This Article proposes a novel technique for characterizing the relative determinacy of legal decision-making. I begin with the observation that the determinacy of legal outcomes varies from context to context within the law. To augment this intuition, I develop a theoretical model of determinate legal decision-making. This model aims to capture the essential features that are typically associated with the concept of legal determinacy. I then argue that we can use such an idealized model as a standard for expressing the relative determinacy or indeterminacy of decision-making in actual, observed legal contexts. From a legal theory standpoint, this approach – separating determinacy and indeterminacy into their constituent conceptual elements – helps us to more rigorously define these theoretical ideas. Ultimately, from a practical standpoint, I assert that this framework assists in understanding why legal outcomes in certain contexts are determinate enough to be amenable to resolution by computers.


In all likelihood, the European Commission's proposed tax on financial services, the financial transaction tax (FTT), will raise sizeable tax revenues, which explains its political appeal in the current context. However, the tax fails to address the key factors that contributed to the global financial crisis. In the absence of global or even EU-wide cooperation, many of the transactions subject to a tax will relocate to non-cooperating countries, thereby reducing revenue prospects and the effectiveness of supervision. Moreover, the proposal fails to address the growth of leverage, systemic risks and the moral hazard risks arising from 'too-big-to-fail' or 'too-systemic-to-fail' institutions. Even if it becomes a reality, the proposal should not undermine the chances of more meaningful tax policy alternatives being implemented in the future.


The title of this article stands as a claim that something can be learned from viewing the reinventing government movement as an example of postmodern symbolic politics. It is not, however, a claim to exclusive truth; it would be wrong to dismiss an entire movement and all of the dedicated participants as cynically engaging in "nothing but" symbolic politics. I admit, both affirmations and negations of reinvention can be telling without ever uttering "postmodern." What can an interpretation add that is based on a historical shift that few acknowledge? To answer that question, and to redeem the claim, I need first to explicate those aspects of postmodernism relevant to the task. Second, I need to adduce elements of the reinvention movement which may be plausibly subsumed under those aspects. Relevant Aspects of Postmodernism I have, with Hugh Miller (1995), argued that fruitful insights about contemporary public policy and administration follow from viewing these as aspects of the postmodern condition.(1) Doing so requires, at least for the sake of argument, that one accept that advanced industrial countries are undergoing a fundamental change. In other words, the work and study of public policy formation and implementation now occur in a context so fundamentally different from the past as to justify the judgment that we have crossed over from one era (modernity) to another (postmodernity). As a word of warning (self defense), let me quickly add that the epochal rupture did not occur all at once. Postmodernism can be traced as far back as Nietzsche while gathering momentum in the years after World War II. A full-fledged explication of the transformation and its implications is beyond the scope of this article. Only the production-symbol aspect of post-modernity can be sketched here. In its production aspect, the transformation from modernity to postmodernity is associated with the widely noted move from an industrial to a postindustrial society; from an economy based primarily on the production of material goods to one based primarily on information technologies, services, marketing, credit, and consumption. To be sure, this transformation, like the earlier move from agricultural production to industrial production, is one of dominant tendencies or ideal-typical profiles. Of course, we still produce agricultural and industrial commodities but as the paradigm case of farm labor was replaced by the paradigm case of the assembly line, the paradigm case of work today is an office where symbols are analyzed and manipulated. This development has also been heralded as the advent of the information age. Toffler (1980) and Gingrich make a similar point about first, second, and third waves. As an aside, postmodernism (as a theoretical orientation) adds that allied philosophical, epistemological, ethical, political, cultural, and societal developments are of sufficient magnitude to warrant epochal differentiation.(2) The main implication of the production metamorphosis for the purpose of this argument is the theory of hyperreality or what I call self-referential epiphenomenalism. Again, only the surface of the argument can be expressed here. The postmodernist(3) analysis finds that words, symbols, and signs are increasingly divorced from direct real-world experience. Part of this results from the switch from a society based primarily on production to one based primarily on consumption and information. Production requires group activity and communication based on the manipulation and processing of physical objects. There is a rootedness based on the direct interface between humans and material; symbolic meanings are similarly rooted. Contrariwise, in the consumptive economic mode of postmodernity, symbols float away, as it were, and procreate with other symbols leading to what Jameson (1991) calls "the free play of signifiers." As the designs of products to which symbols are attached become too complex for the consumers to master, symbols lose their mooring lines. …


In as much as trade fosters economic development, it also exacerbates poverty, especially in the sub Saharan African (SSA) countries. Against this backdrop, this study will increase our understanding of the estimation of non-oil commodity trade flows between Nigeria and the U.S. More specifically, the study aims to analysing the impact of African Growth Opportunity Act (AGOA) on the U.S. imports of non-oil products from Nigeria. The research objectives are woven around the following questions: - What is the nature of Nigeria's and U.S.'s foreign trade policies with particular reference to non-oil trade? - What are the patterns, magnitude, composition and trends in Nigeria-US non-oil trade? - Which economic sectors possess greatest potential for fostering trade in the non-oil sector between Nigeria and the U.S.? - What is the impact of AGOA on the diversification and growth of non-oil exports in Nigeria? This study adopts the difference-in-differences (DiD) as the research methodology. Within the Nigerian context, DiD intuitively compares the trends in imports of AGOA non-oil products before and after AGOA with the pattern of imports of non-AGOA non-oil products before and after AGOA, controlling for the timing of AGOA, import capacity and economic performance of both U.S. and Nigeria. Using the World Trade Organisation (WTO) Integrated Data Base (IDB), the empirical analysis reveals that AGOA non-oil products increased by as much as 182 per cent with the implementation of AGOA, while the non-AGOA non-oil products fell by 76 per cent. Conclusively, AGOA has had a considerably positive impact on the Nigerian non-oil sector at the general level. The policy implication of the empirical analysis is the need for the U.S. to expand the product coverage and opportunities of AGOA non-oil products in order for AGOA to achieve its objectives of using trade as a potent tool for promoting economic growth in SSA.


From early 2004, Lake Maracaibo (northwest Venezuela) experienced an unprecedented invasion of duckweed Lemna obscura. Recurrent blooms of the plant in the past 2 years illustrate the need for an automatic monitoring method to follow the plant cover with time and to plan contingency measures. We present an approach that allows the cover of the duckweed to be quantified through the classification of MODIS 250 m RGB composite images available from the internet. The method improves the accuracy of the results of the Support Vector Machine (SVM) algorithm for classification by including a bootstrap step during the training phase. Using only 200 pixels for training (<0.05% of the total), the bootstrapped SVM method allows a better identification of the duckweed class, reducing the number of false negatives by half and improving the KHAT statistic by almost 40% in comparison to the standard SVM method. This method has proved to be a reliable solution in cases where rapid responses are needed and only medium‐resolution, free satellite imagery is available.


Sediments from two Queensland Tertiary lacustrine oil shale deposits, the Lowmead and Duaringa Basins, have been petrologically characterized from standard X-ray powder diffraction analyses, backscattered electron microscopy and electron microprobe data. The results presented illustrate the potential of backscattered electron imagery for the study of diagenesis in fine-grained, organic-rich sediments. The Lowmead Formation consists of lamosites, claystones and brown coals deposited in freshwater lacustrine and fringing peat-swamp environements. Their dominant constituents are kaolinite and quartz, with opaline silica and siderite important as eogenetic phases. Despite its similar geological setting, the Duaringa Formation contains a more varied lithological assemblage with less organic matter being preserved. Freshwater lacustrine claystones and lamosites are interbedded with carbonate sediments deposited during periods of saline/alkaline conditions in the lake. Within these carbonate sediments, major growth of eogenetic mineral phases occurred, principally dolomite and analcite. As in the Lowmead Basin, siderite is an important eogenetic phase in the Duaringa Formation. Two types of sideritic ironstone band occur throughout both basins; sphaerosiderites within claystone/coal sediments and fine-grained bands of siderite within lamosites. The bulk mineralogy of the siliciclastic detritus shows no significant trends with depth within either basin.


Cooking is a gender marker. Just as the best chefs in the world are traditionally men, post-hard-boiled literary detectives such as Vazquez Montalban's Carvalho, or Robert B. Parker's Spenser are gourmet cooks, while George Pelecanos's sleuthing protagonists were as often as not brought up in short order Greek diners and know their way around a kitchen. Walter Mosley's Easy Rawlins is quite capable of putting together a nutritious meal for his family, as is James Lee Burke's Dave Robicheaux. Sadly, in confirmation of the gender divide, the same cannot be said for women detectives. While Sara Paretsky's V.I. Warshawski will reluctantly and with much griping put a simple meal on the table if absolutely forced to, Sue Grafton's Kinsey Millhone and Linda Barnes's Carlotta Carlyle would not be seen dead slaving over a hot stove and subsist mainly on takeaway pizzas and hamburgers. Indeed, Kinsey Millhone would probably have died of malnutrition halfway through the alphabet if it were not for her neighbour, Henry, a retired baker, who regularly supplies her with decent home-cooked meals. Authors such as Vazquez Montalban and Robert B. Parker delight in providing recipes for their readers which are lovingly put together by their protagonists (especially in Spenser's case whose culinary prowess is consistently contrasted to his girlfriend's utter inability even to slice an onion), or by their male friends. In 1999 Vazquez Montalban published Las recetas de Carvalho which achieved such popularity it was reissued in 2004 by Planeta. It is not known whether any women detectives or their authors might claim as much. Clearly something is afoot. The sharpest knives in the detectives' kitchen drawers are wielded by men, their traditional solitary nature ensuring the broth remains unspoiled and the villains well grilled. Overcompensation for gender stereotyping by both sides would seem an easy, half-baked explanation. Is it really that simple?


