Could a story save your life? If Kelsey Newman's theory about the end of time is true, we are all going to live forever. But who would want that? Certainly not Meg, a bright spark trapped in a hopeless relationship. But if she can work out the connection between a wild beast on Dartmoor, a ship in a bottle, the science of time a knitting pattern for the shape of the universe, she might just find a way out.


Designed for learners who want to make effective progress in a short time, this course concentrates on developing fluency, refreshing key grammar areas, and extending vocabulary. 40-60 hours per level.


We study diffuse gamma-ray emission at intermediate Galactic latitudes measured by the Fermi Large Area Telescope with the aim of searching for a signal from dark matter annihilation or decay. In the absence of a robust dark matter signal, constraints are presented. We set both, conservative dark matter limits requiring that the dark matter signal does not exceed the observed diffuse gamma-ray emission and limits derived based on modeling the foreground astrophysical diffuse emission. Uncertainties in several parameters which characterize conventional astrophysical emission are taken into account using a profile likelihood formalism. The resulting limits impact the range of particle masses over which dark matter thermal production in the early Universe is possible, and challenge the interpretation of the PAMELA/Fermi-LAT cosmic ray anomalies as annihilation of dark matter.


Many algorithms for image processing and pattern recognition have recently been implemented on GPU (graphic processing unit) for faster computational times. However, the implementation using GPU encounters two problems. First, the programmer should master the fundamentals of the graphics shading languages that require the prior knowledge on computer graphics. Second, in a job which needs much cooperation between CPU and GPU, which is usual in image processings and pattern recognitions contrary to the graphics area, CPU should generate raw feature data for GPU processing as much as possible to effectively utilize GPU performance. This paper proposes more quick and efficient implementation of neural networks on both GPU and multi-core CPU. We use CUDA (compute unified device architecture) that can be easily programmed due to its simple C language-like style instead of GPU to solve the first problem. Moreover, OpenMP (Open Multi-Processing) is used to concurrently process multiple data with single instruction on multi-core CPU, which results ineffectively utilizing the memories of GPU. In the experiments, we implemented neural networks-based text detection system using the proposed architecture, and the computational times showed about 15 times faster than implementation using CPU and about 4 times faster than implementation on only GPU without OpenMP.


As an artist who operates in the realm of the subjective, I use techniques of image appropriation as an external means to negotiate my internal world. In the treatment of sourced images, specifically through fracturing, disrupting and subverting, I re-enact a formal fracture of identity. A key narrative within the exploration of this subjective identification is the inherent push-and-pull of my relationship with my mother. A tension of opposites reverberates throughout the practical research: object and subject, self and other, male and female, straight and gay, surface and meaning; in a capacity that can be subversive, anxious, delicate and harmonious. The psychoanalytic theory of Jacques Lacan and Melanie Klein provides a useful model in which to demystify these tensions and provide a lateral basis for my approach to the aesthetic. I will probe further the issue of the mother in the context of feminist theory by Joan Copjec, and compare my approach to this theme with other artists.

The monstrous orchid, a botanic hybrid of the late Victorian era, offers the perfect metaphor through which to explore some of the issues that connect my subjectivity to the practical research. I examine the significance of Oscar Wilde and Aubrey Beardsley for their championing of the decorative as a means to communicate the subversive. The research explores examples in Victorian and contemporary art that approach the subversive through autobiography and artifice, referencing my own past when self was
surface. I highlight in the theoretical research the important role of the mask in connecting the internal with the external. Three important concepts help qualify this connection: Julia Kristeva's notion of the abject, Judith Butler's views on gender and performativity and
Laura Mulvey's articulation of the gaze.

I will investigate the technical dimension to my approach through multiple frameworks. This includes a semiotic discussion on symbolism in Picasso and the potential for image to act as language and narrative in a way that can function independent of the subjective. In addition to the exploration of the principle is detournement, a 1950s strategy I will situate my work against. Recognising that I work within a space of queer aesthetics, I also define my position through an examination of theories of camp in the written exegesis. I compare the ideas of Susan Sontag with more updated definitions of camp, uncovering the secret subversive language of polari and highlight the symbolic and technical potential of the closet in the context of Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick's gender theory.


Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) will be integrated into the future Internet as one of the components of the Internet of Things, and will become globally addressable by any entity connected to the Internet. Despite the great potential of this integration, it also brings new threats, such as the exposure of sensor nodes to attacks originating from the Internet. In this context, lightweight authentication and key agreement protocols must be in place to enable end-to-end secure communication. Recently, Amin et al. proposed a three-factor mutual authentication protocol for WSNs. However, we identified several flaws in their protocol. We found that their protocol suffers from smart card loss attack where the user identity and password can be guessed using offline brute force techniques. Moreover, the protocol suffers from known session-specific temporary information attack, which leads to the disclosure of session keys in other sessions. Furthermore, the protocol is vulnerable to tracking attack and fails to fulfill user untraceability. To address these deficiencies, we present a lightweight and secure user authentication protocol based on the Rabin cryptosystem, which has the characteristic of computational asymmetry. We conduct a formal verification of our proposed protocol using ProVerif in order to demonstrate that our scheme fulfills the required security properties. We also present a comprehensive heuristic security analysis to show that our protocol is secure against all the possible attacks and provides the desired security features. The results we obtained show that our new protocol is a secure and lightweight solution for authentication and key agreement for Internet-integrated WSNs.


Accelerated erosion and transport of fine sediment from upland temperate catchments can reflect increased erosivity and/or erodibility, due in turn to climatic and/or human forcing. Identification of sediment fluxes and sources over Holocene timescales can both enable understanding of the relative impacts of these forcings and provide perspective on recent sediment fluxes. Here we present a ~ 5500 yr record of sediment fluxes and sources from Lake Bassenthwaite in the English Lake District, utilizing magnetic measurements and fuzzy clustering, coupled with independent pollen and archaeological records, to identify the timing and impact of catchment disturbance. This record shows that recent sediment flux increases (ie, within the last 150 years) are unprecedented in scale throughout the mid—late Holocene and appear to be in response to specific human changes occurring within the catchment. Earlier episodes of human activity, from the mid Holocene onwards, show no link with increased lake sediment fluxes, indicating either limited catchment impact and/or `buffering' through within-catchment sediment storage. Increasingly intensive land use and reduction of sediment storage through revetment construction on a key inflow, Newlands Beck, have resulted in 3 × increases in lake sediment flux. These data may be significant for other upland temperate areas, as increasing land-use pressures and reduced sediment storage capacity may not only increase contemporary sediment flux, but increase sensitivity to predicted increases in rainfall and storminess as a result of global climate change.


Although the governing equations of many systems, when derived from first principles, may be viewed as known, it is often too expensive to numerically simulate all the interactions they describe. Therefore, researchers often seek simpler descriptions that describe complex phenomena without numerically resolving all the interacting components. Stochastic differential equations (SDEs) arise naturally as models in this context. The growth in data acquisition, both through experiment and through simulations, provides an opportunity for the systematic derivation of SDE models in many disciplines. However, inconsistencies between SDEs and real data at short time scales often cause problems, when standard statistical methodology is applied to parameter estimation. The incompatibility between SDEs and real data can be addressed by deriving sufficient statistics from the time-series data and learning parameters of SDEs based on these. Here, we study sufficient statistics computed from time averages, an approach that we demonstrate to lead to sufficient statistics on a variety of problems and that has the secondary benefit of obviating the need to match trajectories. Following this approach, we formulate the fitting of SDEs to sufficient statistics from real data as an inverse problem and demonstrate that this inverse problem can be solved by using ensemble Kalman inversion. Furthermore, we create a framework for non-parametric learning of drift and diffusion terms by introducing hierarchical, refinable parameterizations of unknown functions, using Gaussian process regression. We demonstrate the proposed methodology for the fitting of SDE models, first in a simulation study with a noisy Lorenz '63 model, and then in other applications, including dimension reduction in deterministic chaotic systems arising in the atmospheric sciences, large-scale pattern modeling in climate dynamics and simplified models for key observables arising in molecular dynamics. The results confirm that the proposed methodology provides a robust and systematic approach to fitting SDE models to real data.


Abstract:Trait-based approaches, which focus on the functional characteristics of organisms rather than their taxonomic identity, offer a means to explain how plant communities and ecosystem functions respond to environmental change. Here I review recent developments in the use of plant trait-based approaches for interrogating the functioning of soils and their response to global change. Plant traits impact soil functioning via multiple routes with feedback consequences for biogeochemical cycles and plant community dynamics. They also display a high degree of plasticity in response to global change; as such, there is much potential for global change-induced shifts in trait spectra, both aboveground and belowground, to impact soil functions with feedbacks to biogeochemical cycling across multiple scales. Recent research reveals that root traits play a particularly important role in influencing the soil environment, with strong impacts on a host of physical, chemical and biological soil properties. Although a fast-moving topic, many challenges regarding the use of trait-based approaches to interrogate soil functioning remain. I identify three. First, there is a need for improved understanding of genotypic- and species-level variation in plant traits, especially of root traits that have the strongest potential to influence soil function. Second, there is a need to incorporate new understanding of links between plant traits and soil processes into terrestrial biogeochemical and dynamic vegetation models, in order to enhance their predictive power. Finally, there is a need to harness new understanding of plant traits and their impact on soil functions in sustainable food production systems, in particular to enhance resource acquisition by crop plants. This last point is especially important given the extent that soils are degraded worldwide, and the need to develop sustainable ways of managing soil to prevent further degradation whilst also increasing the production of food.


