Constipation is a common clinical symptom and it is a highly frequent complication in patients with chronic gastrointestinal disorder and intestinal tumor. The chemicals such as DMH (Dimethylhydrazine) can also induce intestinal tumor. Loperamide-induced constipation model was established to verify that chronic constipation can increase the risk of intestinal tumor. 128 Kunming mice were divided into four groups, namely, healthy, chronic constipation, intestinal tumor induced by chronic constipation and intestinal tumor with constipation after DMH (Dimethylhydrazine) induction. Our experiments are conducted to evaluate the effects of chemical and chronic constipation induction of intestinal tumor for understanding their different mechanisms. High-throughput analysis methods (RNA-seq) are used to sequence the transcriptome of mouse intestinal tissue. GO and KEGG database are used to identify metabolism pathways and related genes. Through the comparison among the different experimental groups the Differentially Expressed Genes (DEGs) are identified, respectively. The metabolic pathways and DEGS about DMH and chronic constipation induction are very different. According to the analysis of different metabolic pathways and related genes the different tumorigenesis and modulation mechanisms of chemical and chronic constipation induction are revealed.


A fast algorithm for multiscale representation and segmentation of hyperspectral imagery is introduced in this paper. The multiscale/scale-space representation is obtained by solving a nonlinear diffusion partial differential equation (PDE) for vector-valued images. We use algebraic multigrid techniques to obtain a fast and scalable solution of the PDE and to segment the hyperspectral image following the intrinsic multigrid structure. We test our algorithm on four standard hyperspectral images that represent different environments commonly found in remote sensing applications: agricultural, urban, mining, and marine. The experimental results show that the segmented images lead to better classification than using the original data directly, in spite of the use of simple similarity metrics and piecewise constant approximations obtained from the segmentation maps.


This paper provides a theory to explain the paradoxical features of the great housing boom in China– the persistently faster-than-GDP housing price growth, exceptionally high capital returns, and excessive vacancy rates. The expectation that high capital returns driven mainly by resource reallocation are not sustainable in the long run can induce the very productive entrepreneurs to speculate in housing during economic transition. This creates a self-fulfilling growing housing bubble, which can create severe resource misallocation. A calibrated version of the theory accounts quantitatively for both the growth dynamics of house prices and other salient features of the recent Chinese experience.


ABSTRACT The siscowet Salvelinus namaycush is a deepwater morphotype of lake trout in Lake Superior. As part of a standardized lake-wide survey in 2006 to assess siscowet populations, bottom-set, multi-mesh gill nets were fished at 36.6 m depth intervals from near shore areas to the deepest waters in south-central Lake Superior. Siscowet length distributions, diet compositions, and sea lamprey wounding rates were compared for three depth zones: shallow (< 200 m), deep (200–394 m), and deepest (395–399 m). There were 39 siscowets collected in proximity to Lake Superior's greatest recorded depth of 405 m. To our knowledge, this is the greatest depth that fish have been collected in the Great Lakes. Higher proportions of siscowets ≤ 500 mm were caught in the shallow zone compared to deeper zones. Deepwater sculpins were the dominant prey for small siscowets (< 600 mm) across all depth zones. The diet of large siscowets (≥ 600 mm) among all depth zones comprised mostly of coregonines and burbot Lota lota. Terrestrial insects were observed in the diet of siscowets in all depth zones, indicating migration to the surface. Type A sea lamprey wounding rates were higher for large (≥ 600 mm) than small siscowets among all depth zones. The highest wounding rate was observed on large siscowets in the deep zone. Recent work indicates that siscowets are the most abundant lake trout form and this research indicates that siscowets use the maximum depths of Lake Superior.


Organisations can use supply chain strategies to gain a competitive advantage for the supply chain. A competitive advantage can be achieved by means of low cost or by means of differentiation. However, organisations have to implement the correct supply chain strategy. Returns on investment can be compromised if organisations implement an incorrect supply chain strategy. The objective of the article is to analyse the differences between theoretically implied and implemented supply chain strategies within selected organisations. The differences between supply chain strategies implied by literature and those implemented by selected organisations are analysed by determining how the organisations are managing their supply chain drivers. Organisations with lean supply chains should manage their supply chain drivers to achieve efficiency, while organisations with agile supply chains should manage their supply chain drivers with responsiveness towards customers' needs in mind. Non-probability sampling was used to include 13 organisations in the research. Six organisations are implementing different supply chain strategies to what literature principles are suggesting to them based on specific supply chain characteristics. An analysis is done on how these six organisations are managing their supply chain drivers.


This paper examines the efficacy of class-size reductions as a strategy to improve pupils' learning outcomes in India. It uses a credible identification strategy to address the endogeneity of class-size, by relating the difference in a student's achievement score across subjects to the difference in his/her class size across subjects. Pupil fixed effects estimation shows a relationship between class size and student achievement which is roughly flat or non-decreasing for a large range of class sizes from 27 to 51, with a negative effect on learning outcomes occurring only after class size increases beyond 51 pupils. The class-size effect varies by gender and by subject-stream. The fact that up to a class-size of roughly 40 in science subjects and roughly 50 in non-science subjects, there is no reduction in pupil learning as class size increases, implies that there is no learning gain from reducing class size below 40 in science and below 50 in non-science. This has important policy implications for pupil teacher ratios (PTRs) and thus for teacher appointments in India, based on considerations of cost-effectiveness. When generalised, our findings suggest that India experienced a value-subtraction from spending on reducing class-sizes, and that the US$3.6 billion it spent in 2017-18 on the salaries of 0.4 million new teachers appointed between 2010 and 2017 was wasteful spending rather than an investment in improving learning. We show that India could save US$ 19.4 billion (Rupees 1,45,000 crore in Indian currency) per annum by increasing PTR from its current 22.8 to 40, without any reduction in pupil learning.


We present a technique for controlling physically simulated characters using user inputs from an off‐the‐shelf depth camera. Our controller takes a real‐time stream of user poses as input, and simulates a stream of target poses of a biped based on it. The simulated biped mimics the user's actions while moving forward at a modest speed and maintaining balance. The controller is parameterized over a set of modulated reference motions that aims to cover the range of possible user actions. For real‐time simulation, the best set of control parameters for the current input pose is chosen from the parameterized sets of pre‐computed control parameters via a regression method. By applying the chosen parameters at each moment, the simulated biped can imitate a range of user actions while walking in various interactive scenarios.


We consider QED on a two-dimensional Euclidean torus with $f$ flavors of massless fermions and flavor-dependent chemical potentials. The dependence of the partition function on the chemical potentials is reduced to a $(2f-2)$-dimensional theta function. At zero temperature, the system can exist in an infinite number of phases characterized by certain values of traceless number densities and separated by first-order phase transitions. Furthermore, there exist many points in the $(f-1)$-dimensional space of traceless chemical potentials where two or three phases can coexist for $f=3$ and two, three, four or six phases can coexist for $f=4$. We conjecture that the maximal number of coexisting phases grows exponentially with increasing $f$.


textabstractChapter 1, the introduction, summarizes current knowledge regarding two special and different situations in multiple sclerosis (MS): Childhood onset MS and MS during pregnancy.

Chapter 2 describes the clinical (chapter 2.1-2.3) and biological studies (chapter 2.4-2.6) on pregnancy and MS. In chapter 2.1 we studied the clinical course of multiple sclerosis before, during and after pregnancy. We found that the relapse rate increased in the first three months after delivery, yet normalized within one year after delivery. Health-related quality of life (QoL) was improved during pregnancy, most appreciated in the MOS 36 item short form health survey questionnaire (SF-36) domains vitality and general health. Nine months or more after delivery we found no adverse effects on MS disease activity at group level, measured by the expanded disability status scale (EDSS), multiple sclerosis impact scale 29 (MSIS-29), and the Guy's neurological disabilitity scale (GNDS). Nine months or more after delivery QoL, measured by the SF-36, was not unfavorably altered when compared with QoL during pregnancy. This indicates that, although the number of relapses is increased in the short term after delivery, there are no adverse effects of pregnancy on disease course in the mid-long term after delivery. Until now the only known predictors of a postpartum relapse are: number of relapses in the year preceding pregnancy, number of relapses during pregnancy and duration of disease. We were not able to reproduce these findings. In chapter 2.2 we describe data on breastfeeding and disease activity that does not support the recent claim that breastfeeding protects against postpartum relapse. In chapter 2.3 we found that high serum levels of the chemokine interleukin-8 (IL-8) during the first trimester were associated with postpartum relapse. The low positive predictive value will likely limit clinical use of IL-8 as a predictor of postpartum relapse. In chapter 2.4 we performed a genome wide approach on alterations of the transcriptome of monocytes of MS patients before and during the third trimester of pregnancy. We found that during pregnancy expression of the Fc receptor CD64 was increased. Our results therefore support the hypothesis that the innate arm of the immune system is more activated during pregnancy. In chapter 2.5 we investigated the numbers of circulating regulatory T cells (Treg) and T helper (Th)17 cells. Unexpectedly, we found that the numbers of circulating Treg were decreased, during the first and third trimester of pregnancy in both MS patients and healthy controls. We found no differences in the frequencies of circulating Th17 cells during pregnancy in MS patients and healthy controls. We concluded that our results did not support our hypothesis that peripheral blood Th17 and Treg cells are directly involved in MS disease course alteration during pregnancy. In chapter 2.6 we studied serum levels of leptin before, during and after pregnancy in MS patients and healthy controls. We observed a significant increase in serum levels of leptin in women with MS during the third trimester, compared to baseline and first trimester samples. Serum levels of leptin during pregnancy were not associated with a postpartum relapse. Therefore, serum levels of leptin during pregnancy cannot be used as a biomarker for postpartum relapse. We found that women with MS with the largest relative decrease in serum leptin levels after delivery more often had a postpartum relapse.