ABSTRACT This article analyses the trends in primary demand for fossil fuels and renewables, comparing regions with large and small domestic fossil fuel reserves. We focus on countries that hold 80% of global fossil fuel reserves and compare them with key countries that have meagre fossil fuel reserves. We show that those countries with large domestic fossil fuel reserves have experienced a large increase in primary energy demand from fossil fuels, but only a moderate or no increase in primary energy from renewables, and in particular from non-hydro renewable energy sources (NHRES), which are assumed to represent the cornerstone of the future transformation of the global energy system. This implies a tremendous threat to climate change mitigation, with only two principal mitigation options for fossil-fuel-rich economies if there is to be compliance with the temperature goals of the Paris Agreement: (1) leave the fossil fuels in the ground; and (2) apply carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies. Combinations of these two options to exploit their respective possibilities synergistically will require strong initiatives and incentives to transform a certain amount of the domestic fossil fuel reserves (including the associated infrastructure) into stranded assets and to create an extensive CCS infrastructure. Our conclusion is that immediate and disruptive changes to the use of fossil fuels and investments in non-carbon-emitting technologies are required if global warming is to be limited to well below 2°C. Collective actions along value chains in business to divert from fossil fuels may be a feasible strategy. Key policy insights The main obstacle to compliance with any reasonable warming target is the abundance of fossil fuels, which has maintained and increased momentum towards new fossil-fuelled processes. So far, there has been no increase in the share of NHRES in total global primary energy demand, with a clear decline in the NHRES share in India and China. There is an immediate need for the global community to develop fossil fuel strategies and policies. Policies must account for the global trade flow of products that typically occurs from the newly industrialized fossil fuel-rich countries to the developed countries.


The real-time monitoring of nitric oxide (NO) at the subcellular level is still a great challenge. To attain this goal, we developed a fast and selective near-infrared (NIR) fluorescent probe for the targeted tracing of endogenous NO. This probe possesses vital features for the real-time detection of intracellular NO including a significant turn-on NIR response, high specificity, and a fast response by a controlled photoinduced electron transfer (PET) process, which is applicable to the real-time monitoring of endogenous NO in mitochondria.


Jordan today stands at the threshold of realizing the dynamic opportunities presented by economic openness and global integration. If we are successful in seizing the prospects currently open to our country, our experience will serve as evidence that countries can continue to leapfrog stages of development and bridge the wide economic and social divides that still exist between North and South. Jordan is a small country with a rich history and even richer potential. Our nation of five million people occupies a strategic position in the heart of the Middle East, a region often associated with conflict, instability; and unrestrained emotions, but also a region of unrealized and untapped possibilities. Within this environment, we have earned a reputation for being a voice of reason and a beacon of hope. This is a tribute to the legacy of my late father, His Majesty King Hussein, who managed to build a society with understanding, dialogue, and respect for life at its core-- a society where education, equality; and a sense of purpose were not only attainable, but essential elements of being Jordanian. This focus on the development of a tolerant state, coupled with investment in human development, led to the successful evolution of a culture that originated from an essentially nomadic and traditional heritage to one capable of adapting to the 21st century without losing its rich and valuable cultural identity. The Old Economy Our aspirations have focused on benefiting from the opportunities of economic openness and global integration to become an active contributor to the global economy and society. The challenge in realizing this bold vision lies in effectively being able to adapt to a continuously changing set of global economic parameters. Jordan has positioned itself to thrive, not just survive, in this dynamically changing and frequently turbulent era of globalization. Traditional economic models for developing nations, which focused on regional economic dependency and foreign aid, allowed Jordan to reach unprecedented growth levels in the early and mid-1980s, but they are no longer relevant in the new economy. This harsh reality became apparent during the severe economic crisis that gripped our country in the late 1 980s, and its fallout is still with us today. The rapid decline in oil prices and the eight-year Iraq-Iran war triggered the crisis that gripped the region. The dependence on these economies that had served Jordan well in the boom years had a devastating effect during the recession. Prior to the crisis, the Jordanian economy relied heavily on the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) member nations, as well as the Iraqi market, to satisfy its production capacity. This arrangement negated the need to search for new markets and hindered industrial competitiveness and creativity in the process. At the time, capital investment in the Jordanian economy was driven by the public sector, fueled by foreign aid that inadvertently, yet significantly, marginalized the private sector's role in the development process. Our own labor force found readily available jobs in the GCC markets, removing any added burden on the local economy to create sufficient employment opportunities. The downturn experienced by the regional economies adversely affected the demand for Jordanian products and labor, significantly reducing the inflow of GCC foreign aid to the country. A severe macroeconomic imbalance resulted and trickled down to citizens as inflation rates rose, unemployment hit a record high, foreign debt mounted, the fiscal deficit widened, and the trade deficit worsened, all in turn depleting our foreign reserves. The drastic impact of the crisis prompted us to re-evaluate our economic approach. Our decision to seek an economic solution highlighted the benefits of adopting the liberal economic strategy that today drives most economies of the globalized world. We realized that Jordan would only be able to steer its way out of the economic crisis by establishing a free market. …


A residual negative free-air and Bouguer anomaly of at least 80 milligals, superimposed on a broader high, occurs over the Gal�pagos Islands The axis of the anomaly trends roughly east and plunges eastward. Thus, a low-density mass in the crust or upper mantle must underlie the archipelago. This anomaly may be caused by thermal expansion over a crust-mantle " hot spot".


Fault Detection for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles with Non-Redundant Sensors Brandon J. Cannon Department of Mechanical Engineering, BYU Master of Science To operate, autonomous systems of necessity employ a variety of sensors to perceive their environment. Many small unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) are unable to carry redundant sensors due to size, weight, and power (SWaP) constraints. Faults in these sensors can cause undesired behavior, including system instability. Thus, detection of faults in these non-redundant sensors is of paramount importance. The problem of detecting sensor faults in non-redundant sensors on board autonomous aircraft is non-trivial. Factors that make development of a solution difficult include both an inability to perfectly characterize systems and sensors as well as the SWaP constraints inherent with small UAV. An additional challenge is the ability of a fault-detection method to strike a balance between false-alarm rate and detection rate. This thesis explores two model-based methods of fault-detection for non-redundant sensors, a Kalman filter based method and a particle filter based method. The Kalman filter based method employs tests of mean and covariance on the normalized innovation sequence to detect faults, while the particle filter based method uses a function of the average particle weights. The Kalman filter based approach was implemented in real time on board an autonomous rotorcraft using an extended Kalman Filter (EKF). Faults tested included varied levels of bias, drift, and increased noise. Metrics included false-alarm rate, detection rate, and delay to detection. The particle filter based approach was implemented on a simulated system. This was then compared with an implementation of the EKF based approach for the same system. The same fault types and metrics were also used for these tests. The EKF based method of fault-detection performed well onboard the autonomous rotorcraft and should be generalizable to other systems for which an EKF or Kalman filter can be implemented. The theory indicates that the particle filter based algorithm should have performed better, though the simulations showed poor detection characteristics in comparison to the Kalman filter based method. Future work should be performed to explore improvements to the particle filter based method.


This contribution explains several "roads to self-awareness", all of them based on the natural sciences. The first one follows our bio-psychological evolution. The second road starts with the engineer's point of view and mainly builds on information science and technology, in particular robotics. The third road taken is the most abstract - It exploits complex dynamic systems and their emergent properties. Despite their different origins and methods, these lines of investigation converge. That is, the findings of various fields can be combined into a unified theory of mind and self-awareness, which is the main purpose of this paper. This overall synthesis suggests that the mind results from a multi-hierarchical organizational structure, and self-reflexive flows of information in embodied systems. In addition to this, stable self-awareness appears spontaneously in sufficiently complex robots, when the system's capability of describing itself crosses the level of conceptually clear information processing (thinking). As an application, one obtains a number of construction principles for mentally developing systems that are explained towards the end of this contribution. Part I of this four-part Article includes: 1. A Psychobiological Theory of Self-awareness.


In-depth Linux kernel performance analysis and debugging historically has been a focus which required resident kernel hackers. This effort not only required deep kernel knowledge to analyze the code, but also required programming skills in order to modify the code, re-build the kernel, re-boot and extract and format the information from the system. A variety of powerful Linux system tools are emerging which provide significantly more flexibility for the analyst and the system owner. This paper highlights an example set of performance problems which are often seen on a system, and focuses on the methodology, approach, and steps that can be used to address each problem. Examples of a set of pre-defined SystemTAP "tapsets" are provided which make it easier for the non-programmer to extract information about kernel events from a running system, effectively tracing some of the kernel behavior. Some examples of performance problems include I/O problems, workload scalability issues, and efficient system utilization. Available tools such as SystemTAP, kprobes, oprofile, and trace tools are compared and contrasted to provide the system owner with real-life examples which can be used on their systems today.


We consider the problems of variable selection and accounting for model uncertainty in linear regression models. Conditioning on a single selected model ignores model uncertainty, and thus leads to the underestimation of uncertainty when making inferences about quantities of interest. The complete Bayesian solution to this problem involves averaging over all possible models when making inferences about quantities of interest. This approach is often not practical. In this paper we offer two alternative approaches. First we describe a Bayesian model selection algorithm called "Occam's "Window" which involves averaging over a reduced set of models. Second, we describe a Markov chain Monte Carlo approach which directly approximates the exact solution. Both these model averaging procedures provide better predictive performance than any single model which might reasonably have been selected. In the extreme case where there are many candidate predictors but there is no relationship between any of them and the response, standard variable selection procedures often choose some subset of variables that yields a high R and a highly significant overall F value. vVe refer to this unfortunate phenomenon as "Freedman's Paradox" (Freedman, 1983). In this situation, Occam's vVindow usually indicates the null model as the only one to be considered, or else a small number of models including the null model, thus largely resolving the paradox.


