The Network-on-chip (NoC) designs consisting of large pack of Intellectual Property (IP) blocks (cores) on the same silicon die is becoming technically possible nowadays. But, the communication between the IP Cores is the main issue in recent years. This paper presents the design of a Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) based wrapper interconnect as a component of System on programmable chip (SOPC) builder to communicate between IP cores. In the proposal, only bus lines that carry address and data signals are CDMA coded. CDMA technology has better data integrity, channel continuity, channel isolation, and also mainly it reduces the no.of lines in the bus architecture for transmitting the data from master to slave.


BACKGROUND
Slowed gait is an important health indicator in older adults but a single identifiable cause is often lacking. We assessed whether a summary index measuring impairments across multiple physiologic systems was associated with slowed gait in older individuals.

METHODS
Data from the Cardiovascular Health Study (n = 3,010) were used to assess associations between baseline physiologic index (measuring vasculature, brain, kidneys, lungs, and glucose metabolism; range 0-10 with 0-2 points/system and lower score indicating higher function) and annual gait speed (m/s) over 6 years. Participants with complete data on the physiologic index and at least two gait speed measures were included. Mean gait speed and 95% confidence intervals (CI) by category of index were calculated using mixed effects models.

RESULTS
Those with scores of three or higher on the index had significantly slower gait speed at baseline compared to those with scores of 0-2 (7-10: mean speed = 0.83 m/s, 95% CI: 0.80, 0.84; 0-2: mean speed = 1.01 m/s, 95% CI: 0.99, 1.03). Those with higher indices also had faster decline in gait speed compared to those with lower scores after adjustment for demographic and health characteristics (7-10: change in speed = -0.020 m/s/year, 95% CI: -0.024, -0.016; 0-2: change in speed= -0.010 m/s/year, 95% CI: -0.014, -0.006).

CONCLUSIONS
Greater impairment across five organ systems was associated with slower gait speed and greater declines in gait speed over 6 years. Impairments accumulated over multiple physiologic systems may make older adults more vulnerable to slow gait speed.


This work is devoted to a robust splitting method applied to solve the time dependent incompressible Navier-Stokes equation. The proposed method is based on analytical step of computing and a vortex method easy to handle to compute the velocities and a Poisson equation to compute the pressure. The Poisson equation is solved by an optimized domain decomposition method. Several test-cases of analytical problems illustrate this approach and show the efficiency of the proposed new method


We measured the stable isotope ratio of respired carbon dioxide at two spatial scales in a black spruce forest in northern Canada: CO 2 released from the forest floor and CO 2 released from the entire ecosystem at night. Despite wide variation in the δ 13 C values of organic matter among above-ground plant species, and along a continuum from moss through to the mineral soil, the carbon isotope ratio of respired CO 2 was quite similar to the δ 13 C value for the dominant black spruce foliage. The CO 2 released from the forest floor during the fall was slightly enriched in 13 O compared to CO 2 respired by the entire ecosystem, perhaps because soil respiration contributes a larger percentage to total ecosystem respiration later in the year as the soil warms. Short-term changes in the oxygen isotope ratio of precipitation and variation in enrichment of 18 O during evaporation and transpiration had significant effects on the δ 18 O value of respired CO 2 . Changes in the oxygen isotope ratio of water in moss tissue can have a large effect on total ecosystem respired CO 2 both because a large surface area is covered by moss tissue in this ecosystem and because the equilibration between CO 2 diffusing through the moss and water in moss tissue is very rapid. During the summer we observed that the δ 18 O value of CO 2 respired from the forest floor was relatively depleted in 18 O compared to CO 2 respired from the entire ecosystem. This was because water in black spruce foliage had higher δ 18 O values than moss and soil water, even at night when transpiration had stopped. DOI: 10.1034/j.1600-0889.1999.00018.x


The safe use of art or craft materials requires awareness and training. A host of toxic industrial chemicals and environmental pollutants are often found in these materials. Since The Artist's Complete Health and Safety Guide was first published in April, 1990, new research has changed the safety information about and threshold limit values for a number of chemicals used in art materials. This revised edition is a guide to using these potentially toxic materials safely and ethically. It is also designed to help art workers and teachers comply with health and safety laws in the United States and Canada. Coverage includes technical hazards information in plain language, tables of data on art materials ingredients, steps to comply with health and safety laws, safety checklists for studios and classrooms, detailed descriptions of safe practices, recommendations for proper protective equipment, and a list of non-toxic products for use by children and others who are especially sensitive to toxic substances.


This natural history of an environmentalist uses autoethnography through biographical interview to investigate the contextual analysis of influences affecting active pro-sustainability behavior, which is interpreted as environmentalism. Education for sustainability categories of environmental, socio-cultural, political and economic factors were used to identify factors that interact to influence affective and cognitive domains, which affect environmentalist behavior. These influences in reality operated symbiotically but for purposes of analysis they have been portrayed sequentially. The portrayal of the autoethnographer's vocabulary of motives and identity theory applied to group commitment were used as analytic tools. The research methodology employed provides a strategy for investigating biography, which gives access to lived experience as a basis for understanding factors influencing environmentalism. Processes of metacognition and reflexivity, supported by critical engagement with co-researchers, provide access to deep analysis of the biography. Whilst it was not possible to make statistical generalizations from a single case study it was possible to make limited qualitative generalizations, or in other words " moderatum generalizations." Subsequent examination of the natural histories of other life-long environmentalists would certainly not reveal detailed similarities in terms of specific biographical occurrences. However, the abstract categories of influence outlined provide a useful template for further investigating the process of activist identity development which we know little about at the present time. URN: http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs1301151


Background & Purpose: The seasonal demand for shellfish such as oysters is on the rise. Shellfish are nutritious foods that may be enjoyed in a variety of ways, from slurping raw oysters to cooking oysters by means of boiling, steaming, pan frying and baking. Most consumers of oysters are aware of potential food safety issues with shellfish. Raw or undercooked shellfish can carry bacteria, viruses and toxins, potentially resulting in foodborne illness. Past outbreaks associated with the consumption of raw and undercooked oysters, prompted the British Columbia Centre for Disease Control (BCCDC) to develop guidelines for those preparing, cooking and consuming shellfish. The recommended cooking temperature and time from the guideline was compared with the temperature and time of standard cooking methods from the Fanny Bay Oyster Market restaurant. The purpose of this project was to determine whether standard cooking methods from restaurants attain the guideline's recommended 90oC for 90 seconds.
Method: Four common cooking methods of Oysters were chosen based on recommendation from Chef Chris Andraza and BCCDC researcher Lorraine McIntyre. Oysters were pan fried, deep fried, baked and grilled. Internal temperatures of cooked oysters were then measured with a probe thermometer. Results for each method were analyzed and compared with the standard of 90oC using the one sample t-test from the statistical software package, NCSS11.
Results: One sample t-tests showed statistically differences from the deep fried, baked and grilled methods when compared to the standard of 90oC (p = 0.000). The power for all three methods was 100%, therefore there is confidence that the findings reflect the truth. Experimental temperatures were consistently less than the standard. The pan fried method showed no statistically significant difference when compared to the standard of 90oC (p = 135). The power for pan fried method was 29.2%, therefore there is limited confidence that the findings reflect the truth. Therefore the deep fried, baked and grilled methods required additional cooking time to raise internal temperatures of the oysters. Whereas the pan fried method had achieved the standard but further experimentation is required to eliminate the chance of a type II error.
Conclusion: It can be concluded that three out of the four cooking methods (deep fried, baked and grilled) can have significantly different mean temperatures. However, different thermal preparation methods prior to final thermal processing requires consideration to determine cooked oyster consumption safety. One out of the four cooking methods (pan fried) attained the standard temperature 90oC. Therefore, it is recommended for deep fried, baked and grilled cooking methods that the cooking time be extended to achieve an internal temperature of 90oC or higher.


In this paper, we propose several Maxwell's demon-like machines. Most of them are made from semipermeable membranes, thermal engines, and ideal gases. The presentation of each machine is followed by few thermodynamic calculations and conclusions. Most of solutions are done by means of classical thermodynamics but references to statistical thermodynamics are also done. Our demons are non-sentient, they act by natural processes [2]. Our hypothetical semipermeable membranes do all the work, without the need of external work, information storage or other entropy increasing mechanisms. As Maxwell's demon thought experiment has been widely used in papers regarding information entropy, computing etc we must clarify that our demons have nothing to do with the above, but only with a "thermodynamic" world.


Abstract. The time-dependent response of the Hadley circulation to a periodic forcing is explored via a simplified nonlinear axisymmetric model. Thermal forcing towards a given equilibrium potential temperature drives the model atmosphere. The vertical stratification of this temperature is forced to become periodically neutral with a period t0. Simulations performed with values of t0 ranging from 10 to 90 days exhibit stronger circulation compared to the results of a constant thermal forcing experiment. As the period increases, a transition occurs first from a stationary regime, obtained when forcing is constant, to a periodic (and possibly quasi-periodic) regime, and then to an intermittent regime, albeit one with a strong periodic component. The stream-function response to periodic forcing is generally a periodic oscillation, with two main frequencies dominating: one with a period equal or close to the forcing period and another with a period that is half of the forcing period. The former is dominant for values of t0 larger than 30 days, whereas the latter is prevalent for t0 smaller than 30 days. The periodic oscillations obtained in this model may be associated with the periodic oscillations observed in the tropical regions. In this case the periodic charge and discharge of moisture in the tropical atmosphere, with consequent change of stratification, may be linked to those oscillations. In the model, at forcing periods of over 63 days the response of the stream function periodically enters into a quasi-intermittent regime, exhibiting high-frequency chaotic oscillations that are modulated by the slow timescale of forcing. Sensitivity experiments for model parameters and configuration were performed to check whether results obtained are still valid under different conditions. Although for small changes of parameters the results are still valid, when parameters depart from the prescribed ones, we can observe change in the Hadley circulation dynamics.


