When bulk helium-4 is cooled below T = 2.18 K, it undergoes a phase transition to a superfluid, characterized by a complex wave function with a macroscopic phase and exhibits inviscid, quantized flow. The macroscopic phase coherence can be probed in a container filled with helium-4, by reducing one or more of its dimensions until they are smaller than the coherence length, the spatial distance over which order propagates. As this dimensional reduction occurs, enhanced thermal and quantum fluctuations push the transition to the superfluid state to lower temperatures. However, this trend can be countered via the proximity effect, where a bulk 3-dimensional (3d) superfluid is coupled to a low (2d) dimensional superfluid via a weak link producing superfluid correlations in the film at temperatures above the Kosterlitz-Thouless temperature. Recent experiments probing the coupling between 3d and 2d superfluid helium-4 have uncovered an anomalously large proximity effect, leading to an enhanced superfluid density that cannot be explained using the correlation length alone. In this work, we have determined the origin of this enhanced proximity effect via large scale quantum Monte Carlo simulations of helium-4 in a topologically non-trivial geometry that incorporates the important aspects of the experiments. We find that due to the bosonic symmetry of helium-4, identical particle permutations lead to correlations between contiguous spatial regions at a length scale greater than the coherence length. We show that quantum exchange plays a large role in explaining the anomalous experimental results while simultaneously showing how classical arguments fall short of this task.


Seasonally the saltpans are acting as alternate foraging habitats for shorebirds. We have estimated the density of shorebirds and benthic organisms from November 2012 to October 2013. The birds were estimated by total count and the invertebrates were sampled at 20 cm depth which used for foraging by shorebirds. Totally 44 water birds /shorebirds were recorded, in which the Little Stint was the maximum density than the other species recorded among the months in different saltpans. Maximum bird density was recorded during the month of January 2013 and minimum density was noted during the month of October 2013. There was a positive relationship between the density of bird species and benthic organisms (P<0.05). From this study, it is inferred that the management of saltpans at coastal wetlands, is a significant approach to the conservation of birds especially migratory shorebirds.


OBJECTIVES
HIV-1 genotyping is widely accepted as a diagnostic tool to optimize therapy changes in patients whose antiretroviral regimen is failing. Phenotyping can substantially complement the information obtained from genotyping, especially in the presence of complex mutational patterns. However, drug susceptibility tests are laborious and require biosafety facilities. We describe the molecular mechanism of a non-infectious HIV-1 protease phenotypic assay in eukaryotic cells and validate its applicability as a tool for monitoring drug resistance.

METHODS
A cloning vector containing the fusion protein green fluorescent protein-HIV-1 protease (GFP-PR) was modified to facilitate the insertion of HIV-1 protease from infected subjects. Real-time quantitative PCR and western blot analysis were used to establish the molecular mechanism of the new phenotypic assay. The method was validated by analysing HIV-1 protease from 46 clinical isolates. Statistical comparisons were made between values obtained using our assay and those reported from alternative standardized phenotypic assays.

RESULTS
The capacity of HIV-1 protease to cleave cellular translation factors, such as the eukaryotic translation initiation factor 4 (eIF4GI) and the poly(A)-binding protein (PABP), led to cyclical accumulation of GFP that varied with the dose of protease inhibitors. Validation and comparison revealed a significant correlation with the Virco TYPE HIV-1 test (P < 0.0001, Spearman's ρ = 0.60), the Antivirogram test (P = 0.0001, Spearman's ρ = 0.60) and the Stanford HIVdb (P < 0.0001, Spearman's ρ = 0.69).

CONCLUSIONS
This cell-based non-infectious phenotypic method with a well-understood molecular mechanism was highly reliable and comparable to other widely used assays. The method can be used for both phenotyping of HIV-1 viral isolates resistant to protease inhibitors and screening of new protease inhibitors.


Summary judgment is cited as a significant reason for the dramatic decline in the number of jury trials in civil cases in federal court. Judges extensively use the device to clear the federal docket of cases deemed meritless. Recent scholarship even has called for the mandatory use of summary judgment prior to settlement. While other scholars question the use of summary judgment in certain types of cases (for example, civil rights cases), all scholars and judges assume away a critical question: whether summary judgment is constitutional. The conventional wisdom is that the Supreme Court settled the issue a century ago in Fidelity & Deposit Co. v. United States. But a review of that case reveals that the conventional wisdom is wrong: the constitutionality of summary judgment has never been resolved by the Supreme Court. This Essay is the first to examine the question and takes the seemingly heretical position that summary judgment is unconstitutional. The question is governed by the Seventh Amendment which provides that "[i]n Suits at common law, . . . the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by jury, shall be otherwise re-examined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law." The Supreme Court has held that "common law" in the Seventh Amendment refers to the English common law in 1791. This Essay demonstrates that no procedure similar to summary judgment existed under the English common law and also reveals that summary judgment violates the core principles or "substance" of the English common law. The Essay concludes that, despite the uniform acceptance of the device, summary judgment is unconstitutional. The Essay then responds to likely objections, including that the federal courts cannot function properly without summary judgment. By describing the burden that the procedure of summary judgment imposes upon the courts, the Essay argues that summary judgment may not be necessary to the judicial system but rather, by contrast, imposes significant costs upon the system.


As an ex-British Imperial territory Singapore still exhibits many manifestations of the 144 years of cultural imposition of their colonial masters. Absolute political independence has only been a reality for some 35 years. Culturally, however, Singapore began to assume a unique identity the moment social institutions were established. Sport, one of the most pervasive cultural exports of the British, soon gained a significant cultural position in the new colony. This paper analyses the emergence and development of the sports culture of Singapore in relation to the role of the dominant racial group, the Chinese. It is demonstrated that the emergence and development of Singapore's sport culture, though initially the upshot of the dominant ideology of British Imperialism, soon assumed traits relevant to the idiosyncratic nature of the colony. Even in colonial Singapore, the Chinese were numerically the largest ethnic group; today they are now not only numerically superior, they dominate politically, economically and culturally. This paper illustrates how the Chinese offered a powerful cultural imperialism that ran parallel to the apparently dominant British ideology. In sport this influence had a significant impact upon the diffusion of sport and upon the development of societal attitudes towards physical activity and recreation. It has been demonstrated that the schools of Singapore played a major role in the establishment of its sports culture. The predominant sporting ideology of the leading boys' schools of Singapore mirrored that of English Public Schools: muscular Christianity. However, the attitude towards sport and physical activity in general, that emanated from the Chinese schools has also had an enduring effect on the sports culture of the nation. The traditional Chinese attitude to 'play' (and thus sport and physical activity) exerted a considerable negative influence upon the efforts to establish sport in Singapore. The sport culture of modern Singapore is thus a complex creolized form of the model left by the British. In Singapore, the ideal of pragmatism pervades all avenues of social, political, and economic activity. This pragmatism is the direct product of the policies and philosophy of Lee Kuan Yew and his successors. Any new shift in attitude towards sport – the sports culture - will be only tolerated if viewed as being politically sound; nothing is left to chance.


Objective Examine whether false-positive HIV enzyme immunoassay (EIA) test results occur more frequently among pregnant women than among women who are not pregnant and men (others). Design To obtain a large number of pregnant women and others tested for HIV, we identified specimens tested at a national laboratory using Genetic Systems HIV-1/HIV-2 Plus O EIA from July 2007 to June 2008. Methods Specimens with EIA repeatedly reactive and Western blot-negative or indeterminate results were considered EIA false-positive. We compared the false-positive rate among uninfected pregnant women and others, adjusting for HIV prevalence. Among all reactive EIAs, we evaluated the proportion of false-positives, positive predictive value (PPV), and Western blot bands among indeterminates, by pregnancy status. Results HIV prevalence was 0.06% among 921,438 pregnant women and 1.34% among 1,103,961 others. The false-positive rate was lower for pregnant women than others (0.14% vs. 0.21%, odds ratio 0.65 [95% confidence interval 0.61, 0.70]). Pregnant women with reactive EIAs were more likely than others (p<0.01) to have Western blot-negative (52.9% vs. 9.8%) and indeterminate results (17.0% vs. 3.7%) and lower PPV (30% vs. 87%). The p24 band was detected more often among pregnant women (p<0.01). Conclusions False-positive HIV EIA results were rare and occurred less frequently among pregnant women than others. Pregnant women with reactive EIAs were more likely to have negative and indeterminate Western blot results due to lower HIV prevalence and higher p24 reactivity, respectively. Indeterminate results may complicate clinical management during pregnancy. Alternative methods are needed to rule out infection in persons with reactive EIAs from low prevalence populations.


Abstract The effect of increased fiber charge on refining, cationic starch adsorption, and hornification was examined. Two pulps were investigated: (1) a softwood (SW) kraft pulp (KP) which was bleached elementally chlorine-free (ECF) and served as control; and (2) a control pulp treated with alkaline peroxide, which had a higher fiber charge. It was shown that increased fiber charge can improve the efficiency of the refining treatment, as indicated by differences in tensile index refined from 0 to 1000 revolutions. When the control pulp was refined from 4000 to 8000 revolutions, the tensile index decreased. In contrast, the tensile index of the higher fiber charge pulp (HCP) was higher under the same refining conditions. Upon addition of 2% cationic starch to both pulps, the tensile index of the control pulp increased by 13.7% and that of HCP by 23.7%. Atomic force microscopy did not reveal differences in the surface morphology of the two pulps with and without cationic starch adsorption. Peroxide treatment enhanced the fiber charge of the never-dried pulp. This was beneficial in reducing hornification when pulp was dried at 105°C. However, if the once dried pulp at 105°C was treated with peroxide, this resulted in a drastic decrease in intrinsic viscosity of the pulp and lower tensile and burst indices of the test sheets.