This paper addresses the dilemma that emerges when theorizing agency within the participatory logic of Participatory Action Research (PAR) projects. Insomuch as PAR projects contest ubiquitous blaming-the-victim discourses, they often do so by stressing the structure of exploitation at the expense of individual autonomy. At the same time, however, PAR methods work to produce or strengthen the agency of all the participants, thereby stressing that structural determination is not an inevitable or ontological fact. I assess how PAR researchers have negotiated this framing problematic and then introduce critical geographic theories of scale as one way to re-frame this tension. Ultimately, by adopting the theoretical viewpoint of the production of scale, the researcher can focus on how the scale of individual bodies is produced at a variety of levels. Emphasis is placed on the mutability of these scalar productions and that PAR work—when framed as a politics of scale—inherently 'bends' scales.


Given appropriate data acquisition, processing to remove nonprimary arrivals, and use of an accurate migration algorithm, it is the quality of the subsurface velocity model that typically controls the quality of imaging that can be obtained from salt-affected seismic data. Full-waveform inversion has the potential to improve the accuracy, resolution, repeatability, and speed with which such velocity models can be generated, but, in the absence of an accurate starting model, that potential is difficult to realize in practice. Presented are successful inversion results, obtained from synthetic subsalt models, using a robust full-waveform inversion code that includes constraints upon the set of allowable earth models. These constraints include limitations on the total variation of the velocity of the model and, most significantly, on the asymmetric variation of velocity with depth such that negative velocity excursions are limited. During the iteration, these constraints are relaxed progressively so that the final model is driven principally by the seismic data, but the constraints act to steer the inversion path away from local minima in its early stages. This methodology is applied to portions of the 2004 BP benchmark and Phase I SEAM salt models, recovering an accurate model of the salt body, including its base and flanks, and an accurate model of the subsalt velocity structure, starting from one-dimensional velocity models that are severely cycle skipped. This approach removes entirely the requirement to pick salt boundaries from migrated seismic data, and acts as a form of automatic salt and sediment flooding during full-waveform inversion.


Objectives Epigenetic mechanisms influence the development and maintenance of complex phenotypes and may also contribute to the evolution of species-specific phenotypes. With respect to skeletal traits, little is known about the gene regulation underlying these hard tissues or how tissue-specific patterns are associated with bone morphology or vary among species. To begin exploring these topics, this study evaluates one epigenetic mechanism, DNA methylation, in skeletal tissues from five nonhuman primate species which display anatomical and locomotor differences representative of their phylogenetic groups. Materials and Methods First, we test whether intra-specific variation in skeletal DNA methylation is associated with intra-specific variation in femur morphology. Second, we identify inter-specific differences in DNA methylation and assess whether these lineage-specific patterns may have contributed to species-specific morphologies. Specifically, we use the Illumina Infinium MethylationEPIC BeadChip to identify DNA methylation patterns in femur trabecular bone from baboons (n=28), macaques (n=10), vervets (n=10), chimpanzees (n=4), and marmosets (n=6). Results Significant differentially methylated positions (DMPs) were associated with a subset of morphological variants, but these likely have small biological effects and may be confounded by other variables associated with morphological variation. Conversely, several species-specific DMPs were identified, and these are found in genes enriched for functions associated with complex skeletal traits. Discussion Overall, these findings reveal that while intra-specific epigenetic variation is not readily associated with skeletal morphology differences, some inter-specific epigenetic differences in skeletal tissues exist and may contribute to evolutionarily distinct phenotypes. This work forms a foundation for future explorations of gene regulation and skeletal trait evolution in primates.


We demonstrate that the recently developed extended multi-state complete active space second-order perturbation theory (XMS-CASPT2) [Shiozaki et al., J. Chem. Phys., 2011, 135, 081106] provides qualitatively correct potential energy surfaces for low-lying excited singlet states of pyrazine, while the potential energy surfaces of the standard MS-CASPT2 methods are ill-behaved near the crossing point of two reference potential energy surfaces. The XMS-CASPT2 method is based on the extended multi-configuration quasi-degenerate perturbation theory proposed earlier by Granovsky [J. Chem. Phys., 2011, 134, 214113]. We show that the conical intersection at the XMS-CASPT2 level can be described without artifacts if the entire method is invariant with respect to any unitary rotations of the reference functions. The photoabsorption spectra of the 1(1)B(3u) and 1(1)B(2u) states of pyrazine are simulated, based on a vibronic-coupling model Hamiltonian. The XMS-CASPT2 spectrum of the 1(1)B(3u) band is found to be comparable to the one computed by a more expensive multireference configuration interaction (MRCI) method, while the XMS-CASPT2 simulation of the 1(1)B(2u) band is slightly inferior to the MRCI one.


This case, as a part of a Ph.D. dissertation on the professional knowhow of collaborative policies, concerning Roma V 2030, a strategic planning policy on the territory of the fifth Rome municipality. This experience starts from the assumption that strategic planning can be defined as a collective building of a shared vision for the future of a given territory, through processes of participation, discussion and listening. It is indeed a pact between directors, actors, citizens and other partners to achieve this vision through a strategy and a series of subsequent projects to improve resilience. From March until October 2015, the fifth Rome municipality implemented a strategic planning process in order to adopt a resilient policy instrument and to deepen its knowledge of the territory, sharing tools with the communal offices of Rome, which is one of the 100 Resilient Cities of the socalled international project of the Rockefeller Foundation. The idea to develop a territorial investigation and to look to the next fifteen years comes from the municipality who has to consider the daily stimuli of its citizenship, often referring to urgent and contingent needs, in a broader framework of local policies. The aim of the study is to highlight the importance of the adaptability of professional practices of the professionals and practitioners involved in the process. Additionally, the sense of belonging, as an aim of strategic planning, especially in those geographically reformed urban contexts in need of experiencing forms of regeneration and renewal is investigated.


Diabetic cardiomyopathy is characterized by interstitial fibrosis and cardiomyocyte hypertrophy and apoptosis. Also known as CCN2, connective tissue growth factor (CTGF) is implicated in the fibrosis; however, whether it contributes to cardiomyocytes changes and adverse effects of high glucose and lipids on these cells remains unknown. Hearts from streptozotocin-induced diabetic rats had elevated CTGF and changes of pathological myocardial hypertrophy, fibrosis, and cardiomyocyte apoptosis. Rat H9c2 cardiomyocytes were then treated with recombinant human (rh)CTGF, high glucose, or the saturated free fatty acid palmitate. Each reagent induced cell hypertrophy, as indicated by the ratio of total protein to cell number, cell size, and gene expression of cardiac hypertrophy marker genes atrial natriuretic peptide (ANP), and alpha-skeletal actin. Each treatment also caused apoptosis measured by increased caspase3/7 activity, apoptotic cells by transferase-mediated dUTP nick end labeling (TUNEL) assay, and lower viable cell number. Further studies showed CTGF mRNA was rapidly induced by high glucose and palmitate in H9c2 cells and in mouse neonatal cardiomyocyte primary cultures. small interfering RNA against CTGF blocked the high glucose and palmitate induction of hypertrophy and apoptosis. In addition, these CTGF effects were through the tyrosine kinase A (TrkA) receptor with tyrosine kinase activity, which has previously been implicated in CTGF signaling: TrkA was phosphorylated by CTGF, and a specific TrkA blocker abrogated CTGF-induced effects on hypertrophy and apoptosis. For the first time in any system, fatty acid is newly identified as a regulator of CTGF, and this work implicates autocrine CTGF as a mediator of adverse effects of high glucose and fatty acids in cardiomyocytes.


After introducing MyPlate in June 2011, USDA provided a series of one-page fact sheets to help consumers use the dietary advice of the Dietary Guidelines 2010. The USDA added new fact sheets in December 2011 and continued adding fact sheets in 2012, 2013, and 2014. These fact sheets are distributed by UF/IFAS Extension for Extension faculty, health professionals, and consumers. They are also called the "Ten Tips Nutrition Education Series" and "DG TipSheets." This 2-page fact sheet was written by the USDA Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion, with an Introduction by Linda B. Bobroff, and published by the UF Department of Family, Youth and Community Sciences, May 2014.


As the numbers of refugees and migrants keep increasing at a fast pace, their social inclusion remains a challenge. The cornerstone of their inclusion is their integration in the labour market which comes with certain hurdles such as the language barrier, the difficulty in assessing and certifying their skills and many more. Although many attempts have led to the development of online platforms, all these address part of the journey from their arrival in a foreign country to their inclusion in the labour market and in the host society. We present a novel platform that aims to provide migrants with a) assistance in discovering and assessing their hard and soft skills by employing AI technologies, b) recommendations of appropriate job sectors and positions based on their profile and c) providing information about multiple practical aspects of their life. The proposed platform additionally delivers information to authorities, companies and NGOs through data analytics and supports them in reaching migrants.


Coopetition has been defined as an approach to managing that combines competition and cooperation. It transcends the traditional paradigms of competition and cooperation in an effort to achieve the advantages of both. As an inter-organizational relationship that is of a higher complexity than either simple competition or cooperation, coopetition presents both conceptual and practical challenges for business managers and researchers in the strategy field. In this paper we present a systemic approach to modeling coopetition between firms that provides a methodology for analyzing the strategic incentives for enterprises to engage in coopetition relationships and the organization design required to address the complexities inherent in such multi-faceted relationships. Our approach comprises a modeling technique called Systemic Enterprise Architecture Method (SEAM) that incorporates important conceptualizations adapted from competence based management (CBM) theory. We illustrate our approach by applying it to the case coopetition between IBM and Apple in the development of PowerPC CPU.


