In this paper, we present a new approach to automatically verify multi-threaded programs which are executed by an unbounded number of threads running in parallel. The starting point for our work is the problem of how we can leverage existing automated verification technology for sequential programs (abstract interpretation, Craig interpolation, constraint solving, etc.) for multi-threaded programs. Suppose that we are given a correctness proof for a trace of a program (or for some other program fragment). We observe that the proof can always be decomposed into a finite set of Hoare triples, and we ask what can be proved from the finite set of Hoare triples using only simple combinatorial inference rules (without access to a theorem prover and without the possibility to infer genuinely new Hoare triples)? We introduce a proof system where one proves the correctness of a multi-threaded program by showing that for each trace of the program, there exists a correctness proof in the space of proofs that are derivable from a finite set of axioms using simple combinatorial inference rules. This proof system is complete with respect to the classical proof method of establishing an inductive invariant (which uses thread quantification and control predicates). Moreover, it is possible to algorithmically check whether a given set of axioms is sufficient to prove the correctness of a multi-threaded program, using ideas from well-structured transition systems.


The interpretation of the different roles played by Christian theology during the Weimar Republic and the Third Reich is deeply intertwined with current understandings of the nature and role of church and theology. This article is a critical discussion of the attempt of the "Munich school" centered around Trutz Rendtorff to liberate Protestant liberalism from the history writing of Karl Barth and the Barthian tradition. It discusses concrete issues of historiography dealing with Barth and liberal Protestants such as Ernst Troeltsch, Emanuel Hirsch, and Martin Rade, at the same time as it discusses how historiography is interrelated with theology, sociology, and politics.


The Open Shop Scheduling Problem (OSSP) is one of the most interesting, complexes and not frequently approached scheduling problems. Due to its intractability with other techniques, in this work we present an evolutionary approach to provide approximate solutions. One of the most important points in an Evolutionary Algorithm is to determine how to represent individuals of the evolving population and then to decide suitable genetic operators. In this work, we use permutations as chromosomes. Dealing with permutations requires appropriate crossover operators to ensure feasible offspring. Usual operators are partially-mapped, order, cycle and onecut-point crossover. The goal is to determine which is the most adequate for facing the OSSP with a simple evolutionary algorithm. Several known instances have been considered for testing in order to evaluate the algorithm behavior.


textabstractEstablished cardiovascular risk factors such as hypertension, hyperlipidemia, diabetes mellitus and
smoking do not fully explain the occurrence of cardiovascular disease; although the majority of patients
have at least one of these risk factors, a substantial proportion of cases occurs in individuals that
have none.1 As such, further insight is required into the pathophysiology of cardiovascular disease
and in factors that may identify individuals at high risk.
One of the most relevant insights in atherosclerosis of the past years is the recognition of the
role of inflammation.2 Research on inflammatory markers, both experimental and epidemiological,
has taken flight, and several of these markers have been implicated in cardiovascular disease.3 This
development was accompanied by an expansion of research on genetic variation that may influence
inflammatory processes. The field of genetics has rapidly evolved over the last years because of improved
technology and methodology in combination with the emergence of large, publicly available
genetic databases.4
The purpose of this thesis was to expand the knowledge on inflammatory markers and inflammatory
genes that may play a part in the pathophysiology of cardiovascular disease. We focused on
factors that have drawn increased attention in the recent years, such as C-reactive protein (CRP) and
lipoprotein-associated phospholipase A2 (Lp-PLA2), and examined their roles in both atherothrombotic
disease and in heart failure. Most studies were conducted within the Rotterdam Study, a population-
based cohort study among 7983 men and women aged 55 years and over living in a well-defined
suburb of Rotterdam, the Netherlands.5 During a visit of the participants to the research center, blood
was drawn in order to assess inflammatory markers and genetic variation. Several measures of atherosclerosis
were assessed at the research center, and furthermore, participants were followed-up
for the occurrence of coronary events and heart failure. Specifically, the main research questions we
examined were as follows.
With regard to inflammation, atherosclerosis and coronary events:
- Is CRP serum level associated with atherosclerosis and coronary events?
- Is variation in the CRP gene and variation in the complement factor H gene associated with coronary
events, and do these genes interact to predict disease?
- Is Lp-PLA2 activity associated with atherosclerosis?
With regard to inflammation and heart failure:
- What is the distribution of echocardiographic parameters in an asymptomatic population, and do
these parameters predict mortality?
- Are the inflammatory markers CRP and Lp-PLA2 associated with the occurrence of heart failure?


This study investigated the present status of specialized dental treatment that was sought on the Internet by people in Japan and the United States. Searches on Yahoo! Japan and Yahoo! America were performed using "dental clinic" and specific specialties, for example, sports dentistry, orthodontics, periodontics, dental implant, as keywords. The magnitude of search results progressed in the order of sports dentistry, orthodontics, dental implant, and others in Japan. In the United States, the order of search results was oral surgery, sports dentistry, dental implant, and others. Regarding combinations of specialties, the most frequent found combination was dental implant and cosmetic dentistry in Japan. In the United States, it was a combination of cosmetic dentistry and sports dentistry. These findings showed that people were frequently interested in sports dentistry, cosmetic dentistry and dental implants in both countries. It is necessary to display these specialties on the dental clinic homepage in order to attract the interest of potentials in both countries.


Linear dimensionality reduction methods are commonly used to extract low-dimensional structure from high-dimensional data. However, popular methods disregard temporal structure, rendering them prone to extracting noise rather than meaningful dynamics when applied to time series data. At the same time, many successful unsupervised learning methods for temporal, sequential and spatial data extract features which are predictive of their surrounding context. Combining these approaches, we introduce Dynamical Components Analysis (DCA), a linear dimensionality reduction method which discovers a subspace of high-dimensional time series data with maximal predictive information, defined as the mutual information between the past and future. We test DCA on synthetic examples and demonstrate its superior ability to extract dynamical structure compared to commonly used linear methods. We also apply DCA to several real-world datasets, showing that the dimensions extracted by DCA are more useful than those extracted by other methods for predicting future states and decoding auxiliary variables. Overall, DCA robustly extracts dynamical structure in noisy, high-dimensional data while retaining the computational efficiency and geometric interpretability of linear dimensionality reduction methods.


The development of in vitro culture systems, comparable to the in vivo microenvironment in terms of effect on the oocyte growth and development could provide a valuable experimental tool for studying the mechanisms governing folliculogenesis. This tool might serve as well for practical clinical, agricultural, zoological, or biotechnological applications. This thesis reports on the importance of the microenvironment for the ovarian folliculogenesis process. The complexity of such a microenvironment was approached with a strategy based on functionalized PEG-hydrogels. The PEG matrix not only served as a scaffold, but it was also used a "reservoir" of immobilized cues. Tethered integrin-binding peptides in combination with other signaling factors aimed at better understanding the interactions of the oocyte and its surrounding granulosa cells that, most probably, determine the efficiency of the actual and the future in vitro mature oocyte production strategies. This work led also to investigating the lymph angiogenesis and the lymphatic transport in the context of oocyte maturation and their impact on mice fertility. In a first step, the mechanical properties of PEG-hydrogel were optimized for culturing secondary follicles. This report shows that the growth of the follicles was highly dependent on the mechanical properties of the surrounding environment. The optimal elastic modulus was found to be close to 900 Pa. In a second step, the effect of Arg-Gly-Asp (RGD) peptide, the minimal integrin-binding sequence, was studied. RGD presence did not influence the follicle growth rate but it significantly improved the quality of the produced oocytes. These findings demonstrated that approaching, biochemically and mechanically, the complexity of the ovarian extracellular matrix could be a winning strategy. The effect of key soluble factors was also investigated in order 1- to confirm their compatibility with the established 3-D culture system and 2- to further improve qualitatively and quantitatively the produced mature oocytes. Various combinations of gonadotropins such as the follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) or the luteinizing hormone (LH) were tested. Interestingly, the effects of the gonadotropins in the 3-D PEG system were close to their known effects in vivo. Here the aberrant effects of these hormones in the used 2-D systems appeared clearly. c-Kit ligand (KL) is suspected to be one of the most important factors for the activation of primordial follicles and thus for controlling the exit from the resting pool. Previously, studying the effects of the two forms of KL (soluble and membrane-attached) had to cope with the lack of biologically-relevant immobilization strategies. For overcoming this problem, KL constructs were designed to include a substrate sequence for Factor XIIIa (NQEQVSPL or NQEQVSPLRCG). Thus the produced recombinant KL proteins could be enzymatically crosslinked to the PEG matrix. The different constructs of KL, including a wild type extracellular domain, were successfully cloned and produced from mammalian HEK-293 cells. The identity and the activity of the produced proteins were confirmed. Ovarian tissues from four days-old mice were cultured in PEG-hydrogels functionalized with KL. The results showed that the primordial follicles grew and were activated in the PEG-hydrogels where KL was immobilized but not when the soluble form of KL was preset in the medium. This experiment showed that the membrane-attached and the soluble form of KL play a different role in the rodent folliculogenesis. In parallel it was observed that blocking vascular endothelial growth factor receptor-3 (VEGFR-3) signaling had a critical but still unsuspected role in reproduction. This study demonstrates that variation in lymphangiogenesis is a regular, non-pathological event during folliculogenesis in the ovary; blocking lymphangiogenesis, might have an effect on hormone transport and thus on pregnancy. The reported results demonstrates that the blockade of lymphangiogenesis decreases the progesterone and estradioal levels during pregnancy and in fine results in failed fetal development. In conclusion, this study demonstrates the efficiency and the flexibility of a novel 3-D culture system. Circumventing problems inherent to the "on-plastic" standard culture, such as the loss of the granulosa-oocyte interactions, allowed the emergence of a culture system tailored for investigating fundamental folliculogenesis-related questions. Furthermore, the reported culture system might serve as a platform for developing clinical and biotechnology applications.