This thesis is set in the Western Australian education system and centres on the question of how primary schools can actively foster conditions conducive to creating and sustaining education in and for democracy and human rights. In Australia, as elsewhere, there is a widespread acceptance of the need for democratic education also referred to as civics and citizenship education. The perceived lack of public understanding of democratic principles and practices has, in the last decade, led various Australian governments to commit significant resources ($ 31.6 million) to civics and citizenship education programmes such as Discovering Democracy (DD).

This thesis argues that political engagement and civic learning is most effective when schools commit themselves to deliberately embedding a set of democratic educational principles in everyday practices. In contrast to traditional approaches to citizenship education that tend to focus on the operational aspects of representative governments, institutions and history, this thesis argues that education for Democracy and Human Rights (DaHR) can be effectively achieved through the fostering of DaHR in education. In this task the thesis draws on the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). The CRC is rooted in a range of basic values about the treatment of children in schools and elsewhere, and encompasses basic rights to which children are entitled.

The study empirically investigates through up close observations, interviews and surveys the efficacy of pedagogy for civic and citizenship learning in four schools identified as places of strong democratic practice. This study was able to identify particular commonalities between the four case study schools that were conducive to creating and sustaining democratic principles and practices. These schools, although very different in their composition, were lead by principals who shared the view that children under their care were subjects in the making with increasing rights and responsibilities rather than objects to be manipulated, controlled and protected. The findings suggest that experiencing democracy and human rights in daily school life in a variety of situations and on a number of different levels can effectively contribute to the learning of the meaning and advantages of democratic values such as the rule of law, participatory decision-making and due process. It also concludes that there may be a relationship between parental socio-economic background and the possibilities available for students to engage in effective civic learning and citizenship practices. The relationship between socio-economic background and other structural factors including gender and ethnicity in relation to possibilities of civic learning needs to be investigated in a larger study.


The research and development project described in this status report is a collaborative project between IIASA and the Tate Science and Technology Commission of the People's Republic of China (SSTCC).

The project objective is to build a computer-based information and decision support system, using expert systems technology, for regional development planning in Shanxi, a coal-rich province in northwestern China. Building on IIASA's experience in applied systems analysis, the project develops and implements a new generation of computer-based tools, integrating classical approaches of operations research and applied systems analysis with new developments in computer technology and artificial intelligence (AI) into an integrated hybrid system, designed for direct practical application.

To provide the required information, several databases, simulation and optimization models, and decision support tools have been integrated. This information is presented in a form directly useful to planners and decision makers. The system is therefore structured along concepts of expert systems technology, includes several AI components, and features an easy-to-use color graphics user interface.

The study is being carried out with intensive collaboration between IIASA, and Chinese academic, industrial, and governmental institutions, especially the regional government of Shanxi Province.

The report describes the status of the project after one year of research, summarizing the problem area, the design principles of the software and the current status of prototype implementations.


INTRODUCTION Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS) is a neurological disorder, where one or more limbs are affected by pain disproportionate to the stimulus. Its exact pathology remains widely debated and there are currently several treatments available for the disease. No single treatment regimen has been proven to be superior, and there are no standardised guidelines or treatment algorithms.
This review aims to provide an update on the current evidence for the treatments available for CRPS management. It further seeks to explore the possible aetiology of the disease, and whether the proposed pathophysiology is associated with the efficacy of treatment(s).
METHODS The literature was searched across AMED, BNI, CINAHL, EMBASE, HBE, HMIC, Medline, PsycINFO, and PubMed databases. Only human-based studies published within the last 15 years, with more than 10 participants were included. Common intervention themes were pharmacotherapy, psychotherapy, physiotherapy, and neurosurgery.
RESULTS There is a lack of strong evidence favouring any given method of CRPS treatment. Physiotherapy proved most efficient where it was patient-oriented and featured a long-term treatment with gradual pain exposure and concurrent psychiatric support. Pain-oriented pharmacotherapy was largely inefficient, with no evidence to support the use of ketamine, opioids, NSAIDs or local anaesthesia. The efficacy of bisphosphonate use and neurosurgical interventions, especially in the field of spinal stimulation proved particularly efficacious.
CONCLUSION Despite a huge number of studies in the literature, there is currently no definitive evidence to support any given aetiology or treatment regime. However, a number of specific interventions have been shown to work, lending some support the case for a central reorganisation or peripheral change origin of the disease.


This thesis paper was written in support of the short documentary film Ash, a sociocultural exploration of two Seoul punk venues and the scenes that formed around them. Ash is a film that co-opts the music documentary form in order to re-examine ideas surrounding cultural and gender norms. It follows no strict genre rules and often relies on punk style and humour to maintain a greater sense of verisimilitude. In Ash we learn about people struggling to assert their identities against the oppressive narrative of a dominant culture, about how they eschew simple satisfactions in the struggle to pursue individual happiness. Defying stereotypes of race, gender, or cultural expectations, it is a film of hope and purpose. It is a story about living a life within a closed system. Above all else, Ash is a story of struggle, triumph, and defeat.

An elegy to the loser's victory.


As the law of parentage is striving to meet the challenges of new reproductive technologies, dealing with cross-border surrogacies emerges as one of the most pressing topics in international family law. The current legal situation as regards surrogacy is quite diverse – throughout the world but also within Europe. Legal diversity has recently made a lot of people engage in so-called "procreative tourism": Coming from a country with a rather strict approach, they commission women in one of the more liberal countries to carry a child for them, and once the baby is born, they try to take it to their home country, thereby obviating the surrogacy ban that prevents them from entrusting a surrogate mother at home. European courts struggle with a coherent approach on how to treat those citizens who went abroad to have a baby. Meanwhile, legal research and the Hague Conference on Private International Law think about a convention in order to ease cross-border recognition of surrogacy.


How do borders affect trade? Are cultural and institutional differences important for trade? Is environmental policy relevant to trade? How does one's income or wage relate to the fact that trade partners are nearby or far away? These are just some of the important questions that can be answered using the gravity model of international trade. This model predicts and explains bilateral trade flows in terms of the economic size and distance between trading partners (e.g. states, regions, countries, trading blocs). In recent years, there has been a surge of interest in this model and it is now one of the most widely applied tools in applied international economics. This book traces the history of the gravity model and takes stock of recent methodological and theoretical advances, including new approximations for multilateral trade resistance, insightful analyses of the measurement of economic distance and analyses of foreign direct investment.


Reef-building corals harbor an astounding diversity of colorful GFP (green fluorescent protein)-like proteins. These pigments can easily be detected and thus may serve as intrinsic optical markers of physiological condition, provided that the determinants that control their expression are well understood. Here we have analyzed the effect of light on the regulation of major classes of GFP- like pigments in corals of the taxa Acroporidae, Merulinidae and Pocilloporidae. Pigment levels in the tissues of all studied species were observed to be tightly controlled by light. Two groups could be dis- tinguished by their distinctly different light-dependent regulation. The low-threshold group contains mainly cyan fluorescent proteins; they are expressed in considerable amounts at very low light inten- sities, and their tissue content increases with light to a maximum at a photon flux of 400 µmol m -2 s -1 . The high-threshold group includes green and red fluorescent proteins as well as non-fluorescent chromoproteins. These pigments are essentially absent in corals grown under very low light, but their tissue content increases in proportion to photon flux densities >400 µmol m -2 s -1 . The enhancement of coral pigmentation is primarily dependent on the blue component of the spectrum and regulated at the transcriptional level. The specific regulation patterns suggest complex functions of GFP-like proteins related to the photobiology of reef corals. Moreover, the distinct response of coral coloration to light climate promises that the pigment complement can also be predicted in natural habitats. Our results stress the potential of GFP-like proteins as intrinsic markers of physiological processes, as well as overall health, in corals.


The 2016 U.S. presidential election campaigns witnessed an unprecedented viral false news -- a type of misinformation referred to as "factitious information blend" that is motivated to discredit political rivals. Despite the different speculations of factors that might have influenced Donald Trump's surprised victory, empirical and theoretical research on the potential impacts of false news propagated by online news media during election campaigns on influencing voters' attitudes and public opinion is seriously lacking. By drawing on the literature on framing political-effects research and by developing our computational text analytics programs, we addressed questions regarding how online news media used false news to negatively frame the Trump presidential campaign. Our text analytics results indicate that although the negative frames against Trump far outnumbered those against Hillary Clinton, weak frames of unverifiable misinformation might have failed to influence the mass audience, leaving them to the power of Trump's direct political communications via Twitter.


