A detailed analysis was made of the response characteristics of single cells in the lateral geniculate nucleus of the macaque monkey. The goal was to understand how these cells contribute to the processing of visual information. Data were analyzed from a representative sample of 147 cells, whose responses to equal-energy spectra (presented as diffuse flashes of monochromatic light) were recorded at three radiance levels. On the basis of their responses, the cells were divided into two general classes: (a) spectrally nonopponent cells which respond to all wavelengths with either an increase or decrease in firing rate, (b) spectrally opponent cells (about two-thirds of the sample) which respond with an increase in firing rate to some parts of the spectrum and a decrease to other parts. Four types of opponent cells were found: (i) red excitatory and green inhibitory (+R−G), (ii) green excitatory and red inhibitory (+G−R), (iii) yellow excitatory and blue inhibitory (+Y−B), (iv) blue excitatory and yellow inhibitory (+B−Y). Comparisons with psychophysical data indicated that nonopponent cells transmit brightness information; opponent cells, however, carry information about color, the hue of a light being determined by the relative responses of the four types. The saturation of spectral lights appears to be related to the differences in responses of opponent and non-opponent cells.


The aim of this research is to present the benefits of working with artbots in education and to investigate further benefits for society. The methods which are implemented in order to reach this aim are related to children's and other audiences' participation in contemporary art practices as well as educational activities which involve artbots. The se practices and activities are rich and diverse ranging from drawing with artbots (with or without coding) to producing small-scale theatrical pieces, happenings and films . However, all the activities presented in this paper are interdisciplinary and involve or connect the STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics) fields. Another common characteristic of all the activities is that they communicate human values through messages of love and peace as well as through references to beauty, harmony, festivity, mobility, interconnectedness and other qualities of the contemporary living conditions. Which are the learning outcomes and what impact do these practices and activities have on the audiences? In order to give an answer to these questions it is important to take into consideration the different age and social groups as well as the contexts where these activities take place. It is also interesting to see these activities through and beyond STEAM education by highlighting the implementation of the Arts as a way to blaze new trails for fostering creative and innovative thinking. The artbots activities presented in this paper can be easily carried out in various intercultural, intergenerational and interdisciplinary contexts and they can bring together people by bridging many kinds of gaps. This means that artbots activities are a promising field of research and creation in education with multiple opportunities for original activities which benefit education and society


Strong intergenerational correlations in various types of welfare use have fueled a long-standing debate over whether welfare receipt in one generation causes welfare participation in the next generation. Some claim a causal relationship in welfare receipt across generations has created a culture in which welfare use reinforces itself through the family. Others argue the determinants of poverty or poor health are correlated across generations, so that children's welfare participation is associated with, but not caused by, parental welfare receipt. However, there is little empirical evidence to sort out these claims. In this paper, we investigate the existence and importance of family welfare cultures in the context of Norway's disability insurance (DI) system. To overcome the challenge of correlated unobservables across generations, we take advantage of random assignment of judges to DI applicants whose cases are initially denied. Some appeal judges are systematically more lenient, which leads to random variation in the probability a parent will be allowed DI. Using this exogenous variation, we find strong evidence that welfare receipt in one generation causes welfare participation in the next generation: when a parent is allowed DI, their adult child's participation over the next five years increases by 6 percentage points. This effect grows over time, rising to 12 percentage points after ten years. While these findings are specific to our setting, they serve to highlight that welfare reforms can have long-lasting effects on program participation, since any original effect on the current generation could be reinforced by changing the participation behavior of their children as well. The detailed nature of our data allows us to compare the intergenerational transmission with spillover effects in other networks and to explore mechanisms. Our findings point to a special link between parents and their children, with little impact due to close neighbors' DI participation. We find suggestive evidence that what may change as a result of a parent being allowed DI is their children's beliefs about the efficacy of trying to get on to the DI program or their attitudes about DI participation and its stigma.


In this paper, the available analog link performance of integrated transmitters containing a sampled-grating distributed Bragg reflector laser, a semiconductor optical amplifier, and a modulator is evaluated. It is found that to provide a link gain and a low-noise figure, an RF preamplifier is required, and for this reason, spurious-free dynamic range (SFDR) including a preamplifier has been evaluated. An SFDR of 110-dBHz2/3, a noise figure of 5.4 dB, and link gain of 6.9 dB at 5 GHz is obtained. It is further investigated how link SFDR can be improved by linearization techniques. Two novel approaches are proposed and demonstrated: first, predistortion by extraction of nonlinear components from an integrated second modulator exposed to the same wavelength, optical power and temperature for matched nonlinear terms; second, a novel linearized modulator configuration balancing electroabsorption and Mach-Zehnder modulation that can reach a null for both second- and third-order intermodulation products at a single bias point.


Educational institutions have been increasingly started to use information technologies (ITs) for improving the service quality and achieving the effective organizational outputs in a competitive global environment. An individual's intention to use ITs is a crucial factor in determining the success or failure of an information technology (IT) system implementation. This study attempts to investigate the factors affecting the intention to use ITs from the academicians' perspectives in Turkey. This research extends the technology acceptance model (TAM) framework with subjective norm (SN) and facilitating conditions (FC) acting as external variables. The model has been tested using web-based data collected from 510 academicians. The findings demonstrate that this extended TAM can explain 80% of the variance of intention to use ITs. And also, SN and FC are potential variables that may be used to extend the TAM for the research on the academicians' intention to use towards ITs. This study reveals that educational managers can use this research model as a helpful tool in better understanding stakeholders' behaviors related to the technology acceptance, and also in the process of IT investment, implementation and renovation


Background: Technologists are exposed to a strong magnetic field (1.5-3.0 Tesla), higher than the earth magnetic field (≈0.5mT). In addition to that, the exposure to the radiofrequency (RF) may create currents producing skin burns. This study's objective was to assess the magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) safety practices in specific departments in Saudi Arabia in the Riyadh region, evaluate the incidence of biological effects and health implications of the electromagnetic fields present during MR scans, and to detect the occupational hazards. Methods: A survey questionnaire was designed and used to stimulate the target population's views on aspects of MRI safety and detected risks. The survey's target population includes consultants, radiologists, technologists, patients, and others who underwent MRI procedures. Results: A total of 28 technologists were responded from the five hospitals. The study results showed that 50% of the technologist reported various levels of effects, including vertigo and lack of concentration. It is well documented that exposure to MRI requires special consideration due to high magnetic field exposure. Conclusions: This study's main findings are that radiology nurses and patients in MRI units are highly exposed to the magnetic field, especially before and after MRI examination. Any department did not report projectile hazards. Staff is exposed to various degrees of radiation risks. No incident or accident was reported in all investigated hospitals. The staff is well protected in light of the current practice.


This Companion offers a thorough, concise overview of the emerging field of humanities computing. Contains 37 original articles written by leaders in the field. Addresses the central concerns shared by those interested in the subject. Major sections focus on the experience of particular disciplines in applying computational methods to research problems; the basic principles of humanities computing; specific applications and methods; and production, dissemination and archiving. Accompanied by a website featuring supplementary materials, standard readings in the field and essays to be included in future editions of the Companion.


Biofouling, due to bacterial growth and colonization, is a significant obstacle in water treatment that severely affects the membrane performance. Nanofiltration effectively removes viruses and other pathogens but is an energy intensive process. Designing and developing low pressure driven membranes with potential antimicrobial and antibiofouling properties is a concern. Under this framework, biocidal silver nanoparticles based polymeric membranes with high content of silver on the membrane surface can control bacterial colonization. However, leaching of silver during water treatment may also lead to toxicity. In the present work, a unique strategy resulting in distinct surface assembly of silver nanoparticles was established on thiol functionalized PVDF membranes. Nanocluster assembly of silver nanoparticles on the PVDF membrane was obtained by esterification reaction between thioglycolic acid (TGA) and alkaline treated PVDF membrane (TGA–PVDF). On the other hand, by introducing thiol–ene chemistry between pentaerythritol tetrakis(3-mercaptopropionate) (PETMP) and alkaline treated PVDF (PETMP–PVDF), well dispersed silver nanoparticles can be tailored on the membrane surface. The silver nanocluster assembly on TGA–PVDF membranes results in control leaching, as confirmed by inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectroscopy (ICP) and X-ray photon spectroscopy (XPS) analysis in striking contrast to PETMP–PVDF. The trans-membrane flux was assessed and our results uncover that the designed membranes showed higher flux rate. These results have important implications in designing membranes for water purification and reveal the importance of the surface assembly of biocidal nanoparticles towards antibacterial properties.


Individual distinctiveness in acoustic signals can allow receivers to respond appropriately to different individuals. The aim of this research was to examine signal variation and to investigate the relative importance of different acoustic properties for coding individual distinctiveness in the advertisement calls of male golden rocket frogs (Anomaloglossus beebei). We examined patterns of within-individual and among-individual variability in 760 advertisement calls of 40 males as well as repeatability in 16 additional males that were recorded on two different occasions. We examined eight call properties, and all properties exhibited significant among-individual variation and moderate to high repeatability across days. We employed discriminant function analysis to examine individual distinctiveness statistically. These analyses assigned 79% of calls to the correct individual. Fine temporal properties, including pulse duration, pulse rate, and pulse interval, as well as the spectral property of dominant frequency, contributed most toward discrimination among individuals. These results indicate that individual male golden rocket frogs can be distinguished statistically by their advertisement calls. We use these findings to evaluate results of previous playback studies in A. beebei and to generate testable predictions regarding the potential for specific call properties to function in mate selection and social recognition.