OBJECTIVE
To determine community approaches to medical and behavioral diseases in dogs and cats.

DESIGN
Cross-sectional descriptive study.

SAMPLE
97 companion animal veterinarians and 424 animal owners.

PROCEDURES
Companion animal veterinarians in central Iowa ranked medical or behavioral diseases or conditions by what they thought most clients would consider healthy, treatable, manageable, or unhealthy (unmanageable or untreatable). In a parallel survey, cat- or dog-owning households in central Iowa responded to a telephone survey regarding the relationship of their animal in the household, owner willingness to provide medical or behavioral interventions, and extent of financial commitment to resolving diseases.

RESULTS
One hundred twenty common health or behavioral disorders in cats and dogs were ranked by veterinarians as healthy, treatable, manageable, or unhealthy (unmanageable or untreatable) on the basis of their opinion of what most clients would do. Findings were in congruence with animal owners' expressed willingness to provide the type of care required to maintain animals with many acute or chronic medical and behavioral conditions. In general, owners indicated a willingness to use various treatment modalities and spend money on veterinary services when considering current or previously owned animals as well as hypothetical situations with an animal. Past experiences with veterinary care in which an animal did not recover fully did not diminish the willingness of respondents to use veterinary services again in the future.

CONCLUSIONS AND CLINICAL RELEVANCE
These results provide a baseline indication of community willingness to address medical or behavioral conditions in dogs and cats. These considerations can be used in conjunction with Asilomar Accords recommendations to assess adoptability of cats and dogs in animal shelters.


Ultrasonic simulation tools have been gathered in the Civa software developed at CEA (the French Atomic Energy Commission), in order to conceive, optimise and predict the performances of various inspection techniques. Those models are based on semi-analytical kernels and numerical integration, so that realistic 3D and time transient configurations may be dealt with, and specific emphasis is made to optimise time computations, so that these models can be used for parametric studies in spite of potentially complex configurations. These simulation tools include beam propagation and defect scattering models, thus the whole inspection performances may be predicted for a wide range of applications (phased arrays, complex specimen geometry and/or materials, various flaws). This paper addresses some experimental validations of those models, in the frame of collaboration with the French Institute for Radiological Protection and Nuclear Safety (IRSN). Applications concerned include validation of inspection predictions over realistic configurations in terms of probes, specimens, and flaws, for which developments have been achieved to deal with complex shapes (planar flaw with a contour defined by CAD and multi-facetted flaws). This paper addresses some experiments carried out with mock-ups containing calibration reflectors (side drilled hole, flat bottomed holes) or artificial complex shaped defects, for which complex phenomenon may occur in the echo formation. Comparison with simulated results is presented and discussed in order to assess the validity range of the simulation models.


CYP2C19 is an important human drug-metabolizing enzyme that metabolizes a number of clinically used drugs including the antiulcer drug omeprazole, the anxiolytic drug diazepam, the beta-blocker propranolol, the antimalarial drug proguanil, certain antidepressants and barbiturates, and the prototype substrate S-mephenytoin. Previous studies show that compounds such as rifampicin and dexamethasone induce CYP2C19 both in vivo in humans and in vitro in human hepatocytes. This study examines the transcriptional regulation of CYP2C19. Analysis of the CYP2C19 promoter revealed a single constitutive androstane receptor (CAR) binding site (CAR-RE; -1891/-1876 bp) and a glucocorticoid-responsive element (GRE; -1750/-1736 bp). Gel-shift assays showed that CAR-RE binds CAR and pregnane X receptor (PXR). Cotransfection with hCAR, mCAR, or hPXR in HepG2 cells up-regulated transcription of CYP2C19 promoter constructs, whereas mutation of the -1891-bp CAR-RE abolished up-regulation. Expression with hCAR also up-regulated endogenous CYP2C19 mRNA content in HepG2 cells. Androstenol repressed the mCAR-mediated constitutive activation of the CYP2C19 promoter in HepG2 cells, whereas the potent mCAR ligand 1,4-bis[2-3,5-dichloropyridyloxyl)] benzene derepressed this response. Rifampicin produced a modest increase in promoter activity in cells cotransfected with hPXR. Dexamethasone activated the -2.7-kb CYP2C19 promoter constructs in HepG2 cells only in the presence of cotransfected glucocorticoid receptor (GR), whereas the GR antagonist mifepristone inhibits this response. Mutation of the GRE abolishes dexamethasone activation. This is the first study to identify nuclear receptor binding sites (CAR/PXR and GR) in the CYP2C19 promoter and to suggest that these receptors may up-regulate CYP2C19 constitutively and possibly its response to drugs.


This thesis will first look at the basic case for flexible housing design, both for spatial efficiency and accommodating different family structures beyond the 20th-century nuclear definition. In addition, this thesis will explore how urban housing could benefit from accommodating different family structures and stages, by increasing social dependency and sharing resources and services. This approach would not only contribute to lowering long term housing costs, but also have tremendous effect on resident wellness. It has been linked that the cause of early onset dementia was due to lack of physical and social interaction with other people of varying ages. This thesis integrates concepts of spatial flexibility to promote healthy family communities with long term affordability to create a housing typology in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood, providing additional dwelling options not currently available.


The synthesis of herpes simplex virus DNA in isolated nuclei under in vitro conditions was found to be dependent on the addition of ATP and an ATP generating system to the reaction mixture. In vitro DNA synthesis was stimulated and prolonged when p-hydroxymercuribenzoate was added to the isolated nuclei. Under these improved conditions virus DNA molecules which were initiated in vivo were completed in vitro, but most of the DNA molecules synthesized in vitro sedimented in sucrose gradients more slowly than herpes virion DNA. Denaturation of the in vitro labelled DNA molecules produced short single-stranded labelled DNA chains. Thus, under our improved in vitro conditions there was prolonged synthesis of DNA at a high rate, with the formation of both complete and incomplete virus DNA molecules.


This paper suggests a reflection on the educational potential offered by new technologies applied to the field of modern and classical literature, not only for study and scientific research, but also for academic education. Study and scientific research about humanities have greatly changed their physiognomy in recent years. The use of methodologies, logics and technologies is, in fact, associated with various kinds of media and digital resources. After an initial phase of conservatism, academic teaching of humanistic disciplines has increasingly adopted multimedia and e-learning strategies. I will therefore analyze some multimedia teaching tools for classical subjects as effective means for teaching, which do not simply constitute a transposition of the content, but are used as an equally effective method of transmission of the ancient literary heritage. The conclusion will focus on the heated debate about the relationship between humanistic literary culture and digital culture.


Examinations have their unique importance in every domain of human life, especially in education. Without their presence and use, the worth of any person in particular field cannot be determined. There had been various types of examinations used, modified and changed in different eras in the field of education. Now a days, the concept of SOLO taxonomy has emerged and adopted by Pakistani Government at primary level.
The study was entitled as "A study to evaluate the examination system at grade-V in Punjab based on SOLO Taxonomy". The major objectives included: (1) to investigate views of Teachers / Head teachers / AEOs / Dy. DEOs / DEOs / EDOs about the newly introduced examination system based on SOLO Taxonomy. (2) To analyze students' performance on an achievement test based on SOLO taxonomy. (3) To identify the weaknesses and strengths of the new examination system. (4) To suggest suitable measures for improvement of the new examination system. All the primary schools of Punjab, their administrators, heads, teachers and students were included in the population of the study. The study was confined to the nine districts of Punjab province; namely, Rawalpindi, Jhelum, Chakwal, Gujranwala, Lahore, Kasur, Dera Ghazi Khan, Multan, Muzaffar Garh. From each district, 12 schools were selected randomly, eight from rural areas and four from urban areas. The sample included students of 5th grade in hese schools who appeared in this examination conducted in April 2006, teachers concerned, head teachers concerned and respective AEOs (EE), DDOs (EE), DOs (EE), DOs (SE), EDOs (Edu). The total sample size was thus 930 (120 administrators, 360 teachers and 450 students).
Two questionnaires based on five-point Likert scale were used for the purpose of data collection from heads of secondary schools, and from teachers of secondary schools. For the pre- testing of the questionnaires, five administrators and ten primary school teachers were taken from district Attock.The investigator himself administered the questionnaires amon the respondents. Accordingly, questionnaires were modified in the light of their suggestions. Then the final editions of questionnaires were developed. The researcher visited all the targeted areas of Punjab personally. Data were tabulated, analyzed and interpreted categorywise.To analyze the data, chi-square as a statistical test was used. A self developed achievement test was also administered to students of 5th class based on SOLO Taxonomy to examine whether students did well on the new examination system. Students' scores were summarized through measures of central tendency and variability.
Major conclusions of the study were that majority of the respondents from administrative staff as well as teachers was of the view that they were satisfied with new examination system, that SOLO Taxonomy would increase authenticity of class V examination and increase student's learning, the innovation would increase burden on teachers while teaching in class, it would increase creative thinking among students, it can be used easily, and would increase the students' reading as well as writing skills. Majority of respondents from administrative staff was held that they arranged training for teachers before introducing SOLO taxonomy, they monitored that teachers used it in class and they checked papers which teachers conducted in class and teacher's role had become more important in examination based upon SOLO taxonomy. Most of the teachers stated that proper training was provided to them before introducing new examination system. SOLO Taxonomy was properly used by teachers in class, teachers covered whole syllabus step by step and they gave different activities to students in order to enable them go through examination. Most of the respondents from administration as well as teaching staff were of the view that papers based on this taxonomy were valid, reliable, objective and transparent. Marking system of these papers was easy as well as standardized, and it discouraged cramming and cheating. Majority of respondents from teachers as well as administrators was of the view that the new system of examination would lessen the chances of rote memorization and cramming among students. It was however revealed that papers based on this taxonomy were not easily available in market. Test performance of students showed that teachers were using this taxonomy in class; the concept was clear in the minds of students. In the test, 10 percent students obtained A+ grade, 15 percent students got A grade, 30 percent got B grade and 28 percent got C grade whereas 17 percent obtained D grade that approximates the normal distribution curve.


