This study deals with the analysis of
relationship between 67 environmental indicators in geological environment and
breast cancer mortality in Slovakia. Primary data comprises a database of 67
environmental indicators for groundwater and soils as a mean value for every
Slovak municipality and the data on relative mortality from breast cancer for
Slovak municipalities (about 2900) collected for the period of 22 years. The
training neural network was used as a mathematical model for data analysis. The
top 200 networks have identified 12 environmental indicators (8 for soils: pHKCl,
carbonates, Ca, Mg, Na, Co, Sr and 4 for groundwater: Ba, SiO2, Zn,
Fe) with high rate of influence. As the most influential environmental indicator
was identified pHKCl in soil that should be within the range of
acids, definitely under the neutral point. Most of environmental indicators
were unambiguously identified as negative (Mg, Ca, Sr, carbonates, Ba, SiO2,
Zn and Fe). These indicators should be at the lowest level of their
concentration in related geological component. Three environmental indicators,
Ce, Na and Co had parabolic function where certain essential concentration
levels of these elements are presumed with protective effect on human health.
For all influential indicators limit values with respect to the lowest
mortality were proposed. The verification of achieved results was performed
through regressive model of breast cancer mortality for 12 calculated
influential environmental indicators for all municipalities in the Slovak
Republic. The revealed difference between real mortality levels and the model
values was found for 6 environmental indicators (pHKCl, Mg, Ca, Sr,
Ba, Zn). Each executed limit has decreased breast cancer mortality for about
0.79 cases per 100,000 inhabitants.


Barycentric averaging is a principled way of summarizing populations of measures. Existing algorithms for estimating barycenters typically parametrize them as weighted sums of Diracs and optimize their weights and/or locations. However, these approaches do not scale to high-dimensional settings due to the curse of dimensionality. In this paper, we propose a scalable and general algorithm for estimating barycenters of measures in high dimensions. The key idea is to turn the optimization over measures into an optimization over generative models, introducing inductive biases that allow the method to scale while still accurately estimating barycenters. We prove local convergence under mild assumptions on the discrepancy showing that the approach is well-posed. We demonstrate that our method is fast, achieves good performance on low-dimensional problems, and scales to high-dimensional settings. In particular, our approach is the first to be used to estimate barycenters in thousands of dimensions.


BACKGROUND
Wheels For All provides bicycles to individuals in La Crosse, Wisconsin to address the transportation barrier that often inhibits low-income individuals' ability to access community resources.

METHODS
Recipients are referred by social service, health care, or other community agencies based on their need for transportation or exercise. Donated bicycles are matched to a recipient, repaired, and delivered personally by volunteers.

RESULTS
Through collaboration with social service agencies, health care systems, and the community at-large, Wheels For All received referrals from 21 different sources and provided 101 recipients with bicycles from April 2015 to July 2017.

CONCLUSION
Using a cost-effective, community-engagement model, Wheels For All provides a means of transportation for recipients, resulting in an enhanced ability to access community resources.


The increased use of social-network services for sharing personal information has made it easier to gain awareness of each other. It has also increased the interest in privacy issues, especially since it is not always clear to the provider of information who gains access to personal data and to what end this data is being used. Many interesting ideas and proposals have appeared to address the issue of privacy vs. information sharing. One of the most interesting is perhaps the notion of minimising asymmetry of information flow. It is not obvious how this idea can be applied in the area of ambient assisted living since raising awareness of the situation of the information provider is a core feature for reaching the goal of enabling elderly and disabled people to stay in their own housing. The work described here argues how the asymmetry of information flow can be minimised without compromising on the quality of monitoring and with the added benefit of giving next-of-kin better access to expert evaluation of the situation of their family members. This paper also reports on some initiatives on location-aware systems and ambient assisted living and shows how the combined experiences gained from these projects have led to the development of the proposed model for minimising asymmetry by proxies in an ambient assisted living environment.


Managing water resources systems requires coordinated operation of system infrastructure to mitigate the impacts of hydrologic extremes while balancing conflicting multisectoral demands. Traditionally, recommended management strategies are derived by optimizing system operations under a single problem framing that is assumed to accurately represent the system objectives, tacitly ignoring the myriad of effects that could arise from simplifications and mathematical assumptions made when formulating the problem. This study illustrates the benefits of a rival framings framework in which analysts instead interrogate multiple competing hypotheses of how complex water management problems should be formulated. Analyzing rival framings helps discover unintended consequences resulting from inherent biases of alternative problem formulations. We illustrate this on the monsoonal Red River basin in Vietnam by optimizing operations of the system's four largest reservoirs under several different multiobjective problem framings. In each rival framing, we specify different quantitative representations of the system's objectives related to hydropower production, agricultural water supply, and flood protection of the capital city of Hanoi. We find that some formulations result in counterintuitive behavior. In particular, policies designed to minimize expected flood damages inadvertently increase the risk of catastrophic flood events in favor of hydropower production, while min‐max objectives commonly used in robust optimization provide poor representations of system tradeoffs due to their instability. This study highlights the importance of carefully formulating and evaluating alternative mathematical abstractions of stakeholder objectives describing the multisectoral water demands and risks associated with hydrologic extremes.


The finite element method was used to simulate strain transfer from bone to a calcium phosphate ceramic (CPC) coated strain gauge. The model was constructed using gross morphometric and histological measurements obtained from previous experimental studies. Material properties were assigned based on experiments and information from the literature. Boundary conditions simulated experimental cantilever loading of rat femora. The model was validated using analytical solutions based on the theory of elasticity as well as direct comparison to experimental data obtained in a separate study. The interface between the bone and strain gauge sensing surface consisted of layers of polysulfone, polysulfone/CPC, and CPC/bone. Parameter studies examined the effect of interface thickness and modulus, gauge geometry, partial gauge debonding, and waterproofing on the strain transfer from the bone to the gauge sensing element. Results demonstrated that interface thickness and modulus have a significant effect on strain transfer. Optimal strain transfer was achieved for an interface modulus of approximately 2 GPa. Strain transfer decreased consistently with increasing interface thickness. Debonding along the lateral edges of the gauge had little effect, while debonding proximal and distal to the sensing element decreased strain transfer. A waterproofing layer decreased strain transfer, and this effect was more pronounced as the modulus or thickness of the layer increased. Based on these simulations, specific recommendations were made to optimize strain transfer between bone and CPC coated gauges for experimental studies.


PURPOSE
To examine the impact of workload volume during training sessions and games on subsequent sleep duration and sleep quality in basketball players.

METHODS
Seven semiprofessional male basketball players were monitored across preseason and in-season phases to determine training session and game workloads, sleep duration, and sleep quality. Training and game data were collected via accelerometers, heart-rate monitors, and rating of perceived exertion (RPE) and reported as PlayerLoad™ (PL), summated heart-rate zones, and session RPE (sRPE). Sleep duration and sleep quality were measured using wrist-worn activity monitors in conjunction with self-report sleep diaries. For daily training sessions and games, all workload data were independently sorted into tertiles representing low, medium, and high workload volumes. Sleep measures following low, medium, and high workloads and control nights (no training/games) were compared using linear mixed models.

RESULTS
Sleep onset time was significantly later following medium and high PL and sRPE game workloads compared with control nights (P < .05). Sleep onset time was significantly later following low, medium, and high summated heart-rate-zones game workloads, compared with control nights (P < .05). Time in bed and sleep duration were significantly shorter following high PL and sRPE game workloads compared with control nights (P < .05). Following low, medium, and high training workloads, sleep duration and quality were similar to control nights (P > .05).

CONCLUSIONS
Following high PL and sRPE game workloads, basketball practitioners should consider strategies that facilitate longer time in bed, such as napping and/or adjusting travel or training schedules the following day.


Contrary to culture-war rhetoric from the Right, there is more student religious expression and more study about religion in public schools today than at any time in the last 100 years. And contrary to dire warnings from the Left, much of the religion that goes to school these days arrives through the First Amendment door. Of course, this isn't to suggest that all school districts get religion right. In some parts of the country, school officials continue to unconstitutionally promote school-sponsored religious activities. In other places, administrators and teachers wrongly censor constitutionally protected student religious expression. And throughout the country, the public school curriculum still falls short of serious consideration of religious ways of seeing the world (Nord, 2010; Lester, 2011). Nevertheless, a quiet revolution in public policy over the last two decades is transforming how many (if not most) public schools address religion during the school day. For public school leaders, understanding the new and expanded place of religion in schools--especially what is and isn't permissible under current law--is critical for preventing conflict and building public support for public education. What's at stake? Getting religion right in public schools matters because religion and religious liberty matter. For better and for worse, religious convictions play a central role is shaping events in America and throughout the world. A cursory glance at the daily headlines reminds us that religious differences are at the heart of many of the world's most violent conflicts. And in the United States, rapidly expanding religious diversity presents daunting new challenges for building one nation out of many faiths and cultures in the 21st century (Eck, 2001). Despite the recent increase in study about religion in schools, many Americans still have little or no knowledge about religions other than their own--and even that knowledge is often thin (Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, 2010; Prothero, 2007). Religious illiteracy may be a contributing factor to the rising intolerance in the United States, including the growing number of hate crimes motivated by anti-Semitism and Islamophobia. If we hope to prevent religious discrimination and division in the United States, schools need to take religion seriously, not only to increase religious literacy, but also to promote religious freedom as a fundamental, inalienable right for every person (Lester & Roberts, 2006). How we got here To understand the significance and scope of the recent changes in how many public schools address religion, a little history is needed. Twenty years ago, many public schools did, in fact, come close to being religion-free zones. In the wake of controversial and widely misrepresented U.S. Supreme Court decisions banning state-sponsored religious practices, worried educators often overreacted by trying to keep all religion out of schools. Textbook publishers largely ignored religion, and teachers wouldn't touch it with the proverbial 10-foot pole. Some administrators mistakenly confused student speech with government speech and told students to leave their religion at the schoolhouse door. Of course, some other schools, especially in the rural South, continued to do what they had always done to promote the majority's religion through various school-sponsored practices. But that was 20 years ago. Today, most state social studies standards and textbooks include considerable mention of religion; student religious clubs meet on hundreds, if not thousands, of high school campuses; the sight of Christian students praying around the flagpole or in the lunchroom is commonplace; and Muslim students routinely perform daily prayers during the school day--to cite just a few of many examples. What accounts for this dramatic change in such a relatively short time? …