Although there is a long line of work on identifying duplicates in relational data, only a few solutions focus on duplicate detection in more complex hierarchical structures, like XML data. In this paper, we present a novel method for XML duplicate detection, called XMLDup. XMLDup uses a Bayesian network to determine the probability of two XML elements being duplicates, considering not only the information within the elements, but also the way that information is structured. In addition, to improve the efficiency of the network evaluation, a novel pruning strategy, capable of significant gains over the unoptimized version of the algorithm, is presented. Through experiments, we show that our algorithm is able to achieve high precision and recall scores in several data sets. XMLDup is also able to outperform another state-of-the-art duplicate detection solution, both in terms of efficiency and of effectiveness.


The present research examines chemistry course achievement in relation to the academic selfconcept, attitudes towards the chemistry course and logical thinking skills. The study sample consisted of 252 students in a vocational high school in Ankara who voluntarily participated with convenience sampling method. In the research, the academic self-concept and logical thinking were found be significant predictors on academic achievement. As a result of discriminant analysis, the academic self-concept and logical thinking were determined to be the variables which distinguish successful from unsuccessful students. The classification of successful and unsuccessful students by distinctive variables was found to be successful at 69.4%.


We study joint end-to-end congestion control and per-link medium access control (MAC) in ad-hoc wireless networks. We use a network utility maximization formulation, in which by adjusting the types of utility functions, we can accommodate multi-class services as well as exploit the tradeoff between efficiency and fairness of resource allocation. Despite the inherent difficulties of non-convexity and non-separability of the optimization problem, we show that, under readily-verifiable sufficient conditions, we can develop a distributed algorithm that converges to the globally and jointly optimal rate allocation and persistence probabilities. A key contribution is that our results can accommodate general concave utility function rather than just the logarithmic utility function in existing results


Blade fault is one of the most common faults in turbomachinery. In this article, a rotor system consists of multiple rows of blade was developed. The effectiveness of conventional FFT spectrum and wavelet analysis in the diagnosis of multi stage blade rubbing faults is examined at different stages, variety of blade fault conditions, and different blades rubbing severity. Blade fault caused impacts and the use of wavelets as analysis tool to detect the blade faults was studied. Results showed that, vibration spectrum can clearly depict the location and the stage of blade rubbing, while it is difficult to be identified in wavelet analysis. The limitations of wavelet analysis for multi stage blade fault diagnosis were identified. Some probable solutions to improve wavelet time-frequency representation in blade fault diagnosis were also presented.


BYDV-PAV is one of the major agents causing yellowing and dwarfing of cereals worldwide. Previous study has been report the wide distribution of BYDVs in Iran and the prevalence of BYDV-PAV in cereal fields of the country. Due to the importance of this virus, and to investigate the taxonomic position of the Iranian isolate, the full length sequence of an Iranian severe isolate of BYDV-PAV from Kerman province (KP771878) was determined. Total RNA was extracted using RNX (-plus) TM Kit. Nucleic acid extracts were reverse transcribed and amplified using PAV specific primers. The amplified fragments were inserted into PTZ57R/T vector using Ins T/A clone PCR Product Kit (MBI Fermentas) and cloned in Escherichia coli (DH5α) and sequenced. Complete nucleotide sequence of this isolate comprises 5668 nucleotides. Sequence analysis at nucleotide level showed that the Kerman isolate has maximum homology of about 94% with two American isolates (AF235167 and EF043235) of BYDV-PAV and grouped in the same cluster, while it showed the least similarity with a Chinese isolate of BYDV-PAV (AY855920) with only 78% homology. In addition, nucleotide sequence comparison of each ORF showed that the ORF4 was the most conserved while the ORF6 was the most divergent regions.


The transformation of the Swedish Armed Forces is bringing about major changes in many areas. Indirect fire is one capability affected by these changes. Financial savings, a shrinking organization and higher eligibility requirements mean that fewer soldiers will gain access to exclusive high-tech support resources such as the JAS 39 Gripen aircraft and the ARCHER artillery system. This thesis aims to examine whether access to indirect fire capability can be increased through the use of civilian products and communication networks. Technology development in the civilian mobile communications area is exponential and nations such as the USA, facing challenges similar to those of the Swedish Armed Forces, devote substantial resources to research and development. Is the use of mobile phones for military purposes the innovation needed by the Swedish Armed Forces, do the necessary technical conditions exist and is the technology applicable during peace and wartime operations? The results indicate that the military use of commercial technology is too low at the moment, but that the technology itself sets no limits, and that there is a need and a demand to develop military mobile apps. The robustness of commercial networks does not meet Armed Forces' requirements and the Armed Forces need a clear strategy that states the aims and objectives before procurement and implementation is possible. The results show further that, regardless of the challenges identified, there are good reasons to continue to pursue these issues in order to build up experience and knowledge in this area of technology. The development of civil mobile phone technology for military purposes will mean that there is an economically viable resource to use in the future.


We construct a family of integrable deformations of the Bogoyavlenskij–Itoh systems and construct a Lax operator with spectral parameter for it. Our approach is based on the construction of a family of compatible Poisson structures for the undeformed systems, whose Casimirs are shown to yield a generating function for the integrals in involution of the deformed systems.We show how these deformations are related to the Veselov–Shabat systems.


We present an analytic formalism that describes the evolution of the stellar, gas and metal content of galaxies. It is based on the idea, inspired by hydrodynamic simulations, that galaxies live in a slowly evolving equilibrium between inflow, outflow and star formation. We argue that this formalism broadly captures the behaviour of galaxy properties evolving in simulations. The resulting equilibrium equations for the star formation rate, gas fraction and metallicity depend on three key free parameters that represent ejective feedback, preventive feedback and reaccretion of ejected material. We schematically describe how these parameters are constrained by models and observations. Galaxies perturbed off the equilibrium relations owing to inflow stochasticity tend to be driven back towards equilibrium, such that deviations in star formation rate at a given mass are correlated with gas fraction and anticorrelated with metallicity. After an early gas accumulation epoch, quiescently star-forming galaxies are expected to be in equilibrium over most of cosmic time. The equilibrium model provides a simple intuitive framework for understanding the cosmic evolution of galaxy properties, and centrally features the cycle of baryons between galaxies and surrounding gas as the driver of galaxy growth.


The hallmark of hematopoietic stem cells (HSC) is their ability of self-renewal and differentiation into multiple hematopoietic cell lineages. Although the molecular network controlling stem cell fate decisions is largely unknown, multiple studies have attributed a key role to transcription factors in this developmental process. In this context the family of homeobox genes was characterized as 'master genes' of this early hematopoietic development. The identification of new genes involved in normal and leukemic hematopoiesis and the development of therapies against deregulated processes in hematopoiesis are the major goals in experimental and clinical hematology. . The identification of new genes involved in normal and leukemic hematopoiesis and the development of therapies against deregulated processes in hematopoiesis are the major goals in experimental and clinical hematology. Therefore, the focus of this thesis was the characterization of two novel putative regulatory proteins of early human hematopoiesis, the hematopoietic PBX-interacting protein (HPIP) and the human Vent-like Homeobox gene (VENTX2) and to investigate to the activity of the FLT3 protein kinase inhibitor SU5614 on leukemic blast from AML patient samples.
Using complex in vitro assays we analyzed the impact of constitutive expression of HPIP and VENTX2 on stem cell and early human hematopoietic development. To detect clonal progenitor cells primary and secondary colony-forming-unit (CFC) assays were performed. In addition the in vitro equivalent of HSC long-term culture initiating cells were detected with the (LTC-IC) assay.
We were able to show that the constitutive expression of HPIP can rapidly lead to increased numbers of cells detected on the level of committed clonogenic progenitor cells and LTC-ICs. In addition, the production of CFC per LTC-IC is markedly enhanced when cord blood (CB) cells are transduced with HPIP as compared to the control. Notably, besides its effect on maintenance of primitive hematopoietic progenitor cells, constitutive expression of HPIP did not block terminal hematopoietic differentiation. Additional we could show that the constitutive expression of HPIP leads to an increase of myeloid cells in transplanted NOD/SCID mice. These data characterize HPIP as a novel regulator of the early human hematopoietic stem cell, demonstrating that its constitutive expression has a notable impact on self renewal and differentiation of human hematopoietic stem cells.
In vitro and in vivo analyses shed light on the understanding to the function of the homeobox gene VENTX2. On the level of the most primitive hematopoietic progenitors we could not observe a significant increase in the frequency of HSCs. Furthermore, the number of colonies generated per LTC-IC did not significantly differ between the VENTX2 arm and the control arm. A strong effect was obtained on the level of clonogenic progenitor cells. VENTX2 increased the production of myeloid cells 1.7-fold in comparison to the control. Secondary replating assay confirmed the amplificatory effect of VENTX2 transduced cells in the number of secondary G-CFU indicating that VENTX2 promote myeloid lineage differentiation. Interestingly, on the level of clonogenic progenitors VENTX2 expression resulted in a significantly decreased growth of erythroid colonies by 4.2-fold compared to the control suggesting that constitutive expression of VENTX2 may inhibit early erythroid differentiation. This inhibition did not occur on the level of primitive hematopoietic cells detected by Limiting Dilution LTC-IC assay where VENTX2 increased within a 2.2 fold compared to the control.
 The observation that VENTX2 overexpression drives CD34+ to differentiate into myeloid lineage was additional proved by in vivo experiments. In NOD/SCID mice VENTX2 induced a 3-fold increase in the proportion of CD15+ mature myeloid cells within the GFP-positive compartment compared to the control. A 7-fold increase was observed in the total of CD38+ GFP+ cells in comparison to the MIG mice control (p<0.01). Furthermore, VENTX2 transduced cells increased the proportion of CD34-CD38+ cells 1.2 fold compared to the control suggesting that VENTX2 expands the compartment of more differentiated progenitors in vitro as well as in the NOD/SCID mouse model. This implicates a amplificatory effect of the VENTX2 expression on differentiated progenitor cells. All together, these data characterize VENTX2 as a novel regulatory protein in human hematopoiesis adding information about the role of non-clustered homeobox genes in early blood development.
In an additional project of this thesis, we tested the specificity of the FLT3 protein kinase inhibitor SU5614 on normal and leukemic blasts from patients with acute myeloid leukemia. Here we could demonstrate the efficiency of the compound to eliminate the leukemic stem cell in AML patient samples with mutated as well as non mutated FLT3 receptor. However, our data also point to a considerable toxicity on normal HSC, which should be taken in account in the management of patients with compromised normal hematopoiesis.