One of the main techniques used to de-noise and deblur signals and images is regularization, which is based on the fact that signals and images are usually smoother than noise. Traditional Tikhonov regularization assumes that signals and images are differentiable, but, as Mandelbrot has shown in his fractal theory, many signals and images are not differentiable. To de-noise and de-blur such images, researchers have designed a heuristic method of ℓp-regularization. ℓp-regularization leads to good results, but it is not used as widely as should be, because it lacks a convincing theoretical explanation - and thus, practitioners are often reluctant to use it, especially in critical situations. In this paper, we show that fuzzy techniques provide a theoretical explanation for the ℓp-regularization. Fuzzy techniques also enables us to come up with natural next approximations to be used when the accuracy of the ℓp-based denoising and de-blurring is not sufficient.


Abstract Nummulites lyelli D'Archiac and Haime 1853, is described for the first time from photographs of both generations, using material from the species type locality at El-Mishgigah, in the El-Gharaq Formation exposed in the Fayum Depression. Nummulites praelyelli n.sp., described from the Mokattam Formation below the Citadel of Salah El Din, in the eastern part of Cairo, is interpreted to be the ancestor of Nummulites lyelli Archiac and Haime. The main ontogenetic trend in this newly identified lineage is a gradual change from tight to lax coiling during growth, whereas the opposite onotgenetic trend is found in the lineage of Nummulites gizehensis (Forskål) In this work, the group of Nummulites gizehensis and allied species is separated from the group of Nummulites lyelli, partly on this basis but definitively on the basis of granulation and septal morphology. We suggest that at the beginning of the Bartonian, Nummulites lyelli ecologically displaced the Late Lutetian Nummulites gizehensis in both space and time, rather than evolving from it.


Standard economic theories of saving implicitly assume that households have the cognitive ability to solve the relevant optimization problem and the willpower to execute the optimal plan. Both of the implicit assumptions are suspect. Even among economists, few spend much time calculating a personal optimal savings rate. Instead, most people cope by adopting simple heuristics, or rules of thumb. In this paper, we investigate both the heuristics and the biases that emerge in the area of retirement savings. We examine the decisions employees make about whether to join a savings plan, how much to contribute, and how to invest. Saving for retirement is a difficult problem, and most employees have little training upon which to draw in making the relevant decisions. Perhaps as a result, investors are relatively passive. They are slow to join advantageous plans; they make infrequent changes; and they adopt naive diversification strategies. In short, they need all the help they can get. We discuss the possible role of interventions aiming to improve retirement decision making. Fortunately, many effective ways to help participants are also the least costly interventions: namely, small changes in plan design, sensible default options, and opportunities to increase savings rates and rebalance portfolios automatically.


In 2 separate self-paced reading experiments, Farmer, Christiansen, and Monaghan (2006) found that the degree to which a word's phonology is typical of other words in its lexical category influences online processing of nouns and verbs in predictive contexts. Staub, Grant, Clifton, and Rayner (2009) failed to find an effect of phonological typicality when they combined stimuli from the separate experiments into a single experiment. We replicated Staub et al.'s experiment and found that the combination of stimulus sets affects the predictiveness of the syntactic context; this reduces the phonological typicality effect as the experiment proceeds, although the phonological typicality effect was still evident early in the experiment. Although an ambiguous context may diminish sensitivity to the probabilistic relationship between the sound of a word and its lexical category, phonological typicality does influence online sentence processing during normal reading when the syntactic context is predictive of the lexical category of upcoming words.


The constraint satisfaction problem (CSP) is a general problem central to computer science and artificial intelligence. Although the CSP is NP-hard in general, considerable effort has been spent on identifying tractable subclasses. The main two approaches consider structural properties (restrictions on the hypergraph of constraint scopes) and relational properties (restrictions on the language of constraint relations). Recently, some authors have considered hybrid properties that restrict the constraint hypergraph and the relations simultaneously.

Our key contribution is the novel concept of a CSP pattern and classes of problems defined by forbidden patterns (which can be viewed as forbidding generic sub-problems). We describe the theoretical framework which can be used to reason about classes of problems defined by forbidden patterns. We show that this framework generalises certain known hybrid tractable classes.

Although we are not close to obtaining a complete characterisation concerning the tractability of general forbidden patterns, we prove a dichotomy in a special case: classes of problems that arise when we can only forbid binary negative patterns (generic subproblems in which only disallowed tuples are specified). In this case we show that all (finite sets of) forbidden patterns define either polynomial-time solvable or NP-complete classes of instances.


Author(s): Murphy, Thomas W, Jr | Abstract: Note: a two-side version optimized for printing is available in Supplemental Materials. Where is humanity going? How realistic is a future of fusion and space colonies? What constraints are imposed by physics, by resource availability, and by human psychology?n Are default expectations grounded in reality?This textbook, written for a general-education audience, aims to address these questions without either the hype or the indifference typical of many books.n The message throughout is that humanity faces a broad sweep of foundational problems as we inevitably transition away from fossil fuels and confront planetary limits in a host of unprecedented ways—a shift whose scale and probable rapidity offers little historical guidance.Salvaging a decent future requires keen awareness, quantitative assessment, deliberate preventive action, and—above all—recognition that prevailing assumptions about human identity and destiny have been cruelly misshapen by the profoundly unsustainable trajectory of the last 150 years.n The goal is to shake off unfounded and unexamined expectations, while elucidating the relevant physics and encouraging greater facility in quantitative reasoning.After addressing limits to growth, population dynamics, uncooperative space environments, and the current fossil underpinnings of modern civilization, various sources of alternative energy are considered in detail— assessing how they stack up against each other, and which show the greatest potential.n Following this is an exploration of systemic human impediments to effective and timely responses, capped by guidelines for individual adaptations resulting in reduced energy and material demands on the planet's groaning capacity. Appendices provide refreshers on math and chemistry, as well as supplementary material of potential interest relating to cosmology, electric transportation, and an evolutionary perspective on humanity's place in nature.Corrections and feedback can be left at https://tmurphy.physics.ucsd.edu/energy-text/


Plants are frequently under attack from pests and deploy various defense mechanisms to fight off predators. Many plant defenses are induced following herbivory or pathogen infection. An investment in defense could potentially lead to a diversion of metabolic resources away from primary metabolism, including reduction in plant commitment to photosynthesis. In this thesis, changes in expression levels of representative genes for primary and secondary metabolism were studied using real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) in Medicago truncatula Gaertner subjected to beet armyworm (Spodoptera exigua Hübner) damage or Phoma medicaginis Malbr. & Roum. infection. Photosynthetic yield was also measured using chlorophyll fluorescence to determine if changes in expression level of genes encoding photosynthetic machinery corresponded with changes in yield. In insect-damaged plants, transcripts encoding β-amyrin synthase (βAS), farnesyl pyrophosphate I (FPS1) and a cytochrome P450 monooxygenase (CYP716A12) were induced to levels significantly higher than in non-damaged control plants. Each of these genes is predicted to encode a product directly involved in the synthesis of secondary metabolites, so the strong levels of induction are consistent with activation of plant defenses. However, transcripts encoding protein products directly involved in photosynthesis were significantly suppressed. These included genes for chlorophyll a/b binding protein (CAB), ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase small subunit (RubP) and oxygen-evolving enhancing protein (OEE). This observation, along with previous reports in the literature, is consistent with a shift of plant resource commitment away from primary metabolism. Transcript accumulation of genes encoding 1-deoxy-D-xylulose 5-phosphate reductoisomerase (DXR) and chalcone reductase (CHR) were also suppressed in insect-injured plants. In pathogen-inoculated plants, CHR transcripts were induced while those for βAS, FPS1, CYP716A12, DXR, CAB and RubP were suppressed, and the expression level of OEE was unchanged. The CHR enzyme regulates a branch point in the biosynthesis of flavonoids and isoflavoids, which include antimicrobial phytoalexins in the Fabaceae. Its induction following pathogen infection suggests an activation of pathogen-specific responses by the plant. Changes in expression level for all members of the 3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl-CoA reductase (HMGR) gene family in M. truncatula were also assessed. Differential transcript accumulation for gene family members encoding HMGR, which catalyzes the first committed step in the mevalonate pathway leading to sesquiand tri-terpenes in plants, is well established. Transcripts for all five M. truncatula HMGR isoforms were induced following insect herbivory. In fungal-inoculated plants, all transcripts were suppressed except HMGR2, which was induced by pathogen infection. The differential expression of the HMGR gene family members in M. truncatula demonstrated in this study is consistent with the varied expression profiles of this gene family observed in other plants. Photosynthetic yield was measured via leaf fluorescence as photosystem II operating efficiency. No significant difference in yield was observed among the treatments and all samples had yield values typical for unstressed plants. This was unexpected based on transcript data. Expression levels for photosynthetic genes were greatly suppressed in plants subjected to either treatment while defense genes were induced indicating a metabolic shift. Although photosynthesis measurements showed no change in yield, transcript data showed suppression of photosynthetic genes. This suggests that although photosynthetic-gene transcript levels are reduced, there must still be adequate levels to maintain photosynthesis in the time frame of these experiments. In this study, it was shown that there is not a direct link between molecular activity in the form of transcript accumulation and physiological activity following insect attack and pathogen infection in plants. This thesis is approved for recommendation to the Graduate Council.