This chapter discusses how the Cognition Hypothesis can be applied in the study of L2 speech production. The paper presents a bilingual model of speech production, which also incorporates psycholinguistic processes involved in dialogic interactions, and discusses how attention is allocated in producing L1 and L2 speech. It is then argued that the Cognition Hypothesis can be supported by theoretical considerations and empirical findings from the psycholinguistic study of speech production. The chapter shows how tasks increasing in complexity along resource-directing dimension can enhance second language learning through the extension of the L2 conceptuals system, which in turn triggers lexical, syntactic and morphological development by driving learners to make new form-meaning connections and by providing practice opportunities.


Development of resistance to gemcitabine is a major concern in bladder cancer therapy, and the mechanism remains unclear. Eg5 has been recently identified as an attractive target in cancer chemotherapy, so novel targeted chemotherapy with Eg5 inhibitor is expected to improve the anticancer effect in gemcitabine-resistant bladder cancer. In this research, RT112-Gr cells were 350-fold less sensitive to gemcitabine than the parental cell lines, while KU7-Gr cells were 15-fold less sensitive to gemcitabine than the parental cell lines. Human OneArray Microarray analysis was performed to obtain broad spectrum information about the genes differentially expressed in RT112 and RT112-Gr cells. The anti-proliferative activity of S(MeO)TLC, an Eg5 inhibitor, was analyzed in RT112-Gr cell lines using a cell viability assay. Furthermore, the inhibitory effect was evaluated in vivo using subcutaneous xenograft tumor model. According to the result of Human OneArray® GeneChip, RRM1 and RRM2 were up-regulated, while there was no significant change in Eg5. Trypan blue staining confirmed that in S(MeO)TLC and Gemcitabine combining S(MeO)TLC group cell viability were significantly decreased in RT112-Gr cells as compared with other groups. S(MeO)TLC and S(MeO)TLC+gemcitabine groups prominently suppressed tumor growth in comparison with other groups' in vivo. There were no significant differences in S(MeO)TLC and gemcitabine+S(MeO)TLC group in the effect of inhibition of bladder cancer in vivo and in vitro. Our data collectively demonstrated that S(MeO)TLC represents a novel strategy for the treatment of gemcitabine resistant bladder cancer.


Abstract Scientific knowledge is still limited about the effect of commercial virtual reality content, such as experiences developed for advertising purposes, on individual emotional experience. In addition, even though correlations between emotional responses and perceived sense of presence in virtual reality have often been reported, the relationship remains unclear. Some studies have suggested an important effect of ease of interaction on both emotions and the sense of presence, but only a few studies have scientifically explored this topic. Within this context, this study aimed to: (a) test the effect of inducing positive emotions of a commercial virtual experience developed for the promotion of an urban renewal project, (b) investigate the relationship between positive emotions and the perceived sense of presence, and (c) explore the association between the ease of interaction of the virtual experience with positive emotions and the sense of presence reported by the users. Sixty-one participants were recruited from visitors to the 2017 Milan Design Week "Fuorisalone" event. A survey was administered before and after the experience to collect information about users' demographics, positive emotions, sense of presence, and the ease of interaction with the virtual content. Results give evidence that: (a) the commercial virtual reality experience was able to induce positive emotions; (b) the positive emotions reported by users were associated with the sense of presence experienced in the virtual environment, with a directional effect from emotion to sense of presence; and (c) the easier the interaction, the more the sense of presence and positive emotions were reported by users.


Studies of childhood bereavement suggest that communication is a crucial issue for adults and for children (Silverman and Worden, 1993). Closed communication seems to be a 'natural' adult response and this seems to be shared by some professionals. This study was designed to explore aspects of communication between adults and children experiencing loss or impending loss.

The study consisted of five investigations:
1) An analysis of narratives obtained in interviews with 4 adults bereaved in childhood;
2) An exploration of 8 narratives illustrating the theme of children's grief in literature;
3) An exploration of communication strategies used by 6 counsellors working with bereaved children;
4) An exploration of 6 counsellors' communication strategies obtained by interviews with counsellors and volunteers and
5)An evaluation of a support programme using qualitative data from brief interviews with 24 participating children, attending 2 distinct, age appropriate, groups.

A semiotic analysis of texts culled from the investigations was carried out. In Investigations 1 and 2, it was established that silence functioned as a sign whilst, unsurprisingly, the investigations in which counsellors' communication was analysed (3 and 4) showed that empathy and dialogue were central. The specific question addressed in the first investigation was whether closed communication had operated in the lives of bereaved children who are now adults and, in the second, whether this is found across generations and cultures. The findings in both cases gave an affirmative answer.
The evaluation of group support for 24 children suggested that the programme had been helpful in resolving shorter term effects of loss and lends some support to the notion of 'Continuing Bonds'.
The research question formulated for the study was: What psychological tools, including signs, operate in adult-child communication in this context. The main finding was that both open and closed styles of communication are employed.


An enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) has been developed for the measurement of anti-gliadin antibodies (AGA), thereby providing a practical and cheap assay for use in the diagnosis of coeliac disease (CD). Since gliadin is a common food antigen for most people, a large group of apparently healthy blood donors (n=l866) was analysed, as well as children and adults with symptoms more or less suggesting CD. The effects of various cut-offvalues on the sensitivity, specificity and predictive value (PV) of the test were calculated, both alone and together with anti-endomysium antibodies (EMA). A high prevalence value, of at least 1/256 (7!1866), for gluten enteropathy (GE) was found in the blood donor population. Moreover, a high frequency of CD among fanners with diffuse symptoms, conceivably due to a high exposure to gluten by inhalation, was also observed. It was impossible to combine high sensitivity with high specificity for both IgA- and IgG AGA, and vice versa, in adults. A significant increase in the mean lgA AGA level with age was seen when the blood donors were divided into age groups. A positive PV of 18-25% was found for IgA-AGA, depending on how-the cut-off value was defined. For IgG-AGA the positive PV was 0% (0/35) among asymptomatic subjects. IgA-EMA yielded both high specificity and a high positive PV, but a lower sensitivity than IgA-AGA, especially in children younger than 2 years, with signs of CD. When screening for GE in a population with expected low prevalence, measurement of IgA-AGA is suggested as a primary test because of fairly good sensitivity, technical simplicity, and low cost. Sera found to be positive are then re tested with IgA-EMA, which gives a positive PV close to 100%. For populations with a moderate or high expected prevalence for CD, our results indicate that different tests should be used depending on the age of the population studied. In younger children ( 2 years old) and adults the use of IgA-EMA seems more suitable, because of the high specificity (99-100%) and positive PV (95-100% ). Since, however, the negative PV was not 100%, a negative test result does not exclude CD.


President Trump has announced plans to impose tariffs on steel and aluminum from a wide variety of countries, on $50 billion worth of Chinese exports (including products ranging from aircraft to chicken incubators), and has floated the idea of placing tariffs on automobile imports as well. The president justifies all of this on the grounds that other nations are not acting fairly, because if they were then the United States wouldn't be running significant trade deficits. President Trump recently tweeted that: "The United States is insisting that all countries that have placed artificial Trade Barriers and Tariffs on goods going into their country, remove those Barriers & Tariffs or be met with more than Reciprocity by the U.S.A. Trade must be fair and no longer a one way street!"1 Trump's approach has drawn widespread criticism, sparking a debate in which partisans for and against the president's policies have made all sorts of claims and counter-claims. This briefing untangles the prevailing arguments and sets the record straight on 10 important points of fact.