Abstract. By 2050 most parts of India will be water stressed zones as most of the water resources are under heavy stress due to increasing nutrient contamination in their waters. In this scenario, studying the changes occurring in the freshwater nutrient contamination levels over a temporal scale is extremely important. This study focuses on monitoring the changes occurring in the nutrient contamination levels over a decade in a large reservoir known as Nagarjuna Sagar (NS) using remote sensing data. In this study, Landsat (5 & 8) data for the year 2005, 2009, 2015 and Sentinel (2A and 2B) data for the years 2016 and 2018 is used to study nutrient contamination in NS. The spatial spread of chlorophyll - a (chl-a) area is used as a proxy to estimate the extent of nutrient contamination in NS. In this study, only October images of NS are used as they exhibit the maximum spatial spread of Chl-a and hence help assess the contamination levels over the period 2005–2018. The analysis shows that during this period, chl-a spatial spread area has increased from 21 Km2 to 205 Km2, indicating a decrease in water quality in the reservoir. The study shows that this is accompanied by an increase in the agricultural land use area by 1000 Km2 in addition to a steep increase in the use of agricultural inputs, primarily fertilisers like urea, P and K. Thus, while the combined effect of excessive usage of fertilizers with agricultural intensification has increased crop yields, it has also contributed to damaging the freshwater resources.


Academic libraries support researchers with a range of services, including the development of collections and the provision of reference, information and instruction services. New services are emerging in response to technological, political, economic and social changes in the operating environment, particularly as a result of developments national research policy and networked data-driven science. Studies of library responses to the opportunities offered by e-research have been conducted in North America, but there has been limited investigation of the situation in other countries. The present study aims to complement surveys of emerging practice from the United States by investigating research support services in the academic libraries of Australia, New Zealand, the UK and Ireland. The research questions are: What specialist research support services are being offered in the academic libraries? What new services are libraries planning? Are library staff constrained in providing specialist research support services? Do staff require additional education, training and support in research support roles? and How might library and information science schools respond to the evolving role of research support services in academic libraries? Emerging findings of the survey reveal varying levels of engagement with different types of research support services across the four countries. Bibliometric support services seem to be more prevalent than research data management at present, but data management services are more prominent in reported plans for library service developments in the future. The results of the study will also inform the design of education and training programs for the current and future library workforce.


Winter seasonality with low amounts of incoming radiation, frost and snow cover characterize large areas at mid- and high latitudes, especially in the arctic and in mountain ranges. Because of these adverse conditions, it is often assumed that ecosystem processes, such as plant photosynthesis and nutrient uptake and microbial activities, cease or at best diminish to marginal rates of summer values. On the other hand, snow is a good thermal insulator and a sufficiently thick snow cover might enable temperature-limited processes to continue in winter, especially belowground. Changes in winter precipitation may changes this, but so far ecosystem processes in winter are little understood because low temperatures and snow complicate investigating them in situ. We performed a snow-removal experiment on an ombrotrophic bog in the Swiss Jura mountains (1036 m.a.s.l.) to compare above- and belowground ecosystem processes with and without snow cover during winter and the subsequent growing season. The presence of snow in winter (ca. 0.7m) strongly reduced the maximum potential photosynthesic capacity (Amax) of Eriophorum vaginatum as well as the total microbial biomass compared to spring and summer values. Amax of Sphagnum magellanicum and uptake of 15N-labelled ammonium-nitrate by vascular plants on the other hand were almost as high or higher in winter as in summer. Snow removal increased the number of freeze-thaw cycles in mid-winter but increased the minimum soil temperature in late-winter before ambient snow-melt. This strongly negatively affected all measured ecosystem processes. Plant 15N-uptake, Amax of Eriophorum and total microbial biomass returned to or exceeded control values soon before or after snowmelt, while Sphagnum Amax and length growth, as well as the structure of the microbial community showed clear carry-over effects of the reduced winter snow cover into next summer. Alltogether our data indicate that peatlands are active in winter and that a continuous snow cover is crucial for ecosystem processes both in winter and in the subsequent summer.


General practice appears to provide an ideal setting for the study of
a common condition such as hay-fever. The study which forms the main
part of this thesis was carried out during the hay-fever season of 1983 in
Glasgow. The observations, comments, ,and discussion are those of one
general practitioner, the author, who has developed a keen interest in the
subject over a number of years and are based both on day-to-day contact
with patients who suffer from this condition and from scientific study of
the subject and its literature.
Details of the study are preceded by a historical review of hay-fever from
"Rose Fever" to the discovery, in relatively recent years, of 1gE. The
next section deals with basic mechanisms from botany through
aerobiology, pollen characteristics and chemistry to allergen exposure,
the Type I allergic reaction and the symptoms thus produced. Details
relating to sources of grass pollen in the Greater Glasgow area are included
and much of this information is based on data obtained at the West of
Scotland Agricultural College, Auchencruive, Ayr.

The thesis, which is the culmination of over four years interest in
hay-fever in general practice, attempts to compare the symptom severity
of eighty-two hay-fever sufferers with daily pollen counts during the
hay-fever season of 1983 in Glasgow. Mean daily valu'7s for symptom
severity were obtained from diary cards kept by the patients and are
compared not only with the daily grass pollen count but with other
elements of the total atmospheric pollen count and fungal spore counts.
It has been suggested that grass pollen is indeed not the solely relevant
antigen in causing hay-fever. Information was gathered about each
patient's personal hay-fever symptom profile from a questionnaire
incorporated into the diary cards. The study was carried out in a
general practice setting and pollen counting was carried out on the roof of the Environmental Health Department, Glasgow District Council,
23, Montrose Street, Glasgow. A representative selection of
photomicrographs are presented in relation to the different types of
atmospheric pollen isolated from the air over Glasgow during the hayfever
season of 1983.

The thesis concludes by making recommendations regarding the
management of hay-fever in general practice and regarding the design
of clinical trials of new forms of therapy for hay-fever. It also raises
questions regarding incomplete correlation between patients' symptoms
and information available on atmospheric pollen. Suggestions are made
for further work, including, in particular, continued efforts to relate
specific grass varieties in West Scotland to patients' symptom severity.

This thesis does not itself attempt to cover the wide areas of investigation
and management of hay-fever in general practice but may inevitably have
relevance in both of these areas. Considerable further study seems to be
indicated in an attempt to improve our understanding of this common
troublesome condition and thereby, hopefully, to help our patients by
improved management and by more effective treatment.


Methanogenic degradation of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) has long been considered impossible, but evidence in contaminated near surface environments and biodegrading petroleum reservoirs suggests that this is not necessarily the case. To evaluate the thermodynamic constraints on methanogenic PAH degradation we have estimated the Gibbs free energy values for naphthalene, phenanthrene, anthracene, pyrene and chrysene in the aqueous phase, and used these values to evaluate several possible routes whereby PAHs may be converted to methane. Under standard conditions (25°C, solutes at 1 M concentrations, and gases at 1 atm), methanogenic degradation of these PAHs yields between 209 and 331 kJ mol−1. Per mole of methane produced this is 27–35 kJ mol−1, indicating that PAH‐based methanogenesis is exergonic. We evaluated the energetics of three potential PAH degradation routes: oxidation to H2/CO2, complete conversion to acetate, or incomplete oxidation to H2 plus acetate. Depending on the in situ conditions the energetically most favourable pathway for the PAH‐degrading organisms is oxidation to H2/CO2 or conversion into acetate. These are not necessarily the pathways that prevail in the environment. This may be because the kinetic theory of optimal length of metabolic pathways suggests that PAH degraders may have evolved towards incomplete oxidation to acetate plus H2 as the optimal pathway.


This thesis is a sociological comparison between Sri Lankan Muslim women in two contemporary societies, and it concentrates on the dynamic relationship between religion, culture, and gender. The theoretical aims of the thesis are to investigate the ways in which religion, principally in relation to gender relations, is perceived by its followers, and the diverse manner in which religion can manifest itself, in different cultural and social contexts, at a given time. In particular, the study focuses on the diversity of followers' world-views because of adherents' different social experiences, despite the core religious beliefs they share. Further, it explores the impact these differences can have on followers' perceptions of the roles they play and the identities they assume. These issues have been addressed primarily by means of qualitative research, conducted in Sri Lanka and Britain. Although the thesis refers to the theoretical standpoints of many sociologists, two approaches are of particular significance: the first is Robert K. Merton's role-theory, to understand religious identity in relation to individuals' multiple identities; and the second is feminist critiques, for their insight into the relationship between religion, patriarchy and gender. The results indicate that Islam is an important independent variable that has an impact upon many aspects of life, mainly because it is regarded as a source of guidance and identity for a majority of women in the study. It follows that an understanding of the traditions and beliefs based on religion is essential to recognise existing power structures and gender relations in Muslim communities. Religious traditions are often regarded as immutable, given the sources on which they are based; but, as this study indicates, traditions and beliefs based on religion can alter with transformations in the social and cultural milieu. As a source of identity, Islam gives Muslims a sense of belonging to a 'community' that transcends national and geographical boundaries, even if the members of that community follow different forms of Islam and have other identities - such as being Muslim and Sri Lankan and/or British and/or mother/wife and so on. What is of particular relevance to the sociology of religion is that, although the women in this study had multiple competing identities, their religious identity, unlike, say, their national or ethnic identities, was an exclusive characteristic.


