While preclinical research answers basic questions about a drug's safety, it is not a substitute for studies of ways the drug will interact with the human body. "Clinical research" refers to studies, or trials, that are done in people . As the developers design the clinical study, they will consider what they want to accomplish for each of the different Clinical Research Phases and begin the Investigational New Drug Process, a process they must go through before clinical research begins. The ultimate goal of drug development is to bring a new compound with proven therapeutic effect to the market. In this context, the transition from preclinical research to clinical stages marks a critical turning point, as it nears the new medicinal product to the market . With the promise of marketing authorization, though far ahead in the road, hanging on the horizon, the approval of a clinical trial usually attracts investors and leads to a respectable rise of the company shares. However, everything comes at a price. Clinical trials are not without risks, and while the perspective of success is encouraging, the crude reality is that most compounds fail before reaching the market. As explained in previous entries, despite higher R&D expenditures, attrition rates are high and, what is worse, on the rise. Data collected between 1990 and 2004 show that the number of unsuccessful clinical trials has been steadily increasing during the last years: from 30% to 50% at Phase 1, from 40% to 70% at Phase 2 and from 20% to nearly 50% at Phase 3 . As a result, less than 10% of the drugs that enter clinical trials end up being approved by regulatory agencies. Clinical trials are only a small part of the research that goes into developing a new treatment. Drugs of the future, for example, first have to be discovered or created, purified, described, and tested in labs (in cell and animal studies) before ever reaching human clinical trials. Of all the substances that are tested in these early stages, very few are promising enough to be tested in humans. Drug development is the process of bringing a new pharmaceutical drug to the market once a lead compound has been identified through the process of drug discovery. It includes pre-clinical research on microorganisms and animals, filing for regulatory status, such as via the United States Food and Drug Administration for an investigational new drug to initiate clinical trials on humans, and may include the step of obtaining regulatory approval with a new drug application to market the drug. Indeed, of every 5,000 cancer molecules identified in the laboratory, about 250 will enter pre-clinical testing. Of this 250, fewer than 10 are tested in clinical trials and on average only one will be approved by regulatory authorities. The process of bringing a new treatment from the research stage (laboratory) to clinic is estimated to take between 10-13 years .


Ninety-nine lakes were sampled at varying distances up to 75 km from the Horne smelter at Rouyn-Noranda, Quebec, to study the influence of the smelter versus other factors on metal concentrations in lake sediments. Most of these lakes lie within the Abitibi Greenstone Belt, a zone of extensive base metal and gold mineralization and the focus of a mining and smelting economy for almost a century. Lake sediment cores, c. 25 cm long, were collected and sampled at the top (0–2 cm) and the bottom (18–20 cm) to capture sediment that was deposited after the smelter was in operation ('post-industrial') and well before the mining and smelting activity was started ('pre-industrial'). Additionally, nine cores were sampled in 1 cm increments to depths of up to 50 cm to study temporal patterns and potential element remobilization in detail. The cores were analysed for an extensive suite of elements. This paper focuses on those elements that are emitted by the smelter for which there are records of emissions through time, namely As, Cd, Cu, Pb and Zn. A spatial statistical approach – a logistic model of metal content versus distance from the smelter – was used investigate the relationship of sediment chemistry with smelter emissions and other possible influences. Using Cu as a representative proxy for the other emitted metals, this analysis demonstrates that elements are enriched in lake sediments by a factor of about three times around the smelter, that the impact of the smelter is detectable in lakes to a distance of at least 50 km, and that there is no obvious association between sediment Cu concentration and bedrock geology, land-use, lake pH, or lake morphometry (lake area/lake catchment area). The nine lakes studied in detail show enrichment towards the sediment–water interface (SWI) and relatively steady concentrations below depths of c. 10 cm. However, depth profiles do not match changes in the magnitude of smelter emissions through time, nor do they match changes in emission chemistry (element ratios) through time. Element ratios do generally move towards the chemistry of the emissions, suggesting smelter influence, but do not do so predictably. For example, (i) trends in the Cu/Pb ratio continue to the very bottom of cores into material deposited hundreds of years before industrialization, and (ii) proximity to the smelter does not lead to greater similarity between sediment and emission chemistry. These results suggest that significant element remobilization is occurring and that it differs from lake to lake and from element to element. We conclude that lakes within 50 km of the smelter have elevated metal concentrations in their near-surface sediments due to stack emissions but, due to element cycling and mobility, it is difficult to quantitatively determine the magnitude of metal increase attributable to the smelter. We also suggest that due to upward remobilization, the duration of industrial metal enrichments in surface sediments (the residence time) may be increased, thereby making surface enrichments more persistent than would be predicted by the sedimentation rate.


Article 1: By comparing each of 102 Scandinavian non-listed buyout targets with reference groups consisting of 20 European firms matched on industry and total asset size, we find strong evidence of a relationship between operating characteristics and the likelihood of being acquired by a buyout fund. The results are inconsistent with both the agency cost and the underperformance arguments explored in earlier the literature that is mainly focused on listed targets. Our analysis suggests that superior growth and revenue generation characterize Scandinavian non-listed private equity target companies. At the same time they seem to be struggling to control costs and optimize their capital structure, causing unstable medium-term performance. A questionnaire-based survey of Scandinavian PE fund managers supports these findings, but also stresses the importance of long-term prospects for potential target companies Article II: By comparing the performance of 36 Norwegian companies owned by private equity funds with comparable listed firms, we find evidence of superior crisis management capabilities in the private equity owned firms. Multifaceted analyses of financial indicators suggest that the main drivers are the funds' active ownership and their professionals' ability to implement strategic changes and drive operational efficiency. The results also suggest that private equity owned firms are better suited than publicly listed peers to leverage their capital structures, despite the increased bankruptcy risk. We believe this ability mainly is due to the private equity owned firms' superior profitability, their relative ease of adjusting strategy and capital to the changing circumstances, and the long-term relationships private equity funds have with banks.


This Article has two goals. First, I explore some of the descriptive and normative limitations of certain law-and-economics discussions of the ownership and use of land. These market-centered approaches struggle in different ways with features of land that distinguish it from other "commodities." The complexity of land—its intrinsic complexity, but even more importantly the complex ways in which human beings interact with it—undermines the positive claim that owners will focus on a single value, such as market value, in making decisions about their land. Adding to the equation land's "memory," by which I mean the combined impact of the durability of land uses and the stabilizing consequences of human sociality, calls into question the normative assessment that rational landowners are likely to be using their land wisely, or at least more wisely than other modes of decision making might hope to accomplish. These observations do not discredit the judicious use of economic analysis as a tool of land-use policymaking, but they do point toward the need for more sophisticated models of landowner behavior and the benefits of a richer normative theory of property, one that is capable of situating the output of that economic analysis within a larger moral framework. Setting forth the broad outlines of one such theory as it applies to the law of land use is the second goal of this Article. An approach to property rooted in the Aristotelian tradition of virtue ethics, I will argue, is capable of incorporating the valuable insights that have made economic analysis so appealing to land-use theorists without distorting our moral vision or treating economic consequences as the only considerations that ought to matter.


Negative attitudes toward the nonreligious persist in America. This may compel some nonreligious individuals to conceal their identity to manage feelings of social identity threat. In one correlational study and one experiment, we found evidence of social identity threat and concealment behavior among nonreligious Americans. Our first study showed that Southern nonreligious individuals reported higher levels of stigma consciousness and self-reported concealment of nonreligious identity, which in turn predicted lower likelihood of self-identifying as "atheist" in public settings than in private settings. Our second study successfully manipulated feelings of social identity threat by showing that atheists who read an article about negative stereotypes of their group subsequently exhibited higher concealment scores than did atheists who read one of two control articles. Implications for how nonreligious individuals negotiate social identity threat and future directions for nonreligion research are discussed.


Fleet automation often involves solving several strongly correlated sub-problems, including task allocation, motion planning, and coordination. Solutions need to account for very specific, domaindependent constraints. In addition, several aspects of the overall fleet management problem become known only online. We propose a method for solving the fleet-management problem grounded on a heuristically-guided search in the space of mutually feasible solutions to sub-problems. We focus on a mining application which requires online contingency handling and accommodating many domainspecific constraints. As contingencies occur, efficient reasoning is performed to adjust the plan online for the entire fleet.


The breakwater consists of a floating slab of breadth comparable to the length of the wave to be obstructed. Performance is improved by various arrangements of slots and mass-damping. The breakwater acts primarily by inhibiting the vertical component of orbital motion; there is a secondary action of energy dissipation by wave-breaking and eddy-making; there is also a degree of reilection. Mooring forces are small; it seems that on an exposed ocean coast, forces of the order of 0.5T per ft. lin. should be catered for. The following series of tests have been carried out; the basic measurements being of wave reduction and mooring force; typical results are shown in diagrams. 1) On models of lengths 3*-4' in the Southampton University tank using wind generated waves. 2) Do. Do. Using .paddle generated waves of lengths up to 8'. Series (l) and (2) comprised observations on some forty different configurations. 3) In the National Physical Laboratory tank using a model hZ' x 30' overall and waves of lengths up to 35'• Bending strains and vertical displacements were measured. k) A model has been installed in Queen Mary Reservoir, Staines of 100' x k7' overall; gale force winds are awaited which are expected to produce waves of the order of ko' 1. 5) A 1/100 scale model has been installed in a harbour model at the Franzius Institute, Hanover, where the effect of the breakwater in a scaled-down natural site has been investigated. 6) Tests in development of (l) and (2) above are being carried out at the laboratories of Messrs. Taylor Woodrow Ltd. at Southall, London.


