The present study takes place in Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso), a typical Sub-Saharan city where water shortage and food crisis necessitate wastewater reuse in urban agriculture. Different issues linked to this practice were studied in two components separated in two experimental sites. The first part treats about agronomic and sanitary aspects and take place in the 2iE (International Institute for Water and Environmental Engineering) experimental site of Ouagadougou. The second component was emphasised on industrial effluents impacts on irrigated soil quality and takes place in Kossodo, an industrial suburb of Ouagadougou. The 2iE site is supply with treated wastewater from domestic origin. The effluent was used to realise the following objectives: (1) managed wastewater fertilizers to fit the plant needs; (2) assess different crops sanitary quality and the effectiveness of methods used for this assessment. Three treatments were tested: (i) irrigation with the treated wastewater (ii) irrigation with the treated wastewater and fertilizers management, adjusted to plant needs and (iii) conventional treatment i.e. fresh water irrigation and total doses of commercial fertilizers. Each treatment was tested on three different crops: lettuce (Lactuca sativa), carrot (Daucus carota) and eggplant (Solanum melongena). The first objective was achieved by comparing crops yields (on basis of wet and dry matter) obtained with the different treatments. The three crops, irrigated with only wastewater, led to yield reduction between the first and the second year. At the contrary, the adjusted treatment showed higher yield for lettuce, with comparable values to conventional treatment yield. However, the effects on carrot and eggplant did not demonstrate better results; indicating that further investigations must be completed for crops with longer growing periods. Most likely, the fertilizers management should better correspond to the crop period demand. The sanitary assessment (second objective) was performed by measuring the heavy metals concentration (Cd, Cu, Pb, Ni, Cr) and the faecal levels (faecal coliform, Escherichia coli and four pathogens among which Salmonella typhimirium and Vibrio cholerae). Chromocult Coliform Agar medium was used for simultaneous detection of faecal coliform and Escherichia coli whereas pathogens were analysed by Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR). From methodological point of view, faecal coliform were not sufficiently discriminatory in the case of this study since they were naturally present in the soil as well as in the fresh water. At the contrary, Escherichia coli were better linked to wastewater contamination. However, some "false positive" results were detected meaning that each presumptive colony of Escherichia coli must be confirmed. Nevertheless, microbial quality assessment indicated no Escherichia coli on edible parts of carrot or eggplant irrigated with wastewater. Carrots were expected to have the poorest microbiological quality. Therefore carrot root bacterial quality must be further examined. Results on eggplant are not surprising as these vegetables are somewhat far from the ground and they receive significant solar radiation which acts like a disinfectant. Lettuce from wastewater treatment plots, however, exhibited presence of Escherichia coli, meaning that lettuce is likely to be contaminated by pathogens. However, no pathogens were detected neither on crops irrigated with fresh water nor on those irrigated with wastewater. Heavy metals results demonstrated that the crop's consumption did not involve higher risk for consumers when the vegetables were irrigated with domestic wastewater, in comparison with fresh water irrigation. Kossodo treatment plant receives mainly industrial wastewater, which are characterized by high levels of sodium and bicarbonates. The treated wastewater supplies a market garden in which space has been defined for the study of this second component. The main objective was to assess the impact of treated wastewater on soil quality during two years of irrigation. Early in the second year, the presence of black spots, suspected to be black alkali (dissolved organic matter), appeared at the surface of plots irrigated with treated wastewater. These indications led to put forward the hypothesis of alkalinisation/sodisation on soil receiving wastewater. The methodological approach used was based on in situ measurement of infiltration at the end of the second year of irrigation, supplemented by shrinkage curve modelling and chemical analysis. The hypothesis of an alkalinization/sodisation and dissolved organic matter (black alkali) presence in plots irrigated with treated wastewater were validated by the chemical analysis. Shrinkage curve modelling showed a reduction of the structural porosity on wastewater irrigated plots. The reduction was more marked in the subsurface horizons than in surface, which is probably caused by dispersed clay leached in depth. These structural changes were confirmed in situ by an infiltration capacity greatly reduced on plots irrigated with treated wastewater, compared to control plots (irrigated with fresh water) where the infiltration capacity is higher and comparable to that of non-irrigated soil. The study confirmed the fertilizing value of domestic wastewater while emphasizing the need to concentrate future investigations on sustainable effluent/fertilizers management. The sanitary assessment with different crops regarding their respective distances to the soil was very useful since it showed the strong interaction of soil microbial community on the crop microbial quality. It also revealed the importance to determine a faecal indicator for the crop, specifically related to wastewater contamination. Soil quality assessment reiterated the necessity to verify wastewater quality before its reuse in agriculture. In the case of this study, the sodic and alkaline properties of the industrial effluents make them definitively unfit for irrigation.


The 85–100 m thick carbonate succession of the Gun River Formation is revised on the basis of nearly continuous cliff sections measured on the northeast coast, and a re-analysis and re-measurement of the stratotype sections on the southwest coast of Anticosti island, Quebec. The Gun River Formation (Llandovery: lower Aeronian) is herein formally divided into four members, from the base up, the Lachute, Innommee, Sandtop and Macgilvray members. The formation characterizes a generally deepening phase on the northwestern shelf of Laurentia, bordering the Iapetus ocean in this region. Since the base of the formation is located ca. 150 m above the O/S boundary, it provides fresh data as to the nature of the Early Silurian transgression, radiation, and re-invasion of shelf communities following the Late Ordovician mass extinctions. The Gun River strata were deposited in a midto distal, tropical, very gently sloping ( 1–3 m per km), carbonate ramp or shelf, some 40–80 km offshore from the stable Laurentian craton, and at water depths of 30 to 60 m. Much of the formation consists of rhythmically deposited, light grey micrites (with fissile muddy partings), and minor calcareous mudstones, punctuated by abundant hardgrounds, intraformational conglomerates, and shell-beds. The fauna of brachiopods and corals is generally of low diversity, marking a turnover from a latest Rhuddanian community (Merrimack–lower Gun River Fm) to a more diverse midAeronian fauna (top Gun River–lower Menier Fms) when large pentamerids become abundant. This indicates gradual changes rather than abrupt invasions, sustained deposition, and lack of major sedimentary gaps between stratigraphic units. The absence of shallow water reefs, skeletal stromatolites, and ooid or oncoid shoals, also suggests deposition near or periodically below the storm wave base on a carbonate platform in southern tropical latitudes at 20°–25° S.


Nearly every carbon price regulates the production of carbon emissions, typically at midstream points of compliance, such as a power plant. Over the last six years, however, policymakers in Australia, California, China, Japan, and Korea implemented carbon prices that regulate the consumption of carbon emissions, where points of compliance are farther downstream, such as distributors or final consumers. This article aims to describe the design of these prices on carbon consumption, understand and explain the motivations of policymakers who have implemented them, and identify insights for policymakers considering whether to price carbon consumption. We find a clear trend of policymakers layering prices on carbon consumption on top of prices on carbon production in an effort to improve economic efficiency by facilitating additional downstream abatement. In these cases, prices on carbon consumption are used to overcome a shortcoming in the price on carbon production: incomplete pass-through of the carbon price from producers to consumers. We also find that some policymakers implement prices on carbon in an effort to reduce emissions leakage or because large producers of carbon are not within jurisdiction. Since policymakers are starting to view prices on carbon consumption as a strategy to improve economic efficiency and reduce emissions leakage in a way that is compatible with local and international law, we expect jurisdictions will increasingly implement and rely upon them.


Background: Epistaxis or bleeding from the nose is a fairly common emergency presentation in otorhi-nolaryngological practice. This study is aimed at determining the etiological profile and management outcome of epistaxis in Makur-di, North-Central Nigeria.
Methods: This is a six year retrospective review of medical records of all patients with complaints of epi-staxis managed at the Ear, Nose and Throat clin-ics, accident and emergency (A&E) units, ward admissions and theatres of both the Benue State University Teaching Hospital, and Federal Medical Centre, in Makurdi between June 2009 and May 2015. Data retrieved included de-mographics, cause of epistaxis, associated medi-cal conditions, and drug medications, site of bleeding, treatment protocol and complica-tions.
 Results: A total of 92 patients presented with epistaxis out of 10526 that were attended to at the hospitals during the period under review. There were 3879 cases with nasal pathologies within the same peri-od. There were 60 males and 32 females giving a male-to-female ratio of 1.9:1. Their ages ranged from 6 to 73years with a mean of 22.5+-3.7years. Those most commonly affected were in 4th and 5th decades of life constituting 43.5%. Idiopathic pathologies were the commonest causes ac-counting for 27.2% followed by cardiovascular fac-tors (hypertension/ atherosclerosis) (25.0%), then trauma (21.7%). Nasal packing was the commonest procedure done which accounted for 65.2%.
Conclusion: In Makurdi, epistaxis is a significant nasal presenta-tion in the 4th and 5th decades of life with idio-pathic pathologies, cardiovascular factors and trauma being the commonest causes. Conservative method of treatment is still very effective in the control of


Why not just classical logic? Iliano Cervesato I was recently invited to give a presentation about the logical framework LLF. After a 40 minutes talk in which I revealed the intricacies of the underlying type theory and illustrated by means of examples the meta-representation wonders of this new language, somebody in the audience said: \This looks very complicated. Why not using, say, classical logic instead?". In this chapter, I build upon my then improvised answer. I will recall what logical frameworks are and try to motivate the simple but unfamiliar constructs they often rely upon.


