Tritium thermal release and full combustion with oxygen were performed on isotropic graphite tiles used for plasma facing material of JT-60U. Approximately 50-80 % of tritium was released by dry argon gas purge and 20-50 % of tritium was released by humid argon gas purge up to 800-1200 °C within one day, respectively. Further several percent of tritium was released by full combustion with oxygen. It was experimentally confirmed that all retained tritium is not released by thermal dry gas purge and by use of isotope exchange reaction at high temperature in such a short period. In the full combustion operation, isotropic graphite begins to combust at higher temperature than 650 °C, but effective combustion temperature was higher than 700 °C. Since it is very difficult to heat the graphite tile attached on the wall of vacuum vessel at higher than 700 °C, it is considered to be not easy to recover all the tritium retained in the graphite while in the vacuum vessel.


Within the overall objective of whether ruminants are able to form conditioned aversions (CFA) toward a food flavour associated with the administration of an aversive stimulus which occurs naturally in food plants (oxalic acid, OA), two specific objectives were tested: (1) whether the rate and degree of formation of CFA are dependent on the dose rate of OA administered and (2) whether the persistence of formed CFA depends on the previous dose rate of OA. Sheep were conditioned to associate the specific flavour of one of two novel foods with either the oral administration of OA or equivalent placebos. Four dose rates of OA were tested (0.06, 0.12, 0.18 and 0.24 g/kg sheep live weight per d), with twelve sheep per dose. Each conditioning period lasted for 8 d and was repeated four times. At the end of each conditioning period the preference for the two flavours was measured in short-term, 20min preference tests. The persistence of the CFA was measured at 0, 7, 21 and 49 d after the completion of the conditioning phase with long-term, 3 h preference tests. The results of the experiment indicated that: (1) the rate and degree of formation of CFA were dependent on the rate of administration of OA; (2) sheep required repeated exposures to the lower dose rates of OA in order to develop CFA and these CFA did not persist in the absence of continual reinforcement; (3) CFA to the higher dose rates of OA were developed after as little as one exposure and persisted over a period of at least 7 weeks. These findings are consistent with the expectation that ruminants should be able to select a diet which minimizes the risk of consumption of potentially harmful foods, whilst at the same time maintaining a degree of flexibility in their feeding behaviour.


In the past few years there has been a significant volume of research work carried out in the field of multispectral image acquisition. The focus of most of these has been to facilitate a type of multispectral image acquisition systems that usually requires multiple subsequent shots (e.g. systems based on filter wheels, liquid crystal tunable filters, or active lighting). Recently, an alternative approach for one-shot multispectral image acquisition has been proposed; based on an extension of the color filter array (CFA) standard to produce more than three channels. We can thus introduce the concept of multispectral color filter array (MCFA). But this field has not been much explored, particularly little focus has been given in developing systems which focuses on the reconstruction of scene spectral reflectance. In this paper, we have explored how the spatial arrangement of multispectral color filter array affects the acquisition accuracy with the construction of MCFAs of different sizes. We have simulated acquisitions of several spectral scenes using different number of filters/channels, and compared the results with those obtained by the conventional regular MCFA arrangement, evaluating the precision of the reconstructed scene spectral reflectance in terms of spectral RMS error, and colorimetric ▵E*ab color differences. It has been found that the precision and the the quality of the reconstructed images are significantly influenced by the spatial arrangement of the MCFA and the effect will be more and more prominent with the increase in the number of channels. We believe that MCFA-based systems can be a viable alternative for affordable acquisition of multispectral color images, in particular for applications where spatial resolution can be traded off for spectral resolution. We have shown that the spatial arrangement of the array is an important design issue.


Much progress has been achieved over the past 20 years in remediating sites contaminated by heavy metal. However, very large contaminated areas have presented major problems to this day because of remediation costs. Phytoremediation is a new, emerging, sustainable technique of remediating areas with low heavy-metal contamination. One advantage of phytoremediation is the comparatively low cost of the process, which may make it usable also on large areas with low levels of contamination. Besides extracting and immobilizing metals, respectively, phytoremediation among other things also contributes to improving soil quality in terms of physics, chemistry, and ecology. Consequently, phytoremediation offers a great potential for the future. Research into phytoremediation of an area contaminated by heavy metals and radionuclides is carried out on a site in a former uranium mining district in Eastern Thuringia jointly by the Friedrich Schiller University, Jena, and the Technical University of Dresden in a project funded by the German Federal Ministry for Education and Research. The project serves to promote the introduction of soft, biocompatible methods of long-term remediation and to develop conceptual solutions to the subsequent utilization of contaminated plant residues. Optimizing area management is in the focus of phytoremediation studies.


The essay explores President Trump's emerging immigration enforcement strategies in context. It starts with a look back at the "lonely" years of immigrant activism. Part I of the Essay explains the enforcement landscape the Obama Administration inherited and the evolution of that Administration's own enforcement policies. This Part surveys the lessons learned — and not learned — by the Obama Administration. Part II of the Essay details the new Administration's enforcement efforts, including the thwarted January 27, 2017 executive order containing the now infamous travel ban on certain foreign nationals and refugees, his March 6, 2017 executive order replacing the January ban, and the interior immigration enforcement efforts mapped out in two January 25, 2017 orders along with their implementing Department of Homeland Security memoranda of February 20, 2017. This analysis reveals the extent to which President Trump's policies constitute a doubling-down on some of the least productive and most discredited approaches to enforcement.


The Nordenskjold Formation (?Oxfordian-Berriasian age) is exposed on the east coast of the Antarctic Peninsula, where it consists of interbedded ash layers and biosiliceous mudstones which accumulated under anaerobic to dysaerobic bottom waters. The mudstones were deposited by pelagic settling and the ash layers by pelagic settling from suspension or as fallout from subaerial eruption columns. The lower part of the succession accumulated in a basinal setting under anaerobic bottom waters and is characterized by parallel bedding. Mudstones deposited in this setting preserve abundant zooplankton faecel pellets. Compaction of these pellets has given rise to a bedding parallel fissility. The upper part of the succession accumulated under dysaerobic bottom waters in a slope setting. The sequence is wavy bedded and contains abundant evidence of post-depositional sediment instability and resedimentation, much of which was caused by tectonic activity. Discrete slide masses are absent from the slope sequence and it appears that slope processes were dominated by creep. Examination of the mudstones shows that as levels of dissolved oxygen in bottom waters increase, pelleted mudstones give way to structureless mudstones before visible bioturbation is noted.


This work measures whether MPs are held individually accountable for their actions through a novel
analysis of the 1997 and 2010 UK general elections. Previous research suggests that MPs' behaviour
has little effect on their careers; however, developments in the media's aggressive reporting style, the
rise of personality politics and decline in traditional voting patterns indicate that this is an opportune
time to examine the effect of political controversies (including scandals) on MPs' careers. This
analysis focuses on three crucial stages that form a chain of accountability: (1) exposure: the media
publicises the controversy and a perception is formed; (2) internal sanction: an MP retires before an
election; (3) electoral sanction: voters punish MPs at the polls. Data on MP-specific controversies
between the 1992 and 1997 and the 2005 and 2010 elections was sourced from The Times, The
Guardian, The Daily Telegraph and their respective Sunday editions. This work also contains an
original analysis of the 2009–2010 MP expenses scandal that utilises British Election Study panel
survey data to examine how information on MP malfeasance affects voters' perceptions of MPs. The
findings indicate that political controversy is linked to whether an MP retires, with those MPs from
the governing party driving the result in both the 1997 and 2010 elections. Overall, voters do not hold
MPs responsible for their actions at the polls. Analysis of the expenses scandal supports these general
findings: constituent perceptions of their MPs' expenses behaviour respond to public information, but
do not translate into election results. Internal sanction is shown to be the most powerful form of
political accountability in the chain. While identifying any individual MP accountability is novel, the
overall results are in line with traditional analyses of the strength of party politics, and indicate the
importance of electoral system design for accountability.


Nowadays, due to inherent complexity of real optimization problems, it has always been a challenging issue to develop a solution algorithm to these problems. Single row facility layout problem (SRFLP) is a NP-hard problem of arranging a number of rectangular facilities with varying length on one side of a straight line with aim of minimizing the weighted sum of the distance between all facility pairs. In this paper two new algorithms of cuckoo optimization and forest optimization are applied and compared to solve SRFLP for the first time. The operators of two algorithms are adapted according to the characteristics of SRFLP and results are compared for two groups of benchmark instances of the literature. These groups consist of instances with the number of facilities less and more than 30. Results on two groups of instances show that proposed cuckoo optimization based algorithm has better performance rather than proposed forest optimization based algorithm in both aspects of finding the best solution and Computational time.


The aim of this thesis is to assess the ever challenging role of MRI in predicting disability
in relapse-onset Multiple Sclerosis (MS) patients. It consists of four parts.
In part one a brief overview of MS is given, looking at the most up-to-date knowledge on
aetiology, pathogenesis, most common clinical presentations and the evolution in
diagnostic process, prognosis and ever increasing treatment options for MS patients.
Then, a brief review of the basic physics concepts and the techniques used to assess
disability in MS is given using both conventional and non-conventional MRI.
In part two, the relationship of T2 white matter lesion volume (T2WMLV) with long-term
disability is assessed in a unique cohort of MS patients seen from the disease onset with a
clinically isolated syndrome and followed up with clinical and MRI data every 5 years up
to 20 years.
In part three, using cross-sectional data from the same cohort of patients, the role of
tissue specific i.e. grey matter and white matter changes in predicting disability at 20
years is assessed, using both atrophy measurements and magnetisation transfer ratio.
Comparisons between sub-group of MS patients and controls are also assessed.
Furthermore, the relationship of longitudinal T2WMLV changes with atrophy
measurements at 20 years is also explored.
In the fourth and final part of this thesis, a summary of the main findings of this work is
given and there is discussion on what the future holds for the role of imaging in
predicting disability in MS.


