This thesis investigates the microfabrication of silicon tips for Scanning Probe Microscopy. First, a microfabrication process was developed to produce silicon tips over 100 um height with a sharp apex of ~10–20 nm. To prevent inadvertent contact between the substrate bearing the tip and the sample being probed, the tip is elevated on a mesa structure. Atomic resolution STM images of graphite are successfully obtained using silicon tips. Subsequently, a co-axial tip was developed for SPELS. SPELS uses an STM tip in field emission mode and then analyses the energy of electrons backscattered. However, the electric field distorts the trajectories of the backscattered electrons. A screened co-axial tip was thus designed; the tip consists of a multilayer Si/Au/HfO\(-2\)/Au structure. The outermost Au layer is grounded. SPELS spectra of graphite were successfully obtained for the first time. Third, a multilayered tip was fabricated for the Scanning Probe Electron AnalyseR.. This approach is a combination of STM with an ultraviolet light source. The designed structure is a multilayered silicon tip consisting of Si/SiO\(_2\)/Au/SiO\(_2\)/Au; the three conducting layers act as an electron collector, retarding field analyser, and grounded shield layer, respectively.


Interview with Navy veteran Frank H. Bigelow, survivor of the siege of Corregidor. The interview includes Bigelow's personal experiences about being a prisoner-of-war of the Japanese during World War II, boyhood in North Dakota, various jobs during the Great Depression, and enlisting in the Navy. Additionally, Bigelow speaks about volunteering for duty in the Philippines and his assignment to the submarine tender USS Canopus, pre-war military life in the Philippines, the Japanese bombing of Cavite Navy Yard and the destruction of the Canopus, retreating to Bataan and to Corregidor, the fall of Corregidor, his confinement in the 92nd Garage area, the forced march down Dewey Boulevard in Manila and confinement at Cabanatuan, hell ship to Japan, coal mining for Mitsui Heavy Industries, the amputation of his leg by fellow prisoners after a mining accident, liberation, and the destruction in Nagasaki due to the atomic bomb. The interview includes an appendix with an article titled "A Soldier's Story."


Thirty food service workers were randomly assigned to two groups; one group received body mechanics instruction while the other did not. The application of the instruction was measured by evaluating the subjects' use of body mechanics on a novel lifting and lowering task and during performance on the job. Results indicated that the group which received instruction performed significantly better on the novel task than the group that received no instruction. However, no significant difference between groups was found in performance in the work environment. The role of the occupational therapist in a work-related safety program is also discussed.


Bacterial wilt (BW), caused by the Ralstonia solanacearum species complex (RSSC), is a serious threat to potato production in Uganda. However, little is known about the extent of the disease and type of the pathogen strains involved. A nationwide survey was conducted to study BW prevalence and incidence in potato, and potato tuber and stem samples of potential alternative hosts were collected for pathogen isolation. DNA was extracted from pure cultures for genetic diversity studies. The pathogen was phylotyped by multiplex PCR, then a sub-set of isolates were typed at sequevar level. Isolates of the same sequevar were then haplotyped using multi-locus Tandem Repeat Sequence Typing (TRST) schemes. BW prevalence and incidence in potato farms was 81.4% and 1.7%, respectively. Three RSSC Phylotypes were identified with the majority of the strains belonging to Phylotype II (80%), followed by Phylotype I (18.5%) and III (1.5%). Phylotype I strains belonged to Sequevar 31, and Phylotype II to Sequevar 1. Potato associated Phylotype II Sequevar 1 strains were more diverse (27 TRST haplotypes) than non-potato Phylotype I (5 TRST haplotypes). Mapping of TRST haplotypes revealed that three TRST haplotypes of Phylotype II Sequevar 1 strains play an important epidemiological role in BW of potato in Uganda being disseminated via latently infected seed.


This article explores meanings of subjective gender and cultural place of a biracial, bicultural, unmarried 15-year-old mother with a substantial trauma history and court involvement. The treatment, which took place in a church-run maternity home, addressed oppositional behavior and anger and evoked profound questions of gender and culture. These clinical data are discussed from a multidimensional model of gender, race, and ethnicity; cultural meanings; psychological trauma; and power. Remarkable for examples of ego strength and insight, material in the case study provides some understanding of a profoundly traumatized yet resilient girl who has struggled through her experiences—and in her treatment—to keep making sense of her life.


Discovering and assembling individual Web services into more complex yet new and more useful Web processes has received significant attention from academia recently. In this paper, we explore using pre and post-conditions of Web services to enable their automatic composition. Also, we present a novel technique for discovering semantic relations between pre and post-conditions of different services using their ontological descriptions. This enables determining services with complementary functions and generating a semantic Web of services. Our technique takes semantic similarity of pre and post-conditions into account and builds on our earlier work on discovering semantic relationships between interfaces (input and output) of Web services. A comprehensive classification of existing composition techniques is also included


A model of combined antiangiogenic therapy and radiotherapy of tumors is proposed and analyzed. The model is a modified Hahnfeldt model (proposed by d'Onofrio and Gandolfi) and we discuss its properties including its asymptotic behaviour under constant and periodic therapy. Then we propose an optimization problem in the final horizon which leads to the optimal treatment protocols. We find necessary conditions of its solution and discuss their biological meaning.


Glioblastomas are the most aggressive and most common type of primary brain neoplasms and are associated with poor prognosis despite advances in surgical and oncological treatments. Currently available treatments include surgical resection, fractionated external beam radiotherapy and chemotherapy. This study aimed to investigate markers of cell division cycle, apoptosis and autophagy flux in an attempt to identify biomarkers with prognostic and/or predictive significance. The cell cycle markers studied included: Mcm2, expressed throughout the cell cycle; Cyclin A, an S-phase cyclin; Geminin, a protein that prevents re-initiation; and Phosphohistone H3 (PHH3), a marker of mitosis. Apoptotic markers included two anti-apoptotic proteins, Bcl-2 and Bcl-xl; a pro-apoptotic protein, Bak; and a final executioner caspase, caspase 3. Markers of autophagy flux included LC3B, a ubiquitin like protein that form part of the core autophagy machinery; and p62, a mammalian autophagy receptor that binds ubiquitinated proteins. A total of 66 patients were recruited to the study between 2007 and 2009. Data were collected on patient demographics, pre-operative Karnofsky score, surgical and adjuvant treatment and survival. A tissue micro-array, constructed using glioblastoma tissue was immunohistochemically-stained using antibodies against a panel of markers against the molecules described above. A semiquantitative labelling index (LI) was calculated for cell cycle and apoptotic markers using an average of 18 high power fields (hpf) in three replicate cores. Staining scores were calculated for markers of autophagy flux on the basis of cytoplasmic staining intensity (1-3) and percentage of cells with nuclear staining (1<50%, 2>50%). Cell cycle marker LI were calculated from a cohort of 66 patients, who were further subdivided into two groups: Group 1 (n=50) underwent surgery and radiotherapy with 24 patients receiving temozolomide; and Group 2 (n=16) received surgical treatment only. In group 1, a LI, higher than the median value for Geminin and Cyclin A correlated with prolonged survival when tumours received adjuvant treatment (Kaplan Meier test, p=0.0046 and p =0.0063 respectively). In group 1, Mcm2 and PHH3 LI did not correlate significantly with survival. There was no relationship between patient survival and LI for any marker in group 2. A reduction in the LI of Mcm2, Geminin and Cyclin A was observed following administration of adjuvant treatment in three patients with recurrent glioblastoma. Apoptotic marker LI were calculated in 28 patients, due to limited tissue availability; values below the median for Bak expression conferred a survival advantage in these patients by Kaplan Meier analysis (p = 0.0039). LC3b and p62 staining scores were calculated in 45 patients and correlated significantly with each other. Whilst no significant correlation was observed between LC3b staining score and patient survival, p62 staining above the median conferred a survival disadvantage (Kaplan Meier analysis, p =0.017). Geminin and Cyclin A, each showed potential as independent prognostic markers in glioblastomas receiving adjuvant treatment. This may reflect the fact that geminin and cyclin A both estimate proliferating cell sub-populations sensitive to radiotherapy/chemotherapy. The addition of these markers could therefore contribute valuable prognostic information if added to the glioblastoma diagnostic panel. The association of high Bak expression with survival advantage suggests a possible, as yet unknown, role of this pro-apoptotic protein in glioblastoma oncogenesis. The association of high p62 expression with decreased survival confirms the important role of autophagy flux in glioblastoma resistance to treatment and suggests a target for future research and targeted therapy.


SUMMARY Developing countries are expected to contribute to climate change mitigation efforts by reducing deforestation, with financial compensations for associated economic losses. These losses are due to foregone revenues and limited economic development, all of these labeled "opportunity costs". Their accurate estimation is strategic for at least two reasons: to determine fair compensations, and to prioritize low cost strategies to reduce emissions. However, numerous interpretations of the opportunity cost concept coexist in the literature and in influential reports (e.g. Stern review), with differing estimated values for similar cases. This paper presents a framework to better identify relevant values to the calculations: profits / total national economic value, conservation site / downstream industries. When applied to the pulp sector in Indonesia, the framework yields contrasted opportunity costs. This contrast is due to several factors, including the heterogeneity of the pulp industry, or the availability of non-forested lands to displace activities. These values range from zero to one thousand dollars per hectare per year. To use such a framework would help gain credibility and achieve fairness in negotiations between host countries and other stakeholders, in particular those who fund activities to reduce deforestation.