PURPOSE
Temozolomide is an imidazotetrazine with a mechanism of action similar to dacarbazine and equivalent activity in melanoma. It is well tolerated and is a candidate for combination chemotherapy and schedule manipulation. In this study, we combined temozolomide with interferon alfa-2b and, separately, with thalidomide, and we administered temozolomide alone in a compressed schedule. The objectives of this randomized phase II, two-center study were to determine response rates, overall survival, and tolerability of the regimens in patients with advanced metastatic melanoma.

PATIENTS AND METHODS
One hundred eighty-one patients with metastatic melanoma were randomly assigned to receive up to six 4-weekly cycles consisting of temozolomide 200 mg/m2 every 8 hours for five doses, or temozolomide 200 mg/m2 daily for days 1 to 5 plus interferon alfa-2b 5 MU (million International Units) subcutaneously three times a week, or temozolomide 150 mg/m2 (increased after one cycle to 200 mg/m2) daily on days 1 to 5 plus thalidomide 100 mg daily days 1 to 28.

RESULTS
The treatment arms were well balanced for known prognostic factors. Median survival was 5.3 months for 8-hourly temozolomide, 7.7 months for temozolomide/interferon, and 7.3 months for temozolomide/thalidomide; and 1-year survivals were 18%, 26%, and 24%, respectively. Response or disease stabilization occurred in 20% of patients (95% confidence interval [CI], 10% to 33%) given 8-hourly temozolomide, 21% (95% CI, 12% to 33%) given temozolomide/interferon, and 25% (95% CI, 15% to 38%) given temozolomide/thalidomide. Grade 3 or 4 nonhematologic toxicities were similar in each arm except for infection, which was more frequent with 8-hourly temozolomide. There were fewer instances of grade 3 or 4 myelotoxicity with temozolomide/thalidomide.

CONCLUSION
Of the three regimens tested, the combination of temozolomide and thalidomide seems the most promising for future study.


This thesis is presented in two parts. The first is concerned with the management of patients undergoing repair of hip fracture while the second part describes a randomised controlled trial examining analgesic options after total hip replacement.

Musculoskeletal disease has the fourth greatest impact on the health of the world's population (when both death and disability are considered) and is the second most common cause of disability globally. Disability due to musculoskeletal disease has risen by 45% over the last 20 years compared to the 33% average increase seen across other disease groups. This is likely to increase unless action is taken to resolve some of the problems. This has been recognised by The European Parliament Leading Committee on the Horizon 2020 Programme (the European Union Research Framework Programme) resulting in the identification of rheumatic and musculoskeletal conditions as a priority for research over the next 7 years.

Glasgow Royal Infirmary is a tertiary referral centre for orthopaedic and trauma surgery undertaking a high volume of both elective and emergency procedures each year. I wished to investigate current standards of care relating to patients undergoing emergency surgery and to establish whether by benchmarking our practice against national data, we could identify areas for improvement. Hip fracture repair was chosen for analysis as it is a common, serious and costly condition that occurs in an increasingly elderly, frail and dependent patient population. Hip fracture is a worldwide concern and a significant public health challenge.

Important patient outcomes such as time to theatre, 30 day mortality and length of stay were analysed and compared against national audit data. These data compared favourably. Prior to commencing this work, staff members were asked to communicate any opportunities they saw for care to be improved. Certain sub-populations were identified by staff as meriting particular attention. These were patients admitted to ICU and patients taking warfarin. The sub-population of patients who were taking warfarin and required admission for repair of hip fracture were particularly frail and resulted in a number of management challenges for staff. A quality improvement endeavour was employed in order to standardise management, reduce confusion, expedite time to theatre and ensure adequate thromboprophylaxis throughout the peri-operative period. This work resulted in the production of a protocol to guide management and is subject to ongoing review and audit.

The role of anaesthesia in the performance of elective total hip replacement surgery was also investigated. Total hip replacement is one of the most commonly performed surgical procedures in the United Kingdom, can result in improved quality of life, and is considered to be cost effective. In Glasgow Royal Infirmary, anaesthesia is most commonly performed using spinal anaesthetic with the addition of an opioid. Spinal opioids, whilst effective, are associated with side-effects of which the most serious is respiratory depression. Other adverse effects such as pruritus and nausea and vomiting may delay recovery and impact upon a patient's satisfaction with their experience. I carried out a randomised controlled, double blinded trial to assess whether a regional anaesthetic technique (ultrasound guided fascia iliaca block) could be used as an alternative to spinal morphine. This technique has not yet been assessed clinically in the published literature, though it has shown promise as being more reliable when compared to the landmark based technique. A non-inferiority design was employed in order to compare these two techniques. The primary outcome was 24 hour intravenous morphine consumption. After obtaining the necessary approvals from the West of Scotland Research and Ethics Committee and the West of Scotland Research and Development Department, recruitment was commenced in May 2011. Peer review was received from a journal of trial methodology and the protocol was published. Further peer review and funding was received from the European Society for Anaesthesia and Pain Therapy as well as a local peri-operative research fund.

This study shows that ultrasound guided fascia iliaca block is not non-inferior to spinal morphine, or in other words, that ultrasound guided fascia iliaca block is unacceptably worse than spinal morphine in the provision of analgesia after hip replacement. Adverse effects were not statistically significantly different between groups and reassuringly, there were no episodes of respiratory depression or sedation in either group. This study has clear implications for practice and would suggest that spinal morphine remains an effective anaesthetic and analgesic agent in this patient group.


Vesicular glutamate transporter 1 (VGLUT1) and VGLUT2 show complementary distribution in neocortex; VGLUT1 is expressed mainly in axon terminals of neocortical neurons, whereas VGLUT2 is located chiefly in thalamocortical axon terminals. However, we recently reported a frequent colocalization of VGLUT1 and VGLUT2 at a subset of axon terminals in postnatal developing neocortex. We here quantified the frequency of colocalization between VGLUT1 and VGLUT2 immunoreactivities at single axon terminals by using the correlation coefficient (CC) as an indicator in order to determine the time course and spatial extent of the colocalization during postnatal development of mouse neocortex. The colocalization was more frequent in the primary somatosensory (S1) area than in both the primary visual (V1) and the motor areas; of area S1 cortical layers, colocalization was most evident in layer IV barrels at postnatal day (P) 7 and in adulthood. CC in layer IV showed a peak at P7 in area S1, and at P10 in area V1 though the latter peak was much smaller than the former. These results suggest that thalamocortical axon terminals contained not only VGLUT2 but also VGLUT1, especially at P7–10. Double fluorescence in situ hybridization confirmed coexpression of VGLUT1 and VGLUT2 mRNAs at P7 in the somatosensory thalamic nuclei and later in the thalamic dorsal lateral geniculate nucleus. As VGLUT1 is often used in axon terminals that show synaptic plasticity in adult brain, the present findings suggest that VGLUT1 is used in thalamocortical axons transiently during the postnatal period when plasticity is required.


Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is associated with significant morbidity and mortality. Morbidity in PDAC is partly due to the severe pain reported by patients with the disease. Tumor-nerve interactions including intrapancreatic perineural invasion, neurogenic inflammation, and neuritis are key features of pancreatic malignancies and are thought to play an important role in pancreatic cancer-related pain. Furthermore, neurotrophic factors such as nerve growth factor (NGF), glial cell line-derived neurotrophic factor (GDNF), GDNF family member artemin (Artn), and brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) have been implicated in the development of PDAC-related pain. These neurotrophic factors have been shown to produce hypersensitivity in sensory afferents and may drive the neuropathology underlying PDAC pain. Thus, we hypothesized that neurotrophic factors would be increased in the pancreas of PDAC mice as tumors develop, leading to altered pancreatic innervation and changes in pain-related behavior. Experiments were performed with transgenic mice that have pancreas-specific expression of a mutated Kras oncogene and heterozygous deletion of the p53 tumor suppressor gene (p48Cre; LSL-KRASG12D; p53lox/+). PDAC mice demonstrated a varied disease time course but generally developed multifocal pancreatic cancer by week 16 as evidenced by nodular-appearing pancreata. Obstruction of the biliary tree, tumor involvement throughout the mesentery, and metastases to the liver were also observed in some PDAC mice at more advanced stages of disease (> 25 weeks). Sex- and age-matched littermate transgenic controls were used for all experiments. Pancreas RNA was isolated from PDAC mice and controls at 16-30 weeks of age and levels of neurotrophic factor and neurotrophic factor receptor mRNA expression was measured using PCR and qRT-PCR. Indeed, expression of NGF, the NGF receptor TrkA, Artn, GDNF, the GDNF receptor GFRα1, BDNF, and the BDNF receptor TrkB were all increased in the pancreas of PDAC mice compared to controls. Immunohistochemical studies were performed to examine the density and distribution of nerve fibers in the pancreas of PDAC mice. Large nerve bundles that stained intensely with the pan-neuronal marker PGP 9.5, tyrosine hydroxylase (TH; NGF-responsive sympathetic fibers), calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP; sensory fibers), and growth-associated protein 43 (GAP-43; nerve sprouting) were observed in the pancreas of PDAC mice but not controls. Open-field, exploratory behavior was monitored in PDAC mice between 16 30 weeks of age. Specifically, animals were placed in Plexiglas boxes and their activity in both the horizontal plane and vertical plane was measured photoelectrically for a period of 15 minutes. PDAC mice spent less time moving horizontally and vertically, had a reduced number of reaching movements into the vertical plane, traveled less distance in the vertical plane, and made fewer movements in the vertical plane. These data indicate that significant changes in pancreatic innervation and neurotrophic factor expression occur in a transgenic mouse model of pancreatic cancer and these changes correlate with pain-related decreases in ambulatory and reaching activity. Thus, this animal model will enable us to systematically study the impact of neuroplastic changes in the PDAC microenvironment on the development of pancreatic cancer-related pain.