Electronic business or on-line cooperation transactions happen regularly over the internet. Such a transaction usually involves a service provider who provides a certain service (i.e., perform an on-line purchase) and a service requester who requests the service. In order to decide whether a service requester can access a service, a distributed access control system can be used. Traditional identity-based access control systems usually require pre-register, which is too rigid to adapt to the rapid developing on-line cooperation. Trust-based access control provides open authentication and access control. The flexibility that it introduces could boost the on-line cooperation significantly. However, it is vulnerable to attacks that lead to leakage of sensitive information. Furthermore, certain credentials (such as, credit card number) are too sensitive to release for some people even through proper release policies. This paper introduces the Zero-knowledge protocol for credential verification, and presents a trust-based access control framework that incorporates this protocol. This system keeps the highly sensitive credentials secret; while at the same time proceed with the trust negotiation.


The National Climate Change Research Facility (NCCARF) is undertaking a program of Synthesis and Integrative Research to synthesise existing and emerging national and international research on climate change impacts and adaptation. The purpose of this program is to provide decision-makers with the information they need to manage the risks of climate change. This report on drought and the future of rural communities in regional Victoria forms part of a series of studies/reports commissioned by NCCARF that look at historical extreme weather events, their impacts and subsequent adaptations. These studies examine particular events primarily extremes and seek to explore prior vulnerabilities and resilience, the character and management of the event, subsequent adaptation and the effects on present-day vulnerability. The reports should inform thinking about adapting to climate change that is, capacity to adapt, barriers to adaptation, and translating capacity into action. While it is recognised that the comparison is not, and never can be, exact, the over-arching goal is to better understand the requirements of successful adaptation to future climate change. This report compares the impact of drought in two agricultural communities, Mildura and Donald. The Big Dry, or Millennium Drought, has affected southeast Australia since the mid-1990s. Although there has been a return to wet La Nina conditions, it will be several seasons before conditions will return to 'normal'. This drought had serious impacts on water availability, agricultural production (due to decreased irrigation allocations), biodiversity (due to prolonged changes in habitats) and bushfire regimes. Two case studies (Mildura and Donald) were chosen to investigate the socio-economic impacts of drought, past and present drought adaptation measures, and the future adaptation strategies that will be required to deal with projected increases to the frequency and magnitude of drought events.


We provide a framework for monitoring the shadow banking system. The shadow banking system consists of a web of specialized financial institutions that conduct credit, maturity, and liquidity transformation without direct, explicit access to public backstops. The lack of such access to sources of government liquidity and credit backstops makes shadow banks inherently fragile. Shadow banking activities are often intertwined with core regulated institutions such as bank holding companies, security brokers and dealers, and insurance companies. These interconnections of shadow banks with other financial institutions create sources of systemic risk for the broader financial system. We describe elements of monitoring risks in the shadow banking system, including recent efforts by the Financial Stability Board.


In order to curb the space cooling load in buildings in summer, various passive technologies have been applied on the roofs, including cool paint, roof ventilation, and mass/reflective insulation. It is highly desirable to evaluate the potential benefits of applying these passive technologies on the roofs. In this work, the Complex Fast Fourier Transform (CFFT) method is introduced to predict the ceiling temperature and heat gain of multilayer roofs. A parameter study based on the CFFT model is conducted to investigate the impacts of rooftop surface reflectivity and insulation thickness on the thermal performance of roofs. It is concluded that, compared with the least reflective roofs of solar reflectivity 0.1, increasing the solar reflectivity of roof by 0.1 cuts down the daily heat gain by 4%, 5% and 7% respectively, when the indoor temperatures are set to 25°C, 22°C to 19°C. In addition, increasing the thickness of basic 15cm unventilated roof by 5 cm contributes to reduce the daily heat gain by 6% on average. The heat gain reductions obtained by applying various passive technologies on roofs subjected to typical Singapore climate are evaluated, including cool paint, roof ventilation, expanded polystyrene (EPS) foam and radiant barrier (RB). The individual uses of the passive roofing technologies contribute to reduce the daily roof heat gain by 36~84%. Keyword: passive roofing system, transient roof temperature, tropical climate, Complex Fast Fourier Transform (CFFT) method.


Each year, around 30,000 people are reported missing in Australia - one person every 18 minutes. The 30,000 people exceed the total number of victims, reported to police for homicide, sexual assault, and unarmed robbery combined. Nationally, the rate of missing people reported to the police is 1.55 per thousand, and it varies considerably around Australia with South Australia and the Australian Capital Territory have rates double the national average. Children and young people having rates three times those of adults. Fortunately, nearly all are found, and 86 per cent are located within one week. The social and economic impacts on families, friends, and the community as a whole are profound. It is estimated that each missing person costs the community about $2,360 - in search costs, loss of earnings while family members look, and health and legal costs. For 30,000 people, this adds to over $70 million per year. Relatively little is known about the reasons people go missing, the characteristics of missing persons, and the impact of their disappearance on the community. In 1998, the National Missing Persons Unit (NMPU.) at the Australian Bureau of Criminal Intelligence commissioned an independent study to address this information gap and to identify service delivery needs for those affected by the phenomenon of missing persons. This paper summarises that report. Adam Graycai Director The study was based on various sources of information. These included an analysis of missing person statistics provided by Australian police and by three non-government tracing organisations - the Salvation Army, Australian Red Cross, and International Social Service (Australia) over a three-year period. A detailed analysis was carried out on 505 missing person police reports, representing all missing persons reported to Australianpolice during a single week at the mid-point of the three-year period. A national survey of families and friends of 270 people reported missing to police was conducted, using an in-depth structured telephone interview. Consultations were held with over 90 organisations with an interest in missing person issues. The also included an assessment of the economic and social costs of missing people in the Australian community. Incidence Unfortunately, statistics on the incidence of missing persons reported to police across Australia are not routinely compiled, and there is no reliable national trend information available. The rate of missing persons reported to police over the study period 1995-97 was constant at 1.55 per 1,000 people in the general population each year, but varied between jurisdictions and according to age and gender (see Table 1). In 1997, children and young persons were reported missing at a rate over three times higher than adults. Adult females showed lower rates than adult males, while female children and young persons showed higher rates than their male counterparts. In 1997, the rates of missing persons in South Australia and Australian Capital Territory were well above the national average, but this was interpreted as a function of different reporting practices in those two jurisdictions (such as taking reports by telephone) rather than to real jurisdictional differences in susceptibility of people going missing. Including missing persons reported to the three non-government tracing organisations, the rate of missing persons is 1.61 per 1,000 people. In comparison, the rate of road traffic accident deaths in 1995 was 0.1 per 1,000 people and non-fatal road traffic accidents requiring hospitalisation was 1.2 per 1,000 people. The suicide rate was 0.1 per 1,000 people and other crimes, such as robbery and sexual assault, were reported to police at a rate of 0.9 per 1,000 people and 0.7 per 1,000 people respectively in 1995 (Australian Bureau of Statistics figures, cited in Mukherjee and Gray car 1997). The incidence of missing persons is at least as high as that of other issues that generate far more media attention and public interest. …


Studying English is a process that can not be done
in a short time. Based on these reasons, English began to be taught at the elementary school level. This is supported though some wisdom government. Authors interested in conducting research on the SDN Sukorejo I because
teachers who teach English in these schools do not have the background behind the education of English majors and graduate only D II PGSD, so that he faces many problems in teaching English. The purpose of this study is to investigate the problems and causes problems in teaching English. The author uses descriptive qualitative method. While the subject of this study are teachers who do not have English background taught in class four, five, and six. Instruments used for collect and analyze data are interviews and observation. Based on the results of data analysis, found that teachers who do not English backgrounds face the problem of linguistic and nonlinguistic. The problems faced inguistik consists of intonation, grammar, vocabulary, style, and dialect and cultural background of language. Whereas non-linguistic problems that arise include students who are not motivated,
inexperienced teachers, inappropriate teaching methods, materials difficult, facilities / media that are not available, time constraints, lack of native speakers, and government policies that are not supported. Issues
was caused by the fact that the teachers just graduated from the D II PGSD and less experienced in teaching English to children. In Additionally, schools and local curriculum does not support language teaching Britain on SDN Sukorejo I.