A new approach is presented to maintain the conformance between software architecture and code in the presence of changes to both artifacts. Its novel features include suppression of mistaken changes of architecture-prescribed code, explicit recording of architecture changes, and automatic mapping of specific kinds of architecture changes to code in specific ways. In particular, a new code separation mechanism is presented to decouple architecture-prescribed code from user-defined details. It is supported by three important technologies developed in this study to manage architecture changes, including an architecture change model, architecture-based code regeneration, and architecture change notification. The approach is implemented and integrated in ArchStudio, an Eclipse-based architecture development environment.


Recent advances in consumer depth sensors have created many opportunities for human body measurement and modeling. Estimation of 3D body shape is particularly useful for fashion e-commerce applications such as virtual try-on or fit personalization. In this paper, we propose a method for capturing accurate human body shape and anthropometrics from a single consumer grade depth sensor. We first generate a large dataset of synthetic 3D human body models using real-world body size distributions. Next, we estimate key body measurements from a single monocular depth image. We combine body measurement estimates with local geometry features around key joint positions to form a robust multi-dimensional feature vector. This allows us to conduct a fast nearest-neighbor search to every sample in the dataset and return the closest one. Compared to existing methods, our approach is able to predict accurate full body parameters from a partial view using measurement parameters learned from the synthetic dataset. Furthermore, our system is capable of generating 3D human mesh models in real-time, which is significantly faster than methods which attempt to model shape and pose deformations. To validate the efficiency and applicability of our system, we collected a dataset that contains frontal and back scans of 83 clothed people with ground truth height and weight. Experiments on real-world dataset show that the proposed method can achieve real-time performance with competing results achieving an average error of 1.9 cm in estimated measurements.


After Khomeini: New Directions in Iran's Foreign Policy, by K.L. Afrasiabi. Boulder, San Francisco, and Oxford: Westview Press, 1994. xii + 212 pages. Append. to p. 217. Bibl. to p. 231. Index to p. 244. $54.95. In this aptly titled book, K.L. Afrasiabi, a political scientist at Boston University, provides a provocative account of Iran's foreign policy aspirations and actions in the post-Khomeini era. Through a close examination of the cognitive map of Iran's political elite, Afrasiabi helps the reader decipher the cacophonous rhetoric and erratic moves of a so-called "pariah nation." Far from embracing the simplistic and derogatory explanations so readily offered by many scholars, journalists, and policy experts alike, this book asserts that Iran's foreign policy can better be comprehended in terms of the exigencies of revolutionary consolidation in a state aspiring to reestablish itself as a regional power. The author writes: The argument I hope to establish is that remaking foreign policy in today's Iran is a complex and complicated process fraught with difficulties and potential setbacks and regressions as a result of both the nature of thematic changes in foreign (and domestic) policies and the uncertainties of normative reconstruction attached to these changes, as well as the paradoxical influences of the new regional and global orders that simultaneously press for and against affirming the Khomeinist Weltanschauung (p. 3). By providing a detailed analysis of the series of initiatives undertaken by Iran vis-a-vis various states in the Persian Gulf, Central Asia, and the Western world, Afrasiabi demonstrates the painstaking process by which the country's foreign policy establishment has tried to redefine its mandate in the aftermath of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's death. While the picture that emerges is not necessarily that of a consistently judicious and dexterous group of statesmen, it nonetheless casts in a new light the subtleties and nuances of the course of Iran's post-Khomeinist foreign policy. Afrasiabi identifies the improvement of Iran's relations with the Persian Gulf states, and the newly independent states of Central Asia and the Caucasus, as the most critical challenge facing the Iranian foreign policy establishment in the years to come. He also summons Western and Iranian policy makers to reexamine their perceptions of one another by counseling the former to be more considerate of the "uniqueness" of the Iranian case, while encouraging the Iranians to rethink some of their ill-fated policies of the past. …


1. A total of sixty, 7-day-old British Friesian male calves, reared on a conventional early-weaning system, were used in two experiments in which dried skim milk was partially replaced by levels of 7, 14 and 21 % cooked potato flour (CPF). In the first experiment the diets were iso-energetic but differed in total nitrogen contents, whilst in the second experiment, casein was used to make the diets iso-nitrogenous. 2. In both experiments, diets containing CPF depressed growth rate from 4 to 18 days on treatment (11 to 25 days of age) and reduced the firmness of the faeces. These effects were correlated with the concentrations of CPF in the diets, live-weight gain being depressed by 20%, and the firmness of the faeces by 14%, for each 10 % inclusion of CPF. After 18 days on treatment (25 days of age) these effects became less pronounced. 3. The overall performance of calves to weaning (after 35 days on treatment) was similar on all diets. Daily live-weight gains from 4 to 56 days and 35 to 56 days did not differ between treatments. 4. It was concluded that whilst the inclusion of CPF in the diets of milk-fed calves was unlikely to have any permanent effect on the live weight of calves at 5 or 8 weeks of age its use in milk diets for calves of less than 3 weeks of age must be limited if loose faeces are to be avoided.


Continuous integration (CI) emphasizes quick feedback to developers. This is at odds with current practice of performance testing, which predominantely focuses on long-running tests against entire systems in production-like environments. Alternatively, software microbenchmarking attempts to establish a performance baseline for small code fragments in short time. This paper investigates the quality of microbenchmark suites with a focus on suitability to deliver quick performance feedback and CI integration. We study ten open-source libraries written in Java and Go with benchmark suite sizes ranging from 16 to 983 tests, and runtimes between 11 minutes and 8.75 hours. We show that our study subjects include benchmarks with result variability of 50% or higher, indicating that not all benchmarks are useful for reliable discovery of slowdowns. We further artificially inject actual slowdowns into public API methods of the study subjects and test whether test suites are able to discover them. We introduce a performance-test quality metric called the API benchmarking score (ABS). ABS represents a benchmark suite's ability to find slowdowns among a set of defined core API methods. Resulting benchmarking scores (i.e., fraction of discovered slowdowns) vary between 10% and 100% for the study subjects. This paper's methodology and results can be used to (1) assess the quality of existing microbenchmark suites, (2) select a set of tests to be run as part of CI, and (3) suggest or generate benchmarks for currently untested parts of an API.


Biologic monitoring of environmental contaminants in marine (killer whale) and terrestrial (caribou, moose, and wolf) wildlife populations using scat samples Jessica I. Lundin Chair of the Supervisory Committee: Professor Samuel K. Wasser, PhD Department of Biology Wildlife are intimately associated with contaminated waters and polluted landscapes, serving as sentinels to the health of our shared environment. This project optimized trace analytic techniques for measuring toxicants in scat samples and evaluated contamination levels among Southern Resident killer whales (SRKWs; Orcinus orca) in the Salish Sea and Woodland caribou (Rangifer tarandus caribou), moose (Alces americanus), and Grey wolf (Canis lupus) in the Alberta Oil Sands (AOS). Scat sampling provides an unprecedented opportunity to noninvasively monitor marine and terrestrial wildlife across broad geographic landscapes. Exposure to persistent organic pollutants (POPs) is a primary risk factor for the endangered SRKWs. POPs are lipophilic toxicants associated with adverse health effects including endocrine disruption and reproductive toxicity. Scat samples collected from 2010-2013 demonstrated that contaminant levels are highest, from endogenous lipid stores, and have the greatest potential for toxicity when the whales are nutritionally compromised. Toxicant exposures may contribute to increased mortality and decreased fecundity previously associated with limited prey abundance. Accumulation patterns showed an expected age-related increase, excepting nulliparous females that may have toxicant offloading from unrecorded neonate loss. Mobilization from endogenous lipid stores for milk production and associated transfer of POPs iv was apparent, particularly for first-born calves with diminished transfer to subsequent calves. POPs were not associated with disruption of thyroid hormone levels as expected. The AOS are third largest international oil reserve; oil production is projected to more than double from 2008-2018. Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), well-established carcinogens and mutagens, are a component of crude oil (petrogenic) and form during combustion events (pyrogenic). Scat samples collected in 2009 from areas of the AOS with varying degrees of in situ oil production activity were evaluated for PAH levels. Samples were from Woodland caribou, moose, and Grey wolf, terrestrial species with markedly different dietary preferences and resource utilizations. The high oil production area demonstrated petrogenic (oil) source PAH ratios in moose samples and increased PAHs in wolf samples. Caribou samples from the area of historical forest fire indicated pyrogenic (combustion) source PAHs. The results from these studies should help promote conservation goals to keep our marine and terrestrial environments healthy.