We have investigated the role of the extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK), p38 and phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI 3-kinase) pathways in the regulation of intestinal fructose transport. Different combinations of anisomycin, PD98059 and wortmannin had very different effects on fructose transport in perfused isolated loops of rat jejunum. Transport was stimulated maximally by anisomycin (2 microM) and blocked by SB203580 (20 microM), confirming involvement of the p38 pathway. PD98059 (50 microM) alone had little effect on fructose transport. However, it had a dramatic effect on stimulation by anisomycin, diminishing the K(a) 50-fold from 1 microM to 20 nM to show that the ERK pathway restrains the p38 pathway. The K(a) for diabetic jejunum was 30 nM and PD98059 had no effect. Transport in the presence of anisomycin was 3.4-fold that for anisomycin plus PD98059 plus wortmannin. Transport was mediated by both GLUT5 and GLUT2. In general, GLUT2 levels increased up to 4-fold within minutes and with only minimal changes in GLUT5 or SGLT1 levels, demonstrating that GLUT2 trafficks by a rapid trafficking pathway distinct from that of GLUT5 and SGLT1. GLUT2 intrinsic activity was regulated over a 9-fold range. It is concluded that there is extensive cross-talk between the ERK, p38 and PI 3-kinase pathways in their control of brush-border fructose transport by modulation of both the levels and intrinsic activities of GLUT5 and GLUT2. The potential of the intracellular signalling pathways to regulate short-term nutrient transport during the assimilation of a meal and longer-term adaptation to diabetes and hyperglycaemia is discussed.


Does listening to something, perhaps once, perhaps more than once, perhaps over and over again, mean that it is learned in a way that is useful to the student and that they can retrieve and reuse in an appropriate context at a later date? It is a proposition that seems to conflict with the situated learning theories of researchers like Brown, Collins and Duguid (1989), which assert that learning always lies in the interactions between people rather than in the content itself or in the minds of the individual learners. The general premise that listening is often more engaging than the written word and that diction, intonation and inflection add meaning might be acceptable at face value, but as Hargis and Wilson (2005) point out, 'there are currently no examples which clearly indicate proven foundational pedagogical uses and outcomes for podcasts.' (p.6). Though the technology is quite recent, it may tend to lead teachers towards outmoded, didactic approaches to delivery rather than the constructivist, collaborative activities recommended by more recent learning theorists.
The project followed an action research framework within the context of a Foundation Degree in e-learning at the University of Huddersfield. Podcasts were used to support the delivery of a module on the use of Web 2.0 technologies in Education. The aim was to explore whether, in this context, podcasting could be an effective component of online learning. In particular, the project asked:
1. do students like listening to educational podcasts?
2. do students learn from using podcasts?


On January 26, 2011, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission issued the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on Position Limits for Derivatives pursuant to the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. The proposed rules are designed to implement the historic Congressional mandate of the Commodity Exchange Act, as amended by Section 737 of the Dodd-Frank Act, to ban excessive speculation from the derivatives market, i.e., the speculation which exceeds the need for liquidity by commercial handlers hedging price risk in these markets. Section 737 is the result of multi-year consideration by Congress, during which a strong consensus was reached there that excessive speculation by Too Big to Fail banks in commodity derivatives markets is the source of an unnecessary and huge premium paid by consumers worldwide to bolster casino-like betting on commodity price direction. However, the proposed rules are so weak that they defy the Congressional intent. Specifically, the proposed limits on big bank speculation are so high that they will have no meaningful effect on limiting speculation, leading to wholly unnecessary price volatility and unpredictability in commodity staples. Moreover, the proposed big bank exemption from speculative limits must be removed from the final rule, because it enshrines the Too Big to Fail financial institutions' casino-like atmosphere where passive wealthy investors and institutions are encouraged for a handsome bank transaction fee to do nothing more than gamble on the future price of commodities.


Convolution, one of the most important concepts in electrical engineering, can be used to determine the output a system produces for a given input signal. It can be shown that a linear time invariant system is completely characterized by its impulse response. The sifting property of the discrete time impulse function tells us that the input signal to a system can be represented as a sum of scaled and shifted unit impulses. Thus, by linearity, it would seem reasonable to compute of the output signal as the sum of scaled and shifted unit impulse responses. That is exactly what the operation of convolution accomplishes. Hence, convolution can be used to determine a linear time invariant system's output from knowledge of the input and the impulse response.


Recently, bound propagation based certified robust training methods have been proposed for training neural networks with certifiable robustness guarantees. Despite that state-of-the-art (SOTA) methods including interval bound propagation (IBP) and CROWN-IBP have per-batch training complexity similar to standard neural network training, they usually use a long warmup schedule with hundreds or thousands epochs to reach SOTA performance and are thus still costly. In this paper, we identify two important issues in existing methods, namely exploded bounds at initialization, and the imbalance in ReLU activation states and improve IBP training. These two issues make certified training difficult and unstable, and thereby long warmup schedules were needed in prior works. To mitigate these issues and conduct faster certified training with shorter warmup, we propose three improvements based on IBP training: 1) We derive a new weight initialization method for IBP training; 2) We propose to fully add Batch Normalization (BN) to each layer in the model, since we find BN can reduce the imbalance in ReLU activation states; 3) We also design regularization to explicitly tighten certified bounds and balance ReLU activation states during wamrup. We are able to obtain 65.03% verified error on CIFAR-10 ($\epsilon=\frac{8}{255}$) and 82.36% verified error on TinyImageNet ($\epsilon=\frac{1}{255}$) using very short training schedules (160 and 80 total epochs, respectively), outperforming literature SOTA trained with hundreds or thousands epochs under the same network architecture. The code is available at https://github.com/shizhouxing/Fast-Certified-Robust-Training.


Due to rapid exponential growth in data, a couple of challenges we face today are how to handle big data and analyze large data sets. An IBM study showed the amount of data created in the last two years alone is 90% of the data in the world today. We have especially seen the exponential growth of images on the Web, e.g., more than 6 billion in Flickr, 1.5 billion in Google image engine, and more than 1 billon images in Instagram [1]. Since big data are not only a matter of a size, but are also heterogeneous types and sources of data, image searching with big data may not be scalable in practical settings. We envision Cloud computing as a new way to transform the big data challenge into a great opportunity. In this thesis, we intend to perform an efficient and accurate classification of a large collection of images using Cloud computing, which in turn supports semantic image searching. A novel approach with enhanced accuracy has been proposed to utilize semantic technology to classify images by analyzing both metadata and image data types. A two-level classification model was designed (i) semantic classification was performed on a metadata of images using TF-IDF, and (ii) image classification was performed using a hybrid image processing model combined with Euclidean distance and SURF FLANN measurements. A Cloud-based Semantic Image Search Engine (CSISE) is also developed to search an image using the proposed semantic model with the dynamic image repository by connecting online image search engines that include Google Image Search, Flickr, and Picasa. A series iv of experiments have been performed in a large-scale Hadoop environment using IBM's cloud on over half a million logo images of 76 types. The experimental results show that the performance of the CSISE engine (based on the proposed method) is comparable to the popular online image search engines as well as accurate with a higher rate (average precision of 71%) than existing approaches.


The Santa Barbara County Oak Restoration Program was initiated in 1994 to determine the major factors limiting recruitment of valley oak (Quercus lobata) and coast live oak (Q. agrifolia). At Sedgwick Reserve in Santa Barbara County, California, we have replicated large-scale planting experiments in four different years to determine the effects of cattle and other ecological factors on oak seedling establishment in oak savannas and woodlands. In 33 large experimental plots (50 x 50 m) we planted acorns collected from Q. lobata and Q. agrifolia on the site. Fifteen of these large plots are controls, open to grazing, fifteen exclude cattle with the use of electric fence, and three are ungrazed in large ungrazed pastures. Within the plots, experimental treatments included: 1) protection from small mammals such as gophers and ground squirrels, 2) protection from large animals such as cattle, deer, and pigs, and 3) no protection from mammalian grazers. In winters 1997, 1998, 2000, and 2001, we planted approximately 1,000 acorns of each species. Results confirm that seed predation and herbivory by small mammals are a significant "bottleneck" to oak seedling recruitment on the landscape scale. Comparing results among years indicates that lack of late winter rainfall can significantly reduce oak emergence and establishment. Survivorship of protected acorns and seedlings is comparable in grazed and ungrazed areas.


In "Status Characteristics, Implicit Bias, and the Production of Racial Inequality," Melamed, Munn, Barry, Montgomery, and Okuwobi present an innovative and intriguing study on social influence, status beliefs, and implicit racial bias. To capture status-based expectancies, the authors measure implicit racial status beliefs using an Implicit Association Test (IAT) with words related to high and low status. We identify an important flaw in the study's analytic approach that severely limits the conclusions that can be drawn based on the study. We argue that the authors neglected to separate the valence of the words included in the racial status IAT with the stereotype content of these words. It is therefore possible that the study's racial IAT only captures implicit racial evaluations, and not status-based implicit racial beliefs.


Seven patients with cortical action myoclonus were studied. Six of these also had cortical reflex myoclonus. Surface and needle recordings were made from intrinsic hand muscles. Reflex and action jerks often consisted of a series of EMG bursts, some of which were polyphasic. The interval between repetitive EMG bursts was most commonly approximately 20 ms. The first EMG burst following median nerve stimulation varied in latency by a few milliseconds. Needle recordings of this reflex response showed more than one peak in half of the post-stimulus time histograms (PSTH) collected. Multiple peaks were narrow and separated by as little as 4 ms. Single trials of the EEG activity over the sensorimotor cortex were recorded during stimulation or voluntary movement of the contralateral limb in five patients. Activity typically consisted of a rhythmic series of giant positive spike-slow negative wave complexes. Intervals between spikes tended to cluster at approximately 20 ms. Frequency histograms of spike to EMG burst intervals confirmed that spikes preceded muscle discharges but they showed more than one peak. These peaks were narrow and separated by as little as 3 ms. Thus, in patients with cortical myoclonus rhythmic muscle responses are driven by the sensorimotor cortex, which has a tendency to oscillatory activity. Two types of cortical rhythmicity are present. The first determines the frequency of repetitive EEG spikes and EMG bursts. The second is of higher frequency and underlies the multiple peaks separated by short intervals in PSTHs and histograms of spike to EMG burst intervals. Both phenomena may have their correlate in normal functioning.