This report is the first description of dosing procedures, pharmacokinetics, biochemical action, and general tolerability of the antiaging drug rapamycin in the common marmoset, a small and short-lived monkey. Eudragit-encapsulated rapamycin was given orally to trained marmosets in a short-term (3 weeks) and a long-term (14 months) study. Circulating trough rapamycin levels (mean = 5.2 ng/mL; 1.93-10.73 ng/mL) achieved at roughly 1.0 mg/kg/day was comparable to those reported in studies of rodents and within the therapeutic range for humans. Long-term treated animals (6/8) indicated a reduction in mammalian target of rapamycin complex 1 signaling as noted by a decrease in the phospho rpS6 to total rpS6 ratio after 2 weeks of treatment. All long-term treated subjects had detectable concentrations of rapamycin in liver (4.7-19.9 pg/mg) and adipose tissue (2.2-32.8 pg/mg) with reduced mammalian target of rapamycin signaling in these tissues. There was no evidence of clinical anemia, fibrotic lung changes, or mouth ulcers. The observed death rate in the long-term study was as expected given the animals' ages. The ability to rapidly and reliably dose socially housed marmosets with an oral form of rapamycin that is well tolerated and that demonstrates a suppression of the mammalian target of rapamycin pathway leads us to conclude that this species offers a viable model for rapamycin testing to establish safety and efficacy for long-term antiaging intervention.


This article considers Hassan Blasim's short story, "The Reality and the Record". It argues that Blasim's asylum seeker should be read as a powerful challenge to extant responses to the ever-growing global refugee crisis: a vision of the many difficulties faced by twenty-first century displaced persons, no longer confined to the refugee camps of the mid-twentieth century most often associated with Palestinian literature in the Middle East, but seeking elusive shelter in Europe. I argue that Blasim's short story highlights the impossibility of the demands placed upon those seeking shelter in the developed world, reminding us of the under-recognized role of trauma, narrative, agency, and especially evidence in seeking humanitarian asylum. By undermining any confidence we might have in an idealized "truth", the text questions the morality of asylum-seeking processes in the developed world, demanding that its readers reevaluate their own stance in relation to displaced persons, and asserting that the burden of narrating oneself into a place of safety, of performing worthy victimhood, is neither just, nor feasible.


This research investigates the foreign aid policies and practices of donor countries and
of Jordan, a middle-income aid recipient country, through an examination of case
studies of recent aid provision to Jordan. It examines the bearing of these policies on
the effectiveness and efficiency of aid projects. The research concentrated on four
case studies carefully chosen by the criteria of different donor nations and policies;
and the different nature of the projects that cover the four main areas of development
needs for Jordan. The case studies consisted of analysis of documentation and
outcomes, and significant interviews with the selected participants.
The case studies were chosen to explore the different mission statements, policies and
practices and included the GTZ- funded Petra Stone Preservation Project, the USAIDfunded
ICT Initiative, the DFID-funded Capacity Building in the Management of
Jordan's Education Services Project, and the JICA-funded Improvement of Water
Supply System to Greater Amman Project.
The study examines the effectiveness of aid in poor policy environments. It shows
that the role of donors in ensuring the effectiveness of the aid they present goes
beyond selecting recipients based on their policies and governance. Indeed, foreign
aid is not donor-neutral and its effectiveness is not only dependent on the quality of
governance and institutions of the recipients. The research demonstrates that a donor's
national interests and the influence of stakeholders determine the course and benefits
of aid, and that judgements of success or failure vary between the standpoints of the
donor and the recipient.
The study investigates the impact of a number of variables on the effectiveness of
foreign aid. Those variables include aid project design and delivery mechanisms, and
institutional capacity and cultural constraints of aid recipients. The research focuses
on relationships between donors and recipients and the differences in interests and
objectives. It also looks at the impact of conditionality and tied aid on the sustainable
benefits of the aid intervention.
ii
Although existing literature does address some of these considerations, there is very
little direct evidence which links development theory with detailed practical examples.
Where such examples are available, they are invariably weighted heavily by evidence
which originates with, and is interpreted through, donor perceptions. This study
provides a balanced analysis of four initiatives taking account of both donor and
recipient expectations, experiences and assessments.


This paper presents a methodological discussion of two recent "endogeneity" critiques of the Kaleckian model and the concept of distribution-led growth. From a neo-Keynesian perspective, and following Kaldor (1955) and Robinson (1956), the model is criticized because it treats distribution as quasi-exogenous, while in Skott (2016) distribution is viewed as endogenously determined by a series of (exogenous) institutional factors and social norms, and therefore one should focus on these instead of the functional distribution of income per se. The paper discusses how abstraction is used in science and economics, and employs the criteria proposed by Lawson (1989) for what constitutes an appropriate abstraction. Based on this discussion, it concludes that the criticisms are not valid, although the issues raised by Skott provide some interesting directions for future work within the Kaleckian framework.


We present results from a computer modelling study of fracture propagation in a rubber-toughened polymer subject to external uniaxial tension. Using a simple lattice model comprising two bond types (one for rubber and one for polymer), simulations have been performed on both 2- and 3-dimensional systems. Each bond is characterised by two parameters : an elastic constant and a mechanical strength. All bonds behave in a purely elastic manner up to fracture; this limits the model's applicability to impact failure of brittle glassy polymers. We employ a stochastic breaking process based on Eyring's reaction rate theory, and allow the system to equilibrate fully after each bond breakage. It is found that the Conjugate Gradient method is the most efficient technique for calculating these equilibria. The model allows straightforward measurement of the total damage at failure, which is a crude approximation of the material toughness, and the stress distribution during the damage evolution.We show that, for a wide range of bond parameters, as the rubber loading is increased the damage goes through a sequence of behaviour : embrittlement; toughening; saturation; and weakening. This sequence is consistent with experimental data for rubber-toughened Poly (methyl methacrylate) (RT-PMMA). Our results show that the embrittlement and saturation stages are sensitive to the ratio of the two elastic constants but that they disappear as this ratio approaches unity. The toughening achieved is sensitive to both the concentration and the mechanical strength of the rubber bonds, the most damaged systems being those with large rubber mechanical strength at approximately 50% concentration. We also find that the damage is dependent on the spatial distribution of the rubber bonds, the greatest toughness being achieved using a homogeneous rubber distribution.We also find that the evolution of the system's failure goes through four regimes. In the first of these, the damage is evenly distributed throughout the system but showsa propensity for occuring adjacent to rubber bonds. Subsequently, short cracks develop between some of these weakly damaged sites. As more of these develop, a number of long rubber-bridged cracks appear. In the third regime, the stabilising effect of the bridging rubber bonds forces the damage to extend throughout the system, leading to branching and interconnecting of rubber-bridged cracks. Finally, the stress experienced by the crack-bridging rubber bonds becomes unsustainable and catastrophic failure occurs. Zones of material consistent with each of these four regimes can be observed in experimentally fractured RT-PMMA. The main toughening mechanisms in operation in our model are, therefore, crazing (which occurs mainly in the second regime) and rubber-bridging (which occurs in the third). The former is enhanced by using a lower rubber elastic constant, whereas the latter is prolonged by a large rubber mechanical strength.We also apply the model to simulations of 2D and 3D systems containing rubber macro-particles, i.e. large volumes of connected rubber bonds, and we present visual results of the damage and the stress field evolution in such systems. In these, the damage appears to develop in accordance with the four regimes described above. The stress maps of multi-particle 2D systems show the gradual stress transfer which takes place as cracks develop, from initially high-stressed inter-particle polymer regions to the crack tips and, then, to the rubber particles along the crack lines. These visual results also highlight three possible modes of particle-crack interaction : particle debonding, particle splitting and crack reflection.


In this presentation staff from the Marriott Library's 3D printing and scanning operations will review projects and lessons learned over the past year as 3D media has continued to gain the attention of research and teaching faculty. 2015 saw the installation of 3D printers in the Marriott Library's Knowledge Commons for open use by students and faculty, as well as the expansion of the Marriott Library's 3D printer fleet. The review will consist of successes as well as failures, and will provide a snapshot of the connections to curriculum, research, and ongoing developments in this space.


: Purpose: The aim of this article is to present the processes of economic security of the Penitentiary system of the Russian Federation. Design/Methodology/Approach: Research methodology is based on the works of world known scientists (specialists in the sphere of penitentiary production, law and administration), systematic approach and dialectic method. Authors used a wide information base that consists of legislation and statistics of the Russian Federation. Findings: Authors justified separate spheres, within which the abstract isolated control functions of the prison industry are to be implemented (finance, personnel, technology). Authors analyzed the prerequisites of the Penitentiary system's economic security provision. For this reason, several significant problems that have the character of contradictions were determined. Practical Implications: The research results may be implemented into Russian legal and socioeconomic framework to improve and increase the penitentiary systems's economic security. Originality/Value: The main contribution of this study is the highlighted interconnections between Russia's economic security and the development of the Russian Penitentiary system's production sector.


We address issues for improving hands-free speech recognition performance in the presence of multiple simultaneous speakers using multiple distant microphones. In this paper, a log spectral mapping is proposed to estimate the log mel-filterbank outputs of clean speech from multiple noisy speech using neural networks. Both the mapping of the far-field speech and combination of the enhanced speech and the estimated interfering speech are investigated. Our neural network based feature enhancement method incorporates the noise information and can be viewed as a non-linear log spectral subtraction. Experimental studies on MONC corpus showed that MLP-based mapping techniques yields a improvement in the recognition accuracy for the overlapping speech.