Measurements of in situ stress orientation and magnitude at the site of the Cajon Pass research borehole have been made from depths of 0.9-3.5 km using the hydraulic fracturing technique and analysis of stress-induced well bore breakouts. The results of these measurements support two important conclusions about the mechanics of crustal faulting. First, the magnitudes of measured in situ stresses indicate ratios of shear to normal stres. s on favorably oriented fault planes that are consistent with predictions based on Mohr-Coulomb theory and laboratory-determined coefficients of friction in the range of 0.6-1.0 assuming hydrostatic pore pressure (this is commonly known as Byerlee's law). Thus the stress measurements indicate that the frictional strength of the crust adjacent to the San Andreas fault is high (i.e., consistent with laboratory-derived friction values) and that the level of shear stress in the crust adjacent to the San Andreas is principally controlled by its frictional strength. However, data on the orientation of maximum horizontal compression in the borehole from 1.75 to 3.5 km (N57oE + 19 o) indicate that the San Andreas must be quite weak as a complete absence of right-lateral shear stress resolved on planes parallel to the --N60oW striking San Andreas fault is observed. The lack of right-lateral shear stress on planes parallel to the San Andreas fault at this site is especially surprising as Cajon Pass is located along a section of the San Andreas which has not had a major earthquake since 1812 and is thus presumably quite "late" in the earthquake cycle. Nevertheless, both the orientation and magnitudes of stresses measured in the well are consistent with the style of active faulting in the area surrounding the drill site, most notably normal faulting and Quaternary age left-lateral slip on the Cleghorn fault that parallels the San Andreas in the vicinity of the drill site (Meisling and Weldon, 1982; Weldon, 1986; R. J. Weldon et al., unpublished report, 1981). We argue that the stress state (and Quaternary fault offsets) observed in the Cajon Pass area could exist only if the San Andreas moved at low shear stresses comparable to seismic stress drops rather than the much higher values predicted by Byerlee's law, a conclusion consistent with the lack of frictionally generated heat flow along the San Andreas system (e.g., Brune et al., 1969; Henyey and Wasserburg, 1971; Lachenbruch and Sass, 1973, 1980). Taken together, the Cajon Pass in situ stress and heat flow measurements (Lachenbruch and Sass, this issue) support a conceptual model of the San Andreas system in which the San Andreas is extremely weak with respect to the surrounding crust.


Comprehensive global cooperation is essential to limit global temperature increases while continuing economic development, e.g., reducing severe inequality or achieving long-term economic growth. Achieving long-term cooperation on climate change mitigation with n strategic agents poses a complex game-theoretic problem. For example, agents may negotiate and reach climate agreements, but there is no central authority to enforce adherence to those agreements. Hence, it is critical to design negotiation and agreement frameworks that foster cooperation, allow all agents to meet their individual policy objectives, and incentivize long-term adherence. This is an interdisciplinary challenge that calls for collaboration between researchers in machine learning, economics, climate science, law, policy, ethics, and other fields. In particular, we argue that machine learning is a critical tool to address the complexity of this domain. To facilitate this research, here we introduce RICE-N, a multi-region integrated assessment model that simulates the global climate and economy, and which can be used to design and evaluate the strategic outcomes for different negotiation and agreement frameworks. We also describe how to use multi-agent reinforcement learning to train rational agents using RICE-N. This framework underpins AI for Global Climate Cooperation , a working group collaboration and competition on climate negotiation and agreement design. Here, we invite the scientific community to design and evaluate their solutions using RICE-N, machine learning, economic intuition, and other domain knowledge. More information can be found on www.ai4climatecoop.org.


The field of electroacoustic improvisation in the Netherlands is largely male dominated. Flutist, improviser and composer Anne La Berge signalled this and other problems related to gender in 'Kraakgeluiden', a Dutch venue for improvisation in electroacoustic music. Four possible factors contributing to gender discrimination are proposed: the stereotypical gendered concept of an improviser, differences in communicative styles, the dominance of male networks, and music technology itself. This is followed by a consideration of gendered differences in music improvisation. It is posited that male improvisers often seek to establish a hierarchy among themselves, while women performers tend to project themselves less to the forefront. Women improvisers may traditionally have a different sense of autonomy, in adherence to gender norms. While music education might offer a means to change behaviour patterns, it appears that these gender norms are internalised at a surprisingly young age. While concentrating on electroacoustic improvisation, this essay also includes relevant experiences of other improvisers. Gender discrimination in electroacoustic music improvisation is a complex issue deserving more research.


The global demand for hydrocarbons is high and is also believed to be high in the future. Much of today's oil and gas exploration is carried out offshore and consequently, there is a risk if oil and gas blowouts at the seabed. Major concerns from a subsea oil and gas release are fire and toxic hazard to people working on offshore installations and loss of buoyancy of ships and floating installations. In addition, oil spills will result in both immediate and long-term environmental damage. Risk assessments are a very useful tool to pinpoint the risks of offshore oil and gas exploration and production. In terms of blowouts, these assessments require knowledge of the qualitative behavior and reliable quantitative estimates for where and when the oil and gas will surface. Since execution of underwater test releases of hydrocarbons is extremely costly, computer models are interesting research subjects. In this thesis, a simulation concept for forecasting oil and gas blowouts is presented. ANSYS FLUENT 15.0.0, a commercial Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) package, is used to obtain both the qualitative behavior and the quantitative estimates. The model accounts for variation in bubble size and bubble density. In addition the model allows for the presence of ocean currents and gas dissolution. The released oil droplets and the natural gas bubbles are tracked while they rise towards the ocean surface in order to estimate the effect of ambient ocean currents. The general model set-up is first validated against experimental data, for which air-bubbles are released in a 7 m deep basin. The primary simulations are based upon a field experiment conducted in Norwegian waters during June 2000, known as DeepSpill. Four discharges of oil and gas from a water depth of 844 m was carried out under controlled circumstances. Extensive observations and documentation were acquired during the experiments, in addition chemical and biological samples were collected along the water column. In the present work, simulation results are presented, discussed and compared with chosen field data obtained from the DeepSpill experiment. The overall simulation results are found to correspond quite good with the results from the DeepSpill experiment. The mean path of oil corresponds favorably with the overall shape of the echo-sound images taken during the experiments. The point of complete gas dissolution is found to match the field data, as long as a mass transfer reduction factor is employed. However, the rise time of oil droplets are somewhat over-predicted, which may indicate a need for denser grid in the release zone and/or a reconsideration of the oil droplet size distribution.


The goal was to assess the role of children's social cognitions about peers in attitudes toward school. Because of gender segregation, we differentiated children's cognitions about same-gender and other-gender peers. We examined the influence of gender-based relationship efficacy for both own-gender and other-gender peers (GBRE-Own and GBRE-Other) on school-related outcomes while controlling for other peer relationship variables. Students ( N = 206, fourth grade) reported on relationship efficacy, peer relationships, and school outcomes in Year 1 and again 1 year later. Results indicated that efficacy beliefs were positively related to school outcomes. Moreover, a developmental pattern emerged: GBRE-Own consistently predicted school outcomes in fourth grade but not fifth, and GBRE-Other consistently predicted school outcomes in fifth grade but not fourth. As interest in other-gender relationships becomes more prominent in late childhood, efficacy about other-gender interactions appears to exert influence in mixed-gender contexts (e.g., classrooms). Implications are discussed for improving peer interactions and school attitudes.


Sprouted vegetable seeds used as food have been implicated as sources of outbreaks of Salmonella and Escherichia coli O157:H7 infections. We profiled the microbiological quality of sprouts and seeds sold at retail shops in Seoul, Korea. Ninety samples of radish sprouts and mixed sprouts purchased at department stores, supermarkets, and traditional markets and 96 samples of radish, alfalfa, and turnip seeds purchased from online stores were analyzed to determine the number of total aerobic bacteria (TAB) and molds or yeasts (MY) and the incidence of Salmonella, E. coli O157:H7, and Enterobacter sakazakii. Significantly higher numbers of TAB (7.52 log CFU/g) and MY (7.36 log CFU/g) were present on mixed sprouts than on radish sprouts (6.97 and 6.50 CFU/g, respectively). Populations of TAB and MY on the sprouts were not significantly affected by location of purchase. Radish seeds contained TAB and MY populations of 4.08 and 2.42 log CFU/g, respectively, whereas populations of TAB were only 2.54 to 2.84 log CFU/g and populations of MY were 0.82 to 1.69 log CFU/g on alfalfa and turnip seeds, respectively. Salmonella and E. coli O157:H7 were not detected on any of the sprout and seed samples tested. E. sakazakii was not found on seeds, but 13.3% of the mixed sprout samples contained this potentially pathogenic bacterium.