Chapter 3 describes the studies on childhood onset in MS. We performed a retrospective nationwide study in all large neuro-pediatric centres in The Netherlands, described in chapter 3.1. We included the full spectrum of acquired demyelinating syndromes (ADS) of the central nervous system. 44% of the children with a monofocal attack developed MS, whereas 21% of the children with a polyfocal attack developed MS. Both the Barkhof MRI-criteria and the KIDMUS MRI-criteria were able to predict a future diagnosis of MS after a first demyelinating event. In the very young, aged under ten, we found that the sensitivity of especially the KIDMUS criteria was very low (18%). Cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) analysis showed that an increased IgG index and presence of oligoclonal banding both were able to predict MS. Strikingly, children with and without encephalopathy both display MRI abnormalities as seen in typical acute disseminated encephalomyelitis (ADEM) cases (large lesions and basal ganglia/thalamic lesions). In chapter 3.2 we found that children with MS, with MRI features consistent with three or four out of the four Barkhof criteria for dissemination in space, were more likely to have a relapse soon after their second, MS defining, attack. We could not reproduce the predictive value of the childhood-onset MS potential index for early severity. In chapter 3.3 we investigated the capacity of all known diagnostic MRI criteria for children to differentiate MS from acute disseminated encephalomyelitis (ADEM). We found that the Callen criteria for discriminating MS from ADEM had the best test properties.

In chapter 4, the discussion, the observations from the studies in chapter 2 and 3 are summarized and discussed in relation to current literature. Recommendations for further research are described.


In the last decades, we have witnessed a growing interest toward touchless gestural user interfaces. Among other reasons, this is due to the large availability of different low‐cost gesture acquisition hardware (the so‐called "Kinect‐like devices"). As a consequence, there is a growing need for solutions that allow to easily integrate such devices within actual systems. In this paper, we present KIND‐DAMA, an open and modular middleware that helps in the development of interactive applications based on gestural input. We first review the existing middlewares for gestural data management. Then, we describe the proposed architecture and compare its features against the existing similar solutions we found in the literature. Finally, we present a set of studies and use cases that show the effectiveness of our proposal in some possible real‐world scenarios.


We examine the uneven social and spatial distributions of COVID-19 and their relationships with indicators of social vulnerability in the U.S. epicenter, New York City (NYC). As of July 17th, 2020, NYC, despite having only 2.5% of the US population, has ~6% of all confirmed cases, and ~16% of all deaths, making it a key learning ground for the social dynamics of the disease. Our analysis focuses on the multiple potential social, economic, and demographic drivers of disproportionate impacts in COVID-19 cases and deaths, as well as population rates of testing. Findings show that immediate impacts of COVID-19 largely fall along lines of race and class. Indicators of poverty, race, disability, language isolation, rent burden, unemployment, lack of health insurance, and housing crowding all significantly drive spatial patterns in prevalence of COVID-19 testing, confirmed cases, death rates, and severity. Income in particular has a consistent negative relationship with rates of death and disease severity. The largest differences in social vulnerability indicators are also driven by populations of people of color, poverty, housing crowding, and rates of disability. Results highlight the need for targeted responses to address injustice of COVID-19 cases and deaths, importance of recovery strategies that account for differential vulnerability, and provide an analytical approach for advancing research to examine potential similar injustice of COVID-19 in other U.S. cities.


This paper investigates the effect of fair value reporting and its attributes on audit fees. We use as our primary sample the European real estate industry around mandatory IFRS adoption (under which reporting of property fair values becomes compulsory), due to its unique operating and reporting characteristics. We document lower audit fees for firms reporting property assets at fair value relative to those employing depreciated cost—a difference that appears driven, in part, by impairment tests that occur only under depreciated cost. We further find that audit fees are decreasing in firms' exposure to fair value and increasing both in the complexity of the fair value estimation and for recognition (versus only disclosure) of fair values. We corroborate our findings in two alternative settings: contrasting UK and US real estate firms and using UK investment trusts. Overall, the results suggest that fair values can lead to lower monitoring costs; however, any reductions in audit fees will vary with salient characteristics of the fair value reporting, including the difficulty to measure and the treatment within the financial statements.


ObjectiveTo build a predictive tool for assessing both favorable outcome and morbidity in a large series of unruptured aneurysms. Summary Background DataSome well-known predictors of clinical outcome for patients with ruptured aneurysms are not useful in forecasting outcome for patients with unruptured aneurysms. MethodsThe authors analyzed 93 patients with a total of 101 unruptured middle cerebral aneurysms who underwent surgical clipping. Intraoperative data was reviewed and seven factors that might influence outcome were identified: 1) aneurysm size >10 mm, 2) presence of a broad neck, 3) presence of intraaneurysmal plaque, 4) clipping of more than one aneurysm during the same surgery, 5) temporary occlusion of the middle cerebral artery, 6) multiple clip applications and repositionings, and 7) use of multiple clips. The entire group of unruptured middle cerebral artery aneurysms was divided into two subgroups on the basis of outcome. Each patient was subsequently analyzed for the Factor Accumulation Index (FAI), the sum of different factors observed in a given patient. ResultsThe expected outcome subgroup was represented by 86 patients, with a total of 92 aneurysms, and demonstrated the following results: no factors were found in six patients; FAI of 1: 24 patients; FAI of 2: 23 patients; FAI of 3: 12 patients; FAI of 4: 11 patients; FAI of 5: 8 patients; FAI of 6: one patient; FAI of 7: one patient. Seven patients represented the subgroup of unexpected outcomes with total morbidity of 7.5%. There were no deaths. None of the patients in this subgroup accumulated FAI of 0, 1, 2, or 5; otherwise: FAI of 3: two patients; FAI of 4: two patients; FAI of 6: one patient; FAI of 7: two patients. ConclusionIt is possible to predict outcome in patients with unruptured middle cerebral artery aneurysm by calculating FAI. The postoperative morbidity increases with an FAI within a range of 3 to 4.


Background: Many studies of clients with 'pure' anomia (i.e. word finding difficulties in the absence of semantic impairment) have found a lack of generalization to the naming of items that are not treated in therapy. One explanation for this result is that the phonological output lexicon consists of discrete entries which are not as interconnective as those in the semantic system (Miceli, Amatrano, Capasso, and Caramazza 1996). However, more recent studies suggest that therapy which requires more explicit and unaided access on the part of the client might indeed effect generalization (McNeil, Small, Masterton, and Fossett, 1995; Spencer, Doyle, McNeil, Wambaugh, Park, and Carroll, 2000). Aims: The main aim of our study was to investigate whether requiring a client to name pictures with minimal help (i.e. cueing, repetition) from therapists would result in generalization. Methods & Procedures: We used a single case design, employing multiple baselines across behaviours to control for possible spontaneous recovery. The participant was MB, a 79 year old client who was anomic subsequent to a stroke. Therapy sessions required MB to name a set of pictures. Instead of cues, she was required to describe and 'talk around' each picture for as long as it took until the name came to her. We termed this therapy 'Circumlocutioninduced naming' (CIN). Nonparametric statistical analysis was performed on pre and post test results. Outcomes & Results: Therapy resulted in improvement to untreated as well as to treated words, and there was also a qualitative change in error patterns on untreated words (namely fewer unrelated errors and more semantic errors). Performance on unrelated control tasks did not improve. Conclusions: Our results suggest that CIN may effect a generalized improvement on the phonological output lexicon. We hypothesize that the therapy 'exercises' the impaired link between semantics and phonology to a greater degree than do other methods (e.g. phonemic cueing, repetition). This suggests that clients with moderate to mild anomia might benefit from therapy that requires them to take a more active and independent part in accessing words. We discuss some difficulties in the interpretation of our results, including the possible existence of spontaneous recovery, and the issue of exactly what our therapy targeted.


The Caucasus has a documented history of cataloging earthquakes stretching back to the beginning of the Christian era. Instrumental seismic observation in the Caucasus began in 1899, when the first seismograph was installed in Tbilisi, Georgia. During the Soviet era (1921–1991 in Georgia), the number of seismic stations increased in the region, providing better network coverage and a valuable dataset for seismic research. Data from many thousands of earthquakes recorded by this regional network was stored on paper in seismic bulletins. As part of the project outlined in this article, we pulled together and digitized all available paper bulletins from Georgia and neighboring countries. This allowed significant Limprovements in location accuracy and recalculation of more robust moment magnitudes for earthquakes in this region. It also paved the way for future collaboration and data exchange among the countries in the Caucasus.
 The resulting earthquake catalog with the new locations and magnitudes was used to conduct a probabilistic seismic hazard assessment to support a major update to the building code in Georgia to align it with the European codes. This article outlines the improvements made to the earthquake catalog in Georgia using legacy data and the new hazard assessment based on this improved dataset.