This paper presents a quality function deployment (QFD) application to analyze technical and management requirements as part of a systematic 3-step process that implements e-commerce in a corporation. The rapid growth and advancement of information technology (IT) has opened windows of opportunities for organizations as well as for individuals. One clear example is electronic commerce. It is expected that e-commerce will explode in the next few years, reaching more than $300 billion with a total of 31 million online buyers involving billions of transactions. However, organizations, in their attempt to conduct business over the Internet, face monumental challenges and difficulties. Since e-commerce is a new phenomenon and continues to be in its infantile stage, acquiring the right and required technology and/or personnel presents a huge challenge for many organizations. E-commerce challenges, in general, can be classified into two groups-technical and management. Technical challenges deal with hardware, software and network problems. In addition, payment methods, security and service support are issues that require a great deal of attention. On the other hand, challenges related to management include staffing expertise, change of organization structure and management transition. E-commerce awareness is yet another challenge that requires close attention. In order to meet these challenges, there is a dire need for applying scientific techniques and methodologies to e-commerce. A systematic 3-step approach is developed to better understand the needs of e-commerce. First, the status quo of representative businesses in the public and private sectors are examined. Next, needs of businesses are identified. Lastly, mathematical models are developed to solve specific e-commerce problems. In this paper, the second step is described in greater detail with emphasis on QFD.


The broad topographic framework and erosion surface
morphology of west central Tasmania predates the early
Pleistocene. The valley systems, however, have been
emphasised by glacial erosion which has played a major role
in shaping the detailed geomorphology of the mountains.
Part of an extensive ice cap that developed in the Tasmanian
Central Highlands during the late Cainozoic discharged
southwards via a major outlet glacier that occupied the
valley of the Derwent River.
The heart of the Central Tasmanian ice cap probably lay west
of the Du Cane Range. When the ice cover was most extensive
the Derwent Glacier was up to 500 metres thick. It may have
extended to as low as 230 metres above sea level, 70
kilometres downstream from its source in the cirques of the
Du Cane Range. Two diffluent lobes of this glacier spread
eastwards to merge with other glaciers in the Nive Valley.
Other diffluent lobes extended southwards into the upper
Gordon Valley, and westwards into the upper Franklin and
Alma valleys. At the maximum phase the Franklin and Alma
glaciers were confluent around Mt. Alma, near the present
junction of the Collingwood and Franklin rivers.
The more westerly glaciers displayed the highest rates of
mass throughput hence glacial landforms are more abundant
and better developed in the west. Analysis of the post-depositional modification of the
glacial landforms and sediments suggests that at least three
glaciations took place. The first glaciation was probably
early Pleistocene or late Pliocene in age while the most
recent and smallest occurred during the late Last Glacial
Stage.
Glaciation would have demanded colder temperatures and an
increased solid precipitation budget, but no major shift in
the direction of snow bearing winds is neccessitated. At no
stage was the mean annual air temperature likely to have
been more than 9° C less than present.
The glaciations were probably broadly contemporaneous with
those at similar southern latitudes in Andean Patagonia and
South Island New Zealand. Like the glaciers of those areas
the ice masses of west central Tasmania were mainly of
temperate maritime character.
The glaciations were accompanied by periglacial activity
beyond the limits of the ice. The development of rock
glaciers suggests that localised areas of permafrost existed
during the Last Glaciation.
The glacial oversteepening has greatly facilitated slope
retreat in areas of high structural anisotropy, particularly
under periglacial conditions. Interglacial weathering and
erosion was comparatively innocuous, although the presence
of a substantial vegetation cover seems to have been
critical to the maintenance of slope stabilty, particularly in steeper and more elevated terrain. The geomorphic
evidence does not demand any climate deterioration during
the Holocene, The most active geomorphological agent of the
Holocene interglacial is humankind.


The response to a standard dose of heparin was studied in 20 patients with venous thromboembolism. The heparin regimen consisted of intravenous injection of 70 units per kg, followed after 90 minutes by a maintenance dose of 400 units per kg per 24 hours given by continuous infusion. Plasma heparin activity and the activated partial thromboplastin time (APTT) were measured at intervals to determine clearance of the initial injection and the response to maintenance dose. Large inter-individual variations were found in the anticoagulant effect and these were due in part to differences in heparin clearance and in part to differences in the APTT response to given amounts of heparin (heparin effect index). The heparin half-life was 63 ± 15 minutes when plasma heparin activities were used for this calculation and 84 ± 71.5 minutes when the APTT was used. These results are similar to values previously reported in normal volunteers. Four of the 20 patients had pulmonary embolism and in these heparin half-life was significantly shortened (P < 0.005).


Photo-rechargeable batteries (PRBs) benefit from their bifunctionality covering energy harvesting and storage. However, dim-light performances of the PRBs for indoor applications have not been reported. Herein, we present an external-power-free single-structured PRB named a dye-sensitized photo-rechargeable battery (DSPB) with an outstanding light-to-charge energy efficiency (ηoverall) of 11.5% under the dim light condition. This unprecedented ηoverall was attributed to the thermodynamically-favorable design of the DSPB that maximizes the working potential. At high-power irradiation, the kinetically-fast but thermodynamically-unfavorable iodine mediator (I−/I3−) showed the highest charge and discharge capacities even if its discharge voltage was lowest. Under dim-light for indoor applications, however, the thermodynamically-favorable but kinetically-slow copper complex mediator (Cu+/2+(dmp)2) showed energy density and efficiency superior to I−/I3− because its kinetics did not limit the harvesting capacity. The successful demonstration of the ability of the DSPB to operate a temperature-sensing IoT device only by indoor light opens the possibility of realizing indoor-light-harvesting PRBs.


There is a long-standing connection between Englishness and the figure of the (good) spy. Britain formally established the first national intelligence agency in 1909 and their activities have inspired (and been influenced by) a number of iconic fictional spies, from John Buchan's "Richard Hannay" to Ian Fleming's "Bond" (Knightley, 2003). While these male fictions usefully foreground the inkage of English, Britishness with the secret service, they tend to overshadow the position of actual women spies. Yet women have played a central role in espionage from the establishment of spying as a profession. ... My discussion therefore begins with the consummate image of the (bad) female spy, Mata Hari, whose name has entered the language as an allegory of seduction and betrayal. As an alleged spy shot by the French during the First World War, Mata Hari represents not only the apogee of feminine espionage, but also the epitome of an Orientalised other (Said, 1978). Edith Cavell has come to represent all that Mata Hari is not. Cavell's Englishness is to the fore in most accounts of her life; her identity as an English woman specifically cast in terms of appropriate femininity, 'pure' whiteness and middle-class respectability. This representation of the good woman spy continued to resonate during and after the Second World War in cinematic accounts of Cavell and the women of the SOE (Special Operations Executive).


Advances in the engineering of nanoparticles (NPs), which represent particles of less than 100 nm in one external dimension, led to an increasing utilization of nanomaterials for biomedical purposes. A prerequisite for their use in diagnostic and therapeutic applications, however, is the targeted delivery to the site of injury. Interactions between blood-borne NPs and the vascular endothelium represent a critical step for nanoparticle delivery into diseased tissue. Here, we show that the endothelial glycocalyx, which constitutes a glycoprotein-polysaccharide meshwork coating the luminal surface of vessels, effectively controls interactions of carboxyl-functionalized quantum dots with the microvascular endothelium. Glycosaminoglycans of the endothelial glycocalyx were found to physically cover endothelial adhesion and signaling molecules, thereby preventing endothelial attachment, uptake, and translocation of these nanoparticles through different layers of the vessel wall. Conversely, degradation of the endothelial glycocalyx promoted interactions of these nanoparticles with microvascular endothelial cells under the pathologic condition of ischemia-reperfusion, thus identifying the injured endothelial glycocalyx as an essential element of the blood-tissue border facilitating the targeted delivery of nanomaterials to diseased tissue.


This study investigated whether Chinese-speaking L2 learners of Korean can acquire Korean causative constructions (i.e. morphological and analytic causatives) and make use of the relevant knowledge in real-time sentence comprehension. Korean morphological causatives allow the causee to be marked by an accusative case, but not by a nominative case. In contrast, Korean analytic causatives allow both accusative and nominative case marking for a causee. In an acceptability judgment task, L2 learners as a whole group (n = 60) failed to reject morphological causative sentences when the causee was marked by a nominative case. However, a subset of L2 learners (n = 28) showed targetlike performance, rejecting the infelicitous morphological causatives that involved a nominativemarked causee. In a self-paced reading task, the same subset of L2 learners did not show sensitivity to the infelicitous morphological causatives with a nominative-marked causee, indicating their limitations in applying the knowledge to real-time language processing. We discuss these findings from the perspectives of L2 learners' declarative and procedural knowledge of the Korean causative constructions and provide suggestions to teach the target constructions.