Verification of Task Parallel Programs Using Predictive Analysis Radha Vi Jay Nakade Department of Computer Science, BYU Master of Science Task parallel programming languages provide a way for creating asynchronous tasks that can run concurrently. The advantage of using task parallelism is that the programmer can write code that is independent of the underlying hardware. The runtime determines the number of processor cores that are available and the most efficient way to execute the tasks. When two or more concurrently executing tasks access a shared memory location and if at least one of the accesses is for writing, data race is observed in the program. Data races can introduce non-determinism in the program output making it important to have data race detection tools. To detect data races in task parallel programs, a new Sound and Complete technique based on computation graphs is presented in this work. The data race detection algorithm runs in O(N2) time where N is number of nodes in the graph. A computation graph is a directed acyclic graph that represents the execution of the program. For detecting data races, the computation graph stores shared heap locations accessed by the tasks. An algorithm for creating computation graphs augmented with memory locations accessed by the tasks is also described here. This algorithm runs in O(N) time where N is the number of operations performed in the tasks. This work also presents an implementation of this technique for the Java implementation of the Habanero programming model. The results of this data race detector are compared to Java Pathfinder's precise race detector extension and permission regions based race detector extension. The results show a significant reduction in the time required for data race detection using this technique.


Researchers conducting multinational organizational studies face considerable challenges. They must not only understand psychological variables, but also translate measures across several languages and administer those measures across several countries and organizational settings. Furthermore, once the data are collected, the researchers must determine whether the measures operate in a similar statistical manner across cultures in terms of their factor structure, reliability, and predictive validity. The entire process can be daunting. This book presents accessible models and real-world examples of large-scale, multinational research within organizations. The contributors describe their own successful research projects, highlighting the challenges they have faced and how they have overcome them. Psychometric, ethical, and methodological concerns are explored, as well as the personal and professional rewards of conducting this type of research. This book will help organizational researchers ensure that their studies are both generalizable and relevant to today's global and diverse work force. It will also help consumers of multicultural research in organizations (e.g., managers, practitioners, and policymakers) obtain a multicultural perspective on important research problems. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved)


A panel of European experts on lipids and cardiovascular disease discussed clinical approaches to managing cardiovascular risk in clinical practice, including residual cardiovascular risk associated with lipid abnormalities, such as atherogenic dyslipidaemia (AD). A simplified definition of AD was proposed to enhance understanding of this condition, its prevalence, and its impact on cardiovascular risk. Atherogenic dyslipidaemia can be defined by high fasting triglyceride levels (≥2.3 mmol/L) and low high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-c) levels (≤1.0 and ≤1.3 mmol/L in men and women, respectively) in statin-treated patients at high cardiovascular risk. The use of a single marker for the diagnosis and treatment of AD, such as non-HDL-c, was advocated. Interventions including lifestyle optimization and low-density lipoprotein (LDL)-lowering therapy with statins (±ezetimibe) are implemented by all experts. Treatment of residual AD can be performed with the addition of fenofibrate, since it can improve the complete lipoprotein profile and reduce the risk of cardiovascular events in patients with AD. Specific clinical scenarios in which fenofibrate may be prescribed are discussed, and include patients with very high triglycerides (≥5.6 mmol/L), patients who are intolerant or resistant to statins, and patients with AD and at high cardiovascular risk. The fenofibrate-statin combination was considered by the experts to benefit from a favourable benefit-risk profile. Cardiovascular experts adopt a multifaceted approach to the prevention of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease, with lifestyle optimization, LDL-lowering therapy, and treatment of AD with fenofibrate routinely used to help reduce a patient's overall cardiovascular risk.


Though corporations affect humans in social, economic and environmental ways, the state is traditionally viewed as the primary human rights fulfiller. Meanwhile, corporations are in some cases bigger economic actors than states, but those companies do not have the same duties as states have towards citizens. The business concept Creating Shared Value (CSV) is described as a way of increasing the integration of corporation and society, with the objective of increasing the legitimacy of corporations; but the concept is also described as a means for obtaining competitive advantage. A shared value is created when there is a value for society, such as development in some way, and a value for corporations such as profit. In this article I question the common assumption of the state as the primary human rights fulfiller. When doing this, I chose to compare the business concept of CSV with UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs). The second task I take on is to review CSV as a mean of fulfilling and upholding rights. Lastly, I discuss the theoretical consequences of a business concept, such as CSV, doing so. What c onsequences can come from shifting the responsibility/duty to fulfil human rights from states to corporations?


In this paper we discuss a discontinuous finite volume method for the approximation of distributed optimal control problem governed by the Brinkman equations written in terms of velocity and pressure. An additional force field is sought such that it produces a velocity matching a desired, known value. The discretization of state and co-state velocity and pressure fields follows a lowest order discontinuous finite volume scheme, whereas three different approaches are used for the control approximation: variational discretization, element-wise constant, and element-wise linear functions. We employ the optimize-then-discretize approach to approximate the control problem, and the resulting discretized formulation is non-symmetric. We derive a priori error estimates for velocity, pressure, and control in natural norms. A set of numerical examples is finally presented to illustrate the performance of the method and to confirm the predicted accuracy of the state, co-state and control approximations under various scenarios including 2D and 3D cases.


OBJECTIVES
To determine if myocardial injury results from hepatoenteric ischemia-reperfusion. We also proposed to determine if this remote heart injury is mediated by a xanthine oxidase-dependent mechanism.

DESIGN
Randomized, controlled animal study.

SETTING
University-based animal research facility.

SUBJECTS
Thirty-six New Zealand white male rabbits, weighing 1.8 to 3 kg.

INTERVENTIONS
Anesthetized rabbits were randomly assigned to one of four groups (n = 9 per group): a) a sham-operated group; b) a sham-operated group pretreated with sodium tungstate (xanthine oxidase inactivator); c) an aorta occlusion group; and d) an aorta occlusion group pretreated with sodium tungstate. Descending thoracic aorta occlusion was maintained for 40 mins with a 4-Fr Fogarty embolectomy catheter, followed by 2 hrs of reperfusion.

MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS
Myocardial injury, manifested by increased circulating creatine kinase-MB fraction activity, was significantly associated with aortic occlusion and reperfusion (p < .05). Sodium tungstate pretreatment significantly (p < .05) reduced circulating and myocardial xanthine oxidase activity. Xanthine oxidase inactivation by sodium tungstate significantly decreased circulating creatine kinase-MB fraction activity after hepatoenteric ischemia-reperfusion (p < .05). Finally, circulating creatine kinase-MB fraction activity was significantly associated with circulating xanthine oxidase activity (r2 = .85; p < .001).

CONCLUSIONS
We conclude that remote myocardial injury is caused by hepatoenteric ischemia-reperfusion. The pathoetiology of this myocardial injury involves a xanthine oxidase-dependent mechanism.


The definitive chronicle of the most stunning year in the legendary career of Tiger Woods, when the world's greatest golfer returned to competitive play following major knee surgery--only to have his personal life unravel in the public spotlight at year's end. Who is the real Tiger Woods? The unbeatable, indomitable, and ultimate competitor? The husband and father who cares more about his family than anything else? Or the supremely confident controller who thought fierce management of his image and those around him would allow him to lead a double life? In "Unplayable," veteran journalist Robert Lusetich offers an in-depth look at the world's most recognizable yet least known athlete, Tiger Woods. Lusetich, who first interviewed Woods in the late 1990s and has written about him since 1996, was the only writer to cover every PGA Tour event the world's number one golfer played in 2009. "Unplayable "tells of the unfolding of Tiger's most pivotal season on the golf course-- with his first ever hiatuses from professional play--and provides extensive reporting and the backstory to show who the most elusive man in all of sports really is. Lusetich peels away the layers of the Woods persona to create a portrait that is neither unsympathetic nor hesitant to shed light on Tiger's shortcomings. This rich, insightful account reveals: what actually makes Woods the game's dominant player; how his upbringing influenced who he is today and how he has changed over time; and the nature of his relationships with his family, former and current friends, celebrity athletes, peers, coaches, sports agents, sponsors, and the media and public itself. Based on one-of-a-kind access, "Unplayable "is a gripping look at the man who changed golf and inspired more fans around the world than anyone else in the history of the sport.