A Fourier transform infrared/attenuated total reflectance technique was used to study the diffusion of water through poly(styrene-b-isobutylene-b-styrene) block copolymers (BCPs), as well as sulfonated (H+) and Na+-sulfonated ionomer versions. Diffusion data were collected and interpreted for these membranes versus polystyrene block composition, degree of sulfonation, Na+ ion content in the ionomers, and the effect of initially dry versus prehydrated conditions. An "early time" diffusion coefficient, D, decreased with increasing percent polystyrene for a series of unmodified BCPs. D decreased with increasing degree of sulfonation, and with increasing ion content for the Na+-exchanged samples and this was interpreted in terms of diffusion limitations caused by a strong tendency for ion hydration. The method also yielded information relating to the time evolution of water structure from the standpoint of degree of intermolecular hydrogen bonding. Membrane prehydration causes profound increases in D for both the unmodified BCP and sulfonated samples, as in plasticization. The simultaneous acquisition of information relating to interactions between water molecules and interactions of water molecules with functional groups on the host polymer matrix offers more information than conventional diffusion measurement techniques that simply count transported molecules. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part B: Polym Phys 43: 764–776, 2005


The Indian Constitution is committed to the equality of citizens and the responsibility of the State to preserve, protect and assure the rights of minorities in matters of language, religion and culture. That is why our national leaders while framing the Constitution, emphasized the doctrine of unity in diversity. The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National, Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities says that the promotion and protection of the rights of persons belonging to such minorities contribute to the political and social stability of the countries in which they live. Meeting their aspirations and ensuring their rights acknowledges the dignity and equality of all individuals and furthers participatory development. This in turn contributes to the lessening of tensions among groups and individuals. These factors are major determinants for stability and peace. All developed countries and most developing ones give appropriate emphasis to looking after the interests of minorities. Thus, in any country, the faith and confidence of the minorities in the functioning of the State in an impartial manner is an acid test of its being a just State. As the processes of economic development unfold, pressures are likely to build up and intensify when there is unequal development and some groups or minorities lag behind in the development process. Ideally, development processes should remove or reduce economic and social obstacles to cooperation and mutual respect among all groups in the country. If development processes are misdirected, they may have the opposite effect. It is this aspect which is important and needs to be addressed so as to give confidence to minorities. Since Independence, India has achieved significant growth and development. It as also been successful in reducing poverty and improving crucial human development indicators such as levels of literacy, education and health. There are indications, however, that not all religious communities and social groups (henceforth socio-religious communities SRCs) have shared equally the benefits of the growth process. Among these, the Muslims, the largest minority community in the country, constituting 13.4 per cent of the population, are seriously lagging behind in terms of most of the human development indicators. While the perception of deprivation is widespread among Muslims, there has been no systematic effort since Independence to analyze the condition of religious minorities in the country. Despite the need to analyze the socio-economic and educational conditions of different SRCs, until recently appropriate data for such an analysis was not generated by Government agencies. There have been welcome change in the scope of data collection with respect to SRCs in the 1990s, which, in turn, has made this report possible. The current effort is the first of its kind to undertake a data-based research on the Muslims in India.


Personal Health Systems (PHS) are mobile solutions tailored to monitoring patients affected by chronic non communicable diseases. A patient affected by a chronic disease can generate large amounts of events. Type 1 Diabetic patients generate several glucose events per day, ranging from at least 6 events per day (under normal monitoring) to 288 per day when wearing a continuous glucose monitor (CGM) that samples the blood every 5 minutes for several days. This is a large number of events to monitor for medical doctors, in particular when considering that they may have to take decisions concerning adjusting the treatment, which may impact the life of the patients for a long time. Given the need to analyse such a large stream of data, doctors need a simple approach towards physiological time series that allows them to promptly transfer their knowledge into queries to identify interesting patterns in the data. Achieving this with current technology is not an easy task, as on one hand it cannot be expected that medical doctors have the technical knowledge to query databases and on the other hand these time series include thousands of events, which requires to re-think the way data is indexed. In order to tackle the knowledge representation and efficiency problem, this contribution presents the kd-tree cached event calculus (\ceckd) an event calculus extension for knowledge engineering of temporal rules capable to handle many thousands events produced by a diabetic patient. \ceckd\ is built as a support to a graphical interface to represent monitoring rules for diabetes type 1. In addition, the paper evaluates the \ceckd\ with respect to the cached event calculus (CEC) to show how indexing events using kd-trees improves scalability with respect to the current state of the art.


A popular metaphor used by judges and journalists, the 'chilling effect' is used to describe the undesirable deterrence of legitimate free expression, although it is widely and loosely interpreted and rarely interrogated through methodical empirical research. This research examines the perceived chilling effect on freedom of expression in relation to defamation and privacy law and digital journalistic practice in England and Wales, over a five year period (2008--‐13). It examines media law in practice through interviews with legal specialists in defamation and privacy, close monitoring of online content, examination of court and policy documents, and surveys among journalists and online writers, and considers how decisions to publish or abandon stories are made in the contemporary networked news environment.

The thesis finds that lawyers play an under--‐recognised but pivotal social role in the editorial gatekeeping process, enabling as well as restricting publication. Their absence in ill--‐resourced environments has a paradoxically constraining and liberating effect: a lack of legal advice and knowledge may lead to unnecessary censorship of particular stories, but at the same time small--‐scale operations without legal support and training may be less reactive to potential libel and privacy risks. Despite a popular perception of runaway privacy law, the findings indicate that libel was still a predominant concern for research participants and generated more threats and claims.

The impact of defamation and privacy law on journalism, which is implied by the chilling effect metaphor, cannot be understood in isolation and a socio--‐legal approach based on empirical evidence is required to more fully expose the two--‐way interaction between law and journalism. Editorial decisions are subject to a complex web of competing factors; the collective or individual avoidance of stories can only be explained by looking at legal influences in their social context. In this way, hyperlocal bloggers may steer clear of particular topics for fear of social implications in local communities and national journalists can neglect stories as a result of organisational commercial pressures, or because such stories would damage their access to sources.

The chilling effect descriptor is generally used to help direct policy and decisions that enhance freedom of expression in the public interest but debate is severely hampered by the lack of systematic research and data collection, as this thesis will show. Given the social complexity and ambiguity around perceived chilling effects, the thesis argues that this exercise would be informed by more detailed monitoring and analysis of specific contributory factors, such as individuals' access to legal resources, legal knowledge and experience of direct or indirect threats of legal action. A more precise understanding of these elements in their wider social context would help the design of proportionate legal dispute mechanisms and the development of public legal education initiatives.


Design and implementation are two major aspects of the software development and the deviation between them needs to be minimized to the best extent possible. Of the many difficulties in detecting the deviation is the absence of common notation to compare the implementation artefact (code) against the design artefact. In this paper we present an approach to bridge the gap by providing a methodology to construct call trees from both the artefacts and thus enabling comparison of both using a common notation. Design is usually captured as scenarios and hence we use sequence diagrams for its specification. An implementation is accurately understood when it is executed and hence we use execution events to capture it. Building on these two artefacts, we provide a systematic procedure to construct call trees that can be compared against each other for deviation. This paper is an outcome of our ongoing work towards automatic detection of deviations and our experiments in designing and implementing several scenarios confirm the utility of this methodology towards this goal. While we demonstrate the methodology in the UML and Java setting, the technique is generic and can be applied in the context of any language.


Statutory reforms of the juvenile justice system came to Canada in 2003 when the Youth Criminal Justice Act (YCJA) became law. This article reviews the principal sentencing provisions and, in particular, the purposes and principles that are now codified as a result of the new legislation. The legislation attempts to reduce the number of young offenders sent to prison while facilitating the imposition of harsher sentences on a small number of juveniles convicted of the most serious offenses. The YCJA moves youth court sentencing closer to sentencing as it is conducted in adult court but also maintains some important differences between the two levels. These reforms are likely to reduce the number of young persons sent to prison in Canada and change the composition of the juvenile prison population by reducing the number of young offenders incarcerated for minor crimes or property crimes.


A general view of various ways in which virtual dance can be understood is presented in the first part of this article. It then appraises the uses of the term "virtual" in previous studies of digital dance. A more in-depth view of virtual dance as it relates to motion-capture is offered, and key issues are discussed regarding computer animation, digital imaging, motion signature, virtual reality and interactivity. The paper proposes that some forms of virtual dance be defined in relation to both digital technologies and contemporary theories of virtuality.


Process-based models are used in a diverse array of fields, including environmental engineering to provide supporting information to engineers, policymakers and stakeholdes. Recent advances in remote sensing and data storage technology have provided opportunities for improving the application of process-based models and visualizing data, but also present new challenges. The availability of larger quantities of data may allow models to be constructed and calibrated in a more thorough and precise manner, but depending on the type and volume of data, it is not always clear how to incorporate the information content of these data into a coherent modeling framework. In this context, using process-based models in new ways to provide decision support or to produce more complete and flexible predictive tools is a key task in the modern data-rich engineering world. In standard usage, models can be used for simulating specific scenarios; they can also be used as part of an automated design optimization algorithm to provide decision support or in a data-assimilation framework to incorporate the information content of ongoing measurements. In that vein, this thesis presents and demonstrates extensions and refinements to leverage the best of what process-based models offer using Differential Evolution (DE) the Extended Kalman Filter (EKF). Coupling multi-objective optimization to a process-based model may provide valuable information provided an objective function is constructed appropriately to reflect the multi-objective problem and constraints. That, in turn, requires weighting two or more competing objectives in the early stages of an analysis. The methodology proposed here relaxes that requirement by framing the model optimization as a sensitivity analysis. For demonstration, this is implemented using a surface water model (HEC-RAS) and the impact of floodplain access up and downstream of a fixed bridge on bridge scour is analyzed. DE, an evoutionary global optimization algorithm, is wrapped around a calibrated HEC-RAS model. Multiple objective functions, representing different relative weighting of two objectives, are used; the resulting rankorders of river reach locations by floodplain access sensitivity are consistent across these multiple functions. To extend the applicability of data assimilation methods, this thesis proposes relaxing the requirement that the model be calibrated (provided the parameters are still within physically defensible ranges) before performing assimilation. The model is then dynamically calibrated to new state estimates, which depend on the behavior of the model. Feasibility is demonstrated using the EKF and a synthetic dataset of pendulum motion. The dynamic calibration method reduces the variance of prediction errors compared to measurement errors using an initially uncalibrated model and produces estimates of calibration parameters that converge to the true values. The potential application of the dynamic calibration method to river sediment transport modeling is proposed in detail, including a method for automated calibration using sediment grain size distribution as a calibration parameter.


