parallel (northwest-southeast) mineral lineation, sizable constrictional domains, and strong stretching parallel to lineation of hinges of mesoscopic folds in the Skagit Gneiss Complex are compatible with transtension linked to dextral-normal displacement of the Ross Lake fault zone, the northeastern boundary of the Cascades core. The other deeply exhumed domain, the 9–12 kbar Swakane Biotite Gneiss, has a broadly north-trending, gently plunging lineation and gently to moderately dipping foliation, which are associated with top-to-the-north noncoaxial shear. This gneiss is separated from overlying metamorphic rocks by a folded detachment fault. The Eocene Swauk and Chumstick basins flank the southern end of the Cascades core. In the Swauk basin, sediments were deposited in part at ca. 51 Ma, folded shortly afterward, and then covered by ca. 49 Ma Teanaway basalts and intruded by associated mafic dikes. Directly after dike intrusion, the fault-bounded Chumstick basin subsided rapidly. Extension directions from these dikes and from Eocene dikes that intruded the Cascades core are dominantly oblique to the overall trend of the orogen (275°–310° versus ∼320°, respectively) and to the northwest-southeast to north-south ductile flow direction in the Skagit and Swakane rocks. This discordance implies that coeval extensional strain was decoupled between the brittle and ductile crust. Strain orientations at all depths in the Cascades core contrast with the approximately east-west extension driven by orogenic collapse in coeval metamorphic core complexes ∼200 km to the east. Arc-oblique to arc-parallel flow in the Cascades core probably resulted in part from dextral shear along the plate margin and from along-strike gradients in crustal thickness and temperature.


A phosphatase-containing complex inhibits NF-κB signaling in T cells. Activation of the canonical nuclear factor κB (NF-κB) pathway in immune cells mediates cellular differentiation, proliferation, and survival. In T cells in response to signals through receptors such as the T cell receptor (TCR) complex and the tumor necrosis factor–α (TNF-α) receptor (TNFR), the inhibitor of κB (IκB) kinase complex (IKK), which consists of the catalytic α and β subunits, becomes activated and phosphorylates the inhibitor IκB, leading to its degradation and dissociation from NF-κB subunits, which can then translocate to the nucleus to stimulate target gene expression. Aberrant NF-κB signaling in T cells underlies various leukemias and lymphomas (see commentary by Tikhonova and Aifantis). To investigate potential roles for phosphatases in the regulation of NF-κB signaling, Brechmann et al. performed a short-interfering RNA (siRNA)–based screen of a Jurkat T cell line expressing an NF-κB reporter. They found that knockdown of PP4R1, a regulatory subunit of the PP2A family serine and threonine phosphatase PP4c, increased NF-κB activity in response to TCR or TNFR stimulation. Experiments in transfected cells showed that PP4R1 associated with IKKα and IKKβ, and that PP4c was associated with the IKK complex only when PP4R1 was present. Phosphorylation of the activation loop of IKKα and IKKβ in response to TCR stimulation was enhanced in cells lacking PP4R1 compared with that in control cells, and the increased IKK phosphorylation enhanced NF-κB activation. In vitro phosphatase assays showed that IKKα and IKKβ were dephosphorylated in the presence of both PP4R1 and PP4c. Cutaneous T cell lymphomas (CTCLs) are characterized by constitutive NF-κB activation. The authors found that cell lines derived from CTCLs had reduced amounts of PP4R1, and retroviral expression of PP4R1 in one of these cell lines (which had endogenous PP4c) inhibited cellular proliferation. Together, these data suggest that PP4R1 is an inhibitor of NF-κB signaling and that deficiency in PP4R1 is associated with T cell lymphomas. M. Brechmann, T. Mock, D. Nickles, M. Kiessling, N. Weit, R. Breuer, W. Müller, G. Wabnitz, F. Frey, J. P. Nicolay, N. Booken, Y. Samstag, C.-D. Klemke, M. Herling, M. Boutros, P. H. Krammer, R. Arnold, A PP4 holoenzyme balances physiological and oncogenic nuclear factor-kappa B signaling in T lymphocytes. Immunity 37, 697–708 (2012). [PubMed] A. Tikhonova, I. Aifantis, The taming of the NF-κB: PP4R1 navigates while PP4c dephosphorylates. Immunity 37, 594–596 (2012). [PubMed]


Heterogeneous distributed real-time systems are continuously evolving to realize many emerging mission critical applications, e.g., battle field vision systems. In such systems, there often exists a tradeoff between quality of results and security of task execution while satisfying real-time constraints. In this paper we consider a set of dependent real-time tasks, modeled as Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG), with security and QoS requirements for assignment and scheduling on a set of heterogeneous sites with the objective of maximizing Total Quality Value (TQV) of the system. This problem is NP-hard since the basic problem of scheduling a DAG on multiple processors is NP-hard. We make the following contributions; (i) define new metric, TQV, which captures QoS aspects of the DAG and helps in choosing a task in the task graph, DAG, to increase its QoS level so as to raise system TQV to the best value, (ii) based on the defined metric, we propose a polynomial time heuristic algorithm to maximize TQV, and (iii) we evaluate the algorithm through simulation studies by comparing it to baseline algorithms for variations of synthetic workloads. The proposed algorithm outperforms the baseline algorithms in all the simulated conditions for fully-connected and shared bus network topologies.


From time to time, the Supreme Court changes some aspect of its approach to statutory interpretation. These changes include large-scale shifts on matters such as the relative prominence of textual sources versus legislative history as well as small-scale changes exemplified by the creation, modification, or abandonment of particular interpretive canons. When the Court changes course, do the lower courts' practices tend to move in parallel? How do the new approaches or rules propagate through the judicial system? And what factors affect the speed and accuracy with which the lower courts react? Those questions are currently unanswered, but they are very important because the lower courts decide the vast majority of the cases in the judicial system. This Article provides some preliminary answers to those questions by examining a variety of episodes of interpretive change. The results do not support a simple across-the-board statement about how lower courts behave but rather reveal several different dynamics and patterns. On the one hand, the lower courts tend to follow the Supreme Court's methodological lead, and under the right conditions they can respond to changes with great speed and accuracy. On the other hand, there are instances in which the system displays considerable slack, with the lower courts either lagging behind the Court or jumping out ahead of it. The investigation identifies several features — of the interpretive rules, of the courts, and of the broader institutional context — that either enhance or inhibit responsiveness.


Microcredit has been recognized as an effective tool to foster entrepreneurship among the rural women. Traditionally, women entrepreneurs in Pakistan are handicapped in the matter of organizing and running their businesses due to absence of capital and fear of failure. With the efforts of state-owned and private microcredit instructions, many Pakistani women are now establishing new businesses with ideas to start micro and small enterprises. This paper intends to examine the role of Sarhad Rural Support Program (SRSP) in empowering women entrepreneurs through microcredit in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan. The study was undertaken in six villages from three selected districts to examine the effect of microcredit on social and economic empowerment of the rural women entrepreneurs. The field data was collected by applying multistage sampling techniques from the sample size of 300 women entrepreneurs. However, social and economic empowerment index was developed for the assessment of socioeconomic empowerment of the women entrepreneurs. The study found significant improvement in the social and economic status of the women entrepreneurs and concludes that the overall effect of SRSP's microcredit was positive in empowering women entrepreneurs and promoting entrepreneurship in the study area. However, to effectively address the gender-related constraints and cultural sensitivity that limit equitable access of women entrepreneurs to the local markets, support services are required by the SRSP to create linkages between the women entrepreneurs and local markets.