Some product firms increasingly rely on service revenues as part of their business models. One possible explanation is that they turn to services to generate additional profits when their product industries mature and product revenues and profits decline. We explore this assumption by examining the role of services in the financial performance of firms in the prepackaged software products industry (SIC 7372) from 1990 to 2006. We find a convex, non-linear relationship between a product firm's fraction of total sales coming from services and its overall operating margins. As expected, firms with a very high level of product sales are most profitable, and rising services is associated with declining profitability. We find, however, that additional services start to have a positive marginal effect on the firm's overall profits when services reach a majority of a product firm's sales. We show that traditional industry maturity arguments cannot fully explain our data. It is likely that changes in both strategy and the business environment lead product firms to place more emphasis on services


Organic and inorganic hybrid perovskites have emerged as revolutionary optoelectronic semiconductors, which are promising for various applications especially in photovoltaics and light-emitting diodes. Perovskite solar cells have demonstrated unprecedented progress on PCE within a very short time in the history of photovoltaics. Perovskite solar cells have more than 20% PCE and advantages such as easy-to-process and tunable bandgaps have made them favorable for commercialization. Extending the absorption to a longer wavelength and addressing the challenge of stability in metal halide perovskites has become the most important research focus. However, composition engineering could be a potential solution by further tuning the band gap for the metal halide perovskites and, thus, enhance their stability. The mixed cation perovskite is one of the most practical and successful strategies for composition engineering. Here, recent progress on mixed cation metal halide perovskites is reviewed and this includes the development of binary, ternary and two-dimensional/three-dimensional mixed cation perovskites in chemical synthesis and device performance and stability progress. The prospects and challenges for the mixed cation hybrid perovskites are also considered.


This paper shows a modeling and developing methodology for mobile web applications using the MDA (Model Driver Architecture) approach. It s based on a conservative extension of UML allowing modeling with any existing tool capable of exporting the model to XMI (XML Metadata Interchange), the standard exchange format for UML diagrams. The methodology is based on the four main activities of the hypermedia modeling: conceptual modeling, navigation modeling, abstract interface design and implementation, but it simplifies the interface and navigation modeling based on reusable components. These components will be easily automatically converted into the application source code which with the use of different templates can target different platforms and also have a front-end and back-end system on different platforms for the same application.


This study aims to assess the potentiality of biomass production and availability for energy systems based on woody biomass, with the use of a geoprospective approach. The methodology takes into account the impact of the global warming on the Net Primary Productivity and the vegetation structure towards 2050, and the assessment of urban dynamic in order to identify the future areas of energy demand. Our results show that Mediterranean forest may be more vulnerable due to the increase of temperatures that may affect the mortality of the trees and shrubs, and the structure of the ecosystems due to the colonization of more xerophilous species in the inner valleys and hills. In some parts of the Alpes-Maritimes (French Riviera), these changes may affect the biomass production and, in consequence, the availability of the resource for the supply chain. The current development of the urbanization in the valleys and in the central part of the territory, which will be emphasized in the future, raises the question of the sustainability of energy systems based on woody biomass in such areas due to the potential risk of the increase of trees mortality, changes in vegetation structure with less trees and NPP decrease. At the opposite, in the mountain areas, the NPP will increase and the dynamic of trees would be suitable to the development of forests. But these areas are mainly located in protected areas where few activities are tolerated. These results underline the difficulty and complexity of a sustainable development of wood energy supply chain in Mediterranean territories, and the need of a strategy to face these potential problems.


Securing the World Economy explains how efforts to support global capitalism became a core objective of the League of Nations. Based on new research drawn together from archives on three continents, it explores how the world's first ever inter-governmental organization sought to understand and shape the powerful forces that influenced the global economy, and the prospects for peace. It traces how the League was drawn into economics and finance by the exigencies of the slump and hyperinflation after the First World War, when it provided essential financial support to Austria, Hungary, Greece, Bulgaria, and Estonia and, thereby, established the founding principles of financial intervention, international oversight, and the twentieth-century notion of international 'development'. But it is the impact of the Great Depression after 1929 that lies at the heart of this history. Patricia Clavin traces how the League of Nations sought to combat economic nationalism and promote economic and monetary co-operation in a variety of, sometimes contradictory, ways. Many of the economists, bureaucrats, and policy-advisors who worked for it played a seminal role in the history of international relations and social science, and their efforts did not end with the outbreak of the Second World War. In 1940 the League established an economic mission in the United States, where it contributed to the creation of organizations for the post-war world - the United Nations Organization, the IMF, the World Bank, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization - as well as to plans for European reconstruction and co-operation. It is a history that resonates deeply with challenges that face the Twenty-First Century world.


The Landing Error Scoring System (LESS) is a relatively new clinical test that assesses landing biomechanics during a drop jump task. Performance measures such as Jump Height (JH), Power (P), Contact time (CT) and Reactive Strength Index (RSI) are common performance measures in an athletic population. Comparing results from the LESS against these performance measures has not previously been reported in an elite rugby union setting. The aim of this study was to compare differences between LESS scores and lower limb performance measures in elite male rugby union players. Thirty two male, elite rugby union players participated in the study. Each participant completed 3 trials of the LESS. Performance data regarding JH, P, CT and RSI were recorded concurrently via the OptoJump system (Microgate, Bolzano, Italy). LESS trials were scored independently by the authors. Statistical analyses were used to confirm inter and intra-rater reliability. Data was tested for normality and one-way factorial MANOVA was used to assess between group differences (p<0.05). Ethical approval was granted by the University's Ethics Committee. Intra-class Correlation Coefficients (ICC) demonstrated excellent intra (0.96) and inter (0.94) rater reliability for the LESS in the current study. Six participants produced LESS scores deemed excellent to good (score ≥6), 26 participants produced scores deemed moderate to poor (score ≤5). Participants with moderate to poor LESS scores produced significantly greater P (p=0.038), RSI (p=0.016) and lower CT (p=0.002), there was no significant difference in JH (p=0.842) between participants scoring excellent to good and moderate to poor. The current study reports excellent intra and inter rater reliability for the LESS, supporting its use as a clinical assessment tool in an elite rugby union populations. The majority of players presented with moderate to poor LESS scores, therefore landing biomechanics may need to be improved in this population. Participants scoring moderate to poor in the LESS recorded significantly higher P, CT and RSI but not JH. This suggests participants with high risk landing biomechanics may also produce higher performance measures, but these do not result in improved outcome performance such as jump height.


This paper presents results and discussion on research to investigate the compressive strength of masonry units in Botswana against the standard requirements. It was limited to concrete masonry bricks and burnt clay masonry bricks from large-scale manufacturers who either had their products certified by the Botswana Bureau of Standards or indicated the strength of their products. Nine sets of different products (six concrete masonry units and three clay masonry units) were tested. It was found that only three products complied with the Botswana Bureau of Standards requirements. Four of the six products that did not meet the Botswana Bureau of Standards requirements were two classes below the levels claimed by the manufacturers. For example, some units supplied as 14 MPa only fulfilled requirements of units with strength below 7 MPa. Users of masonry units in Botswana are therefore supplied with low strength products. This may greatly compromise the safety of the public.


There are two prevailing perspectives on how China took off. One emphasizes the role of globalization—foreign trade and investments and special economic zones; the other emphasizes the role of internal reforms, especially rural reforms. Detailed documentary and quantitative evidence provides strong support for the second hypothesis. To understand how China's economy took off requires an accurate and detailed understanding of its rural development, especially rural industry spearheaded by the rise of township and village enterprises. Many China scholars believe that township and village enterprises have a distinct ownership structure—that they are owned and operated by local governments rather than by private entrepreneurs. I will show that township and village enterprises from the inception have been private and that China undertook significant and meaningful financial liberalization at the very start of reforms. Rural private entrepreneurship and financial reforms correlate strongly with some of China's best-known achievements—poverty reduction, fast GDP growth driven by personal consumption (rather than by corporate investments and government spending), and an initial decline of income inequality. The conventional view of China scholars is right about one point—that today's Chinese financial sector is completely state-controlled. This is because China reversed almost all of its financial liberalization sometime around the early to mid 1990s. This financial reversal, despite its monumental effect on the welfare of hundreds of millions of rural Chinese, is almost completely unknown in the West.


There was a time when using technology in the classroom meant showing PowerPoint slides. In recent years there has been a dramatic increase in different technologies and computer applications that have enabled instructors to provide additional learning outside the classroom, to provide videos of teacher classroom instruction as well as additional lectures beyond the classroom, and the ability to hold "remote" extra help classes. However, following the same pedagogical approach as used in a traditional face to face classroom setting is not the best use of this technology. Too often, faculty use some of the newer technologies to video their entire classroom lecture, with the idea that students will learn by viewing an hour or two worth of material. A better approach is to combine these technologies with the concept of learning objects, which are digital resources that can be used and re-used to support student learning. This paper will describe the implementation of a learning object model in an upper division circuit analysis course within an Electrical and Computer Engineering Technology program. The course is taught face to face, and the instructor had been teaching it for over 12 years. By utilizing the learning object model, assessments of each learning object were developed, relating each learning object to various student work – homework, lab reports, tests and presentations. PowerPoint was used to create the material for each learning object, and both Multisim 10.1 and Mathtype 6.5 were used to create the visuals and equations. Camtasia Relay was used to create the videos for each learning object, and they were stored in the school portion of iTunes University. A course management system (Moodle) was used to establish out-of-class communication among students and between the instructor and students. The instructor also used Moodle to post links to the learning object videos and to provide additional support materials. Examples of these learning objects will be shown in this paper, as well as the problems and the amount of effort involved in developing and creating these earning objects. The paper will also describe the assessment of this concept related to increasing student learning.


