Soil moisture plays an important role in the coupled water, energy, and carbon cycles. In addition to surface processes such as evapotranspiration, the boundary fluxes that influence soil moisture are closely related to surface or subsurface runoff. To elucidate how uncertainties in representing surface and subsurface hydrology may influence simulations of the carbon cycle, numerical experiments were performed using version 4 of the Community Land Model with two widely adopted runoff generation parameterizations from the TOPMODEL and Variable Infiltration Capacity (VIC) model under the same protocol. The results showed that differences in the runoff generation schemes caused a relative difference of 36% and 34% in global mean total runoff and soil moisture, respectively, with substantial differences in their spatial distribution and seasonal variability. Changes in the simulated gross primary production (GPP) were found to correlate well with changes in soil moisture through its effects on leaf photosynthesis (An) and leaf area index (LAI), which are the two dominant components determining GPP. Soil temperature, which is influenced by soil moisture, also affects LAI and GPP for the seasonal‐deciduous and stress‐deciduous plant functional types that dominate in cold regions. Consequently, the simulated global mean GPP differs by 20.4% as a result of differences in soil moisture and soil temperature simulated between the two models. Our study highlights the significant interactions among the water, energy, and carbon cycles and the need for reducing uncertainty in the hydrologic parameterization of land surface models to better constrain carbon cycle modeling.


In patients with chronic hepatitis B, brief lamivudine therapy suppresses hepatitis B virus (HBV) DNA but results infrequently in sustained losses of virus replication posttreatment. We evaluated treatment response and its posttreatment durability during up to 18 months of lamivudine therapy (100 mg/d) in 24 patients who had hepatitis B e antigen (HBeAg) despite 1 to 3 months of prior therapy. Therapy was to be stopped after HBeAg loss or seroconversion (acquisition of antibody to HBeAg); posttreatment monitoring continued for 6 months. During therapy, which was well tolerated, HBV DNA became undetectable in all evaluable patients, accompanied by reduced alanine transaminase (ALT) activity. The cumulative 18‐month confirmed loss of HBeAg during therapy was 9 of 24 (38%) and seroconversion was 5 of 24 (21%). Therapy was discontinued after HBeAg loss/seroconversion in 7 patients, and HBeAg status was maintained in all. Four of the patients with HBeAg responses lost HBsAg at least once. In 10 (43%) of 23 patients tested, we identified HBV polymerase YMDD mutations, 3 with detectable HBV DNA (2 with ALT elevations) and 7 without virological/biochemical breakthrough. In conclusion, up to 18 months of lamivudine therapy was well tolerated, suppressed HBV replication consistently, and tripled the frequency of HBeAg losses observed during brief‐duration therapy; HBeAg loss/seroconversion remained durable posttreatment. The emergence of YMDD‐variant HBV was relatively common but occurred typically without reappearance of detectable HBV DNA or ALT elevation. Our observations suggest that lamivudine can be stopped after confirmed HBeAg loss or seroconversion.


Since the last two decades, a major paradigm shift occurred in our understanding of the physiological and pathophysiological roles of the mineralocorticoid receptor (MR). Expression of the MR in cells/tissues not involved in sodium/ potassium balance and extracellular volume homeostasis, i.e., the primary role of the aldosterone/MR complex, paved the way to the discovery of unsuspected implications of MR in a variety of cellular processes and pathological consequences. It also opens the possibility for quick translation to the bedside using available MR antagonists (MRAs) such as spironolactone, canrenone, or eplerenone or using the more recently developed various nonsteroidal MRAs that are not yet marketed. Landmark clinical trials like RALES, EPHESUS, or EMPHASIS well established that MRAs provide great benefits in patients with heart failure and spironolactone or eplerenone have been recommended in these patients. The deep understanding provided by preclinical studies in various domains stimulated the possibility to extend the use of MRAs to new fields, including renal diseases even if MRAs are currently contraindicated or used with great caution in patients with renal function impairment due to the higher risk of hyperkalemia associated with MRA therapy in this at-risk population. The present review presents preclinical data supporting potential indications in renal diseases.


Abstract Ocean warming (OW) and acidification (OA) are intensively investigated as they pose major threats to marine organism. However, little effort is dedicated to another collateral climate change stressor, the increased frequency, and intensity of storm events, here referred to as intensified hydrodynamics. A 2‐month experiment was performed to identify how OW and OA (temperature: 21°C; pHT: 7.7, 7.4; control: 17°C‐pHT7.9) affect the resistance to hydrodynamics in the sea urchin Paracentrotus lividus using an integrative approach that includes physiology, biomechanics, and behavior. Biomechanics was studied under both no‐flow condition at the tube foot (TF) scale and flow condition at the individual scale. For the former, TF disk adhesive properties (attachment strength, tenacity) and TF stem mechanical properties (breaking force, extensibility, tensile strength, stiffness, toughness) were evaluated. For the latter, resistance to flow was addressed as the flow velocity at which individuals detached. Under near‐ and far‐future OW and OA, individuals fully balanced their acid‐base status, but skeletal growth was halved. TF adhesive properties were not affected by treatments. Compared to the control, mechanical properties were in general improved under pHT7.7 while in the extreme treatment (21°C‐pHT7.4) breaking force was diminished. Three behavioral strategies were implemented by sea urchins and acted together to cope with flow: improving TF attachment, streamlining, and escaping. Behavioral responses varied according to treatment and flow velocity. For instance, individuals at 21°C‐pHT7.4 increased the density of attached TF at slow flows or controlled TF detachment at fast flows to compensate for weakened TF mechanical properties. They also showed an absence of streamlining favoring an escaping behavior as they ventured in a riskier faster movement at slow flows. At faster flows, the effects of OW and OA were detrimental causing earlier dislodgment. These plastic behaviors reflect a potential scope for acclimation in the field, where this species already experiences diel temperature and pH fluctuations.


For over twenty years teachers in Australia and internationally have been encouraged to use ICT in their practice. Various government policies have been implemented to provide the technical means for teachers to do so as well as numerous teacher professional learning programs, often skills based, short term and off site. Yet teacher uptake of technologies in their routine classroom practice continues to be slow and uneven, with pre-service teacher education sometimes bearing the brunt of blame. The TPACK framework developed by Mishra and Koehler (2006) has emerged as an influential tool for describing the knowledge teachers need to integrate technology into their practice. This paper reports on a survey which measured the TPACK knowledge of sixty-four beginning teachers in Victoria, Australia. This data was analysed to reveal how beginning teachers self-assessed their knowledge in each of the seven domains, as well as to explore patterns by gender. As a result of these findings several suggestions for pre-service teacher education are made.


Avidly collected and fetching high prices at auction, the Dartmouth Winter Carnival poster is a treasured and tangible artifact of one of the College's most cherished traditions. Here, presented for the first time, is Dartmouth College Library's definitive collection of Winter Carnival posters from 1911 to 2010, celebrating Dartmouth's seasonal bacchanal, sports fest, and social daze. In addition to their merit as markers of changing taste in graphic arts, the posters offer a fascinating glimpse into a century of intense cultural and institutional development. As a sustained collection the posters are nearly unrivaled, to the envy of ephemera collectors. Everything is here, from the high-end, design-informed style of the early years to the pop-culture and annual-theme inspired posters of more recent years. A constant element is the effervescence of those Dartmouth days, tinged with the glow of nostalgia: youth, energy, sex, sports, camaraderie, and dragons. This colorful and memory-evoking volume also includes a catalogue raisonnegiving poster dimensions, artists' names, and other relevant information; charming artistic ephemera (dance cards and programs) from the missing (posterless?) years of 1912 to 1934; and rare photos of the poster selection process. In addition, the book includes an illustrated essay retelling the story of Budd Schulberg and F. Scott Fitzgerald's notorious trip to Winter Carnival; an essay about the art of the posters by noted graphic arts scholar Steven Heller; and a poignant piece by alumna and cultural observer Gina Barreca (class of '79) remembering the posters and the Winter Carnival experience from a student's point of view. This is a wonderful book for alumni, collectors of posters and ski posters, and anyone who has ever been touched by the magic of Winter Carnival.


Abstract Indurated volcanic soils (tepetates) of the Mexican Altiplano display thick columnar horizons, hard laminar horizons, and grey mottles at depth. X-ray diffraction (XRD) studies show a relative enrichment in cristobalite vs. halloysite in the indurated plates of the laminar horizons and in the clay fraction of the mottles. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and high-resolution TEM (HRTEM) studies of these two soil components have shown that they are composed of small tubes of halloysite in which numerous globular grains ~1 μm in diameter are embedded. Based on the relative abundance of cristobalite in pedological features and on the spatial relations between successive mineral phases, we interpret the cristobalite as a transformation of halloysite with a transitional amorphous phase. In the globular grains, large platy 1:1 clay minerals undergo a progressive transformation into platy particles of opal-A and opal-C. These are in turn transformed into cristobalite without further major change in their shape and appearance, except for a higher electron density than opal and clay.


Recent works have shown that interval bound propagation (IBP) can be used to train verifiably robust neural networks. Reseachers observe an intriguing phenomenon on these IBP trained networks: CROWN, a bounding method based on tight linear relaxation, often gives very loose bounds on these networks. We also observe that most neurons become dead during the IBP training process, which could hurt the representation capability of the network. In this paper, we study the relationship between IBP and CROWN, and prove that CROWN is always tighter than IBP when choosing appropriate bounding lines. We further propose a relaxed version of CROWN, linear bound propagation (LBP), that can be used to verify large networks to obtain lower verified errors than IBP. We also design a new activation function, parameterized ramp function (ParamRamp), which has more diversity of neuron status than ReLU. We conduct extensive experiments on MNIST, CIFAR-10 and Tiny-ImageNet with ParamRamp activation and achieve state-of-the-art verified robustness. Code is available at https://github.com/ZhaoyangLyu/VerifiablyRobustNN.