The relationship between knowledge and development is of growing importance in development theory and practice. Despite the growth in interest, there are significant issues that have not been explored in detail. I will focus on some of these issues, including: the ways in which knowledge and learning are conceived and created in development; the ways in which knowledge travels; the opportunities for learning between 'North' and 'South'; and the political spaces that are created through different kinds of knowledge. To explore these issues, I examine a network of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and community-based organisations (CBOs) called Slum/Shack Dwellers International (SDI). This network seeks to reconfigure the governance of urban poverty reduction strategies and encourage poor' people to re-think their own capacities and potentials. In particular, I draw on interview-based fieldwork conducted on one key member of this group, the Indian Alliance based in Mumbai. I critically examine some of the possibilities and challenges of various forms of 'travelling knowledges'. These are strategies that have travelled through exchanges, wherein groups of poor people travel from one settlement to another to share stories and experiences with other poor people in what amounts to an informal 'training' process. By examining exchanges between SDI and groups in the UK, I critically discuss the broader potential in development to move beyond barriers of North and South that limit learning. I adopt a broadly post-rationalist approach to the concerns in the thesis. Through this, I argue the importance of considering knowledge and learning as produced through relations of near and far, social and material, and as driven by routines and practices. A post-rationalist approach helps us to understand and appreciate the importance of geography for knowledge and learning in the SDI network. This approach draws attention to power. It encourages a critical consciousness that is alert to the kinds of knowledge conceived for development, and that recognizes the various ways in which different knowledges help create different types of politics. A post-rationalist approach also cautions against conceptions of knowledge and learning that risk marginalizing geography and power in development more generally. The thesis demonstrates the need to give further consideration of how knowledge is conceived as a development strategy, and what the potential possibilities and pitfalls of travelling knowledges are.


Background In low and middle-income settings, where access to support and rehabilitation services for children with disabilities are often lacking, the evidence base for community initiatives is limited. This study aimed to explore the impact of a community-based training programme for caregivers of children with cerebral palsy in Ghana. Methods A pre and post evaluation of an 11-month participatory training programme ("Getting to Know Cerebral Palsy") offered through a parent group model, was conducted. Eight community groups, consisting of a total of 75 caregivers and their children with cerebral palsy (aged 18 months-12 years), were enrolled from 8 districts across Ghana. Caregivers were interviewed at baseline, and again at 2 months after the completion of the programme, to assess: quality of life (PedsQL™ Family Impact Module); knowledge about their child's condition; child health indicators; feeding practices. Severity of cerebral palsy, reported illness, and anthropometric measurements were also assessed. Results Of the child-caregiver pairs, 64 (84%) were included in final analysis. There were significant improvements in caregiver quality of life score (QoL) (median total QoL 12.5 at baseline to 51.4 at endline, P<0.001). Caregivers reported significant improvements in knowledge and confidence in caring for their child (p<0.001), in some aspects of child feeding practices (p<0.001) and in their child's physical and emotional heath (p< 0.001). Actual frequency of reported serious illness over 12-months remained high (67%) among children, however, a small reduction in recent illness episodes (past 2 weeks) was seen (64% to 50% p < 0.05). Malnutrition was common at both time points; 63% and 65% of children were classified as underweight at baseline and endline respectively (p = 0.5). Conclusion Children with cerebral palsy have complex care and support needs which in low and middle-income settings need to be met by their family. This study demonstrates that a participatory training, delivered through the establishment of a local support group, with an emphasis on caregiver empowerment, resulted in improved caregiver QoL. Despite less effect on effect on child health and no clear effect on nutritional status, this alone is an important outcome. Whilst further development of these programmes would be helpful, and is underway, there is clear need for wider scale-up of an intervention which provides support to families.


Abstract Background Endoscopic placement of biliary stents to relieve jaundice is the main palliative treatment for unresectable extrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma. Endoscopic biliary radiofrequency ablation (RFA) has been reported to prolong stent patency, which may be beneficial in improving patient survival. However, available evidence is still insufficient, as most reported studies are retrospective case series. The aim of this study was to explore the clinical effect and safety of RFA in patients with unresectable extrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma. Methods 65 patients with unresectable extrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma, except Bismuth type III and IV hilar cholangiocarcinoma, were enrolled and randomly underwent either RFA combined with biliary stenting (RFA + stent group; n = 32) or biliary stent only (stent-only group; n = 33). Overall survival time, stent patency period, and postoperative adverse events were recorded. Results In the 21-month follow-up period, the overall mean survival time was significantly longer in the RFA + stent group than in the stent-only group (13.2 ± 0.6 vs. 8.3 ± 0.5 months; P < 0.001). The mean stent patency period of the RFA + stent group was also significantly longer than that of the stent-only group (6.8 vs. 3.4 months; P = 0.02). There was no significant difference in the incidence of postoperative adverse events between the two groups (6.3 % [2/32] vs. 9.1 % [3/33]; P = 0.67). Conclusion Endoscopic RFA combined with stenting can significantly prolong survival and the stent patency period without increasing the incidence of adverse events in patients with extrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma patient, except Bismuth type III and IV hilar cholangiocarcinoma. This approach can be considered as a safe and effective palliative treatment for these patients.


Searches for resonant and nonresonant pair-produced Higgs bosons (HH) decaying respectively into lνlν, through either W or Z bosons, and bb are presented. The analyses are based on a sample of proton-proton collisions at √s = 13 TeV, collected by the CMS experiment at the LHC, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 35.9 fb^(−1). Data and predictions from the standard model are in agreement within uncertainties. For the standard model HH hypothesis, the data exclude at 95% confidence level a product of the production cross section and branching fraction larger than 72 fb, corresponding to 79 times the standard model prediction. Constraints are placed on different scenarios considering anomalous couplings, which could affect the rate and kinematics of HH production. Upper limits at 95% confidence level are set on the production cross section of narrow-width spin-0 and spin-2 particles decaying to Higgs boson pairs, the latter produced with minimal gravity-like coupling.


The present work represents the first complete study on the mesozooplankton community in a shallow Antarctic coastal area: Potter cove, 25 de Mayo Island, South Shetlands. Results are based on samples obtained during two complete years (2002 and 2003) in Potter Cove and Maxwell Bay, a neighbouring area. This study was conducted within the frame of a comprehensive zooplankton investigation which started in 2002 and is still going on. The major aim of this study is to detect possible changes in the zooplankton community in connection with global change.The role of the main mesozooplankton species in carbon dynamics of Potter Cove was analyzed by calculating the feeding and fecal pellets production rates. By means of trophic markers (fatty acids and C and N stable isotopes) the position of mesozooplankton in Potter CoveŽs trophic web was delimited.Highly variable mesozooplankton abundances were determined through all the temporal and spatial scales analyzed. Fluctuations were associated with the area's hydrography and the variation in sea ice extension. The feeding pressure of some of the resident species (mainly cyclopoid copepods) and other mesozooplankton groups coming from external areas (mainly krill and salps) on the phytoplankton of Potter Cove was higher than the annual estimated primary production . These feeding patterns contribute to the carbon flux, probably representing a carbon source for the benthic fauna. Among the findings of this study, two new zooplankton species (one harpacticoid copepod and one narcomedusa) are described, as well as the first Antarctic record of some decapod larvae.


A large class of entity extraction tasks from text that is either semistructured or fully unstructured may be addressed by regular expressions, because in many practical cases the relevant entities follow an underlying syntactical pattern and this pattern may be described by a regular expression. In this work, we consider the long-standing problem of synthesizing such expressions automatically, based solely on examples of the desired behavior. We present the design and implementation of a system capable of addressing extraction tasks of realistic complexity. Our system is based on an evolutionary procedure carefully tailored to the specific needs of regular expression generation by examples. The procedure executes a search driven by a multiobjective optimization strategy aimed at simultaneously improving multiple performance indexes of candidate solutions while at the same time ensuring an adequate exploration of the huge solution space. We assess our proposal experimentally in great depth, on a number of challenging datasets. The accuracy of the obtained solutions seems to be adequate for practical usage and improves over earlier proposals significantly. Most importantly, our results are highly competitive even with respect to human operators. A prototype is available as a web application at <;uri xlink:type="simple">http://regex.inginf.units.it<;/uri>.


