OBJECTIVE
To evaluate the origin and biological behavior of secondary orbital squamous cell (SCC) and mucoepidermoid carcinoma.

METHODS
A retrospective review of 30 consecutive patients with SCC and mucoepidermoid carcinoma of the orbit seen over a period of 8 years at a large ophthalmic hospital in Saudi Arabia.

RESULTS
A total of 51 secondary orbital tumors were seen in the 8-year period from 1983 through 1991; 30 (60%) of the 51 cases were SCC. There were 16 male and 14 female patients, with an age range of 38 to 80 years and a mean age of 65 years. In 28 (93%) of the 30 patients, the tumor originated in the conjunctiva. Orbital involvement by conjunctival SCC was the most common cause of secondary orbital tumors encountered in patients older than 19 years. Four patients had concomitant paranasal sinus involvement, 4 patients exhibited intraocular invasion, and 2 others were found to have intracranial extension of the SCC. Six (20%) of the 28 patients developed regional lymph node metastases during the course of their illness. All patients were treated by orbital exenteration, with or without radiation therapy. Seven (23%) of the 28 patients died of their disease.

CONCLUSIONS
Orbital SCC is an aggressive and life-threatening condition. Most cases result from secondary extension of conjunctival SCC, a common disease in Saudi Arabia. Several factors contribute to the aggressiveness of conjunctival SCC in this geographic location, including continual exposure to UV rays, chronic irritation, and genetic factors. Delay in presentation for treatment, inadequate initial resection of conjunctival lesions, and the aggressive mucoepidermoid carcinoma variant of SCC are also factors contributing to orbital invasion.


The secret wealth of commerce, and the precarious profits of art or labour, are susceptible only of a discretionary valuation, which is seldom disadvantageous to the interest of the treasury; and as the person of the trader supplies the want of a visible and permanent security, the payment of the imposition, which, in the case of a land-tax, may be obtained by the seizure of property, can rarely be extorted by any other means than those of corporal punishments.1 INTRODUCTION The Internal Revenue Code2 (hereinafter I.R.C.) requires employers to withhold various taxes from the pay of their employees and to pay over the same to the Government.3 Pending actual transfer of the collected taxes to the government, the monies thus collected are considered to be held in "a special fund in trust for the United States."4 Those individuals having the duty or power to collect and remit such taxes may be personally liable for amounts not in fact properly collected or remitted.5 The personal liability imposed upon the individual taxpayer by I.R.C. § 6672 is "separate and distinct" from the employer entity's liability.6 The funds are thus commonly known as "trust funds"7 and the individual officers or employees of the employer who are responsible for collecting and remitting the taxes are commonly referred to as "responsible persons"8 or "responsible individuals"9 by the courts, and the IRS and tax practitioners.10 Many states have similar or substantially verbatim statutes,11 which are construed by the respective state courts according to the Federal courts' constructions of Federal trust fund statutes.12 The list of who may be a "responsible person" under I.R.C. § 6672 (and the state statutes) is broadly inclusive.13 There may be more than one "responsible person," and the existence of other responsible persons does not absolve a responsible person of his or her trust fund liability for the entire amount of taxes in question.14 Though not directly specified in the statute, the total trust fund liability is collected only once, whether from the employer entity itself or one or more responsible persons; to the extent that any one responsible person pays trust fund liability, the liability of all others is accordingly discharged.15 The Internal Revenue Service ("IRS") may choose the responsible person or persons from whom it will collect, and may proceed against any or all such responsible persons in any order of its choosing until the entire amount due is collected.16 The availability of other responsible persons having collectable assets does not impose upon the IRS any duty to pursue or refrain from pursuing any particular responsible person.17 In 1996, as part of the Taxpayer Bill of Rights 2 (hereinafter referred to as "TBOR2"), Congress enacted a statutory right of contribution in favor of responsible persons who actually pay more than their proportionate share of trust fund penalties against other responsible persons.18 This article will discuss the right of contribution under I.R.C. § 6672. I. HISTORY OF THE TRUST FUND STATUTE AND THE RIGHT OF CONTRIBUTION A. Statutory Background The prospect of tax collectors misappropriating sovereign property by commingling it with personal property was apparently a royal concern in the days of King Hammurabi.19 While the Temple stood in Jerusalem, such commingling of the shekels collected from the populace and earmarked for sacerdotal purposes was discouraged not only through fear of the Almighty Himself, but also through surveillances done by mortal humans.20 Serious penalties for not remitting collected taxes to the government were decreed in the days of the Roman Empire.21 Following such a rich and ancient tradition of holding the tax collectors and agents accountable for the tax funds they collect and handle, the Revenue Act of 1918 articulated the current American statutory scheme of imposing a personal monetary penalty separate and apart from, but equal to, unremitted thirdparty tax collections. …


Many developing countries have recently increased health insurance coverage at a large scale. While it is commonly believed that this has positive effects, to date, it is not well understood through which channels health insurance coverage contributes to the well-being of individuals. More generally, the effects are usually not quantified at the individual level. There are two main reasons for this. First, we lack detailed data on health care utilization and health outcomes, and second, it is not easy to control for selection into insurance. The second problem means that a regression of utilization or outcome measures on insurance coverage will yield biased results and will not estimate the causal effects of health insurance. In this paper, we make progress in both directions. We use rich survey data to evaluate the impact of access to the Peruvian Social Health Insurance called "Seguro Integral de Salud" for individuals outside the formal labor market on a variety of measures for health care utilization, preventive care, health expenditures, and health indicators. We address the second concern by exploiting a fuzzy regression discontinuity design. A household is eligible for the program if a welfare index that is calculated from a number of variables is below a specific threshold. We base our analysis on a natural experiment that is generated by variation in the index around the threshold. We interpret our results through the lens of a simple model. As expected, and in contrast to studies for a number of other countries, we find strong effects of insurance coverage on measures of health care utilization, such as visiting a doctor, receiving medication and medical analysis. The program does not strongly incentivice individuals or health care providers to invest into preventive care. In line with this, in general, we find no effects of insurance coverage on preventive care. The only exceptions to this are our findings that, controlling for selection into insurance coverage, women of fertile age with insurance are more likely to receive pregnancy care and that insured individuals are more likely to be vaccinated. This is in line with the stark decrease in maternal and child mortality that was observed after the program was introduced. As for health care expenditures, we generally find positive effects on the mean and the variability. We complement these findings with quantile treatment effect estimates that show increases at the high end of the distribution. Our interpretation is that insured individuals are encouraged by health care professionals to undertake important treatments and pay for this themselves. At the same time, we find no clear effects on health outcomes at the micro level.


Land use change has been identified as a major driver of amphibian decline around the world. Yet we generally lack an understanding of how conversion to exotic pastures affects freshwater communities. This study examined tadpole assemblages in areas converted to exotic pastures and native wooded grasslands in northern Pantanal wetland, Midwestern Brazil. We tested the differences in site occupancy probability and assemblage composition during a flood season. We registered thirteen tadpole species, but only five were detected at levels suitable for occupancy modelling. For most species, tadpole occupancy was higher at the beginning of the flood season. Only Scinax fuscomarginatus occupancy was related with vegetation cover. Occupancy probability for three species ( Dendropsophus nanus , Physalaemus centralis , and Physalaemus cuvieri ) was associated positively with species richness of fish. Multivariate analyses demonstrated that exotic pastures hosted a different tadpole assemblage than native areas. The assemblage composition gradient was associated with species richness of fish, vegetation cover and volume of herbaceous vegetation and leaf litter. These differences likely relate to specific traits of individual anuran species (dietary plasticity, reproductive mode, and habitat preference). The study showed that some generalist species were able to cope with replacement of native vegetation by exotic species. However, management practices have maintained many areas in the Pantanal at a stage of a near-pristine wetland ecosystem and replacement of native vegetation by exotic pastures should be done with caution.


BACKGROUND
Latissimus dorsi tendon transfer is a well-established method for the treatment of massive irreparable posterosuperior defects of the rotator cuff. Subsequent rupture of the transferred tendon may contribute to the rate of failure of the index procedure. We hypothesized that modification of our technique of tendon harvesting would lead to greater fixation stability and a reduced failure rate.

METHODS
Forty-two patients (mean age, fifty-eight years) with a massive irreparable posterosuperior tear of the rotator cuff were managed with a latissimus dorsi tendon transfer. Sharp separation of the latissimus tendon from the humerus was performed in twenty-two patients (Group A), whereas the tendon harvest was carried out with a modified technique that involved removal of some bone along with the tendon at the humeral insertion in a subsequent group of twenty patients (Group B). The mean duration of follow-up was forty-seven months. Outcome measures included the Constant and American Shoulder and Elbow Surgeons (ASES) scores and a patient subjective satisfaction scale. Standard radiographs were made to determine the stage of osteoarthritis and proximal migration of the humeral head, and magnetic resonance imaging was performed to assess the integrity of the transferred muscle.

RESULTS
In Group A, the mean Constant score improved from 43.4 preoperatively to 64.8 points at the time of follow-up and the mean ASES score improved from 49.3 to 69.6 points (p < 0.05). In Group B, the mean Constant score increased from 40.2 to 74.2 points and the mean ASES score, from 47.2 to 77.1 points (p < 0.05). The Constant pain score improved from 5.6 to 11.9 points in Group A and from 5.2 to 13.8 points in Group B. The results in Group B were significantly superior to those in Group A (p < 0.05). Magnetic resonance imaging revealed complete rupture at the tendon insertion with tendon retraction in four patients in Group A and none in Group B. The final outcome was rated as poor in 27% of the patients in Group A and in 10% in Group B.

CONCLUSIONS
Latissimus dorsi tendon transfer achieves satisfactory clinical results in most patients who have a massive irreparable posterosuperior tear of the rotator cuff. Harvesting the tendon along with a small piece of bone enables direct bone-to-bone transosseous fixation, resulting in better tendon integrity and clinical results.


