A pitched battle is currently being waged for control of the American banking industry. For over a hundred years, the federal and state governments have maintained a complex, but relatively stable truce in their contest for power. At the beginning of our republic, state governments were the primary charterers and regulators of banks. In the wake of the Civil War, the National Bank Act created parity between federal and state banks, cementing the notion of a dual banking system that endured through the twentieth century. But in the past five years, the federal government has increasingly used its powers under the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution to grab new authority for federal banking regulators and for federally chartered depository institutions. A series of controversial federal regulations have preempted the application of state consumer protection laws directed at prevention of predatory lending by national banks and thrifts. The preempted state laws address a recent rash of fraudulent, deceptive, and unconscionable lending that is having a corrosive effect on minority communities, senior citizens, and the entire lower middle class. In a related move, federal banking regulators have also recently preempted the application of state law to independent contractors of national banks and thrifts. This essay explains the potentially far reaching impact of federal preemption of state regulation of independent contractors. If these determinations are upheld, thousands of businesses, including insurance agents, mortgage brokers, and automobile dealers, will be placed beyond state oversight - provided that they have agency relationships with a national bank or thrift. Moreover, this essay uses economic agency cost theory to explore the potential for mischief posed by placing bank and thrift agents beyond the reach of state government. In particular, I argue that bank and thrift agents, by their nature, have lower incentives to forego predatory lending than the depository institutions themselves. Given the limited resources of federal banking regulators and their primary focus on safety and soundness, I conclude that preemption of state regulation of bank and thrift agents is currently inadvisable.


It can be difficult to acknowledge our own fragility. The equilibrium between a healthy environment, the energy our society needs to maintain or improve its usual lifestyle, and the world's interconnected economies can pass more quickly than expected from a delicate balance to an entirely new reality where human beings would need to be more creative than ever before to survive. The frequency and severity that certain weather and climate-related events are having around us are increasing, and the ability of human beings to modify our adjacent surroundings has turned into a power capable of altering the planet. Do the media arts have a role in all this?


Reversible logic is emerging as an important research area having its application in diverse fields such as low power CMOS design, digital signal processing, cryptography, quantum computing and optical information processing. This paper presents a new 4*4 universal reversible logic gate, IG. It is a parity preserving reversible logic gate, that is, the parity of the inputs matches the parity of the outputs. The proposed parity preserving reversible gate can be used to synthesize any arbitrary Boolean function. It allows any fault that affects no more than a single signal readily detectable at the circuit's primary outputs. Finally, it is shown how a fault tolerant reversible full adder circuit can be realized using only two IGs. It has also been demonstrated that the proposed design offers less hardware complexity and is efficient in terms of gate count, garbage outputs and constant inputs than the existing counterparts.


Managerialist principles have been applied within public services for a number of years but their ability to alter or improve public service has been questioned. This study examined the introduction of Best Value in the police service. Best Value was introduced to Police Authorities by the New Labour Government in the Local Government Act 1999 to ensure that all services provided by these authorities were 'delivered to clear standards'. In addition, they must take into account the cost and quality of all services and provide them in the most efficient, effective and economic manner. All services are subject to review over a five year period and should be reviewed in connection with the fours C' s, competition, comparison, challenge and consultation in order to achieve continuous improvement. In addition, Best Value aimed to change the organisation of the police service by encouraging a greater role for the Police Authorities in deciding how services were delivered, supported the opening up of the police to partnership arrangements and promoted the need for local innovation and ways of working. The main aim of the research was to look at the effects of these 'Best Value' policies on the police service and whether the implementation of these policies led to improvements in service delivery and the restructuring of the organisation as intended. This was achieved by selecting three case study areas and employing a number of research methods including semi-structured interviews, using documentary analysis and examining quantitative data. The study found that despite initial differences in the way the Best Value was implemented a fairly uniform approach was adopted in the three Police Authorities. It established that Best Value was encouraging the police service to make changes to the way that services were delivered. In addition, there was some evidence that Best Value had encouraged greater involvement of Police Authorities in deciding how services were delivered. Under Best Value change tended to be gradual and incorporated both national and local objectives. This incremental nature of change meant that as yet there was little evidence of improvements in measured performance.


Indicators are increasingly important in global governance. They are one element of "governance by information," and one expression of the growing importance of numerically expressed data and statistics in governance. (1) What are indicators, and what do they have to do with international law? These brief introductory remarks address these two questions. WHAT ARE INDICATORS? Indicators are not sharply different in nature and significance from other forms of quantification or other modes for simplifying and expressing data. Nonetheless, indicators have a cluster of features which, in aggregate, make special consideration of them useful. For purposes of inquiry into indicators as an important emerging technology in the practice of global governance, Davis, Kingsbury, and Merry define indicators in the following way: An indicator is a named collection of rank-ordered data that purports to represent the past or projected performance of different units. The data are generated through a process that simplifies raw data about a complex social phenomenon. The data, in this simplified and processed form, are capable of being used to compare particular units of analysis (such as countries or institutions or corporations), synchronically or over time, and to evaluate their performance by reference to one or more standards. (2) This working definition subsumes indexes, rankings, and composites which aggregate different indicators, although such aggregations or "mash-up" compilations raise many special issues. HOW ARE INDICATORS CONNECTED TO INTERNATIONAL LAW? Indicators frequently operate as standards. Indicators typically embody (although usually only implicitly rather than explicitly) an ideal, either through an understanding of what would make a good society or a better state of affairs, or through an account of a particular problem to be overcome. Many indicators also embody a view of causation by measuring elements which contribute to realization of the ideal or to the worsening or amelioration of the problem. Indicators are distinctive in that (typically) the indicator simultaneously articulates the standard and applies it. The flow of costs and benefits as incentives to perform better on an indicator may often be greater than the flows attached to legally binding instruments. Indicator-standards can have some of the same roles and features as legal standards: (a) Indicators can operate as an expression of values and political commitments, comparable in some ways to expressive functions of law. (b) Indicators can be used as part of the regulatory process for supervision or implementation of a legal standard. (c) An indicator, especially if highly authoritative and stable over time, can provide a focal point around which to align expectations. The World Bank Group's Doing Business indicators, Freedom House's Freedom in the World indicator, the World Economic Forum's Global Competitiveness Index, and the U.S. State Department's Trafficking in Persons indicator each seem to have operated as a focal point aligning expectations and influencing behavior, as have the U.S. News & World Report rankings of law schools within the United States. The influence of a focal point on behavior is heightened if use of the indicator becomes sufficiently embedded that network effects result. The system of letter-graded credit ratings for sovereign bonds is so embedded in legal rules and market practices (including requirements that some entities invest only in bonds rated as "investment grade") that network effects result, making major changes to the system more costly and less likely. (d) Some of the pathways through which indicators can influence expectations, social categories, status relations, behavior, and even identities are similar to those applicable to international legal instruments. These include naming, shaming, praising/ blaming, emulation, acculturation, information changing beliefs or strategic calculations, behavioral or identity adaptations of the indicated, empowerment or redefinition of the indicators promulgator, altering external power structures, altering distributions of power within an entity, and building or intensifying networks. …


Resources in the Grid exhibit different availability properties and patterns over time, mainly due to their administrators' policies for the Grid, and the different domains to which they belong, e.g. non-dedicated desktop Grids, on-demand systems, P2P systems etc. This diversification in availability properties makes availability-aware resource selection, for applications with different fault tolerance capabilities, a challenging problem. To address this problem, we introduce new availability metrics for resource availability comparison. We further predict resource availability considering their availability policies. We introduce a new resource availability predictor based on pattern matching through availability pattern recognition and classification for resource instance and duration availability, and compare it with other methods. Notably we are able to achieve an average accuracy of more than 80% in our predictions.


This thesis is a case-study of Slobodan Milosevic as a prototype of the "criminal" leader. Challenging the existing consensus among Western liberals, for whom Milosevic is unquestionably criminal, it asks whether and to what extent Milosevic is a criminal leader. It approaches this by first dissecting the Western construction of Milosevic as a criminal leader into its key components -- his actions and intentions, his motivations, his personality and psychology, and his comparison with other "criminal" leaders. This normative-driven construction is then empirically tested, using two main sources. The speeches of Milosevic, fundamentally misrepresented by many Western commentators, are analyzed. The second primary source used is semi-structured interviews (supported by public opinion poll data). Strongly influenced by bottom-up studies of the Hitler and Stalin regimes, two leaders that can be seen as crucial cases of the criminal leader, this research is particularly concerned with exploring how ordinary people in Serbia - heavily neglected in the existing Western literature - view Milosevic. This allows us to ascertain whether and to what extent the Western, liberal construction of Milosevic as a criminal leader has domestic/field validity. What the interview data reveals is a sharp discrepancy between the external (Western) and domestic (Serbian) viewpoints. The Serbian interviewees overwhelmingly view Milosevic not as a criminal leader, but as a "bad" (unsuccessful) leader and/or as a victim. This discrepancy is translated into, and used to develop, a general concept of the criminal leader. This conceptualization emphasizes both the externally constructed nature of the criminal leader (policy dimension) and the importance of studying the criminal leader from below (domestic dimension).


Paleoclimatologists face a dilemma. No sedimentary proxy is a pure recorder of quantitative climate information. Yet climate modelers and policy-makers increasingly seek quantitative comparisons between instrumentally documented, possibly anthropogenic, climate changes and those produced naturally in the past.