Aim: This exploratory study aimed to uncover the strategies that older adults employ to ameliorate the impact of impairments and barriers to participation. Method: Eight participants were interviewed in their own homes, in a town or city in New Zealand. Findings: Inductive analysis of data revealed four main categories of strategies: strategies to keep safe, to recruit and accept help, to meet social and biological needs (nutritional and medical), and to conserve financial, material and bodily resources. Discussion: The study supports some previous findings of strategies used by older people, and demonstrates that enquiring into the strategies that older people devise and adopt into their own lives is a productive line of inquiry. The strategies described differ from those that occupational therapists recommend, and do not incorporate public health messages about the benefits of physical activity or recommendations about falls prevention. Conclusion: The findings suggest that asking older clients about the strategies that they use will uncover valuable information for therapists giving advice or issuing equipment to help older adults to manage in the community.


Shirley Lim's first novel continues many of the chief concerns that characterise her body of writings, which to-date comprises several collections of poetry, short fiction and academic articles, as well as a book of memoirs. The perplexities of constructing identity across cultures and continents, the dislocations wrought by history, issues of gender and race and the complexities of interpersonal relationships all return here, as extended meditations, and provide the rich complex of ideas out of which Lim structures her first novel.

Joss and Gold is a novel whose three parts are separated, but only tenuously, by "geography and the distance of cultures". The novel's cultural and temporal locations span the Malaysian federal capital of Kuala Lumpur in the late 1960s, leading up to the turbulent political events of 1969, New York State a little over a decade later, in 1980, and Singapore in 1981. This narrative cartography of crosscutting movements and affiliations itself recalls the instability of ground that features prominently in the author's life story. Born in Malacca, in British-colonial Malaya, educated in Kuala Lumpur and the United States, the latter of which has been academic base and one of several spaces she has claimed as her home (the others being Malaysia and Singapore) for the last thirty years or so, and currently a Professor of English at the University of California, Santa Barbara, Lim knows too well the particular tensions and pains, but also perhaps the gains, attendant on a life given to erecting home on the broken continuity of locations.


Ship service electrical power consumption at the pier side is rapidly growing and now exceeds 10-MW power range on many of the latest commercial ships. Short circuit current interruption capability of the switchgear and cables servicing the ship load at the port dictate the use of medium voltage power distribution systems at voltages from 5- to 21-kV range. Many of the high power medium voltage electrical loads must operate during unloading and loading of the docked ships. At the same time, environment protection regulations in many sea ports (California's largest ports are examples of the most restrictive requirements) do not allow ships to operate their prime movers while at berth. Many ship operators and port authorities are struggling with the absence of appropriate standards and specifications for interconnecting the ship service loads to onshore power distribution systems. The intent of this paper is first to review the theory, practice, and existing interconnection standards and then to outline what can be done to achieve a secure, reliable, safe, and cost-effective operation of the ship service loads inside international ports. This paper will review the current state of cold ironing, existing applicable standards for ship interconnections to shore power, proven techniques for shore power interconnections, as well as approaches to mitigate challenges of high power and high voltage shore power


Coordinated cell movement and intercellular interactions are crucial for bacterial multicellularity and self-organization, and the mechanisms governing these processes are of active scientific interest. Individual cells interact with neighbors through various biochemical and mechanical interactions, but the role of mechanical interactions in coordination and self-organization of bacteria remains unclear. This work investigates the mechanisms underlying various multicellular patterns in Myxococcus xanthus bacteria, a model organism to study self-organization in bacteria, and the role of mechanical interactions in these self-organization behaviors using biophysical models of cell motility in an agent-based-simulation framework. Using this framework, first I studied the mechanism of gliding cell motility inM. xanthus by discriminating motility behavior of biophysical model cells during physical cell collisions from two alternative cell motility models proposed in the literature. Comparing the model cell motility behavior with experimental cell collision behavior showed that gliding cell motility in M. xanthus requires strong cell-substrate interactions supporting one of the proposed models. New predictions from this model are independently verified in direct experimentation. Next, I investigated the mechanisms responsible for formation and alignment ofM. xanthus cells in groups and their collective movement in circular and spiral patterns under starvation, by simulating intercellular interactions among a large number of model cells. Results from the simulations show that these collective cell behaviors inM. xanthus can be explained through mechanical and biochemical interactions among cells and with the substrate. Finally, I investigated the mechanism for non-monotonic colony expansion behavior observed in M. xanthus motility mutants using the agent-based-simulation framework and analyzed individual cell motility behavior from experiments under similar conditions. Results from this work provide evidence that cell-stalling, a crucial assumption made by previous models to explain non-monotonic colony expansion, does not occur due to physical interactions and is not observed in experimental M. xanthus swarms. Results from this thesis work show that many self-organization behaviors inM. xanthus can be explained by a combination of mechanical interactions among cells, between the cells and the substrate and biochemical signaling through physical cell-cell contacts. This work improves our understanding of mechanisms governing various self-organization behaviors displayed by M. xanthus bacteria and provides a general framework to study self-organization behaviors in other surface motile bacteria.


Abstract This paper studies pension insecurity in a sample of non-retired individuals aged 50 years or older from 18 European countries. We capture pension insecurity with the subjective expectations on the probability that the government will reduce the pensions of the individual before retirement or will increase the statutory retirement age. We argue that changes in economic conditions and policy affect the formation of such probabilities, and through this, subjective wellbeing. In particular, we study the effects of pension insecurity on subjective wellbeing with pooled linear models, regressions per quintiles and instrumental variables. We find a statistically significant, stable and negative association between pension insecurity and subjective wellbeing. Our findings reveal that the individuals who are more affected by pension insecurity are those who are further away from their retirement, have lower income, assess their life survival as low, have higher cognitive abilities and do not expect private pension payments.


This report provides an analysis of the current and future climate risks for West Africa as well as an analysis of their impacts in the medium- to long-term. This information is aligned with national priorities that can be used to influence the programming of Official Development Assistance (ODA) resources. The synthesis report highlights the areas where ODA resources might need to be focused in the future for climate resilient socio-economic development to occur. This analysis is intended to inform the Country Development Diagnostics (CDD) process by providing information on potential climate risks and impacts and how these might interact with broader development initiatives.
To support Department for International Development (DFID) country offices in their preparation of CDD, DFID has commissioned a team of scientists to outline relevant climate risks and impacts to help build the case for mainstreaming climate change into future planning. The scope of work comprises three components to deliver user-friendly information on climate risks to development in DFID target countries. Regional and National Climate Profiles and Global Impact Indicators have been collated and developed to inform seven Regional Climate Risk Reports for the Middle East and North Africa, East Africa, West Africa, South and Central Africa, South and Central Asia, East and Southeast Asia, and the Caribbean. This report summarises the current and future climate risks, provides an overview of relevant impact indicators, and distils these into a qualitative analysis of impacts to address in the medium- to long-term to limit or avoid climate risks to development. This document is intended for DFID internal use only.
This extended report has been written by Hannah Young, Rosalind Cornforth and Celia Petty with additional contributions from Zakari Saley Bana. The extension is based on an original synthesis report (excluding Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali Mauritania, Niger and Senegal) produced by Heather Plumpton, Hannah Young, Rosalind Cornforth, Celia Petty and Bill Finlayson from the Walker Institute.


In the age of information and globalisation, secure communication as well as the protection of sensitive data against unauthorised access are of utmost importance. Quantum cryptography currently provides the only way to exchange a cryptographic key between two parties in an unconditionally secure fashion. Owing to losses and noise of today's optical fibre and detector technology, at present quantum cryptography is limited to distances below a few 100 km. In principle, larger distances could be subdivided into shorter segments, but the required quantum repeaters are still beyond current technology. An alternative approach for bridging larger distances is a satellite-based system, that would enable secret key exchange between two arbitrary points on the globe using free-space optical communication.

The aim of the presented experiment was to investigate the feasibility of satellite-based global quantum key distribution. In this context, a free-space quantum key distribution experiment over a real distance of 144 km was performed. The transmitter and the receiver were situated in 2500 m altitude on the Canary Islands of La Palma and Tenerife, respectively. The small and compact transmitter unit generated attenuated laser pulses, that were sent to the receiver via a 15-cm optical telescope. The receiver unit for polarisation analysis and detection of the sent pulses was integrated into an existing mirror telescope designed for classical optical satellite communications. To ensure the required stability and efficiency of the optical link in the presence of atmospheric turbulence, the two telescopes were equipped with a bi-directional automatic tracking system.

Still, due to stray light and high optical attenuation, secure key exchange would not be possible using attenuated pulses in connection with the standard BB84 protocol. The photon number statistics of attenuated pulses follows a Poissonian distribution. Hence, by removing a photon from all pulses containing two or more photons, an eavesdropper could measure its polarisation without disturbing the polarisation state of the remaining pulse. In this way, he can gain information about the key without introducing detectable errors. To protect against such attacks, the presented experiment employed the recently developed method of using additional "decoy" states, i.e., the the intensity of the pulses created by the transmitter were varied in a random manner. By analysing the detection probabilities of the different pulses individually, a photon-number-splitting attack can be detected. Thanks to the decoy-state analysis, the secrecy of the resulting quantum key could be ensured despite the Poissonian nature of the emitted pulses. For a channel attenuation as high as 35 dB, a secret key rate of up to 250 bit/s was achieved.

Our outdoor experiment was carried out under real atmospheric conditions and with a channel attenuation comparable to an optical link from ground to a satellite in low earth orbit. Hence, it definitely shows the feasibility of satellite-based quantum key distribution using a technologically comparatively simple system.