Knowledge sharing is a process in which individuals exchange their knowledge (implicit and explicit) and they create new knowledge together. Knowledge is an Unlimited; unfailing and valuable source for organizations that cause to survive in competitive environment and can be used to achieve competitive advantage. We can say that survival power of today's Organizations is depending on their use of knowledge. Knowledge can be available to individuals and organizations, therefore, there must exit conditions in the organization that people be able to share their knowledge with other individuals. In such situation, organizations can improve employees performance and also organizations performance. Given that the gas company performs and provides services to the citizens, achieving such goals requires employees to have certain knowledge and sharing that with other employees. So the objective of this study is to determine the factors affecting on knowledge sharing (motivation and confidence) and its impact on employees performance in the Gas Company of Kurdistan Province. This study provides a model that includes variables such as motivation, confidence, knowledge sharing and performance in which the first two variables have been studied as the factors affecting on knowledge sharing. Statistical population of this study includes all of the executive employees in the Gas Company of Kurdistan province and statistical sampling included 124 people which were selected randomly. For collection of data a questionnaire was used. The standard questionnaire was used to design questions related to motivation, trust and knowledge sharing and to assess the employee's performance. The results showed that the factors of motivation and confidence are considered as factors affecting on knowledge sharing behavior and they enhance knowledge sharing, therefor they should be taken into consideration. In addition, the overall indices of model showed that the presented pattern is a good theoretical model for determining the effect of knowledge sharing on employees performance in which the data supported the model.  Generally the effect of above factors on knowledge sharing behavior and the effect of knowledge sharing on employees' performance in Gas Company was confirmed. Keywords: Knowledge Sharing, Motivation, Trust, Employees' Performance


This paper proposes a new application for face recognition task on mobile device. The originality of the work is based on the web service, able to store the normalized distances in the database, to verify the correct building of the classifier's model and to match the test normalized distances with the training normalized distances already stored in the database. This innovative technique is named Bridge Approach (BA). The Bridge Approach allows both to speed up the processing and to use the face recognition system in all locations where an internet network is available. The application uses the OpenCV library for dynamic targeting of face, eyes, nose and mouth and WEKA library for the classification purpose. Experimental results are carried out on 500 face images belonging to 10 individuals (50 images each). Finally, the main goal of the work is to show the performances in terms of computational time and classifier's accuracy. Keywords— Face Recognition System, Web Service Architecture, OpenCV, WEKA, Mobile device.


Nematodes are the principal animal parasites of plants, causing annual crop losses of more than US100 billion worldwide. Conventional control measures against nematode infection include toxic nematicide application to soil, crop rotation practices, and classical breeding approaches. However, due to the limitations of each technique, biotechnology presents itself as an effective alternative in nematode control. To date, several resistance genes against nematodes have been cloned. One such gene, Hs1pro1, cloned from wild sugar beet, Beta procumbens, shows resistance to the cyst nematode Heterodera schachtii. Recent studies showed that Hs1pro1 has a broad target pathogen range. In this study, we transformed Nicotiana tabacum cultivar Samsun plants with the Hs1pro1 gene and assayed transgenic plants for nematode resistance. Our analysis suggests that compared to wild-type plants, Hs1pro1-carrying transgenic plants are more resistant to 2 different root-knot nematode species, Meloidogyne incognita and Meloidogyne javanica. The results in this study support previous findings of the broad host range of Hs1pro1 and are promising in terms of the genetic engineering of economically important susceptible crop plants such as potato and tomato against nematode and secondary damage from other soil-pathogen damage.


The salient feature of a supercapacitor is its ability to deliver much higher power density than a battery. A hierarchical design and a cost‐effective approach to fabricate high performance supercapacitors using functional carbon nano‐particles is reported. A special arc synthesis method is used to produce amorphous/crystalline composite with nitrogen and boron co‐doped high charge density carbon nanoparticles. Upon etch removal of the amorphous phase in the composite nanoparticle, a crystalline carbon framework emerges, consisting of a mixture of nano‐graphitic sheets mostly in the middle and single nanohorns distributed around the surface of the nanoparticle. These nanoparticles have large internal/external surfaces with subnano channels and sharp nano‐tips for high speed charge transport and local charge accumulation. To deliver high power density, the internal resistance of the device is reduced by assembling the nanoparticles via electro‐spraying and compacting them into dense films (without any binder) under 700 MPa of pressure before supercapacitor assembly. Taken together, the hierarchical processed supercapacitor has a very high (compared to literature values) power density of nearly 4.5 kW cm−3 and a respectable energy density of 2.45 mWh cm−3. Combining these carbon nanoparticles with large area spraying coating, it can lead to a cost‐effective production of high performance supercapacitors.


This series of photos was shot on November 8, 2019 during a visit I made of operations of a development project conducted by NGOs KIARA (Indonesian) and Terre Solidaire (French) and funded by the Agence Francaise de Developpement (AFD). The November 2019 earthquake in North Sulawesi caused a localised tsunami which swept shore-lying houses and buildings in Palu. The earthquake and tsunami together led to the deaths of an estimated 4,340 people (source: wikipedia). The project consisted in supporting fishermen who had lost their boats in the tsunami by granting them with new traditional wooden boats. The visit was organized by Adeline Souf from AFD, Susan Gui from KIARA and KIARA field team. The photographs show the farmers finishing the boats they recently received, tsunami destruction, and a camp of refugees where some fishermen and their families could temporarily live. Together with Marta Menendez (University Paris-Dauphine), I previously conducted quantitative research on the long-term effects of earthquakes on household welfare in Indonesia (see article in Journal of Development Economics, vol.118, January 2016) and am continuing this line of research.


This experiment was conducted to investigate the effects of various starvation and refeeding periods on growth, feed utilization and body composition in Asian sea bass (Lates calcarifer) with an average initial weight of 30.26±1.4 g (mean±SE). The fish were exposed to three different regimes: the control group fed twice daily to apparent satiation throughout the experiment (C), the first group starved for 4 days and refed for 16 days, this cycle was repeated two times (T1) and the second group starved for 8 days and refed for 32 days (T2). At the end of experiment, there were not any significant differences in growth and feeding performance among different treatments (p>0.05). Daily feed intake was significantly higher in the deprived fish than in the control fish (p 0.05). Starvation had a significant effect on protein content on one sampling date during the experimental period; protein content in T2 on day 8 was significantly lower compared to the control (p<0.05). Sea bass showed complete compensation indicating a high ability of the deprived fish to grow sufficiently to fully compensate for weight loss during starvation. The results suggested that the feeding schedule involving starvation-refeeding cycles could be a promising feed management option for the culture of this species.


Background : Globally, invasive amphibians are known for their environmental and social impacts that range from poisoning of local fauna and human populations to direct predation on other amphibians. Although several countries on most continents have had multiple introductions of many species, southern Africa appears to have escaped allochthonous introductions. Instead, it has a small number of domestic exotic species that have rapidly expanded their ranges and established invasive populations within South Africa. Objectives & methods : We used the literature to provide a historical overview of dispersal by some of the world's major invasive amphibians, give examples of species that are commonly moved as stowaways and discuss historical and current amphibian trade in the region. In addition, we give an overview of new South African legislation and how this is applied to amphibian invasions, as well as providing updates on the introduced populations of three domestic exotics: Hyperolius marmoratus, Sclerophrys gutturalis and Xenopus laevis . Results : We show that frogs are mainly moved around southern Africa through 'jump' dispersal, although there are a number of records of 'cultivation', 'leading-edge' and 'extreme long-distance' dispersal types. Important pathways include trade in fruit and vegetables, horticultural products and shipping containers. Conclusion : We suggest that southern Africa is becoming more vulnerable to amphibian invasions because of an increase in trade, agricultural and domestic impoundments as well as global climate change. Increasing propagule pressure suggests that preventing new introductions will become a key challenge for the future. Currently, trade in amphibians in the region is practically non-existent, suggesting potential for best practice to prevent importation of species with high invasion potential and to stop the spread of disease.


Flash vacuum pyrolysis experiments were carried out between 500 and 800 °C on 3(5)-phenyl- and 3(5)-methyl-pyrazolinones and on 3(5)-methoxy-5(3)-phenylpyrazole. The origin of the isolated products (mainly indanone, hydroxyalkynes and α,β-unsaturated aldehydes) can be explained as arising from the hydroxy tautomers of pyrazolinones. Temperature effects on the tautomeric equilibrium of 1-phenyl-3-methylpyrazolinone in solution show that the percentage of the CH tautomer increases with the temperature. MP2 ab initio calculations on the model compound, pyrazolinone itself, have been used to rationalize these findings. The problem of the aromaticity of the four tautomers of pyrazolinone has been examined through Schleyer's NICS (nuclear independent chemical shifts) calculations.