Background: Sentinel  lymph  node  biopsy  has  shown  to  be  a  good  alternative procedure  for  axillary  lymph  node  dissection  and  to lead  to  lower  frequency  of morbidity, though this technique has its own side effects. It needs especial equipment and may not be available in some medical centers, especially in developing countries. This study aimed to identify a subgroup of patients with higher probability of metastasis to sentinel lymph node that can be excluded from indications of this procedure.Methods: In this cross-sectional study, the clinical data of 195 patients with breast cancer who underwent sentinel lymph node biopsy in Tehran, Iran, between 2009 and 2011 were reviewed. Whenever tumor features showed significant association with sentinel node metastasis in univariate analyses, logistic regression was used to identify independent predictors.Results: Univariate analyses revealed that tumor size and lymphovascular invasion have significant association  with  sentinel  lymph  node metastasis (P  =  0.009  and P < 0.001, respectively). Moreover, age had an significant association with positive sentinel lymph node biopsy (SLNB) (P = 0.004). Other factors, including tumor grade, estrogen receptor, progesterone receptor, and human epidermal growth factor receptor-2, were not associated with positive sentinel lymph node biopsy in univariate analysis. All factors  that  showed  significant  association  in  univariate  analysis  remained statistically significant predictors of positive SLB in multivariate analysis.Conclusions: It seems that young breast cancer patients, those who have tumors larger than 5 cm and those with lymphovascular invasion, are at an increased risk of sentinel lymph node metastasis.


Introduction (1) Strategic planning is one of the most critical means of fostering the success of an institution and the achievement of its vision, mission, and strategic goals. Strategic planning has been defined as "the process of developing and maintaining a strategic fit between the organization and its changing marketing opportunities" (Kotler and Murphy 1981, p. 471). This definition suggests environmental and resource analyses that allow goals to be set, followed by strategy formulation and systems improvements that lead to better performance. Thus, through the strategic planning process, institutions of every kind--public and private; for profit and non-profit; small, medium, and large--define or refine their visions and missions, set strategic goals and objectives, identify strategies for achieving them, and determine how they will measure the success of their efforts and implement improvements. Subsequent budget processes should then result in resource allocation decisions tied to these strategic imperatives in order to move the institution toward its vision. There are many external and internal risk factors that, if not carefully managed, can impede the successful accomplishment of an institution's strategic goals, including changing demographics that pose enrollment challenges, developments in the general economy, shifting priorities in state and federal educational policy, natural disasters, and poor planning and management. Further, failure to strategically manage an institution's risks can actually compromise its continued financial viability. In risk management terms, "strategically managing risk" means identifying and planning to manage those uncertainties that could result in financial losses to the institution. Risk management has been described as a managerial process involving the executive functions of planning, organizing, leading, and controlling activities in a firm relative to specified risks with a view to reducing their cost to the firm in order to maximize the firm's value (Trieschmann and Gustavson 1998). The process further involves systematic identification and evaluation of risks, selection and implementation of strategies for managing them, and continuous monitoring and improvement of the risk management program (Trieschmann and Gustavson 1998). The process of managing all of an institution's risks from a holistic perspective is known as enterprise risk management. (2) A decade ago, Cassidy and others noted that the management of risk in higher education has traditionally been equated with crisis management or regulatory compliance and suggested that institutions should develop a balanced view of risk, one that tries to minimize hazards, influence and control uncertainties, and manage opportunities (Cassidy et al. 2001). Regrettably, in a recent study conducted by the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges and United Educators (2009), 60 percent of the 606 college administrators responding to a risk management survey said they are still not engaged in a comprehensive strategic assessment to identify risks that would negatively impact the success of their missions. The study found that fewer than 40 percent of all institutions use such an assessment. Only 5 percent of the study's respondents felt their institutions have exemplary practices that promote the success of their missions. Integrating risk management and strategic planning leverages the benefits of both processes and makes them mutually reinforcing. In the final analysis, the ultimate goal of efforts to maximize an institution's value (through risk management) and set its strategic goals and objectives (through strategic planning) is the achievement of the institution's expressed vision. In light of that, it is both logical and desirable to integrate risk management and strategic planning into one coordinated, holistic process to create a synergistic effect that leverages the benefits of both processes and makes them mutually reinforcing. …


The amygdala plays a crucial role in evaluating the emotional significance of stimuli and in transforming the results of this evaluation into appropriate autonomic responses. Lesion and stimulation studies suggest involvement of the amygdala in the generation of the skin conductance response (SCR), which is an indirect measure of autonomic activity that has been associated with both emotion and attention. It is unclear if this involvement marks an emotional reaction to an external stimulus or sympathetic arousal regardless of its origin. We recorded skin conductance in parallel with single-unit activity from the right amygdala of two rhesus monkeys during a rewarded image viewing task and while the monkeys sat alone in a dimly lit room, drifting in and out of sleep. In both experimental conditions, we found similar SCR-related modulation of activity at the single-unit and neural population level. This suggests that the amygdala contributes to the production or modulation of SCRs regardless of the source of sympathetic arousal.


This article explores a specific linguistic intervention ("mild to wild") that occurs in online communication on
 gay internet hook up sites. It argues that despite supposed knowledge as to what "mild to wild" means, we must look at this
 linguistic intervention within specific socio-cultural contexts. Without context, the actual uses and meanings of "mild to wild"
 might be misunderstood while our knowledge of sexual communities of practice risks falling squarely into stereotypes. For this
 community of practice, "mild to wild" creates a linguistic opportunity for men interested in having sex with other men to be able
 to define their desires and further explicate how their sexual interaction will take place while also negotiating expectations and
 assumptions of male-male sex within increasingly homonormative strictures. Data was gathered from over four years of ethnographic
 research and is presented from a cultural and anthropological linguistics perspective. The phrase "mild to wild" is used by these
 men in order to: (1) contest supposed concrete categorizations of sexuality and desire; (2) to create highly contextual intimacies
 and organizations of desire through online-linguistic interaction; and (3) to alleviate detrimental social effects attached to
 specific unsafe and variant sex practices. The author argues that this community of practice is an example of how new socialities
 develop within homonormativities designed to control queer sex and desire.


CyberAnthropology is an approach that submits anthropological and philosophical questions (as well as sociological, political and linguistic questions including questions of constitutional law arising from them) to different fields associated with the internet – which has not been done in this specific transdisciplinary way in previous research. We analyze changes, developments and continuities between the lifeworld of users and new possibilities of participation on the internet, taking into account different methods given by different disciplines. We also raise the question of how the interaction between us human beings and the medium of the internet can be grasped theoretically and how human behaviors, needs and desires correlate with it practically. CyberAnthropology thus targets the questions of how the human being understands itself and others, how it structures its lifeworld when embedded in virtual environments, in face of the challenges posed by the internet as the dominating medium. Is the internet a new virtual reality or just the representation of old norms and habits? Can we speak of a 'cyber citizen' and has the 'animal socio-politicum' changed in the light of the internet as a primary form of communication and source of knowledge? How do interest groups form, if one considers the fact that the internet transcends local, regional, national, ethnical and social boundaries? How do new boundaries and normative orders emerge? So far, the question of how the internet changes societies and the habits of their members has merely been tackled either in abstract terms of media philosophy or in the context of detailed empirical studies of concrete user behavior. In the first case, the internet is regarded as a self-transforming medium that has had deep consequences on the lives of individuals ever since its emergence and development. What remains unclear, however, is the relationship between the materiality of the internet and its peculiar 'message' – for humanity, human responsibility and political action. In the second case, for instance in the research of the 'Digital Ethnographers' Michal Wesch and Don Tapscott, the focus lies on the description of virtual phenomena rather than on an analysis that would embed those phenomena in a broader theoretical framework of 'virtual reality', which would allow for an application of the outcomes to other disciplines and fields of research. This is intended by drafting a systematic theory of CyberAnthropology.


Visualizations usually completely capture our attention or disappear into the ambient background. In this paper we explore a middle ground, with visualizations that are not constantly in the center of attention and support a main conversational task without distracting from it. Such backdrop visualizations work for look-up and analytical tasks without getting in the way of the conversation, but can also be used actively. To illustrate this concept we describe arcs.fm, a case study for music talk, as an exemplary backdrop visualization. Music fulfills an important function for identity construction: we define ourselves by what music we listen to and we like to compare our musical taste with friends and family. The shift towards digital music allows us to meticulously keep track of all songs we have listened to and to have access to this data to augment our memories. Here we explore integrating visualizations of automatically collected listening histories with the explanations and discussion that develop in personal music talk. arcs.fm is a visualization system that supports this music talk by comparing two listening histories visually. arcs.fm stays in the background while enabling look-up and enriching peoples' conversation when needed.


Enterprise systems (ES) implementations are regarded costly, time and resource consuming and have a great impact on the organization in terms of the risks they involve and the opportunities they provide. The steering committee (SC) represents the group of individuals who is responsible for making strategic decisions throughout the ES implementation lifecycle. It is evident from recent studies that there is a relationship between the decision making process and ES implementation success. One of the key elements that contribute to the success of ES implementations is a quick decision making process (Brown and Vessey, 1999; Gupta, 2000; Parr, et al., 1999). This study addresses the strategic decision-making process by SC through its focus on four research questions (1) How can the strategic decision-making process in the implementation of ES be better understood, during each phase of the ES implementation lifecycle? (2) What is the process by which the SC makes strategic decisions? (3) How are fast decisions made? and (4) How does decision speed link to the success of ES implementation? Process models of ES implementation will provide a framework to investigate the strategic decision making process during each phases of the ES implementation lifecycle. Patterns in the decision making process will be explored using strategic choice models. This study develops a research model that focuses on the decision making process by steering committee to explore research questions. It concludes with identifying contributions to both IS research and business practitioners.


