Good error recovery for compilers depends on accurate diagnosis of errors. When an error is misdiagnosed, the error message issued for the error is likely to be misleading. Worse, the error recovery system may leave the compiler in a configuration that will cause spurious errors to be reported later. This dissertation presents new error recovery techniques for compilers that generally diagnose errors more accurately than earlier techniques.
The major innovation embodied in the new error recovery techniques is the use of general static semantic information to help detect and diagnose syntactic errors. There are usually many possible ways of recovering from an error. Testing if a potential recovery leads to semantic problems later involves executing the semantic actions associated with that recovery. If a potential recovery is rejected, the semantic actions that were performed while testing it must have no apparent effect on later compilation. Thus, it must be possible to undo the effects of semantic actions. For conventional compilers, the mechanisms needed to reverse the effects of semantic actions are too slow to be practical. A new compiler organization that permits semantic actions to be undone efficiently is presented. This new organization is suited for compiling languages, such as C, Pascal, and Ada, that require declarations to precede uses.
Two further ways of improving the performance of error recovery systems are considered. Error recovery systems sometimes fail to accurately diagnose an error because the parser has performed reductions based on the erroneous input. A variety of techniques for avoiding the adverse effects of such reductions are presented and compared. Also, a new panic mode algorithm for use with LR parsers is presented.
The new error recovery techniques have been applied in an error checking program for Pascal. The recoveries produced by that program are shown to compare favorably with those produced by two well known error recovery systems. Finally, some drawbacks of the new techniques and some directions for future work are discussed.


Laboratory interventions are becoming more data driven, outcome oriented, and evidence based. As such, laboratory professionals need more background in experimental study design and biostatistical methods, so that laboratory data can be used to generate outcomes data from quality. Several types of patient-oriented research (POR) are found in academic and non-university-based healthcare systems such as (i) mechanistic (physiological) studies of human disease, therapeutic studies, and clinical trials. An important translational step is the translation of research findings from POR and clinical trials into daily clinical practice. Thus, POR plays an important role in the translation of basic research findings and clinical trial data to improve medical practice and patient care. This chapter aims to acquaint the clinical laboratory with the basic types of experimental approaches used by clinical (patient-oriented) researchers, and defines the basic terms typically used in clinical research. It describes the concept of systematic review of literature, and describes initiatives occurring for evidence-based laboratory medicine. The laboratory medicine best practices (LMBP) initiative at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) adapts evidence-based medicine (EBM) concepts to clinical laboratory practice and quality improvement (QI) studies. Within LMBP, systematic reviews can provide information to support decision making for health outcomes achieved from use of a diagnostic test and for additional outcomes that influence cost and quality of patient care.


Diffusion models arising in analysis of large biochemical models and other complex systems are typically far too complex for exact solution or even meaningful simulation. The purpose of this paper is to develop foundations for model reduction and new modeling techniques for diffusion models.

These foundations are all based upon the recent spectral theory of Markov processes. The main assumption imposed is $V$-uniform ergodicity of the process. This is equivalent to any common formulation of exponential ergodicity and is known to be far weaker than the Donsker--Varadahn conditions in large deviations theory. Under this assumption it is shown that the associated semigroup admits a spectral gap in a weighted $L_\infty$-norm and real eigenfunctions provide a decomposition of the state space into "almost"-absorbing subsets. It is shown that the process mixes rapidly in each of these subsets prior to exiting and that the conditional distributions of exit times are approximately exponential.

These results represent a significant expansion of the classical Wentzell--Freidlin theory. In particular, the results require no special structure beyond geometric ergodicity; reversibility is not assumed and meaningful conclusions can be drawn even for models with significant variability.


An age-friendly city is the result of an integrated approach centred on people's needs, where user satisfaction is the main goal of design, both in public and private spaces. "Age-friendliness" must be founded on a multidisciplinary approach: if the city and the constructions represented (outdoor spaces and buildings; transportation; housing) are the "hardware" (tangible), then the age-friendly community (social participation; respect and social inclusion; civic participation and employment; communication and information) is the "software (intangible). Tangible and intangible issues must work together in order to effectively meet elderly people's needs.


The research question is how technologies characterized by ubiquitous Web 2.0 interactivity may contribute to democracy. Following a case study design, two applications were evaluated: the Belgian CitizenLab, a mobile, social and local private application to support public decision making in cities, and the Dutch governmental website Internetconsultatie. Available data suggest that the Dutch consultation platform is mainly visited by the 'usual suspects' and lacks participatory functionalities. In contrast, CitizenLab explicitly aims at policy co-creation through broad participation. Its novelty, however, prevents making sound empirical statements.
A comprehensive conceptualization precedes the case studies. To avoid instrumentalist reduction, the social setting of the technologies is reconstructed. Since its constituents, embedding and expectations - initially represented as the nation state and representative democracy - are increasingly challenged, their transformations are consequently discussed. The new embedding emerges as a governance constellation; new expectations concern the participatory dimension of politics. Future assessments of technologies may benefit from this conceptualization.
You can view the book proposal here: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2461488.


An instrument was developed for the detection of NH3 in flue gas, exploiting a fortuitous spectral overlap between the ν2aQ(6,6) absorption line of NH3 and the R (18) emission line of the isotopic 13C16O2 laser. The system was developed for use with De–NOx processes, which convert harmful nitric oxides generated in utility and industrial furnaces into harmless nitrogen and water vapor by injection of NH3. The instrument detects unreacted NH3 in the flue gas down to concentrations of a few ppm with an accuracy of ∼10%. It can serve as an environmental monitor and as part of a feedback control system to adjust the upstream NH3 injection to the desired rate.


The present thesis constitutes an important contribution to the understanding of a partially premixed combustion system associated with the hazardous backdraft phenomena. Backdraft may occur when fresh air is suddenly introduced into a vitiated environment where fire has already died out due to lack of oxygen but there are still unbumt fuel and products of incomplete combustion left.
In the context of backdraft or deflagration, a complex flame structure is expected. Both, non-premixed and diffusion combustion might, in principle, be present. The present study focuses on the development of sub-grid scale (SaS) models to facilitate the study of such complex flame structure using the large eddy simulation (LES) technique. Before applying the model to the backdraft simulation, the individual sas models were firstly validated using simple configurations where detailed experimental data is available.
A flamelet-like model for premixed combustion was introduced and thereafter coupled with the non-premixed combustion model through a "flame index" parameter. This concept makes use of the gradient signs of oxygen and fuel mass concentrations to distinguish between premixed and diffusion combustion regimes. In the present implementation in LES, an improved version of the flame index concept developed by Domingo et al. [67] was adopted. The model takes into account the fluctuations of both gradients at sub-grid level, which subsequently, might affect the filtered flame index value.
In order to track the premixed flame front we used an approach which filters the progress variable balance equation using a filter larger than the actual LES grid. This approach has the advantage that it represents a physical meaningful variable and is stable from the numerical point of view because of the smooth gradients of the progress variable at the flame front and the species concentrations related to it.

The flame front tracking technique was tested with an unstrained planar hydrogen flame front. Reasonably good results in burning speed and density ratio were obtained.
The non-premixed or diffusion combustion regime was modelled using a flamelet-like model which considers the flame to be located at the stoichiometric value of the mixture fraction and it is related to the strain rate imposed by the counter flow of oxygen and fuel mass concentration feeding streams. This approach has the advantage that it has been tested for different scenarios and it is relatively fast as the variables can be pre-stored in a table.
The flame index approach was tested using a laminar triple flame configuration. It was observed that the model could capture the different combustion regimes and predicted the lift-off height with reasonable accuracy. The location of the triple point was well predicted and the three branches further downstream could also be easily discerned from the predictions.
Subsequently, a partially premixed turbulent lifted flame was simulated. In this case, it was ne,cessary to introduce the augment of burning velocity induced by the wrinkling of the flame front at sub-grid level. The sas flame front wrinkling factor is defined as the sub-grid scale flame surface divided by its projection in the resolved propagating direction. This can be regarded as the ratio of the sub-grid turbulent flame speed at grid scale (SrLl) and the laminar flame speed (s?). Reasonably good agreement was found on the lift-off prediction, the flame structure, and the mixture fraction profiles. A stabilization mechanism was discussed based on concepts previously exposed where the flame base faces a high velocity flow and a flammable mixture. Thereafter, the flame attempts to find its way upstream through low-speed flammable sections of the flow. It was found that in this process the stabilization point, herein identified as the maximum premixed heat release, plays an important role driving the flame base upstream the flow.