This study proposes an extended FrameNet approach for the description of connectives. The meanings of connectives are described with respect to the two frames evoked by each of the conjoined clauses, whose combinational patterns are termed "frame valences". Taking the English polysemous connective while as an example, features of each meaning were statistically analyzed based on the frame valences using correspondence analysis. The correspondence analysis has revealed that in the contrastive use the same frame tends to be evoked in the conjoined clauses. To test this result, this study has further examined the contrastive connective whereas, which has firmly supported the results of the correspondence analysis and shown that frames that are closely related via 'frame-to-frame relations' can be evoked in the contrastive uses. These findings, in turn, corroborate the validity of the frame-based approach for the description of connectives.


In the two decades since the 1994 Genocide, Rwanda has experienced pervasive societal change, due in large part to ambitious policymaking in sectors ranging from business to public health to education. Extensive language policies have also been enacted, including a 2008 Cabinet resolution shifting the medium of instruction (MOI) in all public schools from Kinyarwanda and French to English (Republic of Rwanda, 2008). The promotion of English in a formerly francophone nation inspired the present study seeking a closer look at the current state of language planning and policy (LPP) in Rwanda. Toward that end, ethnography of language policy (Hornberger & Johnson, 2007) fieldwork, consisting primarily of linguistic landscape analysis, teacher interviews, and classroom observations, was carried out in Southern Province, Rwanda throughout the 2011-2012 academic year. Four research questions addressing various aspects of the 2008 Cabinet resolution are answered herein through three distinct but interrelated research articles. The first article investigates the current linguistic ecology of Rwanda, utilizing linguistic landscape analysis methodology to explore language use in public spaces. Diachronic comparative analysis uncovers language shift trends (e.g., major English gain, major French loss, negligible Kinyarwanda shift) that converge with national policy initiatives – the language ecological implications of which (e.g. language loss, linguistic diversity) are discussed. The second article reports mainly on the ethnographic interview data. The interviews, conducted with teachers (n = 8) in two public primary schools and two public secondary schools, illuminate (a) the layers and spaces in Rwandan MOI policy and practice, as well as (b) the local realities associated with implementing national language-in-education policy without an articulated plan. The third article, informed predominantly by classroom observation at the four research sites, examines issues related to MOI policy implementation in Rwanda (e.g., classroom language use; English medium instruction vs. mother tongue instruction) as well as its impacts on education (e.g., disparate student access to content and language) through discourse analysis of classroom language use by teachers and students. Taken together, these three "snapshots" form a panorama of the LPP situation of contemporary Rwanda, exposing the shifts occurring across the past fiveyear period in the Rwandan linguistic and educational landscape. INDEX WORDS: Language-in-education policy and planning, Ethnography of language policy, Medium of instruction, Mother tongue instruction, Classroom language use, Linguistic landscape analysis, Language ecology, Language shift LANGUAGE POLICY IN RWANDA: SHIFTING LINGUISTIC AND EDUCATIONAL


When investigating strategies for Helicoverpa armigera (Hubner) control, it is important to understand oviposition behaviour. Cotton (Gossypium hirsutum) was sown into standing wheat (Triticum astivum L.) stubble in a closed arena to investigate the effect of stubble on H. armigera moth behaviour and oviposition. Infrared cameras were used to track moths and determine whether stubble acted as a physical barrier or provided camouflage to cotton plants, thereby reducing oviposition. Searching activity was observed to peak shortly before dawn (03:00 and 04:00 h) and remained high until just after dawn (4 h window). Moths spent more time resting on cotton plants than spiralling above them, and the least time flying across the arena. While female moths spent more time searching for cotton plants growing in wheat stubble, the difference in oviposition was not significant. As similar numbers of eggs were laid on cotton plants with stubble (3.5/plant SE +/- 0.87) and without stubble (2.5/plant SE +/- 0.91), wheat stubble does not appear to provide camouflage to cotton plants. There was no significant difference in the location of eggs deposited on cotton plants with and without stubble, although more eggs were laid on the tops of cotton leaves in wheat stubble. As the spatial and temporal distribution of eggs laid on the cotton plant is a crucial component of population stability, eggs laid on the upper side of leaves on cotton plants may be more prone to fatalities caused by environmental factors such as wind and rain. Therefore, although stubble did not influence the number of eggs laid, it did affect their distribution on the plant, which may result in increased mortality of eggs on cotton plants sown into standing wheat stubble.


Introduction: Data on the association of bisphenol A (BPA) exposure and autoimmunity in humans is unclear. Objective: To elucidate the influence of BPA on thyroid autoimmunity, in the present study we assessed the association between serum BPA and thyroid autoantibodies. Methods: Serum samples from 2361 subjects, aged ≥15 years, from the Thai 4th National Health Examination Survey were measured for BPA, antithyroglobulin (TgAb), antithyroperoxidase (TPOAb) and antithyrotrophin receptor (TRAb) antibodies. Results: The proportion of subjects positive for TgAb, TPOAb and TRAb were 11.1%, 14.9% and 1.9%, respectively. With regard to BPA, 51.9% had serum BPA levels exceeding the detection limit of the assay (0.3). There was a significant increasing trend for subjects with TgAb (p < 0.05) and TPOAb (p < 0.001) positivity as BPA quartiles increased, particularly in the highest quartile. In contrast, no relationship between BPA quartiles and TRAb was found. Logistic regression analysis showed that age, gender and BPA quartiles were determinants of TPOAb or TgAb positivity, independent of BMI. However, only the association between BPA and TPOAb positivity was consistent in both men and women. Conclusions: BPA was independently associated with TPOAb positivity. However, its mechanism related to TPOAb positivity, subsequently leading to autoimmune thyroid disease, needs further investigation.


Mutation Testing is an approach for assessing the quality of a test case suite by analyzing its ability in distinguishing the product under test from a set of alternative products, the so-called mutants. The mutants are generated from the product under test by applying a set of mutant operators, which produce products with slight syntactical differences. The mutant operators are usually based on typical errors that occurs during the software development and can be related to a fault model. In this paper, we propose a language — named MuDeL — for describing mutant operators aiming not only at automating the mutant generation, but also at providing precision and formality to the operator descriptions. The language was designed using concepts that come from transformational and logical programming paradigms, as well as from context-free grammar theory. The language is illustrated with some simple examples. We also describe the mudelgen system, developed to support this language.


One of the aims of the DLR-project "Wetter und Fliegen" is to develop and analyse new flight control and guidance functions in order to avoid or to mitigate the impact of wake vortex encounters. Two strategies are addressed in the project: One is an automatic impact attenuation system detecting that the aircraft is flying through a wake vortex and counteracting the effects of the wake encounter by giving corresponding commands to the flight control system. The other system detects that the aircraft flight path will cross a wake vortex in the near future and calculates an evasion trajectory. The corresponding evasion manoeuvre to avoid wake vortex encounter may be flown manually by the pilot or automatically by the aircraft autopilot.
A concept for the human machine interface is presented in this report for both system approaches. It deals also with the operational aspects of such systems from "a cockpit point of view". As flight tests within the project are planned with the A320-ATRA research aircraft future systems have to be integrated in an "Airbus-like" cockpit environment. Therefore it is assumed that the Wake Vortex Impact Attenuation and Evasion systems are additional functions of a conventional Airbus A320 flight control and guidance system. Design of the human machine interface is influenced by existing systems like TCAS, wind shear protection function and flight envelope protections. A main source of information for this report was the A320 Flight Crew Operating Manual and designs developed in the European project FLYSAFE.
The report starts with a short overview of the conventional A320 indicating displays in Chapter 2. In Chapter 3 operational concept and displays of the Wake Impact Attenuation System are explained. This is followed by an operational description and indications of the Wake Avoidance System in Chapter 4. Chapter 5 draws some conclusions about the design concept presented in this report. Appendix A lists all sections of the Flight Crew Operations Manual affected by the intergration of a Wake Vortex Impact Attenuation and a Wake Avoidance System. An example of a lateral evasion manoeuvre activated by the Wake Avoidance System is illustrated and explained in Appendix B.


Understanding what dimensions of health care quality patients respond to is essential in order to recognize how patient demand contributes to health care quality maintenance. In this paper I analyze patients' online reviews and ratings of their regular general practitioners (regular GPs) from Legelisten.no. A qualitative analysis of the content of 346 reviews is conducted to examine what quality dimensions that contribute to patient satisfaction. Furthermore, patients' ratings are linked with data on regular GP characteristics to assess how they reflect regular GP quality. My findings indicate that regular GPs' interpersonal abilities are the most important contributors to patient satisfaction. Patient satisfaction does however also seem to depend considerably on the clinical aspects of provided health care. I further found that regular GPs specialized in general practice received significantly higher ratings than those without such a specialization. Those who had not been given any warnings during the past three years of practice were also rated higher than those warned. These correlations suggest that patients may be able to recognize high-quality regular GPs. Finally, I found a negative relationship between the share of patients leaving the regular GPs' list and ratings. This indicates that the ratings represent a non-random, relevant measure of patient satisfaction.


