Objective: To determine genetic variants among peruvian Yellow Fever (YF) isolates. Materials and methods: Carboxiterminal ends from the envelope protein gene of five YF isolates obtained from patients living in Ayacucho 1978 (PER1), Junin 1995 (PER2), Cerro de Pasco (PER3), Cusco (1998) y San Martin (1999) were amplified using PCR, and they were sequenced and analyzed using DNA software. Results: The identity index using nucleotide sequences among five yellow fever isolates showed values between 94,3% and 99.3%, while amino acid sequences revealed 97,6% to 99,7% similarity. Likewise, the phylogenetic analysis showed that the values for genetic distance among these isolates were between 0,40 y 6,50 using nucleotide sequences; and using aminoacid sequencing, the range was from 0,30 to 4,29. However, important regions, such as glycosilation sites and humoral-recognising sites were preserved among the five isolates excepting some reference isolates previously reported. Conclusions: Peruvian Yellow Fever viruses are grouped in a phylogenetic cluster different to other South American YF viruses, based on the E gene analysis.


An embryonic skeleton of a nonavian theropod dinosaur was found preserved in an egg from Upper Cretaceous rocks in the Gobi Desert of Mongolia. Cranial features identify the embryo as a member of Oviraptoridae. Two embryo-sized skulls of dromaeosaurids, similar to that of Velociraptor, were also recovered in the nest. The eggshell microstructure is similar to that of ratite birds and is of a type common in the Djadokhta Formation at the Flaming Cliffs (Bayn Dzak). Discovery of a nest of such eggs at the Flaming Cliffs in 1923, beneath the Oviraptor philoceratops holotype, suggests that this dinosaur may have been a brooding adult.


Although numerous studies have examined the role of helicopter parenting in child outcomes, there is little empirical cross-cultural research on the academic outcomes of helicopter parenting for late adolescents. This study investigated the differences in the association between mothers' and fathers' helicopter parenting and college students' (N = 343) academic outcomes across American and South Korean contexts, examining the role of self-efficacy as a mediator. Multigroup structural equation modeling analyses showed that South Korean fathers' helicoptering has a negative relation with students' academic outcomes. Higher levels of fathers' parenting were directly related to students' lower academic outcomes in the Korean context. However, comparable results were not observed with South Korean mothers or American parents. In addition, mothers' helicopter parenting was not related to either self-efficacy or academic outcomes across the two countries. Although there are cultural differences in helicopter parenting practices, there appear to be potentially more cultural similarities across the two cultures than was conjectured.


PURPOSE
Tracking the progression of low grade tumors (LGTs) is a challenging task, due to their slow growth rate and associated complex internal tumor components, such as heterogeneous enhancement, hemorrhage, and cysts. In this paper, the authors show a semiautomatic method to reliably track the volume of LGTs and the evolution of their internal components in longitudinal MRI scans.

METHODS
The authors' method utilizes a spatiotemporal evolution modeling of the tumor and its internal components. Tumor components gray level parameters are estimated from the follow-up scan itself, obviating temporal normalization of gray levels. The tumor delineation procedure effectively incorporates internal classification of the baseline scan in the time-series as prior data to segment and classify a series of follow-up scans. The authors applied their method to 40 MRI scans of ten patients, acquired at two different institutions. Two types of LGTs were included: Optic pathway gliomas and thalamic astrocytomas. For each scan, a "gold standard" was obtained manually by experienced radiologists. The method is evaluated versus the gold standard with three measures: gross total volume error, total surface distance, and reliability of tracking tumor components evolution.

RESULTS
Compared to the gold standard the authors' method exhibits a mean Dice similarity volumetric measure of 86.58% and a mean surface distance error of 0.25 mm. In terms of its reliability in tracking the evolution of the internal components, the method exhibits strong positive correlation with the gold standard.

CONCLUSIONS
The authors' method provides accurate and repeatable delineation of the tumor and its internal components, which is essential for therapy assessment of LGTs. Reliable tracking of internal tumor components over time is novel and potentially will be useful to streamline and improve follow-up of brain tumors, with indolent growth and behavior.


There has been substantial research on sub-linear time approximate algorithms for Maximum Inner Product Search (MIPS). To achieve fast query time, state-of-the-art techniques require significant preprocessing, which can be a burden when the number of subsequent queries is not sufficiently large to amortize the cost. Furthermore, existing methods do not have the ability to directly control the suboptimality of their approximate results with theoretical guarantees. In this paper, we propose the first approximate algorithm for MIPS that does not require any preprocessing, and allows users to control and bound the suboptimality of the results. We cast MIPS as a Best Arm Identification problem, and introduce a new bandit setting that can fully exploit the special structure of MIPS. Our approach outperforms state-of-the-art methods on both synthetic and real-world datasets.


Six commercial brands of dried goji (Lycium barbarum L.) berries were evaluated for their sensory, physical and chemical parameters. A quantitative descriptive analysis (QDA with 18 attributes) was undertaken and consumer preferences determined. Sensory assessments were supported with physical measurements of appearance and texture. Chemical parameters included: total phenolic content, some phenolic acids (chlorogenic, caffeic, p-cumaric, ferulic and sinapic acids), antioxidant activity and ascorbic acid content. The berries were analyzed for their mineral elements (Ca, Cr, Fe, Ge, K, Na, P, Se, Zn) content. The main aim of this work was to assess differences between dried goji berries brands available in the Italian market and to relate them with the data available in the literature. Berries showed few differences in sensory, instrumental and chemical parameters, and those uncovered mainly related to visual, dimensional and texture descriptors (sensory analysis). Dried goji berries were not particularly appreciated by consumers and this suggests that they are bought for their advertised medicinal properties. For the most relevant compounds (e.g., phenolic acids, antioxidant molecules and elements), only a few variations were observed among brands. Dried goji berries showed to be an excellent source of antioxidants and mineral elements able to contribute in a relevant matter to the recommended daily intakes.


UNLABELLED
The aim of this study was to determine the presence of high-risk HPV-16 in patients with HNSCC, assess the impact of HPV status on treatment response and survival in this select cohort treated with combined modality therapy and to identify the differences in HIF-1alpha and VEGF expression in HPV-positive and -negative tumors.

PATIENTS AND METHODS
Patients had resectable, untreated stage III, IV HNSCC of the oral cavity, oropharynx, hyopharynx or larynx, and stage II cancer of the base of tongue, hypopharynx and larynx. HPV status was determined by conventional PCR in fresh frozen biopsy samples and by Taqman PCR assay on formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded specimens. HIF-1alpha and VEGF expression were assessed by quantitative real-time PCR (RT-PCR). Multivariate Cox proportional hazards regression analysis was used to calculate hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) based on HPV status.

RESULTS
HPV-16 was detected in 14 of 24 evaluable cases. There were no significant differences in response rates after neoadjuvant chemotherapy (86% vs. 90%) in HPV-positive and HPV-negative patients, respectively. There was a trend toward better progression-free (HR=0.15, 95% CI=0.002-12.54; p=0.06) and overall survival (HR=0.14, 95% CI=0.001-14.12; p=0.10) for HPV-positive patients. In a subset of 13 fresh frozen samples, RT-PCR revealed a significant increase in VEGF mRNA levels in HPV-positive tumors (p<0.01). No difference was seen for HIF-1alpha expression.

CONCLUSION
HPV presence portended a better prognosis in patients with oropharyngeal SCC treated with a multimodality treatment in a prospective clinical trial. The level of VEGF mRNA was up-regulated in HPV-16-positive tumors possibly through an HIF-1 independent manner.


In Argentina, the provision of health care is divided into three components: a highly decentralized universal public sector, funded from general taxation; a constellation of compulsory collective insurance schemes, financed by contributions withdrawn from the salaries of workers in the formal labor market; and a system of private insurance companies used primarily by the middle and upper classes. Regarding the delivery of medical services, the configuration is mixed, as the weight of public and private providers is roughly equal. This complex structure, which derives from the historical development of particular institutions, produces high costs and unequal access to care according to a person's geographical residence, occupational status, and purchasing power.


Both mitochondrial DNA sequence and two nuclear microsatellite markers were used to confirm the identity of the first record of Carassius auratus gibelio in the western (Swedish) Baltic Sea region. A total of 49 fishes were analysed, where 22 were from three Swedish sites connected to the Baltic Sea. The D-loop mitochondrial DNA sequences showed that 16 of 22 Swedish fishes were related to C. a. gibelio. The phylogenetic analysis of these sequences showed that these fish are probably not native, but represent different lineages of C. a. gibelio from China, Japan and Russia. All except three of these 16 fishes had microsatellite alleles suggesting hybridization with Carassius carassius. These findings suggest that a cryptic invasion of C. a. gibelio might be in progress.


We consider a variant of the well-studied multiarmed bandit problem in which the reward from each action evolves monotonically in the number of times the decision maker chooses to take that action. We are motivated by settings in which we must give a series of homogeneous tasks to a finite set of arms (workers) whose performance may improve (due to learning) or decay (due to loss of interest) with repeated trials. We assume that the arm-dependent rates at which the rewards change are unknown to the decision maker, and propose algorithms with provably optimal policy regret bounds, a much stronger notion than the often-studied external regret. For the case where the rewards are increasing and concave, we give an algorithm whose policy regret is sublinear and has a (provably necessary) dependence on the time required to distinguish the optimal arm from the rest. We illustrate the behavior and performance of this algorithm via simulations. For the decreasing case, we present a simple greedy approach and show that the policy regret of this algorithm is constant and upper bounded by the number of arms.