The Oxford India Short Introductions are concise, stimulating, and accessible guides to different aspects of India. Combining authoritative analysis, new ideas, and diverse perspectives, they discuss subjects which are topical yet enduring, as also emerging areas of study and debate. Increasing population pressure along with improved technology has led to a phenomenal expansion in groundwater extraction in the second-half of the 20th century. This, along with climate change caused by global warming, means that water utilization has outstripped its supply in many regions or is in the danger of doing so. Because of its warmer climate and high seasonal and regional concentration of rainfall, preceded and followed by long dry seasons, India's need to tap its renewable supplies is even greater. Drawing on global and Indian literature as well as field studies, this Short Introduction provides a holistic analysis of water-related issues, identifies the shortcomings in the present water governance system, and suggests effective solutions for the way forward. The author shows how the fuzziness of rules governing water allocation and use and their lax enforcement have induced widespread unauthorized extraction of water and encouraged its wasteful and inefficient use. He argues that in order to arrest and reverse these trends a radical change in strategy and policy is required with a shift in focus from merely supply augmentation to encouraging civil participation, water governance reforms, and incentives for efficient water use.


Sharpe ratio (sometimes also referred to as information ratio) is widely used in asset management to compare and benchmark funds and asset managers. It computes the ratio of the (excess) net return over the strategy standard deviation. However, the elements to compute the Sharpe ratio, namely, the expected returns and the volatilities are unknown numbers and need to be estimated statistically. This means that the Sharpe ratio used by funds is likely to be error prone because of statistical estimation errors. In this paper, we provide various tests to measure the quality of the Sharpe ratios. By quality, we are aiming at measuring whether a manager was indeed lucky of skillful. The test assesses this through the statistical significance of the Sharpe ratio. We not only look at the traditional Sharpe ratio but also compute a modified Sharpe insensitive to used Capital. We provide various statistical tests that can be used to precisely quantify the fact that the Sharpe is statistically significant. We illustrate in particular the number of trades for a given Sharpe level that provides statistical significance as well as the impact of auto-correlation by providing reference tables that provides the minimum required Sharpe ratio for a given time period and correlation. We also provide for a Sharpe ratio of 0.5, 1.0, 1.5 and 2.0 the skill percentage given the auto-correlation level. JEL classification: C12, G11.


This research report examines, from the perspective of the Brotherhood's aged service users, what they value in life, what enables them to live fulfilled and meaningful lives, and what Brotherhood aged services can contribute to this. With its accent on freedoms, opportunities and human rights, the capability approach provides a conceptual framework in which to consider a new model of aged services in which will enhance older adults' human rights and capabilities, especially for those who have been disadvantaged, and ensure that their views continue to inform and shape ageing policies, services and models of practice. The central concern of the capability approach, first articulated by Amartya Sen (1979) and developed by Martha Nussbaum within a social justice and human rights framework, is the opportunities people have for being and doing what, for them, constitutes a good life. Taking this as the starting point, this research represents the first part of a larger study which will examine what users of Brotherhood aged services value in life, what capabilities they aspire to, how current services enhance capabilities and how the capability approach might be integrated into service provision. Image: Report Cover


Implicit invocation and aspect-oriented languages provide related but distinct mechanisms for separation of concerns. Implicit invocation languages have explicitly announced events, which runs registered observer methods. Aspect-oriented languages have implicitly announced events, called "join points," which run methodlike but more powerful advice. A limitation of implicit invocation languages is their inability to refer to a large set of events succinctly. They also lack the expressive power of aspect-oriented advice, and require code to manage event registration and announcement. Aspect-oriented languages also have several limitations, including the potential for fragile dependence on syntactic structure that may hurt maintainability, limits in the set of join points and the reflective contextual information that they make available. Quantified, typed events solve all these problems. They extend implicit invocation languages with a key idea from aspectoriented languages: the ability to quantify over events (join points). Programmers declare named event types that contain information about the names and types of event arguments (exposed context). An event type declaratively identifies an expression as an event. This event type can then be used to quantify over all such events. Event types reduce the coupling between the observers and the set of events, and similarly between the advising and advised code.


Problem statement: MB-OFDM UWB systems have attractive features and received a great attention. It has the capability of sending/receiving data at rates in access of 100 Mbits sec-1. Owing to the sensitivity of OFDM systems to synchronization errors, a fast synchronization algorithm is required to discern for the start of OFDM symbol. Existing approaches to OFDM time synchronization rely on their proposed preamble. Approach: In this study, a comprehensive algorithm for Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) timing synchronization suitable for Multi-Band OFDM Ultra-Wideband (MB-OFDM UWB) systems was proposed. Firstly, we proposed a technique for packet detection in the multi-band scenario. Secondly, a new timing metric for timing synchronization is proposed. Then, we propose a technique for frame synchronization. Finally, time frequency code identification and low-complexity timing refinement technique was proposed. Results: The performance of the timing synchronization (coarse synchronization and timing refinement) is evaluated in terms of Mean Squared Error (MSE) in MB-OFDM UWB Channel Models (CM1, CM2, CM3 and CM4). It was found that the proposed method performs better than existing approaches. Conclusion: A suitable timing synchronization steps for MB-OFDM UWB systems was proposed. The proposed method can be applied on any preamble signal.


Preferences for novel stimuli tend to develop slowly over many exposures. Psychological accounts of this effect suggest that it depends on changes in the brain's valuation system. Participants consumed a novel fluid daily for 10 days and underwent fMRI on the first and last days. We hypothesized that changes in activation in areas associated with the dopamine system would accompany changes in preference. The change in activation in the ventral tegmental area (VTA) between sessions scaled with preference change. Furthermore, a network comprising the sensory thalamus, posterior insula, and ventrolateral striatum showed differential connectivity with the VTA that correlated with individual changes in preference. Our results suggest that the VTA is centrally involved in both assigning value to sensory stimuli and influencing downstream regions to translate these value signals into subjective preference. These results have important implications for models of dopaminergic function and behavioral addiction.


In this paper we propose a sliding mode control scheme that allows robust control of the output voltage in a class of non-linear switched converters that includes the non-inverting buck-boost, the Watkins–Johnson and the inverse of Watkins–Johnson. Using a full-state reference profile-based sliding surface, periodic signals may be tracked by the output voltage under appropriate restrictions. Furthermore, semi-infinite programming techniques are used to minimize power loses while taking into account the existence of load perturbations. The procedure consists of choosing a reference signal for the inductor current with minimum root mean square, subject to the maintenance of sliding regime under possible load variation in a set with known bounds. Realistic simulation results show a highly robust performance in the presence of load disturbances.


Resonant tunnelling diode (RTD) is known to be the fastest electronics device that can be fabricated in compact form and operate at room temperature with potential oscillation frequency up to 2.5 THz. The RTD device consists of a narrow band gap quantum well layer sandwiched between two thin wide band gap barriers layers. It exhibits negative differential resistance (NDR) region in its current-voltage (I-V) characteristics which is utilised in making oscillators. Up to date, the main challenge is producing high output power at high frequencies in particular. Although oscillation frequencies of ~ 2 THz have been already reported, the output power is in the range of micro-Watts. This thesis describes the systematic work on the design, fabrication, and characterisation of RTD-based oscillators in microwave/millimetre-wave monolithic integrated circuits (MMIC) form that can produce high output power and high oscillation frequency at the same time.
Different MMIC RTD oscillator topologies were designed, fabricated, and characterised in this project which include: single RTD oscillator which employs one RTD device, double RTDs oscillator which employs two RTD devices connected in parallel, and coupled RTD oscillators which combine the powers of two oscillators over a single load, based on mutual coupling and which can employ up to four RTD devices. All oscillators employed relatively large size RTD devices for high power operation. The main challenge was to realise high oscillation frequency (~ 300 GHz) in MMIC form with the employed large sized RTD devices. To achieve this aim, proper designs of passive structures that can provide small values of resonating inductances were essential. These resonating inductance structures included shorted coplanar wave guide (CPW) and shorted microstrip transmission lines of low characteristics impedances Zo. Shorted transmission line of lower Zo has lower inductance per unit length. Thus, the geometrical dimensions would be relatively large and facilitate fabrication by low cost photolithography. A series of oscillators with oscillation frequencies in the J-band (220 – 325 GHz) range and output powers from 0.2 – 1.1 mW have been achieved in this project, and all were fabricated using photolithography. Theoretical estimation showed that higher oscillation frequencies (> 1 THz) can be achieved with the proposed MMIC RTD oscillators design in this project using photolithography with expected high power operation.
Besides MMIC RTD oscillators, reported planar antennas for RTD-based oscillators were critically reviewed and the main challenges in designing high performance integrated antennas on large dielectric constant substrates are discussed in this thesis. A novel antenna was designed, simulated, fabricated, and characterised in this project. It was a bow-tie antenna with a tuning stub that has very wide bandwidth across the J-band. The antenna was diced and mounted on a reflector ground plane to alleviate the effect of the large dielectric constant substrate (InP) and radiates upwards to the air-side direction. The antenna was also investigated for integration with the all types of oscillators realised in this project. One port and two port antennas were designed, simulated, fabricated, and characterised and showed the suitability of integration with the single/double oscillator layout and the coupled oscillator layout, respectively.