This talk includes a short introduction to Chiral Perturbation Theory in the meson sector concentrating on a number of recent developments. I discuss the latest fit of the low-energy constants. Finite volume corrections are discussed for the case with twisted boundary conditions for form-factors and first results at two-loops for three flavours for masses. The last part discusses the extension to other symmetry breaking patterns relevant for technicolour and related theories as well as the calculation of leading logarithms to high loop orders.


We report the structural, electronic, and magnetic study of Cr-doped Sb2Te3 thin films grown by a two-step deposition process using molecular-beam epitaxy (MBE). The samples were investigated using a variety of complementary techniques, namely, x-ray diffraction (XRD), atomic force microscopy, SQUID magnetometry, magneto-transport, and polarized neutron reflectometry (PNR). It is found that the samples retain good crystalline order up to a doping level of (in CrxSb2−xTe3), above which degradation of the crystal structure is observed by XRD. Fits to the recorded XRD spectra indicate a general reduction in the c-axis lattice parameter as a function of doping, consistent with substitutional doping with an ion of smaller ionic radius. The samples show soft ferromagnetic behavior with the easy axis of magnetization being out-of-plane. The saturation magnetization is dependent on the doping level, and reaches from to almost per Cr ion. The transition temperature depends strongly on the Cr concentration and is found to increase with doping concentration. For the highest achievable doping level for phase-pure films of , a of 125 K was determined. Electric transport measurements find surface-dominated transport below ∼10 K. The magnetic properties extracted from anomalous Hall effect data are in excellent agreement with the magnetometry data. PNR studies indicate a uniform magnetization profile throughout the film, with no indication of enhanced magnetic order towards the sample surface.


Purpose

Massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) create quasi-real social systems in which players can interact with one another, and quasi-real economic systems where players can consume and trade in-game items with virtual currency. The in-game currency price, an important indicator of a virtual economy, is highly contingent on players' behavioral interaction in MMORPGs. The purpose of this paper is to adopt a network perspective to examine how topological characteristics of social networks in an MMORPG, namely, network externalities, density, and closure, would exert impacts on the in-game currency price.

Design/methodology/approach

Players' behavioral data were collected from a popular MMORPG in China on a weekly basis for 52 weeks. With a time series analytical approach, the empirical model for the price function of in-game currency was estimated with vector autoregression.

Findings

The results show that the number of core avatars and network density are positively associated with in-game currency price, while network closure has a negative effect on in-game currency price. However, in-game currency price is found to have no significant relationship with the trade volume of the currency.

Originality/value

This study fills in an important research gap by investigating factors influencing the in-game currency price of MMORPGs from a network perspective, which contributes to the existing literature of network effects and advances our understanding about how players' interaction will influence the dynamics of a virtual economy. The findings could offer useful insights for online game companies to better understand their players' social interaction and consumption behavior.


Hemodynamics have crucial role in the control of vascular tone, in the regulation of arterial remodeling, and in the production of mediators that maintain arterial function. Changes in hemodynamics forces induce profound alterations in vascular cell metabolism and function, in the extracellular matrix, and in smooth muscle cell (SMC) phenotypes, all being part of vessel wall remodeling. Vessel wall remodeling plays a key role in arterial wall homeostasis but also in the initiation and development of arterial disease. This aim of this work is to study the effects of two distinct biomechanical stimuli, oscillatory shear and cyclic stretch on vessel wall function. Our 71 investigation is performed using an improved in vitro artery perfusion system, which allows to study the exact contribution of each biomechanical stimulus on isolated arterial segments, where the biological cell responses of endothelial and SMCs, and the extracellular matrix interactions are well preserved. The present thesis is divided into two main sections. The first part focuses on the effects of oscillatory shear stress on arterial segments, a mechanism presumed to be involved in the localization and initiation of atherosclerotic plaques. The second section investigates the influence of reduced cyclic stretch on the arterial wall, a procedure that is occurring in arterial stiffening. In the first and second papers, we examined the effects of three different shear stress conditions on the endothelium, SMC, and arterial wall responses, in porcine carotid arteries perfused in vitro for three days. We demonstrated that oscillatory shear stress, which is usually present in plaque-prone areas, decreased the bradykinin-induced vasorelaxation after 3 days of perfusion. The endothelial dysfunction was correlated to an impaired endothelial nitric oxide synthase gene expression and bradykinin-mediated activation. The potential lack of nitric oxide production and/or bioavailability observed in arteries exposed to oscillatory shear stress may also be the cause of the start of matrix turnover. Expression and activation of matrix metalloproteinase-2 and-9 were increased in arteries exposed to oscillatory shear, suggesting that this type of shear stress triggers a remodeling process. This part of the study provides a new insights on the role of shear stress in the control of arterial function and supports the hypothesis that oscillatory shear stress is a determining factor predisposing the arterial wall to atherosclerosis. The third paper focuses on the effects of cyclic stretch on vascular smooth muscle function, phenotype and wall remodeling. Arteries were wrapped by an external banding, which drastically decreased compliance and therefore the cyclic stretch. Arteries were perfused for one day under a unidirectional shear stress (6±3 dyn/cm2) in combination with a mean pressure of 80 mmHg and a pulse pressure of +/-10 mmHg. We demonstrated that exposure to reduced cyclic stretch induced a rapid modulation of SMC phenotype which was combined with a decrease in norepinephrine-induced vasocontraction. SMC dedifferentiation was associated to a decrease of plasminogen activator inhibitor-1 expression, which, combined with enhanced matrix metalloproteinase-2, may promote wall remodeling and SMC migration. These findings give a further approach into possible consequences of an arterial stiffening on large vessel wall patho-physiology.


Even though distributed computing and two-way communication with the customer is becoming a reality for many energy distribution companies, there still is a need to develop methodologies for more efficient energy management. In this paper we discuss current approaches to demand management, and then present ideas from other areas applied to energy management. We introduce concepts such as computational markets and software agents in this context. In addition, methods entirely based on distributed problem solving to address the computationally hard problems of resource allocation with vast number of clients are described. We also discuss how these methods can be used to perform cost/benefit analysis of demand management.


We consider the maximum likelihood parameter estimation problem for a generalized Thurstone choice model, where choices are top-1 items from comparison sets of two or more items. We provide tight characterizations of the mean square error, as well as necessary and sufficient conditions for correct classification when each item belongs to one of two classes. These results provide insights into how the estimation accuracy depends on the choice of a generalized Thurstone choice model and the structure of comparison sets. We find that for a priori unbiased structures of comparisons, e.g., when comparison sets are drawn independently and uniformly at random, the number of observations needed to achieve a prescribed estimation accuracy depends on the choice of a generalized Thurstone choice model. For a broad set of generalized Thurstone choice models, which includes all popular instances used in practice, the estimation error is shown to be largely insensitive to the cardinality of comparison sets. On the other hand, we found that there exist generalized Thurstone choice models for which the estimation error decreases much faster with the cardinality of comparison sets.


Swept Frequency Source Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) requires high repetition rate and wide spectral width wavelength tunable sources at a low cost. The sampled grating distributed Bragg reflector (SG-DBR) laser provides wide wavelength tuning range while exhibiting a wavelength switching speed that is among the fastest currently available. The SG-DBR laser is used to generate linear frequency ramps with high repetition rates. Since the SG-DBR laser is currently used for the telecommunications industry in high volume, the price of the system is much lower than current OCT sources. Therefore the SG-DBR laser provides a practical solution for Swept Source OCT. Four synchronized waveforms sent to the inputs of the laser control the linear frequency ramp. Three of the waveforms control the output frequency, while the fourth waveform controls the output amplifier of the laser to keep the output power stable. Two SG-DBR lasers with overlapping wavelength coverage are also concatenated to increase the bandwidth of the swept frequency source. The linear ramp stitching points in the frequency ramps are investigated and methods are outlined to reduce them. Finally, experimental OCT tests are performed using the swept frequency sources created to analyze the linearity of our sources. From these test results, an evaluation can be made on the specifications and capabilities of the swept frequency sources and analyze their value for OCT applications.


Develop Your PR Skills is a simple, straightforward guide to maximising your company's potential through effective PR. It will help the reader to gain a quick understanding of the concepts and principles and learn how to use them in actual business scenarios.

 It covers strategic public relations, public relations and the internet, working with the media, how to deal with different stakeholders and customers, dealing with a crisis, using internal communications, using research to get a competitive edge, evaluating the success of your PR, and ethics and sustainability.

 Direct and to the point, each chapter is concise, can stand alone and ends with a summary of key points. Readers are also be pointed towards key websites and reading materials.


A potential clinical concern about polyetheretherketone (PEEK) is that it is not bioactive enough, and thus has limited fixation to bone. To overcome this problem, bioactive materials and/or porosity are incorporated into PEEK medical devices. The latest developments in these two strategies are presented in this paper. Bioactive PEEK/HA prepared by integration of 3D printing and compression molding is presented in this paper. In addition, nozzle and build plate temperatures for 3D printing of porous PEEK were optimized using genetic algorithm to achieve the highest mechanical strength for load bearing applications such as spinal fusion cages


Systems are not as real as we think they are. It is indeed true that engineers design things that when placed into service are very real. But these things are merely constituents of perhaps many different systems. Which systems these engineered things belong to is really up to our imagination to make such assignments. The assignments of these things to systems is what is involved in "systems thinking." We make assignments of things to systems before these things exist in order to examine their contribution to the system's intended "purpose." We can even make assignments of things to (different) systems to examine how they are currently behaving (or perhaps misbehaving). This paper will explore what it means to employ systems thinking to imagine various system structures and to examine these structures for their suitability in different situations to address perceived problems.