This study focuses on the eroding bench of the Ocean Shore Railroad (1907-1920) along the central California coast. Investigation of the remnant feature demonstrates the impacts of landscape change on the human timescale. Topographic maps and georeferenced aerial photographs aid in the first digital registration of the coastal rail sections. Sixty locations at the northern end of the study area provide site-specific rates of erosion. The geographic information systems-based effort reveals a 66.7 km route divided among steep, hillslope- and terrace-dominated sections where natural and anthropogenic processes have shifted land cover from railway to roadway, open, agricultural, and developed spaces. For the 60 erosion assessment locations, only 25 % of the 1928 rail bench width remains after 82 years and, in areas repurposed for the Pacific Coast Highway (1936-1957), only 38 % of the 1956 road bench width remains after 54 years. The highest estimates of erosion are greater than 0.6 m yr-1. These erosion values do not reflect episodic mass wasting, highlighting the limited utility of steady erosion rates in land-use decision.


Prevailing theories of implicit or unaware learning propose a developmental invariance model, with implicit function maturing early in infancy or childhood despite prolonged improvements in explicit or intentional learning and memory systems across childhood. Neuroimaging studies of adult visuomotor sequence learning have associated fronto-striatal brain regions with implicit learning of spatial sequences. Given evidence of continued development in these brain regions during childhood, we compare implicit sequence learning in adults and 7- to 11-year-old children to examine potential developmental differences in the recruitment of fronto-striatal circuitry during implicit learning. Participants performed a standard serial reaction time task. Stimuli alternately followed a fixed 10-step sequence of locations or were presented in a pseudorandom order of locations. Adults outperformed children, achieving a significantly larger sequence learning effect and showing learning more quickly than children. Age-related differences in activity were observed in the premotor cortex, putamen, hippocampus, inferotemporal cortex, and parietal cortex. We observed differential recruitment of cortical and subcortical motor systems between groups, presumably reflecting age differences in motor response execution. Adults showed greater hippocampal activity for sequence trials, whereas children demonstrated greater signal during random trials. Activity in the right caudate correlated significantly with behavioral measures of implicit learning for both age groups, although adults showed greater signal change than children overall, as would be expected given developmental differences in sequence learning magnitude. These results challenge the idea of developmental invariance in implicit learning and instead support a view of parallel developments in implicit and explicit learning systems.


Over the past decade Brazil has become well known for its open embrace of new media technologies. In tandem, an increasing number of Brazilian candidates have begun to use web and social media sites as an integral part of their overall campaign efforts. The present study is the first effort at large-scale modeling of these relationships in an emerging Latin American democracy. To explore the relationship between using digital media in a candidate's political campaign strategy and voter support, I built an original dataset of the 2010 elections for the lower house of the Brazilian Congress. I investigate factors such as a candidate's use of web and social networking sites in conjunction with other traditional influences such as candidate gender, age, incumbency, party affiliation, coalition membership and campaign spending. I demonstrate that having a robust web presence and using social media, holding other factors constant, can be a significant contribution to the popularity of a candidate on election day in an open-list proportional representation electoral system such as that in Brazil. Additionally, I demonstrate how this digital media campaign tactic might be specifically beneficial to traditionally disadvantaged candidates in bridging the gap of their under-representation in Brazilian politics.


We investigate the relationship between local and global phase-unwrapping techniques. We demonstrate that both algorithms are based on line integration of an estimate of the phase gradient: the former evaluates the integral along a single path, and the latter averages integrals along many paths. This analysis is extended to the weighted case. We also give an interpretation of the errors caused by an incorrect phase-gradient estimate in terms of path-following integrals.


A high-resolution correlation of ten upper Givetian-Frasnian sections spread over the different facies environments of the Eastern Anti-Atlas (Morocco) is established using graphic correlation. The measured stratigraphic ranges of eighty-five conodont taxa have been assembled into a chronostratigraphic framework. The developed regional composite subdivides the Frasnian into 501 composite standard units (CSU) based on the original thickness of the reference section (Bou Tchrafine). This is a higher resolution than obtained by the classic biozone correlation. Based on the conodont data available for this correlation project, the jamieae and Lower rhenana zones could not be recognised in the sections.


The effects of soil amendment with basal dose of nitrogen (60 kg ha- 1), phosphorus (30 kg ha-1) and potassium (75 kg ha-1) for Yams Dioscorea species in South West Nigeria and calcium carbonate were assessed on yield and susceptibility to two storage rot pathogens, in Dioscorea alata TDa 92-2, D. rotundata TDr 131 and D. esculenta TDe 89-1. The study site at the Teaching and Research Farms of the Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta, had been monocropped to yams without fertilizer for three years before the study. A 3 by 5 factorial desgn, with the Dioscorea species as main plots and 0 kg ha-1, 2 kg ha-1, 4 kg ha-1, 6 kg ha-1 and 8 kg ha-1 calcium carbonate as subplot treatments, was used in each of two years. Aspergillus niger van Tiegh. and Botryodiplodia theobromae Pat. were the two yam storage pathogens used. Pre-planting soil analysis in the two years revealed calcium, magnesium and potassium below the critical levels required for Dioscorea species in South Western Nigeria. Calcium fertilizer enhanced resistance and reduced weight loss in yam ''sections;'' of D. rotundata TDr 131 and Dioscorea alata TDa 92-2 to the pathogens after long-terms storage of over four months in both years. Response of whole tubers incubated for an additional (after the four months) period of ten weeks and six weeks in years one and two respectively, was not significantiy (P=0.05) different from the control. Futher work to determine endogenous or physiological reasons for this is necessary. D. esculenta TDe 89-1 was more susceptible to the rot pathogens than the other two species. D. esculenta TDe 89-1 was also not significantly different in infection or weight loss than the control in the two years, necessitating a need to ascertain optimum fertilizer placement methods for this species in Nigeria. There were no differences in tuber number or tuber weight per plant at the treatment levels.


OBJECTIVE
This study is a descriptive analysis of the clinical presentations in which cholelithiasis was diagnosed on imaging over a five-year period at the University Hospital of the West Indies, Jamaica and how the clinical presentation varied with age and gender.

METHOD
A retrospective review was done of all cases of cholelithiasis recorded in the reports of the Radiology section during the period January 1, 2002 to December 31, 2006. Patients' age and gender were noted. Each case was assigned to one of four clinical categories based on the clinical scenario at the time of referral for imaging: Acute abdomen-Incidental: (not referable to the biliary tract); Acute abdomen-Biliary (biliary colic/acute cholecystitis); Non-acute-Incidental: (not referable to the biliary tract) and Non-acute-Biliary (suspected cholelithiasis). The data were analyzed using post-hoc cross-tabulations, ANOVA, and post-hoc Tukey-tests.

RESULTS
Three hundred and forty-four females and 137 males were diagnosed with cholelithiasis with the mean age at diagnosis being 49 and 50 years respectively. Females were diagnosed with cholelithiasis at higher rates in the context of acute abdominal symptoms both referable and unrelated to the biliary tract, while males were diagnosed at higher rates as an incidental finding in a non-acute presentation. There was no significant difference between the genders in the rate of diagnosis of cholelithiasis when this was suspected clinically in the non-acute setting.

CONCLUSION
More females were diagnosed with cholelithiasis. There was no gender-related difference in the mean age at which cholelithiasis was diagnosed. There were statistically significant differences between the genders in the rates at which cholelithiasis was identified in different clinical scenarios.


