This study is aimed at producing a jazz teaching model for the short-term training of students with little or no jazz experience. By using a mainly experiential approach over a set time frame and limiting the instruction to certain elements of jazz interpretation, it aims to present a reasonable introduction to small jazz ensemble performance in the Australian secondary school sector (grade 7-12). The research grows out of more than two decades experience introducing jazz performance to secondary school students where a well-defined pedagogical problem has been identified as a result of the lack of instructional methods for teachers wishing to instruct secondary school students in small jazz ensemble performance.

This tuition model aims to fulfil certain quantifiable criteria over a set period of time. The efficacy of the model is assessed by the success of attaining basic parameters and qualified by the performance outcome at the end of the model implementation period. The project has been structured to establish that the model for instruction, proposed as a solution for a research (teaching-based) problem, is successful. In 2003 eighteen Year 11 Victorian Certificate of Education music students, comprising two classes, were filmed at two-week intervals, over an eight-week period, while being instructed with the model. At the end of the eight-week period they were surveyed to gauge their theoretical and experiential development. The candidate continued to develop the model by adding extra individual instrumental techniques, a list of selected recordings, timetabling for all classes and recommendations for aural training techniques. As a comparison two more Year 11 Victorian Certificate of Education classes, comprising fourteen students, were again filmed at two-week intervals in 2006. Again they were surveyed at the end of the eight-week period to gauge both their development and their reaction to the classroom model. The results of the surveys from both years are examined along with the visual evidence of the students' performances over the eight week period of instruction that are included on DVDs with this thesis. On this evidence a case is made for the efficacy of the proposed model of instruction.


In interwar Italy, at least six major episodes of banking crises required the intervention of monetary authorities to bail out, restructure, or liquidate distressed intermediaries. The five large universal banks rescued in the systemic crisis of 1930-1 jointly accounted for one-third of the total assets of the banking system. What made Italian leading banks so prone to crises? This article suggests that their fragility was ultimately caused by governance failures, both public and private, that enhanced excess risk-taking. Empirical evidence is consistent with theoretical insights according to which the potential for moral hazard and conflict of interest, endemic in universal banking, can be magnified when banks enter into long-run relationships with firms and base their growth strategy on the pursuance of monopolistic rents. Interwar Italy emerges as a case in which an insider system devoid of the disciplinary devices provided by sound governance institutions created perverse incentives and weakened the resilience of the banking system to adverse macroeconomic shocks.


Autophagy is a process of self-cannibalization. Cells capture their own cytoplasm and organelles and consume them in lysosomes. The resulting breakdown products are inputs to cellular metabolism, through which they are used to generate energy and to build new proteins and membranes. Autophagy preserves the health of cells and tissues by replacing outdated and damaged cellular components with fresh ones. In starvation, it provides an internal source of nutrients for energy generation and, thus, survival. A powerful promoter of metabolic homeostasis at both the cellular and whole-animal level, autophagy prevents degenerative diseases. It does have a downside, however—cancer cells exploit it to survive in nutrient-poor tumors.


ABSTRACT The interactive effects of concomitant infection by the nematode Pratylenchus penetrans and the fungus Verticillium dahliae on symptom expression in Russet Burbank potato was studied in growth chamber experiments. Treatments were P. penetrans at three initial densities, V. dahliae at one inoculum density, the combination of the nematode at these three densities and the fungus, and a noninfested control. Gas exchange was measured nondestructively in leaf cohorts of different ages, one to three times weekly, with a LI-COR portable photosynthesis system. The single-pathogen treatments had no effect on assimilation or transpiration rates, but joint infection had a significant impact. In concomitant infection, photosynthesis was impaired more than transpiration, so estimates of leaf health were based on carbon assimilation rates only. Reductions in assimilation rate were apparent before the onset of visual symptoms. Assimilation rates decreased as much as 44% in the top, and newest, leaves of concomitantly infected plants, compared to rates in control plants. Even so, the health of newly produced leaves did not become progressively worse through time. With light use efficiency less than 0.20 mol of CO(2) fixed per mol of photosynthetically active radiation used as the criterion for disease incidence, disease progressed acropetally from the oldest to the youngest leaves. In plants infected with P. penetrans (0.8 nematodes per cm(3) of soil) in combination with V. dahliae, all leaves in cohorts 1 and 2 were symptomatic by 45 days after planting, and leaves in cohorts 3 to 6 became symptomatic at weekly intervals thereafter. For the control and single-pathogen treatments, the first time that light use efficiency fell below 0.20 in all leaves in cohort 1 was 71 days after planting. Concomitant infection reduced leaf life span by about 3 weeks. Both visual and physiological symptom expression were invariant to differences in initial nematode inoculum densities ranging from 0.8 to 2.5 nematodes per cm(3) of soil in one experiment and from 1.3 to 4.1 nematodes per cm(3) of soil in a second experiment.


This position paper proposes the exploitation of type feed- back mechanisms, or more precisely, polymorphic inline caches, for purely interpreting implementations of object-oriented programming languages. Using Squeak's virtual machine as an example, polymorphic inline caches are discussed as an alternative to global caching. An implementation proposal for polymorphic inline caches in the Squeak virtual machine is presented, and possible future applications for online optimization are outlined.


It was the goal of the current study to investigate one debiasing technique and its ability to reduce judgmental errors. In addition, a rival hypothesis of demand characteristics was examined as a possible explanation of any findings of the reduction of judgmental errors. Participants were randomly assigned to either a control group or a debiasing group and asked to rate the likelihood of several hypothetical events i n a 2 X 2 X 2 X 2 (Gender X Anxiety Group X Treatment Group X Repeated Measure) repeated measures experimental design. Level of anxiety responsiveness was measured to arrange subjects into a "normal" and a highly anxious group. It was hypothesized that highly anxious participants would report higher probability estimates of future threat-related events relative to participants with a "normal" level of anxiety responsiveness, a main effect for anxiety. Secondly, it was hypothesized that a two-way interaction of treatment group and repeated measure upon threat probability ratings would be found. Third, it was hypothesized that a two-way interaction of gender and anxiety upon threat probability ratings would be found. Finally, it was hypothesized that there would be no main effects or interaction effects involving the repeated iv Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. measure and the experimental demand independent variable. A mixed factorial design 2 X 2 X 2 X 2 repeated measures ANOVA was conducted using the threat probability ratings as the dependent variable. In addition, two separate analyses were conducted using the experimental demand stimuli as the dependent variable to investigate demand characteristics as an explanation of the debiasing. The results showed that the debiasing procedure was effective in the reduction of judgmental errors. In addition, it was found that demand characteristics could not account for the reduction in pessimistic threat-related predictions. The results were discussed in terms of cognitive biases and implications for cognitive behavior therapy.


We have fabricated an ytterbium doped all-glass double-clad large mode area holey fiber. A highly efficient cladding pumped single transverse mode holey fiber laser has been demonstrated, allowing continuous-wave output powers in excess of 1W with efficiencies of more than 80%. Furthermore both Q-switched and mode-locked operation of the laser have been demonstrated.


Background. Although variants within genes that encode protein components of several biological systems have been associated with athletic performance, limited studies have investigated the collagen genes that encode the structural components of connective tissues. Objective. To investigate the association of variants within collagen genes with endurance performance in South African (SA) Ironman triathletes. Methods. A total of 661 white, male participants were recruited from four SA Ironman triathlon events for this genetic case-control association study. All participants were genotyped for COL3A1 rs1800255 (G/A) and COL12A1 rs970547 (A/G). Results. No independent associations were identified between COL3A1 rs1800255 and COL12A1 rs970547 and overall finishing time or time to complete any of the individual components (3.8 km swim, 180 km bike or 42.2 km run) of the 226 km event. The major G+A-inferred pseudo-haplotype, constructed from COL3A1 rs1800255 and COL12A1 rs970547, was, however, significantly ( p =0.010 and p =0.027) overrepresented in the fast run tertile (58.7%) compared with the middle (53.5%) and slow (49.5%) run tertiles, respectively. The major G+T+A-inferred pseudo-haplotype, constructed from COL3A1 rs1800255, COL5A1 rs12722 (T/C) and COL12A1 rs970547, was again significantly ( p =0.022) over-represented in the fast run tertile (35.2%) compared with the slow run tertile (28.9%). Conclusion. Our main novel finding was that the COL3A1 rs1800255 and COL12A1 rs970547 variants interacted to modulate endurance running performance in the four SA Ironman triathlons investigated. In addition, the interaction between these variants and COL5A1 rs12722 appeared to modulate endurance running performance.


Studies of the sedimentary succession in Kangerlussuaq, southern East Greenland suggest that a prominent sediment input point existed in the region in the Late Cretaceous–Palaeogene, which was controlled by a major northwest–southeast-oriented fault lineament. The presence of this sediment transfer path is supported by a number of observations. Firstly, the Cretaceous succession thickens towards the fault. This apparent thickening is due to post-depositional erosion of the succession and indicates a Late Maastrichtian–Palaeogene downthrow to the southwest. Secondly, Palaeogene sediments, which underlie the thick plateau basalt succession, are thickest along the axis of the sub-basin lying west of the fault and show south and southeasterly palaeocurrents parallel to the fault in the Christian IV Gletscher lineament. Thirdly, the Palaeogene volcanic succession shows important changes across the fault lineament. To the east of the lineament subaerial plateau basalts rest directly on basement or Palaeogene fluvial sediments, whereas to the west the basal lavas are interbedded with marine sediments and hyaloclastite foreset breccias up to 300m thick. With a pre-drift position less than 100 km from the present-day Faroe Islands, this new information has an important impact on our understanding of reservoir distribution in the Faroes area. Most models for the Palaeogene infill of the Faroe–Shetland Basin show basinal sands sourced from the Shetland Platform thinning northwestwards. If the Kangerlussuaq region was a major sediment input point then northwestward thickening sand bodies might be anticipated, radically altering the prospectivity of the Palaeogene section in areas towards the Faroe Islands.