Feng shui, the ancient Chinese art and science of finding harmony with nature, has become widely adopted in the West. Like Buddhism, which migrated from India eastward, feng shui is recognized by Eastern scholars as having originated not in China but in India, where it is referred to as Vastu Shastra, or the science of architecture. In Vastu Living, Kathleen Cox introduces readers to the art, science, and practice of vastu. Cox explains vastu's origins in the Vedas, its relationship to the Hindu gods, its principles and guidelines, and its traditional uses. Vastu Living shows readers how to practice vastu at home and in the workplace--from understanding its teachings on room layout and furniture placement to bringing the divine into every dimension of one's environment.


Molecular epidemiology of human ecovariants of Escherichia coli from different regions of Nigeria were studied using their antibiotic susceptibility patterns, plasmid profile and DNA microarray techniques. E. coli was isolated using Eosin Methylene Blue agar (EMB) and identified by conventional microbiological technique. The isolates were tested against 14 antibiotics using the disc diffusion method. Genotyping was done using DNA microarray. Overall, 42 different antibiotics resistance clusters were observed, with each isolate showing resistance to at least four or more drugs tested. Of the 60 isolates genotyped with DNA microarray, 57 were identified as having, at least, one antimicrobial resistance gene. Among the 90 antibiotic resistance genes detected, bla-CMY-2 was the most prevalent occurring in 38 (63.3%) of the isolates. Other highly prevalent genes occurring in the human isolates, include strA 28(70%) aadE 28(70%); TEM1 11(27.5%); Sul2 14(35%); andTetA 21(52.5%). The microarray genotyping corresponded with the phenotype of the strains. Presence of drug-resistance genes/plasmids in commensal strains isolated from apparently healthy individuals is of great public health importance.

 Key words: DNA microarray, E. coli, Nigeria.


This thesis explores the conversation surrounding the recent attempts by the Vermont Legislature to pass a Sugar-Sweetened Beverage tax in the years 2014-2016. We explore the common perceptions expressed by a sample of Vermont residents and also look at how Vermont media outlets portrayed the tax through frames of reference. Framing is a method of emphasizing certain points of an issue. This thesis reports the common opinions of Vermonters, the media framing of the issue, and if there is any relationship between them in two academic journal articles. The first article looks at the common frames used in Vermont media during the 2014-2016 period. Classifying 10 proand anti-tax frames from 30 common arguments, the article analyzes the use of these frames, their prevalence in different news outlets, and their frequency during time periods. The article also looks at sponsors of these frames and measures which frames individuals and organizations are sponsoring. The study finds that anti-tax advocates most often cite economic hindrances as a reason to oppose the tax and pro-tax advocates predominately cite health benefits and economic tax benefits as a reason to support the tax. In the final year, pro-tax advocates sponsored economic benefits more than any other frames and this argument coincided with the statewide discussion of a budget shortfall. The second article measures the relationship between the media portrayal of the Sugar-Sweetened Beverage tax and the opinions of Vermont citizens regarding the tax. By looking at the prevalence of proand anti-tax frames usage in each year, a logistic regression model was built to measure the odds of people favoring tax based off of independent variables, including frames. Vermont residents fluctuated in their opinion of the tax over the years. It was found that in 2015, pro-tax frames made people more likely to support the tax. Democrats were also more likely to support the tax and Republicans were more likely to oppose the tax. This thesis provides insight into the conversation surrounding Sugar-Sweetened Beverage taxes in Vermont. It helps to shed light on the issue, how different groups feel about the issue, and how frames of thought presented through the media can relate to Vermonters' opinion of the tax.


Cosmology and particle physics have long been dominated by theoretical paradigms: Einstein's general theory of relativity in cosmology and the standard model of particle physics. The time may have come for paradigm shifts. Does cosmological inflation require a modification of Einstein's gravity? Have experiments at the LHC discovered a new particle beyond the Standard Model? It is premature to answer these questions, but we theorists can dream about the possibilities.


Social Science discovering its muse, is 11 minute film collaboration between filmmaker, Ben Mallaby and Dr. Kip Jones. The film intersperses interviews with participants from five AHRC workshops in Performative Social Science (PSS) held over the past year at Bournemouth University with clips of workshop activities. The film not only documents activities, but also acts as an exemplar of research capacity building using tools from the arts and utilisation of the media available to researchers to reach wider audiences with their work.


Abstract:In his introduction to the third installment of the Common Knowledge symposium on xenophilia (vol. 24, no. 1), the journal's editor, Jeffrey M. Perl, writes about exopraxis and xenophilia, giving as an example of their convergence a Muslim student's practice of confessing to a Catholic priest in Akko, Israel. Here, in the fourth symposium installment, Benoît Fliche joins Perl in a dialogue about the nature of Muslim exopractical experience in the Mediterranean area. Fliche suggests that one should speak, when dealing with exopraxis, not of the love of difference but of an indifference to it and supports his argument by demonstrating—based on his study of 2,600 Muslim votive messages left at the Church of Saint Anthony of Padua in Istanbul—that the logic of exopraxis depends not on hospitality, affection, syncretism, or tolerance, but on a capacity to benefit from difference without acknowledging its presence. Perl responds that, if indifference is defined as not noticing or not caring about differences, then indifference should rank higher than xenophilia in a hierarchy of irenic affects. A Muslim's liking for Christianity could lead to conversion, and conversion presupposes that Islam and Christianity are at odds; the convert would be changing sides in an ongoing conflict. Indifference, on the other hand, presupposes that the differences between the two religions traditions are insignificant.


The two main objectives of the research work conducted were firstly, to investigate the processing and rheological characteristics of a new generation metallocene catalysed linear low density polyethylene (m-LLDPE), in order to establish the thermal oxidative degradation mechanism, and secondly, to examine the role of selected commercial stabilisers on the melt stability of the polymers. The unstabilised m-LLDPE polymer was extruded (pass I) using a twin screw extruder, at different temperatures (210-285°C) and screw speeds (50-20rpm) and was subjected to multiple extrusions (passes, 2-5) carried out under the same processing conditions used in the first pass. A traditional Ziegler/Natta catalysed linear low density polyethylene (z-LLDPE) produced by the same manufacturer was also subjected to a similar processing regime in order to compare the processability and the oxidative degradation mechanism (s) of the new m-LLDPE with that of the more traditional z-LLDPE. The effect of some of the main extrusion characteristics of the polymers (m-LLDPE and z-LLDPE) on their melt rheological behaviour was investigated by examining their melt flow performance monitored at two fixed low shear rate values, and their rheological behaviour investigated over the entire shear rates experienced during extrusion using a twin-bore capillary rheometer. Capillary rheometric measurements, which determine the viscous and elastic properties of polymers, have shown that both polymers are shear thinning but the m-LLDPE has a higher viscosity than z-LLDPE and the extent of reduction in viscosity of the former when the extrusion temperature was increased from 210°C to 285°C was much higher than in the case of the z-LLDPE polymer. This was supplied by the findings that the m-LLDPE polymer required higher power consumption under all extrusion conditions examined. It was fUliher revealed that the m-LLDPE undergoes a higher extent of melt fracture, the onset of which occurs under much lower shear rates than the Ziegler-based polymer and this was attributed to its higher shear viscosity and narrower molecular weight distribution (MWD). Melt flow measurements and GPC have shown that after the first extrusion pass, the initial narrower MWD of m-LLDPE is retained (compared to z-LLDPE), but upon further multiple extrusion passes it undergoes much faster broadening of its MWD which shifts to higher Mw polymer fractions, paliicularly at the high screw speeds. The MWD of z-LLDPE polymer on the other hand shifts towards the lower Mw end. All the evidence suggest therefore the m-LLDPE undergoes predominantly cross-linking reactions under all processing conditions whereas z-LLDPE undergoes both cross-linking and chain scission reactions with the latter occurring predominantly under more severe processing conditions (higher temperatures and screw speeds, 285°CI200rpm). The stabilisation of both polymers with synergistic combinations of a hindered phenol (Irganox 1076) and a phosphite (Weston 399) at low concentrations has shown a high extent of melt stabilisation in both polymers (extrusion temperatures 210-285°C and screw speeds 50-200rpm). The best Irganox 1076/Weston 399 system was found to be at an optimum 1:4 w/w ratio, respectively and was found to be most effective in the z-LLDPE polymer. The melt stabilising effectiveness of a Vitamin E/Ultranox 626 system used at a fraction of the total concentration of Irganox 1076/Weston 399 system was found to be higher in both polymers (under all extrusion conditions). It was found that AOs which operate primarily as alkyl (Re) radical scavengers are the most effective in inhibiting the thermal oxidative degradation of m-LLDPE in the melt; this polymer was shown to degrade in the melt primarily via alky radicals resulting in crosslinking. Metallocene polymers stabilised with single antioxidants of Irganox HP 136 (a lactone) and Irganox E201 (vitamin E) produced the highest extent of melt stability and the least discolouration during processing (260°C/1 OOrpm). Furthermore, synergistic combinations of Irganox HP I 36/Ultranox 626 (XP-60) system produced very high levels of melt and colour stability (comparable to the Vitamin E based systems) in the mLLDPE polymer. The addition of Irganox 1076 to an Irganox HP 136/Ultranox 626 system was found not to result in increasing melt stability but gave rise to increasing discolouration of the m-LLDPE polymer. The blending of a hydroxylamine (lrgastab FS042) with a lactone and Vitamin E (in combination with a phosphite) did not increase melt stability but induced severe discolouration of resultant polymer samples.