Determining the readability of a text is the first step to its simplification. In this paper, we present a readability analysis tool capable of analyzing text written in the Bengali language to provide in-depth information on its readability and complexity. Despite being the 7th most spoken language in the world with 230 million native speakers, Bengali suffers from a lack of fundamental resources for natural language processing. Readability related research of the Bengali language so far can be considered to be narrow and sometimes faulty due to the lack of resources. Therefore, we correctly adopt document-level readability formulas traditionally used for U.S. based education system to the Bengali language with a proper age-to-age comparison. Due to the unavailability of large-scale human-annotated corpora, we further divide the document-level task into sentence-level and experiment with neural architectures, which will serve as a baseline for the future works of Bengali readability prediction. During the process, we present several human-annotated corpora and dictionaries such as a document-level dataset comprising 618 documents with 12 different grade levels, a large-scale sentence-level dataset comprising more than 96K sentences with simple and complex labels, a consonant conjunct count algorithm and a corpus of 341 words to validate the effectiveness of the algorithm, a list of 3,396 easy words, and an updated pronunciation dictionary with more than 67K words. These resources can be useful for several other tasks of this low-resource language.


This paper investigates the way people described the difficulties they encountered when returning to information on the Web. It presents analysis of Web pages, collected via a Web search, where the phrase, "Where'd it go?" was used. A number of interesting observations arose from this analysis, including that the path originally taken to get to the information target is commonly referred to during its re-retrieval, and that the temporal aspects of when the information was last seen were only important when considered relative to other events. While people expressed frustration when problems re-finding arose, an explanation of why the change had occurred was often sufficient to allay that frustration, even in the absence of a solution. The implications of these observations for systems that support re-finding in dynamic environments are discussed.


Selection of agricultural management practices to reduce nitrate leaching from soils can only be successful if both nitrate loading rates from soils to shallow aquifers and groundwater residence times are quantified. Elevated nitrate concentrations in shallow unconfined aquifers are commonly observed in agricultural areas as a result of increased N inputs. In the Judith River Watershed (JRW) in central Montana, USA, notably high nitrate concentrations in groundwater and stream water have exceeded the U.S. EPA drinking water standard of 10 mg L -1 for at least two decades. This large (24,400 ha) watershed drains immediately into the Missouri River, a tributary of the Mississippi River. Over an eleven month period in 2012, we measured groundwater and surface water nitrate concentrations across a hydrologically isolated strath terrace. We use the resulting data to constrain nitrate accumulation dynamics in the shallow aquifer. Nitrate is relatively conservative in this location, as it is high in groundwater (17.57 +/4.29 mg L -1 ; all groundwater samples pooled together), and remains high in streams and springs that drain the landform (15.67 +/9.45 mg L -1 ; all surface water and spring samples pooled together). We use a numerical model to simulate the character of nitrate accumulation in the aquifer as a whole, in order to evaluate how the entire period of cultivation has contributed to current nitrate concentrations, and begin to predict response times for effects of land use change. We consider the effect of groundwater residence time and travel time on nitrate loading using particle tracking in a three dimensional model aquifer. We find no correlation with nitrate concentrations in groundwater and emerging surface waters, and suggest approaches for improving both the geometry of the model and the selection of sites in future work. Overall, our results imply that groundwater residence times are several decades at most, suggesting that similar timeframes will be needed to reduce overall nitrate concentrations in groundwater and emergent streams to below drinking water standards. Preliminary evaluation of several management scenarios suggests that both increased fertilizer use efficiency and rotational strategies may be needed to prevent the loss of soil N to groundwater.


This article examines the impact of personal experience on popular assessments of the quality of police service. Following past research, it addresses the influence of personal and neighbourhood factors on confidence in the police. It then focuses on the additional impact of positive and negative personal experiences with the police. Several studies of police encounters with the public have noted that the relationship between how people recall being treated and their general confidence in the police may be asymmetrical. At its worst, the police may get essentially no credit for delivering professional service, while bad experiences can deeply influence peoples' views of their performance and even legitimacy. This proposition is tested using survey data on police-initiated and citizen-initiated contacts with police in Chicago. The findings indicate that the impact of having a bad experience is four to fourteen times as great as that of having a positive experience, and the coefficients associated with having a good experience—including being treated fairly and politely, and receiving service that was prompt and helpful—were not statistically different from zero. Another section of the article replicates this finding using surveys of residents of seven other urban areas located in three different countries. The article concludes that this is bad news indeed for police administrators intent on solidifying their support among voters, taxpayers and the consumers of police services.


Received: December 07, 2018 Accepted: December 20, 2018 Published: January 30, 2019 Volume: 2 Issue: 1 DOI: 10.32996/ijllt.2019.2.1.2 Having hardly learnt any English or having at best learnt wrong English (which is worse than no English) during their junior and secondary school years and having little or no exposure to English outside their classrooms, and partly due to certain weaknesses and shortcomings in what the teachers teach and how they teach, college students in some Arabian Gulf countries, with few exceptions, of course, continue to make (even after five years of English) silly, sloppy, lousy, and awkward errors/mistakes—grammatical, spelling, and pronunciation—in writing as well as speaking. The density of such errors is ridiculously high. This article provides some details and makes some suggestions about how to help students improve. KEYWORDS


To implement modern web applications, a new family of JavaScript frameworks has emerged, using the MVC pattern. Among these frameworks, the most popular one is ANGULARJS, which is supported by Google. In spite of its popularity, there is not a clear knowledge on how ANGULARJS design and features affect the development experience of Web applications. Therefore, this paper reports the results of a survey about ANGULARJS, including answers from 460 developers. Our contributions include the identification of the most appreciated features of ANGULARJS (e.g., custom interface components, dependency injection, and two-way data binding) and the most problematic aspects of the framework (e.g., performance and implementation of directives).


The only guide focusing entirely on practical approaches to pricing and hedging derivatives

 One valuable lesson of the financial crisis was that derivatives and risk practitioners don't really understand the products they're dealing with. Written by a practitioner for practitioners, this book delivers the kind of knowledge and skills traders and finance professionals need to fully understand derivatives and price and hedge them effectively. Most derivatives books are written by academics and are long on theory and short on the day-to-day realities of derivatives trading. Of the few practical guides available, very few of those cover pricing and hedging—two critical topics for traders. What matters to practitioners is what happens on the trading floor—information only seasoned practitioners such as authors Marroni and Perdomo can impart.

 Lays out proven derivatives pricing and hedging strategies and techniques for equities, FX, fixed income and commodities, as well as multi-assets and cross-assets

 Provides expert guidance on the development of structured products, supplemented with a range of practical examples

 Packed with real-life examples covering everything from option payout with delta hedging, to Monte Carlo procedures to common structured products payoffs

 The Companion Website features all of the examples from the book in Excel complete with source code


Both men and women wish to have a family and a rewarding career. In this paper, we show that the under-representation of women in high-powered professions may reflect a coordination failure in young women's marriage-timing decisions. Since investing in a high-powered career imposes time strain, it precludes early participation in the marriage market. Delayed participation in the marriage market has a higher cost for women than for men because women have shorter fecundity horizons. Marriage prospects of high-powered women depend on the marriage-timing decisions of younger women. Under these assumptions, we show that women's marriage-timing decisions exhibit strategic complementarities. Coordination failures in women's marriage-timing decisions lead to persisting gender differences in career choices. Yet, differential fecundity is only necessary, but not sufficient to obtain gender inequality in high-powered professions. We discuss social changes that solve the coordination failure while achieving a Pareto-improvement in the society at large.


Jarosite dissolution rates can be used to determine the duration of water at Meridiani Planum and other environments containing this ephemeral, metastable ferric sulfate salt. The maximum duration of aqueous fluids in the region is calculated based on the dissolution rate of jarosite under varying temperature and ionic strength conditions. Jarosite lifetimes predicted in this study range from 1.5 a in warm dilute environments to 100 ka in NaCl-saturated brines at 250 K. The preservation of jarosite within rocks at Meridiani Planum requires that aqueous fluids were active over a small fraction of the billions of years since jarosite formed or was deposited in the region, limiting the probability of life being established in such a temporally restricted system. In addition, water-related features such as hematite spherules and crystal molds must have formed relatively quickly during this geologically short period of aqueous diagenesis.