Suppression of an excessive systemic inflammatory response is a promising and potent strategy for treating endotoxic sepsis. Indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase (IDO), which is the rate-limiting enzyme for tryptophan catabolism, may play a critical role in various inflammatory disorders. In this study, we report a critical role for IDO in the dysregulated immune response associated with endotoxin shock. We found that IDO knockout (IDO−/−) mice and 1-methyl-d-tryptophan-treated, endotoxin-shocked mice had decreased levels of the cytokines, TNF-α, IL-6, and IL-12, and enhanced levels of IL-10. Blockade of IDO is thought to promote host survival in LPS-induced endotoxin shock, yet little is known about the molecular mechanisms that regulate IDO expression during endotoxin shock. In vitro and in vivo, IDO expression was increased by exogenous IL-12, but decreased by exogenous IL-10 in dendritic cells and splenic dendritic cells. Interestingly, whereas LPS-induced IL-12 levels in serum were higher than those of IL-10, the balance between serum IL-12 and IL-10 following challenge became reversed in IDO−/−- or 1-methyl-d-tryptophan-treated mice. Our findings demonstrate that the detrimental immune response to endotoxin shock may occur via IDO modulation. Restoring the IL-12 and IL-10 balance by blocking IDO represents a potential strategy for sepsis treatment.


—Power dissipation and robustness to process variation have conflicting design requirements. Scaling of voltage is associated with larger variations, while Vdd up-scaling or transistor up-sizing for parametric delay variation tolerance can be detrimental for power dissipation. However, for a class of signal processing systems effective trade-off can be achieved between Vdd scaling, variation tolerance and " output quality ". In this paper, we develop a novel low-power variation tolerant algorithm/architecture for color interpolation that allows a graceful degradation in the PSNR (Peak Signal to Noise Ratio) under aggressive voltage scaling as well as extreme process variations. This feature is achieved by exploiting the fact that all computations used in interpolating the pixel values do not equally contribute to PSNR improvement. In presence of Vdd-scaling and process variations, the architecture ensures that only the " less important computations " are affected by delay failures. We also propose a different sliding window size than the conventional one to improve interpolation performance by a factor of two with negligible overhead. Simulation results show that even at a scaled voltage of 77% of nominal value, our design provides reasonable image PSNR with 40% power savings. We also emulated the color interpolation design on an ALTERA DE2 board and observed the efficacy of our methodology with voltage scaling.


Capital allocation decisions become an even tougher issue without a consistent measure of credit risk across the entire portfolio. Although available risk management systems are helpful for a number of asset classes, none provides an adequate solution for real estate credit risk. With few appropriate inputs, and a notable lack of data on commercial mortgage default experience, an alternative approach to assessing real estate loan expected default frequency is needed. The authors discuss the calibration of a systematic risk metric to actual historical defaults. A comparison of the disaggregated results to those of past studies of defaults indicates that the metric appears to be a robust and useful tool for exposing opportunities and improving capital allocation decisions.


Previous research has shown that player involvement can be influenced by a range of factors, from the controllers used to the perceived level of challenge provided by the game. However, little attention has been paid to the influence of the game interface. Game interfaces consist of both diegetic (that can be viewed by the player-character, e.g. the game world) and non-diegetic components (that are only viewed by the player, e.g. the heads-up display). In this paper we examine two versions of a first-person shooter game to investigate how immersion is influenced through interacting with a diegetic and non-diegetic interface. Our findings suggest that the removal of non-diegetic elements, such as the heads-up display, is able to influence immersion in expert players through increasing their cognitive involvement and sense of control. We argue that these results illustrate the importance of considering the role of expertise in relation to how particular design choices will influence the player experience.


Salud Mesoamerica Initiative (SMI) is a unique results-based aid initiative that rewards countries for achieving health targets in the poorest municipalities in Mesoamerica. A partnership between private and public donors and governments, it offers lessons for philanthropists, corporate social responsibility teams, and bilateral donors about how to alter development assistance from the usual model of paying for inputs to a new one in which countries are paid for achieving results for their poorest populations. What makes this model of RBA feasible is its reliance on the staff, relationships, systems, and implementation capability of the Inter-American Development Bank and the dedicated unit that supports countries. Countries commit to achieve targets that progress from system readiness metrics to outcomes. Verification is based on externally conducted household and facility surveys. Five out of the eight countries achieved first-phase targets and received a performance payment, and all countries improved on key health system metrics.


In unicellular organisms such as bacteria and in most viruses, mutations mainly occur during reproduction. Thus, genotypes with a high birth rate should have a higher mutation rate. However, standard models of asexual adaptation such as the 'replicator-mutator equation' often neglect this generation-time effect. In this study, we investigate the emergence of a positive dependence between the birth rate and the mutation rate in models of asexual adaptation and the consequences of this dependence. We show that it emerges naturally at the population scale, based on a large population limit of a stochastic time-continuous individual-based model with elementary assumptions. We derive a reaction-diffusion framework that describes the evolutionary trajectories and steady states in the presence of this dependence. When this model is coupled with a phenotype to fitness landscape with two optima, one for birth, the other one for survival, a new trade-off arises in the population. Compared to the standard approach with a constant mutation rate, the symmetry between birth and survival is broken. Our analytical results and numerical simulations show that the trajectories of mean phenotype, mean fitness and the stationary phenotype distribution are in sharp contrast with those displayed for the standard model. The reason for this is that the usual weak selection limit does not hold in a complex landscape with several optima associated with different values of the birth rate. Here, we obtain trajectories of adaptation where the mean phenotype of the population is initially attracted by the birth optimum, but eventually converges to the survival optimum, following a hook-shaped curve which illustrates the antagonistic effects of mutation on adaptation.


Investigation for the possibility of a vaccination against Mycoplasma suis

Porcine eperythrozoonosis caused by Mycoplasma suis is a globally distributed disease of economic impact. Since M. suis cannot be cultivated in vitro the development of suitable vaccines is difficult.
In this work, an M. suis vaccination study was performed using recombinant MSG1 (rMSG1),
one of three major M. suis immunogens. Since non-adhesive E. coli gain adhesive properties
through MSG1 expression, recombinant E. coli were used as vaccine antigens too. Two test
groups with rMSG1, one with singular (MSG1Prot1) and one with double the amount of proteins (MSG1Prot2), as well as two test groups with recombinant E. coli serving as a vaccine antigen in singular (MSG1Coli1) and double dosis (MSG1Coli2) were applied. Control vaccination groups received purified control protein (pBAD_without insert, purified), an E. coli control (E. coli_pBAD_without insert) and adjuvans alone.
Twenty five experimental pigs were vaccinated at an age of three weeks (day 0) and at an age
of six weeks (day 21). For the first vaccination complete Freund adjuvant and for the second
vaccination incomplete Freund adjuvant was used. All animals were splenectomised between
day 29 and 32. To check protection potential of the vaccination the pigs were given a challenge infection on day 35. During said test phase the pigs were tested weekly up to the 84th test day. Besides clinical examinations temperature was measured twice daily in order to determine their health status. Furthermore, local irritation and damage due to vaccination were measured by adspection and palpation. Tissue irritations and damage were the same for all animal groups. These changes were obviously stronger after the second vaccination than after the first vaccination.
The humoral immune response was determined by recombinant ELISA systems. MSG1 specific antibodies were determined for all immunisation groups 21 days after the first vaccination at latest. After the second vaccination the immune response was boostered. In addition, a cellular immune response was determined by applying a T-cell proliferation test.
The test infection caused an acute eperythrozoonosis with the vaccinated as well as with the
non-vaccinated pigs. Haematologic results and the M. suis-load/ ml blood do not show significant differences amongst the individual test groups and control groups. Merely the MSG1Coli2 vaccination group tends to show protection potency due to the vaccination and antigen used. This work represents the foundation for further studies towards developing a vaccine against M. suis. Now the initial aim must focus on searching for further vaccine candidates and state-of-the-art strategies.


PURPOSE
Computer aided detection (CAD) data analysis procedures are introduced and applied to derive composite diffuse optical tomography (DOT) signatures of malignancy in human breast tissue. In contrast to previous optical mammography analysis schemes, the new statistical approach utilizes optical property distributions across multiple subjects and across the many voxels of each subject. The methodology is tested in a population of 35 biopsy-confirmed malignant lesions.

METHODS
DOT CAD employs multiparameter, multivoxel, multisubject measurements to derive a simple function that transforms DOT images of tissue chromophores and scattering into a probability of malignancy tomogram. The formalism incorporates both intrasubject spatial heterogeneity and intersubject distributions of physiological properties derived from a population of cancercontaining breasts (the training set). A weighted combination of physiological parameters from the training set define a malignancy parameter (M), with the weighting factors optimized by logistic regression to separate training-set cancer voxels from training-set healthy voxels. The utility of M is examined, employing 3D DOT images from an additional subjects (the test set).

RESULTS
Initial results confirm that the automated technique can produce tomograms that distinguish healthy from malignant tissue. When compared to a gold standard tissue segmentation, this protocol produced an average true positive rate (sensitivity) of 89% and a true negative rate (specificity) of 94% using an empirically chosen probability threshold.

CONCLUSIONS
This study suggests that the automated multisubject, multivoxel, multiparameter statistical analysis of diffuse optical data is potentially quite useful, producing tomograms that distinguish healthy from malignant tissue. This type of data analysis may also prove useful for suppression of image artifacts.


Desertification is an international environmental challenge which poses a risk to portions of over 100 countries. Research into desertification and climate change has the potential to contribute to natural resources management and adaptation to climatic and other changes in Earth systems. An Earth system model of intermediate complexity (EMIC), the McGill Paleoclimate Model‐2 (MPM‐2) was used to explore the climatic biogeophysical effects of desertification in different latitude bands from 1700 to 2000 AD. It was found that latitudinal‐band desertification attributable to forest and grass removal caused global cooling, land surface albedo increasing and precipitation reduction in the Northern Hemisphere as well as heat transport increasing in global ocean. These results highlighted global climate reaction to local desertification and demonstrated that the location of the desertification projected a potentially differential impact on local and global climate. That was, desertification in 0°–15°N gave a somewhat minor effect on global and local climate; desertification in 45°–60°N caused a significant reduction in global temperature while desertification in 15°–30°N induced a prominent reduction in local temperature. In response to desertification, surface albedo change as a forcing was the dominant biogeophysical driver of climate over the Northern Hemisphere while precipitation change as a response was probably the primary driver of climate over the Southern Hemisphere. Overall, the regional desertification may cause a global climatic effect, especially concerning desert expansion along the 15°–30°N and 45°–60°N latitude bands, which led to a more prominent effect on the Earth's climate and even oceanic circulation. The results of this study provide useful information when comparing the effects of desertification in different latitude bands on climate.