In the second edition of his influential book, Bradley (1999, p. 6) discussed the calibration of proxy records to learn past climate changes: "Calibration involves using modern climatic records and proxy materials to understand how, and to what extent, proxy materials are climate-dependent. It is assumed that the modern relationships observed have operated, unchanged, throughout the period of interest (the principle of uniformitarianism)." In other words, one relates the characteristics of sediment to climate at different places for one time, or at a place for short times, and then uses that relation plus characteristics of older sediments to estimate the climatic conditions that produced those sedimentary characteristics. Bradley (1999) then extensively discussed the difficulties in applying this methodology in a complex world with imperfect recorders; nonetheless, the goal of using calibrated proxies for quantitative as well as qualitative paleoclimatic reconstruction is clear.

A prominent recent use of calibrated paleoclimatic data is the assessment of whether the probably-anthropogenic warming of the latter 20th century moved beyond the band of natural variability of the prevailing climate. Bradley (2000) combined recent instrumental records with several longer proxy-based reconstructions of surface temperature including that of Mann et al. (1999). Based on this composite data set, Bradley (2000) argued that "temperatures in the late 20th century were unique in the context of the entire millennium". The proxy records were primarily based on tree-ring data, but included isotopic and major-element geochemistry of corals, and occurrence of melt layers and isotopic ratios of water in ice cores. However, Broecker (2001) questioned the basis for the reconstruction of …


Rivers carry the products of continental weathering, and continuously supply the oceans with a broad range of chemical constituents. This erosional signature is, however, uniquely moderated by biogeochemical processing within estuaries. Estuaries are commonly described as complex filters at land-sea margins, where significant transformations can occur due to strong physico-chemical gradients. These changes differ for different classes of elements, and can vary widely depending on the geographic location. U- and Th-series nuclides include a range of elements with vastly different characteristics and behaviors within such environments, and the isotopic systematics provide methods for investigating the transport of these nuclides and other analog species across estuaries and into the coastal ocean.

There are numerous types and definitions of estuaries (see Dyer 1973). In this paper, it is simply considered to be a region where freshwater and seawater mix, to emphasize the chemical focus of the issues involved here. This region can either be contained within a river channel or extend onto the shelf, with effects often extending well into an adjoining ocean basin (Fairbridge 1980). These are complex ecological, biogeochemical, and hydrodynamic systems, with strong gradients in the concentrations and composition of micro- and macro particulate matter as well as dissolved organic and inorganic species. Particle-reactive radionuclides and trace elements being transported across estuaries are subject to partitioning between the dissolved, colloidal and particulate phases. The variable chemical nature of the U- and Th-series radionuclides is evident in their distributions in an estuarine environment. Such radionuclides can effectively serve as tracers to identify the sources, fate and transport of particles and colloids as well as other pollutants that behave similarly to these nuclides. These nuclides also have a wide range of half-lives that can be used to examine processes over various time scales. For example, Th and Ra daughter isotopes have …


For better or worse, the United States has demonstrated a long history of support for agricultural biotechnology. Justified as necessary to meet the growing demands of our nation's food demand, federal policies addressing genetic engineering have attempted to balance of set of competing interests to ensure health and safety while also encouraging further innovation and development of technology. The unfortunate effects of these policies are suffered disproportionately by organic and non-GE farmers, as there has been little consideration of how the products of genetic engineering impact this sector. In the midst of regulating biotechnology, the federal government has lost sight of the fact that food production in the United States is not uniform, and each production method has an impact on the other. Recently, USDA Secretary Tom Vilasck reconvened the Advisory Committee on Biotechnology and the 21st Century ("AC21") to consider, among other things, how to develop a national policy that takes into account the different methods of food production in a more equitable manner. This article argues that, because current federal policies hamper the ability of organic and non-GE farmers to ensure the safety and authenticity of their products, the AC21 needs to meet its charge and reach consensus on USDA supported mechanisms that encourage and facilitate farmers to develop long term, viable solutions that address the interests of all parties to aid farmers in achieving some degree of coexistence.


To explore new stable polymeric nitrogen phases in alkali metal azides, the crystalline structures of potassium azide KN3, are systematically investigated up to 400 GPa by using unbiased structure searching methods combined with first principles density functional calculations. Two high-pressure phases of KN3, insulator C2/m phase with N 3 anions and metallic P6/mmm phase with "N6" rings were uncovered above 20 GPa and 41 GPa, respectively, which are consistent with recent theoretical works. Above 274 GPa, a stable C2/m-N phase featuring polymerized N is identified for the first time and it is energetically much superior to the previously proposed C2/m-II structure. This C2/m-N structure consists of zig-zag N polymer nets which can be naturally viewed as the polymerization of "N6" molecules rings in the low-pressure P6/mmm phase under increasing pressure. Furthermore, the structure evolutions and accompanied chemical bonding behavior of KN3 under pressure are also discussed.


Our knowledge of biological macromolecules and their interactions is based on the application of physical methods, ranging from classical thermodynamics to recently developed techniques for the detection and manipulation of single molecules. These methods, which include mass spectrometry, hydrodynamics, microscopy, diffraction and crystallography, electron microscopy, molecular dynamics simulations, and nuclear magnetic resonance, are complementary; each has its specific advantages and limitations. Organised by method, this textbook provides descriptions and examples of applications for the key physical methods in modern biology. It is an invaluable resource for undergraduate and graduate students of molecular biophysics in science and medical schools, as well as research scientists looking for an introduction to techniques beyond their specialty. As appropriate for this interdisciplinary field, the book includes short asides to explain physics aspects to biologists and biology aspects to physicists.


Recent efforts to conserve fisheries stocks have included such demand-side measures as consumer boycotts to reduce demand for specific species, and the promotion of aquaculture to reduce pressure on natural stocks. This article argues that these sorts of measures can be counter-productive. The economics of the commercial fishing industry are such that decreasing demand for particular species can often have the perverse effect of increasing industry effort to catch them. This means that consumer boycotts or efforts to promote aquaculture can have the effect of accelerating, rather than ameliorating, the depletion of overfished stocks. This proposition is tested on a panel data set, covering several species over a period of almost two decades, drawn from the New England fishery. We conclude that effective conservation of depleted fisheries requires supply-side regulation such as quotas.


This research work is focused on simulation of laser assisted
turning as a new solution for machining of hard steels. A transient,
three-dimensional model was developed to predict the temperature distribution
of a rotated cylindrical steel workpiece subjected to a localized heating using
a moving Gaussian laser beam. In this regard, a User-Defined Function
was created to overcome the problem of a moving Gaussian heat source' definition. This User-Defined Function was compiled into a finite volume
software package (Fluent), where three-dimensional single precision
solver was used for analysis. Based on this model, simulation of the surface
temperature of 32 mm diameter workpiece of AISI51 50H steel was
performed as a function of time at a specific distance behind the laser beam
spot, which is corresponding to 30° angle from the laser beam. The
simulation results were compared with other published data of the same steel
type where a close agreement was obtained. The verified model was used for
simulation of laser assisted turning of 20 mm diameter workpiece of AISI D2 tool steel. The cutting depth, behind the laser
beam, was set at a distance corresponding to 60° angle from the
laser beam for having sufficient access for handling both laser head and
cutting tool. This cutting depth was studied as a function of different lasers and
machining parameters. The results indicated that the optimum parameters for
successful laser-assisted turning process of the concerned steels are 800 W laser
power, 5 mm laser beam spot diameter, 20 sec
preheating time, 0.8 mm/sec laser scanning speed, 300 rpm
rotational speed and 0.8 mm/sec feed rate.
These parameters ensure easy/successful cutting of 1 mm depth in one pass
without deteriorating the properties of the remaining bulk material. It can be
deduced that the developed model might provide a useful tool for online process
control of different steel types regardless of their physical properties and
geometries.


Space heating represents the largest share in the energy demand of the built environment, in temperate and cold climates. Therefore, the use of solar thermal systems to convert solar into thermal energy for space heating, along with domestic hot water production, represents a challenge in these climates where the number of sunshine hours is rather low during the cold seasons, when heating is needed. Novel solar thermal collectors with nonrectangular shape (trapeze) and different colours (red, blue, green) were developed in the Renewable Energy Systems and Recycling Research Centre in the Research and Development Institute of the Transilvania University of Brasov, Romania, to increase the coverage factor, social and architectural acceptance when integrated in buildings facades. The results for an entire year (2017) are presented as monthly thermal energy produced by novel trapeze versus commercial rectangular flat plate solar thermal collectors installed on the vertical southern facade of an outdoor testing rig. The specific thermal energy produced by trapeze collectors is 28.7% lower than commercial collector over the entire year, but this drawback is compensated by higher coverage factor which can be obtained by using trapeze instead of rectangular solar thermal collectors.


Advanced physics experiments require computer control systems to coordinate the apparatus on time scales from hours to nanoseconds. In this thesis I present a new software system, the labscript suite, for controlling modern ultracold atom experiments. Labscript prepares experiments from Python code and a list of parameters, generating instructions for heterogeneous hardware: pulse sequencers, analog input/output, and radio-frequency synthesis devices, which in turn execute the experiment in strict real time. Other software components automate scheduling of long-running experimental sequences, and the analysis of results. The labscript suite rapidly creates sophisticated experiments, flexibly analyses results, and archives the data.