Twenty years ago, governments gathered for the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro. The "Rio Declaration" laid out several principles of sustainable development, including the central role of policy instruments. In this article, we take stock of where we stand today in implementing sound and effective environmental policy instruments throughout the world, particularly in developing and transitional economies. We argue that, as our experience with market-based environmental policies has deepened over the past two decades, so has the ability to adapt instruments to complicated and heterogeneous contexts—but we are only just beginning, and the need to be further along is dire. One key factor may be that economists have not yet meaningfully accounted for the importance of political feasibility, which often hinges on risks to competitiveness and employment, or on the distribution of costs rather than on considerations of pure efficiency alone.


This course gives students the skills, strategies, practice and confidence they need to increase their scores on all sections of the TOEFL Test, including the Test of Written English. This edition reflects the revised TOEFL, first administered in July 1995, and skill coverage has been expanded for all sections. Volume A explains and practices key language points so that students improve their language proficiency as well as their test-taking skills. Clearly defined steps, pre- and post-tests and TOEFL exercises guide students in improving TOEFL strategies and scores. TOEFL answer sheets are included, along with scoring information. The two cassettes contain a wide range of listening material. Volume B contains five complete practice tests; a comprehensive "Strategies" section to help students avoid common mistakes and maximize their time; and horizontal and vertical answer sheets to familiarize students with both common formats. The teacher's manual provides explanatory notes and teaching ideas, as well as tapescripts and full answer key.


The Hindukush-Karakoram-Himalayan (HKH) mountain ranges and highlands of the Tibetan Plateau (TP) contain large mountain glaciers of the world, and nourishes large Asian river basins with significant amounts of snow and glacier melt, thus are susceptible to global warming and climate change. Therefore, precise and accurate policy making and sustainable water resource development are vital to cater for needs of food and power generation of billions of people. Precise and accurate policy making and sustainable water resources development are dependent on the accuracy of hydrological modelling and its future forecasts, though contain inevitable significant uncertainties. Current study discusses hydrological modelling uncertainties, biases and their causes in the Upper Indus Basin (UIB), which is originating from the HKH-TP region (see Figure 1a-c).


Increasing the number of pupils and young people studying STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering and maths) has been a concern for successive UK governments in the last two decades. In 2014 the Prime Minister claimed that maths, science and technology should be a top priority if the UK is to compete in the global economy. He announced a scheme estimated to cost £67 million to train 17,500 maths and physics teachers to a higher level than current training, and attract more postgraduates with offers of university bursaries (DBIS 2014). The 'science problem' of too few STEM graduates has also emerged in the EU, US and other developed countries (Lamb et al. 2017, DfE 2015, Smith and Gorard 2011, Brophy et al. 2008, Brett 2007). In response, many bodies including governmental, non-governmental and charitable organisations, as well as representatives of industry, have been actively involved in attempting to increase interest, attainment and participation in STEM subjects at school and beyond. Previous studies have suggested many reasons why certain sub-groups in the population may be underrepresented in STEM subjects at school, and identified factors influencing STEM participation beyond secondary school (Gorard and See 2008, 2009, Tripney et al. 2010, Chowdry et al. 2013).

The aim of the Principia Mission programme is to inspire young people to develop an interest in space and STEM subjects at school and beyond. This report looks at the reach of a programme of 34 projects based on the interest and educational opportunities arising from the astronaut Tim Peake's Principia Mission to the International Space Station (ISS). The long-term impact of the programme is being investigated independently by the University of York. Our concern is to estimate how many young people took part in these 34 projects, and to consider their age, socio-economic status and geographical spread.

Up to March 2017 it is estimated that over 1.6 million children and young people have participated in the educational outreach programme linked to the Principia Mission since it started in 2014. This represents 15% of the total UK school population in any year. And 9,894 schools were involved representing 31% of all schools in the UK.


This paper aims at assessing whether dualistic mechanisms represent a significant component of the aggregate labour productivity convergence observed across the European regions in the 1980s. The potential of an explanation of convergence based - in part, at least - on the existence of dualism in some of the initially poorer regions has been largely ignored by the literature. We use a dualistic model based on Dixit (1970) and on Mas-Colell and Razin (1973) to obtain hypotheses to be tested in cross-region growth regressions. In particular, we wish to test whether a high initial allocation of labour in agriculture in fact generates -- in each sector as well as at the aggregate level -- the specific impact on productivity growth (and therefore on convergence) implied by the theory of the dual economy. We use the data-base Regio-Eu set up by CRENoS, with aggregate and sectoral data for 109 territorial units from 1980 to 1990. Our cross-section results are consistent with the major predictions of the dualistic model. While part of the influence exerted by dualistic mechanisms is not easily distinguishable from the one exerted by other mechanisms such as technology diffusion, still the former appears to be a significant component of the whole process of convergence. Ignoring such component could lead to misleading interpretations of the relative roles played by each of the forces behind the process, and to inexact assessments of what actions should be taken - if any - by the European regional policy to help the process become more pervasive. Keywords: Dualism, Growth, Convergence, Regions, Europe JEL: O40, O41, O52, R11


Matrix metalloproteinase (MMP)-1 is a superfamily of zinc-dependent endopeptidases that are capable of degrading all components of the extracellular matrix. Kaempferia pandurata extract (0.01-0.5 microg/mL) significantly reduced the expression of MMP-1 and induced the expression of type 1 procollagen at the protein and mRNA levels in a dose-dependent manner. Ultraviolet (UV)-induced MMP-1 initiates cleavage of fibrillar collagen. Once cleaved by MMP-1, collagen can be further degraded by elevated levels of MMP-3 and MMP-9. It was found that increased MMP-1 expression due to UV irradiation was mediated by activation of mitogen-activated protein kinases such as extracellular-regulated kinase (ERK), Jun N-terminal kinase (JNK), and p38 kinase. Treatment of K. pandurata extract in the range of 0.01-0.5 microg/mL inhibited the UV-induced phosphorylations of ERK, JNK, and p38, respectively. Moreover, inhibition of phosphorylated ERK, JNK, and p38 by K. pandurata extract resulted in decreased c-Fos expression and c-Jun phosphorylation induced by UV light. The results strongly suggest that K. pandurata is potentially useful for the prevention and treatment of skin aging.


We investigate polariton-polariton interactions in a semiconductor microcavity through two-dimensional Fourier transform (2DFT) spectroscopy. We observe, in addition to the lower-lower and the upper-upper polariton self-interactions, a lower-upper cross interaction. This appears as separated peaks in the on-diagonal and off-diagonal parts of 2DFT spectra. Moreover, we elucidate the role of the polariton dispersion through a fine structure in the 2DFT spectrum. Simulations, based on lower-upper polariton basis Gross-Pitaevskii equations including both self-and cross interactions, result in a 2DFT spectra in qualitative agreement with experiments.


Patients commonly present to the emergency department with acute respiratory distress; however, the differentials are broad and at times difficult to distinguish. We describe a case of severe community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) secondary to invasive Streptococcus pneumoniae. The patient was intubated within 3 h of presentation and suffered multiorgan failure within 72 h of intensive care unit (ICU) admission. This case is a stark illustration of how the most common bacteria associated with CAP can be fatal and highlights the associated markers of severity. It also outlines other potential complications including a very rare phenomenon of cardiomyopathy with myocarditis associated with S. pneumoniae bacteraemia.


Developments in neural recording technology are rapidly enabling the recording of populations of neurons in multiple brain areas simultaneously, as well as the identification of the types of neurons being recorded (e.g., excitatory vs. inhibitory). There is a growing need for statistical methods to study the interaction among multiple, labeled populations of neurons. Rather than attempting to identify direct interactions between neurons (where the number of interactions grows with the number of neurons squared), we propose to extract a smaller number of latent variables from each population and study how these latent variables interact. Specifically, we propose extensions to probabilistic canonical correlation analysis (pCCA) to capture the temporal structure of the latent variables, as well as to distinguish within-population dynamics from across-population interactions (termed Group Latent Auto-Regressive Analysis, gLARA). We then applied these methods to populations of neurons recorded simultaneously in visual areas V1 and V2, and found that gLARA provides a better description of the recordings than pCCA. This work provides a foundation for studying how multiple populations of neurons interact and how this interaction supports brain function.


Walter Benjamin, one of the foremost cultural ommentators and theorists of the 20th century, is perhaps best known for his analyses of art in the modern age and the philosophy of history. Yet, it was through his study of the social and cultural history of late-19th-century Paris, examined particularly in relation to the figure of the great Parisian lyric poet Charles Baudelaire, that Benjamin tested and enriched some of his core concepts and themes. Contained within these pages are, among other insights, his notion of the "flaneur", his theory of memory and remembrance, his assessment of the utopian Fourier and his reading of the modernist movement. First translated in English in 1973, this is a study of the French lyric poet Charles Baudelaire. It should be useful as a text for readers of both Benjamin and Baudelaire, and for students of French literature. Walter Benjamin is the author of "One-Way Street", "The Origins of German Tagic Drama" and "Understanding Brecht".


A democratic government requires the consent of its citizens. But how is that consent formed? Why should free people submit to any rule? Pursuing this question to its source for the first time, The Crucible of Consent argues that the explanation is to be found in the nursery and the schoolroom. Only in the receptive and less visible realms of childhood and youth could the necessary synthesis of self-direction and integrative social conduct--so contradictory in logic yet so functional in practice--be established without provoking reservation or resistance. From the early postrevolutionary republic, two liberal child-rearing institutions--the family and schooling--took on a responsibility crucial to the growing nation: to produce the willing and seemingly self-initiated conformability on which the society's claim of freedom and demand for order depended. Developing the institutional mechanisms for generating early consent required the constant transformation of child-rearing theory and practice over the course of the nineteenth century. By exploring the systematic reframing of relations between generations that resulted, this book offers new insight into the consenting citizenry at the foundation of liberal society, the novel domestic and educational structures that made it possible, and the unprecedented role created for the young in the modern world.