Abstract. Total column ozone values from an ensemble of UM-UKCA model simulations are examined to investigate different definitions of progress on the road to ozone recovery. The impacts of modelled internal atmospheric variability are accounted for by applying a multiple linear regression model to modelled total column ozone values, and ozone trend analysis is performed on the resulting ozone residuals. Three definitions of recovery are investigated: (i) a slowed rate of decline and the date of minimum column ozone, (ii) the identification of significant positive trends and (iii) a return to historic values. A return to past thresholds is the last state to be achieved. Minimum column ozone values, averaged from 60° S to 60° N, occur between 1990 and 1995 for each ensemble member, driven in part by the solar minimum conditions during the 1990s. When natural cycles are accounted for, identification of the year of minimum ozone in the resulting ozone residuals is uncertain, with minimum values for each ensemble member occurring at different times between 1992 and 2000. As a result of this large variability, identification of the date of minimum ozone constitutes a poor measure of ozone recovery. Trends for the 2000–2017 period are positive at most latitudes and are statistically significant in the mid-latitudes in both hemispheres when natural cycles are accounted for. This significance results largely from the large sample size of the multi-member ensemble. Significant trends cannot be identified by 2017 at the highest latitudes, due to the large interannual variability in the data, nor in the tropics, due to the small trend magnitude, although it is projected that significant trends may be identified in these regions soon thereafter. While significant positive trends in total column ozone could be identified at all latitudes by ∼ 2030, column ozone values which are lower than the 1980 annual mean can occur in the mid-latitudes until ∼ 2050, and in the tropics and high latitudes deep into the second half of the 21st century.


On 15 February 1997, the World Trade Organization's negotiating group on basic telecommunications service reached a path-breaking agreement. In all, 68 countries accounting for more than 90 percent of telecom revenue worldwide made commitments to open their telecom markets to competition and foreign investment. This agreement will contribute to lower costs for consumers, improved telecom service quality, and new jobs in competitive telecom sectors. Petrazzini describes the context leading to the agreement, estimates the benefits of the deal, and provides an in-depth assessment of the economic and technological forces changing the way we talk, fax, e-mail, and network with each other.


Being President of the Society during the past year has been an enriching experience and I thank you for the privilege and opportunity to serve. My special thanks go to Dr. John Scanlon who shoulders the work of the Society so effectively.
The last time I addressed the entire Society was in this city in 1972 at a joint meeting with the American Society of Parasitologists. I discussed the relationship of government, parasitology and tropical medicine and ended with an assessment of funding for research for these fields. In reviewing the history of extramural funding by the National Institutes of Health for filariasis research it was interesting to note that in 1965 only two grants existed for the total sum of $15,150. Seven years later, largely due to the efforts of the U.S.-Japan Cooperative Medical Science Program, the number of funded grants had increased to eleven for a total sum of $314,975.


People use various social media sites for different purposes. The information on each site is often partial. When sources of complementary information are integrated, a better profile of a user can be built. This profile can help improve online services such as advertising across sites. To integrate these sources of information, it is necessary to identify individuals across social media sites. This paper aims to address the cross-media user identification problem. We provide evidence on the existence of a mapping among identities of individuals across social media sites, study the feasibility of finding this mapping, and illustrate and develop means for finding this mapping. Our studies show that effective approaches that exploit information redundancies due to users' unique behavioral patterns can be utilized to find such a mapping. This study paves the way for analysis and mining across social networking sites, and facilitates the creation of novel online services across sites. In particular, recommending friends and advertising across networks, analyzing information diffusion across sites, and studying specific user behavior such as user migration across sites in social media are one of the many areas that can benefit from the results of this study.


This work introduces a model that can recognize objects in images even if no training data is available for the object class. The only necessary knowledge about unseen visual categories comes from unsupervised text corpora. Unlike previous zero-shot learning models, which can only differentiate between unseen classes, our model can operate on a mixture of seen and unseen classes, simultaneously obtaining state of the art performance on classes with thousands of training images and reasonable performance on unseen classes. This is achieved by seeing the distributions of words in texts as a semantic space for understanding what objects look like. Our deep learning model does not require any manually defined semantic or visual features for either words or images. Images are mapped to be close to semantic word vectors corresponding to their classes, and the resulting image embeddings can be used to distinguish whether an image is of a seen or unseen class. We then use novelty detection methods to differentiate unseen classes from seen classes. We demonstrate two novelty detection strategies; the first gives high accuracy on unseen classes, while the second is conservative in its prediction of novelty and keeps the seen classes' accuracy high.


Signed distance field (SDF) is a prominent implicit representation of 3D meshes. Methods that are based on such representation achieved state-of-the-art 3D shape reconstruction quality. However, these methods struggle to reconstruct non-convex shapes. One remedy is to incorporate a constructive solid geometry framework (CSG) that represents a shape as a decomposition into primitives. It allows to embody a 3D shape of high complexity and non-convexity with a simple tree representation of Boolean operations. Nevertheless, existing approaches are supervised and require the entire CSG parse tree that is given upfront during the training process. On the contrary, we propose a model that extracts a CSG parse tree without any supervision - UCSG-Net. Our model predicts parameters of primitives and binarizes their SDF representation through differentiable indicator function. It is achieved jointly with discovering the structure of a Boolean operators tree. The model selects dynamically which operator combination over primitives leads to the reconstruction of high fidelity. We evaluate our method on 2D and 3D autoencoding tasks. We show that the predicted parse tree representation is interpretable and can be used in CAD software.


During the last decades, massive amounts of satellite images are becoming available that can be enriched with semantic annotations for the creation of value-added earth observation products. One challenge is to extract knowledge from the raw satellite data in an automated way and to effectively manage the extracted information in a semantic way, to allow fast and accurate decisions of spatiotemporal nature in a real operational scenario. In this work, we present a framework that combines supervised learning for crop type classification on satellite imagery time-series with semantic web and linked data technologies to assist in the implementation of rule sets by the European common agricultural policy (CAP). The framework collects georeferenced data that are available online and satellite images from the Sentinel-2 mission. We analyze image time-series that cover the entire cultivation period and link each parcel with a specific crop. On top of that, we introduce a semantic layer to facilitate a knowledge-driven management of the available information, capitalizing on ontologies for knowledge representation and semantic rules, to identify possible farmers noncompliance according to the Greening 1 (crop diversification) and SMR 1 rule (protection of waters against pollution caused by nitrates) rules of the CAP. Experiments show the effectiveness of the proposed integrated approach in three different scenarios for crop type monitoring and consistency checking for noncompliance to the CAP rules: the smart sampling of on-the-spot checks; the automatic detection of CAP's Greening 1 rule; and the automatic detection of susceptible parcels according to the CAP's SMR 1 rule.


Purpose Cardiac bioenergetics are known to be abnormal in experimental uremia as exemplified by a reduced phosphocreatine (PCr)/adenosine triphosphate (ATP) ratio. However, the progression of these bioenergetic changes during the development of uremia still requires further study and was therefore investigated at baseline, 4 weeks and 8 weeks after partial nephrectomy (PNx). Methods A two-stage PNx uremia model in male Wistar rats was used to explore in vivo cardiac and skeletal muscles' bioenergetic changes over time. High-energy phosphate nucleotides were determined by phosphorus-31 nuclear magnetic resonance (31P-NMR) and capillary zone electrophoresis. Results 31P-NMR spectroscopy revealed lower PCr/ATP ratios in PNx hearts compared to sham (SH)-operated animals 4 weeks after PNx (median values given ± SD, 0.64±0.16 PNx, 1.13±0.31 SH, P<0.02). However, 8 weeks after PNx, the same ratio was more comparable between the two groups (0.84±0.15 PNx, 1.04±0.44 SH, P= not significant), suggestive of an adaptive mechanism. When 8-week hearts were prestressed with dobutamine, the PCr/ATP ratio was again lower in the PNx group (1.08±0.36 PNx, 1.55±0.38 SH, P<0.02), indicating a reduced energy reserve during the progression of uremic heart disease. 31P-NMR data were confirmed by capillary zone electrophoresis, and the changes in myocardial bioenergetics were replicated in the skeletal muscle. Conclusion This study provides evidence of the changes that occur in myocardial energetics in experimental uremia and highlights how skeletal muscle bioenergetics mirror those found in the cardiac tissue and so might potentially serve as a practical surrogate tissue during clinical cardiac NMR investigations.


Abstract A procedure is proposed to name new elements. After the discovery of a new element is established by a joint IUPACIUPAP Working Group, the discoverers are invited to propose a name and a symbol to the IUPAC Inorganic Chemistry Division. Elements can be named after a mythological concept, a mineral, a place or country, a property, or a scientist. After examination and acceptance by the Inorganic Chemistry Division, the proposal follows the accepted IUPAC procedure and is then submitted to the IUPAC Council for approval.


Background/Aims: Nuclear factor kappa beta (NF-κB) is a member of the transcription factor family, and it plays a key role in coordinating the expression of genes in many chronic inflammatory diseases. The main etiology of endodontic treatment failure is caused by bacteria in root canal, including Enterococcus faecalis. The aim of this study to determine NF-κβ and osteocalcin expressions during the periapical tissue damage due to induction of E. faecalis. Materials and Methods: Fifty-four male rats were randomly divided into two main groups, each of which had three subgroups. In Group C (control), every tooth was induced only by sterile brain–heart infusion broth (BHIb). Group C had three subgroups, namely Group C3 with 3 days inductionprocess, Group C10 with 10 days induction process, and Group C21 with 21 days induction process. In Group T, every tooth was induced by 10 μl of BHI-b E. faecalis ATCC212 (106 CFU). Similarly, Group T also had three subgroups, namely Group T3 with 3 days induction process, Group T10 with 10 days induction process, and Group T21 with 21 days induction process. The animals were sacrificed based on their group schedule and then prepared for histological and immunohistochemical examinations of periapical tissue. Afterward, the expressions of NF-κβ and osteocalcin were calculated on the light microscope. Results: The results revealed that the number of cells expressed of NF-κβ and osteocalcin increased significantly in all sub-groups of Group B induced by E. faecalis compared to the control group. Conclusion: It can be concluded that the number of cells expressed NF-κβ and osteocalcin increase during the periapical tissue damage induced by E. faecalis.