As nobody needs to be reminded, the last few years have been trying times for all sorts o financial service providers. Yet Primerica Corp., a diversified financial services company, has, been producing strong growth in revenues and earnings fight through the worst of the period. The school of thought that says "stick to your knitting in one narrow financial niche" will get no comfort here; Primerica has gotten good results by doing precisely the opposite. New York-based Primerica, with some $23 billion in assets and four million customers spread across activities in consumer finance, brokerage and investment banking, mutual fund management and insurance, is no stranger to contrarian thinking. At year-end 1992, the company paid $722.5 million to acquire 27% of insurance giant The Travelers Corp., whose troubles have been well publicized. Sanford I. Weill, chairman and CEO of Primerica, called Travelers "one of the best franchises in the financial industry." The two companies announced a "strategic alliance" going forward, and the move underscores two things: Primerica's willingness to risk its money on an eventual turnaround at Travelers; and Primerica's steady advance into the financial big leagues. Third and by no means a foregone conclusion, this could be an early step toward eventual control of Travelers by Primerica. Although half the size of Travelers, Primerica is dealing from strength. On revenues of $5.1 billion in 1992, operating earnings were $593 million, up 22% from the previous year. Mainly reflecting one-time gains from divestitures and asset sales, net earnings were up even more sharply from $478.8 million in 1991 to $717.8 million in 1992. Excluding one-time gains, income from continuing operations has risen about sixfold since 1987, and the company has achieved rating agency upgrades for six consecutive years. MULTIPLE LIVES.. A fairly young company in its present form, Primerica is actually the heir to some very convoluted history. In the early 1980s, what had been the old American Can Co. was gradually refocused away from food containers mainly towards becoming a financial services company led by Gerald Tsai, a well-known Wall Street investment manager and dealmaker. Under the new name Primerica were A.L. Williams, a fast-growing Georgia-based company, specializing in term insurance, and Smith Barney, a well established Wall Street brokerage and investment banking firm, along with a miscellany of odds and ends. In 1988, We entered the picture and changed it completely. Weill has a long and successful history on Wall Street. In 1960, Weill and three partners formed a tiny brokerage house that over the next two decades grew into Shearson Loeb Rhoades. The firm was sold to American Express in 1981 for almost $1 billion, and Weill emerged as president of American Express. In 1985, Weill struck out on his own by leaving American Express. A year later he acquired control of Baltimore-based Commercial Credit Co., until then a subsidiary of Control Data Corp. engaged in commercial finance, leasing, factoring, and to some extent consumer finance. Weill took Commercial Credit public and brought in Robert I. Lipp, a former president of Chemical Bank, to run the company, which was refocused almost exclusively as a nonbank consumer finance company. At the end of 1988, Weill acquired control of "old" Primerica from Tsai, merged it with Commercial Credit and transferred the Primerica name to the expanded company. Structurally, Primerica is like a three-legged stool, with consumer finance services, insurance services, and investment services each accounting for roughly one third of revenues. Consumer services. Commercial Credit is the keystone of the company's consumer financial services and has been the steadiest success story of the new Primerica. In 1989-90, the company made two leaps in size by acquiring 280 branches from Barclays American/Financial and Landmark Financial Services. …


Total variation (TV) is a powerful method that brings great benefit for edge-preserving regularization. Despite being widely employed in image processing, it has restricted applicability for 1-D signal processing since piecewise-constant signals form a rather limited model for many applications. Here we generalize conventional TV in 1-D by extending the derivative operator, which is within the regularization term, to any linear differential operator. This provides flexibility for tailoring the approach to the presence of nontrivial linear systems and for different types of driving signals such as spike-like, piecewise-constant, and so on. Conventional TV remains a special case of this general framework. We illustrate the feasibility of the method by considering a nontrivial linear system and different types of driving signals.


How to Teach Listening is a practical guide to the theory of listening in the language classroom. It includes: * key topics such as authenticity, testing, and using technology for listening * practical ideas for conducting an effective listening lesson * strategies to ensure the long term development of students' listening skills * an audio CD of stress samples, sound bites and lesson ideas.


A specific modeling method is investigated in order to predict the large-signal modulation behavior of integrated electroabsorption modulators (EAMs) for high-speed applications in optical networks. The equivalent dynamic model includes the main nonlinearity of the EAM and takes into account the electrical and optical characteristics of the optoelectronic device. The developed specific design process is a suitable and powerful tool for simulating over wide dc bias and frequency ranges, scattering parameters, small-signal modulation response, and large-signal eye-diagram performance. Moreover, 3-D electromagnetic simulations are associated with circuit simulations to carry out for the RF input line of the EAM. This simulation model can be easily integrated in a global optical communication system simulator to estimate the temporal behavior of the modulated output optical power and then digital performances.


Soybean cyst nematode (SCN) was identified in Iowa less than 30 years ago and is now recognized as a major pest of soybeans, particularly in sandy soil regions such as the Muscatine Island. Effective management has relied on crop rotation and the use of resistant varieties. Recently, some SCN resistant varieties have not been performing to expectations in certain fields. The reason for this is thought to be the repeated use of varieties obtaining their resistance from a single source, PI 88788, which has led to the development of SCN populations resistant to PI 88788. This project was initiated to help identify soybean varieties with different and effective sources of SCN resistance to provide management choices that will maintain soybean profitability.


Construction waste becomes a global issue facing by practitioners and researchers around the world. Waste can affects success of construction project significantly. More specifically, it has major impact on construction cost, construction time, productivity and sustainability aspects. This paper aims to identify various factors causing construction waste in Malaysia. Study was carried out through structured questionnaire focusing three major parties (i.e. clients, consultants and contractors) involved in construction project. Data was analyzed with Statistical Software Package SPSS. Reliability of data was found as 0.917 which showed that data collected was highly reliable. The calculation of Mean Rank of the construction waste causes found that the 5 key causes are Poor site management and supervision, Lack of experience, inadequate planning and scheduling, Mistakes and errors in design and finally Mistakes during construction. Spearman correlation analysis showed that Mistakes during construction was highly correlated with Rework (with 0.829 correlation value) and Slow information flow between parties (with a value of 0.60) and vice versa. Through identifying the causes and its correlation of the construction waste it gives better understanding to the construction community for future construction projects which benefit not only in term of economy but also the environment.


This paper looks into report writing quality on both individual and group bases in an EAP context. A total of 100 EFL students at post foundation level in a University College in Oman, and 15 EFL teachers were selected randomly. Questionnaires were administered to investigate their perceptions and experiences with report writing quality on individual and group bases. The results revealed the majority of teachers and students were in favour of group writing reports, however, most of them believe individual reports have helped students to take charge of their own learning and improve their reports quality. Sample reports were also compared and contrasted, and the results indicated there was that individual reports quality is better than group reports. Recommendations on how report writing quality could be enhanced and improved are presented.


Although the percentage of employees represented in collective bargaining in the public sector is more than five times the percentage in the private sector, collective bargaining for public employees remains very controversial The two most powerful arguments against public employee collective bargaining is that it is antidemocratic and that it impedes effective government. Concern with the antidemocratic effects of public sector collective bargaining leads courts and labor boards to narrow the scope of what must be negotiated. Concerns with collective bargaining impeding effective government leads to backlash by the legislative and executive branches against public employee unions.This article contends that the narrowness of the scope of bargaining that results from concerns over the antidemocratic nature of public employee bargaining leads to public employee bargaining impeding effective government. The law of negotiability channels channels employees and their unions away from participation in and responsibility for decisions affecting the risks of the public sector enterprise and into negotiating contract provisions that protect them from those risks. Public employee unions have performed that role very effectively, so effectively that the results can impede effective government. The article examines numerous cases where, in spite of the law, public employers have involved employees and their unions in decisions affecting the risks of the enterprise with very positive results. The article urges that jurisdictions break away from the private sector model which classifies every subject as either one on which collective bargaining is mandated or which is left to the unilateral control of management and develop alternative vehicles of employee-union voice in public sector decision-making.


Care is often perceived as "doing something"; spiritual care also involves "being with" another person. This case, set in a hospice inpatient unit, highlights a relationship between being and doing, and the role of chaplains within multi-disciplinary teams, in palliative care. During ward round, a patient learned that he was dying. He appeared overwhelmed; he had a young family and much to organize. Following an informal assessment, the chaplain's aim was to offer him time and the opportunity to talk. For both, this became a space of uncertainty and vulnerability. It represented a pivotal point in his care as he regained control. After this encounter, other members of the multidisciplinary team assisted him to do what he needed. He died peacefully. The case demonstrates the value of spiritual care in relationship with the support of physical, psychological and social needs of people at the end of life, and their families.


In this comment, we argue that the co-location arrangement proposed by the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government is consistent with the Basic Law. Co-location does not engage art 18 of the Basic Law because, for the purpose of art 18, the land comprising the Mainland Port Area (MPA) would no longer be in Hong Kong. This is the legal consequence of the Government's exercise of its power under art 7 of the Basic Law to relinquish legal control over land. Specifically, the Government has the implied power under art 7 to relinquish legal control over land comprising the MPA in favour of the PRC authorities for customs, immigration and quarantine procedures as (1) co-location is derivative of, and in service to, the Government's power under art 7 of the Basic Law to lease land; (2) the Government's aim of achieving efficient high-speed rail interconnectivity between Hong Kong and Mainland China is legitimate; (3) co-location is reasonably adapted to the attainment of this legitimate aim; and (4) co-location does not violate fundamental rights enjoyed by residents living in Hong Kong. Since the Government has the implied power under art 7 to relinquish legal control over land comprising the MPA for co-location, the provisions that deem the MPA outside Hong Kong are constitutional, and therefore, the land comprising the MPA would not be in Hong Kong for the purpose of art 18.


In a discipline commonly faulted for ad hoc assumptions and
models with very little discriminating observational evidence, cosmologists are continually trying, and in many cases succeeding, to improve both the data and models. However, the desire to support currently favoured models often dominates research and may lead to a systematic bias being introduced in favour of a model before a strong body of supporting evidence has been accumulated. This is perhaps most evident in literature supporting the viability of Gamma Ray Bursts as cosmological distance indicators, where aside from subjective data-selection, the basic statistical methods are at best questionable and at worst incorrect.

To this end, we construct a simple cosmology-independent
illustration of the effect that the application of these methods has on parameter estimation and discuss the correct method to apply to current data. We also investigate the constraints potential future Gamma Ray Burst data may place on alternatives to the status quo Concordance Model in the shape of Conformal Gravity and Unified Dark Matter through a widely applicable and transferable Bayesian model comparison technique and the development of a representative mock data set.