Hard X-ray selection is, arguably, the optimal method for defining a representative sample of active galactic nuclei (AGNs). Hard X-rays are unbiased by the effects of obscuration and reprocessing along the line of sight intrinsic/external to the AGN, which result in unknown fractions of the population being missed from traditional optical/soft X-ray samples. We present the far-infrared (far-IR) observations of 21 hard X-ray-selected AGNs from the HEAO 1 A2 sample observed with Infrared Space Observatory (ISO). We characterize the far-IR continua of these X-ray-selected AGNs and compare them with those of various radio and optically selected AGN samples and with models for an AGN-heated, dusty disk. The X-ray-selected AGNs show broad, warm IR continua covering a wide temperature range (~20-1000 K in a thermal emission scenario). Where a far-IR turnover is clearly observed, the slopes are less than 2.5 in all but three cases so that nonthermal emission remains a possibility, although the presence of cooler dust resulting in a turnover at wavelengths longward of the ISO range is considered more likely. The sample also shows a wider range of optical/UV shapes than the optical/radio-selected samples, extending to redder near-IR colors. The bluer objects are type 1 Seyfert galaxies, while the redder AGNs are mostly intermediate or type 2 Seyfert galaxies. This is consistent with a modified unification model in which obscuration increases as we move from a face-on toward a more edge-on line of sight. However, this relation does not extend to the mid-infrared as the 25/60 μm ratios are similar in Seyfert galaxies with differing type and optical/UV reddening. The resulting limits on the column density of obscuring material through which we are viewing the redder AGNs (NH ~ 1022 cm-2) are inconsistent with standard optically thick torus models (NH ~ 1024 cm-2) and simple unification models. Instead our results support more complex models in which the amount of obscuring material increases with viewing angle and may be clumpy. Such a scenario, already suggested by differing optical/near-IR spectroscopic and X-ray AGN classifications, allows for different amounts of obscuration of the continuum emission in different wave bands and of the broad emission line region, which, in turn, results in a mixture of behaviors for AGNs with similar optical emission-line classifications. The resulting decrease in the optical depth of the obscuring material also allows the AGN to heat more dust at larger radial distances. We show that an AGN-heated, flared, dusty disk with mass of ~109 M☉ and size of approximately a few hundred parsecs is able to generate optical-far-IR spectral energy distributions (SEDs) that reproduce the wide range of SEDs present in our sample with no need for an additional starburst component to generate the long-wavelength, cooler part of the IR continuum.


The conceptual basis and numerical quantification of the time discount rate (or rates) to use for public sector analysis have been debated for over half a century. This paper addresses those aspects that are in principle amenable to formal analysis, with minimal need for judgements about ethics or administrative practicability. These include controversies, many of them very long lasting, about the discounting of quantities measured in the numeraire of marginal utility, about the opportunity cost of public capital and current spending, and about the relevance of equity risk premia to government appraisal. It is concluded that, while current UK government practice in these respects is sound, some positions that are still supported widely elsewhere do not stand up to close examination, but are likely to continue to be held as matters of faith.


We address the problem of estimating the parameters of a time-homogeneous Markov chain given only noisy, aggregate data. This arises when a population of individuals behave independently according to a Markov chain, but individual sample paths cannot be observed due to limitations of the observation process or the need to protect privacy. Instead, only population-level counts of the number of individuals in each state at each time step are available. When these counts are exact, a conditional least squares (CLS) estimator is known to be consistent and asymptotically normal. We initiate the study of method of moments estimators for this problem to handle the more realistic case when observations are additionally corrupted by noise. We show that CLS can be interpreted as a simple "plug-in" method of moments estimator. However, when observations are noisy, it is not consistent because it fails to account for additional variance introduced by the noise. We develop a new, simpler method of moments estimator that bypasses this problem and is consistent under noisy observations.


Abstract. The Decadal Climate Prediction Project (DCPP) is a coordinated multi-model investigation into decadal climate prediction, predictability, and variability. The DCPP makes use of past experience in simulating and predicting decadal variability and forced climate change gained from the fifth Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5) and elsewhere. It builds on recent improvements in models, in the reanalysis of climate data, in methods of initialization and ensemble generation, and in data treatment and analysis to propose an extended comprehensive decadal prediction investigation as a contribution to CMIP6 (Eyring et al., 2016) and to the WCRP Grand Challenge on Near Term Climate Prediction (Kushnir et al., 2016). The DCPP consists of three components. Component A comprises the production and analysis of an extensive archive of retrospective forecasts to be used to assess and understand historical decadal prediction skill, as a basis for improvements in all aspects of end-to-end decadal prediction, and as a basis for forecasting on annual to decadal timescales. Component B undertakes ongoing production, analysis and dissemination of experimental quasi-real-time multi-model forecasts as a basis for potential operational forecast production. Component C involves the organization and coordination of case studies of particular climate shifts and variations, both natural and naturally forced (e.g. the "hiatus", volcanoes), including the study of the mechanisms that determine these behaviours. Groups are invited to participate in as many or as few of the components of the DCPP, each of which are separately prioritized, as are of interest to them. The Decadal Climate Prediction Project addresses a range of scientific issues involving the ability of the climate system to be predicted on annual to decadal timescales, the skill that is currently and potentially available, the mechanisms involved in long timescale variability, and the production of forecasts of benefit to both science and society.


Conversion of native prairie to agriculture has increased food and bioenergy production but decreased wildlife habitat. However, enrollment of highly erodible cropland in conservation programs has compensated for some grassland loss. In the future, climate change and production of second‐generation perennial biofuel crops could further transform agricultural landscapes and increase or decrease grassland area. Switchgrass (Panicum virgatum) is an alternative biofuel feedstock that may be economically and environmentally superior to maize (Zea mays) grain for ethanol production on marginally productive lands. Switchgrass could benefit farmers economically and increase grassland area, but there is uncertainty as to how conversions between rowcrops, switchgrass monocultures and conservation grasslands might occur and affect wildlife. To explore potential impacts on grassland birds, we developed four agricultural land‐use change scenarios for an intensively cultivated landscape, each driven by potential future climatic changes and ensuing irrigation limitations, ethanol demand, commodity prices, and continuation of a conservation program. For each scenario, we calculated changes in area for landcover classes and predicted changes in grassland bird abundances. Overall, birds responded positively to the replacement of rowcrops with switchgrass and negatively to the conversion of conservation grasslands to switchgrass or rowcrops. Landscape context and interactions between climate, crop water use, and irrigation availability could influence future land‐use, and subsequently, avian habitat quality and quantity. Switchgrass is likely to provide higher quality avian habitat than rowcrops but lower quality habitat than conservation grasslands, and therefore, may most benefit birds in heavily cultivated, irrigation dependent landscapes under warmer and drier conditions, where economic profitability may also encourage conversions to drought tolerant bioenergy feedstocks.


A number of legal scholars have recently posited a "group herding" account of legal institutions and precedent. Their arguments draw heavily from the emergent literature on information cascades -- a set of theories that attempts to explain certain pathologies of group behavior. Explicitly, cascade theory demonstrates how rational individuals, when making ostensibly individual decisions, may ignore their own private inclinations, choosing to emulate others instead. When aggregated, such behavior can lead to significant errors of judgment on behalf of the entire group, particularly if exacerbated by other cognitive effects. If legal precedent is a species of cascade, then the consequences for legal theory are profound. Indeed, not only would such a theory call into question the wisdom of celebrated "watershed" cases from the last century, but it would also severely compromise virtually any positive account of law that conceives of precedent as a central mechanism for judicial learning. This article critically analyzes the viability of a cascade theory of precedent, asking whether such phenomena are (a) possible, (b) plausible, and (c) empirically verifiable. Although I find that a precedential cascade is certainly possible as a matter of theory, the necessary conditions for its occurrence are either extremely rare or easily avoidable. Moreover, even the more modest task of diagnosing when precedential cascades occur may be unavailing: for the outward symptoms of a cascade are essentially indistinguishable from those of more plausible (and less troubling) behavioral hypotheses.


optional) This article aims at promoting process simulation in the forging industry by presenting the newest opportunities available in Transvalor simulation software so-called FORGE®. The topics covered include heat treatment simulations among those autenitization, quenching, carburizing and nitriding. Focus is also given to the software novelties related to induction forge heating and induction heat treating for surface hardening. In a second part, recent work related to the modelling of phase transformation for titanium alloys is highlighted allowing the prediction of β phase and of every α phases during the forming cycle. Finally, leading edge modelling based on full field approach introduces grain size prediction at mesoscale level and its implementation into the new so-called DIGIMU® software.