STABLE POLYMER MICELLE SYSTEMS AS ANTI-CANCER DRUG DELIVERY CARRIERS Yi Zeng Department of Chemical Engineering Doctor of Philosophy Several temporarily stable polymer micelle systems that might be used as ultrasonic-activated drug delivery carriers were synthesized and investigated. These polymeric micelle systems were Plurogel, Tetronic, poly(ethylene oxide)-b-poly(Nisopropylacrylamide) and poly(ethylene oxide)-b-poly(N-isopropylacrylamide-co-2hydroxyethyl methacrylate-lactaten). In previous work in our lab, Pruitt et al. developed a stabilized drug carrier named Plurogel [5, 6]. Unfortunately, the rate of the successful Plurogel synthesis was only about 30% by simply following Pruitt's process. In this work, this rate was improved to 60% by combining the process of adding 0.15 M NaCl and/or 10 μl/ml n-butanol and by preheating the solution before polymerization. Tetronics were proved not to be good candidates to form temporarily stable polymeric micelle system by polymerizing interpenetrating networks inside their micelle cores. Tetronic micelle systems treated by this process still were not stable at concentrations below their critical micelle concentration (CMC). Poly(ethylene oxide)-b-poly(N-isopropylacrylamide)-N,N-bis(acryloyl)cystamine micelle-like nanoparticles were developed and characterized. When the N,Nbis(acryloyl)cystamine (BAC) was from 0.2 wt% to 0.75 wt% of the mass of poly(Nisopropylacrylamide), diameters of the nanoparticles at 40oC were less than 150 nm. The cores of the nanoparticles were hydrophobic enough to sequester 1,6-diphenylhexatriene (DPH) and the anti-cancer drug doxorubicin (DOX). Nanoparticles with 0.5 wt% BAC stored at room temperature in 0.002 mg/ml solutions were stable for up to two weeks. Poly(ethylene oxide)-b-poly(N-isopropylacrylamide-co-2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate-lactaten) micelle systems were synthesized and characterized. The degree of polymerization of lactate side group, n, was 3 or 5. The copolymers with Nisopropylacrylamide:2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate-lactate3: poly(ethylene oxide) (NIPAAm:HEMA-lactate3:PEO) ratios of 20.0:5.0:1 or 22.5:2.5:1 and with NIPAAm:HEMA-lactate5:PEO ratios of 17.5:7.5:1, 20.0:5.0:1 or 22.5:2.5:1 produced micelles stable about 2 days at 40°C. The cores of the micelles were hydrophobic enough to sequester DPH and DOX. The DOX release from the micelles having molar ratio of NIPAAm:HEMA-lactate3:PEO equal to 20.0:5.0:1 was about 2 % at room temperature and 4 % at body temperature. This system is a possible candidate for ultrasonically activated drug delivery.


Less than a year after the United States entered the Second World War, Nicholas Spykman wrote a book that placed the war effort in the broader context of the 1940s global balance of power. In "America's Strategy in World Politics", Spykman examined world politics from a realist geopolitical perspective. The United States, he explained, was fighting for its very survival as an independent country because the conquests of Germany and Japan raised the specter of our geopolitical encirclement by hostile forces controlling the power centers of Europe, the Middle East, and East Asia. Spykman warned that the United States could not safely retreat to a defensive position in the Western Hemisphere. Spykman looked beyond the immediate strategic requirements of the Second World War, envisioning a postwar world in which the United States would help shape the global balance of power to meet its security needs. Even though Soviet Russia was our wartime ally, Spykman recognized that a geopolitically unbalanced Soviet Union could threaten to upset the postwar balance of power and thereby endanger U.S. security. Spykman also foresaw the rise of China in postwar Asia, and the likely need for the United States to ally itself with Japan to balance China's power. He also recognized that the Middle East would play a pivotal role in the postwar world. Spykman influenced American postwar statesmen and strategists. During the Cold War, the U.S. sought to deny the Soviet Union political control of Western Europe, the Middle East, and East Asia. Spykman's geopolitical vision of U.S. security, supported by a balanced Eurasian land mass, coupled with his focus on power as the governing force in international relations, makes "America's Strategy in World Politics" relevant to the twenty-first century.


Extracted from text ... O
Creating a balanced
high performance team
20 Management Today June 2006
Rakesh Sondhi, who has written a series
of articles on strategy over the past few
months, is now also contribute a 15 part
series on leadership. This is another
article in this new series. Sondhi is
visiting executive faculty at Henley
Management College and managing
director of BMC Global Services based in
the UK. He visits South Africa regularly.
Sondhi is the author of Business Improvement
for Learning and Transformation
and Total Strategy - see
www.bmcglobalservices.com.
One of the key gaps in many organisations
is the lack of ..


X-ray computed tomography (CT) imaging for industrial applications is limited to certain physical conditions to be fulfilled. The size of the measuring object and the accumulated wall thickness are two fundamental conditions. An omission of these conditions by not capturing object attenuation information by the x-ray detector leads to missing data in the 3D reconstruction process and results as a consequence in image degradation and artifacts. Conventional industrial x-ray CT is based on cone-beam projections and circular or helical scanning trajectories using linear axis and a rotary (lift) table. For many inspection tasks on big-sized or unusually shaped objects the physical limits for obtaining a sufficient high image quality are reached very quickly when using conventional CT systems. Industrial six-axis robots offer much more flexibility with respect to the conditions mentioned earlier and can overcome the limitations of conventional scanners. In the present work we characterized an industrial six-axis robot in its working space following ISO 9283 in terms of pose accuracy and pose repeatability. These results are then used to simulate faulty scanning trajectories in terms of pose deviations where a single robot is used as an object manipulator to rotate virtual specimens on a circular trajectory resulting in different (faulty) reconstruction datasets. These datasets are evaluated visually and by using performance parameters and geometrical features in order to determine the reproduction fidelity (performance) of a one arm robot-based CT system depending on different pose errors. With the results obtained it was shown that a robot-based CT system of type B (in our classification scheme) using one robot as object manipulator should be able to reach a spatial resolution power in the range of the voxel size (in our case 200 µm) and smaller (neglecting effects from focal spot size, detector unsharpness from x-ray to light conversation and scatter radiation) if systematic pose errors are compensated using appropriate calibration methods.


Current text-to-speech (TTS) systems are increasingly faced with mixed language textual input. Most TTS systems are designed to allow building synthetic voices for different languages, but each voice is able to "speak" only one language at a time. In order to synthesize mixed language input, polyglot voices are needed which are able to switch between languages when it is required by textual input. A polyglot voice will typically have one basic language and additionally the ability to synthesize foreign words when these are encountered in the textual input. Design of polyglot voices for unit selection speech synthesis is still a research question. An inherent problem of unit selection speech synthesis is that the synthesis quality is closely related to the contents of the unit database. Concatenation of units not in the database usually results in bad synthesis quality. At the same time, building the database with good coverage of units results in a prohibitively large database if the intended domain of synthesized text is unlimited. Polyglot databases have an additional problem that not only single language units have to be stored in the database, but also the concatenation points of words from foreign languages have to be accounted for. This exceeds the database size even more, so that it is worth exploring whether database size can be reduced by including only single language units in the database and handling multilingual units on synthesis time. The present work is concerned with database design for a polyglot unit selection voice. It's main aim is to examine whether alternative methods for handling multilingual cross-word diphones result in same or better synthesis quality than including these diphones in the database. Three alternative approaches are suggested and model polyglot voices are built to test these methods. The languages included in the synthesizer are Bosnian, English and German. The output quality of the synthesized multilingual word boundary is tested on Bosnian-English and Bosnian-German word pairs in a perceptual experiment.


The influence of the role identity expectations of Turkish Hizbullah's leadership on actual members' terrorist identities was documented in this dissertation. This study explored the leadership's identity expectations from members through content analyses of four books written by major figures of Hizbullah. Those books were selected following comments of the literature and expert suggestions. Eleven identity features stood out. These content analyses also revealed that leadership had different expectations from political wing members and military wing members. The following six identity features were listed as expected more from military wing members: belief in jihad and resistance, desire for martyrdom, embracing the hierarchical structure, depersonalization, hatred against enemies of God, and aloneness. Whilst cemaat (religious congregation), being religiously educated, patience (gradualism), dedication to a Muslim brotherhood, and being politically active were listed as expected identity attributes of political wing members. Qualitative analyses investigated these identity features using the available literature and 144 handwritten reports of actual Hizbullah members. To confirm the findings of content and qualitative analyses, quantitative analyses were conducted on the relatively representative sample (144 reports). The results of cross-tabulation and logistic regression demonstrated that two (out of 6) military wing and two (out of 5) political wing identity expectations were not manifested on actual members' Hizbullah identities.