The intensification of forest management, using fast-growing species well-adapted to future climate conditions is seen as a solution to guarantee a sustainable increase in the domestic timber production, while avoiding or minimising any risks associated with climate change. This paper reports on the findings of a research project that assessed the productivity of Sitka spruce (Picea sitchensis) on a range of site types under different climate change scenarios and stand density control methods (i.e. planting spacings and thinning intensities). To this end, an integrated approach was developed through a link between the Irish dynamic yield models (Growfor) and the CLIMADAPT software, the Irish Ecological Site Classification System. The results show that Sitka spruce is likely to produce yield class 14 or greater in most of Ireland by the end of the century, although its growth rate is expected to decrease in many parts of the country, especially in the south-east and some areas in the western regions, and alternative species may have to be used there. In general terms, stands planted at close spacings (1.7 m square) and thinned at light intensities (60-80% of marginal thinning intensity (MTI)), using a 5-year thinning cycle, would produce the greatest volume. When the management objective was to maximise the profitability rather than yield, applying light thinning intensities (up to the MTI) and planting a 3-m square was the best approach.


The annual global production of milk is approximately 630,000 million litres and the volume of generated dairy wastewater accounts for 3.2 m3·m-3 product. Dairy wastewater is characterized by a high load of chemical oxygen demand (COD). In many wastewater plants dairy wastewater and municipal wastewater are co-treated. The effect of dairy wastewater contribution on COD fraction changes in municipal sewage which has been treated with a sequencing batch reactor (SBR) in three wastewater treatment plants in north-east Poland is presented. In these plants the real contribution of dairy wastewater was 10, 13 and 17%. In raw wastewater, SS fraction (readily biodegradable dissolved organic matter) was dominant and ranged from 38.3 to 62.6%. In the effluent, SS fraction was not noted, which is indicative of consumption by microorganisms. The presence of dairy wastewater in municipal sewage does not cause changes in the content of the XI fraction (insoluble fractions of non-biodegradable organic matter). SBR effluents were dominated by non-biodegradable dissolved organic matter SI, which from 57.7 to 61.7%. In raw wastewater SI ranged from 1.0 to 4.6%. Xs fraction (slowly biodegradable non-soluble organic matter) in raw wastewater ranged from 24.6 to 45.5% while in treated wastewater it ranged from 28.6 to 30.8%. In the control object (fourth wastewater plant) which does not process dairy wastewater, the SS, SI, Xs and XI fraction in inflow was 28.7, 2.4, 51.7 and 17.2% respectively. In the effluent the SS, SI, Xs and XI fraction was below 0.1, 33.6, 50.0 and 16.4% respectively.


Aberrant crypt foci (ACF) are generally considered to be preneoplastic lesions for colon cancer. To assess their induction by 2‐amino‐1‐methyl‐6‐phenylimidazo[4,5‐b]pyridine (PhIP), a colon carcinogen, we performed a sequential study of ACF morphology and localization. F344 male rats were given PhIP, and methylene blue‐stained colon epithelium and isolated crypts were analyzed at weeks 12, 25, 50, and 75. Each crypt was classified into 2 groups, "single" with round bottoms and "bifurcating" displaying V‐shaped clefts (indicating proliferation). In combination with the number of crypts in an ACF, this classification was a good indicator for the generation of ACF in line with the fission mechanism of growth. Increasing numbers of crypts in ACF through weeks 12 to 75 and decreased percentages of ACF with bifurcating crypts at the late time points indicated that proliferation of crypts occurs predominantly during the early stages. The distribution pattern showed a significant shift (P < 0.000005) from the distal to the proximal part of the large intestine between weeks 25 and 50. Adenocarcinomas were first found to develop at week 50 in the ascending colon and cecum where bifurcating crypts were generally lacking at weeks 12 and 25. These data suggest the existence of (1) proliferating ACF which contains bifurcating crypt(s) and (2) quiescent or senescent ACF which consists of only single crypts.


Substitution of a destabilizing sequence has allowed crystallization of a key enzyme of the inflammatory response. Lipids that mediate the inflammatory response are synthesized from arachidonic acid by the enzyme 5-lipoxygenase (5-LOX). An intrinsic instability of 5-LOX has been proposed to regulate its activity. Structures of related enzymes have shown that the C terminus penetrates the enzyme so that the main chain carboxylate of the C-terminal residue binds the catalytic iron. Gilbert et al. identified a sequence that probably destabilizes the orientation of the C terminus in 5-LOX and, by substituting this sequence, were able to purify a stable enzyme and determine its crystal structure. The structure is consistent with the proposed mechanism of enzyme inactivation and provides a basis for the design of 5-LOX–specific inhibitors. N. C. Gilbert, S. G. Bartlett, M. T. Waight, D. B. Neau, W. E. Boeglin, A. R. Brash, M. E. Newcomer, The structure of human 5-lipoxygenase. Science 331, 217–219 (2011). [Abstract] [Full Text]


In recent years, biometric palmprint recognition system is one of the preferred research areas due to reach high accuracy even with the low resolution cameras. In recent studies conducted in this area, especially due to hygiene problems, images are taken in contactless and unrestricted environment. Despite a very successful improving methods have been developed for the images obtained in the restricted environment, shifts or projective distortions that occur in the palm pattern obtained from images taken in unconstrained environments negatively affect the success of this method. In this study, coding techniques that are commonly used palmprint recognition systems (Competitive Code, Ordinal Code, Derivative of Gaussian Filters Code) are strengthened with feature determinants (SIFT, SURF) and a new approach has been proposed. Scope of the study, a new data set consists of low-resolution images taken in unconstrained environments created and palmprint patterns obtained with the help of Active Appearance Model. First, performance rate of these coding techniques on the patterns were analyzed. Then, the advantages of 6 different approaches obtained by combining each feature determinant with each coding technique, is disclosed to the system.


Physical (e.g., temperature and light) and biogeochemical (e.g., cycling) parameters are known to affect bioavailability and toxicity of nutrients and pollutants to microorganisms. A system that would allow exposure of selected microorganisms to in situ conditions could provide relevant and novel evaluations of bioavailability. A simple and low cost 37 mL porous underwater chamber (PUC), in which test microorganisms are exposed to field conditions, is presented. The PUC is a thin, acrylic cylinder with polycarbonate membranes on each side, providing an optimal (75 cm2) exchange with the external solution. Regardless of the membrane pore size (0.4 and 5 µm), the PUC required 10 h to equilibrate with the external solution, close to the theoretical time determined for the diffusion of a model compound, the Suwannee River fulvic acid. For in situ use, the PUCs can be filled with filtered water to minimize the equilibration time. The system was validated in 20 to 60 L artificial freshwater by evaluating (1) Cd bioaccumulation by the microalga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii and (2) iron bioavailability to a cyanobacterial bioreporter in comparison with conventional bottle assays. The use of the PUC resulted in no significant differences in Cd uptake fluxes or iron bioavailability. Field experiments undertaken on Lake Erie demonstrated that the PUCs could be used to evaluate the contribution of particulate iron to iron bioavailability. Because the PUCs might not correctly reflect bioavailability for substances at low concentrations with high biouptake fluxes, a critical discussion with respect on the rate‐limiting steps of the device is presented. Several considerations that might facilitate the appropriate use of the PUCs are given.


During the next decade, data from a new generation of US geostationary and polar orbiting satellites will become available. To prepare for these data, representative imagery of these satellites is desirable. Two independent methods have been developed to create imagery from future satellites before they are placed into orbit. One method uses data from current operational and experimental satellites. Data obtained this way are referred to as simulated imagery. Another method generates satellite imagery by using numerical models. Data obtained by this method are referred to as synthetic imagery. Each method has some weaknesses that can be overcome by using both methods together. Synthetic imagery for two future US sensors is introduced in this paper. Emphasis is placed on a severe thunderstorm event.


Channel polarization is a phenomenon in which a particular recursive encoding induces a set of synthesized channels from many instances of a memoryless channel, such that a fraction of the synthesized channels becomes near perfect for data transmission and the other fraction becomes near useless for this task. Mahdavifar and Vardy have recently exploited this phenomenon to construct codes that achieve the symmetric private capacity for private data transmission over a degraded wiretap channel. In this paper, we build on their work and demonstrate how to construct quantum wiretap polar codes that achieve the symmetric private capacity of a degraded quantum wiretap channel with a classical eavesdropper. Due to the Schumacher-Westmoreland correspondence between quantum privacy and quantum coherence, we can construct quantum polar codes by operating these quantum wiretap polar codes in superposition, much like Devetak's technique for demonstrating the achievability of the coherent information rate for quantum data transmission. Our scheme achieves the symmetric coherent information rate for quantum channels that are degradable with a classical environment. This condition on the environment may seem restrictive, but we show that many quantum channels satisfy this criterion, including amplitude damping channels, photon-detected jump channels, dephasing channels, erasure channels, and cloning channels. Our quantum polar coding scheme has the desirable properties of being channel-adapted and symmetric capacity-achieving along with having an efficient encoder, but we have not demonstrated that the decoding is efficient. Also, the scheme may require entanglement assistance, but we show that the rate of entanglement consumption vanishes in the limit of large blocklength if the channel is degradable with classical environment.