We report the thermal synthesis of a heterogeneous Co–phosphine-based water oxidation catalyst that can be easily coated onto a variety of substrates. The system is active in neutral water and performs best with borate as electrolyte, in which the onset of catalytic current occurs at 1.51 V vs. RHE, with a Tafel slope of 68 mV per decade. Stable water oxidation is observed for over 40 hours; including in seawater with borate electrolyte, in which the catalyst is selective for water oxidation over chloride (85% Faradaic efficiency). The organic portion of the catalyst appears to play a crucial role in catalytic activity.


Rainfall runoff erosivity (R) is one key climate factor that controls water erosion. Quantifying the effects of climate change–induced erosivity change is important for identifying critical regions prone to soil erosion under a changing environment. In this study we first evaluate the changes of R from 1970 to 2090 across the United States under nine climate conditions predicted by three general circulation models for three emissions scenarios (A2, A1B, and B1) from the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Then, we identify watersheds that are most vulnerable to future climate change in terms of soil erosion potential. We develop a novel approach to evaluate future trends of R magnitude and variance by incorporating both the rate of change with time as well as the level of agreement between climatic projections. Our results show that mean decadal R values would increase with time according to all nine climatic projections considered between 1970 and 2090. However, these trends vary widely spatially. In general, catchments in the northeastern and northwestern United States are characterized by strong increasing trends in R, while the trends in the midwestern and southwestern United States are either weak or inconsistent among the nine climatic projections considered. The northeastern and northwestern United States will likely experience a significant increase in annual variability of R (i.e., increase in extreme events). Conversely the variability of R is unlikely to change in large areas of the Midwest. At the watershed scale (8-digit Hydrologic Unit Code), the mean vulnerability to erosion scores vary between −0.12 and 0.35 with a mean of 0.04. The five hydrologic regions with the highest mean vulnerability to erosion are 5, 6, 2, 1, and 17, with values varying between 0.06 and 0.09. These regions occupy large areas of Ohio, Maryland, Indiana, Vermont, and Illinois, with mean erosion vulnerability score statewide above 0.08. Future watershed management aiming at reducing soil erosion should focus on areas with the highest soil erosion vulnerability identified by this study.


The predation risk of many aquatic taxa is dominated by visually searching predators, commonly a function of ambient light. Several studies propose that changes in visual predation will become a major climate-change impact on polar marine ecosystems. The High Arctic experiences extreme seasonality in the light environment, from 24 h light to 24 h darkness, and therefore provides a natural laboratory for studying light and predation risk over diel to seasonal timescales. Here, we show that zooplankton (observed using acoustics) in an Arctic fjord position themselves vertically in relation to light. A single isolume (depth-varying line of constant light intensity, the value of which is set at the lower limit of photobehaviour reponses of Calanus spp. and krill) forms a ceiling on zooplankton distribution. The vertical distribution is structured by light across timescales, from the deepening of zooplankton populations at midday as the sun rises in spring, to the depth to which zooplankton ascend to feed during diel vertical migration. These results suggest that zooplankton might already follow a foraging strategy that will keep visual predation risk roughly constant under changing light conditions, such as those caused by the reduction of sea ice, but likely with energetic costs such as lost feeding opportunities as a result of altered habitat use.


Adaptive test cases are often used when a specification permits several possible correct outputs from an implementation under test for a given input. In this paper, we propose an algorithm to apply such adaptive test cases which is optimal in terms of the number of inputs and is more efficient than previously published algorithm for executing the tests. Our solution comes at a cost, a pre-processing step that must be executed once. The solution presented here is particularly interesting in situations where the same set of adaptive test cases will be applied a large number of times.


'In the Flesh' is a virtual stereoscopic dance installation that takes Cowie's ongoing progression of development in the
production of a solid dance presence by the use of stereoscopy (output 4) to its ultimate conclusion – state-of-the-art computer
manipulation of high definition images producing the illusion that the audience is in the presence of a real dancer. The work
takes an early twentieth-century form of stereo drawing (Phantography) and brings it into the digital video age. Parallel high
definition video images are distorted using state-of-the-art computing and then combined to produce a ceiling projected
anaglyph image that is so accurate and lifelike that physical measurements can be taken of the relative limb positions.
In addition to the technical aspects, 'In the Flesh' demanded a new form of choreography that sees the body encased in a virtual
3D frame. This use of the frame to constrain and inform a choreography has run through much of Cowie's work and the subject
of his paper ('Framing the Body') delivered at the ADF conference, North Carolina (2006) - see output 4. Also important to I'n the
Flesh' is the fusing of different art forms - poetry, music, choreography, technology and lighting - to produce a form of
gesamtkunstwerk.
Initial research funding for this project was provided by an ACE Grants for Arts award (£7.5k) and a second Grants for the Arts (GFA) award (£4,950) given to complete the project.

'In the Flesh' has been invited to present at Sadler's Wells. London, EMPAC (Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center) New York State, and the Boston Cyberarts Festival. Seen as a breakthrough in the documentation of human movement, Janine Dijkmeijer, Director of Cinedans (Amsterdam 2007) commented: 'It is a great development in dance filming. The reality and experience is very special'.


This study is primarily concerned with social meanings and symbolic definitions that commonly occur as part of environmental design in urban environments. The existing theoretical works both in architecture and environmental design research field on the social and symbolical aspects of architecture were investigated. The stylistic aspects of the designs of the housing developments, which have been constructed in and the immediate vicinity of the town of Gazimagusa, North Cyprus were studied. It is through the review of the existing related literature that the social meanings and prestige values of people have a significant impact on the development of the built environment, just as do their physical and physiological needs. Accordingly, as the literature indicates, such values have significant impact on people''s decisions in respect to their selection of homes. The findings of the study, on the overall, suggest that both symbolic definition and social meaning of a place is as important as its responsiveness to the functional requirements of people.


All prior drug development programs of neuroprotective agents were unsuccessful for a variety of reasons related to both preclinical assessment and the design/implementation of clinical trials. The neuroprotection hypothesis of improving functional outcome related to salvaging ischemic brain tissue is strongly supported by robust preclinical data for many agents. In the future, monotherapy neuroprotection trials will be difficult but could be performed in underused centers with drugs that have very promising and complete preclinical results. Additional approaches for the testing and use of neuroprotective agents should be considered. Novel approaches would include extending penumbral survival for the later use of reperfusion therapy, reducing reperfusion injury after successful reperfusion, and using drugs with both neuroprotective and recovery enhancing effects, as exemplified by granulocyte colony–stimulating factor and citicoline. To maximize outcome after stroke, the combined use or reperfusion and ne...


DNA transport through the cell membrane is an essential requirement for gene therapy, which utilizes oligonucleotides and plasmid DNA. However, membrane transport of DNA is an inefficient process, and the mechanism(s) by which this process occurs is not clear. Although viral vectors are effective in gene therapy, the immune response elicited by viral proteins poses a major problem. Therefore, several laboratories are involved in the development of nonviral DNA delivery vehicles. These vehicles include polyamines, polycationic lipids, and neutral polymers, capable of condensing DNA to nanoparticles with radii of 20-100 nm. Although the structural and energetic forces involved in DNA condensation have been studied by physical biochemists for the past 25 years, this area has experienced a resurgence of interest in recent years because of the influx of biotechnologists involved in developing gene therapy protocols to combat a variety of human diseases. Despite an intense effort to study the mechanism(s) of DNA condensation using a variety of microscopic, light scattering, fluorescence, and calorimetric techniques, the precise details of the energetics of DNA nanoparticle formation and their packing assembly are not known at present. Future studies aimed at defining the mechanism(s) of DNA compaction and structural features of DNA nanoparticles might aid in the development of novel gene delivery vehicles.


This paper addresses the reconstruction of high resolution omnidirectional images from multiple low resolution images with inexact registration. When omnidirectional images from low resolution vision sensors can be uniquely mapped on the 2-sphere, such a reconstruction can be described as a transform domain super-resolution problem in the spherical imaging framework. We describe how several spherical images with arbitrary rotations in the SO(3) rotation group contribute to the reconstruction of a high resolution image with help of the Spherical Fourier Transform (SFT). As low resolution images might not be perfectly registered in practice, the impact of inaccurate alignment on the transform coefficients is further analyzed. We then cast the joint registration and super-resolution problem as a total least squares norm minimization problem in the SFT domain. A l1-regularized total least squares problem is also considered. The regularized problem is solved efficiently by interior point methods. Experiments with synthetic and natural images show that the proposed scheme leads to effective reconstruction of high resolution images even when large registration errors exist in the low resolution images. The quality of the reconstructed images also increases rapidly with the number of low resolution images, which demonstrates the benefits of the proposed solution in super-resolution schemes. Finally, we highlight the benefit of the additional regularization constraint that clearly leads to reduced noise and improved reconstruction quality.