Learning language through content in the tertiary context presents a challenge in that language teachers, particularly in EAP/ESP contexts, are not necessarily experts in their students' speciality subject areas, while subject experts might lack language teaching methodology. Furthermore, intercultural awareness, a key qualification in today's global work environment, tends to take a back seat in a content-based approach. This paper reports on a didactic concept which integrates subject-based language learning with intercultural experience through online collaboration in an international eGroups set-up. The creation of a collaborative learning space aimed to bring together learners from different cultural contexts (New Zealand and Germany) and with different target languages (German and English) towards shared learning outcomes. Data from student interactions will help illustrate to what extent the eGroups model promoted interactive, communicative and intercultural competence through content-related bilingual collaboration.


Despite the progress in vaccinology, antibiotic therapy and intensive care, the sepsis and septic shock in children remain a major cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide, mainly in countries with low medical resources. Therefore, efforts have been made for implementation of worldwide protocols considering the management of septic shock in infants. The definitions of sepsis, septic shock and multiple organ dysfunction syndrome (MODS) are similar with the conditions present in adults, the difference consisting in the values of heart rate, respiratory frequency and leukocytes. The management of septic shock in children was detailed in "Surviving Sepsis Campaign" (SSCG) since 2005 and subsequent periodically reviewed. However, most of these recommendations were based on the general agreement of specialists without serious evidence or just based on studies conducted on adults. Therefore, in recent years we witness a change in the management of septic shock at pediatric age, from standardized protocols to a personalized therapy. Moreover, the most recent version of SSCG (2016) has not included the specific recommendations for this age group. In this article we tried to summarize the latest evidence gathered on the management of septic shock in children.


Needs analysis (NA) is an important component of any well-developed language curriculum and an essential component of a task-based language curriculum (Long & Crookes 1993; Long & Norris 2000). It is actually "the first stage in the design of a TBLT program" (Long 2007, p. 124). In this chapter, the tasks that make up such a program are understood in real-world terms, as something that the "learners need to do with the language" (Norris 2009, p. 578) in order to function in a certain situation which is based on authentic needs (Long & Norris 2000). It is through a NA that the tasks to be included in the program are identified, as well as the language needed to be able to conduct them effectively and appropriately. In a technology-mediated TBLT program, the NA should address not just the language necessities (linguistic and pragmatic) to complete the tasks, but also the informational and multimodal digital skills needed to effectively engage with the technology. In addition, a NA should help us gather information about what innovations and technological tools are most appropriate for the curriculum, as well as inform us about the necessary training for students and teachers to be able to use them successfully. Although NAs have been reported in the literature in the field of language teaching since the early 1980s, they are not yet a systematic practice in language educational curriculum development. This chapter defends the importance of such a practice, especially for technology-mediated language teaching. It presents the steps necessary to conduct a well-balanced, reliable NA for a technology-mediated TBLT program that would target not only the language needs and wants of students, teachers, and administrators, but also their multimodal, digital and informational needs. The chapter includes examples of several NAs conducted for task-based technology curricula and discusses the possible challenges of conducting such NAs.


Empirical examination of whether R&D subsidies crowd out private investments has been hampered by selection problems. A particular worry is that project quality and research intentions may be correlated with the likelihood of receiving subsidies. Using proposal evaluation data to control for research intentions, we do not find strong evidence suggesting that this type of selection creates a severe bias. Proposal evaluation grades strongly predict R&D investments and reduce selection bias in cross-sectional regressions, but there is limited variation in grades within firms over time. Hence, in our sample, unobserved project quality is largely absorbed by firm fixed effects. Our best estimate of the short-run additionality of R&D subsidies is 1.15, i.e., a one-unit increase in subsidy increases total R&D expenditure in the recipient firm by somewhat more than a unit. We demonstrate, however, that there is measurement error in the subsidy variable. Additionality is therefore likely to be underestimated.


This document investigates initiatives and policies in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland to improve and build subsidised housing in mixed communities through the lens of six case studies – Springfarm, the Irish Street and Gobnascale interface and Carran Crescent in Northern Ireland and Cranmore, Mahon and Adamstown in the Republic of Ireland. Together, the six cases provide a cross section of the challenges faced by communities. Councils and central government agencies working to promote or provide mixed housing, the strategies that have helped address these challenges and opportunities to create and maintain housing that is safe, prosperous and open to all. A final synthesis report, Part I of this series, is also available to policy makers and practitioners and will also be used in ICLRD training programmes.


Not many policymakers or scholars can write with the authority of Gregg Bloche. Bloche is not only a law professor, but a physician, who knows his way around a hospital. Throughout The Hippocratic Myth, Bloche cements his authority in the mind of the reader by relating stories of his experience as a clinician. In each of these stories, his humane and insightful approach as psychiatrist shines through. I do not say this to imply that Bloche uses his book to brag about his own abilities. Rather, these fluently-written passages strike one as the work of one of those rare practitioners who manages to care deeply about the patient at hand while simultaneously contextualizing the encounter in a larger framework. Thus The Hippocratic Myth should take its place among other well-received books by physicians with a sense of the big picture, including Atul Gawande's The Checklist Manifesto and Better and Jerome Groopman's How Doctors Think. In The Hippocratic Myth, Bloche leverages this authority to advocate for a more cost sensitive health care system, where individuals frankly acknowledge that they should expect trade-offs between cost and access to certain forms of care. My concern in this review is that Bloche the caring and expert physician would have a tough time in a health care world too deeply influenced by Bloche the cost-conscious author.


Objective Video-based advanc care planning (ACP) tools have been studied in varied medical contexts; however, none have been developed for patients undergoing major surgery. Using a patient- and family-centredness approach, our objective was to implement human-centred design (HCD) to develop an ACP decision support video for patients and their family members when preparing for major surgery. Design and methods The study investigators partnered with surgical patients and their family members, surgeons and other health professionals to design an ACP decision support video using key HCD principles. Adapting Maguire's HCD stages from computer science to the surgical context, while also incorporating Elwyn et al's specifications for patient-oriented decision support tool development, we used a six-stage HCD process to develop the video: (1) plan HCD process; (2) specify where video will be used; (3) specify user and organisational requirements; (4) produce and test prototypes; (5) carry out user-based assessment; (6) field test with end users. Results Over 450 stakeholders were engaged in the development process contributing to setting objectives, applying for funding, providing feedback on the storyboard and iterations of the decision tool video. Throughout the HCD process, stakeholders' opinions were compiled and conflicting approaches negotiated resulting in a tool that addressed stakeholders' concerns. Conclusions Our patient- and family-centred approach using HCD facilitated discussion and the ability to elicit and balance sometimes competing viewpoints. The early engagement of users and stakeholders throughout the development process may help to ensure tools address the stated needs of these individuals. Trial registration number NCT02489799.


The Australian Government introduced a resource rent tax on offshore oil and gas
deposits in 1987 and since then it has raised in excess of an additional $1 billion a year
in revenue over and above the normal company tax on income. At the time it was being
introduced a great deal of controversy followed the proposed introduction of the
petroleum resource rent tax (PRRT). On 2 November 2011, the Australian government
introduced the raft of bills into Parliament for the imposition of a Mineral Resource Rent
Tax (MRRT) on profit generated from iron ore, coal and gas from coal seams from 1 July
2012. Onshore oil and gas deposits will now be subject to a rent tax under the new
PRRT regime that was also introduced into Parliament on 2 November 2011. The
proposed MRRT has been met with criticism from certain mining companies, the
Opposition parliamentary parties and noted economists. However, Australia currently
has a budget deficit and a MRRT is being viewed by the government as being a solution
to repaying government debt and to redistribute the burden of tax by reducing the rate
at which companies pay income tax. A Resource Rent Tax (RRT) has been used by a
number of countries such as the United Kingdom and Norway to increase government
revenue from their 'North Sea' oil reserves. This paper will address the question raised
above: namely, why is there opposition to a proposed MRRT given the continued
existence of a PRRT in Australia for over 14 years? The paper will also contend that
there are sound philosophical reasons for having this form of taxation and that as a
result of the continued existence of a PRRT in Australia together with the fact that
resource rent taxes have been adopted in many other countries, that the criticism of the
new MRRT is unwarranted.


[1] The cloud pressures determined by three different algorithms, operating on reflectances measured by two spaceborne instruments in the "A" train, are compared with each other. The retrieval algorithms are based on absorption in the oxygen A-band near 765 nm, absorption by a collision induced absorption in oxygen near 477 nm, and the filling in of Fraunhofer lines by rotational Raman scattering near 350 nm. A Lambertian reflector as cloud model is assumed in the retrievals. The first algorithm operates on data collected by the POLDER instrument on board PARASOL, while the latter two operate on data from the OMI instrument on board EOS-Aura. The satellites sample the same air mass within about 15 min. We compare the retrieval algorithms using synthetic spectra to give the comparison realistic baseline expectations. It appears that these cloud pressures are not the pressure of the cloud top, but of a level inside the cloud. This is corroborated by comparisons with MODIS and CloudSat data: while the top of the cloud is seen by MODIS using emitted IR radiation, both OMI and PARASOL algorithms retrieve a pressure near the midlevel of the cloud. The three cloud pressure products are compared using 1 month of data. The cloud pressures are found to show a similar behavior, with correlation coefficients larger than 0.85 between the data sets for high effective cloud fractions. The average differences in the cloud pressure are small, between 2 and 45 hPa, for the whole data set, with an RMS difference of 65 to 93 hPa. This falls within the science requirement for the OMI cloud pressure to have an accuracy of 100 hPa. For small to medium effective cloud fractions, the cloud pressure distribution found by PARASOL is very similar to that found by OMI using the O2–O2 absorption. Somewhat larger differences are found for very high effective cloud fractions.