Finally, we investigate gravitational wave standard sirens as an alternative high-redshift distance indicator. We first illustrate their strong diagnostic potential through a Bayesian model comparison between the standard Unified Dark Matter model and a variant in which the dark component is redshift dependent. By drawing mock data from a known cosmological model, thus fixing the expected values of the model parameters, we find that while 182 Type 1a Supernovae are readily confused between constant and evolving models, just 2 standard sirens are able to successfully identify the
correct model.

Having established standard sirens as an effective tool in
cosmological model comparison, we then address the potential
confusion of models with dynamical dark energy and intrinsic
curvature. We show that currently used distance indicators - Type 1a Supernovae, Baryon Acoustic Oscillations and the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation - are not reliable enough to identify a small amount of intrinsic curvature, which partly justifies the common practice of assuming flat space in order to reduce the number of free parameters. However, we show that the addition of even a small
number of standard sirens greatly reduces this problem. The addition of just two sirens offers a slight improvement, while adding ten sirens to the aforementioned list of indicators halves the range over which there is uncertainty between models.


This paper bring forward a methodology that makes it possible to handle different theoretical models simultaneously when analyzing cases of outsourcing - without ending up with contradictory conclusions. The approach used in the paper is a development of a framework, the analysis of three commonly used models (The Make-or-buy model, the Network approach, and Industrial strategy) and a case study where outsourcing of shift-gears in the car industry is analyzed. The paper addresses the basic need to clarify the fundamental assumptions embedded in theories applied on outsourcing. It also clarifies hands-on how the suggested methodology can be used.


The orthogonal polarisation spectral (OPS) imaging technique is a method that enables intravital microscopy of the tissue microvasculature particularly including the erythrocytes and leucocytes. As a new finding we here report multi flow, i.e, several different laminar velocity profiles in each and separate veins (diameters < 200 μm) of the microcirculation of the rat brain cortex. The phenomenon was present in all 20 preparations studied and these different laminar velocity profiles were regularly maintained in length beyond 20 times the diameter of parent vessel. In single veins up to 9 different laminar velocity profiles were discernible, each with a different red blood cell velocity. These multi flow profiles may theoretically be anticipated based on what is known in rheological physiology as the Fahreus - Lindqvist effect. It may also be predicted in tissues that have both high and heterogeneous blood flows in conjunction with large local variations in metabolic activity as are present in the cortex of the brain. The new information is that the extent and magnitude of this multi laminar flow phenomenon especially in the venular network of the brain exceeds what has previously been known. The physiological importance of these finding warrants further studies.


A sophisticated dual‐permeability flow model of the T‐tunnel complex, Rainier Mesa, Nevada National Security Site, was developed and calibrated to facilitate predictions of radionuclide transport from underground nuclear tests within a perched zone of saturation downward through a series of variably saturated, sparsely fractured and faulted Tertiary tuff units to a regional flow system. The hydrogeologic complexity of the site necessitated a multistage calibration effort to capture the dominant flow characteristics of the site including: laterally and vertically extensive saturation in the Tertiary volcanics, pressure heads consistent with water level measurements, variably saturated flow conditions involving a thin unsaturated zone situated between two saturated zones, unsaturated Paleozoic carbonates located immediately adjacent to saturated Tertiary volcanic units, and fracture saturations congruent with field observations that range from fully saturated to dry. The incorporation of discontinuous fault networks into the dual‐permeability model played a key role in reproducing the salient hydrologic features of the site. Successful model reproduction of observed cumulative tunnel discharge volume and tunnel discharge rates before tunnel sealing served as a novel transient test of the ability of the discontinuous fault networks to realistically honor field‐scale fault network connectivity and permeability. The excellent reproduction of field observations by the numerical model, and the uniqueness of the primary parameters used to calibrate the model, demonstrate the advantage of incorporating discontinuous fault networks over equivalent fracture properties in sparsely fractured, dual‐permeability media.


Jay Allen, a senior analytical technologist for propylene oxide and propylene glycol at Dow Chemical, is the winner of the 2017 National Chemical Technician Award. The award, administered by the Committee on Technician Affairs, honors excellence and professionalism among technicians, operators, analysts, and other applied chemical technology professionals. During his 30-plus-year career at Dow, Allen has developed and improved numerous analytical methodologies and technologies used for the development and manufacture of polyurethanes, polymers, and high-performance plastic materials. As manager of the site's propylene oxide and propylene glycol laboratories, he has taken a leadership role in improving the general safety of the lab work environment. Allen has served as the Site Analytical Leadership Team steering team leader for 10 years. Allen was presented with a plaque recognizing his award during the Division of Chemical Technicians luncheon at the ACS national meeting in San Francisco in early April.


Crowd simulation is a central topic in several fields including graphics. To achieve high-fidelity simulations, data has been increasingly relied upon for analysis and simulation guidance. However, the information in real-world data is often noisy, mixed and unstructured, making it difficult for effective analysis, therefore has not been fully utilized. With the fast-growing volume of crowd data, such a bottleneck needs to be addressed. In this paper, we propose a new framework which comprehensively tackles this problem. It centers at an unsupervised method for analysis. The method takes as input raw and noisy data with highly mixed multi-dimensional (space, time and dynamics) information, and automatically structure it by learning the correlations among these dimensions. The dimensions together with their correlations fully describe the scene semantics which consists of recurring activity patterns in a scene, manifested as space flows with temporal and dynamics profiles. The effectiveness and robustness of the analysis have been tested on datasets with great variations in volume, duration, environment and crowd dynamics. Based on the analysis, new methods for data visualization, simulation evaluation and simulation guidance are also proposed. Together, our framework establishes a highly automated pipeline from raw data to crowd analysis, comparison and simulation guidance. Extensive experiments and evaluations have been conducted to show the flexibility, versatility and intuitiveness of our framework.


This book is a comprehensive review of the detailed molecular mechanisms of and functional crosstalk among the replication, recombination, and repair of DNA (collectively called the "3Rs") and the related processes, with special consciousness of their biological and clinical consequences. The 3Rs are fundamental molecular mechanisms for organisms to maintain and sometimes intentionally alter genetic information. DNA replication, recombination, and repair, individually, have been important subjects of molecular biology since its emergence, but we have recently become aware that the 3Rs are actually much more intimately related to one another than we used to realize. Furthermore, the 3R research fields have been growing even more interdisciplinary, with better understanding of molecular mechanisms underlying other important processes, such as chromosome structures and functions, cell cycle and checkpoints, transcriptional and epigenetic regulation, and so on. This book comprises 7 parts and 21 chapters: Part 1 (Chapters 1 3), DNA Replication; Part 2 (Chapters 4 6), DNA Recombination; Part 3 (Chapters 7 9), DNA Repair; Part 4 (Chapters 10 13), Genome Instability and Mutagenesis; Part 5 (Chapters 14 15), Chromosome Dynamics and Functions; Part 6 (Chapters 16 18), Cell Cycle and Checkpoints; Part 7 (Chapters 19 21), Interplay with Transcription and Epigenetic Regulation. This volume should attract the great interest of graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and senior scientists in broad research fields of basic molecular biology, not only the core 3Rs, but also the various related fields (chromosome, cell cycle, transcription, epigenetics, and similar areas). Additionally, researchers in neurological sciences, developmental biology, immunology, evolutionary biology, and many other fields will find this book valuable


We provide an analysis of the housing market and current housing policies in three developed countries: the United Kingdom, Switzerland, and the United States. We focus on these three countries mainly because of the marked differences in their institutional settings. The United Kingdom is characterized by fiscal centralization and an extraordinarily rigid planning system. The consequences of this setting, which make housing supply extremely unresponsive to changes in house prices, are a high degree of urban containment, a severe housing affordability crisis, and a housing shortage, particularly for the young. The key UK policy, Help-to-Buy, which focuses on stimulating housing demand, fails to address the affordability crisis, because increasing demand only pushes up house prices further without expanding housing supply. Fiscal decentralization and a lax zoning system—both are encouraging residential development—and an extraordinarily low homeownership rate explain why Switzerland's main political concerns are sprawl and rent stabilization. The country's key policies aim to tackle these two concerns, but those same policies have some important unintended consequences. The United States is characterized by fiscal federalism and an enormous variation in the tightness of land use restrictiveness across metropolitan areas. The key policy concern across the country is homeownership attainment and the key policy to tackle this issue is the mortgage interest deduction (MID). This policy backfires in metropolitan areas that are prosperous and where land use is tightly regulated— "superstar cities"—because, in these places, the policy-induced demand increase mainly pushes up house prices. The MID increases homeownership attainment of only higher-income households in metropolitan areas with lax land use regulation. The net effect of the policy on homeownership attainment across the country is essentially zero. We conclude that the assessment of housing policies crucially depends on the fiscal and regulatory environment in local housing markets. Policies that stimulate housing demand, such as the MID or Help-to-Buy, are doomed to fail in markets with tight regulation or otherwise tight supply.


Event extraction is a particularly challenging type of information extraction (IE). Most current event extraction systems rely on local information at the phrase or sentence level. However, this local context may be insufficient to resolve ambiguities in identifying particular types of events; information from a wider scope can serve to resolve some of these ambiguities.
In this thesis, we first investigate how to extract supervised and unsupervised features to improve a supervised baseline system. Then, we present two additional tasks to show the benefit of wider scope features in semi-supervised learning (self training) and active learning (co-testing). Experiments show that using features from wider scope can not only aid a supervised local event extraction baseline system, but also help the semi-supervised or active learning approach.