This paper is dedicated to the memory of our student, Adam Merton (1920-1999), without whose interest in minimal surfaces and the work of Jesse Douglas we would never have embarked on this study.


With the popularity of positioning devices, Web 2.0 technology, and trip sharing services, many users are willing to log and share their trips on the Web. Thus, trip planning Web sites are able to provide some new services by inferring Regions-Of-Interest (ROIs) and recommending popular travel routes from trip trajectories. We argue that simply providing some travel routes consisting of popular ROIs to users is not sufficient. To tour around a wide geographical area, for example, a city, some users may prefer a trip to visit as many ROIs as possible, while others may like to stop by only a few ROIs for an in-depth visit. We refer to a trip fitting the former user group as an in-breadth trip and a trip suitable for the latter user group as an in-depth trip. Prior studies on trip planning have focused on mining ROIs and travel routes without considering these different preferences. In this article, given a spatial range and a user preference of depth/breadth specified by a user, we develop a Pattern-Aware Trajectory Search (PATS) framework to retrieve the top K trajectories passing through popular ROIs. PATS is novel because the returned travel trajectories, discovered from travel patterns hidden in trip trajectories, may represent the most valuable travel experiences of other travelers fitting the user's trip preference in terms of depth or breadth. The PATS framework comprises two components: travel behavior exploration and trajectory search. The travel behavior exploration component determines a set of ROIs along with their attractive scores by considering not only the popularity of the ROIs but also the travel sequential relationships among the ROIs. To capture the travel sequential relationships among ROIs and to derive their attractive scores, a user movement graph is constructed. For the trajectory search component of PATS, we formulate two trajectory score functions, the depth-trip score function and the breadth-trip score function, by taking into account the number of ROIs in a trajectory and their attractive scores. Accordingly, we propose an algorithm, namely, Bounded Trajectory Search (BTS), to efficiently retrieve the top K trajectories based on the two trajectory scores. The PATS framework is evaluated by experiments and user studies using a real dataset. The experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness and the efficiency of the proposed PATS framework.


In 2012, Sri Lanka joined the Russia Education Aid for Development (READ) trust fund program, the goal of which is to help countries improve their capacity to design, carry out, analyze, and use assessments for improved student learning. As part of the READ trust fund program, and in order to gain a better understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of its existing assessment system, Tajikistan participated in a formal exercise to benchmark its student assessment system under The World Bank's Systems Approach for Better Education Results (SABER) program. SABER is an evidence-based program to help countries systematically examine and strengthen the performance of different aspects of their education systems. SABER-student assessment is a component of the SABER program that focuses specifically on benchmarking student assessment policies and systems. The goal of SABER-student assessment is to promote stronger assessment systems that contribute to improved education quality and learning for all. The importance of assessment is linked to its role in: providing information on levels of student learning and achievement in the system; monitoring trends in education quality over time; supporting educators and students with real-time information to improve teaching and learning; and holding stakeholders accountable for results. The SABER-student assessment framework is built on the available evidence base for what an effective assessment system looks like. The framework provides guidance on how countries can build more effective student assessment systems. The framework is structured around two main dimensions of assessment systems: the types/purposes of assessment activities and the quality of those activities. Assessment systems tend to be comprised of three main types of assessment activities, each of which serves a different purpose and addresses different information needs. These three main types are: classroom assessment, examinations, and large scale, system level assessments. This report focuses specifically on policies in the area of student assessment.


The U.S. Tax Court (Tax Court), which hears the vast majority of litigated federal tax cases, occupies an unusual place in the federal government. It is a federal court located outside of the judicial branch, but its decisions are appealable to the federal courts of appeals. This odd structure, coupled with the court's history as an independent agency in the executive branch, can give rise to important questions, such as the standard of review that should apply to its decisions. In particular, should the courts of appeals treat Tax Court decisions the same as those of district courts in tax cases, or should they apply a more deferential standard analogous to review of agency decisions, as the U.S. Supreme Court held in 1943 in Dobson v. Commissioner?Answering the standard-of-review question implicates issues of both law and policy. Contrary to some scholarship, this Article argues that, as a doctrinal matter, no vestige of the Dobson rule remains and that courts of appeals must apply the same standard of judicial review that they apply to district courts in nonjury cases. The Article further argues that appellate review theory supports that result. The Dobson rule was a largely instrumental one designed by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson to reduce the volume of tax litigation. Although tax litigation is unusually decentralized and the Tax Court has unique expertise, those differences do not support departing from the policies underlying appellate review. Appellate courts therefore should not defer to the interpretations of the Tax Court any more than they do to those of the district courts.


Starlings (Sturnus vulgaris) were fed 3 feed sizes and 3 protein levels of swine feeds to determine metabolizable energy and assimilation efficiency. Metabolizable energy (12 kcal/g of diet consumed) and assimilation efficiency (3296 of gross energy intake) were independent of feed size. A 46% crude protein diet was 5196 assimilated and yielded more energy per gram of diet consumed than a 2196 crude protein diet which was only 35% assimilated. Starlings failed to maintain their body weight on a cracked corn diet containing 14% crude protein. Feeding behaviors of starlings due to their assimilation efficiencies are discussed and contrasted with the feeding behaviors sad assimilation efficiences of Icterine blackbirds.


Major concerns which clearly express necessity of analog isolator applications, are removing ground loop, increasing common-mode voltage rejection, improving noise immunity and protecting operator, expensive equipment and data from transient voltages. Optical coupling is an approach to signal isolation in which all mentioned benefits are covered. This paper is going to propose a novel idea of a particular optical analog signal isolator. It is introduced for the first time and therefore the authors named it YOUTAB. The digital photocoupler NEC-PS2501 constitutes the main structure of this new isolator. In general, the proposed configuration consist of two different parts that one of them transfers the signal and the other establishes a negative feedback to ensure that the output signal has the same features of the input signal. The operation, analysis and computer simulation results are shown. The simulation results show that this novel proposed analog isolator is linear in a wide range of inputs.


Structural fire endurance experiments were conducted on full-scale cellular glass fiber-reinforced (GFRP) columns under axial compression and subjected to ISO834 fire exposure from one side. Unprotected columns can resist fire for more than 30 min, which is sufficient for occupants to be evacuated from smaller buildings. The closed cellular cross-section prevented the rapid heating of the webs, which could therefore continue stabilizing the face sheet on the cold side against buckling. Water cooling was proven to offer an effective active fire-protection system. The structural function of the column could be maintained for two hours. Previously developed models were capable of accurately predicting the time-dependent temperature responses, modulus degradation, and time to failure.


The Scotia Arc and the Scotia Sea comprise a geologically young feature of the Earth's surface that evolved over the last 40 million years (Ma) or so, between the southern tip of South America and the northern tip of the Antarctic Peninsula. With the notable exception of the much younger South Sandwich Islands, the islands, banks and seamounts of the arc represent dispersed fragments of a previous continental link between southern South America (Magellan region) and the Antarctic Peninsula. The benthic marine shelf faunas of the region are the focus of the IBMANT (Investigacion Biolologica Marina en Magallanes relacionada con la Antartida) programme, and those of the surrounding oceanic deeps are the focus of ANDEEP (Antarctic Benthic Deep-Sea Biodiversity). Elucidating the potential relationships between the faunas of the region and the profound geographical, oceanographic and climatic changes undergone by the region in later Cenozoic time is hampered by significant unknowns in the geological history, the expense of further geoscientific exploration to fill these, and a general lack of communication between the biological and geological science communities. It is suggested that the time is opportune for a truly multidisciplinary workshop at which all the involved science communities have much to gain from the others.


Rhodopsin is a member of the family of G-protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) that are implicated in cellular signaling and constitute the majority of human pharmaceutical targets. Solid-state 2H NMR spectroscopy can be used to obtain structural and dynamical information unavailable from X-ray crystallography and other biophysical methods. In this approach, site-specific 2H labels are introduced into the methyl groups of retinal that play an important role in rhodopsin function. Analysis of angular-dependent 2H NMR lineshapes for rhodopsin in aligned membranes enables determination of the average ligand conformation within the binding pocket. Solid-state 2H NMR relaxation methods further allow the investigation of light-induced changes in local ps–ns timescale motions of retinal bound to rhodopsin. In terms of a multi-scale activation mechanism, changes in retinal structure and dynamics upon photon absorption activate fluctuations of transmembrane helices H5 and H6 in rhodopsin. Allosteric interactions due to light absorption of rhodopsin are propagated from the retinal-binding pocket to the binding site of the G-protein transducin. An ensemble of substates in the Meta I–Meta II equilibrium yields the first amplification step in the visual response and may be typical for the activation mechanisms of other GPCRs in a membrane environment.


Law enforcement negotiation is one of the only times when a law enforcement officer interacts with an offender during the commission of a crime and, as such, can influence the outcome of the situation in favor of law enforcement. All other interactions between offenders take place after the commission of the crime or during undercover operations when the law enforcement officer is hiding his or her identity. Law enforcement crisis negotiation (LECN) provides techniques, tactics, and procedures for seamlessly dealing with difficult, dangerous, and disordered persons to obtain voluntary compliance through the application of verbal influence-based skill sets. LECN is a method by which to deal with perceived threats to a subject's emotional, psychological, or physical well-being during intense conflict or crisis situations. Understanding critical incidents and the mindset of a subject is critical to determining the proper communication strategies and tactics. At the heart of the process is understanding and assessing instrumental and expressive behavior in order to apply tactical negotiation or crisis intervention. A key skill set to being effective in negotiating with difficult, dangerous, and disordered persons is to build credibility through the application of the Behavioral Influence Stairway Model (BISM) in the effective application of active listening skills, empathy, rapport-trust, and influence to persuade behavioral change on the part of the subject.