This paper sets out to identify centres of third-country nationals' self-organisation in the EU, specifically those centres that seek to increase their rights, and political and social influence. The discussion is placed within the framework of the theory of polycentricity, whereas the premise of this exercise is that such centres are an expression, and necessary feature, of the polycentric character of the EU. The paper confirms that third-country nationals' self-organisation is indeed taking place in the EU by showing the paths through which it manifests itself, by examining the causes and objectives for their self-organisation, and by, finally, considering whether self-organisation of third-country nationals can be considered polycentric. The paper concludes that, since third-country nationals are usually excluded from formal political institutions and processes in the EU, it is questionable whether their self- organisation can be considered sufficiently polycentric. This suggests that polycentric governance in the EU remains reserved for 'insiders' – EU citizens – and a significant and growing number of individuals on the EU territory remains only partially included or even excluded. This points to a structural deficiency within the EU and raises the question whether the EU can be polycentric without including all individuals present on the EU's territory.


Renewable energy, produced with widely available low-cost energy resources, is often included as a component of national strategies to address energy security and sustainability. Market and political forces cannot disrupt the sun or wind, unlike oil and gas supplies. However, the cost of renewable energy is highly dependent on technologies manufactured through global supply chains in leading manufacturing countries. The countries that contribute to the global supply chains may take actions that, directly or indirectly, influence global access to materials and components. For example, high-purity polysilicon, a key material in solar photovoltaics, has experienced significant price fluctuations, affecting the manufacturing capacity and cost of both polysilicon and solar panels. This study developed and validated an initial system dynamics framework to gain insights into global trade in polysilicon. The model represents an initial framework for exploration. Three regions were modeled—China, the United States, and the rest of the world—for a range of trade scenarios to understand the impacts of import duties and non-price drivers on the relative volumes of imports and domestic supply. The model was validated with the historical case of China imposing an import duty on polysilicon from the United States, the European Union, and South Korea, which altered the regional flows of polysilicon—in terms of imports, exports, and domestic production—to varying degrees. As expected, the model tracked how regional demand shares and influx volumes decrease as a duty on a region increases. Using 2016 as a reference point, in the scenarios examined for U.S. exports to China, each 10% increase in the import duty results in a 40% decrease in import volume. The model also indicates that, under the scenarios investigated, once a duty has been imposed on a region, the demand share from that region declines and does not achieve pre-duty levels, even as global demand increases. Adding additional countries and other components in the photovoltaic supply chain (panels, cells, wafers) to this model could enable policymakers to better understand the relative impact of trade measures across the entire photovoltaic module manufacturing supply chain and the conditions that encourage industry evolution and competitiveness.


Randomized checkpoint searches are generally taken to be the exact antithesis of reasonableness under the Fourth Amendment. In the eyes of most jurists checkpoint searches violate the central requirement of valid Fourth Amendment searches-namely, individualized suspicion. We disagree. In this Article, we contend that randomized searches should serve as the very lodestar of a reasonable search. The notion of "individualized" suspicion is misleading; most suspicion in the modem policing context is group based and not individual specific. Randomized searches by definition are accompanied by a certain level of suspicion. The constitutional issue, we maintain, should not turn on the question of suspicion-based versus suspicionless police searches, but on the level of suspicion that attaches to any search program and on the evenhandedness of the program. In essence, we argue for a new paradigm of randomized encounters that satisfy a base level of suspicion and that will provide the benefits of both privacy protection (by ensuring a minimum level of suspicion) and evenhandedness (by cabining police discretion), the very values we wish to protect through the Fourth Amendment.


Jan Van Ruusbroec (1293-1381), a Flemish mystical theologian, was one of the most original Trinitarian thinkers in the medieval West. Yet, his works - written in Middle-Dutch - have remained relatively unknown. In this book, Rik Van Nieuwenhove presents the first major study in English of Ruusbroec's thought. Van Nieuwenhove explores in detail Ruusbroec's theology of the Trinity, his anthropology, Christology, and his understanding of union with God. Van Nieuwenhove's study reveals that Ruusbroec, while incorporating aspects of the rich theological and spiritual tradition that preceded him, wrote at the beginning of a modern age in which mystical theology changed radically in nature. Ruusbroec claimed that the divine Persons are subject to an eternal dynamic of procession or out-going from the Father, on the one hand, and returning to the shared divine essence, on the other. The human person is called to participate in this continuous ebbing and flowing by leading a life that combines contemplation and charitable activity. Ruusbroec argued that mysticism should be interpreted in terms of a transformation of the human person rather than in terms of an immediate experience of God. Jan van Ruusbroec, Mystical Theologian of the Trinity is an innovative, original study of one of late medieval theology's undiscovered treasures. Written in clear, accessible language, this new interpretation of Ruusbroec's theology will appeal to all those interested in mysticism, medieval theology, and the doctrine of the Trinity.


Nodes communicate through wireless links in the absence of fixed infrastructure in Mobile ad-hoc network (MANET). The two basic routing on the basis of security purpose are cryptographic and trust based mechanism which have been used for performing fundamental functions like message sending, data transmission etc in MANET. Though several trust based protocols have been developed, but most of them are incapable of satisfying the serious problems like resource utilization and reliable trust computation simultaneously in the field of ad-hoc network due to their high overhead and low flexibility. In this work, we have designed a new enhanced and reliable trust management scheme for clustered ad-hoc network based on Bayesian methods which is able to minimize the memory space requirement that ultimately results in better resource utilization. The mathematical analysis shows that, our trust management scheme is efficient in terms of protection against the deceptive behaviour of malicious cluster-members (CMs) and cluster-heads (CHs) both at the intra and inter-cluster levels in MANET.


The dynamism, competitiveness, and scope of work forces organizations to utilize teams with boundaries that are fluid, overlapping, and often disagreed upon. These traits – which I argue are frequently not reflected in the way in which we characterize teams in our thinking and theorizing – are all deeply tied to teams' boundedness. Using a review of the past 25 years of teams research I explore the extent to which these characteristics are reflected in our scholarship. I outline the serious theoretical and methodological implications of this divergence between our theories and teams in practice and identify key issues that arise when theories based on well-bounded teams are applied to unbounded- or weaklybounded teams. I provide concrete recommendations for how to design future studies in terms of both theory and methods and highlight key questions regarding how we think about and in some cases define teams and their boundaries.


The World, mainly due to Encroaching & Dominating Multi -facet Politics & Isms galore, Policies of Political Economy exacerbated by Numerous pockets of Counter Productive Systems with prosperous Middlemen, Well- fed, Secured & ever mounting Talkers, Opportunism, Selfishness, Misuses & Wastage, has been shrinking, while half the population,including One billion Children, is living in an environment of Slow Deaths due to Starvation, Poverty, & Utter Helplessness, and 'the growing inequality between and within Nations shows no sign of abating'. Never in the history, the Humanity has been threatened with so much of Professionalism, Sophistry, Acrimony, Noises, Polarizations, Disorders, Disintegration, Bloodshed, Volatility, and alarming Eco-Destructions, requiring redressing of the entire structure. With the Propounds Logically innovated, Large scale Reforms of the Vital Areas those affect the Policies & Structure of the Politics, Political Economy, Government, Business, et al & Our Life & Living World over, have been suggested, so as to evolve a Pleasant, Peaceful, Rational, Productive, & Ethical Humane & Symbiotic World, and an Assurance for the Progeny. Of course, there would be oppositions from all those Counter productive Professionals, as happened in the history of Civilization, who have been enjoying Command & Prosperity, t by manipulations & maneuverings.


The paper deals with the problem of fault detection in an automobile engine employing an artificial neural network (ANN). The Fault Detection and Isolation (FDI) is not an easy task for an inexperienced mechanic or driver because it needs a lot of knowledge and experience. Many times, the trial and error approach is seen to be applied to detect the fault and because of that, the engine may get more damaged instead of getting repaired. To overcome such type of problem, the new approach has been suggested to diagnose the fault correctly without opening the engine. Therefore, this paper presents the model based technique to detect the Air Filter Fault (FF) and Spark Plug Fault(SP) in a Four Strokes Engine using a single sensor. The Hero Honda Passion Four Stroke (HHPFS) engine is used for experimentation. The Artificial Neural Networks have been employed to classify the faults correctly. Performances of Multilayer Perception Neural Network (MLP NN) and Support Vector Machine (SVM) have been compared on the basis of Average Classification Accuracy (ACA) and finally, the optimal Neural Network has been designed for the best performance.