A SINGLE MAN OF GOOD FORTUNE: POSTMODERN IDENTITIES AND CONSUMERISMIN THE NEW NOVEL OF MANNERS Bonnie McLean, B.A., M.A. Marquette University, 2015 In my dissertation, I argue that the novel of manners, while sometimes considered a moribund genre, presents itself as a genre relevant to contemporary criticism of social change from consensus politics to privatization both at governmental and domestic levels. I establish both key terms, cultural and theoretical trends, and define the novel of manners in context as a historical genre and a contemporary one. I further explore the novel of manners as a commentary on social and moral problems, particularly in tensions between social morality and individual morality that emerge when manners break down, a concept originally highlighted by Henry James. I interrogate the interplay between nostalgia, manners, and national identity, highlighting the recreation of moribund social and moral values as a means of exerting authority over the family unit and generating profit out of national heritage. Finally, I highlight the means by which literary texts cast consumerism as literal and figurative pornography that transforms the citizen into a consumer. I specifically examine the breakdown of manners through scenes of pornography and material consumption that illustrate moral depravity at the individual and national levels. The seven texts selected for my study in the new novels of manners—Hanif Kureishi's The Buddha of Suburbia (1990), Jeffery Eugenides' The Marriage Plot (2011), Alan Hollinghurst's The Line of Beauty (2004), Kazuo Ishiguro's The Remains of the Day (1989), Ian McEwan's The Child in Time (1987), Martin Amis's Money (1984), and Bret Easton Ellis's American Psycho (1991)—engage with neoliberalism and its social effects on individuals. Because citizens were redefined as consumers during the 1980s in both the United States and Britain, I contend that the novelists and novels in my study formulate a critique of social amorality in the same way Henry James's literary criticism established in the novel of manners' early study: in viewing the domestic as a politicized space, we can better understand the tensions between social morality and individual morality when the manners of a society break down in public or private spaces.


Background: Individuals with identical symptomatology may receive conflicting diagnoses, potentially leading to different treatments. The aims of this study were to assess diagnostic impressions and treatment recommendations for obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD) versus schizophrenia-spectrum disorders (SSD). Methods: Participants (N = 82) were recruited from accredited doctoral programs. All participants were randomized to assess diagnostic impressions and treatment recommendations for 15 vignettes. These were measured across three separate testing sessions. Results: Large discrepancies in treatment recommendations were found. All participants who selected OCD recommended psychotherapy while only 15.4% of participants who identified the same vignette as schizophrenia suggested psychotherapy. More than half the participants who reported schizophrenia selected antipsychotics as the primary response; medication was not a primary recommendation when the vignette was identified as OCD. Conclusion: Symptoms conceptualized as SSDs were recommended medication; those same symptoms conceptualized as OCD were recommended psychotherapy. Greater awareness regarding the efficacy of psychosocial treatments for SSDs is needed.


There have been dramatic shifts in the behaviour of labour markets and the conduct of industrial relations in the last century. This volume explores these changes in the context of four very different societies: Germany, Sweden, Britain and Japan. However, despite their manifest differences, the author demonstrates that for long periods their labour markets were similar in many crucial respects. The book discusses: * the failure of neo-corporatism in Britain in the 1970's and the subsequent rise of Thatcherism; * the rise of Japan as a model for orderly industrial relations in the 1970's * the collapse of the German and the success of the Swedish labour markets in the 1930's.


Metal organic frameworks (MOFs) have a strong potential for gas adsorption and separation such as H2 and CH4 storage, and CO2 capture. However, their instability in the presence of water vapor (many MOFs are hygroscopic) is one of the key issues that limit their large-scale application. Previous studies of water adsorption in MOFs have mainly relied on isotherm measurements that provide useful parameters such as adsorption uptake and isosteric heat of adsorption. The structural stability of MOFs in water vapor was also evaluated by powder X-ray diffraction measurements (PXRD). However, more studies are required to unravel the water interaction or reaction mechanisms within MOFs, which would be beneficial for the development of more robust frameworks. This review highlight focuses on water adsorption in two representative MOFs: M(bdc)(ted)0.5 [M = Cu2+, Zn2+, Ni2+, Co2+; bdc = 1,4-benzenedicarboxylate; ted = triethylenediamine] with saturated metal centers and MOF-74 [M2(dobdc), M = Mg2+, Zn2+, Ni2+, Co2+ and dobdc = 2,5-dihydroxybenzenedicarboxylic acid] with unsaturated metal centers. It shows how vibrational spectroscopy combined with van der Waals density functional (vdW-DF) calculations makes it possible to elucidate the details of water reaction in MOFs. The results presented in this highlight suggest that the reactivity and initial decomposition pathway of MOFs in water vapor critically depend on their structure and the specific metal cation in the building units. Water interaction with a hydrophobic MOF, in this case FMOF-1, is also reviewed. This information provides a framework for understanding water interactions or reactions within different types of MOFs.


This thesis investigates the perceived gender differences in the leadership styles of leaders at selected Saudi Arabian universities, considering such phenomena from both the point of view of leaders and employees. It examines the link between the leadership styles of female leaders in these institutions and selected organizational outcomes such as leaders' effectiveness and staff willingness to exert extra effort. The conceptual framework in this study encompasses a full range of leadership styles, including the transformational, transactional, and laissez-faire leadership styles.

This study has been conducted in King Saud University and the King Abdul-Aziz in Saudi Arabia. Administrative staff (n=379) were surveyed using the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ) Rater Form, and leaders (n=40) were surveyed using the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ) Leader Form. Data have been analysed using SPSS Version 20. Without pre-empting the final conclusions of the thesis, its research findings indicate that both groups of respondents, the employees and leaders, agree that the leaders follow both the transformational and transactional leadership styles at these universities in Saudi Arabia.

Furthermore, the findings appear to confirm that there is a relationship between leaders' styles and their effectiveness. However, the results also suggest that the employees and leaders strongly agreed that women leaders tend to follow the transformational leadership style more. Overall,
there appears to be no significant relationship between transactional leadership styles and leaders' effectiveness based on the views of the leaders questioned. Yet there is a negative correlation between laissez-faire leadership styles and leader effectiveness. In this context, it has been found that there is a negative correlation between laissez-faire leadership styles and leaders' effectiveness, the subordinates' satisfaction and their willingness to exert extra effort.
This thesis contributes to and adds to existing research on gender roles and studies in the Middle East. Its specific contribution lies in its data-led focus on the gap between theory and application when investigating the gender differences and similarities of leadership styles at universities in Saudi Arabia within a conceptual framework of existing studies in gender leadership literature and pre-identified leadership styles.
Keywords: Transformational Leadership, Transactional Leadership, Laissez-Faire Leadership, Gender, Effectiveness, Satisfaction, Saudi Universities.


We investigate how 'news sentiment' in general and the 'impact of news' in particular can be utilised in designing equity trading strategies. News is an event that moves the market in a small way or a big way. We have introduced a derived measure of news impact score which takes into consideration news flow and decay of sentiment. Since asset behaviour is characterised by return, volatility and liquidity we first consider a predictive analytic model in which market data and impact scores are the inputs and also the independent variables of the model. We finally describe the trading strategies which take into consideration the three important characteristics of an asset, namely, return, volatility and liquidity. The minute-bar market data as well as intraday news sentiment metadata have been provided by Thomson Reuters.


Using data on individual consumption expenditures from a sample of farm households in the Philippines, we construct a direct test of the risk-sharing implications of the collective household model. We are able to contrast the efficient outcomes predicted by the collective household model with the outcomes we might expect in environments in which food consumption delivers not only utils, but also nutrients which affect future productivity. Finally, we are able to contrast each of these two models with a third, involving a hidden action problem within the household; in this case, the efficient provision of incentives implies that the consumption of each household member depends on their (stochastic) productivity. The efficiency conditions which characterize the within-household allocation of food under the collective household model are violated, as consumption shares respond to earnings shocks. If future productivity depends on current nutrition, then this can explain some but not all of the response, as it appears that the quality of current consumption depends on past earnings. This suggests that some actions taken by household members are private, giving rise to a moral hazard problem within the household.


Any program or a project that is designed to accomplish certain objectives, needs to establish program level controls pertaining to the overall goal. A critical aspect that determines the success of a program is the quality of the controls and their effectiveness in accomplishing the goal. Traditional Control Maturity Models primarily focus on the efficiency, management, and optimization of controls, while only indirectly measuring control effectiveness which neglects an essential aspect of control efficacy. In this paper, we highlight the ineffectiveness of these models, outline an adaptable program controls framework, and provide an approach to define measurable attributes (metrics) that enable a zero-defect program. To the best of our knowledge, we believe this is the first paper that provides a structured approach to defining a controls measurement framework and creation of effectiveness metrics that can be adopted by a variety of program use cases.


Fibre-reinforced polymers (FRPs) are a family of strong and lightweight composite materials combining fibres and polymers. FRPs are widely used in the aviation, naval and automotive industries for components that require a high ratio of strength to weight and durability. Despite some pioneering experimental architectural applications in the 1960s, it is only in recent years that a growing interest in FRP elements is evident in the architectural field. The following paper critically reviews the current use of FRP in architecture and proposes a framework and a method to design and fabricate freeform architectural elements and structures from FRP without the need for using moulds. The proposed method is examined in a case study design and fabrication of a shading structure for beach areas. The case study results are discussed and conclusions are presented for future developments of the proposed method for the use of composite materials in architecture.


Analog fetishism, a highly visible trend in the popular discussion of digital-age sound recording, embodies a technologically deterministic understanding of music and presumes a fundamental split between digital tools and their analog predecessors. This study situates the phenomenon in the context of sonic categories from which musical value systems draw their signifiers and to which digital-age advancements pose a disruption. The case of lo-fi music and home recording is given special consideration as an example of a musical genre ethic embedding specific relations to recording technologies. An examination of online sound-recording forums, alongside careful consideration of the technologies involved, reveals a strong tendency among recordist communities toward the rejection of technologically deterministic attitudes and toward the reemphasis of performative work as driving musical creation.