During the early post-war period, Western trade union movements grew in membership and achieved an institutionalized role in industrial relations and politics. However, during the last decades, many trade unions have seen their membership decline as they came increasingly under pressures due to the social, economic and political changes. This article reviews the main structural, cyclical and institutional factors explaining union growth and decline. Concentrating on Western Europe, the empirical analysis compares cross-national union density data for 13 countries over the first period (1950-75) and for 16 countries over the second, "crisis" period (1975-95). The quantitative correlation and regression analysis indicates that structural and cyclical factors fail explain the level and changes in unionization across Western Europe, while institutional variables fare better. In a second, qualitative comparative analysis, the authors stress the need to explain cross-national differences in the level or trend of unionization by a set of institutional arrangements: the access of unions to representation in the workplace, the availability of a selective incentive in the form of a union-administered unemployment scheme, recognition of employers through nation-wide and sectoral corporatist institutions, and closed shop arrangements for forced membership. Such institutional configurations support membership recruitment and membership retention, and define the conditions for the strategic choice of trade unions in responding to structural social-economic, political and cultural changes.


Objective: To investigate the value of echocardiography in diagnosing unilateral absence of pulmonary artery (UAPA). Methods: The pulmonary artery branches were examined on the parasternal aortic root short axis and pulmonary artery branch view by echocardiography; Colour Doppler was further used to confirm the absence of left pulmonary artery and the absence of right pulmonary artery. The results of echocardiography were compared with that of surgery, X-ray angiography, magnetic resonance (MR) and computed tomography (CT). Results: The diagnosis of UAPA in 13 patients was confirmed by surgery, X-ray angiography, MR and CT. Among the 13 UAPA patients, 11 were diagnosed initially by echocardiography, and 2 missed diagnosis. For 3 of the 11 UAPA patients, pulmonary arteries were displayed ambiguously on the parasternal aortic root short axis views, but clearly on the parasternal pulmonary artery branch views. The 11 patients had significant expansion of their single pulmonary artery, and the mean ratio of the expanded pulmonary artery diameter/the main pulmonary artery diameter was 0.83±0.13. Two UAPA patients were complicated with lung dysplasia. Conclusion: The parasternal pulmonary artery branch view is more potent in diagnosing UAPA than the parasternal aortic root short axis view. The ratio of the left/right pulmonary artery diameter and the main pulmonary artery diameter around 0.8 should raise consideration for UAPA. Lung dysplasia should be considered in UAPA children.


This paper aims to describe the legislation of the social housing system in Slovakia and to analyse innovations in social housing provision. The paper contributes to the literature on innovative social housing solutions provided by non-governmental organisations (NGOs), or so-called third sector. The analysis reveals the main factors that may contribute to the success or failure of social innovations in housing provision by NGOs. Long-term community work, the education of future residents, and the participation of future residents in the construction of their homes are the main factors that support the spread of innovations in social housing. On the other hand, lack of cooperation from the government at all levels and low funding are the biggest constraining factors on innovation in social housing in Slovakia.


Museums are designed as social spaces. They are places where people can talk, share experiences, and create collective memories. The spatial layout of exhibits allows groups of visitors to view and converse. Talk is encouraged and staff are employed to support families, school groups and tours. Yet much of the computer technology that has been introduced into museums is for individual rather than collaborative use. Handheld guides have been designed to be held up to the ear and multimedia museum displays usually have a single small screen. Recent developments such as museum guide applications for mobile phones continue the theme of supporting the solitary museum visitor. It is not surprising that some curators regard computer technologies as barriers to social engagement with the museum (Tallon & Walker, 2008).

Since the 1960s attempts have been made to design more social museum technology, including dual earpieces for audio guides (Tallon, 2008), quiz questions for pairs of museum users equipped with communicating handheld devices (Yatani, Onuma, Sugimoto & Kusunoki, 2004), multimedia displays that allow visitors to leave opinions and arguments relating to museum exhibits for others to view and respond (Hsi, 1997), and the use of social media to provoke conversations around museum collections (Johnson, et al., 2010). While these have had varying success in connecting and engaging visitors, they can create a fragmented experience where the visitor's attention is divided between the museum environment, the technology and the social interaction. In this chapter we explore how narrative structures can create threads of experience that connect visitors with museum exhibits and with the narratives woven by other groups of visitors through their conversations and interactions. Computer technology can be designed to anchor these narratives to locations and enhance them through social interactions to create memorable experiences that can be replayed and shared.

The chapter draws on the model of 'explicit interactivity' proposed by the US game designer Eric Zimmerman (Zimmerman, 2004), where interactive objects in the environment combine to tell a story, presenting individuals or groups (who may variously be termed audience, players, readers or users) with opportunities to affect the content of the story as it is being delivered. The human participants, computer applications, and locations intermingle to form narratives that unfold through a combination of human-computer interactions and physical movements around the space.


Previously the physical specifications and the psychophysical requirements were presented for six inks from which an illuminant-stable red-green color vision test could be constructed. The test of 17 polychromatic plates was prepared and administered to 100 color blind and 100 normal subjects under illuminants ranging from minus-blue to 14000°K. The present paper reports the results of the evaluation of the test in actual practice. Theoretical expectations have been realized in that the test is illuminant-stable, discriminatory between normals and deficients, properly varied in relative difficulty of individual plates for normals and for color blinds, yielding scores well distributed in terms of the probability function, and with a minimum of overlapping between normals and color blinds.


The impact of targeted sonde observations on the 1‐3 day forecasts for northern Europe is evaluated using the Met Office four‐dimensional variational data assimilation scheme and a 24 km gridlength limited‐area version of the Unified Model (MetUM). The targeted observations were carried out during February and March 2007 as part of the Greenland Flow Distortion Experiment, using a research aircraft based in Iceland. Sensitive area predictions using either total energy singular vectors or an ensemble transform Kalman filter were used to predict where additional observations should be made to reduce errors in the initial conditions of forecasts for northern Europe. Targeted sonde data was assimilated operationally into the MetUM. Hindcasts show that the impact of the sondes was mixed. Only two out of the five cases showed clear forecast improvement; the maximum forecast improvement seen over the verifying region was approximately 5% of the forecast error 24 hours into the forecast. These two cases are presented in more detail: in the first the improvement propagates into the verification region with a developing polar low; and in the second the improvement is associated with an upper‐level trough. The impact of cycling targeted data in the background of the forecast (including the memory of previous targeted observations) is investigated. This is shown to cause a greater forecast impact, but does not necessarily lead to a greater forecast improvement. Finally, the robustness of the results is assessed using a small ensemble of forecasts. Copyright © 2009 Royal Meteorological Society and Crown Copyright


Background Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) may increase breast cancer risk, and the association may be modified by inherited differences in deactivation of PAH intermediates by glutathione S-transferases (GSTs). Few breast cancer studies have investigated the joint effects of multiple GSTs and a PAH biomarker. Objective We estimated the breast cancer risk associated with multiple polymorphisms in the GST gene (GSTA1, GSTM1, GSTP1, and GSTT1) and the interaction with PAH–DNA adducts and cigarette smoking. Methods We conducted unconditional logistic regression using data from a population-based sample of women (cases/controls, respectively): GST polymorphisms were genotyped using polymerase chain reaction and matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight assays (n = 926 of 916), PAH–DNA adduct blood levels were measured by competitive enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (n = 873 of 941), and smoking status was assessed by in-person questionnaires (n = 943 of 973). Results Odds ratios for joint effects on breast cancer risk among women with at least three variant alleles were 1.56 [95% confidence interval (CI), 1.13–2.16] for detectable PAH–DNA adducts and 0.93 (95% CI, 0.56–1.56) for no detectable adducts; corresponding odds ratios for three or more variants were 1.18 (95% CI, 0.82–1.69) for ever smokers and 1.44 (95% CI, 0.97–2.14) for never smokers. Neither interaction was statistically significant (p = 0.43 and 0.62, respectively). Conclusion We found little statistical evidence that PAHs interacted with GSTT1, GSTM1, GSTP1, and GSTA1 polymorphisms to further increase breast cancer risk.


Despite the insistence of many authors on the primacy of the visual in comics, there has been comparatively little attention given to the drawing practices that create comics texts. This article will argue for the value of, and make some initial proposals regarding the nature of, an account of comics production as a distinct drawing practice, not as a rejection of language-centred accounts, but as a necessary complement to the understandings they enable. Accounts of depiction by Kendall Walton, Michael Podro and Patrick Maynard describe a process of imagining into drawn marks, in which the viewer maintains an awareness of their own cognitive activity in taking the sight of the image before them as the sight of the depicted subject. Readerly awareness of this type is wellknown to comics researchers through discussion of the cognitive effort involved in achieving what Scott McCloud famously describes as 'closure', yet such discussions generally begin with the assumption of the reader's recognition of depicted scenes. A full account of this fundamental operation of comics reading also requires an account of the methods by which readers use what is perceptually presented to them to imagine events taking place within the images. Walton's theory of 'mimesis as make-believe' will be used here to suggest the way in which fictional truths are generated by drawing styles common to comics. Drawing on the phenomenological grounding of Walton's approach, I will argue for its compatibility with conceptual metaphor theory, and that the less obviously pictorial drawing conventions of emanata operate as visual metaphors that emerge both from our embodied experience of the world.