End-user programmers develop more software than any other group of programmers, using software authoring devices such as multimedia simulation builders, e-mail filtering editors, by-demonstration macro builders, and spreadsheet environments. Despite this, there has been only a little research on finding ways to help these programmers with the dependability of the software they create. We have been working to address this problem in several ways, one of which includes supporting end-user debugging activities through interactive fault localization techniques. This paper investigates fault localization techniques in the spreadsheet domain, the most common type of end-user programming environment. We investigate a technique previously described in the research literature and two new techniques. We present the results of an empirical study to examine the impact of two individual factors on the effectiveness of fault localization techniques. Our results reveal several insights into the contributions such techniques can make to the end-user debugging process and highlight key issues of interest to researchers and practitioners who may design and evaluate future fault localization techniques.


This paper investigates chemical bleaching of wood to make species-specific practical recommendations for colour adjustment of veneer in furniture conservation. In more detail, chemical bleaching of Honduras mahogany (Swietenia macrophylla), European walnut (Juglans regia), Rio rosewood (Dalbergia nigra), padauk (Pterocarpus spp.), and purpleheart (Peltogyne spp.) is investigated using 11 different bleach solutions. Both oxidative (e.g. hydrogen peroxide and potassium permanganate) and reductive (e.g. oxalic acid and sodium bisulphite) solutions were used. The results show that the wood species react differently with the investigated bleach solutions. It can also be noted that not all investigated solutions were suitable for all wood species. Based on the results, wood species-specific bleach solutions are recommended.


The recent research of facial expression recognition has made a lot of progress due to the development of deep learning technologies, but some typical challenging problems such as the variety of rich facial expressions and poses are still not resolved. To solve these problems, we develop a new Facial Expression Recognition (FER) framework by involving the facial poses into our image synthesizing and classification process. There are two major novelties in this work. First, we create a new facial expression dataset of more than 200k images with 119 persons, 4 poses and 54 expressions. To our knowledge this is the first dataset to label faces with subtle emotion changes for expression recognition purpose. It is also the first dataset that is large enough to validate the FER task on unbalanced poses, expressions, and zero-shot subject IDs. Second, we propose a facial pose generative adversarial network (FaPE-GAN) to synthesize new facial expression images to augment the data set for training purpose, and then learn a LightCNN based Fa-Net model for expression classification. Finally, we advocate four novel learning tasks on this dataset. The experimental results well validate the effectiveness of the proposed approach.


With the rise of the super-platforms, we tend to look down (on their effect on consumers) rather than up (their effect on sellers and upstream providers). In looking down it seems like Google, Amazon and Facebook are using their power in the marketplace to deliver great value to us — wrestling lower prices from producers in the case of Amazon, bringing news onto a single platform in the case of Facebook, and organizing the world's information, in the case of Google.

While these companies appear to be furthering our interests, a closer look reveals how these super-platforms may wield their power downstream to harm us, the consumer. As our book Virtual Competition explores, the super-platforms can use our personal data to better price discriminate and their disincentive to protect our privacy (and promote technologies that do).

Less discussed, but of significant concern, are the upstream effects of these super-platforms. They have the power to harm many of the companies from whom they buy or acquire content — and that harm ultimately harms us.

In looking up rather than down, we see how the super-platforms can squeeze millions of sellers, including photographers, photojournalists, writers, journalists and musicians. Our competition laws deal with this kind of buyer power. These concerns, however, are often low on the enforcement agenda due to the indirect effects on "consumer welfare," which is often measured by the price you pay for the goods or service. So if we stream the YouTube video ostensibly for "free," the assumption is that our welfare is maximized. In the digital age, as this essay argues, that urgently needs to change.


SnS2 hollow microspheres and SnS2 3D nanoflake-based hollow microspheres are successfully synthesized via a one-step hydrothermal process. From the experimental results, a mechanism based on bubble-templating, self-assembling and subsequent shell evolution was proposed. These hollow spheres were tested as anode materials in lithium ion batteries (LIBs) and found to have good cycling performance. This article provide a facile strategy to prepare hollow structures and give some insight studies on their applications in lithium ion storage and retrieval.


It is currently unknown whether and how mammalian pathogen-recognition receptors (PRR) respond to biophysical patterns of pathogen-associated molecular danger-signals. Using synthetic pathogen-like particles (PLPs) that mimic physical properties of bacteria or large-viruses, we have discovered that the quality and quantity of Toll-like-receptor-9 (TLR9)-signaling by CpG in mouse dendritic cells (mDC) is uniquely dependent on biophysical attributes, specifically the surface-density of CpG and size of the presenting PLP. These physical patterns control DC-programming by regulating kinetics and magnitude of MyD88-IRAK4 signaling, NFκB-driven responses, and STAT3 phosphorylation, which in turn controls differential T cell responses and in vivo immune-polarization, especially T-helper 1 (Th1) versus T-helper 2 (Th2) antibody responses. Our findings suggest that innate immune cells can sense and respond not only to molecular, but also pathogen-associated physical patterns (PAPPs), broadening the tools for modulating immunity, helping to better understand innate response mechanisms to pathogens and develop new and improved vaccines.


Abstract The issue of integrating children with special educational needs in mainstream school is still debatable.However, there are situations where the integration of children with special educational needs is successful and all those involved are satisfied. What are the factors that contribute to achieving true integration? Is it about a certain school environment or some teachers? Is it about parent involvement or school leadership? To answer the research question of this study, we have raised the hypothesis that school culture (values, teachers' perceptions on integration, leadership) determines the success of integration.The goal of this study is to analyse the educational actors' perceptions (students, teachers, managers and parents) and the school culture which promotes human diversity.The study in question was embedded in a constructivist-interpretivist paradigm, which employed both quantitative and qualitative methods for data collection.A questionnaire regarding students' and teachers' perceptions on integration and focus-groups were used. A case study of a primary school (School N.O. from Brasov) was conducted.A number of 100 participants were included in the study, teachers, parents and students from primary schools of Brasov.One of the main conclusions of the research is that the integration of children with special educational needs depends on several factors: from the school culture that promotes social values such as tolerance, respect for difference, etc. to teachers directly involved in integration activities and parents who accept and understand the benefits of integration for all children.


Following the acquittal of Amina Lawal by the Katsina State Sharia Court of Appeal of the offence of adultery, many commentaries have applauded the courage of the Sharia Court for reaching the decision it did. Most of the commentaries, like that of Ojeih of the Nigerian Law School, fail to acknowledge the efficacy of the Islamic law and the Islamic legal system. Instead, the issues they raise bother on constitutional conflicts between a religious (religiously-inspired) law and the laws of a secular state like Nigeria, which is a state party to several International Human Right Conventions. The penalty for adultery under Islamic law is stoning to death. The issues in Ojeih's material, 'Amina Lawal - Sharia Law and the Constitution: A Struggle for Supremacy?', published in a collection of constitutional essays in honour of Chief Bola Ige, Nigeria's former Minister of Justice, allude to many potential conflict areas with the Constitution if Amina's Sharia Court appeal had failed. This paper attempts to analyse those possible areas of conflict which Ojeih identifies and isolate probable and possible approaches for the resolution of any constitutional conflicts that a religiously-inspired law like the sharia law may bring about in Nigeria. This paper maintains the position that so long as the constitution allows religious freedom, it is unlikely that a conflict will arise between the secular state and any kind of religiously-inspired law.


This dissertation paper aims on understanding how the logistics & transport industry operates when it's under the influence of political sanctions especially economic sanctions, and how various participants involved in this industry adapt to or embrace these changes. A broad review of existing literatures on both sanctions and logistics areas and related topics is conducted in order to understand the influence sanctions could have on the logistics operations. Afterwards, we discuss the potential effects of the various types of sanctions by classifying them according to the direct and indirect effects on the logistics operations. Finally, we analyze the changes that occur in the logistics & transport sector in light of some of its aspects. Also, in addition to the logistics operations in the target state, we expand our research by discussing the effects sanctions could cause on the logistics sector in the neighboring and third-party countries as well. The analysis and discussion of this paper is supported by various real life examples provided throughout the paper.


Routine calcitonin measurement in patients with nodular thyroid disease is rather controversial. The aim of this study was to evaluate the contribution of serum calcitonin measurement in the diagnostic evaluation of thyroid nodules with insufficient, indeterminate, or suspicious cytology. Out of 1668 patients who underwent thyroidectomy with the diagnosis of nodular thyroid disease and were screened, 873 patients with insufficient, indeterminate, or suspicious fine-needle aspiration biopsy results were included in the study. From the total number of patients in this study, 10 (1.1%) were diagnosed as medullary thyroid cancer (MTC) using histopathology. The calcitonin level was detected to be above the assay-specific cutoff in 23 (2.6%) patients ranging between 6.5 and 4450 pg/mL. While hypercalcitoninemia was detected in all 10 MTC patients, a false positive elevation of serum calcitonin was detected in 13 patients (1.5%). Of the MTC group, seven patients had cytology results that were suspicious for malignancy (Bethesda V), one patient's cytology showed atypia of undetermined significance (Bethesda III), and two patient's cytology results were suspicious for follicular neoplasm (Bethesda IV). Among the cases with non-diagnostic cytology (Bethesda I), none of the patients were diagnosed with MTC. In conclusion, routine serum calcitonin measurement can be performed in selected cases rather than in all nodular thyroid patients. While it is reasonable to perform routine calcitonin measurement in patients with Bethesda IV and Bethesda V, this measurement was not useful in Bethesda I patients. In Bethesda III patients, patient-based decisions can be made according to their calcitonin measurement.