Over 185 international law and environmental law academics and lawyers, from over 40 countries, joined together to challenge the legality of the decision by the French Government to resume nuclear testing at Mururoa atoll in French Polynesia in 1995. The academics and lawyers joined in a letter and legal memorandum that outline international environmental obligations requiring to an effective environmental impact assessment that will be violated if the testing resumes as currently planned. A copy of the letter is reproduced below.The reasons behind the letter and memo were primarily three-fold. First, the lawyers believed it important that public attention be focused important international environmental obligations that France will be breaching if the tests are carried out as currently planned. No state likes to be known as an international outlaw and the lawyers hoped that the shaming effect of the publicity about law-breaking would have some influence on the decision to resume testing. Due to French claims that protests against the testing were being essentially orchestrated by Australia and New Zealand it was important that the challenge to legality come from an independent group of experts from as many countries as possible. Second, because President Chirac had repeatedly stated that the decision to reverse testing was irrevocable almost from the outset, the lawyers hoped to provide a face-saving and graceful way based on law for the President to reverse his decision. Finally, the lawyers hoped that the arguments raised in the letter and legal memo would influence Australia or New Zealand to reopen the 1973-74 World Court Nuclear Test Cases by providing legal support as to the substance of the matter.The letter and memo were formally transmitted to French President Jacques Chirac by the Australian Government via formal diplomatic channels. While the Australian Government expressly stopped short of endorsing the totality of the contents of the documents, in a letter to the author Foreign Minister Senator Gareth Evans states that the Government concurs generally with the legal opinion put forward in the memorandum concerning France's responsibilities. Foreign Minister Evans states that France clearly has a duty under international law to prevent transboundary environmental harm, coupled with an obligation to conduct environmental impact assessments when planning to undertake activities which might cause significant environmental harm. The Foreign Minister states that as yet insufficient research has been done to make a comprehensive assessment of the environmental impact of the proposed tests. It is by no means clear that France has fulfilled its international obligations in this regard. We cannot be satisfied on that point until further information is available concerning the environmental impact of the testing at the atoll. This information would also improve our understanding of whether significant transboundary environmental harm may be caused and whether France would be in breach of its obligations to prevent such harm, Senator Evans emphasises.


In this study a developed model has been used to evaluate the paper drying process and examine the pocket dryer conditions of a multi-cylinder fluting paper machine. The model has been developed based on the mass and energy balance relationships in which the heat of sorption and its variations with paper temperature and humidity changes have been taken into account. The applied model can be used to compute the drying parameters and analyze the pocket drying conditions. Furthermore, the effects of web tension on the heat transfer have been investigated. In the available operating range of the web tension, the overall mean heat transfer coefficient will be within 300-550 W/m2.K. The pocket air temperature was between 50 and 90 oC. The dew point temperature wasn't close to the pocket air temperature and dew drop never happened during the dryer section. Based on the modeling result and using a novel technique, the maximum level for the exhaust air in the studied machine can be estimated to be 0.2 kg H2O/kg dry air. Result shows that increasing the exhaust humidity to the optimal level will lead to 4% reduction in the required energy and 20% rise in the heat recovery potential. Accordingly the specific heat consumption per evaporated water for the studied drying section can be reduced from 3.96 to 3.81 GJ per ton water.


Lactobacillus plantarum F1 and L. brevis OG1 isolated from Nigerian fermented food products, produced bacteriocins that had broad spectrum of inhibition against both pathogenic, food spoilage organisms and various lactic acid bacteria.  The test organisms exhibited activities of 6400 and 3200 AU/ml respectively against Escherichia coli NCTC10418 and Enterococcus faecalis EF1, but did not inhibit Candida albicans ATCC10231 and Klebsiella sp. UCH15. Comparison of the antimicrobial spectra and characterization of the two bacteriocins were not identical. Bacteriocin produced by L. brevis OG1 was the most heat stable at 121°C for 60 min, while that of L. plantarum F1 was stable at 121°C for 10 min. The bacteriocins produced by the test isolates maintained full stability after storage for 60 days at – 20°C; partial stability after storage for 120 days at 4°C; while activity was not detected after storage for 80 to 120 days at 37°C. Bacteriocin produced by L. brevis OG1 was stable at pH range of 2.0 to 8.0 while, that of L. plantarum F1 was found to be stable at pH 2.0 to 6.0. Their active principle was proteinaceous in nature since the bacteriocins were inactivated by proteolytic enzymes, but not by other non–proteolytic enzymes. mitomycin C and uv light did not affect the activity of the bacteriocins, while chloroform extraction completely destroyed their activity. Exposure to surfactant resulted in an increase in the bacteriocin titre, except Nonidet P-40, which led to total loss of bacteriocin activity. The bacteriocins were able to pass through cellulose membranes with 100,000 KDa and 1,000,000 KDa but could not pass through one with a 10,000 KDa and 1,000 KDa molecular weight cut off. The paper concluded that the ability of bacteriocins produced by the test isolates in inhibiting a wide-range of bacteria, is of potential interest for food safety and may have future applications as food preservative.
(African Journal of Biotechnology: 2003 2(8): 219-227)


Temporary Discomfort is artist Jules Spinatsch's documentation of three cities in a transitory state of emergency lock-down during two global economic summits (WEF and G8). It comines different photographical genres: landscape photography of the site, photojournalism, and police photography, but with the camera lens turned, atypically, on the security forces. The photo series and videos aim to achieve a speculative reconstruction of the situations in Davos, New York, Genoa and Evian/Geneva, while they also ask questions about the conditions under which photography is and can be produced today. Spinatsch's position while working on the project was that of an informed outsider--his presence in the area around the meetings was acknowledged by the security forces but not really appreciated, which was one the factors that determined his work. Spinatsch's new approach to documentary photography is theorized here by essayist Martin Jaeggi and presented through beautiful photographs with strong political undertones.


This article reviews current literature examining problematic alcohol use and marital distress and introduces a new alcohol and marriage model within the theoretical framework of interdependence theory. Although marriage is generally associated with decreased heavy drinking and alcohol problems, many couples develop and maintain alcohol use disorders during committed relationships and marriage. When one person is affected by an alcohol use disorder, it both affects and is affected by their close relationships, particularly the relationship with their partner or spouse. While the causal connections between problematic drinking and marital distress are complex and only partially understood, available evidence demonstrates that the two problems often exacerbate each other, forming a detrimental cycle. Research using cross-sectional and longitudinal methods reveals covariation between the two as well as support for both causal directions. New models using the Actor–Partner Interdependence Model (APIM) are presented and structured around the concept that these reverse temporal effects may be operating through different mechanisms and with different moderators. Thus, determinants are presented for each directional effect. Finally, avenues for future research are discussed.


At the Earth's surface, two phenomena take place. Energy, water, and momentum are exchanged between the ground and the vegetation, and the atmosphere, and water is redistributed horizontally over the landscape and vertically in the soil. The exchanges of energy, water, and momentum result from specific processes, which themselves are controlled by particular surface parameters. The optical properties of the surface control the surface energy balance, which determines the energy available for the release of sensible and latent heat; the surface temperature also affects the sensible and the latent heat fluxes and modulates infrared cooling; the vegetation to a large extent determines the partitioning between the sensible and the latent heat; and, the roughness controls the transfer of momentum between the surface and the atmosphere. Conversely, the redistribution of water over the landscape is determined by topography, vegetation cover, and the physical characteristics of the soil. These processes consequently determine the quantity of water available for plant growth and cooling. Vegetation models, and in particular those with high spatial resolution, such as gap-phase forest dynamics models, should include an explicit treatment of the processes described above if they are at any point going to be used for studies of the effects of climatic changes. This paper describes a model where vegetation/atmosphere interactions are treated with greater physically and biological realism and where feedbacks are made explicit.


Dendrimers are extensively studied for drug delivery and catalysis, most of which are pH dependent. Phosphate buffer solutions (PBSs) are often used to adjust the pH. We have found that phosphate ions become incorporated into poly(amidoamine) (PAMAM) dendrimer molecules by forming H-bonds with tertiary nitrogens. We show that this specific interaction between H2PO4- and HPO42- ions and generation five PAMAM dendrimers causes a decrease in hydrodynamic size, disturbing the outcome of the size exclusion chromatography analysis. We monitored this interaction by 1H and 31P high resolution NMR, NMR-diffusiometry, pH-potentiometry and infrared spectroscopy. Failing to take into account this effect may lead to incorrect conclusions and misinterpreting interactions of PAMAM dendrimers with drug molecules and subsequently incorrect dosing. The phosphate salts of amino terminated generation five PAMAM dendrimers are stable for years when stored in the dark, even in dilute aqueous solutions, which has important implications for the shelf-life of dendrimer-based drug delivery systems.