An elderly woman of Bahamian heritage with Fitzpatrick VI skin type presented with a 1-week history of indolent papules all over her body. She was otherwise asymptomatic. Findings from physical examination were notable for discrete skin-colored to pink papules coalescing into plaques on her face, trunk (Figure, A and B), and all 4 extremities. There was no scale or other epidermal change. A punch biopsy for hematoxylin-eosin staining was performed (Figure, C). The patient returned 1 week later with worsening cutaneous eruptions and new complaints of fever, weakness, and malaise. Repeat physical examination revealed splenomegaly and axillary lymphadenopathy. A peripheral blood smear (Figure, D) and other diagnostic tests were performed. A B


Despite the evidence for a core phonological deficit in dyslexia, the nature of this deficit at the level of the phonological representation is not well understood. In this study, the auditory word gating paradigm was used to examine the quality of the underlying phonological representations in dyslexic and average readers. Although the dyslexic children showed age-related nonword and rapid naming deficits, they did not differ from the age-matched controls in the amount of acoustic–phonetic input required to identify sets of words that varied in word frequency and phonological neighborhood density. These results indicate that input phonological processing, as tapped by the gating task, is normal in this group of dyslexic children, whereas their deficits on the RAN tasks suggest that there are problems with phonological retrieval. The implications of these results are considered in relation to the phonological representations hypothesis of dyslexia; the evidence suggests that what is impaired in dyslexia are the retrieval processes that operate on phonological representations.


Understanding patterns of genetic diversity is a crucial component of medical research in Africa. Here we use haplotype-based population genetics inference to describe gene-flow and admixture in a collection of 48 African groups with a focus on the major populations of the sub-Sahara. Our analysis presents a framework for interpreting haplotype diversity within and between population groups and provides a demographic foundation for genetic epidemiology in Africa. We show that coastal African populations have experienced an influx of Eurasian haplotypes as a series of admixture events over the last 7,000 years, and that Niger-Congo speaking groups from East and Southern Africa share ancestry with Central West Africans as a result of recent population expansions associated with the adoption of new agricultural technologies. We demonstrate that most sub-Saharan populations share ancestry with groups from outside of their current geographic region as a result of large-scale population movements over the last 4,000 years. Our in-depth analysis of admixture provides an insight into haplotype sharing across different geographic groups and the recent movement of alleles into new climatic and pathogenic environments, both of which will aid the interpretation of genetic studies of disease in sub-Saharan Africa.


The aim of this thesis was to take Skarholmstorget as an example of a place with a lot of outdoor activity and to clarify the reasons to why it has become like that. I wanted to use Gehls theories to analyse the preconditions for urban life with drawing as a tool in my analysis. My main question was: What landscape architectural solutions form the urban life at Skarholmstorget? Through the method I choose I explored that question by the following questions: What qualities that support urban life has Skarholmstorget got, according to Gehls theories? How can drawing as a method clarify Gehls conclusions in how the design of a place effects the activity.
My method was to visit and read about Skarholmstorget and factors that support urban life and then investigate the place and analyse the preconditions for the outdoor activity. The analysis of activity was based on the theories that Gehl presents in the book Life between buildings: Using public space (2011). The analysis is divided in two parts; the urban planning of the square and the design of the square. By drawing different parts of the square I visualised the design to deepen my understanding of the forms meaning according to peoples activity.
The result became an analyse of activity at Skarholmstorget. Reflections to a list of questions, maps of analysis and drawings with appurtenant texts show the result. There are several situations that support urban life both in the planning and in the design of the square. The analysis arrived at the conclusions that the variety of destinations there are to be found at Skarholmstorget in combination with a design that allows walking, standing and sitting creates the activeness. Even though the design was lacking in some terms of creating activity, people are gathering at the square and the visitors attract more visitors to come. I assume it has evolved such a self-reinforcing process, where some activity take place more events and people tend to join and new activity develops. The wide variety of functions and services on the square and the fact that there are no vehicular traffic give good conditions for activity in a planning perspective. In terms of the design the northern part of the square has qualities like good climate conditions, a smaller scale and details to move and linger by. These positive aspects that contribute to life between the buildings at Skarholmstorget can be used as inspiration when working as a landscape architect. Another result of this theses is the elaboration of a method of analysis where I assembled Gehls theories in a list of questions to investigate and developed the analysis of the design in another dimension by drawing different environments at the square. Drawing as a method helped me notice things like big respective intimate scales and how people interacted with different elements at the square.


Context-free languages are well studied, but of limited practical use due to their simplicity. Context-sensitive languages on the other hand provide more than enough power for compiler construction, but are difficult to use precisely because of this. Random context languages fall within the gap between these two types and make a trade-off between expressivity and ease-of-use.
To select the most appropriate grammar class for a task it helps to know which languages it can and cannot generate. Examples of languages beyond the generative power of a grammar class give one a sense of what is being traded away when selecting a simpler type. These examples are also of theoretical interest for probing the limits of formal languages.
Although it has been shown that one must exist, to date there is no known example of a language that may be generated by a context-sensitive grammar but not by a random context grammar. This paper considers one language conjectured in the literature to fall within this gap and shows that it does not in fact do so, by giving a random context grammar capable of generating it.


This Article explores a constantly recurring procedural question: When is fact-finding improved by a live hearing or trial, and when would it be better to rely on a written record? Unfortunately, when judges, lawyers, and rulemakers consider this issue, they are led astray by the widely shared - but false - assumption that a judge can best determine issues of credibility by viewing the demeanor of witnesses while they are testifying. In fact, a large body of scientific evidence indicates that judges are more likely to be deceived by lying or mistaken witnesses when observing live testimony than if the judges were to review a paper transcript. Witness presence, in other words, may often harm, rather than improve, the accuracy of credibility assessments. The fact that legal actors value hearings for mistaken reasons does not mean that hearings have no value, but it does raise the concern that live procedure will be employed when it is unneeded or even counterproductive, especially given the lack of available guidance on this question. In this Article, I attempt to remedy this problem by suggesting some guiding principles that lawyers, courts, and rulemakers could rely on when choosing between live and paper-based fact-finding. Live hearings and trials will often, but not always, do more harm than good. In addition to the fact that demeanor cues generally impair credibility judgments, there are a number of cognitive biases that may arise from having one's first impressions of a witness be visual and auditory impressions. These include a persistent human tendency to trust or distrust witnesses based on their physical attractiveness, their social status, their race, or other features that may make them similar to, or different than, the fact-finder. On the flip side, live fact-finding may help a judge make sense of confusing evidence. In addition, in-court hearings may feel fairer to participants than paper-based decisions, due in large part to the desire to have expressive input in decisions that affect their well-being. And occasionally, a live hearing or trial may be preferable for reasons of cost or practicality. A better understanding of the costs and benefits of live fact-finding could have profound implications for the design of our civil justice system. Our current approach relies on predominantly paper-based, pretrial fact-finding, followed in rare cases by a live trial process. Unfortunately, this system uses paper-based procedures at a point when live hearings may often be cheaper and more reliable, then shifts to live examination when its benefits will have evaporated and its costs are likely to be prohibitive. A preferable system would allow for more live hearings early in a case. Even when there is no direct credibility conflict, live proof at this stage may increase the legitimacy of rulings, may lower litigation costs, and will often be more reliable than the paper-based alternative of affidavit evidence. By contrast, rulemakers should be more willing to authorize - and judges should be more willing to use - paper trials at the final fact-finding stage of a dispute. At this late stage, live procedure is expensive and unreliable, and as a result litigants use it so rarely that it provides them with few opportunities for self-expression. In short, we should reverse our present approach to civil case fact-finding by holding more live pretrial hearings and more paper trials.