This dissertation focuses on the development of the Dutch public debate on morphine between 1880 and 1939. Around 1900 morphine was known on the one hand as a medical 'Morpheus': an important painkiller. On the other, people knew the substance as 'Mary', a street drug used and sold nonmedically. Between 1900 and 1939 concern about the nonmedical use of narcotics greatly increased. Using an analysis of Dutch digitized newspapers, I show how morphine kept its medical reputation during this time. First, morphine's historical reputation safeguarded its medical status in the Dutch public debate. Before 1900 multiple types of recognizable morphine use already featured in Dutch discourse, which prevented emerging stories about addiction and trafficking from becoming central to the drug's story. Second, between 1900 and 1939 morphine's medical and nonmedical sides both developed in favor of morphine's overall medical reputation. Emerging depictions of morphine's palliative use supported morphine's reputation as an important and universal medical drug. Morphine's nonmedical uses became associated with only limited social harm. They mostly featured harm to specific individuals, foreign users who were not considered a model for Dutch society, or user contexts where cocaine and heroin featured in a more prominent or harmful manner.


Abstract A crystal chemical study of narsarsukite from the Murun alkaline massif, Russia has been carried out combining single-crystal X-ray diffraction, electron microprobe analyses, micro-Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). The narsarsukite single crystals are tetragonal (space group I4/m) with unit-cell parameters: 10.7140(1) ≤ a ≤ 10.7183(2) Å and 7.9478(1) ≤ c ≤ 7.9511(1) Å. The XPS analysis showed that Fe occurs in the mineral as Fe3+, whereas the FTIR spectrum showed that the sample studied is anhydrous. The average crystal chemical formula of the Murun narsarsukite is: Na2.04K0.01(V5+0.01Ti0.74Zr0.01Al0.01Fe3+0.22Mg0.01)1.00Si4.00(O10.74F0.23OH0.03)11.00. Structural disorder at octahedral and interstitial sites was modelled and also discussed in consideration of the main substitutional mechanism Ti4+ + O2− ↔ Fe3+ + (F−, OH−) active in the structure of the mineral.


Hydrodeoxygenation (HDO) of guaiacol over Ni metal supported on zeolites (H-Beta and H-ZSM-5) with different Si/Al ratios (12.5, 25, 175) and different metal loadings (2.3–23.4 wt%) was investigated in order to elucidate the role of catalyst acidity and the structure of Ni in the HDO reaction. Results show that the deoxygenation activity and product selectivity depend on the choice of support (acidity, pore size), level of metal loading, and reaction conditions. Guaiacol was deoxygenated in the presence of hydrogen with a maximum cyclohexane yield of 76% at a guaiacol conversion level of 100% over 15.7 wt% Ni/Beta-12.5 catalyst. Compared to Ni/ZSM-5 catalysts, Ni/Beta catalysts with mesopores facilitated the formation of coupling products (1,1′-bicyclohexyl). Under differential reaction conditions, we observed a linear relationship between deoxygenation activity and concentration of acid sites. Over catalysts containing small Ni particles, cyclohexane was formed as a result of a consecutive reduction of guaiacol to catechol and cyclohexane. At higher Ni-loading and consequently larger Ni particles, the selectivity towards cyclohexane increases with increased Ni loading. A higher concentration of nickel hydrides compared to smaller Ni sites was observed by H2-TPD and H2-FTIR over larger Ni species, and the nickel hydrides are believed to be crucial intermediates in the hydrogenation reaction. The 15.7 wt% Ni/Beta (Si/Al = 12.5) exhibits a promising HDO activity due to its good synergistic effect of hydrogenation and deoxygenation functions (high concentration nickel hydrides of and acid sites). In addition, based on the product distribution over catalysts containing mainly small Ni species and the Ni nanoparticles, two different reaction pathways were proposed, and the role of the acid sites and metal sites for each reaction route was discussed.


Lara Douds examines the practical functioning and internal political culture of the early Soviet government cabinet, the Council of People's Commissars (Sovnarkom), under Lenin. This study elucidates the process by which Sovnarkom's governmental decision-making authority was transferred to Communist Party bodies in the early years of Soviet power and traces the day-to-day operation of the supreme state organ.

The book argues that Sovnarkom was the principal executive body of the early Soviet government until the Politburo gradually usurped this role during the Civil War. Using a range of archival source material, Lara Douds re-interprets early Soviet political history as a period where fledgling 'Soviet' rather than simply 'Communist Party' power was attempted, but ultimately failed when pressures of Civil War and socio-economic dislocation encouraged the centralising and authoritarian rather than democratic strand of Bolshevism to predominate.

Inside Lenin's Government explores the basic mechanics of governance by looking at the frequency of meetings, types of business discussed, processes of decision-making and the administrative backdrop, as well as the key personalities of Sovnarkom. It then considers the reasons behind the shift in executive power from state to party in this period, which resulted in an abnormal situation where, as Leon Trotsky commented in 1923, 'leadership by the party gives way to administration by its organs'.


A method for rapid and minimally disruptive embedding and sectioning of bacterial biofilms has been developed and applied to binary population biofilms of Klebsiella pneumoniae and Pseudomonas aeruginosa grown on stainless steel surfaces in continuous flow annular reactors. Biofilms were cryoembedded using a commercial tissue embedding medium. Frozen embedded biofilms could be removed easily from the substratum by gently flexing the steel coupon. Microscopic examination of the substratum surface after biofilm removal indicated that less than a monolayer of attached cells remained. Five μm thick frozen sections were cut with a cryostat and examined by light or fluorescence microscopy. The cryoembedding technique preserved biofilm structural features including an irregular surface, water channels, local protrusions up to 500 μm thick, and a well‐defined substratum interface. The method requires minimal sample processing without dehydration or prolonged fixation, and can be completed in less than 24 h.


The Sloan Digital Sky Survey has surveyed 14,555 square degrees of the sky, and delivered over a trillion pixels of imaging data. We present the large-scale clustering of 1.6 million quasars between z=0.5 and z=2.5 that have been classified from this imaging, representing the highest density of quasars ever studied for clustering measurements. This data set spans 0∼ 11,00 square degrees and probes a volume of 80 h−3 Gpc3. In principle, such a large volume and medium density of tracers should facilitate high-precision cosmological constraints. We measure the angular clustering of photometrically classified quasars using an optimal quadratic estimator in four redshift slices with an accuracy of ∼ 25% over a bin width of δl ∼ 10−15 on scales corresponding to matter-radiation equality and larger (0ℓ ∼ 2−3). Observational systematics can strongly bias clustering measurements on large scales, which can mimic cosmologically relevant signals such as deviations from Gaussianity in the spectrum of primordial perturbations. We account for systematics by employing a new method recently proposed by Agarwal et al. (2014) to the clustering of photometrically classified quasars. We carefully apply our methodology to mitigate known observational systematics and further remove angular bins that are contaminated by unknown systematics. Combining quasar data with the photometric luminous red galaxy (LRG) sample of Ross et al. (2011) and Ho et al. (2012), and marginalizing over all bias and shot noise-like parameters, we obtain a constraint on local primordial non-Gaussianity of fNL = −113+154−154 (1σ error). We next assume that the bias of quasar and galaxy distributions can be obtained independently from quasar/galaxy-CMB lensing cross-correlation measurements (such as those in Sherwin et al. (2013)). This can be facilitated by spectroscopic observations of the sources, enabling the redshift distribution to be completely determined, and allowing precise estimates of the bias parameters. In this paper, if the bias and shot noise parameters are fixed to their known values (which we model by fixing them to their best-fit Gaussian values), we find that the error bar reduces to 1σ ≃ 65. We expect this error bar to reduce further by at least another factor of five if the data is free of any observational systematics. We therefore emphasize that in order to make best use of large scale structure data we need an accurate modeling of known systematics, a method to mitigate unknown systematics, and additionally independent theoretical models or observations to probe the bias of dark matter halos.


An effective approach is presented for simulation of thin resistive sheets in FDTD. The approach is based on surface impedance and piecewise linear recursive convolution technique. This approach can be combined with conformal scheme so that it can be applied to deal with arbitrarily shaped thin sheet. The simulation results for a couple of examples have shown that the approach is robust, stable and quite accurate.


Currently, small retail stores with low technology budgets such as those right here in San Luis Obispo are struggling to integrate new technologies into their companies. This mobile application built for iOS with a Firebase backend is seeking to remove their barriers to entry. I built this application to give small retail stores a customizable application that allows them to display products electronically to customers and maintain accurate inventory both in one place. The construction of this application hinged around three major design decisions: UI design of the color management views, organization of the database, and accessing the database with optimized data queries. Anticipated future improvements are the addition of a tabbed controller for product detail pages, a section store map for clothing locations, and custom store sales events.