Two apparently distinct approaches to studying the observed low frequency variability in the atmosphere have evolved over the past few years. One approach invokes multiple, recurrent flow regimes to explain the observed variability. An alternative approach involves the linear stability properties of the climatological mean flow. In the present study, these approaches are merged to understand the different stability properties of the basic states associated with different flow regimes. In particular, the different zonally asymmetric components of the regime basic states lead to differing stability properties that in turn may explain the transition mechanism between regimes. This is particularly true for the transition between an amplified atmospheric planetary wave flow regime and a zonal regime. The observed transition streamfunction anomaly pattern compares very well to the most unstable stationary eigenmode of a linear stability calculation for both the barotropic and two-level baroclinic case studied. However, the growth rate of the barotropic case is too slow compared to observations and it is quite sensitive to the dissipation rate and the resolution of the calculation. In the baroclinic case, the same eigenmode appears but with a faster growth rate and more structural stability. Within the constraints of a two-layer model, the effect of baroclinicity is to remove the dependence on dissipation rate of the growth rate of the most unstable barotropic mode, allowing fast growth without sensitivity to chosen parameters. The most unstable stationary baroclinic eigenmode strongly resembles the anomaly pattern of the observed transition. The energetics of the growing mode involves extraction of energy from the zonally asymmetric flow in agreement with observations. Experiments with greatly increased dissipation reveal very little sensitivity of the growth rate of this stationary eigenmode to the rate of dissipation. Alternatively, the eigenmodes for the opposite transition considered, from the zonal to amplified wave regime, are different from this former case in terms of structure, growth rate and energetics. Therefore, we conclude that the linear stability properties of the atmospheric flow are a function of the amplitude of the zonal asymmetries in the antecedent regime basic state, and that the dynamics of the transitions between regimes might be understood within the context of the linear instability properties of the regime basic states.


Manganese toxicity is one of the growth limiting factors under acidic
conditions. Some plants accumulate Mn more in the top than in the root, while
others accumulate more in the root than in the top. Vegetable soybean is an
indicator plant that can be used to determine the mechanism of toxicity. Part of
the plant tissue that accumulates the highest Mn needs to be extracted so as to
determine the activity of superoxide dismutase (SOD). In view of this, a series
of experiments was conducted to determine the accumulation of Mn in the
tissues (leaf, stem, root and pod) of vegetable soybean, toxic level of Mn in
solution culture, time-dependent of Mn accumulation in the tissue and the effect of Mn concentration on superoxide dismutase activity under different time of
plant growth.
Five experiments were conducted in glass house and laboratories at
UPM. Experiment 1 was a sand culture experiment to determine the distribution
of Mn accumulation in the plant tissues. Experiment 2 and 3 were solution
culture experiments to observe toxic level of Mn. Experiment 4 was used to
determine time-dependent of Mn accumulation, while experiment 5 was used to
study the effect of Mn and time on superoxide dismutase activity.
The results showed that the highest accumulation of Mn in vegetable
soybean was in the leaves. The Mn concentration corresponding to 20%
reduction in dry weight was 20 uM. Plant accumulated Mn more during
vegetative stage compared to generative stage. Increasing the time of growth
decreased the accumulation of Mn in the 5 and 25 uM of Mn treatments
Degeneration of plant cell in toxic condition (25 uM) affected the growth of plant
and inhibited nutrient movement from the root to the shoot. Enzyme extraction
showed that the activity of superoxide dismutase increased up to 25.36 umol
m L-1 of crude enzyme minute-1 at level 15 uM after 20 days of plant age in
solution culture.


Abstract. Only very few long-term records of formaldehyde (HCHO) exist that are suitable for trend analysis. Furthermore, many uncertainties remain as to its diurnal cycle, representing a large short-term variability superimposed on seasonal and inter-annual variations that should be accounted for when comparing ground-based observations to, e.g., model results. In this study, we derive a multi-decadal time series (January 1988–June 2015) of HCHO total columns from ground-based high-resolution Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) solar spectra recorded at the high-altitude station of Jungfraujoch (Swiss Alps, 46.5° N, 8.0° E, 3580 m a. s. l. ), allowing for the characterization of the mid-latitudinal atmosphere for background conditions. First we investigate the HCHO diurnal variation, peaking around noontime and mainly driven by the intra-day insolation modulation and methane (CH4) oxidation. We also characterize quantitatively the diurnal cycles by adjusting a parametric model to the observations, which links the daytime to the HCHO columns according to the monthly intra-day regimes. It is then employed to scale all the individual FTIR measurements on a given daytime in order to remove the effect of the intra-day modulation for improving the trend determination and the comparison with HCHO columns simulated by the state-of-the-art GEOS-Chem v9-02 chemical transport model. Such a parametric model will be useful to scale the Jungfraujoch HCHO columns on satellite overpass times in the framework of future calibration/validation efforts of space-borne sensors. GEOS-Chem sensitivity tests suggest then that the seasonal and inter-annual HCHO column variations above Jungfraujoch are predominantly led by the atmospheric CH4 oxidation, with a maximum contribution of 25 % from the anthropogenic non-methane volatile organic compound precursors during wintertime. Finally, trend analysis of the so-scaled 27-year FTIR time series reveals a long-term evolution of the HCHO columns in the remote troposphere to be related to the atmospheric CH4 fluctuations and the short-term OH variability: +2.9 % year−1 between 1988 and 1995, −3.7 % year−1 over 1996–2002 and +0.8 % year−1 from 2003 onwards.


As of today, the Sariçiçek (SC) meteorite is the newest howardite and the only confirmed fall among the 17 known howardites. In this study, we present isotopic, infrared, and Raman data on three distinct pieces of the SC meteorite. Our oxygen isotopic measurements show that Δ17O values of the pieces are close to each other, and are in good agreement with other howardites, eucrites, and diogenites. The carbon isotopic measurements, which were conducted by combusting terrestrial contamination selectively at temperatures lower than 500–600 °C, show the presence of indigenous carbon in the SC specimens. The matrix of these specimens, investigated via infrared microspectroscopy, appears to be dominated by clinopyroxene/orthopyroxene, forsterite, and fayalite, with minor contributions from ilmenite, plagioclase, and enstatite. Carbon‐rich regions were mapped and studied via Raman imaging microspectroscopy, which reveals that both amorphous and graphitic carbon exist in these samples. Synchrotron‐based infrared microspectroscopy data show the presence of very little aliphatic and aromatic hydrocarbons. The SC meteorite is suggested to be originating from the Antonia impact crater in the Rheasilvia impact basin on 4 Vesta (Unsalan et al. 2019). If this is in fact the case, then the carbon phases present in the SC samples might provide clues regarding the impactor material (e.g., carbonaceous chondrites).


This paper concerns two practices, public consultation and user involvement, whose adoption has been urged upon the UK National Health Service in recent years. Public consultation is a local attempt to seek the views of a broad constituency of persons. User involvement is a local attempt to include organized groups of service users in the planning, and occasionally the management, of such services. The paper has four objectives. First, it locates the topic in the context of several related current debates. Second, it outlines the main findings of a recent empirical study of public consultation as they relate to the above debates. Third, it summarizes the relevant findings of an empirical study of user involvement. Finally, it examines these two practices as "technologies of legitimation" which can be seen as a means by which managerial legitimacy is maintained in the context of an increasingly pluralistic policy arena.


In this seasonal study, we examined the environmental controls and quantitative importance of bacterial carbon consumption in the water column and the sediment in the subarctic Kobbefjord, Greenland. Depth‐integrated bacterial production in the photic zone varied from 5.0 ± 2.7 mg C m−2 d−1 in February to 42 ± 28 mg C m−2 d−1 in May and 34 ± 7 mg C m−2 d−1 in September, corresponding to a bacterial production to primary production ratio of 0.34 ± 0.14, 0.07 ± 0.04, and 0.08 ± 0.06, respectively. Based on measured bacterial growth efficiencies (BGEs) of 0.09–0.10, pelagic bacterial carbon consumption was 54 ± 59 mg C m−2 d−1, 1194 ± 329 mg C m−2 d−1, and 689 ± 115 mg C m−2 d−1 in February, May, and September, respectively, which corresponded to 367%, 71%, and 87% of pelagic primary production. The average annual sediment respiration corresponded to 121 mg C m−2 d−1 and accounted for 17% of total microbial respiration in the system. Concentration of bioavailable dissolved organic carbon (BDOC) ranged from 144 ± 37 µg C L−1 in the riverine input to the fjord to a maximum of 341 ± 37 µg C L−1 in the surface waters in September. Parallel enrichment experiments showed that bacterial production and BGE were positively correlated with BDOC concentration, suggesting that organic carbon availability was limiting bacterial activity and carbon conversion efficiency. Viral production was low (0.8–1.8 × 104 viruses mL−1 h−1) as compared to low‐latitude environments, suggesting a relatively small effect of viruses on bacterial mortality (4–36% of cell production) and carbon cycling. Heterotrophic bacterial consumption was closely coupled with autochthonous BDOC production, and the majority of the primary production was consumed by pelagic bacteria at all seasons. The relatively low measured BGE emphasized the importance of solid on‐site BGE estimates for assessing carbon budgets in marine environments.