INTRODUCTION In this study we investigate the association between Aβ levels in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) and genetic risk in a non-demented population. This paper presents the first analysis to use a Bayesian methodology in this area. METHODS Data from the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI) and the EDAR* and DESCRIPA** studies was used in a Bayesian logistic regression analysis. We modeled CSF Aβ burden using age, diagnosis (healthy control or mild cognitive impairment), APOE and a polygenic risk score (PGRS) associated with Alzheimer's Disease (AD). We compared models built using informative priors on age, diagnosis and APOE with non-informative priors on all variables. RESULTS The use of informative priors did not improve model performance in the majority of cases. Models using only age, diagnosis and APOE genotype showed the best predictive ability. DISCUSSION A previous study indicated that a PGRS of AD case/control status was associated with CSF Aβ burden in healthy controls. The current study suggests that this association does not lead to models that are more predictive of amyloid positivity than already known factors such as age and APOE. *'Beta amyloid oligomers in the early diagnosis of AD and as marker for treatment response' **'Development of screening guidelines and criteria for pre-dementia Alzheimers disease'


Background. Neutralization of central nervous system neurite growth inhibitory factors, for example, Nogo-A, is a promising approach to improving recovery following spinal cord injury (SCI). In animal SCI models, intrathecal delivery of anti-Nogo-A antibodies promoted regenerative neurite growth and functional recovery. Objective. This first-in-man study assessed the feasibility, safety, tolerability, pharmacokinetics, and preliminary efficacy of the human anti-Nogo-A antibody ATI355 following intrathecal administration in patients with acute, complete traumatic paraplegia and tetraplegia. Methods. Patients (N = 52) started treatment 4 to 60 days postinjury. Four consecutive dose-escalation cohorts received 5 to 30 mg/2.5 mL/day continuous intrathecal ATI355 infusion over 24 hours to 28 days. Following pharmacokinetic evaluation, 2 further cohorts received a bolus regimen (6 intrathecal injections of 22.5 and 45 mg/3 mL, respectively, over 4 weeks). Results. ATI355 was well tolerated up to 1-year follow-up. All patients experienced ≥1 adverse events (AEs). The 581 reported AEs were mostly mild and to be expected following acute SCI. Fifteen patients reported 16 serious AEs, none related to ATI355; one bacterial meningitis case was considered related to intrathecal administration. ATI355 serum levels showed dose-dependency, and intersubject cerebrospinal fluid levels were highly variable after infusion and bolus injection. In 1 paraplegic patient, motor scores improved by 8 points. In tetraplegic patients, mean total motor scores increased, with 3/19 gaining >10 points, and 1/19 27 points at Week 48. Conversion from complete to incomplete SCI occurred in 7/19 patients with tetraplegia. Conclusions. ATI335 was well tolerated in humans; efficacy trials using intrathecal antibody administration may be considered in acute SCI.


Introduction: Different studies regarding criteria of admission for medical students indicated that prediction of success of students at the university is the most important issue. The aim of this study was to investigate the relation between High School Grade Point Averages (HsGPAs) and university admission test (Konkoor) ranking with students' success indices such as their Basic Sciences Course Averages (BSCAs), Comprehensive Basic Sciences Exam (CBSE) scores and Comprehensive Pre-Internship Exam (CPIE) scores. Methods: This cross sectional descriptive study investigated the records of 356 medical students enrolled in Shahid Sadoughi University of Medical Sciences between 1996-2001. Demographic data of students including their sex, admission group and their study indices such as HsGPAs, Konkoor ranking, BSCAs, CBSE scores, and CPIE scores was collected from their university records. Statistical analysis was performed using SPSS V. 15 and the p-value under 0.05 considered as significant. Results: The mean of Konkoor ranking for the enrolled students was 1276.3 (± 911.7). The average HsGPAs was 18.46 ( ± 1.14), BSCAs was 14.92 ( ±1.36), CBSE scores was 133.8 ( ±16.14), and finally for CPIE scores was 118.9 ( ±18.1). There was a significant relationship between HsGPAs and success indices according to sex and being local (P<0.01). There was no significant relationship between Konkoor ranking and the success indices. Conclusion: HsGPAs is more valuable than Konkoor ranking in predicting the success of students in Shahid Sadoughi University of Medical Sciences.


Remotely operated vehicle (ROV)-based mapping of tectonic features, zones of anomalous reflectivity, and geomorphic targets in Monterey Bay, California, demonstrates the regional abundance of fluid expulsion along the active transform margin between the Pacific and North American plates. Cold seeps—extant communities characterized by chemosynthetic bivalves, bacterial mats, and rare tubeworms—are the surface manifestations of present-day fluid expulsion of sulfide- and methane-rich fluids, whereas slabs, veins, and chimneys of authigenic carbonate represent regions of either dormant methane-rich fluid expulsion, or areas where the present rate of flow is too low to support chemosynthetic fauna. We have found both active and dormant fluid seepage along fault zones, at the surface expression of mud volcanoes, on organic-rich or permeable substrate, and within headless canyons across a wide range of depths within Monterey Bay. The fluid egress at these sites may be driven by a combination of (1) pore-space reduction caused by rapid sedimentation and/or tectonic compaction related to residual Pacific–North America compression, and (2) increased buoyancy due to a decrease in pore-fluid density related to diagenesis and/or catagenesis at depth. Although provocative, the relationship between topographically driven aquifer discharge and sea-floor fluid expulsion remains speculative for Monterey Bay. The widespread distribution of fluid expulsion features controlled by a variety of conduits in Monterey Bay implies that cold seeps may be common features on translational margins.


Two methacrylate-modified clays have been prepared and used to produce nanocomposites of polystyrene and poly(methyl methacrylate) by in situ polymerization. These nanocomposites have been characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), cone calorimetry and the evaluation of mechanical properties. When the clay contains only a single methacrylate unit, the styrene system is exfoliated but methacrylate is intercalated. When two methacrylate units are present on the cation of the clay, both systems are exfoliated. TGA data show that the thermal stability of all the nanocomposites is improved, as expected. The relationships between the fire properties and nanostructure of the nanocomposites are complicated, as shown by cone calorimetry. The conclusions that one may reach using cone calorimetry do not completely agree with those from XRD and TEM. The evaluation of mechanical properties shows an increase in Young's modulus for all nanocomposites along with a decrease in elongation; tensile strength is decreased for methacrylate nanocomposites but increased for styrenics systems. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


Due to the increased use of devices with restricted resources such as limited area size, power or energy, the community has developed various techniques for designing lightweight ciphers. One approach that is increasingly discussed is to use the cipher key that is stored on the device in non-volatile memory not only for the initialization of the registers but during the encryption/decryption process as well. Recent examples are the ciphers Midori (Asiacrypt'15) and Sprout (FSE'15). This may on the one hand help to save resources, but also may allow for a stronger key involvement and hence higher security. However, only little is publicly known so far if and to what extent this approach is indeed practical. Thus, cryptographers without strong engineering background face the problem that they cannot evaluate whether certain designs are reasonable (from a practical point of view) which hinders the development of new designs. In this work, we investigate this design principle from a practical point of view. After a discussion on reasonable approaches for storing a key in non-volatile memory, motivated by several commercial products we focus on the case that the key is stored in EEPROM. Here, we highlight existing constraints and derive that some designs, based on the impact on their throughput, are better suited for the approach of continuously reading the key from all types of non-volatile memory. Based on these findings, we improve the design of Sprout for proposing a new lightweight stream cipher that (i) has a significantly smaller area size than almost all other stream ciphers and (ii) can be efficiently realized using common non-volatile memory techniques. Hence, we see our work as an important step towards putting such designs on a more solid ground and to initiate further discussions on realistic designs.


If EU leaders are looking for ways to make the Eastern Partnership successful, there are worse places to start than Moldova. Recent elections brought to power a four-party Alliance for European Integration, making the country the only post-Soviet state (aside from the Baltics) in the last ten years where the transfer of power took place via elections. Moreover, in terms of trade, its dependence on the EU is also greater than that of any other post-Soviet state and its support for European integration is the highest in the region. It also shares a language and a history with Romania (an EU member state), and due to migration flows and geography, it has the highest intensity of people-to-people interaction with the EU compared to the other former Soviet states. The country could serve as a laboratory for a different sort of European neighbourhood policy – a partnership that is more effective, more attuned to local needs and that gives palpable benefits for both the EU and its partners. Certainly, a successful EU policy on Moldova will not on its own transform the entire neighbourhood, but it could be a template for a more effective EU policy towards other post-Soviet states like Georgia, Armenia or Ukraine. (A former CEPS Research Fellow, Nicu Popescu is currently a Policy Fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations in London.)


The literature on disruptive technologies has previously stated that those innovations often emerge in low-end segments or in new markets and as the performance improves it eventually displaces the old technology. This article aims to explain how and why a technology may prosper in high-end or mainstream markets despite its initially lower performance and does so through three in-depth case studies. The findings suggest that those technologies may compensate the inferior performance by simplifying and removing work for customers. For instance, digital imaging emerged in high-end segments since these customers were willing to trade-off the initially lower image quality in order to remove the usage of film. Based upon these results, the paper concludes that the literature on disruptive technologies needs to maintain a more nuanced view of value and how it is created and distributed inside the customer's organisation.


During Drosophila oogenesis, patterning activities of the EGFR and Dpp pathways specify several subpopulations of the follicle cells that give rise to dorsal eggshell structures. The roof of dorsal eggshell appendages is formed by the follicle cells that express Broad (Br), a zinc-finger transcription factor regulated by both pathways. EGFR induces Br in the dorsal follicle cells. This inductive signal is overridden in the dorsal midline cells, which are exposed to high levels of EGFR activation, and in the anterior cells, by Dpp signaling. We show that the resulting changes in the Br pattern affect the expression of Dpp receptor thickveins (tkv), which is essential for Dpp signaling. By controlling tkv, Br controls Dpp signaling in late stages of oogenesis and, as a result, regulates its own repression in a negative-feedback loop. We synthesize these observations into a model, whereby the dynamics of Br expression are driven by the sequential action of feedforward and feedback loops. The feedforward loop controls the spatial pattern of Br expression, while the feedback loop modulates this pattern in time. This mechanism demonstrates how complex patterns of gene expression can emerge from simple inputs, through the interaction of regulatory network motifs.


This paper provides the first report of the intersex (ovotestis) condition in the flatfish species dab Limanda limanda. Specimens presenting the condition were collected from the North Dogger Bank in the North Sea during the United Kingdom National Marine Monitoring Programme in 2003. Two of the individuals collected (14.3% of the males sampled) presented externally as males but upon histological examination were seen to contain both male and female gonadal tissues. Pre- vitellogenic oocytes were suspended within a matrix of spermatogonia and spermatocytes. One of the specimens also presented dilated testicular follicles filled with masses of mature spermatozoa. The significance of this finding in the United Kingdom's sentinel offshore monitoring species is discussed with relation to potential offshore effects of exposure to endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs).