This paper analyzes whether standard covariance matrix tests work when dimensionality is large, and in particular larger than sample size. In the latter case, the singularity of the sample covariance matrix makes likelihood ratio tests degenerate, but other tests based on quadratic forms of sample covariance matrix eigenvalues remain well-defined. We study the consistency property and limiting distribution of these tests as dimensionality and sample size go to infinity together, with their ratio converging to a finite non-zero limit. We find that the existing test for sphericity is robust against high dimensionality, but not the test for equality of the covariance matrix to a given matrix. For the latter test, we develop a new correction to the existing test statistic that makes it robust against high dimensionality.


Background and Study Aim: Karate is a Japanese martial art that traditional apparatus such as the punching board (makiwara) to improve effectiveness (stroke precision) and physical strength. However, little is known about the magnitude of the impact forces, and its connection to anthropometric and biomechanical variables. To fill this gap, the cognitive goal of this study is the knowledge about two phenomena: (i) the maximum impact force on a punching board generated by a reverse punch (gyaku-zuki) in a front stance (zenkutsu-dachi) in conditions as close as possible to the regular practice, and (ii) the relationship between anthropometric (age) and biomechanical (expertise) variables with the maximum impact force. Material and Methods: The maximum impact force was acquired by strain gauges for eight shotokan karate athletes male black belts: age 20.25 ±4.13 years; height 1.74 ±0.04 m; body mass 72.41 ±9.62 kg; expertise:7.64 ±4.33 years (mean, SD). The effect of two variables, i.e., age, and expertise, on the maximum impact force was analysed by a linear regression model based on the bootstrap resampling method. Results: Both variables age and expertise present statistically significant correlation with the maximum impact force. However, this dependence manifests itself in a quadratic form, in which a decreasing effect is present and dictates the behaviour of the maximum impact force. The maximum impact force for all trial ranged from 1310.82 N to 2314.53 N with an average of 1812.01 N. A negative correlation was observed between the age and the standard deviation of the subject's performance. This indicates that the expertise accumulated over the years may exert a stabilising effect. Conclusions: It was found that age and expertise have relationships with the maximum impact force as documented in the literature. However, these influences have a critical point of which they have a decreasing effect on the maximum impact force. The critical point for the age is 31 years old and, the critical point for the expertise is 11 years of lifetime training. After these critical points, the karate athlete would be advised to search for ways to compensate for the decreasing marginal effects, such as nutrition or complementary practices under the guidance of a professional.


We compare the Federal Reserve's asset purchase programs with those implemented by the Bank of England and the Swedish Riksbank, and the Swiss National Bank's reserve expansion program. We decompose government bond yields into (i) an expectations component, (ii) a global term premium and (iii) a country-specific term premium to analyze two-day changes in 10-year yields around announcement dates. We find that, in contrast to the Federal Reserve's asset purchases, the programs implemented in these smaller economies have not been able to affect the global term premium and, consequently, their effectiveness in lowering long-term yields has been limited.


This thesis is a qualitative investigation of once-weekly psychoanalytic psychotherapy practised by the researcher over a period of one year with a sample of six patients, all of whom were over 65 at the beginning of their
treatment and had been previously diagnosed by clinical referrers as depressed. The purpose of the study was to explore whether psychotherapy could alleviate their distress and enhance the quality of their later life. It was
also to investigate if there were other reasons for depression in later life than the failure to mourn early losses.
In an earlier study I had applied the method of psychoanalytic infant observationto the study of aged adults suffering from dementia, both to learn about their
states of mind and to study their responses to this kind of close observational attention. This new study brings my training and experience as a child and adult psychotherapist to bear on the experience of older adults.
I adopted a qualitative method of research, applying a form of Grounded Theory to the analysis of clinical data which I wrote up in detail after each clinical session. I sought to identify themes which explained the origins of depression in
later life in otherwise well-functioning adults both from thematic analysis of the separate case studies and by comparing them, In a follow-up review meeting three months after the completion of treatment research patients completed a questionnaire which enabled me to assess the changes which had taken place as a consequence of clinical treatment. These results and the outcomes of the CORE measures, an independent assessment, indicated significant
improvements in the states of mind of all the patients since the beginning of their psychotherapy.
The context for this qualitative clinical study is provided by a chapter which reviews the literature on the psychology and especially the psychoanalytic study of old age, identifying earlier theoretical contributions beginning with the work of Freud which were formative to my work. A central finding of my study was that losses, sometimes from childhood, remained the significant unrecognized sources of depression, and that enabling patients to reflect on aspirations which were no longer attainable could bring them relief from depression and a renewed interest in life. Most previous psychoanalytic writing in this field is
based on single clinical cases. My study is original both in its systematic comparison of six cases of depression in old age and in its adoption of an explicitly qualitative research method adapted to clinical data.
A further context for my investigation is provided by a chapter in which my research methodology is described. A chapter on the social context of old age is included, which takes note of the growing proportion of aged people in the population and the demands placed on social provision to meet their physical needs as well as their mental well being. The final chapter draws some further conclusions and recommendations from the study.


OBJECTIVE
To examine violence exposure, violent behaviors, psychological trauma, and suicide risk in a community sample of dangerously violent adolescents by comparison with a matched community sample of nonviolent adolescents.

METHOD
Anonymous self-report questionnaires were administered in the 1992-1993 school year to students in grades 9 through 12, in six public high schools located in Ohio and Colorado (N = 3,735). From this sample, 484 adolescents (349 males, 135 females) who reported attacking someone with a knife or shooting at someone within the past year (i.e., dangerously violent adolescents) were drawn. Four hundred eighty-four controls were also selected and matched on gender, age in years, ethnicity, area of residence, and family structure.

RESULTS
Dangerously violent adolescents reported higher levels of exposure to violence and victimization than did matched controls. Dangerously violent females were more likely to score in the clinical range of depression, anxiety, posttraumatic stress, anger, and dissociation than were control females and violent males; they also had significantly higher levels of suicide potential.

CONCLUSIONS
Students who have been known to commit violent acts should be adequately assessed for violence exposure and symptoms of psychological trauma, with special attention given to the suicide potential of violent females.


We show how neural models can be used to realize piece-wise constant functions such as decision trees. Our approach builds on ReLU networks that are piece-wise linear and hence their associated gradients with respect to the inputs are locally constant. We formally establish the equivalence between the classes of locally constant networks and decision trees. Moreover, we highlight several advantageous properties of locally constant networks, including how they realize decision trees with parameter sharing across branching / leaves. Indeed, only $M$ neurons suffice to implicitly model an oblique decision tree with $2^M$ leaf nodes. The neural representation also enables us to adopt many tools developed for deep networks (e.g., DropConnect (Wan et al. 2013)) while implicitly training decision trees. We demonstrate that our method outperforms alternative techniques for training oblique decision trees in the context of molecular property classification and regression tasks.


Through this research is analyzed labor force from Romanian agriculture. The agriculture in Romania has a very large share in the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Compared to other countries, the share of romanian agriculture in the GDP is 1.6 times higher compared to Hungary, almost three times compared to Poland and more than nine times to European Union. This does not explain the performance of romanian agriculture, but rather show the underperforming of the other sectors (industry and services sector) from Romania compared to those sectors of the developed countries. Also, Romania is currently one of the European countries, with the most farmers about 30% of the total active population. This share is almost 40% of the number of farmers, existing in the European Union, where the share of the active population in agriculture of all activities, is less than 5%. In Romania, the share of active population employed in agriculture, was relatively stable until 1990, about 3 million people were employed in this area. Structural economic reforms and dismantling of Agricultural Production Cooperatives of the early 1990s led to a drastic increase of the labor force employed in agriculture area. Rural labor force is engaged mainly in the agricultural sector, which is one of the major constraints of economic development of the country. Regarding of the quantitative and qualitative structural evolution of the labor resources in romanian agriculture, on long-term, the employment in agriculture fall into the general tend of all countries wich are in the course of modernization, respectively of the absolute and relative reduction.


By using multimodal remote-sensing images and digital terrain data of the environment, this study presents a new method for generating the clutter map specific to the selected land radar site and the radar's operating parameters. In the proposed method, the estimation of backscattering from the environment involves extrapolation of the airborne radar remote-sensing image to provide the baseline values, classification of multispectral remote-sensing satellite images to provide a detailed description of terrain types, use of digital terrain elevation data with the land radar position and height to provide local grazing angles and a terrain visibility map and use of the digital topographic map to provide the geometric reference for all data sets. Using actual remote-sensing images and digital terrain data acquired from a real environment with various terrain features, the clutter map generated by the proposed method for land-based radar is compared with that generated by the competitive modelling method. The accuracy of the proposed method is demonstrated based on the differences with respect to the actual clutter measurements using a different airborne radar-sensing configuration.


This research analyzes network effects in technology acceptance on the hypothesis that the larger the user network, the more likely technology acceptance is. Still today, empirical measurement of network effects is challenging and there is a lack of experimental evidence, particularly in technology acceptance research. To overcome this limitation we reproduce a particular class of technology acceptance processes in a laboratory experiment, controlling for the user network size to verify if it can make a difference in user perceptions and, ultimately, in acceptance decisions. We measured user perceptions and analyzed the data set using standard technology acceptance models. The experiments confirm our working hypothesis, showing a significant role of network effects on key user perceptions influencing technology acceptance.