Little is known about the performance of the US stock market before 1802, and evidence for the years following 1802 through the 1830s remains scanty. This paper describes a new database on total returns in the US stock market for the first fifty years of its existence, constructed in large part from data compiled by Sylla, Wilson and Wright (2006), combined with dividend information newly obtained from contemporaneous newspapers, along with information on capital stock obtained from contemporaneous directories. The new evidence clarifies the role and prominence of the New York market as compared to those of Boston, Philadelphia, and Baltimore. The outcome is a capital-weighted estimate of total returns over five decades. This estimate does not support Siegel's (2014) thesis that multi-decade returns in the US market have always been on the order of 6.6% real, compounded. The paper concludes by considering explanations for the sub-par performance of the US stock market during this early period.


Purpose: Measurement error when determining the size of an angle is always an issue for clinicians. Computer assistance may help to decrease that error. The purpose of this study is to determine the amount of error when measuring Q-angles using a goniometer and the IMAGEJ program, a public domain program developed at the U.S. National Institutes of Health. Methods: Two investigators participated in data collection; one who is a licensed physical therapist who has over 25 years of clinical practice in orthopedic physical therapy and a second who is familiar and experienced with analyzing data using the National Institute of Health (NIH) IMAGEJ computer program. Quadriceps angles measured bilaterally for 30 subjects between the ages of 21 and 50 years were recorded. Interrater and intrarater reliability with standard error of the measurements were calculated. Results: The ICC (2,1) for measuring Q-angle with a goniometer was .96 (SEM =1.02°), while the ICC (2,1) for measuring Qangle with the IMAGEJ program was .98 (SEM = 1.05°). The ICC (3,2) between measures obtained with a goniometer versus the IMAGEJ program was .89 (SEM = 2.06°). Conclusions: There is a high association between measures of Q-angle obtained with a goniometer compared to those obtained with computer-assistance using the IMAGEJ program. There may be a bias on the part of raters when measuring higher values of Q-angle. Further investigations should be conducted to examine the feasibility of increased use of IMAGEJ in measuring angles.


The problem of earthquake risk assessment and management in insurance is a
challenging one at the interface of geophysics, engineering seismology, stochastics,
insurance mathematics and economics. In this work, I propose stochastic
models and methods for the assessment of earthquake risk from an insurer's
point of view, where the aim is not to address problems in the financial mathematics
and economics of risk selection, pricing, portfolio management, and
risk transfer strategies such as reinsurance and securitisation, but to enable the
latter through the characterisation of the foundation of any risk management
consideration in insurance: the distribution of losses over a period of time for a
portfolio of risks.
Insurance losses are assumed to be generated by a loss process that is in turn
governed by an earthquake process, a point process marked with the earthquake's
hypocentre and magnitude, and a conditional loss distribution for an insurance
portfolio, governing the loss size given the hypocentre and magnitude of the
earthquake, and the physical characteristics of the portfolio as described in the
individual policy records.
From the modeling perspective, I examine the (non-trivial) minutiae around
the infrastructure underpinning the loss process. A novel model of the earthquake
process, a Poisson marked point process with spatial gamma intensity
measure on the hypocentral space, and extensions of the Poisson and stress
release models through the inclusion of hypocentral location in the mark, are
proposed. I discuss the general architectural considerations for constructing the
conditional loss distribution, and propose a new model as an alternative to the
traditional ground motion attenuation and seismic vulnerability approach in
engineering risk assessment. On the actuarial mathematics front, given a fully
specified loss process, I address the problem of constructing simulation based
and, where possible, analytical approximations to the distribution of portfolio
losses over a period of time.
I illustrate the applicability of the stochastic models and methods proposed
in this work through the analysis of a residential homeowners property catastrophe
portfolio exposed to earthquake risk in California. I construct approximations
to the distribution of portfolio losses over a period of time under each
of the three models of the earthquake process that I propose, and discuss their
relative merits.


In 1949 the Irish branch of the Women's League of Health and Beauty travelled to Stockholm, Sweden to take part in the second annual Lingiad Festival. Created the previous decade to celebrate the gymnastic system of Per Henrik Ling established in the early nineteenth-century, the Festival was a multisporting cultural event open to groups from around the world. One such group was the Women's League of Health and Beauty. Founded in London in 1930 by the Irish-born Mary Bagot Stack, the League marked the decade's most expansive form of exercise for women. Owing to the League's Irish connection, the first League branch came to Belfast in 1930 and was followed by a Dublin branch some years later. Open to women across the life cycle, the League was targeted at both the working woman and the stay-at-home mother. Where previous studies have examined the creation of the League in Ireland, this piece focuses on the League's appearance at the 1949 Lingiad. Despite numerous appeals for government funding, the League was forced to raise its own funds for the trip, a point which rankled many journalists both before and after the tournament. There was an inherent tension in the League's involvement. On the one hand, it offered new opportunities for female exercise and provided a fillip for further engagement. That withstanding, the ongoing difficulties experienced by the League in actually making it to Lingiad highlighted the secondary, and often forgotten, nature of women's exercise in Ireland at this time. Using memoirs, film and newspaper articles, the piece positions the League's Lingiad trip as symbolic of both the advances and restrictions inherent in women's exercise in mid twentieth-century Ireland.


The manual specification of transformations between heterogeneous schemas is a key activity in data integration. While there are tools exposing correspondences between elements of schemas, precise schema mappings still need to be manually specified every time, even if the two schemas at hand are similar to others that have already been mapped. In fact, schema mappings are defined over the properties of the original schemas and cannot be reused on new ones. We tackle the transformation reuse problem by generalizing schema mappings as meta-mappings, a novel formalism describing transformations between generic data structures called metaschemas. We introduce techniques to infer meta-mappings from schema mappings. Once inferred, we organize meta-mappings into a repository, which can be efficiently searched to identify reusable transformations when a new pair of schemas is given. We report effectiveness results from an experimental evaluation over real-world scenarios and show that our system can infer, store, and search millions of meta-mappings in seconds.


As a renewable and promising energy devices, direct methanol fuel cells (DMFCs) have attracted a wide range of interest in recent years. The design of electrocatalysts highly influences the performance of DMFCs systems. Herein, PtRu bimetallic alloy nanoparticles have been fabricated onto a Pd nanocube (NC) core material by a facile wet chemical co-precipitation method. Structural and morphological characterization of the catalyst was performed using X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) analysis, energy-dispersive X-ray (EDX) spectroscopy, transmission electron microscopy (TEM), high resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM), high-angle annular dark-field scanning TEM (HAADF-STEM) elemental mapping and temperature programmed reduction (TPR). The presence of a single TPR peak strongly supported bimetallic Pt–Ru interactions and alloying. The electrocatalytic performance of the as-synthesized PtRu@Pd-NC catalyst for the methanol oxidation reaction (MOR) is studied in HClO4 aqueous solution by cyclic voltammetry (CV), chronoamperometry (CA) and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS), and it is compared with that of a PtRu/C (E-TEK) catalyst. The catalyst has shown the highest specific activity (ca. 11.44 mA cm−2 at 0.70 V), a lower onset potential and enhanced durability for MOR, which is significantly higher than the commercial PtRu/C (E-TEK) catalyst and other reported Pt/Pd-based catalysts. The results attribute to mutual interactions of the core–shell material that enhance the chemisorption of methanol.


"Deaf Education in America: Voices of Children from Inclusion Settings" provides a detailed examination of the complex issues surrounding the integration of deaf students into the general classroom. Author Janet Cerney begins her comprehensive work by stressing to parents, educators, and policymakers the importance of learning the circumstances in which mainstreaming and inclusion can be successful for deaf students. This process requires stakeholders to identify and evaluate the perceived benefits and risks before making placement and implementation decisions. The influences of the quality of communication and the relationships built by and with the students are of paramount importance in leading to success. In conjunction with these principles, this thorough study examines the theory and history behind inclusion, including the effects of the No Child Left Behind education act. Cerney incorporates this knowledge with interviews of the deaf students themselves as well as with their interpreters and teachers. To ensure complete candidness, the students were surveyed in their homes, and the interpreters and educators were questioned separately. Through these exchanges, Cerney could determine what worked well for the deaf students, what barriers interfered with their access to communication, and what support structures were needed to eliminate those barriers. As a result, "Deaf Education in America" offers concrete information on steps that can be taken to ensure success in an inclusion setting, results that reverberate through the voices of the deaf students.


Mitochondrial dysfunction plays a primary role in the pathogenesis of Parkinson's disease (PD), particularly in autosomal recessive forms of the disease caused by mutations encoding PINK1. Although mitochondrial pathology can be demonstrated in many cell types, it is neurons that bear the brunt of cell death in PD. We studied the mitochondrial physiology of neurons and muscle cells with loss of function of the nuclear encoded mitochondrial protein PINK1. PINK1 is widely expressed in many types of tissues, but deficiency selectively induces death in neurons. We report here that the same genetic defect results in opposing phenotypes in different cell types, depending on the metabolic properties of the cell. Thus, PINK1-deficient myocytes exhibit high basal mitochondrial membrane potential (Δψm), whereas PINK1-deficient neurons have been shown to exhibit a low Δψm. PINK1 deficiency induces impaired respiration in both cell types, with a concomitant increase in glycolytic activity. We demonstrate that the high glycolytic capacity in myocytes compared with neurons enables them to produce more ATP and, therefore, compensates for the metabolic defects induced by PINK1 deficiency. Furthermore, the high Δψm generated in PINK1 knockout (KO) muscle mitochondria enables them to buffer cytosolic Ca2+ fluxes, rendering them resistant to Ca2+ stress effectively. Conversely, PINK1 KO neurons were previously shown to develop mitochondrial Ca2+ overload and Ca2+-induced mitochondrial depolarisation. Prevention of Ca2+ dysregulation in myocytes might therefore account for the sparing of these cells in PD.