Build and maintain impressive user-friendly web sites the fast and easy way with Joomla! 1.5 Create a web site that meets real-life requirements by following the creation of an example site with the help of easy-to-follow steps and ample screenshots Practice all the Joomla! skills from organizing your content to completely changing the site's looks and feel Go beyond a typical Joomla! site to make the site meet your specific needs Get to grips with inspiring examples and best practices and implement them to enhance your Joomla! site In Detail Joomla! is one of the most popular open-source Content Management Systems, actively developed and supported by a world-wide user community. Although it's a fun and feature-rich tool, it can be challenging to get beyond the basics and build a site that meets your needs perfectly. Using this book you can create dynamic, interactive web sites that perfectly fit your needs. This practical guide gives you a head start in using Joomla! 1.5, helping you to create professional and good-looking web sites, whether you want to create a full-featured company or club web site or build a personal blog site. The Joomla! 1.5 Beginner's Guide helps beginners to get started quickly and to get beyond the basics to take full advantage of Joomla!'s powerful features. Real-life examples and tutorials will spark your imagination and show you what kind of professional, contemporary, feature-rich web sites any developer can achieve with Joomla!. It gives you a head start and explains what's good and useful about Joomla! features and what's not. The focus is on clear instructions and easy-to-understand tutorials, with minimum of jargon. This book provides clear definitions, thoroughly covering the concepts behind the software and creating a coherent picture of how the software works. This book is not about what Joomla! can do--it's about what you can do using Joomla!. What you will learn from this book Create a feature-rich site that's easy to expand, customize, and maintain without having to learn web languages such as HTML and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) Design attractive home pages that provide a quick overview of the site's contents and direct people to the content they could be interested in Engage your web visitors and turn them into active users by enabling them to register, add content, and leave comments Design clear and easy navigation using menus, submenus, and text hyperlinks Make full use of templates to get your site to look just right, tweaking the CSS and customizing templates using your own logo, fonts, and colors Extend Joomla!'s capabilities by finding and utilizing must-have extensions that perfectly meet your needs Increase your site's visibility for search engines by applying highly effective Search Engine Optimization (SEO) techniques Secure your site from hackers and potential threats using easy-to-follow techniques Chapter 1: Introduction: A New and Easy Way to Build Your Web Site - In this chapter you'll learn why you'd want to use Joomla!: to create a cool looking, feature-rich site that's easy to expand, customize, and maintain. Chapter 2: Installation:Getting Joomla! Up and Running - You'll learn how to install Joomla! on your own computer or on a web server, and how to install a sample site. Chapter 3: First Steps: Getting to Know Joomla! -In this chapter you'll get familiar with the basic concepts of Joomla!: the Joomla! interface and the principles of a web site constructed out of 'building blocks'. Chapter 4: Web Building Basics: Creating a Site in an Hour - Face a Real-Life Challenge - In this chapter you'll use Joomla! to build a basic but expandable web site fast - customizing Joomla! 's default sample site to fit your needs, adding content, menu links, and changing the site's look and feel. Chapter 5: Small Sites, Big Sites: Organizing Your Content Effectively -Making it easy to add and find information on your site: designing a clear, expandable, manageable structure for your content. Chapter 6: Creating Killer Content: Adding and Editing Articles -In this chapter, you'll learn to create content pages that are attractive and easy to read, and you'll learn about different ways to tweak the page layout. Chapter 7: Welcoming Your Visitors: Creating Attractive Home Pages and Overview Pages -When you've got your content set up, you'll create a home page and overview pages to entice visitors to actually read all your valuable content. Chapter 8: Helping Your Visitors Find What They Want: Managing Menus -In this chapter, you'll practice designing clear and easy navigation through menus. How can you help the visitors to find what they want easily? Chapter 9: Opening Up the Site: Enabling Users to Contribute and Interact -You'll learn how to enable users to log in and allow them to create content and manage the web site. Enable visitors to register and give them exclusive access to premium content. Another powerful way to get visitors involved is to allow them to leave comments. Chapter 10: Getting the Most out of Your Site: Extending Joomla! -In this chapter, you'll learn how to extend Joomla!'s capabilities using all sorts of extensions: using an image gallery to attractively display pictures, automatically showing article teasers on the home page, or enhancing your workspace by installing an easier content editor. Chapter 11: Creating an Attractive Design: Working with Templates -Templates will give your site a fresh look and feel - and make it easy to create an individual look, different from a "typical" Joomla! site. You'll learn how to install and customize templates. Chapter 12: Attracting Search Engine Traffic -This chapter shows you how to increase your site's visibility for search engines applying Search Engine Optimization (SEO) techniques, such as creating friendly URLs. Appendix - Keeping the Site Secure -In this chapter you'll learn simple, common sense steps you can take to keep your site safe from hackers. Approach Written with a fast-paced but friendly and engaging approach, this Packt Beginner's guide is designed to be placed alongside the computer as your guide and mentor to meet real-world web building challenges. Step-by-step tutorials are bolstered by explanations of the reasoning behind what you are doing. You will quickly pick up the necessary skills, tips, and tricks for building a successful Joomla! web site with practical examples that help you to learn by experiment and play. Who this book is written for If you want to build and maintain your own web site, the Joomla! Beginner's Guide is perfect for you. It helps you build on the skills and knowledge you may already have on creating web sites- but even if you're new to this subject, you won't have any difficulty understanding the clear and friendly instructions and explanations. You learn how to build and maintain web sites without having to dive deep into HTML and CSS.


Internet of Things (IoT) distributed secure data management system is characterized by authentication, privacy policies to preserve data integrity. Multi-phase security and privacy policies ensure confidentiality and trust between the users and service providers. In this regard, we present a novel Two-phase Incentive-based Secure Key (TISK) system for distributed data management in IoT. The proposed system classifies the IoT user nodes and assigns low-level, high-level security keys for data transactions. Low-level secure keys are generic light-weight keys used by the data collector nodes and data aggregator nodes for trusted transactions. TISK phase-I Generic Service Manager (GSM-C) module verifies the IoT devices based on self-trust incentive and server-trust incentive levels. High-level secure keys are dedicated special purpose keys utilized by data manager nodes and data expert nodes for authorized transactions. TISK phase-II Dedicated Service Manager (DSM-C) module verifies the certificates issued by GSM-C module. DSM-C module further issues high-level secure keys to data manager nodes and data expert nodes for specific purpose transactions. Simulation results indicate that the proposed TISK system reduces the key complexity and key cost to ensure distributed secure data management in IoT network.


Carotid body feedback and hypoxia may serve to enhance respiratory–sympathetic nerve coupling (respSNA) and act as a driver of increased blood pressure. Using the Lewis polycystic kidney (LPK) rat model of chronic kidney disease, we examined respSNA in adult female rodents with CKD and their response to acute hypoxia or hypercapnia compared to Lewis control animals. Under urethane anesthesia, phrenic nerve activity, splanchnic sympathetic nerve activity (sSNA), and renal sympathetic nerve activity (rSNA) were recorded under baseline conditions and during mild hypoxic or hypercapnic challenges. At baseline, tonic SNA and blood pressure were greater in female LPK rats versus Lewis rats (all P < 0.05) and respSNA was at least two-fold larger [area under the curve (AUC), sSNA: 7.8 ± 1.1 vs. 3.4 ± 0.7 μV s, rSNA: 11.5 ± 3 vs. 4.8 ± 0.7 μV s, LPK vs. Lewis, both P < 0.05]. Mild hypoxia produced a larger pressure response in LPK [Δ mean arterial pressure (MAP) 30 ± 6 vs. 12 ± 6 mmHg] and augmented respSNA (ΔAUC, sSNA: 8.9 ± 3.4 vs. 2 ± 0.7 μV s, rSNA: 6.1 ± 1.2 vs. 3.1 ± 0.7 μV s, LPK vs. Lewis, all P ≤ 0.05). In contrast, central chemoreceptor stimulation produced comparable changes in blood pressure and respSNA (ΔMAP 13 ± 3 vs. 9 ± 5 mmHg; respSNA ΔAUC, sSNA: 2.5 ± 1 vs. 1.3 ± 0.7 μV s, rSNA: 4.2 ± 0.9 vs. 3.5 ± 1.4 μV s, LPK vs. Lewis, all P > 0.05). These results demonstrate that female rats with CKD exhibit heightened respSNA coupling at baseline that is further augmented by mild hypoxia, and not by hypercapnia. This mechanism may be a contributing driver of hypertension in this animal model of CKD.


Animal association and adaptation are the methods which are going on in nature from the very beginning almost since the time of the origin of the living organisms. Different species of animals are associated with one another in the different ways like mutualism (getting mutual benefit by association), commensalism (the association in which one species gets benefit but another one is neither getting benefit nor any harm). Some species are in the ways that one is killed by another for the food i.e. one species gets benefit but another one is harmed. Association also exists in the ways that animals are adapted by their own ways which enable them to adjust by adjusting their physiology and metabolism according to the need. The present study attempts to study the animal association and the pattern of animal adaptation with suitable example in the natural habitat within the Chitwan National Park and the community forest area adjoining the National Park of Nepal. The study also helps a lot to encourage the visitors and field researchers to make their visit of protected areas fruitful, encouraging and inspiring with direct observation of animal association and adaptation along with the enriched and attractive Bio-diversity of National Park. The study is intended to be not only informative but also adventurous and inspiring for those who are very much interested in the study of biodiversity. It also encourages the local people of the buffer zone and the protected area to create awareness and responsibility towards the conservation of existing bio-diversity which is directly related with their livelihood.


"If your brother, your friend, and your wife all of whom you hold dear wish to strip you of your faith, kill them, cut their throats and sacrifice them to God."1 So proclaimed a League polemicist, Louis D'Orleans, whose fierce devotion to the Church and condemnation of heresy epitomized the spirit of radical Catholicism.2 The mass murder and ritual degradation committed by Catholics against Huguenots during the Saint Bartholomew's Day Massacre (August 24, 1572) was supplanted by an oratory of violence and intolerance advocated by the League's most zealous supporters. By combating Protestantism Leaguers were not simply purging the kingdom of a dangerous social and political element; they were fighting for the salvation of the entire Catholic community and the restoration of God's favor. The ongoing conflict between Catholics and Protestants set the stage for the emergence of the Catholic League,3 a loose coalition of individuals representing all orders of society whose prime objective was the preservation of the Catholic Church and the elimination of heresy from the realm. Leaguers envisioned their campaign against Calvinism as a holy war similar to the great biblical contests against unbelievers and enemies of the Lord. League supporters argued that complacency on the part of Catholics, including the monarch, had led to the manifestation of God's anger at human society. League publications outlined the appearance of signs, such as natural disasters and apparitions, as evidence of divine wrath and the Lord's condemnation of heresy and sin. It was not enough to enumerate Protestantism's onslaught on centuries of tradition and ritual; polemicists maintained that any deviation from accepted religious norms would lead to the destruction of society's most basic foundations. League apologists relied on a variety of ancient sources for inspiration and guidance, especially the Scriptures and the Church Fathers. They wove together passages beseeching the wrathful God of the Old Testament to give credence to their campaign to violently and mercilessly eliminate God's enemies. They also relied on Christ's message of love and redemption, and with it, the hope of attaining eternal salvation for the faithful of France. One of the League's greatest strengths was its ability to use well-known religious and political symbols to influence its audiences. League polemics focused on biblical stories, such as the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, that were already well known to French Catholics and had been reinforced by post-Reformation preachers.4 League propaganda as a whole relied on beliefs and myths shared by a vast majority of the population.5 Since the League was interested in reaching a wide audience, most of its works were written in the vernacular. League printers became active in 1584, reaching their apex between 1588 and 1589, when over five hundred works were produced.6 Placards, pamphlets, broadsheets, and woodcuts began to circulate everywhere in Paris, especially in places where crowds regularly congregated to exchange gossip and news such as near the Palais de Justice and the Pont Neuf.7 Furthermore, written forms of League propaganda were normally read aloud, making its message widely accessible. This study focuses on the radical faction of the League which represented a vocal and significant component particularly in Paris, the center of French Catholicism. According to its critics, the League's crusading zeal and religious fervor was a dangerous attribute, something to be feared rather than admired. Using the term "zealous" became a favorite way for royal supporters and religious moderates to condemn what they discerned to be unbridled religious fanaticism. They downplayed their enemies' assaults by using the same terminology to differentiate themselves from heretics and lukewarm Catholics who threatened the Church's wholeness, and to emphasize the importance of maintaining a united kingdom: It is an admirable thing to view the ardor and the devotion of everyone in France, the air resounding with prayer and processions of our youth who are purified by our prayers and by the common voice which is spread throughout this kingdom; we demonstrate that the benedictions and maledictions of a people have great effects. …


Sparse coding is typically solved by iterative optimization techniques, such as the Iterative Shrinkage-Thresholding Algorithm (ISTA). Unfolding and learning weights of ISTA using neural networks is a practical way to accelerate estimation. In this paper, we study the selection of adapted step sizes for ISTA. We show that a simple step size strategy can improve the convergence rate of ISTA by leveraging the sparsity of the iterates. However, it is impractical in most large-scale applications. Therefore, we propose a network architecture where only the step sizes of ISTA are learned. We demonstrate that for a large class of unfolded algorithms, if the algorithm converges to the solution of the Lasso, its last layers correspond to ISTA with learned step sizes. Experiments show that our method is competitive with state-of-the-art networks when the solutions are sparse enough.