Surface water quality impairment in agricultural watersheds is a major environmental concern in the United States. To assess seasonal and spatial variability of surface water quality and identify factors associated with surface water quality variability, we monitored surface water quality at seven locations in Bayou Plaquemine Brule Watershed in Louisiana twice monthly from March of 2002 to February of 2008 and performed multivariate analyses of the dataset. Using the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) model, we identified critical areas of nonpoint source pollution in the watershed. While temperature, turbidity, dissolved oxygen (DO), conductivity and pH were determined in the field using YSI Sonde (YSI Incorporated, Yellow Springs, Ohio), surface water samples were analyzed for total nitrogen (TN), total phosphorus (TP), nitrate/nitrite-N (NO3/NO2-N), soluble reactive phosphate (SRP), total suspended solids (TSS), and five-day biological oxygen demand (BOD5) in laboratory. The monthly water quality sampling included a regular sampling and an after-rain-event sampling. Average DO for the summer months, March through November, was 4.91 ± 0.08 mg L−1 (4.91 ± 0.08 ppm), while average DO for the winter months, December through February, was 8.32 ± 0.12 mg L−1 (8.32 ± 0.12 ppm). Dissolved oxygen was negatively correlated with TN (r = −0.22, p ≤ 0.001), SRP (r = −0.17, p ≤ 0.001), TP (r = −0.17, p ≤ 0.001), BOD5 (r = −0.25, p ≤ 0.001), and surface water temperature (r = −0.70, p ≤ 0.001). Turbidity was strongly correlated with TSS (r = 0.59, p ≤ 0.001), suggesting that most turbidity in the water body comes from suspended solids. Similarly BOD5 was significantly positively correlated with TN (r = 0.43, p ≤ 0.001), NO3/NO2-N (r = 0.26, p ≤ 0.001), TP (r = 0.25, p ≤ 0.001), and SRP (r = 0.18, p ≤ 0.001). Results of factor analyses showed sediment, phosphorus (P), nitrogen (N), surface water temperature, dissolved solids, and acidity/alkalinity as the most important factors associated with surface water quality variability in this watershed. Although relatively higher concentrations of sediments, TP, and TN were observed in the upper reaches of the watershed based on water quality monitoring, the SWAT simulation results showed the critical nonpoint source pollution areas of sediment, P, and N in the lower reaches of the watershed. Lower reaches of the watershed have mainly rice and crawfish production, while the upper reaches include primarily sugarcane, pasturelands, and soybean production. Information on seasonal variability of surface water quality, factors associated with surface water quality variability, and the critical areas for nonpoint source pollution will be valuable inputs for developing a watershed management plan for effective nonpoint source pollution control in an agricultural watershed.


Silicon is an ideal substrate for the development of micro and nano bio-molecular sensor devices; the fabrication technology developed for microelectronic industries is now finding extensive applications in the creation of microfluidic devices. To realise these devices an approach for the creation of precise, highly stable motifs of biomolecules on the silicon surface is needed. Covalent attachment of proteins to crystalline silicon (100) surfaces has recently been achieved in patterns with micron sized features, using a straightforward two-step process, by us. UV light exposure through a mask was used to covalently attach a monolayer of alkene, functionalized with N-Hydroxysuccinimide ester groups, onto a hydrogen-terminated silicon (100) surface. The N-Hydroxysuccinimide ester surface is a template for the subsequent bioconjugation of a single lg-binding domaion of Protein L via the protein amino group present in external lysine residues of the protein. The patterned surfaces were revealed using epifluorescence microscopy; fluorescently labelled Mouse lgG was associated with the surface attached protein L domain. This method is to be developed for the creation of novel microfluidic sensing technology in silicon for proteomic applications.


Southeastern Spain has a large number of Late Neogene basins with substantial evaporitic deposits that developed under an overall NNW-SSE compressional regime related to the African-European tectonic plates collision. Located in the Betic Cordillera, they can be considered as marginal Mediterranean basins that became gradually isolated during the Tortonian and Early Messinian due to tectonic uplift. Different evaporitic units accumulated in these basins during isolation and, in several cases, evaporitic conditions were associated to episodes of important organic matter accumulation. Results obtained from Late Tortonian to Early Messinian shales collected from boreholes, mines and outcrops in the internal Betic basins of Las Minas de Hellin, Cenajo and Socovos are presented. The organic matter was studied under fluorescence and scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and the main geochemical characteristics defined. They show a relation between organic-rich intervals with high potential of hydrocarbon generation, native sulfur, bio-induced dolomite and evaporitic deposits. These organicrich shales can be found before, during and after the evaporitic episodes. Results from the present study are compared with those previously obtained in the pre-evaporitic deposits of the Lorca Basin that showed high oil generation potential, a restricted-marine origin of the organic matter and a low degree of maturity. The occurrence of such potential source rocks in several basins points to a broad regional distribution. At a larger scale, in the Mediterranean Basin, organic-rich sediments were deposited before and during the Messinian Salinity Crisis. The studied examples could represent analogs for potential source rocks of the pre-Messinian salt play in the Western Mediterranean


Over the past 24 years, the South African criminal justice system has undergone major transformations in relation to sexual offences, including sexual violence against children. More recently, there have been a number of developments to certain provisions in the law relating to sexual offences involving children. In response to the Teddy Bear Clinic Court Case and Constitutional Court ruling, sexual offences legislation related to underage consensual sex was amended. In this regard, the legislation now decriminalises underage consensual sexual activity between adolescent peers aged 12 - 15-year-olds. In addition, the law provides broader definitions for consensual sexual activity, including decriminalising consensual sex and sexual activity between older adolescents (above age of consent for sex, i.e. 16 - 17-year-olds) and younger adolescents (below the age of consent for sex, i.e. 12 - 15-year-olds), granted that there is no more than a 2-year age gap between them. One of the reasons for decriminalising consensual sexual activities between adolescent peers was because the expanded legislation cast the net for sexual offences so wide that the effects had far-reaching harmful impacts, particularly for girls, who would then be exposed to the criminal justice system. This paper focuses on unpacking the 2-year age-gap provision in SA legislation relative to selected better-resourced countries, including the rationale and the potential implications for adolescents (outside of the 2-year age gap provisions), for researchers, service providers and policy-makers. It concludes with some recommendations for law reform and further research.


This paper investigates the effects of intermarriage on the earnings of female immigrants in the United States. The main empirical question asked is whether immigrant females married to US-born spouses have higher earnings than those of immigrant females married to other immigrants. Using 1970 and 1870 samples of IPUMS data, I estimate an earnings equation through OLS. I also correct for the labor force selection bias using the Heckman procedure. I finally take into account the endogeneity of intermarriage and apply a twostage least squares (2SLS) estimation procedure. I find that there is a positive marriage premium among immigrant females in the United States but a negative intermarriage premium for exogamously married females compared to endogamously married females. My results show that the longer the immigrant stays in the host country, the higher her wages, which is evidence for the assimilation effect over time. I find some evidence for a negative labor force selection bias among immigrant females. In other words, higher human capital women may select themselves out of the labor force, while lower human capital women are working for wages. Among those who are in the labor force, however, married females earn more than singles. I also conclude that being an immigrant from an English-speaking country does not have any impact on wages. Both premiums become statistically insignificant in difference from zero when 2SLS is used as an estimation procedure.


Background and aim of the work: Intramuscular paravertebral injections of ozone are minimally invasive, safe and efficacy in reducing pain and disability. The aim of this paper is to present the early results of paravertebral lumbar ozone injections in the treatment of low back pain. Methods: Between February 2011 and December 2015, a total of 109 patients underwent intramuscular paravertebral lumbar injections of ozone due to low back pain. Of them, 42 interrupted the treatment at a medium of 5.4 injections and were lost to follow-up. Of the 67 remaining patients, only 24 answered to our questionnaire. Local and radiating pain was assessed using a 10-cm horizontal Visual Analogue Scale. Perceived functional status and disability were evaluated using the Oswestry Disability Index, administered before treatment and one month after the last injection. Results: Visual Analogue Scale reduction was demonstrated in 23 out of 29 cycles (79%) of ozone therapy. Regarding disability evaluation, Oswestry Disability Index score reduction was assessed in all except one. No complications were recorded. Our results are similar to the other reports: 79% of patients had VAS reduction of 2.3 points and all except one patient reported ODI reduction (average reduction of 9%). Conclusions: Lumbar paravertebral oxygen-ozone injections are minimally invasive, safe, cheaper and effective in relieving pain as well as disability. This technique is easy to perform, it doesn't need computed-tomography or anesthesiologist support. We suggest its application in low back pain as first choice to replace intradiscal computed-tomography-guided infiltrations and to avoid or delay surgery. (www.actabiomedica.it)


Objective To investigate the report rate of ethical review in registered Chinese trials records. Methods Chinese trials recorded in WHO primary registries and http://clinicaltrials.gov to 14 July 2009 were identified. The report rates of ethical review and each of the 20 items in WHO's Trial Registration Data Set were calculated. Correlation of the item's report rate with the ethical review report rate was assessed. PubMed, EMBASE, CNKI and CBM (from the establishment of each database to 14 July 2009) were also searched to collect the full texts of completed trials to calculate the report rate of ethical review in the result publications. Results A total of 1247 records were identified, and 687 (55.1%) reported ethical review. The records reporting secondary sponsor(s), contact for public queries and key secondary outcomes were more likely to report ethical review information (66.3% vs 44.3%, 38.1% vs 28.5%, 53.9% vs 51.8%). The ethical review report rate of trials sponsored by industry was lower than those sponsored by non-industry (40.9% vs 51.9%). The report rates of ethical review for self-supported trials (83.5%) and trials with unidentified sources of monetary or material support (66.7%) were lower than the average ethical review report rate for records in the Chinese Clinical Trial Registration Center (ChiCTR). The ethical review report rate was not high in the result publications (84.3% in http://clinicaltrials.gov, 50.0% in ChiCTR). Conclusion Registered Chinese trials records report ethical review inadequately. Incomplete registration is correlated with not reporting ethical review. Medical journals should inspect ethical review more critically.