"The EA operates indefinitely in a closed cycle, namely the discharge of a fuel load, with the exception of fission fragments, is re-injected in the sub-critical unit with the addition of natural Thorium to compensate for the burnt fuel. After many cycles an equilibrium is reached, in which the Actinide concentrations are the balance between burning and C incineration E. The fuel is used much more efficiently, namely the power obtained from 780 kg of Thorium is roughly the same as the one from 200 tons of native Uranium and a PWR (33 GW.day/t of burn-up). The probablility of a criticality accident is suppressed since the device operates at all times far away from it. Spontaneous convective cooling by the surrounding air makes a C melt-down E leak impossible. An EA module consists of a 1500 MWth unit with dedicated 1.0 GeV proton accelerator of 12.5 mA. A compact reliable and modular Cyclotron has been designed. A plant may be made of several such modules. For instance a cluster of three such modular units will produce about 2,000 MWe of primary electrical power. A relevant feature of our design is that it is based on natural convection to remove the heat generated inside the core. The EA is a large, passive device in which a proton beam is dumped and the heat generated by nuclear cascades is extracted without other major elements of variability. The delivered power is controlled exclusively by the current of the accelerator, The fuel needs no access during the whole burn-up and it may be kept sealed up as a non-proliferation safeguard measure. Contrary to Fusion, there are no major technologcal barriers. After = 700 years the radio-toxicity left is about 2000 times smaller than the one of an ordinary Pressurised Water Reactor (PWR) for the same energy. Geological storage (1e+06 years) is virtually eliminated or at least strongly reduced [<= 500 Ci/GWe.y) after 1000 years]. It could be furher reduced (<35 Ci) ""incinerating"" some of the nuclides. Radioactivity dose to individuals truncated to 10,000 years and due to operation is about1/330 of the one of PWR and about 1/33 of Coal burning."


Coleoid cephalopods are characterized by internalization of their shell, and are divided into the ten‐armed Decabrachia (squids and cuttlefish) and the eight‐armed Vampyropoda (octopuses and vampire squid). They have a rich fossil record predominantly of the limited biomineralized skeletal elements they possess: arm hooks, statoliths, mouthparts (the buccal mass) and internal shell (gladius or pen), although exquisitely preserved soft tissue coleoids are known from several Lagerstätten worldwide. Recent studies have shown that although morphological similarities between extant decabrachian gladii and fossil examples exist, no known examples of fossil decabrachians are currently known. However, molecular clock data and phylogenetic bracketing suggest that they should be present in Lagerstätten that are rich in vampyropod soft tissue fossils (i.e. Hâkel and Hâdjoula Lagerstätten, Cretaceous, Lebanon). We propose that a hitherto unknown taphonomic bias pertaining to the differing methods of buoyancy control within coleoid groups limits preservation potential. Both negatively and neutrally buoyant decabrachians use chemical buoyancy control (ammonia) whereas vampyropods do not. In the event of rapid burial in an environment conducive to exceptional preservation, ammonia dramatically decreases the ability of the decabrachian carcass to generate the required pH for authigenic calcium phosphate replacement, limiting its preservation potential. Moreover, the greater surface area and comparatively fragile dermis further decrease the potential for fossilization. This taphonomic bias may have contributed to the lack of preserved labile soft‐tissues in other cephalopods groups such as the ammonoids.


AIMS
To compare the effects of a short or long taper schedule after buprenorphine stabilization on participant outcomes as measured by opioid-free urine tests at the end of each taper period.

DESIGN
This multi-site study sponsored by Clinical Trials Network (CTN, a branch of the US National Institute on Drug Abuse) was conducted from 2003 to 2005 to compare two taper conditions (7 days and 28 days). Data were collected at weekly clinic visits to the end of the taper periods, and at 1-month and 3-month post-taper follow-up visits.

SETTING
Eleven out-patient treatment programs in 10 US cities.

INTERVENTION
Non-blinded dosing with Suboxone during the 1-month stabilization phase included 3 weeks of flexible dosing as determined appropriate by the study physicians. A fixed dose was required for the final week before beginning the taper phase.

MEASUREMENTS
The percentage of participants in each taper group providing urine samples free of illicit opioids at the end of the taper and at follow-up.

FINDINGS
At the end of the taper, 44% of the 7-day taper group (n = 255) provided opioid-free urine specimens compared to 30% of the 28-day taper group (n = 261; P = 0.0007). There were no differences at the 1-month and 3-month follow-ups (7-day = 18% and 12%; 28-day = 18% and 13%, 1 month and 3 months, respectively).

CONCLUSION
For individuals terminating buprenorphine pharmacotherapy for opioid dependence, there appears to be no advantage in prolonging the duration of taper.


I study the impact of financial crisis risk in the eurozone on the euro/US dollar exchange rate. Using daily data from 3 July 2006 to 30 September 2010, I find that the euro depreciates against the US dollar when banking or sovereign debt crisis risk increases in the eurozone. While the external value of the euro is more sensitive to changes in sovereign debt crisis risk in vulnerable member countries than in stable member countries, the impact of banking crisis risk is similar for both country blocs. Moreover, rising default risk of medium and large eurozone banks leads to a depreciation of the euro while small banks' default risk has no significant impact, showing the relevance of systemically important banks with regards to the exchange rate.


In a companion paper, we reported that the goldfish oculomotor neural integrator could be trained to instability or leak by rotating the visual surround with a velocity proportional to +/- horizontal eye position, respectively. Here we analyze changes in the firing rate behavior of neurons in area I in the caudal brainstem, a central component of the oculomotor neural integrator. Persistent firing could be detuned to instability and leak, respectively, along with fixation behavior. Prolonged training could reduce the time constant of persistent firing of some cells by more than an order of magnitude, to <1 s. Normal visual feedback gradually retuned persistent firing of integrator neurons toward stability, along with fixation behavior. In animals with unstable fixations, approximately half of the eye position-related cells had upward or unstable firing rate drift. In animals with leaky fixations, two-thirds of the eye position-related cells showed leaky firing drift. The remaining eye position-related cells, generally those with lower eye position thresholds, showed a more complex pattern of history-dependent/predictive firing rate drift in relation to eye drift. These complex drift cells often showed a drop in maximum persistent firing rate after training to leak. Despite this diversity, firing drift and the degree of instability or leak in firing rates were broadly correlated with fixation performance. The presence, strength, and reversibility of this plasticity demonstrate that, in this system, visual feedback plays a vital role in gradually tuning the time course of persistent neural firing.