I report the solubility and diffusivity of water in lunar basalt and an iron-free basaltic analogue at 1 atm and 1350 °C. Such parameters are critical for understanding the degassing histories of lunar pyroclastic glasses. Solubility experiments have been conducted over a range of fO2 conditions from three log units below to five log units above the iron-wustite buffer (IW) and over a range of pH2/pH2O from 0.03 to 24. Quenched experimental glasses were analyzed by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and secondary ionization mass spectrometry (SIMS) and were found to contain up to ~420 ppm water. Results demonstrate that, under the conditions of our experiments: (1) hydroxyl is the only H-bearing species detected by FTIR; (2) the solubility of water is proportional to the square root of pH2O in the furnace atmosphere and is independent of fO2 and pH2/pH2O; (3) the solubility of water is very similar in both melt compositions; (4) the concentration of H2 in our iron-free experiments is Diffusion experiments were conducted over a range of fO2 conditions from IW-2.2 to IW+6.7 and over a range of pH2/pH2O from nominally zero to ~10. The water concentrations measured in our quenched experimental glasses by SIMS and FTIR vary from a few ppm to ~430 ppm. Water concentration gradients are well described by models in which the diffusivity of water (D*water) is assumed to be constant. The relationship between D*water and water concentration is well described by a modified speciation model (Ni et al. 2012) in which both molecular water and hydroxyl are allowed to diffuse. The success of this modified speciation model for describing our results suggests that we have resolved the diffusivity of hydroxyl in basaltic melt for the first time. Best-fit values of D*water for our experiments on lunar basalt vary within a factor of ~2 over a range of pH2/pH2O from 0.007 to 9.7, a range of fO2 from IW-2.2 to IW+4.9, and a water concentration range from ~80 ppm to ~280 ppm. The relative insensitivity of our best-fit values of D*water to variations in pH2 suggests that H2 diffusion was not significant during degassing of the lunar glasses of Saal et al. (2008). D*water during dehydration and hydration in H2/CO2 gas mixtures are approximately the same, which supports an equilibrium boundary condition for these experiments. However, dehydration experiments into CO2 and CO/CO2 gas mixtures leave some scope for the importance of kinetics during dehydration into H-free environments. The value of D*water chosen by Saal et al. (2008) for modeling the diffusive degassing of the lunar volcanic glasses is within a factor of three of our measured value in our lunar basaltic melt at 1350 °C. In Chapter 4 of this thesis, I document significant zonation in major, minor, trace, and volatile elements in naturally glassy olivine-hosted melt inclusions from the Siqueiros Fracture Zone and the Galapagos Islands. Components with a higher concentration in the host olivine than in the melt (MgO, FeO, Cr2O3, and MnO) are depleted at the edges of the zoned melt inclusions relative to their centers, whereas except for CaO, H2O, and F, components with a lower concentration in the host olivine than in the melt (Al2O3, SiO2, Na2O, K2O, TiO2, S, and Cl) are enriched near the melt inclusion edges. This zonation is due to formation of an olivine-depleted boundary layer in the adjacent melt in response to cooling and crystallization of olivine on the walls of the melt inclusions concurrent with diffusive propagation of the boundary layer toward the inclusion center. Concentration profiles of some components in the melt inclusions exhibit multicomponent diffusion effects such as uphill diffusion (CaO, FeO) or slowing of the diffusion of typically rapidly diffusing components (Na2O, K2O) by coupling to slow diffusing components such as SiO2 and Al2O3. Concentrations of H2O and F decrease towards the edges of some of the Siqueiros melt inclusions, suggesting either that these components have been lost from the inclusions into the host olivine late in their cooling histories and/or that these components are exhibiting multicomponent diffusion effects. A model has been developed of the time-dependent evolution of MgO concentration profiles in melt inclusions due to simultaneous depletion of MgO at the inclusion walls due to olivine growth and diffusion of MgO in the melt inclusions in response to this depletion. Observed concentration profiles were fit to this model to constrain their thermal histories. Cooling rates determined by a single-stage linear cooling model are 150–13,000 °C hr-1 from the liquidus down to ~1000 °C, consistent with previously determined cooling rates for basaltic glasses; compositional trends with melt inclusion size observed in the Siqueiros melt inclusions are described well by this simple single-stage linear cooling model. Despite the overall success of the modeling of MgO concentration profiles using a single-stage cooling history, MgO concentration profiles in some melt inclusions are better fit by a two-stage cooling history with a slower-cooling first stage followed by a faster-cooling second stage; the inferred total duration of cooling from the liquidus down to ~1000 °C is 40 s to just over one hour. Based on our observations and models, compositions of zoned melt inclusions (even if measured at the centers of the inclusions) will typically have been diffusively fractionated relative to the initially trapped melt; for such inclusions, the initial composition cannot be simply reconstructed based on olivine-addition calculations, so caution should be exercised in application of such reconstructions to correct for post-entrapment crystallization of olivine on inclusion walls. Off-center analyses of a melt inclusion can also give results significantly fractionated relative to simple olivine crystallization. All melt inclusions from the Siqueiros and Galapagos sample suites exhibit zoning profiles, and this feature may be nearly universal in glassy, olivine-hosted inclusions. If so, zoning profiles in melt inclusions could be widely useful to constrain late-stage syneruptive processes and as natural diffusion experiments.


As the volumes of sensor data being accumulated are likely to soar, data compression has become essential in a wide range of sensor-data applications. This has led to a plethora of data compression techniques for sensor data, in particular model-based approaches have been spotlighted due to their significant compression performance. These methods, however, have never been compared and analyzed under the same setting, rendering a "right" choice of compression technique for a particular application very difficult. Addressing this problem, this paper presents a benchmark that offers a comprehensive empirical study on the performance comparison of the model-based compression techniques. Specifically, we reimplemented several state-of-the-art methods in a comparable manner, and measured various performance factors with our benchmark, including compression ratio, computation time, model maintenance cost, approximation quality, and robustness to noisy data. We then provide in-depth analysis of the benchmark results, obtained by using 11 different real data sets consisting of 346 heterogeneous sensor data signals. We believe that the findings from the benchmark will be able to serve as a practical guideline for applications that need to compress sensor data.


One of the main concerns in any electric power distribution system is the reliability of the supply. This chapter discusses different custom power devices (CPDs) and their use in alleviating some of the power quality problems. It presents the use of these devices to dynamically improve voltage profile and unbalance that are arising due to the growth of DERs. The CPDs utilize power electronic based voltage source converters (VSCs). The chapter gives a brief description of the converter requirements and filter structures. Distribution static compensator (DSTATCOM) is a shunt-connected device. It can perform both current and voltage control separately. A unified power quality conditioner (UPQC) consists of two VSCs that are connected to a common DC storage. The UPQC alleviates some of the problems associated with the dynamic voltage restorer (DVR). The CPDs is more effective in solving the power quality problems arising from the increased use of DERs.


This thesis investigates the accuracy of operational sea surface temperature (SST) and land surface temperature (LST) data from the Advanced Along-Track Scanning Ra diometer (AATSR). The study includes some of the first in situ validation results for these data sets, and forms an integral part of the overall AATSR validation programme. In ad dition, a comprehensive sensitivity study of the response of these retrievals to changes in atmospheric and surface conditions is also presented as an aid to interpreting validation results. AATSR SSTs recorded during 2003 have been validated over the Caribbean sea, using in situ observations of SST from the Marine-Atmosphere Emitted Radiance Interferometer (M-AERI). This validation experiment, which extends over a full year, is the most ex tensive yet performed for any of the ATSR instruments (ATSR-1, ATSR-2 and AATSR) using in situ SSTs derived from radiometric measurements. These data also provide a first opportunity to study seasonal biases using observations of this type. The results demonstrate that clear-sky SSTs obtained using the unique dual-viewing geometry of the AATSR agree with the in situ data to within 0.3 K. Nadir-only retrievals performed us ing three channels also provide SSTs that approach this accuracy, but the split-window retrievals are found to be warm-biased by ~0.6 K. When tropospheric dust aerosol is present, the accuracy of the retrieved SSTs is reduced, with the nadir-view SSTs becom ing cold biased and the dual-view SSTs, warm biased. For the first time, the potential for validation of LST over heterogeneous land sites is also explored. Two methodologies are presented for upscaling point in situ LSTs to the 1-km spatial scale of the AATSR, together with initial validation results over a field site in Morocco, which suggest that the AATSR LSTs are warm-biased by at least 0.6 K over this site. The findings of this study suggest that validation over heterogeneous sites is possible for situations where the variation of LST is characterised by several in situ point observations of LST.


This article shows how institutionalism, a theory in organisational social science, provides a model for diagnosing organisational challenges that influence the ethical practices and integration in the Norwegian Army. Institutionalism provides tools for analysing the differences between expressed values and actual practices and for understanding the organisational dynamics that unfold at the crossroads of the organisation's formal structure, informal culture and stakeholder relations. In this article we present and discuss such differences and dynamics in the Norwegian Army based on findings from a survey and a number of workshops. We also provide some suggestions for effective implementation of strategies for strengthening ethics in such an organisation. We argue that the perspective taken in this project is also relevant for other highly professionalised complex organisations and that such interdisciplinary research will strengthen practical ethics' potential for real impact.