The potential of internal EGR (iEGR) and external EGR (eEGR) in reducing the engine-out NOx emissions in a heavy-duty diesel engine has been investigated by means of a refined 1D fluid-dynamic engine model developed in the GT-Power environment. The engine is equipped with Variable Valve Actuation (VVA) and Variable Geometry Turbocharger (VGT) systems. The activity was carried out in the frame of the CORE Collaborative Project of the European Community, VII FP. The engine model integrates an innovative 0D predictive combustion algorithm for the simulation of the HRR (heat release rate) based on the accumulated fuel mass approach and a multi-zone thermodynamic model for the simulation of the in-cylinder temperatures. NOx emissions are calculated by means of the Zeldovich thermal and prompt mechanisms. As a first step, the model has been calibrated and assessed on the basis of experimental tests carried out on four characteristic operating conditions within the WHSC (World Harmonized Stationary Cycle). The considered engine points have been used to identify the optimal engine parameters on the basis of a DoE approach. As a second step, sweeps simulations centered on the previously considered operating points have been run for iEGR and eEGR in order to study the effects of these latter on combustion and NOx formation processes at steady-state conditions. Finally, a ramp from the WHTC (World Harmonized Transient Cycle) has been reproduced with both iEGR and eEGR modes and the engine performance have been compared in terms of fuel consumption, combustion and NOx emissions


This guide will point you in the direction of sources for demographic information. Sources come from the Governments of Canada and Ontario, local municipalities, the U.S. Census Bureau, the United Nations, and subscription databases.


There is no dearth of books in physics for the first year students of the engineering degree programmes in India. However, this new book by Sanjay Jain and Girish Sahasrabudhe comes as a whiff of fresh air. Unlike many other books, it is unusually well written and has the imprint of the long years of teaching experience of the two authors. The book under review has several welcome features such as crisp language with few grammatical errors, good choice of topics, adequate coverage of the subject matter meant for freshman students, good diagrams, very good selection of numerical examples, good exposition of laboratory experiments and excellent use of charts and tables to highlight important ideas and conclusions. The inclusion of historical aspects in each of the advances in physics, along with the names of the scientists, is particularly noteworthy. This is not emphasized in most text books and consequently, students do not even know the names of many of the famous physicists. The students are, thus, deprived of a great source of inspiration for their future careers. I would have liked to see the full names of the scientists mentioned in the text where they occur first, with some more information as footnotes. I noted that some of the names have incorrect spelling; for example, 'Lummer' on page 161, 'Charles Townes, Arthur Shawlow and Theodore Maiman' on page 489 and 'Meissner' on page 344. In many places the initials for the names are not separated by full-stops. On page 343, the year mentioned against the name of Ampere is 1875 – it should be 1775! Of course, such errors do not dent the quality of the overall presentation in the book. I wish to commend the authors for writing the first chapter, from which students can get a glimpse of the umbilical cord between physics and engineering. I was very happy to see the clarity in the exposition of physical concepts and laws throughout the book. The depth of coverage is just about right for the first year students. It should keep the students interested in physics in their further studies. I am particularly impressed by the set of problems, solved as examples, in each chapter. These examples successfully illustrate the power of the theoretical ideas presented in the main text. The use of charts and tables to summarize the major ideas and conclusions is indeed very effective. It was a pleasure to read the chapters on Light and Optics. The detailed description of the theory related to typical experiments in the Optics Laboratory should be of great help to the students; this comment is true for the experiments described in other chapters too. However, some of the diagrams could have been drawn better; examples are figures 3.11, 3.13 and 3.17. The next few chapters on Quantum Physics, Atomic Physics and Nuclear Physics are well written. On page 270, a very good historical account of developments in materials science is presented, but I wish the authors had mentioned the years when some of the major techniques such as electron microscopy, NMR and Mössbauer spectroscopy were invented. On page 491, Einstein's coefficients are erroneously described; they should be mentioned as A21, B12 and B21. The last line of the same page mentions 'spontaneous absorption' which I believe is not correct. Absorption of light by atoms/molecules is always assisted by the photons present. It is also good to point out that spontaneous emission is really a source of noise in laser radiation. In summary, Jain and Sahasrabudhe have written an excellent book for the undergraduate students of engineering programmes. It is not possible to cover all the major domains of physics in a book meant specifically for a one (or two) semester course. In fact, topics such as the special theory of relativity and thermal physics are left out. Nevertheless, this book retains its value as a very good text book. I am sure some of the errors would be removed in the next edition. This text book would be valuable to both students and teachers; that includes me too!


Within the Gulf of Guinea high levels of fisheries-related cetacean mortality (bycatch and direct-capture) has been documented. For locally rare species such removals could potentially lead to significant population level effects. However, information on the cetacean abundance and distribution is scarce. Similarly, it remains largely unreported where fishing fleets operate offshore. A cetacean survey took place during geophysical surveys (2013-2014) along the coasts of Ghana and Cote d'Ivoire. This provided a unique opportunity to study both offshore cetacean and fishing communities. Due to large group-sizes, melon-headed whales were the most abundant (0.34 animals km-1) followed by Fraser's dolphins and short-finned pilot whales. Range state records were confirmed for melon-headed whale and Fraser's dolphin in Ivoirian waters and ten further species represented first at-sea sightings. The artisanal fishing canoe was most abundant (92% of all vessels) and recorded up to 99.5 km from the Ghanaian coast. Asian trawlers operated over shelf areas and tuna purse-seine vessels in deep oceanic and slope waters. Fraser's dolphins, melon-headed whales, pantropical spotted dolphins, bottlenose dolphins and pilot whales were recorded in areas with the highest fishing densities. Melon-headed whales, pilot whales and rough-toothed dolphins were observed in vicinity of trawlers; bottlenose dolphins, pantropical spotted dolphins and pilot whales in vicinity of canoes. Some notable differences were found in the species composition between the present surveys and port-based surveys of landed cetaceans (bycatch/direct-captures). These may be explained by (1) feeding strategies (nocturnal vs. diurnal; surface vs. deep water); (2) different attractions to vessels/fishing gear; (3) variable body sizes; and (4) difficulty to positively identify species. Despite these differences, both cetaceans and fishing vessels predominantly occurred in shelf and slope waters (< 1,000 m depth contour), making fishery-related mortality likely. The poor knowledge on population trends of cetaceans in this unique upwelling region, together with a high demand for cetacean products for human consumption (as 'marine bushmeat') may lead to a potential decline of some species that may go unnoticed. These new insights can provide a foundation for the urgently required risk assessments of cetacean mortality in fisheries within the northern Gulf of Guinea.


SUMMARY There is a very significant, cost effective greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation potential in agriculture. The annual mitigation potential in agriculture is estimated to be 4200, 2600 and 1600 Mt CO2 equiv/yr at C prices of 100, 50 and 20 US$/t CO2 equiv, respectively. The value of GHG mitigated each year is equivalent to 420 000, 130 000 and 32 000 million US$/yr for C prices of 100, 50 and 20 US$/t CO2 equiv, respectively. From both the mitigation and economic perspectives, we cannot afford to miss out on this mitigation potential. The challenge of agriculture within the climate change context is two-fold, both to reduce emissions and to adapt to a changing and more variable climate. The primary aim of the mitigation options is to reduce emissions of methane or nitrous oxide or to increase soil carbon storage. All the mitigation options, therefore, affect the carbon and/or nitrogen cycle of the agroecosystem in some way. This often not only affects the GHG emissions but also the soil properties and nutrient cycling. Adaptation to increased variability of temperature and rainfall involves increasing the resilience of the production systems. This may be done by improving soil water holding capacities through adding crop residues and manure to arable soils or by adding diversity to the crop rotations. Though some mitigation measures may have negative impacts on the adaptive capacity of farming systems, most categories of adaptation options for climate change have positive impacts on mitigation. These include: (1) measures that reduce soil erosion, (2) measures that reduce leaching of nitrogen and phosphorus, (3) measures for conserving soil moisture, (4) increasing the diversity of crop rotations by choices of species or varieties, (5) modification of microclimate to reduce temperature extremes and provide shelter, (6) land use change involving abandonment or extensification of existing agricultural land, or avoidance of the cultivation of new land. These adaptation measures will in general, if properly applied, reduce GHG emissions, by improving nitrogen use efficiencies and improving soil carbon storage. There appears to be a large potential for synergies between mitigation and adaptation within agriculture. This needs to be incorporated into economic analyses of the mitigation costs. The inter-linkages between mitigation and adaptation are, however, not very well explored and further studies are warranted to better quantify short- and long-term effects on suitability for mitigation and adaptation to climate change. In order to realize the full potential for agriculture in a climate change context, new agricultural production systems need to be developed that integrate bioenergy and food and feed production systems. This may possibly be obtained with perennial crops having low-environmental impacts, and deliver feedstocks for biorefineries for the production of biofuels, biomaterials and feed for livestock.


The hundredfold speedup in glacier motion in a surge of the kind the kind that took place in Variegated Glacier in 1982-1983 is caused by the buildup of high water pressure in the basal passageway system, which is made possible by a fundamental and pervasive change in the geometry and water-transport characteristics of this system. The behavior of the glacier in surge has many remarkable features, which can provide clues to a detailed theory of the surging process. The surge mechanism is akin to a proposed mechanism of overthrust faulting.


Academic studies have predominantly treated destination branding as a marketing phenomenon that happens to involve tourists as customers in a marketplace. "Tourism Branding: Communities in Action", the first volume in a new and exciting book series, considers a traditional marketing subject from multidisciplinary perspectives. Refreshingly this book attempts to free branding research and practice in tourism fields from the shackles of marketing that are dominated by the conventional approach of product, price, place, and promotion. Considering tourism branding as a community affair, this collection is distinguished from other publications by adopting a global and more multidisciplinary approach, and brings the subject of tourism branding outside of the conventional domains of marketing and destination. Special attention is given to the role and expectations of main tourism stakeholders, particularly residents, business, and government in the hosting community. Built on theoretical foundations with both empirical findings and practical cases, this book brings together different perspectives and offers an intellectual and open dialogue among academics and practitioners of the field.