Finally, two real scenarios of backdraft in a full scale fire test were simulated. These include the full scale backdraft experiment of Gojkovic [94] and the reduced scale experiment of Weng and Fan [254] . Unfortunately, there exist neither extensive nor accurate measurements for the former one and hence, the comparison against the numerical simulation was largely carried out on qualitative grounds. Five different stages were identified: 1) initial phase, 2) spherical propagation, 3) planar propagation, 4) flame front stretching and 5) fire ball. Qualitatively, the simulation agreed well with the experiment. The ignition delay time (the time from the opening of the hatch until the time when the ignition occurs) was well predicted by the simulation. It was also observed that the flame structure in the backdraft was predominantly premixed.
More detailed measurements were available in the tests of Weng and Fan [254]. These included the upper layer temperatures, mass concentrations and pressures at the openings. Different opening geometries were used and the total mass flow rates in and out of the container were also measured. Overall, the predictions were in good agreement with the measurements and the model predicted the correct trend for pressure and mass flow rates in the tests with different openings. Furthermore, the predicted occurrence and non-occurrence of backdraft in different geometrical configurations was in line with the experimental observations in which backdraft did not always happen.
During the earlier stages of the study, some effort was devoted to improving the sas turbulence models and to implement a CMC type SGS combustion model into the code. Unfortunately both models were later found to be unsuitable for the backdraft simulation. The first one suffered numerical instabilities caused by the under prediction of the Smagorinsky constant when applied to the backdraft case. The second one was deemed inappropriate due to its requirement of an homogeneous plane of conditional values. Nevertheless, some reasonably good results have been obtained with both models during the validation using simple geometrical configurations, namely a buoyant plume, a backward facing step and the Sandia-D

non-premixed turbulent flame. The effort in this direction is therefore still included in the thesis as summarised below.
A Lagrangian SGS turbulence model was implemented. Good results were found for classical benchmarking flow configurations such as the buoyant turbulent plume and the backward facing step. It was, however, found that the SGS turbulence viscosity became negative in a larger percentage than originally stated by Maneveour. Because of this, the model is prone to numerical instability. When applied to the backdraft simulation, the dynamically calculated Smagorinsky constant using this model was found to be consistently lower than the conventional range (0.1-0.23). This caused stability problem and made it very difficult to achieve converged solutions.
The conditional source estimation (CSE) approach, which is a variation of the Conditional Moment Closure (CMC) approach, was also implemented. This model produced good results for the classical turbulent diffusion flame (SANDIA flame D). Even though the present implementation is not capable of predicting extinction/re-ignition events it was showed that it is very economic from computational point .of view. However, as explained above, this model was also considered as unsuitable for the backdraft simulation.


The objective of the proposed study was to compare seasonal aerosol samples collected during Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter from 3 US cities with high prevalence of asthma, Boston, Philadelphia and Detroit, to determine the effect of seasonal variation on bacterial urban aerosol composition. In addition comparisons were made between aerosol bacterial communities from these three cities and those present in San Francisco in the Spring. To determine if there were any similarities between aerosol and airway bacterial communities comparisons were also made between aerosol and respiratory samples from asthmatic patients (collected in a separate multi-center US trial). Finally, analysis of commonalities and distinctions in urban aerosols in East coast versus West coast samples were examined to determine whether geographic location impacted the bacterial community present at these sites. Bacterial community composition varied across sites but appeared, at least in the samples analyzed, to be more associated with specific geographic location than by seasonality. Phyla detected in these samples represented a vast diversity of bacteria and included many members of the Firmicutes and Bacteroidetes, two of the primary phyla colonizing the human gastrointestinal tract as well as members of the Sphingobacteria and Actinobacteria that have previously been detected in the respiratory tract of patients with inflammatory airway disease. A comparison of bacterial communities from Boston, Philadelphia and Detroit (collected in the Spring) to those detected in the same season in San Francisco revealed a core of bacteria common to all samples. Nonetheless, geographic-based differences in aerosol community composition were detected between San Franciscan and East Coast samples, suggesting that habitation at a specific site may result in distinct bacterial exposures and, potentially contribute to geographic-specific differences in airway disease prevalence. Comparative analysis of communities detected in urban aerosols and those found in the airways of asthmatics demonstrated a large overlap in these communities, supporting the notion that bacterial species present in environmental aerosols may serve as an inoculum for human respiratory mucosal surfaces in patients predisposed to colonization at these sites and contribute to airway disease prevalence at geographically distinct sites. California Air Resources Board Final Report Susan V. Lynch, PhD


The overriding aim of this project is to gain an understanding of the flowability of powders. Industrial interest for this study was provided by Centura Foods, U.K. who supplied three samples for study. These powder samples are starch, maltodextrin and hydrolysed vegetable protein (HVP). The first half of this project addresses the influence of adsorbed moisture on the flowability of these powders with strong emphasis on the value of cohesion. There is evidence in the literature suggesting that the prevailing relative humidity has an influence on powder cohesion. The general trend indicates an increase in cohesion with an increase in relative humidity. Some attempts have been made in the literature to relate this humidity dependence to powder properties notably the propensity for water sorption. Material characterisation studies revealed the morphological and surface characteristics of the samples through Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM). It revealed the angular and amorphous appearances of the maltodextrin and HVP particles respectively. The starch particles appear to have distinct groups of larger and smaller particles. The larger particles are ellipsoidal and the smaller particles are near perfectly spherical. Water sorption studies using a gravimetric analyzer showed that the starch and maltodextrin powders had on average 19 and 25 % mass increase respectively when subjected to a relative humidity change from 0 % to 90 %. However, the HVP powders had the largest percentage mass uptake of over 100 %. This was supported by in-situ humidity microscopy results that showed significant swelling with dissolution when exposed to saturated air. Comparatively but to a lesser degree, similar behaviour was observed for maltodextrin powders. Starch particles also exhibited swelling under saturation conditions. Powder flowability studies were carried out using a Jenike-type shear cell. Commissioning of the shear cell was conducted using limestone powders. Measurements were carried out at dry, ambient and saturated conditions. This was facilitated by a newly designed in-situ humidity control system. Values of cohesion were obtained by constructing a family of yield loci for each material. HVP powders showed a significant increase in cohesion with humidity. Maltodextrin and starch powders showed no significant change in cohesion with humidity. However, both powders were more difficult to stir with changes to the relative humidity thereby highlighting that the shear cell in this study is not sensitive enough to detect the changes in fiowability. The phenomenon of stick-slip failure was observed for starch at all humidities, and for maltodextrin but only at 0 %RH. Published information implies that stick-slip behaviour is linked to the rate of stored elastic energy and frictional dissipation. A study of stick-slip observed with starch powder was conducted under four levels of consolidation over four different velocities. A mathematical model has been applied which describes the various stages of stick-slip and consequently identifying the parameters that influence stick-slip. A comparison of the model with experimental values highlighted the effectiveness of the model. Results from this study identified the levels of consolidation and drive velocities as the governing parameters influencing stick-slip, with the level of consolidation argued to have a greater impact. It was anticipated that the study would identify conditions to eliminate stick-slip. Although this was not achieved, the study however presents O, a measureable which represents the extent of stick-slip. On this basis, stick-slip is argued to be minimized under a combination of high consolidation loads and velocities. The study has identified possible areas for future work. Firstly, some irregular trends were observed when comparing some results under the two intermediate consolidation levels (4 kN/m2 and 12.5 kN/m2). It is possible to further investigate stick-slip failure with smaller increments to the level of consolidation. It is possible to add to the work done in this study by investigating the effects of higher consolidation and velocities and testing on other materials. Finally, a parallel study repeating the work done in this study (and incorporating the proposed ideas for future work) using a different type of shear tester remains a good candidate for research.


Fully automated proteomic pipelines have the potential to achieve deep coverage of cellular proteomes with high throughput and scalability. However, it is important to evaluate performance, including both reproducibility and ability to provide meaningful levels of biological insight. Here, we present an approach combining high field asymmetric waveform ion mobility spectrometer (FAIMS) interface and data independent acquisition (DIA) proteomics approach developed as part of the induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) Neurodegenerative Disease Initiative (iNDI), a large-scale effort to understand how inherited diseases may manifest in neuronal cells. Our FAIMS-DIA approach identified more than 8000 proteins per mass spectrometry (MS) acquisition as well as superior total identification, reproducibility, and accuracy compared to other existing DIA methods. Next, we applied this approach to perform a longitudinal proteomic profiling of the differentiation of iPSC-derived neurons from the KOLF2.1J parental line used in iNDI. This analysis demonstrated a steady increase in expression of mature cortical neuron markers over the course of neuron differentiation. We validated the performance of our proteomics pipeline by comparing it to single cell RNA-Seq datasets obtained in parallel, confirming expression of key markers and cell type annotations. An interactive webapp of this temporal data is available for aligned-UMAP visualization and data browsing (https://share.streamlit.io/anant-droid/singlecellumap). In summary, we report an extensively optimized and validated proteomic pipeline that will be suitable for large-scale studies such as iNDI.


A recurring pattern of partial correlations between word order variation and scope possibilities (the ¾ signature) supports a particular view of economy constraints in syntax, with these properties: (1) There are economy conditions (soft constraints) that value a particular type of correspondence between LF and PF representations. (2) These constraints are unidirectional: LF (broadly construed) is calculated first and determines PF (surface word order). (3) Scope rigidity is a property not of languages but of specific configurations, and the distribution of rigidity effects is (largely) predictable from independent variation in the syntactic resources of various languages. We focus here on the interaction of these three assumptions and on the role of (2) in predicting the ¾ signature effect. We contrast our proposal with Reinhart's (2005) Interface Economy model, in which economy conditions regulate a mapping that takes overt structure as its input and yields permissible interpretations.


Despite scholars' tremendous interest in the dynamics of Turkish laicism,
little to no attention has been paid to the actors and the practices through which
Islamic morality is propagated among society every day. This article investigates
the Directorate of Religious Affairs (Diyanet)'s policy that has been increasing
the number of women working as preachers since 2003. To what extent and how
does the employment of the Diyanet's women preachers affect the way in which
religion and Islamic public morality grow and are spread in Turkey today? What
specifically is women's contribution in this respect? Drawing on an ethnographic
observation of the Diyanet's women preachers' activities in Istanbul mosques, the
article outlines how they contribute to reshaping Turkish laicism while diffusing
Islamic morality in the public space.