BACKGROUND--A study was undertaken to evaluate whether an early diagnosis by neonatal screening may improve the long term prognosis of patients with cystic fibrosis and to assess the influence of expert management started immediately after the diagnosis. METHODS--Comparative clinical follow up in three birth cohorts of patients with cystic fibrosis was performed at the Cystic Fibrosis centre in Groningen in close collaboration with paediatricians in general hospitals in the north-eastern part of the Netherlands. The first birth cohort (n = 19) was detected by screening and the two other cohorts were detected clinically, one (n = 30) consisting of patients born during the screening programme and the other (n = 32) of patients born during the six years immediately after the screening programme ended. The total number of patients in the three birth cohorts included all patients with cystic fibrosis born in this area during a 12 year period. Cumulative survival rates and the variation with time of lung function, the levels of immunoglobulins, and growth patterns were used as main outcome measures. RESULTS--Patients born during the screening programme but detected clinically appeared to have a reduced life expectancy compared with patients detected by screening. The patients detected by screening showed less deterioration in lung function (annual decrease 1.2% of FEV1 % pred), a smaller increase in immunoglobulin levels, and minimal catch-up growth compared with an annual decrease of 3.25% of FEV1 % pred in the non-screened birth cohort of the same age, a higher rise in immunoglobulins leading to increased levels at the end of the observation period, and catch-up growth for weight as well as height. Differences between patients treated in a cystic fibrosis centre and those not referred to a specialist centre were smaller but similar, in favour of treatment at a cystic fibrosis clinic. CONCLUSIONS--Expert management started immediately after an early diagnosis of cystic fibrosis by neonatal screening results in important beneficial effects on the outcome and clinical course of the condition. The institution of very early treatment may be critical for the outcome and long term prognosis for most patients with cystic fibrosis. Neonatal screening programmes for cystic fibrosis should be introduced more widely.


The 1999 New York Video Festival Walter Reade Theatre (The Film Society of Lincoln Center) New York, New York July 16-22, 1999 This year's New York Video Festival described itself in its program literature as presenting an art form that has become "classical." And with the classical comes high ideals. "We must always remember that the raison d'etre is the art, not the technology," states the festival's flyer, an idea that is refreshing (although not original) given the proclivity of electronic artists for distraction by new media hype. Consequently, a number of festival offerings were inspiring due to their "make-do" constructions. Christopher Wilcha's The Target Shoots First (1999), a Hi-8 document of his sojourn as Columbia House Record Club's resident grunge expert is the kind of work that reinvigorates video art by virtue of its simplicity, as did Sadie Benning's work some years back. Miranda July's combinations of slide technology and "cheesy" video effects in the performance piece Love Diamond (1999) make her suburban surrealism and black comedy vignettes seem more like puppet theater than multi-media art. Backed by an intricat e ambient score by Zac Love, the lovable and slightly dippy tone of her multiple voices--at times cloying, at times sexy, at times spooky--is all the more remarkable since it is unenhanced by technological gimmickry. Kelly Reichardt's 50-minute traditional narrative, Ode (1999), a lyrical rewrite of the Billy Joe McAllister legend that comes off like a utopian after-school special, was shot in Kodachrome and without a crew. This inclusion of film, as well as performance art, to the festival's offerings is the reductio ad absurdum of the claim that the festival is about the art, not the technology. Perhaps it is also a sign that video's classical period will be marked by various technological convergences and expanded notions of the medium. In addition to the low-tech work, including the sincere, hand-held camera explorations of family, sex and death that never go out of style, there were high-tech experiments, all of which are closer to what is called digital art than video art. Many utilized the look of the interface--that liminal area between computer data and its user, the aesthetics of which have become an important issue for digital commerce. In video, the interface aesthetic highlights the similarities between television and computers as tools for reinventing, repackaging or refraining information. The interfaces of Chris Petit's experimental documentaries are masterful. In Negative Space (1998), these windows dramatize the theories of camera framing that fascinate his subject, film critic and artist Manny Farber. In The Falconer (1998) the interface has alchemical powers, creating a visual equivalent of the alembic in which we witness the shape-shifting substance of the filmmaker Peter Whitehead. Whitehead's life, we discover, is fantas tical and shocking enough to require the multiple filters, hieroglyphs and other symbolic arcana of Petit's interface lest the subject utterly explode the nonfiction restraints of the documentary genre. Petit is video artist as alchemist and disembodied cicerone; he approaches curiosities of film history within the frames of video technology but through a cathode ray tube darkly, following unconventional axes with his own eloquence and history. At times the art of the convergence between computer and video was not as fully worked out. Marcello Mercado's The Warm Place (1998) is a potential equal of Woody Vasulka's The Art of Memory (1987), though Mercado overkills his piece with computer graphics. Intentionally or not, the unmanipulated slaughterhouse ballet of his video's last moments allows the viewer to reflect on the potential simple beauty of uncomputerized video while watching an equally simple method for slaughter. The artist collective panOptic's Wonder Spider (1998)--a collection of fake interfaces intentionally created to induce the displeasure of seizure and mind control through strobe effects--is, paradoxically, a visually and sonically elegant exploration of the intelligence of the machine that is reminiscent of the works of Paul Bush, The Bureau of Inverse Technology (B. …


Current accounts of attentional capture predict the most salient stimulus to be invariably selected first. However, existing salience and visual search models assume noise in the map computation or selection process. Consequently, they predict the first selection to be stochastically dependent on salience, implying that attention could even be captured first by the second most salient (instead of the most salient) stimulus in the field. Yet, capture by less salient distractors has not been reported and salience-based selection accounts claim that the distractor has to be more salient in order to capture attention. We tested this prediction using an empirical and modeling approach of the visual search distractor paradigm. For the empirical part, we manipulated salience of target and distractor parametrically and measured reaction time interference when a distractor was present compared to absent. Reaction time interference was strongly correlated with distractor salience relative to the target. Moreover, even distractors less salient than the target captured attention, as measured by reaction time interference and oculomotor capture. In the modeling part, we simulated first selection in the distractor paradigm using behavioral measures of salience and considering the time course of selection including noise. We were able to replicate the result pattern we obtained in the empirical part. We conclude that each salience value follows a specific selection time distribution and attentional capture occurs when the selection time distributions of target and distractor overlap. Hence, selection is stochastic in nature and attentional capture occurs with a certain probability depending on relative salience.


With the beginning of the 21st century Pakistan is facing energy crisis. In the short term, protests against energy shortages are exacerbating tensions in this highly volatile and tenuous nation. In the long term, failure to invest in renewable energy will derail economic development and forestall sustainable growth, exacerbating an already incendiary short-term situation. The government has to simultaneously manage critical problems such as terrorism and energy shortage. The only viable short-term and long-term solution is for developed nations to assist Pakistan in investing in its green energy infrastructure. The purpose of this paper is to argue that developed countries must honour their commitment to help developing nations invest in energy infrastructure as a way of bridging the gap towards a green economy; and there is no better candidate than Pakistan. This paper will investigate Pakistan's economy short-term energy dilemma while justifying a call for global support.


The Law Society of South Africa (LSSA) held its annual general meeting (AGM) on 28 and 29 March in Bloemfontein. Presenters and delegates debated issues of importance in the law profession under the heading: 'A changing profession in a changing environment'. Topics discussed included the impending Legal Practice Bill, the relationship between Southern African Democratic Community Lawyers Association (SADC LA) and the law societies of the SADC region, speedy delivery of justice, attorneys making a profit, judicial independence, the Office of the Public Protector and the use of information technology (IT) in law firms.


To what extent does existentialism constitute itself as a literary
rather than a primarily philosophical phenomenon? Or, to put a
slightly different but related question: what form does existentialism
take when it is viewed as literature rather than as philosophy?
Such questions arise as a fairly direct consequence of the fact that
a number of key existentialist works (or works that have generally
been regarded as such) have indeed been works of literature - JeanPaul
Sartre's Nausea (La Nausee, 1938) and Albert Camus's The
Outsider (L'Etranger, 1939) being two excellent examples - while
some of the key figures within or close to the existentialist tradition
have been literary rather than philosophical - arguably this is true
of Camus, and certainly of Beckett. Rather than simply provide an
exploration of existentialism in literature, or a survey of those literary
works that figure within existentialism, this essay will also
examine the idea of existentialism as literature, sketching a picture
of existentialism as it emerges in literary rather than solely philosophical
terms. Although it is sometimes argued that existentialism stands in a
special relationship to literature - that it is an especially "literary"
mode of philosophizing- David E. Cooper argues that over-reliance
on existentialist fiction has actually been a source of misconceptions
about existentialism. Refusing to include Camus among the
existentialists, or to allow that he might be a philosopher, Cooper
claims that "existentialism ... is not a mood or a vocabulary, but a
relatively systematic philosophy." I am less persuaded than Cooper
by the idea of existentialism as a "systematic philosophy" (if there
is anything that is systematic in existentialism, then it is, it seems
to me, just phenomenology), and much more inclined to view
existentialist literature as providing an important means of access
to existentialist thinking or, at least, to what has to be viewed as
a form of such thinking. While one approach to existentialism is
through the philosophical works that make it up, another approach
is surely through the literary works that represent a parallel, and
sometimes alternative, mode of articulation and expression.