This paper uses a fuzzy logic approach in a static typing biometrics user authentication. The inputs are the down and up times, and the ASCII code of the keys that are captured while the user is typing a known string. In this research, it was collected four features (the key code, two keystroke latencies and the key duration) captured in two different strings. The first string was imposed, and the second one was chosen by each user. Seven experiments were developed utilizing a fuzzy logic classifier and the proposed features. The results of the experiments are evaluated in three situations of authentication: the legitimate user, the impostor and the specialist impostor. The best results were achieved utilizing all the features, obtaining a false rejection rate of 3.5% and a false acceptance rate of 2.9%. This approach can be used in the usual login-password authentication for improvement of the false acceptance rate, when the password is no more a secret.In this paper recurrent neural networks are considered to realize traffic prediction in computer network.


This thesis involves development of a computer-aided diagnosis (CAD) tool for the detection of cancerous nodules in X-ray images. Both cancerous and non-cancerous regions appear with little distinction on an X-ray image. For accurate detection of cancerous nodules, we need to differentiate the cancerous nodules from the noncancerous. We developed an artificial neural network to differentiate them. Artificial neural networks (ANN) find a large application in the area of medical imaging. They work in a manner rather similar to the brain and have good decision making criteria when trained appropriately. We trained the neural network by the backpropagation algorithm and tested it with different images from a database of thoracic radiographs (chest X-rays) of dogs from the LSU Veterinary Medical Center. If we give X-ray images directly as input to the ANN, it incurs substantial complexity and training time for the network to process the images. A pre-processing stage involving some image enhancement techniques helps to solve the problem to a certain extent. The CAD tool developed in this thesis works in two stages. We preprocess the digitized images (by contrast enhancement, thresholding, filtering, and blob analysis) obtained after scanning the X-rays and then separate the suspected nodule areas (SNA) from the image by a segmentation process. We then input enhanced SNAs to the backpropagation-trained ANN. When given these enhanced SNAs, the neural network recognition accuracy, compared to unprocessed images as inputs, improved from 70% to 83.33%.


Abstract. The impact of an avalanche in a reservoir induces impulse waves, which pose a threat to population and infrastructure. For a good approximation of the generated wave height and length as well as the resulting overtopping volume over structures and dams, formulas, which are based on different simplifying assumptions, can be used. Further project-specific investigations by means of a scale model test or numerical simulations are advisable for complex reservoirs as well as the inclusion of hydraulic structures such as spillways. This paper presents a new approach for a 3-D numerical simulation of the avalanche impact in a reservoir. In this model concept the energy and mass of the avalanche are represented by accelerated water on the actual hill slope. Instead of snow, only water and air are used to simulate the moving avalanche with the software FLOW-3D. A significant advantage of this assumption is the self-adaptation of the model avalanche onto the terrain. In order to reach good comparability of the results with existing research at ETH Zurich, a simplified reservoir geometry is investigated. Thus, a reference case has been analysed including a variation of three geometry parameters (still water depth in the reservoir, freeboard of the dam and reservoir width). There was a good agreement of the overtopping volume at the dam between the presented 3-D numerical approach and the literature equations. Nevertheless, an extended parameter variation as well as a comparison with natural data should be considered as further research topics.


Psychologists are interested in developing instructional policies that boost student learning. An instructional policy specifies the manner and content of instruction. For example, in the domain of concept learning, a policy might specify the nature of exemplars chosen over a training sequence. Traditional psychological studies compare several hand-selected policies, e.g., contrasting a policy that selects only difficult-to-classify exemplars with a policy that gradually progresses over the training sequence from easy exemplars to more difficult (known as fading). We propose an alternative to the traditional methodology in which we define a parameterized space of policies and search this space to identify the optimal policy. For example, in concept learning, policies might be described by a fading function that specifies exemplar difficulty over time. We propose an experimental technique for searching policy spaces using Gaussian process surrogate-based optimization and a generative model of student performance. Instead of evaluating a few experimental conditions each with many human subjects, as the traditional methodology does, our technique evaluates many experimental conditions each with a few subjects. Even though individual subjects provide only a noisy estimate of the population mean, the optimization method allows us to determine the shape of the policy space and to identify the global optimum, and is as efficient in its subject budget as a traditional A-B comparison. We evaluate the method via two behavioral studies, and suggest that the method has broad applicability to optimization problems involving humans outside the educational arena.


This paper presents one way of testing the validity of ideas surrounding relativism in linguistic theory by looking at the domain of motion in French and English. It compares the differing linguistic structures for motion expressions in both languages with native speakers' cognitive conceptualisation of motion events. The question asked is whether different motion-framing structures entail different conceptualisation of motion. This paper reports cognitive and linguistic experiments using triad tests on a total of 139 native speakers of English and French. The results fail to support or disprove linguistic relativity. A preliminary discussion attempts to justify the reasons why this study – and others – fail to provide conclusive results in this domain of investigation. The paper concludes that empirical work on motion events requires a more thorough understanding and subsequent treatment of (a) linguistic typologies for motion encoding, and (b) the domain of motion itself, before it may hope ever to be conclusive.


For years, lawyers and law professors could give an abbreviated but accurate description of judicial administration of the Constitution in stating that when constitutional values come to court, judicial scrutiny on their behalf generally takes one of two forms, mere rationality review or heightened scrutiny. Like many models, this one glossed a considerably grainier reality, but overall it captured Supreme Court decisions very well. This model, called here the old scrutiny, still has countless users and proponents, but it no longer describes American constitutional law as it has been stated and practiced by a majority of the Rehnquist Court. This Article will explore the reasons and methods of the Justices who make up this new majority, and the narrative of constitutional history they have produced that is calculated to legitimate the legal transformation they are leading. Part I of the Article explains that the old scrutiny fails to comfortably describe the most important new decisions, doctrines, and debates of the Rehnquist Court because in disciplined fashion, the new majority has been purging the old scrutiny, overruling or displacing the precedents that symbolized its commitments and methods and installing in their stead decisions that reflect a reordered hierarchy of constitutional values. Part II of the Article explains that the resulting jurisprudence is not a patternless passel of opinions that share in common only their disenchantment with the old scrutiny's objectives and manners. Rather, a new scrutiny is emerging with a logic and structure of its own, centering upon a conception of constitutional well-being, here termed measured reasonableness. The structure and texture of this new conception are defined by four distinct techniques which the Article explores, complicating the picture but also lending it comprehensiveness and coherence.


Despite ample research on the topic of business model innovation, little is known about the cognitive processes whereby some innovative business models gain the status of iconic representations of particular types of firms. This study addresses the question: How do iconic business models emerge? In other words: How do innovative business models become prototypical exemplars for new categories of firms? We focus on the case of Airbnb, and analyze how six mainstream business media publications discussed Airbnb between 2008 and 2013. The cognitive process whereby Airbnb's business model became the iconic business model for the sharing economy involved three phases. First, these publications drew on multiple analogies to try to assimilate Airbnb's innovative business model into their existing system of categories. Second, they developed a more nuanced understanding of Airbnb's business model. Finally, they established it as the prototypical exemplar of a new type of organization. We contribute to business model research by providing an elaborated definition of the notion of the iconic business model which is rooted in social categorization research, and by theorizing the cognitive process that underpins the emergence of iconic business models. Our study also complements research on the role of analogical reasoning in business model innovation. Finally, we complement the market categorization literature by documenting a case of the emergence of a prototypical exemplar.


This paper presents an experimentally evaluated solution to the problem of estimating the attitude of a rigid body using rate gyros and a pan-tilt camera. A nonlinear attitude observer combines angular velocity measurements obtained from rate gyros with images of a planar scene provided by the camera. By directly exploiting the sensor information, a stabilizing feedback law is introduced, and exponential convergence to the origin of the estimation errors is shown. Additionally, an active-vision system is proposed that relies on an image-based exponentially input-to-state-stable control law for the pan and tilt angular rates of the camera to keep the features in the image plane. Using recent results in geometric numerical integration, a multirate implementation of the observer is proposed, which exploits the complementary bandwidth of the sensors. Practical considerations, such as the lens-distortion compensation and the computation of suitable observer feedback gains, are considered. Experimental results obtained with a high-accuracy motion rate table demonstrate the high level of performance attained by the proposed solution.