In mice carrying the autosomal recessive gene weaver, there is a massive postnatal loss of dopamine in the caudoputamen, the target of the nigrostriatal system, with relative (though not complete) preservation of dopamine in the ventral striatum, a target of the mesolimbic system. There is concomitant death of catecholaminergic neurons in the substantia nigra, with much less cell death in the limbic midbrain area. In the study reported here, we have reexamined the mesostriatal system of weaver mice by means of tyrosine hydroxylase (TH) immunohistochemistry in order to determine the local architecture of the defect within the striatum and substantia nigra. For the dorsal striatum, the most striking finding was the appearance in the weaver caudoputamen of small pockets of especially weak immunostaining within a larger dorsal zone of generally reduced TH-positive neuropil. These pockets were identified as striosomes by calbindin28k and met- enkephalin immunohistochemistry carried out on adjacent sections. In dorsal, central, and caudal sectors of the caudoputamen, there was also more generalized depletion of TH-immunoreactive neuropil. In the mid- brains of the mutants, the patterns of loss of TH-positive neurons appeared to correspond to these distributions of reduced immunostaining in the striatum. In the substantia nigra pars compacta, ventrally situated TH-positive neurons were especially affected, suggesting preferential depletion of TH-positive neurons projecting to striosomes. In addition, there was a central sector of nearly complete loss of TH- positive neurons in the substantia nigra para compacta and a marked depletion of TH-positive neurons in cell group A8 that, together, may have accounted for the diminution of TH-positive innervation of the striatal matrix. We conclude that the effects of the weaver gene discriminate among mesostriatal subsystems not only according to the regional affiliations of these subsystems within the dorsal and ventral striatum, but also according to the preferential association of the subsystems for the striosomal and matrical compartments of the caudoputamen. The depletion of TH-positive innervation was not confined to the dorsal striatum proper. The defect extended into the adjoining nucleus accumbens, where it appeared to affect the lateral "core" division, and included also a lateral part of the olfactory tubercle. Thus, as in the dorsal striatum, the defect in the TH-positive innervation of the ventral striatum closely follows the local architecture of this striatal region. Neuronal loss in the ventral tegmental area was not evident on qualitative analysis, but at the border between lateral cell group A 10 and medial cell group A9 there was obvious loss of immunostained neurons.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)


The Holocaust and the Nazi regime that perpetrated it have long been characterised as paradigmatic frameworks through which to view the subject of (genocidal) violence. Such violence took various forms, from systematic physical harm against the body (individual and en masse) to emotional and psychological trauma through an intentional policy of dehumanisation. However, the fraught issue of the violence of victims toward other victims – which often took place as a result of the racialised hierarchies created by the perpetrators and the various positions of 'privilege' allocated to certain prisoners – has attracted minimal critical attention. Drawing on Primo Levi's concept of the 'grey zone', we examine the situations of Jewish prisoners who held such positions, invariably under extreme coercion from Nazi overseers, which raise questions of moral ambiguity, 'compromise', and agency in their violence. We take as case studies the testimonies of two Jewish victims who held positions of 'privilege' in the Otwock Ghetto and Auschwitz respectively: Calel Perechodnik and Paul Steinberg. Examining their strategies for representing (their own and others') violence, and the implicit and explicit judgements passed on this behaviour, we argue that engaging with the fundamental problems of judgement and representation in an ethical manner allows for a deeper understanding of violence in the Holocaust. This introduces another potential kind of violence: the violence of representation.


The following information is supplemental to the Concur Booking Travel Skillsoft course and may be helpful as you book university travel. PSC Website The PSC website contains information on travel policies, procedures, and instructions. The Travel page [2] offers information about the university's managed travel program and top travel links. The Travel Card The Travel Card is used by the cardholder to cover most expenses related to official university business travel. Successful completion of the online Travel and Travel Card course (including passing the quiz) is required in order to obtain the card. Take the course The Travel and Travel Card course is delivered online in SkillSoft. Log in to your campus portal and on the CU Resources Home tab, click the Skillsoft tile. Launch the Concur Booking Travel course. [3] To request the Travel Card, submit the Cardholder Application – Travel Card [4] form, available on the PSC Forms [5] page. Travel Card Handbook is available here [6]. Updating Your Profile Before booking travel, you should complete your profile in Concur [7]. Your profile is where you'll identify Travel Arrangers and/or expense delegates. A travel arranger (also called a travel assistant) is an individual authorized to book travel on behalf of another person in Concur. Learn how to identify travel arrangers [8]. A delegate is an individual authorized to process expense reports on behalf of another person in Concur. Learn how to identify delegates [9]. Concur Travel & Expense Learning Resources How-to videos and instructions [10] are available online. PSC COMMUNICATOR Newsletter The PSC newsletter [11] frequently includes information on travel.


Abstract. The compilation and reconstruction of a dataset integrated by 66 long monthly precipitation series, covering mainland Spain and the Balearic Islands, is presented. The reconstruction is based on the hypothesis that the cessation of data recording at one observatory is followed by the establishment of a new observatory very close to the closed one. In order to detect and adjust for possible multiple change points or shifts that could exist in the precipitation series, the R-package CLIMATOL V2.0 is used. This method enables to take advantage of the whole historical Spanish precipitation network in the detection and correction of inhomogeneities. The analysis of annual precipitation trends indicate a high temporal variability. Negative trends dominate for the period 1951–2008 but not for all observatories. On the other hand, positive trends can be detected in the northern Spain for 1902–2008.


Urinary incontinence (UI) is a major public health issue and considered to be undertreated, costly and often lead to suffering for patients. Close relatives involved in caring for sufferers describe UI as a complicated problem. For older patients, close relatives and staff, it is important with high absorption UI pads in order to have an undisturbed nightly rest and to prevent bedsores. The aim was twofold: to understand older persons', close relatives' and nursing staff's views and experiences of UI, and their experience of using a particular UI pad system with an alarm. A qualitative design with individual and focus-group interviews was used to describe 6 patients', 14 close relatives' and 22 staff's experience of UI. These were analysed by using qualitative manifest analysis. The findings were divided into four categories. The patients expressed that they, due to UI, regarded themselves as burdens to others. The patients, the relatives and some staff experienced UI as a natural consequence of ageing. The UI pad system appeared to be a functional incontinence aid during the night, but more research is needed to develop the product and to find new fields of applications. From all perspectives, it appears that nursing cannot be replaced by technology, though the UI pad system can be a very useful complement in UI nursing care. Complementary use of the UI pad system might lead to a more economically effective and safe use of the existing nursing resources.


In this paper, we study the internal and external structure of a Frisian syntactic construction which consists of two parts, the second part being introduced by the element en 'and' followed by a moved verb form. As to the external structure, we argue that the generally accepted distinction of this construction in a coordinated type and a subordinated type has to be replaced with two types of subordination. This analysis opens a perspective on the historical development of this construction that does not have to call upon an a priori implausible form of grammatical reconstruction. As to the internal structure, we give special attention to a possible approach of the way the implicit subject of the construction is identified.


In this paper, we set out to explore some of the many ways in which Social Network
Analysis (SNA) can be applied to the field of security. In particular, we investigate what
information someone (e.g., an attacker) could infer if they were able to gather data on a
person's friend-groups or device communications (e.g., email interactions) and whether
this could be used to predict the "hierarchical importance" of the individual. This research
could be applied to various social networks to help with criminal investigations by
identifying the users with high influence within the criminal gangs on DarkWeb Forums, in
order to help identify the ring-leaders of the gangs. For this study we conducted an initial
investigation on the Enron email dataset, and investigated the effectiveness of existing
SNA metrics in establishing hierarchy from the social network created from the email
communications metadata. We then tested the metrics on a fresh dataset to assess the
practicality of our results to a new network.


Achieving cell adhesion, growth and homeostasis on an underlying biomaterial surface may be a desirable feature in implant device design and tissue engineering. Insight has been gained from numerous cell patterning strategies where spatial cues and physical constraints have been shown to regulate the structure and function of cells. Despite significant advances in modifying substrates for cellular attachment, migration and proliferation, the achievement of confluent and aligned growth of functional endothelial cells on cardiovascular blood-contacting implants under physiologically significant wall shear stress has proven difficult. Recently we have reported on a method that enhances cellular adhesion under flow conditions on synthetic polymer surfaces, without reliance on pro-adhesive protein biomaterials, which are often thrombogenic. In this method we utilize electron beam lithography and size-dependent self-assembly to fabricate line arrays of nanowells allowing entrapment and retention of charged nanoparticles, covalently conjugated with a RGD adhesive ligand, GRGDSPK. This approach is an additive strategy of combining substrata topographic alteration, electrostatic charge and biochemical ligands, all uniquely incorporated as an ensemble of charged, ligand-bearing nanoparticles entrapped in arrays of nanowells. However, the modulation of endothelial cell physiologic mechanisms as a result of ensemble surface exposure remains to be characterized.In this report, we extend our studies and probe cell physiologic mechanisms altered as a result of nanofeatured surface exposure. We first examined the functional intactness or normalcy of endothelial cells adherent to the nanofeatured ensemble surface utilizing standard immunostaining and flow cytometry methods. We found β1-integrin expression dominated quiescent adherent endothelial cells while αVβ3-integrins expression was more common in migratory cells. Endothelial cells were noted to express high levels of PECAM-1 over time when exposed to nanofeatured surface and RGD peptides. For understanding the contribution of the nanofeatured surface (entrapped RGD conjugated nanoparticles) to cell adhesion, cytochalasin B was used to alter cell spreading. Confocal microscopy illustrated the uptake of nanoparticles in endothelial cells on composite surfaces, as well as the inhibition of this endocytosis by cytochalasin B. After prohibiting the cells from engulfing nanoparticles, we found an 80% reduction in cell adhesion; suggesting that an endocytic mechanism might play a role in maintaining cell adhesion. Nanofeatured ensemble surfaces appear to be good substrates for achieving a high level of EC adhesion, with maintained growth and stability.© 2013 ASME


There is no distinct explanation of the mechanism for the prepartal prostaglandin F2alpha (PGF2alpha) increase in pregnant dogs. While the PGF2alpha-synthase (PGFS, AKR1C3) mRNA expression and localization profiles have been previously investigated in canine utero/placental compartments, the availability and biochemical activity of the PGFS (AKR1C3) protein remain unknown. In order to better understand the regulation of canine uterine PGF2alpha availability and eventual prepartum release in luteolytic amounts in dogs, canine specific PGFS (AKR1C3) and 15-prostaglandin dehydrogenase (HPGD) antibodies were generated and used to characterize the expression, cellular localization and biochemical properties of PGFS (AKR1C3) and HPGD in the utero/placental compartments and corpus luteum (CL) throughout pregnancy and at prepartum luteolysis. PGFS (AKR1C3) expression was weak or absent in luteal samples. Uterine PGFS (AKR1C3) was up-regulated postimplantation and declined prepartum. The utero/placental expression of PGFS (AKR1C3) was identified in the superficial uterine glands throughout gestation and in the trophoblast cells within the feto-maternal contact zone during placentation, suggesting a possible role for PGFS (AKR1C3) in the trophoblast invasion. Utero-placental HPGD was up-regulated until postimplantation, lower at mid-gestation, and greatly suppressed at prepartum. Expression was routinely identified in the endometrial surface- and glandular epithelia, and positive signals were also observed in the trophoblast cells at the feto-maternal contact zone. The biochemical activity of recombinant PGFS (AKR1C3) and HPGD was confirmed after its expression in a heterologous system. The co-localization of HPGD with the PGFS (AKR1C3) expression suggests a modulatory role for the HPGD as a "gate keeper" of the supply of prostaglandin in the pregnant canine uterus.