The Plainfield Avenue Bioretention Islands project in Grand Rapids, Michigan is an example of how public agencies and the private sector can effectively work together to accomplish green initiatives. This project utilized federal, local, and private funds to finance street improvements that included innovative storm water management techniques. Michigan's Complete Streets legislation, the Michigan Department of Transportation's Context Sensitive Solutions process, and the City of Grand Rapids' Complete Streets Resolution are public policies driving awareness of sustainable infrastructure practices, but they do not provide best practices or funding mechanisms. However, the collaborative efforts among stakeholders involved in the Plainfield Avenue project creatively generated sufficient funding to implement this multifaceted pilot project.


Newer urban soils, frequently composed of several types of anthropogenic materials, may contain basic oxygen furnace (BOF) slag, which is a steel industry byproduct and considered a potential alternative material for road construction. An understanding of the flow and solute transfer processes through urban soils thus requires hydraulic characterization of these materials. The BEST (Beerkan Estimation of Soil Transfer Parameters) algorithm serves to estimate the full set of unsaturated soil properties by means of conducting an inverse analysis of Beerkan water infiltration data. This study aimed at characterizing unsaturated hydraulic properties of the BOF slag and its evolution during a 1‐yr period through water infiltration experiments and use of an adapted BEST method for inverse analysis. Results indicate the evolution with time of BOF slag hydraulic parameters due to their physicochemical changes when exposed to rainfall events. Moreover, the findings of this study highlight the initial spatial variability of hydrodynamic characteristics, which after a certain period shifts to mostly homogeneous behavior. This study has contributed to the hydrodynamic characterization of BOF slag by providing hydraulic conductivity and water retention curves, as required for modeling water and thus solute transfer processes vs. time, which is relevant to BOF slag reuse and environmental considerations.


Methylation-specific PCR (MSP) is still the method of choice for a single gene methylation study. The proper design of the primer pairs is a prerequisite for obtaining reliable PCR results. Despite numerous protocols describing the rules for MSP primer design, none of them provide a comprehensive approach to the problem. Our aim was to depict a workflow for the primer design that is concise and easy to follow. In order to achieve this goal, adequate tools for promoter sequence retrieval, MSP primer design and subsequent in silico analysis are presented and discussed. Furthermore, a few instructive examples regarding a good versus a poor primer design are provided. Finally, primer design is demonstrated according to the proposed workflow. This article aims to provide researchers, interested in a single gene methylation studies, with useful information regarding successful primer design.


The Physico-chemical study was made in industrial Sanganer area to assess the quality of effluent, soil quality, and effects of effluent on crop plants. The samples were alkaline besides having high chemical oxygen demand. They had more than the permissible concentrations of heavy metals like copper, zinc, lead, chromium, and manganese. These industries also caused an adverse impact on its surrounding flora, fauna, and residents.


The secondary use of television spectrum (TV whitespace) by low-power radio devices is now a reality in the UK and the USA. The UK regulator Ofcom has released rules for computation of maximum allowed transmit power. These rules, however, allow some leeway for different algorithms for internal steps, and one would like to exploit this leeway to the advantage of secondary users, while still protecting the primary user to the required degree. We describe here two techniques implemented in a current BT software product, which additionally allows a compute-on-demand mode of operation, in distinction to so-called TV whitespace databases which merely look up pre-computed tables.


This paper provides an overview of the bottom-up approach to artificial intelligence (AI), commonly referred to as behavior-oriented AI. The behavior-oriented approach, with its focus on the interaction between autonomous agents and their environments, is introduced by contrasting it with the traditional approach of knowledge-based AI. Different notions of autonomy are discussed, and key problems of generating adaptive and complex behavior are identified. A number of techniques for the generation of behavior are introduced and evaluated regarding their potential for realizing different aspects of autonomy as well as adaptivity and complexity of behavior. It is concluded that, in order to realize truly autonomous and intelligent agents, the behavior-oriented approach will have to focus even more on lifelike qualities in both agents and environments.


Contrast arteriography is routinely used in the diagnosis and management of coronary atherosclerosis. However, it is recognized that conventional arteriography can not image plaque directly or provide prognostic information based on plaque characterization. Noninvasive, high-resolution magnetic resonance has the potential to image coronary plaque and to determine its composition and microanatomy. This review summarizes the rationale for coronary plaque imaging, and describes the characteristics of plaque using existing MRI techniques. Current and future applications of MRI, including the development of new contrast agents, targeted molecular imaging and the application of MRI to percutaneous coronary intervention are also discussed.


We introduce a new solution concept for games in extensive form with perfect information, valuation equilibrium, which is based on a partition of each player's moves into similarity classes. A valuation of a player is a real-valued function on the set of her similarity classes. In this equilibrium each player's strategy is optimal in the sense that at each of her nodes, a player chooses a move that belongs to a class with maximum valuation. The valuation of each player is consistent with the strategy profile in the sense that the valuation of a similarity class is the player's expected payoff, given that the path (induced by the strategy profile) intersects the similarity class. The solution concept is applied to decision problems and multi-player extensive form games. It is contrasted with existing solution concepts. The valuation approach is next applied to stopping games, in which non-terminal moves form a single similarity class, and we note that the behaviors obtained echo some biases observed experimentally. Finally, we tentatively suggest a way of endogenizing the similarity partitions in which moves are categorized according to how well they perform relative to the expected equilibrium value, interpreted as the aspiration level.


We study the security of symmetric primitives against key-correlated attacks (KCA), whereby an adversary can arbitrarily correlate keys, messages, and ciphertexts. Security against KCA is required whenever a primitive should securely encrypt key-dependent data, even when it is used under related keys. KCA is a strengthening of the previously considered notions of related-key attack (RKA) and key-dependent message (KDM) security. This strengthening is strict, as we show that 2-round Even–Mansour fails to be KCA secure even though it is both RKA and KDM secure. We provide feasibility results in the ideal-cipher model for KCAs and show that 3-round Even–Mansour is KCA secure under key offsets in the random-permutation model. We also give a natural transformation that converts any authenticated encryption scheme to a KCA-secure one in the random-oracle model. Conceptually, our results allow for a unified treatment of RKA and KDM security in idealized models of computation.


This paper presents an efficient approach for the analysis of graded-index profile waveguides. The variation of the index of refraction is modeled considering a sufficient number of concentric dielectric layers, each with a different index of refraction. The propagation constant in the layered structure is calculated by setting up a full-wave equivalent circuit, which allows the derivation of the system equation for the whole structure. Two examples are given, including validation with the commercial software Ansoft HFSS


In recent times many theories have surfaced posing challenging threats to the Efficient Market Hypothesis. We are entering an exciting era of financial economics fueled by the urge to have a better understanding of the intricate workings of financial markets. Many studies are emerging that investigate the relationship between stock market predictability and efficiency. This paper studies the existence of calendar-based patterns in equity returns, price momentum and earnings momentum in the South African securities market. These phenomena are commonly referred to in the literature as security market imperfections, financial market puzzles and market anomalies. We provide evidence that suggests that they do exist in the South African context, which is consistent with findings in various international markets. A vast number of papers on the subject exist in the international arena. However, very few empirical studies on the South African market can be found in the public domain. We aim to contribute to the literature by investigating the South African case. SOUTH AFRICAN SECURITY MARKET IMPERFECTIONS 4


From an inventory conducted in Ayer Hitam Forest (AHFR), the average dbh ranged from 20.6 to 26.0 cm while
the basal area ranged from 9.16 to 21.57 m2/ha. Modified biomass regression equation was used in the biomass
estimation. The biomass density for trees of 10 cm dbh and above in all the compartments in AHFR ranged from
83.69 to 232.39 t/ha. The total biomass in the 1248 ha of AHFR is estimated at 223,568 t. Variations in
biomass density among the compartments indicate the different stages of recovery or different stages of succession.
Biomass information was used to estimate other parameters such as carbon content and energy content. The
estimated carbon content is 111,784 t while the energy content is 3.74 x 1012 kJ. The estimated annual carbon
accumulation ranges from 0.30 to 0.50 t/ha/yr while the energy fixed ranges from 1.00 x 107 to 1.67 x 107 kJ/
ha/yr. Forest also plays an important role in carbon cycle and energy production. Biomass is the organic matter
fixed by the tree and is the source of all other productivity of the forest.