We provide formal proofs in Isabelle-HOL (using mostly structured Isar proofs) of the soundness and completeness of the Resolution rule in propositional logic. The completeness proofs take into account the usual redundancy elimination rules (namely tautology elimination and subsumption), and several refinements of the Resolution rule are considered: ordered resolution (with selection functions), positive and negative resolution, semantic resolution and unit resolution (the latter refinement is complete only for clause sets that are Horn-renamable). We also define a concrete procedure for computing saturated sets and establish its soundness and completeness. The clause sets are not assumed to be finite, so that the results can be applied to formulas obtained by grounding sets of first-order clauses (however, a total ordering among atoms is assumed to be given). Next, we show that the unrestricted Resolution rule is deductivecomplete, in the sense that it is able to generate all (prime) implicates of any set of propositional clauses (i.e., all entailment-minimal, nonvalid, clausal consequences of the considered set). The generation of prime implicates is an important problem, with many applications in artificial intelligence and verification (for abductive reasoning, knowledge compilation, diagnosis, debugging etc.). We also show that implicates can be computed in an incremental way, by fixing an ordering among all the atoms and resolving upon these atoms one by one in the considered order (with no backtracking). This feature is critical for the efficient computation of prime implicates. Building on these results, we provide a procedure for computing such implicates and establish its soundness and completeness.


In recent years, emotional eating (EmE) has incited substantial research interest as an important psychologic determinant of food intake and overweight. However, little is known about factors that might modulate its relations with dietary habits. The objective of this study was to examine the association between EmE and consumption of energy-dense snack food and assess the 2-way interaction of EmE with sex and depressive symptoms. A total of 7378 men and 22,862 women from the NutriNet-Sant´ e cohort (France, 2009–2013) who completed $6 self-reported 24-h food records were included in this cross-sectional analysis. EmE was evaluated via the revised 21-item Three-Factor Eating Questionnaire. Depressive symptoms were assessed by the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale. The associations between EmE and energy-dense food consumption were assessed by multivariable logistic and linear regression models adjusted for sociodemographic and lifestyle factors. Higher EmE was associated with higher consumption of energy-dense snacks and, in particular, with consumption of sweet-and-fatty foods across most categories studied. However, these associations were stronger in women with depressive symptoms (e.g., high consumption of chocolate, OR: 1.77, 95% CI: 1.43, 2.20; cakes/biscuits/pastries, OR: 1.81, 95% CI: 1.45, 2.26) compared with those without depressive symptoms (e.g., high consumption of chocolate, OR: 1.52, 95% CI: 1.36, 1.69; cakes/biscuits/pastries, OR: 1.44, 95% CI: 1.29, 1.61). In contrast, the significant positive associations observed in men without depressive symptoms (e.g., high consumption of chocolate, OR: 1.33, 95% CI: 1.16, 1.52; cakes/biscuits/pastries, OR: 1.28, 95% CI: 1.11, 1.48) were not found in men with depressive symptoms. In conclusion, in women, EmE was positively associated with consumption of energy-dense snack food, particularly in those with depressive symptoms. For men, the relation between EmE and energydense snack foods was found only in those without depressive symptoms. These findings call for consideration of the psychologicstatewhen targeting unhealthy dietary habits, especially in women. This trial was registered at eudract.ema. europa.eu as 2013-000929-31. J. Nutr. 144: 1264–1273, 2014.


Microglia, the resident innate immune cells of the brain, respond to various environmental stimuli, including factors from surrounding tissue and from systemic inputs. These stimuli impact microglial function in both health and disease. Increasing evidence implicates microglia and neuroinflammation in Gulf War illness (GWI) pathology. Gulf War illness is an untreatable chronic multi symptomatic disorder that affects about 30% of Gulf War veterans. It has been proposed that " multiple hits " from exposure to various environmental neurotoxicants such as Chlorpyrifos (CPF), an organophosphate pesticide, combined with low inflammation may initiate exaggerated and persistent central nervous system (CNS) pathology to drive GWI. CPF oxon, an active metabolite of CPF, is associated with deleterious CNS effects, but the role of microglia behind this phenomenon is not fully understood.To investigate the effects of CPF oxon on microglia, we assessed microglial ROS, pro-inflammatory cytokine factors, and NF-κB p50 DNA binding activity in the presence of CPF oxon. HAPI microglia cells were treated with CPF oxon (1µM-1nM), which resulted in a dose dependent increase in H 2 O 2 production at 3 hours and elevated superoxide at 30 minutes. CPF oxon failed to initiate TNFα and nitric oxide from microglia cultures. However, CPF oxon significantly decreased NF-κB p50 binding to DNA in microglia, a key redox signaling mechanism linked to microglial priming. Consistent with this premise, pre-treatment with CPF oxon (0.5µM) amplified LPS-induced TNFα production in microglia and neuron-glia cultures. Moreover, when CPF oxon and LPS challenged cells were pre-treated with DPI, a NOX2 inhibitor, we found a significant reduction in TNFα response when compared to non-treated cells, supporting that NOX2 may regulate CPF oxon priming in microglia. These data suggest that CPF oxon may induce ROS production in microglia to reprogram these cells to become more sensitive to pro-inflammatory stimuli (priming).


The proposal that carcinogenesis results from the somatic inheritance of defective epigenetic transmission is consistent with the establishment of genetic instability and the generation of a clonally divergent population of cells expressing anomalous structural and functional characteristics. The majority of these uncoordinated properties would be expected to be deleterious, thus placing cancer cells at a proliferative disadvantage. To compensate for this the malignant phenotype requires a property that enables the deviant cells to survive proliferative competition. This question is explored using a competitive growth model based on viewing cell populations as existing in microenvironmental domains subject to a barrier to migration. The model demonstrates that the ability to penetrate this migratory barrier is sufficient to permit otherwise less competitive cells to proliferate and expand the anomalous population. The possible nature of the domain barrier is briefly discussed.


"The modern world depends upon the smooth and satisfactory operation of countless tribological systems." B.N.J. Persson Measuring and controlling friction on the atomic scale is the main goal of this thesis. Nowadays, fundamental studies of friction on nanometer-scale are mandatory, since frictional forces become more and more relevant as the scale of nanoelectromechanical devices is reduced. Despite the increased ratio between surface and volume forces in these devices, we will show how an appropriate design and manipulation of the sliding components can result in smooth motion with minimum energy consumption. All our frictional studies are performed by means of a home-built Atomic Force Microscope (AFM) under ultra high vacuum (UHV) and room temperature conditions. The preparation of samples under UHV conditions allowed the study of clean surfaces, free of water or adsorbates. Friction experiments were thence conducted on dry and clean surfaces, without lubricants. Typical friction signals obtained in AFM measurements present stickslip characteristics, when the tip moves over the atomic corrugated surface. The jump of the tip from one energy minimum to another is accompanied by instabilities essential for dissipation. Chaptershows that by decreasing the normal force a transition from atomic stick-slip to continuous sliding is observed and a new regime of ultra-low friction is encountered. The transition is described in the framework of the classical Tomlinson model introducing a parameter η, which compares the strength of the lateral atomic surface potential to the stiffness of the contact under study. For η ≫a dissipative regime of sliding is encountered, whereas for η ≤sliding occurs with negligible dissipation. This parameter can be tuned experimentally by varying the normal load on the contact. Chapterpresents an alternative method based on induced perturbations under resonance condition, which lead to a reduction of friction to negligible values in a controlled way. The regime of zero friction is achieved by applying a periodic excitation between tip and sample at frequencies corresponding to the normal modes of the combined tip-surface system. This method was verified on different surfaces, ionic crystals and mica. An opposite effect on the nanoscale is wear. Under wear the surfaces involved in the contact experience irreversible changes. In order to understand the conditions under which this process is initiated, and how it develops, we studied the wear process between the AFM tip and insulating and metallic surfaces. Chapterpresents a detailed study of the formation of regular topographic structures on a KBr surface under repeated scanning. After the removal of single atomic layers has started, the debris is moved and reorganized due to the interplay between friction-induced strain and erosion, transport of material by the action of the tip, and possibly diffusion. 1D and 2D ripple structures are thus developed. All these results contribute to a better understanding and control of fundamental friction problems which may help to improve the functioning of nanoscale
devices.


BACKGROUND
Of all newborns, 1%-2% are born very preterm (VP; <32 weeks) or with very low birthweight (VLBW; ≤1500 g). Advances in prenatal and neonatal care have substantially improved their survival, and the first generations who have benefited from these advances are now entering middle age. While most lead healthy lives, on average these adults are characterised by a number of adversities. These include cardiometabolic risk factors, airway obstruction, less physical activity, poorer visual function, lower cognitive performance, and a behavioural phenotype that includes inattention and internalising and socially withdrawn behaviour that may affect life chances and quality of life. Outcomes in later adulthood are largely unknown, and identifying trajectories of risk or resilience is essential in developing targeted interventions. Joint analyses of data and maintenance of follow-up of cohorts entering adulthood are essential. Such analyses are ongoing within the Adults Born Preterm International Collaboration (APIC; www.apic-preterm.org). Joint analyses require data harmonisation, highlighting the importance of consistent assessment methodologies.

OBJECTIVE
To present an expert recommendation on Common Core Assessments to be used in follow-up assessments of adults born preterm.

METHODS
Principles of Common Core Assessments were discussed at APIC meetings. Experts for each specific outcome domain wrote the first draft on assessments pertaining to that outcome. These drafts were combined and reviewed by all authors. Consensus was reached by discussion at APIC meetings.