This proffered talk is also presented as Poster A81.

Citation Format: Rachelle E. Stopczynski, Kathryn M. Albers, Klaus Bielefeldt, Ronald A. DePinho, Haoqiang Ying, Brian M. Davis. Neuroplastic changes and pain-related behavior in a transgenic mouse model of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC). [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the AACR Special Conference on Pancreatic Cancer: Progress and Challenges; Jun 18-21, 2012; Lake Tahoe, NV. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2012;72(12 Suppl):Abstract nr PR4.


Along with the growth of Islamic religion in Indonesia, the need for information of Hadits becomes very important. Hadith as the second source of law in Islam after Al-Quran has a high position in moslem life. But application related with Hadith Retrieval is still limited. This limitation especially found in non-arabic language environment. Existing Hadith Retrieval System in Indonesia execute input query directly to DBMS, causing low quality search result. To overcome the problem, we try to implement thesaurus in the system. This study carried out research on the application of thesaurus for query expansion in Indonesian Hadith Retrieval System. Thesaurus construction done automatically using co-coccurence analysis followed by manual validation process. The thesaurus documents will be used in the process of query expansion while searching process. Performance measurements includes Precision at 10, Mean Average Precision (MAP) and Recall generated by the system after applying the thesaurus for query expansion. From the results, the accuracy for Precisison at 10 (P@10) increased by 34% between searches with query expansion using a thesaurus and without query expansion using thesaurus. As for the MAP value increased by 16% and 34% for recall.


Graphdiyne (GD), a new carbon allotrope with a 2D structure comprising benzene rings and carbon–carbon triple bonds, is employed in fabricating resistive random access memory (RRAM) devices. On inserting a GD nanoparticle (NP) discontinuous layer and thermally depositing an Al–Al2O3 core–shell (Al–Al2O3) NP discontinuous layer in insulating polyimide (PI) films on a PET substrate, the designed flexible three-state memory device is realized (PET/Ag/PI/GD/PI/Al–Al2O3/PI/Al). GD NPs and Al–Al2O3 NPs function as two types of strong electron traps with different energy levels, resulting in two ON states. The OFF state and the two ON states possess long retention times of more than 104 s. Our results here demonstrate that GD could have great potential applications in future information storage technologies.


This paper provides micro-econometric evidence on the effectiveness of Active Labor Market Policies (ALMP) in Poland. We sketch the theoretical framework of matching estimators as a substitute for randomization in labor market programs. Using retrospective data from the 18th wave of the Polish Labor Force Survey we implement a conditional difference-in-differences matching estimator of treatment effects. Treatment and control groups are matched over individual observable characteristics and pre-treatment labor market histories to minimize bias from unobserved heterogeneity. We also require that observations on controls are from the same regional labor market and from an identical phase of the transition cycle. Considering as the outcome a multinomial variable of labor market status, our first important finding suggests that training of men and women has a positive effect on the employment probability. For men public works and intervention works have negative treatment effects, while participation in intervention works does not affect women's employment probabilities. We attribute the negative treatment effects for men to benefit churning rather than to stigmatization of intervention and public works participants.


Visual analysis of the Shuttle Imaging Radar (SIR-A) of northeastern Mexico reveals the existence of several geologic features including (1) a well-developed pattern of en echelon folds, (2) juxtaposition of tectostratigraphic domains, (3) fold structures varying from fan-shaped, asymmetric to recumbent, doubly plunging anticlines, (4) anticlinal-synclinal trends associated with regional plunging and tilting of the structures, and (5) strike-slip faults oblique to the fold trends. These structures are interpreted as the result of late Tertiary transpressional stress related to a complex, anastomosed wrench-faulting system in the basement reactivated several times since the Late Jurassic. This transpressional orogenic belt in northeastern Mexico is linked to the spreading phase in the Gulf of Mexico.


Improvements to fuel design have been made in recent years to meet the challenges of increases in fuel duty in terms of linear power and operating temperature. Improved cladding material is one of these design improvements. Specifically, Westinghouse has developed an improved version of ZIRLOTM called Optimized ZIRLO and denoted as OPT ZIRLO. The Sn level in this improved material is reduced from the nominal standard previous level of about 1 % to a range of 0.6 % to 0.8 %. The reduced Sn level has been optimized to produce a higher corrosion resistance and provide adequate in-reactor creep resistance. Out-reactor diameter creep tests have shown that decreasing Sn increases out-reactor creep, suggesting that decreasing Sn may also increase in-reactor creep. An in-reactor testing program in the Vogtle Unit 2 pressurized water reactor (PWR) was performed to confirm the predicted in-reactor behavior. The test samples were suspended as segmented rods inside fuel assembly thimble tubes. In-reactor diameter creep data confirmed that decreasing Sn increases in-reactor creep. As a result of the correlation between in-reactor and out-reactor creep, an extensive out-reactor diameter creep program was performed in order to develop methods to fabricate OPT ZIRLO with the same in-reactor creep properties as the currently used stress-relief annealed standard ZIRLO (denoted as SRA STD ZIRLO). The level of in-reactor diameter creep of SRA STD ZIRLO was achieved for OPT ZIRLO by two methods. One method involved changing the final microstructure from SRA to partially recrystallized (PRXA). The other method kept the final microstructure as SRA and changed the tube reduction sequence to decrease the final tube area reduction. In order to develop these methods, a series of material variation tests was performed. Some of the material variations included different final heat treatments, different tube reduction sequences, and different pre-charged hydrogen levels. These tests were performed for both out-reactor and in-reactor. In addition, the out-reactor and in-reactor creep were observed to directly correlate for OPT ZIRLO material fabricated with different final anneal temperatures. Thus, out-reactor creep may be used to predict in-reactor creep properties for different final anneal temperatures. These results show that fabrication changes may be used to control in-reactor creep. In this study, fabrication changes were used to compensate for the reduction in in-reactor creep strength associated with lower tin content in OPT ZIRLO.


First published in 2000 and now comprehensively updated, "Latent Images: Film in Singapore" is a pioneering reference work on Singapore cinema. Using new illustrations, the authors catalogue the country's film landscape from the early days of local film production through the end of 2007, and present new discoveries on the city's film history that throw fresh light on its earliest feature productions. The book's discussion of Singapore film production between 2000 and 2007 covers more than 50 new feature films, and also looks at Singapore cinema in its regional and wider contexts. The book also provides discussions of short film production and its impact on the development of filmmaking in the country, on censorship and film classification, and interviews with industry professionals and filmmakers. Expanded appendices provide quick reference to bio-filmographies of important Singapore filmmakers, statistics from the Singapore International Film Festival, and a full list of films produced in Singapore between 1927 and 2007. Clearly written and organized for quick and easy reference, the volume is an essential reference work for anyone interested in Asian cinema and popular culture in Southeast Asia.


The cytokine IFN-α is secreted during viral infections and has been shown to inhibit telomerase activity and accelerate T cell differentiation in vivo. However, the mechanism for this inhibition is not clear. In this study, we show that IFN-α inhibits both the transcription and translation of human telomerase reverse transcriptase (hTERT), the catalytic component of telomerase, in activated CD8+ T cells. This was associated with increased activity of the repressor of hTERT transcription E2 transcription factor and decreased activation of NF-κB that promotes hTERT transcription. However IFN-α did not affect the translocation of hTERT from the cytoplasm to the nucleus. IFN-α also inhibits AKT kinase activation but increases p38 MAPK activity, and both of these events have been shown previously to inhibit telomerase activity. Addition of BIRB796, an inhibitor of p38 activity, to IFN-α–treated cells reversed, in part, the inhibition of telomerase by this cytokine. Therefore, IFN-α can inhibit the enzyme telomerase in CD8+ T cells by transcriptional and posttranslational mechanisms. Furthermore, the addition of IFN-α to CD8+CD27+CD28+ T cells accelerates the loss of both these costimulatory molecules. This suggests that persistent viral infections may contribute to the accumulation of highly differentiated/senescent CD8+CD27−CD28− T cells during aging by promoting IFN-α secretion during repeated episodes of viral reactivation.


Detailed field mapping and geochronological studies in the Renco mine area of the Northern Marginal Zone of the Limpopo Belt allow two distinct tectonic events to be distinguished in the late Archaean to Palaeoproterozoic. In the first event, granulite-facies metamorphism (~2720 to ~2590 Ma) was followed by the formation of pervasive steep fabrics accommodating north-northwest shortening, and a network of amphibolite-facies shear zones. Enderbitic rocks were intruded over the interval ~2739 to ~2571 Ma, and granites were intruded over a largely overlapping period of ~2654 to ~2517 Ma. The intrusion of syn-tectonic granites (~2600 to ~2500 Ma) allows the convergent tectonics to be dated as late Archaean. The second event produced deformation zones dominated by cataclasis at maximum temperatures of 400°C, and may have involved localized pseudotachylite generation. These deformation zones have maximum lengths and widths of several hundred metres and 2m respectively: they are separated along and across strike by several kilometres, and did not accommodate significant crustal displacement. They probably formed in the second event at ~2000 Ma. The granulites were therefore exhumed in the first event, following directly on granulite-facies metamorphism, implying that a substantial crustal thickness was attained in the late Archaean. Amphibolite facies gold mineralization at Renco mine probably occurred at this time, followed by Palaeoproterozoic remobilization.