A few years ago I attended a lecture by a well-known digital libraries researcher who, when discussing the issue of digital preservation, clicked forward to a PowerPoint slide that included Pablo Picasso's iconic ink illustration of Don Quixote, the placement of which seemed a little too conveniently symbolic to be accidental. Regardless of the presenter's intent, it is clear that the quest for sound and simple processes to support the management and preservation of electronic records—now often referred to as "born-digital" records—has remained a Quixotic one for many manuscripts curators and archivists, even more than two decades into . . .


Carica papaya L. is an important fruit crop grown by small- and large-scale farmers in Kenya for local and export markets. However, its production is constrained by papaya ringspot disease (PRSD). The disease is believed to be caused by papaya ringspot virus (PRSV). Previous attempts to detect PRSV in papaya plants showing PRSD symptoms, using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) and reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) procedures with primers specific to PRSV, have not yielded conclusive results. Therefore, the nature of viruses responsible for PRSD was elucidated in papaya leaves collected from 22 counties through Illumina MiSeq next-generation sequencing (NGS) and validated by RT-PCR and Sanger sequencing. Viruses were detected in 38 out of the 48 leaf samples sequenced. Sequence analysis revealed the presence of four viruses: a Potyvirus named Moroccan watermelon mosaic virus (MWMV) and three viruses belonging to the genus Carlavirus. The Carlaviruses include cowpea mild mottle virus (CpMMV) and two putative Carlaviruses—closely related but distinct from cucumber vein-clearing virus (CuVCV) with amino acid and nucleotide sequence identities of 75.7–78.1 and 63.6–67.6%, respectively, in the coat protein genes. In reference to typical symptoms observed in the infected plants, the two putative Carlaviruses were named papaya mottle-associated virus (PaMV) and papaya mild mottle-associated virus (PaMMV). Surprisingly, and in contrast to previous studies conducted in other parts of world, PRSV was not detected. The majority of the viruses were detected as single viral infections, while a few were found to be infecting alongside another virus (for example, MWMV and PaMV). Furthermore, the NGS and RT-PCR analysis identified MWMV as being strongly associated with ringspot symptoms in infected papaya fruits. This study has provided the first complete genome sequences of these viruses isolated from papaya in Kenya, together with primers for their detection—thus proving to be an important step towards the design of long-term, sustainable disease management strategies.


The structure of the control network of transnational corporations affects global market competition and financial stability. So far, only small national samples were studied and there was no appropriate methodology to assess control globally. We present the first investigation of the architecture of the international ownership network, along with the computation of the control held by each global player. We find that transnational corporations form a giant bow-tie structure and that a large portion of control flows to a small tightly-knit core of financial institutions. This core can be seen as an economic "super-entity" that raises new important issues both for researchers and policy makers.


While the first order effects of access to clean water and of personal hygiene and sanitation on health have been well documented, the effects of community hygiene and sanitation, along with personal hygiene and sanitation, have not been comprehensively studied. In this paper, incorporating the features of models from agricultural household (Bardhan and Udry, 1999) and reciprocal externalities (Dasgupta, 1993), we present a simple model of health externalities of households' hygiene and sanitation, showing how the choices of one household affects ill-health incidences of other households. Then using micro level survey data of 1,530 households in rural Uttarakhand, India, we show that both household and community hygiene are significant inputs in the determination of households' ill-health incidences (i.e. diarrhea, cholera, typhoid, dysentery, worm infestation and jaundice), with the latter having greater impact than the former, over and above effects attributable to households' socioeconomic status. That is, there is a large health externality of a household's hygiene and sanitation. In the presence of such health externality of households' hygiene and sanitation, which is strongly associated with the access to safe water, universal access to safe water may be required to combat water-related illnesses. This implies that the governments' consideration of alternative proposals to improve water services must be informed by health externalities in households' hygiene and sanitation, and in the provision of water across communities.


Viral haemorrhagic septicaemia (VHS) is a serious disease in several fish species. VHS is caused by the rhabdovirus viral haemorrhagic septicaemia virus (VHSV). To prevent spreading of the pathogen, it is important to use a fast, robust, sensitive and specific diagnostic tool to identify the infected fish. Traditional diagnosis based on isolation in cell culture followed by identification using, for example, ELISA is sensitive and specific but slow. By switching to RT-PCR for surveillance and diagnosis of VHS the time needed before a correct diagnosis can be given will be considerably shortened and the need for maintaining expensive cell culture facilities reduced. Here we present the validation, according to OIE guidelines, of a sensitive and specific Taqman-based real-time RT-PCR. The assay detects all isolates in a panel of 79 VHSV isolates covering all known genotypes and subtypes, with amplification efficiencies of approximately 100%. The analytical and diagnostic specificity of the real-time RT-PCR is close to 1, and the analytical and diagnostic sensitivity is comparable with traditional cell-based methods. In conclusion, the presented real-time RT-PCR assay has the necessary qualities to be used as a VHSV surveillance tool on par with cell culture assays.


This paper presents the analysis, design, and experimentation results of a photovoltaic energy management system with battery backup. The proposed system is capable of both grid-connected and islanded operations. The main advantage of the proposed system is that, in grid-connected mode, the inverter works as a current source in phase with the grid voltage, injecting power to the grid and controlling the dc-link voltage. The dc/dc converter manages the battery charge. In islanded mode, the inverter control is reconfigured to work as a voltage source using droop schemes. The dc/dc converter controls the dc-link voltage to enable the maximum power point tracking reference to be followed. An operation protocol is proposed to ensure the quality of the energy supply and minimize energy loss. A battery bank is connected to the dc link as energy storage for islanded operation mode. The aim of this paper is to show that the proposed system performs correctly, without dangerous transients for the inverter or the loads. Simulation and experimental results on a 3-kW prototype show the feasibility of the proposed control strategy.


The aim of this study is to question judges' approach from different perspective to forensic accounting profession which emerged to fight financial crime that increased and diversified as a result of abusing information and technology in the world. In the study litigation support dimension of forensic accounting has focused and tried to associate it with expert practices' current situation which is substitution of it in Turkey. According to the aim the study was carried out with the help of the Civil and Tax Court judges who are responsible for conducting financial dispute case in Turkey and who are the most likely to benefit from the forensic accountancy profession. Data was gathered from a total of six judges, three civil courts judges and three tax court judges, via semi-structured interviews. Interviews were conducted with staff from Ordu courthouse. Obtained data were analyzed by content analysis. According the results it has revealed that judges have no enough information about forensic accounting. They apply to experts very frequently for financial cases but according to them experts do not meet adequately their expectations and they don't have all qualifications that they must carry. In addition, it has determined that forensic accounting profession is necessary in our judicial system and by implementation of the profession problems resulting from experts like poor quality reporting and long duration of the cases will be decreased.


This research undertakes an examination of the employment opportunities and experiences of black Caribbean women in Canada, particularly within the context of the growing trend towards precarious jobs—casual, part-time and low paying—in the restructured Canadian labour market. The specific purview of this study is the labour history and employment experience of a representative group of black Caribbean women who work as Personal Support Workers in nursing homes across the Greater Toronto Area. A main concern of the study is to understand the ways in which precarious work affects these women's settlement and integration experiences, particularly their ability to gain economic independence; this, in turn, affects a number of variables related to their, and others, perception regarding their status and place in Canada. By focusing on the case of Personal Support Workers, the study aims to shed light not only on the employment experiences of black Caribbean women in this sector but also to examine more closely the policies and employment practices that create labour market "niches" or labour "segregation" along racial and gender lines.


Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) in developing countries are still constrained to seize the opportunity of trade liberalization as compared to their large counterparts. It has been argued that effective efforts to foster SME export require clear understanding of the factors that stimulate them to export. This study investigates the export stimuli of 385 Indonesian SMEs at different export stages (pre-exporting and exporting) and different internationalization pathways (domestically established exporter and born-global SMEs). Three types of export stimuli are consistently identified as the most important in all sub-samples: the presence of foreign buyers, the confidence in the products and the aspiration to find alternative markets. By contrast, two types of export stimuli are consistently found as the least important in all sub-samples: government support and Indonesian diaspora communities. The academic and policy implications of the findings are discussed.