[From the introduction]. We trace the insurance case through three policy processes. The creation of a single market in insurance proceeded through the traditional 'Community Method' of intergovernmental agreement in Council on directives which are then implemented by through supranational regulation in the form of decisions of the European Court of Justice (ECJ). Some of the central issues about the regulation of private insurance and the reform of social insurance are also addressed in the various deliberative fora that the EU now provides for nongovernmental as well as government policy actors to participate in exchanges about policy approaches, share information and resolve common problems. These fora include the European Employment Strategy (EES) and other OMCs. Our purpose in drawing attention to the interrelated impact of these three processes on this policy area is to challenge any assumption that social policy is addressed in the soft law processes of the OMCs while economic integration remains the domain of the hard processes of directives and legal cases. It is true that the OMCs work primarily as 'reform levers' providing ideational resources (and sometimes more) for member state governments seeking to reform their welfare states. However, these levers are also pulled by directives and Court decisions, so we see all three processes as affecting social policy through national-level policy shifts and responses to EU-level re-regulation.


The Markov Decision Problem (MDP) plays a central role in AI as an abstraction of sequential decision making. We contribute to the theoretical analysis of MDP planning, which is the problem of computing an optimal policy for a given MDP. Specifically, we furnish improved strong worstcase upper bounds on the running time of MDP planning. Strong bounds are those that depend only on the number of states n and the number of actions k in the specified MDP; they have no dependence on affiliated variables such as the discount factor and the number of bits needed to represent the MDP. Worst-case bounds apply to every run of an algorithm; randomised algorithms can typically yield faster expected running times. While the special case of 2-action MDPs (that is, k = 2) has recently received some attention, bounds for general k have remained to be improved for several decades. Our contributions are to this general case. For k ≥ 3, the tightest strong upper bound shown to date for MDP planning belongs to a family of algorithms called Policy Iteration. This bound is only a polynomial improvement over a trivial bound of poly(n, k) · k [Mansour and Singh, 1999]. In this paper, we generalise a contrasting algorithm called the Fibonacci Seesaw, and derive a bound of poly(n, k) · k. The key construct that we use is a template to map algorithms for the 2action setting to the general setting. Interestingly, this idea can also be used to design Policy Iteration algorithms with a running time upper bound of poly(n, k)·k. Both our results improve upon bounds that have stood for several decades.


Robust visual tracking for the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) is a challenging task in different types of civilian UAV applications. Although the classical correlation filter (CF) has been widely applied for UAV object tracking, the background of the object is not learned in the classical CF. In addition, the classical CF cannot estimate the object scale changes, and it is not able to cope with object occlusion effectively. Part-based tracking approach is often used for the visual tracker to solve the occlusion issue. However, its real-time performance for the UAV cannot be achieved due to the high cost of object appearance updating. In this paper, a novel robust visual tracker is presented for the UAV. The object is initially divided into multiple parts, and different background-aware correlation filters are applied for these divided object parts, respectively. An efficient coarse-to-fine strategy with structure comparison and Bayesian inference approach is proposed to locate object and estimate the object scale changes. In addition, an adaptive threshold is presented to update each local appearance model with a Gaussian process regression method. Qualitative and quantitative tests show that the presented visual tracking algorithm reaches real-time performance (i.e., more than twenty frames per second) on an i7 processor with 640×360 image resolution, and performs favorably against the most popular state-of-the-art visual trackers in terms of robustness and accuracy. To the best of our knowledge, it is the first time that this novel scalable part-based visual tracker is presented, and applied for the UAV tracking applications.


Analytical procedures for determining the response of soil deposits underlain by sloping rock boundaries to traveling wave base excitations are described and used to compare the seismic response for base motions moving with different velocities towards and away from the rock slope. It is shown that for waves traveling away from a rock slope, response amplitudes become higher as the velocity of wave propagation increases, so that maximum response is obtained for rigid base motions. The response values for base motions traveling towards a rock slope are shown to be always higher than the corresponding values when the base motions are traveling away from the slope. Based on the results of a number of cases analyzed it is concluded that spacial variations in base motions may be neglected in ground response analyses when the base motions propagate in a direction normal to the rock slope with a velocity of 5,000 fps or higher, or whenever the velocity of shear wave propagation in the rock or base material exceeds about 3,500 fps.


Herein a new multifunctional formulation, referred to as a core-polyethylene glycol-lipid shell (CPLS) nanoparticle, has been proposed and studied in silico via large scale coarse-grained molecular dynamics simulations. A PEGylated core with surface tethered polyethylene glycol (PEG) chains is used as the starting configuration, where the free ends of the PEG chains are covalently bonded with lipid molecules (lipid heads). A complete lipid bilayer is formed at the surface of the PEGylated particle core upon addition of free lipids, driven by the hydrophobic properties of the lipid tails, leading to the formation of a CPLS nanoparticle. The self-assembly process is found to be sensitive to the grafting density and molecular weight of the tethered PEG chains, as well as the amount of free lipids added. At low grafting densities the assembly of CPLS nanoparticles cannot be accomplished. As demonstrated by simulations, a lipid bud/vesicle can be formed on the surface when an excess amount of free lipids is added at high grafting density. Therefore, the CPLS nanoparticles can only be formed under appropriate conditions of both PEG and free lipids. The CPLS nanoparticle has been recognized to be able to store a large quantity of water molecules, particularly with high molecular weight of PEG chains, indicating its capacity for carrying hydrophilic molecules such as therapeutic biomolecules or imaging agents. Under identical size and surface chemistry conditions of a liposome, it has been observed that the CPLS particle can be more efficiently wrapped by the lipid membrane, indicating its potential for a greater efficiency in delivering its hydrophilic cargo. As a proof-of-concept, the experimental realization of CPLS nanoparticles is explicitly demonstrated in this study. To test the capacity of the CPLS to store small molecule cargo a hydrophilic dye was successfully encapsulated in the particles' water soluble layer. The results of this study show the power and potential of simulation-driven approaches for guiding the design of more efficient nanomaterial delivery platforms.


Students entering university to study chemistry have difficulty understanding the concepts involved when attention is focused at the particulate level of matter. No-one can actually see what happens to individual molecules or atoms during any process of change and most means of explanation at the visible, or macro level are inadequate when describing behaviour at the particulate, or micro level. Structured worksheets and coloured Lego ® building blocks were employed in order to facilitate understanding of the physical changes that water undergoes during changes of temperature. A sample size of 154 Foundation Programme students was used and the responses of these students investigated. A constructivist approach, enabling students to apply concrete reasoning in building their own knowledge, was evaluated. Students worked with interlocking building blocks to improve their understanding of molecular structure and behaviour. The students' academic performance improved when using these more concrete tools. This demonstrates that teaching is more effective when allowing visual and tactile senses to interact. It is therefore the purpose of this paper to substantiate the use of concrete tools, such as Lego ® blocks, to help explain difficult concepts in chemistry, such as the behaviour of atoms and molecules. Keywords:  Chemical bonds, Lego ® building blocks, concrete reasoning, first-year chemistry students


Congress uses the income tax to achieve policy goals. States import federal tax policies into their own tax systems when they incorporate by reference the federal income tax base as the starting point for assessment of state income taxes. But federal tax policies reflect national, not state, political choices. This Article calls attention to the practice of tax-base conformity and to its advantages and disadvantages. Conformity conserves legislative, administrative, and judicial resources, and it reduces taxpayers' compliance burdens. At the same time, however, conforming states cede tax autonomy to the federal government, thereby jeopardizing federalism values, such as regulatory diversity and diffusion of power. Conforming states also expose themselves to revenue volatility stemming from the ever-changing federal tax law. Despite these concerns, the administrative and compliance advantages of federal-state tax-base conformity are so significant that states are unlikely to abandon it. Thus, this Article makes only limited recommendations for reducing the adverse impacts of tax-base conformity.


Based on a two-country model it is scrutinized how the structure of the unemployment benefit system affects the consequences of idiosyncratic labor market shocks on real wages and unemployment in other countries. International spillover effects are caused by changes in world real income. The paper provides new insights on how changes in world real income affect labor demand and the wage bargaining process. The analysis of the interaction of shock spillovers and benefit system focuses on two-tier as well as pure earnings-related and flat-rate benefit systems.


AbstractThe Madden–Julian oscillation (MJO), a planetary-scale eastward-propagating coherent structure with periods of 30–60 days, is a prominent manifestation of intraseasonal variability in the tropical atmosphere. It is widely presumed that small-scale moist cumulus convection is a critical part of its dynamics. However, the recent results from high-resolution modeling as well as data analysis suggest that the MJO may be understood by dry dynamics to a leading-order approximation. Simple, further theoretical considerations presented herein suggest that if it is to be understood by dry dynamics, the MJO is most likely a strongly nonlinear solitary Rossby wave. Under a global quasigeostrophic equivalent-barotropic formulation, modon theory provides such analytic solutions. Stability and the longevity of the modon solutions are investigated with a global shallow-water model. The preferred modon solutions with the greatest longevities compare well overall with the observed MJO in scale and phase velocity w...


In contrast to the US and recently Europe, Japan appears to be unsuccessful in establishing new industries. An oft-cited example is Japan's practical invisibility in the global business software sector. Literature has ascribed Japan's weakness – or conversely, America's strength – to the specific institutional settings and competences of actors within the respective national innovation system. It has additionally been argued that unlike the American innovation system, with its proven ability to give birth to new industries, the inherent path dependency of the Japanese innovation system makes innovation and establishment of new industries quite difficult. However, there are two notable weaknesses underlying current propositions postulating that only certain innovation systems enable the creation of new industries: first, they mistakenly confound context specific with general empirical observations. And second, they grossly underestimate – or altogether fail to examine – the dynamics within innovation systems. This paper will show that it is precisely the dynamics within innovation systems – dynamics founded on the concept of path plasticity – which have enabled Japan to charge forward as a global leader in a highly innovative field: the game software sector as well as the biotechnology industry.