Abstract An unusually thick ( c . 88 m), transgressive barrier island and shoreface sandstone succession characterizes the Upper Jurassic Heno Formation reservoir of the Freja oil field situated on the boundary of Denmark and Norway. The development and preservation of such thick transgressive barrier island sands is puzzling since a barrier island typically migrates landwards during transgression and only a thin succession of back-barrier and shoreface sands is preserved. Investigation of the development and geometry of the Freja reservoir sandstones is problematic since the reservoir is buried c. 5 km and seismic resolution is inadequate for architectural analysis. Description of the reservoir sandstone bodies is thus based on sedimentological interpretation and correlation of seven wells, of which five were cored. Palaeotopography played a major role in the position and preservation of the thick reservoir sandstones. Using the nearest maximum flooding surface above the reservoir as a datum for well-log correlations, the base of the barrier island succession in the wells is reconstructed as a surface with steep, seaward-dipping palaeotopography. The relief is c . 270 m over a distance of c . 8 km and dips WNW. As a complementary approach to investigation of the reservoir architecture, a Holocene–Recent barrier island system in the Danish part of the NW European Wadden Sea has been studied and used as an analogue. The barrier island of Romo developed during a relative sea-level rise of c. 15 m during the last c. 8000 years and is up to 20 m thick. To unravel the internal 3D facies architecture of the island, an extensive ground penetrating radar (GPR) survey of 35 km line length and seven cores, c. 25 m long, was obtained. Although the barrier island experienced a rapid relative sea-level rise, sedimentation kept pace such that the island aggraded and even prograded seawards and became wider and longer due to the large surplus of sand.


The current Maternal and Child Health Nutrition (MCHN) statistics from India reflect poorly on the existing Government schemes. Experts recognize the conception of two year period (the first 1000 days) as a critical window of opportunity for influencing the poor MCHN status. A clear identification and critical assessment of government schemes/programmes which may impact the 1000 day period can help identify the strength, weakness, opportunity and threats in these interventions, which in turn can inform future offerings. The objective of the study was to review the nutrition related Government interventions which directly affect the 1000 day period. A review of all Government programmes and policies in the area of MCHN was undertaken using multiple strategies namely internet search, direct communication with experts, library visits, analyzing Government documents and reports. The results indicated that out of the 33 MCHN interventions, six conformed to the direct nutrition interventions which may impact the 1000 day period. Detailed Strength, Weakness, Opportunities, Threats (SWOT) analysis of these interventions has shown scope of improvement and areas of learning. The Indian Government has introduced a good leverage of interventions that impact the 1000 day period. However the nutrition component needs to be strengthened with interventions focussing on health care needs, immunisation, cash transfer etc. The recognition of the importance of nutrition was only in terms of provision for proper food with no focus on macro and micro nutrient content. This is an area which needs to be strengthened in the interventions


This manuscript is a design case in early childhood education program in using blogs to improve learning interactivity. The Optimize using of blogs in instructional design provides an extensive opportunity for early childhood education teachers to interact with lecturer, students and learning materials. The goals of instructional design by using blog is to develop the digital pedagogy skills of early childhood teacher candidate, because this is one of the important competencies developed among other competencies such as professional, social, and individual competencies. The teacher candidate who are on pre-service training are now prepared to deal with students who are familiar with technology, which means that the teachers must be able to adapt the progress that has been made so that their digital pedagogy skills can be accepted by students. Therefore, the teachers' candidate need to be prepared carefully. In this case, the learning designer is responsible for providing space for prospective teachers to be actively involved and familiar with technology. Keywords—instructional design; blog; learning interactivity; early childhood


This paper proposes a Smart Parking system which provides an optimal solution for parking problem in metropolitan cities. Due to rapid increase in vehicle density especially during the peak hours of the day, it is a difficult task for the drivers to find a parking space to park their vehicles. The aim of the paper is to resolve the above mentioned issue which provides the Smart Parking system. This system uses cloud computing and Internet of Things (IOT) technology. A suitable shortest path algorithm is used to find the minimum distance between the user and each car park in the system. Thus, the waiting time of the user is minimized .The paper also introduces the usage of android application using smart phone for the interaction between the Smart Parking system and the user. RFID technology is used in this system to avoid the human intervention which minimizes the cost. Keywords— Smart Parking system, RFID Technology and Android.


Sensors are all around us, in buildings, vehicles and public places, from commodity thermostats to custom sensornets. Yet today these sensors are often disconnected from the world, either because they are distant from infrastructure, and wide-area networking (by 3G cellular, satellite, or other approaches) is too expensive to justify. Data muling makes communication cost-effective by leveraging short-range wireless and mobility, perhaps by zebras, buses or farmworkers. In this paper we propose that human-carried mobile phones can serve as data mules for sensornet deployments, exploiting ubiquity of mobile phones and human mobility to bring low-cost communication to sensors. We use two mobile phone datasets to show that Bluetooth can serve as a viable muling network, and humans already see many potential sensors regularly. We have implemented a mobile-phone-based data muling system, and used it in four sensornet deployments totaling ten months operation. We find that muling can be the only cost-effective option for rural deployments, where it is critical to monitoring remote sensor networks. We also show opportunistic mobility can collect data without any extra effort in residential and office environments. Finally, we systematically evaluate our deployments to understand how contact duration and data size interact, and to evaluate the effect of muling on phone batteries.


This paper develops the ledger-centric view of the economy. Ledgers provide an underlying infrastructure for exchange by allowing actors to prove, validate, and verify property ownership. In this sense ledgers map economic, political and social relationships. This paper provides some theoretical distinctions to frame the analysis of the economics of ledgers. First we offer a philosophical and institutional definition of ledgers. Second we provide three analytic categories of ledgers (general, actual, and perfect). Third we offer a ledger theory of the firm as a map of relationship between labour, capital, production processes, and information, and emphasise the economic significance of ledgerisation in the history of entrepreneurial firm creation. Fourth we draw some implications of our theory for the development of complex economies. This paper is based on the theory of institutional cryptoeconomics which was developed to understand the economic implications of distributed ledger technologies.


People-centered innovation is a paradigm shift in the construction industry. It is derived from the supposition that people not methods, schedules, or budgets deliver projects. Our data suggest that a multilevel, multidisciplinary project team through shared vision, values, and a common vernacular defines, designs, and delivers more successful projects than traditional methods. These projects meet the needs of shareholders, the community, stakeholders, and the planet. We employ the concepts of emotional intelligence and agency theory to explain an integrated project delivery (IPD) construction project using lean tactics that not only delivered, but also exceeded expectations resulting in a six-month schedule acceleration and $60M savings over the original estimated cost of the project calculated assuming traditional project delivery methods. The safety rating for this project was 50% better than the national average and the expected improvement in operating margin for the new building is 33% greater. This paper introduces the notion of people-centered innovation to an industry that has struggled to adapt and show positive results over recent decades. Our case study describes the significance of people-centered innovation in construction project delivery. We discuss the implications for the construction industry going forward.


This report gives a summary of the monitoring activities within the national Swedish contaminant programme in marine biota. It is the result from the joint efforts of: the Department of Applied Environmental Science at Stockholm University (analyses of organochlorines), the Department of Environmental Assessment at Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (analyses of heavy metals), Department of Chemistry at Umea University (analyses of PCDD/PCDF) and the Department of Contaminant Research at the Swedish Museum of Natural History (co-ordination, sample collection administration, sample preparation, recording of biological variables, storage of frozen biological tissues in the Environmental Specimen Bank for retrospective studies, data preparation and statistical evaluation). The monitoring programme is financiated by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in Sweden.The data of concern in this report represent the bioavailable part of the investigated contaminants i.e. the part that has virtually passed through the biological membranes and may cause toxic effects. The objectives of the monitoring program in marine biota could be summarised as follows:• to estimate the levels and the normal variation of various contaminants in marine biota from several representative sites, uninfluenced by local sources, along the Swedish coasts. The goal is to describe the general contaminant load and to supply reference values for regional and local monitoring programmes• to monitor long term time trends and to estimate the rate of found changes.quantified objective: to detect an annual change of 10% within a time period of 10 years with a power of 80% at a significance level of 5%.• to estimate the response in marine biota of measures taken to reduce the discharges of various contaminantsquantified objective: to detect a 50% decrease within a time period of 10 years with a power of 80% at a significance level of 5%.• to detect incidents of regional influence or widespread incidents of 'Chernobyl'- character and to act as watchdog monitoring to detect renewed usage of banned contaminants.quantified objective: to detect an increase of 200% a single year with a power of 80% at a significance level of 5%.• to indicate large scale spatial differencesquantified objective: to detect differences of a factor 2 between sites with a power of 80% at a significance level of 5%.• to explore the development and regional differences of the composition and pattern of e.g. PCB's, HCH's and DDT's as well as the ratios between various contaminants.• the time series are also relevant for human consumption since important commercial fish species like herring and cod are sampled. A co-operation with the Swedish Food Administration is established. Sampling is also co-ordinated with SSI (Swedish Radiation Protection Authority) for analysing radionuclides in fish and blue mussels (HELCOM, 1992).• all analysed, and a large number of additional specimens, of the annually systematically collected material are stored frozen in the Environmental Specimen Bank.. This invaluable4material enables future retrospective studies of contaminants impossible to analyse today as well as control analyses of suspected analytical errors.• although the programme is focused on contaminant concentration in biota, also the development of biological variables like e.g. condition factor (CF), liver somatic index (LSI) and fat content are monitored at all sites. At a few sites, integrated monitoring with fish physiology and population are running in co-operation with the University of Gothenburg and the Swedish Board of Fisheries.• experiences from the national programme with several time series of over 25 years can be used in the design of regional and local monitoring programmes.• the perfectly unique material of high quality and long time series is further used to explore relationships among biological variables and contaminant concentrations in various tissues; the effects of changes in sampling strategy, the estimates of variance components and the influence on the concept of power etc.• the accessibility of high quality data collected and analysed in a consistent manner is an indispensable prerequisite to evaluate the validity of hypothesis and models concerning the fate and distribution of various contaminants. It could furthermore be used as input of 'real' data in the ongoing model building activities concerning marine ecosystems in general and in the Baltic and North Sea environment in particular.• the contaminant programme in marine biota constitute an integrated part of the national monitoring activities in the marine environment as well as of the international programmes within ICES, OSPARCOM and HELCOM.The present report displays the timeseries of analysed contaminants in biota and summarises the results from the statistical treatment. It does not in general give the background or explanations to significant changes found in the timeseries. Increasing concentrations thus, urge for intensified studies.Short comments are given for temporal trends as well as for spatial variation and, for some contaminants, differences in geometric mean concentration between various species caught at the same site. Sometimes notes of seasonal variation and differences in concentration between tissues in the same species are given. This information could say something about the relative appropriateness of the sampled matrix and be of help in designing monitoring programmes. In the temporal trend part, an extract of the relevant findings is summarised in the 'conclusion'-paragraph. It should be stressed though, that geographical differences may not reflect antropogenic influence but may be due to factors like productivity, temperature, salinity etc.The report is continuously updated. The date of the latest update is reported at the beginning of each chapter. The creation date of each figure is written in the lower left corner.