This PhD thesis belongs to three main knowledge domains: operations management, environmental management, and decision making. Having the automotive industry as the key sector, the investigation was undertaken aiming at deepening the understanding of environmental decision making processes in the operations function. The central research question for this thesis is ?Why and how do manufacturing companies take environmental decisions? This PhD research project used a case study research strategy supplemented by secondary data analysis and the testing and evaluation of a proposed systems thinking model for environmental decision making. Interviews and focus groups were the main methods for data collection. The findings of the thesis show that companies that want to be in the environmental leadership will need to take environmental decisions beyond manufacturing processes. Because the benefits (including financial gain) of non-manufacturing activities are not clear yet the decisions related to product design, supply chain and facilities are fully embedded with complexity, subjectivism, and intrinsic risk. Nevertheless, this is the challenge environmental leaders will face - they may enter in a paradoxical state of their decisions – where although the risk of going greener is high, the risk of not doing it is even higher.


The Middle East is one of the fastest growing tourism regions in the world. Especially Dubai (since the 1980s) and Abu Dhabi (since the 1990s) have invested heavily in tourism development to firstly enhance their recognition as international destinations and secondly to diversify their economies away from the oil production. Surprisingly, there is a lack of academic published articles on those two emirates' international destination image. This paper attempts to fill this gap by studying and comparing the images of Abu Dhabi and Dubai amongst potential first-time visitors from one of their main source markets – Germany. An empirical study amongst 300 respondents from North-Rhine Westphalia, Germany, was conducted to reveal the cognitive image attributes of Dubai and Abu Dhabi for non-visitors. Despite both places having a similar basis for destination development, their images differ. Thus, Abu Dhabi and Dubai are not seen as competitors on the tourism market, instead they could even increase the mutual benefits through highlighting specific images more distinctly. Further, the research identified a missing fit between the desired tourism destination image for both destinations and the perceived destination image. This is especially significant for the aspect of sustainability, which both emirates try to promote. Potential tourists rather perceive both emirates as unsustainable and not environmentally conscious.


Contrary to economic theory and common sense, stock returns are negatively related to both expected and unexpected inflation. We argue that this puzzling empirical phenomenon does not indicate causality.

Instead, stock returns are negatively related to contemporaneous changes in expected inflation because they signal a chain of events which results in a higher rate of monetary expansion. Exogenous shocks in real output, signalled by the stock market, induce changes in tax revenue, in the deficit, in Treasury borrowing and in Federal Reserve "monetization" of the increased debt. Rational bond and stock market investors realize this will happen. They adjust prices (and interest rates) accordingly and without delay.

Although expected inflation seems to have a negative effect on subsequent stock returns, this could be an empirical illusion, since a spurious causality is induced by a combination of: (a) a reversed adaptive inflation expectations model and (b) a reversed money growth/stock returns model.

If the real interest rate is not a constant, using nominal interest proxies for expected inflation is dangerous, since small changes in real rates can cause large and opposite percentage changes in stock prices.


A model for phonon heat conduction in a semiconductor nanowire with dimensions comparable to the phonon mean free path is developed. It is based on the solution of Boltzmann's equation, which takes into account (i) modification of the acoustic phonon dispersion due to spatial confinement, and (ii) change in the nonequilibrium phonon distribution due to partially diffuse boundary scattering. Numerical simulation is performed for a silicon nanowire with boundaries characterized by different interface roughness. Phonon confinement and boundary scattering lead to a significant decrease of the lattice thermal conductivity. The value of this decrease and its interface roughness and temperature dependence are different from the predictions of the early models. The observed change in thermal resistance has to be taken into account in simulation of deep-submicron and nanometer-scale devices.


Reservoir data is usually scale dependent and exhibits multiscale features. In this paper we use the ensemble Kalman filter (EnKF) to integrate data at different spatial scales for estimating reservoir fine-scale characteristics. Relationships between the various scales is modeled via upscaling techniques. We propose two versions of the EnKF to assimilate the multiscale data, (i) where all the data are assimilated together and (ii) the data are assimilated sequentially in batches. Ensemble members obtained after assimilating one set of data are used as a prior to assimilate the next set of data. Both of these versions are easily implementable with any other upscaling which links the fine to the coarse scales. The numerical results with different methods are presented in a twin experiment setup using a two-dimensional, two-phase (oil and water) flow model. Results are shown with coarse-scale permeability and coarse-scale saturation data. They indicate that additional data provides better fine-scale estimates and fractional flow predictions. We observed that the two versions of the EnKF differed in their estimates when coarse-scale permeability is provided, whereas their results are similar when coarse-scale saturation is used. This behavior is thought to be due to the nonlinearity of the upscaling operator in the case of the former data. We also tested our procedures with various precisions of the coarse-scale data to account for the inexact relationship between the fine and coarse scale data. As expected, the results show that higher precision in the coarse-scale data yielded improved estimates. With better coarse-scale modeling and inversion techniques as more data at multiple coarse scales is made available, the proposed modification to the EnKF could be relevant in future studies.


Members of the PAX family of transcription factors are candidates for controlling cell identity in the spinal cord. We have morphologically analyzed cells that express one of these transcription factors, PAX2, demonstrating multiple interneuron cell types express PAX2. Two ventral populations of PAX2-expressing interneurons in the spinal cord are marked by coexpression of the transcription factors, EN1 and EVX1. Interestingly, the expression domains of PAX2, EN1 and EVX1 in postmitotic neurons correlate closely with those of Pax6 and Pax7 in the ventricular zone, implicating these patterning genes in the regulation of PAX2, EN1 and EVX1. We show that one of these patterning genes, Pax6, is required for the correct specification of ventral PAX2+ interneurons that coexpress EN1. These results demonstrate that the early activity of patterning genes in the ventricular zone determines interneuron identity in the spinal cord.


The history of meltwater flow from the Laurentide Ice Sheet to the Gulf of Mexico during the last deglaciation, which holds possible implications for the cause of the Younger Dryas cold episode, is not well understood. We propose a new chronology based on using the percentage of reworked calcareous nannofossils in Orca Basin sediments as a proxy for erosion. The period of greatest meltwater flow to the gulf was between 12.7 and 12.1 ka (during the Bolling warm interval), and flow remained high until the beginning of the Younger Dryas cold episode at 11.3 ka; this corresponds to meltwater pulse IA. A sharp meltwater decrease at 12.2 ka may represent the Older Dryas glacial readvance. Little or no meltwater is inferred to have flowed to the gulf from ∼10 to 9 ka, which is the time of the second major meltwater pulse, IB. Therefore, meltwater must have been permanently diverted away from the Gulf of Mexico at the beginning of the Younger Dryas.


Research on interpreting data communicated by smart sensors and distributed sensor networks, and utilizing these data streams in making critical decisions stands to provide significant advancements across a wide range of application domains such as maintenance management. In this paper, a stochastic degradation modeling framework is developed for computing and continuously updating residual life distributions of partially degraded components. The proposed degradation methodology combines population-specific degradation characteristics with component-specific sensory data acquired through condition monitoring in order to compute and continuously update remaining life distributions of partially degraded components. Two sensory updating procedures are developed and validated using real-world vibration-based degradation information acquired from rolling element thrust bearings. The results are compared with two benchmark policies and illustrate the benefits of the sensory updated degradation models proposed in this paper. Note for Practitioners-The proposed degradation-based prognostic methodology provides a comprehensive assessment of the current and future degradation states of partially degraded components by combining population-specific degradation or reliability information with real-time sensory health monitoring data. It is specifically beneficial for cases where degradation occurs in a cumulative manner and the degradation signal can be approximated by an exponential functional form. To implement this methodology, it is necessary: 1) to identify the physical phenomena associated with the evolution of the degradation process (spalling and wear herein); 2) choose the appropriate condition monitoring technology to monitor this phenomena (accelerometers); 3) identify a characteristic pattern in the sensory information to help develop a degradation signal (exponential growth); and 4) identify a failure threshold associated with the degradation signal. The first step in implementing this prognostic methodology is to obtain prior information related to stochastic parameters f the exponential model. This may require fitting some sample degradation signals with an exponential functional form and noting the values of the exponential parameters, or using subjective prior distributions. The second step is to acquire sensory information and begin updating the prior distribution. The updating frequency will dictate which expressions are used to compute the posterior distributions. Once the posterior means, variances, and correlation are computed, the truncated CDF of the residual life can be evaluated using (10) and (11). Note that the truncation is necessary to preclude negative values of the remaining life. Practitioners can implement this methodology using a simple spreadsheet. Since the residual life distributions are skewed, it is reasonable to utilize the median as a measure of the central tendency and, hence, an alternative estimate for the expected value of the remaining life


Providing a compositional interpretation procedure for discourses in which descriptions of complex dependencies between interrelated objects are incrementally built is a key challenge for natural language semantics. This article focuses on the interactions between the entailment particle therefore, modalized conditionals and modal subordination. It shows that the dependencies between individuals and possibilities that emerge out of such interactions can receive a unified compositional account in a system couched in classical type logic that integrates and simplifies van den Berg's dynamic plural logic and the classical Lewis-Kratzer analysis of modal quantification. The main proposal is that modal quantification is a composite notion, to be decomposed in terms of discourse reference to quantificational dependencies that is multiply constrained by the various components that make up a modal quantifier. The system captures the truth-conditional and anaphoric components of modal quantification in an even-handed way and, unlike previous accounts, makes the propositional contents contributed by modal constructions available for subsequent discourse reference.