This book is designed to help biologists who must create their own illustrations and artists who are confronted with unfamiliar biological subjects. The author, an experienced biological illustrator, gives practical instructions and advice on the consideration of size and of printing processes, choice of materials, methods for saving time and labor, drawing techniques, lettering methods, and mounting and packing the finished illustrations. She explains how to produce clear and attractive charts, graphs, and maps, so essential to science publications. Though this primer does not cover photographic techniques, it does include advice on retouching, cropping, and mounting photographs and on using photographs of biological subjects as aids in drawing. This second edition is updated to reflect the many technological changes in art materials and printing processes that have occurred since the book's first publication, and it includes an entirely new chapter on planning, designing, and mounting the poster presentations that have become an essential part of conferences held by scientific societies. Also included are the requirements and conventions peculiar to biological illustration and a bibliography of useful reference works. "Every biology student who intends to write a thesis deserves to own this book, as does the biologist who intends to publish or work up some visual aids for his own use. There is no reason to limit the concepts of this handbook to the field of biology; it should be useful to other specific areas of science."-Evan Lindquist, "American Biology Teacher" (from a review of the first edition)


Abstract. The dependence of scintillation caused by equatorial bubbles on the electron density in the post sunset anomaly cannot generally be determined because the irregularities that produce the scintillation obscure the measurement of the electron density. This work addresses this problem with the introduction of a new technique based on the finding that anomaly electron density is so regular that its LT distribution can be fit by a polynomial over its post-sunset extent. By means of this polynomial, gaps in the data caused by the irregularities can be inferred where otherwise not measurable. Observations are of amplitude scintillation at 1.5 GHz from the Marisat satellite and of NmF2 measured by ionospheric soundings at Ascension I. in Mar 2001 during solar maximum. The result is that the well defined maximum of the S4 scintillation index is a linear function of coinciding NmF2. Evidence that supports this result has been found in 3 differing cases: The first finds that both S4 and NmF2 decrease linearly with LT; the second, that both occurrence of scintillation and NmF2 increase linearly with F10.7 cm solar flux; the third finds a linear relation between occurrence of scintillation at 137 MHz and NmF2. The importance of these results is that scintillation is caused by the bubble, but its magnitude is determined by the magnitude of the electron density that the bubble intersects. A further implication is that, given the unpredictability of bubbles, if NmF2 could be predicted, the maximum level of S4 possible could be predicted if a bubble were to occur.


This study examines the interface between ethnicity and nationality in a nationalized educational site – the annual school trip – that took place in a Jewish high school in Israel that serves underprivileged ethnic groups. Based on ethnographic field work, I analyze how the Ashkenazi (central-eastern European origin) hegemonic national culture that is embedded in the field trip is worked out by the Mizrahi (Asian and north African origin) students, in light of their ethnic background and the ethnic Ashkenazi/Mizrahi division that characterizes the Israeli society. Although both groups share the same national sentiment, the analysis exposes the different ways the pedagogical practices used by the trip represented the national hegemonic culture and the ways it has been contested and reshaped along ethnic lines while reflecting the existing ethnic borders that the pupils were trying to widen.


Password-authenticated key exchange (PAKE) is where a client and a server, who share a password, authenticate each other and meanwhile establish a cryptographic key by exchange of messages. In this setting, all the passwords necessary to authenticate clients are stored in a single server. If the server is compromised, due to, for example, hacking or even insider attack, passwords stored in the server are all disclosed. In this paper, we consider a scenario where two servers cooperate to authenticate a client and if one server is compromised, the attacker still cannot pretend to be the client with the information from the compromised server. Current solutions for two-server PAKE are either symmetric in the sense that two peer servers equally contribute to the authentication or asymmetric in the sense that one server authenticates the client with the help of another server. This paper presents a symmetric solution for two-server PAKE, where the client can establish different cryptographic keys with the two servers, respectively. Our protocol runs in parallel and is more efficient than existing symmetric two-server PAKE protocol, and even more efficient than existing asymmetric two-server PAKE protocols in terms of parallel computation.


Several harbours along the Dutch Wadden Sea deal with large siltation rates and limited possibilities for developments. However, development of new harbour activities is needed for these harbours to be able to survive in the long run. As these harbours lie in or close to areas with a protected status, expansion is not straightforward. In this paper we illustrate that harbour development is possible when a Building with Nature approach is used. This approach facilitates a design in which the proactive utilization and/or provision of ecosystem services serves as part of the engineering solution. We introduce four Building with Nature concepts that can be used in harbour designs, i.e. 1) optimising dredging strategies, 2) enhancing saltmarsh development, 3) creating estuarine gradients, and 4) optimising flow patterns. Based on these concepts, three case studies have been identified and pilot projects initiated. In the Port of Harlingen a pilot has started in which an optimized dredging strategy is combined with saltmarsh development. Around the Port of Delfzijl an estuarine gradient is combined with a salt marsh. For the Port of Den Helder a new design was proposed in which the concepts of enhancing salt marsh development, creating estuarine gradients and optimizing flow patterns are combined. Our conclusion is that even in a UNESCO listed site such as the Wadden Sea, harbour development is possible when ecosystem services are used and provided for, and when a Building with Nature concept is put at the heart of an engineering design.


How could the body influence our thinking when it seems obvious that the brain controls the body? In How the Body Shapes the Way We Think, Rolf Pfeifer and Josh Bongard demonstrate that thought is not independent of the body but is tightly constrained, and at the same time enabled, by it. They argue that the kinds of thoughts we are capable of have their foundation in our embodiment -- in our morphology and the material properties of our bodies. This crucial notion of embodiment underlies fundamental changes in the field of artificial intelligence over the past two decades, and Pfeifer and Bongard use the basic methodology of artificial intelligence -- "understanding by building" -- to describe their insights. If we understand how to design and build intelligent systems, they reason, we will better understand intelligence in general. In accessible, nontechnical language, and using many examples, they introduce the basic concepts by building on recent developments in robotics, biology, neuroscience, and psychology to outline a possible theory of intelligence. They illustrate applications of such a theory in ubiquitous computing, business and management, and the psychology of human memory. Embodied intelligence, as described by Pfeifer and Bongard, has important implications for our understanding of both natural and artificial intelligence.


AIMS
The aim of this study was to determine whether simvastatin would protect against inflammation-induced aortic stiffening and endothelial dysfunction.

METHODS
Aortic pulse wave velocity (aPWV) and flow-mediated dilatation (FMD) were assessed three times, at baseline, after a 14 day administration of simvastatin or placebo and 8 h after Salmonella typhi vaccination in 50 healthy subjects.

RESULTS
Following vaccination there was a significant increase in aPWV in the placebo group (5.80 ± 0.87 vs. 6.21 ± 0.97 m s⁻¹, 95% CI 0.19, 0.62, P= 0.002) but not the simvastatin group (5.68 ± 0.73 vs. 5.72 ± 0.74 m s⁻¹, 95% CI -0.19, 0.27, P= 0.9; P= 0.016 for comparison). Whereas FMD response was reduced in the placebo group (6.77 ± 4.10 vs. 5.27 ± 2.88%, 95% CI -2.49, -0.52, P= 0.02) but not in the simvastatin group (7.07 ± 4.37 vs. 7.17 ± 9.94%, 95% CI -1.1, 1.3. P= 0.9, P < 0.001 for comparison). There was no difference in the systemic inflammatory response between groups following vaccination. However, there was a significant reduction in serum apolipoprotein A-I (Apo A-I) in the placebo, but not in the simvastatin, group.

CONCLUSIONS
Simvastatin prevents vaccination-induced aortic stiffening and endothelial dysfunction. This protective mechanism may be due to preservation of the Apo A-I lipid fraction, rather than pleiotropic anti-inflammatory effects of statins.


Multiple sclerosis is an autoimmune demyelinating disorder of the CNS, characterized by inflammatory lesions and an underlying neurodegenerative process, which is more prominent in patients with progressive disease course. It has been proposed that mitochondrial dysfunction underlies neuronal damage, the precise mechanism by which this occurs remains uncertain. To investigate potential mechanisms of neurodegeneration, we conducted a functional screening of mitochondria in neurons exposed to the CSF of multiple sclerosis patients with a relapsing remitting (n = 15) or a progressive (secondary, n = 15 or primary, n = 14) disease course. Live-imaging of CSF-treated neurons, using a fluorescent mitochondrial tracer, identified mitochondrial elongation as a unique effect induced by the CSF from progressive patients. These morphological changes were associated with decreased activity of mitochondrial complexes I, III and IV and correlated with axonal damage. The effect of CSF treatment on the morphology of mitochondria was characterized by phosphorylation of serine 637 on the dynamin-related protein DRP1, a post-translational modification responsible for unopposed mitochondrial fusion in response to low glucose conditions. The effect of neuronal treatment with CSF from progressive patients was heat stable, thereby prompting us to conduct an unbiased exploratory lipidomic study that identified specific ceramide species as differentially abundant in the CSF of progressive patients compared to relapsing remitting multiple sclerosis. Treatment of neurons with medium supplemented with ceramides, induced a time-dependent increase of the transcripts levels of specific glucose and lactate transporters, which functionally resulted in progressively increased glucose uptake from the medium. Thus ceramide levels in the CSF of patients with progressive multiple sclerosis not only impaired mitochondrial respiration but also decreased the bioavailability of glucose by increasing its uptake. Importantly the neurotoxic effect of CSF treatment could be rescued by exogenous supplementation with glucose or lactate, presumably to compensate the inefficient fuel utilization. Together these data suggest a condition of 'virtual hypoglycosis' induced by the CSF of progressive patients in cultured neurons and suggest a critical temporal window of intervention for the rescue of the metabolic impairment of neuronal bioenergetics underlying neurodegeneration in multiple sclerosis patients.


This case and its companion (UVA-F-1102) provide comprehensive coverage of a firm's decision to undertake an initial public offering (IPO). The company is a nonregulated financial firm in a rapidly growing area of consumer finance (high credit-risk automobile loans). The A case follows the firm from its first meeting with investment bankers to the determination of a preliminary IPO price range. In the B case, the firm's "road show" encounters a "cold-issue" market, and Eagle is unable to sell its shares at a price near the preliminary file range. Management is confronted with the tough choice of whether to proceed with the IPO or cancel it. The cases provide a rich opportunity to compare management's internal valuation of the firm (derived from market multiples and discounted cash-flow analysis) with the market's assessment of value. Excel spreadsheet files are available for use with this case (UVA-S-F-1095) and its teaching note.