Semiconductor nanocrystals have arisen as outstanding materials to develop a new generation of optoelectronic devices. Their fabrication under simple and low cost colloidal chemistry methods results in cheap nanostructures able to provide a wide range of optical functionalities. Their attractive optical properties include a high absorption cross section below the band gap, a high quantum yield emission at room temperature, or the capability of tuning the band-gap with the size or the base material. In addition, their solution process nature enables an easy integration on several substrates and photonic structures. As a consequence, these nanoparticles have been extensively proposed to develop several photonic applications, such as detection of light, optical gain, generation of light or sensing. This manuscript reviews the great effort undertaken by the scientific community to construct active photonic devices based on these nanoparticles. The conditions to demonstrate stimulated emission are carefully studied by comparing the dependence of the optical properties of the nanocrystals with their size, shape and composition. In addition, this paper describes the design of different photonic architectures (waveguides and cavities) to enhance the generation of photoluminescence, and hence to reduce the threshold of optical gain. Finally, semiconductor nanocrystals are compared to organometallic halide perovskites, as this novel material has emerged as an alternative to colloidal nanoparticles.


Functional foods have become an increasingly popular alternative to prevent diseases and maintain body health status. Gui-ling-gao (GLG, also known as turtle jelly) is a well-known traditional functional food popular in Southern China and Hong Kong. This study aimed to investigate the antioxidative and anti-apoptotic effects of GLG, a traditional Chinese functional food, on preventing oxidative stress-induced injury in H9c2 cardiomyocytes. In this study, the antioxidative capacities of GLG were measured by using both a cell-free assay [2,2-diphenyl-1-(2,4,6-trinitrophenyl)hydrazyl assay] and biological methods [2,2'-azobis(2-amidinopropane)-induced haemolysis assay and H(2)O(2)-induced cell damage on H9c2 cardiomyocytes]. Additionally, the total phenolic content was measured using the Folin-Ciocalteu method. Furthermore, the anti-apoptotic effect of GLG was evaluated by nuclear staining and a DNA fragmentation assay. GLG was found to have good antioxidant activities and high total phenolic content. In H(2)O(2)-induced cell damage on H9c2 cells, GLG was demonstrated to ameliorate the apoptotic effects, such as nuclear condensations, increased intracellular caspase-3 activity and inter-nucleosomal DNA cleavage, induced by H(2)O(2). The present study demonstrated for the first time that GLG possesses anti-apoptotic potential in vitro and this effect may be mediated, in part, by its antioxidative function. Additionally, the antioxidative capacities of GLG were proved both chemically and biologically. This study provides scientific evidence to prove the anecdotal health-beneficial claim that the consumption of GLG could help the body to handle endogenous toxicants such as free radicals.


Paul Ricoeur (1913-2005) was one of the most prolific and influential French philosophers of the Twentieth Century. In his enormous corpus of work he engaged with literature, history, historiography, politics, theology and ethics, while debating 'truth' and ethical solutions to life in the face of widespread and growing suspicion about whether such a search is either possible or worthwhile. In Ricoeur and the Hermeneutics of Suspicion, Alison Scott-Baumann takes a thematic approach that explores Ricoeur's lifelong struggle to be both iconoclastic and yet hopeful, and avoid the slippery slope to relativism. Through an examination of the 'hermeneutics of suspicion', the book reveals strong continuities throughout his work, as well as significant discontinuities, such as the marked way in which he later distanced himself from the 'hermeneutics of suspicion' and his development of new devices in its place, while seeking a hermeneutics of recovery. Scott-Baumann offers a highly original analysis of the hermeneutics of suspicion that will be useful to the fields of philosophy, literature, theology and postmodern social theory.


Dendritic cells (DC) are the most efficient APC for T cells. The clinical use of DC as vectors for anti-tumor and infectious disease immunotherapy has been limited by their trace levels and accessibility in normal tissue and terminal state of differentiation. In the present study, daily injection of human Flt3 ligand (Flt3L) into mice results in a dramatic numerical increase in cells co-expressing the characteristic DC markers-class II MHC, CD11c, DEC205, and CD86. In contrast, in mice treated with either GM-CSF, GM-CSF plus IL-4, c-kit ligand (c-kitL), or G-CSF, class II+ CD11c+ cells were not significantly increased. Five distinct DC subpopulations were identified in the spleen of Flt3L-treated mice using CD8 alpha and CD11b expression. These cells exhibited veiled and dendritic processes and were as efficient as rare, mature DC isolated from the spleens of untreated mice at presenting allo-Ag or soluble Ag to T cells, or in priming an Ag-specific T cell response in vivo. Dramatic numerical increases in DC were detected in the bone marrow, gastro-intestinal lymphoid tissue (GALT), liver, lymph nodes, lung, peripheral blood, peritoneal cavity, spleen, and thymus. These results suggest that Flt3L could be used to expand the numbers of functionally mature DC in vivo for use in clinical immunotherapy.


Abstract. This paper presents a new version of the EMEP MSC-W model called eEMEP developed for transportation and dispersion of volcanic emissions, both gases and ash. EMEP MSC-W is usually applied to study problems with air pollution and aerosol transport and requires some adaptation to treat volcanic eruption sources and effluent dispersion. The operational set-up of model simulations in case of a volcanic eruption is described. Important choices have to be made to achieve CPU efficiency so that emergency situations can be tackled in time, answering relevant questions of ash advisory authorities. An efficient model needs to balance the complexity of the model and resolution. We have investigated here a meteorological uncertainty component of the volcanic cloud forecast by using a consistent ensemble meteorological dataset (GLAMEPS forecast) at three resolutions for the case of SO2 emissions from the 2014 Barðarbunga eruption. The low resolution (40 × 40 km) ensemble members show larger agreement in plume position and intensity, suggesting that the ensemble here does not give much added value. To compare the dispersion at different resolutions, we compute the area where the column load of the volcanic tracer, here SO2, is above a certain threshold, varied for testing purposes between 0.25 and 50 Dobson units. The increased numerical diffusion causes a larger area (+34 %) to be covered by the volcanic tracer in the low resolution simulations than in the high resolution ones. The higher resolution (10 × 10 km) ensemble members show higher column loads farther away from the volcanic eruption site in narrower clouds. Cloud positions are more varied between the high resolution members, and the cloud forms resemble the observed clouds more than the low resolution ones. For a volcanic emergency case this means that to obtain quickly results of the transport of volcanic emissions, an individual simulation with our low resolution is sufficient; however, to forecast peak concentrations with more certainty for forecast or scientific analysis purposes, a finer resolution is needed. The model is further developed to simulate ash from highly explosive eruptions. A possibility of increasing the number of vertical layers, achieving finer vertical resolution, as well as a higher model top, is included in the eEMEP version. Ash size distributions may be altered for different volcanic eruptions and assumptions. Since ash particles are larger than typical particles in the standard model, gravitational settling across all vertical layers is included. We attempt finally a specific validation of the simulation of ash and its vertical distribution. Model simulations with and without gravitational settling for the 2010 Eyjafjallajokull eruption are compared to lidar observations over central Europe. The results show that with gravitation the centre of the ash mass can be 1 km lower over central Europe than without gravitation. However, the height variations in the ash layer caused by real weather situations are not captured perfectly well by either of the two simulations, playing down the role of gravitation parameterization imperfections. Both model simulations have on average an ash centre of mass below the observed values. Correlations between the observed and corresponding model centres of mass are higher for the model simulation with gravitational settling for four of the six stations studied here. The inclusion of gravitational settling is suggested to be required for a volcanic ash model.


Essay scoring operates both in the classroom and in high-stakes testing and the results of essay scoring in high-stakes assessment impact on the students' academic development. Thus, teachers, students and parents are under considerable pressure in the educational system in Hong Kong.

This research investigates how effective a new Automated Essay Scoring (AES) system, the Lexile Analyzer, is in measuring essay writing ability as scored by trained, professional human raters. To do this, an estimation of rater, genre, student and rubric effects must be undertaken. Then, the estimates from the recently developed the Lexile Analyzer is modeled against those of Intelligent Essay Assessor (IEA), an AES widely used in high-stakes testing in the United States. Finally, a concurrent co-calibration of the scores of human raters, the Lexile Analyzer and IEA needs to be undertaken.

Automated Essay Scoring (AES) employs computer technology to evaluate and score written prose in the place of the usual human grading. It has become more widely accepted as an educational technology for both assessment and classroom instruction, but little research has been done on validating the performance of the AES models in an applied educational context, and only some foundational work has been performed in their calibration against human ratings (Chung & Baker, 2003). This research attempts to apply the Rasch model to co-calibrate the scales of AES systems and human raters for grading essay writing and to implement the Many-facets Rasch Measurement (MFRM) to examine the fairness and consistency of raters and adjust students' final essay scores for the measured differences in prompt difficulty and rater severity in the essay writing. Rasch measurement models can provide a framework for obtaining objective and fair measurements of writing ability which are statistically invariant over raters, writing tasks and other aspects of the writing assessment process.