Abstract The British co-operative movement is associated mainly with industrial areas. Where consumer co-operatives existed in the countryside they were located in market towns and formed by rural trade unions, especially railwaymen, occasionally quarrymen or farmworkers. Yet the Co-operative Union membership encompassed a significant number of small single village societies founded by paternalistic gentry. This paper draws on examples in Shropshire, East Yorkshire, Berkshire and Oxfordshire, to offer an account and explanation of the never before studied, paternalistic co-operatives. Recruiting estate workers and farm labourers, individual country squires showed themselves capable of using a co-operative ideology and framework, usually associated with the labour movement, to achieve very different and paternalistic goals. The relationship between these paternalistic village societies and the wider co-operative movement, both locally and nationally, is discussed, including the company paternalism of the Co-operative Wholesale Society's own farming operations. A comparison with the 'Blue co-ops' of the Lancashire Conservative dominated cotton spinners' union is also made. The paper concludes that the failure of paternalistic co-operatives was part of the post Great War revival of rural cultural conservatism, linked to the effects of agricultural depression.


A polyamine agmatine is produced through decarboxylation of L -arginine by the enzyme arginine decarboxylase and is a new neurotransmitter in central nervous system (CNS). It has been suggested that agmatine has analgesic, anxiolytic and antidepressant activities in animals. In experimental studies, it also generates some favorable effects on cerebral damages and withdrawal syndromes involved in addictive drugs. Furthermore, it modulates some processes of learning and memory. Thus, agmatine may be an important target for the treatment of CNS disorders. However, the abnormal release and transmission of agmatine in brain may also be related to some CNS disorders, such as schizophrenia. Interaction of agmatine with other central neurotransmitter systems, such as the glutamatergic and nitrergic systems, seems to be very important. According to the current literature, we can expect that the central agmatinergic system may be a new key target in development of novel approaches for understanding the etiopathogenesis of CNS disorders and their treatment with drugs. The main goal of this article is to evaluate the effects of agmatine in CNS and underline its pharmacological actions in CNS and drug development.


This paper examines corporations' actions, and statements about actions, following the tax law change known as the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 (TCJA). Specifically, we examine four different outcomes: bonuses (or other actions that benefit workers), announcements of new investments, share repurchases, and dividend announcements. We find that 4% of public firms in our sample announced in the first quarter of 2018 they would pay some portion of their tax savings toward workers. In terms of investment, we find that 22% of the S&P 500 firms in our sample mentioned in earnings conference calls that they would increase investment because of the TCJA. We find a general increase in share repurchases following the passage of the TCJA, but the increase is extremely concentrated in a small number of firms. We find only nine firms that announced a new share repurchase plan explicitly attributed the new plan to the TCJA. In regression analysis, we find that both political and economic variables explain TCJA-linked announcements. The analysis suggests that firms with greater expected tax savings from the TCJA are those most likely to announce payments to workers and plans to increase investment. Firms with a political action committee that donates more to Republican candidates are also more likely to announce benefits to employees.


The Digestor system automatically converts web-based documents designed for desktop viewinginto formats appropriate for handheld devices with small display screens, such as Palm-PCs, PDAs,and cellular phones. Digestor employs a heuristic planning algorithm and a set of structural pagetransformations to produce the 'best' looking document for a given display size. Digestor can also beinstructed, via a scripting language, to render portions of documents, thereby avoiding navigationthrough many screens of information. Two versions of Digestor have been deployed, one that re-authors HTML into HTML for conventional browsers and one that converts HTML into HDML forPhone.com's micro-browsers. Digestor provides a crucial technology for rapidly accessing, scanningand processing information from arbitrary web-based documents from any location reachable bywired or unwired communication.


The meteoric rise in popularity of boys' adventure magazines in the period 1860-1880 can be attributed in part to their common discourse, which they shared with each other and perhaps 6 million boys and girls. That characteristic discourse included a rhetoric that emphasized sensational actions, simple good/evil characters and situations, simple language, colorful slang, jargon, and recurring metaphors (especially sporting and military metaphors) to emphasize action and excitement. Although readership cut across class lines, the common values were gendered male and located in the lower middle and working classes: cleverness, personal honor, strength, generosity, a predilection to violence, respect for physical achievement, and the satisfaction of revenge. This paper examines the discourse in detail and indicates how it filled all elements of the magazines, from advertising to images to articles and stories, and speculates on the role of magazines in spreading these values in popular culture.


Abstract The purpose of this study is to examine how experienced general managers regulate their emotions in response to demanding leadership duties. This study has a qualitative research design and was informed by nine experienced hotel general managers, through semi-structured interviews. A three-step content analysis was performed using NVivo. Five themes emerged from the analysis: (1) positive emotions and a mindset of positivity as an antecedent to emotion regulation, (2) modifying or changing mindsets through reappraisal and deep acting, (3) putting the mask on: faking and hiding by using surface acting and suppression, (4) displaying naturally felt emotions, and (5) deep acting as a consequence of social awareness. The study suggests that wise emotion regulation implies applying a wide range of emotion regulation strategies, depending on the situation at hand. As the interviews reflect a Scandinavian perspective, further research is required to replicate this exploratory study internationally, employing both quantitative and qualitative research methods in order to triangulate the findings. Comparative studies with non-Scandinavian countries are therefore of importance. This study provides knowledge about how experienced general managers have developed resilience through extensive experience and wise emotion regulation. Results may be useful for improving hospitality management education and should be used to prepare hospitality students for handling their future jobs. To our knowledge, this is the first study of hospitality managers' emotion regulation strategies.


I assessed movements of North American porcupines (Erethizon dorsatum) in the Great Basin of north- western Nevada in relation to reproductive activities during the late summer and fall periods of 1991 and 1992. Porcu- pines exhibit a mate-defense polygynous mating system and I hypothesized that (1) competitively dominant males would have larger home ranges than both subordinate males and adult females, and (2) variation in home range size among adult male porcupines would be positively correlated with reproductive success. Results indicated that dominant male porcupines ranged over larger areas (average 95% minimum convex polygon home range = 20.7 ha) than subordi- nate males (average 95% MCP home range = 2.9 ha) and adult females (average 95% MCP home range = 8.2 ha). Analyses of movements in relation to body size and energetic requirements revealed that home ranges of dominant male porcupines were larger than predicted based on body size (approximately 10.2 ha). Breeding period home ranges of dominant male porcupines encompassed portions of the home ranges of 3 to 10 adult females, and indices of reproduc- tive success based on observations of mate-guarding behaviors suggested a strong positive relationship between home range sizes of male porcupines and mating success. Together these data suggested that larger home ranges among domi- nant males were related to increased mating opportunities and not increased metabolic requirements associated with larger male body sizes. In the study area, however, female porcupines congregated around small, patchily distributed riparian areas, and dominant males with relatively small home ranges encompassing riparian areas may have gained mating access to multiple females. Finally, analyses of overlap among core home ranges (60% MCP) of adult male and adult female porcupines suggested that both sexes maintained relatively exclusive core home range areas, with males exhibiting significantly less range overlap with other males (x - = 9.4%) than females with other females (x = 27.1%). It is possible that the small, patchily distributed riparian areas in this desertlike area were such a limited resource that females were unable to maintain exclusive use of their home range areas.


ABSTRACT

There is no effective therapy in patients with depression and Alzheimer's disease (AD). The need for novel treatments offers researchers the opportunity to explore new technology for these disorders. Transcranial low-level laser therapy (LLLT) is a novel therapeutic approach based on laser irradiation to biological tissue, and it has been used to treat brain disorders. Although there are certain therapeutic options for depression and AD, there is little treatment
available as non-invasive physical therapy. In this mini-review, we focus on a growing body of evidence surrounding the therapeutic effects of LLLT for depression and AD. Transcranial LLLT can enhance ATP biosynthesis, regulate mitochondrial homeostasis, and facilitate neurogenesis and/or neuroplasticity. However, the cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying the treatment of LLLT on these disorders are still at early stages. Clinical trials on depression and AD by transcranial LLLT are critical for future studies.


In this paper we update previous work that categorizes foreign aid projects in terms of their likely impact on the natural environment. We then document trends in the global distribution of environmental aid over time and show that environmental aid has increasingly focused on global environmental issues (especially climate change), rather than local issues in recipient countries. Somewhat surprisingly, we also find that environmental aid is increasingly allocated through bilateral aid agencies rather than through the increasing number of multilateral channels created for this purpose. After providing these descriptive statistics and demonstrating trends, we offer a tentative explanation for this puzzling pattern. We argue that each individual aid project represents a negotiation between donor and recipient. This additional level of bargaining significantly conditions the costs and benefits of multilateralism for donors, especially as recipients have multiple outside options for obtaining development finance. Reflecting the growing political salience of global environmental threats, donors are providing increasing levels of environmental aid, and especially climate finance. However, at the same time, donors are increasingly failing to co-ordinate their allocation of climate finance (and other environmental aid) within multilateral institutions. At a practical level, this raises the question whether the effect of increasing levels of funding will be undercut by decreasing co-ordination and efficiency.


This paper presents a camera system called FlySPEC. In contrast to a traditional camera system that provides the same video stream to every user, FlySPEC can simultaneously serve different video-viewing requests. This flexibility allows users to conveniently participate in a seminar or meeting at their own pace. Meanwhile, the FlySPEC system provides a seamless blend of manual control and automation. With this control mix, users can easily make tradeoffs between video capture effort and video quality. The FlySPEC camera is constructed by installing a set of pan/tilt/zoom (PTZ) cameras near a high-resolution panoramic camera. While the panoramic camera provides the basic functionality of serving different viewing requests, the PTZ camera is managed by our algorithm to improve the overall video quality that may affect users watching details. The video resolution improvements from using different camera management strategies are compared in the experimental section.