The main objective of this study was to evaluate the hydraulic performance of riprap spurs and weirs in controlling bank erosion at the Southern part of the Raccoon River upstream U.S. Highway 169 Bridge utilizing the commercially available model FESWMS and field monitoring. It was found based on a 2 year monitoring and numerical modeling that the design of structures was overall successful, including their spacing and stability. The riprap material incorporated into the structures was directly and favorably correlated to the flow transmission through the structure, or in other words, dictated the permeable nature of the structure. It was found that the permeable dikes and weirs chosen in this study created less volume of scour in the vicinity of the structure toes and thus have less risk comparatively to other impermeable structures to collapse. The fact that the structures permitted the transmission of flow through them allowed fine sand particles to fill in the gaps of the rock interstices and thus cement and better stabilize the structures. During bank-full flows the maximum scour hole was recorded away from the structures toe and the scour-hole size was directly related to the protrusion angle of the structure to the flow. It was concluded that the proposed structure inclination with respect to the main flow direction was appropriate since it provides maximum bank protection while creating the largest volume of local scour away from the structure and towards the center of the channel. Furthermore, the lowest potential for bank erosion also occurs with the present set-up design chosen by the Iowa Department of Transportation (IDOT). About 2 ft of new material was deposited in the area located between the structures for the period extending from the construction day to May 2007. Surveys obtained by sonar and the presence of vegetation indicate that new material has been added at the bank toes. Finally, the structures provided higher variability in bed topography forming resting pools, creating flow shade on the leeward side of the structure, and separation of bed substrate due to different flow conditions. Another notable environmental benefit to rock riprap weirs and dikes is the creation of resting pools, especially in year 2007 (2nd year of the project). The magnitude of these benefits to aquatic habitat has been found in the literature that is directly related to the induced scour-hole volume.


Much recent research on the design of natural language lexicons has made use of non-monotonic inheritance networks as originally developed for general knowledge representation purposes in Artiicial Intelligence. DATR is a simple, spartan language for deening nonmonotonic inheritance networks with path/value equations, one that has been designed speciically for lexical knowledge representation. In keeping with its intendedly minimalist character, it lacks many of the constructs embodied either in general purpose knowledge representation languages or in contemporary grammar formalisms. The present paper shows that the language is nonetheless suuciently expressive to represent concisely the structure of lexical information at a variety of levels of linguistic analysis. The paper provides an informal example-based introduction to DATR and to techniques for its use, including nite state transduction, the encoding of DAGs and lexical rules, and the representation of ambiguity and alternation. Sample analyses of phenomena such as innec-tional syncretism and verbal subcategorisation are given which show how the language can be used to squeeze out redundancy from lexical descriptions.


This diesis analyses the Kashmir dispute between India and Pakistan according to principles of international law. First, the British imperial background to the dispute is described; then, m four chapters, various aspects of the dispute are discussed. Chapter One focusses on the means by which Kashmir joined the Indian union and evaluates several legal objections to the accession of Kashmir to India. Chapter Two looks at the use of force by India, Pakistan, and others in Kashmir, whether force was used legally, and the legal consequences of the territorial situations resulting from the fitting. Chapter Three examines the efforts of the United Nations to resolve the dispute; it also discusses indo-Pakistani bilateral diplomacy. Finally, Chapter Four addresses the question of self-determination in Kashmir, considering the claims of India and Pakistan as well as the notion that Kashmir may be legally entitled to independence. The conclusion of the thesis is that India and Pakistan both have valid claims to portions of Kashmir but that neither may claim it in its entirety; that Kashmir is not entitled to independence; and that the results of a UN-supervised plebiscite should be used to demarcate a permanent Indo-Pakistani boundary.


ABSTRACT Background: Treatment fidelity is at the heart of evidence-based practice and treatment fidelity processes help to determine the 'active ingredients' of a treatment. Hinckley and Douglas in 2013 reviewed treatment fidelity processes in published aphasia trials and found 14% of aphasia treatment studies reported treatment fidelity. This led the authors to call for journals to make treatment fidelity reporting mandatory. Aims: To review the implementation and reporting of treatment fidelity processes in recent aphasia RCTs to update on practices since 2012. Methods and Procedures: Aphasia RCTs published between 2012 and 2017 were sourced from online databases speechBITE, MEDLINE, and CINAHL provided they were: a) an investigation of an impairment-based treatment for post-stroke aphasia; b) not a review, protocol, feasibility, or replication study c) not a surgical or pharmacological intervention and d) published in English. Articles meeting the criteria were rated using Bellg's treatment fidelity areas with the Template for Intervention Description and Replication (TIDieR) checklist elements. Outcomes and Results: This search retrieved 110 articles and 42 met the above criteria. Nine (21%) articles explicitly reported on treatment fidelity processes. One article (2%) contained every element of the recommended treatment fidelity areas. Totally, 37 (88%) articles addressed the study design aspect of treatment fidelity by investigating therapy dosage. The least-addressed aspect of treatment fidelity was ensuring participants used the skills gained in treatment in appropriate life settings, with two (2%) articles including this. Conclusions: The current review identified 21% of articles explicitly reporting treatment fidelity processes. This paper provides updated review evidence from recent RCTs and echoes recommendations for greater incorporation of treatment fidelity in research protocols and resulting publications.


Policy formulation and implementation is a highly contested domain within the South African Higher Education landscape. This contestation can be attributed to the lack of
wide stakeholder involvement and the architecture of the policy-making process. The contestation is also born of an absence of a systemic monitoring and evaluation mechanism
to ensure adherence to policy. In this paper, I present a document analysis of the e-learning policies of three higher education institutions (HEIs) in South Africa, with specific reference to how e-policy has shaped: access to information, e-learning as an alternate system of teaching and learning, quality assurance in e-learning, intellectual property rights (IPR) and e-communication. I also draw upon the similarities and differences that emerge from the three policies under scrutiny. In so doing, I provide a basis for discourse about current international trends influencing e-policy in higher education. In conclusion an analysis of the government's (South Africa) e-policy and its impact on the e-policy of higher education is also provided. South African Journal of Higher Education Vol. 21 (6) 2008: pp. 643-654


BACKGROUND Field cancerization with actinic keratoses and squamous cell carcinoma in situ (AK/SCCIS) represents a common therapeutic challenge in solid organ transplant recipients (SOTRs). These patients often show inadequate responses to methods traditionally used as monotherapy (e.g., topical chemotherapy). OBJECTIVE To describe the clinical outcomes and feasibility of a sequential approach to treatment of field cancerization in SOTRs. METHODS Four SOTRs with field cancerization of the scalp and/or face were treated using a sequential approach. Light curettage of hypertrophic lesions was followed by application of 5-fluorouracil 5% cream twice daily for 5 days and photodynamic therapy (PDT) with 1-hour incubation on day 6. Pain level during and after PDT was recorded. Photographs were obtained immediately before and after treatment and at follow-up appointments. RESULTS All 4 patients tolerated this approach well and demonstrated excellent responses to treatment with complete or near-complete clinical resolution of AK/SCCIS lesions. Patients remained free of AK/SCCIS based on clinical examination 1 to 6 months after treatment. CONCLUSION For SOTRs with field cancerization, sequential therapy represents a viable therapeutic regimen with good tolerability and durable clinical response. This approach warrants further investigation to determine which therapeutic combinations have optimal tolerability and efficacy.


India's service sector is renowned for its size and dynamism. The services sector has witnessed massive and continuous growth, especially over the last 2 decades, and today stands at a monumental 64.4% of the GDP (2011-12). The Economic survey of India (2011-2012) reflects the role played by services in helping the economy navigate the turbulence caused by the Eurozone crisis and the recession in economies world over. The Finance Act of 1994, envisaged the growing role of services in the Indian economy and introduced a levy on services to create an additional source of revenue to fulfil the requirements of our fiscal policy. The indirect tax introduced was ideal to meet the dual objective of fiscal management without hampering economic growth and productivity. Our country adopted a selective approach wherein they taxed only specific services to allow for the services sector to continue growing while simultaneously increasing the revenue generation for the government. The list of taxable services continued to grow as the robustness of our service sector grew but despite the frequent revision of the list of taxable services, revenue from service tax was barely 0.3 per cent of the GDP and 3 per cent of the tax revenue of the union, which considering the state of our Fiscal deficit, India can ill afford. Recent trends in service tax policy have dovetailed India' fiscal policy. India expanded the positive list continuously and finally bit the bullet and shifted to a comprehensive tax regime for service tax in the Finance Act of 2012, to curtail the fiscal deficit which now stands at 5.6%. The paper provides a brief overview of the antecedents and the existing service tax framework in India. The paper delves into the positive list system of the service tax regime and continuous expansion of the same and the fluctuations in rate of taxation. The paper establishes the economic rationale behind the aforementioned trends in service tax, and service tax itself. The Introduction of the negative list system by the Finance Act, 2012 has been analysed. The stated policy of the government to introduce GST which will incorporate service tax in India has again been studied as one of the major trends in the policy for taxation of services. The paper essentially describes the service tax trends and analyses the rationale behind them.


In the wake of high-profile incidents of school violence, school officials have increased their reliance on a host of surveillance measures to maintain order and control in their schools. Paradoxically, such practices can foster hostile environments that may lead to even more disorder and dysfunction. These practices may also contribute to the so-called "school-to-prison pipeline" by pushing more students out of school and into the juvenile justice system. However, not all students experience the same level of surveillance. This Article presents data on school surveillance practices, including an original empirical analysis of restricted data recently released by the U.S. Department of Education after the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Paralleling other disturbing trends of inequality in our public school system, these results and other empirical analyses reveal that schools serving primarily students of color are more likely to rely on more intense surveillance measures than other schools. Further, the empirical evidence suggests that these racial disparities may not be justified by legitimate safety concerns. This Article then turns to a discussion of the role that implicit racial bias may have in school officials' decisions to rely on intense surveillance methods. Finally, it proposes legislation and strategies that federal lawmakers, state lawmakers, and school officials should adopt to counteract the effect of implicit racial bias on school officials' decisions to implement strict security measures (and other decisions school officials make). Implementing these recommendations will help create better learning environments that benefit students of all races.