This study investigated the relationship between patient delay in seeking medical attention and prognostic indicators, tumor characteristics, and demographic and behavioral factors in 106 patients with cutaneous malignant melanoma. Patients with less readily apparent lesions, particularly on the back, had longer delays in seeking treatment, as might be expected. The prognostically unfavorable nodular melanomas were detected more frequently by patients themselves than they were found during visits to physicians for unrelated problems. In terms of behavioral variables, patients with less knowledge of melanoma or its appropriate treatment had significantly longer delays. Patients who minimized the seriousness of their condition were more likely to seek treatment sooner, perhaps because this reduced fear and anxiety about the disease or its treatment. For superficial spreading melanoma, delay was significantly and positively correlated with Clark's level of invasion, and also with tumor thickness when only noncoincidentally diagnosed patients were included; whereas for the nodular type, delay was significantly and positively associated with tuomr thickness, whether the patient was coincidentally diagnosed or not. The significance of these findings for early detection, and hence improved prognosis of malignant melanoma, is discussed.


Background Following initial studies reporting the presence of βeta adrenergic receptors on bone cells, several studies have investigated the role of the Beta adrenergic system in the formation and resorption of bone. The goal of this report was to review the data supporting the role of the beta adrenergic system and osteo-neuromediators in the regulation of bone homeostasis. Materials and Methods: In this review, more than 100 published articles were reviewed for the evidence of the adrenergic effect on bone remodeling and focused on the latest advances in this area. Results: Based on a variety of pharmacologic, genetic and clinical studies focused on b-adrenergic receptor (bAR) signaling in bone cells, The adrenergic activity of the sympathetic nervous system has been shown to be a negative regulator of bone mass; adrenergic signaling inhibits osteoblast proliferation and promotes osteoclastogenesis . Conclusion: Altogether, these observations and linked findings are of great significance since they improve our understanding of bone physiology., and uncovered new potential therapeutic strategies for the design of bone anabolic drugs. Certainly, knowledge about downstream factors of beta-adrenergic system can be helpful in making decisions about appropriate therapeutic interventions.


We have all experienced it: the jolt of an insight arriving like a thunderclap, the metaphorical light bulb over your head as you drive to work, take a shower, or unload the dishwasher. These all-too-elusive "aha moments" come sporadically and without warning. But what if insights could be accessed more reliably in everyday life? Charles Kiefer and Malcolm Constable have the tools to make this possibility a reality.

 Based on the authors' years of research, reflection, and experiences with colleagues, friends, and business clients, The Art of Insight presents practical methods for recognizing and cultivating an insight state of mind. All too often, decision making is a forced experience that promotes recycling of old ideas and old ways of thinking. Kiefer and Constable's Insight Thinking Methods are designed to foster fresh thoughts and perspectives. But this is not a rigid set of rules—it's a creative pursuit. Guided by their user-friendly practices and helpful exercises—both in the book and online—you'll develop your own personal approach to cultivating a mindset where insights come readily so that new or longstanding problems are solved with confidence and ease.

 It is the simple truth that one insight can change your life, and the next can change your organization or even the world. A go-to-guide that can make the complicated effortless, The Art of Insight offers a path to becoming a more effective thinker and decision maker.

 "Conventional wisdom holds the generation of insights to be an elusive and mysterious process. Kiefer and Constable turn conventional wisdom on its head with this marvelous addition to the library of all those devoted to improving the quality of their thinking."

 —Len Schlesinger, President, Babson College, and former Vice Chairman, Limited Brands


CoCo ("complementary coordinates") is a method for ensemble enrichment based on principal component analysis (PCA) that was developed originally for the investigation of NMR data. Here we investigate the potential of the CoCo method, in combination with molecular dynamics simulations (CoCo-MD), to be used more generally for the enhanced sampling of conformational space. Using the alanine penta-peptide as a model system, we find that an iterative workflow, interleaving short multiple-walker MD simulations with long-range jumps through conformational space informed by CoCo analysis, can increase the rate of sampling of conformational space up to 10 times for the same computational effort (total number of MD timesteps). Combined with the reservoir-REMD method, free energies can be readily calculated. An alternative, approximate but fast and practically useful, alternative approach to unbiasing CoCo-MD generated data is also described. Applied to cyclosporine A, we can achieve far greater conformational sampling than has been reported previously, using a fraction of the computational resource. Simulations of the maltose binding protein, begun from the "open" state, effectively sample the "closed" conformation associated with ligand binding. The PCA-based approach means that optimal collective variables to enhance sampling need not be defined in advance by the user but are identified automatically and are adaptive, responding to the characteristics of the developing ensemble. In addition, the approach does not require any adaptations to the associated MD code and is compatible with any conventional MD package.


This project aims at building a prototype of a land-based early forest fire detection system using a longwave infrared camera, powered by a 12 V motorcycle battery. It uses a system engineering approach by putting different software and hardware blocks together to come up with a unique automated system that detects fire in the field of view. The fire can be detected, from a distance of 232 feet if the fire is from a small stove or 64 feet if the fire is from a candle about the size of a quarter, within a second and sends a warning email as an alert to a specified email address. This project uses a simple fire detection Matlab algorithm based on thresholding to detect forest fire. The system is designed in a way that in future complicated detection algorithms can easily be integrated with the system.


Why are females compared to males both more likely to have strong STEM-related performance and less likely to study STEM later on? We exploit random assignment of students to classrooms in Greece to identify the impact of comparative advantage in STEM relative to non-STEM subjects on STEM specialization decisions. We approximate comparative STEM advantage using the within-classroom ranking of the ratio of early-high school performance in STEM over non-STEM subjects. We find that females who are assigned to classroom peers among which they have a higher comparative STEM advantage are more likely to choose a STEM school track and apply to a STEM degree. Comparative STEM advantage appears irrelevant for males. Our results suggest that comparative STEM advantage explains at least 12% of the under-representation of qualified females in the earliest instance of STEM specialization. We discuss the mechanisms that amplify the role of comparative STEM advantage in STEM study.


Carnivore are undoubtedly among the most threatened of the mammal species in Africa because of the low density at which they occur and their large home range requirements that do not match with human propensity to develop and alter wildlife habitat. However, the degree of threat is unevenly distributed within the continent, with western and central African carnivores being the most threatened and the least studied. I estimated population size, density, and proportion of area occupied in relation to environmental factors of one medium-size (serval – Leptailurus serval) and two large carnivores (lion – Panthera leo and leopard – P. pardus) in the Niokolo Koba National Park, Senegal, West Africa, using remote camera surveys and both traditional (CR), spatially explicit capture-recapture (SECR) techniques for servals and leopards, and non-spatial (MR) and spatial mark resight (SMR) methods for lions. Lions selected optimal sites with both high tree density and prey activity; leopards occupied areas with high tree density but with less prey activity; and servals selected habitats with more dense canopy cover where leopards were absent. The presence of lions was favorable to serval presence, as we presume leopards avoid lions, although we did not have strong evidence to support it. Moreover, the half mean maximum distance moved (1⁄2 MMDM) method under CR methods appeared to overestimate leopard and serval density while full MMDM estimates were close to SECR methods density estimates. For lions, both 1⁄2 MMDM and full MMDM methods in MR framework overestimated density whereas the SMR method resulted in more reasonable estimates, especially in light of previous assessments of lion densities in West Africa.. These results are of high importance for conservation and management purposes of the imperiled Niokolo Koba carnivore community.


Since the introduction of the Ontario Midwifery Education Program in 1993, the attrition rate of midwives early (< six years) in their careers has been on the rise. The study aimed to develop an understanding of the reasons why graduate midwives leave the profession. Semi-structured, in-depth interviews were conducted with nine former midwives, all graduates of the Ontario Midwifery Education Program. Interview transcripts were analyzed inductively, using the principles of grounded theory to identify conceptual categories, category properties and recurring themes. Key findings were validated by verification with participants. Three key categories emerged: 1) Becoming, 2) Being, and 3) Loss of Self. The implications of the findings of this study are useful to target areas which require more attention in order to reduce the loss of midwives in the province.


Phyletic relations within the haplochromine cichlids of East Africa were investigated using scale and squamation characters. Within the L. Victoria–Edward–Kivu species flock most of the genera proposed in Greenwood's revision could be confirmed by this approach. In addition the genera could be interrelated phylogenetically. They form two distinct superlineages comprising several genera each. The genus Astatotilapia as conceived by Greenwood is diphyletic. The fluviatile members of the genus form the sister taxon of the L. Victoria–Edward–Kivu flock, while the rest are a subgroup of that flock. The flock seems to be of monophyletic origin.