In this research, there are two sets of essay writing data; one from the United States and a second from Hong Kong. All the students were administered the writing prompts from the United States National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) and essays were human raters scored by using the NAEP holistic essay marking rubrics covering the narrative, informative and persuasive genres. For the data set of students in the United States, 3453 essays were collected from 589 Grades 4 to 12 students in one school district in north-central Mississippi of the United States. All the students were administered four to six writing prompts. Every essay was rated by four of the nineteen independent paid trained raters from an established US testing company. Moreover, a sub-sample of essay writing of the students in the United States - selected to be the best matched to the levels of essay writing of the samples of Hong Kong students - were scored by two of the four experienced Hong Kong teachers of English from one local primary school. For the set of Hong Kong student essays, 408 essays were written by 137 Grade 6 Hong Kong students who were from the same local primary school as the Hong Kong raters. The students were administered two to three writing prompts, each essay was scored against the same rubric by two of the four Hong Kong English teachers. The US essays were scored using the Lexile Analyzer and IEAscoring engines; the HK essays by the Lexile Analyzer alone.

The MFRM analyses revealed that all human raters including 19 raters from the United States and 4 Hong Kong teachers of English scored essays consistently, but these two groups of raters scored essays very differently from each other according to the infit and outfit statistics. Moreover, the Lexile Analyzer and IEA scored consistently with the trained and professional human raters in this research. For the essay writing performance of students, most of the misfitting cases were students who performed erratically, produced off-topic essays or wrote essays that were scored by the most severe or lenient rater(s) in this research. For example, the students misinterpreted the instructions of the prompt; as a result, the ratings for that prompt were far worse than the students' average performances on the other prompts.

This research was conducted to calibrate the reliability of a new AES system, so teachers, students and parents are provided insight into the nature of the essay scoring process. Most importantly, the research probes issues about the fairness and consistency of essay scoring when the Lexile Analyzer is used as an assessment tool and highlights the time- and stress-saving potential of this tool for Hong Kong language teachers by overcoming problems of validity and reliability and by encouraging students' independence during their English language learning.

Undoubtedly, the results might be significant for teachers, students and parents elsewhere. The limitations of this research are related to the need for a larger set of data on student essays, scorings of human raters and AES systems. If a standard scale to measure the relative validity and reliability of the various AES systems and human raters is established, future research might provide a reference guide for the stakeholders who are involved in English essay writing assessment.


Over the last 10 years mobile money has emerged as an important innovation with a potential to increase financial access in developing countries. Mobile money is making an important contribution to financial inclusion in many ways. First, it's increasing access to financial services to a large number of people, who are effectively excluded from the commercial banking system by virtue of the fact that they live too far from banks or do not have sufficient funds to meet the minimum deposit requirements to open a bank account. Second, mobile money agents are now located in remote locations where it would not be economically viable to open a bank branch, allowing mobile money services to be extended into remote locations. Households are now able to receive remittances and social grants through mobile money. Furthermore, mobile money is now being used to facilitate access to insurance, credit and savings even for poor households in remote areas. Access to basic financial services through mobile money could enhance the ability of rural households to invest in their livelihoods and improve welfare. Because of its potential to contribute to financial access especially for the poor in developing countries, mobile money has generated immense interest among policy makers and researchers. Despite the importance of mobile money on the lives of rural households, there is limited empirical evidence on the drivers of mobile money adoption and its broader welfare effects on adopting households.
This dissertation comprises three related essays on the adoption and welfare effects of mobile money (a new financial innovation). In the first essay, we analyse whether social networks affect the adoption of mobile money. In the second essay, we analyse whether the use of mobile money technology has an effect on household food security. In the third essay, we analyse the effect of mobile money on household welfare and poverty. In the second and third essays, we specify two alternatives of the treatment variable. We used a dummy variable for mobile money use as well as intensity of using mobile money. We address these questions using cross-section data collected from rural households in Uganda. Uganda offers an interesting case study because the use of mobile money is growing rapidly. About 27% of the population in Uganda is using mobile money and this has surpassed 20% of the population with bank accounts. In addition, over 70% of the population resides in rural areas where banking infrastructure is underprovided.
In the first essay, we analyse the effect of social networks on the adoption of mobile money. In developing countries, financial information services are underprovided, limiting household's ability to adopt new financial innovations. In most cases, households rely on social networks to get information on new innovations. Interestingly, no previous studies have systematically analysed how social networks affect mobile money adoption. We contribute to this limited literature by using unique social interactions household level data collected through the random matching within sample approach. A conditional logistic regression model is estimated controlling for household characteristics, correlated effects, and other possible information sources. We find that information exchange within social networks helps disseminate information about mobile money and has enhanced its adoption. An increase in the exchange adopters within household social network increases the odds of adopting mobile money by 77% points. However, the structure of the social network appears to have no effect on mobile money adoption. We also analyse the effect of social networks, separately for poor and non-poor households. Our results show that social network effects, and in particular the size of exchange adopters appear to be more pronounced for non-poor households. These findings have important policy implications for the diffusion of mobile money. In particular, they suggest that exchange within social networks help disseminate information about mobile money. The adoption of mobile money is likely to be increased if promotion programs reach more social networks. Furthermore, mobile money promotion programs need to reach the poor, because our evidence suggests that the poor may be trapped in information-poor networks and thus social network multiplier effects will most likely not automatically work in their case. Improving rural household's access to informal information channels is particularly important in developing countries, where formal information institutions are lacking. There is a need for policy makers, mobile money service providers and extension to strengthen and utilize informal institutions to disseminate information about mobile money.
In the second essay, we analyse the effect of mobile money on household food security. Mobile money technology is growing rapidly in developing countries. However, empirical studies of the broader welfare effects of the technology on rural households are limited. This essay contributes to the emerging literature on mobile money in several ways. First, we study the effects of mobile money on food security – an issue high on the global policy agenda. This has not been addressed in previous literature. Second, unlike studies that use one measure of food security, we contribute methodologically by using two measures of food security. We account for potential endogeneity of mobile money by using treatment effects and instrumental variable regression techniques. Controlling for other factors, use of mobile money decreases household relative food insecurity by 0.20 index points. Furthermore, we find that use of mobile money and intensity of using mobile money increases monthly food expenditure per adult equivalent by 9% and 1.4% points respectively. We conclude that mobile money positively affects food security. Interventions and strategies to improve household food security should consider the promotion of mobile money among rural households in Uganda and other developing countries.
In the third essay, we extend our analysis and study the effect of mobile money on household welfare and poverty. We measured welfare using household consumption expenditure. We measured poverty using the consumption poverty and multidimensional poverty index. We estimate instrumental variable and endogenous switching probit regressions to control for the potential endogeneity of mobile money. Model results show that use and intensity of using mobile money increases consumption expenditure by 10% and 2% points respectively. Based on consumption poverty, our model estimates highlight that use of mobile money reduces the probability of being poor among users by 10% points. Furthermore, among non-users the probability of being could be reduced by 5% points if they were to use mobile money. In addition, higher intensity of using mobile money reduces the likelihood of being poor by 1% point. The use of mobile money reduces multidimensional poverty by 0.67 index points. We find that a unit increase in the intensity of using mobile money reduces multidimensional poverty by 0.07 index points. Our results for the effects of mobile money are robust to alternative specifications of the treatment and poverty outcome variables. The results confirm that mobile money is welfare-enhancing and reduces household poverty. Policy interventions to improve household welfare and reduce poverty should embrace the promotion of mobile money among rural households in Uganda. In the last part of this dissertation (Chapter 5), we conclude and summarize the key study findings. We derive policy recommendations and elaborate the study limitations and considerations for future research.


A height field is a set of height distance values sampled at a finite set of sample points in a two-dimensional parameter domain. A height field usually contains a lot of redundant information, much of which can be removed without a substantial degradation of its quality. A common approach to reducing the size of a height field representation is to use a piecewise polygonal surface approximation. This consists of a mesh of polygons that approximates the surfaces of the original data at a desired level of accuracy. Polygonal surface approximation of height fields has numerous applications in the fields of computer graphics and computer vision. Triangular mesh approximations are a popular means of representing three-dimensional surfaces, and multiresolution analysis (MRA) is often used to obtain compact representations of dense input data, as well as to allow surface approximations at varying spatial resolution. Multiresolution approaches, particularly those moving from coarse to fine resolutions, can often improve the computational efficiency of mesh generation as well as can provide easy control of level of details for approximations. This dissertation concerns the use of wavelet-based MRA methods to produce a triangular-mesh surface approximation from a single height field dataset. The goal of this study is to obtain a fast surface approximation for a set of height data, using a small number of approximating elements to satisfy a given error criterion. Typically, surface approximation techniques attempt to balance error of fit, number of approximating elements, and speed of computation. A novel aspect of this approach is the direct evaluation of wavelet coefficients to assess surface shape characteristics within each triangular element at a given scale. Our approach hierarchically subdivides and refines triangles as the resolution level increases.


We present a method for segmenting and estimating the shape of 3D objects from range data. The technique uses model views, or aspects, to constrain the fitting of deformable models to range data. Based on an initial region segmentation of a range image, regions are grouped into aspects corresponding to the volumetric parts that make up an object. The qualitative segmentation of the range image into a set of volumetric parts not only captures the coarse shape of the parts, but qualitatively encodes the orientation of each part through its aspect. Knowledge of a part's coarse shape, its orientation, as well as the mapping between the faces in its aspect and the surfaces on the part provides strong constraints on the fitting of a deformable model (supporting both global and local deformations) to the data. Unlike previous work in physics-based deformable model recovery from range data, the technique does not require presegmented data. Furthermore, occlusion is handled at segmentation time and does not complicate the fitting process, as only 3D points known to belong to a part participate in the fitting of a model to the part. We present the approach in detail and apply it to the recovery of objects from range data.