Hypoglycaemia presents a genuine life-threatening emergency in the intensive care unit. Veterinary nurses play a vital role in the emergency and critical care of hypoglycaemic patients. This patient care report will discuss and evaluate the nursing care involved with maintenance of intravenous catheter, monitoring of blood glucose and dietary management.


Transesterification process is a vital tool to tailor-make trans-free fats and oils
products. Palm stearin (PS) is the solid fraction of palm oil, while palm kernel olein (PKO)
is the liquid fraction extract from the palm kernel. The combination of this hard stock and
the liquid oil in a transesterificationn process may result in the production of a trans-free
plastic frying shortening that can replace the conventional hydrogenated base product. This
study was conducted to produce a trans-free frying shortening from PS:PKO blend, via
transesterification process using the lipase from Rhizomucor mtehei (Lipozyme IM60,
Novo Nordisk, Denmark).
The physical and chemical properties of five domestic and imported plastic frying
shortenings were analysed so as to obtain information on the functional characteristics of a
typical plastic frying shortening. By taking the plastic range of the samples at solid fat
content (SFC) of 15-250/0, the imported samples (Samples D and E) fell in the lower
temperature range (1l-26°C) compared to domestic sample (Samples A, B and C) (21-40°C) The PS:PKO (w/w) (1:4, 3:7, 2:3, 1:1 and 3:2) blends were transesterified using
Lipozyme IM60 lipase at 60°C for 6 h. Results showed that the plastic range of all PS:PKO
blends shifted to a lower temperature range as the PKO level increased in the blends. For
each of the PS:PKO blends, transesterification also shifted their plastic range to a lower
range as compared to their respective control blends.
Transesterification utilized the short carbon chains TG (such as LaDD, LaLaD,
LaLaM and LaMM) and long carbon chain TG (such as PPP, PPS and POS) to produce TG
with the carbon chains that fell within the two ranges. The alteration in TG composition of
PS:PKO blends through enzymatic transesterification had lead to the changes in their slip
melting point (SMP), SFC, polymorphic fonn, crystallisation and melting behaviour,
especially at high temperature range (35-40°C) and therefore explained the improvement in
their plastic range. Result of the increase in medium chains TG via transesterification was
also exhibited by the change in the melting behaviour. In their melting bahaviour studies,
results showed that the higher melting temperature TG was found to reduce corresponding
to the increase in the lower melting temperature TG. However, the polymophic forms of
the tranesterified samples remained largely unchanged.
As the PS level increased in the blends, the concentration of TG with longer chains
FA (such as PPP, PPS and POS) also increased, resulting in the increase in SMP and SFC
levels, especially at the high temperature ranges (35-40°C). Similar changes were also
found in their crystallisation and melting behaviour studies. The polymorpic fonns of the
PS:PKO blends also changed as the PS level increased. The higher the PS level, the more
β dominating the sample became.


We calculate the relaxation rate of hot carriers in a Cd3As2 semi-metal with a finite gap. The quantization of the transverse momentum gives rise to a minimum gap at the Dirac point. Additional chemical doping further increases the gap. A finite gap relaxes the selection rule and gives rise to a nonvanishing internode coupling via phonon scattering. The gap also enhances the intra-node scattering. It is shown that the relaxation rate is proportional to the square of the gap. By considering the decay of the electron distribution function, we find that the relaxation rate increases with the square of the gap and the electron temperature.


Males and females are found to perform differently in a number of areas, and studies of gender differences in behaviour and cognition are popular areas of research. The empathizing-systemizing theory (E-S theory) claims that males and females differ in their cognitive styles. Females are often found to be more empathizing, while males are often found to be more systemizing. Based on previous research in the areas of cognition and neuroimaging there seems to be common brain areas responsible for empathizing, systemizing and the generating of the P3 component. The main focus of this study is to investigate whether there are correlations between the latency and the amplitude of the P3 component, and the degree of empathizing and systemizing. To investigate gender differences, the empathy quotient (EQ) and the systemizing quotient-revised (SQ-R) were used. The P3 was found using the visual continuous performance test (vCPT) in a qEEG paradigm. A correlation analysis revealed gender differences. For males it was found a relationship between higher EQ score and longer P3 latency. For females a relationship was found between higher SQ-R score and longer P3 latency. Further analysis revealed that the P3 latency could explain nearly 50 % of the variance in the questionnaire-scores. The results indicate that gender differences in preference for cognitive styles may be physiological based, in that males use their cognitive resources more efficient when systemizing, and females more efficient when empathizing. This study lends further support to the notion that males and females seems to at least in part use different strategies when empathizing and systemizing, in that it is more cognitively demanding for a male to be empathizing, and for a female to be systemizing.


Received: 11 January 2007 | Accepted: 2 March 2007 | Published: 10 January 2008 Copyright: This is an open access paper. We use the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license that permits unrestricted use, provided that the paper is properly attributed. ISSN: 1536-2442 | Volume 8, Number 4 Cite this paper as: Stansly PA, McKenzie CL. 2007. Fourth International Bemisia Workshop International Whitefly Genomics Workshop. 53pp. Journal of Insect Science 8:4, available online: insectscience.org/8.04


Electronic communication is used everyday for a number of different applications. Some of the information transferred during these communications can be private requiring encryption and authentication protocols to keep this information secure. Although there are protocols today which provide some security, they are not necessarily unconditionally secure. Quantum based protocols on the other hand, can provide unconditionally secure protocols for encryption and authentication. Prior to this Thesis, only one experimental realisation of quantum digital signatures had been demonstrated. This used a lossy photonic device along with a quantum memory allowing two parties to test whether they were sent the same signature by a single sender, and also store the quantum states for measurement later. This restricted the demonstration to distances of only a few metres, and was tested with a primitive approximation of a quantum memory rather than an actual one. This Thesis presents an experimental realisation of a quantum digital signature protocol which removes the reliance on quantum memory at the receivers, making a major step towards practicality. By removing the quantum memory, it was also possible to perform the swap and comparison mechanism in a more efficient manner resulting in an experimental realisation of quantum digital signatures over 2 kilometres of optical fibre. Quantum communication protocols can be unconditionally secure, however the transmission distance is limited by loss in quantum channels. To overcome this loss in conventional channels an optical amplifier is used, however the added noise from these would swamp the quantum signal if directly used in quantum communications. This Thesis looked into probabilistic quantum amplification, with an experimental realisation of the state comparison amplifier, based on linear optical components and single-photon detectors. The state comparison amplifier operated by using the wellestablished techniques of optical coherent state comparison and weak subtraction to post-select the output and provide non-deterministic amplification with increased fidelity at a high repetition rate. The success rates of this amplifier were found to be orders of magnitude greater than other state of the art quantum amplifiers, due to its lack of requirement for complex quantum resources, such as single or entangled photon sources, and photon number resolving detectors.


Purpose

The purpose of this study is to determine how and when choice variety influences consumers' willingness to purchase, according to a personal emotion perspective. The choice paradox indicates that although having many choices can be beneficial, it can also cause customer decision paralysis and unhappiness. This article proposes that the desire and motivation to process information vary from person to person, and emotional factors are relevant.

Design/methodology/approach

With a 2 × 2 experimental design, this study examines the influence of the interaction of choice variety with need for cognition (NFC) on positive and negative emotions, and then tests the mediating effects on purchase intentions. The sample includes 214 college students, assigned randomly to self-assessment questionnaires.

Findings

Both high NFC respondents in the high variety condition and low NFC respondents in the low variety condition exhibit more positive emotions than low NFC respondents in the high variety condition but not more than high NFC respondents in the low variety condition. Positive (negative) emotions increase (decrease) consumers' purchase intentions.

Research limitations/implications

The experiment was conducted in a virtual store, which may not match real-life store environments or reflect participants' actual purchase behaviours, so additional research should consider the influence of involvement further.

Practical implications

The results offer suggestions for developing more effective communication with emotions, increasing involvement to maintain consumers' positive emotions and relieve their confusion, and managing product variety.

Originality/value

This article meets the identified need to study how choice variety influences consumers' willingness to purchase from a personal emotion perspective.


This work adresses the issue of the relationship between marketing research and the opportunities provided by Internet. In particular, we focus on the recent developments arising from digital tools such as social media and the ability to access to a continuos stream of data through the use of Big Data Analysis platforms. Indeed, Big Data technologies have strongly impacted in research performances giving rise to new techniques, enhancing or bringing back other methodologies which had lost appeal over the year. In this regard, the social network analysis technique in considered in this study. It can be adopted for many marketing purposes thanks to the recent developments of social media. The aim of the paper is the identification of an analysis model based on the social network analysis methodology, useful to conduct marketing research within social media. Metrics described have been selected based on their capabilities to generate insights that can support marketing researcher for a series of evaluations. Therefore it is considered that the present model can contribute to create a new marketing approach, where the use of social media can be seen as a resource and as an opportunity for the relevant managerial and marketing implications identification.