The research presented in this thesis has been concerned with the use of parallel logic systems for the implementation of large knowledge bases. The thesis describes proposals for a parallel logic system based on a new logic programming language, the Pure Logic Language. The work has involved the definition and implementation of a new logic interpreter which incorporates the parallel execution of independent OR processes, and the specification and design of an appropriate non shared memory multiprocessor architecture. The Pure Logic Language which is under development at JeL, Bracknell, differs from Prolog in its expressive powers and implementation. The resolution based Prolog approach is replaced by a rewrite rule technique which successively transforms expressions according to logical axioms and user defined rules until no further rewrites are possible. A review of related work in the field of parallel logic language systems is presented. The thesis describes the different forms of parallelism within logic languages and discusses the decision to concentrate on the efficient implementation of OR parallelism. The parallel process model for the Pure Logic Language uses the same execution technique of rule rewriting but has been adapted to implement the creation of independent OR processes and the required message passing operations. The parallelism in the system is implemented automatically and, unlike many other parallel logic systems there are no explicit program annotations for the control of parallel execution. The spawning of processes involves computational overheads within the interpreter: these have been measured and results are presented. The functional requirements of a multiprocessor architecture are discussed: shared memory machines are not scalable for large numbers of processing elements, but, with no shared memory, data needed by offspring processors must be copied from the parent or else recomputed. The thesis describes an optimised format for the copying of data between processors. Because a one-to-many communication pattern exits between parent and offspring processors a broadcast architecture is indicated. The development of a system based on the broadcasting of data packets represents a new approach to the parallel execution of logic languages and has led to the design of a novel bus based multiprocessor architecture. A simulation of this multiprocessor architecture has been produced and the parallel logic interpreter mapped onto it: this provides data on the predicted performance of the system. A detailed analysis of these results is presented and the implications for future developments to the proposed system are discussed.


Fluid Construction Grammar supports different ways to organize the inventory of constructions into networks. This is not just usable for descriptive purposes only. It plays an important role in streamlining the processes deciding which construction to consider first. Networks become increasingly more important as the complexity, multifunctionality, and size of a grammar grows. This chapter shows how networks of constructions are represented in FCG and how they are used to optimize language processing. Two examples are explored in more detail. The first example concerns family relations of specificity between constructions and the second one concerns conditional dependencies.


CRCMining's unique Tight Radius Drilling technology has recently demonstrated highly productive continuous drilling in a Bowen Basin coal formation. The system has been demonstrated to be economically deployable and reliably operable by drilling contractors. A detailed overview of the system is presented, including a summary of the technology status in terms of technical performance, system productivity and stimulation cost. Investigation of the application of continuous drilling technology is currently being extended to underground in-seam (cross panel) drilling and rapid roof bolt hole drilling for long tendon support. An update on these ACARP/CRCMining co-funded research initiatives is presented.


East-west extension in the Tibetan Plateau is generally assumed to have resulted from gravitational collapse following thickening and uplift. On the basis of this assumption, several studies have dated east-west extensional structures to determine when the plateau attained its current high elevation. However, independent estimates of elevation are needed to determine whether extension occurred before, during, or after the plateau achieved its current elevation. Because the isotopic composition of meteoric water decreases with increasing elevation, significant change in local elevation throughout the Thakkhola graben depositional history should be recorded by change in δ 18 O values of fluvial and lacustrine carbonates. The δ 18 O values of ‐16‰ to ‐23‰ of Thakkhola graben carbonates reflect meteoric water values similar to modern values and suggest that the southern Tibetan Plateau attained its current elevation prior to eastwest extension. Initiation of Thakkhola graben extension is constrained between 10 and 11 Ma, based on magnetostratigraphy of the older Tetang Formation. The δ 13 C values of soil carbonates suggest an age younger than 8 Ma for the base of the Thakkhola Formation.


In this investigation, a method was developed for the determination of purity of the drug PNU-10483 using the technique of capillary zone electrophoresis (CZE). CZE was seen as a potential alternative to the formerly used procedure of ion-pair reversed phase highperformance liquid chromatography (HPLC). Nearly five years earlier, a similar study was performed, in which an attempt was made to develop a method that used CZE to determine the purity of bulk drug and the potency of drug tablets. While this development was mostly successful, sporadically unpredictable results reduced the method's overall viability. These outliers were thought to be caused by inconsistent performance of the vacuum system on the first-generation capillary electrophoresis (CE) instrument used, a PE 270A CE system. As a second-generation instrument had been obtained since that investigation, the procedure that was developed on the original was investigated again and improved. Separation was carried out by using an untreated fused silica capillary (72 centimeters (cm) total, 50 cm to detector, 50 micrometers inner diameter). Sample injection was via vacuum suction at 5" Hg for 2.5 seconds. The run buffer used was 50 milrimolar (mM) sodium phosphate, monobasic, adjusted to pH 3.30 using 85% phosphoric acid. The sample buffer used was 2.5 mM sodium phosphate, monobasic. For an internal standard, pyridine was chosen, and both it and the PNU-10483 sample were added at a concentration of 0.3 milligrams/millihter. Stabilization of migration times was induced by a rinse cycle of 0.5 molar sodium phosphate, monobasic adjusted to pH 2.5 with 85% phosphoric acid. The voltage applied was 25 kilovolts, and the current observed at this level was about 30 microamps. Detection was on-line at a wavelength of 200 nanometers. Adjusted-area quantitation was used. The method was selective, as it could separate all the known process and degradation impurities of PNU-10483, as well as its internal standard. When using normal assay concentrations, the procedure was linear over the range 50-120%. For this method, mean recovery was 100.1%, the relative standard deviation (RSD) was 0.97%, and the correlation coefficient for the first-order regression of amount found versus amount added was 0.9982. Furthermore, neither the intercept nor the slope were statistically different from zero or one, respectively, at the 95% confidence level. Residuals were random, not accumulating at any one place. For replicate injections of a single sample solution, the RSD was 0.75%. For single injections of replicate sample solutions at the 100% level, mean recovery was 99.1% and the RSD was 0.82%. At the 80% level, mean recovery was 99.6% and the RSD was 0.87%. Finally, the developed procedure was applied to several research lots of PNU-10483. In this study, the developed method was not compared directly to HPLC, but results found in the earlier study found good agreementbetween the two techniques, suggesting that CZE could serve as a valid alternative to HPLC in the purity determination of PNU-10483.


To honor Martin Feldstein's distinguished leadership and extraordinary contributions to the National Bureau of Economic Research, the Feldstein Lecture addresses an important question in applied economics, with an application to economic policy. In this inaugural lecture I consider macroeconomic policy during the financial crisis. It is useful to divide the financial crisis into four phases: 1) the "root cause" period from 2003 to 2006; 2) the period from the flare-up in August 2007 to the panic in September 2008; 3) the panic period in September-October 2008; and 4) the post-panic period. Here I look at the fourth phase and focus on monetary policy. (1) I emphasize real time policy evaluation because the crisis is ongoing and because the research is quite different from many existing monetary policy evaluations that examine policy over decades. (2) The financial crisis has made real time evaluation essential because of the rapid changes in events and policy. In addition to loads of new data and policies, real time evaluation must address new methodological questions about the use of high frequency data and simulation techniques. (3) Because of blogs, the 24-hour news cycle, and the rapid spread of ideas, the need for real time policy evaluation is here to stay. To evaluate monetary policy during this period I develop a specific quantitative framework in which I compare actual policy with certain counterfactual policies. It is not enough to say that policy is good or bad in the abstract; you need to say "compared to what" and be able to measure the differences. Such a framework requires that one characterize actual policy and then choose an appropriate counterfactual policy. Both are difficult tasks and there are alternative ways to go about them. What is most important, in my view, is the quantitative framework that different researchers can use in different ways. Actual Monetary Policy since the Panic of 2008 First consider actual policy. In early September 2008, the Fed's target for the federal funds rate target was 2 percent. Starting during the week of September 17, 2008, bank reserves and the monetary base rose sharply, as shown in Figure 1, above levels required to keep the federal funds rate on target. [FIGURE 1 OMITTED] Why did reserves increase so much? The Fed created them to finance loans and purchase securities. Some have argued that they were increased to accommodate a shift in money demand, or a decline in velocity, but the drop in interest rates suggests otherwise. Reserves continued to increase through the end of 2008 and have remained elevated since then as the Fed has financed its purchase of mortgage backed securities (MBS) and long-term Treasury securities, made loans to banks through the Term Auction Facility (TAF), and to foreign central banks, to AIG, and so on. The large level of reserves has raised questions about how and when the Fed will exit from it. Note that this quantitative easing began before the funds rate hit zero. Indeed, the increase in reserves eventually drove the interest rate to zero, which the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) then ratified. To see this, consider the timing of FOMC decisions. On October 8 the FOMC voted to cut the funds rate to 1.5 percent from 2 percent, but for the two weeks ending October 8, the funds rate was already well below 2 percent, averaging 1.45 percent. On October 29 the FOMC voted to cut the funds rate to 1 percent from 1.5 percent, but for the two weeks ending October 29, the funds rate was already well below 1.5 percent, averaging .76 percent. Then, on December 16, the FOMC voted to cut the funds rate to 0-.25 percent from 1 percent, but for the two weeks ending December 17, the rate was already in that range, averaging. 14 percent. Thus, decisions to increase reserve balances, rather than the FOMC decisions about the target rate, drove down the funds rate. Choosing a Counterfactual Monetary Policy What is a reasonable counterfactual monetary policy? …


Private equity, characterized by firms operating as privately held partnerships organizing the acquisition and 'taking private' of public companies, is currently dominating the business news due to deals growing rapidly in number and size. If the trend continues unabated, the 1989 prediction by economist Michael Jensen of 'the eclipse of the public corporation' could be proved accurate soon. This paper argues matters will work out much differently, with private equity being at least partially eclipsed. One possibility is that current market and legal conditions, which are highly congenial to public-to-private transactions, could be disrupted in ways that cause the private equity surge to stall or even go into reverse. The paper draws on history to make this point, discussing how the spectacular rise of conglomerates in the 1960s was reversed in subsequent decades and how the 1980s buyout boom led by LBO associations -- the private equity firms of the day -- collapsed. Factors that undercut conglomerate mergers and buyouts by LBO associations (e.g. the tightening of debt markets and increased regulation) potentially could do the same with the current wave of private equity buyouts, and cause at least a temporary eclipse of private equity deals. Even if conditions remain favorable to private equity, its eclipse is likely to occur in a different way. Privacy has been a hallmark of private equity, with industry leaders operating as secretive partnerships that negotiate buyouts behind closed doors and restructure portfolio companies outside the public gaze. However, assuming market conditions remain sufficiently favorable, top private equity firms, following the lead of the Blackstone Group, may well carry out public offerings. If this happens, then even if the taking private of publicly quoted companies remains a mainstream pursuit, the exercise will occur largely under the umbrella of public markets.