Communication technologies are critical in achieving potential advantages of smart gird (SG), as they enable electric utilities to interact with their devices and customers. This paper focuses on the integration of a massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) technique into a SG communication architecture. Massive MIMO has the benefits of offering higher data rates, whereas operating a large number of antennas in practice could increase the system complexity and energy consumption. We propose to use antenna selection to preserve the gain provided by the large number of antennas, and investigate an energy efficient massive MIMO system design for SG communications. Specifically, we derive a closed-form asymptotic approximation to the system energy efficiency function in consideration of channel spatial correlation, which exhibits an excellent level of accuracy for a wide range of system dimensions in SG communication scenarios. Based on the accurate approximation, we propose a novel antenna selection scheme aiming at maximizing the system energy efficiency, using only the long-term channel statistics. Simulation results show that the proposed antenna selection scheme can always achieve an energy efficiency gain compared to other selection schemes or baseline systems without antenna selection, and thus is particularly valuable for enabling an energy efficient communication system of the SG.


This paper proposes a theoretically based and easy-to-implement way to measure the systemic risk of financial institutions using publicly available accounting and stock market data. The measure models the credit enhancement taxpayers provide to individual banks in the Merton tradition (1974) as a combination put option for the deep tail of bank losses and a knock-in stop-loss call on bank assets. This model expresses the value of taxpayer loss exposure from a string of defaults as the value of this combination option written on the portfolio of industry assets. The exercise price of the call is the face value of the debt of the entire sector. We conceive of an individual bank's systemic risk as its contribution to the value of this sector-wide option on the financial safety net. To the extent that authorities are slow to see bank losses or reluctant to exercise the call, the government itself becomes a secondary source of systemic risk. We apply our model to quarterly data over the period 1974-2013. The model indicates that systemic risk reached unprecedented highs during the financial crisis years 2008-2009, and that bank size, leverage, and asset risk are key drivers of systemic risk.


RC4 Stream Cipher and Its Variants is the first book to fully cover the popular software stream cipher RC4. With extensive expertise in stream cipher cryptanalysis and RC4 research, the authors focus on the analysis and design issues of RC4. They also explore variants of RC4 and the eSTREAM finalist HC-128. After an introduction to the vast field of cryptology, the book reviews hardware and software stream ciphers and describes RC4. It presents a theoretical analysis of RC4 KSA, discussing biases of the permutation bytes toward secret key bytes and absolute values. The text explains how to reconstruct the secret key from known state information and analyzes the RC4 PRGA in detail, including a sketch of state recovery attacks. The book then describes three popular attacks on RC4: distinguishing attacks, Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) protocol attacks, and fault attacks. The authors also compare the advantages and disadvantages of several variants of RC4 and examine stream cipher HC-128, which is the next level of evolution after RC4 in the software stream cipher paradigm. The final chapter emphasizes the safe use of RC4. With open research problems in each chapter, this book offers a complete account of the most current research on RC4. It not only covers the basics of cryptography, but also provides a comparative study of RC4 with other stream ciphers.


Spent Pot Lining (SPL) is produced in thousands of tons annually as a waste from the aluminum industry. SPL is classified into two types, 1st and 2nd Cut SPL. The 1st cut, which is the material under investigation in this study, is a contaminated graphite/ceramics material (50 - 60% of graphite) that is used in lining the electrolytic cell within which aluminum is produced by the reduction of molten Al2O3. 1st Cut SPL is considered as a hazardous material since it contains many other contaminants such as fluorides, cyanides, lead and chromium in addition to its production of flammable gases when it comes in contact with water e.g. ammonia, phosphine, hydrogen and methane. The aim of this study is threefold: (i) fully characterize the 1st Cut SPL produced by Qatalum in Qatar to help in creating the materials safety data sheet (MSDS), (ii) chemically treat this 1st Cut SPL in order to extract the graphite component to use it in other applications in addition to the Cryolite and finally (iii) use the extracted graphite in removing heavy metal ions from aqueous solutions. In this work, the first treatment for 1st Cut SPL was washing it with deionized water. The produced gases were collected in gas bags and characterized using GC-MS which confirmed the evolution of H2 gas when the 1st Cut SPL comes in contact of water. The second step was washing the 1st Cut SPL powder several times with organic solvents to dissolve the existing organic compounds and characterize the eluent using HPLC-MS technique to identify the dissolved organics. A thermal treatment to get rid of the undissolved organic materials was done. Next, surface characterization was carried out for the dried powder which confirmed the absence of any organic materials. Later, the powder was treated with cycles of different concentrations of NaOH, HNO3 and deionized water to remove the remaining inorganic contaminants. The eluents, resulted from the chemical treatment and washing processes, were collected and analyzed using HPLC-MS and ICP. The purity of the produced graphite powder was characterized using XRD to check its purity. The produced graphite powder was functionalized through boiling in 1:1 of H2SO4 : HNO3, washing with deionized water, hot NaOH and finally with deionized water to increase the carboxylate groups on the graphite surface which increases the negative charge on the graphite's surface once mixed with water. The functionalized graphite was proved to Cu ions from aqueous solutions at different pH values with efficiency close to 100 % at pH 10.


We have analyzed by nucleotide analog interference mapping (NAIM) pools of precursor or mature tRNA molecules, carrying a low level of Rp-RMPalphaS (R = A, G, I) or Rp-c7-deaza-RMPalphaS (R = A, G) modifications, to identify functional groups that contribute to the specific interaction with and processing efficiency by Escherichia coli RNase P RNA. The majority of interferences were found in the acceptor stem, T arm, and D arm, including the strongest effects observed at positions G19, G53, A58, and G71. In some cases (interferences at G5, G18, and G71), the affected functional groups are candidates for direct contacts with RNase P RNA. Several modifications disrupt intramolecular tertiary contacts known to stabilize the authentic tRNA fold. Such indirect interference effects were informative as well, because they allowed us to compare the structural constraints required for ptRNA processing versus product binding. Our ptRNA processing and mature tRNA binding NAIM analyses revealed overlapping but nonidentical patterns of interference effects, suggesting that substrate binding and cleavage involves binding modes or conformational states distinct from the binding mode of mature tRNA, the product of the reaction.


Pigment-based phytoplankton community composition and primary production were investigated for the first time in the Red Sea in February-April 2015 to demonstrate how the strong south to north environmental gradients determine phytoplankton community structure in Red Sea offshore regions (along the central axis). Taxonomic pigments were used as size group markers of pico, nano- and microphytoplankton. Phytoplankton primary production rates associated with the three phytoplankton groups (pico-, nano- and microphytoplankton) were estimated using a bio-optical model. Pico- (Synechococcus and Prochlorococcus sp) and Nanophytoplankton (Prymnesiophytes and Pelagophytes) were the dominant size groups and contributed to 49% and 38%, respectively, of the phytoplankton biomass. Microphytoplankton (diatoms) contributed to 13% of the phytoplankton biomass within the productive layer (1.5 Zeu). Sub-basin and mesoscale structures (cyclonic eddy and mixing) were exceptions to this general trend. In the southern Red Sea, diatoms and picophytoplankton contributed to 27% and 31% of the phytoplankton biomass, respectively. This result induced higher primary production rates (430 ± 50 mgC m-2 d-1) in this region (opposed to CRS and NRS). The cyclonic eddy contained the highest microphytoplankton proportion (45% of TChla) and the lowest picophytoplankton contribution (17% of TChla) while adjacent areas were dominated by pico- and nanophytoplankton. We estimated that the cyclonic eddy is an area of enhanced primary production, which is up to twice those of the central part of the basin. During the mixing of the water column in the extreme north of the basin, we observed the highest TChla integrated (40 mg m-2) and total primary production rate (640 mgC m-2 d-1) associated with the highest nanophytoplankton contribution (57% of TChla). Microphytoplankton were a major contributor to total primary production (54%) in the cyclonic eddy. The contribution of picophytoplankton (Synechococcus and Prochlorococcus sp) reached maximum values (49%) in the central Red Sea. Nanophytoplankton seem to provide a ubiquitous substantial contribution (30-56%). Our results contribute to providing new insights on the spatial distribution and structure of phytoplankton groups. An understanding and quantification of the carbon cycle in the Red Sea was made based on estimates of primary production associated with pico-, nano- and microphytoplankton.


The great advances in information and communication technology (ICT) have made it possible for individuals to live, learn, work, communicate and undertake leisure activities in a different and better way. In addition, the current world order requires quality systems which are efficient, accurate, and fast for operation and service delivery. For this reason, technologies and especially the ICTs open up new horizons that provide avenues and strategies leading to the emergence of new perspectives and approaches. In education, some of the emerging perspectives considered in the paper include: the changing learning environments, learner profiles, and roles of the teacher; adoption and integration of educational technologies; emphasis on quality; and the institutional ranking systems. Technology is being used to enhance learning as well as facilitate teaching in the classroom and virtually at a distance across all disciplines and levels. The impact of technology on the quality of education delivery has been tremendous. The development of self -learning instructional materials and use of learner/content management systems through blended and e-learning have enhanced the quality, structure, delivery, monitoring, evaluation, flexibility and access to content. By levering into the multiple technological tools that are available for teaching and learning today, we are better equipped to enhance learning and teaching at the same time. However, despite the positive impact, there are issues and challenges which must be addressed, ranging from costs associated with development and maintenance of infrastructure, sustainability especially with the high rate of obsolescence and training of staff to acquire the appropriate skills, to changing the mind-set of those responsible for the provision of education to accommodate and appropriately invest in emerging trends. Examples used in the paper are drawn mainly from our experiences through interactions with colleagues from different institutions and within our work environments.