Fifteen per cent of British babies are now born to parents who are neither cohabiting nor married. Little is known about non-residential fatherhood that commences with the birth of a child. Here, we use the Millennium Cohort Study to examine a number of aspects of this form of fatherhood. Firstly, we consider the extent to which these fathers were involved with or acknowledged their child at the time of the birth. Secondly, we identify characteristics that differentiate parents who continue to live apart from those who move in together. Thirdly, for the fathers who moved in with the mother and their child, we enquire whether they differ in the extent of their engagement in family life compared with fathers who have been living with the mother since birth. Finally, for fathers who were living apart from their child when the child was nine months old, we assess the extent to which they were in contact, contributed to their maintenance and were involved in their child's life at this time.


For a number of years, clinicians and researchers have recognized the existence of a subgrouping of children who exhibit chronic and pervasive signs of inattention, impulsivity, and physical restlessness, as well as deficiencies in rule-governed behavior, which deviate significantly from age and gender expectations (Barkley; 1981; Ross & Ross, 1982; Wender, 1971). Since first being identified by Still (1902), this particular pattern of behavioral difficulties has undergone numerous changes in the diagnostic terminology used to describe it. Attention Deficit Disorder (with or without Hyperactivity), Hyperkinesis, Hyperkinetic Reaction of Childhood, Hyperactive Child Syndrome, Minimal Brain Damage, and Minimal Brain Dysfunction are some of the many labels that have been applied to this disorder in the past. With the arrival of the recently revised third edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM III-R, American Psychiatric Association, 1987), this same behavioral constellation is now known as Attention Deficit- Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).


The metric learning problem is concerned with learning a distance function tuned to a particular task, and has been shown to be useful when used in conjunction with nearest-neighbor methods and other techniques that rely on distances or similarities. Metric Learning: A Review presents an overview of existing research in this topic, including recent progress on scaling to high-dimensional feature spaces and to data sets with an extremely large number of data points. It presents as unified a framework as possible under which existing research on metric learning can be cast. The monograph starts out by focusing on linear metric learning approaches, and mainly concentrates on the class of Mahalanobis distance learning methods. It then discusses nonlinear metric learning approaches, focusing on the connections between the non-linear and linear approaches. Finally, it discusses extensions of metric learning, as well as applications to a variety of problems in computer vision, text analysis, program analysis, and multimedia. Metric Learning: A Review is an ideal reference for anyone interested in the metric learning problem. It synthesizes much of the recent work in the area and it is hoped that it will inspire new algorithms and applications.


Some engineering data represent a mixture of data from two distinct populations or result from two or more concomitant phenomena. Homogeneous probability density functions are not always suitable for representing such data. This article describes the development of a procedure for fitting two types of heterogeneous density functions to mixed population data. The benefits derived from using these heterogeneous functions are evaluated with conventional goodness-of-fit tests.


Since the 1930's the scientific literature on cow's milk protein allergy (CMPA) has accumulated. Over the last decade new diagnostic tools and treatment approaches have been developed. The diagnosis of reproducible adverse reactions to cow's milk proteins (CMP), i.e. CMPA, still has to be confirmed by controlled elimination and challenge procedures. Advanced diagnostic testing using epitope and microarray technology may in the future improve the diagnostic accuracy of CMPA by determination of specific IgE against specific allergen components of cow's milk protein. The incidence of CMPA in early childhood is approximately 2-3% in developed countries. Symptoms suggestive of CMPA may be encountered in 5-15% of infants emphasizing the importance of controlled elimination/milk challenge procedures. Reproducible clinical reactions to CMP in human milk have been reported in 0.5% of breastfed infants. Most infants with CMPA develop symptoms before 1 month of age, often within 1 week after inter introduction of CMP-based formula. The majority has two or more symptoms from two or more organ systems. Approximately 50-70% have cutaneous symptoms, 50-60% gastrointestinal symptoms and 20-30% respiratory symptoms. Symptoms may occur within 1 hour after milk intake (immediate reactions) or after 1 hour (late reactions). The prognosis of CMPA is good with a remission rate of approximately 45 to 50% at 1 year, 60 to 75% at 2 years and 85 to 90% at 3 years. Associated adverse reactions to other foods develop in up to 50% and allergy against inhalants in 50 to 80%. The basic treatment of CMPA is avoidance of CMP. In early childhood a milk substitute is needed. Documented extensively hydrolysed formulas are recommended, whereas partially hydrolysed formulas should not be used because of a high degree of antigenicity and allergenicity associated with adverse reactions. In case of intolerance to extensively hydrolysed formulas and multiple food allergies a formula based on aminoacids is recommended. Alternative milk substitutes such as sheep's and goat's milk should not be used because of a high degree of cross reactivity with CMP. Milk from other mammals such as mare and donkey may be tolerated by some children with CMPA. Soy protein is as allergenic as CMP and soy formula is not recommended for young children with CMPA because of a great risk of development of allergy to soy, whereas soymilk is normally tolerated in older children with CMPA. Recent treatment modalities are oral immunotherapy (OIT) involving the ingestion of increasing amounts of milk allergen on a regular basis to desensitize and potentially permanently tolerize patients to CMP. OIT can increase the reaction thresholds to CMP, but questions about safety and long-term efficacy remain. Anti-IgE therapy with Omalizumab may improve the safety and efficacy of OIT and may provide benefit in monotherapy.


Background: In the first 6 months following lung transplantation, the most frequently occurring complications are infection, acute rejection and anastomotic dysfunction. The utility of vibration response imaging (VRI) lung images in assisting with the detection of these complications was evaluated. Objectives: The study aimed to evaluate if VRI is a good, non-invasive method of detecting clinical problems in lung transplant (LTx) recipients during early follow-up. Methods: Between 06/2006 and 03/2007 all LTx patients who received transplants during the preceding 6 months at the Hannover Medical School received baseline VRI at enrolment with subsequent reassessment in combination with standard follow-up at 1, 3 and 6 months thereafter. The resulting images were analysed by two blinded reviewers. Results: Fifty-five lung transplant recipients were enrolled in the study, with 49 patients successfully completing follow-up. Device operability and patient participation occurred without significant problems. High numbers of abnormal scans were detected. According to the clinical diagnosis, 29 patients (59.2 %) were stable at all four visits. Twenty clinical problems occurred (e.g., infections, rejections, obstructions, unknown deterioration). Agreement with clinical interpretation of rejections and infections was poor. Central airway obstruction (CAO) was detected in 80% by both reviewers. Accuracy in detecting obstructions was 89%; positive predicted value and negative predicted value were 80% and 90%, respectively. Conclusion: The VRI system is a non-invasive easy-to-use method with technical success and good image quality. The high number of abnormal scans makes interpretation following LTx difficult. VRI was unable to detect deterioration in graft function with the exception of ventilation disorders like central airway complications.


In this paper, an effcient skew estimation technique based on iterative employment of the Piece-wise Painting Algorithm (PPA) on document images is presented. The PPA is initially employed on the document image in both horizontal and vertical directions to obtain two horizontally and vertically painted images. A small number of horizontal (vertical) regions, called horizontal (vertical) bands, are then selected from the horizontally (vertically) painted images. Top (left), middle (middle) and bottom (right) points of the horizontal (vertical) bands are identified in 6 separate lists.A linear regression and a geometric line drawing method are applied on the selected points in each list, two fit lines are drawn. A voting approach based on statistical mode of angles obtained from the fit lines is also proposed to find the best- fit line amongst all the lines. Based on the slope of the best-fit line, the skew angle of the document image is finally estimated and the document skew is corrected. This process is iteratively applied until the estimated skew is less than 1°. The proposed technique was tested extensively on three different datasets containing various categories of document images and encouraging results were obtained.