Described as an "at-risk" population, student-athletes are predisposed to mental health distress due to the various demands associated with their athletic status (Pinkerton, Hinz, & Barrow, 1987; Ferrante & Etzel, 2009). The National Athletic Training Association, (Neal et al., 2013) in their plan for referral of student-athletes to psychological services, reported that the stressors associated with balancing academic and athletic responsibilities might trigger or exacerbate psychological concerns. In fact, researchers have reported that 10-15% of student-athletes experience psychological distress that warrants counseling services (Hinkle, 1994), an estimation that has been described as "conservative" (Watson, 2005). Although an area of clinical practice entitled, "sports counseling," exists in theory, counselors have little clarity about the unique and specific mental health needs of athletes and how they may provide optimal services to this population. Emotion regulation, a construct primarily discussed in sport as a key factor in optimal performance (e.g. Uphill, McCarthy, & Jones, 2009), has yet to be discussed as a significant influence on factors of student-athlete mental health, including the reported high prevalence of alcohol use and alcohol-related consequences (e.g. Nelson & Wechsler, 2001; Rexroat, 2014), aggression (e.g. Boeringer, 1999; Crossett, Benedict, and McDonald, 1995), and psychological distress (e.g. Storch, Storch, Killiany, & Roberti, 2005) among student-athletes. Attachment theorists have determined that one's conscious and unconscious ability to regulate emotions from infancy to adulthood is heavily influenced by one's experiences in close relationships (Diamond & Aspinwall, 2003; Cassidy, 1994; Sroufe & Waters, 1977). According to Davis & Jowett (2014; 2013), the coach-athlete relationship is indicative of an attachment bond; however, researchers have yet to determine the influence of the coach-athlete attachment relationship on an athlete's ability to regulate emotions. The purpose of this study was to: (a) validate and confirm the factor structure of Davis and Jowett's (2013) Coach-Athlete Attachment Scale (CAAS); (b) test the overall fit of a hypothesized model of student-athlete emotion regulation, and (c) determine the degree to which student-athlete emotion regulation mediates coach-athlete attachment and aggression, alcohol use, and psychological distress. The hypothesized model of student-athlete emotion regulation was founded upon an understanding of Attachment Theory as the developmental pathway to adaptive adult emotion regulation. It was posited that emotion regulation would mediate the relationship between coach-athlete attachment and prevalent, negative factors of mental health distress among student-athlete populations. Confirmatory Factor Analysis and Path Analysis were utilized to confirm the factor structure of the CAAS and test a hypothesized model with a sample of 189 NCAA Division I student-athletes. With a limited sample size, the model provided a marginal fit for the data. Further research involving the CAAS is necessary to establish validity of the avoidance scale specifically. A revised model improved model fit, although the resulting model still only provided a marginal fit for the data. Still, difficulties in emotion regulation fully mediated the relationship between coach-athlete attachment anxiety and aggression and partially mediated coach-athlete attachment anxiety and alcohol use consequences as well as coach-athlete attachment anxiety and psychological distress. Implications for counselors, counselor educators, and future research were discussed after data analysis was completed. The findings of the study provide initial evidence that the coach-athlete relationship and subsequent experiences of emotion regulation may have a direct influence on individual psychological distress. Further, athletics programs should consider utilizing individual counseling that targets difficulties in emotion regulation as a way to support student-athletes struggling with aggression, alcohol use, or psychological distress.


A polymerizable adhesive and sealant composition comprising a urethane-acrylate-capped prepolymer based on a polybutadiene polyol or polyamine having at least about 70 percent of the butadiene units in the 1,4-configuration. The composition provides improved thermal, impact and cure-through-gap properties. A process for preparing the composition and a process for using it are also disclosed.


Firms can transmit cash to shareholders either by paying dividends or by purchasing shares. The share purchases can be either the firm's own securities or those of another firm. Recent evidence suggests that there has been a dramatic increase in the use of these nondividend payments to shareholders. This paper reviews the theories which have been offered regarding the motivation of nondividend payments. These include taxation advantages, adjustment towards optimal debt-equity ratios, anti-takeover strategies, free cash flow (agency) considerations, signaling, and habit formation or learning. From these theories, we derive and investigate econometrically potential characteristics which predict participation in the above actions for roughly 2.000 firms in 1976 and 1984. We find the variables suggested by the various hypotheses collectively have substantial power in predicting participation in share repurchase and acquisitions. The free cash flow and habit forming arguments prove most consistent with our findings. Tests for structural change across time confirm an intercept shift consistent with dramatic increases in these activities, and fail to reject that the characteristic determinants of these actions are unchanged.


In this study, we used individualized virtual acoustic space (VAS) stimuli to investigate the representation of auditory space in the superior colliculus (SC) of anesthetized ferrets. The VAS stimuli were generated by convolving broadband noise bursts with each animal's own head-related transfer function and presented over earphones. Comparison of the amplitude spectra of the free-field and VAS signals and of the spatial receptive fields of neurons recorded in the inferior colliculus with each form of stimulation confirmed that the VAS provided an accurate simulation of sounds presented in the free field. Units recorded in the deeper layers of the SC responded predominantly to virtual sound directions within the contralateral hemifield. In most cases, increasing the sound level resulted in stronger spike discharges and broader spatial receptive fields. However, the preferred sound directions, as defined by the direction of the centroid vector, remained largely unchanged across different levels and, as observed in previous free-field studies, varied topographically in azimuth along the rostrocaudal axis of the SC. We also examined the contribution of interaural time differences (ITDs) to map topography by digitally manipulating the VAS stimuli so that ITDs were held constant while allowing other spatial cues to vary naturally. The response properties of the majority of units, including centroid direction, remained unchanged with fixed ITDs, indicating that sensitivity to this cue is not responsible for tuning to different sound directions. These results are consistent with previous data suggesting that sensitivity to interaural level differences and spectral cues provides the basis for the map of auditory space in the mammalian SC.


We develop a general equilibrium model of monopolistic competition with a traded and a non-traded sector. Using a broad class of homothetic preferences—that generate variable markups, display a simple behavior of their elasticity of substitution, and nest the ces as a limiting case—we show that trade liberalization: (i) reduces domestic markups and increases imported markups in the traded sector; (ii) increases markups in the non-traded sector; and (iii) increases firm sizes in both sectors. Thus, while domestic and export markups in the traded sector converge across countries, markups diverge across sectors within countries. The negative welfare effects of higher markups and less consumption diversity in the non-traded sector dampen the positive welfare effects of lower markups and greater diversity in the traded sector.


Description: In Chaos in Electric Drive Systems: Analysis, Control and Application authors Chau and Wang systematically introduce an emerging technology of electrical engineering that bridges abstract chaos theory and practical electric drives. The authors consolidate all important information in this interdisciplinary technology, including the fundamental concepts, mathematical modeling, theoretical analysis, computer simulation, and hardware implementation. The book provides comprehensive coverage of chaos in electric drive systems with three main parts: analysis, control and application. Corresponding drive systems range from the simplest to the latest types: DC, induction, synchronous reluctance, switched reluctance, and permanent magnet brushless drives. The first book to comprehensively treat chaos in electric drive systems Reviews chaos in various electrical engineering technologies and drive systems Presents innovative approaches to stabilize and stimulate chaos in typical drives Discusses practical application of chaos stabilization, chaotic modulation and chaotic motion Authored by well-known scientists in the field Lecture materials available from the book's companion website This book is ideal for researchers and graduate students who specialize in electric drives, mechatronics, and electric machinery, as well as those enrolled in classes covering advanced topics in electric drives and control. Engineers and product designers in industrial electronics, consumer electronics, electric appliances and electric vehicles will also find this book helpful in applying these emerging techniques. Lecture materials for instructors available at company website


A new study has found that the sensitivity and recovery of UK butterfly populations to extreme drought is affected by the overall area and degree of fragmentation of key habitat types in the landscape.

The analysis, published today in the scientific journal Ecography, used data on the Ringlet butterfly collected from 79 UK Butterfly Monitoring Scheme sites between 1990 and 1999, a period which spanned a severe drought event in 1995.

The study was led by Dr Tom Oliver from the NERC Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (CEH) in collaboration with colleagues from CEH and the charity Butterfly Conservation.

Lead author Dr Tom Oliver from the NERC Centre for Ecology & Hydrology said, "Most ecological climate change studies focus on species' responses to gradual temperature rise, but it may be that extreme weather will actually have the greatest impact on our wildlife. We have provided the first evidence that species responses to extreme events may be affected by the habitat structure in the wider countryside; for example in the total area and fragmentation (i.e. isolation) of woodland patches."
The UK has suffered from a number of severe droughts over the last few decades (e.g. 1976, 1995). Under global warming, the frequency of such summer droughts is expected to increase. The intense summer drought in 1995 led to marked declines in insect species associated with cooler and wetter microclimates and scientists are interested in how to make species populations more resilient, i.e. more resistant to and more able to recover from these extreme climate events.

The Ringlet Aphantopus hyperantus is a grass-feeding butterfly commonly found close to woodland edges and known to be susceptible to drought effects. The researchers found that, following the 1995 drought, Ringlet populations not only crashed most severely in drier regions but, additionally, the habitat structure in the wider countryside around sites influenced population responses. Larger and more connected patches of woodland habitat reduced population sensitivity to the drought event and also facilitated faster recovery.

Co-author Dr Tom Brereton from Butterfly Conservation said, "Our results suggest that landscape-scale conservation projects are vital in helping species to recover from extreme events expected under climate change. However, conversely, if we do nothing, the high levels of habitat fragmentation will mean species are more susceptible."

Although many Ringlet populations did show some recovery following 1995-1996 population crashes, the long-term situation of the species in some parts of the UK is worrying. The researchers found that 18% of Ringlet butterfly populations continued to decline in the subsequent three years. The majority of populations showed positive recovery, although only 33% of populations showed complete recovery to pre-drought population levels within three years.