By means of numerical modelling the cycling of iron between its various physical (dissolved, colloidal, particulate) and chemical (redox state and organic complexation) forms in the upper mixed layer of the ocean is analysed. Using the model an initial quantitative assessment is made of how this cycling influences iron uptake by phytoplankton and its loss via particulate export. The model is forced with observed dust deposition rates, mixed layer depths, and solar radiation at the site of the Bermuda Atlantic Timeseries Study (BATS). It contains an optimised ecosystem model which yields results close to the observational data from BATS. Firstly, the results of a zero-dimensional model approach show that the mixed layer cycle strongly influences the cycling of iron between its various forms. This was mainly attributed to the light dependency of photoreductive processes and to the seasonality of primary production. The daily photochemical cycle is driven primarily by the production of superoxide and its amplitude depends on the concentration and speciation of dissolved copper. Model results are largely insensitive to the dominant form of dissolved iron introduced via dust deposition, and also to the form of iron that is taken up directly during algal growth. In the model solutions, the role of the colloidal pumping mechanism depends strongly on assumptions made regarding rates of colloid aggregation and photoreduction rate. Secondly, a one-dimensional approach of the model is coupled with the General Ocean Turbulence Model (GOTM). The combined model was able to simulate the temporal patterns and vertical profiles of dissolved iron in the upper ocean at the BATS site reasonably well. Subsurface model profiles depended strongly on the parameter values chosen for loss processes affecting iron, colloidal aggregation and scavenging onto particles. Current estimates for these parameters result in depletion of dFe. A high stability constant of iron-binding organic ligands is required to reproduce the observed degree of organic complexation below the mixed layer. Solubility of atmospherically deposited iron higher than 2% leads to dissolved iron concentrations higher than observations. Despite neglecting ultraviolet radiation, the model produces diurnal variations and mean vertical profiles of dFe which are in good agreement with observations.


A new feeding concept for electrical transportation systems is presented, based on supercapacitive energy storage. Supercapacitors are new and powerful components for energy storage. Compared with batteries, the amount of energy they can store is low and does not allow a large vehicle autonomy. Because supercapacitors have the property to be re-loadable in a few seconds, a sequential supply system has been developed, considering repetitive feeding at the stops. To solve the problem of the needed high power amount to reach short refill times, a solution is proposed which consists of using an intermediary supercapacitive tank placed at fixed stations, which is refilled between the bus arrivals with a much lower power. In addition to the description of the needed power electronic converters, theoretical and experimental results are presented, defining the controlled profile of the instantaneous power-level, in order to achieve a fast energy transfer between two supercapacitive tanks.


Real-world applications commonly require untrusting parties to share sensitive information securely. This article describes a secure anonymous database search (SADS) system that provides exact keyword match capability. Using a new reroutable encryption and the ideas of Bloom filters and deterministic encryption, SADS lets multiple parties efficiently execute exact-match queries over distributed encrypted databases in a controlled manner. This article further considers a more general search setting allowing similarity searches, going beyond existing work that considers similarity in terms of error tolerance and Hamming distance. This article presents a general framework, built on the cryptographic and privacy-preserving guarantees of the SADS primitive, for engineering usable private secure search systems.


This article reports findings about Swedes' attitudes towards the welfare state from 1981 to 2010, building on data from the Swedish Welfare State Surveys. Attitudes towards social spending, willingness to pay taxes, attitudes towards collective financing and public organization, suspicion about welfare abuse, and trust in the task performance of the welfare state are tracked. Overall, there is a large degree of stability in attitudes, and where change is registered, it tends to go in the direction of increasing support. More people state their willingness to pay higher taxes for welfare policy purposes; more people want collective financing of welfare policies; and fewer people perceive extensive welfare abuse in 2010 than was the case in previous surveys. Class patterns change so that the salaried and the self-employed become more similar to workers in their attitudes. Hence, the unprecedented election loss of the Swedish Social Democrats in 2010, and the rise of the Moderates (conservatives) as the dominant party cannot be explained by changing attitudes towards the welfare state. Nor can any corrosive effects from increased marketization of the Swedish welfare state on public support for welfare policies be detected.


We describe the results of a field study in which the social robot RUBI-5, was left alone for a 28 day period to interact autonomously with 16 toddlers at an Early Childhood Education Center. The study is part of the RUBI project, which started in 2004 with the goal of exploring the potential of social robotics for research and enrichment of early childhood education environments. As part of the 28 day field study RUBI-5 collected data about the facial expressions, activities, and spatio-temporal proximity of the toddlers. We found that RUBI-5 could use the facial expression data to accurately predict the children's preference for different activities: on average robot agreed with human judges as much (Pearson Correlation =0.67) as human judges agreed with each other (Pearson Correlation = 0.68). In addition RUBI discovered some useful aspects of the social structure of the toddler's group. The study is an important milestone in social robotics, both for the length of time the robot could interact autonomously with children, and for the richness of the data that it provided. The results indicate that social robots have the potential to act as low cost, autonomous "digital ethnographers" in a manner that may revolutionize the science and technology of early childhood education.


A significant portion of the electricity network capacity is built to run only a few days a year when demand peaks. As a result, expensive power generation plants and equipment costing millions of dollars are sitting idle most of the time, which increases costs for everyone. We present randomized load control, a simple distributed approach for scheduling smart appliances. Randomized load control schedules the start time of appliances that are programmed to run within a specified time window, so that the aggregate load achieves a given ideal load. Our results show that we do achieve the given ideal load to a great extent. This is remarkable as the approach is completely distributed and preserves customer privacy as the scheduling happens within each house or building separately.


The present work is based on a comparison between nitriding plasma technique described as CCPN (Cathodic Cage Plasma Nitriding) and the conventional DCPN (DirectCurrent Plasma Nitriding). Here the nitriding process applied on the AISI 316 stainless steel was investigated under the following conditions:constant pressure of 5mbar at temperatures of 400, 450 and 500°C. The cathodic cage used allowed the deposition and thermal treatment in three guaranteed excellent deposition rate and the growth of the layersonactivated thermal surfaces. The nitriding process appliedwith the cathodic cage produced the same properties related to the conventional one (DCPN) by eliminati especially, the edge effects. The thickness of the nitrided layer obtained by the usage of the cathodic cage was closer to the one obtained by DCPN process, however with lower adhesive wear when is compare procedure with the cathodic cage was 450°C. These also contributed to thickening the layers and improve themicro hardness as well as the wear resistance of the m


Ab initio and density functional theory (DFT) calculations are used to investigate a (NH3)3Zn2+··(OH2)n··NH3 system that models the proton conduction, via a chain of water molecules, from a Zn2+ ion to a His residue some distance removed. The optimal configuration of this chain, with n = 3, contains a number of fairly short H-bonds separating the water molecules. The conduction of a proton from the Zn-bound water to the terminal N-acceptor is energetically favored by a concerted process wherein all protons are in flight from one molecule to the next along the chain, at approximately the same time. This optimal process also includes the shortening of each H-bond as the donor and acceptor move toward one another at the midpoint of the transfer as well as small alterations in the distance between Zn and its various ligands. The barrier for the conduction process is not adversely affected by a lengthening of the chain to include as many as five waters. However, the process is slowed considerably if additional...


How can libraries best anticipate and accommodate the requirements electronic publication collections present? Watson identifies the issues and unintended consequences surfacing as e-materials become mainstream resources.


This article examines the character Bob Cuspe, created by the cartoonist Angeli, in the light of the concept of 'counterbehavior,' i.e. as innovative forms of political resistance that are grounded in the demobilization of power networks and their representatives. By examining the character – specifically the characteristics set out in the inaugural story –, and the discursive references applied to provide it with meaning, we aim to point out how its lifestyle expresses new contemporary resistance forms, insofar as it constitutes a new world, with rules of its own to interact and be together and, at the same time, it keeps a critical condition in mind. This analysis intends to refute the argument, usual in studies about this, that the character manifests a condition alienated from the social and political context in which it is inserted. Finally, we advocate the premise that the magazine Chiclete com Banana , where the Bob Cuspe's stories were published, was a space created to reverberate an assumedly melancholic and nihilistic mood, which is not identified with the revolutionary intents and/or utopias of the previous generation of artists, politicians, and intellectuals, and this becomes representative of a large part of the Brazilian youth that grew up silenced and under the impact of fear promoted by the dictatorial State terror. Keywords: Comic Strips. Angeli, 1956. Graphic Humor.