This article introduces a solution of design simulation system based on data processing. It is to observe and analyze user behavior by reflecting a large number of user behavior data trajectories on city maps. We believe that under the technical background of big data and cloud technology, it is possible to build a tool that can help designers to predict user behavior to a certain extent. This article describes the design of the simulation system divided into five stages: data collection, local database establishment, cloud database establishment, user model simulation, and user model-based behavior prediction. We also introduce the experimental design for the first stage: data collection. This research proposes an experimental method of using sensor-based wearable data collecting devices to simulate the scenario with users of smart wearable devices and using the method of diary studies to create user profiles. The study believes that user's emotion data, such as subjective feelings, which is difficult to measure directly through physical sensors, also plays an important role in the simulation analysis of the design process. This study collated the multi-dimensional information categories needed for user analysis of geolocation-based designs, including geographic data, biological data, and emotional data. In the experiment, a mechanism for collecting emotional data through user's subjective selection was also introduced.


I WANT TO BEGIN BY OFFERING MY SINCERE THANKS TO Andrew Kashdan and Daniel Klein for their spirited critique of my work. They have read me carefully and raised many important questions. But before responding to them in detail, I want to say something about what they perceive as my shortage of "libertarian sensibilities about politics, government, and society.â€


Home heating is a major factor in worldwide energy use. Our system, PreHeat, aims to more efficiently heat homes by using occupancy sensing and occupancy prediction to automatically control home heating. We deployed PreHeat in five homes, three in the US and two in the UK. In UK homes, we controlled heating on a per-room basis to enable further energy savings. We compared PreHeat's prediction algorithm with a static program over an average 61 days per house, alternating days between these conditions, and measuring actual gas consumption and occupancy. In UK homes PreHeat both saved gas and reduced MissTime (the time that the house was occupied but not warm). In US homes, PreHeat decreased MissTime by a factor of 6-12, while consuming a similar amount of gas. In summary, PreHeat enables more efficient heating while removing the need for users to program thermostat schedules.


Policy-based mechanisms are used to implement desired autonomic behavior of a managed system in a distributed environment. For modern dynamically changing systems, policy-based mechanisms tend to be too rigid, and quickly lose their efficacy when conditions of the autonomous system change during its operation. In this paper, we propose a generative policy framework that can generate policies for an autonomous system when conditions change. For changed conditions, the policy generation manager dynamically generates new set of policies optimized for the new situation. As a use case, we demonstrate how our generative policy framework generates policies for selecting optimal data for an AI model training. The policies are dynamically generated based on the availability and trustworthiness of data in a coalition environment.


This paper describes the development of a social game, BeatLED, using music, movement and luminescent textile. The game is based on a tool used in research on synchronization of movement and music, and social entrainment at the Institute of Psychoacoustics and Electronic Music (IPEM) at Ghent University. Players, divided into several teams, synchronize to music and receive a score in realtime, depending on how well they synchronize with the music and each other. While this paper concentrates on the game design and dynamics, an appropriate and original means of providing output to the end users was needed. To accommodate this output, a flexible, stretchable LED-display was developed at CMST (Ghent University), and embedded into textile. In this paper we analyze the characteristics a musical social game should have, as well as the overall merit of such a game. We discuss the various technologies involved, the game design and dynamics, a proof-of-concept implementation and the most prominent test results. We conclude that a real-world implementation of this game not only is feasible, but would also have several applications in multiple sectors, such as musicology research, team-building and health care.


In this article, I examine emergent performances of fashion(able) and fashion(ed) black masculine identities manifest in work by selected young fashion designers and design collectives currently practicing in the urban environs of Johannesburg. These vibrant, dynamic, youth-orientated forms of cultural practice encompassa range of transnational, transhistorical, transcultural, black masculine identities. I contend that such identities are achieved through use of "hypersampling": theremixing, re-appropriating, reintegrating, fusing, conjoining, interfacing and mashing-up of often disparate elements gleaned from a multiplicity of sources to produce new fashion styles.
Many of these practitioners' work can be said to include characteristics of "black dandyism" - appropriations of dandyesque dress and fashionable display as a means of performing black diasporic masculinities. Focusing on the work of two Johannesburg-based design collectives, Khumbula and the Sartists, I show how, through hyper sampling strategies, both look back to the past, consuming, hyper sampling and re-cycling images from Southern and South African history. Both deploy transhistorical and transcultural referents as a means of subversive resistance: a mechanism through which to negotiate, problematise or disrupt prevailing power relations embedded within them, whilst also operating as a form of creative agency through which to express shifting notions of black masculinities in the context of the African metropolis of Johannesburg.


In many environmental and conservation policy contexts, gaps are observed between policy objectives and implementation outcomes. Carbon farming policies are designed to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions, but policy success depends on the participation of land managers and their adoption of alternative land management practices. We surveyed Western Australian farmers to gauge their knowledge of carbon farming, their current adoption of carbon farming practices, and identified the drivers and barriers to adoption. Drivers for adoption included knowledge and perception of co-benefits (for yield, productivity, and the environment); beliefs and attitudes about climate change and its causes. Key barriers to the adopting carbon farming practices included policy and political uncertainty, and on-farm characteristics. We conclude that, to increase participation, the productivity benefits of carbon farming practices must be actively promoted and practices must be easy to integrate into existing farming systems.


US objectives during the Cold War were to prevent Soviet attacks on the United States and its allies and to prevent the spread of communism as a political and economic system to other countries, whether by force or by threat, subversion, persuasion, or bribery. The principal instrument to prevent attack was an extensive build-up of defensive and retaliatory military forces, combined with political and military alliances that extended US protection to other countries in exchange for their engagement and support. The principal instruments for preventing the spread of communism by non-military means involved building an international economic system conducive to economic prosperity; engaging in persuasion, providing incentives, and occasionally imposing economic sanctions; and, not least, promoting a robust US economy that could serve as a stimulant to others and as a beacon for the benefits of a free, enterprise-based, market-oriented economy.


This thesis presents the design, fabrication and characterization of a multiband uniplanar MIMO antenna for hand-held mobile communication devices on LTE, WLAN, and WMAN networks. The antenna design methodology combined a variety of broadbanding techniques that resulted in a single-layer hybrid monopole antenna coupled to a meander line element and parasitic structures. The 115×55×1.54 mm antenna was fabricated using an FR4 composite material and occupies only a fractional volume within the size of an average cellular phone allowing ample space to integrate with existing hardware. Characterization of the MIMO antenna included input impedance, scattering parameters and radiation pattern cross sections that were all measured from 500-6500 MHz inside an anechoic chamber. The measurement results indicated four main operating regions of the multiband antenna centered at 875 MHz, 2300 MHz, 3500 MHz, and 5700 MHz with bandwidths of 240 MHz, 740 MHz, 190 MHz, and 370 MHz respectively. Scattering parameter measurements demonstrated excellent coverage of the desired communication spectrum, being able to operate on 30 of the 42 defined LTE bands, as well as common WLAN and WMAN bands. The radiation pattern cross sections in each of the operating regions showed non-directional behavior that is desirable for mobile communication devices. Additionally the envelope correlation coefficient calculated from the measured complex scattering parameters verified that the MIMO antenna achieved good system diversity. Overall, this work resulted in a multiband uniplanar MIMO antenna system suitable for hand-held mobile communication devices. Utilizing cost effective materials and simple geometries allowed fabrication using common methods. The novel antenna can support the high capacity required from evolving communication systems and represents a practical option for use within future generations of mobile devices.


Abstract In this essay I analyse Kant's view on the regulative role of reason, and in particular on what he describes as the 'indispensably necessary' role of ideas qua foci imaginarii in the Appendix. I review two influential readings of what has become known as the 'transcendental illusion' and I offer a novel reading that builds on some of the insights of these earlier readings. I argue that ideas of reason act as imaginary standpoints, which are indispensably necessary for scientific knowledge by making inter-conversational agreement possible. Thus, I characterise scientific knowledge as a distinctive kind of perspectival knowledge. This novel reading can illuminate the role of reason in complementing the faculty of understanding and sheds light on the apparent dichotomy between the first and the second part of the Appendix. More to the point, this novel reading takes us right to the heart of what scientific knowledge is, according to Kant, and how it differs from bogus knowledge and opinion.


[About the book]

The existence of the separate criminal jurisdiction in Scotland is ignored by most criminological texts purporting to consider crime and criminal justice in 'Britain' or the 'UK'. This book offers a critically-informed analysis and understanding of crime and criminal justice in contemporary Scotland. It considers key areas of criminal justice policy making in Scotland; in particular the extent to which criminal justice in Scotland is increasingly divergent from other UK jurisdictions as well as pressures that may lead to convergences in particular areas, for instance, in relation to trends in youth justice and penal policy.

The book considers the extent to which Scottish crime and criminal justice is being affected both by devolution as well as the wider pressures resulting from globalization, Europeanisation and new patterns of migration.

While the book has a Scottish focus, it also offers new ways of thinking about criminal justice – relating these issues to wider social divisions and inequalities in contemporary Scottish and UK society. It extends the 'gaze' and analysis of criminology by exploring issues such as environmental crime, urban disorder and the new urbanism as well as crimes of the rich and powerful and corporate crime, giving it a relevance and resonance far beyond Scotland.

Criminal Justice in Scotland will be an essential text for students in Scotland taking courses in criminology, sociology, social policy, social sciences, law and police sciences, as well as criminal justice practitioners and policy makers in Scotland. It will also be an essential source for students of comparative criminology elsewhere and academics wishing to take Scotland into account in thinking about criminal justice in the UK.