Purpose: Despite the keen interest in radical and incremental innovation, few studies have tested the varying impact of firm-level factors in service sectors. This paper analyses how collaboration with existing and prospective users, and investments in knowledge management (KM) practices can be adapted to maximise the outputs of radical and incremental process innovation in a Knowledge-Intensive Business Service (KIBS) industry. Methodology: Original survey data from 166 Information Technology Service (ITS) firms and interviews with 13 executives provide the empirical evidence. PLS-SEM is used to analyse the data. Findings: Collaboration with different types of users, and investments in KM practices affect radical versus incremental process innovation differently. Collaboration with existing users influences incremental process innovation directly, but not radical innovation; and prospective user collaboration matters for radical, but not incremental innovation. Furthermore, for radical innovation, investments in KM practices mediate the impact of prospective user collaboration on innovation. Implications: While collaboration with existing users for incremental process innovations does not appear to generate significant managerial challenges, to pursue radical innovations firms must engage in intensive collaboration with prospective users. Higher involvement with prospective users requires higher investment in KM practices to promote efficient intra- and inter-firm knowledge flows. Originality: This study is based on a large-scale survey, together with management interviews. Radical and incremental innovations require engagements with different kinds of users in the service industry, and knowledge management tools.


This paper attempts to determine whether conditions amendable to successful selective interventions to capture cross-industry externalities are likely to be fulfilled in practice. Three criteria are proposed for good candidates for industrial promotion: that they have strong interindustry links to the rest of the economy, that they lead the rest of the economy in a causal sense, and that they be characterized by a high share of industry-specific innovations in output growth. According to these criteria, likely candidates for successful intervention are identified in the Korean data. It is found that, with one exception, none of the sectors promote by the heavy and chemical industry (HCI) policy fulfills all three criteria.


The Internet has changed the way we access the world. This is especially true for kids, who soak up new technologies like eager little sponges. They have access to an enormous array of material, including educational links, sports info, chat roomsa "and, unfortunately, pornography. But we must approach our need to protect children with care to avoid placing unnecessary restrictions on the many positive features of the Internet. Youth, Pornography, and the Internet examines approaches to protecting children and teens from Internet pornography, threats from sexual predators operating on-line, and other inappropriate material on the Internet. The National Research Councila (TM)s Computer Science and Telecommunications Board explores a number of fundamental questions: Who defines what is inappropriate material? Do we control Internet access by a 17-year-old in the same manner as for a 7-year-old? What is the role of technology and policy in solving such a problem in the context of family, community, and society? The book discusses social and educational strategies, technological tools, and policy options for how to teach children to make safe and appropriate decisions about what they see and experience on the Internet. It includes lessons learned from case studies of community efforts to intervene in kidsa (TM) exposure to Internet porn. Providing a foundation for informed debate, this very timely and relevant book will be a must-read for a variety of audiences.


Simulation techniques, especially those implemented on a computer, are frequently employed in natural as well as in social sciences with considerable success. There is mounting evidence that the "model-building era" (J. Niehans) that dominated the theoretical activities of the sciences for a long time is about to be succeeded or at least lastingly supplemented by the "simulation era". But what exactly are models? What is a simulation and what is the difference and the relation between a model and a simulation? These are some of the questions addressed in this article. I maintain that the most significant feature of a simulation is that it allows scientists to imitate one process by another process. "Process" here refers solely to a temporal sequence of states of a system. Given the observation that processes are dealt with by all sorts of scientists, it is apparent that simulations prove to be a powerful interdisciplinarily acknowledged tool. Accordingly, simulations are best suited to investigate the various research strategies in different sciences more carefully. To this end, I focus on the function of simulations in the research process. Finally, a somewhat detailed case-study from nuclear physics is presented which, in my view, illustrates elements of a typical simulation in physics.


An innovative progression of synthetic 1, 2, 4 triazole derivatives (5a-g) have been synthesized via usual process producing high-quality yield in methanol through cyclization reaction of N-Cyanoimidates (3a-g), by means of phenyl hydrazine. All the new compounds have been characterized by spectral data and subsequently evaluated for their anti-bacterial and anti fungal activity by using Disc Diffusion Method. Those prepared compounds had been screened for their antimicrobial activities, which give an idea about reasonable to good activity against a variety of strains of bacteria and fungi employed. These prepared compounds had been established with IR, 1H NMR and mass spectral statistics.


The Story Exchange section of the Sims 2 website offers Sims 2 players a forum to read and review other players' original stories which they have written while playing The Sims 2. This article draws on interview data from Sarah, a 15-year-old female involved in reading and evaluating these online stories. Analysis of Sarah's experiences in playing The Sims 2 and using the Story Exchange website suggest that players who engage with these particular online narratives determine quality indicators of the stories, without guidance or instruction from external structures or authorities. Following this point, this Story Exchange is presented not only as an avenue of leisure, pleasure and informal learning, but one that is out of alignment with structures and institutions of formal schooling. This article argues that sites such as these should be read as legitimate learning spaces.


textabstractThe Strategic Plan of Cordoba (SPC) is one of the few strategic urban development plans in
Latin America, which has actually been implemented in the majority of its components. The SPC
was conceived as a collective and global project of the city as a whole without excessive
conflicting interests or special ownership by a few. The SPC integrated a policy of public works
– oriented at the "social debt" which existed in the city – with a work on urban norms and
directions and economic development. The SPC as a space for articulation achieved to organise a
great number of representatives from civil society organisations, achieving legitimacy and
representation in the work of the SPC.
The SPC has given a new orientation and increased the municipal capacity to manage the city.
The SPC has developed innovative and participatory forms of management (e.g. the Follow-Up
and Monitoring Groups, with their annual meetings for presenting audit reports known as
"presenting the bills").
The population has perceived the incentive to participate in the planning process of the SPC
since it was possible to propose concrete projects, as long as these were feasible. The SPC has
pursued the detailed feasibility study of a number of these projects others have been delegated to
sectoral agencies.
The SPC has shown flexibility in the incorporation of new projects, and there existed two
directions of work initiatives: "top-down" project planning for the big "strategic" projects of
global importance, and it stimulated "bottom-up" planning of projects that reflected the social
demand side. It needs to be noted that the SPC has known how to mobilise and diversify sources
of finance of its projects and been able to obtain additional funding. Financing agencies like the
Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) have appreciated the SPC as a reference of a
consensus-based Programme. The formulation of the SPC has been executed, basically, with
own resources of the municipality.
Nevertheless, in certain moments it has been difficult for the Municipal Technical Team (MTT)
to establish commitment and willingness to cooperate between civil society and the municipal
government. For example, the MTT was seen as an "elite team" by other municipal units. The
Municipal Council conceived the participation of citizens as a kind of competition. The members
of the Municipal Council did not participate regularly in the workshops and meetings of the SPC.


Abstract Observations of the water-vapor mixing ratio in the lower atmosphere and its temporal evolution have been made with a Raman lidar. Comparison with an independent radiosonde measurement indicated excellent agreement. The moisture structure, observed up to an altitude of 5 km and over an 80-min period during the early morning of 30 April 1985 (the present lidar is limited to night operation), showed temporal variations of several atmospheric features which could not be resolved by balloon soundings. Application of the lidar should provide the opportunity to study details of atmospheric moisture, its structure, and its evolution in a manner never before realized.


Cooperative multi-agent reinforcement learning often requires decentralised policies, which severely limit the agents' ability to coordinate their behaviour. In this paper, we show that common knowledge between agents allows for complex decentralised coordination. Common knowledge arises naturally in a large number of decentralised cooperative multi-agent tasks, for example, when agents can reconstruct parts of each others' observations. Since agents an independently agree on their common knowledge, they can execute complex coordinated policies that condition on this knowledge in a fully decentralised fashion. We propose multi-agent common knowledge reinforcement learning (MACKRL), a novel stochastic actor-critic algorithm that learns a hierarchical policy tree. Higher levels in the hierarchy coordinate groups of agents by conditioning on their common knowledge, or delegate to lower levels with smaller subgroups but potentially richer common knowledge. The entire policy tree can be executed in a fully decentralised fashion. As the lowest policy tree level consists of independent policies for each agent, MACKRL reduces to independently learnt decentralised policies as a special case. We demonstrate that our method can exploit common knowledge for superior performance on complex decentralised coordination tasks, including a stochastic matrix game and challenging problems in StarCraft II unit micromanagement.


In June 1993, Governor William Weld signed into law the Massachusetts Education Reform Act (MERA). MERA greatly increased the state role both in funding public education and in guiding the local educational process. The stateOs role changed to incorporate setting curriculum frameworks and holding schools accountable for student performance. Because MERA was designed to be a systemic reform of education, all of the various state activities and policies needed to fit together into a coherent whole based on state educational standards. This comprehensive set of reforms included the following elements. Increased State Funding for Public Education. MERA doubled state funding of K–12 education from $1.3 billion in 1993 to $2.6 billion in 2000. The achievement of this ambitious target has been a major accomplishment. A Foundation Budget for All Districts. MERA laid out the concept of a minimum budget necessary for each district to adequately educate all of its students. Poorer communities that were spending below foundation-budget levels would receive more than those at or above that threshold. By 2002, all districts were at or above foundation level. Revision of the foundation formula to more fully reflect actual spending needs is under consideration. Learning Standards. The legislation instructed the Board of Education to develop curriculum frameworks and other standards such as vocational standards, and to support local districtsO implementation of standards through alignment of curriculum and instruction. Frameworks have been developed in arts, English language arts, foreign languages, health, mathematics, history/social science, and science/technology/ engineering. Student Assessment. MERA required an assessment of student learning based on the frameworks and specified a competency determination as a requirement for graduation. The Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) has been developed and implemented for those purposes. MCAS tests have been administered in multiple grades in English language arts, mathematics, reading, science/technology/engineering, and history/social science. Students in the class of 2003 and beyond must perform at least at the Needs Improvement level in English language arts and mathematics to graduate. An Accountability System for School and District Performance. MERA required the state to hold schools and districts accountable for student performance and to provide remedies for persistent underperformance. This has proven to be quite a challenge for the state, with several changes of jurisdiction occurring. Over the past year, a performance index process has been developed based on MCAS scores and has been judged to be in compliance with the federal No Child Left Behind Act. Changes in Local Education Governance and Management. MERA included significant changes in the way schools and districts are run. School CommitteesO power over personnel issues was reduced, with superintendents and principals given more authority. All schools were to have School Councils composed of parents, teachers, students, and administrators. Enhancing Educator Quality. A portion of state aid to local districts was earmarked for teacher professional development. Teacher licensure has been revised, and teacher tests for new teachers have been instituted. Ensuring Readiness to Learn Through Early Childhood Education Programs. Between 1996 and 1999, spending on early childhood education increased by 247 percent. Implementing Choice and Charter Schools. MERA expanded inter-district choice and authorized the state to approve charter schools/public schools exempt from local control and union contracts.