In this paper, I advance a proposal for an integral ecopsychology, defining it as the study of the multileveled connection between humans and Earth. The initial section expounds the critical moment we as a species find ourselves at and, touching on different ecological schools, focuses on ecopsychology as a less divisive lens from which to assess our planetary moment. In the next section, I explore three avenues in which the project of ecopsychology enters into dialogue with spiritual and religious wisdom, thus expanding the project's scope while spelling out the particular lineage of integral philosophy followed. The next section addresses the value of integral ecopsychology in facing the ecological crisis, highlighting the importance of seeing such a crisis as a crisis of human consciousness. At the level of consciousness, religious and spiritual wisdom have much to offer, in particular the anthropocosmic or "cosmic human" perspective introduced in the next section. The relevance of the anthropocosmic perspective to cultivate ecologically sound behaviors and ecopsychological health is explored and presented as a main means to bringing ecopsychology in direct contact with religious and spiritual teachings. This contact is necessary for the study of the multileveled connection between humans and Earth. Finally, I propose an expanded definition of integral ecopsychology while offering three tenets deemed essential for its advancement.


The risk of supply disruption increases as firms seek to procure from cheaper, but unproven, suppliers. We model a supply chain consisting of a single buyer and two suppliers, both of which compete for the buyer's order and face risk of supply disruption. One supplier is comparatively more reliable but also more expensive, whereas the other one is less reliable but cheaper and faces higher risk of disruption. Moreover, the risk level of the unreliable supplier may be private information, and this lack of visibility increases the buyer's purchasing risk. In such settings, the unreliable supplier often provides a price and quantity (P&Q) guarantee to the buyer. Our objective is to study the underlying motivation for the guarantee offer and its effects on the competitive intensity and the performance of the chain partners. Our model also includes a spot market that can be utilized by any party to buy or to sell. The spot market price is random, partially depends on the available capacity of the two suppliers, and has a positive spread between buying and selling prices. We analytically characterize the equilibrium contracts for the two suppliers and the buyer's optimal procurement strategy. First, our analysis shows that P&Q guarantee allows the unreliable supplier to better compete against the more reliable one by providing supply assurance to the buyer. More importantly, when information asymmetry risk is high, use of a guarantee may enable the unreliable supplier to credibly signal her true risk, thereby improving visibility into the chain. This signal can also be used by the buyer to infer the expected spot market price. In spite of these benefits, a guarantee offer in an asymmetric setting may not always be desirable for the buyer. Rather, it can reduce competition between the suppliers, resulting in higher costs for the buyer.

This paper was accepted by Martin Lariviere, operations management.


The emergence of Alibaba's Taobao (e-commerce) Villages in remote China has challenged the assumption that rural, underserved communities must always be the recipients of aid to stimulate ICT-enabled development. Based on an in-depth case study of two remote villages in China, this research note shows how ICT (e-commerce) can empower a marginalized community, giving rise to a rural e-commerce ecosystem that can aid self-development. We propose the concept of digital empowerment to explicate our findings in the exploration of community-driven development: first, we identify the critical actors of a rural e-commerce ecosystem and how they use ICTs; second, we illustrate how the same ICT can be used for different affordances by the actors in the evolution of a rural e-commerce ecosystem. The paper also presents unintended consequences of rural e-commerce development. We conclude with suggestions on how to make ICT useful for rural development and, in doing this, challenge some of the prevailing theoretical arguments about this process.


The standard treatment for most advanced cancers is multidrug therapy. Unfortunately, combinations in the clinic often do not perform as predicted. Therefore, to complement identifying rational drug combinations based on biological assumptions, we hypothesized that a functional screen of drug combinations, without limits on combination sizes, will aid the identification of effective drug cocktails. Given the myriad possible cocktails and inspired by examples of search algorithms in diverse fields outside of medicine, we developed a novel, efficient search strategy called Medicinal Algorithmic Combinato-rial Screen (MACS). Such algorithms work by enriching for the fitness of cocktails, as defined by specific attributes through successive generations. Because assessment of synergy was not feasible, we developed a novel alternative fitness function based on the level of inhibition and the number of drugs. Using a WST-1 assay on the A549 cell line, through MACS, we screened 72 combinations of arbitrary size formed from a 19-drug pool across four generations. Fenretinide, suberoylanilide hydroxamic acid, and bortezomib (FSB) was the fittest. FSB performed up to 4.18 SD above the mean of a random set of cocktails or ''too well'' to have been found by chance, supporting the utility of the MACS strategy. Validation studies showed FSB was inhibitory in all 7 other NSCLC cell lines tested. It was also synergistic in A549, the one cell line in which this was evaluated. These results suggest that when guided by MACS, screening larger drug combinations may be feasible as a first step in combination drug discovery in a relatively small number of experiments.


Background The treatment of diaphyseal forearm fractures using open reduction and plate fi xation is generally accepted as the best choice in many studies. However, periosteal stripping, haematoma evacuation may result in delayed union, nonunion and infection. Refracture after plate removal is another concern. To overcome these problems intramedullary nails (IM) with different designs have been used with various outcomes. However previous IM nails have some shortcomings such is rotational instability and interlocking difficulties. We evaluated the results of newly designed IM nail in the treatment of diaphyseal forearm fractures in adults. Materials and Methods 32 patients who had been treated with the interlocking IM nail for forearm fractures between 2011 and 2014 were included in this study. There were 23 males and 9 females with mean age of 36 years (range 18-68 years). 22 patients (68.8%) had both bone fractures. Nine patients (28.1%) had open fractures. The remaining ten patients (31.2%) had radius or ulna fractures. Grace and Eversmann rating system was used to assess functional evaluation. Patient reported outcomes were assessed using the Disabilities of the Arm, Shoulder and Hand (DASH) questionnaire scores. Results Union was achieved in all patients. The mean followup was 17 months (range 13 – 28 months). According to the Grace-Eversmann criteria, 27 patients (87.5%) had excellent or good results. The mean DASH score was 14 (range 5-36). Overall complication rate was 12.5%. Superfi cial infection was encountered in two patients. One patient had delayed union, however fracture healed without any additional surgical procedure. One patient who had open grade 3A, comminuted proximal third radius fracture developed radioulnar synostosis. Conclusion The new design IM interlocking forearm nail provides satisfactory functional and radiological outcomes in the treatment of adult diaphyseal forearm fractures.


Photograph of an engraved plaque hung up on a tiled wall. The plaque reads: "The Synod of Texas, Award of Recognition and Merit Presented to Central Presbyterian Church San Antonio, Texas, For having Assumed Full Responsibility for its own Maintenance and Growth in the Lord, On April 1, 1953 and Thereafter, David L. Stitt, Moderator of Synod, Ruben M. Armendariz, Pastor, Presented April 26, 1953, 'Lux Lucet In Tenebris'". The Latin phrase at the bottom of the plaque translates to read, "Light Shines in Darkness".


Scholars have long accepted the idea that there are alternatives to the tort system, particularly insurance, that are better at compensating victims than tort law. Tort law remains necessary, it has been assumed, because insurance lacks the ability to deter conduct that causes harm, and indeed it sometimes creates a moral hazard that increases incentives to engage in risky conduct. Scholars of insurance law, however, have observed that insurance has at its disposal a variety of tools that can help deter risky conduct. Recent technological developments lend dramatic support to this account. New telematics devices being used in automobiles can track acceleration, braking, and even whether a car is exceeding the speed limit on a particular road, allowing insurance companies to identify and penalize individual acts of negligent driving in real time. Insurance can now, in many cases, deter risky conduct more effectively than tort law. And yet tort law incorporates values that insurance cannot.While much attention has been paid to the implications of these developments for insurance law, the implications for tort theory have been largely ignored. This Article fills that gap. Where insurance coverage is mandatory and premiums are adjusted based on individual acts by individual customers, "coercive insurance" can be understood as a liability rule just like tort law. Comparing the mechanisms by which these systems deter risky conduct, I argue that coercive insurance's abandonment of certain features central to tort law makes it inherently more efficient in dealing with certain risks. Coercive insurance thus helps resolve the ongoing debate between efficiency and rights-based theories of tort law, undermining the claim that tort law is best understood as a system for achieving efficient deterrence and lending support to the idea that concepts like corrective justice and civil recourse theory are necessary to explain tort law's purpose and structure.


The aim of this paper is to define in theoretical terms and summarise the available experimental evidence that physical and mental "objects", if considered "information units", may present similar classical and quantum models of communication beyond their specific characteristics. Starting with the Remote State Preparation protocol, a variant of the Teleportation protocol, for which formal models and experimental evidence are already available in quantum mechanics, we outline a formal model applied to mental information we defined Remote State Preparation of Mental Information (RSPMI), and we summarise the experimental evidence supporting the feasibility of a RSPMI protocol.The available experimental evidence offers strong support to the possibility of real communication at distance of mental information promoting the integration between disciplines that have as their object of knowledge different aspects of reality, both physical and the mental, leading to a significant paradigm shift in cognitive and information science.


The technology to harvest electricity from wind energy is now advanced enough to make entire cities powered by it a reality. High-quality, short-term forecasts of wind speed are vital to making this a more reliable energy source. Gneiting et al. (2006) have introduced a model for the average wind speed two hours ahead based on both spatial and temporal information. The forecasts produced by this model are accurate, and subject to accuracy, the predictive distribution is sharp, that is, highly concentrated around its center. However, this model is split into nonunique regimes based on the wind direction at an offsite location. This paper both generalizes and improves upon this model by treating wind direction as a circular variable and including it in the model. It is robust in many experiments, such as predicting wind at other locations. We compare this with the more common approach of modeling wind speeds and directions in the Cartesian space and use a skew-t distribution for the errors. The quality of the predictions from all of these models can be more realistically assessed with a loss measure that depends upon the power curve relating wind speed to power output. This proposed loss measure yields more insight into the true value of each model's predictions.