RESULTS
We present a recommendation by APIC experts on consistent measures to be used in adult follow-up assessments.

CONCLUSIONS
The recommendation encompasses both "core" measures which we recommend to use in all assessments of adults born preterm that include the particular outcome. This will allow comparability between time and location. The recommendation also lists optional measures, focusing on current gaps in knowledge. It includes sections on study design, cardiometabolic and related biomarkers, biological samples, life style, respiratory, ophthalmic, cognitive, mental health, personality, quality of life, sociodemographics, social relationships, and reproduction.


Background: Autologous cancellous bone is the most effective biological graft material. However, harvest of autologous bone is associated with significant morbidity. Since porous hydroxyapatite and beta-tricalcium phosphate are biodegradable materials and can be replaced by bone tissue, but it lacks osteogenic property. We conducted a study to assess their use as a scaffold and combine them with bone marrow aspirate for bone regeneration using its osteogenic property for posterolateral spinal fusion on one side and autologous bone graft on the other side and compare them radiologically in terms of graft incorporation and fusion. Materials and Methods: Thirty patients with unstable dorsal and lumbar spinal injuries who needed posterior stabilization and fusion were evaluated in this prospective study from October 2005 to March 2008. The posterior stabilization was done using pedicle screw and rod assembly, and fusion was done using hydroxyapatite and beta-tricalcium phosphate mixed with bone marrow aspirate as a bone graft substitute over one side of spine and autologous bone graft obtained from iliac crest over other side of spine. The patients were followed up to a minimum of 12 months. Serial radiographs were done at an interval of 3, 6, and 12 months and CT scan was done at one year follow-up. Graft incorporation and fusion were assessed at each follow-up. The study was subjected to statistical analysis using chi-square and kappa test to assess graft incorporation and fusion. Results: At the end of the study, radiological graft incorporation and fusion was evident in all the patients on the bone graft substitute side and in 29 patients on the autologous bone graft side of the spine (P > 0.05). One patient showed lucency and breakage of distal pedicle screw in autologous bone graft side. The interobserver agreement (kappa) had an average of 0.72 for graft incorporation, 0.75 for fusion on radiographs, and 0.88 for the CT scan findings. Conclusion: Hydroxyapatite and beta-tricalcium phosphate mixed with bone marrow aspirate seems to be a promising alternative to conventional autologous iliac bone graft for posterolateral spinal fusion.


The orthodox formulation of quantum theory invokes the mathematical apparatus of complex Hilbert space. In this thesis, we consider a quaternionic quantum formalism for the description of quantum states, quantum channels, and quantum measurements. We prove that probabilities for outcomes of quaternionic quantum measurements arise from canonical inner products of the corresponding quaternionic quantum effects and a unique quaternionic quantum state. We embed quaternionic quantum theory into the framework of usual complex quantum information theory. We prove that quaternionic quantum measurements can be simulated by usual complex positive operator valued measures. Furthermore, we prove that quaternionic quantum channels can be simulated by completely positive trace preserving maps on complex quantum states. We also derive a lower bound on an orthonormality measure for sets of positive semi-definite quaternionic linear operators. We prove that sets of operators saturating the aforementioned lower bound facilitate a reconciliation of quaternionic quantum theory with a generalized Quantum Bayesian framework for reconstructing quantum state spaces. This thesis is an extension of work found in [42].


The military results of Sulla's war against Mithridates were inconclusive. Appian overlooked this fact, probably because his narrative of this war very much relied on the memoirs of Sulla himself or on a source that emphasized Sulla's point of view. For the same reason, Appian did not really stress the harsh effects of the fines that Sulla imposed on many cities of the Greek East after the war. On the other hand, the end of the First Mithridatic War did contribute to the establishment of good relations among the Romans and notables from the Greek East, as has recently been claimed. By analyzing these facts, this paper reconstructs the aftermath of the First Mithridatic War and thus contributes to the reflections on the interaction between Rome and the Greek East.


Simulating a quantum system is more efficient on a quantum computer than on a classical computer. The time required for solving the Schrödinger equation to obtain molecular energies has been demonstrated to scale polynomially with system size on a quantum computer, in contrast to the well-known result of exponential scaling on a classical computer. In this paper, we present a quantum algorithm to obtain the energy spectrum of molecular systems based on the multiconfigurational self-consistent field (MCSCF) wave function. By using a MCSCF wave function as the initial guess, the excited states are accessible. Entire potential energy surfaces of molecules can be studied more efficiently than if the simpler Hartree-Fock guess was employed. We show that a small increase of the MCSCF space can dramatically increase the success probability of the quantum algorithm, even in regions of the potential energy surface that are far from the equilibrium geometry. For the treatment of larger systems, a multi-reference configuration interaction approach is suggested. We demonstrate that such an algorithm can be used to obtain the energy spectrum of the water molecule.


As academia progresses towards the 21st century, increases in student numbers, distance learning, changes in copyright licensing and lack of funding means that academic institutions have to look more closely at the use of electronic resources in order to meet these challenges. The "wired campus" and "virtual university" mean more users looking for electronic resources and increased pressure on libraries to provide these services. The development of electronic journals in the early 1990s and the onset of electronic publishing appeared to be a solution to the problem. Journals could be stored electronically thereby saving space, the risk of lose, theft or damage is lessened and costs where significantly reduced. Electronic journals have become an increasingly important part of academic library collections, however they have not proved to be the panacea the profession hoped for. Electronic journal useage has created a new set of issues such as archiving, copyright, cataloguing, site licensing, remote access, hardware requirements and journal design. There are many stakeholders involved in the selection of electronic journals within academic libraries from librarians, to users and publishers. This paper attempts to raise awareness of some of the issues which will have to be considered if scholarly electronic journal publishing is to develop over the next decade. The content and ideas presented in the paper are derived from research undertaken in the area for a student Masters dissertation.


BACKGROUND
Cancer stem cells (CSCs) are a rare population of tumor cells, which play an important role in tumor initiation, progression, and maintenance. The concept that cancer cells arise from stem cells was presented about 150 years ago. Recently, this hypothesis was renewed considering the heterogeneity of tumor cells. CSCs are resistant to chemo- and radio-therapy. Therefore, targeting CSCs could be a novel and effective strategy to struggle with tumor cells.

OBJECTIVE
In this mini-review, we highlight that different immunotherapeutic approaches can be used to target cancer cells and eradicate different tumor cells. The most important targets are specific markers recognized on the CSC surface as CSC antigens such as CD44, CD133, Aldehyde Dehydrogenase (ALDH), and SOX family members. This article emphasizes recent advances in CSCs in cancer therapy.

RESULTS
Our results present that CSC antigens play an important role in tumor initiation, especially in the cells that are resistant to chemo- and radiotherapy agents. Therefore, they are ideal targets for cancer immunotherapy, for instance, in developing different types of cancer vaccines or antibodies against tumor cells.

CONCLUSION
The current studies related to cancer immunotherapy through targeting the CSC antigens based on their properties are briefly summarized. Altogether, CSC antigens can be efficiently targeted to treat cancer patients.


Training recurrent neural networks (RNNs) is a hard problem due to degeneracies in the optimization landscape, a problem also known as vanishing/exploding gradients. Short of designing new RNN architectures, previous methods for dealing with this problem usually boil down to orthogonalization of the recurrent dynamics, either at initialization or during the entire training period. The basic motivation behind these methods is that orthogonal transformations are isometries of the Euclidean space, hence they preserve (Euclidean) norms and effectively deal with vanishing/exploding gradients. However, this ignores the crucial effects of non-linearity and noise. In the presence of a non-linearity, orthogonal transformations no longer preserve norms, suggesting that alternative transformations might be better suited to non-linear networks. Moreover, in the presence of noise, norm preservation itself ceases to be the ideal objective. A more sensible objective is maximizing the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of the propagated signal instead. Previous work has shown that in the linear case, recurrent networks that maximize the SNR display strongly non-normal, sequential dynamics and orthogonal networks are highly suboptimal by this measure. Motivated by this finding, here we investigate the potential of non-normal RNNs, i.e. RNNs with a non-normal recurrent connectivity matrix, in sequential processing tasks. Our experimental results show that non-normal RNNs outperform their orthogonal counterparts in a diverse range of benchmarks. We also find evidence for increased non-normality and hidden chain-like feedforward motifs in trained RNNs initialized with orthogonal recurrent connectivity matrices.


Uncontrolled accumulation of wastes in marine environments involves an increase in organic substances and/or nutrients, as well as toxicity. The consequences of this enrichment for the homeostasis of ecosystems are unpredictable. The best studied consequence of such enrichment is eutrophication (Conti, 1996). Natural or anthropogenic eutrophication is the enrichment of a water body in nutrients, utilisable by algae. Sources of these nutrients are the atmosphere, rivers, soil erosion and runoff from catchment areas, sewage, industrial effluents, fertilizers, and waste disposal from animal farms. Mathematical models predicting pollutant dispersion and pollutant bioavaibility may make a substantial contribution to the study of the marine pollution phenomena and may be a valuable tool for the description of the pollution flux (Benedini and Cicioni, 1992). Generally, mathematical models refer to the propagation and transport of particular pollutants originating from one-point contamination sources and also in this case need a broad spectrum of experimental data. This requirement is particularly true for sea ecosystems, owing to the large number of required variables and to the various effects on different species and ecosystems. For these reasons, biomonitoring programmes in sea environments are very important. Establishing the pollutant level in organisms may help to evaluate the possible toxicity for various species at different levels of the trophic chain.