We demonstrate that by an asymmetric coupling of two nonlinear waveguiding cores to the third strongly absorptive core, it is possible to realize single-photon generation on demand from an input coherent state. This three-core fiber setup can also be implemented for achieving strong photon-number squeezing even for large losses in side cores.


Introduction and Aim: Ultrasound (US) provides valuable information in pathologies related to the lung parenchyma that are in direct contact with the pleura.The aim of this work was to design custom-made low-cost phantoms, whose characteristics mimic the lung parenchyma, to aid professionals in thoracic US imaging. Such phantoms would allow them to gain diagnostic and therapeutic capabilities in a clinical setting, in which infectious and neoplastic etiology diseases present a high prevalence. Methods: Water-based phantoms were fabricated using a 10% concentration of Polyvinyl Alcohol Cryogel (PVA-C) as gelling agent. Cellulose (20 mm) was employed as acoustic scatter at 1% concentration.In order to mimic the pathologies of interest, such as neoplasia or pleural effusion, different spherical inclusions, filled with solid or liquid, were placed at variable depths. Results: US characterization of each fabricated phantom was performed using a standard clinical US system (Z6 Mindray).Acquired images confirmed the similarity of the fabricated phantoms with the normal lung parenchyma.Furthermore, the measured speed of sound was within the limits of soft tissues reported in the literature. In addition, ultrasound images of the inclusions were validated. Interobserver variability did not affect the characteristics of the phantoms. Conclusion: The availability of these phantoms simulating the lung parenchyma provides tools to gain capabilities in the use of US imaging. Therefore, earlier and improved diagnosis of several pathologies could be achieved as well as faster and more precise interventions. Thus, the number of invasive surgical procedures and their associated costs would be reduced.


Permafrost temperatures have increased in Alaska since the 1960s, and many impacts of climate warming are associated with permafrost thaw. Thaw of permafrost caused by increases in permafrost temperature may result in thaw settlement and significant damage to infrastructure. The goal of this research is to identify regions of Alaska at risk from thaw subsidence related to climate warming and to determine the relative risk of those regions. We developed a Permafrost Settlement Hazard Index (PSHI) by analyzing anticipated climate warming and the ecological characteristics that regulate thaw subsidence. This analysis provides statistical verification that the discontinuous permafrost region is at more risk of thaw settlement than other regions of Alaska. In addition, it estimates future thaw subsidence risk in Alaska in 2050 using future temperature increases projected by published climate models. Results indicate increased thaw subsidence risk in northern Alaska in 2050, with the greatest increase expected in parts of northwest Alaska. However, in the interior and southwest Alaska, projected disappearance of permafrost from the surface will reduce the risk of thaw subsidence.


In this book, Victoria Lorrimar explores anthropologies of co-creation as a theological response to the questions posed by technologically enhanced humans, a prospect that is disturbing to some, but compelling for many. The centrality the imagination for moral reasoning, attested in recent scholarship on the imagination, offers a fruitful starting point for a theological engagement with these envisioned technological futures. Lorrimar approaches the topic under the purview of a doctrine of creation that affirms a relationship between human and divine creativity. Traditionally, theological treatments of creativity have been almost exclusively applied to artistic endeavours. Here, Lorrimar breaks new ground by extending such theological accounts to include technology, and uniting them with the strengths of scientific accounts of co-creation. She draws on metaphor studies, cognitive sciences, as well as literary studies, to develop an account of human creativity in relation to divine creativity, which is then applied to various enhancement scenarios.


We present new results from a paleoseismic trenching campaign at a site across the Jordan Gorge Fault (JGF), the primary strand of the Dead Sea Transform in northern Israel. In addition to the previously recognized earthquakes of 1202 and 1759 C.E., we observe evidence for eight surface-rupturing earthquakes prior to the second millennium C.E. The past millennium appears deficient in strain release with the occurrence of only two large ruptures, when compared with the preceding 1200 years. Assuming Gutenberg-Richter magnitude-frequency distribution, there is a dis- crepancy between measured rate of small-magnitude earthquakes (M <4) from instrumental records and large earthquake rates from paleoseismic records. The in- terevent time of surface-rupturing earthquakes varies by a factor of two to four during the past 2 ka at our site, and the fault's behavior is not time predictable. The JGF may be capable of rupturing in conjunction with both of its southern and northern neigh- boring segments, and there is tentative evidence that earthquakes nucleating in the Jordan Valley (e.g., the 749 C.E. earthquake) could either rupture through the stepover between the faults or trigger a smaller event on the JGF. We offer a model of earth- quake production for this segment in which the long-term slip rate remains constant while differing earthquake sizes can occur, depending on the segment from which they originated and the time since the last large event. The rate of earthquake occurrence in this model does not produce a time-predictable pattern over a period of 2 ka as a result of the interplay between fault segments to the south and north of the JGF. Online Material: High-resolution photomosaic logs of trench walls probability density function (PDF) and table of unit descriptions for channels 3 and 4.


Despite overwhelming interest in the role of social capital in international development, attention to the interplay of community-based development aid with local collective-action dynamics in Central Asia and particularly Tajikistan has remained limited. This paper investigates donor-induced local institutions for collective action in rural Tajikistan with a focus on the introduction of a community-based health insurance. Social capital and collective-action theories are used to interpret results from qualitative research in two Rushan District villages in the Gorno-Badakhshan region. By highlighting the role of donor embeddedness, and the perceived legitimacy of different decision-making structures, the article contends that the perception of such externally-induced change depends on the community's capacity to reach beyond the intra-communal solidarity network through bridging and linking capital. The findings suggest this can be fostered by addressing trust, and the role of effective development brokers, with due attention to power relations within communities and towards external agents.


An internal security problem of Somalia—state failure from internal conflict resulting in increased piracy—has increasingly become an external security problem for the European Union (EU). This article contributes to analysing the role of the EU as a security actor in countering piracy off the Horn of Africa, by examining three different dimensions of the EU response to this problem: (a) the immediate EU response (the EU military mission EUNAVFOR Atalanta ); (b) the medium-term EU response (the Critical Maritime Routes ( CMR ) programme launched by the European Commission); and (c) the long-term EU response (development and security assistance). This article concludes that the EU has been very active in addressing piracy through its naval task-force to protect maritime transport in the western Indian Ocean and the Gulf of Aden, as well as its efforts to enhance regional counter-piracy capacities and thematic and geographical financial instruments. The EU thus has taken up the fight against 'Captain Hook'.


Current economic, social, educational, and philosophical conditions of university learning in the 21st century are unique, resulting in a disjuncture between traditional academic discourse and the culture, literacy and the learning modes of current students. Driven by the knowledge economy and technology, governments have encouraged the massification and globalisation of university education and continue to promote access to university for non-traditional students. In regional, post-Dawkins universities of Australia, the student demographic is increasingly diverse, spanning age groups from 18-75, cultures, socio economic and educational backgrounds and English language proficiency. Evidence suggests that high levels of abstract and technical language exclude many students from academic discourse communities denying them an opportunity to succeed, affect performance and increase drop-out rates. In neglecting to provide specific strategies for ensuring all students have access to meanings in discourses, current theories for higher learning inadvertently fail to recognise that 'knowledge' is constructed through language. Further, university pedagogies continue to assume high levels of literacy previously associated with traditional university students. This thesis integrates learning theory and systemic functional language analysis to provide an understanding of, (1) how we use language to express abstract technical knowledge in the humanities, social science and science, and (2) what learning theory tells us about how we might best recruit students into academic discourse communities. To help establish the most effective ways of presenting discourse to first year students, it also compares three versions of discourse presenting the same knowledge and students' views on how easy the discourse was to comprehend. Contemporary university language and learning theory, the linguistic features of academic discourses, and students' responses to these are examined. This analysis informs a proposal for an inclusive pedagogy, effective in the apprenticing of students to become successful participants in academia, and the new knowledge world in general. These strategies build on the "Reading to Learn" scaffolding literacy approach of Rose (2007) by incorporating more explicitly, stages that acknowledge the importance of schema, concept mapping and experiential learning and our understanding of proclivities of the net generation.


Abstract The phase relation and structural evolution of Holl-I and Holl-II in the composition KAlSi3O8 at 0 K have been investigated by the first-principles method up to 130 GPa. Holl-I and Holl-II are polymorphs of KAlSi3O8 stable at low pressures and high pressures, respectively. The transition pressure is determined at -23(5) GPa, in agreement with recent experimental observations. All experimentally observed major changes associated with this phase transition such as the deviation of the γ-angle from 90°, splitting of the a- and b-axes, as well as its P-V evolution, are successfully simulated. By evaluating the effect of different Al/Si substitution mechanisms on the computing cell of Holl-I, we have found: (1) different Al/Si substitution mechanisms do not result in apparent difference in the minimized cohesive energies, suggesting a possible random distribution of Al and Si; (2) different Al/ Si substitution mechanisms lead to different powder X‑ray diffraction features, which, compared to the experimentally observed powder X‑ray diffraction data, implies that local non-random distribution of Al and Si exists to some extent in the Holl-I structure; and (3) the phase transition from Holl-I to Holl-II might be associated with a change in the distribution pattern of Al and Si in the structure. From the simulated compression data, we have derived K0 = 174 GPa and V0 = 244.82 Å3 for Holl-I, and K0 = 168 GPa and V0 = 244.8 Å3 for Holl-II (K0′ fixed at 4). The larger K0 of Holl-I is probably related to the more stable squared open tunnel delimited by the rigid tetragonal octahedral framework, which is gradually deformed by compression in Holl-II after the phase transition from Holl-I to Holl-II.