Abstract President Bush's new Faith-Based Initiative has created a great deal of interest throughout the United States. Many see the need for partnering with faith-based organizations as a natural use of existing stable organizations to provide much-needed social programs throughout the country. Others see this initiative as a dangerous precedent that crosses a distinct line between church and state. At the core of the debate for the Faith-Based Initiative are several questions. How can a faith-based organization provide services and ignore its very basis for being? If an organization--a church or group based on values and faith--provides social services under any circumstances, is it possible, or even desirable for that organization to be "neutral" in terms of values and faith? Can a strong basis in faith be compatible with government service--either by an organization or by an individual? To gain some insight into these issues, vignettes in the life of Daniel in Babylon provide insight into how faith-based organizations (and faith-based individuals in public service) can draw on the strength of their values to provide for the public good--while respecting the rights of others to weigh and determine their own beliefs. The danger today exists that this fine line may be crossed in two ways: 1) when government chooses one faith-based organization over another purely because of its faith rather than its capacity and ability to deliver services (in violation of the establishment clause of the United States Constitution); and 2) when the faith-based organization engages in proselytization as a quid pro quo for the services it provides. Introduction Growing up in Kentucky, it was always interesting to see the occasional votes that took place for legalizing alcohol for sale within each of the counties. Most of the counties in Kentucky are "dry," which means they cannot sell alcohol within the county boundaries. In fact, this is true in many of the counties where Kentucky bourbon is produced. When there are enough signatures on a petition to bring the issue to a ballot to change a county to "wet," the politicking begins. Sides are quickly taken to support or defend the initiative, and most times, the issue is defeated--and counties remain "dry." A common understanding is the issue is defeated by a coalition of two groups, who make the strangest "bedfellows" in Kentucky politics. The two groups of the bootleggers and the fundamental preachers push hard to get the issue defeated. Bootleggers have no desire to lose their clientele--they have a good thing going, and they do not want to lose their business to legal liquor outlets. Fundamental preachers decry the erosion of morals in the community that the evils of alcohol bring. Both groups have their own reasons for defeating the issue, but they share a desire for the same end-state--protecting their turf and retaining a status quo of no legalized alcohol. Caught in the middle are the legal, moderate drinkers who simply drive to the next county to get their six-pack--and the small retail business owners who lose profits to the big city retailers. President Bush's Faith-Based Initiative appears to have some of the same characteristics of a "wet-dry" ballot issue. It appears the fundamentalists are in the middle of this issue as well. Any government intrusion or control is perceived in terms of an erosion of autonomy for the institution of the church. Worse yet, "undesirable" denominations or faith-groups may receive government monies and legitimacy, enabling these groups to further their beliefs and gain converts. For the fundamentalist groups, it is best to have the government stay completely out of the business of the church--a clean and total separation of church and state is the only answer. On the other side of the issue are those who believe religion has no place in society. The concept of using organizations based on faith conjures up images of proselytizing and evangelizing innocent people in need of social services. …


The large-scale diffusion of Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) imposes the construction of a sizeable CO2 pipeline infrastructure. This paper analyzes the conditions for a widespread adoption of CCS by a group of emitters that can be connected to a common pipeline system. It details a quantitative framework capable of assessing how the tariff structure and the regulatory constraints imposed on the pipeline operator impact the overall cost of CO2 abatement via CCS. This modeling framework is applied to the case of a real European CO2 pipeline project. We find that the obligation to use cross-subsidy-free pipeline tariffs has a minor impact on the minimum CO2 price required to adopt theCCS. In contrast, the obligation to charge non-discriminatory prices can either impede the adoption of CCS or significantly raises that price. Besides, we compared two alternative regulatory frameworks for CCS pipelines: a common European organization as opposed to a collection of national regulations. The results indicate that the institutional scope of that regulation has a limited impact on the adoption of CCS compared to the detailed design of the tariff structure imposed to pipeline operators.


Over the past century, the coal mining industry experienced a large number of explosions leading to a considerable loss of life. Research was directed at preventing the accumulation of methane through good ventilation practice, eliminating frictional sparking by the use of water, minimising dust generation and dispersal, and using stone dust to inert coal dust to prevent it from participating in mine explosions. The final line of defence, though, is the use of barriers to prevent a coal dust explosion from propagating. However, the design of passive explosion barrier systems has remained unchanged for many years. The traditional stone dust and water barriers were originally designed and developed as much as 50 years ago. In the 1990s the CSIR of South Africa developed a new type of stone dust explosion barrier, which has been implemented in South Africa and Australia. This barrier is considered to be better suited to modern-day mining practice. It is based on an array of specially manufactured bags holding stone dust and suspended from the mine roof. Preventing the propagation of methane or coal dust explosions through the use of active explosion-suppression systems remains one of the most underutilised explosion controls in underground coal mines. As part of the effort to develop better technologies to safeguard mines, the use of active barrier systems was investigated at Kloppersbos in South Africa. The system is designed to meet the requirements of the European Standard (EN 14591-4:2007) (European Standard, 2007), as well as the Mine Safety Standardisation in the Ministry of Coal Industry, Coal Industrial Standard (MT 694-1997) of the People's Republic of China. From the tests conducted, it can be concluded that the HS Suppression System was successful in stopping flame propagation for a methane explosion, as well preventing methane explosions from progressing into methane and coal dust hybrid explosions when ammonium phosphate powder was used as the suppression material. The use of this barrier can provide coal mine management with an additional explosion control close to the point of ignition and may find application within longwall faces, further protecting mines against the risk of an explosion propagating.


A challenge created by the recent development in information technology is that people are often faced with an overwhelming amount of information available to them, with blogs presenting the latest and most abundant source of such information.
In this thesis, I approach the problem from a standpoint of organizing the newly created information into sensible groups.
The first part of the thesis is an overview of the state of the art in the areas relevant to the problem and an analysis of shortcomings of different methods.
The main contribution is the development of a new algorithm that pieces together various ideas presented in the first part. It is an online hierarchical clustering algorithm that is capable of incremental model updates that support the addition and also the removal of documents. The structure of the model is adapted after each step to better reflect the structure of the currently observed world. The model can also be optimized while waiting for new events.
Some experiments to test the properties of the new algorithm were performed using simulated data streams created from the Reuters Corpus Volume 1 dataset.
I have found that the basic assumptions about time complexity and the ability to adapt the model are correct and that the algorithm performs surprisingly well for a range of different inputs.


ABSTRACT Biometrics is the science of establishing the identity of an individual based on their physical attributes. Ethical concerns surrounding the appropriate use of biometrics have been raised, especially in resource-poor settings. A qualitative investigation was conducted to explore biometrics clients (n = 14), implementers (n = 12) and policy makers as well as bioethicists (n = 4) perceptions of the ethical aspects of implementing biometrics within the healthcare system in Malawi. Informed use, privacy and confidentiality as well as perceptions of benefits and harms were identified as major issues in the application of biometrics. Implementation of biometrics within the healthcare system in Malawi poses a range of potential ethical issues and practical challenges that impact on equitable uptake. There is a need for more research to explore the benefits and harms of biometrics in practice. Improved community engagement and sensitization should be a required component of biometrics introduction in Malawi.


Catastrophic risks differ in terms of their natural or human origins, their possible amplification by human behaviors, and the relationships between those who create the risks and those who suffer the losses. Given their disparate anatomies, catastrophic risks generally require tailored therapies, with each prescribed therapy employing a specific portfolio of policy strategies. Given that catastrophic risks occur rarely, and impose extreme losses, traditional mechanisms for controlling risks – bargaining, regulation, liability – often function poorly. Commons catastrophes arise when a group of actors collectively impose such risks on themselves. When the commons is balanced, that is, when the parties are roughly symmetrically situated, a range of regulatory mechanisms can perform well. However, unbalanced commons – such as exist with climate change – will challenge any control mechanism with the disparate parties putting forth proposals to limit their own burdens. When humans impose catastrophic risks predominantly on others – as with deepwater oil spills – the risks are external. For those risks, the analysis shows, a single responsible party should be identified. Primary emphasis should then be placed on a two-tier liability system. Parties engaged in activities posing such catastrophic risks would be subject to substantial minimum financial requirements, strict liability for all damages, and a risk-based tax for expected losses that would exceed the responsible party's ability to pay. Utilizing the financial incentives of this two-tier liability system would decrease the current reliance on regulatory policy, and would alter the role of regulators with a tilt toward financial oversight efforts and away from direct control. Catastrophic risks will always be with us. But as rare, extreme events, society has little experience with them, and current mechanisms are poorly designed to control them. Only a tailored therapy approach offers promise of significant improvement.


Previous studies conducted by researchers show that technology utilization in the ESL classroom indeed aids students in the learning process (Snelbecker 1999). Furthermore, it also ensures that students achieve better results in English Language. Thus, this study was conducted as a stepping stone to help teachers perform better in utilizing technology in the ESL classrooms. This effort will then improve the standards of English in secondary classrooms as they are moving ahead to tertiary level and leading to career pathway where they will apply both theoretical and practical values, (Winkellmann and Meskill 1995). Therefore, utilization of computer advancement in the ESL secondary classrooms has become an important tool to enhance effective teaching and learning in the ESL classroom. Thus it has led to a survey being conducted among 70 samples chosen by the researcher through random sampling among the large population of ESL teachers in Klang Valley, Malaysia. A structured questionnaire was used as an investigation tool to obtain data from the samples. About 70 questionnaires were distributed to the respondents in selected schools in Kuala Lumpur. The questionnaires were self-administered and collected personally by the researcher. Prior to that, a one to one interview session also was conducted once the respondents have finished filling the questionnaire. The raw data obtained through the questionnaire was coded, analyzed and calculated using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences, SPSS version 17. The interview data collected were transcribed and analyzed in order to triangulate the results of the findings obtained. The findings revealed that foundation awareness on what is expected by these teachers regarding technology use in the ESL secondary classrooms. It has been found that some school teachers were forced to use technology in the classroom without giving them some quality time to learn and acquire it in order for them to have a passion to learn how to utilize and apply it without fail and more confidently in their ESL classroom. This study was conducted as an initial effort to help teachers perform the best in utilizing technology in the ESL classrooms rather than neglecting their feelings, needs and effort in blindly trying to compete with the rapid movement of technology in education in this era.