In this paper, we study the 3D volumetric modeling problem by adopting the Wasserstein introspective neural networks method (WINN) that was previously applied to 2D static images. We name our algorithm 3DWINN which enjoys the same properties as WINN in the 2D case: being simultaneously generative and discriminative. Compared to the existing 3D volumetric modeling approaches, 3DWINN demonstrates competitive results on several benchmarks in both the generation and the classification tasks. In addition to the standard inception score, the Frechet Inception Distance (FID) metric is´ also adopted to measure the quality of 3D volumetric generations. In addition, we study adversarial attacks for volumetric data and demonstrate the robustness of 3DWINN against adversarial examples while achieving appealing results in both classification and generation within a single model. 3DWINN is a general framework and it can be applied to the emerging tasks for 3D object and scene modeling.1


A thorough examination of the performance of Hoeffding trees, state-of-the-art in classification for data streams, on a range of datasets reveals that tie breaking, an essential but supposedly rare procedure, is employed much more than expected. Testing with a lightweight method for handling continuous attributes, we find that the excessive invocation of tie breaking causes performance to degrade significantly on complex and noisy data. Investigating ways to reduce the number of tie breaks, we propose an adaptive method that overcomes the problem while not significantly affecting performance on simpler datasets.


Crop growth experiments in the soil-based closed ecological facility, Laboratory Biosphere, were conducted in artificial ecosystem. Wheat (Triticum Turgidum) and a perennial plant i.e Indian wild grass (Aristida Purpurea) are allowed to grow in the plant trays. The required optimum light intensity is obtained by planning and executing a batch of multivariate experiments. The duration of the exposure of the plant to the artificial light radiation is followed as per natural schedule of the day. The growth rate for the grain crop plant is observed over a period of 87 days during tillering, jointing, booting and heading, anthesis,milk, dough and ripening stages respectively and the growth rate for the perennial plant is observed over a period of 30 days under various experimental conditions. A series of multi-factorial experiments are planned and conducted by considering the following conditions. 1) 0.4%CO2 is maintained with Artificial light 2) 0.04% CO2 ismaintained with Artificial light 3) 0.4%CO2 is maintained with Natural light and 4) 0.04%CO2 is maintained with Natural light. On comparing the growth rates of grain crop plant under different physical conditions it is found that the growth rate is high under artificial lighting when 0.4% of CO2 is maintained. The next high value of growth rate is observed for the same light with 0.04% of CO2. However the growth rate under natural light is found to be more when 0.4% CO2 is maintained than 0.04% of CO2. On considering the growth rate under the artificial light with 0.4%CO2 as 100 then the growth rate of the same plant when 0.04%CO2 used is found to be 17%less. Similarly the growth rate under natural light and 0.4% CO2 is found to be 32% less. On comparing the same with natural light at 0.04%of CO2, it is observed 40%less. The growth rate under natural light at 0.4% CO2 decreases by 11.8% when the concentration reduces to 0.04%. Under lowpressure conditions the growth rate under artificial light is 27.7% high compared to the rate using natural light.


Yuval Taylor and Jake Austen investigate the complex history of black minstrelsy, adopted in the mid-nineteenth century by African American performers who played the grinning blackface fool to entertain black and white audiences. We now consider minstrelsy an embarrassing relic, but once blacks and whites alike saw it as a black art form-and embraced it as such. And, as the authors reveal, black minstrelsy remains deeply relevant to popular black entertainment, particularly in the work of contemporary artists like Dave Chappelle, Flavor Flav, Spike Lee, and Lil Wayne. Darkest America explores the origins, heyday, and present-day manifestations of this tradition, exploding the myth that it was a form of entertainment that whites foisted on blacks, and shining a sure-to-be controversial light on how these incendiary performances can be not only demeaning but also, paradoxically, liberating.


Context. LHS 1140 is an M dwarf known to host two transiting planets at orbital periods of 3.77 and 24.7 days. They were detected with HARPS and Spitzer. The external planet (LHS 1140 b) is a rocky super-Earth that is located in the middle of the habitable zone of this low-mass star. All these properties place this system at the forefront of the habitable exoplanet exploration, and it therefore constitutes a relevant case for further astrobiological studies, including atmospheric observations.
Aims. We further characterize this system by improving the physical and orbital properties of the known planets, search for additional planetary-mass components in the system, and explore the possibility of co-orbitals.
Methods. We collected 113 new high-precision radial velocity observations with ESPRESSO over a 1.5-yr time span with an average photon-noise precision of 1.07 m s−1. We performed an extensive analysis of the HARPS and ESPRESSO datasets and also analyzed them together with the new TESS photometry. We analyzed the Bayesian evidence of several models with different numbers of planets and orbital configurations.
Results. We significantly improve our knowledge of the properties of the known planets LHS 1140 b (Pb ~ 24.7 days) and LHS 1140 c (Pc ~ 3.77 days). We determine new masses with a precision of 6% for LHS 1140 b (6.48 ± 0.46 M⊕) and 9% for LHS 1140 c (mc = 1.78 ± 0.17 M⊕). This reduces the uncertainties relative to previously published values by half. Although both planets have Earth-like bulk compositions, the internal structure analysis suggests that LHS 1140 b might be iron-enriched and LHS 1140 c might be a true Earth twin. In both cases, the water content is compatible to a maximum fraction of 10–12% in mass, which is equivalent to a deep ocean layer of 779 ± 650 km for the habitable-zone planet LHS 1140 b. Our results also provide evidence for a new planet candidate in the system (md = 4.8 ± 1.1M⊕) on a 78.9-day orbital period, which is detected through three independent methods. The analysis also allows us to discard other planets above 0.5 M⊕ for periods shorter than 10 days and above 2 M⊕ for periods up to one year. Finally, our co-orbital analysis discards co-orbital planets in the tadpole and horseshoe configurations of LHS 1140 b down to 1 M⊕ with a 95% confidence level (twice better than with the previous HARPS dataset). Indications for a possible co-orbital signal in LHS 1140 c are detected in both radial velocity (alternatively explained by a high eccentricity) and photometric data (alternatively explained by systematics), however.
Conclusions. The new precise measurements of the planet properties of the two transiting planets in LHS 1140 as well as the detection of the planet candidate LHS 1140 d make this system a key target for atmospheric studies of rocky worlds at different stellar irradiations.


Musical performance is a multimodal experience, for performers and listeners alike. This paper reports on a pilot study which constitutes the first step toward a comprehensive approach to the experience of music as performed. We aim at bridging the gap between qualitative and quantitative approaches, by combining methods for data collection. The purpose is to build a data corpus containing multimodal measures linked to high-level subjective observations. This will allow for a systematic inclusion of the knowledge of music professionals in an analytic framework, which synthesizes methods across established research disciplines. We outline the methods we are currently developing for the creation of a multimodal data corpus dedicated to the analysis and exploration of instrumental music performance from the perspective of embodied music cognition. This will enable the study of the multiple facets of instrumental music performance in great detail, as well as lead to the development of music creation techniques that take advantage of the cross-modal relationships and higher-level qualities emerging from the analysis of this multi-layered, multimodal corpus. The results of the pilot project suggest that qualitative analysis through stimulated recall is an efficient method for generating higher-level understandings of musical performance. Furthermore, the results indicate several directions for further development, regarding observational movement analysis, and computational analysis of coarticulation, chunking, and movement qualities in musical performance. We argue that the development of methods for combining qualitative and quantitative data are required to fully understand expressive musical performance, especially in a broader scenario in which arts, humanities, and science are increasingly entangled. The future work in the project will therefore entail an increasingly multimodal analysis, aiming to become as holistic as is music in performance.


This paper provides an uncertainty analysis for current distribution measurements based on local magnetic field measurements (e.g., via Hall probes) or on magnetic flux measurements using large pick-up loops. The fundamental difference between the two approaches is first pointed out in the ideal case of an infinite straight wire. Then, a more complex geometry composed by parallel identical conductors connected between two bars is considered. The mathematical models employed for the current reconstruction according to the two approaches are derived, and their uncertainties are evaluated. An experimental validation of the model for pick-up loops is presented with application to an actual rail launcher prototype. From this analysis, the critical aspects of the two methods are highlighted, showing the different effect that the uncertainty of the sensor position has on the reconstructed current uncertainty. Finally, a case study aimed at evaluating the current distribution uncertainty under simplified hypotheses is described.


In recent years, a new wave of scholarship has argued that democracies have unique advantages that enable them to compete vigorously in international politics. Challenging long-held beliefs--some of which go back to Thucydides' account of the clash between democratic Athens and authoritarian Sparta--that democracy is a liability in the harsh world of international affairs, many scholars now claim that democracies win most of their wars. This research suggests that democracies emerge victorious because they prudently choose to fight wars that they can win, and because they can marshal more resources, make better decisions, and muster public support for their military campaigns. Critics counter that democracy itself makes little difference in war and that other factors, such as overall power, determine whether a country tastes victory or defeat. In some cases, such as the Vietnam War, democracy may even have contributed to defeat.The book includes crucial contributions to the debate over democracy and military victory, presenting important theoretical, conceptual, and empirical arguments.


A systemic research about the basic theory and implement technique of the simple genetic algorithm is made in this paper. An index which scales the population diversity is defined, and this index is imported into the genetic operator. For the selection process, it can be more excellent individual and increase the population diversity. In addition, this paper also uses population diversity index to instruct the crossover probability and mutation probability. Finally, the proposed method is applied to a typical room temperature control problem and the result shows that fuzzy controller has better performance than controller based on traditional genetic algorithm and PID controller.