SuperWASP, the Northern hemisphere WASP observatory, has been observing the skies from La Palma since 2004. In that time, more than 50 planets have been discovered with data contributions from SuperWASP. In the process of validating planets, many false-positive candidates have also been identified. The TESS telescope is set to begin observations of the northern sky in 2019. Similar to the WASP survey, the TESS pixel size is relatively large (13 arcsec for WASP and 21 arcsec for TESS), making it susceptible to many blended signals and false detections caused principally by grazing and blended stellar eclipsing binary systems. In order to reduce duplication of effort on targets, we present a catalogue of 1 041 Northern hemisphere SuperWASP targets that have been rejected as planetary transits through follow-up


Martin Michael Plunkett is a product of his times -- the possessor of a genius intellect, a pitiless soul of brushed steel, and a heart of blackest evil. With criminal tendencies forged in the fires of L.A.'s Charles Manson hysteria, he comes to the bay city of San Francisco -- and submits to savage and terrible impulses that reveal to him his true vocation as a pure and perfect murderer. And so begins his decade of discovery and terror, as he cuts a bloody swath across the full length of a land, ingeniously exploiting and feeding upon a society's obsessions. As he maneuvers deftly through a seamy world of drugs, flesh, and perversions, the media will call him many things -- but Martin Plunkett's real name is Death. His brilliant, twisted mind is a horriying place to explore. His madness reflects a nation's own. The killer is on the road. And there's nowhere in America to hide.


The article is devoted to the extension of boundaries of scientific ideas about the economic nature of rent relations in mesoeconomics. The article develops theoretical ideas on both the impact of globalization on the rent economy and the localization of rent relations. In this regard, I research the relations between the concepts of «raw economy» and «rent economy». Moreover, I consider a number of methods of the influence of rent relations on the economic development. The type of the rents in the economy corresponds to the directions of the globalization of these rents and is interconnected with the specific types of rent relations. The article reveals functional patterns as well as the tendencies of modern rent relations in local economic space. Integrating the specified tendencies, I have determined the tasks of rent economy at the regional level. The localization of rent relations in the globalizing regional economy will reveal the best ways for the regional development. The increasing value of the rent in regional economy has allowed the author to define the factors, which are common for both the globalizing rents and localizing rents. As a result of the research, I determine the directions of the transformation of the rent relations at the level of the regional economy. Firstly, the specific concentration of rents, which arose and localize in the territory of a region, transforms in a territorial rent. Secondly, the forms of rent relations are modified in their geographical localization in the economic space of a region. The third group of tendencies is connected to the comprehensive nature of changes in the development of rents in the territory of a region. And the last direction consists in the objective limitations of the development of the rent relations in the regional economy.


This paper presents a novel, high performance maximum torque per ampere control (MTPAC) of an interior permanent magnet synchronous motor (IPMSM) that is chosen for a vehicular application. In vehicular applications IPMSMs are usually controlled with MTPAC method due to fully utilization of reluctance torque, usually with this method maximum torque per ampere trajectories are obtained by look up tables because of nonlinear relation between torque and current; however, utilization of look up tables decreases the real time performance and reliability of the system. Some studies have been used MTPAC with nonlinear equations between d-q axes currents and torque; however, controller calculation burden can be reduced with proposed method. In this study relationship between torque and stator current magnitude is obtained as a first order linear equation with curve fitting. Thereby it has been possible to work with only one linear torque equation instead of nonlinear equations, therefore controller performance and reliability is increased.  Control of the motor is simulated under different load conditions, and results are given and analysed. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.eee.19.7.2159


Making optimum use of the water resources is a task which long has engaged human effort and which has, in recent decades, been studied within the framework of the integrated regional development plans. The "integrated development" of a region means the orderly marshalling of all its resources to promote human welfare. It is evident, however, that the influence of development of a given region upon the rest of the national economy is in most of the cases considerable. Moreover, the investment needs of any development scheme are closely linked to the needs of the whole economy. These introductory comments are especially relevant to the water resources development schemes. It is now widely recognized that individual water projects -- whether single or multipurpose -- cannot as a rule be undertaken with optimum benefit for the people affected before there is at least the broad outline of a plan for the entire drainage area.

Although this paper concentrates on the Lublin region, some thoughts are also given to the related problems in the upper portion of the Vistula Basin. Information concerning the entire basin is problem-oriented. A description of the basin and its water resources is presented in some of the earlier IIASA documents. The paper ends with the formulation of a proposal for the Water Resources Sub-Project to be implemented within the framework of the Lublin-Vistula Research Program.


Icing of operating structures in the Arctic areas causes difficulties for ships and offshore drilling units. The large amount of accreted ice on these structures can make the ship turn over, and makes the work both challenging and dangerous. The scope of this master thesis is to investigate how icing on such structures can be prevented, focusing on developing a coating based on an antifreeze compound. Through the thesis, a summary of adhesion aspects, polymeric materials and antifreeze properties are presented. Additionally, several experiments, both qualitative and quantitative, are performed. The experimental section presents epoxy, glycerol, propylene glycol and polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP), and how they can be implemented as an antifreeze coating. An applicable coating should be able to prevent sea water from freezing on it, not by making the coating hydrophobic, but by preventing an interfacial contact between substrate and sea spray ice. The epoxy gives as well as no protection against icing, and is difficult to implement with an antifreeze material. Pure antifreeze has excellent antifreeze properties, but offer no adhesive strength with the surface to be coated. A mixture of PVP and glycerol proved to give the most promising result. The relationship between adhesive strength and antifreeze property depends on the weight percent of the PVP, and a high PVP amount increases the adhesive strength. Several PVP-G coatings are presented, and all of these are evaluated with a single lap shear test. The lowest adhesive ice strength obtained from the presented mixtures, is 0.0114±0.006 MPa.


The Tuckerton Peninsula, a large expanse (~2000 ha) of highly inundated Spartina alterniflora salt marsh
habitat, forms one of the most extensive coastal wetland systems in New Jersey
(USA). It is projected to be among the first salt marsh systems in New Jersey
to be lost by rising sea level driven by climate change. The changes that occur
in the demographic, ecologic, and ecogeomorphic characteristics of the salt
marsh habitat at this location will be vital to understanding future habitat
change in coastal wetlands in the Mid-Atlantic region. As a consequence, the
Tuckerton Peninsula salt marsh system is designated as a sentinel site of the
Jacques Cousteau National Estuarine Research Reserve (JCNERR) for the
detection, monitoring, and assessment of climate change effects, most notably sea-level
rise and inundation. Development of the Tuckerton Peninsula as a sentinel site
requires a high accuracy local geodetic control network to connect existing
water quality monitoring stations, vegetation transects and monitoring surface
elevation tables, ground water wells, and digital elevation models on the same
vertical datum. The integration of these monitoring infrastructure components
is crucial to effective operation of the sentinel site. It will enable the
collection of essential data to assess rates of marsh migration and upland
transgression, as well as delineate key natural and anthropogenic drivers
influencing habitat condition and change. The JCNERR sentinel site designation
supports the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's long-term goal
of assessing coastal vulnerability in the USA to climate change and generating
data useful for forging climate adaptation and mitigation initiatives for
coastal communities. Habitat and vertical control data collected at this
sentinel site will be made available to decision makers across the nation and will
enable them to determine how the loss of critical salt marsh habitat will
affect coastal communities, their adaptation to future habitat loss, and their
development of mitigation plans to address impacts and enhance resiliency.


The aim of this work is to illustrate the psychological contributions of Pragmatism and of the Original Institutional Economics (also referred to as OIE or institutionalism), and their relevance for improving the process of social valuing and, as a consequence, the effectiveness of policy action. As a matter of fact, both institutionalist and pragmatist theories were well acquainted with various strands of psychology, and some of them also provided relevant contributions in this respect. Moreover, these theories reveal, along with various differences, significant complementarities, both between themselves and with important concepts of social psychology and psychoanalysis. The work will address the following aspects: (I) The main characteristics of pragmatist psychology with particular attention to their social implications. For space reasons, we will focus attention on the contributions of authors – John Dewey, William James and George Herbert Mead – more oriented to social sciences. (II) The psychological contributions of institutionalism. We will pay particular attention to Thorstein Veblen's theory of instincts and John Rogers Commons' theory of negotiational psychology. We highlight that these theories present, despite a number of differences, relevant complementarities.


The use of deep parsers in spoken dialogue systems is usually subject to strong performance requirements. This is particularly the case in human-robot interaction, where the computing resources are limited and must be shared by many components in parallel. A real-time dialogue system must be capable of responding quickly to any given utterance, even in the presence of noisy, ambiguous or distorted input. The parser must therefore ensure that the number of analyses remains bounded at every processing step. The paper presents a practical approach to addressing this issue in the context of deep parsers designed for spoken dialogue. The approach is based on a word lattice parser combined with a statistical model for parse selection. Each word lattice is parsed incrementally, word by word, and a discriminative model is applied at each incremental step to prune the set of resulting partial analyses. The model incorporates a wide range of linguistic and contextual features and can be trained with a simple perceptron. The approach is fully implemented as part of a spoken dialogue system for human-robot interaction. Evaluation results on a Wizard-of-Oz test suite demonstrate significant improvements in parsing time.