Co-author Dr David Roy from the NERC Centre for Ecology & Hydrology added, "The delayed recovery of butterfly populations is worrying given that severe summer droughts are expected to become common in some areas of the UK, for example, South East England. If populations don't recover by the time the next drought hits, they may face gradual erosion until local extinction."

http://www.ceh.ac.uk/news/news_archive/Butterflypopulationsthreatenedbydroughtandlandscapefragmentation.html


Problem. Like other churches, Seventh-day Adventists face the challenge of harmonizing the essential immutability of revelation in Christ and what seem to be significant doctrinal modifications. This study provides the first in-depth treatment of the intricate problem of doctrinal development from a Seventh-day Adventist perspective. Method. Chapter 1 defines the problem, chapter 2 offers a historical-genetic survey of proposed solutions, while chapter 3 presents a systematic-typological analysis of possible responses to doctrinal change in Christian theology. Chapter 4 investigates the extent, nature, and direction of Seventh-day Adventist doctrinal developments in the light of the religious background of the church and the sociological forces at work in it; chapter 5 analyzes the response of the church to doctrinal adjustments historically, terminologically, and systematically; and, finally, chapter 6 discusses Ellen White's personal involvement in and conception of doctrinal change. Results. The study yields the following results: (1) Doctrinal development involves complex theological and hermeneutical issues. (2) History reveals three fundamental approaches (immobilist-stationary, progressivist-evolutionary, and revisionist-revolutionary) successively developed in response to the growing awareness of doctrinal change. (3) The many theories of doctrinal development may be classified inthree "ideal" types (static, dynamic, and evolutionary/revolutionary) indicating the basic options available to Christians today. (4) Seventh-day Adventism grew out of William Miller's apocalyptic, and increasingly separatist, revival movement. Its fundamental and distinctive teachings have been significantly affected by homogeneous, heterogeneous, and hermeneutical developments under the impact of sociological forces that tended to move the church closer towards evangelical Protestantism and denominationalism. (5) In the past, Seventh-day Adventists have predominantly advocated the historic and/or organistic theories of doctrinal development; more recently, theological, situationist, and revisionist conceptions have also been proposed. (6) Ellen White was personally involved in theological change; her concept of doctrinal development reflects a remarkable depth of insight and represents a well-balanced approach to the subject. Conclusions. A dialectic approach that is equally concerned for substantial continuity and authentic change can best avoid the twin dangers of doctrinal immobilism and revisionism. To this end, a comprehensive study of the hermeneutical issue of doctrinal development from an Adventist theological perspective is needed.


Dengue virus infection is one of the major global public health problems, It is caused by one of the four dengue virus (DENY) serotypes that are transmitted by Aedes mosquitoes. Following infection, an individual remains vulnerable to re-infection with a different serotype of the DENY. The infection usually occurs with clinical manifestations ranging from an asymptomatic or mild febrile illness as classical dengue fever to the potentially life-threatening illness, dengue hemorrhagic fever and dengue shock syndrome. Despite the public health relevance, prevalence of DENV infections among febrile patients in Mombasa County is unknown. This study was conducted from February 2012 to July 2012 among patients visiting Coast Province General Hospital with high fever. The study was aimed at determining the prevalence of DENV infection among febrile patients and describe the month-wise trend of the disease. A total of 390 blood serum samples were collected and DENV specific IgM and flavivirus IgG antibodies were determined by in-house enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). Out of 390 febrile cases, 54 (13.9%) were found to be positive for anti-DENY IgM. Among the 54 dengue positive cases, 37 (68.5 %) were primary DENY infection and 17 (31. 5%) were secondary DENY infection. The most 'affected age group was 36-45 years (20.4%) and least affected group being 6-·15years (8.3%). Prevalence in difference age groups was statistically significant (p = 0.021). Primary DENV infection was common among the age group between 36-45 years while secondary dengue affected mostly the age group 26-35 years. In terms of primary DENV infection against secondary DENV infection, it was observed that infants «1 year) were the most affected but this was not statistically significant (p = 0.057). The relationship between gender and DENV infections was not statistically significant (p = 0.936). Although, females aged between 26-35 years (p = 0.010) and males aged above 46 years (p = 0.012) were the most affected with DENY infection. Month-wise distribution of DENV infection was' observed in February (20.0%) with least occurrence in July (4.7%). The association between the month and occurrence of disease was not statistically significant (p = 0.325). The present study has reported 13.9% prevalence of Dengue virus infections as the cause of acute undifferentiated fever among febrile patients in Mombasa County. Thus, calls for government attention to develop resources at hospital laboratories for early dengue diagnosis and management of patients, coupled with general awareness among the public and constant vigilance by the health care officials could help in combating dengue.


Responding to high rates of suicide for American Indian youth, helping professionals often struggle to connect healing traditions from American Indian cultures to tools from European psychology. The differences between American Indian healing and European therapy can be vast. Finding connections or building bridges between these two perspectives may be more difficult than it appears (Duran & Duran, 1995). One method to bring together these worldviews is to use the Reasons for Living Questionnaire (RFL, Linehan, Goldstein, Nielsen, & Chiles, 1983); the Reasons for Living Inventory for Adolescents (RFL-A, Osman, Downs, Kopper, Barios, Besett, Linehan, Baker, & Osman, 1998), or other psychological assessments developed using the RFL as a foundation. Reasons for Living (RFL) assessments have emerged as powerful strength based tools for assessing suicide risk (Range & Knott, 1997). RFL and RFL-A factors link to a relational worldview common to most American Indian people. A relational worldview considers a balance between forces often identified as spirit, context, mind, and body (Cross, 1998). Using RFL or RFL-A in suicide assessments allows practitioners to assess where youth may be out of balance in one or more of the four traditional areas: spirit, context, mind, and body. This may assist specific referrals to culturally appropriate healing. RFL and RFL-A assessments could be augmented to improve their correspondence to the relational worldview. ********** Western approaches to care have not been widely embraced by American Indian populations, and almost any type of mental health treatment tends to have disappointing results with American Indians (Husted, Johnson, & Redwing, 1995). Meanwhile, American Indian communities and mental health practitioners acknowledge that the need for mental health treatment is high. Perhaps the most dramatic illustration of this need is the high rate of suicide among American Indian youth. This rate is well established and has continued for decades to be more than double the national rate for non-Indian youth (Grossman, Milligan, & Deyo, 1991). To understand American Indian perspectives on causes for the high rate of youth suicide and the need for traditional healing, it will be important to review American Indian history. To describe some of the most common American Indian perspectives of wellness and balance, the relational worldview (Cross, 1998) will be presented. Next, tools for suicide assessment especially the Reasons for Living Questionnaire (RFL, Linehan, Goldstein, Nielsen, & Chiles, 1983) and the related Reasons for Living Inventory for Adolescents (RFL-A, Osman, Downs, Kopper, Barrios, Besett, Linehan, Baker, & Osman, 1998) will be presented. The RFL and RFL-A will be linked to the relational worldview and indigenous healing approaches. Finally, areas where the reasons for living assessments could be further developed for use with American Indian adolescents will be discussed along with cultural guidelines for assessment and intervention with potentially suicidal American Indian youth. History The history of American Indian people is survival in the face of mass destruction. Estimates about the number of American Indians in North American before European contact range from two million to as many as 18 million (Shoemaker, 1999). There were at least 600 different indigenous groups on the scene and there were probably between five and ten million American Indians in what are now the United States and Canada (Nichols, 1998). Indigenous people in North America lived in cities and villages, long houses and kivas, and had social organizations including families, clans, and nations. Millions of people and their homes, families and nations had to be eliminated to make room for European colonization. Colonization destroyed and demeaned traditional ways of indigenous people (Duran & Duran, 1995). …


An associative memory is a framework of content-addressable memory that stores a collection of message vectors (or a dataset) over a neural network while enabling a neurally feasible mechanism to recover any message in the dataset from its noisy version. Designing an associative memory requires addressing two main tasks: 1) learning phase: given a dataset, learn a concise representation of the dataset in the form of a graphical model (or a neural network), 2) recall phase: given a noisy version of a message vector from the dataset, output the correct message vector via a neurally feasible algorithm over the network learnt during the learning phase. This paper studies the problem of designing a class of neural associative memories which learns a network representation for a large dataset that ensures correction against a large number of adversarial errors during the recall phase. Specifically, the associative memories designed in this paper can store dataset containing exp(n) n-length message vectors over a network with O(n) nodes and can tolerate Ω(n / polylog) adversarial errors. This paper carries out this memory design by mapping the learning phase and recall phase to the tasks of dictionary learning with a square dictionary and iterative error correction in an expander code, respectively.


A new procedure is described to separate magnetite from milligram sized samples of crushed rock for oxygen isotope analysis. This method is based on magnetic separation of magnetite after heating the mixture to a temperature that exceeds the Curie point for other magnetic minerals in a sample. The relatively low temperature of this procedure (350 °C) does not induce any reaction between magnetic mineral nor does it alter the isotope composition of magnetite. This procedure was tested on samples containing known percentages of magnetite and pyrrhotite. The percentage of magnetite in a sample was increased by 10–20 % through successive enrichment cycles until a pure magnetite separate was achieved. The separation should be performed before measuring the oxygen isotope composition of the magnetic fraction of a rock sample by laser fluorination, because the presence of contaminating phases such as pyrrhotite may cause unwanted isotope partitioning of the oxygen released during fluorination. Our data show that contamination of a magnetite sample, even with a non O-bearing phase, can lead to systematically misleading O isotope data in a standard total laser fluorination system. Enrichment of the apparent magnetite value is indicated, possibly as a result of the formation of an O-S-bearing phase.