Future increase in crop production will greatly depend on how effectively agriculture adapts to climate changes. There are developed a lot of adaptive measures for agriculture to respond to extreme changes of weather conditions, namely, technological farming methods, political adaptation plans of action and research projects. A strategy of adapting agriculture to climate change has already been developed or at the design stage in a number of countries. In most case these strategies include actions favouring major changes in land use, such as a switch to growing biomass crops, afforestation or significant changes in livestock production approaches. However, traditional measures of mitigation climate change don't take into account the importance of water-nutrients interaction. For instance, only 16 from 138 research projects at the European Climate Adaption Platform are related to soils, and only one examined soil-plant interaction at least partially [1]. Unfortunately, investigations regarding the main directions of adaptation of plant production to extreme weathers don't follow a multidisciplinary approach, as each issue is considered separately. On the contrary, combine the methodology of soil science, agrochemistry, plant physiology and microbiology allows to create new possibilities for enhance resilience of soil-plant system to abiotic stresses.


The High Point prospect is located on the northern slopes of Mount Charter in western
Tasmania within the Que-Hellyer Volcanics of the Cambrian Mount Read Volcanic belt. The
main lithologies include intrusive sub-ophitic dolerite, pyritic black shales, andesite dykes and
sills, coherent basalt units, basalt breccias, dacite lavas and dacite breccias. The prehnitepumpellyite
grade of metamorphism recognised in the area is attributed to the Devonian
Tabberabberan Orogeny. The structure of the area is dominated by N.E.-plunging synclines
and by the Henty Fault zone to the east of the region, and the Mount Charter fault immediately
to the southwest of the study area.
The previously enigmatic High Point dolerites are now considered to be broadly comagmatic
with the upper basalts of the Que Hellyer Volcanics based on geologic relationships
and geochemical analyses. Similarly, andesite units in the area are geochemical equivalents of
the hornblende andesites of the southern Central Volcanic Complex. Dacites units in the High
Point region correlate with the 'mixed sequence' dacites of the Que-Hellyer Volcanics (part of
suite Ill of Crawford et al., 1992).
Alteration of the High Point lithologies is considered to be a low intensity, low
temperature equivalent of VHMS-related alteration at the Que River and Hellyer massive
sulphide deposits. Typical alteration assemblages, considered to be Cambrian, include; silicasericite
in dacites, chlorite in basalts, sericite-fuchsite in the upper basalts and silica-albite in the
andesites. Epidote alteration overprints the Cambrian alteration assemblages and is likely to be
related to the Devonian Tabberabberan Orogeny.
The High Point prospect contains low grade, disseminated sphalerite mineralisation
which occurs as fine-grained anhedral masses associated with minor galena and pyrite, and is
predominantly hosted within the basalts and andesites. Lead isotope data suggests that the
disseminated mineralisation is Cambrian and has a target signature similar to that of the Que
River massive sulphide deposit, Zn ratios also indicate that the mineralisation is Cambrian
VHMS style. Vein style sphalerite mineralisation is associated with minor pyrite, galena, iii
chalcopyrite and pyrrhotite and is attributed to remobilisation during the Devonian
Tabberabberan Orogeny.

The heat source for the Cambrian mineralisation and alteration is interpreted to be related
to the emplacement of the andesite dykes and sills. Hydrothermal fluids have preferentially
precipitated sphalerite within the ba~alts and andesites, particularly below the contact of the Que
River Shale. The Que River Shale has behaved as a chemical trap for the mineralised
hydrothermal fluids. The mineralisation is currently subeconomic however, potential exists for
economic mineralisation deeper within the stratigraphic sequence.


We present Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer (FUSE) observations of the very hot (T e f f 60 000 K) DA white dwarf PG1342+444, describing our data reduction and analysis techniques. The spectrum reveals a number of photospheric absorption lines from high ionization species along with numerous interstellar features. The photospheric detections include the 1031.9- and 1037.0-A O V I lines which are seen for the first time in a hot DA atmosphere and are usually associated with the much hotter PG1159 stars and so-called O V I central stars of planetary nebulae. Estimates of the stellar effective temperature made independently using both the Balmer and Lyman series lines are in disagreement (T e f f 67 000 and 54 000 K respectively), when taking into account just the statistical uncertainties in the analyses. However, the presence of weak absorption from the C I I I multiplet near 1176 A, which is predicted to be much stronger if the star were as cool as the Lyman measurement suggests, leads us to favour the higher temperature. PG1342+444 appears to have enhanced C, Fe and Ni abundances in its atmosphere compared with all the other G191-B2B-like DA white dwarfs, which might affect the temperature structure of the atmosphere if not homogeneously distributed, as assumed in this study.


In the last two decades, there has been growing academic attention on the phenomenon of problematic game use. Empirical research has consistently identified a subgroup of gamers in Western, industrial countries who report adverse psychosocial consequences related to their video-gaming behavior. The aim of this thesis is to get a better understanding of problematic game behavior and to contribute to the development of knowledge on this topic in several ways. First, video gaming habits and problematic game behavior among the Dutch population was examined. Second, underlying mechanisms and predictors of problematic game use were identified using established theoretical frameworks.
The studies presented in this thesis have contributed to the current knowledge of problematic gaming in several ways. Information on video game habits and problematic gaming among the Dutch population has been provided. Next, game related experiences and cognitions were explored in the development of problematic game behavior through in-depth interviews. This thesis also highlights the importance of examining psychological and cognitive determinants using comprehensive theoretical frameworks. The provided theory of planned behavior, the model of media attendance, and the cognitive behavioral theory, appeared useful for this purpose to some extent in order to identify which factors contribute to game behavior and problematic game use. According to the model of media attendance and the cognitive-behavioral model, if game behavior is considered to be a problem, it may be largely dependent on the degree of self-control that individuals have over their own game behavior. Moreover, game related experiences and cognitions such as gaming for mood regulation and social pressure may also play a role. If people come to rely on the game world for coping with negative feelings and their social relations, this could eventually lead to problems. Psychosocial wellbeing appeared to play a role in the development of these maladaptive cognitions. Thus, the reasons why people play games seem to be an integral part of the explanation of problematic game behavior.


SUMMARY: The Mediterranean mussel, Mytilus galloprovincialis Lamarck, 1819, has traditionally been removed from the shore by humans in coastal areas to supplement diet, for commerce or for bait. On exposed rocky shores of the central coast of Portugal, humans are an important intertidal predator, especially of mussels and of the pedunculate barnacle Pollicipes pollicipes (Gmelin, 1789). Four rocky shore sites near Cabo Raso with different levels of accessibility were compared in terms of harvesting pressure, substratum cover, density and size structure of M. galloprovincialis. Sampling surveys were conducted from March to September 2002. For substratum cover determinations a 50 cm x 50 cm square was used, while density and size structure were estimated based on scrapings performed on a 10 cm x 10 cm area. A log-linear model was used to evaluate human harvesting according to several factors. Significant differences in the harvesting intensity were related to accessibility, type of day (weekday, weekend or holiday), period of the day, weather and tidal amplitude. The differences relative to zone were not significant. The least accessible site (0.30 person day -1 ) showed the highest values of substratum cover, and a negative correlation was found between number of harvesters and substratum cover by mussels. Size distribution also varied considerably according to site. The major difference that was noticed was that less accessible sites showed a higher number of large individuals than more accessible areas. Density in the most accessible location showed a clear decline, above all after summer holidays. Over the study period, in the more accessible sites biomass decreased while in the other locations it increased. Long-term studies are necessary to determine the real magnitude and effects of human disturbances in intertidal communities.


The quasar 3C 279 was the target of an extensive multiwavelength monitoring campaign from 2006 January through April. An optical-IR-radio monitoring campaign by the Whole Earth Blazar Telescope (WEBT) collaboration was organized around target-of-opportunity X-ray and soft γ-ray observations with Chandra and INTEGRAL in 2006 mid-January, with additional X-ray coverage by RXTE and Swift XRT. In this paper we focus on the results of the WEBT campaign. The source exhibited substantial variability of optical flux and spectral shape, with a characteristic timescale of a few days. The variability patterns throughout the optical BVRI bands were very closely correlated with each other, while there was no obvious correlation between the optical and radio variability. After the ToO trigger, the optical flux underwent a remarkably clean quasi-exponential decay by about 1 mag, with a decay timescale of τd ~ 12.8 days. In intriguing contrast to other (in particular, BL Lac type) blazars, we find a lag of shorter wavelength behind longer wavelength variability throughout the RVB wavelength ranges, with a time delay increasing with increasing frequency. Spectral hardening during flares appears delayed with respect to a rising optical flux. This, in combination with the very steep IR-optical continuum spectral index of α0 ~ 1.5-2.0, may indicate a highly oblique magnetic field configuration near the base of the jet, leading to inefficient particle acceleration and a very steep electron injection spectrum. An alternative explanation through a slow (timescale of several days) acceleration mechanism would require an unusually low magnetic field of B ≲ 0.2 G, about an order of magnitude lower than inferred from previous analyses of simultaneous SEDs of 3C 279 and other flat-spectrum radio quasars with similar properties.


ABSTRACT The traditional text-based password has been the default security medium for years; however, the difficulty of memorizing secure strong passwords often leads to insecure practices. A possible alternative solution is graphical authentication, which is motivated by the fact that the capability of humans' memory for images is superior to text, which helps to improve password usability and security. Recently, some implementations of graphical authentication techniques have been deployed in practice. This paper introduces a new hybrid graphical authentication, "GOTPass," that authenticates by means of a one-time numerical code that needs to be typed in based on a sequence of secret images and a prechosen input format. An important focus for this paper was the security aspects of the graphical password scheme. This paper reports an in-depth analysis of the security evaluation and shows a high resistance capability of GOTPass against common graphical password attacks. Three attacks were simulated (Guessing, Intersection, and Shoulder-surfing), and the results showed that nearly 98% of the 690 attempts failed to compromise the system.