Annual appraisal of New Zealand's state teachers has been a legislated requirement of Board of Trustees employers since 1997. Over the past 20 years, accountability mechanisms implemented to placate the manufactured public crisis about the state of education have, over time, shifted from the reassurance provided by local policy to the examination of individual teacher performance. Teacher appraisal itself is a complex performance management process with accountability and development requirements for both the teacher and the school, yet the hierarchical structures reinforced by neoliberal ideology and managerial practices have privileged accountability requirements over development opportunities. Instead of understanding appraisal in the dual terms of accountability and developmental or the exclusive terms suggested by either accountability or development, this thesis encourages school leaders to give greater attention to the importance of teacher development for accountability and leader accountability for development. This study focuses on the dichotomy between the espoused conditions of appraisal explained in school appraisal documentation with the experiences shared by 13 curriculum leaders across three South Auckland secondary schools. The research methodology combined case study design with critical theory and the philosophical hermeneutics of Hans-Georg Gadamer. Following a group interview with five curriculum leaders from one school and individual interviews with four leaders from the remaining two schools, participant narratives were written as a series of representative vignettes. The stories of these leaders were then synthesised to create a meta-narrative to challenge the reliance on top-down policy to determine teacher professionalism. This study uncovered four main findings. (1) To counter the myriad of accountabilities required by external agencies, the schools have aligned professional development and performance management systems. (2) Despite the illusion of systemic cohesion provided by this rational alignment, appraisal practices are fragmented and vary between departments. (3) Positioned between accountability mechanisms, professional development in the form of professional inquiries has generated a culture of evidence collection. Beneath the surface of espoused commitment to this development sits leader reticence to profess dissatisfaction with these artificial practices. (4) External accountability measures may enhance the appearance of professionalism, but greater responsivity to bottom-up practices grounded in collegiality and interdependence is needed if more professional understandings of accountability are to be realised.


OBJECTIVE
Maximum oxygen uptake is emerging as the measure of preference for expressing cardiorespiratory fitness for the purposes of surveys of physical activity, due to its greater objectivity and lower propensity to errors. Studies indicate that this measure is better correlated with cardiovascular diseases. This paper proposes to relate cardiovascular risk factors in adolescents with their level of cardiorespiratory fitness.

METHODS
The study enrolled 380 schoolchildren, 177 boys and 203 girls (10 to 14 years old), who were divided into two groups according to their cardiorespiratory fitness. Anthropometric assessment was carried out, hemodynamic measurements (arterial pressure and heart rate) were taken, cardiopulmonary exercise testing was performed and biochemical tests were run (triglycerides, total and partial cholesterol).

RESULTS
Among the boys, significant differences were observed between boys defined as "weak" and those classed as "not weak" in terms of baseline heart rate, maximum oxygen uptake, body mass index and triglycerides. Among the girls, significant differences were detected between baseline heart rates, maximum oxygen uptake and body mass indices. In both sexes, the group classified as "weak" exhibited a significantly greater number of overweight individuals that the "not weak" group (chi2 = 25.242; p = 0.000; chi2 = 12.683; p = 0.000, for boys and girls, respectively). A significant association between cardiorespiratory fitness and triglycerides (chi2 = 3.944; p = 0.047) was observed among the boys only.

CONCLUSIONS
A low level of cardiorespiratory fitness appears to have a negative influence on cardiovascular risk factors among adolescents, especially with relation to overweight in both sexes and to biochemical profile in the male sex, providing evidence of the need for early preventative interventions.


Significance Food is medicine, and diet impacts the risk for and progression of age-related macular degeneration AMD, but we have few clues as to why. We found that wild-type mice fed a high-glycemic-index diet similar in composition to the Western diet developed a disease state that resembles dry AMD. To gain insight into the mechanism, we used LC-MS– and NMR-based metabolomics to discover diet-, metabolic-, and AMD-associated phenotypes. These studies revealed changes in the gut microbiota that altered the production of metabolites that protected against AMD, including serotonin. Changing the diet to a low-glycemic-index diet, even late in life, arrested the development of AMD, offering dietary interventions for AMD. Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is the major cause of blindness in developed nations. AMD is characterized by retinal pigmented epithelial (RPE) cell dysfunction and loss of photoreceptor cells. Epidemiologic studies indicate important contributions of dietary patterns to the risk for AMD, but the mechanisms relating diet to disease remain unclear. Here we investigate the effect on AMD of isocaloric diets that differ only in the type of dietary carbohydrate in a wild-type aged-mouse model. The consumption of a high-glycemia (HG) diet resulted in many AMD features (AMDf), including RPE hypopigmentation and atrophy, lipofuscin accumulation, and photoreceptor degeneration, whereas consumption of the lower-glycemia (LG) diet did not. Critically, switching from the HG to the LG diet late in life arrested or reversed AMDf. LG diets limited the accumulation of advanced glycation end products, long-chain polyunsaturated lipids, and their peroxidation end-products and increased C3-carnitine in retina, plasma, or urine. Untargeted metabolomics revealed microbial cometabolites, particularly serotonin, as protective against AMDf. Gut microbiota were responsive to diet, and we identified microbiota in the Clostridiales order as being associated with AMDf and the HG diet, whereas protection from AMDf was associated with the Bacteroidales order and the LG diet. Network analysis revealed a nexus of metabolites and microbiota that appear to act within a gut–retina axis to protect against diet- and age-induced AMDf. The findings indicate a functional interaction between dietary carbohydrates, the metabolome, including microbial cometabolites, and AMDf. Our studies suggest a simple dietary intervention that may be useful in patients to arrest AMD.


OBJECTIVE: The Edwards SAPIEN and the Medtronic CoreValve are the only commercially available devices suitable for transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI). Though their clinical results are continuously updated, there are no direct comparisons reported for their hydrodynamic performance, or with equivalent surgical solutions. This study is mainly targeted at providing, for the first time, a direct in vitro comparison of the performances of the SAPIEN and CoreValve devices; and an insight on the different operative mechanisms of TAVI devices and their surgical counterparts. METHODS: The two transcatheter valves (size 26 mm for both the SAPIEN and the CoreValve) and an equivalent surgical bioprosthesis (Sorin Pericarbon) were assessed conforming the requirements of the standard ISO 5840:2009, on a hydro-mechanical cardiovascular pulse duplicator system (Vivitro Superpump SP3891, Vivitro, BC, Canada). The TAVI devices were mounted on a silicone mock aortic root, including three rubber leaflets in order to replicate the presence of the native valve during the tests. The silicone leaflets were removed to test the surgical valve and the suture ring of the prosthesis was sealed to the annulus region. The cardiac chambers' pressures and aortic flow were measured and the valve performances were compared in terms of mean transvalvular systolic pressure drop (ΔP), regurgitant volumes, effective orifice area (EOA) and fluid-mechanical left ventricular energy loss. RESULTS: The CoreValve performance in terms of ΔP and EOA, closing regurgitation and energy loss was slightly better than that of the SAPIEN. Both TAVI devices were characterized by significantly lower ΔP values compared to the surgical counterpart, but they resulted affected by considerably higher levels of paravalvular leakage (see figure). This rendered the overall performance of the surgical valve more efficient at low cardiac outputs (COs), while the transcatheter valves performed better at higher flow rates. CONCLUSIONS: Globally, the transcatheter and surgical valve performances were comparable, with the TAVI devices being superior at high physiological values of the cardiac output, and the surgical valve at low flow rates.


The demise of communism in the Soviet Union could not have occurred without the activism of dissident, anticommunist leaders who created a climate that gave ordinary Russians the courage to stand up to and defeat communist control. But with communism ousted, what new form of government and what new leaders will emerge in Russia, a society that has never known democracy? Michael McFaul, a Western scholar studying at Moscow State University, and Segel Markov, an assistant professor at Moscow State University, interviewed anticommunist parties in the months preceding and immediately following the August 1991 attempted coup d'tetat. To examine the range of the political spectrum in Russia, they also talked to procommunist leaders who emerged to oppose Mikhail Gorbachev's reforms, nationalist and anti-Semitic leaders of movements such as Pamyat', labor unions, Christian movements, and organizations opposed to the division of the Soviet Union.