ABSTRACT Of 100 strains of iron-oxidizing bacteria isolated,Thiobacillus ferrooxidans SUG 2-2 was the most resistant to mercury toxicity and could grow in an Fe2+ medium (pH 2.5) supplemented with 6 μM Hg2+. In contrast, T. ferrooxidans AP19-3, a mercury-sensitive T. ferrooxidans strain, could not grow with 0.7 μM Hg2+. When incubated for 3 h in a salt solution (pH 2.5) with 0.7 μM Hg2+, resting cells of resistant and sensitive strains volatilized approximately 20 and 1.7%, respectively, of the total mercury added. The amount of mercury volatilized by resistant cells, but not by sensitive cells, increased to 62% when Fe2+ was added. The optimum pH and temperature for mercury volatilization activity were 2.3 and 30°C, respectively. Sodium cyanide, sodium molybdate, sodium tungstate, and silver nitrate strongly inhibited the Fe2+-dependent mercury volatilization activity of T. ferrooxidans. When incubated in a salt solution (pH 3.8) with 0.7 μM Hg2+ and 1 mM Fe2+, plasma membranes prepared from resistant cells volatilized 48% of the total mercury added after 5 days of incubation. However, the membrane did not have mercury reductase activity with NADPH as an electron donor. Fe2+-dependent mercury volatilization activity was not observed with plasma membranes pretreated with 2 mM sodium cyanide. Rusticyanin from resistant cells activated iron oxidation activity of the plasma membrane and activated the Fe2+-dependent mercury volatilization activity of the plasma membrane.


Richard Posner may be America's most celebrated living judge, and although he does not sit on our highest court, his career marks an unmatched fusion of judicial leadership and prolific scholarship. Given such renown and experience, Posner's book How Judges Think cannot escape high expectations. Indeed, Posner cites his credentials in offering to "part[] the curtains" and reveal truths about judging that he thinks have been overlooked by bookshelves of prior commentary.For professors, practitioners, students, and even other judges, Posner's lure may seem irresistible — after all, who wouldn't like to know how judges think? Yet the book does not match its promise. Posner offers no descriptive anecdotes about his colleagues or himself, and he proffers only meager evidence about judges' behavior in the aggregate. Instead, Posner's arguments are conceptual or theoretical, and thus the book describes primarily "how Posner thinks" and "how Posner thinks judges should think."This Review criticizes several of Posner's substantive points, but my main argument is that his book is methodologically incomplete. Just like the theorists he condemns, Posner discounts judicial history as a determinant of judicial role. Judicial behavior is heavily influenced by historical traditions, as is law itself. By neglecting the foundational links between history and judicial conduct, Posner cannot answer the questions posed by his book's title, and this offers a cautionary tale for the rest of us who study judicial behavior.


The existing chronology for the Chagyrskaya Cave is based on 19 radiocarbon (14C) age determinations (Derevianko et al., 2013; Rudaya et al., 2017) made on bison bones from stratigraphic layers 5 (n = 2) and 6 (n = 17). Several of the bones from layer 6 have cut marks consistent with those made by stone tools. Except for the uppermost sample from layer 5 (which has a calendar-year 14C age of 37,670–38,690 cal. BP at the 95 % confidence interval), all other age estimates fell at or beyond the reliable dating limit for these materials (Wood, 2015) and the current ceiling on 14C age calibration of c. 50,000 cal. BP (Reimer et al., 2013). Minimum (infinite) measured ages of 49,000 BP and 52,000 BP were obtained for 9 and 6 of the samples, respectively (Derevianko et al., 2013; Rudaya et al., 2017). The 14C chronology for Chagyrskaya Cave indicates, therefore, that layer 6, the underlying layer 7 and part of the overlying layer 5 were deposited 50,000 years or more ago. Finite ages for these deposits can be obtained by optical dating of the sediments, which provides an estimate of the time since grains of luminescent minerals, such as quartz and potassium-rich feldspar (K-feldspar), were last exposed to sunlight (Huntley, Godfrey-Smith, Thewalt, 1985; Hütt, Jaek, Tchonka, 1988; Aitken, 1998; Jacobs, Roberts, 2007; Wintle, 2014; Roberts et al., 2015). The burial age is estimated by dividing the equivalent dose (De, a measure of the radiation energy absorbed by grains during their period of burial) by the environmental dose rate (the rate of supply of ionising radiation to the grains over the same period). The De is determined from laboratory measurements of the optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) from quartz or the infrared stimulated luminescence (IRSL) from K-feldspar, and the dose rate is estimated from field and laboratory measurements of environmental radioactivity, plus the small contribution from cosmic rays. Each of these minerals has advantages and shortcomings compared to the other. In particular, the quartz OSL signal is bleached by light more rapidly and completely than is the feldspar IRSL signal, which is advantageous if grains were exposed to sunlight only briefly at deposition. K-feldspar, on the other hand, saturates a much higher dose than does the quartz OSL signal, thereby enabling finite ages to be determined for samples with larger De values and, hence, older deposits.


To keep up with the explosive growth of world-wide network traffic, large-capacity switches, with switching capacities in excess of several terabits per second, are becoming an essential part of the future. To realize such switches, new architecture concepts must be considered. In this paper, we discuss a technology for terabit switches that combines the advantage of using optical communication in all three spatial dimensions and the benefits of using surface mounted optoelectronic as well as electronic chips. We present three different types of packet-based switch fabrics, all based on the optical planar interconnection technology. We then discuss these in terms of capacity, scalability, and physical size. All three implementations have a single switch plane cross-sectional bandwidth exceeding 5 Tbps.


This special issue of the HSR is dedicated to John Higley in honour of his continued accomplishment as a distin-guished scholar and prolific author whose seminal publi-cations on the role of elites in politics and society have contributed to the contemporary revival of elite research. The volume assembles contributions from fourteen au-thors, ranging from theoretical analyses to empirical stud-ies of elites in old and new democracies. Proceeding from the emergence of elites with the advent of complex societies, the chapters show the wide application of elite theory in understanding social and political developments.
One group of chapters focuses on the continued rele-vance of three classics of elite theory, Max Weber, Gaetano Mosca, and Joseph Schumpeter, which call into question some unrealistically optimistic assumptions of the theory of democratic elitism and egalitarian socialism. Another group addresses post-communist elite transfor-mations and the formation of transnational elites, and demonstrates the relevance of elite studies for under-standing abrupt as well as gradual regime change. A final group of papers discusses the dynamics of elite-mass relations by comparing the attitudes and behaviours of elites to those of mass publics. In addition to these dedicated contributions, the issue also includes reprints of a selection of John Higley's seminal articles and book chapters.


In Italy, a national surveillance system for chikungunya fever coordinated by the National Public Health Institute has been in place since August 2006. In summer 2007, an outbreak of chikungunya fever affected the Italian provinces of Ravenna, Cesena-Forli and Rimini [1-3]. As of 16 December 2007, health authorities identified 214 laboratory-confirmed cases with date of onset from 15 July to 28 September 2007. Most cases (161) occurred in the two neighbouring villages of Castiglione di Cervia and Castiglione di Ravenna, but limited local transmission also took place in the cities of Ravenna, Cesena, Cervia, and Rimini. In September 2007, two confirmed cases (two women aged 68 and 70) were reported among residents of the city of Bologna (373,026 inhabitants). Both had a history of travel in the affected areas (municipality of Cervia). No unusual increase in the density of Aedes albopictus mosquitoes in the Bologna area was noted at that time (September).


Abstract Geophysical fluid models often support both fast and slow motions. As the dynamics are often dominated by the slow motions, it is desirable to filter out the fast motions by constructing balance models. An example is the quasi-geostrophic (QG) model, which is used widely in meteorology and oceanography for theoretical studies, in addition to practical applications such as model initialization and data assimilation. Although the QG model works quite well in the mid-latitudes, its usefulness diminishes as one approaches the equator. Thus far, attempts to derive similar balance models for the tropics have not been entirely successful as the models generally filter out Kelvin waves, which contribute significantly to tropical low-frequency variability. There is much theoretical interest in the dynamics of planetary-scale Kelvin waves, especially for atmospheric and oceanic data assimilation where observations are generally only of the mass field and thus do not constrain the wind field without some kind of diagnostic balance relation. As a result, estimates of Kelvin wave amplitudes can be poor. Our goal is to find a balance model that includes Kelvin waves for planetary-scale motions. Using asymptotic methods, we derive a balance model for the weakly nonlinear equatorial shallow-water equations. Specifically we adopt the 'slaving' method proposed by Warn et al. (Q. J. R. Meteorol. Soc., vol. 121, 1995, pp. 723–739), which avoids secular terms in the expansion and thus can in principle be carried out to any order. Different from previous approaches, our expansion is based on a long-wave scaling and the slow dynamics is described using the height field instead of potential vorticity. The leading-order model is equivalent to the truncated long-wave model considered previously (e.g. Heckley & Gill, Q. J. R. Meteorol. Soc., vol. 110, 1984, pp. 203–217), which retains Kelvin waves in addition to equatorial Rossby waves. Our method allows for the derivation of higher-order models which significantly improve the representation of Rossby waves in the isotropic limit. In addition, the 'slaving' method is applicable even when the weakly nonlinear assumption is relaxed, and the resulting nonlinear model encompasses the weakly nonlinear model. We also demonstrate that the method can be applied to more realistic stratified models, such as the Boussinesq model.