ABSTRACT Over the past decade the national governments of the UK have repositioned 'community safety' as a priority area. The complexity of reducing real and perceived crime rates and levels of antisocial behaviour is widely accepted. This has inspired the development of numerous programmes aimed at delivering safer and stronger communities in specific contexts. One of the strategies promoted in Scotland is the Community Warden Scheme, which aims to provide a 'uniformed, semi-official police presence' at a community level. Scotland's Community Wardens characterise the growing trend towards the pluralisation of police service providers, as a myriad of actors constitute the 'extended policing family'. Amidst the diversification and expansion of policing actors, issues surrounding public accountability and policing authority loom large. This paper aims to critically examine the role of Scotland's Community Wardens in relation to the broader policing landscape, drawing on empirical data generated in one city (Dundee). It will start by discussing the political and policy context surrounding the creation of the Community Warden Scheme, and describing the Wardens' main roles and responsibilities. The paper will then outline two substantive issues facing the Wardens as highlighted by the primary research. First, the importance of developing a distinct professional identity will be explored. Second, the imperative of working alongside local policing teams will be discussed. In suggesting methods of good practice, the everyday challenges of navigating intra-professional expectations, inter-professional tensions and public accountability will be critically analysed.


With a view to using microwaves to excite the single-spin resonance of an electron trapped in a defect at the Si∕SiO2 interface of a metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET), we report on the experimental evidence for a stationary current in such devices operated under microwave radiation. The stationary current is examined as a function of the microwave power and of the operating voltage of the MOSFET. The transistor behavior is reproduced by a model exploiting the nonlinearity of the MOSFET channel resistance as a component of the circuit coupled with the electromagnetic field. We conclude that, in operating a MOSFET under microwaves, one has to pay attention to the generation of spurious stationary currents that may alter the likelihood to observe spin-dependent phenomena in the random telegraph signal observed in a MOSFET.


Deep neural networks (DNNs) have surpassed human-level accuracy in a variety of cognitive tasks but at the cost of significant memory/time requirements in DNN training. This limits their deployment in energy and memory limited applications that require real-time learning. Matrix-vector multiplications (MVM) and vector-vector outer product (VVOP) are the two most expensive operations associated with training of DNNs. Strategies to improve the efficiency of MVM computation in hardware have been demonstrated with minimal impact on training accuracy. However, the VVOP computation remains a relatively less explored bottleneck even with the aforementioned strategies. Stochastic computing (SC) has been proposed to improve the efficiency of VVOP computation but on relatively shallow networks with bounded activation functions and floatingpoint (FP) scaling of activation gradients. In this paper, we propose ESSOP, an efficient and scalable stochastic outer product architecture based on the SC paradigm. We introduce efficient techniques to generalize SC for weight update computation in DNNs with the unbounded activation functions (e.g., ReLU), required by many state-of-the-art networks. Our architecture reduces the computational cost by re-using random numbers and replacing certain FP multiplication operations by bit shift scaling. We show that the ResNet-32 network with 33 convolution layers and a fully-connected layer can be trained with ESSOP on the CIFAR-10 dataset to achieve baseline comparable accuracy. Hardware design of ESSOP at 14nm technology node shows that, compared to a highly pipelined FP16 multiplier design, ESSOP is 82.2% and 93.7% better in energy and area efficiency respectively for outer product computation.


Topiramate (TPM) is effective for multiple seizure types and epilepsy syndromes in children and adults. Topiramate has adverse effects (including cognitive, depression, renal stones), but many of these are low incidence when started at a low dose and slowly titrated to 100 to 200 mg/day. Also, TPM has proven benefit for migraine, obesity, eating disorders, and alcohol use disorders, which can be comorbid in patients with epilepsy and may also be effective in subpopulations within specific psychiatric diagnoses. Recently approved extended-release formulations of TPM (Trokendi and Qudexy in the United States) have reliable data supporting their safety and efficacy for patients with epilepsy. They have potential for more rapid titration within 1 month to 200 mg/day and have better patient retention than TPM immediate-release, but there are no robust double-blind randomized controlled trials comparing the different formulations. We expect the once per day extended-release formulations to improve medication ad...


A bridge with precast bridge deck panels was built at the Virginia Tech Structures Laboratory to examine constructability issues, creep and shrinkage behavior, and strength and fatigue performance of transverse joints, different types of shear connectors, and different shear pocket spacings. The bridge consisted of two AASHTO type II girders, 40 ft long and simply supported, and five precast bridge deck panels. Two of the transverse joints were epoxied male-female joints and the other two transverse joints were grouted female-female joints. Two different pocket spacings were studied: 4 ft pocket spacing and 2 ft pocket spacing. Two different shear connector types were studied: hooked reinforcing bars and a new shear stud detail that can be used with concrete girders. The construction process was well documented. The changes in strain in the girders and deck were examined and compared to a finite element model to examine the effects of differential creep and shrinkage. After the finite element model verification study, the model was used to predict the long term stresses in the deck and determine if the initial level of post-tensioning was adequate to keep the transverse joints in compression throughout the estimated service life of the bridge. Cyclic loading tests and flexural strength tests were performed to examine performance of the different pocket spacings, shear connector types and transverse joint configurations. A finite element study examined the performance of the AASHTO LRFD shear friction equation for the design of the horizontal shear connectors. The initial level of post-tensioning in the bridge was adequate to keep the transverse joints in compression throughout the service life of the bridge. Both types of pocket spacings and shear connectors performed exceptionally well. The AASHTO LRFD shear friction equation was shown to be applicable to deck panel systems and was conservative for determining the number of shear connectors required in each pocket. A recommended design and detailing procedure was developed for the shear connectors and shear pockets.


The capability of a resource is an important aspect to consider in resource management and production planning. This paper extends on the system introduced in our previous work [3, 4] and outlines a resource capability assessment function to determine how well a worker's current capability matches up to that required by his or her job-role. The proposed function can also be used for the purpose of personnel selection in employment and promotion decisions. A fuzzy inference system approach is proposed for the development of the capability assessment function and a case study is carried out in industry to demonstrate the successful implementation and performance of the assessment method.


It has been established that diverse behaviors spanning the controllable subspace of an Markov decision process can be trained by rewarding a policy for being distinguishable from other policies \citep{gregor2016variational, eysenbach2018diversity, warde2018unsupervised}. However, one limitation of this formulation is generalizing behaviors beyond the finite set being explicitly learned, as is needed for use on subsequent tasks. Successor features \citep{dayan93improving, barreto2017successor} provide an appealing solution to this generalization problem, but require defining the reward function as linear in some grounded feature space. In this paper, we show that these two techniques can be combined, and that each method solves the other's primary limitation. To do so we introduce Variational Intrinsic Successor FeatuRes (VISR), a novel algorithm which learns controllable features that can be leveraged to provide enhanced generalization and fast task inference through the successor feature framework. We empirically validate VISR on the full Atari suite, in a novel setup wherein the rewards are only exposed briefly after a long unsupervised phase. Achieving human-level performance on 14 games and beating all baselines, we believe VISR represents a step towards agents that rapidly learn from limited feedback.


PRELIMINARY INVESTIGATION OF COMMERCIALLY AVAILABLE PLURONICS AS UV CURABLE 3D PRINTING INKS FOR TISSUE ENGINEERING APPLICATIONS by A'Lester Cordell Allen Three-dimensional printing (3DP) emerged from simple beginnings in the field of additive manufacturing (AM) over 31 years ago as an economical technique for rapid prototyping. Now 3DP has become the premier method for fabricating materials from unique consumer products to lifesaving customized human organs. Current challenges in bioprinting center around balancing material properties such as stiffness, yield strength, and surface chemistry with non-Newtonian fluid flow to construct interconnected, porous scaffolding geometries that simulate the complex vasculature found in the extracellular matrix (ECM) of the human body needed to promote cell growth and regeneration. In this study, several copolymers of poly(ethlyene oxide) and poly(propylene oxide) with a triblock structure were characterized using oscillatory shear measurements and thermogravimetric instruments to investigate the relationship between storage and loss moduli (G' and G") and printing behavior. The relationship between complex viscosity (η*), yield stress (τy), and fluid flow through a syringe yields some indirect correlations that depend on testing procedure. The overall relationship was more complex than originally understood. In the end, several self-supporting complex geometries were successfully printed using a photocurable formulations waxy (Pluronic P85, Jeffamine ED 2003) and liquid (Pluronic L121) triblock copolymers.


In this paper, we theoretically propose and experimentally demonstrate the manipulation of a novel degree of freedom in ring resonators, which is the coupling from the clockwise input to the counterclockwise propagating mode (and vice versa). We name this mechanism backcoupling, in contrast with the normal forward-coupling of a directional coupler. It is well known that internal reflections will cause peak splitting in a ring resonator. Our previous research demonstrated that the peak asymmetry will be strongly influenced by the backcoupling. Thus, it is worth manipulating the backcoupling in order to gain full control of a split resonance for the benefit of various resonance-splitting-based applications. While it is difficult to directly manipulate the backcoupling of a conventional directional coupler, here we design a circuit explicitly for manipulating the backcoupling. It can be potentially developed for applications such as single sideband filter, resonance splitting elimination, Fano resonance, and ultrahigh-Q and finesse.


A high-productivity digital VLSI flow for designing complex SoCs is presented. The flow includes high-level synthesis tools, an object-oriented library of synthesizable SystemC and C++ components, and a modular VLSI physical design approach based on fine-grained globally asynchronous locally synchronous (GALS) clocking. The flow was demonstrated on a 16nm FinFET testchip targeting machine learning and computer vision.