In Ontario, the "Amish" in "A. M." (Amish Mennonite) is a name not at all limited to "Old Order Amish." When Mennonites of Ontario hear the word Amish, at least in local context, they are just as likely to think of a certain group of Mennonite congregations west of the towns of Kitchener-Waterloo whose roots are in Amish and Amish Mennonite history--congregations begun by Amish who immigrated from the Alsace province of France mainly between 1822 and 1860. These Amish and some related groups in Ontario have established their own particular version of a mutual aid organization: the Amish Mennonite Fire and Storm Aid Union, commonly known as "A. M. Fire and Storm" (or, hereafter, the "Aid Union"). The Aid Union is designed to meet its members' needs without compromising their faith principles. In many respects its organization remains rather informal, especially in contrast to the ever more complex and bureaucratized manner of many institutions in the modern world. Yet it has thrived, aided by the face-to-face ethos of the communities who sponsor it and by some indulgence from government. In some respects the Aid Union, by its very existence, reflects the modern urge to become more systematic in matters such as mutual aid; yet it also has defied some patterns of development that we have come to expect in modern institutions. Clearly the Aid Union's aim is to provide a necessary service to a particular set of faith communities in a manner consistent with the communities' theological principles. These Christian principles and the commitment of the communities to them determine the Aid Union's form and content. Any "unique features" of the Aid Union were not intended to be so; yet together such features do offer an alternative to organizational patterns in the larger society. Similarly, if they embody so-called "Anabaptist" themes, they also do that rather inadvertently. Most likely, the Amish immigrants were not as familiar with the writings of such early Anabaptists as Menno Simons, Pilgram Marpeck and Bernhard Rothmann as they were with the scriptures on which such Anabaptists drew. Early Anabaptist writers perceived the necessity and practicality of scriptural "mutual sharing and burden bearing" among a community of believers. (2) The Aid Union is in fact only one of a number of forms of mutual aid practiced in its community. Membership The Aid Union serves primarily members of a cluster of churches and fellowships who are quite traditional in an Amish and Mennonite sense. They are the "old Western Ontario churches" (MC congregations whose roots are in the nineteenth-century immigration from Alsace and who abandoned the name "Amish Mennonite" only in 1963); the so-called Beachy Amish; the Church of God in Christ Mennonites (Holdemans) who settled around St. Mary's, Ontario in the 1950s; various Old Order Amish districts (some derived from the 1822-1860 migrations from Alsace and others resulting from fairly recent migrations to Ontario's Lakeside, Chesley and Tiverton areas); and several unaffiliated congregations. Any person accepted for membership by one of the participating churches or districts is eligible for the Aid Union's mutual aid coverage; these groups provide the Aid Union's backbone. However, some other individuals participate, largely due to kinship ties, even though they may have joined other Anabaptist-derived groups. Commonly, persons voluntarily withdraw if they leave the Anabaptist-related churches altogether, and Mennonites who have become highly acculturated into modern methods of business and organization very often do the same. The pattern does not prevent participation by many congregations of the Mennonite Conference of Eastern Canada, which is jointly affiliated with the Mennonite Church and the General Conference Mennonite Church and whose people do not stand out with plain attire. To date, the pattern has worked quite well to define the Aid Union's boundaries. …


How do organizations manage social media effectively? Every organization wants to implement social media, but it is difficult to create processes and mange employees to make this happen. Most social media books focus on strategies for communicating with customers, but they fail to address the internal process that takes place within a business before those strategies can be implemented. This book is geared toward helping you manage every step of the process required to use social media for business. The Social Media Management Handbook provides a complete toolbox for defining and practicing a coherent social media strategy. It is a comprehensive resource for bringing together such disparate areas as IT, customer service, sales, communications, and more to meet social media goals. Wollan and Smith and their Accenture team explain policies, procedures, roles and responsibilities, metrics, strategies, incentives, and legal issues that may arise. You will learn how to: Empower employees and teams to utilize social media effectively throughout the organization Measure the ROI of social media investments and ensure appropriate business value is achieved over time Make smarter decisions, make them more quickly, and make them stick Get the most out of your social media investment and fully leverage its benefits at your company with The Social Media Management Handbook.


The interaction between sound and ultrasound waves in a weakly compressible viscous liquid with gas bubbles is considered. Using the method of multiple scales one- and two-dimensional nonlinear interaction equations are derived. The degeneracy of the interaction is found in bubbly fluids. This phenomenon lies in the fact that the interaction coefficients vanish at a certain frequency of ultrasound. We demonstrate that the integrable Davey–Stewartson I (DSI) system of equation can describe the two-dimensional sound-ultrasound evolution. The DSI equations are remarkable by their solutions referred to as dromions. In bubbly fluids the dromion represents the localized focused ultrasound wave which can alter the direction of its motion under changes in the boundary conditions for the sound wave. The condition of singular focusing of ultrasound in bubbly fluids is obtained. By numerical analysis of the interaction models, we reveal such processes as intensification of ultrasound by sound, nonlinear instability ...


The present thesis reflects work I have done as a graduate student at Caltech. It is devoted to two broad subjects, planetary frost metamorphism and the terrestrial middle atmosphere, and consists of three papers.

Paper I considers frost metamorphism on the surfaces of Triton and Mars. Based on an analysis of the microphysical processes involved in pressureless sintering, it is concluded that fine-grained nitrogen and carbon dioxide frosts can undergo seasonal metamorphism into semitransparent layers on the surface of Triton and in the martian seasonal polar caps, respectively. The presence of such layers explains a host of facts about Triton's surface and about the martian seasonal caps. The Triton portion of the paper has been published in the Journal of Geophysical Research, while the Mars portion has been submitted to Icarus.

Paper II is devoted to elucidating a long-standing issue in the terrestrial middle atmosphere chemistry, the so-called "ozone deficit problem." Based on an analysis of data acquired by the Limb Infrared Monitor of the Stratosphere (LIMS) instrument between October 1978 and May 1979, it is concluded that current photochemical models systematically underestimate observed ozone abundances in the upper stratosphere and lower mesosphere. Three modifications to the accepted photochemical scheme, capable of providing a global solution to this problem, are proposed and discussed. This paper is in press by the Journal of Geophysical Research.

Paper III differs from the other two in that it reports on results from an ongoing research effort. It considers the diabatic circulation in the stratosphere and lower mesosphere, using ozone and temperature measurements acquired by the Microwave Limb Sounder (MLS) instrument onboard the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS). The present study extends past analyses of the diabatic circulation by considering a full annual cycle November 1991 - November 1992 and by taking advantage of the high vertical resolution of MLS data. In the tropical upper stratosphere and lower mesosphere, a semiannual oscillation (SAO) is observed in the computed circulation, with the region of downwelling reaching maximum spatial extent ~1 month before the equinox. The projected lifetime of UARS should enable the present analysis to be extended to several SAO cycles.


Turbulence and Transport Reduction with Negative Triangularity : Correlation ECE Measurements in TCV Due to turbulence, core energy transport in fusion devices such as tokamaks generally exceeds collisional transport by at least an order of magnitude. It is therefore crucial to understand the instabilities driving the turbulent state and to find ways to control them. Plasma shape is one of these fundamental tools. In low collisionality plasmas, such as in a reactor, changing the plasma shape from Dee-shape to inverse Dee-shape (from positive to negative triangularity δ) reduces the energy transport by a factor two: the heat flux necessary to sustain the same profiles and stored energy in a discharge with δ=-0.4 is only half of that at δ=+0.4. This is significant, since it opens the possibility of having Hmode-like confinement time within an L-mode edge; or at least with smaller ELMs. Recent correlation ECE measurements show that this reduction of transport at negative δ is reflected in a reduction by a factor of two of both 1) the amplitude of temperature fluctuations in the broadband frequency range 30-150 kHz, and 2) the fluctuation correlation length, measured at mid-radius (ρv 0.6). In addition, the fluctuations amplitude is reduced with increasing collisionality, consistent with theoretical estimates of the collisionality effect on Trapped Electron Modes (TEM). The correlation ECE results are compared to gyrokinetic code results: 1) global linear gyrokinetic simulations (LORB) have predicted shorter radial TEM wavelength λ⊥ for negative triangularity plasmas, consistent with the shorter radial turbulence correlation length λc observed. 2) At least close to the strongly shaped plasma boundary, local nonlinear gyrokinetic simulations with the GS2 code predict that the TEM induced transport decreases with decreasing triangularity and increasing collisionality, in fair agreement with the experimental observations. 3) Calculations are now extended to global nonlinear simulations (ORB5). This work was supported in part by the Swiss National Science Foundation


This paper examines the experiences of four musicians from Western North Carolina: Earl Scruggs, Don Reno, George Shuffler, and Doc Watson. All four made contributions to the art of acoustic lead guitar playing. This thesis examines their individual accomplishments and seeks to find what made this geographic region such fertile ground for flatpickers. The musicians in this study lived through the period in American music history known as the folk music revival. This event changed and reforged the idea of American roots music, affecting the perception and definition of tradition within American society. Each of the musicians in this study underwent changes as a result. This thesis submits that North Carolinians were able to create innovative new approaches to playing the guitar because they had older traditions to call on. The most helpful of these were the banjo playing techniques that many musicians translated onto the guitar. However, simply drawing on tradition was not enough for some participants in the folk music revival. They demanded an exact representation based on an anti-commercial, anti-establishment interpretation of the past. As such, they cared little for accurate representations of southern music, preferring an idyllic pre-commercial southern life that had in fact never existed.


Abstract Introduction: Evolving techniques in the field of therapeutic bronchoscopy have led to the return of rigid bronchoscopy in the treatment of complex central airway disease. Rigid bronchoscopy is typically performed under general anesthesia because of the strong stimulation caused by metal instruments. Anesthesia for rigid bronchoscopy is challenging to administer because anesthesiologists and interventionists share the same working channel: the airway. Previously reviewed anesthetic methods are used primarily for short procedures. Balanced anesthesia with ultrasound-guided superior laryngeal nerve (SLN) block and total intravenous anesthesia might provide anesthesia for a prolonged procedure and facilitate patient recovery. Patient concerns: A patient with obstructed endobronchial stent was referred for therapeutic rigid bronchoscopy, which requires deeper anesthesia than flexible bronchoscopy. There were concerns of the stronger stimulation of the rigid bronchoscopy, lengthy duration of the procedure, higher risk of hypoxemia, and the difficulty of mechanical ventilation weaning after anesthesia due to the patients co-morbidities. Diagnosis: A 66-year-old female patient presented with a history of breast cancer with lung metastases. Right main bronchus obstruction due to external compression of lung metastases was relieved through insertion of an endobronchial stent, but obstructive granulation developed after 4 months. Presence of the malfunctioning stent caused severe cough and discomfort. Removal of the stent by using a flexible bronchoscope was attempted twice but failed. Interventions: Regional anesthesia of the upper airway through ultrasound-guided SLN block combined with intratracheal 2% lidocaine spray was performed to assist in total intravenous anesthesia (TIVA) during rigid bronchoscopy. Outcomes: The patient maintained steady spontaneous breathing throughout the procedure without laryngospasm, bucking, or desaturation. Emergence from anesthesia was smooth and rapid after propofol infusion was discontinued. The surgery lasted 2.5 hours without discontinuity, and no perioperative pulmonary or cardiovascular complications were noted. Conclusion: Ultrasound-guided SLN block is a simple technique with a high success rate and low complication rate. Application of SLN block to assist TIVA provides sufficient anesthesia for lengthened therapeutic rigid bronchoscopy without interruption and facilitates patient recovery.