Over the past half century, energy law has endured many stranded cost experiments, each helping firms and customers adjust to a new normal. However, these past experiments have contributed to a myopic regulatory approach to past stranded cost recovery by: (1) endorsing a preference for addressing all stranded costs only after energy resource investment decisions have been made; and (2) fixating on the firm's financial costs and protection of investors, rather than on the broader impacts of each on the energy system. The current transition to decarbonization is already giving rise to stranded cost claims related to existing energy assets like coal-fired and nuclear power plants. New energy infrastructure investments — such as natural gas pipelines and natural gas-fired power plants — will also face stranded cost issues once they have provided the expected bridge to a clean energy future.We see the transition to grid decarbonization as a propitious opportunity for energy law to improve its approach to stranded cost compensation for investor risks. Unlike with past energy industry changes, where stranded costs were routinely addressed after investment decisions were made, it is important for regulators to address stranded costs now, at the outset of the transition to a decarbonized grid. As in the past, stranded cost compensation will prove important, if not essential, to this impending energy transition. But it should be approached in a manner that helps to overcome the obstacles to a decarbonized grid, reassure investors in new infrastructure without distorting capital signals to favor legacy resources, and recognize important energy resource attributes that competitive markets fail to price.


Background and objective: Primary brain lymphoma is an extranodal aggressive intracranial neoplasm of lymphocytic origin originating and confined to the brain parenchyma and meninges. It is rare in immune competent patients, but its incidence is increasing. This retrospective study was conducted to record the MRI features of primary brain lymphoma at the time of diagnosis in immunocompetent patients.
Methods: Of the 450 patients diagnosed with the brain tumor during a period of five years from 2008 to 2013, the clinical features and MRI findings of 16 cases of pathologically proven to be non-Hodgkin's lymphoma were studied. All the patients were tested negative for HIV and there was no history of immune suppression drugs or any other chronic illness. All the patients were examined with MRI observing the tumor location, multifocality, signal intensity in different sequences, enhancement patterns, peritumoral edema, the presence of hemorrhage and calcification.
Results: Of the 16 patients, including the monofocal and multifocal cases, 30 lesions exhibited. The mean age at diagnosis was 53 years. Nine patients (56.25%) found to have a multifocal disease. In more than 75% of lesions, MRI was hypo to iso signal on T1 and T2. Mild to moderate perilesional edema, strong contrast enhancement and restricted diffusion were seen in all cases. The hemorrhagic tumor was noticed in four lesions (13.3%). No calcification and no leptomeningeal lesions were noted. The MRI images in post steroid therapy were studied within one month of treatment. Tumour regression was noticed in 21/30 (70%), stable in 3/30 (10%) and progressing in 6/30 (20%).
Conclusion: MRI is a reliable imaging technique in the management of patients with primary brain lymphoma. Early accurate diagnosis is crucial to avoid the unnecessary operation and shift patients from extensive surgery to chemoradiotherapy.


Despite greater emphasis in the last decade on sex education programmes for young people who have learning disabilities, there are few reports of sexual counselling or sex therapy. This case study discusses a married couple who had been married for seven months and who had been together for the previous year. Sexual intercourse had only been achieved on two occasions. This was too low in frequency for both partners. No other problems, such as lack of time in foreplay or insufficient enjoyment of the act itself was mentioned, at this time, by either partner. On the two occasions of sexual intercourse, both partners stated that they had reached orgasm. There were no indications of any difficulties in either partner's sexual history (such as abuse), and their knowledge of sexual matters met the standards of routine education packages for people with learning disabilities. A number of standard measures were amended and used to assess current functioning and to chart progress. For treatment, an approach in two phases was used.


The Utility Nuclear Waste and Transportation Program of the Edison Electric Institute (EEI/UWASTE) has conducted reviews of the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) repository program through its Repository Information Exchange Team (RIET or Team). Eight such reviews have been conducted since 1985 covering topics that include repository program management and control; repository schedule; repository budget; quality assurance; site characterization; repository licensing; environmental issues; and institutional and public information activities. The utility industry has used these repository program reviews as a forum for providing DOE's Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management (OCRWM) with comments on the direction of the repository program, advice for future actions regarding quality assurance activities and repository licensing, and suggestions for management and control of the Repository Program. The most significant recommendations made by the utility industry through the RIET are discussed along with any subsequent action by OCRWM in response to or subsequent to utility industry recommendations. The process used by the RIET to develop its recommendations to OCRWM regarding the repository program is also discussed.


OBJECTIVES
To identify the relationship between demographic, clinical and treatment variables and measures of psychiatric rehabilitation status among chronic schizophrenia patients residing in rehabilitation hostels in the community.

METHOD
Demographic and clinical data were collected from a sample of 89 patients. The data included: age, gender, education, origin immigration status, age of onset of the illness, family history of mental illness, early parental loss status, psychiatric symptoms (measured by the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale) and compliance with medication. Rehabilitation status was assessed by using 5 measures extracted from the Wisconsin Quality of Life-Provider Questionnaire: occupational activities, social relations and social support, activities of daily living, mean days of readmission and recidivism.

RESULTS
Psychiatric symptoms, drug compliance and the age of the patient were the only variables that were correlated with the rehabilitation measures. The symptoms showed a robust relationship with all five measures, drug compliance was highly correlated with the occupational activities, social relations/social support and activities of daily living measures and the age of the patient correlated with the social relations/social supportand activities of daily living measures. Drug compliance was also correlated with the symptoms.

CONCLUSIONS
The results indicate that older patients, patients with more profound psychiatric symptoms and patients who do not comply with medication manifest a lower rehabilitation status. While these factors may seem self-evident in the clinical environment, they might be overlooked in the community environment and make rehabilitation less efficient.


During an investigation of coronary risk factors, a population 20 to 54 years old in Tromsø, Northern Norway was screened for transient ischemic cerebral attacks. Three simple screening questions were used. Sixteen thousand six hundred and twenty-one subjects participated in the study. Among the responders, a sample of 501 were evaluated neurologically and 10 men and 16 women identified as TIA cases. Mean age for men was 41.3 years, for women 33 years. Five women (mean age 24.4) had the events during pregnancy, pointing to pregnancy as a period of risk. Five-year incidence was found to be 2.5. per 1000. Clinical expressions and ratio carotid to vertebral-basilar TIA hardly differed from that found in materials of older patients. All 26 remained stroke-free during a mean observation period of 55 months. Known risk factors like hypertension, carotid stenosis and cardiac disease were found in only a few. Five women had low blood pressure. It is suggested that TIA in younger age groups may constitute a separate entity where, among other, haemodynamic factors and pregnancy play a role.


Abstract  Tegaserod is a 5‐HT4 receptor partial agonist approved for the treatment of irritable bowel syndrome in women with constipation and in both men and women with chronic constipation. The efficacy of tegaserod is based on the importance of 5‐HT4 receptors regulating intestinal peristalsis and secretion, and possibly visceral sensory pathways. Our aim was to investigate the effect of tegaserod on colorectal sensitivity using models of normal and exaggerated responsiveness to colorectal distension (CRD). The visceromotor responses (VMR) to CRD at graded pressures (0–60 mmHg) were measured by the number of reflex abdominal contractions. Acute colorectal hypersensitivity was induced by intracolonic infusion of dilute acetic acid. Chronic hypersensitivity was observed in rats following spontaneous resolution of trinitrobenzenesulfonic acid‐induced colitis. Rats with normosensitive colons served as controls. Tegaserod (0.1–10 mg kg−1) caused dose‐dependent reduction of the VMR to CRD in control rats and in those with colonic hypersensitivity. 5‐HT4 antagonists reversed the effects of tegaserod in rats with normosensitive colons, and partially inhibited effects in rats with colonic hypersensitivity. Central administration of tegaserod had no inhibitory effect. These results support the assumption that colonic hypersensitivity could be normalized by tegaserod acting, at least in part, through peripheral 5‐HT4 receptors.


The aim of this work is to analyse the behaviour of agents in highly concentrated and strongly regulated electricity wholesale markets with rigid demand. In order to accomplish this aim, the analysis was based on the former Spanish electricity generation market, between January 1999 and June 2007, before the MIBEL (Iberian Electricity Market) has started. The analysis is carried out in the theoretical framework of the structural models. Despite the characteristics of this market, the paper suggests that the average high mark-ups observed in the period examined were very likely due to the implementation of anti-competitive strategies. Therefore, the analysis carried out shows that the opening of a wholesale electricity market without the prior increase in the number of market players does not prevent, by itself, the manipulation of the market, even when the market is strongly regulated.


Policy summary of paper presented at the regional conference on Rethinking regional security: Nexus between research and policy, November 25-26, 2015, University of Canterbury. A partnership between University of Canterbury, Australian National University, United National Development Program and International Political Science Association


As the most widely used synthetic material on the planet, concrete poses a serious societal concern regarding its significant environmental footprint. There is a global urgency to develop innovative strategies to develop greener concrete with improved strength and durability (to do more with less). In this context, reducing cement hydrate porosity via tuning the kinetics and morphology of its building blocks is highly desired but a fundamental challenge. Herein, we propose for the first time a unique pathway involving in situ seed generation and subsequent controlled overgrowth, demonstrating the morphogenesis of cement hydrate ranging from cubic, rhombohedral, dendritic to core–shell-like structures, which are all expressed in a single morphology diagram. Probing the mechanics of individual particles versus their assemblies at larger scales reveals that the low porosity attained by the formation of face-to-face close-packed cubic particles leads to significantly improved mechanics, opening up an entirely new phase space for bottom-up engineering of concrete while curbing its negative environmental impacts.