Direct acoustics-to-word (A2W) models in the end-to-end paradigm have received increasing attention compared to conventional subword based automatic speech recognition models using phones, characters, or context-dependent hidden Markov model states. This is because A2W models recognize words from speech without any decoder, pronunciation lexicon, or externally-trained language model, making training and decoding with such models simple. Prior work has shown that A2W models require orders of magnitude more training data in order to perform comparably to conventional models. Our work also showed this accuracy gap when using the English Switchboard-Fisher data set. This paper describes a recipe to train an A2W model that closes this gap and is at-par with state-of-the-art sub-word based models. We achieve a word error rate of 8.8.8%/13.9% on the Hub5-2000 Switchboard/CallHome test sets without any decoder or language model. We find that model initialization, training data order, and regularization have the most impact on the A2W model performance. Next, we present a joint word-character A2W model that learns to first spell the word and then recognize it. This model provides a rich output to the user instead of simple word hypotheses, making it especially useful in the case of words unseen or rarely-seen during training.


Studies of involuntary outpatient commitment (OPC) among persons with severe mental illness have concluded that OPC is only effective in improving treatment outcomes when it is sustained for 6 months or longer and is combined with frequent outpatient services. This article explores factors that influence the delivery of outpatient services to subjects in a randomized trial of OPC and finds 2 general patterns. Outpatient visits were more frequent among all subjects with apparent clinical need, regardless of study assignment, and among subjects whose OPC was sustained beyond an initial court order. These results suggest that, in practice, sustained OPC represents a consensual agreement between clinicians and the court to more intensively address the complex needs of persons with severe and persistent mental illness.


Objective. Magnetoencephalography (MEG) based brain–computer interface (BCI) involves a large number of sensors allowing better spatiotemporal resolution for assessing brain activity patterns. There have been many efforts to develop BCI using MEG with high accuracy, though an increase in the number of channels (NoC) means an increase in computational complexity. However, not all sensors necessarily contribute significantly to an increase in classification accuracy (CA) and specifically in the case of MEG-based BCI no channel selection methodology has been performed. Therefore, this study investigates the effect of channel selection on the performance of MEG-based BCI. Approach. MEG data were recorded for two sessions from 15 healthy participants performing motor imagery, cognitive imagery and a mixed imagery task pair using a unique paradigm. Performance of four state-of-the-art channel selection methods (i.e. Class-Correlation, ReliefF, Random Forest, and Infinite Latent Feature Selection were applied across six binary tasks in three different frequency bands) were evaluated in this study on two state-of-the-art features, i.e. bandpower and common spatial pattern (CSP). Main results. All four methods provided a statistically significant increase in CA compared to a baseline method using all gradiometer sensors, i.e. 204 channels with band-power features from alpha (8–12 Hz), beta (13–30 Hz), or broadband (α + β) (8–30 Hz). It is also observed that the alpha frequency band performed better than the beta and broadband frequency bands. The performance of the beta band gave the lowest CA compared with the other two bands. Channel selection improved accuracy irrespective of feature types. Moreover, all the methods reduced the NoC significantly, from 204 to a range of 1–25, using bandpower as a feature and from 15 to 105 for CSP. The optimal channel number also varied not only in each session but also for each participant. Reducing the NoC will help to decrease the computational cost and maintain numerical stability in cases of low trial numbers. Significance. The study showed significant improvement in performance of MEG-BCI with channel selection irrespective of feature type and hence can be successfully applied for BCI applications.


ABSTRACT We discuss oral history interviews with academics who laid the foundation of research and pedagogies in daycare for under three-year-olds in Europe and North and South America since the 1970s. Their work is clearly embedded in the social-political context of their country: the left-wing programmes for disadvantaged families in the U.S.A.; neoliberal policy and daycare because of employment of mothers in the U.S.A.; social-democratic policy and family support in Sweden; and state-controlled institutions for education in socialist-communist East Germany. The interviewees acknowledge the risk of infant daycare for emotional security. Related to values and social context in their country, the interviewees contributed to different interpretations of attachment theory, attachment policies and innovative insights such as multiple attachments, friendship between one-year-olds, group sensitivity, professional love and home-to-centre and vice versa transitions. All are convinced that today we have the knowledge to offer high-quality daycare, but that infant daycare can be a risk when economic demands are too dominant.


Boston's Artery/Harbor Tunnel Project is currently the United States' largest highway construction project. One of its major issues is the disposal of an estimated 11 million cubic yards of dredged and excavated material from Boston's waterfront, which has supported a wide variety of industrial and commercial activities since the colonial period. To assist in disposal site selection, design, and selection of material handling procedure, the material to be excavated was characterized for its chemical and physical properties. The chemical analyses of the soil samples generated a considerable amount of data. To draw conclusion about disposal options, statistical analyses were conducted to determine the spatial distribution of different contaminants. In order to obtain site-dependent statistical values for contaminants, the project alignment was divided into 14 horizontal zones with each zone divided into 3 vertical strata. Level of contamination were then divided into 3 categories in accordance with Massachusetts criteria. A graphic technique was developed to clearly show the results to the public and decision makers. On the basis of this presentation technique, it became much simpler to discuss disposal options and look at spatial correlations. The results of the program indicate that urban waterfront soil characteristics can vary significantly over relatively short horizontal and vertical distances.


Visualization of nuclear architecture is key to the understanding of the association between RNA synthesis and processing. This architecture is obscured by the high density of components in most nuclei. We have developed a method of spreading nuclei and nucleoli that reduces overlap of weakly associated components. Strong interactions among nuclear components are not disrupted by this method. Spread nucleoli remained structurally distinct and functionally competent in ribosomal RNA synthesis. Nascent ribosomal RNA colocalized with RNA polymerase I and fibrillarin, a protein required for processing of ribosomal RNA. Colocalization of nascent transcripts and fibrillarin was seen in nucleoli spread over several microns, suggesting a strong interaction. These data suggest that nucleoli are superassemblies of bipartite domains, each composed of a ribosomal RNA synthesis center tightly associated with areas likely to be involved in ribosomal RNA processing.


The FCH 2 JU launched the European Hydrogen Safety Panel (EHSP) initiative in 2017. The mission of the EHSP is to assist the FCH 2 JU both at programme and at project level in assuring that hydrogen safety is adequately managed, and to promote and disseminate H2 safety culture within and outside of the FCH 2 JU programme. The EHSP is composed of a multidisciplinary pool of safety experts grouped in ad-hoc working groups (task forces) according to the tasks to be performed and to expertise. The scope and activities of the EHSP are structured around four main areas: TF.1. Support at project level The EHSP task under this category includes the development of measures to avoid any accident by integrating safety learnings, expertise and planning into FCH 2 JU funded projects and by ensuring that all projects address and incorporate the state-of-the-art in hydrogen safety appropriately. To this end, a Safety guidance document for hydrogen and fuel cell projects will be produced. TF.2. Support at programme level Activities under this category include answering questions related to hydrogen safety in an independent, coordinated and consolidated way, via hotline-support or if necessary, via physical presence of safety representative at the FCH 2 JU. It could also include a short introduction to hydrogen safety, and the provision of specific guidelines for the handling, storage and use of hydrogen in the public domain. As a start, a clear strategy on this should be developed and therefore related M ulti-annual work plan 2018-2020. TF.3. Data collection and assessment The EHSP tasks include the analysis of existing events already introduced in the European Hydrogen Safety Reference Database (HIAD) and of new information from relevant mishaps, incidents or accidents. The EHSP should therefore derive lessons learned and provide together with the involved parties further general recommendations to all stakeholders, based on these data. For 2018, the following deliverables should be produced: methodology to collect inputs from projects and to provide lessons learned and guidelines, assessment and lessons learned from HIAD and a report on research progress in the field of hydrogen safety. TF.4. Public outreach Framed within the context of the intended broad information exchange, the EHSP tasks under this category include the development of a regularly updated webpage hosted on the FCH 2 JU website.


Cartridges containing zero-valent iron filings mixed with sand were tested in Bangladesh to evaluate their effectiveness in removing arsenic from groundwater. The experiments were conducted by pumping, respectively, 1830 and 1140 L of groundwater over the course of a week from two wells containing 560 and 290 μg/L As. The set-up included two cartridges connected in series for As removal, and a downstream aeration vessel followed by a nylon filter to reduce Fe concentrations in the effluent. After conditioning the cartridges for 3-4 days, As concentrations in the effluent consistently remained at or below the WHO guideline of 10 μg/L. Groundwater treatment with iron filings may therefore be a viable technology for arsenic mitigation in Bangladesh.


MIMO can enhance the performance of wireless system greatly. However, the limited battery life and terminal size of the UE in a cellular system put a constraint on the performance enhancement from MIMO. Especially when the transmitter has more antenna than the receiver in downlink, the conventional MIMO schemes can only exploit partial spatial multiplexing gain and diversity gain. For different users' independent locations lead to independent spatial fading one another, adaptive spatial and temporal scheduling can be developed to exploit the spatial multiuser diversity and achieve the tradeoff between multiplexing gain and spatial diversity gain available. In this paper, the enhanced MIMO schemes with greedy multiuser diversity are compared when Node B has more antenna than UE, e.g. zero forcing beamforming (ZFB), dual space time block coding (DSTBC), singular value decomposition (SVD) and vertical Bell labs layered spatial time code plus antenna selection (VBLAST-AS). From the simulation results, the ZFB has achieved the best spectrum efficiency, and the gain exceeds VBLATS-AS and DSTBC more than 50%


In this article, a novel dense underwater 3-D mapping paradigm based on pose graph simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) using an acoustic camera mounted on a rotator is proposed. The demands of underwater tasks, such as unmanned construction using robots, are growing rapidly. In recent years, the acoustic camera, which is a state-of-the-art forward-looking imaging sonar, has been gradually applied in underwater exploration. However, distinctive imaging principles make it difficult to gain an intuitive perception of an underwater environment. In this study, an acoustic camera with a rotator was used for dense 3-D mapping of the underwater environment. The proposed method first applies a 3-D occupancy mapping framework based on the acoustic camera rotating around the acoustic axis using a rotator at a stationary position to generate 3-D local maps. Then, scan matching of adjacent local maps is implemented to calculate odometry without involving internal sensors, and an approximate dense global map is built in real time. Finally, based on a graph optimization scheme, offline refinement is performed to generate a final dense global map. Our experimental results demonstrate that our 3-D mapping framework for an acoustic camera can achieve dense 3-D mapping of underwater environments robustly and accurately.