This article describes a spatial model for matching semantic values between two languages, French and English. Based on semantic similarity links, the model constructs a map that represents a word in the source language. Then the algorithm projects the map values onto a space in the target language. The new space abides by the semantic similarity links specific to the second language. Then the two maps are projected onto the same plane in order to detect overlapping values. For instructional purposes, the different steps are presented here using a few examples. The entire set of results is available at the following address: http://dico.isc.cnrs.fr.


Cowpea is an important grain legume crop in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) where, on a worldwide basis, the bulk is produced and consumed. The dry savanna area of SSA is where cowpea is mostly grown under rain-fed conditions. The crop is therefore prone to drought which may occur early, mid and/or late in the cropping season. Compared with many other crops, cowpea is drought tolerant, even though drought is still a major constraint limiting its productivity in SSA. Increasing the level of drought tolerance in existing cowpea varieties grown by farmers would enable them to obtain more and stable yield from their cowpea fields. As a first step towards enhancing drought tolerance in existing cowpea varieties, 1288 lines were selected randomly from cowpea germplasm collections maintained at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture, and evaluated for their drought tolerance at Ibadan. Drought was imposed by withdrawal of irrigation from 5 weeks after sowing. On average, drought reduced the number of days to flower by 12 d, and the mean grain yield per plant was also reduced by 67.28%. A few of the cowpea lines stayed green for up to 6 weeks after irrigation was stopped, even though some of these produced no pods when the study was terminated. Further evaluation in the screenhouse of 142 selected drought-tolerant lines helped to identify six lines that could be potential parents for developing breeding lines with enhanced drought tolerance.


The structure and dynamics of turbulent wakes and shear layers in the presence of a clean free surface have been investigated experimentally using digital particle image velocimetry (DPIV). The purpose of this study was to determine the extent and characteristics of the influence, if any, of the free surface on these underlying turbulent shear flows. The free surface was found to affect the dynamics of turbulence within a surface layer on the order of one half-width of the submerged wake and one half of the local vorticity thickness of the submerged shear layer. Within this layer, the vertical velocity fluctuations are inhibited and the turbulence kinetic energy is redistributed to the horizontal components. The self-induced motion of surface-parallel vortical structures under the influence of their images was shown to lead to large-scale mean streamwise secondary flows and associated outward surface currents-symmetric for the wake and asymmetric for the shear layer. This motion was the origin of the significantly higher lateral spreading rates of these surface shear flows compared to the spreading rates of their fully-submerged counterparts — 20% and 25% for the wake and shear layer respectively. In addition, the evolution of the streamwise and surface-normal enstrophy components within the surface layer was consistent with the normal connection of vortical structures required at a free surface. The influence of the secondary flows was tracked back to the splitter plate's turbulent boundary layers where they were hence deduced to originate. A simple analysis of the mixed-boundary corner flows of the splitter plate made using the mean streamwise vorticity equation coupled with the evolution of the values of the transverse velocity confirmed the latter. In this picture of the mean flow, the secondary flows present in the near-surface edges of these shear flows were related to the pair of outer secondary vortices generated thereby. Furthermore, using a simplified equation for the surface-normal Reynolds stress, it was shown that the mutual interaction of the surface-parallel vortical structures with their images yielded a decrease in vertical velocity fluctuations as the free surface was approached. This equation shed further light on the redistribution of the vertical kinetic energy of turbulence into the other two Reynolds normal stresses. The resulting free-surface Reynolds-stress anisotropy in turn gave birth to the two streamwise secondary flows.


Climate change is responsible for the negative effects in human life causing a decrease in agricultural products, biodiversity, soil fertility, and forest areas. In contrast, climate change increases plant diseases and pests, the cost of agricultural production and risk in food security. This study aims to determine whether climate change is a phenomenon via the analysis of the perceptions of the farmers in the Mersin province conducted over 251 questionnaires. Farmers primarily perceive climate change over production costs and the reduction in yield. Moreover, they are highly aware of its relation to natural events such as floods, drought, and storms. Nevertheless, inappropriate agricultural practices also lead to the negative consequences caused by climate change. In this respect, this study revealed that farmers with high cooperative partnerships and experience perceived climate change significantly.


Context. The recent detection of planets around very low mass stars raises the question of the formation, composition, and potential habitability of these objects.
Aims. We use planetary system formation models to infer the properties, in particular their radius distribution and water content, of planets that may form around stars ten times less massive than the Sun.
Methods. Our planetary system formation and composition models take into account the structure and evolution of the protoplanetary disk, the planetary mass growth by accretion of solids and gas, as well as planet-planet, planet-star, and planet-disk interactions.
Results. We show that planets can form at small orbital period in orbit about low-mass stars. We show that the radius of the planets is peaked at about 1 R⊕ and that they are, in general, volatile rich especially if proto-planetary disks orbiting this type of stars are long lived.
Conclusions. Close-in planets orbiting low-mass stars similar in terms of mass and radius to those recently detected can be formed within the framework of the core-accretion paradigm as modeled here. The properties of protoplanetary disks, and their correlation with the stellar type, are key to understand their composition.


Abstract The intrinsic vulnerability of the Chalk aquifer in East Anglia in eastern England to surface-derived contamination is dependent on the nature and juxtaposition of overlying Quaternary deposits. The study presented here is a direct investigation of the physical characteristics and pore water isotope composition of the glacial deposits found overlying the Chalk at five drilled locations in north Norfolk. The pore water isotopic composition demonstrated a range of δ18O values from −8.13 to −6.47‰, similar to the range for Chalk groundwater in the area of −8.18 to −7.01‰. A lithology-dependent model is developed that recognizes the presence of isotopically depleted palaeowater of late Pleistocene origin contained within layers of clay-rich till, adjacent to pore water containing modern meteoric water within layers of sand-rich till. The presence of (weathered) vertical fractures and intercalated lenses of sand- and gravel-rich layers is inferred to explain the occurrence of isotopically enriched water within the general mass of clay-rich till. It is apparent that groundwater movement in the heterogeneous lodgement till is controlled by advection in the more permeable sand-rich layers, whereas in the mass of clay-rich till, diffusion is more dominant. At one confined site, the observed pore water isotopic profile is modelled as having developed by downward diffusion of modern meteoric water during the past 5–10 ka.


ABSTRACT Batch kinetic tests in ozonation of imidacloprid from water were performed in this study. The pseudo-first-order rate constant of imidacloprid degradation was increased from 0.079 to 0.326 min−1 with the increasing pH from 6.02 to 8.64 at an average ozone dose of 1.149 mg L−1. When the alkalinity was increased from 0 to 250 mg L−1 NaHCO3, the pseudo-first-order rate constants decreased from 0.121 to 0.034 min−1. These results suggested that the predominant oxidant gradually switched from ozone to hydroxyl radicals () with the increase in solution pH. The secondary rate constant (10.92 ± 0.12 M−1s−1) for the reaction of imidacloprid and molecular ozone was determined at pH 2.0 and in the presence of 50 mM ter-butyl alcohol (p-chlorobenzoic acid, pCBA), respectively. An indirect competition method was used to determine the secondary rate constant for oxidation of imidacloprid in the presence of pCBA as the reference compound. The rate constants were estimated to range 2.65–3.79 M−1s−1 at pH 6.02–8.64. Results obtained from this study demonstrate that ozonation appears to be an effective method to remove imidacloprid from water.


This paper is the rst in a series of articles devoted to the construction and analysis of three-component vector velocity elds in the gaseous disks of spiral galaxies, and to the discovery of giant anticyclones near corotation which were predicted earlier. We analyse the line-of-sight velocity eld of ionized gas in the spiral galaxy NGC 157 which has been obtained in the H emission line at the 6 m telescope of SAO RAS. The eld contains more than 11 000 velocity estimates. The existence of systematic deviations of the observed gas velocities from pure circular motion is shown. A detailed investigation of these deviations is undertaken by applying a recently formulated method based on Fourier analysis of the azimuthal distributions of the line-of-sight velocities at dierent distances from the galactic center. To restore the three-component vector velocity eld from the observed line-of-sight velocity eld, two assumptions were made: 1) the perturbed surface density and residual velocity components can be approximated to the formulae Ci cos(2' +Fi), where Ci and Fi are respectively the amplitude and the phase; 2) the perturbed surface density and residual velocity components satisfy the Euler equations. The correctness of both assumptions is proven on the basis of the observational data. As a result of the analysis, all the main parameters of the wave spiral pattern are determined: the corotation radius, the amplitudes and phases of the gas velocity perturbations at dierent radii, as well as the velocity of circular rotation of the disk corrected for the influence of the velocity perturbations connected with the spiral arms. Finally, a restoration of the vector velocity eld in the gaseous disk of NGC 157 is performed. At a high condence level, the presence of the two giant anticyclones in the reference frame rotating with the spiral pattern is shown; their sizes and the localization of their centers are consistent with the results of the analytic theory and of numerical simulations. Besides the anticyclones, the existence of cyclones in any residual velocity eld is predicted. In the reference frame of the spiral pattern, detection of such cyclones is possible in the galaxies with a radial gradient of azimuthal residual velocity steeper than that of the rotation velocity.