I study the role of macroeconomic announcements in the multidimensional challenge posed by Cochrane (2011). Recent work argues that market betas explain average returns well on announcement days, however I document that the exposure to a multi-signal factor contributes to explain the cross-section on those days. A long-short strategy exploiting these exposures can improve the market Sharpe ratio by 30% on announcement days. I argue that macroeconomic announcements can exacerbate CAPM-mispricing of certain stocks, and its large economic significance can be illustrated through simple trading rules. A parsimonious rational expectations model with multiple signals about fundamentals can reconcile these results.


Transactional Memory (TM) intends to simplify the design and implementation of the sharedmemory data structures used in parallel software. Many Software TM systems are based on writerlocks to protect the data being modified. Such implementations can suffer from the "privatization" problem, in which transactional and non-transactional accesses to the same location can lead to inconsistent results. One solution is the use of Pessimistic Concurrency Control, but it entails an important performance penalty due to the need of reader-writer locking. In this paper a hybrid TM design is proposed to reduce the performance overheads caused by the use of these locks while combining three desirable features: (i) full TM functionality whether or not the architectural support is present; (ii) execution of a single common code path in software or hardware; and, (iii) immunity from the privatization problem. The analysis shows how a Hybrid TM can lose important properties, such as starvation freedom. To overcome this issue, Directory Reservations is presented, a low-cost mechanism improving existent solutions designed for


Seven of the infrared channels from the Spinning Enhanced Visible and Infrared Imagery (SEVIRI) instrument, on board the Meteosat Second Generation (MSG), are used to retrieve Layer Precipitable Water (LPW) and Stability Analysis Imagery (SAI) in the SAFNWC framework. Both products are retrieved using a statistical retrieval based on neural networks; they are routinely generated every fifteen minutes at a satellite horizontal resolution of 3 km in NADIR only in cloud-free areas. Many factors are involved in the development of severe weather and these parameters are only some of the indicators. However, due to the high resolution of these products, the use of them in conjunction with satellite and radar images can help to identify mesoscale features related to convection. The MSG moisture and parcel instability time trend fields are especially useful during the period previous to convection. Once the outbreak of convection occurs, the products calculated in the clear air pixels surrounding the convective system can give us hints to anticipate its evolution. SAFNWC LPW and SAI were analyzed for a severe weather event during August 2004. A thunderstorm over Teruel (Spain) produced intense precipitation and hail; a tornado developed while this thunderstorm was moving towards SE. The pre-convective parcel potential buoyancy and moisture SAFNWC products changed in a way that was consistent with the observed intense convective activity. In previous studies, the atmospheric moisture in medium levels, which has been proven to be relevant in some cases, was represented by only one level parameter (ML: middle layer LPW). However, it was observed that this layer is too thick to do an adequate analysis of moisture available for convection. Hence, an improvement on the LPW algorithm has been carried out by splitting the middle layer into two new sub-layers (approximately separated at 700 hPa) and training two new neural networks. The impact of monitoring moisture in the new sub-layers separately in this severe weather event has been tested, and the improvements achieved have been evaluated.


It takes teamwork to defeat HIV, as Campbell et al. reveal. The researchers show that clusters of defensive proteins inside cells capture viral invaders and promote their destruction.

Figure 1

Cytoplasmic bodies (red) latch onto HIV particles (green).

Defensive TRIM5 proteins have a narrow but important job: fending off retroviruses that normally attack other species. Human versions trap certain mouse viruses, for example, and those from rhesus monkeys take on HIV. The proteins seem to halt a retrovirus before it can recopy its RNA genome into DNA. But how TRIM5 proteins prevent infection remains unclear. In cells, the proteins form clusters known as cytoplasmic bodies. Campbell et al. investigated whether these clusters are important for stopping infection.

The researchers followed HIV particles that invaded HeLa cells modified to produce rhesus monkey TRIM5α. Cytoplasmic bodies and HIV particles cozied up, the team found. These associations were only detectable for a short time after the virus entered the cell. However, HIV remained stuck in the cytoplasmic bodies if the researchers added a drug that shuts down the proteasome—the cellular garbage disposal that chops up worn-out or damaged proteins.

The team then observed interactions between labeled HIV particles and TRIM5α clusters in living cells. The viruses sometimes hooked onto an existing cytoplasmic body and traveled along with it. Sometimes a virus broke away, but it had a coat of TRIM5α. And sometimes a new cytoplasmic body formed around a virus particle.

The researchers conclude that shortly after viral entry, TRIM5α ensnares HIV particles and then collaborates with the proteasome to destroy them. The mechanism of destruction is obscure, since an individual virus is too large to fit into the proteasome. But as several TRIM5α proteins that have latched onto an HIV particle get drawn into the proteasome, their pulling might tear the virus to pieces, "like sharks eating a dead whale," says senior author Thomas Hope.

Reference:

Campbell, E.M., et al. 2008. J. Cell Biol. 180:549–561. [PubMed]


The Middle Triassic Wetterstein Limestone was investigated on the Feuerkogel, in the eastern Hollengebirge area, Austria. Cephalopod-bearing coquina interbeds consisting predominantly of orthocone cephalopods were found within the dasycladacean inner platform lagoon facies. Based on sedimentological studies the coquina beds are interpreted as storm accumulations. Dasycladacean biostratigraphic data permit assigning the studied succession to the Late Anisian-Early Ladinian interval. Ammonites of age-diagnostic value found in the coquina horizon suggest the Avisianum Subzone of the Reitzi Zone that corresponds to the upper part of the Anisian.


A revision of the genus Asterostegus Mortensen, 1933 (Echinodermata: Ophiuroidea: Euryalidae) is based on seven specimens, including the holotype of Asterostegus maini McKnight, 2003. A new species, Asterostegus sabineae sp. nov. is described from off Reunion Island and two other species, A. tuberculatus Mortensen, 1933 and A. maini , are redescribed. A tabular key to the three species of the genus Asterostegus is provided. Some terminology of the taxonomy of euryalid ophiuroids is revised.


This study investigates students' attitudes towards reading for pleasure. Also, this study tries to discover the relationship between reading materials and reading environment on one hand and students' attitudes towards reading for pleasure on the other. The subjects of the study consisted of 98 students who represented Part 3 and Part 4 Bachelor Degree students from three different faculties. There were two types of instruments used to collect the data, namely the questionnaires and the semistructured interview. Ninety eight questionnaires were distributed to the respondents and 10 students were interviewed. The results from the study were very encouraging. The study revealed that most respondents possessed positive and encouraging reading attitudes towards reading. Most respondents were able to value reading not only for academic purposes but also for pleasure. They perceived reading as a relaxing, fun and enjoyable activity. Though most respondents put a high value on reading, many of them failed to decide whether they are active readers or not which may be due to their inconsistencies in reading. With regard to reading materials, it was discovered that most respondents agreed that the choice and characteristics of the reading materials contributed to their attitudes towards reading. According to them, reading materials that appeal to their needs and interests will create a pleasurable reading experience for them. However, some interesting discoveries from the study were majority of the respondents were unable to decide whether technical texts would make them lose interest in reading. The findings also featured that the reading environment had a great influence on the students' attitudes towards reading for pleasure. Teachers, parents, peers and the learning institution are among the motivating factors discovered to have encouraged the students to commit themselves to reading for pleasure. On the other hand, most respondents believed that their reason for reading was not exclusively due to their teacher's reading act. From the correlation analyses, it was also gathered that the reading materials and reading environment had a strong influence on the students' attitudes towards reading for pleasure. On a different note, the correlation analyses showed some negative relationships between types of reading materials and average hours students spent on reading. Apart from that, some implications gathered from the findings also featured that some students might not practice what they believed even though they were aware of the importance of reading. In fact, some of them mostly spent their time reading for academic purposes rather than for pleasure. Attention should also be given on the authenticity of the reading materials as most respondents were unable to decide whether they found enjoyment reading materials that were not of their choice. Due to that, it is pertinent that teachers, parents, and stakeholders look into these implications seriously and find proactive ways in tackling the matter. In a nutshell, students read for pleasure when they find reading to be an enriching activity, which is very much supported by the reading materials and the reading environment.


The International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) remains one of the least transparent and most secretive of UN bodies. It meets in secret, and while agendas can now be found on the INCB's website, no minutes of its meetings are published, nor are the analyses by which it arrives at its positions on policy issues. Although retrospective reports are available on-line, the Board's country visits are conducted behind a veil of secrecy. There is no advance publicity, criteria for country selection or opportunities for public forums while Board members are in-country. The governments visited undoubtedly value the chance to discuss their drug policies in confidence. Yet the secrecy surrounding the planning of such visits and the lack of mechanisms for input from health professionals or non-governmental experts surely impedes the effectiveness of the Board's visits. Such secrecy insulates the INCB from healthy dialogue about its focus and priorities. The Board's culture of secrecy insulates it from much needed oversight in general; a point well illustrated by current practice surrounding INCB-country correspondence - the main focus of this IDPC briefing paper.