Despite the increasing use of computerized care management systems in residences for older adults, there is very little evidence on the perceptions of caregivers regarding this technology, specifically the perceptions of orderlies. The purpose of this qualitative study is to explore the experiences of 17 orderlies vis-à-vis the use of the software "Soins Organisation Facilité Intérêt" (SOFI) in two senior residences in Quebec. Transcripts from four focus groups were analyzed using an inductive approach. All attendants agreed that the software was a positive asset that allowed them to better organize their tasks and documentation. In addition, they expressed the desire to use SOFI in their workflow to improve communication between themselves and with other professionals within the institution to participate in decision-making around quality of care. Finally, they insisted on the absolute necessity of having this technology be adapted to the working environment, both in its digital presentation and in its physical form, in order for it to be easy to access and use. The presence of software meeting the identified criteria enabled them to improve their performance through increased autonomy and their commitment to daily practice.


Post mortem studies of psychiatric disorders have been revitalised by several developments. Molecular biology has provided tools for studying genes and their expression in post mortem brain tissue, an approach which facilitates integration of molecular genetics with neurochemistry and neuropathology. The techniques can be used quantitatively as well as qualitatively, applications which have been aided by developments in image analysis. Accompanying these advances has been an improvement in the robustness of the data as a result of greater attention to confounding variables and other methodological improvements. These issues are illustrated by two recent areas of interest in schizophrenia research: the expression of central dopamine D4 and 5-HT receptors, and synaptic pathology.


Purpose – This paper aims to provide details of a number of recent and significant agricultural robot research and development activities. Design/methodology/approach – Following an introduction this first provides a brief overview of agricultural robot research. It then discusses a number of specific activities involving robots for precision weed control and fertiliser application. A selection of harvesting robots and allied technological developments is then considered and is followed by concluding comments. Findings – Agricultural robots are the topic of an extensive research and development effort. Several autonomous robots aimed at precision weed control and fertiliser application have reached the pre-production stage. Equally, harvesting robots are at an advanced stage of development. Both classes exploit state-of-the-art machine vision and image processing technologies which are the topic of a major research effort. These developments will contribute to the forecasted rapid growth in the agricultural robot markets during the next decade. Originality/value – Robots are expected to play a significant role in meeting the ever increasing demand for food and this paper provides details of some recent agricultural robot research and development activities.


Objective
The Current Opioid Misuse Measure (COMM) is a commonly used self-report instrument to identify and monitor aberrant opioid-related behavior in chronic pain patients on opioid therapy. However, the length of the COMM may limit its clinical utility. Additionally, this paper-and-pencil screener requires hand scoring, which increases paperwork and staff burden. Therefore, the current study presents development of the "COMM-9," a brief electronically administered form of the COMM.

Methods
Patients (N = 517) with chronic noncancer pain on opioid therapy completed the COMM. Patients were classified as either being positive or negative for aberrant drug-related behavior based on self-report data from a structured interview, physician-report data, and urine toxicology screen (the Aberrant Drug Behavior Index [ADBI]). COMM items with the strongest classification accuracy were identified using the LASSO method as the selection criterion in conjunction with the leave-one-out cross-validation method as the stop criterion. A sub-set of patients (n=55) completed a second administration of the COMM one week later to evaluate test-retest reliability.

Results
Nine items were identified before the selection criterion stopped, and logistic regression was utilized to predict probabilities of positive ADBI from the 9 COMM items using all data and the cross-validation procedure. Receiver operating characteristic curves revealed high levels of classification accuracy that were essentially equivalent to the full COMM. Cut-points were identified to classify patients as having no/low risk, moderate risk, and high risk for aberrant opioid-related behavior. Test-retest reliability of the COMM-9 was comparable to the full 17-item COMM.

Conclusions
This study presents the successful development of a brief electronic screener to identify current aberrant opioid-related behavior in chronic pain patients on long-term opioid therapy.


The computational education of biologists is changing to prepare students for facing the complex datasets of today's life science research. In this concise textbook, the authors' fresh pedagogical approaches lead biology students from first principles towards computational thinking. A team of renowned bioinformaticians take innovative routes to introduce computational ideas in the context of real biological problems. Intuitive explanations promote deep understanding, using little mathematical formalism. Self-contained chapters show how computational procedures are developed and applied to central topics in bioinformatics and genomics, such as the genetic basis of disease, genome evolution or the tree of life concept. Using bioinformatic resources requires a basic understanding of what bioinformatics is and what it can do. Rather than just presenting tools, the authors - each a leading scientist - engage the students' problem-solving skills, preparing them to meet the computational challenges of their life science careers.


The largest publicly available knowledge repositories, such as Wikipedia and Freebase, owe their existence and growth to volunteer contributors around the globe. While the majority of contributions are correct, errors can still creep in, due to editors' carelessness, misunderstanding of the schema, malice, or even lack of accepted ground truth. If left undetected, inaccuracies often degrade the experience of users and the performance of applications that rely on these knowledge repositories. We present a new method, CQUAL, for automatically predicting the quality of contributions submitted to a knowledge base. Significantly expanding upon previous work, our method holistically exploits a variety of signals, including the user's domains of expertise as reflected in her prior contribution history, and the historical accuracy rates of different types of facts. In a large-scale human evaluation, our method exhibits precision of 91% at 80% recall. Our model verifies whether a contribution is correct immediately after it is submitted, significantly alleviating the need for post-submission human reviewing.


Although there seems to be a regular relation of protein change versus time via an exponential equation of the form ID =ekt, nevertheless, examination of the data indicates that such an exponential fit may be premature. Two other models, ID = kt + b and ID = btk + c represent better fits. Without better data none of the models appears convincing.


* See Last Page for Key 2013 Review Lalwani/Dubinsky Page 1 Reference Study Type Patients/ Events Study Objective (Purpose of Study) Study Results Study Quality 1. Siegel R, Naishadham D, Jemal A. Cancer statistics, 2012. CA Cancer J Clin 2012; 62(1):10-29. Review/OtherTx N/A Cancer statistics in the United States is reviewed. A total of 1,638,910 new cancer cases and 577,190 deaths from cancer are projected to occur in the United States in 2012. 4


New analysis of the relationships between geological structural data and radiometric ages for the Lassiter Coast Intrusive Suite indicate that the collisional mid‐Cretaceous Palmer Land Event orogeny in the Antarctic Peninsula has had two kinematic phases, forming an intersection orocline, one of which can be related to Cretaceous Southern Ocean plate motions. Both are compressional phases along the Eastern Palmer Land Shear Zone: Phase 1 occurred at ∼107 Ma with a principal paleostrain axis of 341°, and is best expressed in southern Palmer Land although evident elsewhere on the Antarctic Peninsula; Phase 2 occurred at ∼103 Ma with a principal paleostrain axis of 259.5°, but is confined to between 68°S and 74°S. A peak in Lassiter Coast Intrusive Suite magma emplacement rate was coeval with Phase 1, whereas Phase 2 may have coincided with a lull. During Phase 1, the allochthonous Central and Western Domain terranes may have been transported to the Gondwana margin, represented by the para‐autochthonous Eastern Domain, on board the Phoenix plate or on board the South American plate. The variable provenance indicators from the Central and Western terranes can be cited to support either, or a combination, of these scenarios. The convergence direction evident from Phase 2 structures cannot easily be reproduced in regional plate kinematic models. This, and the localized evidence for superposition of Phase 2 structures on Phase 1 structures suggests that Phase 2 is unlikely to have occurred solely in response to changes in the kinematics of the large plates considered.


The spatial dimension of agricultural production is important when a communicable disease enters a region. This paper considers two sorts of biosecurity risk that producers can seek to protect against. One concerns the risk of spread: that neighboring producers do not take due care in protecting against being infected by a disease already in the region. In this case, producer efforts substitute with those of near neighbors. For representative spatial production structures, we characterize Nash equilibrium protection levels and show how spatial production structure matters. The other sort of risk concerns entry: that producers do not take due care in preventing the disease from entering the region. In this case, producer heterogeneity has subtle effects on welfare loss due to strategic behavior. Efforts by producers complement, suggesting that interfarm communication will help to redress the problem.


Globalization of business and competitiveness in manufacturing has forced companies to improve their manufacturing facilities to respond to market requirements. Machine tool evaluation involves an essential decision using imprecise and vague information, and plays a major role to improve the productivity and flexibility in manufacturing. The aim of this study is to present an integrated approach for decision-making in machine tool selection. This paper is focused on the integration of a consistent fuzzy AHP (Analytic Hierarchy Process) and a fuzzy COmplex PRoportional ASsessment (COPRAS) for multi-attribute decision-making in selecting the most suitable machine tool. In this method, the fuzzy linguistic reference relation is integrated into AHP to handle the imprecise and vague information, and to simplify the data collection for the pair-wise comparison matrix of the AHP which determines the weights of attributes. The output of the fuzzy AHP is imported into the fuzzy COPRAS method for ranking alternatives through the closeness coefficient. Presentation of the proposed model application is provided by a numerical example based on the collection of data by questionnaire and from the literature. The results highlight the integration of the improved fuzzy AHP and the fuzzy COPRAS as a precise tool and provide effective multi-attribute decision-making for evaluating the machine tool in the uncertain environment.