We propose a chunk-based phonetic score for re-scoring word hypotheses for the mobile voice search task. The score is based on a novel technique for aligning decoded phone sequences with forced-alignments of hypothesized word sequences and exploits phone-boundary timing information. In experimental results, we find that the proposed approach results in relative a word error rate reduction of 4.4% and a relative sentence error rate reduction of 2.3% for the Windows live search for mobile task [1].


This article seeks to identify and discuss the impact of Nina Olson, in her role as National Taxpayer Advocate (NTA), on low-income taxpayer clinics (LITCs). The article discusses the background of Ms. Olson including her advocacy that led to grant funding for LITCs and the background of LITCs before she began administering the grant funds as NTA. The accomplishments of Ms. Olson with respect to LITCs are discussed in six separate topic areas: Changes to Clinic Structure; Pushing for Actions and Resources That Aided Clinics; Expanding Taxpayer Advocate Service Oversight of Low-Income Taxpayer Clinics; Changing the Culture of Low-Income Taxpayer Advocacy; Connecting LITCs to the Tax Court; and Creating Research Office That Provided Empirical Data to Support LITC Positions.


Atmospheric CO2 observations reveal a decrease in Arctic ecosystem carbon residence time over the past four decades. The contemporary Arctic carbon balance is uncertain, and the potential for a permafrost carbon feedback of anywhere from 50 to 200 petagrams of carbon (Schuur et al., 2015) compromises accurate 21st-century global climate system projections. The 42-year record of atmospheric CO2 measurements at Barrow, Alaska (71.29 N, 156.79 W), reveals significant trends in regional land-surface CO2 anomalies (ΔCO2), indicating long-term changes in seasonal carbon uptake and respiration. Using a carbon balance model constrained by ΔCO2, we find a 13.4% decrease in mean carbon residence time (50% confidence range = 9.2 to 17.6%) in North Slope tundra ecosystems during the past four decades, suggesting a transition toward a boreal carbon cycling regime. Temperature dependencies of respiration and carbon uptake suggest that increases in cold season Arctic labile carbon release will likely continue to exceed increases in net growing season carbon uptake under continued warming trends.


Objective To determine cardiovascular comorbidities and use of cardiovascular disease preventive drugs in patients with peripheral arterial disease (PAD), with special attention to sex differences. Design A cross-sectional point-prevalence study. Patients A population sample of patients that are 60-90 years old. Setting Primary care areas in four Swedish regions. Main outcome measures Prevalence of PAD stages, comorbidities and medication use. Results The prevalence of any type of PAD was 18.0% (range 16-20), of asymptomatic peripheral arterial disease (APAD) was 11.1% (range 9-13), intermittent claudication was 6.8% (range 6.5-7.1), and of critical limb ischemia (CLI) was 1.2% (range 1.0-1.5). APAD and CLI were more common in women. Statins were used by 17.5% (range 16.9-18.2), 29.4% (range 29.0-30.1), and 30.3% (range 29.9-30.8) of the patients with APAD, intermittent claudication, and CLI, respectively, and antiplatelet therapy was reported by 34.1% (range 33.7-34.3), 47.6% (range 47.3-47.9), and 60.2% (range 59.1-60.7). The odds ratio for having APAD was 1.7 (range 1.2-2.4) for women with a smoking history of 10 years in relation to nonsmokers. This association was observed only in men who had smoked for at least 30 years or more. Preventive drug use was more common in men with PAD. Compared with women they had an odds ratio of 1.3 (range 1.1-1.5) for lipid-lowering therapy, 1.3 (range 1.0-1.7) for β-blockers or angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors, and 1.5 (range 1.2-1.9) for antiplatelet therapy. Conclusion The patients' risk factor profiles differed among the PAD stages. Smoking duration already seemed to be a risk factor for women with PAD after 10 years of smoking, as compared with 30 years for men, and fewer women reported use of preventive medication. These observations may partly explain the sex differences in prevalence that were observed. Eur J Cardiovasc Prev Rehabil 16:39-46 © 2009 The European Society of Cardiology


Robotic mapping is the process of automatically constructing an environment representation using mobile robots. We address the problem of semantic mapping, which consists of using mobile robots to create maps that represent not only metric occupancy but also other properties of the environment. Specifically, we develop techniques to build maps that represent activity and navigability of the environment. Our approach to semantic mapping is to combine machine learning techniques with standard mapping algorithms. Supervised learning methods are used to automatically associate properties of space to the desired classification patterns. We present two methods, the first based on hidden Markov models and the second on support vector machines. Both approaches have been tested and experimentally validated in two problem domains: terrain mapping and activity-based mapping.


Wetlands are one of the most important ecosystems on Earth. There is an urgent need to quantify the biophysical parameters (e.g., plant height, aboveground biomass) and map total remaining areas of wetlands in order to evaluate the ecological status of wetlands. In this study, Environmental Satellite/Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar (ENVISAT/ASAR) dual-polarization C-band data acquired in 2005 is tested to investigate radar backscattering mechanisms with the variation of hydrological conditions during the growing cycle of two types of herbaceous wetland species, which colonize lake borders with different elevation in Poyang Lake region, China. Phragmites communis (L.) Trin. is semi-aquatic emergent vegetation with vertical stem and blade-like leaves, and the emergent Carex spp. has rhizome and long leaves. In this study, the potential of ASAR data in HH-, HV-, and VV-polarization in mapping different wetland types is examined, by observing their dynamic variations throughout the whole flooding cycle. The sensitivity of ASAR backscattering coefficients to vegetation parameters of plant height, fresh and dry biomass, and vegetation water content is also analyzed for Phragmites communis (L.) Trin. and Carex spp. The research for Phragmites communis (L.) Trin. shows that HH polarization is more sensitive to plant height and dry biomass than HV polarization. ASAR backscattering coefficients are relatively less sensitive to fresh biomass, especially in HV polarization. However, both are highly dependent on canopy water content. In contrast, the dependence of HH- and HV- backscattering from Carex community on vegetation parameters is poor, and the radar backscattering mechanism is controlled by ground water level.


Nutrient additions typically increase terrestrial ecosystem productivity, reduce plant diversity and alter plant community composition; however, the effects of P additions and interactions between N and P are understudied. We added both N (10 g m−2) and three levels of P (2.5, 5 and 10 g m−2) to a native, ungrazed tallgrass prairie burned biennially in northeastern Kansas, USA, to determine the independent and interactive effects of N and P on plant community composition and above‐ground net primary productivity (ANPP). After a decade of nutrient additions, we found few effects of P alone on plant community composition, N alone had stronger effects, and N and P additions combined resulted in much larger effects than either alone. The changes in the plant community were driven by decreased abundance of C4 grasses, perhaps in response to altered interactions with mycorrhizal fungi, concurrent with increased abundance of non‐N‐fixing perennial and annual forbs. Surprisingly, this large shift in plant community composition had little effect on plant community richness, evenness and diversity. The shift in plant composition with N and P combined had large but variable effects on ANPP over time. Initially, N and N and P combined increased above‐ground productivity of C4 grasses, but after 4 years, productivity returned to ambient levels as grasses declined in abundance and the community shifted to dominance by non‐N‐fixing and annual forbs. Once these forbs increased in abundance and became dominant, ANPP was more variable, with pulses in forb production only in years when the site was burned. Synthesis. We found that a decade of N and P additions interacted to drive changes in plant community composition, which had large effects on ecosystem productivity but minimal effects on plant community diversity. The large shift in species composition increased variability in ANPP over time as a consequence of the effects of burning. Thus, increased inputs of N and P to terrestrial ecosystems have the potential to alter stability of ecosystem function over time, particularly within the context of natural disturbance regimes.


This literature review starts with a general discussion of young people and their various activities with special emphasis on youth unemployment and the outcome of alternative ways of measuring the prevalence of unemployment among young people. Thereafter the focus turns to measures targeted at young people based on the knowledge provided in relevant national as well as international literature. A distinction is thereby made between the role and impact of the education system, on the one hand, and active labour market policies (ALMP), on the other. The main reason for making this distinction is that early-year education and ALMP measures are typically targeted at differently aged young people. Apart from young people in general, attention is also paid to two special groups of young people: disabled young people and young immigrants. The review concludes with a discussion of main findings and their policy implications.


Much information has been disseminated in the past two decades regarding nutrition and cardiovascular disease, mainly atherosclerotic disease. A great deal of this information has addressed cholesterol and fat intake (saturated vs. poly-and-monounsaturated fats) and their impact on blood lipids and the development of heart disease. In addition to these studies, a number of scientists have been investigating the connection between micro-nutrients (vitamins, minerals, amino acids, flavonoids, coenzymes) and heart disease. The oxidation of LDL cholesterol has been linked to vascular damage leading to atherosclerotic plaques. Antioxidant activity and subsequent inhibition of LDL oxidation has been attributed to the dietary and supplemental intake of specific micro-nutrients, including vitamin E, vitamin C, vitamin B6, glutathione, flavonoids, beta carotene, lipoic acid, and coenzyme Q10. Improper metabolism of the amino acid methionine has emerged as another link to LDL oxidation and heart disease in some individuals. Approximately 20-30% of individuals with heart disease have increased levels of the methionine-intermediatemetabolite homocysteine, which may be linked to dietary and/or genetically-induced deficiencies of folic acid, vitamin B12, vitamin B6, or the amino-acid derivative betaine. There are numerous inter-connections between nutrients (including S-adenosyl methionine, vitamins C, B6, B12, folate, betaine, pantethine, the amino acids glycine, taurine, lysine, and carnitine) and biochemical pathways (homocysteine metabolism, cholesterol synthesis and degradation, carnitine, coenzyme Q10, and taurine synthesis) which have an effect on coronary atherosclerotic disease prevention and treatment. Ensuring more efficient functioning of these pathways by promoting proper diet and/or supplementation can have a significant positive impact on this multi-factorial disease process. (Alt Med Rev 1996;1(3):132-147.)