The world wine market is currently characterised by two principal wine suppliers: the European and the New World. Countries such as France, Italy, Spain and Portugal have witnessed a tremendous growth in the New World wine- makers (Australia, Chile, South Africa, etc.). As competition continues to intensify, wineries are searching for new channels to increase revenues and many vintners chose to develop other activities. Portugal is one of the European countries that present several natural and technical constraints which might be now resulting in modest performance regarding its position in the global wine market, competitiveness and dynamism required to overcome difficulties. The main objective of the study is to provide information to vintners concerning the current situation of the wine industry and possibly to present "holes" in the market which overall might be explored as new business opportunities. To that end, the research will attempt to measure the competitiveness of the Portuguese wine industry and its behaviour during a time period considered. This will be based on indices such as the trade intensity index, revealed comparative advantage, auto- sufficiency and market share ratios. This paper will also try to analyse empirically the specific case of exports and activity diversification in the Vinhos Verdes region.


The 4-anilinoquinazoline scaffold has been historically used for designing EGFR/VEGFR/HER2 inhibitors while it has not been reported widely for developing c-Src inhibitors. Thus, a series of novel 4-anilinoquinazoline derivatives grafting different amide moieties at the 6-position were designed and synthesized as potential inhibitors for c-Src. In this manuscript, all of the designed compounds were screened via molecular docking using Discovery Studio 3.5 software. As expected, the results of the docking study revealed that most of these targeted compounds possessed lower binding energy than the positive control Saracatinib. Subsequently, all of the screened compounds were synthesized and evaluated for their c-Src in vitro inhibitory activities and in vitro antiproliferation assays against four human cancer cells (A549, MCF-7, HepG-2, HeLa). Among these compounds, 24 exhibited the most potent inhibitory activity against c-Src kinase as well as at the cellular level, of which the IC50 value reached up to 2.9 nM, comparable to the positive compound Saracatinib. Kinase selectivity profile also demonstrated that compound 24 showed good selectivity over several close kinase targets. These results, along with relative 3D-QSAR study, could provide an important basis for further development of compound 24 as a potent tyrosine kinase inhibitor.


The paper in a complex manner analyses the institute of a municipality's mayor in Germany and the evolution of the mayor's status in German society. The institute of a mayor and its status together with changes of the latter in modern Germany, especially in the Land of Baden-Wurttemberg, are discussed on the basis of professional portrait of a mayor and giving the assessment of the specifics of the portrait in the context of current processes of the local governance system improvement and political change. The main questions, which receive the priority attention, are: 1) role of municipality's mayor in contemporary Germany; 2) direct election of a mayor and elections in the municipality council; 3) dependence to a party, circumstances for cooperation with political parties, political selfdependence and loyalty and tolerance to different political attitudes; gender issues, typical for mayor's institute. The article provides material from a survey, which was aimed to construct a mayor's portrait and to assess its changes. The article can be relevant and important to those readers, who are interested in organization of modern local governance and German experience in local governance improvement.


In the contemporary, globalised world the maritime domain is more important than it has ever been throughout history. As such, maritime strategy - the direction of elements of national power (including naval power, in particular) to secure national interests at sea - remains a vital subject. Just as there are principles of military strategy, so too are there principles of maritime strategy. However, these principles have their roots in the thinking of scholars from as far back as the 19th and early 20th centuries, such as Alfred Thayer Mahan and Sir Julian Corbett. Yet the political, strategic and technological environments have changed a lot since those periods, with the current context marked by advancements in information and communications technologies and their associated political and strategic ramifications. This thesis asks how the principles of maritime strategy have evolved as times have changed. In particular, it focuses upon how they deal with 'visibility' - a triad consisting of knowledge, perception and interpretation. These have always been important to navies, yet the principles arguably say little about them. This thesis then ultimately aims to assess whether a new principle, control and/or denial of visibility, can be useful as a means of filling this gap. This thesis therefore contributes to the literature and discussion of maritime strategy not only by assessing traditional concepts, but also by assessing the extent of this gap in their definitions. Furthermore, it will assess whether a new principle is useful in filling this gap. The main finding is that, despite some evolutions in how they are conceived, the traditional principles only account for visibility to a limited extent, making a new principle of control and/or denial of visibility useful.


Vaughn Bell of Murdoch University has been engaged in a Work Placement program at GHD as the final year major assessment.

GHD is a multidisciplinary professional services company serving clients in the global markets of Infrastructure, Mining and Industry, Defence, Property and Buildings and the Environment. The intern worked on projects between the offices of Building Services and Sustainability.

The main projects that comprised the internship were the Burrup Fertilisers Fugitive Emissions Inventory, the Craigie Leisure Centre Water Audit, Defects Liability Assessments for the Building Management System in the City of Wanneroo Civic Centre and Garden Office Park Building and Building Management Consultancy for the City of Joondalup.

Supplementary projects that provided the intern with engineering and process competencies involved the City of Joondalup CCP Emissions Inventory, electrical drafting work for various projects and providing engineering consulting services for building management systems in Garden Office Park and the City of Joondalup government buildings.

The Intern therefore was involved in many areas of work, which provided a steep learning curve and exercised the necessary technical and process competencies of Engineering Practice, Research/ Development/ Commercialisation, Engineering Practice, Engineering Operations, Investigating/ Reporting and Self Management in the Engineering Workplace.

Additional competencies learnt while working at GHD involved effective time management of project works through the utilisation of time sheets, consultation of staff with a wide range of technical expertise in order to get project work done, and investigative research of different products in order to deliver the client with the best possible service and to keep up to date with the
latest products in the industry.

Consultancy engineering was a first for the Intern and along with these learning opportunities it provided the intern to be able to exercise professionalism in both the quality of project work and in consultation with staff and clientele.


A large number of Himalayan glacier catch- ments are under the influence of humid climate with snow- fall in winter (November-April) and south-west monsoon in summer (June-September) dominating the regional hydrol- ogy. Such catchments are defined as "Himalayan catch- ment", where the glacier meltwater contributes to the river flow during the period of annual high flows produced by the monsoon. The winter snow dominated Alpine catchments of the Kashmir and Karakoram region and cold-arid regions of the Ladakh mountain range are the other major glacio- hydrological regimes identified in the region. Factors in- fluencing the river flow variations in a "Himalayan catch- ment" were studied in a micro-scale glacier catchment in the Garhwal Himalaya, covering an area of 77.8 km 2 . Three hydrometric stations were established at different altitudes along the Din Gad stream and discharge was monitored dur- ing the summer ablation period from 1998 to 2004, with an exception in 2002. These data have been analysed along with winter/summer precipitation, temperature and mass bal- ance data of the Dokriani glacier to study the role of glacier and precipitation in determining runoff variations along the stream continuum from the glacier snout to 2360 m a.s.l. The study shows that the inter-annual runoff variation in a "Hi- malayan catchment" is linked with precipitation rather than mass balance changes of the glacier. This study also indicates that the warming induced an initial increase of glacier runoff and subsequent decline as suggested by the IPCC (2007) is restricted to the glacier degradation-derived component in a precipitation dominant Himalayan catchment and cannot be translated as river flow response. The preliminary assessment suggests that the "Himalayan catchment" could experience higher river flows and positive glacier mass balance regime together in association with strong monsoon. The important role of glaciers in this precipitation dominant system is to augment stream runoff during the years of low summer dis- charge. This paper intends to highlight the importance of creating credible knowledge on the Himalayan cryospheric processes to develop a more representative global view on river flow response to cryospheric changes and locally sus- tainable water resources management strategies.


In this paper, we present a synergistic approach to startup fault detection and diagnosis (FDD) in gas turbine engines. The method employs statistics, signal processing, and soft computing techniques in a complementary manner to address fault detection at transient conditions. Traditional turbine engine FDD methods are based on engine data collected at steady-state conditions. However, incipient faults are difficult to diagnose using steady-state engine data; only engine faults that are fairly developed can be detected using conventional methods. Because incipient engine component faults are often manifest in the engine startup characteristics, we present a method to characterize the engine transient startup. Engine sensor data during engine startup are recorded in time series format. The sensor profiles corresponding to "good" and "bad" engine startups are sampled using the bootstrap technique. A feature vector is extracted in two steps, and signal processing is followed by the feature vector selection. In the signal processing step, principal component analysis (PCA) is applied to reduce the samples consisting of sensor profiles into a smaller set. In the feature vector selection step, a cost function is defined, and important discriminating features for fault diagnosis are distilled from the PCA output vector. The features obtained from this step are then classified using neural-network-based methods. The "leave-one-out" approach to cross validation is applied to obtain an objective evaluation of the neural network training. The proposed FDD method is evaluated using actual engine startup data, and the results are presented


Abstract As a result of increasing interest in unconventional reservoirs, a wide range of sedimentary systems are now being investigated with regard to petroleum applications, including various tight chalk formations. We examined a wide variety of chalk samples from NW Europe (micritic, grainy, argillaceous, marl seam, cemented and silicified chalks) and investigated the relationships between their petrophysical properties, mechanical properties and associated microtextures and how diagenesis can affect these properties. A diagenesis index based on an evaluation of textural and diagenetic parameters was used to quantify the effect of global porosity-reducing diagenesis on the microtexture of chalks. We used petrographic and petrophysical measurements to determine the petrography, density, porosity, permeability and sonic velocity of the chalk samples and uniaxial compression experiments to assess their mechanical behaviour. Our dataset of >30 samples covers a wide range of values for these properties. We determined a linear porosity–permeability relationship controlled by the diagenesis index. Porosity influences the unconfined compressive strength and Young's modulus, but our analyses suggest that the diagenesis of the studied lithologies provides us with a further understanding of the mechanical behaviour of chalks. Micritic and grainy chalks are associated with the lowest diagenesis index and exhibit the lowest strength, whereas the higher diagenesis indices observed for other microtextures correspond to higher compressive strengths.