We applied cosmogenic 26 Al/ 10 Be burial dating to sedimentary deposits of the ancestral Colorado River. We compared cosmogenic burial ages of sediments to the age of an independently well-dated overlying basalt flow at one site, and also applied cosmogenic burial dating to sediments with less precise independent age constraints. All dated gravels yielded old ages that suggest several episodes of sediment burial over the past ∼5.3 m.y. Comparison of burial ages to the overlying 4.4 Ma basalt yielded good agreement and suggests that under the most favorable conditions, cosmogenic burial dating can extend back 4–5 m.y. In contrast, results from other sites with more broadly independent age constraints highlight the complexities inherent in burial dating; these complexities arise from unknown and complicated burial histories, insufficient shielding, postburial production of cosmogenic isotopes by muons, and unknown initial 26 Al/ 10 Be ratios. Nevertheless, and in spite of the large range of burial ages and large uncertainties, we identify samples that provide reasonable burial age constraints on the depositional history of sediment along the lower ancestral Colorado River. These samples suggest possible sediment deposition and burial at ca. 5.3, 4.7, and 3.6 Ma. Our calculated basinwide erosion rate for sediment transported by the modern Colorado River (∼187 mm k.y. −1 ) is higher than the modern erosion rates inferred from the historic sediment load (80–100 mm k.y. −1 ). In contrast, basinwide paleo-erosion rates calculated from Pliocene sediments are all under 40 mm k.y. −1 The comparatively lower denudation rates calculated for the Pliocene sediment samples are surprising given that the sampled time intervals include significant Pliocene aggradation and may include much incision of the Grand Canyon and its tributaries. This conflict may arise from extensive storage of sediment along the route of the Colorado River, slower paleobedrock erosion, or the inclusion of sediments that were derived preferentially from higher elevations in the watershed.


Borehole 49/24-1 (Shell/Esso), which is the reference borehole for the Lower Cretaceous Cromer Knoll Group in the southern North Sea, is subdivided lithostratigraphically and biostratigraphically. The resulting stratigraphy is briefly compared to onshore U.K. outcrop and borehole sections of comparable age and lithofacies. The regional stratigraphical implications for the correlation of offshore and onshore sections of Lower Cretaceous (Albian) strata are briefly discussed.


In the 75 years since the foundation of the British Society of Gastroenterology (BSG), one of the major changes in the care of patients with gastrointestinal disorders has been the emergence of the role of specialist nurses. Three-quarters of a century ago nurses were still very much in the 'handmaiden to doctors' role, carrying out medical instructions and keeping patients clean and tidy. This has now been transformed, in the UK at least, into a range of nurse-led services managed by nurses who, with appropriate training, can prescribe all licensed medications (on completion of a separate qualification that is registered nationally), order and conduct the full range of investigations and often manage whole episodes of specialist hospital care without patients ever seeing a doctor at all. Even compared with a decade ago,1 2 there has been a rapid expansion in both the scope of practice and in the number of nurses involved.

This has often been driven by organisational and financial constraints. As the UK has salaried healthcare professionals and a national health service, the competition between professionals that has arisen in systems in which loss of a patient consultation equates to loss of income, has not generally arisen. Doctors have usually been more than happy to cooperate in training nurses to take over the more routine aspects of medical care. This, together with a European working time directive that has restricted junior doctors' hours, has seen a huge expansion of the scope of nursing practice in gastroenterology and elsewhere in the health economy. Nurses (in non-gastroenterology care) have been found often to be cheaper than doctors, even if they take longer with each patient and order more investigations, and to be no less effective clinically in consultations.3 Often patient satisfaction is higher with nurses.4 5

At …


A laser with a ring resonator that incorporates a nonlinear antiresonant loop is proposed and analyzed. With computer simulation it is shown that the mode-locking process is self-starting and that, when the laser is properly designed, gain-bandwidth-limited pulses can be obtained. Passive mode-locked, bistable, and chaotic solutions are found to depend on the design parameters of the model.


An optimization study was conducted to find the optimum operational characteristics of a synthetic jet actuator (SJA) to postpone the static stall separation over an SD7003 airfoil at Reynolds number of 60,000. A genetic algorithm (GA) coupled with an artificial neural network (ANN) was employed. Aerodynamic performance (L/D) was chosen as the objective function. Both tangent to the boundary layer (TBL) and the cross to the boundary layer (CBL) configurations of SJA were used and their effectiveness in separation control were compared. The following design variables of the SJA were allowed to change within a predetermined range: location, the opening length, the injection velocity amplitude, the injection angle, and the nondimensional frequency. It was found that for location, opening length, and velocity amplitude ratio, a narrow range near the peak optimum values achieved the best performance. However, for the nondimensional frequency and jet injection angle, the optimum values providing highest performance were in a wider range of values. Activation of SJ actuator improved the aerodynamic performance of the airfoil significantly. However, TBL configuration of SJA produced superior improvement in aerodynamic performance. The optimum aerodynamic performance achieved by TBL-SJA was 34.4, in comparison to 25.3 for CBL-SJA and 5 for the uncontrolled stalled airfoil at 13 deg angle of attack.


Ocular mucous membrane pemphigoid (ocular MMP) is a visually devastating
disease where up to 30% of patients become blind due to the consequences of
conjunctival inflammation and aggressive fibrosis. Standard systemic
immunosuppression controls inflammation, but is limited by toxicity. How well
immunosuppressive therapy prevents fibrosis is unknown. The cellular and
molecular mechanisms that lead to excessive conjunctival fibrosis in ocular MMP
are incompletely understood. Chronic inflammation and repair play an important
role, but the conjunctival fibroblasts may also be autonomously activated.
This thesis aimed to investigate potential mechanisms involved in conjunctival
fibrosis in ocular MMP, for the purpose of proposing future anti-fibrotic therapies, to
be used in conjunction with systemic immunosuppression.
A retrospective review established that whilst conjunctival inflammation appeared
to be controlled in 70% of patients, fibrosis progressed in 53%. A pilot randomised
trial of adjunctive pulse intravenous methylprednisolone in patients with severe
ocular MMP commencing both oral cyclophosphamide and oral corticosteroids did
not reduce the time to control of inflammation, which had been hypothesised to
prevent the progression of scarring.
Both tumour necrosis factor-alpha (TNFα) and the T cell-derived fibrogenic
cytokine interleukin-13 (IL-13) were expressed in active ocular MMP. Although this
expression was reduced after treatment in clinically uninflamed ocular MMP, it was
still significantly elevated compared to normal conjunctiva. Both TNFα and IL-13
stimulated migration and altered matrix metalloproteinase expression by normal
conjunctival fibroblasts. IL-13 also stimulated collagen contraction. Both TNFα and
IL-13 upregulated surface expression of costimulatory molecules by conjunctival fibroblasts, which suggests facilitation of a potential mechanism for fibroblast-T cell
cross talk.
Finally, pemphigoid conjunctival fibroblasts showed an altered phenotype
compared to normal conjunctival fibroblasts, with increased cell division, migration,
collagen contraction, type I collagen secretion, and secretion of eotaxin and matrix
metalloproteinase-3.
This thesis increases our understanding of the mechanisms involved in
conjunctival fibrosis in ocular MMP, and provides new avenues for investigation of
potential adjuvant therapies which could improve the prognosis in this poorly
understood disease.


Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) are susceptible to various anomalies during their operations. Thus, it is important to detect such anomalies. Detecting such anomalies is challenging since it is uncertain when and where anomalies can happen. To this end, we present a novel approach called Anomaly deTection with digiTAl twIN (ATTAIN), which continuously and automatically builds a digital twin with live data obtained from a CPS for anomaly detection. ATTAIN builds a Timed Automaton Machine (TAM) as the digital representation of the CPS, and implements a Generative Adversarial Network (GAN) to detect anomalies. GAN uses a GCN-LSTM-based module as a generator, which can capture temporal and spatial characteristics of the input data and learn to produce realistic unlabeled adversarial samples. TAM labels these adversarial samples, which are then fed into a discriminator along with real labeled samples. After training, the discriminator is capable of distinguishing anomalous data from normal data with a high F1 score. To evaluate our approach, we used three publicly available datasets collected from three CPS testbeds. Evaluation results show that ATTAIN improved the performance of two state-of-art anomaly detection methods by 2.413%, 8.487%, and 5.438% on average on the three datasets, respectively. Moreover, ATTAIN achieved on average 8.39% increase in the anomaly detection capability with digital twins as compared with an approach of not using digital twins.