Not only is resiliency a term with a myriad of definitions microscopically specified by a wide variety of social and bio/physical scientists and practitioners, it is also incredibly complicated even when treated by individual academic/government/non-profit and business practitioners who are convinced that they have the perfect definition. By then linking the concepts of infrastructure and community to resiliency, not only does additional complexity emerge but also a powerful imperative to examine the basics necessary to achieve resiliency within these interrelated concepts. The lens of the applied academic observer situated at 'ground zero' for not only one but two major catastrophes within a micro minute span of less than five years (Hurricane Katrina and its 2005-2007 relatives and the British Petroleum oil well blow out of 2010, layered on pervasive localised sea level rise due to delta subsidence) is the 'data' analysed to support the arguments of this paper about what must be considered with regard to infrastructure and community to even hope to achieve a resilience state: essential resilience, exceptional recovery and serious appreciation for the need for a greater recovery scale.


Byline: P. Shastri Introduction The importance of psychological well-being in children and adolescent, for their healthy emotional, social, physical, cognitive and educational development, is well-recognized. There is now increasing evidence on the effectiveness of interventions to improve children's and adolescent's resilience, promote mental health and treat mental health problems and disorders. Mental health problems will contribute significantly to the global burden of disease in the 21st century, and for adolescents, mental health hurdles are already as common as some physical health problems such as asthma.[sup] [1] Clinical preoccupation of the available mental health professionals of the country and the delay of these professionals to spearhead work towards promotion, prevention, identification and early intervention in child mental health has been a major lacuna. There are limited child and adolescent mental health services in India. Mostly such services are restricted to urban areas. Access to mental health services for children with a mental, emotional or behavioural disorder is substandard, not provided early enough, in sufficient supply and accessible only to a fraction of children and adolescents. We currently have tertiary care centres which attend to mental illness in hospital setting. They are therapeutic in nature and aim to treat and rehabilitate back to society. However, large gap exists in the area of prevention, mental health promotion and early intervention programmes. Child Mental Health Policy and School Mental Health Programmes have provided excellent opportunity to enhance mental health programme for children and adolescents. Focus is rightly on preschool children and school based mental health programmes which will prevent and possibly promote positive mental health. It also ensures that it will reduce behaviour disorders in children and prevent adult psychopathology. Effectiveness of child mental health intervention programmes will surely help in addressing mental health disorders among adults. Even WHO identifies the treatment gap in mental health care. World Health Organisation, asserts that many people suffering from psychiatric illnesses remain untreated, although effective treatment exists. WHO report examines the extent of this gap between the prevalence and treatment of psychiatric disorders globally. One in every 5 child has a mental health issue. If we invest in identifying the problems early and intervene at the right time, it will be more cost effective, as we will be preventing further breakdown and avoid an adult treatment and rehabilitation programme which is much more expensive. As it is rightly said that "Prevention is Better than Cure". It is possible to prevent the majority of behaviour disorders in preschool and school environment itself. The dire need is to stimulate long-term and sustained improvement in children's health, by setting standards for high quality integrated health and social care for children from before birth, right through to adulthood. And while doing this one of the main focus area has to be the mental health and psychological wellbeing of children and young people. In order to achieve desired outcomes one should embrace all those services that contribute to the mental health care of children and adolescents, whether provided by health, education, social services or other agencies. It is also crucial to partner with services whose primary function is not mental health care, such as GPs and schools. They can always contribute by offering general advice and treatment for less severe problems, contribute towards mental health promotion, identify problems early in their development, and refer to more specialist services. This is to explicitly acknowledge that supporting children and adolescents with mental health problems is not the responsibility of specialist services alone. …


This paper explores the changing relationship between the people of North-Western Zambia and the nearby border with Angola, focusing on the period as Angola has moved from war to peace. Drawing on research conducted between 1996 and 2010, the paper examines how people's interactions with the border have changed, focusing on their cross-border livelihoods, identities and mobility. With the end of the war and the rehabilitation of the formal border crossing, legal restrictions and practical obstacles to movement have relaxed; at the same time, the conventions – based on informal, 'illicit' understandings between local officials and inhabitants on both sides of the border – that operated for many years have been undermined. Hence, there has simultaneously been both an 'opening' and 'closing' of the border. Moreover, the breaking of these conventions since the end of the war has reduced the size of the zone of informal exchange and hybridity, or borderlands.


This study was carried out to determine the effects of sewage pollution on the fish assemblages found in the Klang River. Samples were collected between July 2012 and April 2013 with a total of 102 specimens belonging to 5 freshwater fish species, Puntius hexazona, Betta livida, Neohomaloptera johorensis, Parosphromenus harveyi and the dominant species, Rasbora sumatrana, with the highest dominance value (Di%=36.66). Multiregression revealed a statistically insignificant relationship among the physical, chemical and biochemical parameters of water and sediment and Puntius hexazona, Betta livida, Neohomaloptera johorensis and Parosphromenus harveyi. Based on multiple regression tests, a significant relationship with R = 92.2% and F= 7.876 (p= 0.000) was found between six water and sediment quality constituents and the numbers of Rasbora sumatrana this species at the stations studied at Site 8. On the other hand, water temperature (β= -0.114; t= -2.811 (p= 0.016)); sediment organic matter (β= -0.011; t= -2.406 (p= 0.033)) and water phosphorus (PO4) (β= 0.323; t= 3.444 (p= 0.005)) were found to be the most important water and sediment parameters effecting Rasbora sumatrana.


It is generally believed that the spinal cord and hindbrain consist of a motor basal plate and a sensory alar plate. This assumption was tested in the chicken embryo by mapping the expression of cadherin-7 and cadherin-6B, in comparison to genetic markers of ventrodorsal patterning (Otp, Pax6, Pax7, Nkx2.2, Shh) and markers for specific motoneuron subpopulations (Phox2b, Islet-1, and Lim3/Lhx4). Results show that cadherin-7 is expressed in a complete radial domain, which occupies the dorsal region of the basal plate. The dorsal limit of this cadherin-7 domain coincides with the ventral border of Pax7 expression, i.e. with the basal/alar plate boundary. The branchiomotor neurons of the chicken hindbrain are born at a medial position close to the floor plate. They extend a cadherin-7-positive axon that grows laterally and exits the hindbrain from the alar plate. Following this axonal trajectory, the cadherin-7-positive neuronal cell bodies translocate laterally to pass through the cadherin-7-positive basal plate domain. Subsequently, the cell bodies traverse the basal/alar plate boundary and assume their final position in the alar plate. After migration is completed, branchiomotor neurons switch expression from cadherin-7 to cadherin-6B.
These findings demonstrate that a specific subset of primary motor neurons, the branchiomotor neurons, migrate into the alar plate of the chicken embryo. Consequently, the century-old concept that all primary motor neurons come to reside in the basal plate should be revised.


This paper and attendant presentation materials first present research findings from the New Legal Writers Survey, an IRB-approved empirical study of legal employers' expectations of law students and new lawyers. The anonymous survey sought employer opinions in three major areas: (1) hiring lawyers' expectations regarding writing samples that accompany job applications; (2) supervisors' expectations about the legal document types (i.e., genres) that new lawyers write; and (3) the habits of attorneys who supervise new lawyers. This paper focuses on (1) the types of documents that employers expected law students and recent graduates to be able to write proficiently with minimal supervision, and (2) the skills that supervisors believed were essential for law students and recent graduates to possess when they walk through the door to practice law. After presenting findings, we suggest teaching and supervision strategies to help improve the practice-readiness of new law students.


Abstract. The CALIOPE air quality modelling system is developed and applied to Europe with high spatial resolution (12 km × 12 km). The modelled daily-to-seasonal aerosol variability over Europe in 2004 is evaluated and analysed. Aerosols are estimated from two models, CMAQv4.5 (AERO4) and BSC-DREAM8b. CMAQv4.5 calculates biogenic, anthropogenic and sea salt aerosol and BSC-DREAM8b provides the natural mineral dust contribution from North African deserts. For the evaluation, we use daily PM10, PM2.5 and aerosol components data from 55 stations of the EMEP/CREATE network and total, coarse and fine aerosol optical depth (AOD) data from 35 stations of the AERONET sun photometer network. Annual correlations between modelled and observed values for PM10 and PM2.5 are 0.55 and 0.47, respectively. Correlations for total, coarse and fine AOD are 0.51, 0.63, and 0.53, respectively. The higher correlations of the PM10 and the coarse mode AOD are largely due to the accurate representation of the African dust influence in the forecasting system. Overall PM and AOD levels are underestimated. The evaluation of the aerosol components highlights underestimations in the fine fraction of carbonaceous matter (EC and OC) and secondary inorganic aerosols (SIA; i.e. nitrate, sulphate and ammonium). The scores of the bulk parameters are significantly improved after applying a simple model bias correction based on the observed aerosol composition. The simulated PM10 and AOD present maximum values over the industrialized and populated Po Valley and Benelux regions. SIA are dominant in the fine fraction representing up to 80% of the aerosol budget in latitudes north of 40° N. In southern Europe, high PM10 and AOD are linked to the desert dust transport from the Sahara which contributes up to 40% of the aerosol budget. Maximum seasonal ground-level concentrations (PM10 > 30 μg m−3) are found between spring and early autumn. We estimate that desert dust causes daily exceedances of the PM10 European air quality limit value (50 μg m−3) in large areas south of 45° N with more than 75 exceedances per year in the southernmost regions.