The surfaces of iron-containing sulphide minerals were oxidised by a range of inorganic oxidants, and the resultant surface alteration products studied using various spectroscopic techniques. The characterisation of surface oxidation is relevant to the alteration of ores in nature and their behaviour during flotation and leaching, of importance to the metallurgical industry. The sulphides investigated included pyrite (FeS2), hexagonal pyrrhotine (Fe9S10), monoclinic pyrrhotine (Fe7Se), violarite (FeNi2S4), pentlandite ((FeiNi)9Se), chalcopyrite (CuFeS2) and arsenopyrite (FeAsS). The surfaces were oxidised by various methods including acid (sulphuric), alkali (ammonium hydroxide), hydrogen peroxide, steam, electrochemical and air/oxygen (in a low-temperature (150oC) furnace), The surfaces were examined using surface sensitive chemical spectroscopic methods including x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (ms), Auger electron spectroscopy (LES) and conversion electron Mossbauer spectroscopy (CEKS). Physical characterisation of the surfaces was undertaken using scanning electron microscopy (SM), spectral reflectance measurements and optical microscopy. Bulk characterisation of the sulphide minerals was undertaken using x-ray diffraction and electron microprobe techniques. Observed phases suggested to form in most of the sulphide surfaces include Fe204, Fe1-x0, Fe202, Fe00H, Fe(OH)3, with iron II & III oxy-sulphates. The iron sulphides show variable extents of oxidation, indicating pyrite to be the most stable. Violarite shows stability to oxidation, suggested to result from both its stable spinel crystal structure, and from the rapid formation of sulphur at the surface protecting the sub-surface from further oxidation. The phenomenon of sub-surface enrichment (in metals), forming secondary sulphides, is exhibited by pentlandite and chalcopyrite, forming violarite and copper sulphides respectively. The consequences of this enrichment with regard to processing and leaching are discussed. Arsenopyrite, often a hindrance in ore processing, exhibits the formation of arsenic compounds at the surface, the dissolution of which is discussed in view of the possible environmental hazard caused by the local pollution of water systems. The results obtained allow a characterisation of the sulphides in terms of their relative stability to oxidation, and an order of stability of the sulphide surfaces is proposed. Models were constructed to explain the chemical compositions of the surfaces, and the inter-relationships between the phases determined at the surface and in the sub-surface. These were compared to the thermo-chemically predicted phases shown in Eh/pH and partial pressure diagrams! The results are discussed, both in terms of the mineralogy and geochemistry of natural ores, and the implications for extraction and processing of these ore minerals.


The thermocapillary convection is induced along a liquid-vapor interface due to surface tension gradient which is temperature dependent. Due to the large increase in surface area relative to volume, surface tension has a dominant effect on the fluid behavior in a capillary structure. Evaporation of a thin film induces temperature gradient and hence surface tension gradient along the liquid-vapor interface, leading to Marangoni convection which is regarded as thermocapillary flow. The evaporation of a liquid thin film is governed by the transport processes of the working fluid, thus the selection of appropriate working fluid for a designated range of operating temperature is of vital importance in delineating the thermal performance of a two-phase capillary structure. The impact of thermocapillary effect on the thermal and fluid flow behaviors of an evaporating thin liquid film is investigated in this thesis. By employing the long-wave evolution model, a mathematical model based on first principles for fluid flow and heat transfer is derived for the interface shapes that govern the thickness of the evaporating thin film. The two-dimensional information of the liquid temperature which is a prerequisite for the incorporation of the thermocapillary effect can be obtained. The evaporation rate is overrated when the thermocapillary effect is neglected and the overestimate increases with increasing excess temperature.
The theoretical model is further deployed to investigate the effect of thermo-physical properties on the impact of thermocapillary effect on different types of working fluids, i.e. polar and non-polar liquids. The temperature gradients induced by different degree of thermo-physical properties are closely associated with the Marangoni number in justifying the significance of thermocapillary effect in an evaporating thin liquid film. Surface tension gradient induced by temperature gradient is usually in the negative linear variation form. The thermocapillary flow provoked by the negative surface tension gradient retards the liquid circulation and impedes evaporation process. Water portrays a unique thermocapillary characteristic where the thermocapillary flow manifests in the form of swirls along the liquid-vapor interface at a large excess temperature. By introducing the dilute aqueous solution (DAS) of long-chain alcohol, the temperature dependence surface tension can be modified into a quadratic function to analyse the thermocapillary action engendered by the positive surface tension gradient of DAS in the evaporating thin liquid film. To investigate the thermocapillary effect on the thermal and fluid flow characteristics of the pseudoplastic fluid, the Ostwald-de Waele power law model is employed. The power-law model is developed with the power-law index ranges between 0 to 1 for pseudoplastic (shear-thinning) fluids. The significance of thermocapillary effect in the pseudoplastic fluid is determined by the critical Marangoni number. Results show that the total heat transfer rate of both Newtonian and pseudoplastic fluids is overestimated with the presence of thermocapillary effect and the overestimate is comparatively pronounced in the Newtonian fluid compared to the pseudoplastic fluid. This study reveals the conditions under which the thermocapillary effect is significant and should not be neglected in the heat transfer analysis of an evaporating thin film.


Underwater wireless information transfer is of great interest to the military, industry, and the scientific community, as it plays an important role in tactical surveillance, pollution monitoring, oil control and maintenance, offshore explorations, climate change monitoring, and oceanography research. In order to facilitate all these activities, there is an increase in the number of unmanned vehicles or devices deployed underwater, which require high bandwidth and high capacity for information transfer underwater. Although tremendous progress has been made in the field of acoustic communication underwater, however, it is limited by bandwidth. All this has led to the proliferation of underwater optical wireless communication (UOWC), as it provides higher data rates than the traditional acoustic communication systems with significantly lower power consumption and simpler computational complexities for short-range wireless links. UOWC has many potential applications ranging from deep oceans to coastal waters. However, the biggest challenge for underwater wireless communication originates from the fundamental characteristics of ocean or sea water; addressing these challenges requires a thorough understanding of complex physio-chemical biological systems. In this paper, the main focus is to understand the feasibility and the reliability of high data rate underwater optical links due to various propagation phenomena that impact the performance of the system. This paper provides an exhaustive overview of recent advances in UOWC. Channel characterization, modulation schemes, coding techniques, and various sources of noise which are specific to UOWC are discussed. This paper not only provides exhaustive research in underwater optical communication but also aims to provide the development of new ideas that would help in the growth of future underwater communication. A hybrid approach to an acousto-optic communication system is presented that complements the existing acoustic system, resulting in high data rates, low latency, and an energy-efficient system.


A low cost cryogenic expander system that incorporates a high performance, high-speed permanent magnet generator and low loss magnetic bearings is described. The expander system will be used in industrial air separation plants that produce gases such as nitrogen, oxygen, and argon using a cryogenic distillation process. Magnetic bearings enable the key advantage of a completely oil-free system that reduces the risk of accidental contamination of the process. A single generator/bearing module was designed to accommodate a wide range of expander aerodynamic stages that operate at different speeds and power levels ranging from 9,000 RPM to 30,000 RPM and 10 kW to 165 kW. Shop testing of the unit to 30,000 rpm was completed in December 2003. The prototype unit will undergo additional loop testing at the system manufacturer's facility and is scheduled for field installation in mid 2004. System design and test results are presented.


Background and purpose: Quality of surface waters is important for different uses and identification of contaminated sites and pollutants leads to appropriate use of water. So, the aim of this study was to evaluate the quality of water Babolrood. Materials and methods: In this cross-sectional study, sampling was conducted in ten stations during summer 2013. Data was analyzed using National Sanitation Foundation Water Quality Index (NSFWQI) and SPSS, and then the river's path was zoned by Geographic Information System (GIS). Results: Based on NSFWQI, the best status was found in second station (79, good) and the worst was observed in station 10 (52, moderate). Conclusion: Based on NSFWQI, the quality of river was good in upstream and moderate in downstream, indicating human as the main responsible for low quality of water. © 2016, Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences. All right reserved.


The multiple fault diagnosis problem is important, since the single fault assumption can lead to incorrect or failed diagnoses when multiple faults occur. It is challenging for continuous systems, because faults can mask or compensate each other's effects, and the solution space grows exponentially with the number of possible faults. We present a qualitative approach to multiple fault isolation in dynamic systems based on analysis of fault transient behavior. Our approach uses the observed measurement deviations and their temporal orderings to generate multiple fault hypotheses. The approach has polynomial space requirements and prunes diagnoses, resulting in an efficient online fault isolation scheme.


Given the important role that meta-cognitive processes play in learning, intelligent tutoring systems should not only provide domain-specific assistance, but should also aim to help students in acquiring meta-cognitive skills. As a step toward this goal, we have constructed a Help Tutor, aimed at improving students' help-seeking skill. The Help Tutor is based on a cognitive model of students' desired help-seeking processes, as they work with a Cognitive Tutor (Aleven et al., 2004). To provide meta-cognitive tutoring in conjunction with cognitive tutoring, we designed an architecture in which the Help Tutor and a Cognitive Tutor function as independent agents, to facilitate re-use of the Help Tutor. Pilot tests with four students showed that students improved their help-seeking behavior significantly while working with the Help Tutor. The improvement could not be attributed to their becoming more familiar with the domain-specific skills being taught by the tutor. Although students reported afterwards that they welcomed feedback on their help-seeking behavior, they seemed less fond of it when actually advised to act differently while working. We discuss our plans for an experiment to evaluate the impact of the Help Tutor on students' help-seeking behavior and learning, including future learning, after their work with the Help Tutor.


This paper directly challenges the persisting argument that in the host–(uninvited) guest relationship of Kimberley coastal tourism in Australia's far northwest, Traditional Owners (the hosts) have a pedagogic responsibility to first educate the tourism industry (the guests) of their impacts on them in order to facilitate culturally appropriate and sustainable tourism experiences. We contend that such an argument reflects a deeply entrenched context of erasure and power imbalance between Australian Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people. We highlight, using three decades of public records, the fact that government and industry have ignored and continue to ignore knowledge and learning shared by Kimberley Aboriginal peoples in attempts to rectify serious issues of cultural impacts and risks to visitors arising from unsanctioned tourism activities on Traditional Owners' land and sea country. We argue for the possibility of tourism operating in a mutually satisfactory hybrid space in which acknowledgement, tolerance and respect discharges the need for understanding different ontologies that operate within that space but provides the potential for learning. Using Bourdieu's notion of transformative practice, we propose that the development of such a hybrid space could transform the problem of unsanctioned tourism access to the Kimberley coast into an iteration that could facilitate its taming and thus a shift towards sustainable practices based on mutual recognition and respect.