Micronutrients are as important as macronutrients for crops. Each micronutrient has its own function in plant growth. Zinc is important for membrane integrity and phytochrome activities. Copper is an essential micronutrient required for the growth of wheat. Manganese is required for enzyme activation, in electron transport, and in disease resistance. The pot experiment was set up in greenhouse on calcareous chernozem soil Debrecen-Látókép with a spring wheat. In certain development stages (according to BBCH growth scale of wheat), at the beginning of stem elongation (29–30), at the heading (51–59), at the flowering (61–69) stage three average plants were removed from all pots for analysis. Fresh and dry weight of the plant samples were measured. Plant leaves after drying were digested by HNO3-H2O2 methods and manganese, zinc and copper contents of plant were quantified by atomic absorption spectrophotometry. At the flowering stage, when the nutrient uptake of plants is the most intensive, the weight of wheat ranged between 0.94–1.57 g plant-1. In this development stage, the NS2 treatment produced the highest weight of wheat, and compared to this the NS3 treatment decreased that value already. The results show unfavourable effect of NS3 treatment. On the basis of microelement content of wheat and the weight of a plant, nutrient uptake by plant were calculated. At the beginning of growth the starter treatment had positive effect on Cu-uptake compared to the NS1 treatment, where the same dose of fertilizer was stirred into the soil. Wheat is very sensitive to copper deficiency, so copper dissolved by starter treatment could be favourable to the early development of wheat. At flowering stage the Zn-uptake of wheat became the highest and it was between 133.7–234.6 mg plant-1. The Mn-uptake of wheat plant was higher than the Cu- and Zn-uptake of wheat.
This phenomenon can be explained by the fact that the untreated soil had higher Mn-content, than Cu- and Zn-content. To summarize the results, it can be stated, that the copper uptake of wheat was more affected by the different treatments in the stage of stem elongation, while Mn- and Zn-uptake of wheat were influenced primarily in the stage of heading and flowering.


Abstract:  Selective harvesting regimes are often implemented because age and sex classes contribute differently to population dynamics and hunters show preferences associated with body size and trophy value. We reviewed the literature on how such cropping regimes affect the demography of the remaining population (here termed demographic side effects ). First, we examined the implications of removing a large proportion of a specific age or sex class. Such harvesting strategies often bias the population sex ratio toward females and reduce the mean age of males, which may consequently delay birth dates, reduce birth synchrony, delay body mass development, and alter offspring sex ratios. Second, we reviewed the side effects associated with the selective removal of relatively few specific individuals, often large trophy males. Such selective harvesting can destabilize social structures and the dominance hierarchy and may cause loss of social knowledge, sexually selected infanticide, habitat changes among reproductive females, and changes in offspring sex ratio. A common feature of many of the reported mechanisms is that they ultimately depress recruitment and in some extreme cases even cause total reproductive collapse. These effects could act additively and destabilize the dynamics of populations, thus having a stronger effect on population growth rate than first anticipated. Although more experimental than observational studies reported demographic side effects, we argue that this may reflect the quite subtle mechanisms involved, which are unlikely to be detected in observational studies without rigorous monitoring regimes. We call for more detailed studies of hunted populations with marked individuals that address how the expression of these effects varies across mating systems, habitats, and with population density. Theoretical models investigating how strongly these effects influence population growth rates are also required.


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processes and tools that can increase efficiencies throughout a research
project, with particular reference to the data life-cycle, from planning to publishing. We also look at collaborative tools for managing, analysing, mapping and visualizing research data. All those
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Open Science.


On September 11, 2001, the hijacking of four commercial airliners resulted in the death of over 3,000 innocent civilians. Congress reacted swiftly and, on September 18, issued the "Joint Resolution to Authorize the Use of United States Armed Force Against Those Responsible for the Recent Attacks Launched Against the United States"--the AUMF. The AUMF states, in part, that "the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001." On November 13, 2001, President Bush issued a Military Order authorizing the Department of Defense to establish military commissions to bring to justice those non-citizen members or supporters of Al Qaeda that threaten the security of America and the world. Although the President's Military Order does not spell out the specific, individual procedures guaranteed to accused, the Order guarantees accused the right to a "full and lair" trial and provides for further orders and instructions to implement the Order. Since that time, several military commission orders and instructions have been promulgated, affording accused the presumption of innocence, requirement of proof beyond a reasonable doubt, and a full defense. Most recently, the Department of Defense promulgated Military Commission Instruction Number 10, an order that explicitly excludes from evidence statements obtained by torture. Although the requirement of a full and fair trial arguably includes and mandates this exclusion, this Order was promulgated to address any ambiguity regarding admissibility of such statements. Military commissions have been challenged as being convened without authority, creating offenses that are not cognizable under the laws of war, and implementing rules of procedure that deprive an accused of fundamental rights. I'll address each of these challenges in turn. The President's authority to implement 9/11 military commissions is based on his inherent authority under the Constitution as the commander in chief of this nation's armed forces, and Congress' recognition of that authority in the AUMF, Articles 21 and 36 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, and the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005. The Constitution provides several bases for establishing military commissions. The Constitution authorizes Congress to convene military commissions. Under Article 1, Congress has the power to declare war, to "define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high seas, and Offences against the Law of Nations," to "make rules for the Government and Regulations of the land and naval forces," and to "make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing powers." The Constitution also authorizes the President to convene military commissions. Under Article 2, the President, as the commander in chief, is authorized to convene military courts and tribunals pursuant to his wartime powers. This authorization is consistent with historical practice. Since the formation of our republic, the President and other military commanders have convened military commissions; they were convened during the War of 1812, the Mexican-American War, the Civil War, the Philippine Insurrection, the Spanish-American War, and War World II. More importantly, many of these commissions were convened without congressional authorization specifically directing or ordering military commissions. In 1942 the Supreme Court case addressed the President's authority to convene military commissions in Ex parte Quirin. Eight German saboteurs covertly entered the United States to blow up factories and bridges, and were captured. The President convened military commissions to try the saboteurs on charges of violations of the law of war, conspiracy, and violation of the Articles of War by aiding the enemy, and spying. …


Objective: Rapid access to the results of high quality research studies for real time use during clinical care is the aim of evidence-based medicine. Methods: The current volume and methods of disseminating research findings are barriers to this goal. Electronic publishing, CD-ROMs for personal computers, and Internet-based databases and searching are tools helping to overcome these barriers. Results: Several examples in the United Kingdom and United States employing these tools are described. Conclusions: Technology is making traditional narrative reviews such as printed textbooks obsolete for the practice of evidence-based medicine.