Guignardia musae is the reported causal agent of freckle disease of banana. The epithet has, however, been introduced on three separate occasions and only one name is valid. We therefore investigated this problem. We examined the types of G. musae Racib., G. musae F. Stevens and G. musae Syd. & P. Syd. and also made fresh collections from banana in northern Thailand. Guignardia musae Racib. is the earliest name and takes precedence over the other two names which are hononyms. G. musae F. Stevens is a different species and therefore a new name G. stevensii Wulandari & K.D. Hyde is introduced to accommodate it. The name G. sydowiana Trotter has previously been introduced to accommodate G. musae Syd. & P Syd.; type material is, however, depauperate. Guignardia musicola Wulandari, L. Cai & K.D. Hyde sp. nov. is introduced as a new species from Thailand. The three species from banana are compared and their differences described.


The newly unveiled genome of a medieval strain of the mycobacterium that causes leprosy is a technical triumph borne of next-generation sequencing machines and clever new techniques to extract target DNA from a soup of ancient molecules. Awash in data, several labs are racing neck-and-neck to cull DNA from a Most Wanted list of other legendary killers: tuberculosis, plague, cholera, Leishmania, the potato blight, and AIDS. They gather traces of these culprits from ancient teeth, bones, hair, feces, and—in the case of potato blight—from skin and leaves, then unleash the sequencers. The work adds a new dimension to our understanding of historical events, revealing the true nature of the villains responsible for humanity9s worst epidemics.


The interactions among the elementary components of many complex systems can be qualitatively different. Such systems are therefore naturally described in terms of multiplex or multilayer networks, i.e., networks where each layer stands for a different type of interaction between the same set of nodes. There is today a growing interest in understanding when and why a description in terms of a multiplex network is necessary and more informative than a single-layer projection. Here we contribute to this debate by presenting a comprehensive study of correlations in multiplex networks. Correlations in node properties, especially degree-degree correlations, have been thoroughly studied in single-layer networks. Here we extend this idea to investigate and characterize correlations between the different layers of a multiplex network. Such correlations are intrinsically multiplex, and we first study them empirically by constructing and analyzing several multiplex networks from the real world. In particular, we introduce various measures to characterize correlations in the activity of the nodes and in their degree at the different layers and between activities and degrees. We show that real-world networks exhibit indeed nontrivial multiplex correlations. For instance, we find cases where two layers of the same multiplex network are positively correlated in terms of node degrees, while other two layers are negatively correlated. We then focus on constructing synthetic multiplex networks, proposing a series of models to reproduce the correlations observed empirically and/or to assess their relevance.


Background. The use of oral antiretrovirals to prevent HIV infection among HIV-negative men who have sex with men (MSM) has been shown to be safe and efficacious. A large, randomised, placebo-controlled trial showed a 44% reduction in the incidence of HIV infection among MSM receiving a daily oral fixed-dose combination of tenofovir disoproxil fumarate and emtricitabine (Truvada) in combination with an HIV prevention package. Improved protection was seen with higher levels of adherence.
Aim. The purpose of this guideline is to: (i) explain what pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) is; (ii) outline current indications for its use; (iii) outline steps for appropriate client selection; and (iv) provide guidance for monitoring and maintaining clients on PrEP.
Method. PrEP is indicated for HIV-negative MSM who are assessed to be at high risk for HIV acquisition and who are willing and motivated to use PrEP as part of a package of HIV prevention services (including condoms, lubrication, sexually transmitted infection (STI) management and risk reduction counselling).
Recommendations. HIV testing, estimation of creatinine clearance and STI and hepatitis B screening are recommended as baseline investigations. Daily oral Truvada, along with adherence support, can then be prescribed for eligible MSM. PrEP should not be given to MSM with abnormal renal function, nor to clients who are unmotivated to use PrEP as part of an HIV prevention package; nor should it be commenced during an acute viral illness. Three-monthly follow-up visits to assess tolerance, renal function, adherence and ongoing eligibility is recommended. Six-monthly STI screens and annual creatinine levels to estimate creatinine clearance are recommended. Hepatitis B vaccination should be provided to susceptible clients. Gastro-intestinal symptoms and weight loss are common side-effects, mostly experienced for the first 4 - 8 weeks after initiating PrEP. There is a risk of the development of antiretroviral resistance among those with undiagnosed acute HIV infection during PrEP initiation and among those with sub-optimal adherence who become HIV infected while on PrEP. Risk compensation (increasing sexual behaviours that can result in exposure to HIV) while on PrEP may become a concern, and clinicians should continue to support MSM clients to continue to use condoms, condom-compatible lubrication and practice safer sex. Research is ongoing to assess optimum dosing regimens, potential long-term effects and alternative PrEP medications. Recommendations for the use of PrEP among other at-risk individuals, and the components of these recommendations, will be informed by future evidence.


Lipid rafts, cholesterol and lipid rich microdomains, are believed to play important roles as platforms for the partitioning of transmembrane and synaptic proteins involved in synaptic signaling, plasticity, and maintenance. There is increasing evidence of a physical interaction between post-synaptic densities and post-synaptic lipid rafts. Localization of proteins within lipid rafts is highly regulated, and therefore lipid rafts may function as traffic lights modulating and fine-tuning neuronal signaling. The tyrosine kinase neurotrophin receptors (Trk) and the low-affinity p75 neurotrophin receptor (p75 NTR ) are enriched in neuronal lipid rafts together with the intermediates of downstream signaling pathways, suggesting a possible role of rafts in neurotrophin signaling. Moreover, neurotrophins and their receptors are involved in the regulation of cholesterol metabolism. Cholesterol is an important component of lipid rafts and its depletion leads to gradual loss of synapses, underscoring the importance of lipid rafts for proper neuronal function. Here, we review and discuss the idea that translocation of neurotrophin receptors in synaptic rafts may account for the selectivity of their transduced signals.


Several neuroimaging studies have demonstrated that a minority of patients diagnosed as being in the vegetative state are able to modulate their brain activity in response to the commands of researchers, thus demonstrating that they are 'covertly aware.' I examine the moral significance of this discovery, with a specific focus on the implications for patient welfare. I argue that the presence of awareness in these patients is important because it allows for the presence of sentience—the capacity for suffering and enjoyment—which I argue is a sufficient condition for moral status. Insofar as these patients have moral status, their interests matter morally; we have an obligation to give them proper consideration in our decision making. I present empirical evidence which supports the assumption that patients diagnosed as vegetative with covert awareness are sentient, and thus have moral status. I then consider an account of the welfare of these patients, which incorporates three traditional conceptions of welfare—hedonism, desiresatisfaction, and objective theories—and concludes that these patients are faring poorly, such that we may have a moral obligation to end their lives. I analyse and ultimately reject this conclusion. I argue that the application of traditional theories of welfare to these populations is impeded by a lack of knowledge of their subjective experiences, as well as challenges to the conceptions of welfare themselves. I then propose a novel approach for assessing the welfare of these patients, based on their subjective experiences. This approach involves extrapolating from the reported welfare interests of similar patient populations, as well as making plausible inferences about the residual cognitive capacities of these patients, based on the results of novel neuroimaging studies. Using these two sources of information, we can begin to construct a clearer picture of the welfare of these patients, and work to ensure that they have a decent quality of life.


Action potential firing, initiated by HCN2 ion channels, is the basic mechanism underlying neuropathic pain. Neuropathic pain results from nerve damage and is evoked by trauma in conditions ranging from shingles and diabetes to cancer chemotherapy, but the mechanisms remain poorly understood. By using gene knockouts in animal models, Emery et al. found that a member of the HCN ion channel family is important in both inflammatory and neuropathic pain. This discovery opens up the possibility of developing specific antagonists to treat neuropathic pain. E. C. Emery, G. T. Young, E. M. Berrocoso, L. Chen, P. A. McNaughton, HCN2 ion channels play a central role in inflammatory and neuropathic pain. Science 333, 1462–1466 (2011). [Abstract] [Full Text]


This dissertation defines and explores Graspable User Interfaces, an evolution of the input mechanisms used in graphical user interfaces (GUIs). A Graspable UI design provides users concurrent access to multiple, specialized input devices which can serve as dedicated physical interface widgets, affording physical manipulation and spatial arrangements. Like conventional GUIs, physical devices function as "handles" or manual controllers for logical functions on widgets in the interface. However, the notion of the Graspable UI builds on current practice in a number of ways. With conventional GUIs, there is typically only one graphical input device, such as a mouse. Hence, the physical handle is necessarily "time-multiplexed," being repeatedly attached and unattached to the various logical functions of the GUI. A significant aspect of the Graspable UI is that there can be more than one input device. Hence input control can then be "space-multiplexed." That is, different devices can be attached to different functions, each independently (but possibly simultaneously) accessible. This, then affords the capability to take advantage of the shape, size and position of the physical controller to increase functionality and decrease complexity. It also means that the potential persistence of attachment of a device to a function can be increased. By using physical objects, we not only allow users to employ a larger expressive range of gestures and grasping behaviors but also to leverage off of a user's innate spatial reasoning skills and everyday knowledge of object manipulations.
In this thesis the concept of Graspable user interfaces is defined. Support for the concept is provided from the psychological literature. Instantiations of the concept are found in existing user interfaces. A task analysis of an existing interface's input activities and how to convert these to Graspable user interface devices is presented. The possible uses and implementation difficulties of bricks, a specific Graspable user interface are investigated. Finally, the advantages of two of the Graspable UI properties over conventional time-multiplexed generic input devices is measured by two controlled experiments.