UNDERSTANDING THE GLASS CLIFF EFFECT: WHY ARE FEMALE LEADERS BEING PUSHED TOWARD THE EDGE? by Yael Shira Oelbaum Dissertation Advisor: Dr. Kristen Shockley The glass cliff effect describes a real-world phenomenon in which women are more likely to be appointed to precarious leadership positions in poorly performing organizations, while men are more likely to be appointed to stable leadership positions in successful organizations (Ryan & Haslam, 2005). This effect represents a subtle, yet dangerous, form of gender discrimination that may limit workplace diversity as well as women's ability to become successful leaders. Importantly, research exploring why women are preferred for more perilous leadership positions is lacking. The main focus of this dissertation is to systematically organize previous theory and empirically examine processes underlying the glass cliff effect. Data was collected through an online study in which participants evaluated fictional leadership candidates for an open leadership position (Study 1) as well as a media study in which coders content analyzed media perceptions regarding CEO appointments using a matched sample of 84 male and female Fortune 500 CEOs (Study 2). Findings from both studies most strongly demonstrate that females are likely to be preferred over males when being promoted to a precarious position as a way for the organization to signal change. Theoretical implications of the study findings regarding gender and leadership as well as practical implications regarding organizational procedures and women's careers are discussed. UNDERSTANDING THE GLASS CLIFF v


Many problems faced in the engineering world are computationally intensive. Filtering using FIR (Finite Impulse Response) filters is an example to that. This thesis discusses the implementation of a fast, reconfigurable, and scalable FIR (Finite Impulse Response) digital filter. Constant coefficient multipliers and a Fast FIFO implementation are also discussed in connection with the FIR filter. This filter is used in two of its structures: the direct-form and the lattice structure. The thesis describes several configurations that can be created with the different components available and reports the testing results of these configurations.


The need for snow-free surfaces at squares, bus stops, platforms, car parks and sports facilities increases and at the same time energy price rise and the environment is becoming a hotter issue. The construction of the ground heating systems often lack thermal insulation under the heating pipes, which means that the heat from the pipes not only warm up the soil surface but also heats the surrounding soil. The insulation also has more features, by insulating the risk of frost damage is minimized. The goal of this report is to demonstrate the large heat loss and energy costs in the absence of insulation under the heating system.The report begins with a scientific way to study and treating the soil heating system uses, and the theory involved. Furthermore it also deals with different routing principles of heat pipes depending on the facility.All calculations are made with so called finite element method (FEM), in COMSOL Multiphysics 3,5a, where models are created with different conditions. These models are then compared to the models but with insulation. The difference is noted and further analysis is done on the results.The conditions, on which the calculations are based on, are 100mm insulation. The surface is estimated to be 8000 square meters which corresponds to the size of a football field and the time the heating systems is assumed to be started is 3240 and 1296 hours depending on the model calculated.-The models are divided into a stationary model, a dry dynamic model, a partially dry dynamic model and then a wet dynamic model. The differences between these are partly the time they are running, but also the certain conditions and properties of the materials and how the control of heat flow in the pipes is made.The findings in the report show that it is economically viable to isolate sports facilities based on today's energy prices, and the investment cost insulation entails. The results also show the relatively large differences in energy consumption in each case depending on whether the construction has or lacks insulation. Despite the large investment costs estimated payback period for the investment based on a 8000 m2 surface with an operating time of 3240 and 1296 hours/year to be in 25 years, while the heat pipes is expected to last for about 50 years.


We develop decentralized cooperative controllers, which are based on local navigation functions and yield (almost) global asymptotic stability of a group of mobile agents to a desired formation and simultaneous collision avoidance. The formation could be achieved anywhere in the free space; there are no pre-specified final positions for the agents and is rendered stable both in terms of shape and in terms of orientation. Shape and orientation stabilization is possible because the agents regulate relative positions rather than distances with respect to their network neighbors. Asymptotic stability is provable and guaranteed, once the parameters in the local navigation functions are tuned based on the geometry of the environment and the degree of the interconnection network. Feedback controllers steer the agents away from stationary point-obstacles and into the desired formation using information that can be obtained within their sensing neighborhood and through communication with their network neighbors. The methodology is tested in simulation where groups of three and four mobile agents come into formations of triangles and diamonds, navigating amongst obstacles.


A new electrochromic gel (EC-Gel)-based active material has been prepared by using ethyl viologen (EV)–graphene nanoflakes (GNFs)–tetrathiafulvalene (TTF) for a faster and more efficient electrochromism. A prototype flexible electrochromic device has been fabricated by using the above-mentioned EC-Gel as an active layer which shows overall improved coloring efficiency as high as 208 (C cm−2)−1. At the same time, the abovementioned electrochromism shows color switching at a bias of 1.6 V with coloration/bleaching times as low as 0.4 and 0.9 seconds, respectively, which is better in comparison to that of other traditional EC-Gel or non EC-Gel-based electrochromic devices. Redox activity of EV–TTF pair results in such a fast bias induced color switching. Besides acting as an electrolyte, GNFs also facilitate achieving a faster bleaching time by allowing reversing the redox process quickly. The abovementioned facilitation is done by temporarily storing the electrons, which are released by EV during coloring cycle, to be supplied to TTF in the bleaching cycle through ballistic channels in graphene. An in situ UV-Vis spectroscopy establishes a transmission change of ∼45% in its stable state reversibly for more than 2500 cycles when the device is tested under ambient conditions.


Data were collected on all psychiatric referrals to 10 emergency rooms in New York State during a 72-hour period in early December 1988. Overall, 30 percent of the 362 cases were brought by the police while the 10 emergency room percentages referrals varied from 10 to 53 percent. As compared with nonpolice referrals, police cases were as likely to be rated by clinicians as currently having psychotic symptoms, having a severe mental disorder, currently using substances, having a major mental illness diagnosis, and/or being referred to the emergency room for threatening to do harm or actually harming self. Police cases were more likely than nonpolice referrals to be male, to be referred to the emergency room due to impaired judgment or dangerous behavior to others, to be admitted to a psychiatric inpatient setting, and/or to have a longer length of stay in the emergency room. In addition, at municipal hospitals only, police referrals were more likely to be assaultive in the emergency room and/or not have payment resources. A logistic regression differentiated police cases from nonpolice cases on dangerous behavior to others and impaired judgment as reasons for referral, payment resources in municipal hospitals, and gender but not on any of the mental disorder variables. Policy implications for training and access to pretransport information and consultation are discussed.


Over the past three decades the Palestinian areas in the West Bank and Gaza Strip experienced the impacts of compulsory integration into the Israeli economy in the aftermath of the occupation of the area by Israel in 1967. Within this integration, area's trade affected markedly by a forced customs union, which mainly implies sharing the same common external tariff with Israel on imports from the rest of the world and free movement for Israeli goods into Palestinian Territories. The objective of this study is to investigate main implications of this imposed customs on Palestinian trade. It uses Seemingly Unrelated Regression Equations estimation procedures (SURE) for import-export trade modeling vis-a-vis an Ordinary Least Square (OLS) one to forecast the behavior of trade. For this purpose the study uses three equations for both import demand and export supply respectively related to the main Palestine trade partners, Israel, Jordan and countries other than Jordan and Israel(the rest of the world). Clearly, empirical results depicts gains of employing with SURE estimation in a comparison with OLS estimation one in terms of both estimated coefficients (trade elasticities) and equations explanatory power (trade variations). Main feature of this imbalanced customs union between PTs and Israel is that while the Palestinian demand has a positive significant impact on imports from and export to Israel, both the Israeli and the rest of the world demand growth have an insignificant impact on the Palestinian exports. Also, under the prevailing relationship with Israel the Palestinian trade experienced losing of competitiveness, a situation let a shock in real exchange rate renders an increase in imports and a decrease in exports in trading with the ROW. Overall, this study reveals the necessity for the elimination of restrictions on Palestinian trade to both the rest of the world and to its regional context, a situation will lead to positive effects on the Palestinian economic-trade performance.


In Sutherland Springs, Texas, Richard B. McCaslin explores the rise and fall of this rural community near San Antonio primarily through the lens of its aspirations to become a resort spa town, because of its mineral water springs, around the turn of the twentieth century. Texas real estate developers, initially more interested in oil, brought Sutherland Springs to its peak as a resort in the early twentieth century, but failed to transform the farming settlement into a resort town. The decline in water tables during the late twentieth century reduced the mineral water flows, and the town faded. Sutherland Springs's history thus provides great insights into the importance of water in shaping settlement.