Proteins of the YgfZ family occur in all domains of life and are characterized by the conserved dodecapeptide motif KGC[Y/F]-x-GQE-x(3) -[R/K]. YgfZ proteins are known to participate in assembly or repair of iron/sulphur clusters, and to require folate for biological activity, but their mechanism of action is unknown. To assess the importance of individual residues in the conserved motif, Escherichia coli Ygf Z was expressed from a plasmid in a ΔygfZ strain and subjected to alanine-scanning mutagenesis. The impacts on YgfZ functionality were evaluated by assays of growth and of the in vivo activity of the iron/sulphur enzyme MiaB, which modifies tRNA. By these criteria, the motif's tyrosine residue (Y229) had a detectable influence but only the cysteine residue (C228) was critical, for only the C228A mutant failed to complement the growth and MiaB activity phenotypes of the ΔygfZ strain. Immunoblots confirmed that the latter result was not simply because of a low level of the C228A mutant protein. Collectively, these data demonstrate a pivotal role for the Ygf Z motif's cysteine residue and a subsidiary one for the adjacent tyrosine, and help formulate a hypothesis about the folate requirement of Ygf Z proteins.


3GPP LTE is the evolution of the UMTS in response to ever-increasing demands for high quality multimedia services according to users' expectations. Since downlink is always an important factor in coverage and capacity aspects, special attention has been given in selecting technologies for LTE downlink. Novel technologies such as orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) and multiple input, multiple output (MIMO), can enhance the performance of the current wireless communication systems. The high data rates and the high capacity can be attained by using the advantages of the two technologies. These technologies have been selected for LTE downlink. Pilot-assisted channel estimation is a method in which known signals, called pilots, are transmitted along with data to obtain channel knowledge for proper decoding of received signals. This thesis aims at channel estimation for LTE downlink. Channel estimation algorithms such as Least Squares (LS), Minimum Mean Square Error (MMSE) haven been evaluated for different channel models in LTE downlink. Performance of these algorithms has been measured in terms of Bit Error Rate (BER) and Symbol Error Rate (SER).


The task of trying to determine the movement pattern of objects based on available databases is a daunting one. Tracking the movement of these dynamic objects is important in different areas to understand the higher order patterns of movement that carry special meaning for a target application. However this is still a largely unsolved problem and recent work has focused on the relationships of moving point objects with stationary objects or landmarks on a map. Global Position System (GPS) is a widely used satellite-based navigation system. Popular use of these devices has produced large collections of data, some of which have been archived. These archived data sets and sometimes real time GPS data are now readily available over the internet and their analysis through computational methods can generate meaningful insights. These insights when applied appropriately can be used in everyday life. The purpose of this research is to make the case that automated analysis can provide insight that can otherwise be difficult to achieve due to the large volume and noisy characteristics of GPS data. We present experiments that have been performed on one of these archived databases which contain GPS traces of 536 yellow cabs in the San Francisco Bay area. Using data analysis, we determine the most visited tourist destinations within the San Francisco Bay area during the time period of the captured data. We also propose a probabilistic framework, which determines the probability of a new routing pattern using previous patterns. We use simulated routing patterns built on the same data format as that of the San Francisco cab data to predict the possible routes to be taken by a vehicle. All the probability calculations performed are done using Bayes' theorem of conditional probability formula.


This paper analyzes how national institutional factors affect the adoption of the international environmental management standard ISO 14001, using a panel of 139 countries from 1996 to 2006. The analysis emphasizes that during the emerging phase of the standard, the potential lack of consensus within the constituents of the national institutional environment concerning the value of a new standard could send mixed signals to firms about the standard. The results show that in the early phase of adoption, regulative and normative forces within the institutional environment can work against each other. Results also show that regulative or coercive forces play a relatively more important role in the early phase of adoption of the standard than in the subsequent phases of diffusion. In the later phases of diffusion of ISO 14001, normative forces, such as the diffusion of other management standards, as well as factors related to trade, play a more important role. Because of the similarities between environmental management standards and corporate social responsibility standards, this study can help identify some of the challenges for diffusion of ISO management standards in the area of social responsibility.


Objectives Technology-enabled non-invasive diagnostic screening (TES) using smartphones and other point-of-care medical devices was evaluated in conjunction with conventional routine health screenings for the primary care screening of patients. Design Dental conditions, cardiac ECG arrhythmias, tympanic membrane disorders, blood oxygenation levels, optic nerve disorders and neurological fitness were evaluated using FDA-approved advanced smartphone powered technologies. Routine health screenings were also conducted. A novel remote web platform was developed to allow expert physicians to examine TES data and compare efficacy with routine health screenings. Setting The study was conducted at a primary care centre during the 2015 Kumbh Mela in Maharashtra, India. Participants 494 consenting 18–90 years old adults attending the 2015 Kumbh Mela were tested. Results TES and routine health screenings identified unique clinical conditions in distinct patients. Intraoral fluorescent imaging classified 63.3% of the population with dental caries and periodontal diseases. An association between poor oral health and cardiovascular illnesses was also identified. Tympanic membrane imaging detected eardrum abnormalities in 13.0% of the population, several with a medical history of hearing difficulties. Gait and coordination issues were discovered in eight subjects and one subject had arrhythmia. Cross-correlations were observed between low oxygen saturation and low body mass index (BMI) with smokers (p=0.0087 and p=0.0122, respectively), and high BMI was associated with elevated blood pressure in middle-aged subjects. Conclusions TES synergistically identified clinically significant abnormalities in several subjects who otherwise presented as normal in routine health screenings. Physicians validated TES findings and used routine health screening data and medical history responses for comprehensive diagnoses for at-risk patients. TES identified high prevalence of oral diseases, hypertension, obesity and ophthalmic conditions among the middle-aged and elderly Indian population, calling for public health interventions.


Purpose: This study aimed to investigate the effect of smoking duration, smoked cigarettes per day and smoking cessation period on pulmonary function among ex-smokers: based on the 6th Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (KNHANES). Methods: This study was analyzed using the 6th KNHANES data. Pulmonary function tests were performed on a total of 4,214 adults (>40 years old). A total of 770 adults ex-smokers were eligible for inclusion in the final analysis. Forced vital capacity (FVC), forced expiratory volume in one second (FEV1) and FEV1/FEV were measured to evaluate pulmonary function. Results: This study showed that there were significant differences in both FEV1 and FVC values based on gender, age and height, among ex-smokers. FEV1/FVC significantly differed by age, height and the smoking duration prior to smoking cessation. Multiple regression analysis revealed that, FEV1/FVC accounted for 26.0% of the variance by age, height and smoking duration. There was a difference in the mean value of FEV1/FVC with or without smoking for more than 10 years. Conclusion: This study's findings show that smoking for over 10 years in an ex-smoker can lead to problems with the respiratory system. The long-term cigarette has progressive ill effects on the respiratory system.


Turning off signaling pathways can be just as important for proper biological regulation as turning them on. The Notch signaling pathway controls development of the nervous system in Drosophila. Proteolysis of Notch appears to initiate signaling, but further proteolysis may also terminate signals from this pathway. Kopan discusses mechanisms that limit signaling by Notch, including recent evidence that degradation of specifically targeted proteins by the proteasome is required.


RFC 3175 specifies aggregation of Resource ReSerVation Protocol (RSVP)
end-to-end reservations over aggregate RSVP reservations. This
document specifies aggregation of RSVP end-to-end reservations over
MPLS Traffic Engineering (TE) tunnels or MPLS Diffserv-aware MPLS
Traffic Engineering (DS-TE) tunnels. This approach is based on RFC
3175 and simply modifies the corresponding procedures for operations
over MPLS TE tunnels instead of aggregate RSVP reservations. This
approach can be used to achieve admission control of a very large
number of flows in a scalable manner since the devices in the core of
the network are unaware of the end-to-end RSVP reservations and are
only aware of the MPLS TE tunnels. [STANDARDS-TRACK]


Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the most common neurodegenerative disorder associated with progressive dementia. The clinical symptoms of AD are cognitive and intellectual deficits and behavior dysfunction. EEG has been utilized for diagnosing dementias. There is a strong correlation between cognitive deficit and the degree of the EEG abnormality. EEG spectral analysis in AD patients has shown a decrease in the mean frequency, alpha (8–12 Hz) and beta (13–30 Hz) band powers with a parallel increase in delta (1–3 Hz) and theta (4–7 Hz) band powers compared with those of healthy elderly subjects (Dauwels, Vialatte, & Cichocki, 2011). The EEG abnormalities in AD indicate functional and anatomical impairment of the cerebral cortex affected by the disease. The neuropathology of AD is characterized by an enormous neuronal and synaptic loss in the cerebral cortex and certain subcortical regions, and the formation of pathological proteins (Serrano-Pozo, Frosch, Masliah, & Hyman, 2011). The degree of synaptic loss is the factor most correlated with the severity of AD and cognitive decline (Shankar & Walsh, 2009; Terry et al., 1991). Several experimental studies have found that the neurodegenerative process is accompanied by synaptic compensation mechanisms, "a homeostatic mechanism which maintains the excitatory response of individual neurons and prevents the catastrophic amnesia associated with synapse loss" (Small, 2004; Turrigiano, 2011, 2012). On an activity level, synaptic compensation senses and regulates the firing rate of the network at the neuron or network level (Frohlich, Bazhenov, & Sejnowski, 2008). Understanding neural activity and compensation mechanisms is a challenge given the limitation in current neuroimaging modalities and imaging brain activity at a microscopic level. Here we investigate the interplay between various synaptic degeneration and compensation mechanisms, and abnormal cortical oscillations based on a large-scale neural model. Results from the models are consistent with a range of human and animal model findings.