Abstract This article offers a discursive analysis of UK Parliamentary debate on the proscription of terrorist organisations between 2002 and 2014. It argues that these debates play an important constitutive role in the (re)production of national Self and terrorist Other that remains largely overlooked in existing work on this counter-terrorism mechanism. The article begins with an overview of this literature, arguing it is overwhelmingly oriented around questions of efficacy and ethics. While important, this focus has concentrated academic attention on the causal question of what proscription does, rather than the constitutive question of what is made possible by proscription. The article's second section situates our analysis within discursive work in International Relations, upon which we investigate three pervasive themes in Parliamentary debate: (i) Constructions of terrorism and its threat; (ii) Constructions of specific groups being proscribed; and, (iii) Constructions of the UK Self. We argue that these debates (re)produce an antagonistic relationship between a liberal, open, and responsible UK mindful of cultural and religious difference, on the one hand. And, on the other, its illiberal, irrational terrorist Others conducting immoral violences on behalf of particularistic identity claims. This analysis, we conclude, has significance for contemporary debate on security politics, as well as for studies of counter-terrorism and international politics more generally.


Considerable attention has been paid during the last decade to navigation systems based on the use of visual optic flow cues, especially for guiding autonomous robots designed to travel under specific lighting conditions. In the present study, the performances of two visual motion sensors used to measure a local 1-D angular speed, namely (i) a bio-inspired 2-pixel motion sensor and (ii) an off-the-shelf mouse sensor, were tested for the first time in a wide range of illuminance levels. The sensors' characteristics were determined here by recording their responses to a purely rotational optic flow generated by rotating the sensors mechanically and comparing their responses with an accurate rate gyro output signal. The refresh rate, a key parameter for future optic flow-based robotic applications, was also defined and tested in these two sensors. The bio-inspired 2-pixel motion sensor was found to be more accurate indoors whereas the mouse sensor was found to be more efficient outdoors.


BACKGROUND
Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation is a cardiopulmonary supportive therapy. In this study, we reviewed our experience with extracorporeal membrane oxygenation support and tried to identify measurable values which might predict in-hospital mortality.

METHODS
From January 2004 through December 2008, 50 of 21,298 adult patients received venoarterial extracorporeal membrane oxygenation. We retrospectively analyzed clinical records of these 50 consecutive patients. Details of demographics, preoperative measurements, clinical characteristics at the time of extracorporeal membrane oxygenation implantation, extracorporeal membrane oxygenation-related complications and in-hospital mortality were collected. Logistic regression analyses were performed to investigate predictors of mortality. A p-value < or = 0.05 was accepted as significant.

RESULTS
Thirty-eight patients were weaned from extracorporeal membrane oxygenation and 33 patients survived to discharge. The overall survival rate was 66%. In a multiple logistic regression analysis, blood lactate level before initiation of extracorporeal membrane oxygenation was a risk factor associated with in-hospital mortality (OR 1.27 95% CI 1.042-1.542). To evaluate the utility of the lactate in predicting mortality, a conventional receiver operating characteristic curve was produced. Sensitivity and specificity were optimal at a cut-off point of 12.6 mmol/L, with an area under the curve of 0.752. The positive and negative predictive values were 73.3% and 83.9%, respectively.

CONCLUSIONS
Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation is a justifiable alternative treatment for postoperative refractory cardiac and pulmonary dysfunction which could rescue more than sixty percent of otherwise fatal patients. Patients with pre-extracorporeal membrane oxygenation lactate levels above 12.6 mmol/L are at higher risks for in-hospital death. Evidence-based therapy for this group of high risk patients is needed.


SAS® software is a comprehensive set of integrated tools and solutions for accessing, managing, and analyzing data. SAS, which was formed as a company in 1976, is a leading developer of statistical software, which is widely used in academic, business, and government organizations. Since the 1980s, SAS has expanded its analytical software to include forecasting and econometrics, data mining, text mining, and operations research. SAS now builds on these components to provide software for business analytics and solutions for industry‐specific problems such as customer intelligence, fraud prevention, and risk management. This article describes the evolution of SAS as a company and overviews new directions in its analytical software. An example program illustrates key elements of SAS programming that are useful for statistical analysis. WIREs Comp Stat 2011 3 1–11 DOI: 10.1002/wics.131


To what degree does the identity of the majority opinion writer affect a citizen's level of agreement with a U.S. Supreme Court decision? Using a survey experiment, we manipulate the majority opinion authors of two Supreme Court cases between two randomly populated groups. By investigating ideological incongruence between a case's policy output and the majority opinion author we are able to empirically test the extent to which individuals are willing to agree with a Court opinion that is authored by an ideologically similar justice even though the decision cuts against their self-identified ideological policy preferences. Our study provides insight on the extent to which policy "buy in" by citizens is affected by policy cues represented by the policy messenger of a political institution. We find that, although individuals generally give deference to the Supreme Court's decisions, a messenger effect indeed augments the specific level of support a given case receives.


This paper reports the calculation of stopping powers of heavy charged particles generated by neutrons in four-element
tissue constituents for particle energies from 0.1 keY to 1.0 MeV. At low projectile energies of less than 30 keV/amu where
the nuclear stopping phenomenon is more dominant than the electronic stopping phenomenon, the effective stopping power
values are higher than the continuous slowing-down approximation (CSDA) values, from which the deviation is dependent
upon the target mass and the energy and mass of the projectiles.


The issue of how to organize and implement a European security and defence `identity' has been discussed at both the political and the academic level throughout the past decade. Initially, it was basically related only to NATO or, at best, to the NATO-WEU interface. As such, it did not make much progress, in spite of the commitments taken especially in Berlin (1996) and the limited decisions adopted in the WEU framework in 1997. Even at that time, the main bones of contention were the extent to which NATO `assets and capabilities' would be put at the disposal of `European-led' peace support operations and, as a consequence, the role and the rights of those European allies that were not full members of the WEU. With the onset of the ESDP and the de facto withering away of the WEU, the issue has become a bilateral one between the European Union and the Alliance. The controversial points have remained more or less the same, but the political and legal contexts have changed. Ever since, apparently, the main obstacle to an arrangement between the two organizations allowing the EU to have `assured access' to NATO planning capabilities has been Turkey's attitude. The article examines in detail all the problems involved, assessing the current state of affairs and drawing some conclusions for the future.


Martha Gellhorn, third wife of Ernest Hemingway, experiences criticism early in her writing career--critics claiming her journalism is superior to her fiction. Gellhorn meets Hemingway in December 1936 after the publication of her critically acclaimed novel, The Trouble r've Seen. The years between 1936 and 1945, the period Gellhorn is involved with Hemingway, represent an exploration for Gellhorn--a voyage of self-discovery and growing independence as a writer--years during which Gellhorn establishes a literary identity. During the early years of her war-time writing, Gellhorn establishes a unique narrative format which will come to be called the New Journalism. While her journalism matures early in her Hemingway years, Gellhorn's fiction receives mixed reviews, after the overwhelmingly positive reception of The Trouble r've Seen. But with the publication of Liana (1944), there is a shift away from the journalist-protagonist technique which has marred Gellhorn's fictional endeavors. Although Liana does not see the levels of success heaped upon The Trouble r've Seen, it receives more sturdy critical approval than the other novels published during the Hemingway years. And so it is that Martha Gellhorn establishes a firm literary identity which displays the strength and fortitude of a woman whose writing captures the human spirit in a manner which could only be caught by a person of magnificent spirit and fortitude herself.


Here we describe an image processing pipeline for quantitative analysis of terabyte-scale volumetric images of SHIELD-processed mouse brains imaged with light-sheet microscopy. The pipeline utilizes open-source packages for destriping, stitching, and atlas alignment that are optimized for parallel processing. The destriping step removes stripe artifacts, corrects uneven illumination, and offers over 100x speed improvements compared to previously reported algorithms. The stitching module builds upon Terastitcher to create a single volumetric image quickly from individual image stacks with parallel processing enabled by default. The atlas alignment module provides an interactive web-based interface that automatically calculates an initial alignment to a reference image which can be manually refined. The atlas alignment module also provides summary statistics of fluorescence for each brain region as well as region segmentations for visualization. The expected runtime of our pipeline on a whole mouse brain hemisphere is 1-2 d depending on the available computational resources and the dataset size.


Since exceedingly efficient hand-held devices became readily available to the world, while not being a relatively recent topic, Augmented Reality (AR) has rapidly become one of the most prominent research subjects. These robust devices could compute copious amounts of data in a mere blink of an eye. Making it feasible to overlap computer generated, interactive, graphics over the real world images in real-time to enhance the comprehensive immersive experience of the user. In this paper, we present a novel mobile application which allows the users to explore and interact with a virtual library in their physical space using marker-less AR. Digital versions of books are represented by 3D book objects on bookcases similar to an actual library. Using an in-app gaze controller, the user's gaze is tracked and mapped into the virtual library. This allows the users to select (via gaze) a digital version of any book and download it for their perusal. To complement the immersive user experience, a continuity is maintained using the concept of Portals while making any transition from AR to immersive VR or vice-versa, corresponding to transitioning from a "physical" to a virtual space. The use of portals makes these transitions simple and seamless for the user. The presented application was implemented using Google AR Core SDK and Unity 3D, and will serve as a handy tool to spawn a virtual library anytime and anywhere, giving the user an imminent mixed sense of being in an actual traditional library while having the digital version of any book on the go.