Beyond the story of resort spa aspirations lies a history of the community and its people itself. McCaslin provides a complete history of Sutherland Springs from early settlement through Civil War and into the twentieth century, its agricultural and oil-drilling exploits alongside its mineral water appeal, as well as a complete community history of the various settlers and owners of the springs/hotel. The contents include: Setting a pattern -- Losing a generation -- Another start uphill -- Building new Sutherland Springs -- Century of decline -- Endnotes.


ABSTRACT Stat5 (signal transducer and activator of transcription 5) is an essential mediator of cytokine receptor signaling and plays important roles in the proliferation of alveolar progenitors and the survival of functionally differentiated epithelial cells in the mammary gland. A deregulated expression and activation of Stat5 leads to precocious alveolar development in the absence of pregnancy hormones, impaired mammary gland remodeling following the cessation of lactation, and mammary tumor formation. We reported previously that Stat5 induces the transcription of the Akt1 gene from a novel promoter. In this report, we provide experimental evidence that Akt1 is an essential mediator for the biological function of Stat5 as a survival factor. Additionally, Stat5 controls the expression of the regulatory and catalytic subunits of the phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K) (p85α and p110α), thereby greatly augmenting signaling through the prosurvival PI3K/Akt pathway. In agreement with this model, we observed that the constitutive activation of Stat5 cooperates with the loss of function of the tumor suppressor PTEN by accelerating the formation of preneoplastic lesions and mammary tumors. The mammary gland-specific ablation of Stat5 is sufficient to prevent mammary carcinogenesis in a genuine mouse model for Cowden syndrome. Therefore, targeting the Jak2/Stat5 pathway might be a suitable strategy to prevent breast cancer in patients that carry a mutant PTEN allele.


Starting in 2013, we set out to build a new database to act as the configuration store for a high-performance cloud block storage system (Amazon EBS).This database needs to be not only highly available, durable, and scalable but also strongly consistent. We quickly realized that the constraints on availability imposed by the CAP theorem, and the realities of operating distributed systems, meant that we didn't want one database. We wanted millions. Physalia is a transactional keyvalue store, optimized for use in large-scale cloud control planes, which takes advantage of knowledge of transaction patterns and infrastructure design to offer both high availability and strong consistency to millions of clients. Physalia uses its knowledge of datacenter topology to place data where it is most likely to be available. Instead of being highly available for all keys to all clients, Physalia focuses on being extremely available for only the keys it knows each client needs, from the perspective of that client. This paper describes Physalia in context of Amazon EBS, and some other uses within Amazon Web Services. We believe that the same patterns, and approach to design, are widely applicable to distributed systems problems like control planes, configuration management, and service discovery.


Advanced High Strength Steel (AHSS) are increasingly used in the automotive industry due to its higher strength and lower weight. The traditional forming limit criterion cannot accurately predict the unique shear fracture of AHSS, so great efforts have been made to develop failure criteria that can predict shear fracture. In this paper, a series of tensile and shear tests for four steel sheets of AHSS are designed, the stress triaxiality and equivalent strain are measured and solved, and the correlation between them and the performance parameters of steel sheets K and n is studied. In order to study the relationship between stress triaxiality and equivalent strain in the range of low stress triaxiality, the Hill'48 orthotropic model and MMC fracture model were used to establish tensile and shear fracture models of four dual-phase steels. Simulate and study the plastic fracture of AHSS. Solving the relevant parameters enriches the stress triaxiality of the four steel types, and establishes the relationship between the stress triaxiality and the equivalent strain, and verifies its correctness through tensile and bending tests and simulations. The results show that MMC can accurately predict the fracture of these four dual-phase steels, and the quantitative relationship between stress triaxiality and equivalent strain of the four dual-phase steels in the low-stress triaxiality range 0-0.3 is similar, which can be established and expressed by the performance parameters of each steel type.


In recent years, Canada's relationship with its southern neighbour has been an overriding pre-occupation of politics, public policy and academic debate (Clarkson 2002). There are good reasons for this. The United States received more than 80 percent of all Canadian exports in the 1990s, and supplied 67 percent of all imports. In the same decade, more than two-thirds of foreign direct investment stock in Canada was owned by U.S. interests, and over half of Canada's foreign direct investment was located there. Not unrelated to these economic linkages, Canadian foreign policy has become largely reactive to--if not always completely in accord with--the U.S. geopolitical agenda. At the same time, cultural flows across the border are extensive (and largely one-way). If, however, a different set of measurements is taken, Canada's most significant global relation ships begin to look a little different. The 2001 census of Canada recorded 1.8 million residents who had arrived in the country over the previous decade. Of these, only 3 percent had come from the United States, while 58 percent had arrived from Asia--primarily China, India, the Philippines, Hong Kong, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Taiwan (Statistics Canada 2003), The 2001 census even shows a visible 'minority'--and primarily Chinese and South Asian--population becoming a majority in a few suburban neighbourhoods. In Richmond, British Columbia, the visible minority population amounted to 59 percent of the total in 2001. In Markham, Ontario, the equivalent figure was 56 percent (Statistics Canada 2003). The consequences of such migration flows have been extensively studied in recent years, and geographers have made significant contributions to these efforts. These contributions relate to issues of contested urban landscapes (Ley 1995; Preston and Lo 2000), labour-market integration (Preston and Giles 1995; Hiebert 1999; Pratt 1999; McKay 2002), entrepreneurship and ethnic economies (Walton-Roberts and Hiebert 1997; Wang 1999; Hiebert 2002), residential patterns, housing trajectories and property markets (Ley et al. 2001; Ley and Tutchener 2001; Olds 2001; Bauder and Sharpe 2002), refugee settlement (Hyndman and Walton-Roberts 2000), the role of immigrant communities in local politics and civil society and redefining citizenship (Mitchell 1997a, 1998; Isin and Siemiatycki 1998), and the racialisation and discrimination of immigrant communities (England and Stiell 1997; Walton-Roberts 1998). Over the last decade, however, it has also become increasingly recognised that immigrants do not simply settle. Rather, they maintain important linkages with their places of origin. The implications of these linkages were first recognised in the mid-1990s and have since stimulated intense interest in a phenomenon dubbed 'transnationalism'. Implied in this concept is a realisation that many immigrants live a substantial part of their emotional, social, economic and political lives in their place of origin while working, living and settling in Canada. Thus, theirs are not--or at least not just--immigrant stories of setting up anew for a better life; they are more complex tales of networks of family obligations shaping migration and work decisions, tangles of emotional yearnings frustrated by economic necessities, and ongoing dislocations between 'home', citizenship and identity. In this special thematic section of The Canadian Geographer, we highlight some of the implications of transnationalism between Asia and Canada for citizenship, identity, politics, social integration and our understanding of space in a globalising age. Rather than seeking to summarise the contributions, this introduction contextualises them in the emergent literature on transnationalism. From Migration to Transnationalism? Linda Basch, Nine Glick Schiller and Cristina Szanton Blanc (1994, 6) famously defined transnationalism as the 'processes by which immigrants forge and sustain multistranded social relations that link together their societies of origin and settlement, and through which they create transnational social fields that cross national borders'. …


NICE quality standards describe high-priority areas for quality improvement in a defined care or service area. Each standard consists of a prioritised set of specific, concise and measurable statements. They draw on existing guidance, which provides an underpinning, comprehensive set of recommendations, and are designed to support the measurement of improvement.
This quality standard covers a range of approaches at a population level to prevent children and young people aged under 18 years from becoming overweight or obese. It includes interventions for lifestyle weight management. These statements are particularly relevant to local authorities, NHS organisations, schools and providers of lifestyle weight management programmes.
The standard does not cover the clinical assessment and clinical management of obesity in children and young people, nor does it cover the prevention, assessment or management of obesity in adults. These topics will be covered by separate quality standards.
This standard does not cover encouraging physical activity in people in contact with the NHS, including staff, patients and carers. This is covered in NICE quality standard 84 (Physical activity: encouraging activity in all people in contact with the NHS [2015]).
For more information see the Obesity: prevention and lifestyle weight management in children and young people overview.


Objectives Quality improvement in geriatric trauma depends on timely identification of frailty, yet little is known about providers' knowledge and beliefs about frailty assessment. This study sought to understand trauma providers' understanding, beliefs, and practices for frailty assessment. Methods We developed a 20-question survey using the Health Belief Model of health behavior and surveyed physicians, advanced practice providers, and trainees on the trauma services at a single institution that does not use formal frailty screening of all injured seniors. Results were analyzed via mixed methods. Results One hundred fifty-one providers completed the survey (response rate 92%). Respondents commonly included calendar age as an integral factor in their determinations of frailty but also included a variety of other factors, highlighting limited definitional consensus. Respondents perceived frailty as important to older adult patient outcomes, but assessment techniques were varied because only 24/151 respondents (16%) were familiar with current formal frailty assessment tools. Perceived barriers to performing a formal frailty screening on all injured older adults included the burdensome nature of assessment tools, insufficient training, and lack of time. When prompted for solutions, 20% of respondents recommended automation of the screening process by trained, dedicated team members. Conclusions Providers seem to recognize the impact that a diagnosis of frailty has on outcomes, but most lack a working knowledge of how to assess for frailty syndrome. Some providers recommended screening by designated, formally trained personnel who could notify decision makers of a positive screen result.