The in-situ reactive sputter deposition of PbTiO3 on Pt/Ti/SiO2/Si from two metallic targets was investigated. A minimal lead oxide flux of two to three times the titanium oxide flux is needed in order to obtain stoichiometric films with the perovskite structure. For higher fluxes, the Pb/Ti ratio in the film stays at the stoichiometric value 1; the orientation changes from random to ; and the film morphology transforms from a rough to a smooth polycrystalline film. The obtained dielectric constants vary between 40 and 150, the losses between 2 and 4 % (10 kHz). The method could be extended to PbZrxTi1-xO3 for x ≤ 0.7. The orientation is lost when the Pt electrodes are replaced by RuO2 electrodes.


Background Preexisting donor-specific antibodies against human leukocyte antigens are major risk factors for acute antibody-mediated and chronic rejection of kidney transplant grafts. Immunomodulation (desensitization) protocols may reduce antibody concentration and improve the success of transplant. We investigated the effect of desensitization with intravenous immunoglobulin and rituximab on the antibody profile in highly sensitized kidney transplant candidates. Methods In 31 transplant candidates (calculated panel-reactive antibody [cPRA], 34%–99%), desensitization included intravenous immunoglobulin on days 0 and 30 and a single dose of rituximab on day 15. Anti–human leukocyte antigen antibodies were analyzed before and after desensitization. Results Reduction of cPRA from 25% to 50% was noted for anti–class I (5 patients, within 20–60 days) and anti–class II (3 patients, within 10–20 days) antibodies. After initial reduction of cPRA, the cPRA increased within 120 days. In 24 patients, decrease in mean fluorescence intensity of antibodies by more than 50% was noted at follow-up, but there was no reduction of cPRA. Rebound occurred in 65% patients for anti–class I antibodies at 350 days and anti–class II antibodies at 101 to 200 days. Probability of rebound effect was higher in patients with mean fluorescence intensity of more than 10,700 before desensitization, anti–class II antibodies, and history of previous transplant. Conclusions The desensitization protocol had limited efficacy in highly sensitized kidney transplant candidate because of the short period with antibody reduction and high frequency of rebound effect.


Yearbook for North Texas State College in Denton, Texas includes photos of and information about the school, student body, professors, and organizations. Index starts on page 482.


This paper is in many respects a continuation of the earlier paper by the author published in Proc. R. Soc. A in 1998 entitled 'A comprehensive methodology for the design of ships (and other complex systems)'. The earlier paper described the approach to the initial design of ships developed by the author during some 35 years of design practice, including two previous secondments to teach ship design at UCL. The present paper not only takes that development forward, it also explains how the research tool demonstrating the author's approach to initial ship design has now been incorporated in an industry based design system to provide a working graphically and numerically integrated design system. This achievement is exemplified by a series of practical design investigations, undertaken by the UCL Design Research Centre led by the author, which were mainly undertaken for industry clients in order to investigate real problems to which the approach has brought significant insights. The other new strand in the present paper is the emphasis on the human factors or large scale ergonomics dimension, vital to complex and large scale design products but rarely hitherto been given sufficient prominence in the crucial formative stages of large scale design because of the inherent difficulties in doing so. The UCL Design Building Block approach has now been incorporated in the established PARAMARINE ship design system through a module entitled SURFCON. Work is now underway on an Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council joint project with the University of Greenwich to interface the latter's escape simulation tool maritimeEXODUS with SURFCON to provide initial design guidance to ship designers on personnel movement. The paper's concluding section considers the wider applicability of the integration of simulation during initial design with the graphically driven synthesis to other complex and large scale design tasks. The paper concludes by suggesting how such an approach to complex design can contribute to the teaching of designers and, moreover, how this design approach can enable a creative qualitative approach to engineering design to be sustained despite the risk that advances in computer based methods might encourage emphasis being accorded to solely to quantitative analysis.


In recent decades, foundations used for housing constructions changed from strip foundations to flexible rafts including the whole ground floor. Strip foundations were usually calculated with the assumption of an even stress distribution, and this is often applied to modern flexible raft foundations. The result of these calculations does not represent reality and may often lead to inappropriate design and unexpected structural damage. Physical model tests have been carried out to study the stress distribution on different foundation types on a variety of soils, and under various loading scenarios. A better understanding of the stress distribution between foundation and soil is possible due to normal stress measurements at the interface. For working loads, a clear difference in stress transfer between foundation and clay and sand soils could be observed while a change in depth of soil or shallow inclined bedrock has less effect on the stress distribution at the interface.


Teachers of the youngest children at school were the first to bear the brunt of the policies to change the curriculum after the 1988 Education Act. What did the changes mean to them? How did they perceive their impact upon their work, on standards in the curriculum, on assessment and testing, and on their relationships with pupils and colleagues? How did they cope with stress, long working hours, intrusions into their home lives, and with change imposed from outside? The authors capture in detail the views of thirty infant teachers and compare their subjective perceptions, dominated by a sense of massive change, with the objective record of both continuities and changes in their work.


Commissioning studies of the CMS hadron calorimeter have identified sporadic uncharacteristic noise and a small number of malfunctioning calorimeter channels. Algorithms have been developed to identify and address these problems in the data. The methods have been tested on cosmic ray muon data, calorimeter noise data, and single beam data collected with CMS in 2008. The noise rejection algorithms can be applied to LHC collision data at the trigger level or in the offline analysis. The application of the algorithms at the trigger level is shown to remove 90% of noise events with fake missing transverse energy above 100 GeV, which is sufficient for the CMS physics trigger operation. ∗See Appendix A for the list of collaboration members ar X iv :0 91 1. 48 81 v3 [ ph ys ic s. in sde t] 3 1 Ja n 20 10


Hemopoietic stem cells (HSCs) are maintained at relative quiescence by the balance between the positive and negative regulatory factors that stimulate or inhibit their proliferation. Blocking the action of negative regulatory factors may provide a new approach for inducing HSCs into proliferation. A variety of studies have suggested that TGF-β negatively regulates cell cycle progression of HSCs. In this study, a dominant negatively acting mutant of TGF-β type II receptor (TβRIIDN) was transiently expressed in HSCs by using adenoviral vector-mediated gene delivery, such that the effects of disrupting the autocrine TGF-β signaling in HSCs can be directly examined at a single cell level. Adenoviral vectors allowing the expression of TβRIIDN and green fluorescence protein in the same CD34+CD38−Lin− cells were constructed. Overexpression of TβRIIDN specifically disrupted TGF-β-mediated signaling. Autocrine TGF-β signaling in CD34+CD38−Lin− cells was studied in single cell assays under serum-free conditions. Transient blockage of autocrine TGF-β signaling in CD34+CD38−Lin− cells enhanced their survival. Furthermore, the overall proliferation potential and proliferation kinetics in these cells were significantly enhanced compared with the CD34+CD38−Lin− cells expressing green fluorescence protein alone. Therefore, we have successfully blocked the autocrine TGF-β-negative regulatory loop of primitive hemopoietic progenitor cells.


The relationships between the photophysics and structural properties of 4,7-dithien-2-yl-2,1,3-benzothiadiazole as a function of solvent polarity are investigated both experimentally and by computational methods. Stationary fluorescence measurements are consistent with a model envisaging the presence of three types of conformers in equilibrium in the ground state. They are characterized by different relative orientations of the thiophene rings. Due to a low rotational barrier, the sample in solution is characterized by a distribution of relative internal orientations. By applying the Kawski method, we evaluate the average dipole moment of ground and excited states of the three types of conformers. The ground state dipole moments are small and similar for the three types of conformers. On the contrary, dipole moments differ substantially in the excited state. X-ray diffraction of a single crystal confirms the presence of an orientational disorder of thiophene rings. Transient absorption UV-visible spectroscopy experiments allows the identification of the main mechanisms responsible for the large Stokes shift observed in this push-pull molecule. Time dependent spectra provide a picture of the relaxation processes occurring after excitation: the primary step is an internal charge transfer assisted by thiophene ring planarization which occurs on a time scale ranging from 0.88 to 1.3 picoseconds depending on solvent polarity. Moreover, time-resolved fluorescence measurements are consistent with a mechanism involving planarization accompanied by a stabilization of the charge transfer state as observed in polar solvents. In the latter, longer fluorescence lifetimes are observed along with a quantum yield decrease due to the activation of specific non-radiative relaxation channels. The photophysical behavior of 4,7-dithien-2-yl-2,1,3-benzothiadiazole in a solid matrix of polymethyl methacrylate is similar to that observed in solution, but the overall non-radiative process rate is slow with respect to that in the liquid phase. As a consequence, the radiative processes are enhanced giving rise to a fluorescence quantum yield of 90%. Such behavior is consistent with the proposed relaxation model.


Port-Reitz Creek (04o 04' S, 39o 39' E) is one of the two main tidal mangrove fringed creeks found in Mombasa Island. It experiences semi-diurnal pattern of two low and two high tides every 24 hour cycle. Six stations were strategically positioned along the length of the creek and sampled for heavy metal (cadmium, copper, iron and zinc) content during July 1998. A peak of Cu and Zn (87 and 235 μg/g dry weight respectively) was observed at Station 2, which borders a steel factory and fish-processing firm. A correlation matrix showed close distribution pattern between Zn and Cu (r = 0.67) and between Fe and Cd (r = 0.62). A peak for Cd (6 μg/g dry wt) was observed at Station 3. Fluvial input in the creek was a source of Cd, Cu, Fe and Zn. Cd and Zn were of anthropogenic origin (Enrichment factor, EF > 1) while Cu seemed to be depleted (EF < 1). Lateral distribution of Cd, Cu, Fe and Zn on surface sediments showed a decline in concentration in a seaward direction.