We stand at the brink of a fundamental change in how medicine will be practiced. Over the next 5-20 years medicine will move from being largely reactive to being predictive, personalized, preventive and participatory (P4). Technology and new scientific strategies have always been the drivers of revolutions and this is certainly the case for P4 medicine, where a systems approach to disease, new and emerging technologies and powerful computational tools will open new windows for the investigation of disease. Systems approaches are driving the emergence of fascinating new technologies that will permit billions of measurements on each individual patient. The challenge for health information technology will be how to reduce this enormous amount of data to simple hypotheses about health and disease. We predict that emerging technologies, together with the systems approaches to diagnosis, therapy and prevention will lead to a down turn in the escalating costs of healthcare. In time we will be able to export P4 medicine to the developing world and it will become the foundation of global medicine. The "democratization" of healthcare will come from P4 medicine. Its first real emergence will require the unprecedented integration of biology, medicine, technology and computation. as well as societal issues of major importance: ethical, regulatory, public policy, economic, and others. In order to effectively move the P4 scientific agenda forward new strategic partnerships are now being created with the large-scale integration of complementary skills, technologies, computational tools, patient records and samples and analysis of societal issues. It is evident that the business plans of every sector of the healthcare industry will need to be entirely transformed over the next 10 years.and the extent to which this will be done by existing companies as opposed to newly created companies is a fascinating question.


Higher education, in Ireland and globally, is undergoing profound change influenced by a variety of factors. In conjunction with these changes many initiatives to improve teaching and learning and the quality of graduates in higher education have been introduced in recent years. The changes and expansions in the sector has enabled growth of new roles in higher education described as 'third space' professionals by Whitchurch (2008). This paper describes the struggle of those in third space professions, such as academic development, to establish a professional identity in higher education. The benefits of these contemporary roles to higher education are discussed, while the circumstantial challenges presented to third space professionals in building collaborative relationships between academics and administration both internally and externally to the institution are acknowledged. Finally the professional futures of academic developers are considered. This paper urges investigation into professional values of academic developers and the key strategies that might develop and sustain a community of academic developer professionals in Ireland. Also these approaches must acknowledge the dynamic and complex nature of higher education and academic development in order to survive into the future.


Providing direct health and social care services to people who exhibit behaviours that challenge can be a highly stressful occupational demand. Existing literature has suggested that health/social care professionals who work in settings such as Mental Health, Dementia Care, Autism and Learning Disability services could be prone to encountering incidences where care recipients exhibit behaviours that are perceived as being challenging. There are a number of existing occupational stress theories. However, none of these theories have been developed specifically to explain the conditions under which stress occurs for frontline health/social care staff who are required to manage incidences of behaviours that challenge in their role. Thus, the primary aim of this thesis was to develop a theoretical framework that illustrated the causes of and protective factors against work related stress in frontline staff who provide care for people who exhibit behaviours that challenge.

In the current research programme, an exploratory sequential mixed methods research design was employed to enable the development and investigation of a theoretical framework on work related stress and the management of behaviours that challenge. The initial phase of this project comprised a Grounded Theory study, which led to the development of the Therapeutic Engagement Stress Theory (TEST). TEST illustrates how an interplay of organisational factors, work place environments, colleagues, service users and qualities intrinsic to health/social care professionals can impact the capacity for frontline staff to therapeutically engage with care recipients who exhibit behaviours that challenge. The core category within TEST indicated that the extent to which health/social care professionals are able to engage therapeutically with care recipients, who exhibit behaviours that challenge, can determine the levels of work related stress experienced.

The subsequent aims of this thesis was to investigate the TEST framework using appropriate Quantitative methods. This was to ascertain if the capacity to therapeutically engage with care recipients, who exhibit behaviours that challenge, could genuinely influence the levels of work related stress experienced by frontline health/social care professionals. It was also necessary to investigate if the TEST model could be used effectively in applied settings to tease out the work related factors that could either facilitate or inhibit frontline staff to therapeutically engage with care recipients who exhibit behaviours that challenge. Thus, the next phase of the mixed methods research programme involved operationalising each of the categories and core category, within the TEST model, using pre-existing quantitative measures. Quantitative studies were conducted to investigate specific components of the TEST model in a sample of mental healthcare professionals who provided direct services to people who exhibit behaviours that challenge. It was observed that factors such as work place settings, quality of professional relationships with care recipients and propensity to have repetitive negative thoughts could influence stress levels experienced by mental healthcare professionals through affecting their capacity to engage therapeutically with patients.

Further exploration of the TEST model was conducted to investigate work related stress in professional dementia carers who provided care for residents within Nursing Home settings. It was observed that the capacity to engage with residents who have Dementia fully mediated a positive correlation between the fear of being negatively evaluated by colleagues and perceived work related stress. Higher levels of perceived organisational support were also shown to correlate with lower levels of stress being reported by professional dementia carers. However, a non-significant correlation was observed between perceived organisational support and capacity to engage with residents who exhibit behaviours that challenge.

Finally, a study was conducted to demonstrate the extent to which professional dementia carers are vulnerable to the deleterious consequences of chronic biological stress as ascertained through analysis of hair cortisol concentration. It was observed that professional dementia carers, who manage behaviours that challenge, had significantly higher levels of hair cortisol concentration in comparison to people who work in University settings and students studying at undergraduate level.

This research project has provided novel contributions to existing literature through development and investigation of a theoretical framework using a robust mixed methods approach, in order to optimally understand the articulated experiences of health/social care professionals regarding stress and the management of behaviours that challenge.


We explore the influence of family structure on the nutritional status of Argentinian children aged 2-5 years with data drawn from the nationally representative National Survey of Health and Nutrition (2004-5). We use logistic regressions to model two outcomes: stunting (low height-for-age) and overweight (excessive weight-for-height). For the stunting model, we find that two-parent families have significantly better outcomes when they have relatives in residence with them and that single parenting per se does not have adverse effects. The beneficial role of relatives is reversed for overweight: Children living with one or two parents have significantly higher odds of being overweight when relatives are present in their household. Single parenting is associated with lower odds of overweight but only if relatives are not part of the residential family.


According to press reports, the Chinese Communist Party faces a rising tide of resistance and subversion. Since 1993 the number of protests, demonstrations, strikes, and riots – or what the Chinese Ministry of Public Security calls "mass incidents" – has reportedly jumped nearly fifteen fold, hitting upwards of 127,000 a year in 2008 – the equivalent of 348 a day. Since the early 1990s, the government has arrested an average of 580 individual for counterrevolutionary crimes or endangering state security. In 2008, following rioting in Lhasa and unrest in Tibetan regions the number of such arrests reportedly rose to 1,600 and it seems safe to assume that in the wake of the July 2009 Urumqi riot that the number for 2009 will not be less than in 2007. In this paper, I use two datasets to analyze the rising tide of mass incidents, the nature of subversion, and the connection between mass incidents and organized subversion. The data show that mass incidents are generally rooted in work-related grievances and seek address of immediate demands rather than seeking broad political changes. The data also suggest that most "subversive" groups are either traditional sectarian groups or religious sects and that many of these are not necessarily engaged in subversion – defined herein as political activity designed to bring about the violent overthrow of a regime – or sedition – defined herein as political activity designed to discredit and undermine governmental authority. Finally, the data suggest that the rising tide of mass unrest remains disorganized and largely unconnected to organized subversion.


Graph matching aims to establishing node-wise correspondence between two graphs, which is a classic combinatorial problem and in general NP-complete. Until very recently, deep graph matching methods start to resort to deep networks to achieve unprecedented matching accuracy. Along this direction, this paper makes two complementary contributions which can also be reused as plugin in existing works: i) a novel node and edge embedding strategy which stimulates the multi-head strategy in attention models and allows the information in each channel to be merged independently. In contrast, only node embedding is accounted in previous works; ii) a general masking mechanism over the loss function is devised to improve the smoothness of objective learning for graph matching. Using Hungarian algorithm, it dynamically constructs a structured and sparsely connected layer, taking into account the most contributing matching pairs as hard attention. Our approach performs competitively, and can also improve state-of-the-art methods as plugin, regarding with matching accuracy on three public benchmarks.


This paper proposes a solution method to solve linear difference models with lagged expectations. Variables with lagged expectations expand the model's state space greatly when N is large; and getting the system into a canonical form solvable by the traditional methods involves substantial manual work (e.g., arranging the state vector and the associated coefficient matrices to accommodate variables with lagged expectations), which is prone to human errors. Our method avoids the need of expanding the state space of the system and shifts the burden of analysis from the individual economist/model solver toward the computer. Hence it can be a very useful tool in practice, especially in testing and estimating economics models with a high order of lagged expectations. Examples are provided to demonstrate the usefulness of the method. We also discuss the implications of lagged expectations on the equilibrium properties of indeterminate DSGE models, such as the serial correlation properties of sunspots shocks in these models.