The purpose of this book is to provide understanding of the relationship between childhood trauma and serious mental illness. Dr Colin Ross, one of the most respected North American authorities on Multiple Personality Disorder, writes that his MPD patients have taught him that virtually all psychiatric symptoms are potentially trauma driven and dissociative in nature. He believes that MPD research will shift the paradigm of psychopathology in the direction of a general trauma model, and away from the two dominant schools of twentieth-century psychiatry, the psychoanalytical and the biomedical. The Osiris Complex is a collection of case histories illustrating the clinical roots of the paradigm transformation Dr Ross anticipates. Contrary to prevalent opinion, MPD patients do not have more than one personality; the so-called different personalities are fragmented components of a single personality, abnormally personified and dissociated from each other. Adult patients exhibit core symptoms: voices in the head and ongoing blank spells or periods of missing time. The voices are the different parts of the personality talking to one another and to the main, presenting part of the person who comes for treatment. Periods of missing time occur when aspects of the personality take turns being in control of the body and memory barriers are erected between them. Patients also experience symptoms such as depression, anxiety, eating disorders, substance abuse, sleep disorders, sexual dysfunction, psychosomatic symptoms, and symptoms that mimic schizophrenia. MPD patients have experienced the most extreme childhood trauma of any diagnostic group and therefore exhibit the psychobiology and psychopathology of trauma to an extreme degree. The good news is that once diagnosed, the MPD patient can be brought back to health. This book is important for all mental health professionals, and also for the general reader interested in psychiatric phenomena. It will play a powerful role in the social revolution necessary for the recognition of the preponderance, intensity, and hiddenness of severe childhood emotional, physical, and sexual abuse in our culture.


ABSTRACT Aim: Icotinib is an oral epidermal growth factor receptor tyrosine kinase inhibitor (EGFR-TKI) for treating non- small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Icotinib showed non-inferior efficacy to gefitinib in the phase III ICOGEN study, and improved efficacy was seen as the dose of icotinib increased in the phase I study. The present study was aimed to explore the safety and efficacy of higher dose icotinib (250 mg or 375 mg three times per day) in treating patients who failed with normal dose icotinib. Methods: Patients who progressed (according to RECIST version 1.1) after conventional dose of icotinib (125mg tid) were administered with icotinib 250mg tid, until disease progression or unacceptable toxicity. The primary endpoint was progression-free survival (PFS), secondary endpoints include objective response rates (ORR), disease control rates (DCR) and safety. This study was registered on the clinicaltrial.gov with an ID of NCT01465243. Results: A total of 29 patients were enrolled in this study, most patients were with stage IV disease (26/29), ECOG score 0-1 (29/29), adenocarcinoma (26/29) and non-smokers (18/29). All patients received icotinib 125 mg tid before progression with a median PFS of 4.4 months (3.4-6.7 months), and then received icotinib 250 mg tid. A total of 29 patients were evaluable for tumour response. The median PFS for 250 mg-treatment stage was 2.1 months (95%CI 1.1-3.1 months). Six patients received icotinib of 375mg tid after progression with icotinib of 250 mg tid, for whom the median PFS was 2.4 months (95%CI 1.1-3.9 months). The ORR and DCR were 6.9% (2/29) and 58.6% (17/29) respectively. Patients with over-three-months PFS when treated with 125mg icotinib have more benefits when treated with 250mg icotinib, compared with patients with PFS less-than-three months (3.0 vs 1.4 months, long-rank P = 0.0093). 51.9% of patients suffered drug-related adverse events (AE), and 1 serious adverse event (urinary tract infection) was reported. The most frequent AEs were rash and diarrhea, with incidence of 25.9% and 11.1%, respectively. No ILD or treatment-related death was reported. Conclusions: Icotinib was well tolerated with 250 mg tid or 375 mg tid. NSCLC patients continued to benefit from higher dose icotinib after progression with routine dose, especially in patients with a median PFS exceeding 3 months at the 125 mg dose level. Disclosure: X. Yuan is a salaried employee of Betta Pharma Inc., no other potential conflict of interest relevant to this article was reported. X. Yuan worked as assistant of Xiaoqing Liu for study directing in this study, and was involved in writing and revision of this abstract. All authors have declared no conflicts of interest.


In the last couple decades solar panels have been developed into a sustainable and effective method for harnessing clean energy. Today, solar panels have been engineered into solar roadways. Solar roadways are structurally engineered solar panels which can be installed in the Earth, driven on, and can replace the need for traditional asphalt roads. These solar roadways also include built in LEDs which mimic road lines and light up wildlife crossing the road, making these road panels a very safe alternative to traditional asphalt roads. This senior project is an analysis of solar roadways and their capabilities when applied to parking lots. It will specifically test how effective a solar parking lot will be when installed in the local San Luis Obispo Costco parking lot. In the end, a feasibility evaluation will determine if a solar parking lot will save more money than it costs. A critical literature review and energy analysis have been conducted to acquire the most important and relevant information to conclude whether solar parking lots could be the future. Industry professionals, who have many years of experience working with solar, and have shared their knowledge on this topic. The implementation of solar parking lots could effectively reverse energy consumption for businesses.


Summary and Conclusions
1.
In an attempt to develop a therapeutic regimen suited for rapid mass administration to unhospitalized ambulatory patients, Fuadin ("Repodral-Wintrop") was employed in the treatment of 55 Syrian villagers known to be infected with S. haematobium.
2.
Treatment was preceded by a complete physical examination including blood studies, examination of thorax and abdomen, blood pressure, temperature, and radial pulse measurements, and individuals showing organic or other complicating conditions other than urinary schistosomiasis were ruled out. The general physical condition of the villagers is discussed briefly.
3.
The drug was administered intramuscularly over a three-day period to adults in a course of 34 cc. of a 6.3 per cent solution, comprising a total of nine injections. The first day, three injections of 2 cc., 4 cc., and 4 cc. were given at four-hour intervals. On the subsequent two days, three injections of 4 cc. each were given daily at three hour intervals. In school children, a total dose of 17 cc. was administered in nine injections given over a three day period. The first dose of 1 cc. was followed by two doses of 2 cc. each at three hour intervals, and the remaining six doses were given as three 2 cc. doses daily taken at three hour intervals.
4.
Reaction to the drug was generally mild, although considerable muscular soreness developed in the buttocks, the site of injection. Transitory constitutional reactions developed in some of the cases, particularly among the adult group. In no case, was it felt that the toxic manifestations were severe enough to warrant discontinuance of the treatment.
5.
Follow-up studies were made for a five-day period immediately after treatment, and repeated two weeks later. Effectiveness of treatment was judged by egg-hatching experiments, with particular attention to the percentage of cases showing: (1) free-swimming miracidia in diluted urine sediments, (2) unhatched, normal-sized eggs, (3) small, degenerate eggs and (4) no eggs. Later follow-up studies, while admittedly desirable, would have been complicated by constant opportunity for re-infection.
6.
Because of the unavoidable brevity of the second follow-up study, it is not felt that any sweeping claims can be made concerning the intensive therapeutic regimen described herein. It is felt, however, that cessation of egg production in roughly 50 per cent of the cases during the last three days of the second observation period, and the complete cessation of production of free-swimming miracidia in from 60 to 70 per cent of the cases during the last four days of the second observation period, constitutes evidence of definite improvement.
7.
Attention is called to the possible value of such an intensive short-course treatment as a prophylactic approach applicable to public health programs, where mass reduction in viability of eggs voided by man, the only suitable definitive host for this parasite, would prevent suitable snail hosts becoming infected, thus contributing heavily toward a reduction of the disease in endemic areas.
8.
In view of the apparent lack of toxicity of Fuadin when given under the intensive regimen, its further trial and study under similar conditions seems indicated.


Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is typically categorized as being mild, moderate, or severe. Over the years much of the research focus has been geared toward moderate and severe TBI as these injuries are seen most often in the clinical setting. In contrast, mild TBI is more difficult to diagnose and there is inconsistency within the literature on how exactly mild TBI should be diagnosed. Even more difficult to diagnose than mild TBI is concussion injury. Concussions have been a recent and constant news headline for the past several years as evidence suggests that repeated concussive and sub-concussive impacts due to sports play, especially American football, can result in permanent brain damage. Therefore, it is the purpose of this short communication to shed light on recent research into the discovery of an objective and reliable biomarker to assess concussion injury.


Objective: To identify self-reported sport concussion symptom scales and to describe the psychometric properties of these identified scales. Design: Systematic review. Intervention: PubMed, Medline, CINAHL, Scopus, Web of Science, Sport Discus, PsycINFO and AMED were searched from their establishment until December 2008. The medical subject heading terms "brain concussion", "signs or symptoms" and "athletic injuries". The search was limited to articles published in English. An additional search of the reference lists of the retrieved articles was conducted. Only full-text articles were considered for this study and these were retrieved to determine whether they met the inclusion criteria. Results: The initial search resulted in 421 articles, which were reduced to 290 articles after removing duplicates. The hand search resulted in 17 articles, thus giving a total of 307 articles. Full text was available for 295 articles of which 60 met the criteria for inclusion. The excluded 235 articles were case reports, reviews and guidelines on concussion management or studies that had not used a symptom scale or checklist. Conclusions: Six core scales were identified with a broad range of symptom items but with limited information on their psychometric properties. There were numerous derivative scales reported, most of which have not been methodically developed or subjected to scientific scrutiny. Despite this, they do make a contribution to the detection, assessment and return to play decisions but there is a need for the clinical user to be aware that many of these scales have "evolved" rather than being scientifically developed.