The Buffalo gold deposit is a small deposit consisting of auriferous quartz-tourmaline veins within a granodiorite stock in the Red Lake greenstone belt. This study aims to characterize the mineralizing fluids through fluid inclusion and stable isotope analyses and to compare them with those of the world-class Campbell-Red Lake deposit. Four types of fluid inclusions were recognized, including carbonic, aqueous-carbonic, aqueous, and halite-bearing aqueous, with the carbonic type being the most abundant. Raman analyses indicate that the carbonic phase mainly consists of CO 2 , with minor amounts of N 2 and CH 4 , and rarely detectable H 2 S. The homogenization temperatures of the carbonic inclusions range from −41.7° to 30.9°C. The homogenization temperatures and salinities of the aqueous, halite-bearing aqueous, and aqueous-carbonic inclusions are 130° to 276°C and 9.7 to 23.6 wt.% NaCl equiv., 155° to 207°C and 32.9 to 42.3 wt.% NaCl equiv., and 215° to 357°C and 8.3 to 19.7 wt.% NaCl equiv., respectively. The δ 18 O VSMOW values of tourmaline range from 8.2‰ to 9.0‰, and those of quartz from 11.4‰ to 11.9‰, with estimated fluid temperatures from 323° to 399°C based on the quartz-tourmaline isotopic geothermometer. It is postulated that separate CO 2 -dominated and aqueous fluids intermittently invaded the fracture/vein system in response to fluid pressure fluctuations, with limited mixing. The CO 2 -dominated fluid, previously recognized in Campbell-Red Lake as the main mineralizing fluid, is inferred to have been derived from deeper parts of the crust. This deep CO 2 -dominated fluid reservoir might have been a common source for gold mineralization in the Red Lake greenstone belt.


Scholars and practitioners are widely agreed that media and public communication are undergoing significant change deserving of close attention and, along with widespread popular media discussion, a body of scholarly research on the changing 21st century mediascape is emerging. The term 'new media' is widely used in the literature to describe interactive online communication forms including blogs, social networks, photo and video sharing sites, microblogging, and virtual worlds enabled by what is referred to as Web 2.0. A number of studies cite so-called 'new media' as the 'fourth media revolution' and make effusive predictions concerning their effects ranging from the "end of journalism" to the transformation of the public sphere through the birth of e-democracy. This paper critically reviews changes taking place and provides an overview of implications for public communication. It challenges the term 'new media', arguing that it is inaccurate and unhistorical, and attempts to look beyond hype and 'cyberbole' that often distort discussion to identify substantive changes taking place. It argues these are located in social and cultural practices rather than technology and explores four foundational shifts which have significant implications for media and all areas of public communication practice including journalism, political communication, advertising, public relations and organisational communication.


How can we explain the predictions of a machine learning model? When the data is structured as a multivariate time series, this question induces additional difficulties such as the necessity for the explanation to embody the time dependency and the large number of inputs. To address these challenges, we propose dynamic masks (Dynamask). This method produces instance-wise importance scores for each feature at each time step by fitting a perturbation mask to the input sequence. In order to incorporate the time dependency of the data, Dynamask studies the effects of dynamic perturbation operators. In order to tackle the large number of inputs, we propose a scheme to make the feature selection parsimonious (to select no more feature than necessary) and legible (a notion that we detail by making a parallel with information theory). With synthetic and real-world data, we demonstrate that the dynamic underpinning of Dynamask, together with its parsimony, offer a neat improvement in the identification of feature importance over time. The modularity of Dynamask makes it ideal as a plug-in to increase the transparency of a wide range of machine learning models in areas such as medicine and finance, where time series are abundant.


Little is known about the dynamics of chromosomes in interphase nuclei. By tagging four chromosomal regions with a green fluorescent protein fusion to lac repressor, we monitored the movement and subnuclear position of specific sites in the yeast genome, sampling at short time intervals. We found that early and late origins of replication are highly mobile in G1 phase, frequently moving at or faster than 0.5 micrometers/10 seconds, in an energy-dependent fashion. The rapid diffusive movement of chromatin detected in G1 becomes constrained in S phase through a mechanism dependent on active DNA replication. In contrast, telomeres and centromeres provide replication-independent constraint on chromatin movement in both G1 and S phases.


Abstract. Although a number of emerging point-cloud semantic segmentation methods achieve state-of-the-art results, acquiring fully interpreted training data is a time-consuming and labor-intensive task. To reduce the burden of data annotation in training, semiand weakly supervised methods are proposed to address the situation of limited supervisory sources, achieving competitive results compared to full supervision schemes. However, given a fixed budget, the effective annotation of a few points is typically ignored, which is referred to as weak-label initialization in this study. In practice, random selection is typically adopted by default. Because weakly supervised methods largely rely on semantic information supplied by initial weak labels, this studies explores the influence of different weak-label initialization strategies. In addition to random initialization, we propose a feature-constrained framework to guide the selection of initial weak labels. A feature space of point clouds is first constructed by feature extraction and embedding. Then, we develop a density-biased strategy to annotate points by locating highly dense clustered regions, as significant information distinguishing semantic classes is often concentrated in such areas. Our method outperforms random initialization on ISPRS Vaihingen 3D data when only using sparse weak labels, achieving an overall accuracy of 78.06% using 1‰ of labels. However, only a minor increase is observed on the LASDU dataset. Additionally, the results show that initialization with category-wise uniformly distributed weak labels is more effective when incorporated using a weakly supervised method.


Results of probabilistic seismic hazard analysis (PSHA) depend on the soil conditions of the site investigated. Consequently, it is generally expected that disaggregation, usually employed to gather further information about hazard levels of interest, changes with the soil class. This short note discusses the relationship between hazard curves and disaggregations computed for different soil conditions at the same site. In particular, it is analytically proven that there are cases, depending on the structure of the ground‐motion prediction equations employed, in which disaggregations for different soil conditions are necessarily invariant. It is also demonstrated that, in these situations, hazard curves for different soil conditions can be immediately obtained from a curve developed for a reference soil class. The analytical proofs derived do not require any further testing or validation; nevertheless, the results are illustrated via simple case studies to show how they may imply applicative advantages both in the cases of single‐model and logic tree PSHA.


N-Decanoyl-L-alanine (DA) was mixed with either colorless 4,4'-bipyridine (BP) or various derivatives such as chromogenic oligo(p-phenylenevinylene) (OPV) functionalized with isomeric pyridine termini in specific molar ratios. This mixtures form salt-type gels in a water/ethanol (2:1, v/v) mixture. The gelation properties of these two-component mixtures could be modulated by variation of the position of the ''N'' atom of the end pyridyl groups in OPVs. The presence of acid-base interactions in the self-assembly of these two-component systems leading to gelation was probed in detail by using stoichiometry-dependent UV/Vis and FTIR spectroscopy. Furthermore, temperature-dependent UV/Vis and fluorescence spectroscopy clearly demonstrated a J-type aggregation mode of these gelator molecules during the sol-to-gel transition process. Morphological features and the arrangement of the molecules in the gels were examined by using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), atomic force microscopy (AFM), and X-ray diffraction (XRD) techniques. Calculation of the length of each molecular system by energy minimization in its extended conformation and comparison with the XRD patterns revealed that this class of gelator molecules adopts lamellar organizations. Rheological properties of these two-component systems provided clear evidence that the flow behavior could be modulated by varying the acid/amine ratio. Polarized optical microscopy (POM), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), and XRD results revealed that the solid-phase behavior of such two-component mixtures (acid/base=2:1) varied significantly upon changing the proton-acceptor part from BP to OPV. Interestingly, the XRD pattern of these acid/base mixtures after annealing at their associated isotropic temperature was significantly different from that of their xerogels.


Microaggregates (5 to 500 µm) are the main component of suspended particulate matter in shallow and turbid aquatic environments. Whereas their abundance and size structure have been studied by various optical systems, their composition, aggregation and disaggregation processes, and microbial colonization have been studied only little. This is largely due to inadequate sampling devices for microaggregates. Therefore, we established a new device, allowing the careful collection and documentation of aggregate size and abundance by laser illumination and a regular digital camera. The instrument simultaneously serves as a settling chamber to separate and subsample microaggregate fractions, differing in their settling velocities. Thus, it provides material for studying the biological and chemical composition and microbial colonization of microaggregates with a minimum of manipulation. First results from its application during a semitidal cycle in the German Wadden Sea demonstrate that it yields reliable results of the abundance and size structure of aggregates, reflecting the tidal changes in the hydrodynamic conditions. Total aggregate abundance covaried with dry weight of suspended particulate matter and turbidity. The biological and chemical analysis of aggregate fractions separated during 45 min of settling, showed that the various fractions exhibited distinct differences with respect to aggregate size, dry weight, particulate organic carbon, the carbon per nitrogen ratio (by weight), number of bacteria and bacterial production rates per aggregate. Hence, the application of this sampling device will lead to better insight into the dynamics and qualitative changes of microaggregates in turbid aquatic systems and deepen our understanding of their overall significance in these ecosystems.