In a previous study (J. Appl. Physiol. 68: 594-603, 1990) in isolated rat lungs, we suggested that the rate of pulmonary air space absorption of inhaled NO2 is limited, in part, by chemical reaction(s) rather than by physical solubility. Because the initial site of primary absorption interactions involves the epithelial lining fluid (ELF), we investigated whether ELF-NO2 interactions could account for pulmonary NO2 reactive absorption. Rat ELF, obtained by bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL), was compared with a model chemical system (reduced glutathione, GSH). In vitro exposures (NO2-air) used constant gas flow and planar gas-liquid interfaces. 1) Solvent pH notably altered NO2 uptake by GSH but to a lesser extent by BAL. 2) Uptake displayed [GSH]-dependent saturation. [ELF] in BAL was augmented by sequential lavage (lavagate reuse) of multiple lungs. Uptake was proportional to [ELF] but did not saturate under these exposure conditions. 3) The uptake rate exhibited [NO2] dependence. However, relative to increasing [NO2], fractional uptakes decreased for BAL and 1 mM GSH but not for 10 mM GSH. 4) Altered convective gas flow produced nonlinear increments in uptake (10 mM GSH) and substantial decrements in fractional uptake. 5) Arrhenius plots [ln(r) vs. 1/T, where r is reaction rate and T is absolute temperature (degree K)] for BAL and 1 mM GSH yielded respective activation energies of 4,952 and 4,149 kcal.g-1.mol-1 and degree of change in the rate of NO2 uptake per 10 degrees C (Q10) of 1.32 and 1.25. These results imply that the rate of NO2 uptake into rat ELF, like intact lung, is limited, in part, by chemical reaction(s).(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)


Migrant enterprises comprise about 10% of all enterprises in Germany and are therefore a crucial part of the German economy and its entrepreneurial ecosystems. Relatedly, migrant entrepreneurship is a highly recognized topic within political discussions as well as within entrepreneurship research. While there is already an impressive body of work regarding the nature and quality of migrant enterprises, many questions regarding the personal motives and satisfaction of migrant entrepreneurs still remain unanswered (particularly with reference to gender and generation of migration). Using the German Socio-Economic Panel dataset, we close this research gap by investigating the job satisfaction of migrant entrepreneurs in Germany compared with native entrepreneurs, and also with conventionally employed migrants and natives. First generation migrants show, in general, less job satisfaction than the native population. Second generation male migrant entrepreneurs' show less job satisfaction, however this association is reversed for females: second generation female migrant entrepreneurs are more satisfied with their self-employment than their native counterparts. These differing results lead to differing implications for policy makers who wish to create and develop entrepreneurial and labour market support for different target groups.


Crop fertilization greatly impacts food production. However, insufficient applications can lead to poor yields. On the other hand, an excessive application leads to soil and aquifers pollution. In this paper, field studies were carried out to determine the ranges of mineral concentration and the interaction of the ions in the soil solution (SS) and the petiole cellular extract (PCE) in several cultures established in the states of Guanajuato, Colima and Jalisco, Mexico. The hypothesis states that there is a causal relationship between the mineral composition of the soil solution (SS) and the minerals and total soluble solids (TSS) in petiole cellular extract (PCE). The following cultures were studied in this research: avocado, blueberry, broccoli, cauliflower, raspberry, strawberry, lettuce, cantaloupe, papaya, and pepper. For each culture, PCE samples and SS samples using a press to break tissue and ceramic tip lysimeters were obtained. The results were processed to obtain ranges of variation within 50% of the closest values to the median. Correlations between the several ion concentrations were analyzed using analysis of variance. The results showed values (mg L-1) of NO3- (40-620), PO43- (17-66), K+ (3-377), Ca2+ (27-582), Na+ (15.3-500), Mg2+ (10-53), Fe3+ (0.6‑1.8), and Zn2+ (2.8-7.4) in soil solution, which allowed obtaining values of NO3- (27-9225), K+ (820-9375), Ca2+ (1.0-650), Na+ (25-620) and TSS (2-13 °Brix) in petiole cellular extract of petiole. Statistically significant correlations were observed between the concentrations of the SS ions regarding the concentrations in PCE in crops suggesting a relationship between the plant nutritive assimilation and cations or anions present in soil solution. The conclusion derived from this study is that ionic concentration ranges registered in the SS and in the PCE provide an approximation to the ranges of nutritional sufficiency for the horticultural crops established in the summer-winter in western Mexico.


The paper describes the design and implementation of a process support system (PROSYT), which is intended to provide guidance in performing business processes and cooperation among people over a local or geographically distributed network. In particular it can be used as a process-centered software engineering environment (PSEE) to support distributed software development. Our main purpose is to describe how complex applications of this kind can be developed systematically. In particular, how the requirements of high flexibility, reconfigurability, scalability, and efficiency demanded by these applications can be met through appropriate design choices.


This paper presents a parsimonious model for forecasting and analysing euro area house prices and their interrelations with the macroeconomy. A quarterly vector error correction model is estimated over 1970-2009 using supply and demand forces central to the determination of euro area house prices in equilibrium and their dynamics: housing investment, real disposable income per capita and a mixed maturity measure of the real interest rate. In addition to house price forecasts using the resulting reduced form equation, a structural decomposition of the system is obtained employing a common trends framework of King, Plosser, Stock, and Watson (1991), which allows for the identification and economic interpretation of permanent and transitory shocks. The main results are twofold. First, the reduced form model tracks closely turning points in house prices when examining out-of-sample one- and two- step ahead forecasts. Moreover, the model suggests that euro area housing was overvalued in recent years, implying a period of stagnation to bring housing valuation back in line with its modelled fundamentals. Second, housing demand and financing cost shocks appear to have contributed strongly to the dynamism in euro area house prices over the sample period. While much of the increase appears to reflect a permanent component, a transitory component has also contributed from 2005 onwards. Specification tests suggest a robustness of the small model to alternative specifications, along with validity of the long-run restrictions. JEL Classification: R21, R31, C32


The immunological effects of L-asparaginase were studied in man. L-Asparaginase suppressed the development of de layed hypersensitivity to primary antigens in cancer patients receiving therapeutic doses of the drug. The development of delayed hypersensitivity skin reactions was completely or partially suppressed in S out of 8 patients immunized with 2 mg keyhole limpet hemocyanin and in 5 out of 6 patients immunized with a synthetic amino acid copolymer of glutamic acid, lysine, alanine, and tyrosine. L-asparaginase did not change established delayed hypersensitivity skin reactivity. Production of antibodies to keyhole limpet hemocyanin was delayed and suppressed by L-asparaginase and 3 out of 8 patients did not produce any antibody to this antigen. Antibody production was delayed and antibody titers were lower compared to controls in the other 5 . Production of antibodies to the synthetic amino acid copolymer of glutamic acid, lysine, alanine, and tyrosine was delayed by treatment. Lymphocytes of patients receiving L-asparaginase did not respond to phytohemagglutinin or specific antigens when cultured in media containing their own on-treatment serum, but responded at normal level when washed and cultured in media containing normal serum or their own pretreatment serum. Phytohemagglutinin-induced blastogenic responses of lymphocytes from hematologically normal subjects were suppressed by the addition of serum from patients on L-asparaginase treatment.


This study evaluated the existence of universal principles of cognition, common to language and arithmetic. Specifically, we analysed cross-domain semantic priming between affirmative sentences and additions, and between negative sentences and subtractions. To this end, we developed and tested a new priming procedure composed of prime sentences and target arithmetic operations. On each trial, participants had to read an affirmative or negative sentence (e.g., "The circle is red", "The square is not yellow") and select, between two images, the one that matched the meaning of the sentence. Afterwards, participants had to solve a one-digit addition or subtraction (e.g., 7 + 4, 6 – 3), either by selecting the correct result between two possible alternatives (Experiment 1), or by verbalizing the result of the operation (Experiment 2). We manipulated the task difficulty of both the sentences and the operations by varying the similarity between the response options for the sentence (Experiment 1 and 2), and the numerical distance between the possible results for the operation (Experiment 1). We found semantic priming for subtractions, so that participants solved subtractions faster after negative versus affirmative sentences, and this effect was modulated by the difficulty of the operation. This is the first study reporting semantic priming effects between language and arithmetic. The outcomes of this work seem to suggest a shared semantic system between both cognitive domains.


This thesis studies the problem of planning and problem solving in an unpredictable environment by adapting previous experiences. We construct a single agent planning system CADDY and operate it in a simple golf world testbed. The study of CADDY combines the studies of probabilistic, spatial, and temporal reasoning, adapting and reusing plans, and the tradeo between gains and costs based on various considerations. The CADDY planning system operates in an uncertain and unpredictable environment. Despite limited perception, incomplete knowledge, and imperfect motion control, CADDY achieves its goal e ciently by nding a plan that is already known to work well in a similar situation and applying repair heuristics to improve it. The capability of adapting experiences makes CADDY a planning system with learning capability. In this thesis, we discuss the structure of the CADDY planning system and the results of experimental tests of CADDY when we applied to a simulated golf world. We compare CADDY with several other research projects on probabilistic planners and planners which utilizes experiences. We also discuss how CADDY can be characterized in terms of theoretical work on plan feasibility. Finally, we point out possible directions of system extension and generalizations of the idea learned from CADDY to other problem domains. Currently CADDY is not directly applied to real{world problems, but it shows an interesting and promising direction of study. By combining the techniques of probabilistic reasoning, planning, and learning, the performance of planning on real{world domains can be improved dramatically.