In 2013, Myanmar's government passed a new minimum wage law. While enacting the law was an important first step, turning it into an effective policy tool requires further steps to be taken. This CESD working paper targets Myanmar policymakers with the objective of providing them with some considerations for the way forward. More precisely, it suggests that there are three key pillars of an effective minimum wage implementation system that Myanmar policymakers should address from here onwards. First, it will be important to promote compliance with and, if needed, enforce the minimum wage law in order to, on the one hand, ensure that workers earn a minimum income that allows them to meet their own and their families' basic needs and, on the other hand, to avoid a situation where non-compliant companies derive a competitive advantage from paying wages below the minimum. This will require efforts that incentivize compliance by employers, sanction non-compliance through penalties, and ensure proper monitoring through labor inspectorates. Second, monitoring and measuring the impacts of the minimum wage policy will be crucial to better understand the effects it has on various stakeholders, and to gauge whether the minimum wage is set at an appropriate level where the resulting benefits outweigh the costs of the policy. For such monitoring and evaluation exercises to be possible, the collection of reliable data will be essential, including through labor force and business surveys. The methodological approaches and empirical models for such impact assessments are well established – so Myanmar's efforts in this area can draw on them. Third, regularly reviewing and adjusting Myanmar's minimum wage system in the future will be vital to preserve its relevance by taking into account changes in the cost of living and wider economic conditions. This will require adequate institutional setups and governance mechanisms as well as decisions on the criteria to be used for such reviews and adjustments. Throughout, this working paper presents examples of approaches and practices in other countries, thereby offering valuable lessons and inspiration on the range of possible measures and mechanisms. Considering the three pillars delineated in this paper and learning from others will help Myanmar's policymakers turn the minimum wage into an effective policy tool that contributes to putting the country on a trajectory of inclusive economic growth and shared prosperity.


At the time that the Keck-I 10m telescope was constructed in 1993, the era of Very Large Telescopes (VLTs) was opened. Now thirteen VLTs are in operation, and the largest of the monolithic mirrors is 8.4 m in diameter. Such monolithic mirrors are mostly aspheric and require high accuracies on the surface figures, reaching up to the diffraction limit. At present, next generation telescopes, Giant telescopes, are being developed. One is the GMT (Giant Magellan Telescope) whose size is 25.4 m in diameter. The primary mirror consists of seven segments figuring elliptical shapes on the surface. The surrounding six segments are off-axis and the edges are steep, as the fast focal ratio is adopted. It means that testing of the mirrors is a challenging task. In this paper, testing methods for the GMT primary mirror are reviewed, and accuracy of measuring devices is assessed. Results and discussions follow.


The share of owner-occupied dwellings in the Dutch current dwelling stock grew considerably during the 1980s and the 1990s. The share of owner-occupied units was 39 percent in 1977, rising to 45 percent in 1989, and reaching 52 percent in 1999. Meanwhile, the share of non-subsidized units in newly constructed owner-occupancy housing doubled from the mid-1980s onward, reaching about 70 percent in the second half of the 1990s. These developments have generated a sharp rise in the number of more expensive owner-occupancy units (minimum sales value of about 198,000 Euro, 1999 prices) in the dwelling stock. In spite of this increase in supply of owner-occupied dwellings, the annual average house price rose gradually from the mid 1980s and rapidly from 1995 onwards, because the demand for owner-occupied dwellings was growing constantly and faster than the supply in this period as well. This was also the case in the more expensive part of the owner-occupancy sector. An earlier study at the micro level has shown that these developments can be partly explained by socio-economic and demographic changes in the population. But the growing demand for more expensive owner-occupied dwellings also seems to be affected by the circumstances on the housing market during the period under study. In this contribution we discuss the possibilities of explaining at the macro level the development of the size of (potential and realized) demand for more expensive owner-occupied dwellings between 1975 and 1995. By applying time series analysis we established the extent to which the annual percentage of households that has moved to such a dwelling can be explained by demographic (age structure) and socio-economic (income) developments and by developments on the housing market such as house prices, rent for dwellings, mortgage interest and supply of new dwellings. This analysis is also conducted on the annual percentage of households that is willing to move to more expensive owner-occupancy. On the basis of the resulting models we try to forecast some possible trends in the demand for more expensive owner-occupied dwellings in the Netherlands in the nearby future.


Abstract The aging population is rapidly growing, requiring speech–language pathologists to better manage a caseload that includes older adults who have a variety of needs. The purpose of this review is to summarize and discuss the current available evidence that will allow speech–language pathologists to make informed clinical decisions when working with older adults. To facilitate this, this article first establishes an understanding of both normal and disordered swallowing physiology in older adults, including how to differentiate between functional changes to swallowing (presbyphagia) and dysphagia. Other important factors to consider, such as caregiver burden, are also discussed so that clinicians can learn how to best support aging in place. Best practices for screening both community-dwelling older adults and residents of long-term care are identified as part of a framework introduced to guide decision making. The critical components of clinical swallow assessments are reviewed, including the adoption of an ethnographic approach and why nutritional status, urinary tract infections, and delirium are important considerations when working with older adults. Factors contributing to, and associated with, aspiration and aspiration pneumonia are also discussed so that clinicians better understand how to take a comprehensive approach to care, as well as consider the impact and influence of a temporary dysphagia versus a more chronic presentation. Finally, the evidence for management of dysphagia in this specialized population is reviewed, highlighting the importance of identifying physiological deficits, feedback, and taking a multidisciplinary approach to care.


In order to fully understand the clinical presentation and concepts of management of occlusive extracranial cerebrovascular disease, a working knowledge of the relevant anatomy is helpful.
There are four major vessels supplying the brain - two internal carotids and two vertebrals. This constitutes the anterior and posterior circulation. The first branch of the internal carotid is the ophthalmic which supplies the eye via its retinal branch. The internal carotid then continues on to the temporoparietal region of the brain as the middle cerebral artery. The temporoparietal lobe provides motor and sensory function to the opposite side of the body. The dominant hemisphere, which is usually the left in right-handed people, and vice versa, contains the speech centre, known as Broca's area.


This paper provides an overview of how rendaku has been analyzed in the history of generative phonology, the mainstream framework of theoretical phonology. We begin with theoretical analyses of rendaku itself. We then discuss theoretical treatments of the major factors that affect its application. First, we discuss how Lyman's Law has been treated in generative phonology. Here, we also deal with the issue of why Lyman's Law ignores voicing on sonorants. Then we consider another restriction on rendaku, the Right-Branch Condition. The next section deals with other issues, including how theoretical phonology has dealt with the effect of lexical stratification on rendaku. The final section examines remaining questions and offers some concluding remarks.


OBJECTIVE To describe the signalment, clinical signs, biological behavior, and outcome for cats with apocrine gland anal sac adenocarcinoma (AGASACA) that underwent surgical excision. DESIGN Retrospective case series. ANIMALS 30 client-owned cats. PROCEDURES Databases of 13 Veterinary Society of Surgical Oncology member-affiliated institutions were searched for records of cats with a histologic diagnosis of AGASACA that underwent tumor excision. For each cat, information regarding signalment, clinical signs, diagnostic test results, treatment, and outcome was extracted from the medical record. The Kaplan-Meier method was used to determine median time to local recurrence (TLR), disease-free interval (DFI), and survival time. Cox regression was used to identify factors associated with TLR, DFI, and survival time. RESULTS Perineal ulceration or discharge was the most common clinical sign in affected cats. Eleven cats developed local recurrence at a median of 96 days after AGASACA excision. Incomplete tumor margins and a high nuclear pleomorphic score were risk factors for local recurrence. Nuclear pleomorphic score was negatively associated with DFI. Local recurrence and a high nuclear pleomorphic score were risk factors for death. Median DFI and survival time were 234 and 260 days, respectively. CONCLUSIONS AND CLINICAL RELEVANCE Results indicated that, in cats, perineal ulceration or discharge should raise suspicion of AGASACA and prompt rectal and anal sac examinations. Local recurrence was the most common life-limiting event in cats that underwent surgery for treatment of AGASACA, suggesting that wide margins should be obtained whenever possible during AGASACA excision. Efficacy of chemotherapy and radiation therapy for treatment of cats with AGASACA requires further investigation. (J Am Vet Med Assoc 2019;254:716-722).


We introduce a novel loss max-pooling concept for handling imbalanced training data distributions, applicable as alternative loss layer in the context of deep neural networks for semantic image segmentation. Most real-world semantic segmentation datasets exhibit long tail distributions with few object categories comprising the majority of data and consequently biasing the classifiers towards them. Our method adaptively re-weights the contributions of each pixel based on their observed losses, targeting under-performing classification results as often encountered for under-represented object classes. Our approach goes beyond conventional cost-sensitive learning attempts through adaptive considerations that allow us to indirectly address both, inter- and intra-class imbalances. We provide a theoretical justification of our approach, complementary to experimental analyses on benchmark datasets. In our experiments on the Cityscapes and Pascal VOC 2012 segmentation datasets we find consistently improved results, demonstrating the efficacy of our approach.


Understanding the actual spinal kinematics in completing critical daily activities is utmost important for human being as it can lead for better quality of life. Two of the most common functions which are necessary for human being are standing up and bend forward. Researchers tried to explore the kinematics of human spine during Sit-to-Stand (STS) and Stand-to-Flexion (STF) but most of them only focussed on thoracic and lumbar spine. Literatures of similar study within thoracic spine only divide the region up to three segments thus reducing the accuracy of actual thoracic multi segments behaviours in completing daily task. This paper aims to study the differences of spinal kinematics contribution between cervical and multi-segmental thoracic spine during STS & STF among healthy Asian adults using non-invasive approach. Interclass correlation coefficient (ICC) for both tasks specified during the study showed excellent reliability with all ICC value were above 0.90 (0.932-0.976). During STS, cervical region displayed quicker flexion-extension transition response. Roughly equivalent behaviour was observed within all thoracic segments. Lower thoracic segments (T10-12) exhibited passive increment behaviour upon reaching upright standing compared with other segments. All segments displayed increase of angular displacement during upright standing. Peak of flexion during STF was achieved at 50% phase with latter response within lower thoracic segments (T8-12). Throughout the completion of STF, most of the segments shared approximately identical behaviour with the adjacent segment. The results provide a clear explanation of the healthy spinal condition of asymptomatic adults and may serve for spinal treatment and rehabilitation purposes.