Human Cartilage Tissue Engineering Using Type I Collagen/Heparan Sulfate Scaffolds
Introduction: Cartilage engineering may provide a promising alternative solution to current methods of cartilage repair. The aim of this study was to evaluate the suitability of type I collagen (Col I) scaffolds with and without heparan sulfate (HS) to support attachment, proliferation and chondrogenic differentiation of human bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (hBMSCs).
Materials and Methods: hBMSCs were cultured in Col I, Col I+1%HS, Col I+2%HS and Col I+3%HS scaffolds in both chondrogenic and non-differentiation media for 15 and 30 days. The resulting neo-tissues were analyzed using histochemistry, immunohistochemistry, electron microscopy (EM) and molecular biology. Collagen released into the media by the constructs was also measured by dye-binding assays.
Results: Our results showed successful growth and proliferation of hBMSCs on all scaffolds analyzed. Better results were obtained in chondrogenic cultures after 30 days, in which we observed oval/ rounded cells along the scaffolds, and extracellular matrix (ECM) by EM; this ECM was strongly positive for proteoglycan (PG) safranin O staining and staining for type II (Col II). Greater total collagen release was found in supernatants of chondrogenic cultures than in controls. The best results for all analyses were found in scaffolds including HS.
Conclusions: We conclude that the Col I and HS scaffolds used in this study are suitable supports for hBMSCs to differentiate toward chondrocyte-like cells in chondrogenic medium. We observe that the addition of HS to Col I scaffolds improves the chondrogenic phenotype of the cells, with Col I+3%HS being the best scaffold.


2000;117;5-7 Chest Carl J. Lavie and Richard V. Milani Exercise Training Benefits of Cardiac Rehabilitation and http://chestjournal.org and services can be found online on the World Wide Web at: The online version of this article, along with updated information ). ISSN: 0012-3692. http://www.chestjournal.org/misc/reprints.shtml ( of the copyright holder may be reproduced or distributed without the prior written permission Northbrook IL 60062. All rights reserved. No part of this article or PDF by the American College of Chest Physicians, 3300 Dundee Road, 2007 Physicians. It has been published monthly since 1935. Copyright CHEST is the official journal of the American College of Chest


Mitochondrial disorders are being diagnosed wilh increased frequency, and present clinicians and genetic counselors wilh a multitude of issues to address. Mitochondrial disorders generally result in deficient energy production or availability. Mitochondrial disorders arc typically thought of as maternally inherited, but all modes of inheritance have been described and need to be considered during the genetic evaluation. The counseling issues involved with mitochondrial disorders thai are inherited in a Mendclian fashion are similar to non-mitochondrial Mendelian disorders. The maternally inherited mitochondrial disorders present the genetics team with a variety of unique issues to address. Mitochondrial disorders can affect virtually all organs systems. Most commonly the central nervous, cardiac, muscular and ophthalmologic systems are involved. When suspicious of a mitochondrial disorder it is necessary to determine the most likely mode(s) of inheritance, explain difficult genetic concepts and to provide psychological support. While these roles are typical for a genetic counselor, mitochondrial disorders do present a unique set of challenges. The genetic counselor must obtain a very targeted pedigree with special attention paid to the "soft signs" in family members, such as migraines, seizures, mental retardation, gastrointestinal complaints, chronic fatigue and weakness. Explanations of difficult concepts such as heteroplasmy, oxidative phosphorylation, nuclear DNA, mitochondrial DNA, and nuclcar-mitochondrial gene interactions are unique Providing psychological support can be a daunting task, even to an experienced learn. When one makes a diagnosis of a maternally inherited mitochondrial disease in a proband, one usually also makes the same molecular diagnosis in the mother and potentially other maternal-line relatives. In many cases prognosis varies considerably, thus counseling must by necessity be vague as to the prognosis Frequently there is no reliable prognostic indicator that can be used to predict future health concents Like with other genetic disorders the diagnosis is often accompanied by feelings of grief, despair and guilt. While those feelings are not specific to maternal line inhertance, the extremely high recurrence risk in maternal line disorders is specific to this type of inheritance. Reliable prenatal testing is not available for many mitochondrial disorders, and reproductive options and treatment are limited. In summary, mitochondrial disorders, especially those inherited maternally present many unique and difficult issues for the genetic counselor.


This article explores the relationship between men, spousal violence, and politics in Romania in the 1950s and aims to analyze how the Romanian Communist Party (RCP), as an institution, dealt with spousal violence perpetrated by its officials. The RCP was a significant player within state socialist regime. Thus, the way the Party managed the discussed cases of spousal violence gives an idea about how gender relations functioned in reality, beyond the official discourse and the letter of the law. This article argues that spousal violence was the result of inequality within the family and a manifestation of patriarchy and male dominance. This analysis draws on files from the archive of the Committee of Party Control of the Central Committee of the RCP, which contains cases of Party members with a history of spousal violence.


Bruxism is a very common parafunction of the masticatory system. Currently, there is consensus about the multifactorial nature of the etiology of bruxism, and it is thought to be a central nervous system phenomenon related to stress and pain behavior rather than structural components. The relationship of bruxism and subjective stress has remained unclear. Recently, biomarkers have been used for assessing stress reaction such as chromogranin A (CgA) and cortisol. The level of CgA provides a sensitive and reliable index for evaluating psychological stress. We can have many reports about plasma CgA, but we can't have enough reports about salivary CgA. The aim of this study was to clarify circadian variation CgA in saliva. Four adults (1 male, 3 females) participated in this research. Subjects provided ten saliva samples. Saliva samples were collected in the morning (9 am) and in the night (21 pm), and every 3 h for 24 h. In addition, saliva samples were two-minute stimulated and unstimulated samples to measure CgA concentration, major salivary stress biomarkers. Unstimulated salivary CgA concentration varied more in time and individual difference than stimulated. Stimulated salivary CgA concentration was increased from 12 pm to 18 pm. Salivary CgA seemed to have a circadian variation with peak in the afternoon-night period and a nadir in the noon. With regard to circadian variations, salivary CgA concentrations, in particular stimulated saliva, hardly differ from plasma CgA. It was concerned that CgA concentration was influenced from a lot of factors.


Various green building rating systems (GBRSs) have been proposed to reduce the environmental impact of buildings. However, these GBRSs, such as Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) v4, are primarily oriented toward a building's use stage energy consumption. Their application in contexts involving a high share of renewable energy, and hence a low‐impact electricity mix, can result in undesirable side effects. This paper aims to investigate such effects, based on an existing office building in Quebec (Canada), where more than 95% of the electricity consumption mix is renewable. This paper compares the material impacts from a low‐energy context building to material considerations in LEED v4. In addition to their contributions to the building impacts, material impacts are also defined by their potential to change impacts with different material configurations. Life cycle assessment (LCA) impacts were evaluated using Simapro 8.2, the ecoinvent 3.1 database, and the IMPACT 2002+ method. The building LCA results indicated higher environmental impact contributions from materials (>50%) compared to those from energy consumption. This is in contrast with the LEED v4 rating system, as it did not seem to be as effective in capturing such effects. The conclusions drawn from this work will help stakeholders from the buildings sector to have a better understanding of building environmental profiles, and the limitations of LEED v4 in contexts involving a low‐impact energy mix. In addition, this critical assessment can be used to further improve the LEED certification system.