Dr William Bosworth writes: Two recent papers by Alan Gibbs (1983, 1984a) have helped introduce rigorous geometric techniques to the analysis of extensional tectonic terranes. Several of the more salient points of Gibbs' discussion include (1) straight-forward areal balancing techniques can be applied to cross-sections through extensional basins to obtain such information as depth-to-detachment in listric fault systems and to assess the geometric plausibility of the proposed sections; (2) geoseismic cross-sections are thereby produced that can be integrated with well data and thermal-subsidence models of basin evolution to produce detailed, predictive views of basin geology; and (3) extensional tectonic settings develop structures with numerous analogies to contractional settings, including such details as depth-to-detachment (c. 10–18 km), lateral discontinuities in structural geometry (transfer zones of Gibbs 1984a), and, potentially, the formation of ramp–flat and duplex geometries. These concepts have far-reaching implications for future studies of all areas of crustal extension. I would like to state several small points of disagreement concerning the technique of balancing sections in extensional settings, which could become important in actually applying Gibbs' approach to some specific basins or portions thereof. Gibbs' fundamental assertion is that any cross-sectional area created during the formation of a rift basin (and preserved as a syn- to post-rift sedimentary package) must be accounted for elsewhere in the geologic interpretation. This is illustrated in fig. 1 of Gibbs (1983), where the cross-sectional area of the newly formed basin becomes equal to the product of the net crustal extension (l1–l0)


Vision-based autonomous urban driving in dense traffic is quite challenging due to the complicated urban environment and the dynamics of the driving behaviors. Widely-applied methods either heavily rely on hand-crafted rules or learn from limited human experience, which makes them hard to generalize to rare but critical scenarios. In this paper, we present a novel CAscade Deep REinforcement learning framework, CADRE, to achieve model-free vision-based autonomous urban driving. In CADRE, to derive representative latent features from raw observations, we first offline train a Co-attention Perception Module (CoPM) that leverages the co-attention mechanism to learn the inter-relationships between the visual and control information from a pre-collected driving dataset. Cascaded by the frozen CoPM, we then present an efficient distributed proximal policy optimization framework to online learn the driving policy under the guidance of particularly designed reward functions. We perform a comprehensive empirical study with the CARLA NoCrash benchmark as well as specific obstacle avoidance scenarios in autonomous urban driving tasks. The experimental results well justify the effectiveness of CADRE and its superiority over the state-of-the-art by a wide margin.


We study how the EU enlargement in 2004 and the Great Recession in the late 2000s have shaped the scale and composition of migration flows from the New Member States to Germany. We demonstrate that immigration increased substantially despite the restrictions on the German labor market, and that net flows decreased to zero at the outset of the recession. The cohorts arriving after 2004 had on average a lower education than the previous arrival cohort, but the wage gap compared to Germans became narrower over time. Almost 10 years after EU enlargement, we re-assess the transitional arrangements, and argue that Germany would have been better off, had it immediately opened its labor market. Finally, the Great recession allows us to study how effective migration within the EU is as an adjustment mechanism. Our data clearly show an increase in immigration from countries that were hit by the crisis, although the annual net flows are still too small to significantly reduce unemployment in the countries hit by the crisis.


Objective To determine whether the instantaneous wave-free ratio (iFR) can detect improvement in stenosis significance after percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) and compare this with fractional flow reserve (FFR) and whole cycle Pd/Pa. Design A prospective observational study was undertaken in elective patients scheduled for PCI with FFR ≤0.80. Intracoronary pressures were measured at rest and during adenosine-mediated vasodilatation, before and after PCI. iFR, Pd/Pa and FFR values were calculated using the validated fully automated algorithms. Setting Coronary catheter laboratories in two UK centres and one in the USA. Patients 120 coronary stenoses in 112 patients were assessed. The mean age was 63±10 years, while 84% were male; 39% smokers; 33% with diabetes. Mean diameter stenosis was 68±16% by quantitative coronary angiography. Results Pre-PCI, mean FFR was 0.66±0.14, mean iFR was 0.75±0.21 and mean Pd/Pa 0.83±0.16. PCI increased all indices significantly (FFR 0.89±0.07, p<0.001; iFR 0.94±0.05, p<0.001; Pd/Pa 0.96±0.04, p<0.001). The change in iFR after intervention (0.20±0.21) was similar to ΔFFR 0.22±0.15 (p=0.25). ΔFFR and ΔiFR were significantly larger than resting ΔPd/Pa (0.13±0.16, both p<0.001). Similar incremental changes occurred in patients with a higher prevalence of risk factors for microcirculatory disease such as diabetes and hypertension. Conclusions iFR and FFR detect the changes in coronary haemodynamics elicited by PCI. FFR and iFR have a significantly larger dynamic range than resting Pd/Pa. iFR might be used to objectively document improvement in coronary haemodynamics following PCI in a similar manner to FFR.


Abstract. Ancient lakes represent key ecosystems for endemic freshwater species. This high endemic biodiversity has been shown to be mainly the result of intra-lacustrine diversification. Whereas the principle role of this mode of diversification is generally acknowledged, actual diversification rates in ancient lakes remain little understood. At least four types are conceivable. Diversification rates may be constant over time, they may fluctuate, rates may be higher in the initial phase of diversification, or there may be a pronounced lag phase between colonization and subsequent diversification. As understanding the tempo of diversification in ancient lake environments may help reveal the underlying processes that drive speciation and extinction, we here use the Balkan Lake Ohrid as a model system and the largest species flock in the lake, the non-pyrgulinid Hydrobiidae, as a model taxon to study changes in diversification rates over time together with the respective drivers. Based on phylogenetic, molecular-clock, lineage-through-time plot, and diversification-rate analyses we found that this potentially monophyletic group is comparatively old and that it most likely evolved with a constant diversification rate. Preliminary data of the SCOPSCO (Scientific Collaboration On Past Speciation Conditions in Lake Ohrid) deep-drilling program do indicate signatures of severe environmental/climatic perturbations in Lake Ohrid. However, so far there is no evidence for the occurrence of catastrophic environmental events. We therefore propose that the constant diversification rate observed in endemic gastropods has been caused by two factors: (i) a potential lack of catastrophic environmental events in Lake Ohrid and/or (ii) a probably high ecosystem resilience, buffering environmental changes. Parameters potentially contributing to the lake's high ecosystem resilience are its distinct bathymetry, ongoing tectonic activities, and karst hydrology. The current study not only contributes to one of the overall goals of the SCOPSCO deep-drilling program – inferring the driving forces for biotic evolution in Lake Ohrid. It might also enhance our understanding of how ecosystem resilience, in general, may promote relatively constant diversification rates in isolated ecosystems. However, we encourage future studies testing hypotheses about the lack of catastrophic events in Lake Ohrid. These studies should be based on high-resolution data for the entire geological history of the lake, and they should potentially involve information from the sediment fossil record, not only for gastropods but also for other groups with a high share of endemic taxa.


This paper analyses takeovers of companies owned by atomistic shareholders and by one minority blockholder, all of whom can only decide to tender or retain their shares. As private benefit extraction is inefficient, the post-takeover share value increases with the bidder's shareholdings. In a successful takeover, the blockholder tenders all his shares and the small shareholders tender the amount needed such that the post-takeover share value matches the bid price. Compared to a fully dispersed target company, the bidder may have to offer a higher price either to win the blockholder's support or to attract enough shares from small shareholders.


The roots of the vascular plant Spartina maritima, growing in the saltmarshes of the Tagus Estuary, Portugal, are surrounded by tubular concretions whose diameter can reach >0.2 cm. Concretions are also found scattered within the sediment matrix in and below the root zone. The concretions comprise 4% (DW) of the sediment and contain 11.7 ± 1.6% iron compared to 4.9 ± 0.3% iron in the sediment in which they are found. They are formed by the precipitation of iron oxides in the pores between the sediment grains; this has filled about one‐sixth of the originally available pore space. To produce the concretions, the plants have extracted 0.25% Fe from the anoxic bulk sediment and concentrated it into the oxidized microenvironment surrounding each root. A mass‐balance model using cylindrical geometry shows that the observed concretion density can be produced by a network of roots with 1‐cm spacing. The space between the roots limits the amount of Fe that is available to a given root and thus determines the size of the individual concretion. Field observations and mathematical modeling show that plants can produce concretions on their roots in the space of a few weeks. The rhizoconcretions are 5–10 times enriched in Cd, Cu, Pb, and Zn with respect to the sediment surrounding them, and the smaller diameter concretions are more enriched than the larger ones. The preferential enrichment of the smaller diameter concretions, which was not observed for Fe and Mn, is independent of depth in the sediment for Cd and Cu; however, for Zn and Pb, the preferential enrichment is most pronounced within the upper trace metal‐contaminated sediment layer. The rhizoconcretions have acquired their load of metals via diffusion from the surrounding sediment. In the case of Fe and Mn, the concentration gradient that drives the diffusion is maintained by the precipitation of insoluble oxides. In the case of Cd, Cu, Zn, and Pb, the mechanism that maintains a concentration gradient toward the surface of the root is not know, but our data show that S. maritima is capable of mobilizing trace metals dispersed in reducing anoxic estuarine sediment and concentrating them into the distinct oxidized microenvironments that surround the roots.