Evidence for the warming of the climate system is considered unequivocal. Observations from all continents and most oceans show many natural systems are being disturbed by regional climate change (IPCC 2007). Agricultural production is strongly influenced by climate and so climate change will have profound effects on food production and the natural resources on which agriculture depends. In Tasmania, dairy is the largest agriculture industry contributing nearly 30% of the gross value of agricultural production. Production and consumption of high quality temperate pastures and the availability of irrigation underpin the competitiveness of the Tasmanian dairy industry. As a result, the Tasmanian dairy industry will need to adapt to any changes in climate that affect the productivity of temperate pastures or the availability of irrigation water. Therefore, there is an urgent need to evaluate climate change impacts on agricultural production in Tasmania.
Although relatively small in area, Tasmania has a diverse range of regional climates that are the result of different synoptic influences. Consequently, climate change might be expected to vary in different regions of the state. The aim of this thesis is to quantify the regional impacts of projected climate change on the productivity of pasture based dairy systems for six regions within Tasmania. Six sites were selected to represent the dairying regions of the north west (Woolnorth and Flowerdale), central north (Merseylea), the northern Midlands (Cressy), the north east (Ringarooma) and the south (Ouse).
Observed and interpolated historical climate data from four different climate data sources are available. A meteorological and biophysical comparison between the four sources of observed and interpolated gridded daily climate data for the period 1971 to 2007 was undertaken at each site. The data obtained were SILO Patched Point data (observed), SILO Data Drill (0.05°), Australian Water Availability Project (AWAP 0.05°) and Australian Water Availability Project (AWAP 0.1°). Differences were observed between the four daily climate data sources for each region for the climate variables mean daily minimum temperature, rainfall and potential evaporation. In addition, outputs from a biophysical model DairyMod (version 4.9.2) compared simulated monthly and annual pasture production. There were few significant differences in annual pasture production but there were significant differences for the months of October and November.
Climate Futures for Tasmania (CFT) used CSIROs Conformal Cubic Atmospheric Model (CCAM) to dynamically downscale five General Circulation Models (GCMs) (ECHAM5/MPI-OM, GFDL-CM2.0, GFDL-CM2.1, MIROC3.2 (medres) and UKMO-HADCM3) reported in the IPCC fourth assessment report and a sixth GCM, CSIRO-Mk3.5. The CFT project provided projections under the A2 emissions scenario at a scale of 0.1° (≈10km) grid across Tasmania for the period 1961 to 2100. Climate models have variable skill and inherent biases. To manage these biases, a bias-adjustment method was undertaken to scale the climate modelling outputs to the historical interpolated data of AWAP 0.1. The aim was to preserve the change in the frequency distributions from the six GCMs projections. The suitability of the downscaled bias-adjusted GCM data for use in a biophysical model was evaluated by comparing simulated pasture yields from DairyMod from the downscaled GCMs with that from the AWAP 0.1° data source for the period 1990 to 2007. The mean annual simulated pasture yields from the downscaled bias-adjusted GCMs and from the AWAP 0.1° data source were generally comparable, giving confidence that the bias-adjusted GCM simulations were suitable for projections of pasture production.
The projected climate for the A2 emissions scenario at each site was described over the period of 1971 to 2100. The mean of daily maximum and daily minimum temperatures at each site are projected to increase from a baseline period (1971 to 2000) to 2085 (2071 to 2100) ranging from 2.4°C at Woolnorth to 2.7°C at Ringarooma. Mean annual rainfall is projected to slightly increase at each site except Flowerdale, from the baseline period to 2085. Seasonal rainfall is projected to increase slightly at each site except Woolnorth (summer) and Flowerdale (summer and spring). Inter-annual rainfall variability is projected to increase for each region. Mean annual potential evapotranspiration rates as calculated by Morton"s wet method (Bennett et al. 2010) are projected to increase by 3% to 4% for each region from the baseline period to 2085. No changes in solar radiation are projected for any of the regions.
The Tasmanian dairy industry is a vital component of the state"s agricultural sector. The industry is comprised of approximately 450 farms and produces approximately 7% of the national milk production. Regional variation in the projected climate is likely to result in regional variation in pasture production across Tasmania. The biophysical model DairyMod was used to simulate the growth of perennial ryegrass (Lolium perenne L.) under rainfed and irrigated conditions at each site. The simulations were nutrient non-limited, pasture was harvested monthly to a residual of 1400 kg /DM/ha, and identical soil physical and chemical parameters were used for each site. Throughout the 21st century mean annual pasture yields under rainfed conditions at each site are projected to increase above the baseline varying from a 29% increase at Woolnorth to 150% increase at Cressy by 2085. Mean annual irrigated pasture yields are projected to increase until mid-century, then decrease to 2085. The reduction of irrigated pasture yields in the latter half of this century is the result of an increase in the number of warm days with maximum temperatures exceeding 28°C. The impact of higher daily maximum temperatures are more evident under the irrigated simulations, because the irrigated simulations were not limited by soil moisture. In contrast, the major limitation to growth under the rainfed simulations during the summer months is inadequate soil moisture. Yield increases under both rainfed and irrigated simulations are projected to occur during late winter and spring. The increase in yield is a result of increases in both daily maximum and minimum temperatures and the progressive increase of atmospheric CO\(_2\) concentrations under the A2 scenario.
Inter-annual yield variability for each region is projected to decrease throughout the 21\(^{st}\) century under both the rainfed and irrigated simulations, except at Cressy under irrigation. The decrease in inter-annual yield variability is being driven by a marked reduction in yield variability during autumn and spring.
Irrigation demand progressively increases throughout the 21\(^{st}\) century for each region, except at Cressy and Ouse. Although irrigation requirements are projected to increase, there is a corresponding increase in the water use efficiency (WUE) of the pastures. This increase in WUE is driven by increasing atmospheric CO\(_2\) concentrations resulting in an increase in the net influx of CO\(_2\), increased stomatal resistance and a decline in transpiration per unit of CO\(_2\) fixed (Clark et al. 1995).
Surface runoff was quantified at each site, using the downscaled bias-adjusted GCMs simulations within the hydrological model SIMHYD (Chiew et al. 2002) for the period 1971 to 2100 (Bennett et al. 2010). At each site, except Flowerdale, mean annual surface runoff at 2085 was projected to increase as a result of increased runoff during the winter months. A case study farm at Ringarooma was selected to quantify the projected surface runoff and river flow impacts on an irrigated perennial ryegrass based dairy system. Currently the farm is 166 ha in size with 75 ha of the farm supported by irrigation infrastructure. Irrigation water is accessed from both an on-farm catchment (dam) and access to River flows (Ringarooma River). Under the projected climate, hydrological modelling indicates that irrigation demand by 2085 will be met by the on-farm storage dam 50% of the time in comparison to the current baseline of 23%. In contrast, water accessed from the Ringarooma River during summer is projected to continually fail to meet irrigation demand from the baseline to 2085.
Modelling the climate change impacts indicate a progressive increase in pasture growth within Tasmania throughout the 21\(^{st}\) century (particularly under rainfed conditions). The low cost of milk production associated with pasture based dairy systems underpins the national and international competitive advantage of the Tasmania dairy industry. This study has found the current forage base of Tasmanian dairy regions is resilient to future climate scenarios and that adaptations are likely to be within system adaptations, with the industry continuing to focus on milk production per hectare and pasture consumption per hectare as key determinants of business success. This will allow the Tasmanian dairy industry to retain its comparative advantage.


A perceived national emergency creates the temptation to abandon principled constraints to official action in order to pursue whatever is thought necessary to confront the crisis. Principled constraints are thought good precisely when they are least needed - during normal times - and thought obstructionist when they are most needed to guide and constrain official action - during times of perceived exceptional circumstances. We are accustomed to thinking of constitutional rights not as absolutes, but as subject to balancing against compelling governmental need. When compelling government interest is expressed in terms of necessity, otherwise prohibited actions, such as torture, may be justified in specific circumstances. In this Article, I argue that we should reject the temptation to rely on necessity to justify extralegal responses to emergencies. Moreover, we should also reject the claim that the Constitution contains a core principle of necessity that frees executive officials to act unfettered by other constitutional constraints under some circumstances. One problem with necessity is that it displaces constitutional commitments to constrained action because necessity, not constitutional principle, becomes the ultimate authority for official action. A second problem with necessity is that when it is used to justify the practice of torture, it undermines the liberal conception of the person that grounds the political legitimacy of the State. Finally, when we prioritize necessity, we change how we look at the world in ways that have pervasive legal and cultural consequences for how we employ other constitutional rights. When we rely on necessity to override principled commitments, such as the prohibition against torture, we change our practices and principles, creating the conditions for changing fundamental aspects of our constitutional culture. I argue that although it is always subject to change, our constitutional culture does not support a worldview that legitimates treating persons as objects of torture, and that arguments to change our culture in light of the needs of necessity are insufficient.


with essays by Joseph Backstein, Iara Boubnova, Jurij Krpan, Ileana Pintilie, Kristine Stiles, Branka Stipancic, Igor Zabel, and others The earliest "body art" was created in Eastern Europe in the early 1960s. The term "body art" includes a wide range of practices in which the artist's own body is the bearer of social, political, metaphorical, and philosophical content. This book includes essays on eighty artists from fourteen countries: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, the former GDR, Hungary, Lithuania, Moldova, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Yugoslavia. Introductory essays by Zdenka Badovinac and Kristine Stiles discuss the tradition of an art form that emerged during socialism in cultural centers such as Prague, Belgrade, Ljubljana, Warsaw, and Zagreb. In these places public actions, particularly on the street, were often banned--and artists arrested--by the police. Therefore many of the actions documented here took place in private apartments, with the artists performing at great personal risk. The art survived not only despite the absence of any art market, but also despite its marginalization by political regimes. The artists turned their marginalization to an advantage, creating art out of the contingencies and necessities of survival. The art represented here reminds us of the psychological and intellectual freedoms that artistic expression affords under politically repressive conditions.This bilingual (Slovenian/English) book was originally published in conjunction with a major retrospective exhibition of body art held last year at the Museum of Modern Art in Ljubljana. Some of the artists, such as Marina Abramovic and Komar & Melamid, are well known internationally. Others, such as Alexander Brener, Sanja Ivekovic, Laibach, Paul Neagu, and Marko Peljhan, are known to special audiences in the East and West.


Abstract. We investigate theoretical, laboratory, and atmospheric evidence for a recently proposed hypothesis: homogeneous ice nucleation initiates at the surface, not in the volume, of supercooled water drops. Using existing thermodynamic arguments, laboratory experiments, and atmospheric data, we conclude that ice embryo formation at the surface cannot be confirmed or disregarded. Ice nucleation rates measured as a function of drop size in an air ambient could help distinguish between volume and surface nucleation rates.


This study presents nonlinear differential equations capable to generate continuous functions similar to pulse sequences. First are studied some basic properties of second-order differential equations with time-dependent coefficients generating bounded oscillating functions 𝐹 similar to test-functions (the function 𝐹 and its derivative 𝐹 being equal to zero at the same time moments). The necessary intercorrelations between the phase of generated oscillations and the time-dependent coefficients is presented, being shown also that the external command function should be set to a constant value at these time moments so as to determine the amplitude and the sign of generated oscillations. Then some possibilities of using previous differential equation for generating positive-definite functions with null values for the function and its derivative at the same time moments and with constant slope for its amplitude are presented, being shown that the corresponding external command function should present also alternating components. Finally all previous results are used for determining a set of second-order differential equations with time dependent coefficients and a set of external command and corrective functions for generating a pulse sequence useful for modelling time series.


Clustering is a simple, effective way to derive useful representations of data, such as images and videos. Clustering explains the input as one of several prototypes, plus noise. In situations where each input has been randomly transformed (e.g., by translation, rotation, and shearing in images and videos), clustering techniques tend to extract cluster centers that account for variations in the input due to transformations, instead of more interesting and potentially useful structure. For example, if images from a video sequence of a person walking across a cluttered background are clustered, it would be more useful for the different clusters to represent different poses and expressions, instead of different positions of the person and different configurations of the background clutter. We describe a way to add transformation invariance to mixture models, by approximating the nonlinear transformation manifold by a discrete set of points. We show how the expectation maximization algorithm can be used to jointly learn clusters, while at the same time inferring the transformation associated with each input. We compare this technique with other methods for filtering noisy images obtained from a scanning electron microscope, clustering images from videos of faces into different categories of identification and pose and removing foreground obstructions from video. We also demonstrate that the new technique is quite insensitive to initial conditions and works better than standard techniques, even when the standard techniques are provided with extra data.