INTRODUCTION To some, linking the late Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and the First Amendment smacks of paradox. (1) Known throughout the entirety of his thirty-three years on the Supreme Court for his judicial conservatism, (2) Chief Justice Rehnquist is probably best remembered in the First Amendment arena for the many opinions in which he found no protection afforded by the First Amendment. (3) Rehnquist is also well-known for opinions holding that, if the First Amendment conferred any rights, they were overborne by government interests that the Chief Justice found weightier and more imperative. (4) One noteworthy example is Texas v. Johnson, (5) a 1989 case in which Chief Justice Rehnquist dissented from the majority's holding that a Texas statute criminalizing public flag burning was unconstitutional. (6) It is, therefore, no surprise that some scholars and commentators have criticized the late Chief Justice's First Amendment jurisprudence as meager, unprincipled, or indifferent. (7) But Rehnquist did not find against the advocates of free speech in every First Amendment case, (8) so a closer examination of his jurisprudence in this area holds some intrigue. (9) In particular, how did Rehnquist determine what protections he understood the First Amendment to afford, and what was his approach to resolving conflicts between acknowledged First Amendment rights and government restrictions impinging on those rights? An examination of every case in which Rehnquist authored an opinion that treated an issue of freedom of speech, press, or association, addresses these interesting questions. (10) All told, these cases comprise a universe of more than seventy opinions. The late Chief Justice obviously participated in many more than seventy cases involving claims of freedom of speech, press, or association during more than three decades on the Supreme Court. (11) But focusing on that subset of cases where Rehnquist penned his own opinion provides insight into his particular views on the extent of First Amendment protection. (12) Speech cases in which Rehnquist merely joined the opinions of other Justices might indicate generally the doctrines to which he did or did not subscribe, (13) or perhaps more accurately, the outcomes with which he agreed. (14) The opinions of the other Justices, however, do not reveal how Chief Justice Rehnquist's philosophy of protected expression differed from theirs. Underlying Rehnquist's opinions are two important principles that help explain his approach to speech-related constitutional issues. The first principle is the protection of majoritarian democracy, which entails the protection of democratic values in two different contexts. First, Rehnquist recognized the importance of protecting certain core political speech rights under the First Amendment that he believed essential to maintaining the "majority rule" ideal on which our democracy is premised. Second, he sought to avoid judicial trampling on laws enacted by legislative bodies elected by the democratic majority. (15) These two democratic ideals are somewhat in tension because as the "territory controlled by the Free Speech Clause grows, the amount shrinks that is governed democratically by the people and their representatives...." (16) The Rehnquist speech cases reveal his efforts to balance these two ideals. The weaker the assertion that the expression at issue was core political speech that enhanced citizens' participation in our democratic system, the greater the likelihood that Rehnquist would find to be more weighty the democratic values inherent in the elected legislature's enactment of the regulation restricting speech, press, or association. The second principle that helps explain the late Chief Justice's approach to First Amendment problems--and probably of equal importance to his desire to protect democratic ideals--was his zeal for our federalist system. The Rehnquist speech cases demonstrate that he treated federal restrictions on speech with less deference than similar restrictions on speech imposed by the states. …


We propose a new decision-theoretic approach for solving execution-time deliberation scheduling problems using recent advances in Generalized Semi-Markov Decision Processes (GSMDPs). In particular, we use GSMDPs to more accurately model domains in which planning and execution occur concurrently, planimprovement actions have uncertain effects and duration, and events (such as threats) occur asynchronously and stochastically. We demonstrate a significant improvement in expressibility over previous discrete-time approximate models in which mission phase duration was fixed, failure events were synchronized with phase transitions, and planning time was discretized into constant-size planning quanta.


The Veil of Moses describes the creation of Russian romantic literary stereotypes which shaped the opinion of the Russian public on the Jews.


Reviw of Alain Badiou, On Beckett , ed. and trans. Nina Power and Alberto Toscano, Clinamen Press, Manchester, 2003. ISBN: 1903083 30 Badiou's remarkable reading of Beckett seeks to deliver the work of this great writer from the grasp of existentialist phenomenological readings. However, I argue that Badiou#39;s reading of Beckett opens the way for a deeper consideration of the existential issues embedded in Badiou's own work and that this is most fruitfully approached by recalling the thought of Sartre.


The REF2014 results are set to be published next month. Alongside ongoing reviews of research assessment, Derek Sayer points to the many contradictions of the REF. Metrics may have problems, but a process that gives such extraordinary gatekeeping power to individual panel members is far worse. Ultimately, measuring research quality is fraught with difficulty. Perhaps we should instead be asking which features of the research environment (a mere 15% of the assessment) are most conducive to a vibrant research culture and focus funding accordingly.


Objective: Prostate carcinoma (PCa) is the leading causes of cancer-related death in elderly men. Although several risk factors for the development of prostate cancer have been identified, the impact of chronic prostatitis is still a matter of debate. A key event of prostate cancer pathogenesis is the decrease of the homeo box protein NKX3.1 in the luminal epithelial cells of the prostate observed in early pre-cancerous lesions. Furthermore, inactivation of Nkx3.1 in a mouse model led to high incidence of prostatic intraepithelial neoplasia (PIN) formation underscoring the importance of NKX3.1 loss. In this study, we aimed to define the impact of diverse cytokines and growth factors known to be expressed during chronic prostatitis on NKX3.1 expression.
Methods: We determined the NKX3.1 expression in inflamed areas of prostatectomy specimens by immunohistochemistry. NKX3.1 protein and mRNA levels in cytokine and growth factor stimulated PCa cell lines were determined by western blot and RTqPCR. Transcriptional activity of the androgen receptor (AR) was determined by luciferase reporter assays and impact of the AR on NKX3.1 expression by siRNA mediated AR knock down.
Results: Treatment of prostate carcinoma cell lines with epidermal growth factor (EGF) dramatically reduced NKX3.1 protein and mRNA levels, while TNFα or IL-1α had only a moderate effect. Moreover, EGF or a combination of PMA and ionomycin (P+I) also caused diminished levels of the AR. However, while NKX3.1 reduction is observed as early as one hour after stimulation the decrease of AR occurred with a delayed kinetic. We show that P+I-induced NKX3.1 proteolysis is proteasome-dependent and influenced by protein kinase C.
Conclusion: In summary, we provide evidences for a crucial role of inflammatory mitogenic factors leading to reduced NKX3.1 and AR levels which might contribute to the initiation of pre-cancerous PIN lesions.


Regulatory agencies such as the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) must balance the need to expand airport capacity with concerns about environmental impact. This balance is governed by the National Environmental Policy Act ("NEPA"), which establishes the environmental review procedures governing airport development activities that receive federal funding. This paper presents a comprehensive empirical study of legal challenges to airport expansion, focusing on the influence of environmental procedural statutes such as NEPA, as well as substantive environmental law including requirements in the federal airport funding statutes to minimize adverse environmental impacts. All known reported court opinions since the enactment of NEPA involving environmental challenges to airport construction and physical expansion were reviewed and characterized with respect to the factual background of the case, the form of the legal challenge, and the disposition of the reviewing court. A statistical regression analysis was performed to determine which factors significantly influence a court's decision to approve the environmental review or to enjoin airport expansion pending further environmental review. The analysis demonstrates that environmental challenges to airport expansion have become significantly less likely to succeed over time, due in part to 2003 legislative changes requiring a coordinated environmental review process coordinated by the FAA, and granting exclusive jurisdiction to the U.S. Courts of Appeals for review of FAA final decisions. Environmental plaintiffs facing such a difficult judicial forum should focus their legal challenges on the most statistically effective arguments: that the FAA failed to adequately consider cumulative environmental impacts, and to a lesser degree, that the FAA or airport proprietor has failed to take every reasonable step to minimize the adverse environmental impact of airport expansion.