This article describes the new qualitative methodology developed for use in CIRAS (Confidential Incident Reporting and Analysis System), the confidential database set up for the UK railways by the University of Strathclyde. CIRAS is a project in which qualitative safety data are disidentified and then stored and analysed in a central database. Due to the confidential nature of the data provided, conventional (positivist) methods of checking their accuracy are not applicable; therefore a new methodology was developed - the Applied Hermeneutic Methodology (AHM). Based on Paul Ricoeur's `hermeneutic arc', this methodology uses appropriate computer software to provide a method of analysis that can be shown to be reliable (in the sense that consensus in interpretations between different interpreters can be demonstrated). Moreover, given that the classifiers of the textual elements can be represented in numeric form, AHM crosses the `qualitative-quantitative divide'. It is suggested that this methodology is more rigorous and philosophically coherent than existing methodologies and that it has implications for all areas of the social sciences where qualitative texts are analysed.


This thesis comprises of two separate game theoretic models that fall under the general umbrella of network formation games. The first is a coalitional model of interaction in social networks that is based on the idea of social distance, in which players seek interactions with similar others. Our model captures some of the phenomena observed on such networks, such as homophily driven interactions and the formation of small worlds for groups of players. Using social distance games, we analyze the interactions between players on the network, study the properties of efficient and stable networks, relate them to the underlying graphical structure of the game, and give an approximation algorithm for finding optimal social welfare. We then show that efficient networks are not necessarily stable, and stable networks do not necessarily maximise welfare. We use the stability gap to investigate the welfare of stable coalition structures, and propose two new solution concepts with improved welfare guarantees. The second model is a compact formulation of matchings with externalities. Our formulation achieves tractability of the representation at the expense of full expressivity. We formulate a template of solution concept that applies to games where externalities are involved, and instantiate it in the context of optimistic, neutral, and pessimistic reasoning. Then we investigate the complexity of the representation in the context of many-to-many and one-to-one matchings, and provide both computational hardness results and polynomial time algorithms where applicable.


Fuzzy hashing or similarity hashing (a.k.a. bytewise approximate matching) converts digital artifacts into an intermediate representation to allow an efficient (fast) identification of similar objects, e.g., for blacklisting. They gained a lot of popularity over the past decade with new algorithms being developed and released to the digital forensics community. When releasing algorithms (e.g., as part of a scientific article), they are frequently compared with other algorithms to outline the benefits and sometimes also the weaknesses of the proposed approach. However, given the wide variety of algorithms and approaches, it is impossible to provide direct comparisons with all existing algorithms. In this paper, we present the first classification of approximate matching algorithms which allows an easier description and comparisons. Therefore, we first reviewed existing literature to understand the techniques various algorithms use and to familiarize ourselves with the common terminology. Our findings allowed us to develop a categorization relying heavily on the terminology proposed by NIST SP 800-168. In addition to the categorization, this article presents an abstract set of attacks against algorithms and why they are feasible. Lastly, we detail the characteristics needed to build robust algorithms to prevent attacks. We believe that this article helps newcomers, practitioners, and experts alike to better compare algorithms, understand their potential, as well as characteristics and implications they may have on forensic investigations. © 2021 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).


This paper studies whether transparency (measured by accuracy and frequency of macroeconomic information released to the public) leads to lower borrowing costs in sovereign bond markets. We analyze the data generated during 1999–2002 when the International Monetary Fund (IMF) instituted new ways for countries to increase their transparency—by publishing the IMF's assessment of their policies and committing to release more accurate data more frequently. The IMF's preexisting internal timetable for country reports introduced exogenous variation when countries were faced with the option to become more transparent. We exploit this time variation and construct instruments to estimate the impact of transparency on bond yields in a way that is free from endogeneity bias. We find that countries experience a statistically significant decline in borrowing costs (11 percent reduction in credit spreads on average) when they choose to become more transparent. The magnitude of the decline is inversely related to the initial level of transparency and the size of the debt market. [JEL F34, G14] IMF Staff Papers (2007) 55, 183–209. doi:10.1057/palgrave.imfsp.9450028; published online 22 January 2008


This 10,000-word chapter, for which Greenslade is responsible for 75% of the content, is the first essay in the collection edited by Greenslade and Rodgers (Bath Spa University). It seeks to place Allen's polymathic achievement in the context of British literary and cultural history 1880-1900 and to situate the contributions to the collection in relation to these topics. The essays for the collection were chosen (with one exception) from papers delivered at a conference organised by Greenslade and Rogers: 'Grant Allen: Literature and Culture Politics', UWE, 13 November 1999 (the whole volume being peer-reviewed). The conference, which included keynote lectures by Peter Morton (University of Adelaide) and John Lucas (Emeritus Professor, Nottingham Trent University), was the first to be held on Allen.


In the field of quantum gravity, it is widely expected that some form of a minimum length scale, or ultraviolet cutoff, exists in nature. Recently, a new natural ultraviolet cutoff that is fully covariant was proposed. In the literature, most studies of ultraviolet cutoffs are concerned with Lorentz-violating ultraviolet cutoffs. The difficulty in making a minimum length cutoff covariant is rooted in the fact that any given length scale can be further Lorentz contracted. It was shown that this problem is avoided by the proposed covariant cutoff by allowing field modes with arbitrarily small wavelengths to still exist, albeit with exceedingly small, covariantly-determined bandwidths. In other words, the degrees of freedom of sub-Planckian modes in time are highly suppressed. The effects of this covariant ultraviolet cutoff on the kinematics of a scalar quantum field are well understood. There is much to learn, however, about the effects on a field's dynamics. These effects are of great interest, as their presence may have direct observational consequences in cosmology. As such, this covariant ultraviolet cutoff offers the tantalizing prospect of experimental access to physics at the Planck scale. In cosmology, the energy scales that are probed by measurements of cosmic microwave background (CMB) statistics are the closest that we can get to the Planck scale. In particular, the statistics of the CMB encodes information about the quantum fluctuations of the scalar inflaton field. A measure of the strength of a field's quantum fluctuations is in turn given by the magnitude of the field's Feynman propagator. To this end, in this thesis I study how this covariant ultraviolet cutoff modifies the Feynman propagator of a scalar quantum field. In this work, I first calculate the cutoff Feynman propagator for a scalar field in flat spacetime, and then I address the cutoff Feynman propagator of a scalar field in curved spacetime. My studies culminate with an explicit calculation for the case of a power-law Friedmann-Lemâitre-Robertson-Walker (FLRW) spacetime. This last calculation is cosmologically significant, as power-law FLRW spacetime is a prototypical and realistic model for early-universe inflation. In preparation for studying the covariant cutoff on curved spacetime, I will review the necessary background material as well as the kinematic influence of the covariant cutoff. I will also discuss several side results that I have obtained on scalar quantum field theories in spacetimes which possess a finite start time.


The Centre for Renewable Energy Systems Technology (CREST) has been operating an outdoor measurement facility
for testing photovoltaic (PV) modules since 1998. The facility is used to continuously measure the performance of a range of
commercial and prototype modules, by scanning full I-V characteristics every ten minutes with synchronous measurements of
ambient and module temperatures and broadband and spectral irradiance. The trend for increasingly high power PV modules and
increased demand for channels has precipitated the next stage of development for the CREST system.
This paper gives a technical description of the new system, followed by an appraisal of the performance of the upgraded
measurement system. This encompasses commissioning and initial testing of the new system elements to quantify accuracy
gains between the old and new versions.


Over the last 20 years, a number of methods and solutions have been developed to preserve donor organs for transplantation. Collins et al first introduced the simple cold-storage technique to store and transport kidneys up to 30 hours. The development of the University of Wisconsin cold-storage solution (UW-CSS) in 1986 improved organ preservation and resulted in a better understanding in preservation related injury. Since its introduction, several UW-CSS-derived solutions have been tested, and important components for hypothermic preservation were identified. Pathophysiologic mechanisms in static hypothermic preserved organs are discussed, including hypothermia-induced cell swelling, compromised membrane function, adenosine triphosphate usage, cellular acidosis, and prevention of precursor formation of reactive oxygen species. Counteracting these pathophysiologic mechanisms can be divided into components acting by two protective principles. The first is to create a physical environment, minimizing cellular and interstitial edema formation. The second mechanism involves biochemically active components that ideally enter the cell and remain effective during reperfusion. Some preservation solutions currently in use are discussed on the basis of these two protective mechanisms. In respect of these principles in preservation, new solutions in preservation are discussed. Although cold-storage solutions improved organ viability, maintaining or even improving organ quality during preservation remains an important goal. Future advances in preservation might be found in donor pretreatment, cytoprotection, or the use of dynamic preservation systems.