Participation in commercial agriculture holds considerable potential for unlocking suitable opportunity sets necessary for providing better incomes and sustainable livelihoods for small-scale farmers. This study examined factors that influence the intensity of market participation among smallholder farmers in Kenya. Data was obtained through a rapid rural appraisal and a household survey. A truncated regression model was applied in the analysis. Results showed that farmers in peri-urban areas sold higher proportions of their output than those in rural areas. Distance from farm to point of sale is a major constraint to the intensity of market participation. Better output price and market information are key incentives for increased sales. These findings demonstrate the urgent need to strengthen market information delivery systems, upgrade roads in both rural and peri-urban areas, encourage market integration initiatives, and establish more retail outlets with improved market facilities in the remote rural villages in order to promote production and trade in high value commodities by rural farmers.


This volume forms part of a series exploring key issues in ethics, law and society, published in association with the Cardiff Centre for Ethics, Law and Society. The collection is a celebration of the approach and values embraced within previous volumes in the series. The works collectively address new technological, social and regulatory developments and the fresh ethical dilemmas these pose, but quite critically, also compel an urgent revisiting of social and legal issues that were once the subject of controversy but which have fallen out of the line of sight of academics, politicians and policy-makers. Bringing together selected papers, the editors seek to make apparent the thematic links between contributions in presenting works written by a group of international experts in response to specific ethical issues, including topics on the ethics of care, theorizing ethics, body politics and governance; as such, the collection is multidisciplinary in approach, seeks to appeal to a broad audience and provides a valuable resource for all those concerned with contemporary ethical issues. This fifth and final volume brings the series to a close and is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Jennifer Gunning.


ABSTRACT It is now an accepted maxim in design theory and practice that real-world problems needing the attention of design practitioners are not neat and well-structured, but ill-structured and wickedpart of a larger, complex social situation. For design education, then, to take its lead from contemporary social, political and economic structures, it will have to seriously re-think its problem-solving paradigms. The authors investigate the use of self-generating learning narratives in the classroom and contrast the approach they introduce with the still-too-prevalent notion that knowledge can be transferred from teacher to student. Their methodology draws from ideas formulated by Maturana and Varela on autopoiesis, specifically the notion of co-ontogenic drift.


Revenue and production output of the United Kingdom's Aerospace Industry (AI) is growing year on year and the need to develop new products and innovative enhancements to existing ranges is creating a critical need for the increased utilisation and sharing of employee knowledge. The capture of employee knowledge within the UK's AI is vital if it is to retain its pre-eminent position in the global marketplace. Crowdsourcing, as a collaborative problem solving activity, allows employees to capture explicit knowledge from colleagues and teams and also offers the potential to extract previously unknown tacit knowledge in a less formal virtual environment. By using micro-blogging as a mechanism, a conceptual framework is proposed to illustrate how companies operating in the AI may improve the capture of employee knowledge to address production-related problems through the use of crowdsourcing. Subsequently, the framework has been set against the background of the product development process proposed by Maylor in 1996 and illustrates how micro-blogging may be used to crowdsource ideas and solutions during product development. Initial validation of the proposed framework is reported, using a focus group of 10 key actors from the collaborating organisation, identifying the perceived advantages, disadvantages and concerns of the framework; results indicate that the activity of micro-blogging for crowdsourcing knowledge relating to product development issues would be most beneficial during product conceptualisation due to the requirement for successful innovation.


Abstract.
 Researchers commonly model nest density as a function of ecological variables, but nests, like birds, can be undetected while present. In the Nebraska Sandhills in 2007, we used the rope-drag method on previously located Western Meadowlark (Sturnella neglecta) nests to model nest-detection error and nest density. Detecting nests by rope dragging (commonly used for nests of grassland birds) is conditional on two primary sources of nest availability, adults attending nests and adults flushing from nests in response to disturbance from the rope, the behavioral cue necessary for nest detection. On the basis of our trials with rope dragging, the probability of adults attending nests was 0.46. The probability of trials eliciting flight responses from adults was 0.19, indicating that observed estimates of nest density were subject to detection error and negatively biased. We compared our ability to detect differences in nest densities between two habitat types with a statistical power analysis, using (1) t-tests with estimates of apparent, uncorrected density and (2) a Bayesian hierarchical model incorporating nest-detection error. Our power analysis indicates that accounting for detection error in a hierarchical model increased statistical power for revealing differences in nest densities by habitat type. We discuss mechanisms underlying detection error for nests of grassland birds and make recommendations for sampling and modeling to maximize the reality of models for nest detectability and density.


Currently, a transthoracic echocardiographic examination is routinely included in the assessment of the majority of patients with cardiac disease. Other examinations are also demanded every day from the echocardiography laboratory. Of these, stress echocardiography is particularly time consuming. Shortening the time of infusion of a drug would increase the feasibility and the cost effectiveness of stress echocardiography,1 provided of course that the diagnostic accuracy achieved using the classic drug infusion protocol is maintained.

An "accelerated" dipyridamole infusion protocol has been already used2 and validated in a large study.1 The standard protocol of dobutamine includes an initial dose of 10 μg/kg/min with increments of 10 μg/kg/min every three minutes up to 40 μg/kg/min which is maintained over six minutes and makes this procedure particularly long.

Keeping these considerations in perspective, we have tested the diagnostic accuracy of an "accelerated" dobutamine stress echocardiographic procedure in patients with suspected coronary artery disease.

We prospectively enrolled 94 consecutive patients (mean (SD) age 61 (46) years; 67 male) who complained of chest pain, had no known history of coronary artery disease, and who underwent coronary angiography. Forty eight patients were receiving β blockers. Informed consent was obtained from all patients.

Dobutamine was administered intravenously at an initial dose of 20 μg/kg/min that was maintained over three minutes. Then, 40 μg/kg/min was infused over three minutes. At this point, 1 mg of atropine was given if the test was still negative and the patient had not reached 85% of the maximum predicted heart rate. …


Sovereign defaults are bad news for investors and debtor countries, in particular if a default becomes messy and protracted. Why are some debt crises resolved quickly, in a matter of months, while others take many years to settle? This paper studies the duration of sovereign debt crises based on a new dataset and case study archive on debt renegotiations between governments and foreign banks and bondholders. Using Cox proportional hazard models, I find that domestic political instability ('political risk') is a significant predictor of negotiation delays, after controlling for macroeconomic conditions. Government crises, resignations, and street protests are particularly disruptive for a quick settlement process. Overall, the evidence suggests that debtor countries often lack the political ability to resolve a debt crisis. Governments in turmoil are unlikely to exit a default quickly.


Healthy bones are constantly being renewed and proper nutrition is an important factor in this process. Anti-inflammatory diet is designed to improve health and prevent the occurrence and development of chronic diseases associated with inadequate diet. Proper nutrition is based on the anti-inflammatory pyramid and changes in poor eating habits are the long-term strategy for preventing inflammation and chronic diseases. Inflammatory factors from food may play a role in the development of osteoporosis and an anti-inflammatory diet may be a way to control and reduce long-term inflammation and prevent bone loss. Pro-inflammatory cytokines from the fat tissue, through activation of the RANKL/RANK/OPG system could intervene with bone metabolism in a way of increased bone loss. Therefore the special attention need to be given to obese patients due to twofold risk, one related to pro-inflammatory cytokines release and the other related to the deprivation of the vitamin D in the fat tissue.


Knowledge management (KM), as a topic for academic research and practical implementation, has had a short history dating back only to the early 1990s. Due to knowledge management's recent debut as we know it, it is not surprising that much of the writing and research on the subject is controversial. In this article we note the need of a critical awareness of desirable and undesirable shades of knowledge management processes.


OBJECTIVES
To assess the association between parents' perceptions of various barriers to vaccination and their preferences regarding specific strategies designed to reduce missed vaccination opportunities and the immunization status of their children and to estimate the overall contribution of the perception of barriers on underimmunization among children who are vaccinated in pediatricians' offices.

METHODS
As part of a nationwide study on the immunization status of children followed by practicing pediatricians, parents of children who were 8 to 35 months of age and seen consecutively at 177 participating practice sites completed a survey on health beliefs regarding the vaccination process. In addition to demographic information, parents were asked to identify the most difficult thing about obtaining immunizations, as well as their preferences regarding the maximum number of vaccine injections that should be administered to their child at 1 visit and for receiving a needed immunization during an office visit for a mild illness. Immunization data on study children were abstracted from the practice medical record, and specific survey responses for each parent were compared with the immunization status of his or her child at 8 months of age using chi2 tests. For parental health beliefs associated with immunization status by bivariate analyses, the relative risks for underimmunization and population-attributable risk percentages of each belief were calculated after potentially confounding variables were adjusted for.