Abstract Toxoplasma gondii is a widely distributed obligatory intracellular parasite that causes severe disease to the fetus when transmitted during pregnancy. Drugs used to avoid congenital transmission have shown side effects, and their efficacy is controversial. The most widely used treatment for acute toxoplasmosis during pregnancy is pyrimethamine plus sulfadiazine, which has several side effects. In this work, we tested the efficacy of azithromycin in reducing congenital transmission of T. gondii in the large vesper mouse, Calomys callosus, a rodent. Females of C. callosus were inoculated perorally with 20 cysts of ME49 strain of T. gondii on the day of fertilization, and fetuses were collected from the 15th to the 19th day of gestation. Azithromycin (300 mg/kg), in association with pyrimethamine (100 or 50 mg/kg) plus sulfadiazine (100 or 75 mg/kg) and folinic acid (15 mg/kg) (SPAf), or vehicle, were administered orally on different days after infection. Brain and ocular tissues were removed and processed for immunohistochemistry using a polyclonal antibody against T. gondii, or were processed for parasite DNA quantification. Toxoplasma gondii was detected in the brains of all females and in fetuses' eyes of C. callosus treated with SPAf. On the other hand, in females treated with azithromycin, there was a reduction of T. gondii in the brains of mothers, and no parasites were detected in eyes of fetuses, indicating that azithromycin may represent an alternative treatment for toxoplasmosis during pregnancy.


One important legacy of fire exclusion in ecosystems dependent upon frequent fire is the development of organic soil horizons (forest floor) that can be colonized by fine roots. When fire is re-introduced, the forest floor is often consumed by fire and heavy overstory mortality, often delayed by months, results. We hypothesized that the delayed post-fire tree mortality is a manifestation of a cascade of physiological stresses initiated by root damage that can also magnify the impact of other kinds of damage. We investigated the physiological impact of forest floor consumption on longleaf pines (Pinus palustris Mill.) subjected to a wildfire in 2005 in a long-unburned (>50 years) forest by measuring forest floor consumption, whole tree water use, and leaf chlorophyll content. Ten of the 23 study trees died within three years post fire. Post-fire sap flux was unrelated to crown scorch, but was negatively correlated with forest floor consumption. A segmented linear regression revealed declines in sap flux until a threshold of 31 % forest floor consumption, after which further consumption had no additional effect on tree water use. Trees with >30 % forest floor consumption beneath their crowns were more than 20 times as likely to die as those with less consumption. Chlorophyll content in needles that flushed post fire was negatively correlated with crown scorch (R2 = 0.60, P = 0.009) though all trees with scorch also experienced varying degrees of forest floor consumption. Our results suggest that the consumption of the forest floor with the likely concomitant loss of roots initiated a decline spiral, driven by an inability to supply sufficient water to the crown. Though we did not measure loss of stored carbohydrates in consumed roots directly, we infer that this likely effect, coupled with decreased crown photosynthetic capacity, eventually resulted in substantial overstory tree mortality. Fire Ecology Volume 6, Issue 2, 2010 doi: 10.4996/fireecology.0602001 O'Brien et al.: Effects of Duff Fire on Longleaf Pine Physiology


Controlling robots in contact with the environment is an important problem in industry applications. In the conventional force control, much research has paid attention to develop novel force control systems and implemented force sensors to detect external force. This paper shows that narrow bandwidth of force sensor has a big influence on the force control system. Generally, to solve the instability in force control, the velocity feedback gain is enlarged. The system becomes unstable with small velocity feedback gain, and robot's response becomes slow with large one. Inasmuch as there is a tradeoff between the stability and the response, it is considered that force control by robots is difficult. This paper proposes a force control system with disturbance observer. It is possible to obtain the force information with wide bandwidth by using the disturbance observer. This paper shows that bandwidth of force sensing is very important for contact motion control. By using the wide bandwidth of force sensing, both stability and response are improved. Furthermore, force control is attainable by the construction of the easiest force control architecture. Therefore, the ideal zero-stiffness-force control is attained. The numerical and experimental results show viability of the proposed method.


BRADLEY P. LINDSEY: A Value Relevance Examination of the Current Leasing Standard (Under the direction of Wayne Landsman and Edward Maydew) In the wake of the prominent accounting scandals of the past several years, investors and standard setters are demanding increased corporate transparency. Nowhere is the demand for transparency more salient than with off-balance-sheet financing, of which lease accounting plays a major role. At the end of 2004, total rental commitments by U.S. firms from off-balance-sheet operating leases exceeded $1 trillion. As standard setters reconsider leases as part of their broad reexamination of off-balance-sheet financing, they do so without the benefit of empirical research documenting whether capital market participants find the current leasing standard value relevant. This paper examines whether as-if capitalized operating lease liabilities and capital lease liabilities are both relevant and sufficiently reliable to be priced and explores whether equity investors value operating and capital leases differently. The results are consistent with the market viewing both operating and capital leases as economic liabilities of the firm. However, the results also indicate that capital market participants price operating and capital lease liabilities differently, consistent with the bright-line tests of the current leasing standard identifying economic differences in operating and capital leases. Thus, continuing to require lease disclosures by different lease classifications would assure that equity investors will not suffer from a loss of value relevant information in the pricing of leases. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS


Gastric cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death in the world. There is evidence that shows genetic and epigenetic change in stomach cancer is as a result of a variety of oncogenes, tumor suppressor genes, genes that repair the DNA, genes regulating cell cycle and cell adhesion molecules. P16 is an Inhibitor of protein kinase that is dependent on Cyclin D. Inactivation of this gene as a tumor suppressor gene, cause to cancer. This study was conducted to Investigation the P16 hyper-metylation status in serum of gastric cancer patients in Ardabil province as the prognostic factor for early diagnosis of gastric cancer. 82 Blood samples of patients with gastric cancer was prepared from Aras clinic of Imam Khomeini hospital. After DNA extraction from serum, using methylation-specific PCR assay it was examined the existence of hypermethylation in the P16 gene promoter. Incidence of free DNA in the serum of patients was 59.8%. P16 gene promoter was hyper methylated in 20.4% of subjects. Data analysis showed a statistically significant association between P16 methylation status and types of the adenocarcinoma. But there was no statistically significant association between methylation status of P16 with other features (age, sex, tumor location). This study showed P16 gene methylation of occur in some of gastric cancer patients. This result suggests that p16 methylation may be a prognostic marker for early diagnosis of gastric cancer.


Background Using heart-type fatty-acid-binding protein (H-FABP) in critically ill patients provides a superior results than the conventional cardiac biomarkers. Objective The aim of the study was to estimate the prognostic significance of H-FABP in patients with septic shock and the prevalence of sepsis-related myocardial dysfunction in comparison to troponin I. Patients and methods Fifty ICU patients with sepsis were enrolled in this study. All patients were evaluated using Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation II score on admission and every 24 h during ICU stay. Serum levels of both H-FABP and troponin I were investigated during the first 24 h after admission. Using modified Simpson's method, echocardiographic left-ventricular end-diastolic volume (LVEDV), left-ventricular end-systolic volume (LVESV), and left-ventricular ejection fraction (LV%EF) were calculated on admission and after 24 h. Results The patients were divided into two groups: group 1, which included 12 patients (mean age: 50.2±21 years) suffering from sepsis; and group 2, which included 38 patients (mean age: 58.4±19.2 years) with septic shock. Compared with group 1, H-FABP of group 2 showed significant higher values (76.3 vs. 33.3% of patients, P<0.05). In both groups, compared with patients with negative H-FABP, patients with positive H-FABP showed significantly increased values (66 vs. 34%, P<0.05). The positive H-FABP patients showed significantly increased left ventricular volumes (LVEDV=105 vs. 77 ml, P<0.05; and LVESV=49 vs. 33 ml, P<0.05). The mortality rate was significantly higher in group 2 compared with group 1 (78.9 vs. 41.7%, P<0.05). H-FABP was a better prognostic marker than troponin I; it showed an increased prevalence of mortality (88 vs. 35%, P<0.001) with good correlation (r=0.54, P<0.05). Conclusion In septic shock, H-FABP can be used as a prognostic marker for mortality rathar than troponin I. The positive H-FABP patients showed a significant relation with sepsis-related left-ventricular systolic myocardial dysfunction.


Abstract -
 This paper presents the results of a long-term study to detect the presence of Puma concolor (Cougar) in eastern Canada. We installed 38 scratching posts to attract wild Cougars and collect hair samples in several national and provincial parks in Québec, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia. A set of semi-nested primers was used to discriminate Cougar samples from other mammalian species based on variation in the 16S rRNA gene of the mitochondrial DNA. Our analyses performed on 476 hair samples revealed 19 positive identifications of Cougars in Québec and New Brunswick. Sequencing further showed that some specimens were from South America, whereas others had a North American origin. We discuss the implications of these results for the conservation of Cougars in eastern Canada.