Background Recommendations for the frequency of STI screening in high-risk populations are limited by lack of data about when infections occur following a negative screening test. Methods Participants (18–29 years of age; women [N = 192] and men [N = 156]) in a 12-week study of incident STI were recruited from a county STI clinic. Self-collected vaginal samples (women) and urine samples (men) were obtained weekly at participant's home. Nucleic acid amplification tests (NAAT) were used for diagnosis of C. trachomatis, N. gonorrhoeae, and T. vaginalis infections. Infections diagnosed at enrollment were treated immediately. Based on cumulative diary reports of partner-specific sexual behaviours, an exposure variable was created to indicate vaginal exposure with only one partner, or with more than one partner. Time to infection was modelled using Kaplan-Meier curves; group differences were assessed via logrank test. Logistic regression was used to assess factors associated with infection status at the study completion. Results 146/192 (76%) women and 126/156 (81%) men were uninfected at enrollment. At 4 weeks post-enrollment, 16% of women and 8% of men had at least one STI. At 8 weeks post-enrollment, about 23% of women and 10% of men were infected. Overall, 54/192 (28%) women and 19/156 (12%) men had at least one STI during the 12-week followup. Survival curves differed significantly by gender (p = 0.0003). In a multivariable logistic model, women had significantly higher odds of STI (odds = 3.3, p = 0.004), controlling for infection status at enrollment and monogamy status. Gender remained significant in models including number of partners during the follow-up period. Conclusion In high STI-risk populations, rescreening of initially negative persons identifies high subsequent infection rates, especially among women. Early rescreening (e.g. within 3 months) of any tested person would significantly increase identification of reinfections among initially positive and treated as well as new infections among those previously testing negative.


Human is usually sub-fertile in comparison to other mammals; in other words, reproduction process of other mammals is more effective than human. Chromosomal anomalies of early embryos are the major reason for the low fecundity of human per cycle. Most of embryos with major genetic defects may be implanted and it can be followed with stopping of early development and early embryo loss with no tangible evidence of pregnancy. In addition, several studies have shown that more than 70% of embryos from assisted reproductive technologies have genetic anomalies. These anomalies lead to implantation failure or early embryo loss following implantation in IVF cycles (1). According to the above evidence on in vitro produced embryos, different methods such as PGD and PGS were developed for choosing the best embryos without genetic defects. These methods are based on molecular techniques of Q-PCR, FISH, CGH and SNP microarray, NGS and many other advanced technologies. While several studies approved the efficiency of these techniques, they have different problems that put their effectiveness in doubt over time. For example, the FISH method on blastomers of day three embryos was the choice in the two past decades, but recent evidence revealed that it failed to provide reliable result of PGS on cleavage embryos. Therefore, it has been replaced by the newer techniques such as CGH microarray and SNP microarray over time. However, though the newer techniques have higher degree of accuracy, they always have their own limitations and deficiencies as well (2). Alternatively, the poor results of PDG and PGS on day three embryos lead to performing the embryo biopsy on blastocyst on day five after fertilization. Although the quantity and quality of biopsied cells are better than day three embryos, this area already raised issues such as suspicion about its limitations and deficiencies like epigenetic changes due to prolonged in vitro culture, self-correction potency for chromosomal anomalies of early embryo, different origins of biopsied cells from trophoectoderm against ICM and several other limitations. Furthermore, today in the scientific community and the media, application of the expensive technique of next generation of sequencing (NGS) is recommended for genetic screening of IVF embryos. Preliminary data using this technology reported the increase of ART outcomes up to %70-80. Based on these results, this technique may have high accuracy and reliability. However, its wide application in large portion of infertile couples, especially those with repeated IVF failure (RIF), repeated pregnancy loss (RPL) and the patients older than 40 years requires further investigation (3). Currently, application of this technique will impose huge cost on couples and if its accuracy and precision is in doubt, it may lead to loss of a large number of embryos that have the potential of implantation and live birth. In addition, the interpretation of the large volume of data from NGS is not very simple. Many of these findings may indicate normal variations or corrective potential of embryos may ameliorate most of them. So, as long as validation of the effectiveness of this technique or innovation of newer techniques with maximum sensitivity and specificity is required, care should be taken in prescribing these techniques to infertile couples.


A prominent technique for self-supervised representation learning has been to contrast semantically similar and dissimilar pairs of samples. Without access to labels, dissimilar (negative) points are typically taken to be randomly sampled datapoints, implicitly accepting that these points may, in reality, actually have the same label. Perhaps unsurprisingly, we observe that sampling negative examples from truly different labels improves performance, in a synthetic setting where labels are available. Motivated by this observation, we develop a debiased contrastive objective that corrects for the sampling of same-label datapoints, even without knowledge of the true labels. Empirically, the proposed objective consistently outperforms the state-of-the-art for representation learning in vision, language, and reinforcement learning benchmarks. Theoretically, we establish generalization bounds for the downstream classification task.


Dr. Emma Cunliffe is an Associate Professor in the UBC Faculty of Law. Dr. Cunliffe's research focuses on medical, scientific and behavioural evidence in criminal trials; and more generally considers the interplay between expert knowledges, common sense and legal reasoning. She is the author of Murder, Medicine and Motherhood (Hart Publishing, 2011) which examines the case of Kathleen Folbigg, a mother who was convicted of murdering her children based on misleading medical evidence. Her book demonstrates how legal process, medical knowledge and expectations of motherhood work together when a mother is charged with killing infants who have died in mysterious circumstances. With funding from SSHRC, she is working with Professor Christine Boyle on a project examining child homicide cases in Canada. Dr Cunliffe is a member of the editorial board for the International Journal of Evidence & Proof. At UBC, she teaches criminal law, evidence and a graduate seminar in research methodologies and has won the Killam Award for Teaching Excellence and the George Curtis Memorial Award for Teaching.


With the exponential growth of information being transmitted as a result of various networks, the issues related to providing security to transmit information have considerably increased. Mathematical models were proposed to consolidate the data being transmitted and to protect the same from being tampered with. Work was carried out on the application of 1D and 2D cellular automata (CA) rules for data encryption and decryption in cryptography. A lot more work needs to be done to develop suitable algorithms and 3D CA rules for encryption and description of 3D chaotic information systems. Suitable coding for the algorithms are developed and the results are evaluated for the performance of the algorithms. Here 3D cellular automata encryption and decryption algorithms are used to provide security of data by arranging plain texts and images into layers of cellular automata by using the cellular automata neighbourhood system. This has resulted in highest order of security for transmitted data.


This chapter describes a conceptual approach to individual and organisational competencies needed for Open Innovation (OI) using a new ambidexterity model. It starts from the assumption that the entire innovation process is rarely open by all means, as the OI concept may suggest. It rather takes into consideration that in practice especially for early phases of the innovation process the organisation and their innovation actors are opening up for new ways of joint ideation, collaboration etc. to gain a maximum of explorative performance and effectiveness. Though, when it comes to committing considerable resources to development and implementation activities, the innovation process usually closes step by step as efficiency criteria gain ground for a maximum of knowledge exploitation. The ambidexterity model of competences for OI refers to these tensions and provides a new framework to understand the needs of industry and Higher Education Institutes (HEI) to develop appropriate exploration and exploitation competencies for OI.


Analysis of Prehistoric Burials at the Snidow Site (46MC1), Mercer County, West Virginia" By Rachel J. Crawford The Snidow Site (46-MC-1) is a Late Prehistoric village site containing evidence of palisade lines, house structures and numerous prehistoric burials. Most of the burials at the site consisted of infants and subadults, with only a couple of burials being of mature adults. The analysis of the grave goods and the human skeletal remains helps archaeologists identify such things as burials rites, social organization, and status of the individuals. Archaeological excavations and technical laboratory methods were used in analyzing the artifacts associated with the Snidow site. The main objective in this analysis is to date the material, analyze the artifacts and bones associated with the burials, and to see if there is evidence of egalitarian society and organization within the village. The documented results of this analysis included the descriptions of the burials, all methodology used, skeletal analysis, artifact analysis and curation.


A family of 1D organic/inorganic core/shell materials formed by an inner organic nanowire (ONW) conformally covered with an inorganic wide band gap semiconductor (ZnO or TiO2) layer is presented. The developed procedure is a two‐steps vacuum methodology involving the formation of supported single crystal small‐molecule nanowires by physical vapor deposition and plasma enhance chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) of the inorganic shell. Critical characteristics of the last technique are the possibilities of low temperature and remote configuration deposition. Additionally, an initial step has to be included in order to create nucleation centers for the growth of the ONWs. The procedure and its general character in terms of the variability in organic core and inorganic shells composition and the applicability of the technique to different substrates are presented. The formation of the inorganic shell with no damage of the organic core single‐crystalline structure is demonstrated by high resolution transmission electron microscopy. The vertical alignment of the hybrid nanostructure is achieved thanks to the interaction of the 1D organic nanostructured surfaces and the glow discharge during the deposition of the inorganic shell by PECVD. The optical properties of these core/shell NWs are studied by fluorescence spectroscopy and microscopy, and their application as nanoscale waveguides in the 550–750 nm range addressed.


This document updates the Enhanced Variable Rate Codec (EVRC) RTP
payload formats defined in RFC 3558 with several enhancements and
extensions. In particular, it defines support for the header-free and
interleaved/bundled packet formats for the EVRC-B codec, a new compact
bundled format for the EVRC and EVRC-B codecs, as well as
discontinuous transmission (DTX) support for EVRC and EVRC-B-encoded
speech transported via RTP. Voice over IP (VoIP) applications
operating over low bandwidth dial-up and wireless networks require
such enhancements for efficient use of the bandwidth. [STANDARDS-
TRACK]