RESULTS
Immunization data were collected on 13 520 children; 13 516 parents responded to at least 1 question regarding vaccination health beliefs. Two thirds of the responding parents indicated that their child should receive no more than 2 immunizations at 1 visit. However, there was no difference in the preferred maximum number of vaccines between parents of children who were fully immunized at 8 months of age and those of underimmunized children. Similarly, there was no difference in a stated preference for receiving a needed immunization during an illness visit. Overall, 74% of respondents indicated that there was "nothing" difficult about obtaining vaccines for their children. The most commonly cited barrier was concern about the side effects of vaccines, identified by 22.6% of parents. However, this barrier was not associated with immunization status. Each of the remaining barriers-including the confusing vaccination schedule, expense of vaccines, the inconvenience of the vaccination process, having a child who was often too ill to receive vaccines, religious objections, and other identified barriers-was statistically associated with immunization status, with adjusted relative risks for underimmunization ranging from 1.42 to 3.04. However, because each of these barriers was identified as important by <5% of parents, the population-attributable risk percentage for each was < or =2.5%. Overall, it was estimated that parental perception of barriers associated with immunization status accounts for 8.0% of the underimmunization observed among children who are vaccinated in the offices of primary care pediatricians.

CONCLUSIONS
Parental preferences regarding vaccination practices designed to reduce missed opportunities were not associated with the immunization status of their children. Although several barriers to vaccination were associated with immunization status, individual barriers were identified by a small minority of parents. Overall, parental perceptions of barriers to vaccination do not seem to be a significant cause of underimmunization in this population of children.


Branched glycerol dialkyl glycerol tetraethers (brGDGTs), which are thought to be transported from soil to marine sediment by rivers, have been used to reconstruct the mean annual air temperature (MAAT) and soil pH of the drainage basin using the methylation index of branched tetraethers (MBT, recently refined as MBT') and cyclization index of branched tetraethers (CBT) from coastal marine sediment records. In this study, we trace the brGDGTs from source to sink in the Tagus River basin, the longest river system on the Iberian Peninsula, by determining their concentration and distribution in soils, river suspended particulate matter (SPM), riverbank sediments, marine SPM, and marine surface sediments. The concentrations of brGDGTs in river SPM were substantially higher and their distributions were different compared to those of the drainage basin soils. This indicates that brGDGTs are mainly produced in the river itself. In the marine environment, the brGDGT concentrations rapidly decreased with increasing distance from the Tagus estuary. At the same time, the brGDGT distributions in marine sediments also changed, indicating that marine in situ production also takes place. These results show that there are various problems that complicate the use of the MBT'/CBT for paleoreconstructions using coastal marine sediments in the vicinity of a river. However, if the majority of brGDGTs are produced in the river, it might be possible to reconstruct the environmental (temperature and pH) conditions of the river water using appropriate aquatic calibrations, provided that marine core locations are chosen in such a way that the brGDGTs in their sediments are predominantly derived from riverine in situ production.


Human observers are sensitive to light properties such as the intensity, direction and diffuseness. We study how well they are able to estimate the light field (the structure of the net flux transport) in rooms, by empirical measurement and comparison of the physical and visual light fields. We made regularized measurements of the physical light field in a room under three light conditions with a custom-made cubic illuminance meter based on six Konica Minolta T-10MA sensors. Next, we photographed the room and conducted a psychophysical experiment, in which the observer's task was to change the lighting (direction, intensity and ambient components) of a "probe" in order to make it appear like it belonged to the pictured scene. The probe, a white Lambertian sphere on a black monopod (defining the location of the probe in the scene), was superimposed on predetermined locations in the image. As a separate measure of the visual light field, the participants indicated the perceived ("subjective") light source position on the extended scene pictures and described it in words. For each light condition we made reconstructions of light fields consisting of light vectors in a grid: physical from measurements, visual from observers' settings on a probe, and simplified models of light fields with all vectors pointing to the subjective light source positions. Participants' interpretations varied remarkably in position and number of the subjective light sources. Many of them were far from veridical. We made pairwise comparisons between light field reconstructions. For the most prominent case, with a visible light source, the average angular difference between visual and physical light vectors was 57 degrees, whereas between visual and simplified model for subjective light sources it was 29 degrees. The results suggest that, overall, the visual light field's structure is simplified with respect to the physical one. Meeting abstract presented at VSS 2015.


In the modern practice, a sustainable development strategy in a domain of wasteutilization is shifting its focus from a general completeness of recycling to a morespecific attention to efficiently utilize elements in the wastes. This is well-illustrated bythe steelmaking slag industries. The major waste product from the steelmaking practiceis slag and its main constituents are: CaO, SiO2, Al2O3, MnO, FeO and so on. The mainfield of application for the steelmaking slags is civil engineering, especially for road andwaterway construction. However, a significant amount of the slag remains in the dumps,damaging the environment as well as requiring a land for secure storage. Efficientrecycling of these materials is of increasing interest worldwide as a result of increasingsustainability in processes with respect to increasing raw material costs and wastereduction.In order to find a practical solution, joint efforts are currently made at the RoyalInstitute of Technology, Sweden and National Metallurgical Academy of Ukraine. Theconcept is based on transformation of non-magnetic wustite (FeO) to magneticmagnetite (Fe3O4) using an oxidizing atmosphere was proposed.In order to verify the feasibility of the proposed way of slag utilization, experiments onthe ternary CaO-FeO-SiO2 and quaternary CaO-FeO-SiO2-MnO slags systems,accompanied by thermodynamic and kinetic modelling, were performed. The crystalprecipitation during synthetic slag oxidation was observed by Confocal Scanning LaserMicroscopy (CSLM). Precipitated phases were found to be magnetite and manganeseferrite in the spinel form.Obtained magnetite and manganese ferrite can be separated from the slag by magneticseparation.The formation of nanosize manganese ferrite from the CaO-FeO-SiO2-MnO slag systemduring oxidation was investigated. Experiments were conducted in a horizontalresistance furnace in an oxidizing atmosphere (air). The final product was analysed by Xraydiffraction (XRD). The particles size of the manganese ferrite was estimated by theScherrer formula and was found to be of the order of 23-25 nm. In order to get anunderstanding of the magnetic properties of the manganese ferrite recovered from slagtreatment, it was necessary to synthesize a reference compound from pure precursors.The MnFe2O4 nanopowder was synthesized by the oxalate route. The size effects on themagnetic properties of manganese ferrite particles were investigated.IIThe potential way of the magnetite particles separation from liquid slags was investigatedby cold model studies. The experimental technique of mobilising non-conducting,nonmagnetic particles in conducting liquid in crossed electric and magnetic fields wasinvestigated in order to find the way of the particle separation from the liquidsteelmaking slags. The effects of the current density, magnetic field, size and shape ofthe particle on the particle velocity under action of the electromagnetic buoyancy force(EBF) in the electrolyte were analyzed.


Biostratigraphical observations in different locations and horizons of carbonate strata from four oil wells drilled in the Persian Gulf Basin document three new ichnospecies of crustacean microcoprolites. Favreina irannensis n. sp. occurs in Valanginian–Hauterivian strata of the Buwaib Formation (Gadvan Formation), Palaxius asmariensis n. sp. in the Lower Miocene strata of the Asmari Formation, and Palaxius minaensis n. sp. in the Aptian strata of the Dariyan Formation.


The Koran has constituted a remarkably strong core of identity and continuity for a religious tradition that is now in its fifteenth century. This Very Short Introduction explores the significance of the Koran both in the modern world and in traditional Muslim culture. Michael Cook provides a lucid and direct account of the Koran as codex, as scripture, as liturgy, and as the embodiment of truth, and examines its means of formation and dissemination. He also discusses issues of interpretation for certain key verses, demonstrating that fecundity of the text for readers throughout the world. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.


String suffix automata accept all suffixes of a given string and belong to the fundamental stringology principles. Extending their transitions by specific pushdown operations results in new subtree pushdown automata, which accept all subtrees of a given subject tree in prefix notation and are analogous to the suffix automata in their properties. The deterministic subtree pushdown automaton accepts an input subtree in time linear to the number of nodes of the subtree and its total size is linear to the number of nodes of the given subject tree.


Most of the diversity of microbial life is not available in culture, and as such we lack even a fundamental understanding of the biological diversity of several branches on the tree of life. One branch that is highly underrepresented is the candidate phylum TM6, also known as the Dependentiae. Their biology is known only from reduced genomes recovered from metagenomes around the world and two isolates infecting amoebae, all suggest that they live highly host-associated lifestyles as parasites or symbionts. Chromulinavorax destructans is an isolate from the TM6/Dependentiae that infects and lyses the abundant heterotrophic flagellate, Spumella elongata. Chromulinavorax destructans is characterized by a high degree of reduction and specialization for infection, so much so it was discovered in a screen for giant viruses. Its 1.2 Mb genome shows no metabolic potential and C. destructans instead relies on extensive transporter system to import nutrients, and even energy in the form of ATP from the host. Accordingly, it replicates in a viral-like fashion, while extensively reorganizing and expanding the host mitochondrion. 44% of proteins contain signal sequences for secretion, which includes many proteins of unknown function as well as 98 copies of ankyrin-repeat domain proteins, known effectors of host modulation, suggesting the presence of an extensive host-manipulation apparatus.