Goal: Continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) is commonly used in Type 1 diabetes management by clinicians and patients and in diabetes research to understand how factors of longitudinal glucose and glucose variability relate to disease onset and severity and the efficacy of interventions. CGM data presents unique bioinformatic challenges because the data is longitudinal, temporal, and there are infinite ways to summarize and use this data. There are over 25 metrics of glucose variability used clinically and in research, metrics are not standardized, and little validation exists across studies. The primary goal of this work is to present a software resource for systematic, reproducible, and comprehensive analysis of interstitial glucose and glycemic variability from continuous glucose monitor data. Methods: Comprehensive literature review informed the clinically-validated functions developed in this work. Software packages were developed and open-sourced through the Python Package Index (PyPi) and the Comprehensive R Archive Network (CRAN). cgmquantify is integrated into the Digital Biomarker Discovery Pipeline and MD2K Cerebral Cortex. Results: Here we present an open-source software toolbox called cgmquantify, which contains 25 functions calculating 28 clinically validated metrics of glucose and glycemic variability, as well as tools for visualizing longitudinal CGM data. Detailed documentation facilitates modification of existing code by the community for customization of input data and visualizations. Conclusions: We have built systematic functions and documentation of metrics and visualizations into a software resource available in both the Python and R languages. This resource will enable digital biomarker development using continuous glucose monitors.


A positive list (list of positive integers) is protographic if its merger with all but finitely many positive graphic lists is graphic. Define the family ${\cal P}_s$ of $s$-protogaphic lists by letting ${\cal P}_0$ be the family of positive graphic lists and letting ${\cal P}_s$ for $s>0$ be the family of positive lists whose merger with all but finitely many lists in ${\cal P}_{s-1}$ is in ${\cal P}_{s-1}$. The main result is that $X\in{\cal P}_s$ if and only if $t(X)\in {\cal P}_{s-1}$, where $t(X)$ is the list obtained from $X$ by subtracting one from each term of $X$ (deleting those that become $0$) and appending a 1 for each term of $X$. A corollary is that the maximum number of iterations to reach a graphic list from an $n$-term even list with sum $2k$ is $k-n+1$ (when $k\ge n$), achieved by the unique such list having one term larger than 1.


Abstract:A substantial number of Jewish art and antiques dealers operated in pre-World War II Warsaw. Particularly respected were the salons of the brothers Bernard and Abe Gutnajer. Virtually everyone in their milieu perished in the Warsaw ghetto or Treblinka. Taking their place were new "Aryan" dealers and a clientele of "new" money. The Warsaw art market under the German occupation experienced a particular growth between the start of the Jewish ghetto's liquidation in mid-1942 and the outbreak of the Warsaw Uprising in August 1944, as "abandoned" property flooded the market. After decades of subsequent turbulent history, researchers can hardly hope to document the provenance of more than a fraction of tens of thousands of surviving works of art and valuable antiques.


The influence of thermodynamics on the emerging transdisciplinary field of 'ecological economics' is critically reviewed from an interdisciplinary perspective. It is viewed through the lens provided by the 'bioeconomist' Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen (1906–1994) and his advocacy of 'the Entropy Law' as a determinant of economic scarcity. It is argued that exergy is a more easily understood thermodynamic property than is entropy to represent irreversibilities in complex systems, and that the behaviour of energy and matter are not equally mirrored by thermodynamic laws. Thermodynamic insights as typically employed in ecological economics are simply analogues or metaphors of reality. They should therefore be empirically tested against the real world.


MicroRNAs (miRs) serve important roles in the development and progression of various human cancer types, including glioma. Recently, miR-219 has been suggested to function as a tumor suppressor in glioma; however, the underlying mechanism remains largely unknown. The aim of this study was to investigate the regulatory mechanism of miR-219 in the malignant phenotypes of glioma cells. Quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) and western blotting were conducted to examine the mRNA and protein expression. An MTT assay, wound healing assay and Transwell assay were used to study cell proliferation, migration and invasion. The qPCR data indicated that the expression of miR-219 was significantly decreased in glioma tissues compared with normal brain tissues. In addition, a low expression of miR-219 was identified to be associated with an advanced pathological grade. In vitro experiments demonstrated that miR-219 was also downregulated in several common glioma cell lines, including A172, U87, U251 and U373, when compared with that in normal astrocytes. Ectopic expression of miR-219 caused a significant decrease in U87 cell proliferation, migration and invasion. Luciferase reporter assay data indicated that Sal-like protein 4 (SALL4) was a direct target gene of miR-219, while the protein expression of SALL4 was negatively regulated by miR-219 in U87 cells. Furthermore, SALL4 was significantly upregulated in glioma tissues and cell lines, and upregulation of SALL4 was associated with a higher pathological grade. Furthermore, overexpression of SALL4 significantly attenuated the suppressive effects of miR-219 on U87 cell proliferation, migration and invasion, suggesting that miR-219 serves a suppressive role in glioma growth and metastasis via targeting SALL4. Therefore, the present study highlighted the clinical significance of the miR-219/SALL4 axis in glioma.


Purpose: The aim of the study adopted by the authors is an attempt to estimate the national railway potential from the point of view of military needs. Design/Methodology/Approach: The conducted research was focused on seeking for the solutions which could improve organisation of rail transport for the army. Findings: The article presents the condition of Polish railways and the possibility of troop movement by berths, as well as the authors' own (pilot) research carried out in the Movement & Transportation Division - the National Movement Coordination Center, aimed at showing the possibilities of improving and moving the army by rail transport. Practical Implications: The pragmatic dimension of the conducted research was based primarily on two main research trends, i.e., the possibility of use of other carriers (from outside of PKP Group) for the transport of soldiers and the possibilities for the Armed Forces to obtain their own capabilities for rail transport. Research results can be used by entities coordinating the movement of troops by rail, including the Movement & Transportation Division - the National Movement Coordination Center. Originality/Value: The issue of possibilities of movement of the troops by rail and improve the movement of the troops by this type of transport remained outside the area of scientific interest. The proposed solutions assume an elimination of infrastructural barriers and shortages in the adequate number of the means of transport to secure the services of the soldiers for the needs of the Polish Armed Forces and of the allied troops staying on or moving through the territory of the country.


Considerable effort is being deployed to predict the impacts of climate change and anthropogenic activities on the ocean's biophysical environment, biodiversity, and natural resources to better understand how marine ecosystems and provided services to humans are likely to change and explore alternative pathways and options. We present an updated version of EcoOcean (v2), a spatial-temporal ecosystem modeling complex of the global ocean that spans food-web dynamics from primary producers to top predators. Advancements include an enhanced ability to reproduce spatial-temporal ecosystem dynamics by linking species productivity, distributions, and trophic interactions to the impacts of climate change and worldwide fisheries. The updated modeling platform is used to simulate past and future scenarios of change, where we quantify the impacts of alternative configurations of the ecological model, responses to climate-change scenarios, and the additional impacts of fishing. Climate-change scenarios are obtained from two Earth-System Models (ESMs, GFDL-ESM2M, and IPSL-CMA5-LR) and two contrasting emission pathways (RCPs 2.6 and 8.5) for historical (1950–2005) and future (2006–2100) periods. Standardized ecological indicators and biomasses of selected species groups are used to compare simulations. Results show how future ecological trajectories are sensitive to alternative configurations of EcoOcean, and yield moderate differences when looking at ecological indicators and larger differences for biomasses of species groups. Ecological trajectories are also sensitive to environmental drivers from alternative ESM outputs and RCPs, and show spatial variability and more severe changes when IPSL and RCP 8.5 are used. Under a non-fishing configuration, larger organisms show decreasing trends, while smaller organisms show mixed or increasing results. Fishing intensifies the negative effects predicted by climate change, again stronger under IPSL and RCP 8.5, which results in stronger biomass declines for species already losing under climate change, or dampened positive impacts for those increasing. Several species groups that win under climate change become losers under combined impacts, while only a few (small benthopelagic fish and cephalopods) species are projected to show positive biomass changes under cumulative impacts. EcoOcean v2 can contribute to the quantification of cumulative impact assessments of multiple stressors and of plausible ocean-based solutions to prevent, mitigate and adapt to global change.


Jung Chang's "Wild Swans" was an extraordinary bestseller throughout the world, selling more than 10 million copies and reaching a wider readership than any other book about China. Now she and her husband Jon Halliday have written a groundbreaking biography of Mao Tse-tung. Based on a decade of research, and on interviews with many of Mao's close circle in China who have never talked before - and with virtually everyone outside China who had significant dealings with him - this is the most authoritative life of Mao ever written. It is full of startling revelations, exploding the myth of the Long March, and showing a completely unknown Mao: he was not driven by idealism or ideology; his intimate and intricate relationship with Stalin went back to the 1920s, ultimately bringing him to power; he welcomed Japanese occupation of much of China; and he schemed, poisoned and blackmailed to get his way. After Mao conquered China in 1949, his secret goal was to dominate the world. In chasing this dream he caused the deaths of 38 million people in the greatest famine in history. Combining meticulous history with the story-telling style of "Wild Swans", this biography makes immediate Mao's roller-coaster life, as he intrigued and fought every step of the way to force through his unpopular decisions. The reader enters the shadowy chambers of Mao's court, and eavesdrops on the drama in its hidden recesses. Mao's character and the enormity of his behaviour towards his wives, mistresses and children are unveiled for the first time. This is an entirely fresh look at Mao in both content and approach. It will astonish historians and the general reader alike.