In recent years data-sharing has been a recurring focus of struggle within the scientific research community as improvements in information technology and digital networks have expanded the ways that data can be produced, disseminated, and used. Information technology makes it easier to share data in publicly accessible archives that aggregate data from multiple sources. Such sharing and aggregation facilitate observations that would otherwise be impossible. But data disclosure poses a dilemma for scientists. Data have long been the stock in trade of working scientists, lending credibility to their claims while highlighting new questions that are worthy of future research funding. Some disclosure is necessary in order to claim these benefits, but data disclosure may also benefit one's research competitors. Scientists who share their data promptly and freely may find themselves at a competitive disadvantage relative to free riders in the race to make future observations and thereby to earn further recognition and funding. The possibility of commercial gain further raises the competitive stakes. This article discusses data sharing in California's stem cell initiative against the background of other data sharing efforts and in light of the competing interests that the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) is directed to balance. We begin by considering how IP law affects data-sharing. We then assess the strategic considerations that guide the IP and data policies and strategies of federal, state, and private research sponsors. With this background, we discuss four specific sets of issues that public sponsors of data-rich research, including CIRM, are likely to confront: (1) how to motivate researchers to contribute data; (2) who may have access to the data and on what conditions; (3) what data get deposited and when do they get deposited; and (4) how to establish database architecture and curate and maintain the database.


Gas flaring is the burning of unwanted produced natural gas, which cannot be processed or sold during oil and gas production and processing operations. In past decades, gas flaring was believed to be environmentally tolerable. However, scientists have found that the flaring of gas is an impediment to the environment; this has led to attempting to tackle the problem of gas flaring to advance it to an acceptable level worldwide.

In this study, two options were investigated for the utilisation of natural gas that was previously flared. The first option was a theoretical investigation of the use of ceramic perovskite membranes in a tubular reactor for the partial oxidation of methane (flare gas) to syngas. The H2/C product ratio of partial oxidation of methane is 2:1, which is suitable for Fischer-Tropch technology or methanol synthesis. It was found that this option is ideal for converting natural gas into synthesis gas (CO + H2), and it reduces capital and running costs, as these membranes are able to separate oxygen from the air stream with no need for an oxygen separation plant. The novelty of this approach is that the production of syngas using oxygen selective membranes can be achieved at the "Wellhead" with no requirement for the gas to be transported and a consequent reduction in transport costs.

The second option was an experimental investigation in using spraying and atomisation techniques for the generation of carbon nanotubes, by spraying simulated catalyst solution droplets into a hydrocarbon gas stream (methane as a carbon source) using a novel "atomiser device" incorporating pressure swirl atomisers. The second part of the investigation was divided into two phases: Phase-I, which was implemented at the Spray Research Group laboratory at the University of Salford, involved a series of experiments which were undertaken to produce fine aerosol droplets that have a number mean diameter of less than or equal to 5 μm, which was successfully achieved. In this phase, water and air were used to simulate the metal catalyst and methane, respectively, which were used in Phase-II.

Phase-II trials were implemented at the University of Oxford on a collaborative basis. A furnace was installed underneath of the Phase-I "atomiser device" and the stream of droplet particles fell down through the furnace (400 - 800o C). Reaction inside the furnace occurred to produce the Single Wall Carbon Nanotubes (SWCNT) material. The preliminary results of the experiments in this Phase showed that it is possible to produce SWCNT.

This investigation also considered an economic analysis of reducing gas flaring. A Visual Basic (VB) programme was developed to make a cost comparison between the proposed options and current conventional plants. The consideration of the economic analysis demonstrated that the cost of natural gas flaring exceeds those for syngas and Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes production.


Microfluidics has enabled lab-on-a-chip technology to miniaturize and integrate biological and chemical analyses to a single chip comprising channels, valves, mixers, heaters, separators, and sensors. Recent papers have proposed programmable labs-on-a-chip as an alternative to traditional application-specific chips to reduce design effort, time, and cost. While these previous papers provide the basic support for programmability, this paper identifies and addresses a practical issue, namely, fluid volume management. Volume management addresses the problem that the use of a fluid depletes it and unless the given volume of a fluid is distributed carefully among all its uses, execution may run out of the fluid before all its uses are complete. Additionally, fluid volumes should not overflow (i.e., exceed hardware capacity) or underflow (i.e., fall below hardware resolution). We show that the problem can be formulated as a linear programming problem (LP). Because LP's complexity and slow execution times in practice may be a concern, we propose another approach, called DAGSolve, which over-constrains the problem to achieve linear complexity while maintaining good solution quality. We also propose two optimizations, called cascading and static replication, to handle cases involving extreme mix ratios and numerous fluid uses which may defeat both LP and DAGSolve. Using some real-world assays, we show that our techniques produce good solutions while being faster than LP.


Our goal was to determine the extent to which recommendations for primary care practice are informed by high-quality research-based evidence, and the extent to which they are based on evidence of improved health outcomes (patient-oriented evidence). As a substrate for study, we used Essential Evidence, an online, evidence-based, medical reference for generalists. Each of the 721 chapters makes overall recommendations for practice that are graded A, B or C using the Strength of Recommendations Taxonomy (SORT). SORT A represents consistent and good quality patient-oriented evidence; SORT B is inconsistent or limited quality patient-oriented evidence and SORT C is expert opinion, usual practice or recommendations relying on surrogate or intermediate outcomes. Pairs of researchers abstracted the evidence ratings for each chapter in tandem, with discrepancies resolved by the lead author. Of 3251 overall recommendations, 18% were graded 'A', 34% were 'B' and 49% were 'C'. Clinical categories with the most 'A' recommendations were pregnancy and childbirth, cardiovascular, and psychiatric; those with the least were haematological, musculoskeletal and rheumatological, and poisoning and toxicity. 'A' level recommendations were most common for therapy and least common for diagnosis. Only 51% of recommendations are based on studies reporting patient-oriented outcomes, such as morbidity, mortality, quality of life or symptom reduction. In conclusion, approximately half of the recommendations for primary care practice are based on patient-oriented evidence, but only 18% are based on patient-oriented evidence from consistent, high-quality studies.


"Collateral Thoughts" is part of a special issue edited by Professor James Allan, who invited and challenged a group of scholars to select and discuss a favourite law review article. I chose "The Charter Dialogue Between Courts and Legislatures" because it is the most influential article to date in the Charter of Rights and Freedom's relatively short history (since 1982). I call this reflection "Collateral Thoughts" because my interest is less in the merits of dialogue theory than in its remarkable impact, at home in Canada as well as abroad, in the broader reaches of comparative constitutionalism and constitutional theory. In the main, this reflection asks how and why "dialogue" became a runaway concept, and considers what that tells us about the nature and formation of constitutional theory. It shows that Dialogue was fundamentally connected to Canada's catharsis of rights, in 1982 and in the early years of Charter interpretation. That is why its claim that the legitimacy battles which define American judicial review are irrelevant – because Canada's system of rights protection is based on "dialogue" – was so explosive. Not only did this article command attention in Canada, the concept of dialogue would be "reified", castigated and deeply analyzed by scholars and Commonwealth jurisdictions who wondered whether weaker or weak-form judicial review was institutionally possible. Much like other theories in the US constitutional tradition, Dialogue responded to controversy by theorizing and attempting to legitimize review. Despite failing in its objective to eliminate legitimacy concerns about review, Dialogue catalyzed a national and international movement in constitutional thought.


As the contribution of dispersed or distributed energy resources (DER) to the electric power production increases, the effects on the power system grow more important. As an example a critical situation may arise if protective relays trip a large part of the dispersed generation due to undervoltage at a short-circuit event. On the other hand it is crucial that the protection system acts correctly to protect life and property in other situations. These qualities are referred to as security and dependability. There are a number of different kinds of anti-islanding or loss-of-mains protections. Some are implemented in practice while others are still on a research level. This thesis provides an analysis of benefits and drawbacks of methods that are applied today. The ability of the different methods to avoid nuisance tripping and provide robust protection is investigated. To draw the attention to industrial experience, some cases are described where dispersed generations were nuisance tripped. Recordings from islanding events are presented and analyzed. Performance of present anti islanding protections is commented. A comparison of grid codes in Sweden, Denmark and Germany serves as an example of the situations in different countries. Today there are differences in the connection requirements depending on different designs of the distribution systems. These varying requirements lead to different demands on the islanding detection devices. The thesis summarizes the technical requirements on the islanding portion of the protection system. To compare the protection algorithms, they are exposed to challenging situations in a common simulation environment. In the simulation model, a DER-unit (induction generator) is connected to a typical distribution grid. The grid consists of two 20 kV feeders connected to a 130 kV network equivalent via a common bus bar and a transformer. Additional feeders are modeled with generic load and shunt capacitances. The concept of distributed energy resources is moving from being a local issue towards a system issue. The islanding protection devices being used in the future have to reflect this. The thesis aims at describing this process and ends with a list of possibly unresolved issues. (Less)