This is an encyclopaedic, large-format book containing hundreds of illustrations. While not geared toward making conventional instruments, 'Musical Instrument Design' provides all the information that anyone (amateur or professional) should ever need to construct an amazingly wide variety of percussion, string, and wind instruments. Includes many designs along with parts lists and detailed construction instructions.


The incidence and severity of osteopenic bone disease in primary sclerosing cholangitis is poorly defined. Clinical, biochemical and radiographic assessment and bone mineral density measurements of the lumbar spine were carried out in two groups of patients. Group 1 consisted of 30 patients with advanced primary sclerosing cholangitis; group 2 consisted of 18 patients with newly diagnosed primary sclerosing cholangitis. Only one patient had bone pain. All patients were normocalcemic; two had elevated serum parathormone levels. Fourteen patients (47%) from group 1 but no patients from group 2 had low serum 25‐hydroxyvitamin D levels. Mean bone mineral density was significantly reduced in group 1 patients (0.97 ± 0.04 gm/cm2) compared with age‐matched and sex‐matched controls (1.25 ± 0.01 gm/cm2, p < 0.0001), and in 15 patients (50%) bone mineral density was below the fracture threshold (0.98 gm/cm2). The bone mineral density in group 2 was not significantly different from controls, and no patient was below the fracture threshold. In neither group did bone mineral density correlate with serum bilirubin, 25‐hydroxyvitamin D, fecal fat excretion, previous drug therapy or the presence of chronic ulcerative colitis. Histomorphometrical examination of bone from four group 1 patients showed increased bone resorption, reduced bone formation, moderate‐to‐severe osteopenia and no osteomalacia. In conclusion, severe osteopenic bone disease is common in advanced primary sclerosing cholangitis and, like that seen in other cholestatis diseases, is consistent with osteoporosis. (HEPATOLOGY 1991;14:257–261.)


The accurate dissociation energy and equilibrium geometry of the b3? state of 7LiH molecule is calculated using a symmetry-adapted-cluster configuration-interaction method in full active space. And the calculated results are 0.2580 eV and 0.1958 nm for the dissociation energy and equilibrium geometry, respectively. The whole potential energy curve for the b3? state is also calculated over the internuclear separation range from about 0.10 to 0.54 nm. The results are fitted by the Murrell-Sorbie function. It is found that the Murrell-Sorbie function form, which is mainly used to fit the ground-state potential energy function, is well suitable for the excited triplet b3? state. The vertical excitation energy from the ground state to the b3? state is calculated to be 4.233 eV. Based on the analytic potential energy function, the harmonic frequency of 610.88 cm^(-1) about this state is firstly estimated. Compared with other theoretical results, this work is the most complete effort to deal with the analytic potential energy function and the harmonic frequency of this state.


This paper presents a data management solution which allows fast virtual machine (VM) instantiation and efficient run-time execution to support VMs as execution environments in grid computing. It is based on novel distributed file system virtualization techniques and is unique in that: 1) it provides on-demand access to VM state for unmodified VM monitors; 2) it supports user-level and write-back disk caches, per-application caching policies and middleware-driven consistency models; and 3) it supports the use of meta-data associated with files to expedite data transfers. The paper reports on its performance in a WAN setup using VMware-based VMs. Results show that the solution delivers performance over 30% better than native NFS and can bring application-perceived overheads below 10% relatively to a local disk setup. The solution also allows a VM with 1.6GB virtual disk and 320MB virtual memory to be cloned within 160 seconds when it is first instantiated (and within 25 seconds for subsequent clones).


In the context of ambient-assisted living and monitoring activities and behaviors, the concept of smart homes/environments has emerged as a research and development field with many examples appearing in a range of different contexts (universities, research centers, hospitals, and residences). Recently, a smart lab called UJAmI based on ambient intelligence was created at the University of Jaén in order to provide an environment where solutions in assistive technologies could be developed. This paper presents the experience of developing this smart lab within its first year. The initial space assigned to the smart lab is described through the creation of the smart lab in five perspectives: the layout of the smart lab, the selection of the devices, the deployment of the middleware, the technical infrastructures, and the furniture. Finally, following our experience of creating the lab we reflect upon our experience and provide a set of guidelines and recommendations. Ongoing projects within this Smart lab are also introduced.


This Paper presents improvement and extension of previous methodology about timing steganography based on network steganography. The previous article uses time interval between two successive transmissions mixed with cryptography prior to hiding. However this improvement tend to extend and provide new methods based on time format such as hours, minutes, second, millisecond and Nanosecond etc. It further examine how to handle effect of different time zone and high precision timing for ultrafast timing such as millisecond, Nanoseconds, picosecond, femtosecond which human action is too slow for perfect timing. In addition, the extension based on TCP-IP status codes where each elements of set of status code are index and the index represents certain numeric of combination for hiding. Finally, the cryptography method is improved and extended to series based cryptography with any defined number of different cryptographic methods combined altogether with multiple keys generated dynamically. The methods for both cryptography and steganography was integrated and each module carefully tested for their feasibility and appropriate analysis, comparisons is presented too.


Narratives of Southeast Asia-US relations usually depict the flow of power as unidirectional. In most instances, the relationship is seen as being led by the US, and the Southeast Asian states take on the role of free riders. In other accounts, power is held by the small Southeast Asian states when they are able to "pull" the US into the security architecture of the region. However, given that the flow of power is indeed unidirectional, what explains why sometimes it is the US that seems to shape, influence, or steer the relationship, while at other times it is the Southeast Asian nations? The relationship has also been described as following certain types of rule or order: sometimes it is described as hegemony, while at other times it is characterized by hierarchy. What explains this assortment of international orders? Moreover, what makes one type of rule hold in a particular time period? It is offered in this dissertation that such a variation may be explained by the use of language games as a method of analysis. It is argued here that Southeast Asia-US relations have experienced various types of rule from 1954 to 2006 because of the change in the language games that these states play. Paying attention to language emphasizes the constant and active participation of actors in international relations, be they superpowers or members of the so-called Third World.


While economic theory is largely mute on the question of whether macroeconomic policies affect long-run growth, an examination of the experience of different countries over various periods and the policies they pursued, lends strong support to the idea that macro policies do play a role in the growth process. A macroeconomic policy framework conducive to growth can be characterised by five features: a low and predictable inflation rate; an appropriate real interest rate; a stable and sustainable fiscal policy; a competitive and predictable real exchange rate; and a balance of payments that is regarded as viable. Countries with these macroeconomic characteristics tend to grow faster than those without them, though there are many individual cases of both developing and developed countries suggesting that satisfying only some of these conditions does not sustain strong growth. It is also important to recognise that the direction of causation is somewhat ambiguous: while good macro outcomes should be conducive to growth, strong growth is also conducive to good macroeconomic outcomes. The paper presents a wide-ranging examination of both theoretical and empirical evidence on the many ways macroeconomic policies may influence economic growth. Given monetary policy's crucial role in determining the inflation rate in the longer run, there is a particular emphasis on the relationship between inflation and growth. The following five broad conclusions are drawn. First, although growth models assign a major role to capital accumulation, there is little evidence that aggregate investment yields excess returns, and so special policy incentives to boost aggregate investment appear inappropriate. Second, countries with low national saving invest less and grow more slowly than they would if saving were higher. Ultimately, the extent to which a country can rely on foreign savings to fund domestic investment and growth depends on the rate of capital inflow the market accepts as sustainable. For Australia, with abundant natural resources and a stable political environment, this may be higher than for many other capital importing countries. Third, declining national saving rates in many industrial countries are primarily a consequence of lower government saving, suggesting a need for reduced fiscal deficits. In Australia, however, private savings have also fallen substantially, suggesting a possible role for specific incentives to boost private savings. Fourth, when economies are near potential, short-run rises in output seem to be more inflationary than falls in output are disinflationary. This implies that macroeconomic policy acting pre-emptively to counter expected future demand pressures and quickly mitigating the effects of unexpected shocks has a positive effect on the level of output, compared with a more hesitant approach acting only when demand pressures have appeared. Further, provided inflation is kept close to its target in the medium term, policy which tolerates some short-term deviations of inflation from its target reduces fluctuations in real output and generates a higher long-run output level than a policy with the sole goal of keeping inflation close to its target. Finally, although most economists believe even moderate rates of inflation adversely affect growth, unambiguous evidence has been difficult to come by. There is still professional disagreement on the robustness of the empirical evidence, but it does appear that higher inflation, and the associated increased uncertainty about future inflation, adversely affects growth in the industrial countries. The gains from lower inflation appear to exceed the initial costs of reducing inflation within about a decade.


PURPOSE
To show that Cherenkov emission generated by megavoltage X-ray beams could be imaged in real time during external beam radiotherapy. Images of Cherenkov emission could be applied for quality assurance (QA) and estimate the superficial dose distribution for complex surface profiles.

METHODS
Cherenkov radiation has been documented to be generated by MeV external beam radiotherapy in both water and tissue. A typical breast cancer treatment plan was adopted to irradiate the breast and torso region of an anthropometric phantom. Images of Cherenkov emission have been taken by using a scientific-grade time-gated ICCD camera, synchronized to the LINAC pulse output, during treatment. Sampling depth depending on wavelength and angular distribution of Cherenkov photons (similar to Lambertian distribution) emitted from the surface have been investigated for different optical properties by Monte Carlo simulations in GAMOS and corresponding angular emission corrections have been applied. Registration of the 2-D Cherenkov emission images to 3-D surface profiles measured by motion monitoring system (Catalyst™, C-RAD) has been investigated.