The problem addressed in this dissertation research was the inability of the single-factor capital asset pricing model (CAPM) to identify relevant risk factors that investors consider in forming their return expectations for investing in individual stocks. Identifying the appropriate risk factors is important for investment decision making and is pertinent to the formation of stocks' prices in the stock market. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine theoretical and empirical validity of the CAPM and to develop and test a multifactor model to address and resolve the empirical shortcomings of the single-factor CAPM. To verify the empirical validity of the standard CAPM and of the multifactor model five hypotheses were developed and tested against historical monthly data for U.S. public companies. Testing the CAPM hypothesis revealed that the explanatory power of the overall stock market rate of return in explaining individual stock's expected rates of return is very weak, suggesting the existence of other risk factors. Testing of the other hypotheses verified that the implied volatility of the overall market as a systematic risk factor and the companies' size and financial leverage as nonsystematic risk factors are important in determining stock's expected returns and investors should consider these factors in their investment decisions. The findings of this research have important implications for social change. The outcome of this study can change the way individual and institutional investors as well as corporations make investment decisions and thus change the equilibrium prices in the stock market. These changes in turn could lead to significant changes in the resource allocation in the economy, in the economy's production capacity and production composition, and in the employment structure of the society.


Too often, academics and policy makers interpret formality as a binary choice and formalization as an irreversible process. Yet, formalization has many facets and shades on the business and labor fronts, and firms may not be able or willing to formalize all at once. This paper explores the joint process of business and labor formalization, using a unique panel data set of Peruvian micro enterprises. The paper finds that business formality does not imply labor formality, and vice versa. Further, there is significant churning in and out of different dimensions of formality within a relatively short period. Using an instrumental variable approach, the paper infers that business formalization affects labor formalization but not the other way around, and that enforcement is a key driver of formalization. Overall, the analysis shows that formalization is a gradual and reversible process, with small entrepreneurs weighing their possibilities in each pathway to business (often) or labor (less often) formalization, but rarely both at the same time.


Objective: Communication disorders negatively affect the academic curriculum for students in higher education. Acoustic analysis is an objective leading tool to describe these disorders; however the amount of the acoustic parameters makes differentiating pathological voices among healthy ones not an easy task. The purpose of the present paper was to present the relevant acoustic parameters that differentiate objectively pathological voices among healthy ones. Methods: Pathological and normal voices samples of /a/, /i/ and /u/ utterances, of 400 students were recorded and analyzed acoustically with PRAAT software, then a feature of acoustic parameters were extracted. A statistical analysis was performed in order to reduce the extracted parameters to main relevant ones in order to build a model that will be the basis for the objective diagnostic. Results: Mean amplitude, jitter local absolute, second bandwidth of the second formant and Noise-to-Harmonic Ratio; are relevant acoustic parameters that characterize pathological voices among healthy ones, for the utterances of vowels /a/, /i/ and /u/ Thresholds of the acoustic parameters of pathological /a/, /i/, and /u/ were calculated. A training model was built and simulated on Matlab, and a comparison between Hidden Markov Model and K-Nearest Neighbors classification methods were done (Hidden Markov Model had a rate of recognition of 95% and K-Nearest Neighbors within the reduced acoustic parameters reached a recognition rate of 97%). Conclusion: Through the identified parameters, we can objectively detect pathological voices among healthy ones for diagnostic purposes. As a future work, the present approach is an attempt toward identifying acoustic parameters that characterize each voice disorder.


This study examines the consumption decisions of baby boomers (40 - 64 year-old age cohort) with $75,000 - $140,000 in household income in the immediate aftermath of the financial crisis of 2007-2008 using the Consumer Expenditure Survey data of Bureau of Labor Statistics in 2009. Increasing unemployment and foreclosures of primary homes led to variability of income, which became a major consideration in evaluating consumption choices. In addition, we draw on Weberian social class theory to identify social influence on consumption decisions. Gender differences in processing information pertaining to new product purchases provided yet another means of stratifying the sample. By juxtaposing economic variables on social identification and genderbased preferences, this study sets forth the explanatory variables underlying eight separate product purchase decisions. Principal findings included Variability of Income and Risk of Foreclosure determined the Rent or Buy a home decision. The predictor of Expenditure on New Cars included the Cost of a New Car. For Expenditure on Used Cars, Deviation from New Car Buyers and Cost of a Used Car were the relevant predictors. For Lunch Brought from Home to the workplace, Lunch Consumed at Restaurants and Conformity to Own Referent Group were the most important explanatory variables. For Lunch Consumed at Restaurants, Lunch at Home and Socialization Opportunities explained the criterion. Conformity to the Referent Group explained Expenditure on Vacations, Furniture and Appliances and Small Appliances.


The article offers a correction of the widespread approach in which in the studies of Romani movement for civic emancipation are examined only its international dimensions, leaving behind its origin and first stages, which occurred in individual countries. Based on the research of historical sources we will show the commencement and roots of the Romani movement. The departing point of the research presented in this article is the circumstance that Roma are not a hermetic social and cultural system. They exist in two dimensions, both as separate ethnic communities and as a part of the macro-society in which they live within the respective nation-states. Together with members of the macro-society they experienced breakdowns of old Empires and the establishment of national states. Under the conditions of historical turbulences in the period between two World Wars, Roma developed aspirations for civil emancipation , started to be civically engaged and politically institutionalised. On the basis of archival and media sources the article introduces the first manifestation of civic activities of Roma in an attempt to pursue their ethnic and community rights and their visions about their place in society and the future of their nation. Acknowledgements: This article is written as a part of the research project 'RomaInterbellum. Roma Civic Emancipation between the Two World Wars' which has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No 694656). It reflects only the authors' view, and the agency is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information it contains.


The impacts of climate change can be analysed with the same economic assessment tools used for analysing the impacts of changing economic conditions. The fundamental concept is that impacts of climate change will affect the behaviour of economic agents, who will adapt autonomously, but autonomous adaptation is not always the optimal solution. This paper explains that by analysing the behaviour of people as a consequence of climate change, the resulting scenarios can help policy-makers in designing policies where autonomous adaptation does not reflect a social optimum. However, economic analyses of this topic are still scarce. The importance of concentrating on such analyses is that structural change is a continuing process in all European economies, but climate change may contribute to faster and more vigorous changes with corresponding challenges for policy-makers.


Lonely Planet: The world's leading travel guide publisher Lonely Planet Chile & Easter Island is your passport to all the most relevant and up-to-date advice on what to see, what to skip, and what hidden discoveries await you. Museum-hop in Barrio Bellas Artes, kayak down the calm Rio Serrano, or marvel at the strikingly enigmatic moai of Easter Island; all with your trusted travel companion. Get to the heart of Chile and Easter Island and begin your journey now! Inside Lonely Planet Chile & Easter Island Travel Guide: *Color maps and images throughout *Highlights and itineraries show you the simplest way to tailor your trip to your own personal needs and interests *Insider tips save you time and money and help you get around like a local, avoiding crowds and trouble spots *Essential info at your fingertips - including hours of operation, phone numbers, websites, transit tips, and prices *Honest reviews for all budgets - including eating, sleeping, sight-seeing, going out, shopping, and hidden gems that most guidebooks miss *Cultural insights give you a richer and more rewarding travel experience - including customs, history, literature, cinema, politics, landscapes, wildlife, and wine *Over 54 local maps *Useful features - including Month-by-Month (annual festival calendar), Chile Outdoors, and Travel with Children *Coverage of Santiago, Vina del Mar, Rapa Nui, Arica, Anakena Beach, Northern Patagonia, Southern Patagonia, Chiloe, Sur Chico, Norte Grande, Norte Chico, Middle Chile, Tierra del Fuego, and more The Perfect Choice: Lonely Planet Chile & Easter Island,our most comprehensive guide to Chile and Easter Island, is perfect for those planning to both explore the top sights and take the road less traveled. * Looking for more extensive coverage? Check out Lonely Planet's South America on a Shoestring guide for a comprehensive look at all the continent has to offer. Authors: Written and researched by Lonely Planet, Carolyn McCarthy, Jean-Bernard Carillet, Bridget Gleeson, Anja Mutic, and Kevin Raub. About Lonely Planet: Started in 1973, Lonely Planet has become the world's leading travel guide publisher with guidebooks to every destination on the planet, as well as an award-winning website, a suite of mobile and digital travel products, and a dedicated traveler community. Lonely Planet's mission is to enable curious travelers to experience the world and to truly get to the heart of the places they find themselves in. TripAdvisor Travelers' Choice Awards 2012 and 2013 winner in Favorite Travel Guide category 'Lonely Planet guides are, quite simply, like no other.' - New York Times 'Lonely Planet. It's on everyone's bookshelves; it's in every traveller's hands. It's on mobile phones. It's on the Internet. It's everywhere, and it's telling entire generations of people how to travel the world.' - Fairfax Media (Australia)


The healthcare industry has been slow to join the information technology revolution; handwritten records are still the primary means of organizing patient care. Concerns about patient privacy, the difficulty of developing appropriate computing tools and information technology, high costs, and the resistance of some physicians and nurses have hampered the use of technology in health care. In 2009, the U.S. government committed billions of dollars to health care technology. Many questions remain, however, about how to deploy these resources. In Health Informatics, experts in technology, joined by clinicians, use diabetes--a costly, complex, and widespread disease that involves nearly every facet of the health care system--to examine the challenges of using the tools of information technology to improve patient care. Unlike other books on medical informatics that discuss such topics as computerized order entry and digital medical records, Health Informatics focuses on the patient, charting the information problems patients encounter in different stages of the disease. [Chapters discuss ubiquitous computing as a tool to move diabetes care out of the doctor's office, technology and chronic disease management, educational gaming as a way to help patients understand their disease, patient access to information, and methodological and theoretical concerns.] We need both technologists and providers at the drawing board in order to design and deploy effective digital tools for health care. This book examines and exemplifies this necessary collaboration.