Since publication in 1826, Theobald Wolfe Tone's two-volume autobiography, edited by his son William T.W. Tone, has been regarded by historians as an indispensable source for the history of the 1790s in both Ireland and France. Although there have been a number of abridged versions of the "Life", the full text has never been republished. This unabridged editon of Theobald Wolfe Tone's autobiography includes the text of the 1826 edition and restores excisions that the Tone family, for reasons of primness and prudence, made to the original manuscript. Besides the autobiography and diaries, the "Life" includes Tone's political writings and letters, and William Tone's account of his father's trial, among other elements.


River catchments are an obvious scale for soil and water resources management, since their shape and characteristics control the pathways and fluxes of water and sediment. Digital Elevation Models (DEMs) are widely used to simulate overland water paths in hydrological models. However, all DEMs are approximations to some degree and it is widely recognised that their characteristics can vary according to attributes such as spatial resolution and data sources (e.g. contours, optical or radar imagery). As a consequence, it is important to assess the 'fitness for purpose' of different DEMs and evaluate how uncertainty in the terrain representation may propagate into hydrological derivatives.
The overall aim of this research was to assess accuracies and uncertainties associated with seven different DEMs (ASTER GDEM1, SRTM, Landform Panorama (OS 50), Landform Profile (OS 10), LandMap, NEXTMap and Bluesky DTMs) and to explore the implications of their use in hydrological analysis and catchment management applications. The research focused on the Wensum catchment in Norfolk, UK. The research initially examined the accuracy of the seven DEMs and, subsequently, a subset of these (SRTM, OS 50, OS10, NEXTMap and Bluesky) were used to evaluate different techniques for determining an appropriate flow accumulation threshold to delineate channel networks in the study catchment. These results were then used to quantitatively compare the positional accuracy of drainage networks derived from different DEMs. The final part of the thesis conducted an assessment of soil erosion and diffuse pollution risk in the study catchment using NEXTMap and OS 50 data with SCIMAP and RUSLE modelling techniques.
Findings from the research demonstrate that a number of nationally available DEMs in the UK are simply not 'fit for purpose' as far as local catchment management is concerned. Results indicate that DEM source and resolution have considerable influence on modelling of
hydrological processes, suggesting that for a lowland catchment the availability of a high resolution DEM (5m or better) is a prerequisite for any reliable assessment of the consequences of implementing particular land management measures.
Several conclusions can be made from the research. (1) From the collection of DEMs used in this study the NEXTMap 5m DTM was found to be the best for representing catchment topography and is likely to prove a superior product for similar applications in other lowland catchments across the UK. (2) It is important that error modelling techniques are more routinely employed by GIS users, particularly where the fitness for purpose of a data source is not well-established. (3) GIS modelling tools that can be used to test and trial alternative management options (e.g. for reducing soil erosion) are particularly helpful in simulating the effect of possible environmental improvement measures.


The immunodominant CD4 T cell epitope of the bacteriophage lambda cI repressor protein in several inbred mouse strains can be represented by a peptide encompassing amino acids 12-26. Here, we show that this peptide, and a variety of its sequence variants, can induce immediate- type hypersensitivity in mice. 12-26 variants that differ by as little as single amino acid residues deviate greatly in their ability to induce hypersensitivity. Further, differences in major histocompatibility complex class II alleles appear to be as influential as changes in peptide structure in determining whether hypersensitivity is developed. The ability of a given peptide-class II combination to induce hypersensitivity correlates with production of peptide-specific antibody, but not with ability or inability to induce a T cell proliferative response. Administration of anti-interleukin 4 (IL-4) mAb prevents the development of hypersensitivity, and analysis of cytokine production by T cell hybridomas derived from peptide-immunized mice suggests that whether a given peptide-class II combination can induce hypersensitivity depends on its ability to induce IL-4 production. The data demonstrate that changes in the nature of the epitope(s) recognized by the CD4 T cell population can result in qualitative differences in the response elicited in this population, ultimately leading to dramatic quantitative and qualitative variations in the effector phase of the immune response.


Rituximab was the first chemotherapeutic monoclonal antibody (CmAb) approved for clinical use in cancer therapeutics in 1997 and has significantly improved the clinical outcomes in non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. Since then, numerous CmAbs have been developed and approved for the treatment of various haematologic and solid human cancers. In this review, the classification, efficacy and significantly reduced toxicity of CmAbs available for use in the United States of America are presented. Finally, the limitations of CmAbs and future considerations are explored.


We address the problem of predicting pauses between the words in a sentence, which is of considerable interest for text to speech systems. In doing so, we show that the performance of both a generative classifier (naive Bayes, NB) and a discriminative classifier (maximum entropy, ME) can be significantly enhanced by application of the generalised probabilistic descent (GPD) algorithm. The features used for prediction of pauses in sentences are both local (derived from the neighbourhood of a word juncture) and global (derived from a parse tree of the sentence). We first compare the results of using the NB and ME classifiers on these features, and then develop the theory required for applying GPD to these classifiers. We show that GPD is particularly suitable for application within the maximum entropy framework and increases very significantly the discriminative power of both the NB and ME classifiers. The F-score of 81.2% obtained after application of GPD to an ME classifier is believed to be the best performance obtained on the Boston Radio Corpus.


""Captain Ahab was neither my first husband nor my last." " This is destined to be remembered as one of the most-recognized first sentences in literature--along with "Call me Ishmael." Sena Jeter Naslund has created an entirely new universe with a transcendent heroine at its center who will be every bit as memorable as Captain Ahab. "Ahab's Wife" is a novel on a grand scale that can legitimately be called a masterpiece: beautifully written, filled with humanity and wisdom, rich in historical detail, authentic and evocative. Melville's spirit informs every page of her tour de force. Una Spenser's marriage to Captain Ahab is certainly a crucial element in the narrative of "Ahab's Wife," but the story covers vastly more territory. After a spellbinding opening scene, the tale flashes back to Una's childhood in Kentucky; her idyllic adolescence with her aunt and uncle's family at a lighthouse near New Bedford; her adventures disguised as a cabin boy on a whaling ship; her first marriage to a fellow survivor who descends into violent madness; courtship and marriage to Ahab; life as mother and a rich captain's wife in Nantucket; involvement with Frederick Douglass; and a man who is in Nantucket researching his novel about his adventures on her ex-husband's ship. "Ahab's Wife" is a breathtaking, magnificent, and uplifting story of one woman's spiritual journey, informed by the spirit of the greatest American novel, but taking it beyond tragedy to redemptive triumph. ""Captain Ahab was neither my first husband nor my last." " This is destined to be remembered as one of the most-recognized first sentences in literature--along with "Call me Ishmael." Sena Jeter Naslund has created anentirely new universe with a transcendent heroine at its center who will be every bit as memorable as Captain Ahab. "Ahab's Wife" is a novel on a grand scale that can legitimately be called a masterpiece: beautifully written, filled with humanity and wisdom, rich in historical detail, authentic and evocative. Melville's spirit informs every page of her tour de force. Una Spenser's marriage to Captain Ahab is certainly a crucial element in the narrative of "Ahab's Wife," but the story covers vastly more territory. After a spellbinding opening scene, the tale flashes back to Una's childhood in Kentucky; her idyllic adolescence with her aunt and uncle's family at a lighthouse near New Bedford; her adventures disguised as a cabin boy on a whaling ship; her first marriage to a fellow survivor who descends into violent madness; courtship and marriage to Ahab; life as mother and a rich captain's wife in Nantucket; involvement with Frederick Douglass; and a man who is in Nantucket researching his novel about his adventures on her ex-husband's ship. "Ahab's Wife" is a breathtaking, magnificent, and uplifting story of one woman's spiritual journey, informed by the spirit of the greatest American novel, but taking it beyond tragedy to redemptive triumph.""Captain Ahab was neither my first husband nor my last." " This is destined to be remembered as one of the most-recognized first sentences in literature--along with "Call me Ishmael." Sena Jeter Naslund has created an entirely new universe with a transcendent heroine at its center who will be every bit as memorable as Captain Ahab. "Ahab's Wife" is a novel on a grand scale that can legitimately be called a masterpiece: beautifullywritten, filled with humanity and wisdom, rich in historical detail, authentic and evocative. Melville's spirit informs every page of her tour de force. Una Spenser's marriage to Captain Ahab is certainly a crucial element in the narrative of "Ahab's Wife," but the story covers vastly more territory. After a spellbinding opening scene, the tale flashes back to Una's childhood in Kentucky; her idyllic adolescence with her aunt and uncle's family at a lighthouse near New Bedford; her adventures disguised as a cabin boy on a whaling ship; her first marriage to a fellow survivor who descends into violent madness; courtship and marriage to Ahab; life as mother and a rich captain's wife in Nantucket; involvement with Frederick Douglass; and a man who is in Nantucket researching his novel about his adventures on her ex-husband's ship. "Ahab's Wife" is a breathtaking, magnificent, and uplifting story of one woman's spiritual journey, informed by the spirit of the greatest American novel, but taking it beyond tragedy to redemptive triumph.