RESULTS
The images show that superficial dose varies dramatically with complex surface profiles. Imaging of this can be done, with a typical acquisition time of 2 sec, based upon Signal to noise ratio of SNR=30 for a 10 MeV beam, suggesting that near real time surface dosimetry is possible during the treatment time. The spatial resolution achieved here was approximately 1mm.

CONCLUSION
Superficial dose can be imaged in realtime directly with a camera, capturing the Cherenkov emitted from the surface of the treatment region during external beam radiotherapy, and these surface dose images could potentially allow real time monitoring, quality assurance and decisions to be made about dose errors in complex treatment areas.


Purpose: Prostaglandin-endoperoxide synthase 2 (PTGS2, cyclooxygenase-2; a target of aspirin) produces inflammatory mediator prostaglandin E2 (PGE2), and contributes to colorectal neoplasia development. PTGS2-driven inflammatory responses can induce tumor expression of microRNA MIR21 (miR-21) that can increase local PGE2 level by downregulating PGE2-metabolizing enzymes. We hypothesized that the prognostic association of tumor MIR21 expression level in colorectal carcinoma might depend on inflammatory tumor microenvironment and be stronger in tumors expressing high-level PTGS2. Experimental Design: Utilizing 765 rectal and colon cancer specimens in the Nurses' Health Study and the Health Professionals Follow-up Study, we measured MIR21 expression by quantitative reverse transcription PCR, and PTGS2 expression by immunohistochemistry. Cox proportional hazards regression model was used to assess statistical interaction between MIR21 and PTGS2 in colorectal cancer–specific survival analysis, controlling for potential confounders including microsatellite instability, CpG island methylator phenotype, LINE-1 methylation level, and KRAS, BRAF, and PIK3CA mutations. Results: Tumor MIR21 expression level was associated with higher colorectal cancer–specific mortality (Ptrend = 0.029), and there was a statistically significant interaction between MIR21 and PTGS2 (Pinteraction = 0.0004). The association between MIR21 expression and colorectal cancer–specific mortality was statistically significant in PTGS2-high cancers (multivariable hazard ratio of the highest vs. lowest quartile of MIR21, 2.28; 95% confidence interval, 1.42–3.67; Ptrend = 0.0004) but not in PTGS2-absent/low cancers (Ptrend = 0.22). Conclusions: MIR21 expression level in colorectal carcinoma is associated with worse clinical outcome, and this association is stronger in carcinomas expressing high-level PTGS2, suggesting complex roles of immunity and inflammation in tumor progression. Clin Cancer Res; 22(15); 3841–8. ©2016 AACR.


We study the small-z limit of the structure functions for deep inelastic scattering in Quantum Chromodynamics. The standard approach to this process, based on the DGLAP equations, runs into difficulties in the small-x region due to the higher order corrections becoming large. As an attempt to overcome these obstacles we reinterpret the small-z limit in terms of high energy asymptotics. The relevant high energy formalism is developed in terms of Reggeon Field Theory, which leads to the BFKL equation for the scattering amplitude. These results are reviewed fully, for completeness. We then apply the resulting formalism to structure functions at small-z to determine the phenomenological implications of this high energy resummation. The DESY electron-proton collider HERA is presently exploring the region of the structure functions for x ≤ 10(^-3), Q(^2) ~ 10 GeV(^2) and the results of these experiments are compared with our theoretical analysis. The structure functions are a very inclusive measurement; so in order to try and focus on some cleaner indication of the BFKL behaviour we then turn to an analysis of dijet production in deep inelastic scattering. The results of the BFKL formalism are compared with standard analysis in terms of the DGLAP equations.


Russia and the EU have been engaged in a dispute over the legality of so called 'reverse gas flows', whereby Russian gas imports to EU countries are redirected back to Ukraine via Hungary, Poland and Slovakia. In September, however, Hungary opted to suspend these reverse gas flows, prompting criticism from some of its EU partners. Erin Marie Saltman writes that the decision is symptomatic of wider problems in the EU's relationship with Hungary: chiefly the country's willingness to put economic interests above EU solidarity and the inability of the EU to force its own members to comply with joint-standards.


This work presents a new topological methodology for critical measurements identification in observable networks. A measurement is said to be critical, in an observability sense, if its removal from the measurement set makes the associated system lose observability. The proposed methodology is based on the properties of both, observable measurement subnetworks (OMS) and redundant branch sets (RBS), for the first time proposed. To reduce the combinatorial bluster, the proposed method divides the measurements into two groups and classifies them into two phases. It allows identifying the critical measurements without any numerical calculation. Indeed, it is simple and fast. To clarify the proposed method and to demonstrate its simplicity, two examples are provided. The proposed method is successfully tested in the IEEE-14 bus system as well as in two realistic systems of Brazilian utilities. The first is a 121-bus system by ELETROSUL, and the other is a 383-bus system by Companhia Hidroele/spl acute/trica do Sa/spl tilde/o Francisco (CHESF).


This book traces the evolution of environmental principles from their origins as vague political slogans reflecting fears about environmental hazards to their embodiment in enforceable laws. Since the early 1970s environmental issues have taken on an ever increasing profile. This has been due in part to a fundamental change in the type and scale of risk posed by industry. Issues such as global warming, GM food, and BSE typify the new kinds of risk: potentially catastrophic consequences could ensue yet there is no scientific agreement over their precise causation, duration, and other concerns. Environmental law has always responded to risks posed by industrial society but the new generation of risks have required a new set of environmental principles, emerging from a combination of public fears, science, ethics, and established legal practice. This book shows how three of the most important principles of modern environmental law grew out of this new age of ecological risk: the polluter-pays principle, the preventive principle, and the precautionary principle. The author examines the legal force of these principles and in the process offers a novel theory of norm formation in environmental law by unearthing new grounds of legality, comparing environmental laws across Europe, the Unites States, and Australia. The book will be of interest to all with an interest in environmental law and policy, in the relationship between law and science, and in the ways in which political and ethical values can become embodied in laws.


This study investigated the relation between job demands and resources, psychological conditions, religious coping and work engagement of Reformed Church ministers. A cross-sectional survey design was used. Participants were 115 Reformed Church ministers (age range = 25 to 65, Afrikaans and males = 115). They completed the Job Demands Resources Questionnaire, Psychological Conditions Questionnaire, Work Engagement Scale and Religious Coping Questionnaire. Data were analyzed using multiple regression analyses. The results of this study suggest that psychological availability and psychological meaningfulness were strong predictors of work engagement. Psychological meaningfulness was best explained by the perceived intrinsic nature of the job. Psychological availability was best explained by low pace/amount of work, social support, autonomy, and religious coping. High emotional demands, congregational and social support, religious coping and psychological availability were statistically significant predictors of work engagement. Psychological meaningfulness mediated the relation between the intrinsic nature of the job and work engagement.


Ethernet passive optical network (EPON) is a technology viewed as an attractive solution to the "last mile" problem. The interleaved polling with adaptive cycle time (IPACT) is a remarkable medium access control (MAC) protocol for EPON. There are two aspects within IPACT. One is inter-optical network unit (ONU) scheduling. The other is intra-ONU scheduling. In this paper, we propose a systematic adaptive scheduling scheme to enhance the functions of IPACT on both the inter-ONU scheduling and the intra-ONU scheduling in order to achieve efficient bandwidth utilization of the EPON under unbalanced traffic and to provide class-of-service (COS) or differentiated services within an ONU. The simulation results show that our proposed scheduling scheme can improve the performance of the EPON system under unbalanced traffic loads and provide fair bandwidth allocation of the uplink to different types of traffic


The N ational Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), as part of its continuing research program for evaluating coal dust explosion hazards, has investigated several areas in which current practices may need to be updated in order to adequately protect mines against coal dust propagated explosions. In the United States, current rock dusting requirements remained largely unchanged since 1969. US Title 30 Code of Federal Regulations Section 75.403 is based on a coal dust particle size survey performed in the 1920s and later was supplemented by full-scale testing of the rock dust ability to inert a coal dust explosion. NIOSH recently conducted a comprehensive survey of US underground coal mines to determine the range of coal particle sizes found in dust samples collected from the mine entries. Due to advancements in technology and modern coal mining techniques, the current coal dust particles in intake airways are significantly finer than those found in the mines in the 1920s. According to past full-scale dust explosion test results, t he current rock dusting practices used in today's mines to inert a coal dust e xplosion may not be adequate. Other closely related issues such as rock dust testing methods and sampling procedures are discussed.


Understanding the inner workings of complex machine learning models is a long-standing problem and most recent research has focused on local interpretability. To assess the role of individual input features in a global sense, we explore the perspective of defining feature importance through the predictive power associated with each feature. We introduce two notions of predictive power (model-based and universal) and formalize this approach with a framework of additive importance measures, which unifies numerous methods in the literature. We then propose SAGE, a model-agnostic method that quantifies predictive power while accounting for feature interactions. Our experiments show that SAGE can be calculated efficiently and that it assigns more accurate importance values than other methods.


Violence in the New Testament and the Roman Empire: Ambivalence, othering, agency The various ways in and degrees to which the New Testament is associated with peace, or the end or absence of violence, have often been argued or at least assumed. In contrast more recently, some studies have also argued that the New Testament documents endured and tolerated, but at times also incited and sanctioned violence ‐ positions accompanied by various theories that have been offered to explain the prevalence of Biblical violence. The ambivalence of the New Testament texts regarding violence, particularly their virtually concurrent rejection and condoning of violence, mirrors the ambivalence of the New Testament's imperial setting. And, the agency regarding violence is situated variously by and through the documents addressing various socio-historical contexts in the agonistic first century CE, with the one common factor being the ubiquitous presence of the Roman Empire. It is argued that greater consideration for the impact of the imperial setting on the New Testament positions regarding violence provides an important starting point for and valuable insight in understanding the mixed messages (and accompanying tensions) of the New Testament concerning violence.