In this essay I present the process, learnings and final results of my master project. The project focuses on the education Swedish for immigrants, SFI, and how design can play a role in improving the education to better meet the needs of the learners and become more of a step towards inclusion. I identify two learner groups; the experienced and the novice learner, with different needs and prerequisites. During the project I develop a focus towards the novice learner and the problem I call the vicious circle. By this term I refer to that too big gaps between the learners former knowledge/experiences and the education results in lost motivation and self-esteem and many learners giving up or getting stuck in the education. Throughout the project I use an iterative process, in three loops, where I involve the stakeholders in the development of my ideas through interviews, observations and colaborative workshops. My final proposal is a the learning service "Matprat", which invites the learners as co-creators of the education and puts their experiences and knowledge in the centre of learning.


In this detailed and fascinating book, Francis Carroll tells the story of the attempts to settle the original boundary between Canada and the United States from the Atlantic coast to the middle of the continent. Established by the Treaty of Paris in 1783, it soon became clear that ambiguities and errors in the treaty brought confusion and rivalry in the boundary borderland from New Brunswick and Maine to the St. Lawrence River, through the Great Lakes and from Lake Superior to Lake of the Woods, in the heart of the continent. This borderland, steadily filling with people of competing interests - Loyalists and Yankees, fur traders and soldiers, Europeans and First Nations peoples - became the focus of the major crisis in Anglo-Canadian-American relations for almost sixty years. Drawing on extensive research and utilizing manuscript materials never brought to bear on the subject before, The Search for Boundary is the first work to thoroughly explain the efforts of the several Boundary Commissions and the failed arbitration of the King of Netherlands - all major international attempts to settle the boundary. The book also provides a fresh interpretation of the relevance the turbulent decade of the 1830s had in contributing to the sense of urgency that finally allowed for negotiation of a reasonable compromise settlement of the boundary in the Webster-Ashburton Treaty of 1842 -- .A good and wise measure,. as Lord Ashburton called it. Filled with the politics and intrigues of the time, Carroll brings to life a remarkable time in the diplomatic and political history of both Canada and the United States. Winner of the Dafoe Book Prize, awarded by the J.W. Dafoe Foundation


KTA is a crystallographic isomorph of KTP that shows promise for nonlinear frequency generation throughout the 1–5-μm region. We present updated Sellmeier coefficients for KTA based on measurements of the refractive index in the 0.4–3.6-μm region. Predictions of phase-matching behavior by means of these coefficients agree well with experimental data.


Establishing a secure communication channel among a group of people is highly desirable. Such a secure channel can be boostrapped by physically meeting and authentically exchanging public keys. Recently, a new class of group key exchange protocols [8,21] that leverage physical constraints on human mobility was proposed. In this paper, we present HoPo Key, a new protocol for the authentic exchange of information within a physically collocated group of people. HoPo Key introduces a novel technique for the verification of the security properties of the information collected by group members. Group members physically form a ring. The position in the ring of each member is randomly assigned based on the information collected from all members. While standing in the ring, members compare short word lists with their neighbors. The verification technique in Ho-Po Key detects attacks by both outsider and insider adversaries. Outsiders are detected by group members if they physically stand in the ring with other members. Similarly, attacks by insiders are detected since an insider is unable to stand simultaneously in two positions in the ring. We demonstrated that the verification within the ring is surprisingly easy and fast via user-studies. We implemented Ho-Po Key on Motorola A855 Droid and Apple iPhone 3GS smartphones. The iPhone application is submitted to the iPhone application store and is waiting for approval, whereas the Android application is freely available on the Android market store.


This OHE Seminar Briefing summarises a seminar given by Dr Nicholas Hicks, Co-founder and Chief Executive of COBIC (Capitated Outcomes-Based Incentivised Care). Dr Hicks describes COBIC's outcomes-centred approach that has been adopted by NHS services across England and that brings together commissioners, providers, other professions, patients and carers. The COBIC approach involves six elements - (1) defined population and scope, (2) desired outcomes associated with indicators, (3) service model redesign, (4) financial analysis and defined budget, (5) agreed contract form and duration, describing incentives and risks, and (6) readied and prepared service providers. In this Briefing, Dr Hicks discusses the example of the Bedfordshire Musculoskeletal (MSK) project, where COBIC worked with Bedfordshire Clinical Commissioning Group to improve MSK care and outcomes, and to decrease per capita costs.


Published quadratic equations obtained by response surface methodology (RSM) for high hydrostatic pressure (HHP) inactivation of Bacillus cereus spores, B acillus subtilis spores and cells, Staphylococcus aureus and Listeria monocytogenes , all in milk buffer, were used to demonstrate the utility of genetic algorithms (GAs). It was possible to obtain several optimum pressure (P), temperature (T) and time (t) combinations for 5 log 10 reductions of the mentioned microorganisms in milk buffer by using GAs. Depending on the properties of HHP equipment (maximum operating pressure) or the type of the food product (heat-sensitive), it could be possible to select the suitable P-T-t trio among the alternatives. This study reveals that GAs could be used to optimize HHP inactivation of microorganisms in foods. Key words: Genetic algorithms, high hydrostatic pressure, inactivation, optimization.


Parboiling involves soaking, steaming, and drying, and is known to improve head rice yield (HRY), remove chalkiness, and retain nutrients. Because of an increasing number of rice cultivars developed, commingling of rice may happen during harvesting, distributing, or storage. Using commingled rice with a wide range of gelatinization temperatures (To) as a feedstock may cause inconsistent parboiled rice products. Therefore, this study was aimed at investigating the effect of soaking temperature and steaming duration on the quality of parboiled, commingled rice. Rough rice samples of individual or commingled rice cultivars with different To ranges were soaked at different temperatures (25, 60, 65, 70 or 75C) for 3 h alone or in combination with steaming at 112C for 10, 15 or 20 min; the milling and physicochemical properties of the resultant rice samples were characterized. Soaking at 25C caused no morphological change, however soaking at temperatures above starch glass transition temperature but below To reduced chalkiness by facilitating a rearrangement of starch granules to form a more packed structure, thus increasing head rice yield. With increasing soaking temperature, head brown rice yield and To increased, whereas gelatinization temperature range and chalkiness reduced. During the soaking step, commingling or To difference had more influence on head brown rice yield than soaking temperature. However, when combined with the steaming step, soaking temperature was found to have more influence on the HRY of the resultant parboiled rice than commingling and steaming duration, whereas steaming duration had the greatest impact on yellowness, white core, deformed kernels and pasting viscosity. Commingled rice with a wide range of To tended to result in less desirable parboiled rice. It is recommended to select a soaking temperature close to To of commingled rice and a steaming duration to fully gelatinize starch without rendering excessive starch swelling in order to optimize the desirable quality characteristics of parboiled


To design well-being and smart communities, it is important to know what street scapes/layouts are good for people experience with comfortableness, activeness, beautifulness, etc. For that purpose, walkability is one of the key performance indicators expressing the environmental quality of a street. As the first step for creating the well-being smart communities, this study attempts to evaluate the influence of street scapes/layouts by using street images taken by a volunteered geographic information application, Mapillary and a image assessment with machine learning technique. We conduct street experiments in a district in Tokyo, Japan for comparing the score of the quality of street image with the answers of questionnaire on the street. The result suggests that score of quality of images is not consistent with the street experience for people such as comfortableness, secureness, and activeness.


The research in male volleyball of high level in the last years grants to serve a great importance in the evolution of this sport. The technique of serving employee is revealed as a decisive factor, however we don't know if the performance of this action stays in an uniform way or it varies as the encounter lapses. In this way the objective of the present study is to know the evolution of the performance in the course of the competition, differentiating the mensurations in sets. As a sample to the survey, they took the players of the Olympic Games of Atlanta in 1996, the last international volleyball competition of the highest importance. They where twelve male national teams, confronted in 42 matches, and distributed in 149 sets. 33 sets of male competition were used, they were singled out from 14 matches of which 2030 cases of serve change were recorded . It was found that the variable Set it influences, in a highly significant way, the reception performance, what suggests us certain demands in the strategic position of the serve. KEY WORDS: volleyball, serve, reception, high performance, variability.