In the modern conditions of economic development management in Ukraine, forward and futures contracts allow for reducing risks of price fluctuations that are necessary for economic entities under growing inflation. The number of concluded deals with futures is constantly decreasing, which is influenced by the lack of legal regulation of the taxation of derivatives transactions in Ukraine. Therefore, the purpose of the study is to determine the directions of development of the tax and accounting system for forward and futures contracts. The subject of the study is the methodical provision of tax and accounting for forward and futures contracts. The theoretical and methodological basis of the research is the position of modern economic theory, legislative, normative and instructional documents on taxation. According to the results of the study, accounting and tax accounting for forward and futures contracts is included in the enterprise accounting system. The management of this system is carried out through the improvement of regulations that regulate at the legislative level the tax and accounting of forward and futures contracts. The authors found that at present, in Ukraine, the procedure for accounting for forward and futures contracts is not clearly regulated at the legal level in Ukraine. The analysis showed that the national accounting provisions (standards) contain insufficient information regarding the disclosure of such transactions in the entity's accounting records. In order to solve these problems, an original systematization of accounting rules for forward and futures contracts based on international financial reporting standards is proposed. The systematization of regulatory accounting rules can be used in the development of methodological recommendations that regulate the accounting of forward and futures contracts in Ukraine. This will solve the problems that exist at this time in managing the development of accounting and tax accounting for forward and futures contracts.


Social enterprises are more likely to be sustainable and successful when venture teams engage in the design of appropriate technologies, develop business plans, and implement solutions with an integrated approach, rather than in a linear piecemeal fashion. Through our academic ventures over the past decade, we have come to realize that a collaborative and integrated "triple helix" approach of system design, business planning, and implementation strategy development is essential. In terms of venture success, the process of executing the business strategy is as important as the product itself. This integrated design process encompasses conceptualization, validation, design, field-testing, implementation, and evaluation in an iterative process. Through the discussion of several case studies, this paper explores the tenets of implementation strategy development that will inform the conceptualization of a triple-helix design process for sustainable and scalable technology ventures, specifically for base of the pyramid contexts.


A group of hybridomas that express antibodies with related specificities for the influenza virus hemagglutinin (HA), that represent B cells that were the clonal progeny of a single pre-B cell, and that utilized distinct L chain gene rearrangements have been characterized. The clonal relationship was established by the sharing of H chain gene rearrangements at both the productive and the nonproductive alleles. Among these hybridomas, one group had rearranged only one of its kappa alleles, having joined a V kappa 24 gene to the J kappa 2 gene segment. The other group utilized the same V kappa 24 gene segment in productive rearrangement to the J kappa 5 gene segment, and shared an aberrant rearrangements among members of the same B cell clone can normally occur, and can contribute to the generation and diversification of the immune repertoire that is available for the recognition of foreign antigens. Mechanisms by which the distinct rearrangements expressed by the hybridomas might have been generated are discussed.


An approach for incremental learning of the 3D scene from a single static video camera is presented in this paper. In particular, we exploit the presence of casual people walking in the scene to infer relative depth, learn shadows, and segment the critical ground structure. Considering that this type of video data is so ubiquitous, this work provides an important step towards 3D scene analysis from single cameras in readily available ordinary videos and movies. On-line 3D scene learning, as presented here, is very important for applications such as scene analysis, foreground refinement, tracking, biometrics, automated camera collaboration, activity analysis, identification, and also real-time computer-graphics applications. The main contributions of this work are then two-fold. First, we use the people in the scene to continuously learn and update the 3D scene parameters using an incremental robust (L1) error minimization. Secondly, models of shadows in the scene are learned using a statistical framework. A symbiotic relationship between the shadow model and the estimated scene geometry is exploited towards incremental mutual improvement. We illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed framework with applications in foreground refinement, automatic segmentation as well as relative depth mapping of the floor/ground, and estimation of 3D trajectories of people in the scene.


A new resolution enhancement technology using the independent sub-pixel driving technology was developed for the medical monochrome liquid crystal displays (LCDs). Each pixel of monochrome LCDs, which employ the color liquid crystal panels that its color filters are removed, consists of three sub-pixels. In the new LCD system implemented with this new technology, the sub-pixel intensities were modulated according to the detailed image information, and consequently resolution was enhanced three times. Thus the new technology realized a 15 mega-pixels (MP) super high-resolution LCD (SHR-LCD) out of a conventional 5 MP LCD and a 9 MP SHR-LCD out of a conventional 3 MP LCD. Physical measurements and perceptual evaluations performed in this study proved that the achieved 15 MP (through our new technology) was appropriate and efficient to depict the finer anatomical structures such as the micro calcifications in mammography.


While coverage of the environment generally has increased in the national media, some subjects remain difficult to place. One such subject is endangered species and threats to their survival, in particular, loss of habitat. This article is about the reporting of one highly endangered European species, the Iberian lynx, in the UK national press. It exposes the news values determining which stories get into the press. The article also explores the role of individual journalists and environmental campaign groups in getting coverage and the persistence, invention and manoeuvring which leads to innovation in news values.


Why do some organizations perform so much better than others, and often persistently so? While the economics literature traditionally emphasizes the importance of incentives, other social sciences focus on the role of organizational culture. Yet very little is known about how an organization's incentive structure and its culture jointly shapes its performance. This paper therefore develops a formal model of how an organization's incentives and culture interact. The model offers a unified explanation for a variety of empirical phenomena, including why an organization's culture can be difficult to change and why there can be persistent performance differences across companies even when they have access to the same technology and resources.


The most common issues for many clustering algorithms include the slow convergence, requirement for pre-specification of a number of parameters, and the lack of robustness when dealing with anomalies. Recently, the density peak clustering (DPC) algorithm was proposed to discover the centers of clusters by finding the density peaks in a dataset based on their local densities. The DPC needs neither an iterative process nor a large number of parameters, and it supports a heuristic approach, known as the decision graph, to manually select cluster centroids. However, the selection of the key parameters of the DPC was not systematically investigated. In this paper, we propose the feasible residual error-based density peak clustering algorithm with the fragment merging strategy, where the local density within the neighborhood region is measured through the residual error computation and the resulting residual errors are then used to generate residual fragments for cluster formation. The model parameters are then able to be calculated from the equations with statistical theoretical justification. We also develop a semi-automatic cluster identification method to eliminate the iterative process of manual centroid selection. The robustness and effectiveness of the proposed algorithm compared to the DPC and other clustering algorithms are demonstrated through experiments on standard benchmark datasets. The proposed method named feasible residual error-based density peak clustering (FREDPC) algorithm with the fragment merging strategy only needs to perform in one single step without any iteration and thus it is fast and has a great potential to be applied on a wide range of applications.


The wide availability of cloud computing offers an unprecedented opportunity to rethink how we construct applications. The cloud is currently mostly used to package up existing software stacks and operating systems (e.g. LAMP) for scaling out websites. We instead view the cloud as a stable hardware platform, and present a programming framework which permits applications to be constructed to run directly on top of it without intervening software layers. Our prototype (dubbed Mirage) is unashamedly academic; it extends the Objective Caml language with storage extensions and a custom run-time to emit binaries that execute as a guest operating system under Xen. Mirage applications exhibit significant performance speedups for I/O and memory handling versus the same code running under Linux/Xen. Our results can be generalised to offer insight into improving more commonly used languages such as PHP, Python and Ruby, and we discuss lessons learnt and future directions.


Abstract Checklists of the bryophytes of the Guadeloupe archipelago (including La Désirade, Marie-Galante and Les Saintes archipelago) and Martinique are presented based on published data, herbarium specimens and fieldwork. 613 species taxa, including 361 of liverworts, 242 of mosses and 10 of hornworts, are recorded from the Guadeloupe archipelago and 355 species (190 liverworts, 156 mosses, 9 hornworts) from Martinique. Fifty species (20 liverworts, 29 mosses, 1 hornwort) are new to the Guadeloupe archipelago and 21 (8 liverworts, 13 mosses) are new to Martinique.


This study highlights the important role of social media for charity through an analysis of tweets about the Wall of Kindness charity initiative in Afghanistan, Iran, and Pakistan. Using both quantitative and qualitative methods, we employ a theoretical lens of social influence to explore how individuals and organizations used Twitter to promote charitable initiatives. User engagement on Twitter centered on content sharing and identification through hashtags, and imitative behaviors promoted the Wall of Kindness initiative across countries. Results from the thematic analysis reveal that Twitter users were tweeting about the Wall of Kindness to provide information, encourage donations, inspire others to action, and build an online community. Our content analysis reveals that a majority of the tweets were neutral and supportive of the initiative; users mostly shared textual information, followed by sharing images and videos, tweeting news links, and soliciting donations about the Wall of Kindness. Furthermore, media organizations, wall enthusiasts, and journalists were most active in tweeting about the charity initiative. Implications for future research are discussed.


Memory corruption vulnerabilities that lead to control-flow hijacking attacks are a common problem for binary executables and such attacks are known for more than two decades. Over the last few years, especially code reuse attacks attracted a lot of attention. In such attacks, an adversary does not need to inject her own code during the exploitation phase, but she reuses existing code fragments (so called gadgets) to build a code chain that performs malicious computations on her behalf. Return-oriented programming (ROP) is a well-known technique that bypasses many existing defenses. Surprisingly, code reuse attacks are also a viable attack vector against web applications. In this paper, we study code reuse attacks in the context of PHP-based web applications. We analyze how PHP object injection (POI) vulnerabilities can be exploited via property-oriented programming (POP) and perform a systematic analysis of available gadgets in common PHP applications. Furthermore, we introduce an automated approach to statically detect POI vulnerabilities in object-oriented PHP code. Our approach is also capable of generating POP chains in an automated way. We implemented a prototype of the proposed approach and evaluated it with 10 well-known applications. Overall, we detected 30 new POI vulnerabilities and 28 new gadget chains.